Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn

This is a re-read for me, which is a big deal! In fact, it just came to my attention that I've actually read it 3 times!


I loved this book! It is a very creative story told in letters. The letters are missives sent amongst the citizens  of the island of Nollop. Nollop was named for Nevin Nollop, the man who created the pangram sentence "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog."

The latest news is that letters have begun to fall off of the commemorative statue. The town council determines this to be evidence that Nollop, from the grave, is declaring that those letters should no longer be used by his people.

Ella is one of the central characters in the story. Epistles eventually become the only safe way to communicate with one another as the town council declares severe legal action against anyone who uses the forbidden letters. And so, as letters drop from the statue, so do they drop from the novel.

Dunn's choice to tell his story in this manner is a fresh and humorous way to look at the very serious subject of censorship.


*pangram: a sentence or phrase that includes all the letters of the alphabet '

Do you track your reading?

I have been tracking my reading since 2004. Originally, I was keeping a hand-witten list of each book as I read it. Then I advanced to using a spreadsheet. In January 2007 I found a site which made it a relatively easy and enjoyable task.

http://www.librarthing.com/  (but more about that later, in detail below)

Why track your reading? Being able to see what you've read is useful in many ways. One can feel a sense of accomplishment when observing what they read, especially if it includes setting goals for your reading. Tracking your reading allows you to give better book recommendations. It allows you to join discussions about books, as well as reading groups. Books are a great way to relate to others. Tracking your reading also allows you to better see the types of books to which you gravitate and might inspire you to stretch yourself to attempt genres you previously ignored.

Using LibraryThing is really very easy. And I'll give you some tips here that will make it even easier. You may use the site to enter up to 200 books for free. Once you determine you wish to enter more than 200 books you may enter as many as you like for $10 a year or simply pay $25 for a lifetime membership to the site. That's what I did, and right away. I also bought a lifetime membership for one of my brothers.

The easiest way to learn about the use and functionality of the site is to follow this tour:
http://www.librarything.com/tour/
just keep clicking "next" as it goes from tip to tip.

The sit allows users to "tag" or label their books any way they wish. Doing so allows you to sort the books in various ways. Examples of tags include bot are not limited to: fictio, non fiction, mystery, intimacy, juvenile, series, movie tie-ins, month and year read, etc.

Even obscure titles may be added. If the book is not to be found in the 690 libraries associated with the site, you may add it on your own, using the information you have at hand.

The site will display all sorts of facts pertaining directly to the books you log. I find it interesting to look at these every once and a while.

If you join, let me know, and I'll befriend you on the site so we can see each other's bookshelves.

An Innocent, A Broad by Ann Leary

Travel during pregnancy is generally thought to be okay. But what happens if you dare to leave the US
 for a quick trip to England and then go into really early labor? That's just what happened to Ann and
Denis Leary. A trip that was meant to last for a weekend ended up lasting five and a half months.
(Denis Leary is a comedian and you may be familiar with his voice as Diego in the Ice Age films.)


Baby Jack is ultimately born in England, three months early and weighing 2# 6oz.

I loved this book. I could really relate to it because of the fact that during our first pregnancy I traveled
to London with my husband on one of his business trips. Our trip was in 1995. I read this book in 2006.
We later moved our family to Surrey, England from Aug 2007 - December 2009.

I have great compassion for Ann and Denis. We chose to move to England. They chose to visit but ended
up having to stay, while facing an emergency situation. Ann relates their story with candor and much humor.

The Children's Blizzard by David Laskin

It was a milder than usual morning on the 12th of January 1888. North and South Dakota, Minnesota and Nebraska...the people are happy for a break from the winter weather. They begin to go about their day with little care.


Unfortunately, hindsight is 20/20. The weather to come later that day brought utter disaster. The storm that is the subject of this book is the same storm written about by Laura Ingalls Wilder, in her books.

This book gets a bit heavy with weather terminology in a couple of chapters. But the author also weaves MANY stories of various immigrants lives throughout the book...don't try to keep them straight, just keep reading. Actually, the second time I read this book I read it aloud to two of our children, ages 11 and 10 at the time. Skip the weather terminology if you must, don't let it stop you from hearing the events of the blizzard and how it affected the people it struck. This is a piece of unpredictable, fascinating, American history.

