Review of Dreaming in Chinese, by Deborah Fallows

Cross Cultural, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review, Travel, True Stories 0

Dreaming in Chinese

Mandarin Lessons in Life, Love, and Language

by Deborah Fallows

Walker & Co., New York, 2010. 205 pages.
Starred Review

I’ve always loved books about the cross-cultural experience of living in another country. Deborah Fallows has a PhD in Linguistics, and makes her story even more interesting by reflecting on aspects of the Mandarin language and the ways they are reflected in the Chinese people and culture.

She and her husband lived in China for three years, and this book is a fascinating look at her experiences. Don’t tell, but I’m already plannning to give a copy to my nephew for his birthday — He just spent two semesters studying in China. I wonder if he will have noticed some of these same things.

The author explains why the language lens worked so well for her:

“The language paid me back in ways I hadn’t fully anticipated. It was my lifeline to our everyday survival in China. My language foibles, many of which I have recounted in this book, taught me as much as my rare and random successes. The language also unexpectedly became my way of making some sense of China, my telescope into the country. Foreigners I met and knew in China used their different passions to help them interpret China: artists used China’s art world, as others used Chinese cooking, or traditional medicine, or business, or music, or any number of things they knew about. I used the language, or more precisely, the study of the language.

“As I tried to learn to speak Mandarin, I also learned about how the language works — its words, its sounds, its grammar and its history. I often found a connection between some point of the language — a particular word or the use of a phrase, for example — and how that point could elucidate something very “Chinese” I would encounter in my everyday life in China. The language helped me understand what I saw on the streets or on our travels around the country — how people made their livings, their habits, their behavior toward each other, how they dealt with adversity, and how they celebrated.

“This book is the story of what I learned about the Chinese language, and what the language taught me about China.”

Her result is completely fascinating. You will enjoy this book if you are at all curious about people and language.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/dreaming_in_chinese.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of As We Forgive, by Catherine Claire Larson

Forgiveness, Nonfiction Review, Personal Growth, Starred Review, True Stories 0

As We Forgive
Stories of Reconciliation from Rwanda

by Catherine Claire Larson

Zondervan, 2009. 284 pages.
Starred Review

This powerful and moving book tells the stories of seven survivors of the Rwandan genocide, and their difficult journeys to forgiveness and reconciliation.

Each story is heart-wrenching. But each survivor was able to rise above the horrendous things they experienced. That any one of these people is able to forgive is mind-blowing. Taken together, the book clearly makes the case that the path to healing lies in forgiveness.

And you won’t be ever be able to look at people who’ve wronged you as harshly again. If these survivors, whose families were killed, often before their eyes, can forgive and find healing, well, what has anyone ever done to me that even comes close?

And this book even tells stories of survivors who reach out in reconciliation to the one who harmed them, as they begin to put their nation back together again.

I like Appendix 2 at the back. It lists “Choices on the Way to Peace” for both the Victim and the Offender. Here’s the list for the Victim:

Steps to Forgiveness:
Step 1
– I face my truth.
– I move from denial to grieving the loss.
– I open my wounds and begin to heal my pain and shame.
– I forgive myself and cease blaming.
– I accept God’s forgiveness.

Step 2
The first hand of forgiveness …
I let go of my bitterness and the right to revenge.

Step 3
The second hand of forgiveness …
I confront the offender with a request to uphold my dignity by restoring something of what was lost.

Step 4
I become open to accepting the humanity and dignity of the offender — and even the possibility of restoring the relationship.

I especially like Step 3, because when you think of forgiveness, you don’t necessarily think of asking for restitution. But this list affirms that asking for some restitution is part of the forgiveness process. It’s not revenge — it’s just asking the offender to take some responsibility to help make things right.

The steps don’t talk about what happens if the offender won’t respond to the request, but the book did. The victim CAN forgive and still seek justice in court. The victim is upholding their own dignity by asking for some restitution, whether that restitution is granted or not.

The steps do make it pretty clear that reconciliation is not going to happen if the offender doesn’t respond to that request. (And the four steps for the offender are necessary, too.) But if the victim has already let go of bitterness, their own life will be transformed in a beautiful way, regardless of how the offender responds.

This is a beautiful book about forgiveness played out in actual human lives.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/as_we_forgive.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of When the Heart Waits, by Sue Monk Kidd

Christian, Musings, Nonfiction Review, Personal Growth, Starred Review 0

When the Heart Waits

Spiritual Direction for Life’s Sacred Questions

by Sue Monk Kidd

HarperSanFrancisco, 1990. 217 pages.
Starred Review

Here’s another book by a woman exploring the deep questions and issues of facing midlife. Those always resonate with me. This one, with the theme of waiting, of slow growth, seemed particularly apt.

She uses the image of spinning a cocoon and having radical transformation from a caterpillar to a butterfly. It takes time. And when the transformation has been made, even unfurling your new wings is difficult.

Here are some passages I especially liked, to give you a taste of the wisdom in this book:

“When it comes to religion today, we tend to be long on butterflies and short on cocoons. Somehow we’re going to have to relearn that the deep things of God don’t come suddenly. It’s as if we imagine that all of our spiritual growth potential is dehydrated contents to which we need only add some holy water to make it instantly and easily appear.

“I received a letter recently from someone who was feeling impatient about taking the long way round. She wrote, ‘Pole vaulting is so much more alluring than crawling.'”

“Most of us Christians don’t know how to wait in pain — at least not in the contemplative, creative way that opens us to newness and growth. We’re told to “turn it over to Jesus” and — presto! — things should be okay.

