Gulp.

Gulp. Adventures on the Alimentary Canal
Mary Roach
W.W. Norton & Company 2013


Reviewed by carol
Recommended for fans of digesting and laughing

★   ★   ★   for humor,     ★   ★   1/2  for information

While reading, I was reminded of long-ago biology studies, and the simplest members of Animalia that are little more than a gastric tube composed of cells. It’s astonishing, really, those primitive forms of waterborne life, and it emphasizes an interesting thing about animal anatomy, that we aren’t a solid, discrete, bounded organism: the environment moves through us as much as it moves around us. We like to think of “inside” and “outside” our bodies when in fact, it’s much more complicated. Those familiar with the gastrointestinal system (“the GI tract” in medical slang) understand that as a system rather continuous with the “outside,” it is one of the least sterile parts of our anatomy (the case could probably be made for skin as well). Perhaps that is why there are so many taboos surrounding what we eat, how we eat, vomiting, farting, defecation and such–all those different ways we process and exchange with our environment. Gulp. Adventures on the Alimentary Canal explores the GI tract and its unmentionables in an engaging way that is somewhat limited by basic scholarship.


One of her early paragraphs best explains her topic:
 “Yes, men and women eat meals. But they also ingest nutrients. They grind and sculpt them into a moistened bolus that is delivered, via a stadium wave of sequential contractions, into a self-kneading sack of hydrochloric acid and then dumped into a tubular leach field, where is is converted into the most powerful taboo in human history. Lunch is an opening act.“

That both captures the strength and weakness of her writing; while good general information is buried in her text, it is largely hidden by metaphor and humor.

Divided into 17 chapters, the story loosely follows the physiological structure of the gastrointestinal tract, beginning with the sensations of smell and taste, then examining a variety of topics including ‘organ meats,’ chewing, stomach acid, saliva, swallowing, being eaten alive, overfilling stomachs, intestinal gases and flamability, colonic direction and stool. It didn’t take me very long to understand that this was the Trivial Pursuit version of the “adventures on the alimentary canal,” not the informative, organized tour designed to give insight in an entertaining way. As a nurse, I was rather hoping for a tour that taught in an engaging, non-professional style, not this collection of anecdotes, historical studies and titillating tidbits of taboos. 

Content is largely based on a wide variety of scientific studies, both historical and current, and covering both human and animal. For those that may have little background in the topic, this could likely prove confusing. For example, the chapter on chewing jumps in time from 1947 to 1817, to 1979 to 1825. The continuity jumps challenge the lay understanding of historical developments and lack the feeling of developing a professional discipline. Also distracting were strange asides about the scientists/ food professionals themselves. Perhaps in an effort to humanize the science for the average reader, she also describes appearance and personality of a number of the people she interviews. (Personally, I found this the most distracting and least informative. If I want to read People, I would. But I don’t.)  The nose section (“Nose Job”), for instance, is largely about a professional sensory analyst named Langstaff and Roach’s own experience trying out as an olive oil taster. The chapter on taste (“I’ll Have the Putrescine”) is primarily about engineering pet foods that appeal to dog, cat and owner, and talks about various personalities at the organizations she interviews.


Structurally, I found it was less coherently written than Packing for Mars. There’s copious footnotes, but not for intellectual background as much as parenthetical anecdotes or commentary. As the text content was just as engaging and digressive, I found myself wondering why she bothered with the footnotes? Amusement? Trendiness? They seem to be a mix of further text detail or opportunities for her to hilariously comment on her own writing. I won’t deny they were often funny; I laughed out loud at her exploration of whether a human could survive inside a whale’s stomach: 

“While a seaman might survive the suction and swallow, his arrival in a sperm whale’s stomach would seem to present a new set of problems (1).

(1)I challenge you to find a more innocuous sentence containing the words sperm, suction, swallow and any homophone of seaman. And then call me up on the homophone and read it to me.“

Content concerns aside, Roach has a strong storytelling gift.  Her voice is engaging and humorous, and is generally accessible. I found that she touched on a number of tantalizing issues in the field, such as our preference for sweets (mentioned in the taste tests for dogs), dyspepsia (hidden in a story about professional eaters and stomach size) and the growing interesting in how gut bacteria contributes to overall health (couched in a story about fecal transplants). Perhaps that is where some of my disappointment comes from, that she can be aware of some fascinating, topical issues in the GI field with enormous implications for people’s health, but then instead chooses to focus on the shock-studies of boa constrictor stomachs and dissolving live foods. Recommended for those in the mood for giggles and Science-Lite.


