Making Beaded Jewelry: Over 80 Beautiful Designs to Make and Wear by Barbara Case

I have looked at lots of jewelry books over the years, but I have been more inspired by the designs in this book than in any other.  The author, Barbara Case, collects unusual beads that she finds on her travels, in vintage resale shops, antique shops—wherever she goes, she is on the lookout for interesting beads.

The jewelry in her book is designed to highlight her unique bead finds, so this is not a book of designs that you can copy exactly.  Mostly I just dream over it, poring over the beautiful pictures of her creations to get my own ideas.  I especially like the way she alternates her big, spectacular beads with smaller ones in complimentary colors.  She also intersperses different shapes with each other, and colorful glass beads with plainer metal ones.  Even fabric, embroidery floss, and leather are brought together to provide a pleasing mix of textures.

Most jewelry books seem to favor a particular style, but Barbara’s book covers them all.  Some are elegant, some whimsical, some earthy, some sparkly—the styles run the gamut.  She also intermixes styles, which has emboldened me to try making some of my own beads out of clay, painting them, and intermingling them with store-bought beads.

All in all, this is really a book to have fun with.  All the photographs are clear and beautiful, as are the descriptions of the types of beads, string, textiles, and so forth that she used.  There are very helpful diagrams of any technique that is not self-explanatory.  This is a great book for beginners and experienced beaders as well!

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After Visiting Friends by Michael Hainey

One morning, when Michael Hainey was six years old, he learned that his father, Robert Hainey, an assistant copy desk chief of the Chicago Sun-Times, sometime during the night had died from a heart attack. For some reason, Michael felt that the story about how his father had died did not add up, and during work on a high school term paper – when he had to visit the main library in downtown Chicago – he looked up his father’s obituaries.
And behold: they did not add up.

Chicago Today claimed that the newspaperman had died “as he walked” in the 3900 block of North Pine Grove after he had “just left the home of a friend.” But in the Chicago Daily News it was reported that Robert Hainey had died “while visiting friends.” Furthermore, Michael learned that his father had not died from a heart attack but from a stroke, and that he had been taken to a hospital on the city’s North Side, “Not exactly the closest hospital for two cops to take a man they find lying on the streets downtown.” The time of death was also curious: 5.07 a.m. Which meant that Michael’s uncle, a newspaperman also, was at the Hainey house less than two hours after his younger brother’s death. And why was it his uncle who broke the news anyway? So what was going on here?

After Visiting Friends is “a son’s story” about the shadow cast by the father’s last night and death. But the book is larger than that. It is an investigation of a family and of times gone by, and it is a report on journalism then and now.
Like so many trades, journalism has its own code of honor, and this code turns out to be a major obstacle when Michael Hainey tries to understand what happened that April night in 1970. Journalists, who claim to constantly strive to reveal the truth, conceal it with the words, I don’t know anything about that night.

But the information is still out there and others want to help, and one of them tells the writer: “you will defeat your enemy with the one weapon that you have inside you that he cannot touch and that he trembles before – truth.”
Does this sound mysterious? If so, it’s not surprising. For After Visiting Friends is – in addition to everything else it is – a real life mystery.”

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Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific by Raft, by Thor Heyerdahl

In April 1947, six men crossed the Pacific Ocean on a balsa log raft, covering 4,300 miles (the distance from Chicago to Moscow) in 101 days.  They battled storms, sharks, killer reefs, and other disasters as they were carried along by the trade wind and the Humboldt Current from Peru to Polynesia.

Why would anyone do such a thing?  As a graduate student in zoology and anthropology at the University of Oslo, Thor Heyerdahl lived for a time on the Polynesian island of Fatu Hiva, collecting animal specimens.  He became fascinated by the island’s gigantic stone statues, which are similar to ones found in Peru, and by the ancient stories told of Kon-Tiki, the ancestral chief of the Polynesians who came over the ocean “from a mountainous land in the east.”  The deeper he delved, the more convinced he became that Polynesia had indeed been settled from the east rather than from the Melanesian and Asian islands to the west, as most scholars contended.

When he wrote up his findings and his theory, no one would publish it.  The seemingly insurmountable obstacle was that the ancient Peruvians had no boats.  However, as Heyerdahl knew, they did have rafts made of giant balsa logs, because many drawings of such rafts had been made by early European explorers.

