Owls of the Eastern Ice: A Quest to Find and Save the World's Largest Owl by Jonathan C. Slaght

From the publisher: 

I saw my first Blakiston’s fish owl in the Russian province of Primorye, a coastal talon of land hooking south into the belly of Northeast Asia . . . No scientist had seen a Blakiston’s fish owl so far south in a hundred years . . .  

When he was just a fledgling birdwatcher, Jonathan C. Slaght had a chance encounter with one of the most mysterious birds on Earth. Bigger than any owl he knew, it looked like a small bear with decorative feathers. He snapped a quick photo and shared it with experts. Soon he was on a five-year journey, searching for this enormous, enigmatic creature in the lush, remote forests of eastern Russia. That first sighting set his calling as a scientist. 

Despite a wingspan of six feet and a height of over two feet, the Blakiston’s fish owl is highly elusive. They are also endangered. And so, as Slaght and his devoted team set out to locate the owls, they aim to craft a conservation plan that helps ensure the species’ survival. This quest sends them on all-night monitoring missions in freezing tents, mad dashes across thawing rivers, and free-climbs up rotting trees to check nests for precious eggs. They use cutting-edge tracking technology and improvise ingenious traps. And all along, they must keep watch against a run-in with a bear or an Amur tiger. At the heart of Slaght’s story are the fish owls themselves: cunning hunters, devoted parents, singers of eerie duets, and survivors in a harsh and shrinking habitat.

Through this rare glimpse into the everyday life of a field scientist and conservationist, Owls of the Eastern Ice testifies to the determination and creativity essential to scientific advancement and serves as a powerful reminder of the beauty, strength, and vulnerability of the natural world.

 For those who didn't get a chance to meet me back in the Children's Room in the whole three months I was there before the world turned upside down, I was an animal keeper for almost twenty years before coming to Galesburg Public Library. I was watching a webinar on upcoming autumn books when the presenter started talking about a researcher from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) who had worked with fish owls in Russia. Now, back in 2013 I attended a conservation conference (remember conferences?) and heard a WCS researcher talk about fish owls in Russia. If he had been talking about tigers, it might not have been the same guy, but once you get away from charismatic megafauna, the world gets pretty small. A quick Facebook search revealed that yep, Jonathan was the guy I had heard speak. NetGalley was kind enough to send me an ARC to review (thank you!), and I read through it within the week.

Owls of the Eastern Ice is a fantastic and fascinating first hand account into what goes into boots on the ground conservation. Jonathan, who is white, began working with Blakiston's fish owls as part of a multi-year study that took him into the wintry forests of Eastern Russia. Working with a number of Russian researchers and assistants, he set out to identify, trap, band, and attach monitors to the barely-studied fish owls, in addition to figuring out what type of habitat they needed. You can pass laws protecting a species from direct harm, but unless you protect the land and water that they need to feed and breed, you can still watch them slip through your fingers. Unfortunately, this basic information is lacking for many endangered species. Throughout the course of the years and the study, Jonathan and his party raced snowmobiles across melting rivers, discovered hours-old Amur tiger tracks next to their own, came up with brand new ways to trap a species rarely trapped before, dealt with temperatures that cause electronics to just give up, braved blizzards and less than hygienic food prep (seriously, A+ descriptions of field life here), and drank a lot of vodka with the locals.

One of the things that really jumped out at me was how well this book explains the basics of conservation field work. It describes how one goes about setting up a conservation biology based PhD study, including the courses you have to take during the off-season, the jobs you have to work to support yourself, the field work, and the dry statistics that come after you get home that lets you write that all important paper. Owls of the Eastern Ice focuses on how having the basic ecological information about a species, in the owls' case specific waterways and old-growth nesting trees, is so important. Targeting focused areas for preservation while freeing up other locations that can be safely used for commercial purposes is vital for getting local support for conservation.

This book is a wonderful look at a little-known species that looks like it came from the Jim Henson Company, a fantastic escape to a very different part of the world, and a well-written account of what goes in to saving a species. The book comes out on August 4 of this year, and Galesburg Public Library will have a copy. Thank you to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux @fsgbooks for the ARC.

