A Universal History of Iniquity by Jorge Luis Borges

Borges via

Reviewed by Susanna Allred

Published: 1935

It's about: Borges appropriates and tweeks lives of historical criminals--Chinese pirates, Old West gunslingers, New York street toughs--to explore paradox. Each entry into this collection masquerades as a truthful historical narrative; however, Borges liberally diverges from his source material, essentially turning factual events and people into props through which to set up elaborate philosophical ironies and paradoxes. For example, the protagonist of the first story in the collection, "The Cruel Redeemer Lazarus Morell", is a bloodthirsty and pious con man who induces enslaved African Americans to run away with his band of thieves, promising that if they allow him to sell them back into slavery, only to "steal" them away again, they will eventually be escorted North to freedom. Every time, of course, Morell eventually kills his victim when he begins to suspect the true nature of his "Redeemer." Eventually, one of Morell's confederates denounces his scheme to the authorities. Morell, ironically, believes his only hope of salvation lies in fomenting an insurrection among those slaves who still believe rumors of his benevolence--essentially taking on sincerely the role he had only maliciously affected before. The greater irony however, is that rich possibilities afforded by the potential turn of events are thwarted when Morell himself is robbed and killed by a petty thief who does not recognize him.

Part of the richness of A Universal History of Iniquity stems from Borges' ability to weave his dense, darkly humorous paradoxes into genres that tend to be consigned to the pulpy end of the high-low cultural divide. Borges sets his short stories into contexts modeled after Westerns, crime stories, and orientalizing adventure tales. His nominally historical characters participate in the theft, murder, and warfare endemic to these genres, but remain essentially flat characters who exist to be irony incarnate. One of the most intriguing stories, "Hakim, the Masked Dyer of Merv" purports to be the tale of a prophet who rises up in the Middle East in the 8th century to spearhead the meteoric rise of a blasphemous religion. Claiming that communion with God had made his face too brilliant for mortals to look upon, Hakim goes about imposing his religion through warfare while veiled, promising that men will be able to look on his face when they have accepted the truth. Hakim's truth is typically Borgesian.

The earth we inhabit is an error, an incompetent parody. Mirrors and paternity are abominable because they multiply and affirm it. Revulsion, disgust, is the fundamental virtue, and two rules of conduct (between which the Prophet left men free to choose) lead us to it; abstinence and utter licentiousness--the indulgence of the flesh or the chastening of it.

This being a collection of tales about violence and deceit, Hakim's charade is spoiled when one concubines lets slip that his supposedly glorified body is, in fact, riddled with leprosy. The suggestion, seemingly, is that an entire religion of degradation and heresy had sprung up to justify one man's physical corruption.

I thought: The entire collection boasts similarly clever, circuitous ironies that can be revisited endlessly. While the tales are all philosophically dense, they contain enough swashbuckling adventure to sustain interest in casual readers as well. The tone of scholarly historicity is a playful contrast to to the elaborately constructed labyrinths of plot twists that Borges builds into each story. The one entry into the collection that wears less well is "Man on Pink Corner", Borges' attempt to write a wholly fictional crime store that pivots around a knife fight between two Argentine street toughs. While exotic backdrops are a favorite for Borges, the setting and dialogue feel oddly forced or stilted in this attempt, as if Borges still needed to lean heavily on specific historical and literary texts in order to create lively literature of his own at this point.

While Borges eventually moved away from drawing so explicitly on other historical and literary sources (though his writing always remained famously inter-textual; many of his stories are literally books about books), the edition of A Universal History of Iniquity I read, which is part of Penguin Classics Collected Fictions, a complete anthology of Borges' short stories, contains helpful footnotes to each story. The footnotes are most enlightening and intriguing when highlighting Borges' divergence from his source material. For example, they confirm the existence of an actual set of "Rules for Pirates" in a book Borges cites in "The Widow Ching--Pirate" but the footnotes also reveal that Borges has (perhaps deliberately) appropriated and changed several other minor details of the story for apparently no reason. None of this really detracts from the stories themselves; rather, it adds to their enigmatic character.

Verdict: Stick it on the shelf or Rubbish Bin? On the shelf. 

Reading Recommendations: An interesting discussion of Borges the man and his propensity for certain themes.

Review: The Social Animal by David Brooks

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Reviewed by Christine-Chioma

Published: 2011

It's about: David Brooks uses fictional characters to explore "how success happens". To quote the summary on goodreads (cheating): "Drawing on a wealth of current research from numerous disciplines, Brooks takes Harold and Erica from infancy to school; from the “odyssey years” that have come to define young adulthood to the high walls of poverty; from the nature of attachment, love, and commitment, to the nature of effective leadership. He reveals the deeply social aspect of our very minds and exposes the bias in modern culture that overemphasizes rationalism, individualism, and IQ. Along the way, he demolishes conventional definitions of success while looking toward a culture based on trust and humility."

I thought: The book is kind of a mix between books like "Blink" and "How We Decide" but it has a narrative running through it that makes the facts more interesting.  I really enjoyed the fictional parts of the book. I liked that Brooks set each story in present day instead of the time period it would really occur in. I especially enjoyed the first portion of the book which covered studies about dating, newlyweds and raising children through the experiences of Harold's parents. I felt that the book got too bogged down in details about Erica's work and the policies found there. I'm not interested in business or business models. I think it deterred from the book's thesis about how social interaction and relationships impact success more than anything else. I preferred my facts mixed in with the story.

via

However, I did love all the new things I learned: You learn better when you vary the environments you study in, you should praise your children for hard work and not for being smart, sleep improves memory by at least 15 percent, a person's friends have more influence on your habits than their spouse, divorce peaks in the fourth year of marriage when it is difficult to transition from passionate love to companion love, Alexander Hamilton was a pretty amazing guy, people who are in love overestimate how attractive, funny, and intelligent their partner is, in healthy relationships you need to say five positive things for every negative thing, etc.

The book really made me think more about my social interactions with others. I love my current job and I know it has more to do with the people I work with and for then the actual duties of the job (cleaning up poop, vomit and urine?) Brooks says  "the daily activities most associated with happiness are all social--having sex, socializing after work, and having dinner with friends--while the daily activity most injurious to happiness-commuting--tends to be solitary." At my work we are constantly planning activities and getting together--it reminded me of how Erica wants to be a connector. I also loved
learning that social professions (corporate manager, hairdresser, health-care providers) correlate more closely with happiness than those that are less social (a machinery operator).