“Well, you can try a trip from Peru to the Pacific islands on a balsa-wood raft,” was the sarcastic response of one scholar to Heyerdahl’s manuscript, and this stubborn, modern-day Viking decided to take up the challenge.  He traveled into the jungles to fell the logs, floated them down river to the sea, lashed them together using only the technology available to the ancient people, and sailed forth from the coast with five dauntless fellow Scandinavians.

Heyerdahl’s understated style, which recalls that of the early Norse sagas, is perfect for this gripping tale, and the humor with which he describes the discomforts and dangers of the voyage illustrates how the six bore the journey psychologically as well as physically.  Their encounters with the incredible sea life in the unexplored waters around them is part of the adventure, as well as how they fared once they reached the islands.

The original raft is in the Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo, and the recent film of the story has won numerous awards in the author’s native Norway.  The English version is now out in the theatres, and you can read about it here.  Don’t miss the book, but be prepared—you’ll be up late till you finish it, and through Heyerdahl’s amazing descriptions you might start to feel the mighty heave of the waves and taste the warm, salty breeze!

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My Reading Life by Pat Conroy

My Reading Life is Pat Conroy’s love song to the books that made him the writer he is today.  It is also a love song to the people who introduced him to these books—his mother, his high school English teacher, the irascible owner of his favorite book shop, along with countless friends with whom he has shared books and talked about books.

The vignettes are sometimes poignant, sometimes funny.  One of my favorites is the story of how he was ousted from an Adrienne Rich poetry reading at his first ever writers’ conference.  He had gone to get coffee for his group of friends, and when he returned, carefully balancing the coffee cups, he didn’t notice he was the only male in the audience until they started hissing at him.

He tells other stories about the experiences that made him a writer—for example, he feels a desperate need to portray the family abuse he was forced to hush up as a child—alternating with chapters on the books that formed him and are still among his favorites today, such as War and Peace, Gone with the Wind, and Look Homeward, Angel.

Never having read Conroy before, I was amazed at his passionate prose.  He has an endearing way of launching into a high-flown sentence, then adding a self-deprecating little shrug at the end.  For example, he writes poignantly about his lonely boyhood as the child of a military family and how books provided his only solace:  “Before I’d ever asked a girl out, I had fallen in love with Anna Karenina, taken Isabel Archer to high tea at the Grand Hotel in Rome, delivered passionate speeches to Juliet beneath her balcony, abandoned Dido in Carthage, made love to Lara in Zhivago’s Russia, walked beside Lady Brett Ashley in Paris, danced with Madame Bovary—I could form a sweet-smelling corps de ballet composed of the women I have loved in books.”  I must say he made me want to read the books he praised.  Several of his favorites are favorites of mine as well, and I found myself saying, “Yes, yes!” as he praised so eloquently books that have been formative in my own life, such as James Dickey’s Deliverance, which Conroy called “a palace of light for a white-water river of words.”

To anyone who loves books, I say, “Read this one.”  Even if his tastes are different from yours, Conroy’s passion for the written word will take you by storm and leave you remembering why you love to read.

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Freakonomics by Stevin Levitt and Stephen Dubner

As Levitt sees it, economics is a science with excellent tools for gaining answers but a serious shortage of interesting questions.  This book asks interesting questions.  If you want to know which teachers are cheating, which criminals are actually getting rich, and how the KKK is like a group of real estate agents, then Freakonomics is exactly the book you want to read.  Even if those particular questions haven’t been burning up your brain pan, the book is still a fun and interesting read, full of counter-intuitive ways of looking at the world around us.

Levitt’s blatant disregard for stereotypical economic applications (say that three times fast) allows for math and science to be used to measure something far more interesting:  people.  While the questions asked in the book are interesting (say, what do sumo wrestlers and schoolteachers have in common?) it is the answers that are absolutely fascinating.  Often the answers challenge our preconceptions and force us to really look at the world around us in ways that might be a little uncomfortable, but are almost certainly valuable.  Dubner’s writing style is smooth enough that the reader doesn’t feel like their face is being pulled off while they go through some of the data sets in the book (have no fear, there aren’t that many).  He also brings enough humor to the writing to offset any potentially “heavy” effects of certain questions that Levitt asks.

For anyone who enjoys the little idiosyncrasies that life puts out there, this book is a rare gem.  Standing standard procedure on its head, Levitt and Dubner deliver a humorous take on a wide variety of subjects, from the fairly mundane to the truly extraordinary.    I had a very hard time putting this one down, even when I had finished it, and I cannot wait to read the sequel:  Superfreakonomics.  With a title like that, you just know the book is going to be good.  If we’re all a little lucky, it’ll have some funny Rick James references, too.