Lost in Tibet: The Untold Story of Five American Airmen, a Doomed Plane, and the Will to Survive by Richard Stark

From the Publisher:                                                          

Caught in a violent storm and blown far off their intended course, five American airmen--flying the dangerous Himalayan supply route known as The Hump - were forced to bail out seconds before their plane ran out of fuel. To their astonishment, they found they had landed in the heart of Tibet. There they had to confront what, to them, seemed a bizarre - even alien - people. At the same time, they had to extricate themselves from the political turmoil that even then was raging around Tibet's right to be independent from China. Lost in Tibet is an extraordinary story of high adventure that sheds light on the remarkable Tibetan people, just at the moment when they were coming to terms with a hostile outside world.

I read this book as part of my Summer Reading Program; it fit one of the categories, it was relatively short at 210 pages, and it was set in a country that fascinated me.  What’s not to like?  It would open another of those little windows onto one of the endless number of individual stories that are always out there hanging around the edges of history.  This is a World War II tale, but not about the usual big battles with well-known names, or about concentration camps or massive bombing.  Instead, it is connected to one of the theaters of the war that we seldom think of—China. 

China was caught up in World War II before it even actually started, when Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931.  So when WWII erupted, China was already in the thick of it and naturally fell in line with the goals of the Allies.  America stationed troops in China.  To keep them and our Chinese allies supplied with food, medicine and ammunition, we sent our pilots and crews on delivery missions from India, flying  over the Himalayas into China.  Although one seldom hears of these soldiers, many lost their lives flying this dangerous route, plagued by dangerous weather and the psychological trauma of following a route littered with the debris of previous crashes.

 

This book is about five of these young airmen, whose own plane was blown off course and crashed into the side of a mountain in Tibet.  We follow them in the aftermath of their crash in the middle of wilderness, through their experiences with the Tibetans and Chinese, and finally their long trek to the border of India, barely surviving this part of their journey as well.  Throughout, we see how they are used as pawns in the struggle between Tibet and China over Tibet’s independence, which, of course, Tibet ultimately lost.

A fascinating book about a part of the war seldom covered and the politics of the time.  A brief section at the end tells what happened to each of the young men afterward.  Well worth reading!

The Galesburg Public Library has this title at 951.504 STA.

Bored and Brilliant by Manoush Zomorodi

From the publisher: In 2015 Manoush Zomorodi, host of the popular podcast and radio show Note to Self, led tens of thousands of listeners through an experiment to help them unplug from their devices, get bored, jump-start their creativity, and change their lives. Bored and Brilliant builds on that experiment to show us how to rethink our gadget use to live better and smarter in this new digital ecosystem. The outcome is mind-blowing. Unplug and read on.

I am very interested in the topic of phone use and overuse. I am not anti-technology (and neither is the author of this book), but I do find the overuse of phones by much of American society alarming. Zomorodi was definitely preaching to the choir with me as a reader.

Zomorodi includes research to back up the idea that we are more creative when we allow ourselves to be “bored” and allow our minds to wander. I do not carry my smartphone around in my hand and it is seldom in view when I am out with others, so I am actually not her primary audience. Still, even I found some of her seven challenges (to change your relationship with your phone and increase your productivity and creativity) of interest. Most of them are not a challenge for me (keep your device out of reach while in motion – already do that; have a photo free day – most of my days are photo free, etc.). But I certainly waste time on the internet on my laptop, if not my smartphone.

I found myself wanting to quote long passages of the book because they match my own experiences so well. For example,

“In a study from 2014 called the iPhone Effect: The Quality of In-Person Social Interaction in the Presence of Mobile Devices, researchers at Virginia Tech found that the mere presence of a mobile device, even just lying there, seemingly benign on the kitchen counter, can lower the empathy exchanged between two friends.” (p. 56)

and

“This isn’t just a productivity or focus issue. [Gloria] Mark’s lab has found that the more people switch their attention, the higher their stress level. That is especially concerning, she says, because the modern workplace feeds on interruptions.” (p. 89)

The text was engaging and the research cited compelling. If you would like to decrease the amount of time you waste on your smartphone (or laptop), you might find this short and easy to read book of interest.

I read an advance reader copy of Bored But Brilliant. It will be published in early September, and a print copy will be available for checkout at the Galesburg Public Library.

Born with Teeth by Kate Mulgrew

I’m a huge huge fan of Star Trek Voyager – I watched virtually every episode in order as they aired over seven seasons – and so also a fan of Kate Mulgrew (who played Captain Kathryn Janeway). I couldn’t resist reading her memoir, even though I’m not a big memoir reader.