cross-posted at  http://clsiewert.wordpress.com/2014/04/20/gulp-by-mary-roach-adventurous-in-a-bumper-car-kind-of-way/

Gone Baby Gone

Dennis Lehane
William Morrow & Co.
Reviewed by Nancy
5 out of 5 stars

Summary


Boston private detectives Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro are hired to find four-year-old Amanda McCready, abducted from her bed on a warm, Indian summer night. They meet her stoned-out, strangely apathetic mother, her loving aunt and uncle, the mother's dangerous drug-addled friends, and two cops who've found so many abused or dead children they may be too far over the edge to come back. Despite enormous public attention, rabid news coverage, and dogged police work, the investigation repeatedly hits a brick wall. Then a second child disappears....As the two detectives intensify their search, they encounter a media more interested in sensationalizing the abductions than solving them, a midnight ransom drop that explodes into a firefight, a city seething with secrets and rage, and a faceless power determined to keep the children lost forever.


My Review

I knew this was going to be a very dark story. After reading the very disturbing Darkness, Take My Hand, about a vicious and sadistic serial killer who knew no limits when it came to human depravity, I didn’t imagine it could get much worse. I was wrong.

Though Patrick and Angie are tired of the violence and inhumanity that plagued their earlier cases, they agree to accept this latest case of a four-year-old girl who was abducted from her bed. Amanda’s mom, Helene, who is far from the perfect parent, uses drugs, drinks, and is addicted to TV. Amanda has a loving aunt and uncle who desperately want her to be found.

Patrick and Angie realize that a child’s disappearance must be solved quickly, or it will never be. With the help of two detectives in the Boston Police Department who believe in their own brand of justice, the denizens of their rough Dorchester neighborhood, and of course, Bubba, Patrick and Angie plunge headlong into one of their most difficult, complex, and emotional cases, confronting bad parenting, child abuse, pedophilia, and murder. They learn about themselves and each other, and discover that life and justice are not always black and white.

I had a difficult time putting the book down and enjoyed the growth of Angie and Patrick’s relationship, their feelings about children, and the questionable characters with good intentions. The story left me shaken and numb and thinking about it for days.

It was a great movie too!

Also posted at Goodreads

The Secret life: The Lies and Scandals of President Grover Cleveland by Charles Lachman

A Secret Life: The Lies and Scandals of President Grover Cleveland by Charles Lachman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote. The relative positions to be assumed by man and woman in the working out of our civilization were assigned long ago by a higher intelligence than ours.
Grover Cleveland


President Grover Cleveland

Grover Cleveland was a Democrat, not of the Democratic Party that we know today. The two parties have actually switched policy orientation more than once. Franklin D.Roosevelt ushered in a new age of Democrats which was the beginning of the erosion of support from the Southern states. Traditionally the South had always been Democrats, but with Lyndon B. Johnson’s civil rights movement decision in the 1960s the South swung to the Republicans. With the election of Ronald “Raygun” Reagan the South firmed up as a reliable voting bloc for the GOP. When Cleveland was running for office in 1884 the Republicans had ruled the White House since 1868 including the hinky election of 1876 when Rutherford B. Hayes(R) lost the popular vote by 250,000 votes to Samuel J. Tilden(D), but after some double-dealing in the electoral college Hayes was declared the winner.


The Splintering of the Democratic Party or in this case eating it's own tail

In 1884 Cleveland’s chances to win the presidency was dim indeed, first of all he was a bachelor; second he was a known to frequent beer taverns where he not only drank a lot of beer, but consumed large gluttonous meals; third he was a draft dodger; and fourth he had an illegitimate child through an act of rape. It sounds like a recipe for a disastrous campaign or ripped from the headlines of one of our more recent elections. Cleveland had spent almost all of his adult life in Buffalo, NY. He’d taken an apprenticeship with a lawyer, passed the bar, and after years of hoisting beer steins with the right people and becoming part of “the good old boys club”. He found himself elected sheriff. Buffalo was a wide open town and for a sheriff with the right connections there was money to be made.

”Buffalo, it was said, had more saloons and taverns per head than any other city in the world. It seemed there was a bar on every corner--more than six hundred saloons for a population of less than 150,000. Sailors, canal hands, and roustabouts working the city’s ports roamed the tenderloin district looking for a good time. Brothels operated in the open seven days a week. Buffalo was a ‘sink of iniquity’ with more ‘social eyesores’ than any other city of its size in America.”

