A bunch of books...

Do books come in bunches?  Or are they in piles?  Groups?  Heaps?  Anyway, here is a couple of short reviews of books I have read in the last couple of months, from the great to the not so great.  So, the best first.

Tracy Chevalier: Remarkable Creatures.  What a great novel!  It is in the early half of the 1800s and a poor girl gets her living from discovering and selling fossils from the beach by her home village along England's southern coast.  An unmarried woman and her sisters move to town, mostly because it is a cheaper place to live than London, and she befriends the girl and learns about and collects fossil.

They discovered the most amazing fossils of the time, fossils that were bought and transported to natural history museums in London, Paris, Oxford, and so on.  These fossils were fodder for a lot of discussion in this pre-Darwin era, and fueled scientific thinking.  Plesiosaurs, ichtyosaurs...  However, the women didn't get proper credit, since they were women and fossil collecting and science were unwomanly activities. A few of the contemporary paleontologists gave them proper respect and credit, but the divide was enourmous, especially for Mary who started out illiterate and extremely poor.  For example, women were not allowed even into the meetings of the British Geological Society.

The young woman's name was Mary Anning, and her older friend was Elizabeth Philpot, who specialized in fish fossils.  This book tells the story from their viewpoint.  The general story is true, but it is a novel so gaps have been filled in with possible scenarios.  It is a great book that not only describes natural history and its discoveries in historical context, but also highlights and make the inequality come to life. And that inequality is not just between genders but also between classes and religious groups. I highly recommend this book. So, 5 stars.

Sandra Newman: The Western Lit Survival Kit.  This book is fantastic! Well, near fantastic, because sometimes she goes overboard. I read the whole thing straight through, laughed, smiled and took note on which classics that I wanted to read and which ones I never need to open. Actually, I don't feel the need to read any of the classics after reading this book, I have too many books already here at home waiting to be opened.  Probably around a 100 unread books... and only a few of them are classics.  Like Marco Polo... I want to read that one, but I digress. 

Her style is out of this world funny and knowledgeable. Ah, we need to let high school students have a look in this book! The book is exactly what the subtitle says "An irreverent guide to the classics, from Homer to Faulkner". Each classic book is graded on Importance, Difficulty, and Fun, and she of course admits that that is a very subjective scale she has graded these on. She is not always trying to be dead serious, which is what I like, but some other bibliophiles that have reviewed this book have a problem with that. 4 stars.

Jill Ker Conway has written three memoirs about her life as a child in Australia, student, emigrant to the US to study history at Harvard, her scholarly work on women in history, her years as a Dean at a Canadian university, and then as the President of the small all-female Smith College in Massachusetts.  I reviewed the two first books here on this blog, and they are fantastic and refreshing. 

The writing is exquisite, intellectually so rewarding, and she makes you think.  There was much more anti-woman stuff going on in academia going on back then, but some things are still the same.  And many things that we struggle with today have not changed at all, and they are not based on gender.  People unwilling to change, people that want too much change, the will to look beyond what you have learned in the class, the willingness to discuss without arguing, and so on.

I read her third book recently, A Woman's Education, which is smaller and less strictly a memoir in a way.  It describes her years at Smith College, and goes in depth into how it was to administer a small independent school.  It wasn't all easy, not at all.  What infuses the book is her caring about students and their education, on a very deep, serious level. 

I admire her, she has been a big inspiration in my recent work.  She tries to change the view of some older professors, make reformations in educational thinking, and is seen as a rebellion, but it is how things have to be done.  The world changes and so do we and so do how we do things.  This book I am keeping! 5 stars.

Last book in the pile.... Daniel Beard's The Field and Forest Handy Book. This is a reprint of a 1912 book about camping, scouting, outdoor recreation, hiking, etc., and includes great illustrations, which I think were made by the author as well. Daniel Beard was a co-founder of the Boy Scouts of America, and boy, is this a boyish book.  Girls do not exist.  At least not outside any house.  The book is really a time capsule of how things were back then.

There are many useful skills described in here, how to make a raised platform for a place to sleep in a swamp, how to make a logomaran so you can drift down a river (never ever use fresh wood, or you might sink), how to make fire without matches, how to make a play house, what to eat in camp, and that you should bring a flour sack to make into a pillow case.  He even have instructions on how to build a fire engine. Oh, and even how to make a herbarium is in here.

This book is not really about true survival based on old traditional knowledge like the book Wildwood Wisdom (reviewed on this blog), but about fun wild stuff boys can do outside.  Some certainly has survival tones to it, but some is more silly, like How to Play Pirate and How to Make an Aquarium.  Under Novel Food Used in Camp, he writes: "...Wolf meat is said to be sticky and disagreeable.".  Times were different back then.

