We Bought a Zoo by Benjamin Mee

I remembered the movie coming out, and me thinking, "Ugh, that looks so stupid." Years later, I buy the audiobook. It was on sale, and I forgot that Matt Damon was in the movie, so I figured, why not? I think also Scarlett Johansson is also in the movie, but I don't know who she plays.

The audiobook opens with a British narrator. Oh sweet, it's a British family who bought a farm in the UK. Cool. A family who decided to take a risk by buying a farm! Interesting!

Uh, this book opens with a major bummer. Benjamin, Katherine and family moved to France... because, well... just because? I think they just wanted to move there, and both Benjamin and Katherine could work remotely. They purchased a house where Benjamin could fix up when Katherine started to become listless and not herself.

She has a brain tumor, and it's one of those really tough, rare brain tumors that no matter what a person does, it comes back.

This book is going to be devastating.

The first 50 pages of the book is not about the farm at all, but the set up Katherine's eventual passing. You hope, despite of all the odds, that her brain tumor is not going to come back after it's removed, but 3/4th of the way through the book, after they struggle their way through buying the farm, the brain tumor comes back, and Benjamin describes in heart breaking detail of his wife's demise. The way he wrote her was so tender, and even some of the grosser aspects of him taking care of her.

I loved the way he wrote, and of course, I always have a fondness of dry, British humor. Benjamin goes through the process of buying a very run down zoo, with the intent of giving the animals a good home. His entire family, his mother and his siblings, put a lot of money into it. It was a bit stressful hearing how many loans they had to take out, as well as the all the loans that kept falling through.

He had many antidotes about putting together a working crew, dealing with their personalities as well as accumulating money in order to get the zoo up to working order. I also enjoyed the bits about the various animals and their circumstances, with Benjamin's dash of absurdity.

Some of the reviews state that he was dry, but I didn't get that at all. It's possible that it made a better audiobook, with a sweet British accent that could read the British sarcasm and wit; capturing the absurdity of life, and the inclination to not take it so seriously.

I definitely like audiobooks where you can zone out and come back to them, without really missing a whole lot. What I've also realized that I like audiobooks where the plot is a bit simpler, so I can work and listen at the same time.

So, overall, it's a good book if you want an emotional wrecker with the pick me up of saving animals.

Rosemary,The Hidden Kennedy Daughter by Kate Clifford Larson

It took me a couple of days, and a few post rewrites to finally figure out what was giving me pause about this book.

It's actually not about Rosemary.

Oh sure, her name and picture is on the title, and she is mentioned throughout the book, and there are events and memories that involve her, but it's never about her. 

It's impeccably researched, but the problem is that there isn't much about Rosemary's internal thoughts and experiences. Of course there isn't, because she undergoes a lobotomy in her early 20s and spends the next decades of her life hidden away. As well, before that, Joe and Rose do everything in their power to cover up Rosemary's shortcomings, and keep her letters under lock and key.

So instead, Larson uses Rosemary to promote her viewpoints. Instead of the book being about Rosemary (seriously, couldn't you have made up something in a fictionalized account?), it's about how The Kennedy's real triumph is through the passing of various state and federal disability legislation that promoted and protected disability rights.

If you are an able-bodied person that doesn't encounter those with disabilities in their daily life, this may be an eye opening book for you. However, I am very familiar with the disability narrative, because not only do I have a masters in special education, I am also a part of the tribe. (Though John Nagle and I declared a sub-tribe for just us two).

John Nagle and I clearly do have matching overalls. But Larson didn't tell me anything knew, and she went over at length to which I practiced my eye rolling skills.

Finally, the tone of the book was just... condescending? I write that with a question mark because I can't really put a finger on it. One moment she's lauding Rose for caring for Rosemary, the next minute she's chastising the Kennedys for believing in eugenics, and finally, she's showing the readers the horrors of institutions! It felt like she was all over the place, trying to put a place for each letter she read as well as put in her own thoughts and feelings.

Overall, this book blew. I'm sure there are better books out there and ones that treat Rosemary as a person instead of a mantel that the Kennedys had to carry.

When to Make the Decision to Stop Reading a Book

So, my book stack is dutifully in my bedroom. I picked them out when I was moving and committed myself to reading them when I moved. After all, why spend money on books when I had many that I had not read yet? A major theme of this blog is to pick up books for a discounted price or for free. Certainly I should read the books in my house first.

I read a few historical fiction and fiction books this summer, which is a step away from the science fiction and fantasy that I go after. I enjoyed the fiction books I read, so why not take another chance? I was about to embark on a social studies position at my new school: I had a duty to be informed, even if it was to teach 6th graders.

The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman. My mother gave me this book lord knows how many years ago. She encouraged me to read it. "It's very good," she commented. "He makes great connections and says it in a way that makes sense." She also concluded that I would be interested in the topic, since I about to start college as a political science major. I just put it on my shelf, committing to myself that I would read it... eventually.

A few weeks ago, I finally did. I dusted off the hardback book, and began reading it.