What is really stunning about the city of Buffalo is by 1901 they are the 9th largest city in the nation (as of 2011 they have fallen to 71st) and are awarded the honor of being the host city of the World’s Fair which also tragically became the location for the assassination of President William McKinley.

Cleveland left the sheriff’s office a wealthy man. The pay of the office was legitimately raised through fines and there were plenty of people to penalize. In the time he was a private citizen again, and before he became Mayor of Buffalo was when he met Maria Halpin. She was a shop girl in an upscale department store, valued by the establishment for her elegance, and her ability to speak French. She was a widow with two children trying to keep herself above the poverty line. She was said to be strikingly beautiful. Cleveland had met her a few times in the shop. One afternoon he ran into her on the street, which I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that it wasn’t a meeting of chance, but carefully planned. Maria was on her way to a friend’s house for a party, but Cleveland insisted that she allow him to buy her dinner. She reluctantly agreed. After dinner he walked her home and she allowed him to come up to her apartment, feeling safe because her young son was in the next room; and after all, this was an esteemed gentleman, a respected man of the community. He raped her on her couch. Now the problem with rape in the 1870s was the laws were written by men. Women had no voice in the definition of laws. There was certainly a bias against women in how the laws are written and also a real lack of empathy for rape victims. The general assumption being that the rape wouldn't have happened if the woman had simply been more careful. It was nearly impossible for a woman to prove rape.

”The presumption in the 19th century was that a woman who truly wanted to preserve her honor could repel any rape, unless it was a gang rape. She could use her hands or draw back her legs and physically thwart the insertion of a man’s penis into her body. If the act of sex was consummated during rape, it was because the woman ‘did not earnestly resist it.’

Charles Lachman provides several incidents of rape that were brought before the courts and overturned usually for the reason that the woman simply did not “resist” enough. ”According to the customs of the time, it was fine for a man with normal biological urges to use a ‘certain degree of violence’ when engaging in sex. As the law saw it, even if the woman put up a struggle, that was foreplay.” So basically the law was based on very crude assumptions, one being the woman should not have placed herself in such circumstances to start with. Two she shouldn’t have led the man on in the first place. Three she should have forced her assailant to beat her senseless before allowing him access to her body.


Maria Halpin

If Maria Halpin contemplated bringing charges against Cleveland she dismissed them very quickly. In fact, she hoped to get on with her life until five weeks later when it became apparent that she was pregnant. I’m sure she had to swallow some bile to approach Cleveland with the problem. Thinking about his burgeoning career he assured her he would do the right thing and marry her. Now Cleveland had an odd affectation, in his apartment he had pictures of children placed all over his rooms. Despite this somewhat unnatural interest, I may be reading more into this than I should but Lachman planted the seed without expressing his own thoughts on the oddness of the displaying of such pictures, but it does make it equally weird how little interest Cleveland expressed in his own offspring. He was a confirmed bachelor and had mentioned several times that he had no intention to marry, but when his best friend Oscar Folsom had a daughter named Frances his answer changed. ”I’m only waiting for my wife to grow up, “ he told his sister. At the time it seemed an off-the-cuff dodge, which, though a little creepy, was not to be taken seriously.”


Francis Folsom Cleveland, the darling of the nation. She was so popular that her image was even used on campaign posters.

It turns out that it was creepy statement indeed because after he is elected President of the United States he married Frances Folsom. She was 27 years younger than Cleveland and became the youngest First Lady at the age of 21. She replaced Cleveland’s problematic sister Rose. Cleveland regretted appointing his sister almost immediately. Rose was his smart sister, a woman who conjugated Greek verbs when she became nervous. She certainly would not agree with her brother's quote that I used to start this review. Well educated, who after leaving the White House retired back to her books and magazines. She published a novel called The Long Run that received solid reviews and also published a collection of essays called George Eliot's Poetry and Other Studies. She fell in love with a widow named Evangeline Marrs Simpson. Well aware of the ramifications of her sexual preference on her brother’s third bid for the presidency she cooled down her contact with Eve until after he won reelection.


First Lady Rose Cleveland

At age seventy-two she was living in Tuscany with Eve when the influenza epidemic of 1918 broke out. When the people in her village started “dying like sheep” she organized efforts. Separating children from households that were infected and cabling home for help from all her old friends in America. She succumbed to fever as a result of her efforts and was buried in a cemetery on the banks of the Lima River. All I have to say is what a woman.


