Author: claredibble

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Books

The Way of Integrity: Book Review

Back Cover Blurb for The Way of Integrity: Finding Your Path to Your True Self by Martha Beck:

In The Way of Integrity, Beck presents a four-stage process that anyone can use to find integrity, and with it, a sense of purpose, emotional healing, and a life free of mental suffering. Much of what plagues us – people pleasing, staying in stale relationships, negative habits – all point to what happens when we are out of touch with what truly makes us feel whole.

1. “Is it true? (Yes or no. If no, move to question 3.)

2. Can I absolutely know that it’s true? (Yes or no.)

3. How do I react, what happens, when I believe that thought? Is it helpful? Who or what would I be without the thought?”

― Martha Beck, The Way of Integrity: Finding the Path to Your True Self

I am charmed by Martha Beck. I think she is kind of crazy as a loon, and brave for being so open for things people have long been thought to experience, but shy away from discussing in public lest they be considered crazy, like mystical experiences. I like that I do not always agree with her and yet I still feel that I learn a lot from her. It’s quite a journey from Mormon preacher’s kid to lesbian self-help guru, including a year of not lying at all, not lying by staying silent, not even white lies. I’m sure it is instructive, but I’m also glad not to live with her.

I first found her work about a decade ago with Finding Your North Star, where I read the most in depth analysis of Hero’s Journey up to that point in my life. Here, she does something similar with Dante’s Devine Comedy. But also, she just renames or retranslates different parts of his story if she likes a different framing better. It is way more interesting than the literary analysis I remember from high school, especially when she claims Dante might be being literal in places that common wisdom agrees is allegorical.

This book is categorized as self help and it veers into the mystical, but I never find it preachy. It does suggest things like, “I am meant to live in peace,” but for me the focus on questions rather than answers keeps it from slipping too far into the new age. Every chapter contains a series of questions you can ask yourself, if you want to. Otherwise, you can enjoy the journey down into the depths of the Inferno and back out the other side.

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Books

Hurts So Good: Book Review

Back Cover Blurb of Hurts So Good: The Science and Culture of Pain on Purpose by Leigh Cowart

An exploration of why people all over the world love to engage in pain on purpose–from dominatrices, religious ascetics, and ultramarathoners to ballerinas, icy ocean bathers, and sideshow performers

“My breath caught hard in my chest, the sensation from my feet crashing into the realization that getting everything I dreamed of really would come at a cost.”

― Leigh Cowart, Hurts So Good: The Science and Culture of Pain on Purpose

Leigh Cowart explores and enters different cults of pain to understand who is drawn to various methods of “feeling bad to feel better.” This combination with her often used phrase “pain on purpose” remind me of Jon Kabat-Zinn’s definition of mindfullness, “Mindfulness is awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgementally.” She juxtaposes this with historical examples, scientific research, and her personal journey from ballet through a dangerous eating disorder to sexual masochism.

The book is conversational and as such, it leaves more questions than answers. My take is that she is really exploring – but does not explicitly state – what is healthy use of pain and why so many things society values demand painful payment to acquire. She seems to imply that she has found consensual and controlled pain to be part of managing her predilection towards more dangerous and less healthy forms of pain, like the eating disorder that almost killed her. More to the point, it is weird to condemn pain while revering the results it brings, yet there are so many examples where this happens.

If you pick this book up, remember that watching is a form of participation and it is likely that some part(s) of it can create a reaction in the reader.

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Books

The Lost Apothecary: Book Review

Back Cover Blurb of The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner:

A forgotten history. A secret network of women. A legacy of poison and revenge. Welcome to The Lost Apothecary….

Hidden in the depths of 18th-century London, a secret apothecary shop caters to an unusual kind of clientele. Women across the city whisper of a mysterious figure named Nella who sells well-disguised poisons to use against the oppressive men in their lives. But the apothecary’s fate is jeopardized when her newest patron, a precocious 12-year-old, makes a fatal mistake, sparking a string of consequences that echo through the centuries.