I got to 50 pages before I put it down again.

I'm not going to write off Mr. Friedman. He's brilliant, drawing conclusions between our ever changing economy and the way we live, but the major problem with presenting theories about our economy, the way we live and technology, is that the technology used to draw those conclusions are defunct 10 years later. This book was written in 2005. It's now 2015, and many of the emerging business models are either common place or collapsed all together. With the housing bubble and the dot.com bust, the book is not necessarily ground breaking as it once was. It's almost like a history lesson.

I also realized a few things about my reading preferences. Reading nonfiction books before bedtime is probably not something I would do again. Whereas I tore through Little Altars Everywhere, I crawled through The World is Flat. Now, it's probably the way you're supposed to read it, but for someone that reads to relax, The World is Flat is not a relaxing book.

Sorry, Thomas Friedman. If I ever get my hands on your newest book, I'll give you another try.

I went back to my book stack. What should I try next? I had a few Virginia Woolf books. BAE adamantly concluded that I would like her, so I decided to try "A Room of One's Own." I remember Nicole Kidman playing her in a movie a few years ago (she donned the fake nose, so she must be a serious actress), so I thought I would give it a try.

I got to 15 pages before I put it down.

The introduction warns the reader that it's like an extended essay. Though I felt like she and I were talking and walking about the state of women, it felt like I was at a lecture. A lecture that I was not allowed to comment or question.

Like Friedman, I am not going to write Woolf off. The only author I would ever write off is Thomas Hardy with Tess D'Urbervilles (never again). I do have another book by her, which seems to be a fiction novel. I will give her another try later.

However, making the decision to stop reading 2 books consecutively when I normally stick to books the entire way through made me think of when we should stop reading books. In both of these cases, they didn't serve my purpose. I read to relax before bed. I read so I can escape and go to far off places and read about other people's lives. Both of these books did not do that.

Now sometimes I will finish a book just to give it a scathing review, but it wasn't like I hate either of these books. They were fine books written by brilliant people. I think at the end of the day, my taste in books skew to the light side.

I would like to turn the question over to you: When do you make the decision to stop reading a book? Why?

Stiff by Mary Roach

The cover art for this book are feet tagged. I've seen enough Law and Order to know what that means. Side note, I had a friend in high school whose last name was Roach. Now she's married and has a different last name. 

This book is allllll about dead bodies/cadavers. What we do with them and the history of cadavers. I'm not sure if anyone else does this, but since my job is very rough right now, I have been playing this game more and more lately: Alternative careers to teaching. The idea of a mortician definitely entered my mind. I mean, humans have strong ties to funerals and people will always die. People are always going to need morticians and funeral directors. However, there is a website titled "Onet" for students in high school (and anyone really) that shows the skills, interests and outlooks for jobs. Mortician, apparently, and funeral directors, do not have a bright outlook for jobs in the future. That idea is trashed, not to mention that I'm quite sure biology, and lots of it is involved. I have went down the biological science route twice and ran the other way. I have to keep on dreaming... 

However, I remember reading an article about an ecological funeral and how either the ashes or the coffin transforms into a tree. That would be baller--a cemetery forrest. Tiny plaques with the person's name on it and it's a tree. Way better than the cemeteries we have now. 

So, Stiff.  This books makes you think a lot about death, and dying, and whether your body should be donated to science... and how could families just refuse organ donation. I would like to make an obligatory joke here about how one shouldn't donate my pancreas, but that would make any sense. If you're pancreas doesn't work, you just inject insulin. So even my autoimmune disease doesn't even lend itself to a good organ donation joke. 

Roach discusses how much it makes sense that automobile testers would use cadavers to crash test their cars and even an eye opening chapter on experiments of the religious nature on the Shroud of Turin. Say, whaaa? 

Would I purchase this book to read? Probably not. I found this book in the school book closet and I figured, why the heck not? Initially I thought this book is not in my normal repetoire but I have come to think that I just choose weird books to read. This book is also good to read right before going to bed, because I fought to stay awake while reading this book. Dawn by Octavia Butler however.... 

Roach's research takes her to interesting places and that includes cannibalism and the crucifixion. The cannibalism chapter is not what you think; she doesn't dive into Hannibal Lector wannabes. Crucifixion freaks me out, which I correlate directly to evangelical youth groups that not only harped on the idea that JESUS DIED FOR OUR SINS, but to also DESCRIBE AND WATCH THE HORRIBLENESS THAT IS CRUCIFIXION EVERY CHANCE THEY GOT. There is a scene on Vikings where a character is crucified. They even had a first person shot. Wigged. Me. Out. 

Finally, this book also made me super glad to have 21st century medical care. I would not want to be a person who is sick and goes to a doctor who wants to try new surgeries. Geez, anyone could have been a doctor back then. The thought is scary. However, in my game of "Alternative Careers to Teaching and If I lived in another Time Period," I would tots be a body snatcher. Apparently you get paid the big bucks.