“But inside things usually aren’t okay. So on top of everything else, we feel guilty because obviously we didn’t really turn our pain over or else it wouldn’t still be with us. Or we decide that God wasn’t listening and can’t be trusted to deliver on divine promises.

“How did we ever get the idea that God would supply us on demand with quick fixes, that God is merely a rescuer and not a midwife?”

“If you want to be impressed, note how often God’s people seem to be waiting….

“I came to the parable Jesus told about the ten maidens waiting for the bridegroom…. I’d always thought that the point of the story was that we should be prepared. But in my reading after the retreat, it seemed to be just as much about waiting. Waiting through the dark night. The idea is that waiting precedes celebration. If you don’t show up prepared to wait, you may miss the transcendent when it happens.

“Most stunning to me was the picture I began to get of God waiting. The parable of the prodigal son would be more aptly named the parable of the waiting father. It tells us much more about God than anything else — a God who watches and waits with a full heart for us to make our homecoming.”

“Shifting from a self-centered focus to a more God-centered focus is terribly hard. I think we’ve gone wrong by assuming that such a radical movement can be achieved simply by setting our jaw and saying one or two prayers of relinquishment.

“Letting go isn’t one step but many. It’s a winding, spiraling process that happens on deep levels. And we must begin at the beginning: by confronting our ambivalence.”

“Looking back, I’m aware of several experiences that sifted together to bring me quietly to the place of letting go. They had the effect of slowly and gently uncurling my grip, finger by finger.”

She takes us through her midlife journey, including many painful moments. But then comes the time of unfurling the new wings:

“When the time is right, the cocooned soul begins to emerge. Waiting turns golden. Newness unfurls. It’s a time of pure, unmitigated wonder. Yet as we enter the passage of emergence, we need to remember that new life comes slowly, awkwardly, on wobbly wings.

“I waited many long months before I felt newness begin to form, and many more before it began to unfold in my life. Gradually — oh, so gradually — my waiting season came to an end. The pain began to diminish bit by bit, as if it had peaked and now was giving way to something new. Many of the questions I’d lived with began to sprout little seeds of insight. Light trickled in. A new vision and way of life began to take shape not only in my head but in my heart and soul as well. It was as if I’d discovered a new room inside myself — a wider, more expansive place than I’d known before, but a room that had been there all along.”

This book will uplift and encourage anyone going through a similar journey. She offers us Hope:

“Hope for you and me and the journeys we undertake. Hope that we would trust our waiting hearts enough to risk entering them, that we would listen for the Voice that bids us come to the edge, and that we would welcome the gentle push of God, who is both our wings and the wind that bears them up.”

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/when_the_heart_waits.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of Feel, by Matthew Elliott

Christian, Nonfiction Review, Personal Growth, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

Feel

The Power of Listening to Your Heart

by Matthew Elliott

Tyndale House Publishers, 2008. 266 pages.
Starred Review
2010 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #3 Other Nonfiction

My home Bible study group leader picked out this book for our group to study for several weeks, and I thought it had some beautifully revolutionary things to say.

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard it preached: “Love is not a feeling. Love is a choice.” Or I’ve heard sermons about the Fact-Faith-Feeling train — that “Feeling” is supposed to be the caboose in our Christian lives. Matthew Elliott says that such teaching is missing out on a full and rich Christian life. God wants us to feel.

Here’s what he says in the first chapter:

“The second thing that has gone terribly wrong is that we have become indoctrinated in the belief that emotions are unreliable, dangerous, and bad. Philosophy, psychology, our scientific culture, and the church have taught us that logic and reason must reign supreme, while feelings are trivialized and seen as something to be suppressed or ignored. Many successful contemporary writers have brainwashed us into believing that we must stifle what we feel in favor of what we think.

“The messages I have read recently in popular inspirational books include the ideas that emotions leave us in a fog and cloud our thinking; the notion that in order to live a godly life, we must control our emotions; and the belief that following our emotions often leads us to sin.

“I’ve heard nationally known speakers assert that anger, sorrow, and jealousy are signs of spiritual weakness; that our feelings cannot be trusted; and that God cares about what we believe, not what we feel.

“These are all myths. None of them are true; none of them hold up to good science; and none of them are from the Bible….

“I have come to believe that our emotions were given to us by God to drive us to our best.

“I have come to believe that emotions are among the most logical and dependable things in our lives.

“I have come to believe that emotions give us a window to see truth like nothing else.

“I have come to believe that the true health of our spiritual lives is measured by how we feel.”

Those surprising assertions (Emotions? Among the most logical and dependable things in our lives? Really?) are all supported convincingly in the pages that follow. I came away with completely new ideas about what constitutes a growing Christian life.

The author spoke from the same kind of Christian background I’d grown up in, teaching that love in the Bible is not really a feeling, but more of a duty. He points out:

“There is no special category for ‘Christian love,’ that agape kind our Christian leaders like to talk about — intellectualizing an emotion into a philosophical ideal. Love, hope, joy — and even hatred — in the Bible are not lofty ideas and concepts; they are feelings and emotions, just as we know them in our own lives and talk about them with our families and friends….

“It occurred to me that our spirituality is all about how we are feeling — whether we are feeling life or are numb to it. If we are not feeling as we should, something is really wrong with our relationship with God.

“Paul takes no time to explain what he means by love and joy and hope and hate and sorrow. He doesn’t try to tell us that joy is not a feeling or that love is just a choice. He speaks in plain language and assumes that emotions are simply recording our feelings — the stuff of life that God has given us. Paul assumes we will know what joy and love feel like, and he exhorts that if we live by God’s standards, there are certain kinds of feelings that will fill our lives.”

