Columbine by Dave Cullen

Why am I posting again after four years?  I mean, why not?  It'll just be me, so I guess the "Review Me Twice" is kind of moot.  Mostly it's review me once, but that's ok.  The spirit of more than one review is there.

Dave Cullen gives you insight into a tragedy that really had a huge impact on my generation.  We've grown up with the school shootings, and the violence, and the constant arguements over gun laws.  We were in middle/high school for Columbine, we were in college for Tech, and adults & parents during Sandy Hook.  School shootings have defined our lives in a way that it has for no other generation.

And reading Columbine is tough.  When it happened, it was scary because it could happen to you, at your school.  As an adult, you realize it still could, still does, but this time it's your children at risk.  And it's infuriating.

Cullen also writes a fantastic chapter about media portrayal.  There were a thousand rumors flying around at the time, most of them egged on by news networks.  Some of those rumors still persist today:  The idea that the shooters were bullied, that their video games influenced them, that the parents knew, that the trench coats were chosen for a specific reason.  None of them were true, and yet "getting back at the jocks" would probably be the first answer you got if you asked someone on the street why Eric and Dylan did it.

Honestly, the impact this book had on me makes me write about it here.  It makes you angry because the measures that have been taken to stop it, are not ones that will help.  Kids are put through active shooter drills, schools have installed metal detectors and police have learned better how to move in once shooting starts.  But at no point have guns been restricted or laws enacted to make it harder for the shooting to start.

Cullen is about to release a book on the Parkland, FL shootings, and I think it'll be a really interesting read.  I'm sure there will be a lot of comparisons to Columbine.  Also, he wrote Columbine ten years after it happened, when most if not all information had been put out.  It's only been about a year since Parkland, I'm sure with significantly less info being released.  I wonder if he'll have the same kind of conclusions to draw.

Review Me Twice - Gulp by Mary Roach

Ok, so here is the thing about this book.  I really like Mary Roach.  I liked this book.  It was interesting and informative and it wasn't super boring.  Roach gets REALLY interested in whatever it is she's researching, and she always researches the things that no one really thinks about.  She researches and talks about the things that kind of gross people out.  Stiff was all about cadavers and how we die and what happens to our bodies.

Gulp is along the same squicky vein.  It starts out innocently enough:  it's all about taste buds and what we eat and why we eat it and where it goes and what we taste when we eat it and the nutrients we get in our mouths and what our teeth do, not to mention, she always finds the coolest stories about it.  I mean, some of the medical things that are going on are just awesome.

That being said, three fourths of this book are about poop and your butt.  I mean, I learned more about the colon than I honestly probably ever needed, or wanted to know about.  Not to say it wasn't interesting (apparently, Elvis died due to an over-sized colon and his own waste product finally exploding within him and killing him.  Not the the drug overdose as is believed), but let's face it.  It's a lot of a book about poop.

So if you don't really want to read about how we poop and how our bodies make waste... then this might not be the book for you.

I loved this book! The focus on poop and whatnot didn't really bother me, because I help my husband study for med school all the time.

My favorite parts were the chapters about taste, and how it relates to culture and personal preference and how all of that works. And, of course, every time Mary Roach said something funny, which was really often. This was a really funny book and, at the same time, a really informative one. I had a great time reading it and I'm so glad Cassy suggested it.

Let's Learn A Little Anatomy

This week, we're reading Gulp by Mary Roach.  And while we do want you to go read the book and learn all about the digestive system, I'm thinking just a little bit of background might be for the best in this case.

Do you remember that song about the bones you learned as a kid?  You know, "the toe bones connected to the foot bone."  No?  Well, here's a little reminder.

The digestive systems is kind of the same way.  Your mouth is connected to your throat, which is connected to your stomach, on to your small intestines, large intestines, down to the colon where it all comes out.

Now, of course, it gets a lot more complicated.  There are nutrients being pulled out along the way so that your body can power itself and the food is being broken down so that you can push it out the other side.  You also have tons of taste buds so that you put something in your mouth to begin with.  If food was nasty, we wouldn't really want to nourish ourselves.

So why is our digestive system to important that Roach felt the need to write a whole book on it?  Well, we started out as the digestive system.  We started eating and wasting before we started walking and talking as a species.  Evolution decided that if we were going to be eating, we should have a way to go find that food.

So brush up a bit on your digestive system before diving into our book this week.

Review Me Twice - A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking

I was actually glad that Alex picked this book.  It was a short book, so I figured I'd get through it pretty quickly, I like stars and space and astronomy, so I figured I would enjoy it, and Stephen Hawking is supposed to be pretty funny, so I thought that would translate into the book.

None of these things happened.  Yes, it was a short book, but it was so dry, that it took me way longer than it should have to finish.  I do like astronomy, but the book was filled with a lot of technical jargon, making it hard to follow.  That's not to say that I didn't learn ANYTHING from the book, I did, but it was really hard to follow SO MUCH of this book, and if you didn't understand what he was talking about, he referenced back to things a lot later in the book.  I often found him referencing things I hadn't understood earlier in the book to explain things later in the book, making me then not understand them because I had grasped the earlier concept.