However, at times the novel made me feel discourage as if certain things were set. I felt like characteristics about myself were unconsciously inevitable because of my upbringing or background. Then I remembered that the author was using studies and information that proved certain points. Obviously if i cared enough I could find studies that proved the opposite point. Likewise, I could have researched the studies and looked into their methods and the exact results. But I didn't care that much.

Overall, I enjoyed the book. Brooks has a wry sense of humor and insight into human character and personality that was spot on. The book is all about how "succes" happens. But at the end of it, I did not really think Erica was successful or made that many good decisions or had many good relationships. Or at least--she was not successful in ways that I would want to be. Religion did not play a big role in the book, but it plays a big role in my life so I would have liked some more information about that.

Verdict: Stick it on the shelf. It's a good one to have to reference the studies and facts

Reading Recommendations: This isn't a book that is comfortable to read straight through. I read it in spurts and pieces over several weeks. It's a good book for a book club in that you could talk about the definition of success, nature vs nurture, and the interesting tidbits and facts found in the pages, but it's not a book that one would emotionally connect to.

Warnings: Scientific talk about sex. Some swear words.

Favorite excerpts:

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"Yet by far the most important decisions they will make are about whom to marry and whom to befriend, what to love and what to despise, and how to control impulses...We are good about talking about material incentives, but bad about talking about emotions and intuitions. We are good at teaching technical skills, but when it comes to the most important things, like character, we have almost nothing to say."

"Erica decided she would never work in a place where people did not trust one another. Once she got a job, she would be the glue. She would be the one organizing outings, making connections, building trust. She would carry information from one person to another. She would connect one worker to another."

"She was in the camp of the more-emotional-than-thou rather than in the camp of the more-popular-than-thou. This meant she was always exquisitely attuned to her superior emotions, and it also meant, unfortunately, that if she wasn't having an engrossing emotional drama on any given day, she would try to make one up."


What I'm reading next: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

The Diary of Napoleonic Foot Soldier by Jakob Walter

In 1812, by Illarion Pryashnikov, via

Reviewed by Susanna Allred

Published: 1991

It's about: The Diary of a Napoleonic Foot Soldier is the memoir of Jakob Walter, a German conscript in Napoleon's Grand Army. While many veterans of the Napoleonic Wars eventually wrote memoirs of their military service, Walter's is unique among them because it is written from the point of view of a private foot soldier. All first-person accounts to have surfaced so far have been written by men of the officer class who were more educated, cultured, and ideologically invested than he. Consequently, Walter's diary is especially valuable for its candid insights into the day-to-day experiences of a lowly conscript in Napoleon's massive military campaigns.

The Diary itself is divided into three sections; the 1806-7 campaign in Poland, the 1809 campaign in Austria, and the 1812 campaign in Russia. All three are a mix of Walter's casual anthropological observations of Eastern European culture, his accounts of combat in various battles, and personal reminiscences of military culture among foot soldiers. By far, the bulk of the Diary focuses on his memories of the retreat from Moscow, and the long months of starvation, cold, disease, and reprisals from Russian cossacks that it entailed. This section is rendered especially vivid though Walter's focus on his unending efforts to scavenge enough food to keep himself and his friends from starvation: a handful of raw meat from a slaughtered horse one night, a bit of cabbage boiled with dog fat the next. Nevertheless, the visceral nature of his memories is balanced by an off-hand and modest tone. 

I thought: Jakob Walter's memoir is a concise and engaging account of a foot soldier's observation of the turmoil wrought by Napoleon's wars. By this point in history, most people's mental image of those wars is heavily influenced by fiction: War and Peace, Horatio Hornblower, and Master and Commander study the Napoleonic Wars through the eyes of ideologically engaged and aristocratic literary heroes. By contrast, the historical Jakob Walter embarked on his first campaign as a foot soldier conscripted out of private life as a stonemason. Furthermore Walter was remarkably indifferent to Napoleon's personal charisma and political principles for two reasons. First, Walter's native German principality of Swabia had recently been made a tributary state of Napoleonic France; second, as a low-ranking private citizen, Walter had little to gain from his participation in the wars.

For the most part, the Diary actually benefits as a work of literature from Walter's political indifference and lesser education. His prose style is plain, direct, informal, and completely readable. Walter generally restricts his attention to his own experiences, generally refusing to speculate or comment on the political context of the war or the motivations of the generals and princes who directed its progress. While he does not shrink from fully recounting the shocking deprivations of the retreat, he is never stoops to self-pity or recrimination. However, this same limited scope can become frustrating. As a reader, I very much wanted to know what Walter thought of his own conscription and Napoleon's military projects, but the author is generally silent on these matters.

Walter's self-portrait is filled with intriguing contradictions. In the 1806-7 portion especially, he casually recounts drinking binges, brutally requisitioning supplies, and violently forcing Polish peasants to act as guides and translators with little  embarrassment. This unapologetic roughness is offset by pious allusions to his Catholic beliefs, and his evident affection for the brother and two sisters from whom he is separated by war. At one point, he finds a book he deems insulting to his faith and "bound a stone to this book, and sank it in the big lake." When Walter, nearly dead from typhus and malnutrition, is finally able to visit with his younger sister after the retreat from Moscow he mentions that they "tarried as a loving brother and sister for an hour's time and then parted again with tears." However, Walter's personal contradiction add up to a convincing portrayal of a conflicted, complex human.

Verdict: Stick it on the shelf. 

Reading Recommendations: For an interesting historical comparison, read In Deadly Combat: A German Soldier's Memoir of the Eastern Front Gottlob Herbert Bidermann's account of his military service to Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union.

Warnings: Some mild references to alcohol.

Favorite excerpts:

He [Napoleon] watched his army pass by in the most wretched condition. What he may have felt in his heart is impossible to surmise, His outward appearance seemed indifferent and unconcerned over the wretchedness of his soldiers; only ambition and lost honor may have made themselves felt in his heart; and, although the French and Allies shouted into his ears many oaths and curses about his own guilty person, he was still able to listen to them unmoved.

What I'm reading next: If On a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino

Review: How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran

Caitlin Moran

How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran

Reviewed by Ingrid

*I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

[A quick one this time!]

Published: 2012

It's about: This memoir is structured around typical female experiences (with chapter titles like, "I Start Bleeding!" "I Need a Bra!" "I am Fat!" "I am in Love!"), with (often very funny) stories from Moran's life sprinkled with feminist critique.

I thought: Moran's humor is a bit ... strong. She uses lots of capitalized words and exclamation marks. However, I think her chatty, enthusiastic, funny voice made her feminist critique easy to digest. It's like ... Pop Feminism. Is that a thing?

Verdict: In between. I loved the idea, but delivery was a bit much for me. I'd probably give it something like a 7 out of 10.

