Happy Thanksgiving!

Hi friends,

November was a great month for reading books. We enjoyed Thanksgiving with my sister and learned that you have to teach children to throw up in the toilet. This is not an inherent skill. Luckily, the vomiting was brief, only a 24-hour bug, but still more than enough for an of us.

As always, let me know if you have any recommendations or have read any of these books.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Tonya

Mambo in Chinatown by Jean Kwok

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Recommendation: Yes!

Review: I have now read all of Kwok’s novels, and I liked them all! True to form, this book was about an American Born Chinese (ABC) young women who transitions from washing dishes in a Chinatown noodle restaurant to teaching professional ballroom dance. As you can imagine, this is quite a leap, and Kwok once again explores themes of immigration, class, and race while creating empathetic and endearing characters. This was definitely the lightest of the three novels and I enjoyed learning about ballroom dance and reading about the attractive young student that the main character inevitably falls in love with.

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Recommendation: Yes, if you like dense historical fiction

Review: This book tells the story of the enigmatic Thomas Cromwell, one of Henry VIII’s advisors. Yes, the Henry VIII with six wives who broke with the Catholic church in Rome in part so he could marry the illustrious Anne Boleyn, only to have her beheaded a few years later. This book tells the story of the break with the Catholic Church and the prominent role that Cromwell played in it. While it is fiction, the events happened. Mantel just fills in all the conversations, relationships, and drama, and let me tell you there is no shortage of drama. Cromwell came from humble origins, the son of a blacksmith, who by his own resourcefulness and usefulness is raised up to the second highest position in the land. Super unusual for autocratic, heriditary monarchy that Britain was! Mantel tries to paint a picture of the man behind the great split with Rome and illuminate his mysterious motives and loyalties. It was a fascinating read, but to be honest, I thought it could have been a great deal shorter, but I will give Mantel due credit for beautifully and engagingly showing the pivotal role that Cromwell played during this historic and unprecedented time.

Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society by Nicholas A. Christakis

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Recommendation: Yes

Review: With all of the doom, gloom, and misery that is so evident in the world and in the news, it’s easy to conclude that humanity is a lost cause, and it might be best to just reboot the universe and start over. But reading books like this one help remind me that humanity is nothing but a bundle of contradictions and for every negative story, characteristic, and emotion, there’s a positive and uplifting one if you only put in the effort to find it. Christakis demonstrates how humanity has evolved a suite of social features that enable us to establish good societies. He argues that even with all the political, racial, religious, and ethnic rifts in the world, we cannot help but create good societies where we selflessly sacrifice to help one another sometimes even to the detriment of our own selves. One of my favorite analogies from the book describes different societies as standing near to the peaks of several mountains and comparing how different the tops of all the mountains they’re standing on are without realizing that the vast majority of the mountains from the peak down that they’re standing on are all the same. It’s easy to notice the differences while ignoring the vast majority of social features -- love, family, altruism, neighborliness -- that unite most human societies. Cheers to humanity!

Evvie Drake Starts Over by Lind Holmes

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Recommendation: Yes

Review: I thought that this book would be a fairly flighty rom-com as it features a professional baseball player as the love interest. I was pleasantly surprised though to discover some real depth to the story. Evvie Drake is 5 minutes away from leaving her abusive husband when he dies in a tragic car accident. This all happens in the first five pages of the book. The love interest is a washed-up, Yankees player trying to escape the ridicule that goes from being the best in the league to being unable to hit the broadside of the barn as he develops a bad case of the “yips.” They both learn that you’re the only person that can fix you, and that moving on from a bad situation takes time and healing. There’s also some smooching. A good, thought-provoking read.

Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski

Rating:  4 of 5 stars

Recommendation: Yes!! For all women and those who have sex with women

Review: That's right. There's a vagina -- actually, a vulva-- on the cover of this book. I’ve been married for over 5 years and have two kids, and I’m beginning to realize that my sex education had some major holes in it. I’m moving past the blame stage of this realization and am trying to rectify the wrong and educate myself. This book is a great way to do that. Nagoski is a professional sex educator and draws on all the latest research to provide evidence-based explanations how women can have more fulfilling sex lives. Turns out that women and men are different, and as Nagoski explains women’s sexuality is not just men’s sexuality “lite.” Turns out that context matters including a woman’s emotional, physical, and mental state combined with the health of her relationship. Nagoski provides tools to help you understand your own sexuality and what context works best for you to improve your sex life. To be honest, the jury’s still out on whether this will work for me since I’ve been busy working fulltime, being married, and having two kids to try it yet, but spoiler alert – it’s important to understand all that context and how it applies to your sex life! I liked this book so much that I made my husband read it, and he learned a lot too. 