Ma, Ma, where's my Pa?

The Maria Halpin scandal continued to haunt Cleveland throughout his political life. When he made a run for governor Maria reappeared out of the mist to make trouble for him. At one point with the help of his friends Maria is abducted and incarcerating into a lunacy institution long enough for Oscar Folsom Cleveland, named such after his best friend at Grover’s insistence, can be placed with another family. As a countermeasure and also an attempt to throw a better light on this political liability he insisted that Maria had passed herself around to a group of his friends and because he was the only bachelor he had assumed responsibility for the child. Maria’s reputation is shattered by the Democratic newspaper machine and though later she achieves some distance from her past by changing her name through marriage she is never reunited with Oscar.

Charles Lachman discovered the identity of Oscar Folsom Cleveland which I will not reveal in case there are readers out there that want to read this book and follow in the footsteps of Lachman as he peers through the fog of history, separating the lies from what can be proven. I struggled early on to adjust to Lachman’s workmanlike prose. You won’t find yourself carried away by beautifully constructed sentences, but you will occasionally find yourself with your hand to your mouth covering a gasp of indignation.

Looking at this situation through the long lense of history if Cleveland had simply continued to take care of Maria Halpin and had treated her with respect he certainly would have mitigated the liability to his political career. As it all turned out he did not suffer the consequences of his actions. Interesting to know that his home state of New York elected him the first time, spurned him the second time, and then embraced him the third time, making him the only president to serve his terms nonconsecutive. A bit of trivia that somehow fits a man that on close analysis was a man of his time; and yet, a man with a darkness about him that made him seem such an unlikely man to reach the pinnacles of power.

I also recently reviewed the Scott Miller book about the McKinley assassination McKinley Review

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A Different Kind of History

A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn
first published in 1980; updated in 2005
Reviewed by Diane K. M.
My rating: 5 stars




I loved this so much that I'm going to resort to hyperbole: If you read only one book about American history, let it be this one.

This is not a typical history book. Instead of telling the stories of the victors, Howard Zinn focused on those who have been oppressed in the United States. The minorities. The protesters. The downtrodden. 

In the preface to the updated edition about the Twentieth Century, Zinn wrote: "It is obvious in the very first pages of the larger People's History, when I tell about Columbus and emphasize not his navigational skill and fortitude in making his way to the Western Hemisphere, but his cruel treatment of the Indians he found here, torturing them, exterminating them in his greed for gold, his desperation to bring riches to his patrons back in Spain. In other words, my focus is not on the achievements of the heroes of traditional history, but on all those people who were the victims of those achievements, who suffered silently or fought back magnificently."

I listened to this on audio CD (read by the talented Matt Damon), and the edition focused on the events of the Twentieth Century, including the Vietnam War, the women's movement, the Civil Rights Era, the Clinton presidency and the infamous Bush v. Gore election of 2000. My favorite sections were about the 60s: civil rights, war protests, and the rise of feminism. The complete edition of People's History is more than 700 pages and starts back in 1492 (when "Columbus sailed the ocean blue...").

I first read Zinn's book back in the 90s, but I didn't fully appreciate it. Having more life experience and seeing how much power the rich and powerful really have, I got so much more out of this book this time. I've even referenced it in the sociology class I teach, because so many elements are still relevant.

In his afterword, Zinn wrote: "I wanted, in writing this book, to awaken a greater consciousness of class conflict, racial injustice, sexual inequality, and national arrogance." Sir, you have succeeded.

Raising Steam

Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A young man invents the steam engine and the train and railroad soon follow. Lord Vetinari feels the winds of change blowing and puts Moist von Lipwig in charge of the burgeoning railway industry. But not everyone likes the idea of progress...

Here we are, the 40th Discworld book. Even after 40 books, I forget how clever Terry Pratchett is the time between volumes. I wasn't sold on this at first. The grag subplot felt disjointed and it seemed like old Pratch might have been going off the rails. Then the rhythm caught and soon it was full steam ahead.

Moist and Vetinari were in fine form. I was also pleased to see Vimes, Harry King, Lao-Tze, Mustrum Ridcully, and other old favorites make appearances. The fascination with the Iron Girder and the rest of the trains was completely understandable since I'm part of the large segment of the male population that is oddly fascinated with trains.