Mister God, This is Anna by Fynn 1974

London's dockland, outside a baker's shop, night-time two to three years before the start of World War II, is where it all began. Fynn, a young man of age 19, stepped out of the shop and saw what appeared to be a stray four-year old girl sitting near a heating vent. He sat down and shared the silence with her and then shared his hot dogs with her...and so began the biggest adventure of his life.

He enquired and found her name to be "Anna". She came to be known to him variously as Mouse, Hum, Joy, or Tich. Finding that no one loved or cared for her he did what any loving person would do and took her home where she lived with him and his family until her death shortly before she reached the age of 8 years old. In that short time they experienced a lifetime of learning, together.

Fynn had an insatiable thirst for mathematics which he quenched in his spare time. She would request that he read passages of his studies aloud and they would discuss them together; and this was extremely advanced mathematics which lead to the exploration of tengential subjects at whim. Words, numbers, ideas, mirrors, colored glasses all became things...ways to understand God better.

From this Anna determined, and explained to Fynn that:

God has an infinite number of viewing points.

Mister God (her name for him) is empty because he accepted everything as opposed to reflecting it back as light does.

She was never willing to put God in a box because she realized he was bigger than any of our meaningless labels of him.

Examples of a conversations between Anna and Fynn follow:

"Fynn," she said quietly, "compare two with three."
"One less," I murmured in a fug of contentment.
"Um. Now compare three with two."
"One more."
"That's right, one les is the same as one more."
"Uh-huh," I grunted, "one less is the same as... ~~HEY!"
pg. 47

"Mister God goes right through my middle and I go right through Mister God's middle." This was discovered as she played with two brass rings which were inherently linked.
pg. 50

"Ain't it funny, Fynn: Every number is the answer to squillions of questions?"
pg. 65

"It's all pretty obvious, so obvious that it would take an idiot not to see it! We all know that Mister God made man in his own image and images are found in mirrors. Mirrors turned you back to front or left to right. Images were take-away things. So putting it all together, Mister God was and Mister God is on one side of the mirror, Mister God was on the add side. We were on the other side of the mirror so we were on the take-away side. We ought to have known that. When Mum puts the toddler down and backs off a few paces she does so in order to encourage the toddler to walk to her. So did Mister God. Mister God puts you down on the take-away side of the mirror and then asks you to find your way to the add side of the mirror. You see he wants you to be like him." pg. 102

The bigger the difference between God and his creation, the more God-like God becomes. But Sunday school teachers have it wrong because they emphasize God's God-ness by keeping God the same size...and making people smaller. 105

"Two kinds of light: a pretend one and a real one. Lucifer and Mister God. " 120

"Being safe meant not doing things at all; being saved meant trusting in another." 131

God's biggest miracle was the seventh day because that is when He created rest. Rest could only be created when all the "muddle" was organized (by Him). 133

Ultimately, their world became a world of questions and anwers; one in which the questions were the more important of the two, because they led to more and better questions and deeper understanding, along with a greater sense of how little we really know.

People go to church to understand God less because it is only as we come to understand how little we know that we can truly fathom God's true being. 106

In writing of their story, Fynn never set out to dwell on the hurt that the loss of Anna brought. Anna taught him how to really live and eventually he carried on in that which would make her very happy, indeed. Anna's life was so well-lived and she was so wise that the end of her life didn't really mark the end of something; it definitely marked the beginning of the rest of her adventure.

And so I will end my review of this book on this note:

Once when asked by someone "You're a bit young for this, aren't you, little one?"
...he got his answer, "I'm old enough to live, mister," said Anna quietly.
pg. 150

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot 5*

I could write a book about this book. I'll try not to.


I've been thinking lately that it has been a while since I read a gripping but informative non fiction book. And here's the one that fit the bill. I'll ask that you at least read my full review before determining whether or not you think you are interested in reading this book. Trust me, it is powerful, and moving.


I bet you've never heard of Henrietta Lacks, right?


Henrietta Lacks was a young woman, the mother of five children, who grew up poor on a Southern tobacco farm. Born on 1 August 1920, she died on 4 October 1951. At the age of 31 she was diagnosed with a particularly virulent form of cervical cancer. At the time of her surgery, her doctor, of course, took cells to examine them.


Henrietta's doctor, Jones, performed a study with TeLinde, hoping to distinguish differences between two types of cervical cancer. TeLinde wanted to grow living samples from normal cervical tissue for further study. He contacted George Gey. George Gey, his wife, and his colleagues hoped to grow the first-ever immortal cells in their lab. They did.


Those cells were given the cell-line name of HeLa; the first two initials of each of her names.