It’s a well written work by one tough cookie. It starts at the beginning of her life and stops five years into Voyager’s run. The book contains a lot of detail, more, really, than I was interested in, and not much about Star Trek (although that was okay). Mulgrew believes in herself and her talent, that’s evident.

I did enjoy this quotation about Robert Beltran’s Chakotay, one of my favorite Star Trek characters: “Strikingly good-looking, he was a curious combination of come hither and go away.” (p. 262) For me it was worth reading Born With Teeth for that quote alone!

If you like memoirs by strong, interesting women, I’d recommend Born With Teeth.

The Galesburg Public Library has Born With Teeth as a print book and as an ebook.

If Bees Are Few: A Hive of Bee Poems, edited by James P. Lenfestey

Publisher description: An anthology of 2,500 years of poetry, from Sappho to Sherman Alexie, humming with bees, at a moment when the beloved honey makers and pollinators are in danger of disappearing. Virgil wrote of bees, as did Shakespeare, Burns, Coleridge, Emerson, and Whitman, among many others. Amid the crisis befalling bees—hives collapsing, wild species disappearing—the poems collected here speak with a quiet urgency of a world lost if bees were to fall silent. A portion of the proceeds from this anthology will be donated to support research at the Bee Lab in the Department of Entomology at the University of Minnesota.

I enjoy poetry and am worried about the status of bees, so this anthology of poems about bees intrigued me. The fact that some of the proceeds will benefit the Bee Lab alone makes it a worthwhile endeavor.

Some of the poems are focused on bees; in other poems, the bees are merely background. Some poems are long and lyrical, and others are  short and modern and to the point about vanishing bees. As usual with anthologies, some of the poems spoke to me and some did not. My three favorite poems were Two New World Bees by John Caddy, Bumblebee in the Basement by James Silas Rogers, and the pedigree of honey by Emily Dickinson:

The pedigree of honey
Does not concern the bee;
A clover, any time, to him
Is aristocracy.

If you enjoy reading poetry written by a variety of poets over thousands of years of human history, you might enjoy dipping in to If Bees Are Few. Be prepared to crave some honey!

I read a digital advance reader copy of If Bees Are Few. It will be published on May 30 and will be available in the new nonfiction section of the Galesburg Public Library.

Apples of Uncommon Character

Apples of Uncommon Character is a truly delightful look at 123 varieties of apples, their strengths, their weaknesses, and their uses.

This is a not boring recitation of information about apples. The author injects some humor and interest into all the descriptions. He also includes history and fun facts. For example, did you know that the character of Rambo by David Morrell was named after the Summer Rambo apple? That the apple that led Isaac Newton to ponder gravity was a Flower of Kent?

Other fun comments about various varieties:

Of the Blue Pearmain: "This is the apple Elrond would have tended in his backyard in Rivendell, and it would have been off-limits to any dwarf or hobbit."

Of the Knobbed Russet (a very ugly apple): "Uses: Terrify your children."

Of the Dabinett: "Use: Don't eat fresh, unless sucking on tea bags is your idea of fun."

Of the Red Delicious: "Texture: Both good and bad examples have that horrible leathery skin that likes to slide between your teeth and lacerate your gums....Use: Makes a great logo."

Definitely recommended for foodies and lovers of apples.

The book can be found at the Galesburg Public Library at NFIC 634.11 JAC.

Spinster by Kate Bolick

I was intrigued the first time I read a blurb about the new book Spinster: Making a Life of One’s Own by Kate Bolick. As one of the 17% of American women who have never been married (as of 2012, according to the Pew Research Center), I cringe at the terms “spinster” and “old maid.” There does still seem to be more of a stigma attached to unmarried women of a certain age than to men in the same situation.

I’m not generally a big fan of memoirs but I had no trouble staying engaged by Spinster. And this is mostly a memoir, of her personal journey to adulthood. She spends a considerable amount of time giving historical details about five women she calls her “awakeners” – five women who have helped her make sense of herself. They are essayist Maeve Brennan, columnist Neith Boyce, novelist Edith Wharton, social visionary Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and poet Edna S. Vincent Millay. (I was a little surprised to find that none of her awakeners fits the classic definition of “spinster” – all married at least once.) Although the information on her awakeners was interesting, to me it was not particularly reflective on today’s unmarried woman.

