Monkey Girl by Edward Humes

The full title of this book is Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, Religion, and the Battle for America's Soul. It is about a legal fight about teaching Intelligent Design in a public school system in Dover, PA. In telling the story about Dover, Hume also gave a thorough history of teaching evolution and creationism in public school systems around the country throughout the 20th century. The book was well-researched and clearly written.


I learned a lot reading this book. I hadn't realized exactly what Intelligent Design (ID) was; I had always said, 'yes I believe in evolution and yes I believe God made the world and those things coexist.' But the followers of ID in the book discount the fossil record, claim the world is just 6000 years old, and believe that people and dinosaurs roamed the earth at the same time. ID believes that Darwin is wrong and that we didn't come from a common ancestor to monkeys.

In this community, and many of the others mentioned in the book, ID is just a sneaky way of bringing creationism into the classroom. I was absolutely shocked at how openly so many of the people in the story believe that America is a Christian country and how that should inform our public school curriculum. It made me want to join the ACLU immediately.

The book covers several different aspects of the case, including small-town school board politics, the legal fight about ID, and the motives and personalities of many of the main characters. Of particular interest to me was the depiction of a Brown Professor (Ken Miller) who is the author of a biology book considered by the school board and later, a key expert witness for evolution. While I never took any courses with him, he did teach the freshman biology course that influenced me to read Galapagos.

The book also spends some time describing the Discovery Institute, a clever organization founded on the belief that "teaching the controversy" of evolution as a "flawed theory" with "gaps" is the first step in bringing creationism back into science classes. The Discovery Institute is very careful with their positioning and end up withdrawing from this particular case because they believe that the creationists try to position ID too strongly as a religious belief. While the Institute is founded on religious principles and believes that creationism should be taught in schools, they are careful to distance themselves from hyper-religious creationists to keep their reputation scientific and professional.

My favorite part of the book was the last quarter which was excerpts from the transcript of the actual case. The dialogue is fascinating. There are school board members lying under oath, school board members with no knowledge of what ID or evolution is, and lawyers for ID who don't know when they are winning or losing the case. Ken Miller's testimony is passionate and clear.

My only objection to the book is that the author, though purporting to write a journalistic book, didn't seem able to remain impartial as a journalist. His obvious bias towards evolution made me feel like although I agree with him I would rather have read a more balanced book. But then I think, really? would I really have read a book supporting ID? I am not sure.

Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris

I received this book at Christmas last year from my now-inlaws. It's about life in a graphic design office. I enjoyed how well the author was able to capture what it is like to work in an office. For example, he did a great job of characterizing how people gather in certain cubicles to discuss certain things. He also perfectly captured the spirit of everyday occurrences like what it's like to arrive in the morning and get settled with coffee and whatever free bagels are available that day. He used "we" throughout the book, instead of a particular character's identity, to further depict the communal nature of the office. The book made me nostalgic for the office I used to work in; now that I work at home I don't have these interactions.

I was not as captivated by the plot. There is a partner at the firm whose battle with cancer is a mysterious theme to many of the employees. There is also a continuous threat of layoffs that influences the characters' behaviors and leads to the main action in the book. However, it was the familiarity of the office that held my attention, not the storyline. I'm not sure if that was intentional on Ferris' part.

If you've ever worked in a cubicled office (or are interested in what it's like) I think you'd get a kick out of the sociological commentary this book offers. Otherwise, it may not hold your attention.

Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis

I've enjoyed Michael Lewis' sports books and decided a while ago to try one of his other topics. This one has been sitting on my shelf for a while.

This book is about Michael Lewis' years working at Salomon Brothers as a salesperson. He intersperses chapters about his experiences working there with characterizations of Salomon Brothers as a company and historical perspectives on different types of financial vehicles. He explains the bond market and its origins in the instantiation of variable interest to address inflation. He also explains how the change in commission policy changed the stock and bond markets. Most interestingly these days, he traces the origins of the mortgage bond market and how mortgages are packaged and sold as investments.