There’s so much that’s so good in this book. Most of it, I had not thought of before, but how it rings true! I like this part about obedience and duty:

“One of the things we sometimes get confused is the difference between being duty driven and obedient. God calls us to obedience, but somehow we make that into a rote thing. It’s as if we don’t consider it real obedience unless it feels hard and tough and bad….

“Having positive emotion for doing what we’ve been asked to do makes all the difference in how we obey the command. When we see the reason for it, when we enjoy doing it, or when we want to please the one giving the instruction, we are much more likely to obey, and to obey with energy and enthusiasm….

“As we grow in our faith, we will be driven more and more to obey God’s commands, not because they are things we should do, but because they are what we want to do, and we desire in our deep places to do them. As we learn how good they are for us and those we love, we will see how it is a joy to obey. As we grow closer to God and know more of his great love for us, our desire to please him will grow deeper and wider and all-consuming in us….

“Not only will it be easier to obey, but we will obey more fully with greater passion and results.”

Another thing Matthew Elliott points out which I’d never thought of that way is that, far from being irrational and illogical, our emotions are often ahead of our thoughts in judging a situation correctly.

“Emotions are a complex judgment or evaluation of someone or something in light of the past, present, or future. Hope, for example, is the expectation that something good is going to happen in the future to something or someone we love; whereas joy is felt when something good has happened in the past or the present.

“Emotions can do what a wise counselor does, what a veteran mentor does, or what a spiritual advisor does — help you make right decisions from complex information. Emotions carry truth and wisdom, just as a good friend does….

“To say that emotions are connected to thinking does not mean they always come from conscious, intentional thoughts. Rather, emotions have a wisdom all their own, which is naturally informed by our circumstances, situations, and relationships. They speak to us about truth that we cannot always know rationally or even think thoughts about….

“It’s not uncommon for people to feel fear when they enter their house while it is being robbed, even when they have no direct knowledge that someone else is in the house. They step inside, and all of a sudden they’re afraid. They know something is wrong. This feeling has saved many a person from harm, as they have acted on that fear…. That is the realm in which emotions operate, which can make it difficult to figure out exactly why we are feeling what we feel.

“Our tendency when emotions surface is to decide that we shouldn’t feel them, so we dismiss them, ditching them in the first mental trash can we can find. But our emotions often tell us things that our rational processes cannot get to, things we desperately need to hear.”

I don’t want to write out every great point the author makes in this book. I hope this review has given you a taste of all the rich and revolutionary thoughts found in its pages. Here’s a paragraph that sums up some of the ideas:

“God wants us to be emotionally mature with emotionally full lives. Becoming emotionally mature is not, as many teach, about becoming emotionally controlled. It is about becoming emotionally adept, emotionally wise, and emotionally skilled. It is about having lives that are chock-full of wonder and feeling — and then having the ability and practiced skill to live well and wisely in a richly emotional world.”

I’ll close the review with a line I just love:

“God wants you to soar. He wants a ‘you’ more full of vitality and spirit than you’ve ever imagined.”

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/feel.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on my own copy of the book.

Review of Women Who Run With the Wolves, by Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Creativity, Current Issues, Folk Tales, Musings, Nonfiction Review, Personal Growth, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

Women Who Run With the Wolves

Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype

Clarissa Pinkola Estes, PhD

Ballantine Books, New York, 1997. First published in 1992. 582 pages.
Starred Review
2010 Sonderbooks Stand-outs: #2 Other Nonfiction

This wonderful book is full of riches. I read it very slowly, and will definitely want to read it many more times to better grasp the wisdom it contains.

For some time, I’ve loved books by Allan B. Chinen, such as Once Upon a Midlife, that take fairy tales from around the world and reveal the psychology behind them and what it means about the passages in a person’s life. Women Who Run With the Wolves is similar, taking fairy tales and stories from all over the world that shine light on women’s lives. Only Clarissa Pinkola Estes is much more poetical and symbolic in applying the fairy tales, so that her own skills as a storyteller shine out even in the explanations.

Here are some thoughts the author shares in the Introduction:

“Healthy wolves and healthy women share certain psychic characteristics: keen sensing, playful spirit, and a heightened capacity for devotion. Wolves and women are reolational by nature, inquiring, possessed of great endurance and strength. They are deeply intuitive, intensely concerned with their young, their mates, and their pack. They are experienced in adapting to constantly changing circumstances; they are fiercely stalwart and very brave.

“Yet both have been hounded, harassed, and falsely imputed to be devouring and devious, overly aggressive, of less value than those who are their detractors. They have been the targets of those who would clean up the wilds as well as the wildish environs of the psyche, extincting the instinctual, and leaving no trace of it behind. The predation of wolves and women by those who misunderstand them is strikingly similar….

“Like a trail through a forest which becomes more and more faint and finally seems to diminish to a nothing, traditional psychological theory too soon runs out for the creative, the gifted, the deep woman. Traditional psychology is often spare or entirely silent about deeper issues important to women: the archetypal, the intuitive, the sexual and cyclical, the ages of women, a woman’s way, a woman’s knowing, her creative fire. This is what has driven my work on the Wild Woman archetype for over two decades.

“A woman’s issues of soul cannot be treated by carving her into a more acceptable form as defined by an unconscious culture, nor can she be bent into a more intellectually acceptable shape by those who claim to be the sole bearers of consciousness. No, that is what has already caused millions of women who began as strong and natural powers to become outsiders in their own cultures. Instead, the goal must be the retrieval and succor of women’s beauteous and natural psychic forms.