Bolick is a good writer. Her mother died when she was 23, and she notes about her mother:

The literary critic in me resents her role in this book the way I would a sentimental plot twist in a movie. We all have had mothers; few among us want to lose them; I wish my experience had transcended such an obvious bid for your sympathy and I could have become a different writer. But I can’t erase the fact that the first day of my adult life was that morning in May that my mother took her last breath. (p. 42)

But Bolick can come across as a bit whiney (poor her, all those great guys who want to marry her when she just doesn’t want to get married). For the most part her experience as an unmarried woman did not resonate with me. Her sexual experiences – lots of sex with lots of men, often with no emotional commitment – are outside my experience and indeed my comfort zone. For the most part, I did not feel she was speaking to my life as an unmarried woman in the United States in the late 20^th and early 21^st centuries. The author is about 10 years younger than me, and I wonder if it’s the age difference. I’d be interested to know how single woman of her age respond to the book.

In the end, I did not feel I had much in common with Bolick. Instead, she reminded me of an old on-again, off-again boyfriend of 13 years, truly a “man who could not commit.” And maybe the author would find that satisfying – that in today’s U.S., she too has the right to be the one who can’t commit.

Although Spinster didn’t resonate with me as a fellow spinster, I did enjoy reading it and found it thought provoking. I recommend it to anyone (male or female) interested in life as a single adult, in feminist heroes, and in coming-of-age memoirs. I read a digital advance reading copy from netgalley.com. Spinster is scheduled to be published on April 21, 2015.

Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen by Mary Norris is a random but amusing take on proofreading, commas, the use of the F word, pencils, and any number of other things that crossed the author’s mind while writing the book.

This is a book for people who love grammar and punctuation – who really love grammar and punctuation. There are long explanations of things like clauses and the accusative case. It also helps if you are a proofreader or ex-proofreader, even better if you proofread in the days of hot lead.

I did work as a proofreader in the days of hot lead, and enjoyed reminiscing about it as I read this book. In chapter 6, Who Put the Hyphen in Moby-Dick?, Norris talks about computers not knowing in the early days where to hyphenate words. One of my tasks when I worked for a publisher was to edit the online dictionary of hyphenated words. The author works at The New Yorker magazine, and it’s refreshing to know there are still publishers who pay proofreaders. I’ve seen many words with end-of-line hyphens in the wrong place in published works (not to mention typos).

The book does have chapters but doesn’t seem to have had an outline. The author muses on anything that pops into her head, following idle thoughts down whatever pathways they take her. This is a book that demands to be read slowly or not at all.

I agreed with her little rant about autocorrect and devices. I particularly liked this passage (p. 16 of the advance reading copy):

"Back in the twentieth century, we thought that robots would have taken over by this time, and, in a way, they have. But robots as a race have proved disappointing. Instead of getting to boss around underlings made of steel and plastic with circuitry and blinking lights and tank treads, like Rosie the maid on The Jetsons, we humans have outfitted ourselves with robotic external organs. Our iPods dictate what we listen to next, gadgets in our cars tell us which way to go, and smartphones finish our sentences for us. We have become our own robots."

Unfortunately, this book is more evidence that you cannot publish a book today without the F word in it. Seriously, why does this book need the F word? I always think the F word is for lazy people, and it makes me think this author is lazy. (I’m not talking about Chapter 9, F*ck This Sh*t, which muses on the casual use of profanity in English and has its place in the book, but “What the f* is a semicolon, anyway?” on page 140 of the advance reading copy. A semicolon doesn’t call for or deserve the F word.)

Between You & Me was not as much fun as Eats, Shoots, and Leaves by Lynne Truss, but I did enjoy reading it. If you are looking for an amusing light read on the English language, I recommend it.

I read an advance reading copy of Between You & Me. It is scheduled to be published on April 6.

Promise Land by Jessica Lamb-Shapiro

It’s January, the month for making resolutions to improve yourself. What do you think when you hear the term “self-help”? Do you want it? Do you fear it? Do you look down on those who need it? “All of us would probably like to be slimmer, smarter, richer, more popular, more successful,” notes Jessica Lamb-Shapiro in her book Promise Land (p. 207), in which she examines the self-help industry. Her father, Lawrence E. Shapiro, has written self-help books and raised her in an environment of positive thinking.

While working on the book, the author attended conferences, camps, and classes. She walked on coals and forced herself to fly despite her own fear.