Warnings: Language, some sexual content.

Caitlin Moran, with her Glamour Women of the Year 2012
award for Best Writer

Favorite excerpts: "I distrust this female habit of reflexively flagging your own shortcomings. Not the breezy, airy witticism in the face of a compliment--'Lost weight? No. We're just in a larger room than usual, darling.' 'You think my children are well mannered? I have wired them with small electrodes, and every time they misbehave, I punch the BAD KID button in my pocket.' That's fine.
     No--I'm talking about the common attitudinal habit in women that we;re kind of...failing if we're not a bit neurotic. That we're somehow boorish, complacent, and unfeminine if we're content."

What I'm reading next: Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on love and life from Dear Sugar by Cheryl Strayed

Review: The Chronology of Water by Lidia Yuknavitch

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The Chronology of Water by Lidia Yuknavitch
Reviewed by Ingrid

Published: 2011

It's about: This is a tough one to summarize. Here's the goodreads description:

"This is not your mother’s memoir. In The Chronology of Water, Lidia Yuknavitch expertly moves the reader through issues of gender, sexuality, violence, and the family from the point of view of a lifelong swimmer turned artist. In writing that explores the nature of memoir itself, her story traces the effect of extreme grief on a young woman’s developing sexuality that some define as untraditional because of her attraction to both men and women. Her emergence as a writer evolves at the same time and takes the narrator on a journey of addiction, self-destruction, and ultimately survival that finally comes in the shape of love and motherhood."

I thought: Cheryl Strayed called this book "a brutal beauty bomb and a true love song." I like that description. This book is brutal and sometimes difficult to digest, but it is beautiful. I was stunned by Yuknavitch's writing - I read almost the whole thing sitting on my bed in the same position. I reveled in it. I read and reread sentences and paragraphs that impressed me. I laughed at Yuknavitch's clever and funny chapter titles. I dog-eared pages I liked even though the copy I was reading was from the library. I absolutely DIED over this book, I loved it so much. I told Derik that, hands-down, this is the best book I've read all year and perhaps one of the best books I've read, ever.

a still of Yuknavitch from the book trailer

While I don't usually like very experimental, poetic-ish writing, Yuknavatitch does it well in a way that feels real and is convincing. Yuknavitch figured out how to shape her experience into a narrative that makes sense to her while still keeping her voice and her story authentic. This is sort of hard, because our lives never play out in a way that fits nicely into a little memoir. There's just so much stuff that happens to us, all the time, and depending on how you look at it, all those things can be interpreted in millions of ways. It's difficult to write down our stories without imagining our audience and wondering, what will they think of me? Do they even care about this or that? Is this entertaining, or beautiful, or important? How can I make it seem like it is?

Yuknavitch's writing breaks down all these barriers. Her narrative flows in many directions without losing its center and its force. Like the nature of water, her writing style is flowing, moving, all encompassing. It is heartbreakingly honest and mindbendingly beautiful. My edition contained a short interview with Lidia Yuknavitch that gave me some great insight into her writing. She talks about bodies - "I think bodes are the coolest thing in ... ever. Your body, Mine. All the different kinds. What glory bodies are" - and how she tries to bring language closer to corporeal experience - "To bring langauge close to the intensity of eperiences like love or death or grief or pain is to push on the affect of language ... I want you to hear how it feels to be me inside a sentence." This is what I think makes Yuknavitch stand apart.
And speaking of bodies .. yes, that is a boob on the cover. The book is sold in stores with a charcoal band around the front covering the boob. I chose to show you the real cover, though, because I think the human body should more often be seen as something beautiful without having to be sexualized. Yuknavitch wrote about the image on the cover here.

Verdict: Stick it on the shelf. This is by far my favorite book I've read this year.

Warnings: There is a lot of rough language and content in this book. I would not recommend it to everyone. In fact, because of the content I would recommend it to very few. If it sounds like something you would like, I would suggest flipping through and reading a few pages at your local bookstore or library and see if it is something that appeals to you.

Favorite excerpts: "I used to watch Miles fall asleep from drinking boob milk late into the night. I'm guessing all mothers do this. But I bet not all mothers were thinking of Shakespearean sentence structures when they watched their babies drunkenly drift into sleep...when I watched Miles go from mother's milk to burp to deep and frothy dream, his body heavy in my lap, the blue-black of night resting on us, I thought of Shakespearean chiasmus. A chiasmus in language is a crisscross structure. A doubling back sentence. A doubling of meaning. My favorite is 'love's fire heats water, water cools not love.'
     As a motif, a chiasmus is a world within a world where transformation is possible. In the green world events and actions lose their origins. Like in dreams. Time loses itself. The impossible happens as if it were ordinary. First meanings are undone and remade by second meanings.
     I didn't sleep much the first two years in the forest house. Miles, bless his hungry little head, wanted more milk than any man alive. All night. I thought of my mother--and my own unquenchable, milkless mouth. If this boy wanted milk, I would give it to him. Maybe all our lives were being reborn in the forest. ...
     The exhaustion of new parents is absurd. Beyond absurd. But I'm not about to get all righteous about that. In fact, it's something else altogether I want to tell you. I think our exhaustion in the green world brought us to our best selves. Listen to this: the first two years of Miles' life? When I was supposed to be depleted? I wrote a novel and seven short stories. Andy wrote a novel and three screenplays. Read that again. How is it that so much writing happened inside the least amount of time or energy?
     Green world.
     We had no time. We had no energy. We had no money. What we had was making art in the woods. So when Andy turned to me one night over scotches and said 'We should invent a Northwest press that isn't about f-ing old growth and salmon,' and I laughed my ass off, and then said, 'Yeah, we should,' we just...did. Which is how the zenith of our depletion changed into the zenith of our creative production. Andy and me, we had anther child. An unruly literary press, which we named 'Chiasmus.' Turned out, there were lots of writers in the Northwest who were tired of old growth and salmon. Our first publication was an anthology called Northwest Edge: The End of Reality. Because, you know, it was. Everything we were before we were this, utterly transformed.
     Shakespeare.
     In our forest we gave art to life, and art to life made us."