Meanwhile in present-day London, aspiring historian Caroline Parcewell spends her tenth wedding anniversary alone, running from her own demons. When she stumbles upon a clue to the unsolved apothecary murders that haunted London 200 years ago, her life collides with the apothecary’s in a stunning twist of fate – and not everyone will survive.

With crackling suspense, unforgettable characters, and searing insight, The Lost Apothecary is a subversive and intoxicating debut novel of secrets, vengeance, and the remarkable ways women can save each other despite the barrier of time.

“I realized my grief was richer and more nuanced than what lay on the surface. This was about more than the burden of the apothecary. More than James’ infidelity. Intermingled in the mess was another subtler secret that James and I had hid from each other for years.

We were happy, yet unfulfilled. It was possible, I understood now, to be both at the same time. I was happy with the stability of working for my family yet unfulfilled by my job and burdened by the things I hadn’t pursued. I was happy with our desire to someday have children yet unfulfilled by my achievements apart from family life. How had I only just learned that happiness and fulfillment were entirely distinct things?”

― Sarah Penner, The Lost Apothecary

If this quote that I selected above strikes you as an searing insight, then this book is for you. You will love it in an unqualified way. I definitely enjoyed this book, but I felt the 18th century part of the story was stronger than the present day half. First the good, because I really enjoyed getting absorbed in this book. The concept is interesting- uncovering women who, centuries ago, helped other women kill the men in her life when they had no other options, when you need some perspective on your modern day marriage. I love London, so I enjoyed the now and then setting. The parallel timeline was well-executed and my relative privilege as a modern day woman was something I appreciated in a fresh way throughout the book.

Part of me felt critical of modern day timeline. Caroline was disappointed that her history degree did not immediately lead to some glamorous unnamed history job, ungrateful for her steady income in what she now sees as a less-than-exciting position in her family’s business, and seemed unrealistic about the amount of effort and tenacity required to get or keep meaningful life goals like career or marriage. Her cheating husband was weirdly worse. I did love Caroline’s new found librarian friend – my favorite character in the modern timeline and perhaps the book, as she was competent and a good friend right from the beginning.

I found this book to be a strange mix of reminding us how much progress woman have made in the last couple centuries and women obsessed with whether or not they were or could get pregnant and how procreating was in conflict with progressing careers – perhaps an indicator that we have further to go. Perhaps I was hoping that Caroline would at some point appreciate her relative privilege of options like divorce and starting over, but despite being obsessed with the Apothecary killer mystery, she never seemed to directly contrast her situation with the happenings of the other timeline.

Still, I love the idea and execution of a story that frames the world that we live in today as a product of thousands of long forgotten interactions, relics of which may be buried under our feet if we have time and reason to look. I loved the pacing of pulling me through two stories at once. And I love London, which felt like one of the characters in this book.

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Books

Recursion: Book Review

Back Cover Blurb for Recursion by Blake Crouch:

Reality is broken.

At first, it looks like a disease. An epidemic that spreads through no known means, driving its victims mad with memories of a life they never lived. But the force that’s sweeping the world is no pathogen. It’s just the first shock wave, unleashed by a stunning discovery – and what’s in jeopardy is not our minds but the very fabric of time itself.

In New York City, Detective Barry Sutton is closing in on the truth – and in a remote laboratory, neuroscientist Helena Smith is unaware that she alone holds the key to this mystery…and the tools for fighting back.

Together, Barry and Helena will have to confront their enemy – before they, and the world, are trapped in a loop of ever-growing chaos.

“In high school, in college, she was encouraged again and again to find her passion-a reason to get out of bed and breathe. In her experience, few people ever found that raison d’etre.

What teachers and professors never told her was about the dark side of finding your purpose. The part where it consumes you. Where it becomes a destroyer of relationship and happiness. And still, she wouldn’t trade it. This is the only person she knows how to be.”

― Blake Crouch, Recursion

I am narrowing in on really enjoying scifi thriller type books as my go to pleasure read. One reason I really like many time travel books is that the authors have frequently painstakingly laid out the plot and they have to be tight. This is not a book that was written by sitting down and typing out whatever pops into their head as a final draft. It is really difficult to write time loops without the repetition becoming boring, but when it is done well, it can be mind-blowing. As with many books in this genre, you have to let some of the science be fiction, but that is one reason I enjoy reading this type of scifi- it brings science back to its philosophical roots and then makes a small turn from the world we know.