Promise Land is humorous and a bit snarky, especially if you are at all skeptical of the self-help industry. If you are a particular fan of some of the books and franchises she mentions, like Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret and the Chicken Soup series, you may not be quite as amused.  For example, she writes, “[t]he concepts in The Secret have been published in books that anyone can buy – and have bought, in the millions – for at least a hundred years. Furthermore, something you don’t know is not necessarily a secret; it’s just something you don’t know. For instance, I don’t know anything about rocket science, but that doesn’t make rocket science a secret.” (p. 123)

The author was considerably less snarky when discussing her own fear of flying and the self-help group she attended. I laughed along with her at some of the situations she covered, but others struck home with me. During an especially difficult time of his life, her father bought a diorama of a hospital room and spent time setting it up and playing with it at home. “I felt better,” he said. “It was a moment of epiphany. That was when I realized that toys could help people.” (p. 69) As a doll collector, I also believe that toys can help people.

The book did bring to my attention information I didn’t know or that hadn’t occurred to me. For example, the author quotes self-help author Martin Seligman, who points out that it is unusual “for people to have electric-outlet phobias or hammer phobias or chain saw phobias, even though those things pose actual dangers.” (p. 146) We are not most afraid of the things that are the most dangerous.

At times the author struck me as a bit lazy. She describes how The Sorcerer’s Apprentice section of the movie Fantasia made her anxious (p. 63). She remembers Mickey cutting a magic chair in half and the chair then multiplying.  In a footnote, she comments that her editor “thinks” it was a broom, not a chair, but neither the author nor the editor bothered to google it and find out? Maybe that’s laziness and maybe it’s self-indulgence, but I didn’t like it.

There is a thread of anxious melancholy running throughout the book. The author’s mother committed suicide when she was a child, at about the same age the author was when writing the book, and although the author has a close relationship with her father, they do not talk about her mother.  Her search for self-help brings her some closure.

Promise Land is a short book – just over 200 pages – and an easy read. If self-reflection and the subject of self-help interests you, I recommend it. It can be found at the Galesburg Public Library at 616.89 LAM.

What Makes This Book So Great by Jo Walton

I read What Makes This Book So Great by Jo Walton for a couple of reasons. First, I love Jo Walton. Her book Among Others inspired me to start a science fiction/fantasy book discussion group at my library. That brings me to my second reason – I was hoping to get some good titles from this book for my group to read.

Jo Walton has read a lot more science fiction books than I have. Wow, has she ever. Reading What Makes This Book So Great was so similar to Among Others in some ways that I started to wonder if Among Others is not a novel but a memoir, and there really ARE fairies in Wales. In both books Walton throws out a lot of titles and authors for the science fiction reader’s consideration.

I enjoyed the book overall because it was like chatting with someone I don’t know well but like. The book is made up of a series of blog essays that were no doubt meant to prompt online discussion. The online discussions are not included. Some of the essays were fairly meaningless to me because I have not read the books or authors being discussed. However, I was definitely able to glean enough information about many works to decide whether or not to add them to my potential book club titles list. (Whether I can get my hands on enough copies of out of print books is another question.) By the time I finished What Makes This Book So Great, it was filled with little pieces of paper on pages I wanted to go back to.

Some of my favorite musings from this book:

“There are two kinds of people in the world, those who re-read and those who don’t. No, don’t be silly, there are far more than two kinds of people in the world. There are even people who don’t read at all. (What do they think about on buses?” (p. 17)

“Fantasy, post-Tolkien, has been largely involved with retelling Tolkien, or revolting against Tolkien.” (p. 342 – too true, but I like the way she said it)

“The Suck Fairy is an artefact of re-reading. If you read a book for the first time and it sucks, that’s nothing to do with her. It just sucks. Some books do. The Suck Fairy comes in when you come back to a book that you liked when you read it before, and on re-reading – well, it sucks. … Suck Fairies travel in battalions. Her biggest siblings are the Racism Fairy, the Sexism Fairy, and the Homophobia Fairy. … Then there’s the Message Fairy. The lovely story you remember as being a bit like The Phantom Tollbooth has been replaced by a heavy-handed Christian allegory!” (pp. 420-422)

If you are a hard core science fiction reader, or want to be, I definitely recommend What Makes This Book So Great. Even if I can’t choose some of these titles for book club, I will add them to my own to-read list!