Overall I thought the book was interesting and contained an appropriate level of technical detail to keep my interest and assuage my curiosity.

Away by Amy Bloom

I almost returned this book to the library without reading it but something made me renew it and give it one more try. I'm glad I did. With one exception that I will get to later, this was a great book that I enjoyed reading and looked forward to each night.

The story is about a woman named Lillian who leaves Eastern Europe in 1924 after her family is brutally murdered. She lands in America, lives with distant relatives, and tries to start her life over. However, she finds out that her daughter may still be alive, so she begins a dangerous trip across the United States and up through Canada in hopes of eventually reaching Siberia. Along the way, she meets many interesting characters and, like most heroines in journey novels, finds out a lot about herself.

My only criticism of the book is that there is an unusually high number of sexual situations. Individually, each of the encounters served a purpose in the narrative, but put together they seemed egregious rather than appropriately descriptive.

That aside, I did enjoy reading this story and spending time with the characters.

Dreams from my Father by Barack Obama

Several months ago I noticed this in Lib's bookshelf and asked to borrow it. With the election looming, I decided to prioritize reading it sooner rather than later.

This is Obama's first book, following his early life through his matriculation into Harvard Law School. The first third of the book covers his early childhood, including when he lived in Indonesia and subsequently Hawaii. The second third addresses his years as a community organizer in Chicago. The final section of the book talks about his time in Kenya, a lengthy visit with his father's side of the family after his father's death.

What I was most struck by was how honest he was in the book. In a country where just ten years ago we talked about whether our president inhaled, Obama freely admits to a period in his life when he did drugs. He talks openly about race and his confusing feelings associated with being biracial. He is also very critical of his time as an organizer and what he saw in inner-city Chicago.

The book was reasonably well-edited. It was easy to read and held my attention. The one exception was a lengthy family history towards the end of the book. In other places I was surprised to see some 'Joe sixpack' colloquialisms that seemed forced.

This is the first time I've read a book written by a candidate in a current election, so I have little to compare it to. It did not seem to be written by someone looking to be president one day, which I appreciated. Either way, the contents of this book weren't going to change my vote.

Tattered Cover Bookstore in Denver, CO

Thanks to Dave for recommending the Tattered Cover Bookstore in Denver Colorado. In Denver for a business trip, I took a few minutes to browse in this great bookstore! It was three stories tall, had great old factory beams holding it up, and was filled with great clusters of books and places to read them.

http://www.tatteredcover.com/NASApp/store/IndexJsp

Kind of made me want to make it a tradition to start visiting independent bookstores wherever I travel.

Tomato Girl by Jayne Pupek

This book was okay. It was about an 11-year-old girl growing up in the South. She starts to notice her father's increasingly friendly relationship with the "tomato girl" - the girl who sells tomatoes to his store. As she copes with no longer being the most important woman in her father's life, she also begins to lose her mother to mental illness.

The narrator's voice was memorable...precocious and caught between wanting to take care of her mother and wanting her father to take care of her. She also goes through the pain of discovering the meaning behind the things that she sees going on between her father and the Tomato Girl. It was sad to see how lost the narrator was as an 11-year-old and how she didn't know (as the reader did) that these were not things someone her age should have to deal with herself.

However, I didn't love reading the book. I didn't find myself rooting for the narrator consistently and I didn't think the writing was anything special.

Wally Lamb is back!

I just learned that Wally Lamb has a new book coming out in November. Hooray! I found his recent compilations of essays by women prisoners a poor replacement for his excellent fiction.

Books Galore!

A few weeks ago Jo lent me Devil in the White City which she really loved. I also went on a request-apalooza on the library's website. I took the day off for Rosh Hashonah last week and went to the library after synagogue. Yesterday, Web and I went to Borders and I splurged on a book on the clearance rack by Mario Vargas Llosa and a new book called The Zookeeper's Wife.

So...I have a lot of reading to do all of a sudden!