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Healing Through Exercise by Jorg Blech

My husband says I would rather read about exercise than do it, but I retort that learning about the benefits of exercise is a good way to get motivated!

Jörg Blech really makes me want to get moving. He says that exercise not only prevents illness but can also help you heal and recover when you are ill. This is true with almost all of our modern ills, from diabetes, cancer and heart disease to back pain and depression. You start feeling the benefits at surprisingly low levels; even thirty minutes each day, 5-7 days per week, can really make a difference. For example, studies show that if people walked at a brisk pace 2.5 hours per week, then one-third of all heart attacks could be avoided.

As a European science correspondent and the author of five best-selling books, Blech brings us evidence from medical journals around the world. His prose is clear and easy to understand; he boils down the scientific jargon into specific descriptions and guidelines we can use right away.

A particularly enlightening chapter is the one called “The Dangers of Going to Bed.” The common medical prescription of “bed rest” is being called into question more and more. Even after a single night’s sleep, our muscles begin to atrophy, which is why we instinctively stretch when we get out of bed in the morning. Unlike bears and other animals which have built-in mechanisms for hibernating, human beings were made to keep on the move. Even vigorous house work or moving around at your job is good for your body.

So, let’s get going! You can come back to your book after your energetic half-hour, and enjoy it all the more for the rest you’ve earned.

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Inside the Victorian Home : a Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England by Judith Flanders

This book is delightful! It is one of those books you want to tell people about constantly but worry that they will roll their eyes after the sixth or seventh Victorian life fun fact. But it is packed with interesting tidbits at every turn of the page and you cannot help but be aghast at some of the details. I would give you some examples, but I really cannot spoil your fun and probably you would not believe me anyway.

Flanders wonderfully constructs the book around each room in the Victorian home. She describes the home in detail, the expectations set forth by Mrs. Panton and Mrs. Beeton (the Martha Stewarts of their time) and the reality. She illustrates with excerpts from literature of the time as well as letters and diary entries. The book describes mostly upper middle class Londoners but does occasionally discuss the serving class and the truly wealthy.

Flanders discusses the Victorian life by going past the physical aspects of the room but what actually went on in the room and how that was informed by Victorian society (or vice versa).  For example, the chapter on the Nursery discusses the Victorian view of children and parenthood. The chapter on the Dining Room includes information on Victorian cooking, or overcooking, as it were. The chapter on the Sick Room discusses the Victorian views on health, illness and death (including the various stages of mourning).

Okay, okay I cannot contain myself any longer! I will not give you any Victorian fun facts but I will let you know that these questions are answered in the pages of this awesome book:

-What common childhood ailment was actually a measurable cause of death for infants?

-What common home decoration was extremely toxic?

-How long was the recommended boiling time for macaroni? a>30 minutes b> up to 1 hour c>up to 1 hour and 45 minutes

So check it out! You will be amazed we are all still alive and you will wonder what our ancestors will think of our everyday life.
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God’s Hotel : a Doctor, a Hospital and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine by Victoria Sweet

Victoria Sweet is one of those spiritual types. She’s a medical doctor and sure, medicine is a science, but that doesn’t mean it has to be heartless. It is the job of the doctor, Sweet believes, to get to know the patient—not just as a case but, also as a person.

Dr. Sweet first gets to know her patients by taking their medical history. Though she is lucky enough to live in the 21st century, when the medical field has a high-tech test to discover whatever ails you, Sweet would really just rather perform “the physical examination of the patient, on whose body [is] written, if [she] could only read it, the real diagnosis.” She takes a temporary position at the last alms house in America—Laguna Honda Hospital—where public funding allows staff to treat the poorest of the poor and high-tech medicine is yet to be discovered.

While at Laguna Honda, Dr. Sweet pursues a PhD in the history of medicine. She becomes engrossed in the experience of Hildegard of Bingen, who ran a monastic hospital in Europe during the Middle Ages. Hildegard based her diagnoses and herbal treatments on careful observation of her patients. Sweet recognizes the parallels between Hildegard’s patients and her own, and she gains an intense appreciation for the nun’s medical approach—and for the value of really knowing the patient.