What I'm reading next: The Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

Review: My Life in France by Julia Child, with Alex Prud'Homme

photos by Paul Child

 Reviewed by Christina

Published: 2006

It's about: The wikipedia summary is excellent and I'm feeling lazy tonight, so I'm just going to copy/paste it for you:
"My Life in France is an autobiography by Julia Child, published in 2006. It was compiled by Julia Child and Alex Prud'homme, her husband's grandnephew, during the last eight months of her life, and completed and published by Prud'homme following her death in August 2004.^[1]
In her own words, it is a book about the things Julia loved most in her life: her husband, France (her "spiritual homeland"), and the "many pleasures of cooking and eating." It is a collection of linked autobiographical stories, mostly focused on the years between 1948 and 1954, recounting in detail the culinary experiences Julia and her husband, Paul Child, enjoyed while living in Paris, Marseilles, and Provence.^[2]
The text is accompanied by black-and-white photographs taken by Paul Child, and research for the book was partially done using family letters, datebooks, photographs, sketches, poems and cards.^[3]
My Life in France provides a detailed chronology of the process through which Julia Child's name, face, and voice became well known to most Americans.
The book also contains an extremely detailed index cataloging every person, place, ingredient, recipe, topic and event discussed."

I thought: I love Julia Child!  She is so bubbly and enthusiastic, without coming off as airheaded or annoying.  She's an extremely likeable narrator, and Alex Prud'Homme beautifully captures her voice and her casual, confidential manner.  When I picked up My Life in France, I hoped to like her as much as I did in Julie and Julia.  She's even more wonderful here, since she's actually herself (as opposed to a character).  I love the way she freely expresses her love and admiration for France, food, and her husband.  She really was a charming woman, and this is a charming book. 

One thing I find particularly inspiring about Julia Child's life story is that she had very little interest in cooking and no interest in French food until she moved to France when she was in her late 30's.  JULIA CHILD didn't find her calling in life until well into her adulthood.  Isn't that so great?  In a world where every preschooler is pushed to be great at something (or everything) from the very beginning, and we're all encouraged to settle on a major/career in our late teens, it's so refreshing to read about someone who had a fascinating and fulfilling young adult life (she served in the foreign service during WWII), and then finally REALLY found what she loved when she was nearly 40.  I love that.

My Life in France is not an action-packed read.  The readers who will appreciate it most are people (like myself) who love France, cooking and Ms. Child.  But it's very nicely written, with all sorts of interesting cultural vignettes not just about the French, but about Germans, Norwegians, and Americans as well.  I just ate this book up!  (Pun fully intended.) 

I gotta say, though, that most of the foods she describes sound totally disgusting to this picky pescetarian.    

Verdict: It may not be for everyone, but I'll still happily stick it on the shelf.

Reading Recommendations:  Light, sweet reading.  Check it out when you want to get to know Julia Child, I guess!

Warnings:  nothing

Favorite excerpts: “Maybe the cat has fallen into the stew, or the lettuce has frozen, or the cake has collapsed. Eh bien, tant pis. Usually one's cooking is better than one thinks it is. And if the food is truly vile, then the cook must simply grit her teeth and bear it with a smile, and learn from her mistakes.”

“The sweetness and generosity and politeness and gentleness and humanity of the French had shown me how lovely life can be if one takes time to be friendly.”

What I'm reading next: Last Night in Twisted River by John Irving

Double Review: Beyond the Sling and Why Have Kids?

Beyond the Sling: A Real-Life Guide to Raising Confident, Loving Children the Attachment Parenting Way by Mayim Bialik

Why Have Kids? by Jessica Valenti

Reviewed by Ingrid

Published: 2012

They're about: While both Beyond the Sling and Why Have Kids? would be shelved in the "Parenting" section of your local bookstore, they are two very different books.

Mayim Bialik has the more "traditional" parenting book; using stories of her own experience, she describes specific parenting techniques and explains why they work. Bialik advocates Attachment Parenting, a parenting style whose major tenants are co-sleeping, breastfeeding, baby wearing, and gentle discipline. Bialik claims that this is the most natural and intuitive style of parenting.  Much of the book is written like a memoir, with very short sections explaining the science (Bialik has a PhD in neurobiology) and statistics. She hits on all those things listed above as well as her experience with natural birth, breastfeeding into toddlerhood, elimination communication, and natural home remedies. Bialik argues that you should always do what's best for baby.

Jessica Valenti, however, isn't interested in telling you the best way to parent. She is more interesting in exploring how the messages about parenting within our society are often harmful to parents and children. Valenti challenges her readers to think critically about the choices they make and how they affect their children, their lives, and the rest of society. Interestingly, Valenti goes through a list of almost the exact same issues that Bialik writes about and directly challenges them with lots of statistics. Valenti argues that you should NOT always do what society tells you is "best" for baby, because often those things may not actually be best, and because doing those things reinforces the expectation that women need to sacrifice pretty much all of their time and energy to raise a happy, healthy child when that is not necessarily the case.

Mayim Bialik via

I thought: I don't have kids. But I like reading parenting books, because I'm cool. I also really like Mayim Bialik, because she's smart, articulate, funny, and I like the soothing sound of her voice. The thing that intrigues me most about her, though, is that she is both a Modern Orthodox Jew and a feminist. Women who identify as feminists AND as members of strongly patriarchal religious groups always stand out to me, because I am one myself - I identify as a Mormon feminist. A lot of people think these things are conflicting. They often are. But I think that having a strong stake in two conflicting communities provides more opportunites to explore questions pertaining to both communities in new ways.

Case in point: in Beyond the Sling, I was specifically interested Bialik's point of view regarding the intersection of feminism and the strong family values that stem from her religious views. The principles behind her parenting techniques were very appealing to me. She claims that attachment parenting encourages children to make strong emotional connections with their parents that will later translate into strong, healthy relationships with other people, as well a healthy sense of self-confidence. Those are certainly things I want for my future children, things I think most people want. This parenting style takes some MAJOR, commitment though, and I mean MAJOR. Bialik is literally involved with her children 24 hours a day - whether she's breastfeeding (on demand, day and night, until the child no longer shows an interest,) watching her child's body language to be able to discern when the child needs to be taken and held over the toilet to "eliminate," (sometimes this is every 15 minutes,) sleeping next to your child (and thus waking up every time they wake up,) watching them for any signs of sickness or discomfort, carrying them around every where you go in a sling, etc, etc. That is exhausting just to think about. However, Bialik seems to imply that the strong emotional connection to create with your child when you make this sacrifice is empowering to both mother and child.

While I still had Bialik's book on my mind, I saw Rebecca's review of Why Have Kids? a few days ago and borrowed a copy on my kindle right away. The first thing I noticed is that Valenti has a much more polemic tone to her writing. Bialik wants to gently suggest what might work best for you, and constantly reminds you that she knows there are many different kinds of parents with different circumstances and blah blah. Valenti wants to force you to confront the implications of your choices. A little jarring at first, but definitely effective. This is important stuff, after all. And it worked on me. By the end, I was all fired up and eager to explain to my husband about all of the unfair, unrealistic expectations put on mothers in our society.