Mommy Corner

Chloe learned about rocks and minerals at school, including smashing open a geode. Of course, she promptly lost the crystal when we got home.

Look Ma! No hands! Maya is getting better at standing independently. Way too close to walking!

Chloe enjoyed playing in the leaves while Daddy worked. 

Peek-a-boo!

October Books and Festivities

Hi All!

Hope that you’re enjoying the Fall as much as we are. October is definitely the best month to be in Maryland. I found some time to enjoy a few books mostly non-fiction about girls and sex, failed military plots, and ancient Egyptian queens.

Things are progressing on the mommy front. Maya has had three teeth emerge on her upper gums, learned how to crawl really fast, and started pulling herself up very persistently on furniture. She is very determined to get into everything, and we find ourselves in need of a baby gate. Chloe turned three years old! She enjoyed her birthday celebration at school and at home and keeps insisting that it’s her birthday. Good times.

As always, let me know if you’ve read any of these books or have other suggestions for future reading.

Thanks!

Tonya

Nuking the Moon: And Other Intelligence Schemes and Military Plots Left on the Drawing Board by Vince Houghton

Rating: 5 of 5 stars

Recommendation: Yes!

Review: So, I was inclined to like this book to begin with because it talks about failed government acquisition projects and military plans, and I audit large acquisition projects, some of which can only be described as failures.  In fact, some of the projects I’ve worked on are discussed in this book, or rather their precursors that were cancelled and have since been resurrected in new, equally as impossible forms. Regardless of my pre-inclination to like this book, I think that anyone would enjoy it. Houghton is the owner of the Spy Museum here in DC and revels in the nerdy history of failed espionage tactics and national security plans like using cats as listening devices, bats as bombs, nuclear bunkers under the Pentagon, aircraft carriers made of ice, and spacecraft propelled by nuclear explosions. He brings a unique and hilarious voice to the retelling of these ridiculous stories and helps you realize the audaciousness of the plots that desperate men – and women, but let’s be honest, mostly men – came up with in attempts to thwart enemies and win wars. Highly recommend for anyone who wants a good read and a good laugh.

Dear Girls: Intimate Tales, Untold Secrets, and Advice for Living Your Best Life by Ali Wong

Rating: 4 of 5 starts

Recommendation: Sure, if you enjoy her type of comedy

Review: I watched Wong’s first Netflix special right after the birth of my first daughter and her second while I was pregnant with my second. I didn’t enjoy some of her cruder jokes, but I could totally relate to basically all of her mom- and pregnancy-related jokes, so I wasn’t disappointed when this book delivered more of this type of humor. The book is written as a series of open letters to her daughters with advice on everything from how to choose a good Asian restaurant, to travel and dating advice. In addition to laughs, she delivers some poignant insights into motherhood, relationships, and building a career as an Asian woman in the entertainment industry. My biggest takeaway: remember fellow moms: “You have suffered enough!”

Girls & Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape by Peggy Orenstein

Rating: 3 of 5 stars

Recommendation: Maybe

Review: So I’m still processing this book and trying to figure out how I feel about it. Orenstein is a journalist who interviews lots of girls ages 15-30 about their sex lives. Reading this made me realize that lots of people, perhaps most, don’t agree with my views on sex, which seems obvious but isn’t something that I think regularly about. I tend to surround myself with friends and family who agree with my religious views, which strongly influence my sexual behavior, but I guess that we’re in the minority. In addition to being eye-opening, as the mother of two girls, this book was also terrifying. It reinforced the fact that I need to have a comprehensive and thorough understanding of why I believe and behave the way I do about sex so that I can effectively teach my daughters. Of course, by the time they’re teenagers, all of this could be different! This is a truly terrifying aspect of parenting for me, so let me know if any of you have any thoughts or suggestions.

When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt by Kara Cooney

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Recommendation: Yes!