“Fairy tales, myths, and stories provide understandings which sharpen our sight so that we can pick out and pick up the path left by the wildish nature. The instruction found in story reassures us that the path has not run out, but still leads women deeper, and more deeply still, into their own knowing. The tracks we all are following are those of the wild and innate instinctual Self….

“Stories are medicine. I have been taken with stories since I heard my first. They have such power; they do not require that we do, be, act anything — we need only listen. The remedies for repair or reclamation of any lost psychic drive are contained in stories. Stories engender the excitement, sadness, questions, longings, and understandings that spontaneously bring the archetype, in this case Wild Woman, back to the surface.

“Stories are embedded with instructions which guide us about the complexities of life. Stories enable us to understand the need for and the ways to raise a submerged archetype. The stories on the following pages are the ones, out of hundreds that I’ve worked with and pored over for decades, and that I believe most clearly express the bounty of the Wild Woman archetype….

“This is a book of women’s stories, held out as markers along the path. They are for you to read and contemplate in order to assist you toward your own natural-won freedom, your caring for self, animals, earth, children, sisters, lovers, and men. I’ll tell you right now, the doors to the world of the wild Self are few but precious. If you have a deep scar, that is a door, if you have an old, old story, that is a door. If you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door. If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that is a door.

“The material in this book was chosen to embolden you. The work is offered as a fortification for those on their way, including those who toil in difficult inner landscapes, as well as those who toil in and for the world. We must strive to allow our souls to grow in their natural ways and to their natural depths.”

This book was a perfect choice for me as I was going through divorce and trying to figure out who I am as a single woman, looking at my life and wanting to create something beautiful. This book was exactly the sort of encouragement and wisdom I needed.

As she says, these stories are to read and contemplate. I highly recommend them, and I am sure I am going to come back to this book many times.

I’ll close with some bits of wisdom from its pages:

“Though fairy tales end after ten pages, our lives do not. We are multi-volume sets. In our lives, even though one episode amounts to a crash and burn, there is always another episode awaiting us and then another. There are always more opportunities to get it right, to fashion our lives in the ways we deserve to have them. Don’t waste your time hating a failure. Failure is a greater teacher than success. Listen, learn, go on. That is what we are doing with this tale. We are listening to its ancient message. We are learning about deteriorative patterns so we can go on with the strength of one who can sense the traps and cages and baits before we are upon them or caught in them.”

“A woman must be careful not to allow over-responsibility (or over-respectability) to steal her necessary creative rests, riffs, and raptures. She simply must put her foot down and say no to half of what she believes she “should” be doing. Art is not meant to be created in stolen moments only.”

“There is a time in our lives, usually in mid-life, when a woman has to make a decision — possibly the most important decision of her future life — and that is, whether to be bitter or not. Women often come to this in their late thirties or early forties. They are at the point where they are full up to their ears with everything and they’ve “had it” and “the last straw has broken the camel’s back” and they’re “pissed off and pooped out.” Their dreams of their twenties may be lying in a crumple. There may be broken hearts, broken marriages, broken promises.

“A body who has lived a long time accumulates debris. It cannot be avoided. But if a woman will return to the instinctual nature instead of sinking into bitterness, she will be revivified, reborn. Wolf pups are born each year. Usually they are these little mewling, sleepy-eyed, dark-furred creatures covered in dirt and straw, but they are immediately awake, playful, and loving, wanting to be close and comforted. They want to play, want to grow. The woman who returns to the instinctual and creative nature will come back to life. She will want to play. She will still want to grow, both wide and deep. But first, there has to be a cleansing.”

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/women_who_run_with_the_wolves.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on my own personal copy.

Review of This Is Not the Story You Think It Is…

Biography, Current Issues, Musings, Nonfiction Review, Personal Growth, Relationships, Stand-outs, Starred Review, True Stories 0

This Is Not the Story You Think It Is…

A Season of Unlikely Happiness

by Laura Munson

Amy Einhorn Books (Penguin), New York, 2010. 343 pages.
Starred Review
2010 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #1 True Stories

I read this book months ago, but put off reviewing it because it was not a library book (and therefore wasn’t due back) and I hardly knew where to begin. However, now I’m trying to catch up and get reviews for all of my 2010 Sonderbooks Stand-outs posted — and this was easily the nonfiction book that most stood out in my mind this year.

A year or two before, I’d read an e-mail that had been circulating with an essay by Laura Munson, and I’d been touched and impressed. It told how her husband had informed her that he didn’t love her any more, and wanted out. But she didn’t buy it. And she chose not to suffer. They went through a summer where he sometimes came around and sometimes didn’t. And in the end, he came back to her and realized how much she and the family meant to him.

When I discovered she had expanded the story into a book, I ordered it from Amazon as soon as possible. I was not disappointed. All the wisdom of the original essay was there, with much more background. The book is powerful. I’m strongly recommending it to anyone whose husband is going through anything remotely like a midlife crisis. Or anyone who has heard those awful words, “I don’t think I ever really loved you.”

Laura Munson wrote this book as a journal during her crisis. It comforts me that she let out some of her frustration to the journal! However, I can see that she’s also talking herself into being rational. She has chosen not to suffer, and she’s helping herself stick with that choice by writing out her reasoning. Here’s a section from the first chapter:

“At this moment in my life, I am not sure where my husband is. He left last night to bring the trash to the dump after announcing that he’s not sure he loves me anymore, and hasn’t come home. He isn’t answering his cell phone. He isn’t responding to texts.

