Review of Wholehearted Faith, by Rachel Held Evans

Christian, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Wholehearted Faith

by Rachel Held Evans
with Jeff Chu

HarperOne, 2021. 196 pages.
Review written March 10, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review

Beloved author Rachel Held Evans passed away suddenly in 2019 at 37 years old. She had unpublished work and manuscripts, and her husband asked her friend and collaborator Jeff Chu to finish and edit the book for her. The beginning and end of the book include tributes to Rachel and an explanation of how this book came to be.

This book is beautiful. The bulk of it is entirely in Rachel’s voice. I learned once again how much I relate to her personally — how much my own spiritual journey has been like hers. We were both good Sunday school students, winning prizes for knowing the Bible. We both went even more all-in during college at a conservative Christian college. And we both wound up in a much more progressive and gracious place than where we were brought up to be, though our adult journeys diverged much more than our youths did — but the end result seems very much the same.

And I love everything she writes in this book. From our similar backgrounds, I’ve got some of the same hang-ups as she did – for example, growing up with a focus on sin and what we “deserve.” I, too, am blown away by the thought from a poem by Daniel Ladinsky that God adores His creation.

These words seemed dangerous, heretical even. They seemed too good to be true. And yet did they not call to mind the poetry of the prophets, who spoke to Israel of a God who “will exult over you with loud singing,” who has “called you by name,” and who has “loved you with an everlasting love”? Did they not sound like the God of Hebrew Scripture, who soared over creation in the beginning and declared every flower and fish and tree and human in it “good”? Did they not echo the letters of a saint who proclaimed that “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God”? Did they not sound like Jesus, who, through the smooth laminate of my AWANA workbook, first told me that “God so loved the world”?

This book tells Rachel’s story of getting to that place where she could believe those words, and then continues on to “Essays on the Christian Life.” The result is short chapters that I could read easily one per day – and I was always uplifted.

There’s a chapter on the Sabbath, and I loved the thought that God asks us to do less, not more.

My point in dwelling on the Sabbath — my own hope in dwelling in the Sabbath — is to remember that our beginnings were grace and rest, and our ends will be too. If there’s any truth in any of this Christianity thing, it is that our existence started with rest, with the opportunity to glory in having earned nothing and done nothing, and it will find its culmination in rest, with the joy of feasting in the knowledge that we earned none of this abundance and had to do nothing to enjoy this goodness, nothing, that is, other than to simply receive.

But my very favorite section in the whole book comes in the essay Jeff Chu chose to put at the end of the book, as Rachel’s last message to her readers:

We can be gracious because we are grateful. We can love because we have been loved.

On the days when I believe, I know all this to be true. On the days when you believe, I hope you’ll know this to be true too. I hope you’ll feel deep within your heart and with every cell of your being that you are held and embraced by the God who made you, the God who redeemed you, and the God who accompanies you through every end and onward to every beginning.

Even on the days when I’m not sure I can believe it wholeheartedly, this is still the story I’m willing to be wrong about.

This book makes me sad that it’s the last one we’ll get from Rachel Held Evans, but the words of this book fill me with joy. Highly recommended.

rachelheldevans.com

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Gender: A Graphic Guide, by Meg-John Barker and Jules Scheele

Current Issues, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Gender

A Graphic Guide

by Meg-John Barker and Jules Scheele

Icon Books, 2019. 176 pages.
Review written July 31, 2020, from a library book
Starred Review

This book explores, in graphic format, more aspects of gender than I even realized existed.

Here’s some text from a page at the start titled “Multiple Meanings”:

Gender is both in the world around us and within us in our own experience. Gender is socially constructed: our culture develops and passes on strong messages about what it means to be each gender – and related roles and behaviours – through media, laws, education, and so on. At the same time we all have a lived experience of our gender which impacts how we experience our body, our feelings, our relationships, and pretty much everything in life. The way gender is socially constructed in the time and place that we live is part of what shapes our lived experience, but it’s not the whole story, and different people relate to gender in different ways.

This means gender is both deeply political and personal, which can make it complex – and emotionally charged – to talk about.