Interestingly, both of these books were written by mothers who identify as feminists. I think this points to the fact that feminism is growing and evolving to encompass many different possible life choices and points of view, while still holding to the principle that women should hold an equally-valued place within society. I think this is a very good thing.

Jessica Valenti via

Obviously it's up to each parent to decide how to raise their child. I think it's worth reading both books and thinking carefully about which issues are most important to you and can benefit you and your child the most. However, these arguments can get a little exhausting. If you need something to lighten things up a little bit, I like this article.

Verdict: Stick them both on the shelf. Or maybe check them out from the library.

Reading Recommendations: Since these book address many of the same issues from different perspectives, it's quite enlightening to read them together.

Warnings: None.

Favorite excerpts:
"What I have discovered, and what I seek to share with you, dear reader, is this: you already know the majority of what you need to know to be an incredible parent. It was only when I believed this and began to apply it consistently to my growing family that my anxiety, worry, and exhaustion began to lift. It was then that I truly began to enjoy being a parent and to see myself as a successful parent; not a perfect parent, and not always the most patient parent, but a sensitive, loving, and confident parent who truly loves this life I have chosen." -Bialik

"Families that don’t force independence encourage children to grow at their own pace, fully express their needs, and feel truly understood. This style of parenting is not the only way to guarantee a securely attached child, but in my experience and observations, I would hedge my bets that this path, broad though it can be, is a great way toward a smooth and minimally complicated relationship with children." -Bialik

"This is a book about how the American ideal of parenting doesn’t match the reality of our lives, and how that incompatibility is hurting parents and children. Because the expectation of a certain kind of parenthood—one where we’re perfect mothers who have perfect partners, where our biggest worry is whether or not to use cloth diapers—makes the real thing much more difficult to bear." -Valenti

"My pump, which came in a jaunty little nylon purse that looked like a 1990s Kate Spade knockoff, made a rhythmic sound when operating that sounded a little too much like House music for my comfort. There’s something about a club kid beat set to your breasts being tortured that makes the whole ridiculous scenario feel even crueler." (Haha!) -Valenti

"Vast amounts of research show that children do best when they’re raised by a community of people—parents, grandparents, friends, and neighbors. It’s in our DNA—we are social beings, and we should be raised as such. Yes, mothers are important, but not because we are women or because we’re biologically related (or not) to our children. We’re important because we’re one of the people that love and care for a growing human. But if we want to take some joy in that experience, we need to let go of the notion that we are the only ones who can do it correctly, and that if we are doing it right, it should mean some sort of suffering or tremendous self-sacrifice." -Valenti

What I'm reading next: Possession by A.S. Byatt

Review: Anarchy Evolution by Greg Graffin and Steve Olson

Greg Graffin, via

 Reviewed by Christina
I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. 

Complete Title: Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God


Published: 2010

It's about: Greg Graffin, UCLA science lecturer and singer/songwriter for Bad Religion, explains his naturalist worldview in this blend of memoir and science writing.  He describes the origins of Bad Religion within the world of L.A. punk in the early 1980's, explains how he came to love Life Sciences (especially evolutionary biology and paleontology) and argues for Naturalism as guiding truth.

I thought:  Well.  For starters, I've got to tell you what a fascinating person Greg Graffin is.  How many people can love two worlds so whole-heartedly?  He's passionate and successful in both art and science, and that is something I really respect.  The persona he presents in Anarchy Evolution is pretty likeable, too- he's far less arrogant than I expected.  I can get behind a lot of what he says, and I learned a lot from reading his ideas.  I liked learning how he experiences and interprets the world.

And it's a good thing, too, because a little likeability goes a long way in a book that is as heavily weighted with personal experience and opinion as this one.  Graffin uses a very casual, personal, "I"-based style in the more memoir-y passages.  Then, in the more persuasive, science-based sections, his voice changes quite drastically to become informative, argumentative, sometimes almost academic.  Honestly, this didn't make for the best flow within chapters.  I found myself wondering where Steve Olson stepped in; did the two authors situation cause some of the loss of consistency?  The entire book reads like it's Greg Graffin's own, but then there's Steve Olson's name on the cover.  What was his role in writing this book?  Was he more a glorified editor than a true co-author?

This is the first book I've read that argues against the existence of God.  My husband loves Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, though, while I haven't picked them up yet, the atheist/antitheist ideas and arguments are fairly familiar to me.  So I was curious to see how Greg Graffin would present things.  In general, I think he takes a more conciliatory attitude than the more famous guys, and it does seem like he tries, in a way, to be reasonably sensitive to religious people.  But there's still quite a bit of condescension in the air here, as well as oversimplification of religious belief.  (For example, the implication that all faith is based in fear and all religious childrearing is gentle brainwashing.)  But then, this is Graffin's book.  It's his presentation of his own worldview; his perceptions of religion are a legitimate part of that.  So I personally wasn't offended.  In fact, I really liked his argument against the term "atheism."

Me in high school.
(I blurred out my mildly offensive gesture
because this is a family friendly website.
You're welcome.)

One thing I loved: learning about the early punk scene in Southern California.  Those sections reminded me a little of Fargo Rock City, only more amusing since I actually know and relate to the bands and unifying ideas Graffin discusses.  A few parts of Anarchy Evolution read like a punk rock primer: this is what punk is about, this is how and why it started, and this is why it's still relevant.  I loved revisiting this subject that I haven't thought about in ten years.  I'd love to read a real cultural history of punk.  I know they're out there, but I don't want to waste time with a bad one.  Recommendations?

One final thing: the title.  Come on!  Anarchy Evolution doesn't really say anything.  Instead of two nouns side-by-side, shouldn't it be "Anarchic Evolution" or "The Anarchy of Evolution" or "Anarchy and Evolution"?  I know I'm over-thinking this.  It just bugs me.      

Verdict: Stick it on the shelf.  It's a unique piece of work from an unusual point of view- just what I was hoping for when I picked it up.

Warnings: Maybe a swear or two?  And then, obviously, the whole atheism thing.  Watch out if you're sensitive to that.

Favorite excerpts: "Suffering is an inevitable consequence of evolution.  Naturalists see tragedy as an outgrowth of natural processes that have been occurring in multicellular organisms throughout history: bacterial parasitism, infant mortality, infection, starvation, catastrophe, species extinction.  Does all this suffering serve any purpose other than reminding us to try to avoid suffering in the future?  Perhaps it's too much to ask of any worldview- whether based on naturalism or religion- that it provide an ultimate answer to the question of tragedy."