Grade?  I am not sure.  Maybe 2-3 stars, but it has certainly historic interest and I would have loved this book when I was 12-14 years old. I learned a lot of useful information that I probably won't have much use for in my life, but that is OK. One day it might come in very handy.

OK, that is it for this batch.  If you read all the way to down here, good for you!  Now you know more than before :)

Congratulations, world.

Today is the 100th International Women's Day.  I have mixed feelings about this day, which I have celebrated over the years.  Why do we need one day to focus on half of humanity? It is the same thing as Black History month.... why not focus on black history and women whenever it is relevant, i.e. at least half the time?

Anyway, congratulations all women of the world.  Without you there would be no more humans.  Neither would there be humans without men, so we should all be equal. Lets row together...

Woman in a rowing boat, about 1890

Collection of National Media Museum/Kodak Museum

Book review: Yrsa Stenius - Makten och kvinnligheten

(Sorry English-speakers, this review is in Swedish, since the book is in Swedish and not translated into English.  Here is the short review: great self-biographical novel from famed leftist journalist, author, and ex-chief editor of Aftonbladet Yrsa Stenius about power, gender, and how we deal with it all, or not deal with it...  insightful, brutally honest, and well worth the read, that is, if you can read Swedish.)

Jag har alltid beundrat Yrsa Stenius.  Jag har inte alltid hållit med henne, men jag har beundrat hennes styrka, och hennes Finlandssvenska dialekt har på något sätt fått hennes ord och kommentarer att kännas mer viktiga än andras.  Jag vet, det är nog inte så, men finskans allvar och samtidiga humor i livets svarta ögonblick färgar nog av sig i finlandssvenskan, iallafall inbillar vi det oss.  I somras hörde jag Yrsa Stenius i en podcast från ett svenskt radioprogram och hon var fantastisk - hon fick mig att tänka, och sånt gillar jag.

I boken Makten och kvinnligheten, som är självbiografisk och väldigt självutlämnande utan att vara överdrivet personlig, så skriver hon om sin livskris efter att hon avgått som chefredaktör för Aftonbladet.  Boken handlar om hur vi vill ha makt och blir beroende av den, hur vi ofta tror att vi är inget utan makt, och behöver iallafall lite makt över någon eller vår situation, och hur makten utnyttjas och påverkar.  Och kvinnor reagerar annorlunda än män generellt när de ställs inför någon med makt, får makt, eller förlorar den.  Makt låter som något mest politiker har, men Yrsa skriver om den i vardagslivet, och makten vi har (eller inte har) över våra livsval, våra kärlekar, karriärer, och hur makten eller bara aningen av lite makt kan påverka oss i livet.  Hon beskriver hur hon klappade ihop och hamnade på psyket efter att ha förlorat sin makt, och till slut vågade vara maktlös, och hur hon hittade tillbaks till sig själv och sin självkänsla.  Jag tror Yrsa Stenius är en av de modigaste människor jag känner till i Skandinavien, för iallafall i Sverige undviker man att sticka ut från mängden, undviker att prata om obehagliga ämnen (och där ingår makt), och den intressehämmande men alltför vanliga ytligheten flyter ofta över alltihop, speciellt i medie- och politikervärlden. I den här boken rannsakar hon sig själv och sina val, och bygger styrka ur sina svagheter. Många kvinnor (och män) borde läsa den och tänka efter ett tag.  Underbart och tack, Yrsa! 

Här är ett kort utdrag:

"Simone de Beauvoir uppmuntrade inte mitt kvinnliga självförtroende, så som jag alltid har påstått. Nej hon stimulerade mitt personliga självförtroende trots att jag var kvinna.  {...} Jag brukade henne till att fördriva mina kvinnodrömmar, plåna ut dem ofullgångna ur mitt medvetande. Jag ersatte dem med något dubbeltydigt som handlade om framgång i männens värld, om att förtjäna deras uppmärksamhet, uppskattning och uppvaktning genom att vara en av dem, lika duktig, om inte duktigare "

OK snapshot: Stockholm sunset

Denna över Marieberg. Kan väl symbolisera kulturskymningen i svensk dagspress...
(This one over Marieberg. It can symbolize the cultural dawn that is sinking down over daily Swedish newspapers. [Marieberg is the little mountain on Kungsholmen where Dagens Nyheter and Expressen have their offices - those tall buildings in the distance.])

