Utne Reader Book Reviews: January-February 2009
(Page 2 of 2)
January-February 2009
by Staff, Utne Reader
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Handle with Care
Pathologies: A Life in Essays
by Susan Olding (Freehand)
Canadian writer Susan Olding sets forth a series of vignettes laced with intricate dictionary definitions that sweep her along as she grapples with her father, infertility, and motherhood in Pathologies. Olding is at her best when she’s writing about her daughter, Maia, whose infancy in a Chinese orphanage left her psychologically damaged and prone to physical and verbal outbursts. Despite “so many signs of progress,” she confides, “on our worst days, I still fear that I am raising a sociopath. At minimum, a ‘borderline.’ ” Pathologies is a frank anatomization of emotions and “the way things go wrong,” though it feels like much is left unsaid. Perhaps, like healing Maia, that too will come with time. —Elizabeth Ryan
Mental Mistakes in the Workplace
Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School
by John Medina (Pear)
Our lives are antithetical to the way the human brain works, writes John Medina in Brain Rules. People don’t live and learn well in sedentary, sleep-deprived, and stress-filled environments, yet that’s exactly how most schools and businesses are designed. Medina, a developmental molecular biologist, offers 12 intuitive “rules” to live by that he believes will bring our brains and our lives into greater harmony. He also employs some of his own neurological tricks and observations regarding memory and attention to make the book more readable and engaging. “People don’t pay attention to boring things,” Medina writes—so he fills the book with quick-hit paragraphs and amusing anecdotes to keep his readers’ minds from wandering. —Bennett Gordon
Utne Reader Approved
Tales for Little Rebels (NYU) anthologizes 75 years of radical children’s literature. It’s a rousing, relevant chronicle of teaching kids about social and environmental justice, civil rights, and their power to challenge the status quo. —Julie Hanus
Author Karsten Heuer literally migrated with an arctic caribou herd for five months in a gutsy feat of immersive journalism. Being Caribou (Milkweed) chronicles his journey as he sheds “my false sense of security, my hubris, my mental clutter.” —K.G.
Dave Roche recounts entertaining, occasionally touching vignettes from his career as a substitute special-ed assistant in On Subbing (Microcosm). His hundreds of diary-style entries are refreshingly deadpan and never precious. —D.M.
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