What I'm reading next: The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Review: Secrets & Wives by Sanjiv Bhattacharya

Secrets and Wives: The Hidden World of Mormon Polygamy by Sanjiv Bhattacharya


Reviewed by Ingrid

Published: 2011

It's about/I thought: British-born journalist Sanjiv Bhattacharya is the U.S. correspondent for British Esquire and has written for magazines and newspapers including GQ and The Los Angeles Times, and holds a degree in philosophy from the University of Cambridge. Bhattacharya says that he first became interested in polygamy when he heard about the scandal with Warren Jeffs and subsequently produced a documentary for Channel Four in the U.K. called "The Man With 80 Wives."

In this book he visits the polygamist groups throughout Utah and exposes the abuse and manipulation that takes place within these communities.

Bhattacharya has strong opinions about polgamy and religion, and he isn't afraid to show it. This book is very much a subjective account. He explains that he uses his own experience as a thread to weave stories together. As a very clear outsider with darker skin and a funny accent, he believes that the way he was treated said a lot about the subjects. He also explains that the personal discussions he was having with these people included discussing his own experience, a giving much of himself that he felt necessary to develop trust and mutual understanding. He says that religion touches on a deep, personal place in peoples lives, and it seems dishonest to exempt himself from this. 


Faith and religion can be a difficult topic to write about, because faith functions on a different plane than rationality and thus is difficult to analyze objectively. Bhattacharya overcame this obstacle by being as frank as possible about his own subjectivity. I thought this was quite clever of him. 


So, this book is not meant to explore whether these groups are justified are correct in their faith, but rather is a sort of exposé of unethical practices done in the name of faith. Because of this, Bhattacharya believes strongly that polygamy should be decriminalized. At the beginning of chapter 8, "Legalize It," Bhattacharya quotes Louis D. Brandeis: "Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman." If polygamy is legalized, (or at least decriminalized, which means that a man can't legally marry more than one wife, but he can't be charged for bigamy if he cohabitates with one legal wife as well as another spiritually-married wife,) manipulative polygamist leaders like Warren Jeffs will no longer have an excuse to demonize the law and use it to control their followers. Bhattacharya explains,

Sanjiv Bhattacharya (via)

The Warren Jeffs saga illustrates that poygamy's status as a felony makes true criminals harder to prosecute. Illegality is a bogeyman that polygamist leaders use to control and terrorize their followers--it's an excuse for secrecy, a cover for real crimes. 

The real crimes that take place in these communities are wide-spread and often quite shocking; the worst cases involve sexual abuse of young girls and sometimes boys, and in the case of the Kingston group, incest. 


While Bhattacharya does a great job uncovering these issues, he still lets the people within these communities get their word in too (though often framed by Bhattacharya's snarky commentary.) Throughout his time in Utah, Bhattacharya met many unique and interesting people with diverse experiences; some are shocking, inspiring, pathetic, sad, and some are noble. While he clearly has a subjective view, this author does a good job presenting both sides. He helps us understand why many people choose this lifestyle and why it is important to them. This is why I think this is the best book I've read on polygamy. Bhattacharya lays everything out on the table to be considered by the reader (as opposed to Love Times Three, which has a much more carefully controlled representation of the lifestyle.) It was also very, very funny. 


Verdict: Stick it on the shelf.

Reading Recommendations: I first heard about this book on Radio West; you can listen to the episode here. Sanjiv Bhattacharya was also interviewed on the podcast Mormon Expression, which you can find here.

Warnings: A few swear words, descriptions of incest and sexual abuse.

Favorite excerpts:

I'm there at ten sharp. It's me and two sixteen-year-old boys, Jacob and Matthias, sitting at a cleared table in the middle of Merrill's living room, our notebooks out and pens at the ready. Merrill wipes the white board clean and introduces me.

     "This is Sanjiv, he's from London. He's writing a book about polygamy and he wants to see how polygamists do trigonometry!" We all laugh. "I told him that our lives are pretty boring, but he doesn't believe me. So let's see if I can't prove him wrong!" He's loving it. It's the Merrill show. "I was explaining to Sanjiv last night that we don't usually let media report on us because they're so prejudiced. We've been quite badly burned by the media. That's why you've never read anything about the TLC for the last eight years. But I met with Sanjiv last night and we've spoken on the phone, and he's genuinely interested to see what our lives are like. So let's just have a normal class. Just pretend he's not there. Does that work for you?"
     The boys nod. I nod. Everyone nods. Then the phone rings and Merrill stops. "Hold on a second." And he retreats to the rear of the house to take the call. When he returns, minutes later, he's glaring at me. "Okay, we're going to have to stop this whole thing right here. You have to leave."
     "What?"
     "No more interviews. We can't continue this. You have to leave."

(read more of this excerpt here.)

What I'm reading next: Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller

Audiobook Review: Bossypants by Tina Fey

Reviewed by Christina

Published: 2011

It's about:  Tina Fey is an actress, comedian, writer, and producer.  She's most famous for her work on Saturday Night Live (writer, Weekend Update anchor and Sarah Palin imitator), 30 Rock (writer/star) and several films (Mean Girls, Baby Mama). 
Bossypants is less a memoir and more a collection of humorous autobiographical essays.  She tells a funny, light version of how she became who she is.

I thought:  I love Tina Fey!  So I pretty much knew I would love this book.  I just think she's hilarious and so relateable- as one friend mentioned in her goodreads review, a big part of why Ms. Fey is so popular is because many women (me included) believe that if we knew each other in real life we would be BFFs. 

The audiobook really helped me maintain that delusion, since it's read by Tina herself.  Did you catch that?  A brilliant comedian reading her own book!  She does voices and accents and stuff!  All of the inflection is perfect, because it's exactly as it sounded in her head when she was writing it!   So, while listening, I got to pretend that my friend Tina was just telling me all about her life.  It was awesome.  And hilarious. 

It's hard to make recommendations in the humor department, but if you like the author's showbiz work, there's a good chance you'll dig Bossypants.  But don't come into it looking for a tell-all in which Ms. Fey spills her deepest, darkest secrets.  Almost all of the book stays well within the realm of comedy writing, which I thought was appropriate.

And if you're torn between audio and print, GO WITH THE AUDIO!  You might have a few embarrassing moments if it makes you uncomfortable to laugh aloud around strangers on the subway or whatever.  But it will be worth it. 

Verdict: Stick it on the shelf! 

Listening Recommendations:  Like I said, be prepared for passersby looking askance at you as you smile/laugh at funny things they can't hear.

Warnings:  Swears. 