Review: This book introduces six Queens of ancient Egypt including some that you’re probably familiar with like Nefertiti, Hatshepsut, and Cleopatra, but a few that you’ve probably never heard of but are totally cool! As far as autocratic patriarchies go, Ancient Egypt was extremely stereotypical, but there are several instances throughout their 5,000 year (That’s right 5,000 years! Our young American minds can’t really comprehend a civilization with that type of timeline.) history there were several times when they turned to female rulers to lead them, usually after the men had royally screwed things up. Cooney draws interesting and compelling parallels between the power struggles of these ancient female leaders and modern ones. To be honest, this book made it seem like not much has changed in terms of how women in power are perceived, received, and allowed to exercise their power. Which was super depressing, but at least nowadays books like this are being written, and the idea of women being in charge isn’t largely reserved for the ends of a dynasty when she’s just expected to hold everything together to avert a civil war.

Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok

Rating: 5 of 5 stars

Recommendation: Yes!

Review: I read and reviewed one of Kwok’s books last month, Searching for Sylvie Lee, and I liked it so much, I decided to read more of her work. This book was eye-opening in a lot of ways. Although being fictional, it helped me learn about the ever-present anxiety and stress that comes from poverty and how people are willing to do anything to relieve that stress for their children. The protagonist in the book immigrates to New York City with her single mother at age 11 where they work for her petty and vindictive older sister in a garment factory in Chinatown while living in a literal hell hole. The book describes this precocious girl’s journey from Fresh-off-the-boat terrified to the top of her class as a scholarship student at an elite private high school. Coming from a privileged, white, upper-middle class background, I can’t really understand the pressure she describes of being literally her and her mom’s only hope to escape their horrible situation, but I can try to empathize. The thing that was most frustrating was that the protagonist had to continually prove herself above and beyond what the other kids from white, rich backgrounds had to do as it seems that even the teachers at her snobby school couldn’t believe that a female immigrant student could be as gifted as she was. It was an eye-opening revelation into my own biases as well.

Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free by Linda Kay Klein

Rating: 3 of 5 stars

Recommendation: Maybe?

Review: This is another book where I’m still trying to decide how I feel, and what I think about it. I think it’s good to read books that you don’t agree 100% with, or at all because it presents you an opportunity to evaluate your thoughts and opinions and clearly articulate to yourself why you think the way you do, or to change how you think. In any case, this book discusses the “shame movement” in the Evangelical church that according to the author, focused on sexual abstinence before marriage as the basically sole measuring stick of religious observance. I didn’t grow up in an Evangelical tradition, but I grew up in and continue to participate in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which also teaches abstinence before marriage. While Klein's clearly massive chip on her shoulder from her own negative experiences casts doubt on the book's conclusions, I think that she does make several good points about how we talk to our children about sex and pass on our sexual attitudes. The book made me resolve to do so thoughtfully, prayerfully, and purposefully with my own children.

Mommy's Corner

Add caption

We had lots of fun apple picking with family. It's one of our favorite family activities, and we do it every year. 

We also celebrated Chloe's third birthday at home and at school. She wanted me to help her blow out the candle. We asked her what she wanted to do for her birthday, and she said, "Sing happy birthday, and eat a cupcake," so that's what we did. It's nice when they're young and have low expectations!

Look at that cheesy grin.

We're too lazy and busy to do much of anything for Halloween, but they always have a parade at the kids' school. We didn't dress Maya up this year, but her teachers weren't about to let her parade without looking extremely cute and provided a costume for her. 

Fun Fall Fiction and (Non)Fiction That Will Fulfill Your Fantasies

Hello friends!

So it may be half-way through October already, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t talk about all the amazing things that happened in September. For us, September meant back to school and work, so we’ve been a little busy. I did manage to fit in some quality reading amid the adjustment and its associated hustle and bustle. Shout out to my friend Jessie Yao and sister-in-law Robbie for recommending some of these books.

Chloe took a few weeks to get used to her new class but is now really enjoying all the fun activities that they do at school. Maya slid right into her new routine with nary a complaint to be heard. She’s the best baby in the world. Seriously. I’m getting into the swing of things back at work and trying again to figure out how to make it all work with the help of my husband extraordinaire, Daniel.

As always, let me know if you have any recommendations for me or any thoughts on these books.

Happy Fall!