The problem? Henrietta wasn't asked if her cells could be used for research. It was twenty years after her death that her family found out about the use of her cells in science. The situation which arose is now one of hot debate. Tissues do not fall under the same laws as our actual bodies. There are no actual laws preventing the use of our tissues once they have been willingly removed and left behind. Most hospitals don't sufficiently give notice to their clients that their tissues can, and will likely be used in such a way. "In 2006, some seven hundred new mothers found out that doctors had taken their placentas without consent to test for abnormalities that might help the hospital defend itself against future lawsuits over birth defects." Now, wouldn't you rest easier if you'd been one of those people who want to take your baby's placenta home to plant beneath a tree? I think I would. Really.


What happens to cells or other unneeded or unwanted parts of your body which you leave behind in a lab or hospital? Are they being used for research? Are they being used nobly? Are they being used for evil? Are resarchers or large for-profit companies making millions of dollars from them? These are the questions that were raised by Henrietta's family. The questions remain unanswered.


Another problem was later realized. Henrietta's cells were unusual in that they grew so easily. After much time it was finally determined that her cells grew with such wild abandon because of her cancer and other health issues. Her cells are still unusual for their ability to continue growing with such ease. From that it was discovered that cancer cells contain a protein called telomerase which prevents them from aging and dying in the manner of normal, healthy human cells. And so, her cell line is still alive today.


Over the years her family finally came to grips with the fact that the cells were taken without permission having been given. They also, reluctantly, have come to realize they are not going to benefit financially even though the amount of cells now existing, directly from the initial samples, would weigh 50 million metric tons. Yes, you read that correctly.


The good that arose from the unethical use of her cells, however, is essentially unfathomable.


In fact, the Pap Smear test was developed because of knowledge based on the use of her cells in the lab. The first HeLa factory was originated precisely for the ability to research a cure for polio.


The cells were used to prove that the vaccine would be safe and effective and wasn't offered to children until after that. HeLa cells were used for neutralization tests as proof that vaccinated children were, indeed, immune to polio after injection of the vaccine. Previously, monkey cells had been used. That was an expensive proposition. Being able to use an "immortal" cell-line saved millions of dollars.


The evil in medical research has been around since the first stirrings of curiousity. Graves have been robbed, people infected with disease on purpose so that researchers could learn from it; slaves were taken in the night, Jews from Nazi camps were used as live subjects. People being tricked into joining research studies without being given full disclosure is something that is still ocurring. I could go on, but I won't. With today's technology, the threat of bioterrorism is scary.


Further good that has arisen from use of Henrietta's cells is the mapping of the human genome. Two genes for breast cancer have been discovered. However, the company that discovered them has patented the information. Many other companies who were doing research along the same avenue then gave it up as they couldn't fight the legal issues that would have arisen. Are we perhaps now losing information because business has entered into the world of research? Once again, the good and bad go hand in hand. "There is some evidence to support (this) claim. One survey found that 53 percent of laboratories had stopped offereing or developing at least one genetic test because of patent enforcement, and 67 percent fel tpatents interfered with medical research."


"In 1999 The Rand Corporation (estimated) that more than 307 million tissue samples from more than 178 million people were stored in the US alone. ... "This number, the report said, was increasing by more than 20 million samples each year. The samples come from routine medical procedures, tests, operations, clinical trials, and research donations. They sit in lab freezers, on shelves, or in industrial vats of liquid notrogen. They're stored at military facilities, the FBI, and the National Institutes of Health. They're in biotech company labs and most hospitals. Biobanks store appendixes, ovaries, skin, sphincters, testicles, fat, even foreskins from most circumcisions. They also house blood samples taken from most infants born in the United States since the late sixties, when states started mandating the screening of all newborns for genetic diseases."


And what of that? What is being done with the information the government is taking from our children at birth. Can the information be used against them or us in the future? Could we be denied insurance, or worse, even medical care, if it is known that we are due to be even sicker in the future, from diseases we don't even know that we have?


"Lori Andrews, director of the Institute for Science, Law and Technology at the Illinois Institute of Technology, wants something more drastic: she has called for people to get policymakers' attention by becoming "conscientious objectors in the DNA draft" and refusing to give tissue samples."