The chapters cover the history of gender, the science and philosophy of gender, masculinities, femininities, non-binary genders, transgender & cisgender, the future of gender, and sums up thinking about gender. It’s wonderfully comprehensive, bringing up different aspects even of the stereotypes, topics like intersectionality and colonialism, and quoting a wide range of sociologists and thinkers.

Gender is such a part of our lives, we may not even realize all these aspects exist. This is a wonderful way to give more consideration to something that’s a fundamental part of your life.

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Review of On Tyranny, by Timothy Snyder, illustrated by Nora Krug

Current Issues, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

On Tyranny

Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

Graphic Edition

by Timothy Snyder
illustrated by Nora Krug

Ten Speed Press, 2021. Original edition published in 2017. 128 pages.
Review written January 6, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review

I think copying out the Prologue will explain well what this book is trying to do:

History does not repeat, but it does instruct. As the Founding Fathers debated our Constitution, they took instruction from the history they knew. Concerned that the democratic republic they envisioned would collapse, they contemplated the descent of ancient democracies and republics into oligarchy and empire. As they knew, Aristotle warned that inequality brought instability, while Plato believed that demagogues exploited free speech to install themselves as tyrants. In founding a democratic republic upon law and establishing a system of checks and balances, the Founding Fathers sought to avoid the evil that they, like the ancient philosophers, called TYRANNY. They had in mind the usurpation of power by a single individual or group, or the circumvention of law by rulers for their own benefit.

Much of the succeeding political debate in the United States has concerned the problem of tyranny within American society: over slaves and women, for example.

It is thus a primary American tradition to consider history when our political order seems imperiled. If we worry today that the American experiment is threatened by tyranny, we can follow the example of the Founding Fathers and contemplate the history of other democracies and republics. The good news is that we can draw upon more recent and relevant examples than ancient Greece and Rome. The bad news is that the history of modern democracy is also one of decline and fall. Since the American colonies declared their independence from a British monarchy that the Founders deemed “tyrannical,” European history has seen three major democratic moments: after the First World War in 1918, after the Second World War in 1945, and after the end of communism in 1989. Many of the democracies founded at these junctures failed, in circumstances that in some important respects resemble our own.

He continues to talk about the rise of fascism, Nazism, and communism in the twentieth century.

We might be tempted to think that our democratic heritage automatically protects us from such threats. This is a misguided reflex. In fact, the precedent set by the Founders demands that we examine history to understand the deep sources of tyranny, and to consider the proper responses to it. Americans today are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism in the twentieth century. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. Now is a good time to do so.

This book presents twenty lessons from the twentieth century, adapted to the circumstances of today.

The first lesson is “Do not obey in advance.” The first example is that several countries taken over by Hitler started persecuting Jews before they were ordered to.

Some other notable lessons are: “Remember professional ethics.” (Doctors should not be willing to experiment on prisoners, for example.) “Be wary of paramilitaries.” “Be reflective if you must be armed.” “Be kind to our language.” “Believe in truth.” “Learn from peers in other countries.” “Listen for dangerous words.”

The lesson “Be a patriot.” contrasts patriotism with nationalism. “A nationalist encourages us to be our worst, and then tells us that we are the best.”

A patriot, by contrast, wants the nation to live up to its ideals, which means asking us to be our best selves. A patriot must be concerned with the real world, which is the only place where their country can be loved and sustained. A patriot has universal values, standards by which they judge their nation, always wishing it well – and wishing that it would do better.

The Epilogue contrasts the politics of inevitability, eternity, and history.

The politics of inevitability is “the sense that history could move in only one direction: toward liberal democracy.” Communism had a similar politics of inevitability, though theirs was that history was moving toward an inevitable socialist utopia.

The politics of eternity are “concerned with the past, but in a self-absorbed way, free of any real concern with facts. Its mood is a longing for past moments that never really happened during epochs that were, in fact, disastrous.”

Eternity politicians bring us the past as a vast misty courtyard of illegible monuments to national victimhood, all of them equally distant from the present, all of them equally accessible for manipulation. Every reference to the past seems to involve an attack by some external enemy upon the purity of the nation. National populists are eternity politicians.

