Archive for the ‘Nonfiction’ Category

I love getting the opportunity to take part in any TLC Book Tour.  Unfortunately, this one came along when I was incredibly busy with a very rigid schedule that isn’t leaving me nearly enough time for reading!  Still, as soon as I got this book, I desperately wanted to read it!  The subject matter is incredibly intriguing even if the writing is a bit dry at times.  I love history writing but this book is more of a psychological examination of some very prominent historical characters.  Even though it was a little different than I had originally expected, I really enjoyed it and I feel like I learned a lot!

Many of you have probably heard some talk about the close link between genius and insanity.  Ghaemi takes this claim and explores it more in depth.  He asserts that mental illness does not lead to genius per se, but it can lead to some really great leadership skills like creativity, realism, empathy, and resilience.  Many of my favorite historical leaders were successful because they were dealing with mental illnesses that provided them with this arsenal of valuable skills for leading during times of turmoil: Lincoln, Churchill Ghandi, Roosevelt, Martin Luther King Jr.

Ghaemi makes you rethink cause and effect relationships related to mental illness.  For example, many people think that Churchill was depressed because of his isolation when in fact it was more probable that his isolation was probably caused because of the depressive fits associated with his bipolar disorder.  Ultimately, this leads one to wonder, does genius lead to insanity or does insanity actually lead to the traits that we expect of a genius?

Also I found it really interesting to see a bit of the evolution of treatment options for those suffering from mental illness.  Luckily, as science has evolved, more treatment options for those dealing with mental illness have become available.  Back in Lincoln’s day, the most common treatment was … bleeding!  Unfortunately, one thing that hasn’t changed enough is the way mental illnesses are treated.  I have found that people are still hesitant to discuss mental illness (perhaps this is because the word illness automatically leads to the assumption that something is wrong!).  Anyway, my point is that I really enjoyed reading about some of the positive effects of these so called mental illnesses.  This book challenged some things that I thought I knew about depression and bipolar disorder and I will probably be doing more reading on this subject in the future (although maybe in a more fiction-based easier to read format).

For more information about the author, S. Nassir Ghaemi, you can visit his website by clicking here.

A special thanks to everyone at TLC Book Tours and apologies for getting this post up a little later than expected.  I found that after spending hours with my educational psychology reading, it was difficult for me to jump into some historical psychology reading.  I’ll have to plan better then next time I accept a book to review!

And lastly, because I love a little discussion, I would love to hear your thoughts on the subject of mental health/illness.  And if there was any historical figure that you could learn about the mental health of, who would it be?

When I started reading about the Dukan diet, I was excited.  I read that you could lose up to 10 lbs in a week.  I am a huge fan of fast results so I quickly bought the book.  However, after reading the introduction, I realized that adhering to this diet would require some planning.  It wasn’t going to be easy.  So I put it on hold.  I waited for summer to come.  Summer is an easy diet climate for me because I have a lot more free time, I’m eating on my own dime (not the food provided via my room and board compensation package for being an Assistant Resident Director), and the awesome weather makes it a lot more convenient to stay active.  After visiting the doctor to make sure that my weight gain wasn’t the result of some undiagnosed condition, I decided I should get started.

The Dukan diet is split up into four phases: the attack phase, the cruise phase, the consolidation phase, and the permanent stabilization phase.  I didn’t even fully complete the attack phase before I realized that this diet wasn’t for me.  The attack phase can last anywhere from 2 to 5 days depending on how much weight you are aiming to lose.  I was on it for a little over 4 days before I gave in to temptation.  During the attack phase, you can only eat pure protein (plus a little bit of oat bran, lots of water, and a prescribed 20 minutes of walking).  Despite the fact that I could eat as much as I wanted, I never felt full during this painful pure protein diet.  I discovered that I didn’t want to eat that much protein.  Chicken without rice or vegetables is not that good!  To make matters worse, when I would try to work out, I felt weak and couldn’t get into my usual rhythms. Heck, it became a lot harder for me to even bike to work!  And I wasn’t losing as much weight as expected: by day four I had only lost 2.5 lbs.  Knowing that this weight loss was probably mostly water weight, I was not all that excited by these “fast results.”

I really wanted to stick to this diet, but then I read that the cruise phase wasn’t going to be much better and I would be stuck on it for a LONG time.  During the cruise phase, you alternate between pure protein days and protein + vegetable days (but Dukan limits which vegetables you can eat).  You stay in this phase until you reach your “true weight,” which is expected to be three days for every pound you want to lose.  I want to lose somewhere between 30 and 40 lbs which would mean I would be stuck in this phase for somewhere between 90 and 120 days.  When I discovered this I quickly pitched the Duken diet out the door.