The goblins acclimating to life in Ankh-Morpork was another nice touch. The usual Discworld social commentary is present, as is the usual making me grin like a jackass. I even enjoyed the dwarfish subplot as I drew near the end, although it still seemed a little off.

It's not the best Discworld book out there but even on his worst day, Terry Pratchett always manages to keep me entertained. Four out of five stars.




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Hexed

Hexed by Kevin Hearne
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When Tempe's witch population booms, Atticus O'Sullivan is forced to make peace with the members of the former coven and join forces with them to drive the newcomers out of town. But what other deals will he have to make to see his task through to the end?

Hexed is the second volume in the Iron Druid Chronicles and nearly as good as the first. Witches following Bacchus roll into town from Vegas and start shaking things up. Throw in Coyote, Atticus' new apprentice, and some mop from the previous book and Hexed is pretty hard to put down. Once again, Atticus gets bits burned and lopped off, but manages to survive. He also manages to set up the next book.

The magic system in the Iron Druid Chronicles works better for me as a reader than that of the Dresden Files. That might be that Atticus doesn't explain the same things in every book, though. His modern slang continues to get on my nerves, however. I understand that he needs to fit in but his personality doesn't really fit my concept of a 2000 year old being either. He seems more like a typical 30 year old and doesn't display much more wisdom than that. I did appreciate the depth of his pop culture references, although he could stray further from the Butcher repertoire.

Curmudgeonations aside, I still had quite a bit of fun reading this. The widow McDonaugh and Oberon continue to be my favorites among the supporting cast. The witches were further developed and I expect they'll continue being a prominent part of the series. The Morrigan and Brighid seem to have a power struggle brewing.

Hexed shows that Hearne's pulling Atticus from the Harry Dresden mold but the imprints are still pretty clear. Four out of five stars.

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Matthew Scudder faces Danger and a Moral Quandry

This is the second book in Lawrence Block's excellent series featuring Matthew Scudder. It doesn't pack quite the emotional wallop of the first, The Sins of the Fathers, but it's a very good read nonetheless. For those who don't know, Matthew Scudder is an ex cop who lives in New York City and who works as an unlicensed P.I. He left the force under tragic circumstances and has since developed a drinking problem which is here noticeably worse than it was in the first book. His "office" is in a sal...more Reviewed by James L. Thane Four out of five stars This is the second book in Lawrence Block's excellent series featuring Matthew Scudder. It doesn't pack quite the emotional wallop of the first, The Sins of the Fathers, but it's a very good read nonetheless. For those who don't know, Matthew Scudder is an ex cop who lives in New York City and who works as an unlicensed P.I. He left the force under tragic circumstances and has since developed a drinking problem which is here noticeably worse than it was in the first book. His "office" is in a saloon, where he passes most days and evenings drinking coffee laced with bourbon. One afternoon an old acquaintance, "Spinner" Jablon, finds Matt in Armstrong's, the saloon where Matt spends much of his time. Spinner is a minor criminal that Matt knows from his days on the force. Jablon has apparently gotten himself into some sort of trouble and believes that his life may be in danger. He asks Matt to hold an envelope for him and to open it only in the event that something happens to him. Matt presses for an explanation, but Jablon tells him that he'll know what to do if and when he has to open the envelope. Well, obviously, we all know what's going to happen next. Poor Spinner winds up floating in the East River, and when Matt opens the envelope, he discovers that Jablon had been blackmailing three fairly wealthy people. Jablon assumes that one of them will have been responsible for his death and leaves three thousand dollars in the envelope along with the blackmail materials. He wants Matt to discover who killed him and bring him or her to justice. Matt could just stuff the three grand in his pocket and forget about it since his client is no longer around to complain about it. But Matt isn't that kind of guy, and Spinner knew it. Matt feels morally obligated to follow through and so develops a plan for smoking out the killer. But naturally, the best laid plans sometimes have unintended consequences. As a result, Matt finds himself in the middle of a moral quandary and discovers that his own life may now be on the line. This book is now nearly forty years old, but the story is still as gripping as if it were written yesterday. One gets so caught up in it that you're only marginally aware of the fact that it takes place in an era when there were no cell phones or computers and when investigative techniques were significantly more primitive than they are today. Given that this is one of the most celebrated series in all of crime fiction, it's hard to imagine that there's any fan of the genre who has not yet discovered it, but if that should somehow be the case, do yourself a very great favor and look for it.