LS comments:
Swedish newspapers are struggling just as American ones, and what sells the most (crime, drama, entertainment, and other mayhem) is not really what can be considered high culture...(which some think is just snobbish intellectualism... but I don't agree 100%). Fewer and fewer pages are printed in the morning papers, and the giant online dragon is Aftonbladet (also in print), who mostly has sold out to the mayhem-addicted. I read Aftonbladet all the time online, but half the time it makes me sick. But it still has lots of currently updated news from around the world, mixed in with the latest in plastic surgery, weather chaos, grisly murders, and recent school bullyings.

Currently the top headline in the online edition of Aftonbladet is "Obama furious at North Korea" (something serious to look like a serious paper), but this is followed below by "Hand was stitched on the foot -9-year old girl had miraculous operation" (gross me out and make me in awe thing), "Several trucks blowed off road" (the usual weather chaos thing), "Your child will become obese due to bad sleep" (scare me in the everyday life thing).

Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet are the two old morning papers in Stockholm, fierce competitors, and both try to be very serious until they too dip their feet into the reality TV shows and Zlatans latest outburst. Then there is Expressen, Aftonbladets competitor, an evening newspaper also online and in print - but not at all as big as 'aftonslasken' ('the evening garbage'). These are all in Stockholm, and on the West Coast there are a few more papers.

Aftonbladet was in deep dodo about 20 years ago but managed to turn a bad situation around by focusing more on the 'soft issues', i.e., home, women, food, health, parenting... and becoming less macho (=sports, economy). There is a great documentary radio program in Swedish about the macho culture on Aftonbladet back then, when a few women who wrote a report about it which became rather infamous (and important) and how their newspaper office is today. Yrsa Stenius has also written about the culture at newspapers in Sweden in her great book Makten och kvinnligheten (The Power and The Feminitity), which I will review here at some point.

But the point here is that there used to be a lot of culture, analysis, deep thought, and funky stuff in these newspapers (like New York Times still has), but it is largely gone or at least minimized. There is still reviews and important articles about art, theater, books, philosophy, movies of course, but it has become much more shallow, especially in Aftonbladet, I think. So, the sun is setting over the cultural departments at the
Swedish newspapers.... I am sure there is lots of interesting things to read in other media forms, such as magazines and blogs... but an old tradition is fading. The times they are a'changin'.

BP = before present (oil spill and pink assumptions)

The oil is still gushing out from a giant toxic sludge sewer pipe, killing and poisoning, and BP is getting more and more disliked. There is a contest going on to redesign BP's logo to a more fitting one, from the green and yellow flower to something infused with oil, like these dead animals.There are many suggestions on how to fix the leak and the spill too...

On a totally unrelated note, I find that people who insist that baby pink T-shirts for women and green T-shirts for men (with no option to switch or choose) to not be a sexist thing to be very, very oblivious, uneducated and misinformed about gender roles and prejudice.  Let the men have some pink shirts if they like, and don't assume the women should have pink, please. This happened today at work, as part of a public celebration...  Pink is fine as a personal choice, but not as an assumption and expectation linked to all people with XX chromosomes.  (And don't get me started on pink toys and clothes for little girls... pink stinks even more there).

Book review: True North - memoir by Jill Ker Conway

Jill Ker Conway has written two memoirs, both of which are excellent but maybe not of interest to everyone.  The first one is called The Road from Coorain, and describes her upbringing in the 1930s on a drought-stricken sheep farm in rural Australia and her subsequent move into to the city to be able to attend higher education. It also describes her difficult relationship with a mother with mental and control issues.  When that book ends, Jill has just accepted a graduate school position in Boston, USA, so she is about to move to the other side of the world.

The second book, True North, describes her experience as an immigrant and academic, first in the US, and later in Canada.  It is a wonderful book, and it describes in detail how it was (and sometimes still is) to be a female in a male-dominated university environment.

As a historian Jill focused on women's roles and attitudes in the 1800s and 1900s, and she eventually became one of the most cited authors in this field.  She also describes how it was to live with her husband's mental illness (bipolar), how to stand the Canadian winters, struggles with the old guard when it comes to improve and renew university courses, and how she eventually first became a vice-president at University of Toronto (at 37) and then the president of Smith College in the US when she was only 40 years old. It is a gorgeously written book, and many times I recognize my own experiences in what she writes. It is a wonderful book about love, immigration and emigration, feminism, sexism, and teaching.