I’m not trying to say that the Dukan diet doesn’t work – it just didn’t work for me.  This is the second diet I have essentially started, had mild success with, and in the end given up on.  I had a lot more success with the Game On diet, but even found that to be incredibly restrictive when I was back at school living on cafeteria food.  I am still eager to get in shape and return to a healthy weight (and fit back into my old jeans), but I am beginning to realize that prescribed diets aren’t going to work for me.  I know what I should be eating and I know how active I want to be.  I need to just find better ways of keeping myself motivated and away from the delicious temptations of eating out. I am setting some pretty ambitious fitness goals for myself this summer and I am hoping that these goals keep me on the right track!

Back in high school, my AP U.S. History (APUSH) teacher made history come alive.  Mr. Hicks did so much more than just prepare me for the daunting AP test, he planted the seeds of admiration for the history of my country.  How exactly does one go about making the seemingly dull facts of history interesting?  Well, all that you have to do is add a little personality to it.  And trust me, U.S. history is sprinkled with many interesting personalities.

This is why I was excited when I discovered The Secret Lives of the U. S. Presidents: What Your Teachers Never Told You about the Men of the White House by Cormac O’Brien, illustrated by Monika Suteski.  Last Christmas, I saw my boyfriend’s brother reading this little beauty (and quoting some of the interesting facts from it), and I immediately downloaded it for my iPad via the Amazon Kindle app.  It took me a while to get around to digging into this fun filled treasure of odd facts and brief history recaps, but I’m so glad that I made the time for it.

For a lot of people, I am thinking that this would make a perfect coffee table book–a great conversation starter, this is easy to peruse whenever you have a quick moment or two.  It’s not a dense history book but is filled with a lot of great little factoids and background about our presidents from George Washington to Barak Obama.  I enjoyed revisiting many of odd little facts that I remembered from APUSH and even picking up a few new ones.

Since I’m in the sharing mood, here are some of my favorite “secrets”:

“At 5’4″, James Madison has the distinction of being the shortest president in U.S. history.”  Well, that makes him taller than me — I come in at 4’11″.  But I really loved this fact because I spent a lot of time studying Madison in my Constitution and Liberty class.  I always pictured him being this tall domineering guy, but he wasn’t!

An interesting mind bender concerning President John Tyler: “Tyler had been born when George Washington was president, and his youngest daughter, Mary–born when Tyler was seventy years old–died during Harry Truman’s administration.  That’s a span of thirty-two presidents–more than 150 years!”

If you enjoyed these little gems of history, pick up this book, which at times had me laughing out loud.  Our nation’s leaders truly are some interesting and eccentric fellows and I really enjoyed learning a little bit more about them.  O’Brien has also written a book about the First Ladies called The Secret Lives of the First Ladies, which I am tempted to purchase (and probably will eventually).

“The intrinsic worth in reading and rereading feminist writings is that, in doing so, we are given the precious chane to compare and contrast other women’s lives with our own, to liberate our imaginations from the predictable, the conventional, and thus gain greater insight into the various scripts assigned to us by our particular generation.  Feminism give us room to tell the unexpected story, and this, perhaps, is its greatest gift (256).”

I love it when books encourage me to do more reading.  Despite the fact that I am a decently educated young woman who loves to read, I am amazed at how many undiscovered gems remain out there.  Reading Women: How the Great Books of Feminism Changed My Life by Stephanie Staal introduced me to quite a few books and my TBR list is now quickly filling up with some seriously challenging stuff: Simone de Beauvoir, Freud, Friedan, bell hooks, and Mary Wallstonecraft (just to name a few).

You see, when I picked up this book, I thought that I would be revisiting the feminism I studied in college.  However, it important to note here that I never took feminism 101.  Instead, I took Women, Lit, and Theory (Ecofeminism) and Women and Politics.  Just this past year, I even went back and peer educated Women, Lit, and Theory.  While I loved both of these courses, I didn’t study the usual suspects.  Sure, I can tell you about the works of all the aforementioned writers, but I cannot boast that I have actually read their works.  I’m not entirely sure how this happened, but admitting it here makes me feel a little … ashamed.  As in, how can I call myself a feminist when I haven’t actually gone to the sources for my supposed knowledge?  So while I loved reading Staal’s reflections on these pretty amazing works, I also couldn’t help but feel a bit of a disconnect.  Still, I am definitely inspired by the words of Ms. Staal and I’m very glad that I delved into the pages of this book.  In some ways, I think that this book reignited in me a fire that had died: a desire to read more and take from that reading life lessons that affect me everyday.