I was a little surprised that his first examples of that were politicians advocating for Brexit in the United Kingdom and the National Rally in France. But yes, he does include “Make America great again.”

He says it’s easy to go from the politics of inevitability to the politics of eternity.

The only thing that stands between them is history itself. History allows us to see patterns and make judgments. It sketches for us the structures within which we can seek freedom. It reveals moments, each one of them different, none entirely unique. To understand one moment is to see the possibility of being the cocreator of another. History permits us to be responsible: not for everything, but for something.

The illustrator put many photographs from tyrannies in the twentieth century in these pages, along with disturbing images that will help the words strike home. The book was clearly updated in 2021, since it includes many statements from the Trump presidency and the events of January 6, 2021.

The result is a powerful book of history with warnings for today.

tenspeed.com

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Gender Queer, by Maia Kobabe

Graphic Memoir, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review, True Stories 0

Gender Queer

A Memoir

by Maia Kobabe
colors by Phoebe Kobabe

Oni Press, 2019. 240 pages.
Review written January 30, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review
2020 Alex Award Winner
2020 Stonewall – Israel Fishman Nonfiction Award Honor Book

I decided to put this book on hold after a person called me from the other side of the country and yelled at me because they said our library carried pornographic materials, speaking of this book in particular. (A different branch had used an image of the cover in a display.)

Now I’ve read the book and, reader, it is not pornographic. Our library has the book in the adult section, and I thought that was them avoiding controversy, but I see that the awards it has won are awards for adult books. Amazon lists the age as for 18 and up. The Alex Award is for adult books that appeal to teens. The Stonewall – Israel Fishman Nonfiction Award is for adult nonfiction books with LGBTQ content. So I will also list this book in adult nonfiction, with the note that this book will be of interest to young adults who have questions about their own gender and orientation.

Gender Queer is the story of Maia Kobabe’s lifelong quest to understand her own gender and sexuality. And in explaining it, the reader comes to understand her perspective. We learn about pronouns and why e strongly prefers e/em/eir. We learn what it means to not feel like a girl or a boy.

It’s in graphic novel format, so there are pictures along the way. Getting eir period was a horror to em, and the comics convey that. Getting a pap smear felt like violence, and you can see that in the pictures. And the page that is most cited as pornographic is when e and eir girlfriend tried strapping a dildo to em, but e wasn’t comfortable with that. It’s a comic book drawing, and it’s not going to titillate anyone, and it’s illustrating the author’s own story, with all of eir struggle to find eir place and know eirself.

There’s a lot here that will help any reader understand transgender people of any pronouns better. E is honest and forthcoming about eir journey, and I can only imagine how wonderful it would be for anyone on a similar journey to read this and know they are not alone.

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Every Thing Is Sacred, by Richard Rohr and Patrick Boland

Christian, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Every Thing Is Sacred

40 Practices and Reflections on the Universal Christ

by Richard Rohr and Patrick Boland

Convergent Books (Penguin Random House), 2021. 220 pages.
Review written October 23, 2021, from my own copy purchased via amazon.com
Starred Review

I was going to say that Every Thing Is Sacred is a study guide to the wonderful book by Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ — but it’s really more of a contemplation guide. There are forty “Reflections” on passages from the earlier book, with “Reflective Exercises” at the end of each Reflection. So it’s a guide to going deeper with the ideas from that book.

Yes, you’ll want to read The Universal Christ before or alongside this book. I am planning to reread both books together.

It’s a little misleading that Richard Rohr’s name is listed first as the main author, because Patrick Boland is the author of the Reflections. But that’s done because all the Reflections springboard from Richard Rohr’s writings.

I recommend beginning with the book The Universal Christ. Then, if you want to go deeper – and I think most people will – “Every Thing Is Sacred” can help you with that.

I also recommend getting a journal for it and doing the Reflective Exercises. Here I have to admit that I didn’t do many of them. I started out at the beginning, but then settled for reading each piece and thinking about it a little bit. This is why I do want to tackle the book again, and I think I’ll get more out of it.