He also didn't let his supposed humor really show through in this book.  I felt like it was filled with hubris more than anything else.  A Brief History of Time is supposed to be the common man's version of physics, the stupid man's physics if you will, and I had a really hard time grasping some of it, which makes me wonder what the smart version is like.

This is a book that you need to read two or three times to really get a firm grasp of what he's trying to tell you, but it's such a dense book, I'm not sure I could get through it again.

I started off really liking this book. I thought it was pretty funny, in the way British humor (which I love) is funny. Later on, it got a little denser, like Cassy said, but I still enjoyed it. It's not something I would pick up for fun usually, or read over and over, but it was still interesting.

I definitely learned things, but there were also things that went over my head, which I fully expected. It was easy to start, harder to finish, but interesting all around. I'm glad I finally read it (it has been on my "someday" list for a few years). If you like physics/cosmology, but aren't a physicist/cosmologist, I would highly recommend this book.

Favorite Non-Fiction book

We've read a surprising amount of non-fiction on this blog, and I've ended up liking a lot of it.  And science we just talked about our favorite since book, we're talking about our favorite non-fiction book this week.

I don't think I have ever talked about this book on this blog before, which is a tragedy, because it's actually an amazing book.  Stepakoff is a writer for a ton of Hollywood shows, most notably, Dawson's Creek.  Basically, it was his idea to have Joey and Dawson kiss (at least... I think that's the kiss that saved the show.  It might I have been Joey and Pacey now that I think about it.  It's been awhile since I've read the book and I never watched the show.)  Anyway, the point is, he talks about all the things that go on in a TV show writing room, how intense writing for a show can be, and really is just open an honest about the industry.

It's a FUNNY book too.  You so rarely find funny and insightful memoirs these days, and I really felt like his was.  I didn't feel like he was trying to preach anything to me or make me think anything.  He was just telling me about his life, about his experiences.

The best part was is that I picked this book up on a whim at a discount book sale.  I think I paid a big old $2 for a hardback copy.  What's more, when I read it, and LOVED it, I went back to the book sale months later and bought another copy for Alex.

Outside of children's non-fiction and elementary and middle school textbooks, this may well have been the first non-fiction book I read cover to cover. It was assigned in my eighth grade English class and it was one of those instances where we were told to read, say, Chapters 1-3, before next class, and I read the whole book in two days.
This was the book that taught me that I like to be horrified by books. I don't, by any means, think the Holocaust is there for my entertainment, but I appreciate the way Elie Wiesel conveys the horrible things that happened in his life through the written word. I feel more connected to the events than I do when I read, for instance, Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl.
I learned a lot from this book, and it sparked my interest in Holocaust and WWII autobiographies and memoirs. I might never have picked up Maus if I didn't peruse the WWII section of the public library's non-fiction collection every once in a while, hoping to find another autobiography on par with this one.

Author Bio: Stephen Hawking

I sincerely hope that you have at least a vague idea of who Stephen Hawking is. He's kind of a big deal.

At the most basic, he's a scientist. To be a little more specific, he's a theoretical physicist and a cosmologist. So he's a space scientist. I could list a bunch of scientific things he's discovered or created or sorted out, but are you going to read the whole list? And if you did, would you understand half of it? And if you could understand it, don't you think you probably already know quite a bit about the man who did it all? Yeah, that's what I thought. So let's list a bunch of other accomplishments and fun facts instead...

He has been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is the highest civilian honor.

This week's review book, A Brief History of Time, stayed on the British Sunday Times best-seller list for a record-breaking 237 weeks. A more timely fact here is that Leonard Nimoy (RIP) found out at the release party for the home video version of Brief History of Time that Hawking wanted to appear on Star Trek, and Nimoy made it happen.

Speaking about his acting, he has done a fair amount of it. He had cartoon appearances on The Simpsons and Futurama, and has appeared in person on Star Trek: TNG and The Big Bang Theory, among many other shows.

If you're curious about that machine that allows him to speak, it is operated by a single cheek muscle. He has a rare form of ALS.

He has co-written (with his daughter Lucy) three children's books, starting with 2007's George's Secret Key to the Universe.

And with that, this great scientist and great many-other-things will kick off our month of scientific non-fiction!

Holocaust Literature

We talk a lot about holocaust literature around here, mostly because we (perhaps morbidly?) really enjoy reading about it.  There are probably three major types of that you can pick up about it.

Memoirs

We've read a lot of memoirs.  They're first hand accounts of the things that go on. The Diary of Anne Frank is probably one of the most well known first hand accounts.  I've also talked about The Girl in the Red Coat and, while Maus isn't a first hand account technically, it's someone taking down a first hand account of what happened almost word for word.  You get a lot of memoirs in holocaust fiction.  In fact, it's probably the most prevalent, probably because a lot of people I think need to get their experiences out of them.  They need to get it down on paper and let people know what happened.