As You Wish by Cary Elwes

I'm a big fan of the film The Princess Bride, so I eagerly anticipated As You Wish, a book about filming the movie written by Dread Pirate Roberts actor Cary Elwes.

The making of The Princess Bride was clearly one of the highlights of his career and life. If you are looking for dirt, don't look to As You Wish. Elwes is effusive in his praise of his costars and the crew behind the movie. Everyone was beautiful, talented, and perfect for their roles.

The sugary sweetness of the narrative was a little hard to take at times, but I thoroughly enjoyed As You Wish all the same. Elwes spends a lot of time talking about what he and Mandy Patinkin went through to create what Goldman described in The Princess Bride script as the "second-best" swordfighting sequence on film (according to Goldman, the "best" comes later in the movie). The fight and the training were very interesting to read about. The only part of the fight not filmed by the two leads were the somersaults - wow! That had to be a lot of hard work.

I definitely got the impression that Elwes is trying to give his career a shot in the arm by publishing this book. However, his true affection for The Princess Bride and its cast and crew came through.

As soon as I finished the book, I was ready to run off and rewatch The Princess Bride. If you are a fan, that alone is a good reason to read As You Wish. I definitely recommend it for all Princess Bride fans. 

I read an advance reader copy of As You Wish. It will be released on October 14 and will be available in the nonfiction section of the Galesburg Public Library.

The Big Burn by Timothy Egan

In The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America, Timothy Egan reports on the fires that destroyed the forests of the American west in 1910 and on Theodore Roosevelt's determination to set aside the great national forests as a public trust. Egan also introduces us to Gifford Pinchot, the chief forester, and Ed Pulaski, another important name in the history of American forests and fires. He gives us background on the first forest rangers and describes how overmatched they were against a forest fire unlike any that had been seen before.

The Big Burn contains enough detail to tell the story but not so much as to become tedious. I generally prefer fiction over nonfiction since I find it more diverting, but The Big Burn kept me interested. The descriptions of the people caught in the fires are particularly well written. The book was thoroughly researched and contains not only big facts but also the little personal notes about the people involved that bring history alive.

Many of the forest rangers were recent immigrants, and Egan touches on the prejudice and challenges that they faced. He notes that the Italians had a saying: "I came to America beause I heard the streets were paved with gold. When I got here, I found out three things. First, the streets weren't paved with gold. Second, they weren't paved at all. And third, I was expected to pave them."

If you enjoy historical nonfiction or are a fan of Theodore Roosevelt, I recommend The Big Burn.

Making Piece by Beth M. Howard

Making Piece: A Memoir of Love, Loss and Pie was written by Beth M. Howard. She is a well known baker who is the author of the blog The World Needs More Pie. She lives in the house in Iowa featured in Grant Wood's painting American Gothic and sells pie there, which has also brought her a bit of fame.

In the summer of 2009, the husband she still loved but was divorcing died suddenly at the age of 43. Making Piece is the grief-filled memoir Howard wrote as she struggled to deal with guilt and grief after his death.

Howard used pie as a way out of her grief. She made pie, she gave away pie, she judged pie contests, she sold pie. She's a good writer. She made me laugh out loud and she made my eyes well up with tears. The book is funny, thoughtful, and poignant.

I did get a bit tired of the pie analogies, and the many scenes of uncontrollable grief did not resonate with me. I'm not criticizing the author for being so honest, I just could not relate. I enjoyed the book, but I cannot rave about it. For those who are also dealing with grief, the book may be more compelling.

Making Piece reminded me of Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (although I liked Making Piece a lot more). If you enjoyed that book, this may be a title you will enjoy. The book is scheduled to be released on March 20.

Our Last Best Chance by King Abdullah II

I first became interested in the man who would become King Abdullah II of Jordan when he made a cameo appearance on an episode of Star Trek: Voyager. At the time, he was still a prince. Apparently he is a huge fan of Star Trek. When I heard about his book, published in 2011, I knew I had to read it. The world needs more leaders who believe in the philosophy of Star Trek (all peoples, educated and living in peace, with good work to do and sufficient food, water, and shelter).