Tonya

Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time by Brigid Schulte

Rating: 5 of 5 stars

Recommendation: Yes! Especially for all my mommy friends out there

Review: Sometimes when I read books that are amazingly good and life changing I insist that my husband read them too. He’s more of a news and current events guy. This was one of those books. Even though the target audience for this book is definitely women, and more specifically moms, my husband also enjoyed it. First, Schulte perfectly describes my own time-pressured feelings with the concept of “time confetti,” a feeling that all your time and attention is constantly fragmented due to continuous interruptions and demands for your attention. She goes on to examine some of the systemic and societal issues that lead to most women feeling debilitating time stress. These include: the demands of work and career, the expectation of being the primary caretaker of the children and home, and a lack of any societal structures to help with the above. She has chapters examining the “ideal worker” who is perpetually available to do any task required regardless of the time of day, the lack of any assistance with child care in the United States, the lack of any sort of paid parental leave in the same country, and the fact that most working women still shoulder the majority of the household and childcare work. I could relate to all but the last as my husband and I have so far been able to split these duties equally. In the end, a lot of the problems that lead to our insane time stress are literally beyond our control to resolve as individuals and would require the concentrated efforts of civil society, industry, and policy makers to change not only policy but the culture of the ideal worker and mother that is literally making modern life impossible to live. Hey, I didn’t say it was an easy read.

The Gift of Failure: How the Best Parents Learn to Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed by Jessica Lahey

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Recommendation: Sure

Review: I’m going to be honest; I read this book because I follow Kristen Bell on social media and saw that she was reading it. That being said, it was pretty good. The parenting theory that this book proposes focuses on allowing your children to fail in the relatively low-risk settings of home and school so that they can build resilience, develop intrinsic motivation to succeed, and be self-reliant adults who contribute to society. Easier said than done. While I found a lot of the advice in this book to be helpful and have tried to incorporate it into my parenting. There’s one part, though, and it is a crucial aspect of the whole theory, that I’ve failed in incorporating: the elimination of rewards and bribery. I recognize that this is just me making excuses, but I have a very strong-willed three year-old, and sometimes the only practical way to get her to eat, go to the potty, get dressed, brush her teeth, go to bed, etc…is to bribe her with a reward. I’m not proud of it, but I also don’t see it changing any time soon. Let me know if you all have any thoughts on how to eliminate rewards to help children better develop intrinsic motivation.

The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren

Rating: 3 of 5 stars

Recommendation: Kind of…

Review: I started this book thinking that it would be mostly romantic-comedy fluff, and it mostly was. There were a few points in it that surprised me though. The book focuses on Olive and Ethan who, in a plot very reminiscent of Pride and Prejudice, go from hating each other to, you guessed it, falling in love. Along the way there are misconceptions, hasty judgments, and a charming, handsome man who later turns out to be a villain. Sound familiar? There are a few surprising twists along the way, but I kind of think of this book as a modern, not-as-good retelling of the best romantic comedy in history.

The Field Guide to the North American Teenager by Ben Phillippe

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Recommendation: Maybe

Review: If you enjoy reading books about snarky, angst-ridden, quick-witted teenagers, then this is the book for you. It follows Norris Kaplan, a black, French Canadian 17-year-old boy who has to move to Austin, Texas. As you can imagine, Norris feels out of place in the land of big-horn steers and burnt orange. The books follows his (mal)adjustment complete with a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, cheerleaders, jocks, and a climatic screw up. The best part of the whole book was listening to Norris’s internal dialogue that was frankly hilarious. The worst part was enduring awkward scenes of teenage partying. Overall, it was a clever, quick read that was more insightful than most books set in high school.

Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill by Candice Millard

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Recommendation: Yes! For anyone who likes to learn about history