You might think that the world of fiction does not need another New York police detective with a painful past, but I kind of like that this book starts with a trope and does something interesting with it. I might have been seduced by the female scientist that was absent at the beginning but took a more and more prominent role as the book went on. I loved the journey, the destination, and the people along the way.

I do have a few, minor nitpicks. Toward the end, things got kind of crazy, even for me, with the world ending over and over, but I got through that section fast enough that it did not detract from the overall story for me. There were also some characters introduced in the beginning that I thought would be a bigger deal but wound up being side notes. Overall, it was my favorite fiction I have read so far this year and I am so glad it was recognized as a Goodreads Choice winner back in 2019 when it came out.

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Books

Crying in H-mart: Book Review

Back Cover Blurb of Crying in H Mart: A Memoir by Michelle Zauner

From the indie rock star of Japanese Breakfast fame, and author of the viral 2018 New Yorker essay that shares the title of this book, an unflinching, powerful memoir about growing up Korean American, losing her mother, and forging her own identity.

“I remember these things clearly because that was how my mother loved you, not through white lies and constant verbal affirmation, but in subtle observations of what brought you joy, pocketed away to make you feel comforted and cared for without even realizing it.”

― Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart

To stay true to my format, I picked a favorite quote from this book that I do like. But there was a beloved quote from a different book that kept me company while listening to this book.

“Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.”

― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

In this book, it is literally true. She is wandering around H Mart, looking for an identity among her descriptions of the brightly labeled packaging. I wonder if this is why this book has such broad appeal beyond the Korean-American population. We use up our decision making and identity forming power on choosing our breakfast cereal or whatever and then we are out of it for things that matter. So when someone from our neighborhood shares that they are now homeless, we wish them love and light in their transition and direct them to the local church or Walmart parking lot instead of offering them a place to stay or taking broader action to fight homelessness in the community. The brightly colored labels reassure us that as long as we are worth marketing to, we matter.

This book is fantastic to listen to while making dinner, as it has so many beautiful descriptions of food. At some point, while making foods from ethnicities that are not mine. It made me wonder if my appreciation of foods from around the world meant that I might be culturally appropriating my menu, but then I decided that lots of people have spent lots of time finding the most delicious things and to not use that would be throwing out a lot of human effort.

Thankfully, my mother is still alive. As more of my friends loose their mothers, I am more and more grateful that I don’t relate to this part of the book yet. I continued with the story until her mother died and she and her father randomly went to Vietnam to get over the grief. Then I could not bring myself to read anymore. So many people I know are wading through so much grief while shouldering so many responsibilities, I just lost interest. A trip did not fix that her mother is gone. She cannot buy an identity or a way out of grief. Poor thing.

I bet the movie will be beautiful, though. Lots of great travel and food imagery (simple pleasures of being alive) along side cathartic processing of grief (deep pain of death) is the best of this book. It is like the balance she talks about in so many of her foods between salty, sweet, sour, and spicy. While writing this, I did also check out one song by Japanese Breakfast. Another thing I can sort of appreciate, but is not exactly to my taste.

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Books

The Chancellor: Book Review

Back Cover Blurb for The Chancellor: The Remarkable Odyssey of Angela Merkel by Kati Marton:

The definitive biography of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, detailing the remarkable rise and political brilliance of the most powerful — and elusive — woman in the world.

The Chancellor is at once a riveting political biography and an intimate human story of a complete outsider — a research chemist and pastor’s daughter raised in Soviet-controlled East Germany — who rose to become the unofficial leader of the West.

“In her experience, language cannot be trusted. Words are weapons to be deployed cautiously.”

― Kati Marton, The Chancellor: The Remarkable Odyssey of Angela Merkel

Before I read this book, I knew a few things about Angela Merkel. I knew she had been a physicist before she became a politician, that she seemed friendly to the US, and that she had served as Chancellor for a long time, much of my adult life. I also vaguely knew that she had accepted a bunch of immigrants, because it is hard to miss if you live here, and that here she is considered relatively conservative, but I find her difficult to map onto my understanding of the US political spectrum, to the extent that the US still has a political spectrum.