In opposition, '"David Korn, vice provost for research at Harvard University, argues that giving patients control over their tissues is shortsighted. "Sure," he says, "consent feels nice. Letting people decide what's going to happen with their tissue seems like the right thing to do. But consent diminishes the value of tissue." To illustrate this, Korn points to the Spanish flu pandemic. In the 1990s, scientists used stored tissue samples from a soldier who died in 1918 to recreate the virus's genome and study why it was so deadly, with hopes of uncovering information about the current avian flu." This intriguing line of thought continues on page 304 in the book. I urge you to read the book for yourself.


But I will include one more thoughtful portion here: "Science is not the highest value in society," Andrews says, pointing instead to things like autonomy and personal freedom. "Think about it," she says. "I decide who gets my money after I die. It woudln't harm me if I died and you gave all my money to someone else. But there's somethign psychologically beneficial to me as a living person to know I can give my money to whoever I want. No one can say, 'She shouldn't be allowed to do that with her money because that might not be most beneficial to society' But replace the word with money in that sentence with tissue, and you've got precisely the logic many people use to argue against giving donors any control over their tissues.


(http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-way-of-all-flesh/)


http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/01/st_henrietta/


Five Reasosn http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-01/five-reasons-henrietta-lacks-most-important-woman-medical-history


As an aside I will add that I when I was very young my dad came home from work each day and sat down to watch the early news report on television. I vividly remember hearing the word cancer and President Nixon being involved with the story. It has stuck with me through the years. I even remembered the general story correctly. Skloot notes on page 169: "Just three weeks after Henrietta's name was first published, Richard Nixon signed the National Cancer Act into law and launched the War on Cancer, designating $1.5 billion for cancer research over the next three years. In a move many believe was intended to distract attention from the Vietnmam War, Nixon announced that scientists would cure cancer within five years, just in time for the United States Biecntennial." Hmmm...he stole President Kennedy's tactic from the space race. Too bad it didn't work the way he projected. Bummer, that.


So far, I've probably made the book sound sort of boring. But it isn't! The author has creatively intertwined all the science with a tale of heartbreak, forgiveness, love, and legacy. She tells us about Henrietta Lacks and many details of the lives of her descendants. Deborah, one of Henrietta's five children, took the place of matriarch in the family and kept them all as together as was possible. I will quote two of the most moving portions of the book now, to end my review:


Deborah: "When he (Lurz) asked if she was okay, her eyes welled with tears and she said, "Like I'm always telling my brothers, if you gonna go into history, you can't do it with a hate attitude. You got to remember, times was different."


Over more than a decade, the long-held atheism of the author of this book, Rebecca Skloot, was even challenged. She was handed a Bible to read aloud from for the first time in her life after a powerful moment between Henrietta's daughter, Deborah, and Deborah's cousin, Gary. The passage follows:"'Those who believe in me will live, even though they die; and those who live and believe in me will never die."


"Gary flipped to another passage for me to read: "Someone will ask, 'How can the dead be raised to life? What kind of body will they have?' You fool! When you plant a seed in the ground it does not sprout to life unless it dies. And what you plant is a bare seed...not the full-bodied plant that will later grow up. God provides that seed with the body he wishes; he gives each seed its own proper body."


"'Henrietta was chosen,' Gary whispered.

I found this really funny blog today.

It's run by two librarians on a quest to weed-out, and make note of, the worst library books they can find on their library's shelves!

http://awfullibrarybooks.wordpress.com/

Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt

Living forever sounds great, doesn't it? In this beautifully prosaic book Ms. Babbitt explores, through story, the possibility that it might not be such a great thing.


Winnie Foster feels trapped by her overprotective mother. Her life is forever changed when she stumbles upon Jesse Tuck drinking water from a spring beneath a giant oak tree. Jesse prevents Winnie from drinking from the spring; he knows that the water is the key to eternal life on earth. Not knowing what to do next Jesse takes Winnie back to his family's cabin where she learns enough to determine for herself whether eternal life on earth might really not be the blessing most would think.

This book has been made into a film by Disney. I'll admit that I enjoyed the film although it was several years ago. I saw the film before having the chance to read the book. Of course, I am certain the book is better than the film. It is a rare film that ends up being better than the book from which it is derived.


Tuck Everlasting is the most beautifully written book I think I have ever read. Babbitt's words evoke stunning imagery not easily matched.

My favorite quote:





"Don't be afraid of death; be afraid of an unlived life. You don't have to live forever, you just have to live." 

Love in the Library by Jimmy Buffet

Now, I know my blog is a book-review blog and I aim to keep it on focus.
But I have to tell you of my favorite song which happens to be book-related.

