Stick Figure

A diary of my former self
by Lori Gottlieb

Stick Figure is Gottlieb’s diary from when she was 11 years old, and anorexic. She started out sounding like a normal 11-year-old — questioning why women were so weird about eating. On one page of the women’s magazines her mom read was a new diet, and on the next page a recipe for a triple-chocolate layer cake. But, something seemed to snap, and she became the one who was diet-obsessed. Even though she was only 11-years old and 65 pounds, she put herself on a diet, so she could be the thinnest girl at school.

I think I’ve been interested in anorexia because my eating disorder has manifested itself as over-eating. I’ve always secretly wished that I could have gone in the direction of anorexia instead. I know that it’s no more healthy than over-eating, but at least then I would be thin. I know that’s twisted, and reading Stick Figure gave me a good picture into the mind of at least on anorexic. Their life is in no way better than mine, just messed up in a different way. Gottlieb even worried about getting calories from licking stamps or smelling food!

The Gate to Women’s Country

by Sheri S. Tepper

Tepper is rapidly becoming one of my favorite authors! This is the second book I’ve read by her, and it also has the high quality writing, story and character development as Singer From the Sea.

In this novel, it is three hundred years after the Earth has gone through a devastating war. The society that has arisen from the devastation consists of cities behind walls governed by women and garrisons filled with men to protect each city. When a boy turns five, his mother brings him to the garrison to be raised by his warrior father. He returns to his mother’s house twice a year during carnival. Then at age fifteen he must decide whether to stay with the garrison or to return to the city through the Women’s Gate (only warriors are allowed to use the Warrior’s Gate). The men who return become servitors, they study and live in a women’s house assisting with the work.

We follow Stavia, daughter of a councilwoman and later a councilwoman herself. The story is told through flashbacks to Stavia’s childhood and early adulthood, as she becomes smitten and later hurt by a warrior. Interwoven into all of this is the tension building in the garrison — the warrior’s unrest and desire to take over the women’s city.

Excellent book. I again look forward to my next Tepper book.

Island of the Blue Dolphins

by Scott O’Dell

This is another book I had read as a kid, and when I saw it on the shelf at a local used bookstore, I couldn’t help myself. It was certainly just as good reading as an adult as when I was a child.

O’Dell tells the story of an Indian girl living alone on the Island of the Blue Dolphins for many years. She ends up alone because she jumped from the ship that came to carry her people to a nearby North American shore. Her brother had been left behind, and she didn’t want him to be alone. Unfortunately, a few days after the boat leaves, her brother is killed by wild dogs, leaving Karana alone. She continues to watch for the boat, but days turn into weeks and weeks turn into seasons.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the book is that it is based on the fact that there was an Indian girl living alone on an island in the Pacific from 1835 to 1853. Very little is known about her other than she did jump from a ship, despite attempts to restrain her, her brother was killed by wild dogs, and she was found with a dog living in a crude house and wearing a skirt of cormorant feathers.

The Book of Nothing

Vacuums, Voids, and the Latest Ideas about the Origin of the Universe
by John D. Barrow

The subtitle of this book is Vacuums, Voids, and the Latest Ideas about the Origin of the Universe — that’s a tall order for a book about Nothing!

Barrow starts by telling how zero came about — surprisingly not from the Greeks. From there we explore the history of the concept of Nothing. It’s amazing to thing that the concept of Nothing took a long time to come into being. The Greeks, for example, believed that a region had to have something in it to be a real concept. The Christians debated whether the concept of Nothing was Christian or not. On one side a region with nothing in it would also be without God, but He is everywhere. On the other side, if they decided that God couldn’t create a region with nothing in it, then they were limiting His powers.

From there Barrow moves on to more and more complex ideas until finally we learn about the quantum vacuum. Because of the uncertainty principle — the principle that states that we cannot know both a particle’s position and momentum simultaneously to high precision — there is no region that we can safely say is a vacuum. In addition, a vacuum will also have virtual particle pairs being created and destroyed constantly (as long as they are destroyed fast enough not to break the uncertainty principle. Finally, we learn about inflation theories and current ideas on cosmology.

I found Barrow’s style very easy to read, though I’ll confess to already being familiar with many of the inflation and cosmology he presents. I did start zoning out in a few of the later sections, but I may have just been tired.

Up the Down Staircase

by Bel Kaufman

I actually read this book many years ago, when I was in junior high. My favorite teacher had mentioned it in class — I think as an example of a story told in a non-traditional way. Up the Down Staircase tells the story of a first-time teacher, Miss Barrett, and her first semester in a public high school. But rather than being told as a traditional narrative, the story is told through the many pieces of paper that cross Miss Barrett’s desk or end up in her wastebasket. These papers take the form of mimeos from the office, intraschool notes between teachers, written compositions from the students, notes left in the suggestion box, and letters written by Miss Barrett to her good friend in the suburbs.