Non-Fiction text

These are essentially like history books.  Biographies or just general history books.  Anything that tells about the time, but isn't a first hand account of what happened.  They tell about what's going on, but they aren't through anyone's eyes.  They stick to the facts.  They are (supposed to be) unemotional and unbiased.  Schindler's List is a good example of this.  While the book is mostly about Schindler and what he did, it tells you a lot about what went on in the time period and during the war.

Fiction

These are books that give us fictional accounts, but still relate the horrors of what happened during the time period.  Our book this week, Once, is a good example of that.  The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is also a good example of that, and rare because it's told from the German side of things, from a very innocent point of view.  The stories are a little more embellished, but often based on things that actually happened.

Favorite Survival Story

In The Maze Runner, it's all about kids learning to survive, to adapt to their environments, to be very much man against nature (or, in this case, man against The Man.)  Alex and I decided to go ahead with our favorite survival books

Let's face it, there's little that Michael Crichton did poorly.  In fact, even his mediocre books are way better than a lot of people.  But there is something about Jurassic Park that just makes you realize how epic he is.

This book makes such a great modern day meets history survival story.  Not only do they have to fear for their lives and be resourceful and make sure they don't die a horrible death, they have to do all this in regards to DINOSAURS, creatures that we don't know a ton about.  A lot of it is speculation, or based on what we have seen from the bones, but we get a lot of things wrong.  The characters are basically piecing it together from what they know (which, since one of them digs up dinosaur bones for a living, is admittedly more than most.)

The characters in the book are interesting and diverse.  They action is enough to keep you turning pages, but not enough to think it's just too much.  There's death and gore (because what survival story would be complete without it) and just enough to keep you hooked and pick up the sequel.

I cannot for the life of me find an image of the cover of the book I'm thinking of, but I do know it exists. (If we weren't covered in half a foot of snow today, I'd drive over to the house where most of my books are stored and dig through them all to find my copy.) But my favorite is a children's non-fiction selection.

The image above is part of the same series, "Read It to Believe It!" There was one that I really loved called "Survive! Could You?" and it had four or five survival scenarios that taught you what to do. That book is literally the only reason I know how to withstand an earthquake or tornado or landslide, despite living in Virginia Beach my whole life, where those things never, ever happen.

But my favorite is the one about Mt. St. Helens (Read It to Believe It: They Survived Mt. St. Helens by Megan Stine) probably because my mom's family is from Oregon and she was alive when Mt. St. Helens blew. It combined stories of people from different areas who were affected differently by the blast. It told about the guy who refused to leave his cabin and is now buried somewhere under Crater Lake. It told about some people who were hiking (I think) and couldn't drive from the river (I think it was probably the Columbia) because it was full of sulfur (and that chapter is how I know that sulfur smells like rotten eggs). I think this was the book that sparked my love of reading about devastating disasters, awful as that sounds.

Review Me Twice - Shouting Won't Help by Katherine Bouton

I always like it when my co-blogger puts a non-fiction book on our list.  She almost always picks books on subjects I probably wouldn't read on my own (Tudor England?  I'm all over it.  The epidemic of people losing their hearing?  Not so much.)

I was excited to read Bouton's book, because the truth is, I really know NOTHING about hearing loss in America, or anywhere for that matter.  And Bouton manages to make the book deeply personal and informative at the same time.  There are millions of people losing their hearing and here's the secret: most of them aren't what you would consider old.

I really like that Bouton addresses the fact that hearing loss is such a problem, such an underfunded problem, and all the stigmas that come with it.  Hearing is probably one of the only sensory losses that we try to sweep under the rug, giving the impression that there's something to be ashamed of.  Bouton points out that even the hearing aid companies propagate this idea, showing off all the hearing aids that you can hide.

While I liked what Bouton told me, sometimes HOW she told it to me was a bit much.  It got really facts heavy (not to mention every time she mentioned this guy from John's Hopkins she referred to him by his full, two line long title.)  Sometimes, I just had to skim because the information she was giving to me just wasn't that interesting.

My favorite part, however, were all the individual stories she got and put at the end of the chapters.  They were interesting and endearing and really allowed you to understand the different ranges of hearing loss.  Overall, I did enjoy the book and I'm glad Alex made me pick it up.

Non-fiction is - as you've probably realized by now - not my usual, but nice. (Dr. Horrible, anyone? Anyone?)

But every once in a while, I run across a book at the library while I'm helping a student find resources for their papers, and I decide that I should read it. This is one of those books, and I'm glad it jumped out at me. (Not literally... I've had that happen, but not with this one.)

I had the same problem Cassy had with the heaviness of the information sometimes, finding myself skimming. That really just means that - if you skim - it makes a good leisure reading book that doubles as a great resource for academic research on the topic. Those are pretty rare, I've found. (Another good example of one of those is The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebekka Skloot.)

Definitely not a re-reader (but for me, most non-fiction isn't) but also definitely a book I'm glad I picked up.

