Title: Heart-Shaped Box
Author: Joe Hill
Pub Date: 2007
Genre: Horror, Fiction
Nutshell: A musician who buys a ghost on the Internet gets more than he expected
Most everyone who cares to know by now probably is aware that Joe Hill is the son of Stephen King. That fact may draw some people to his writing, or it may turn some people off. I'm not a huge fan of King myself--his stuff is either entirely too long (The Stand) or just too too. I like more than a little something left to the imagination, and I don't like a lot of gore and nastiness in my scary books. Personal preference. But I had heard that Heart-Shaped Box was on the more atmospheric and creepy side than the ew side, so when I finally found it at the library, I picked it up, since we're coming into October and the time of year for a spooky read.
I have to say, I was overall pretty happy with the book. It's generally creepy without being particularly gory. There's blood, but it is a horror novel. Nothing is overdone. There is a very icky (not necessarily horror-related) turn in the last part of the book, but it's handled deftly and nothing is dwelt on there that will make you feel like you need a shower. I will post two spoilers at the very end of the review: one that is a trigger warning, and one that is for people obsessed about the fates of animals in books. Be aware that those will be down there, and if you're not interested in either, you can skip them.
Plot: Musician and singer Judas Coyne is a sort of Gene Simmons or Alice Cooper kind of figure who has been into the shock metal scene for decades. He collects the sorts of things you might expect that sort of guy to collect, and in fact, most of the things in his collection are things his fans have sent him. One day, his assistant sees a listing on an auction site by a woman selling her stepfather's ghost along with his suit. He decides to buy it. The ghost does indeed come along with the suit, but who it is and what he wants aren't quite what Jude thought when he made the purchase.
I finished the book, which is not overly short (384 pages in hardback) in about a day. It's a quick read because the two main characters, Judas and Georgia, are definitely people you come to care about after a bit. They begin somewhat as sterotypes, but they grow on you as they let their guards down around each other and so around the reader and become more and more real as their situation grows more and more desperate. It's a good horror novel without being particularly gross or over-the-top. Hill definitely learned from his dad but brings enough of his own talent in that he should be regarded as a writer in his own right as well.
****End of Review. Spoiler Warnings Follow. Stop Here If You're Not Interested in Major Plot Points.****
Spoilers themselves are in white text. Highlight to read.
Spoiler #1: Trigger Warning (Sexual Abuse):
A major plot point concerns the longstanding sexual abuse of minor girls by older men. There are, however, no descriptions of the abuse other than the statements that it happened and a brief discourse into how (hypnotism) and the fallout of the abuse. Perpetrators are punished.
Spoiler #2: Dog Warning:
The dogs don't make it. But they are heroic and necessary, and there are puppies at the end.
Sunday, September 28, 2014
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
White Like Me
Title: White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son
Author: Tim Wise
Pub Date: 2008Genre: Memoir; Race RelationsNutshell: Thoughts on race and privilege from a white anti-racism activist
There's this thing that I do when I know that I don't know enough about something to have anything like an informed opinion on it. I go to the stacks. Even if that opinion is only for my own edification, I still like to feel like I know a little something about whatever is maybe troubling me in the news or whatever. This most recent time, it was all of what was going down in Ferguson, Missouri. Note: I am the whitest white girl that ever whited. I am the great great generationally go on back great granddaughter of English colonial settlers who came over to Virginia in 1633. I'm not off the Mayflower, but I am not that far off it either. There's not even, to the best of my records, any so-called "dubious whites" in my family -- none of those Popish Italian or Irish or Eastern European later arrivals here; no, sir. Now, I don't know how rich we were in the mother country (after we stopped ruling it -- RIP Richard II), and we certainly didn't do particularly spectacularly for ourselves over here in the long haul either, but we certainly do have a long history, and that history is about as pale in hue as you're likely to get out of anybody.
All of that to say that I know that I know zero about being black in America. I also know that I hold a fair amount of privilege due to the fact that I was born at the tail end of all that pale history up there. I can tell you about being a (white) woman in America, and I can tell you it's not always fantastic, but when all that blew up in Missouri, I knew there was a lot going on that I did not understand. And I wanted to. So, off to the stacks. And by stacks, I mean the library, because I don't buy books anymore (out of room and/or money -- usually both). I wanted something that would tell me specifically about privilege. I knew I had it, but I wanted to find out exactly what it was, where it was, and how to see and recognize it. So I found this book, which does an excellent job of laying all that out.
Tim Wise was very lucky in that grew up in a home where racism was not acceptable. His mother fought against it where she found it and provided a role model for him to become an anti-racist and activist later in his life. Wise has fought against racism since college, and lays out in this book how white people who also want to fight against racism and promote social change can do so. But, as whites, we have a lot of unpacking to do before we just jump in. He doesn't pull any punches, either. He had a lot of unpacking of his own to do, and doesn't shy from telling the reader about any of it. He made a great number of mistakes, and admits to them with candor and honesty. This is definitely a very personal work and something that isn't always easy to read. But if you're interested in this kind of thing, I would say it's important to learn.
I took a great deal away from this book, and I think it helped a lot in terms of learning more about my place in society. Wise makes an excellent point that white people should fight against racism, not because we think people of color can't conquer it on their own and they need our help, but because it is a poison of our own race. It makes us less than who we could be because it diminishes our ability to see the best of ourselves and everyone else. We should do it for nobody else's sake than our own. And we don't deserve anyone else's thanks or recognition or approval for it, either. I had never viewed it that way, but he has a really valid point.