Review: This book, as advertised, read like a novel more than a nonfiction recounting of a world-renowned historical figure's early days. Turns out that Winston Churchill was not always old, overweight, and famous. This book tells the story of how a 25-year-old Churchill places himself in the middle of the Boer Wars between England and the descendants of European colonists in South Africa at the end of the 19th century. (Side note: I didn’t even know that the Boer Wars were a thing before I read this book. The capacity of humanity to fight with itself never ceases to amaze and frighten me.) Churchill, in an insatiable quest for battlefield glory to jumpstart what he knows will be a brilliant political career, gets himself taken as a prisoner of war, escapes, and navigates through 300 miles of enemy territory to freedom. Reading the account left me with the impression that Churchill was literally the luckiest person in the world, or maybe there's fate or destiny involved?... There was no great skill or planning that went into the escape, and --I cannot stress this enough -- he just got really lucky. It made me wonder about how little control we have over what we do and what happens to us. There were millions of points in the story where things could have gone very badly for Churchill and we would have never had one of the greatest statesmen of the 20^th century, but they didn’t, and we did. The weird thing was how confident Churchill was proceeding, during, and following the events that he was destined for greatness and everything would be OK. I simply couldn’t relate to such feelings of confidence in my destiny, but I guess that’s partly what made him such a great leader.

Searching for Sylvie Lee by Jean Kwok

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Recommendation: Yes

Review: This book was so good I read it in a day. I don’t know what it’s like to be a poor immigrant or to grow up with the expectation that I will support my family, myself, and my future children, but Jean Kwok does, and she does an excellent job relating these feelings. When I started this book, I thought it would mostly be an emotional drama, but it ended up being a really good mystery. Younger sister, Amy, sets out on a mission to find her missing older sister, Sylvie. The book is narrated from both of their perspectives with Sylvie narrating the story leading up to her disappearance and Amy narrating the story following it as she seeks to find her older sister. Not only did Kwok keep me guessing on the who-done-it aspect of the story until literally the last page, but she also tells an emotionally powerful and moving story about the price that lies and secrets exert on those we love. In the case of this family, the reckoning comes due in a powerful and tragic way.

Mommy Corner

We went to Annapolis for the Kunta Kinte Festival. Annapolis is lovely and the festival was fun! This is also one of the only photos we have with all four of us.

Hi! I can sit up and crawl now! Yay me!

Back to school with Daddy. Her enthusiasm was overwhelming.

Cheese! with cheese in my mouth!

I'm so cute!

Science, Chernobyl, and Midwives!! (August Reading and Watching)

Hello friends!

Summer is officially over, and we’ve all gone back to school/work this week, which has been an adjustment for all of us. We’re lucky to have found a good school for the girls that they seem to be enjoying, and I get to work from home most days, so that’s helped the adjustment.

Before heading back to work, I did a bit of reading in August, but I’m not gonna lie, I spent most of my reading time feeding my British television addiction and watching Call the Midwife. So, I’m going to write a review of that show because why the heck not! It’s my blog; I do what I want!

As usual, let me know if you have any recs or thoughts on these book or Call the Midwife.

Thanks!

Tonya

The 4% Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Race to Discover the Rest of Reality by Richard Panek

Rating: 3 of 5 stars

Recommendation: Yes, for sciencey people

Review: Fun fact: visible matter, including anything that creates light or can be seen anywhere along the electromagnetic spectrum and all matter consisting of protons, neutrons, etc. – consists of only 4% of the universe!! The other 96% is dark energy or dark matter. Isn’t that crazy! This book tells the story of the discoveries that led up to this amazing factoid. While some of the book contains technical jargon and facts that went right over my head, most of it tells the sometimes melodramatic story of scientists rushing to discover if the universe is expanding, contracting, or stable. Turns out that scientists can be petty, dramatic, and mean, but despite these human traits they still discovered amazing things. I enjoyed learning that even really smart people can be catty, and found the discoveries fascinating. Most astounding is that despite everything we do know, there is still so much more to learn! What a great time to be alive!

Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster by Svetlana Alexievich

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Recommendation: Yes?

Review: This book understandably left me with mixed feelings. After watching a few episodes of the HBO special somewhat based on this book, I wanted to get more of the story. I recommend watching the HBO special or otherwise learning about what happened at Chernobyl before reading this book. It is a collection of oral interviews compiled from people who experienced the accident including the liquidators – or people called in to attempt to clean up the mess -- residents of the nearby town and area, people resettling the area, scientists involved with the clean-up efforts, and a random guy who just started yelling at the author. The author assumes that you know the story and doesn’t provide any context or information about the accident or clean-up beyond what the interviewees say. This book put very real and human faces on an event that is sometimes characterized by numbers: amount of radiation released, numbers killed immediately after the accident, numbers who contracted cancer following the event, number of acres left unfallowable and unusable. Needless to say it was traumatizing just to read about it. While I dearly hope that I will never experience a nuclear disaster, I can better empathize with those who have. The interviews were all completed in 1996, only 10 years after the accident and 23 years ago. The book left me wanting a sequel to find out what happened to everyone and what’s being done today to continue to mitigate the multi-millennial effects of the disaster.