While the novel was first published in 1964, it is striking how many of the complaints about the education system hold up today. Among the issues raised are too many students per teacher, kids dropping out and joining gangs or working to support their family, insufficient facilities, unreasonable demands’ on teachers’ time, and kids in school with knives. It seems that the only thing that has changed in the intervening 40 years is that school has become more violent.

Up the Down Staircase is an excellent book that really stands the test of time.

4 Blondes

by Candace Bushnell

Bushnell also wrote Sex and the City — the inspiration for the HBO series. While I haven’t read the book, I have seen the series, and I was expecting something more along those lines. I suppose this was somewhat along those lines — the stories were about 4 blondes who were stuck-up and self-centered…the kind of women I would never find among my friends. However, I find that I have some sympathy for the characters in Sex and the City. The blondes in 4 Blondes are not at all sympathetic — they are pathetic, and pathetic of their own making.

Warrior Women

The Amazons of Dahomey and the Nature of War
by Robert B. Edgerton

The Amazons of Dahomey were the elite army of the Aftrican republic of Dahomey from early 1700s (?) to nearly 1900 when the French took over Dahomey. They fought more fiercely than the men to protect their king and his interests. They were women.

Edgerton explores the origins of these Amazons, their rise and their fall. They represent an enigma in World warfare history, since war has almost exclusively been the realm of men. While women have gone to fight in wars in other cultures and societies, never before or since have they formed the elite army of a society.

Unfortunately, I rediscovered that scholars are generally not great writers with this book. Edgerton bounces around with is subject and repeats points and even anecdotes frequently, making the book a slog. Perhaps the most interesting chapter was the last one where he explores the history of women in warfare across the globe throughout history — though this certainly could have been a book all its own.

Contact

by Carl Sagan

Excellent book! I’ve wanted to read this book since they started filming the movie version in Socorro (where I was living at the time) — that was at least seven years ago. I’m glad I finally got around to it!

In the novel, the Very Large Array radio interferometer in New Mexico has been expanded to over 100 telescopes and works much of the time searching for signals from extraterrestrial beings. Project Argus is lead by Ellie Arroway, a strong female scientist who has had to prove herself in a male-dominated field. One day in the late 1980s, Argus is successful — it detects a signal from Vega that is definitely not natural. In fact, once deciphered, the message is seen to contain instructions to build a machine. No one quite knows what the machine will do. In fact, construction of the machine requires whole new industries that Earth engineers had never conceived.

Two of the best things about this novel are Ellie Arroway and the President of the United States, who is female. Sagan has created two strong female characters who are sympathetic, not complete bitches (though Ellie boarders on it), and great role models. It’s just too bad that the movie version had to use Clinton rather than portraying a female president.

Highly recommended.

Book Embargo

We’ll see how long the embargo lasts, because I love buying books.

Here’s the deal I made with myself: No new books until I’ve read at least 20 books on my to-read shelves. I’ve already had to make an addendum to this agreement, since I’ll be visiting Minnesota at the end of the month. The significance of that is that my favorite book store, Uncle Hugo’s , is in Minnesota. It’s a locally owned bookstore that carries new and used science fiction, fantasy and horror. (There is a sister bookstore in the same building, Uncle Edgar’s, that carries mysteries.) I want to do my part to keep Uncle Hugo’s in business, so I’ve decided that I can buy any number of books while I’m there. However, that number of books will then be added on to the 20-book mandate. Sigh.

Beyond the Blue Event Horizon

by Frederik Pohl

This is the second installment in the Gateway series. I was completely drawn in by the first book, and it’s now among my favorite books. So, I was a bit startled/jolted when I started this one and found the style and point-of-view was completely different (the first book was completely from Robinette Broadhead’s point-of-view, whereas this one had a different point-of-view for each chapter).

However, I quickly got over my surprise, and was drawn in by Beyond the Blue Event Horizon as much as I had been by Gateway. This book picks up several years after Gateway, and follows a family’s voyage to a Heechee food factory in the Oort cloud. After three years of travel (they do not take the Heechee ships because the last person who tried, did not return), they arrive, only to discover that they are not alone. They stumble upon a human boy, Wan, who has never seen another human besides his mother who died when he was very, very young). He has been living at another Heechee port, nicknamed Heechee Heaven, cared for by the “dead ones” — machines with the imperfect memories of men and women unfortunate enough to have stumbled into Heechee Heaven.

Pohl does not disappoint. The characters are well-crafted, and the story compelling. I’m looking forward to the third installment.