Here’s a section from the Introduction by Richard Rohr, describing what you may get out of the book:

This is incarnational Christianity! Not God reserved for a few but God available to all in a thousand, thousand visible forms, and celebrated, over and over. Not just a problem-solving forgiver-of-sins God but a God whose greatness made sin by comparison unattractive, undesirable, small, and stifling. Once God models poured-out oneness for us, we are on some level allured into doing the same. Growth by “attraction, not promotion,” as the twelve-step program might say. Not so much a Christ coming into the world as coming out of a world that is already soaked with Presence.

And that is what both Patrick and I want you to experience for yourself in this little book. Not just warm thoughts but an entire earth and humanity warmed by the Word becoming flesh. This is a message you cannot know with your mind alone. You must come to know it in the very cells of your body – and see it in the cells of all bodies, which each carry the same divine DNA of their Creator. Think about it. How could they not be?

This book is neither pious nor academic but is filled with spiritual knowing waiting to be transferred to you if you have the right app (if you will allow me to use a mobile device metaphor). The app requires only two functions on your part – curiosity and a bit of love. Yet this book is not a workbook either because it is hardly work at all, nor does it ask for grinding concentration. We might just call it A Guide to Christian Freedom and Fun! (But in a Quite Serious Way). Why not?

cac.org
convergentbooks.com

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village, by Maureen Johnson and Jay Cooper

Humorous, Light Reading, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village

by Maureen Johnson and Jay Cooper

Ten Speed Press, 2021. 128 pages.
Review written November 27, 2021, from a library book
Starred Review

A couple years ago, I read a column by Maureen Johnson with this same theme that got me laughing hard. If you like British cozy mysteries at all (and I’m a fan), then her words ring true. Every one of the scenarios you’ll find in this book sounds familiar to me – I’m sure I’ve read books where people died in these ways in a quaint English village.

Here’s the premise, given in “A Note to the Gentle Reader” at the front of the book:

You’ve finally taken your dream trip to England and have seen London. Then the trouble begins:

You’ve decided to leave the hustle and bustle of the city to stretch your legs in the bucolic countryside of these green and pleasant lands.

You’ve read the books and watched the shows. You know what to expect: You’ll drink a pint in the sunny courtyard of a local pub. You’ll wander down charming alleyways between stone cottages. Residents will tip their flatcaps at you as they bicycle along cobblestone streets. It will be idyllic.

The author respectfully suggests you put aside those fantasies. It is possible that you will find yourself in a placid and tedious little corner of England; it is just as possible you will end up in an English Murder Village. You will not know you are in a Murder Village, as they look like all the other villages. When you arrive in Shrimpling or Pickles-in-the-Woods or Wombat-on-Sea or wherever it is, there will be no immediate signs of danger. This is exactly the problem. You are already in the trap.

However, if you fail to follow the author’s advice and go to the countryside anyway, she has a bookful of things for you to watch out for – ways you may get murdered if you are not wary.

These ways of being murdered are cheerfully and gruesomely illustrated by Jay Cooper.

The focus is on the Village and on the Manor right outside the village, with their separate realms for bumping people off.

Some examples:

Under “THE VILLAGE POND”:

Those ducks didn’t get fat on bread.

under “THE VILLAGE HALL”:

Oh you giggled at Edith’s sonnet? Sounds like someone’s about to be found clubbed to death with a typewriter, their mouth stuffed full of poems.

Someone to avoid:

ANYONE WHO LEAVES A MESSAGE

All messages in a Murder Village are bad news. It means someone Knows Something. Don’t leave messages. Don’t hang around people who do.

At the Manor, beware of “THE FOLLY”:

It’s a small, fake temple at the far side of the pond, perfect for picnics, trysts, and casual strangulations.

At “THE SHOOTING PARTY”:

This is supposed to be a fun day out in which some servants shake birds out of the bushes while other servants carry and reload guns, all so that the aristocracy can shoot at anything with wings. The shooting party is like the village fête – this is how the nobles weed one another out right in the open. Always assume someone is roaming the grounds with a shotgun looking for long-lost cousin Hugo who just showed up and got top billing in the will.

Or “THE DINNER PARTY”:

For when you want to be murdered, but you don’t have an entire weekend to spare.

