I’m about to undertake a big move shortly, which means I’m currently going through most of what I own, trying to work out what needs to go in storage what can be palmed off to other people, and what I need to sell. For most of my books, they’ll end up with either my sister or a younger family member. Which comes to my re-read of Dr Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation: can I successfully pass this off to a twelve-year-old without upsetting her […]
So many ways to die…
And Then You’re Dead was very appealing to me. Each chapter focuses on a specific way a human can and has died, but it cranks everything up to 11. I learned so many fun facts to tell people when I’m invited to parties. Although the fact that I’m interested in this book is probably why nobody invites me to parties. The chapters detail the many ways you can die, from being sucked out an airplane window (You actually can’t get sucked all the way out, […]
Nutcrackers are like Sherlock, snowy owls are like Bedouin herders, and fairy wrens have more sense than most world leaders
It’s been awhile since I’ve reviewed a book about birds, so I figured I’d better remedy that. I do quite a bit of reading about animals, zoology, and natural history in general and at times it can get repetitive. In The Thing with Feathers, Noah Strycker spices things up a bit by drawing parallels between birds and humans. Strycker takes the reader on a journey of body, mind, and spirit while dazzling with tales of amazing avians, from the tiny bee hummingbird of Cuba (which […]
A Short History of White Women’s Complicity
In Mothers of Massive Resistance: White Women and the Politics of White Supremacy, historian Elizabeth Gillespie McRae makes a strong argument for white women’s vital role in protecting and perpetuating white supremacy and thwarting integration in the US. One hundred years ago, woman began to organize in ways that we would recognize from today’s resistance movements. They developed grassroots campaigns reaching out to other women and encouraging them to organize, to write letters, to publish, to speak up and to vote. They did this, however, […]