Voice of Life – The Spoken Mage Series by Melanie Cellier

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Recommendation: Yes, for those who enjoy fantasy with strong female leads

Review: I read and reviewed the first three books of this series in June, and I thought they were pretty good. Cellier provides a satisfying conclusion that was surprisingly surprising. The previous books were fairly stereotypical, but this one had some fun twists. All in all, I think Cellier created an interesting magic system in a compelling world with characters who are fun to read and follow.

Call the Midwife

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Recommendation: Yes!

Review: So, I spent a lot of time watching this show while I was on maternity leave, and I couldn’t decide if it was the best or worst show to watch after just having a baby. It’s a very dramatic show, and gave me all the feels: happy sad, scared, excited, and traumatic. Mainly it made me just want to cuddle my babies even more. I also think it’s great that there’s a market for a show that focuses on women’s health issues, which have often been overlooked by the medical industry and misrepresented by the media. The show handles well all sorts of sensitive and hot topic issues including race, class, abortions, infertility, contraception, female genital cutting, sexual orientation, mental illness, and religion. They skillfully represent the complexity of these issues and don’t always satisfyingly resolve them because they can’t be easily resolved. While the issues portrayed are of course interesting and complex, like most people, I mainly kept watching because I was attached to the great characters. Although, be warned: don’t get too attached to the characters because there’s a surprisingly high mortality rate for the midwifes….

Mommy Corner

Chloe wore this dress to my sister's wedding when she was 7 months old -- Chloe not my sister. Maya is only 5 months and the dress fits perfectly. She's kind of a big baby!

We spent a lot of time at the College Park Aviation Museum while I was on leave. This pedal plane is just one of the fun things to play with there. 

Sisters are the best!

Uncle Troy got Chloe a special toy from her favorite TV show. We pretty much live by Daniel Tiger, "When you need to go potty, stop and go right away!"

Chloe practicing her photography skills. 

Chloe learning how to wink. 

Books I read in July!

Hello friends!

I hope that the summer is treating you all well. We had a great time visiting family in Utah this July, and I managed to get a little reading in too. This month was all non-fiction, and I learned about everything from autonomous weapons to blood to the internet. Reading is the best.

On the mommy news front, Maya rolled over (tummy to back)!! Chloe provides both joy and myriad opportunities to develop patience and compassion.

As always, let me know if you have any suggestions for further reading or any thoughts about these books.

Cheers!

Tonya

P.S. Has anyone noticed that 90% of nonfiction books start with a 1-3 word title followed by a colon and then, like, an entire sentence? For example, if I were to give this blog a nonfiction book title it would be something like Books: A Blog about All the Books Tonya Reads. Is this a recent titular convention, or have I just noticed it?

Army of None: Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War by Paul Scharre

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Recommendation: Yes, for anyone interested in technology and/or warfare

Review: For the job that I actually get paid for – ie. Not Mommying – I analyze major Department of Defense weapons systems acquisitions -- think Navy ships, Air Force jets, Army tanks, etc. Because of that background, I found this book extremely interesting as he brings up several of the systems that I’ve worked on. Even without that personal connection, this book would have been fascinating. I feel like everyone in the news nowadays is throwing around words like autonomous, machine learning, self-driving, etc. I read this book to get a better understanding of what the current capabilities are like for autonomous systems and where they’re expected to be in the next 10-20 years. Part of it was reassuring as we’re not nearly as close to any dooms day I, Robot type scenarios that much of the media would lead you to believe, and part of it was worrying thinking about how much these systems can already do and how little we understand them. Bottom line for me was that we’re still going to be waiting a while until the robots are all smarter than us.

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Recommendation: Yes, for anyone interested in avoiding the collapse of their society

Review: As you can see, I’ve been on a Jared Diamond kick the past two months, and this one was just as interesting as the other two that I’ve read. As you might guess from the title, reading about societal collapse was quite depressing, but this book isn’t all doom and gloom. Diamond analyzes how environmental degradation played a crucial part in the collapse of several socities including ancient Easter Island and Norse Greenland, and modern day Haiti and Rwanda. I always enjoy the nuance that Diamond includes in his books, and I thought this book was especially interesting because he explains that societal leadership and human choices are equally as important as any environmental conditions in the success or collapse of the societies he analyzes. Good food for thought for the environmental challenges that my area, country, and the whole world face today. Highly recommend.

