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62-66: The Graveyard Book, Coraline, Neverwhere, Anansi Boys, and Stardust by Neil Gaiman - Clearly, I love Neil Gaiman. These books are listed in roughly descending order. The Graveyard Book and Coraline are young adult books that are close to perfection in story, characters, atmosphere - everything. I’m looking forward to checking out American Gods and the Sandman series.

67-68: Lessons From the Fat-o-Sphere by Kate Harding & Marianne Kirby & Healthy at Every Size by Linda Bacon - Harding & Kirby give us the social reasons why someone’s weight is none of our business, and why it doesn’t necessarily reflect an individual’s health, consumption patterns, or moral character, in a concise, handy book that is an enjoyable, easy read for someone already familiar with the basic ideas of body acceptance (like me!). Bacon’s book details scientific studies that show some pretty amazing findings - most relevant to Harding & Kirby’s book is the overall finding in an experimental study that pursuing intuitive eating and movement that feels good produces more positive health results than pursuing weight loss programs that often don’t work due to the human body’s natural propensity to retain weight - about how our bodies process food, adjust metabolism, and react to physical activity. For example, did you know that you absorb drastically more nutrients when you enjoy the food you are eating? I did not know that! Also, your absorption of nutrients shuts down almost completely when you are engaged in a heavy conversation or watching TV. What! It’s true! Also, type 2 diabetes and hypertension - often linked to the higher health care costs that overweight/obese people supposedly produce - are actually less harmful and cause less adverse health outcomes if someone is overweight/obese! Read this book - er, either book - if you want your ideas about weight, health, and weight loss to be challenged by science (Bacon) or just common sense (Harding & Kirby).

69: World War Z: an Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks - a companion to the Zombie Survival Guide, this books gives a history through various individuals’ stories of a zombie apocalypse. Fairly uneven, and not as interesting or compelling as the (also uneven) survival guide. I don’t know, I’m kind of done with the zombie thing, which is unfortunate because it seems to be picking up steam in popular culture.

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This book is not for me. I heard it was good from a friend, and I tried to read it, but it just did not hold my interest. It belongs in the same category for me as Willa Cather’s novels - books that are well-written, beloved by folks with good taste, but something about the subject matter (people living on frontier/undeveloped American areas) just cannot capture my interest. I take this more of a reflection on me than on the authors or their works.

Wild Life is about a woman who is raising four boys on her own in Washington State.  She is a sort of proto-feminist, and flouts traditions regarding gender. I was somewhat interested in the character, but as she travelled to Oregon to look for the missing grandchild of her maid, I found it hard to muster up interest in the book. She decides to go out with the all-male search party to look for the child, and eventually gets separated from them and lost. When she is close to starvation, a group of wild, bigfoot-like beasts come into contact with her, and eventually she becomes part of their travelling group, eventually identifying more with them than with humans, such that she is frightened when she is discovered by humans, and saddened to have lost her companions. This part of the book is fascinating - but the problem is that it does not come until around page 170 of a 220 page book. I would have loved to read more about her time with the wild creatures. I checked the book out from the library 3 times, and had to return it twice, before I got to this part of the book. Like I said, it’s well-written, and if it interests you, please go read it - but it is not for me.

Land of the Lost Souls is part autobiography, part explanation of homelessness and attempt to humanize homeless folks, and part entertaining bullshit session. Cadillac Man is the street name of a former working-class family man who found himself homeless in New York for many years. After introducing us to his world in a chapter titled ‘Merry Fucking Christmas,’ Cadillac Man goes back to the beginning and gives us his story - how he lost a job, made some mistakes, and ended up on the streets. In this part of the book, he is unflinchingly honest about his mistakes and does little to rationalize away the way he hurt his wife and daughter.

Cadillac Man shows us the world of the streets, or at least his portion of it. He doesn’t like to stay in shelters, so he grabs a few hours of sleep outside here and there; he doesn’t panhandle, but will accept money or clothing from strangers who offer it; he picks up cans and bottles all day to redeem for the deposits. He portrays himself as a fiercely loyal friend, checking in on friends he is worried about, and chasing off those who would take advantage of their weakness from illness or drinking too much.

Land of the Lost Souls is written in his own profane and witty style, and the editors wisely chose to keep his voice intact, even when the writing isn’t formal or technically brilliant. His story - and the dozens of other people’s stories intertwined into it - illuminates a fact that many of us would like to ignore: that homeless people are human beings, with backgrounds, personalities, motivations, and fears as varied as the rest of humanity.

Oh my goodness, this is one of my favorite books I have ever read. It’s the story of an angel (Aziraphale) and a demon (Crowley, who is described as not having so much fallen from grace as sauntered vaguely downwards) who have both been around for centuries, living on earth. Heaven and Hell are gearing up for Armageddon, and as Aziraphale and Crowley rather like living on earth, they conspire to keep that from happening.

The tone of the book is what really makes it great - misplacing the anti-christ is treated in a delightfully British-y way as being about the same level of annoyance as running out of tea. Other characters, all with their own bizarre histories and idiosyncracies, are introduced and play their own roles in the story. I was constantly torn between wanting to consume the entire book to enjoy every word of the book, and waiting to savor just a little bit every day. It’s fantastic - read it!

I just have to admit it: I am not good at picking non-fiction books. I picked up The Female Thing: Dirt, Sex, Envy, Vulnerability and Full Frontal Feminism mostly because I thought, why not? The Female Thing interested me because the author, Laura Kipnis, wrote another book that was a polemic against romantic love and attachment, which I find intriguing. Full Frontal Feminism is by Feministing’s Jessica Valenti, and like the blog, is an attempt to talk about feminist issues to a young audience; unfortunately, that ‘young’ audience doesn’t include me.

Let’s start with the worst. The Female Thing uses the four topics of the subtitle - dirt, sex, envy, and vulnerability - as a ‘map’ to the female psyche. And, already, it’s got points against it, because I really hate anything that pigeonholes men or women into certain boxes. Sure, we can talk about general patterns, but anytime anyone says ‘guys are just like x’ or ‘women are just like x’ their generalizations are severely limited by their own self-fulfilling perceptions. If you’re a woman who thinks that all women love shopping, high heels and makeup, and those things are their greatest concerns, you’re probably not going to have many women friends who hate those things, thus, you have no counter examples from your own life to disprove your shitty thesis. If you’re a man who thinks that all men talk negatively about women and call them ‘bitches’ and ‘cunts’, men who find that abhorrent aren’t really going to strike up a friendship with you - so you can look around at your troglodyte drinking buddies and say ’see, that’s just the way men are’ despite the many men who are not like that.

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