I'd recommend this to anyone, really. But especially if you, like me, are white and wish you could do something more for social justice and change. There is a lot to be done, but we need to tread carefully, and this book is a good place to start on that journey.
Author: Tim Wise
Pub Date: 2008Genre: Memoir; Race RelationsNutshell: Thoughts on race and privilege from a white anti-racism activist
There's this thing that I do when I know that I don't know enough about something to have anything like an informed opinion on it. I go to the stacks. Even if that opinion is only for my own edification, I still like to feel like I know a little something about whatever is maybe troubling me in the news or whatever. This most recent time, it was all of what was going down in Ferguson, Missouri. Note: I am the whitest white girl that ever whited. I am the great great generationally go on back great granddaughter of English colonial settlers who came over to Virginia in 1633. I'm not off the Mayflower, but I am not that far off it either. There's not even, to the best of my records, any so-called "dubious whites" in my family -- none of those Popish Italian or Irish or Eastern European later arrivals here; no, sir. Now, I don't know how rich we were in the mother country (after we stopped ruling it -- RIP Richard II), and we certainly didn't do particularly spectacularly for ourselves over here in the long haul either, but we certainly do have a long history, and that history is about as pale in hue as you're likely to get out of anybody.
All of that to say that I know that I know zero about being black in America. I also know that I hold a fair amount of privilege due to the fact that I was born at the tail end of all that pale history up there. I can tell you about being a (white) woman in America, and I can tell you it's not always fantastic, but when all that blew up in Missouri, I knew there was a lot going on that I did not understand. And I wanted to. So, off to the stacks. And by stacks, I mean the library, because I don't buy books anymore (out of room and/or money -- usually both). I wanted something that would tell me specifically about privilege. I knew I had it, but I wanted to find out exactly what it was, where it was, and how to see and recognize it. So I found this book, which does an excellent job of laying all that out.
Tim Wise was very lucky in that grew up in a home where racism was not acceptable. His mother fought against it where she found it and provided a role model for him to become an anti-racist and activist later in his life. Wise has fought against racism since college, and lays out in this book how white people who also want to fight against racism and promote social change can do so. But, as whites, we have a lot of unpacking to do before we just jump in. He doesn't pull any punches, either. He had a lot of unpacking of his own to do, and doesn't shy from telling the reader about any of it. He made a great number of mistakes, and admits to them with candor and honesty. This is definitely a very personal work and something that isn't always easy to read. But if you're interested in this kind of thing, I would say it's important to learn.
I took a great deal away from this book, and I think it helped a lot in terms of learning more about my place in society. Wise makes an excellent point that white people should fight against racism, not because we think people of color can't conquer it on their own and they need our help, but because it is a poison of our own race. It makes us less than who we could be because it diminishes our ability to see the best of ourselves and everyone else. We should do it for nobody else's sake than our own. And we don't deserve anyone else's thanks or recognition or approval for it, either. I had never viewed it that way, but he has a really valid point.
I'd recommend this to anyone, really. But especially if you, like me, are white and wish you could do something more for social justice and change. There is a lot to be done, but we need to tread carefully, and this book is a good place to start on that journey.
The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons
Title: The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons: The History of the Human Brain as Revealed by True Stories of Trauma, Madness, and RecoveryAuthor: Sam Kean
Pub Date: 2014
Genre: Medical History
Nutshell: The series of bizarre, horrifying and macabre circumstances that led to today's knowledge of neurology
Pub Date: 2014
Genre: Medical History
Nutshell: The series of bizarre, horrifying and macabre circumstances that led to today's knowledge of neurology
I am a sucker for popular medical history and science. If you can tell it without requiring an actual medical degree, I'll probably be interested. I got my start with historical epidemiology (still my great passion, if it could be called that), but since then I've branched out into other interests. There are a few writers that can take something pretty complex (the brain is, you must admit, one of the more complex organs in the body) and make it entertaining and interesting enough that a layperson will enjoy reading about it. This is one of those authors, and this is one of those books.
Kean's book gives a good overall history of mankind's attempts to study the human brain and what exactly goes wrong with it and why. For most of our brief history with experimentation, we've simply been forced to wait until something catastrophic happened, and then sort of poke around in there and see what looked different. Sometimes that actually yielded results. We get a look at the different parts of the brain, what bits are responsible for what, and how scientists and doctors came by that information. As with a lot of medical experimentation in the past, some of the stories are certainly less than ethical. Some scientists in the olden days didn't necessarily lose sleep over shocking the brains of the mentally disabled in order to see what happened, or sticking unwashed fingers into holes in people's skulls at times.
The things that makes this book unique among a lot of other medical histories are the stories it details. Unlike a lot of medical research, most of the real work that's been done on the brain has had to do, by the very nature of the organ, with living people. A dead brain doesn't really yield much. So much of what brain damage and brain regeneration is has to be observed in living patients, and Kean does a really good job of telling the stories of the people who contributed, oftentimes just with their initials, to science simply by having something happen to them and being observed. You get to know the people affected in a way that other medical histories don't always allow for, and that's interesting. It makes the book more personal, and better to read.
Overall, I'd recommend this to anyone with an interest in medical history in general or the brain in particular. It's definitely written with laypersons in mind, and all the jargon is explained. There are even cute little rebus puzzles at the beginning of each chapter, if you care to try your hand at them. The answers are usually fairly obvious once you start reading.
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