This should give you an idea of the humor included in this informative little book. And who knows? Purchasing a copy may save your life.

maureenjohnsonbooks.com
jaycooperbooks.com

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of The Debt Project, by Brittany M. Powell

Current Issues, Nonfiction Review, Photography, Starred Review 0

The Debt Project

99 Portraits Across America

by Brittany M. Powell
with a foreword by Astra Taylor

West Margin Press, 2020. 216 pages.
Review written October 29, 2021, from a library book
Starred Review

Wow. This book is simply photographs of 99 Americans from all over the country, sitting in their living space. Accompanying each portrait is a copy of a handwritten page by the subject talking about their debt.

Readers, there’s so, so much debt.

At first I was surprised how many people listed mortgages — I think of that as good debt, because a home equity loan allowed me to pay off $39,000 of credit cards. And my home now would sell for considerably more than what I paid for it. But of course a mortgage is indeed debt. Some of the people featured lost homes in hurricane Katrina or their home lost value in the recession, so they owe more than what it’s worth.

Many, many people were in debt after divorce, which was the source of my own credit card debt. But by far the most common source of large debts was student loans. Many of the portraits here were of young people with staggering amounts of debt they incurred in order to get an education. Many had debt from medical bills. Many are unemployed and have no idea how they’ll pay it all off.

Altogether, it’s a sobering set of portraits. Some of the subjects admit to making poor choices, but for many it was a matter of survival. Taken together, these stories show staggering debt is a common problem in America today.

I would have appreciated this book even more when I had the credit card debt. (And I was only able to buy the home that saved me from it because my dad gave me the down payment. On my own, the amount of debt continued to rise.) At least by looking at this book, you know you’re not alone.

It also brings home the point that this is a societal problem. So many young people are beginning their adult lives with crippling debt. Shouldn’t there be a better way to launch young adults? Shouldn’t there be a better way for older adults to get a new start with a graduate degree? This book left me asking those questions.

debtcollective.org
neweconomynyc.org
ourfinancialsecurity.org
rollingjubilee.org
mappingstudentdebt.org
WestMarginPress.com

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of The Oxygen Advantage, by Patrick McKeown

Health, Nonfiction Review 0

The Oxygen Advantage

The Simple, Scientifically Proven Breathing Techniques for a Healthier, Slimmer, Faster, and Fitter You

by Patrick McKeown

William Morrow, 2015. 352 pages.
Review written August 21, 2020, from a library book

This book took me a long time to read. The author rambles and digresses. But a lot of those digressions are stories of lives who were changed because of these ideas. More are about the science behind the ideas.

The basic theme here is that people get into trouble from overbreathing. That deep breath they tell you to take to relax? The sighs you use to let off steam? Not a good idea.

This book made me wish I were still communicating with my ex-husband, a tuba player. He did some research on hyperventilation syndrome (which can happen to tuba players), and this book bears that out – and gives exercises to counteract it.

This author claims he can cure asthma and increase sports performance. For me, just dabbling in the exercises has cleared up what used to be an always stuffy nose.

An interesting and counterintuitive chapter at the beginning explains that we need to increase our tolerance for carbon dioxide in our blood. I won’t copy the long explanation, but here’s a bit of it:

Think of it this way: CO2 is the doorway that lets oxygen reach our muscles. If the door is only partially open, only some of the oxygen at our disposal passes through, and we find ourselves gasping during exercise, often with our limbs cramping. If, on the other hand, the door is wide open, oxygen flows through the doorway and we can sustain physical activity longer and at a higher intensity. But to understand how our breathing works we must dig a bit deeper into the crucial role carbon dioxide plays in making it as efficient as possible.

The book also talks about the importance of breathing through your nose and not your mouth and the benefits that brings. I’m glad I sleep alone – because I’ve been trying his suggestion of taping my mouth closed at night. I haven’t noticed a dramatic difference when I wake up, but it is true that combined with the breath-holding exercises from the book, I’ve got a lot less nasal stuffiness than before.

I’m not an athlete, so I’m not going to try the exercises that simulate high-altitude training. But I would like the health benefits. He’s got a simple Body Oxygen Level Test (BOLT) score you can use to measure your progress on this. If all he says is true, a higher BOLT score will help your overall physical health.