Favorite excerpts: Way too many!  Here are a few, and you can read more here.
“Politics and prostitution have to be the only jobs where inexperience is considered a virtue. In what other profession would you brag about not knowing stuff? “I’m not one of those fancy Harvard heart surgeons. I’m just an unlicensed plumber with a dream and I’d like to cut your chest open.” The crowd cheers.”

“Now let me be clear; millions of women around the world nurse their children beautifully for years without giving anybody else a hard time about it. Teat Nazis are a solely western upper-middle-class phenomenon occurring when highly ambitious women experience deprivation from outside modes of achievement.”

And "The Mother's Prayer for Its Daughter"

What I'm listening to next:  The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Review: Total Memory Makeover by Marilu Henner

...Get it? (via)

Total Memory Makeover by Marilu Henner


Reviewed by Ingrid

Published: 2012

It's about: The back of this book trumpets: LIVE THE UNFORGETTABLE LIFE YOU WERE MEANT TO HAVE! LET YOUR MEMORIES BE YOUR GUIDE! Yep, it's a self-help book about how to improve your memory.

I thought: I was willing to deal with this hyperbolic silliness because I was fascinated by Marilu Henner when I heard her interviewed on the Diane Rehm show. Henner has Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory, which means she can remember every single day of her life since she was a child.

Henner's premise in this book is that, if you make a more conscious effort to improve your memory by following the steps she provides, you will better recall past mistakes and successes and thus make better decisions in the future. I found that most of Henner's tips where not that helpful - not anything that you couldn't think up yourself if you were to try to think of ways to improve your memory. Keep a journal. Use all your senses to instigate remembering. Focus on one object from your past and let it guide you to more memories you have buried in your subconcious. Etc. etc.

I kept wondering throughout the book if Marilu Henner is really in a position to offer advice about how to improve your memory. She really doesn't know what it's like to have an imperfect memory! She claims that her memory is a combination of nature and nurture, but how can she really know that? (She can't.)

Ultimately Henner's book left me with so many more questions about memory and how it functions than it answered. Most people's memory is imperfect, including my own. How much does interpretation play into what and how we remember? At times I think that memory is way too subjective to be of much use. How are we supposed to know in the more ambiguous situations of our past whether we were interpreting our actions or the actions of others correctly? Or how can we possibly know that what we are remembering isn't in fact an interpretation of the past that will best serve us in the present?

When I was in Paris for the summer of 2009, a particularly difficult time in my life, I discovered Nietzsche. I remembered while reading this book that Nietzsche makes an argument quite opposite to Henner's which begins to answer some of these questions. Nietzsche argues that, because we have no will over it, thinking of the past can disturb and weaken us. In order to have active control of our lives we must constantly take part in a process "active forgetting," a process of molding our past according to our will in the present. Because the past never follows one clear narrative, it can constantly be reinterpreted to fit our present needs. This process of reinterpretation is not self deception. To be "creators" of our past does not mean that we make up facts to comfort ourselves; it means that we take up our past narrative in a new form. There is never a final, true narrative since we are constantly adding to our narrative through life experience.

Nietzsche explains that active forgetting enables us to cope with the hardships of life by suppressing suffering and bad experiences in favor of good ones. It also gives consciousness a paramount place in one's identity in how he/she relates to him/herself as a thinking, rational, exceptional being. Nietzsche claims that it is the "lower" functions of the body and willing that sustains mankind. For example, we actively suppress our bodily functions and instinctive powers and forget them in favor of deliberate actions and knowledge.

Nietzsche writes in On the Genealogy of Morals, "The man in whom this apparatus of repression is damaged and ceases to function properly may be compared (and more than merely compared) with a dyspeptic [see both meanings of the word]--he cannot 'have done' with anything."

Certainly Marilu Henner would disagree that too much remembering has made her gloomy and pessimistic (or constipated ...). But we must realize that Henner and Nietzsche have different ideals in mind when they make their arguments. Henner's ideal is to gather the largest possible pool of information from which we can draw from in the present - the more, the better. For Nietzsche, the act of favoring certain knowledge and discarding other knowledge works to perfect our will and experience in the world. And, of course, Henner is writing a self-help book and Nietzsche is writing philosophy. So there's that.

Marilu Henner didn't explore memory as much in depth as I hoped, but I don't think her book was completely worthless. I liked how she encouraged the reader to live consciously and deliberately in the present. This, she claims, will help us to better remember the present when it becomes the past. As to how to do that, though, she doesn't specify enough to satisfy me.

Verdict: In between. It's worth a skim but I don't think it will really change your life.

Reading Recommendations: If you want to explore memory more in depth, I recommend digging into some Nietszsche (On the Genealogy of Morals) and Proust (In Search of Lost Time.) Both write extensively about how remembering (and forgetting) can make our lives rich, meaningful, and purposeful.

Warnings: Cheesy humor. Too many pop culture references. Catch phrases.

Favorite excerpts: "Opening up your receptors now will not only allow you to recreate great past experiences; you will also develop new ones with greater detail. When you go through a first date or something equally exciting, you are in a heightened state of awareness, and as a result you will relive it in your mind several times--whether it was good or bad! You will be able to turn a lot of average days into something more special, because you will go into every experience with a more sharpened level of awareness, which will undoubtedly lead to better recall."

What I'm reading next: The Man Who Quit Money by Mark Sundeen

Review: Would It Kill You to Stop Doing That? by Henry Alford

Would It Kill You to Stop Doing That? A Modern Guide to Manners by Henry Alford

Reviewed by Ingrid 

Published: 2012

It's about: Despite the subtitle ("A Modern Guide to Manners,") this is not your traditional etiquette guide. A lot of reviewers on Goodreads were quite put off that this book wasn't the straightforward, how-to-have-good-manners guide they thought it would be. The summary provided by the publisher is a little bit less misleading - "A laugh-out-loud guide to modern manners." This is humor. Look, it has a toilet on the cover.

Henry Alford via

So, "guide." What does that mean anyway? I don't think a "guide" necessarily has to be purely informative. This book is mostly a series of short stories and example of good and bad manners that Alford has observed and etiquette experiments and consequently, mistakes he's made himself. It;s more like a journey.  Imagine yourself on a Disneyland ride through the world of manners with Henry Alford as your enthusiastic chaperone and narrator.

I thought: I like it. It was fun. In my opinion, Alford's wandering style and random thoughts and stories about the wonderful world of manners is far more exciting than an Emily Post-style guide. Alford's style of humor is, yes, a little too self-inflated at times, but mostly funny. I like learning about manners, I like laughing at people with horrific manners, and I like laughing, so I enjoyed this book. It wasn't earth shattering-ly entertaining or significant to me, but it was fun.