“But I don’t buy it. The part about him not loving me. As much as it’s devastating to hear, I believe there’s more to the story. I believe he’s in a state of personal crisis. I believe this is about him.

“I’m going to give you a challenge here. I’m going to give both you and me a challenge here. Let’s try in all this not to take sides. Because how does it feel to take sides? Do we get to be right? Self-righteous? I think there’s more suffering in self-righteousness than most of us are willing to fathom.

“I see it like this: we all have our seasons of personal woe. I’ve certainly had mine. I know how much he hates his job, how much he punishes himself for not making enough money and not knowing where to go next with his career; how stuck and desperate he feels, especially in our small mountain town where the high-paying jobs are NOT plentiful. I know that he’s suffering intensely. I know because I’ve been there. I feel his pain and I’ve told him so.

“But he’s not hearing my voice. His own is too thunderous. He has to come to the end of it by himself…. And I know it’s more helpful to practice empathy here. Not anger. Or fear. Even though his words were like sharp sleet.

“It’s like when teenagers scream ‘I hate you’ and slam the door in their parents’ face. Does that ‘I hate you’ have credibility? Or does the parent know instinctually that something upsetting happened at school? That it’s not about the parent at all? I’m not saying that my husband is acting like a teenager. (Or, God forbid, that I’m his parent!) I’m just saying that I think there’s more to the story.”

She writes on about all her personal struggles with this. It’s not coming easy for her, and if she pretended it had, this book would have lost its power. I like this part, later in that first chapter:

“Now, I know, dear reader, there’s a strong possibility that you’ve got your hackles up. You want to tell me I’m being a fool to put up with this unacceptable behavior. You want me to fight….

“But I’m opting for a different strategy, and I’m going to believe it will work in a way that fighting, persuading, and demanding never have. Because whether or not he comes back to me, I will be ultimately empowered by my commitment not to suffer. It’s a way of life. A way to life. And it’s about many and no religions. Plug it in wherever it meets your life. We all want to be free, don’t we?

“And yes — this strategy is new to me, too. I’m sure it’ll be shaky at times. But I’m going for it. And I’m going to write my way through it. Both for my process. And for yours. For anyone in any situation in which one is tempted to go into panic mode, or worse, victim mode, rather than taking responsibility for one’s own well-being.”

She goes on and takes us through the next several months, as well as giving us the background of their marriage and life, and her own recent crises. She has some setbacks. But mostly she handles some awful situations with incredible grace. I love the scene where they have a “talk.” Because she responds brilliantly. She keeps asking the question (which she has practiced with her therapist), “What can we do to give you the distance you need without damaging our family?”

When he answers that he can get his own place in town, she asks him, “What would that look like?” And she talks to him. By asking questions, she gets him to realize that he hasn’t thought this through. Her conversation is brilliant and wise — and I love how she puts in italics what she would have really liked to say! He insults her and accuses her, but they work out that he will look into a studio apartment over the garage and still stay with the family.

As I was reading this book, I started feeling sad that I hadn’t come across it when my husband’s crisis started. That I did not react so beautifully and calmly. But you know what? I was comforted somewhat when, despite her wise and loving reactions, her husband did awful things and blamed her.

She said something perfectly reasonable: “Our son looked out the window this morning and said, ‘Oh look. Dad’s truck is in the driveway.’ And I didn’t like that to be a surprise — for him or for me.” His response is not even close to reasonable. He swears at her, slams the door, and sleeps in another room. She says:

“Here’s what inspires me to fall to sleep finally: he heard those words. He reacted like a child. He knows it. I didn’t say or do anything wrong. He got triggered by the truth. He doesn’t want to be who he’s being. His anger is real and it’s scary, but it’s anger toward himself. It’s not my fault.

“And here’s what I am convinced of. In fact, I think it’s the key to a relationship. Any relationship.

“If you get out of someone’s way, they will fight and they will kick, but eventually, there’s nothing they can do but look at themselves and get real. Very, very real. Or totally self-combust in a life of lies. Or that dear opiate, denial.”

What encouraged me about this was that even when she was reacting so well, her husband acted just like other men in midlife crisis. A light dawned in my brain. It really is all about him.

Mind you, I am sure that Laura Munson saved herself excruciating hours upon hours of suffering. But I don’t think that it was necessarily her good reactions that saved her marriage. If her husband had another woman who was egging him on, who knows what might have happened. Here’s another insight about the treatment she was given:

“All abuse is just bait. To get you to the be one who freaks out. So the other person doesn’t have to deal. Doesn’t have to take responsibility. Oh look — she’s the one with the black eye. She’s the one crying in the corner. She’s the one leaving. What a bitch.”

Later on, in another incident where her husband yells at her, she says what she would like to say, and then reflects:

“But I stay silent and practice not taking the bait — not being resentful. Letting it wash over me. Because when I stay here I am powerful. Very, very powerful. Take note of this. Let him have the middle-aged tantrum. Just be sure to duck!”

It’s about him. It’s about him. This was so much easier to see in someone else’s story than in my own! And it helped to see that just because your husband yells at you does not necessarily mean that you deserve it. It also helped to see that even when treated badly, a wife can remember that this is a man she loves.

And they get through it. By the end of the summer, her husband was back in their home, spontaneously telling her that he loved her. I’m not sure if Laura Munson realizes that a midlife crisis only three months long is a minor miracle all by itself, and that it could have gone much, much worse. But I am sure that even if the situation had lasted years instead of months, she would have handled it with grace, and she would have continued to choose not to suffer.