Here is a little excerpt - Jill has just arrived in the US and been introduced to three female graduate students that will become some of her best friends at Harvard:

"The conversations all evening were so easy I took to them like an addict to a drug. I'd never lived in a place where I didn't have to censor my words and edit my emotions. In Australia, one mustn't offend by being too abstract. Puns based on too much learning would certainly fall flat. Double entendres based on several languages would miss the mark. Admitting that one wanted to be a great scholar, perhaps the best in one's field, just wasn't done. It was a shameful secret to hide behind a well-polished exterior carefully contrived from the pages of Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. Suddenly I could say whatever came into my mind, not just to a lover, but to a group of people like myself. I wasn't quite sure when would happen if I began to express my innermost thoughts, but I could feel the surge of adrenaline that the very idea of actually being myself set going."

This reminds me of when I came to the US.  For the first time I felt free of society's 'how you are supposed to be'-rules, frequently imposed by friends, teachers, media, and so on.  In Sweden the Jante law was in full blossom, and when I arrived in America nobody knew who I really was, what my background was, what I was supposed to be, so I could shed any image and start afresh.  It was wonderful!  And people here are so tolerant and curious about you in a very good way.

The image of the US in Sweden are often shallow and based on commercial and entertainment interests (Hollywood, music, TV series, New York cabs, crime statistics, crazy presidents), but the truth is that this is a diverse country with enormous possibilities for people to do what they want.  Of course there are horrible and unfair things here too, all I am saying is that the image of US is simplified in many countries abroad (and vice versa).  The same thing goes for the image of Sweden when you are in other countries.  The reality is always more gritty and complex than many of us want to admit. It is so much more convenient to simplify and not deal with the complexity of it all.

I recommend this book to anybody that teaches at a university or college, anybody interested in history and the role of women in society, anybody that has ever moved from one country to another for a longer time, and for anybody that want to read something good and intellectual. This is not an easy-read crime story for entertainment; this book is about life and it is complex, just as life is. Thanks Jill for sharing!

Offensive holiday

Today is National Men Make Dinner Day here in the US. True. Need I say more? I hope not. It is offensive to both men and women that this holiday was even contocted and part of the calendar, I think.

What we had for dinner tonight, mostly leftovers:
chili oil rubbed poissons (little chicks)
smoked pork chops
brunkål
caramelized onions cooked in apple cider
mixed greens salad
black beans cooked with smoked pork neck bones
Mmmm, it was all good.

Book review: West with the Night by Beryl Markham

Sunset on mountains in Kenya. (cc) Clairepants on Flickr.

"Ahead of me lies a land that is unknown to the rest of the world and only vaguely known to the African - a strange mixture of grasslands, scrub, desert sand like long waves of the southern ocean. Forest, still water, and age-old mountains, stark and grim like mountains of the moon. Salt lakes, and rivers that have no water. Swamps. Badlands. Land without life. Land teeming with life - all of the dusty past, all of the future. The air takes me into its realm. Night envelopes me entirely, leaving me out of touch with the earth, leaving me within this small moving world, of my own, living in space with the stars. "

West with the Night is the autobiography by Beryl Markham (1902-1986) about her childhood in the early 1900s on a horse farm in Kenya among African hunters and cheetahs. She became a horse trainer (first female licensed one in the country), and she later learned to fly and became one of the first bush pilots in Kenay, a dangerous and lonely job. Karen Blixen's husband Baron von Blixen was an elephant safari organizer and hired her to scout ot where the elephants where, and she had an affair with him (but this is not mentioned in the book). She does talk about him as a tall Swede that wasn't afraid of anything. Later she flew to Europe and was the first woman that flew solo over the Atlantic from the east (Europe) to the west (North America) in 1936. Other had tried but died. All of these topics are spectacular, but what is even more spectacular is her writing. Gorgeous, detailed, emotional, like impressionist paintings but with words. It is one of the best books I have read in a long, long while. It wasn't published until 1942, and then forgotten and republished in 1983 to great acclaim. There is some question if she wrote the book by herself, but I choose to believe so, if nothing else because it feels like she telling her story in a way that only someone that experienced these amazing, scary, and intensive things could.

Ernest Hemingway liked her book too and said in a letter:
"Did you read Beryl Markham's book, West With The Night? ...She has written so well, and marvelously well, that I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer. I felt that I was simply a carpenter with words, picking up whatever was furnished on the job and nailing them together and sometimes making an okay pig pen."
He wasn't bad with words either. :)

She also has a crater (Markham) on Venus named after her, quite an honor. Just read this book. I loved it and know I will read it again later in my life.

Ketchup no 2

I couldn't find a stamp with ketchup, but I found this Del Monte ketchup ad from 1953 instead. Maybe typical of the times, but today this ad would never be used... I have a horrible time opening jars and bottles with my hands, but I find this ad funny and offensive at the same time. These days there should be an ad of those blister packs of pills and the text should say: "You mean a human could open this?"