If any of this sounds at all helpful, the book is worth taking a look! The exercises are not difficult, and if the author is right, they can make a big difference.

buteykoclinic.com

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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 Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Love for Imperfect Things, by Haemin Sunim

Nonfiction Review, Personal Growth, Starred Review 0

Love for Imperfect Things

How to Accept Yourself in a World Striving for Perfection

by Haemin Sunim
translated by Deborah Smith and Haemin Sunim

Penguin Books, 2018. Originally published in Korean in 2016. 259 pages.
Starred Review
Review written June 27, 2020, from a library book

This is a lovely and peace-inducing book written by a Zen Buddhist teacher. It worked well to read a chapter or half a chapter each day, as I had time, and I was uplifted when I did.

The book is illustrated with peaceful pictures. It’s a book about loving yourself and others, and about healing and going through the world with compassion – very general, nice things. The format is each chapter has a section or two of narrative and then several pages of shorter bits of wisdom.

The book didn’t give me any new, earth-shaking insights, but reading its wisdom helped me calm my thoughts and meditate on truth.

I’ll grab a few examples of the sort of sayings you’ll find here:

When someone does something to distress you
for no apparent reason,
or behaves completely unreasonably,
for your own sake, repeat to yourself:
“Big world, some weirdos!”

If you want to kindle firewood,
there needs to be space between the logs.
If you pack the wood too densely,
the fire will not take; the flames need room to breathe.
In the same way, if our lives have no breathing room,
we won’t be able to enjoy all the things we have,
no matter how great or precious they are.

If you point out someone’s faults,
don’t expect their behavior to change.
Often all that happens
is that they get hurt.
Instead, praise their strengths,
which will grow to overshadow their weaknesses.

There are many aspects of life that we cannot control.
When it comes to our children, spouse, relatives, and friends,
we can love them, pray for them, show them interest,
but we cannot control them,
even when we have good intentions,
since their happiness ultimately depends on themselves.
Let them take responsibility for their choices.
When we get through an illness, we develop immunity.
If we protect others from illness,
they may not develop proper immunity against life.

I found those quotations on pages I opened to at random – the quality of the observations is consistently good. You can see that they aren’t necessarily things you don’t already know – but they are things it’s good to be reminded about.

haeminsunim.com
penguinrandomhouse.com

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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 from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Subpar Parks, by Amber Share

Humorous, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review, Travel 0

Subpar Parks

America’s Most Extraordinary National Parks and Their Least Impressed Visitors

by Amber Share

Plume (Penguin Random House), 2021. 206 pages.
Review written September 7, 2021, from a library book
Starred Review

I have several friends who have recently vacationed in National Parks, and I want all of them to read this book. I love it! It’s a travel book, it’s a book of beautiful artwork – and it’s hilarious as well.

Amber Share traveled to National Parks from every region of America and made an iconic painting of a scene from each one. Then she superimposed on each painting the words from a one-star review of that park she found on the internet, in the style of an old-fashioned travel poster. The result is wonderfully comical in the juxtaposition.

Here are some examples, though it’s not nearly as good without the artwork:

At Gates of the Arctic National Park in Alaska: “Mountains not nearly tall enough.”

At Craters of the Moon National Monument in Idaho: “Not really what I thought.”

At Hawai’I Volcanoes National Park in Hawaii: “Didn’t even get to touch lava.”

At Lassen Volcanic National Park in California: “No idea what people like about this.”

At Yosemite National Park in California: “Trees block view and there are too many gray rocks.”

At Arches National Park in Utah: “Looks nothing like the license plate.”

At Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah: “Too orange; too spiky.”

At Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado: “It’s just a big mountain of sand.”

At Gateway Arch National Park in St. Louis: “No real point.”

At Assateague National Seashore in Maryland and Virginia: “Horse poop on the beach.”

I should stop! The gorgeous paintings (always in poster style) of these parks make the comments all the funnier.

Besides the silly commentary from disgruntled visitors, this book is packed with information about the various national parks and gives ideas of what to see and do when you visit, including insider tips from park rangers. I for one have revived a childhood desire to do a big road trip and visit national parks across America. If I ever do it, I will bring along a copy of this book.

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