Review Me Twice: I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai

Have you ever read a book, and when you're done, you just sort of put it down and go, "I know so much more about this topic than I did when I started reading this book"? That's what I did with this book. My strengths do not lie in politics or history or really even geography, so pretty much everything about the Middle East is a bit of a blur for me. I try to keep up, but I get easily confused and distracted and I don't retain the information well. But apparently all I needed was for a sixteen-year-old girl to explain it to me.

That's another thing I wanted to address, actually... Malala Yousafzai is sixteen years old. She has done more important things than I am likely to do in my lifetime. I know... "important" is subjective, etc. But she's brave and strong and... well, she got shot point-blank in the head by a member of the Taliban and then she wrote this book. That in and of itself should make you go, "Wow, she's awesome." And then you read the book, and you think, "Wow... she's really awesome." And that's obviously an understatement.

So not only is she a great writer, but she also has amazing stories to tell and important information to share. If you think (1) it's too long, (2) you don't like non-fiction or autobiographies, and/or (3) the book is overhyped... give it a chance anyway. It was really really good.

This book really makes you question what you're doing with your life.  Malala is 16 years old and she took a bullet in the head so that other girls in her country could have an education.  You know what I was doing at sixteen?  I'm pretty sure I was sitting on my couch playing video games.

Her story is incredibly inspiring and, honestly, way more insighful than I thought it would be.  You see what kind of things are really going on in Pakistan, and the roles of all the countries involved.  Here's a hint: Americans are not the heroes.  We're the people destroying her country with drones.  I don't want you to take from that, that she's an anti-american girl.  She's not.  She's just as angry with her own country for not doing anything about the invasion of the Taliban.  

Malala focuses on why girls need education, why EVERYONE deserves an education.  She lets you see the positive side of her religion, the way her religion is for the people who aren't terrorist, who really follow the word and spirit of the Quran.  I really liked that part because so often Islam gets distorted by the terrorists.

I also liked that, at the end of the day, there were still so many instances she was a 16 year old girl.  Her favorite color is pink and often dresses in it.  She likes to follow trends and brush her hair and argue with her best girlfriend. 

She's an amazing girl, with an amazing story and she is simply just inspiring.  I recommend this book incredibly and I think it's a great way to start off our new year of reviews.

It Takes Two to Have a Tango

This week, we're reading And Tango Makes Three, which is a true story about Roy and Silo, two male penguins who adopted a third penguin, Tango.

Roy and Silo actually attempted to hatch a rock first.  Then, when there was a different penguin couple who couldn't hatch their egg, the keepers gave the egg to Roy & Silo, bringing about Tango

Aren't they such a cute, happy family?

Now, of course, there's a lot of controversy surrounding the Trio.  The gay community uses them as a symbol for homosexuality happening in nature, therefore making it a natural thing in humans too.

However, Roy and Silo drifted apart, and Silo mated with a female penguin named Scrappy in 2005.  This has made them a target for a lot of hard core conservative Christians, saying that it's not natural, which is why the two drifted apart.

At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter.  Tango is actually in a relationship with another female penguin and they all live happily at the New York City Central Park Zoo.  Roy and Silo are about 25 years old (pretty old, considering the life expectancy is around 30.)

Roy and Silo were not the first same sex couple (that goes to Wendell & Cass of the NY Aquarium), and they won't be the last.  Same sex couples are actually fairly common in penguins.

The Tudor Tree

Welcome to your (slightly shortened) history lesson on Tudor England!

In case you happen to know nothing about me, I LOVE Tudor England.  It's my favorite time period to read about, starting at Henry VIII and his man whorish ways, and ending at James VI, who took over the English and Scottish throne, basically because there was no one left.



I know that's KIND of a big picture, but I wanted you to at least see the whole family tree. 

See, Henry VII came into power because he won a war (the last one to achieve his throne that way.)  He defeated Richard III and then married Richard III's niece, securing his place on the English throne for the next 25 years.  Honestly, no one really remembers much about Henry VII other than he preceded Henry VIII.  Henry VII had four children, Arthur, Margaret, Henry and Mary.

Arthur was the original heir to the throne of England.  He was older than Henry and he actually married Catherine of Aragon, causing peace between the English and the Spanish (who were constantly at war... actually, EVERYONE was at war during this time period.  No one ever got along.)

However, shortly after Arthur and Catherine were married, Arthur got what was called the "sweating disease" and died.  He was only 16 years old at the time.  He left Catherine of Aragon a widow and stranded in England for 8 years.

Now, here is where Henry VIII's controversy starts.  Catherine claims that Arthur and she never consummated their marriage (no one really know for sure if they did or not.)  Henry didn't really care.  He married Catherine, despite how shady it seemed (also, the Catholic church would not allow you to marry your widowed sister-in-law.  It was basically incest to them.)

During their marriage, they had one daughter, Mary.  But they didn't have any sons.  And we know it's ALL about the sons in England.  So what did Henry do?  He divorced his wife, of course, so he could get an heir.

