Until We Are Free

What at first feels like a collection of disconnected events becomes a more linked memoir of Shirin Ebadi’s ongoing efforts for human rights, and her life after receiving her well-deserved Nobel Peace Prize. Unable to keep her judgeship in Iran, she was still able to practice law, and it is clear from her interactions with anyone working against her that she excelled at this. She knows very well how the system operates, having learned the hard way, but this makes her stronger and better prepared to bring about justice. She is a human like any of us, and includes the details she remembers from her home country, the food, the sounds, the interiors of buildings where she worked, the way people presented themselves. Even though she is exile, and the intelligence ministry has done unthinkable things to try to stop her, she continues to work for what is right.

Women in Science

Very inspiring! is one way to describe “Women in Science,” an awesome new book by Rachel Ignotofsky. Reading this reminded me why I wanted to be a scientist in the first place. The excitement of discovery, defying the status quo, and the positive impact of applying scientific findings to benefit communities. Not only were these women brilliant scientists, they worked just as hard to advance social causes, and to apply their findings to the betterment of humanity.

The Man Who Touched His Own Heart

“The Man Who Touched His Own Heart” is the kind of book so good you’ll be re-telling some of these stories to your friends and family the whole time you’re reading. It’s a good thing I’m not so squeamish anymore – and a wonder I was a biology major – but after a few chapters, I found myself adjusted and just absorbed in the fascinating complexity of the circulatory system, and the adventurous history of how we came to understand what we now know about it. Like the titular character (that was one story I had to share multiple times), these are people who went into new territory at times when doing so was unthinkable. Many of them used their own bodies when no other options were available, and all sought, with a vision, a solution to a known problem. The progress of medical knowledge had slow beginnings, with frustratingly long gaps and setbacks, even the delayed inclusion of women and people of color to contribute. Now this pace seems accelerated, where many of the discoveries described in this book are commonplace, made into standard practice – where available, as the author takes care to point out: the world is still not equitable.

Beaks, Bones, and Bird Songs

Birds are amazing, and not just because of Roger Lederer’s (or my) bias. His new “Beaks, Bones, and Bird Songs” is a comprehensive book about birds, not limited to the elements mentioned in its title. In particular, he explains the evolved physical and behavioral characteristics of these animals and why they’re important in the face of threats ranging from the immediate to long-term. There is always a trade-off, a disadvantage for every advantage. However, it’s not a totally bleak picture: how adaptable birds can be comes up many times in many ways. Plus, there are many unknowns, meaning more areas for future research, which can help inform conservation.

Genesis

In jazz, the Real Book is the standard book of standards, where each song takes up one page, sometimes two. Here in “Genesis” Eduardo Galeano follows a similar layout, but rather than sheet music for popular songs, it is condensed history of the Americas. This is the first of three volumes in his Memory of Fire trilogy. The first part of this volume is only about a fifth of the whole. It begins with pre-Columbian myths, and with the history that follows, is neither fiction nor nonfiction. 1492-1700 are the years, up to the near-present by the end of the trilogy. Not everything happens in South America nor is even limited to the Western hemisphere: certain momentous occasions in Europe fit in the timeline as well. I found that if you only read one or two of these one-page stories at a time, it is not easy to follow, and perhaps a little too disconnected for one book. However, this is unlike anything I’ve ever read, and for a serious student of Latin American history, Galeano’s work is classic. Keep an eye out for these e-books, as they are sometimes on sale for significant discounts.

The Drawing Lesson

This is just what I needed. I read “The Drawing Lesson” in pretty much one sitting and will be reading it again and again. I draw birds and stuff – mostly birds. Like everyone else, I want to develop my own style, but I also needed more info on some of the basics in visual art. For example, what author Mark Crilley calls “negative space” (this is probably the common term in professional art), which is like the pieces of the picture that don’t really have interesting details yet hold the whole drawing together. One thing that makes this such a helpful book is how it summarizes each lesson and builds upon all previous lessons.

Chronicle of a Last Summer

“Chronicle of a Last Summer” stands out for its modern structure. Rather than writing about what happens in the book, I can write what is in the book, since events are secondary to periods of time. The narrator, whose name never surfaces, lives in Cairo in a family house she describes as being like a castle, in relative socioeconomic privilege. The house is unchanged through all the nameless revolutions and power turnovers from one dictator to the next, through all the family deaths and disappearances.

Country Editor's Boy

What struck me most in “Country Editor’s Boy” was how much this memoir read like fiction, in style. Because Hal Borland was a writer by profession, he might have had a tendency to notice and remember more than his peers – or, he could have done supplementary research to tell his own story, told somewhat removed, as if another person. Because it's not fiction, it's not quite as interesting, but has the elements of any coming-of-age story. Most notably owing to the dialogue, it doesn't feel like the distant past, but breathes as if you stepped back in time and got to see firsthand how things were in Flagler, Colorado, just about 100 years ago. Written when he was an adult, he'd had the time to see the perspective he may have lacked as a youngster.

Sweet As Cane, Salty As Tears

Thirty years after arriving as a 20-year-old in New York City, time rushes back towards Katherine Fontenot. She tried to run from her family in Louisiana, but if she loses her job, if her sister dies, what is she going to do? Her younger sister, “the sane” one, gets gored by a rhinoceros, which after escaping the zoo where Karen-Anne was looking after it, was shot and killed. Much more than her work, the Fontenot family is the heart of this book, and the family lore – the same stories that get told every time, but still make people laugh – get told yet again, for the younger generations to inherit. But more personally, about a third to half of “Sweet As Cane, Salty As Tears” is actually flashbacks, Katherine seeing something, hearing or smelling or sensing, remembering what she left behind.

A Buzz in the Meadow

Dave Goulson is a fine natural history writer, and an important conservationist. His work centers around the less glorious taxa, the insects that underlie the world’s ecosystems yet receive less attention. He has a talent for expressing scientific results, when too often the findings are confined to a bubble where only people specializing in a certain field will read and understand the results. Books like “A Buzz in the Meadow” are needed if you feel you don’t know enough about large groups of life forms like plants and insects. However, if you don’t like thinking about insect parts and reproduction (or that of animals in general), know that this is not for everyone. Still, Goulson is a very good communicator, and this is an excellent book.