Verdict: In between. A good library check-out, but I don't know if I'd buy it.

Reading Recommendations: Henry Alford was interviewed on Radio West earlier this year. Listen to a bit to see if you like his sense of humor.


Warnings: Some swear words.

Favorite excerpts: "Most people prefer to be complimented on something they've done (painted a room, closed a deal, raised a child) rather than on something they are (beautiful, adventurous, smart, scrupulous). A compliment wants to be specific, but not so specific that it's hair-splitting and seems calculated. If you tell a friend you love her new haircut, she'll probably smile; but if you tell her instead that you love the way her hair now curls around her ear when she's standing in a strong wind, she may start. She will spend more time than she ought to thinking about this comment. Too many compliments (or too strong a compliment) is just as bad as no compliment; one rarely wants to verbally fellate. Maybe the analogy to employ here is flowers: Compliments should be a single sunflower set on a windowsill for her to walk up to and admire, not three dozen roses delivered by an exhausted-looking bike messenger in an angel costume."

What I'm reading next: Memories of My Melancholy Whores by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Review: The Center Cannot Hold by Elyn R. Sacks

Reviewed by Christina

Published: 2007

Full Title: The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness

It's about:  Elyn Saks, a brilliant professor and scholar, describes her inner schizophrenic life in this surprisingly inspiring memoir.

I thought:  I loved this book.  I think I should modify my Top Seven Inspirational People post, bump it up to eight and add Elyn R. Saks.  This lady is, first of all, incredibly intelligent.  She cares for others immensely and has dedicated a huge chunk of her career to developing material that argues for the rights of people with mental illness.  And, luckily for me (and all of us!) she wrote this honest, brave, and important book. 

The Center Cannot Hold is a perfect example of the idea I tried to get at with my Mental Illness in Fiction Reading List.  It is a text that attempts that noblest goal: to encourage human empathy in the reader.  Ms. Saks hopes to dispel the awful stigmas associated with schizophrenia- those enduring prejudices about people with thought disorders being dangerous, absolutely hopeless cases, people who can be discarded from functional society and labeled "crazy."

Anyway, I'm a big fan of this author and her work.  Here are a couple of interesting tidbits that struck me and/or changed my mind about something:

• HIPAA.  I am now a believer in it.  It used to be not illegal for health care professionals to discuss patients' histories with other people!  At one point, an E.R. tech actually told Ms. Saks the name of another student at Yale who had suffered a psychotic episode.  And soon after that, a hospital told the school's administration about Ms. Saks' condition, effectively withdrawing her from law school without her consent.  (This was also before the Americans with Disabilities Act.) 
• Speaking of consent, holy moly!  It apparently didn't exist for many American patients in the 1980's.  Ms. Saks was unwillingly committed to a hospital, restrained and in solitary confinement for days at a time, and force-fed medications.  I don't think I'm overstating this when I say: WTF?!?!  Contrast that with the laissez-faire attitude toward psychotic people in England during the same period, when Ms. Saks (who clearly needed antipsychotic medication) was allowed to stay in the hospital if she and her demons wanted to, but she didn't really receive any treatment other a recommendation for psychoanalysis.
• Psychoanalysis, if you ask me, is generally a bunch of hooey.  I thought pretty much everyone believed this, so I was surprised when Ms. Saks described her own very positive experiences with it.  And she did soften my attitude a bit.  She argues for (and demonstrates her own need for) a combined regimen including medication and some sort of talk therapy.  And that, I have to admit, does make sense. 

SO.  If you have any interest at all in this subject or if you're hoping to relate more closely to people with schizophrenia, PLEASE read The Center Cannot Hold.  It's an vivid, insightful, and hopeful book.

Verdict: Stick it on the shelf.

Reading Recommendations:  In some very basic ways, this reminded me of Autobiography of a Schizophrenic Girl and An Unquiet Mind.  I liked it WAY better than either of them, though.

Warnings: Nothing I can remember.  Maybe one or two swears that I glossed over?  Nothing to deter you, really.

What I'm reading next:  The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood

Review: Perfect Madness by Judith Warner

Anne Taintor

Reviewed by Christina

Published: 2005

Full Title: Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety

It's about:  This righteously angry treatise explores the societal and historical pressures that create a burden of stressful expectations for middle-class mothers in America.  Ms. Warner explains how evolving parenting trends and cultural attitudes toward motherhood have culminated in our current unhealthy situation.  Working Moms and stay-at-homers alike tend toward perfectionism, continuous self-sacrifice, and ever increasing control-freakishness.  The author tells how we got here, why it's wrong, and how to fix the situation. 

I thought: Well.  I thought this was a pretty fascinating read, despite the fact that it not everything in it rings true for my generation of mommies.  The book is only seven years old, but the women quoted are closer to my mother's age than my own and the then-current statistics and situations Ms. Warner uses are from the period when I was in high school and college.  But still, I get it.  I feel for these women and their families: the endless list of "should"s, the constant procession of meaningless tasks day after day, the pain of feeling pressured to give every part of yourself to your kids.

There's some annoying melodrama in the writing style: someone's "words crackled like lightning" and sentences like "When the mommy light fades, will [the children] shiver in the dark?"  Ughhhh.  I have to fight not to snicker and/or roll my eyes when I read things like that, even if I do agree with the author's general premise and most of the arguments she makes.  People get worked up so easily about the "Mommy War" issues; there's really no need to try to pointedly ramp up the reader's emotions.  I am also not wild about the red and black cover that seems to scream "DANGER!" and "WARNING!" 

Perfect Madness is an interesting combination of forms: one-third personal essay, one-third informal history of American motherhood and feminism, and one-third reporting on and quotations from the interviews Ms. Warner held with hundreds of mothers.  The end result is 100% RANT, but since it's a rant I agree with, I didn't mind in the least.  I loved the parallels between mothering styles of the past and those of today, especially the comparisons between 1960's perfecto-moms and today's supermoms.  I think the similarities have even increased since this book was published, thanks to Mommy Blogs and the new coolness of craftiness.  And I completely agree with Judith Warner's argument that society (read: lawmakers) needs to step in and actually support families with more than lip service.  

Verdict: Stick it on the shelf!  It's not perfect, and it needs an update.  But it's still a well-written, well-researched, well-argued tract on an important subject.

Reading Recommendations: Obvs, moms will probably like this the best.  If you dig opinionated reporting and care about the lives of middle-class mothers, it's a pretty quick read.

Warnings: One chapter discusses marital sex in some detail.  One rather surprising swear word that I remember.

What I'm reading next: Then Came You by Jennifer Weiner  (my very first chick lit!)