I am not a student of the affairs in the Middle East, and I’m sure there are people who will disagree with some of what is written in Our Last Best Chance: The Pursuit of Peace in a Time of Peril. However, I found the narrative accessible and the narrator compelling. In the book, the author tries to shed light on the Middle East for American readers. King Abdullah II was educated in the United States and England, and Jordan is a friend to the United States. He says, “I have been highly critical at times of Israel’s behavior and intransigence, but it goes without saying that there is plenty of blame to go around on both sides for the failure of the peace process.” He also writes, “One of the more frustrating misconceptions in the West is that all Arab women are oppressed, illiterate, kept at home to look after children, and forced to wear the veil when they venture out of the house. Many women across Jordan and the Arab world…go to university and then achieve great things in their professional careers.” He tackles other misconceptions about the Middle East as well.

One of the things King Abdullah II has accomplished is the creation of a co-educational academy in Jordan offering scholarships to those unable to afford the fees. All students are treated equally; even his own son has do his chores and take his turn waiting on tables for other students. One goal is to help Jordanian students compete in the modern global economy. The proceeds from the sales of this book support the school’s scholarship fund.

King Abdullah II is an unusual world leader. If you would be interested in reading about the Middle East, Arabs, and Muslims from a point of view other than what we usually hear on American television, from someone who lives in the Middle East and deals with the issues every day, I recommend Our Last Best Chance.

We Bought a Zoo by Benjamin Mee

We Bought a Zoo is about an English family that pools their money to buy a struggling zoo under threat of being closed. Once the family bought the zoo, I enjoyed this book a great deal. However, it was very slow starting. The opening chapter deals with life in France, as the author's wife is diagnosed with a brain tumor. I'm sure it was very important to the author to include this, but it would have served the book better if it had been covered later in the book as a look back. It dragged the book down and made me reluctant to continue.

The Movie Club is going to see the movie version of this book on January 17. I like to read the book in advance whenever possible, so I forged ahead. The pace picked up considerably at Chapter 3. The anecdotes about getting the zoo ready to reopen were entertaining. There were a couple of instances where the author said something like "but more on that later" but then never returned to the subject, so far as I could tell. I sometimes felt like I was reading an abridged copy of the book. I don't know if editors took something out without realizing there were earlier references, or if the author did get back to the topics but not in an obvious way that I picked up on, but these occurrences niggled at me.

If you are interested in learning more about the Dartmoor Zoological Park, We Bought a Zoo is worth reading. (From what I've seen in the movie trailers, it's going to be quite different from the book.)

The Big Year by Mark Obmascik

I really wanted to like the Big Year. It follows three men as they participate in a "Big Year" - a year in which they try to see as many bird species in North America as can be seen. I am a birder and thought it would be very interesting. It was not. The author is not a birder himself, and in some ways it feels like a book written by a nonbirder for nonbirders. In addition, I didn't much like one of the main participants, and I don't really admire someone who spends thousands and thousands of dollars to put a tickmark next to a bird species. Most of the birders involved didn't particularly seem to care about the birds themselves. I'm not really sure who the intended audience is for this book, or who I'd recommend it to. I've yet to see the movie, which comes out on DVD at the end of January. I hope it is better than the book!

Moneyball by Michael Lewis

Moneyball by Michael Lewis is a baseball book. It's filled with baseball stats and insights into them, and it is populated with baseball personalities. Reading the book made me want to run out to a baseball game but alas it's a little late in the season for that.

My movie club was going to see the movie so I read the book. I didn't have time to finish the book before the movie, so I finished it after. If you aren't a baseball fan, I can strongly recommend the movie anyway. Although it's a baseball movie, the focus is on the people, not the baseball, and Brad Pitt and the others in the movie are excellent. There is no sex or violence and almost no swearing. I went with a group that included two nonbaseball fans and they both loved it.

On the other hand, if you aren't a baseball fan, I can't recommend the book. I am a baseball fan and I loved the book. It's a fascinating look behind the scenes of baseball. Michael Lewis is an entertaining writer who can turn a great phrase. Referring to Billy Beane's inability to watch his team play, he says, "He was like some tragic figure in Greek mythology whose offenses against the gods had caused them to design for him this exquisite torture: you must desperately need to see what you cannot bear to see." Describing infield coach Ron Washington's despair at the terrible fielders Beane put on the field, he notes, "There were times that Wash thought the players Billy sent him shouldn't even bother to bring their gloves; they should just take their bats with them into the field, and hit the ball back to the pitcher." About Jamie Moyer's pitching style, he says, "I've seen less arc on ceremonial first pitches."