In this book, I learned so much more color and depth to my understanding for Angela Merkel. This biography starts by sharing that she was a preacher’s kid (I had no idea), and that she had grown up in the largely and officially secular east Germany (this sounded vaguely familiar, but had not really considered its implications). But while this book returns to these themes repeatedly, it only mentions in passing that it is likely that neither of her parents ever voted for her. I personally found to be a deeper insight.

I knew she had worked as a physicist before politics, but I had not really grasped how relatively quick her political assent was. It had not occurred to me how much it coincided with reunification. And I had not realized how much growing up in the East had shaped her. For example, she studied physics in college, “because even East Germany wasn’t capable of suspending basic arithmetic and the rules of nature.” Some people say that Merkel is private to the point of paranoia, but she grew up in an East German environment where she was denied an academic position possibly because she refused to become an informant and when the wall fell she found out that while a she was working as a professional scientist, she was regularly reported on by a friend that was an informant. She experienced Holocaust misinformation first hand, and this is part of what made her open to accepting a bunch of Syrian refugees when no one else would. She had unique insight into Putin because they lived and worked in East Germany behind the Iron Curtain at the same time.

I find it somewhat amusing that she got mostly along with both the Bushes and Obama (from opposite parties in the US), as all of the American political spectrum is squeezed into the conservative end of German politics. I found it fascinating that she chose to serve one final term partially because she believed democracy to be fragile to the populist personalities that she wanted to counterbalance.

I learned that the Fukushima nuclear disaster was the incident that turned this trained physicist from nuclear power because it was safe only in a world without accidents. For the most part, I appreciate how she handled the COVID crisis. I admire her stamina.

I like that she works hard and then goes home and cooks dinner and listens to music and hangs out with people who are not politicians. I like that she is pragmatic, but also looks for opportunities to move the world forward when there is an opening. She is brave without bluster. She has been a formidable leader for most of my adult life and I’m glad I took the time to learn more and reflect on one of the guardians who kept her corner of the world safe and running smoothly for nearly 2 decades. She will be missed. I wonder what the world stage will be like without her.

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Challenges

Seeing stars

How do I feel when I look at the stars?

It really depends. Can I see the stars or are they obscured by clouds or light pollution?

When there is a clear view, I feel like I have a window seat to the universe. This prompt reminds me of one of my favorites of the hymns we sang at our UU congregation in Colorado, Blue Boat Home. People forget that even with all of it’s problems, Earth is an Eden teeming with life in a sparse and desolate universe.

Earth is our Blue Boat Home in a sea of stars

Looking at the stars, I feel the immensity of space and time, and lucky to get to witness existence. The light from distant stars may have taken millennia to get here. I wonder about what it is like there now and if they can see us. What if we are alone in the universe? What if we are not? Which is more improbable? I feel awe and curiosity and a visceral sense of infinity.

As soon as it is clear here at night again, I will go look at the stars. They always point me in the right direction.

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Challenges

Trees

Today’s prompt reminds me of a poem about trees and poems. 

Trees by Joyce Kilmer  
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

Alas, I did not make myself. My mom, dad, and nature did. Or, if you like to call it that, God. Or maybe they worked together. Hard to say.

If I were a tree, sometimes, I would be like these trees:

Pines

Sometimes I rise straight and strong to the sky, surrounded by others like me where I feel like I fit in, sheltered and providing shelter.

Other times, I’m more like this tree:

A few deciduous trees in a forest

Dormant, set apart from those I perceive as like me, standing watch over activity that passes by me – almost near enough to touch – but does not include me.

In reality, I am probably too much of a tourist to be a tree. Trees are rooted to one spot, with solid nourishing roots that extend at least as far beneath the surface as the branches extend to the heavens, patiently waiting and witnessing all the seasons with the appropriate response to the conditions. I tend to want to experience things all at once, whether or not I am ready, and don’t usually like being stuck in one place, even if it is a place that I love. There is so much to experience as a human that I never regret not being a tree.