And he kept doing this, for the next seven wives.  Anne Boleyn was beheaded (but it should be noted that she was Elizabeth's mother.)  Jane Seymour actually DID produce and heir (Edward VI), but died due to childbirth complications.  Anne of Cleves had a terrible relationship with Henry, and as such their marriage was annulled.  She was the only wife to come out alive, minus his final wife, and that's only because Henry died before the final wife could be killed.  He then married Catherine Howard, who he subsequently killed because she wasn't a virgin when she married him.  Catherine Parr was the last wife of Henry VIII.

The other major thing you need to know about Henry is that he completely reformed religion in England.  Catholics reigned supreme in Europe during that time, and the Pope had more power than kings.  Henry VIII opposed that idea (mainly because he wanted to divorce his wife and the church wouldn't let him.)  He rejected Catholic ideals and became Protestant.  He was actually the first building block of reform in Europe.  He planted the idea that one man didn't rule supreme (though that probably wasn't his intent.)

After Henry's death, the country was unstable.  Edward VI rose to the throne easily, but he was a sickly child.  Just seven years after becoming king, Edward died at 15 of tuberculosis.

Mary and Elizabeth fought for the throne almost all of Mary's life.  Elizabeth was smart and had her mother's cunning.  Much of the country wanted Elizabeth to rule, because she was Protestant (like both Henry VIII and her brother Edward), whereas Mary was Catholic.

Mary inevitable started a reign of terror to convert her country to Catholicism.  People were constantly being burned at the stake and, inevitably, earned her the name "Bloody Mary."  (Haha, and you thought it was just an urban myth.)

When Mary finally died, Elizabeth took the throne.  Her reign was considered the golden years for England (though not without its own peril.  Mary Stuart (Queen of Scots), who considered herself the heir to the English throne, tried MULTIPLE times to oust Elizabeth from her seat.)  Elizabeth built her kingdom up, was loved by the majority of her country and brought them into prosperity.  She even defeated the Spanish Armada (A REALLY big deal at the time), while delivering the best speech ever.

Our book this week, The Queen's Fool, deals with Mary's rule.  While the book is told from the point of view of a young (Jewish) girl, she enters Mary's court and reports all that she sees.  Gregory actually has a series of Tudor England based books, ranging from Catherine of Aragon to Elizabeth I.

Re-memoir Me

Tweak, our book this week, is actually Nic Sheff's memoirs about his struggle with drug addiction.  There are more than a few memoirs out there to read, some better than other.  So I'm just going to give you a few that have stood out over the years.

The Girl in the Red Coat by Roma Ligocka

I know I've mentioned this book a few times on this blog, but that doesn't stop me from loving it.  Written after seeing herself on screen in Schindler's list, Ligocka revisits her harsh and frightening past, during both the Holocaust and the Cold War.

It's touching and heartfelt and sad and wonderful and if you don't cry a little at the end, I'm pretty sure you have no soul.

Tuesday's With Morrie by Mitch Albom

We've already reviewed Mr. Albom on this blog, but the thing with being a good author is that you tend to crop up a lot.  Tuesday's With Morrie is Albom's recounting of his time with an old professor.  After hearing about his teacher's illness, Albom visits him every Tuesday, learning from him once again.  It's touching and sad and wonderful and Albom's writing is just phenomenal.
 
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
 

 

Really, I could throw Maus in with Persepolis, but A. Maus is technically not a memoir (it's a son writing about his father's experiences) and B. we JUST heard about Maus last week (whereas, it's been awhile since we've talked about Persepolis.)  Satropi talks about her life in Iraq during the 80s and the war that ensues there.  She talks about how it effected her life, and the decisions she made (bad and good) due to the situation in her county.
 
Really, the thing that makes it unique however, is that it is told as a graphic novel, something very unusual when it comes to people writing about their lives.

Some Assembly Required by Anne Lamott

I have not read this one, but a lot of people have recommended it.  And Anne Lamott wrote Byrd by Byrd, which is pretty much the best novel on writing you'll ever read in your entire life.  So I don't have any problems recommending this to you.

It's about Anne becoming a grandmother.  A book about her son (who she wrote a memoir on called Operating Instructions) having a kid.  She talks about the trials, advice and crazy situations that becoming a grandmother is all about.

Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

What list of memoirs would be complete without the girl that, seemingly, started it all?  We all know (and have probably read) Anne's diary, written while she was trapped up in an attic, hiding for her life.  She talks about boys and getting her period and all the things she misses from before the war.

While very obviously written by a 13-year-old girl, you can't help but be moved by this story.

Favorite War Books

While I was thinking about what to choose this week, I had a few decisions to make.  Did I want to pick a book about a real war or a fake one (Because, if I had gone with fake, Westerfeld's Succession is amazing.)  I could also be kind of glib about it (part of me really wanted to put down The Chocolate War.)

I decided against all of that, however.  I decided to give you a war book that actually spans two wars and is very much real.