I was thoroughly entertained and educated by Moneyball. If you are a baseball fan, I highly recommend it.

Tiger, Tiger by Margaux Fragoso

Tiger, Tiger is a deeply disturbing and frank memoir about a young woman’s relationship with a pedophile from the age of seven to the age of twenty-two (when he committed suicide at the age of sixty-six).

Once I began Tiger, Tiger, part of me wanted to stop reading it and part of me couldn’t put it down. The author’s story at the beginning is not entirely believable, because she includes conversations that she could not possibly remember word for word. However, the further I got into the book the more real her feelings came across; even if the dialog could not be completely accurate, the sense of what she was trying to convey rang true.

The author is clearly very conflicted. She had a troubled home life and turned toward her molester for affection and attention. Although now, as an adult, she acknowledges that he was a pedophile, she still loves him and remembers his love for her. She recognizes that he needed help and should have been stopped (she was not the only child he molested), but she can’t deny how important he was to her. She writes, “spending time with a pedophile can be like a drug high” and “I was Peter’s religion.”

Tiger, Tiger provides insight into a relationship most of us can’t (and would not want to) imagine. If the psychology of the complicated relationship between an abuser and his long-time victim interests you, you may find it a compelling read.

The Most Human Human by Brian Christian

A competition called the Turing test takes place each year. Judges at computer terminals interact with unseen correspondents. Each judge has two correspondents, one a human being and one a computer program, and the judge tries to tell which is which after a five minute online conversation with each. The program that receives the most votes and highest judge confidence score is named the Most Human Computer. This title is highly coveted by programmers. A side result of the voting, however, is that the human who receives the most votes and highest judge confidence score is named the Most Human Human.

It is from this side of the Turing test that author Brian Christian writes his book The Most Human Human. He sets out to participate in the test as a correspondent and to win the Most Human Human title. Along the way, he philosophizes about what it means to be human and how our interaction with computers is affecting that. He notes, “We once thought humans were unique for having a language with syntactical rules, but this isn’t so; we once thought humans were unique for using tools, but this isn’t so; we once thought humans were unique for being able to do mathematics, and now we can barely imagine being able to do what our calculators can.”

The author makes the point that cell phones, texting, and programs that finish our words for us are making us less creative. It is easier to use the word the phone suggests than to fight the phone and type the word we meant to use. He writes, “I was detachedly roaming the Internet, but there was nothing interesting happening in the news, nothing interesting happening on Facebook…I grew despondent, depressed – the world used to seem so interesting…But all of a sudden it dawned on me, as if the thought had just occurred to me, that much of what is interesting and amazing about this world did not happen in the past twenty-four hours. How had this fact slipped away from me? …. Somehow I think the Internet is making this very critical point lost on an entire demographic.”

Christian is an interesting guy. He has a dual bachelor’s degree in computer science and philosophy and a master of fine arts in poetry. He understands the scientific angle of the Turing test but also the human side of what it means for a human to challenge a computer. There is a wonderful scene during the Turing test when he spies on a fellow human correspondent’s chat with a judge and realizes they are chatting in shorthand about Canadian hockey teams, virtually assuring that the judge knows he is talking to a human. This causes Christian a moment of panic and despair when he fears that he will lose the Most Human Human title.

Christian’s views on how we interact with the world are refreshing. He says, “I think the reason novels are regarded to have so much more ‘information’ than films is that they outsource the scenic design and cinematography to the reader. … This, for me, is a powerful argument for the value and potency of literature specifically.” I felt somewhat lost toward the end of the book when it got a bit scientific, but the science was not too overwhelming, and I wouldn’t let that put you off as a potential reader. I enjoyed this book tremendously, and it really made me think.

The Beekeeper's Lament by Hannah Nordhaus

Confession: I have spent an inordinate amount of time in my adult life nursing pastoral fantasies. With all the urban farming manuals and memoirs out nowadays, there are plenty of opportunities to indulge my wannabe Laura Ingalls Wilder, without actually, you know, having to commit to caring for livestock. My latest love is The Beekeeper’s Lament: How One Man and Half a Billion Honey Bees Help Feed America. The book tracks commercial beekeeper John Miller on his gypsy nomad/businessman tour of American beekeeping. Miller is a true delight with his quirky turns of phrase, old school ethics, and cheeky attitude. Read this book, and you’ll never look at those plastic bears in your cabinets the same way again.