Love in the Library



By: Jimmy Buffett, Mac McAnally


1994

On the corner of Government and Bay Avenue

The old doomsday fanatic wore a crown of kudzu

Sirens were wailing in the Gulf Coastal heat

And it seemed like the whole world was in forced retreat



Paid no attention, revolved through the door

Past the newspaper racks on the worn marble floor

Near Civil War history my heart skipped a beat

She was standing in fiction stretched high on bare feet



Chorus:

Love in the library

Quiet and cool

Love in the library

There are no rules

Surrounded by stories

Surreal and sublime

I fell in love in the library

Once upon a time



I was the pirate, she was the queen

Sir Francis and Elizabeth, the best there's ever been

Then she strolled past my table and stopped at the stairs

Then sent me a smile as she reached for Flaubert



Chorus:

Love in the library

Quiet and cool

Love in the library

There are no rules

Surrounded by stories

Surreal and sublime

I fell in love in the library

Once upon a time



She gathered her books, walked while she read

Words never spoken, but so much was said

You can read all you want into this rendezvous

But it's safer than most things that lovers can do



Well stories have endings, fantasies fade

And the guard by the door starts drawing the shade

So write your own ending and hope it comes true

For the lovers and strangers on Bay Avenue



Chorus:

Love in the library

Quiet and cool

Love in the library

There are no rules

Surrounded by stories

Surreal and sublime

I fell in love in the library

Once upon a time



Surrounded by stories

Surreal and sublime

I fell in love in the library

Once upon a time



 

An Abundance of Katherines by John Green

Colin has been dumped. Again. This is the NINETEENTH time he has been dumped. Not only that...it's the nineteenth time he has been dumped by a "Katherine".


Colin's best friend is Hassan. Hassan is always straight with Colin; he tells it like it is. Hassan believes that the only way for Colin to move forward is for him to actually move and so he suggests that they go on an unplanned roadtrip. They wander the open road until they spot a sign which reads :


"EXIT 212 ¬SEE THE GRAVE OF ARCHDUKE FRANZ FERDINAND¬
THE CORPSE THAT STARTED WORLD WAR I."


Colin doubts the veracity of such a statement but Hassan sees the sign as an opportunity (and a chance to stop heading south since the farther south they go, the hotter it becomes.) And so they pull off in seardch of directions to the site.


Soon, Colin and Hassan settle down...in Gutshot, Tennessee, of all places. They are offered food and a place to stay in return for thier assistance in chronicling the town's past. Their employer is Hollis, current owner of the largest factory in town; it's a textile mill...the makes, of all things, tampon strings.


As the two begin to settle Colin's mind begins to develop the idea that there must be a way to mathematically represent the success and failure trajectory of relationships. If only he can develop a viable mathematical theory, he might be able to predict the outcome of future relationships and save himself all sorts of heartache.


Along the way, Colin becomes good friends with Lindsey Lee Wells, daughter of his new employer. Lindsay instructs Colin in the way to tell a good story (one of my favorite passages in the book):


"And you need a good, strong moral. Or a theme or whatever. And the other things is romance and adventure. You've got to put some of those in. If it's a story about peeing into a lion cage, give yourself a girlfriend who notices how gigantic your winky is and then saves you from the lion at the last second by tackling you, because she's desperate to save that gorgeous, ginormous wkiny." Colin blushed, but Lindsey kept going. "In the beginning, you need to pee; in the middle, you do; in the end, through romance and adventure, your winky is saved from the jaws of a hungry lion by the pluck of a young girl motivated by her abiding love for giant winkies. And the moral of the story is that a heroic girlfriend, combined with a giant winky, will save you from even the most desperate sitautions."


Lindsey and Colin work together closely and come up with the answers to the theorem he was developing. Lindsey and Colin end up learning what things really make a person matter. They find that longing also adds to you as much as it detracts from you; it helps to make you the person you become. Eventually Colin realizes that "stories don't just make us matter to each other--maybe they're also the only way to the infinite mattering he'd been after for so long." He also realizes that we all have stories. We change each other by the telling of our stories; by the intertwining of our stories, even in the tiniest ways. Realizing this allowed Colin the first opportunity he'd ever had to know that he could reinvent himself. He didn't have to continue living life the same way he'd always done. He knew that his theorem, and others, could help to predict outcomes but he also realized that theorems don't control people's lives; people have the ultimate control over their lives.


And this...is really just the beginning for Colin.