If you've ever read (or seen) Schindler's List, you know the hype behind the little girl in the red coat.  The red coat is the ONLY splash of color in the entire movie.  And even in the book, she kind of makes an appearance in a big way (she's lingering behind the line, being moved gently along by a Nazi soldier, and before she turns the corner, this five year old girl watches a man be dragged out into the street and shot.)

What you may not of known is that this little girl actually existed, and did not die (like the movie suggests.)  Not only did she live, she wrote a memoir about her life.  She was very young during the Holocaust, and even at that young age remembered the dangers she was in.  She remembered moving from house to house and the people who took them in, risked their lives for her and her mother during those years of Nazi occupation in Poland.

What's even more heartbreaking is that when the war finally ended, and Poland was liberated, she was still trapped.  Everyone was so hopeful when the Russians were around.  They thought it was going to be the dawn of a new age.  They thought that things were finally going to get better.  But, as we all know, they didn't.  Things were horrific during those Cold War years.

And Ligocka was a teen during those years.  A moody, rebellious teen, just like all teens seem to be.  The book is moving and sad and hopeful and... really, just beautiful.  She tells a wonderful story that you just can't put down.

Out of all the wars in the world (even excluding fictional ones) Cassy and I managed to pick two books from the same war, and specifically, about the Holocaust.

I love Art Spiegelman's Maus I & II. They are graphic novels about his father's experiences in World War II. He sat down with his father and interviewed him about what it was like to be a Polish Jew during the Holocaust.

In the illustrations, each animal represents a different group: mice are Jews, cats are Nazis, pigs are non-Jewish Poles, dogs are Americans.

The first volume was the first graphic novel ever to win a Pulitzer prize, in 1992. Maus was originally serial, published in Raw.

One of my favorite things about these books is that,  by using the interview with his father as a story-telling framework, Spiegelman combined the as-it's-happening account of the war with the many-years-later perspective, blending the two very well.

Civil War History

We all know that I could go on for days and days and days about Civil War history.  I mean, it last for four years on our own soil.  There's a LOT that happened.  But, I'm going to try and just stick with the highlights here.  Starting with...

Why it Started:

We all know that Slavery was a reason that we were fighting the Civil War.  The South wanted it; the North didn't (though, let's not fool ourselves.  The North didn't LIKE or respect the blacks, they simply just didn't want to enslave them.)

But a big part of it was State's Rights too.  The south believed that their rights in their states should be held up in all states (mainly, that they could bring their slaves to states where slavery was illegal and still keep their slaves around.)  This was a huge issue.  The south also strongly believed that it was their right to secede from the Union, which they inevitably did.  The North believed more strongly in preserving the union.  The south and north were one country and should stay that way.


The Major Players:

Ulysses S. Grant- He was a General in the Union army and fought more than a few battles.  But he didn't win them all.  For a long time, people thought that the South was going to win the war.  The Battle of Fort Sumter was the first battle in the Civil War and it was a confederate win.  As we all know, Grant became the 18th President of United States (or maybe you didn't.  You could have not known that.)  He's also credited with ending the Civil War at Appomattox Courthouse.

George McClellan- He was commander of the Army of the Potomac (the largest army the Union had.)  He was also widely known for organizing troops quickly and effectively.  He was put in charge of the Army of the Potomac after the devastating defeat at Bull Run

Robert E. Lee - Probably the most famous name on the Confederate side.  He was very loyal and, though he opposed the succession, he joined Confederate forces because his home state fell into the Confederacy.  While Lee won many battles, he met his match with Grant and the two were constantly meeting on the battlefield.  Inevitably, it was Lee that surrendered to Grant.

Stonewall Jackson - The other name that is incredibly recognizable.  Jackson won the Battle of Bull Run, an incredible Confederate win, and continued to fight until he was killed by friendly fire at the battle at Chancellorsville.  He was determined and about as stubborn as Grant was.

The Major Battles:

Battle of Fort Sumter

This is considered the first fight (or skirmish) of the Civil War, and was won by the Confederate side.  The siege was composed mostly of volunteers to the Union army.

Battle of Bull Run

It was the first MAJOR land battle between the two sides.  The Union army hadn't been properly trained yet and it let to a major victory for the Confederate army.

Battle of Belmont

It was where Grant started his Civil War career.  It showed off Grant's leading savvy, despite not holding onto Belmont for long.

Battle of Winchester

Winchester was, surprisingly, a pivotal place to hold (surprising because the town is so tiny, you blink and you miss it.  And that's MODERN Winchester.  Civil War Winchester must have been SO TINY.)  Really, it's claim to fame is that it changed hands over 100 times during the war, 14 times in just one day.

Battle of Fredericksburg

Fredericksburg was a HUGE battle, mainly because it had more troops than any other battle during the civil war.  It was a crushing defeat for the union army, having twice the causalities than the Confederates.  A large factor was that the confederates had the high ground, and the Union army kept heading straight at them.

Battle of Gettysburg

The largest battle in the war, it was considered the turning point of the Civil War.  A Union win, this battle had almost 50000 casualties and was a war that caused the Union army to rally.  The war tide started turning after this, despite the war lasting two more years.