So that’s why Laguna Honda Hospital is the perfect match for Dr. Sweet. By the time her patients make it to Laguna Honda, they are in desperate medical condition—so bad, in fact, that the county hospitals are sending them there to die. But, as Sweet works Hildegard’s “slow medicine” on the patients, thoroughly examining and getting to know them, she discovers what really ails them and how to cure it. And she discovers something else: that her patients are not so much victims of their diseases as they are victims of the high-tech, production-line medical care designed to save them.

Dr. Sweet is not the only one who feels this way. When the city’s political machine sets their sights on Laguna Honda, with the objective of increasing efficiency and bringing the hospital into the 21st century, the staff puts up a fight. They know the value of their cloistered space, their unique style of medicine.

Readers will grow to love Dr. Sweet as they share her hopeful journey through the hospital’s slow and painful transformation into a “modern medical facility” and come to know the patients that defy the current logic that new means better. And while Sweet doesn’t always manage to persuade hospital administrators of the benefits of “slow medicine,” she does a heck of a job convincing the reader.

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The Devil’s Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea

My most recent post for the Book-A-Blog was The  Children’s Blizzard, by David Laskin, a survival story of the infamous 1888 blizzard on the Dakota prairie that caught school children unaware and froze people in their tracks. Brrr…

Now I blog about the desert, survival and hyperthermia instead of hypothermia. This is a true outdoor survival story that is not for the faint of heart.

Author and poet  Luis Alberto Urrea, The Hummingbird’s Daughter, Into the Beautiful North,  Queen of America and others, chronicles the May 2001 trek of 26 Mexican men across a section of the  Arizona desert aptly named  “The Devils’ Highway.”  They left their homes in the Mexican state of Veracruz to cross illegally into the United States to find work, following a guide (coyote) that they paid for a safe crossing. They braved scorpions, snakes, corrupt Mexican police, and their own countrymen intent on robbing and killing them for the few pesos they possess.  The Coyote decided to take an unfamiliar route with disastrous consequences. Twelve of the men made it to “El Norte” and 14 died horrible deaths in the desert.

While this could have easily been a politicized treatise on the state of immigration law between Mexico and the United States, Urrea mostly writes from the perspective of a poetic sociologist rather than a political scientist, describing in detail (at times graphic detail) the process of hyperthermia on the body; the lives and cultures of the men, and the circumstances that propelled each to attempt a desert border crossing. It is clear from the overall tone, especially in the last 30 pages of the book, where Urrea stands politically on the subject of immigration and how he places the blame squarely on both US and Mexican policy makers. That being said, this is the story of an Exodus gone badly, and does not in any way override the story line of survival. Urrea writes bluntly of the idiocy of bureaucracy everywhere, and how in this case it proved deadly. Urrea’s ability to weave a riveting narrative made the book a  finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and winner of several literary awards.

The Devil’s Highway is like a desert version of  Into Thin Air, by John Krakauer, a first-person account of the deadly 1999 climbing season on Mt. Everest and the storm that left eight climbers dead on the mountain. If you like outdoor adventure and survival tales, The Devil’s Highway is an excellent choice.

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Bringing Up Bebe: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting by Pamela Druckerman

Okay, yes, this is sort of a parenting book, and perhaps not the type of book that you’d generally just pick up off the shelf, but it’s a really interesting read, whether or not you’re a parent. (Of course, since I am a parent, that’s easy enough for me to say – I’m game for pretty much anything that might make my kid more awesome.)

Pamela Druckerman was an American journalist living in Paris when she and her British husband started their family. Druckerman was immediately struck by the differences she saw between American and French parenting, and the resulting kids from each of those styles. French kids seemed, in general, to be calmer, less prone to tantrums, and to eat the same meals as everyone else (the concept of the “kids meal” being practically non-existent there.) American kids, on the other hand, are often more outspoken and confident in school, and… um, that might have been the only plus about American kids.

The book really isn’t anti the way we raise our kids in America, however. It shows both the pros and the cons of the French styles, and lets the reader make their own decision about what we might deem “good” or “bad”. Some things I’d steal from the French in a heartbeat (wine list in my hospital room? Well, hello!) and others I’m less inclined to take part in, like what Druckerman refers to as “The Pause,” where French parents wait for up to 15 minutes before tending to their crying infants, to try to understand what they need.

All in all, this was an interesting read, and I learned not only some new techniques I might try when my little one gets older, but also cultural differences between French and American adults that stem from the way we as a society raise our children.

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