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Books Projects

Klara and the Sun: Book Review

Back Cover Blurb from Klara and the Sun by Kazau Ishiguru:

Here is the story of Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, who, from her place in the store, watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass on the street outside. She remains hopeful that a customer will soon choose her. Klara and the Sun is a thrilling book that offers a look at our changing world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator, and one that explores the fundamental question: What does it mean to love?

“As I say, these were helpful lessons for me. Not only had I learnt that changes were a part of Josie, and that I should be ready to accommodate them, I’d begun to understand also, that this wasn’t a trait peculiar just to Josie, that people often felt the need to prepare a side of themselves to display to passersby – as they might in a store window, and that such display needn’t be taken so seriously once the moment had passed.”

― Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara and the Sun

from Goodreads

I was so excited about this book. Perhaps that’s where things went wrong.

I found the title by way of someone on social media that I typically enjoy on her list of favorite books of the year. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was a story with artificial intelligence as a central theme written by a Nobel prize winner. I have been reading about artificial intelligence, both as non-fiction and fiction as a theme over the past year.

This is a blog post exploring what did not work for me about this book.

I enjoyed the beginning of this book. I liked the blank slate of the totally new, fresh out of the box Artificial Friend (AF), Klara.

At some point, I had to check what age this book was written for, because Klara continues to act so child-like and naive that I though it might be a young adult book. To me, it actually has more potential as a YA book. It could be a tale for kids coming of age as AI does, about how to think about themselves, humanity, and artificial intelligence. But it did not go in that direction at all.

There is a weird and disturbing subplot about the mom asking Klara to mimic Josie’s disabilities so that the mom can have a copy of her if she dies. This could be interesting, if it were written differently, but it is not to me. In another execution it could be an inquiry into what it means to be a shadow or an echo of a human you love, rather than simple mimicry; or a better window into how humans think of each other and handle, or don’t handle, loss. I found the current execution narcissistic, weird, and cruel. How dare my sick child inconvenience me on my day off? I will just take this robot when I want to go to some waterfall that means something to both of us! If this is what it means to love, I am depressed. Josie is going to need some serious therapy.

Then, there is a weird mix on the technology side between including references to it, like Klara describing her vision in boxes, and not considering it at all, like no mention or though of feeding back into or advancing the other AI algorithms based on Klara’s learning. So many human hours of coding, annotating speech, image processing, robotics for walking, have gone into bringing us to the precipice of benefitting from AF. We are going to live with an instance for years and not feed any of that learning or data back into the model? Now that sounds wasteful and naive.

So it makes sense to me, or I interpret the book as, Klara is solar powered and therefore obsessed with her power source. That sort of insight is kind of fun. What will AI “worry” about when their worries are separated from those of humans? I originally guessed they would be hungry for data, but power makes sense too. Power always makes sense as a thing sentient beings might want. Then Klara, the AF, starts praying to the Sun.

This, to me, is the opposite of what a good book about what a book about how artificial intelligence plays out in our live might look like. That the Sun would be Klara’s higher power makes sense. I understand that AI is our creation and picks up our biases. Yet, the idea that an AI would pray, much less on behalf of a human, was the final detail that did not work for me. It might be a personal Uncanny Valley or the wrong personification of a machine for me.

I read the Wikipedia plot summary, and I liked where things were headed even less than what I had read so far, so I quit reading. I was so disappointed on a number of levels.

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Challenges

Metaphorical Mix Tape

Right now, my music is a mix of what gets played in our house.

My daughter’s favorite song of the moment is Blueberry Eyes:

When I asked my son what his favorite song was this morning, he said Safe and Sound:

But my husband has been teaching him about Funk, so I’ve also been hearing a wide variety of music from the two of them.

When left to his own devices, the man of the house listens to a lot of Medeski, Martin, & Wood:

My mix that I listen to when I’m cooking or whatever starts with Something Just Like This. It could probably use some updating, but it is a reminder to be grateful in what I have when I have it and not waste what is while looking for perfection, but to also keep striving toward what comes next. A life long practice and goal.

That’s my snapshot of music in our house today.