A Clear And Present Danger...Of Sucking (Yeah, take that Clancy!)

Clear and Present Danger by Tom Clancy
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

There was a clear and present danger that I wasn't going to finish this.

I don't watch soap operas. I used to. I'd get home and General Hospital would be on (Mom was heavily invested in the Luke & Laura saga,) so I got stuck with it. Consequently I know a soap opera when I see one and Clear and Present Danger is a soap opera.

How so? It jumps from character to character, from scene to scene. Some of it's nearly as melodramatic as a soap, but I won't go that far in my analogy. Mainly the issue is in the episodic nature of the storytelling. The scenes are big-time ADHD in how they flitter back and forth.

This has an adverse affect on character development. In fact, it seems as if Clancy attempts to counter this with info dumps. Often he introduces a brand new character, who may not even be particularly important, with a mountainous info-dump… This is Joe Schmoe. Joe was born in Eastbumfuq, IL, went to school at… and a minute later Mr. Schmoe is dead. I know it's a writer's attempt to instill an instant reader-connection to the character so that his death means something, but it doesn't work for me. I don't give a shit if a thousand such Joe Schmoes die at the hands of the baddest of bad guys. Nice try, but perhaps the issue is that you're trying to pack too much stuff into an already chunky book. Emotional bonds take time to develop.

Okay, I've been too nasty those far. Let's look at Clancy's good points...

Action is his strong suit. He puts you right in it. Whether it's firing a gun from a helicopter or stalking an enemy in the jungle, you're in the shit with the characters.

However, if you were to debate that his strongest point is his research and application of military technical details within his books, I would concede. Guns, ships, helicopters, military rank and decorum, wartime politics, spy craft, covert missions, etc etc etc phew-eee! This book grunts and oozes the stuff! I can see how military buffs, special ops fanatics, and "gun nuts" would go gah-gah over a book like this. We've all got our little fetishes and Clancy provides the porn for violent techies. (Before you start calling me a liberal, hippy, pussy, tree hugger or any of that shit, just shut the fuck up. I've owned guns since I was a kid.) I just don't get a woody over firearms anymore. I shot that load when I was pre-teen and moved on. But I guess if reading a Clancy novel satisfies the sort of person that gets off on that shit and it helps them get it out of their system, well then I'm glad these books exist.

Okay, back to the nasty…

Where the F is Jack Ryan? He's barely mentioned in the first half of the book and then when he does show up it's only to look around and ask, "what's going on?" And that is really his only purpose in the book, and it's purposeless. Sure, the main character fumbling about trying to figure out what's going on works great for murder mysteries, but that's because we the reader also don't know what's going on. We're finding out the truth with them. But here we already know what's going on because that's what's being related in the main story. That's the more interesting part! Every time Clancy cuts to Jack the book bogs right down into a full-on snorefest.

Like I said at the top, I almost didn't finish this. After about the midway point the whole freakin' thing turned into one of those snorefests for me. The writing was only adequate, the storytelling too jumpy, the spot-lighted details not my cup of tea. Perhaps if I spiked my tea with testosterone? Nah. I'd only end up inadvertently ripping the book in half out of sheer excitement.


Rating: 2.5 stars. I generously gave it three stars only because I'm in a good mood and GR's rating system is ridged.


* * * * * * * * *

(Note upon the author's death)
Seems like it's becoming a thing where if an author's book sits on my nightstand waiting to be read for more than a couple weeks, the author is doomed to die. Yikes.

Old Mexico Is Alive And Well

Oaxaca: The Spirit of Mexico by Judith Cooper Haden
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Oaxaca...the part of Mexico that doesn't believe it is part of Mexico. Oaxaca: The Spirit of Mexico shows the reader how different this part of the country is compared with the rest.

I say "show" because this is essentially a picture book with lots of captions.



(Above images are from the book. Those below are not.)

Is it different? I don't know. I've only ever been to Tijuana and no country should be judged as a whole by a place like TJ. However, I'm going to Oaxaca for an extended stay and in preparation I am studying up on the place. The only thing I knew about the place is that it has a good deal of history. It stretches back thousands of years, involves conquest and an envelopment of a new culture into the old.





But history is about the dead and there's more to life than history. Cooper-Haden's Oaxaca also made me aware that:

Handicrafts are still ripe in the region...


Traditional regional foods are cherished and maintained...



Holidays celebrated with gusto for hundreds of years...