Obviously, these are just a few facts about the war.  Some facts that are more pertinent to the story this week?  Towards the end of the war, the Confederate army started hemorrhaging men.  Tons of men left the army, whether legally or illegally, because they knew that the south had lost.  Despite that, the Confederate army would send them back, or more often, just kill them on sight.

Also, Virginia was probably the most fought on land.  It was kind of a "no-man's" land, in between the two armies.  Virginia actually was a divided state: half of it wanted to succeed and the other half was against the succession, a division that became permanent when West Virginia separated from Virginia, becoming its own state.

Review Me Twice - Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops by Jen Campbell

Review day!  Always an exciting day here at Review Me Twice, and this week, we take a look at Jen Campbell's book.


So, a little bit of a story for you.  I suggested this book to Alex... oh, probably not long after we started the blog (my Goodreads shows me that I added it to my "To Read" shelves in October, and that was probably pretty near when I told Alex about it.)  Neither of our libraries had it, and nine times out of ten, we get books from the library, so we decided against it.

So then, for MONTHS Alex said that she had a "Top Secret Book" that she was going to mail to me for the blog.  And when I say months, I mean months.  I would say at least two, but probably three that she kept forgetting to mail it to me.

Finally, about two weeks ago I told her, "If you don't mail this secret book, I'm not going to be able to read it."  I also asked her if she would tell me the super secret book.  She said, no, but it was a book I suggested awhile ago.  And then I immediately responded with, "Is it Weird Things Customers Say in Bookstores?"

When she said, "DAMN IT!" I knew I was right.  Which was fine, because I had already bought and read it a month before, so she didn't need to send it.

Now, onto the actual review.  It was a fun book.  I mean, it's EXACTLY what it says it is.  Campbell started writing down the absolutely ridiculous things that people would say to her in the bookstore where she worked.  For this particular collaboration  other bookstore workers sent her quotes too, so it's a mix of both her experiences and others.

Some of the things people said... I mean, I worked in retail for awhile and I'm STILL surprised by some of the quotes that Campbell puts in here.

The book is funny, and while, no, not a literary masterpieces, it's still pretty hilarious, so five stars for that.

As a librarian, I get funny, weird, unusual questions about books from time to time. I've had students ask me how much a book costs (at which point I have the opportunity to explain the difference between the bookstore and the library). I had a student who needed books about the work of Pablo the behavioral scientist (who turned out to be Pavlov, of course).

One of my favorite websites that I read on a daily basis is Not Always Right (and the spin-offs Not Always Working and the newly founded Not Always Learning). They're reader-submitted stories about crazy customers (or coworkers/bosses, or students/teachers/faculty). This book is a lot like reading those sites, probably because it started as a similar website: http://jen-campbell.blogspot.com/2011/05/weird-things-customers-say-in-bookshops.html

It's a quick, fun read that delivers exactly what it promises.

Mitch Albom

This week, we're reading The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom.  If you haven't heard of The Time Keeper, chances are you've heard/read one if his other books.  The Five People You Meet In Heaven and Tuesdays With Morrie are probably his two most well-known.


But there are some surprising things you may not have known about Mr. Albom.  For instance, his background isn't in inspirational and moving writing (shocking, I know.)  He has a background in sports writing and, in fact, did that for many years.  He wrote for magazines such as Sports Illustrated and covered the Olympics more than once.

Albom also has a very diverse background.  He has written plays and is heavily involved in music, being able to play the piano and still to this day is in a band that plays for charities.  While he was going to school, he worked in the music industry to support his bills.  He is a very accomplished songwriter.

He also worked hard for the position he's in.  He worked as a babysitter and wrote for supermarket circulars to pay his way through college.  He also wrote part-time with Sports magazine, all while still working with the music industry.

Tuesdays With Morrie was his first book, written in 1997.  It's based upon Albom's visits to his old professor, who was dying of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease   Albom wanted to help his professor pay for his vast medical bills, so he wrote a book about their visits and submitted it to a publisher.  Six months after publication, it became number one on the NYT Best Seller list, and remained on that list for 205 weeks.

Albom supports several charaties in Detroit and you can find more information about him on his website.

The Tale of Fairy Tales

Fairy tales have had a long history, both oral and written.  Today, fairy tales are fun, sometimes cautionary, tales for kids.  They're usually fun and romantic (think Sleeping Beauty and Snow White.)  And, thanks to Disney, they usually have happy endings.

See?  Don't they just look Oh-So-Happy?

But the truth is, Fairy tales were meant to teach lessons, and in a not so pretty way.  Let's look at Bluebeard, a fairy tale created to teach people (women in particular.  Fairy tales are ridiculously misogynistic) not to be overly curious.  Charles Perrault wrote one of the most known and it consisted of a woman who married a very rich man with a blue beard.  He had many wives before her but no one knew what happened to them.  He went on a trip and told her that she could enter any room in the house but one.  Curiosity got the better of her, and she opened the door to find all of his dead wives.  Bluebeard found out and told her that she would have to die because he disobeyed her.  Just before he killed her, her brothers showed up and kill him.  Not exactly a story they would turn into a fun loving Disney movie.