When I decided to start this blog, it was with the hope of donig something similar to Staal.  I felt lost and confused.  I was a college sophmore and I wasn’t entirely sure where I was headed.  I felt like I was loosing myself in the midst of my ever-growing to do lists.  I didn’t have the passion or excitement for life that I had when I entered college.  I felt like my light was fizzling out.  Once an avid reader and writer, I didn’t make time for the things that I enjoyed.  But I still had a thirst for knowledge and I loved to read even if I didn’t always make time for it.  So I figured that maybe reading more and writing about what I read might ignite some of that gusto for life inside of me.  And it has to some extent.  It wasn’t a miracle cure all but it has introduced me to fabulous people and I have loved the writing experience and the push to read more.  The blog is still changing and evolving because I haven’t found the perfect fit yet, but I’m closer today to finding that then I was when I started this thing and I am allowing myself to take some pride in that.

And so that is why I loved this book.  I loved the concept, the writing, the reading, and the author.  I loved that this book was more than just an overview of a Feminism 101 class — it was about Stephanie rediscovering feminism.  This required her to deal with the ways that feminism has changed, women have changed, and she has changed.   Most of all, I loved the fact that despite all of these changes, the texts still spoke to Stephanie and the other students.  The words and concerns of Betty Friedan and Simone de Beauvoir still matter.  Even though women have made enormous progress, feminist concerns are still there.  We haven’t reached the ultimate goal of equality and it is possible that we never will.  What is important is that we continue to talk about it, that we continue to challenge the norms that might be harming us, and that we all work to pave our own way through life.  What I took away from this book is a renewed sense of agency–an urgency to figure out what I want and to chase after it with everything I have.

I highly recommend this book whether you took a feminism class in college or not.  It is informative and entertaining at the same time.  This book is more than just a review of fem texts, it is also about a woman who was losing her sense of self as she struggled to balance motherhood, a stressed marriage, and a freelance writing career.  I am amazed by how much women today are able to juggle, but as I stare in awe at all of their accomplishments, I frequently overlook the fact that their male counterparts aren’t always making the same sacrifices.  Staal does a fantastic job of showing ways in which the works that she studied in the classroom can be applied to real life concerns.  There are answers out there!  I found myself constantly copying down quotes from this book that I will hopefully be revisiting and exploring further with the help of all of you!

Jen Lancaster, I wish I met you sooner.

I have been reading Jen Lancaster’s Memoir Such a Pretty Fat: One Narcissists Quest to Discover if Her Life Makes Her Ass Look Big, or Why Pie is Not the Answer for about a month.  It’s difficult for me to delve into memoirs.  I enjoy reading them at a slower pace almost like I’m actually getting to know someone.  I bought this one on my iPad from the iBooks store and read it mostly at the gym on the treadmill or eliptical (yay for summer fitness!).  I found it to be incredibly motivating: as Jen was making progress (or lack thereof in some cases) I found making progress during my sweat sessions.  I would stay longer on the treadmill/eliptical so that I could get in another chapter!

So as you may or may not know, I have been obsessed with weight loss lately.  I tried the Game On Diet last summer and had some success with it, but I have since then decided that it was too strict.  It made me depressed to think of all the things I couldn’t eat.  So this summer, I’m trying to lose weight my way: by hitting the gym HARD and working out the food thing the best I can.  Depending on how this works, I might try a different diet for a little bit – I have been eying the Dukan diet- but I’ll worry about that later and only if I absolutely need to.

Jen Lancaster is dealing with the same thing.  After being called a fat bitch on the bus, she is inspired to go on a diet.  And as she tries and fails at the Atkins diet several times she discovers how desperately she needs to change her lifestyle to a healtheir one.  For her, this is about so much more than just how she looks but is a matter of HEALTH!  And that’s where I find myself.  Sure, it sucks that my pants don’t fit, but what makes it worse is that I’m constantly tired and lazy.  I want to be energetic and fun again!  As she continues to delve into the world of dieting, Jen discovers some things about herself along the way that I found were definitely relevant to my own life like how fear can really hold you back without you really noticing it.

And so with the desire to live a long and healthy life Jen searches for the perfect diet and fitness balance.  And it is difficult for her (I’m finding it to be incredibly difficult for me too!), but she approaches it with immense wit and humor.  I found myself literally laughing out loud at certain passages.  I discovered a deep comraderie with this memoirist from Chicago even though I don’t know her at all, I wanted to know her as I got more and more into the book.  She put voice to things that I frequently find myself thinking as I walk around.  Even more, she explored the world of diet and weight loss – it can be extremely scary at times.  Imagine Weight Watchers meetings that try to convince you that food is the enemy!  I mean come on!  I love food – that’s why I packed on all of this weight.  It is not the enemy.  I just need to learn how to consume it in moderation, duh!

If you couldn’t tell, I loved this book and am looking forward to reading more  Jen Lancaster in the future.  I found her to be incredibly easy to read and I related to most of what she wrote about.  I especially loved her realtionship with her husband, Fletch.  If your looking for something fun to read at the gym, I definitely recommend this one!