But also that Oaxacans believe life is for the living, so I'm going to go down there and do just that! This is not the ultimate travel guide, nor is it meant to be. I'll need to pick up something from Lonely Planet or Frommers for that. But I'm glad I snagged this from the library and had a gander. It made me more aware of the place and gave me some must-see sightseeing ideas.

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Eats Shoots & Leaves

Eats Shoots & Leaves
Lynn Truss
The Penguin Group 2003

  Reviewed by carol

  Recommended for fans of writing, communicating

 ★   ★   ★   ★

I confess:  I frequently find myself self-conscious about my use of punctuation. A few years back, I even bought a copy of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, but have yet to read more than a chapter or two at a time before discovering something else to do, even if it’s bathing the dog. Similarly, I procrastinated on reading Eats Shoots & Leaves, and I really shouldn’t have. Full of humor and information, it explains some of the easier nuances to punctuation in a useful and engaging manner.

“The reason it’s worth standing up for punctuation is not that it’s an arbitrary system of notation known only to an over-sensitive elite who have attacks of the vapours when they see it misapplied. The reason to stand up for punctuation is that without it there is no reliable way of communicating meaning… Punctuation directs you how to read, in the way musical notation directs a musician how to play.“


Truss nicely covers the basics of beginner to advanced punctuation with chapters devoted to each:  a rationale for punction, the apostrophe and its many uses, the comma, the semi-colon and colon, the dash, the hyphen, and various brackets. She makes brief mention of the punctuation debate surrounding the Oxford comma, a concept I’ve heard referenced but didn’t understand (Is a comma needed on the noun before ‘and’ when you are making a list? Ex.: “I need to buy cream, coffee and sugar.”)  Use is reviewed from a British-English perspective, but she often makes note of where American-English differs (except for the chapter she hilariously ends with “unless, of course, you are in America“). By integrating short pieces on the history of that particular punctuation, she adds insight into language as an evolving process. In fact, she when talking about the semi-colon, hyphen and dash, she notes how usage is fading with hyphenated words, but the dash is enjoying a resurgence with texting. Examples are pulled from personal accounts, famous writers’ anecdotes, classic literature, plays and newspaper articles, adding interest. 

Humor runs through the book, increasing its readability. Somewhat to my surprise, not only did I find myself enjoying it, but also unwilling to put it down. I found myself chuckling more than once, but that could just be nerd humor. For instance, in the section on apostrophes, she relates a law mentioned in a newspaper column, “the Law of Conservation of Apostrophes. A heresy since the 13th century, this law states that a balance exists in nature: ‘For every apostrophe omitted from an it’s, there is an extra one put into an its.’ Thus the number of apostrophes in circulation remains constant…” She also uses an engaging strategy of relating a particular story, say perhaps, punctuating Keats’ name, then continuing to reference that story as appropriate, making it into a witty running gag (Keats, St Thomas’ Hospital, Gertrude Stein, Starburst).


From the start, Truss acknowledges that those who insist on correct punctuation run the risk of being thought more than a little daft. One of the enjoyable aspects of her writing is how she is willing to acknowledge that truth, and yet continue to make her case for clear communication. One of my favorite sections of self-disparagement was when she calls apostrophe sticklers to arms: 

“Here are the weapons required in the apostrophe war (stop when you start to feel uncomfortable):
correction fluid
big pens
stickers cut in a variety of sizes, both plain
(for sticking over unwanted apostrophes)
and coloured (for inserting where apostrophes are needed)
tin of pait with big brush
guerrilla-style clothing
strong medication for personality disorder
loudhailer

I get that frustration–I really do. While I’m prone to be sloppy with grammar in general and to be forgiving of punctuation while reading books, nothing makes my spine crawl like seeing a post/text/note stating, “I had a busy day taking care of all my patient’s.” (Patient’s what, exactly?)  I wholeheartedly agree with her; punctuation facilitates meaning. It dovetails with my feeling that text messaging is inadequate for more than simple questions, partially due to the lack of nuance from our hastily typed phrases. Punctuation, tedious as it may seem, would help clarify those messages. Besides, if we don’t start using the colon and semi-colon, our little pinky finger on the right hand might start to wither away while we type. Truss says so.  All in all, a great refresher for one not versed in the upper echelons of punctuation philosophy and an entertaining read.

cross-posted at  http://clsiewert.wordpress.com/2014/04/21/eats-shoots-leaves-by-lynne-truss-dont-forget-laughs/