The Birthdays by Heidi Pitlor

This book was about three siblings all relating to pregnancy. One is a single woman, accidentally pregnant, one has a wife pregnant with twins through IVF, and one has a wife pregnant from a donor. The family convenes for their father's birthday for a long weekend. The book follows their struggles coping with relationships and with their pregnancies. The author did a good job of explaining each of the characters' personalities, incorporating stories of their shared childhood.

It was a quick read and nothing special, but I was interested to know what would happen to the characters.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

This is the last of the fiction books I had bought for Aruba. It was also one of the greatest books I had read in a while. Every now and then I miss a book that America loves (for example Life of Pi) and this is one of those.

This book is narrated by an old man in a nursing home. He is watching a circus get set up in his town and recalling his life in as a worker in a circus during the Great Depression. I loved the story and how well it was written. I knew nothing about circus life and felt like it was reading about life in a different country. I also appreciated learning about life during the Great Depression. Clearly, Gruen did an incredible amount of research on these topics. Finally, the way the past and present were woven together was better than in any fiction I've read recently.

Highly recommended!

The Gravediggers Daughter by Joyce Carol Oates

I had never read anything by Joyce Carol Oates which is kind of strange, given how prolific she is and how much of a staple American author she is. I picked this one up for our trip to Aruba, but just got to it now.

Reading this book was ok, I liked it but did not love it. In retrospect, however, I think it's really well-written with an exceptionally good character portrait of the main character Rebecca. Rebecca is the daughter of immigrants who flee WWII and end up in upstate New York. Her father, a mean, unhappy man, becomes the town gravedigger. His personality haunts her for her entire life, including her choice of partner and style of raising of her son.

It was not easy to read in that some terrible things happen to Rebecca, and Oates does a good job of creating tension. But it is a memorable book and I'd be interested in reading other books by Oates.

Inheritance of Loss by Kirin Desai

This book had been on my list for a while and I thought it was one of those classics that I would love once I got into it. I wouldn't say I loved but I can see why it is so well-respected.

The book follows the lives of a small village of people living in India, near the Nepali border. As the politics around them heat up into unrest and war, the lives of these people begin to unravel in parallel. One of them has a son who has immigrated to the U.S., and his life there is no better.

Well-written with intriguing characters, this book kept my attention. I thought it was a great "time and place" book, with excellent descriptions of both people and settings.

The Groom to Have Been by Saher Alam

This was the first of five books I bought for our trip to Aruba. I bought it from the 2-for-1 table at Borders, and I think I had heard about it on NPR. I finished this on our first day of vacation. It was pretty well written and kept my attention.

The book was about a Muslim Indian who grew up in Canada. He is reasonably assimilated into Canadian (and American) culture but agrees to let his parents arrange his marriage. Just when he begins all the preparations for his marriage, he begins to see a family friend in a different light and wonders if he should be with her instead.

I didn't find the book that different from other similarly-themed books I've read. About forty pages from the end, I thought to myself, "he could end up with either girl and it would not be unpredictable." But I enjoyed learning a bit more about Muslim Indians, and Alam added a tasteful backdrop of 9/11 to the story that I appreciated. A good read, but nothing unusually special.

Flash Forward by Robert Sawyer

I was unexpectedly downtown and decided to try Wagamama for dinner. Not wanting to eat alone, I popped into Borders and picked this book up for company. I still have not read the third book in Sawyer's Neanderthal Parallax trilogy, but Borders didn't have it.

Flash Forward was as good as Sawyer's other books. It was a quick read with interesting plot, a little romance, and compelling characters. The book is about a phenomenon that a group of scientists cause accidentally. The phenomenon brings everyone in the world forward twenty years and gives them a short view of their lives then returns them to the present. The majority of the book focuses on how each of the main character copes with knowing where they think they'll be in twenty years.

Again, Sawyer has written a fun book, sci-fi only incidentally. It was less social commentary and more commentary on controlling our own destinies. Either way, enjoyable.