What a wonderful guy, don't you think?

Just because Perrault's was the most well know, doesn't mean that his was original.  Fairy Tales were oral stories, for centuries, before they were ever written down on paper.  And in fact, most of the tales we know and love today are very watered down versions of the original.  In one version of Sleeping Beauty, there are any where from 15-20 euphemisms for sex.  In Snow White, the queen dies from dancing in red hot iron slippers.  The Little Mermaid had her tongue cut out and was turned into sea foam.  Even Hans Christian Anderson, whose tales were thought to be some of the most original, weren't.  He stole a lot of his material from oral stories, or stories that he had heard in his youth.

So why are fairy tales so popular today?  And why are they so different?  A large part of that is Disney.  They've taken the stories, bent them to their needs and made them kid friendly (after all, seeing the evil queen from Snow White thrown off a cliff was scary enough.  Imagine if she had died from dancing in red hot shoes.)  Also, the perception of children has changed.  The Grimms changed a lot of the endings to their stories because kids were starting to be protected from that kind of thing.  Previously, children were exposed to a lot more than they are today.  There are very little gruesome ideas we expose our children to.

Fairy tales are fun and fun to learn about.  They're rich in history and you can trace them all over the world.  Every culture has them.  It's just an interesting way to see how we're all connected.

Edit:  This article was recommended by one of our readers, "The People Watcher."  It gives some more fairy tales and some of their original endings!  Thanks for the info!

Inuit–Yupik

This week, we're reading My Name is Not Easy by Debbie Dahl Edwardson.  Since there's so much about the Eskimo people in the book, we decided on a little history lesson.  Lesson one: Inuit-Yupik means Eskimo!

This is how most people imagine an Eskimo family. 

Which, is actually pretty accurate.

The Eskimo people have been around for about 5,000 years (way longer than any of the rest of us have been here, let's face it.)  They generally live in Eastern Siberia, Alaska (in the recent US Census counts, about 19% of Alaskans are Native American or Native Alaskan), all across Canada and in Greenland.  Most speak Yupik, though the language has many different dialects. (In those same aforementioned Census results, it was calculated that about 85% of Alaskans over the age of 5 speak only English at home. 3.5% speak Spanish, 2.2% speak another Indo-European language, 4.3% speak an Asian language, and 5.3% speak "other" languages - which includes the Native Alaskan languages - at home.) While the official name is Inuit-Yupik, anyone not in Alaska usually calls them Eskimos (mainly because we can't pronounce the name.  Which... is almost entirely the point of the book we're reading this week.  So chew on that one for awhile.)

Inuit-Yupik is also to reflect both groups (or tribes) of the Eskimo people.  There is a third group of Eskimos, called Aluet.  Technically, the word Eskimo does not refer to this group of people.  All three branches also have their own form of the language and dialect, which you can see the breakdown of below:

Aleut

Aleut language

Western-Central dialects: Atkan, Attuan, Unangan, Bering (60–80 speakers)

Eastern dialect: Unalaskan, Pribilof (400 speakers)

Eskimo (Yup'ik, Yuit, and Inuit)

Yupik

Central Alaskan Yup'ik (10,000 speakers)

Alutiiq or Pacific Gulf Yup'ik (400 speakers)

Central Siberian Yupik or Yuit (Chaplinon and St Lawrence Island, 1,400 speakers)

Naukan (700 speakers)

Inuit or Inupik (75,000 speakers)

Iñupiaq (northern Alaska, 3,500 speakers)

Inuvialuktun (western Canada; together with Siglitun, Natsilingmiutut, Inuinnaqtun and Uummarmiutun 765 speakers)

Inuktitut (eastern Canada; together with Inuktun and Inuinnaqtun, 30,000 speakers)

Kalaallisut (Greenland, 47,000 speakers)

Inuktun (Avanersuarmiutut, Thule dialect or Polar Eskimo, approximately 1,000 speakers)

Tunumiit oraasiat (East Greenlandic known as Tunumiisut, 3,500 speakers)

Sirenik Eskimo language (Sirenikskiy) (extinct)

(Source: Wikipedia.org)

So what differs between the Eskimo we think of and the real deal?  Well, for one, they don't live in the houses made of ice that we think of as Igloos.  Igloo means "House" so while, technically, they do live in igloos, it's not the one you're thinking of.  That's not to say that the snow covered structures don't exist!  They are just temporary houses, however, built for survival during the hunting season.

Igloo we traditionally think of.

Real (temporary) Igloo.

        

Also (technically) an Igloo.

They also don't have thousands of words for snow.  While there are many, it's not thousand (probably more like 50.)  There are however, many words for ice, because they describe color, type and even how to cross it, in just a word.

And if you've ever used a kayak, you can thank the native peoples of Alaska. "Kayak" is what they called their canoes made from the skin of animals they hunted.