Nine Pints: A Journey Through the Money, Medicine, and Mysteries of Blood by Rose George

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Recommendation: Yes! Although some parts are a bit queasy

Review: This book helped me realize that blood is one of the coolest parts of our frankly amazing bodies. George explores everything from the beginnings of the national blood donation systems in the US and Britain, to the modern-day medicinal use of leeches (Yes! This is still a thing!), and the strong stigmas still associated with menstruation in Nepal, India, and my own backyard. This book was well-written, engaging, and informative. In the end, though, for all that it illuminated the history and uses of blood, it also helped reinforce how much research is still needed to better understand the life-giving liquid that flows through all our veins.

Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet by Andrew Blum

Rating: 3 of 5 stars

Recommendation: Sure, for those wondering how they are reading these words

Review: I picked up this book because I was intrigued about the physical infrastructure of the amorphous web. I’m old enough to remember a time without the internet, when the internet was a dial-up modem and I used it mainly for chatting with my middle school friends on AOL, and now when internet access is necessary for me to do my job, banking, and connecting with friends and family. For better or for worse, though, turns out that the internet is just a bunch of boxes connected by a bunch of cables. Blum travels to “internet centers” around the world and sees a lot of cables and a lot of boxes. Turns out the internet isn’t as mysterious and amorphous as I had thought. Despite this somewhat letdown, you’ve got to admit that the internet has dramatically changed the way we work, live, and connect with each other, as it is the means by which you are currently reading these words. Not bad for a bunch of boxes and cables I suppose.

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies by Jared Diamond

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Recommendation: Yes, for anyone wondering why western Europe colonized the rest of the world and not the other way around

Review: This was by far the best Jared Diamond book that I’ve read, and considering that it won a Pulitzer, I’m sure I’m not the only person who thinks that. Turns out that contrary to popular belief, Western Europeans were able to colonize the rest of the world not by any superior functions of their race, but because of environmental advantages that led to the early adaption of agriculture and domestic animals, which spurred technological developments like steel and trans-oceanic voyages. For anyone wondering why the Aztec, Maya, or aboriginal Australians didn’t take over Europe, this book is the book for you. It seems the type of book that only a polymath like Diamond with expertise in agriculture, linguistics, and botany could have written, and he provides an extremely convincing argument that does much to tear down many racist beliefs. Highly recommend for anyone wondering why I’m writing this in English instead of literally any other language native to the Americas.

Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman

Rating: 3 of 5 stars

Recommendation:  Sure, for those interested in learning more about the seriously messed up criminal justice system in the U.S.

Review: So, I’m probably one of the few people who has read this book without seeing the show on Netflix, but let’s be honest, it has 7 seasons, and who has time to watch that?! Having not seen the show, I can’t definitively say that the book is better, but based on what I’ve seen from previews and heard elsewhere, I’m fairly sure that the book is better. This book is a memoir written like a novel about Kerman’s experience serving a 13-month sentence for a 10-year old drug crime in a women’s federal prison. I will hopefully never personally experience what it’s like to be an inmate in an American prison, so it was helpful for me to learn what it’s like from Kerman’s perspective. Turns out it’s seriously messed up. Based on Kerman’s experience, instead of providing adequate job training and mental and physical health treatments, the prison system just makes people either succeed or fail at being prisoners. I guess that explains with about 10% of the adult population of the US has served time, and why recidivism rates are so high. I’m interested in learning more, as reading one book doesn’t make me an expert, but it seems like our prison system is in drastic need of reform.

Mommy Corner

We had a lot of fun in Utah in July. We stayed with my parents in Farmington for a week and then headed to a Woodbury family reunion in Brian Head for a week. It was awesome to spend some time with family. 

Some of my favorite cuties in a boat!

Chloe saying "cheese" in a mountain meadow surrounded by wildflowers.

Maya's had an eventful month. She's learned how to roll over and now enjoys sucking on her toes. 

Maya enjoyed the meadow so much she took a nap.