In the beginning, Laura Munson tells about her Author’s Statement taped above her desk.

“It says: ‘I write to shine a light on an otherwise dim or even pitch-black corner, to provide relief for myself and others.’

“That’s what this book is all about. Maybe it will help people. Maybe even save marriages, and jobs, and children’s hearts from breaking. I wish I had this book on my bedside table right now. If only just to know that I am not alone.

“If my husband and I come out the other side, together, in love, still married, and unsuffering, then this summer will have been worth it. This book will be worth it.

“And even if we don’t, then I know I will be a better person for living this way.

“So stay with me. Like a gentle friend. Maybe we will both learn something that will change our lives. I’m willing to try. On our behalf.”

Take it from me: Laura Munson succeeds beautifully in her goals. She inspires you to keep going, whatever the outcome of your husband’s crisis. She reminds you that suffering simply isn’t worth it. You can love him, but you don’t have to take the bait.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/not_the_story.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a book I purchased from Amazon.com.

Review of Zeitoun, by Dave Eggers

Audiobooks, Biography, Current Issues, Nonfiction Review, Stand-outs, Starred Review, True Stories 0

Zeitoun

by Dave Eggers

narrated by Firdous Bamji

Recorded Books, 2009. 9 compact discs. 10.5 hours.
Starred Review
2010 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #3, True Stories

I have to thank my friend Intlxpatr for reviewing this book, since her review convinced me to read it (well, listen to it). Her review is excellent, so I will only add a few comments.

Zeitoun is the true story of a successful Syrian-American businessman and his misadventures when he stayed in New Orleans to protect his property and help recover in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. The author does a great job of dramatizing his story so that we feel like we know Zeitoun and his wife and children, and we understand that he would want to stay to take care of his property and the properties of his clients. He owns a painting and contracting business, and Dave Eggers takes plenty of time setting the stage to show Zeitoun’s character — hardworking and dedicated and kind.

Listening to the book, there were many times when I was completely absorbed in the story. The author artfully changes perspectives among the people involved and gives us the wife’s perspective for the three weeks when she had no idea where her husband was before shifting to tell us what happened to him. Unfortunately, when I was listening to this, I had several things in my own life to worry about — so listening to this book only made me more tense, wondering what had happened to Zeitoun.

This is not a pleasant story. He was arrested in the aftermath of Katrina when in his own property. He was arrested without a warrant and was not given a phone call, so his wife had no idea what had happened to him. He was then treated barbarically and not even told the charges against him. He had not done anything wrong. He had helped rescue several people after the storm.

Basically, the book reads like something that might happen in a third-world country under martial law. I was simply horrified that this happened in the United States. Can our fundamental human rights be taken away in the aftermath of a natural disaster? This should not have happened.

However, I do think it’s important that this story gets out. May this never ever happen again in America.

This book tells a gripping story of a good man caught up in a broken system. The story makes an absorbing read and talks about an important issue as well.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/zeitoun.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of The Story of Stuff, by Annie Leonard

Current Issues, Nonfiction Review, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

The Story of Stuff

How Our Obsession with Stuff is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities, and Our Health
— And a Vision for Change

by Annie Leonard

Free Press, New York, 2010. 317 pages.
Starred Review
2010 Sonderbooks Stand-out: Other Nonfiction #6

When I checked out this book, my teenage son told me that he had seen the internet video it’s based on, and that was why he had stopped drinking bottled water, and had started drinking tap water from a glass. I was impressed that it would make that much difference.

And I hope it will make some differences in my life, too. This is an eye-opening book that tells the truth behind all our stuff.

Annie Leonard started by studying garbage — being an activist against toxic waste. But eventually, she learned that there’s a bigger system involved. In this book, she takes us through the entire life cycle of Stuff — Extraction, Production, Distribution, Consumption, and Disposal. She shows us problems — and solutions — every step of the way.

She talks about how she became a systems thinker:

“Everywhere I went, I kept asking ‘why?’ and digging deeper and deeper. Why were dumps so hazardous? Because of the toxics in the trash. And why were there toxics in the trashed products to begin with? Answering that question led me to learn about toxics, chemistry, and environmental health. Why were dumps so often situated in lower-income communities where people of color live and work? I started learning about environmental racism.

“And why does it make economic sense to move entire factories to other countries: how can they still sell the product for a couple dollars when it’s traveling so far? Suddenly I had to confront international trade agreements and the influence of corporations on governmental regulations.

“And another thing: why are electronics breaking so fast and why are they cheaper to replace than repair? So I learned about planned obsolescence, advertising, and other tools for promoting consumerism. On the surface, each of these topics seemed separate from the next, unconnected, and a long way from those piles of garbage on the streets of New York City or the forests of the Cascades. But it turns out they’re all connected.”

She makes many insightful points about our national goals:

“A big part of the problem we face today is that our dominant economic system values growth as a goal unto itself, above all else. That’s why we use the gross domestic product, or GDP, as the standard measure of success. It counts the value of goods and services made in a country each year. But it leaves out some really important facets of reality. For starters, GDP doesn’t account for the unequal and unfair distribution of wealth or look at how healthy, satisfied or fulfilled people are….

“Another huge problem with how the GDP is calculated is that the true ecological and social costs of the growth are not accounted for. Industries are usually permitted (both in the sense of being given permits by government as well as generally not being held accountable) to ‘externalize costs,’ which is a fancy phrase economists use to describe the fact that, while companies are busy producingb and selling widgets, they’re not paying for, or even tracking, the side-effects they cause, like contaminating groundwater, exposing communities to carcinogens, or polluting the air.

“This is totally messed up: while on the plus side, GDP counts activities that cause pollution and cancer (such as factories making pesticides or polyvinyl chloride) as well as activities to clean up that pollution and treat the cancer (such as environmental remediation and medical care), there is no deduction in the GDP for the pollution released into the air or water or the loss of a forest….

“For the powers that be — the heads of government and industry — the undisputed goal of our economy is a steady improvement in the GDP, aka growth. Growth as a goal has supplanted the real goals, the things growth was supposed to help us achieve. What I and many others have come to see — and as I hope this book makes abundantly clear — is that too often, as a strategy, focusing on growth for growth’s sake undermines the real goals. Too much of what gets counted toward ‘growth’ today — tons of toxic consumer goods, for example — undermines our net safety, health, and happiness.”

This is a fascinating, well-thought-out, eye-opening look at the systems that keep us taking, making, selling, using, and trashing Stuff. The author says at the end of the introduction:

“My goal with this book (and the film upon which it’s based) is to unpack the Story of Stuff — the flow of materials through the economy — as simply as possible. My aim is never to make you feel guilty (unless you are the head of Chevron, Dow Chemical, Disney, Fox News, Halliburton, McDonald’s, Shell, or the World Bank); it should be clear that the fundamental problem I identify here is not individual behavior and poor lifestyle choices, but the broken system — the deadly take-make-waste machine. I hope reading the Story helps inspire you to share information with people in your life about issues like toxics in cosmetics, the problems with incineration and recycling, and the flaws in the IMF’s economic policies….

“In the face of so many tough challenges, there are many exciting and hopeful developments that I celebrate in these pages and that I see as steps toward a truly sustainable ecological – economic system. Above all, I invite the citizen in you to become louder than the consumer inside you and launch a very rich, very loud dialogue within your community.”

You get the idea. I believe this is an important book, which can change your thinking and help you see the truth behind the stuff you buy. Think of this as a book to show you the truth and therefore help you make better choices.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/story_of_stuff.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of Emotional Vampires, by Albert J. Bernstein

Nonfiction Review, Personal Growth, Relationships 0

Emotional Vampires

Dealing with People Who Drain You Dry

by Albert J. Bernstein, PhD

McGraw-Hill, New York, 2001. 242 pages.

If you have enough difficult people in your life that you want to read a book to boost your ability to deal with them — well, you might as well have some fun with it!

This light-hearted look at difficult people actually has some very helpful tips. And it does make you laugh when the comparison with vampires seems especially apt.

The author explains that most emotional vampires you will encounter do not have full-fledged personality disorders, but the ways they think and act do seem to fall into patterns of five types: Antisocial Vampires, Histrionic Vampires, Narcissistic Vampires, Obsessive-Compulsive Vampires, and Paranoid Vampires.

He also explains that most difficult people are a blend of two or more types, so feel free to use whichever technique works best for dealing with them. I also liked this paragraph:

“If you see yourself among the vampires, take heart; it is a very good sign. We all have some tendencies in the direction of personality disorders. If you recognize your own, they are apt to be less of a problem than if you have no insight.”

Here are some attitudes that apply to all emotional vampires:

“My Needs Are More Important Than Yours.”
“The Rules Apply to Other People, Not Me.”
“It’s Not My Fault, Ever.”
“I Want It Now.”
“If I Don’t Get My Way, I Throw a Tantrum.”

Then he gives some general qualities of emotional vampires:

“VAMPIRES PREY ON HUMANS
Night-stalking vampires will drain your blood. Emotional Vampires will use you to meet whatever needs they happen to be experiencing at the moment. They have no qualms about taking your effort, your money, your love, your attention, your admiration, your body, or your soul to meet their insatiable cravings. They want what they want, and they don’t much care how you feel about it.”

“VAMPIRES CAN CHANGE THEIR SHAPES
Storybook vampires can change themselves into bats, wolves, or a cold, formless mist that seeps through unguarded windows. Emotional Vampires can turn themselves into whatever you want to see, but only long enough to lure you in. To say that they are consummate actors doesn’t do them justice. Often, they play their roles so well that they fool themselves into believing they are who they pretend to be.”

“VAMPIRES CAN’T SEE THEMSELVES IN A MIRROR
If you want to know if someone is a vampire, hold up a mirror and see if there’s a reflection. If you want to know if someone is an Emotional Vampire, hold up a self-help book that describes his personality perfectly and see if there’s a spark of recognition. With both kinds of vampires there will be nothing there. Night-stalking vampires have no reflections; Emotional Vampires have no insight.”

“VAMPIRES ARE MORE POWERFUL IN THE DARK
Both kinds of vampires thrive on darkness. Blood-hungry vampires stalk the night. Emotional Vampires lurk in the darker side of human nature. They take power from secrets. Your dealings with them will usually involve a few little details that you’d rather not share, because other people wouldn’t understand.”

“A VAMPIRE’S BITE CAN TURN YOU INTO A VAMPIRE
Throughout the ages, vampirism has been contagious. A few bites and vampires can have you acting just as immaturely as they do.”

The book goes on to help you recognize different types of vampires and understand how best to respond. Some of the advice seems particularly brilliant:

“The maddening thing about Passive-Aggressives is that their words are so different from their actions. If you ask them what they want, they’ll say they want to make you happy, even as they do things to make you miserable.

“On the surface, their actions make no sense, but there is an underlying logic. If you want to understand Histrionics, read their actions as if they were sad, angry adolescent poems about how the expectations of others are a prison from which they can never escape.

“If you’re involved with Passive-Aggressive Histrionics, you cannot avoid being perceived as the person who is imprisoning them. Don’t try. Instead, focus on your own behavior, and try to be a compassionate jailer.”

“Forget any attempt to make Passive-Aggressive vampires admit to what they really feel. It’ll only make your headache worse. Don’t make the mistake of demanding that they talk to you directly about problems. You might as well demand that they speak in rhyming couplets.

“There really are no battles you can win with the Passive-Aggressive. Once the situation turns into a battle, you have already lost.”

“Explicit instructions, while absolutely necessary will not work as well as you think they ought. Passive-Aggressive vampires deal with the world by misunderstanding and by being misunderstood. The thing they never misunderstand is praise. Use gobs of it.”

“Passive-Aggressive vampires will always do whatever you pay the most attention to. If you make a big deal out of forgetting, complaining, surliness, negative body language, or whatever, that’s what you’ll get. With Passive-Aggressives it is possible to waste considerable time and effort trying to get them to improve their attitude rather than getting the job done. Make sure your contingencies favor the behaviors you really want rather than the ones you find most annoying. What’s the point of rewarding people for giving you headaches?”

Of course, as helpful as this book was in getting me to understand how best to deal with certain difficult people, it also opened my eyes to why it might be difficult to live with me:

“Perfectionism is a vice that masquerades as a virtue. It can lead to excellence, but it usually doesn’t. Doing everything correctly can become the top priority, eclipsing the importance of the task or the feelings of other people. The wake of Obsessive-Compulsive vampires is an orderly row of insignificant tasks done to perfection, and significant people leaving in frustration because they don’t measure up.”

“Perfectionists, bless their neurotic little hearts, don’t have a clue about what a pain they are to everyone around them. It’s not that they don’t care what the people close to them feel; it’s just that they get so distracted by little details in the process of living that they miss the overall product….

“Perfectionists never do anything spontaneously, except perhaps to notice mistakes. To Obsessive-Compulsives, the notion of a pleasant surprise is an oxymoron.”

“If your feelings are hurt, say so. Don’t try to make your point indirectly by rebelling, withdrawing, ‘accidentally’ making mistakes, or griping to friends, family, and coworkers. Passive-aggressive behavior just makes Perfectionists feel more justified in their anger. There’s no point in throwing gas on the fire.”

“Show some appreciation. You can be sure that however hard they are on you, Perfectionists are twice as hard on themselves.”

Fortunately, he also has good tips for self-help if you recognize vampire qualities in yourself. For perfectionistic vampires, among other things, he tells us:

“Goof Off. Spend a little time every day just sitting and doing nothing. Computer solitaire was invented for this purpose. Learn some sort of relaxation technique and practice it every day, especially on the days you think you’re too busy.”

Hmmm. Sounds like a good excuse to start a computer game!

Another good tip: “Always Know Your Top Priority. Not for the moment, but for your whole life. Think about what you’d like to have carved on your tombstone and work toward that. The other details will take care of themselves.”

A funny thing happened after I wrote this review: At work the next morning, I was happily doing an excessively detail-oriented task. (Checking Y’s and N’s on an attendance sheet against what had been put in the computer.) I realized there’s a reason I related to the Perfectionistic statements. Now, there is a good side to being detail-oriented — but this book pointed out some ways that being too perfectionistic in relationships can cause conflict and barrel over people’s feelings.

I thought it was a bit ironic that they specifically mentioned how Perfectionistic vampires and Passive-Agressive vampires can particularly antagonize one another. When they are in love, their strengths can dovetail nicely. But when in conflict, they can definitely make things worse if they don’t take care.

In summary, this book has some valuable tips on interacting with difficult people and becoming less of a difficult person. As you can see, I focused on the ones that applied to my life. I’m sure the other categories are equally insightful if that’s what relates to you. All of the suggestions and insights are handled in a light-hearted, easy-to-swallow way.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/emotional_vampires.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of The Numbers Behind Numb3rs

Mathematical, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

The Numbers Behind Numb3rs

Solving Crime with Mathematics

by Kevin Devlin and Gary Lorden

Plume (Penguin), 2007. 243 pages.
Starred Review

Okay, I admit that I’m a math geek. All I have to do to prove it is tell you about my prime factorization sweater.

So, it’s a no-brainer that I love the TV show Numb3rs. This book is written by Keith Devlin, “NPR’s ‘Math Guy,'” a consulting professor at Stanford, and Gary Lorden, “the Math Consultant on Numb3rs,” a math professor at Caltech (the school after which the fictional Calsci is modelled). They take the episodes of the first season of Numb3rs, explain the math concepts behind them, and talk about actual criminal cases where these concepts were used.

I think they do a great job of making the concepts understandable without getting bogged down with equations. I shouldn’t be surprised, since on the show Charlie always uses metaphors to explain what they can do with numbers.

A few of the things they talk about — with examples from actual cases — are DNA profiling, finding meaningful patterns in masses of information, using Bayesian Inference to detect the future, and making and breaking codes.

I don’t think I need to say much more about it. If you find this stuff fascinating, you know who you are! All I have to do is tell you this cool book exists.

If, on the other hand, this sounds mind-numbing and not the least bit cool to you, then no amount of my talking is likely to convince you, and I admit that you probably will not like the book.

But if you want to be dazzled by the power of numbers and get a handle on some of the powerful concepts that can be used to fight crime, you will thoroughly enjoy this book, as I did.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/nonfiction/numbers_behind_numb3rs.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.