Tonya's Book Blog: March 2021 Books!

Hi friends,

Sorry this post is coming to you a bit late in April. We were busy last weekend with Easter festivities, which were great! March was an excellent month for reading, and I thoroughly enjoyed a wide range of fiction and non-fiction.

Some big news: I’ve decided to read the Wheel of Time (WOT) series. For anyone unfamiliar with the fantasy genre, WOT is the premier epic fantasy series. Coming in at 14 books – each more than 600 pages – reading them is also an epic undertaking, so I’m planning on reading one a month for the next year or so. Unless of course, I change my mind and want to read them faster! Let me know if you’ve read WOT and which one was your favorite.

Other notable reads this month were Bill Gates’s new book, a book about plagues that was written pre-pandemic but iterates many vital lessons for our current situation, and several shorter fantasy novels that I also enjoyed.

Happy reading!

Tonya

How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need by Bill Gates

Rating: 5 of 5 stars

Recommendation: yes, all people currently alive and planning to live in the future should read this book. It affects you.

Review: I’ve read several books about climate change and energy use and infrastructure, and this was the first one that didn’t leave me with a pit of despair in my stomach. First, this book is extremely understandable and approachable, and Gates excels at presenting complex topics simply. Second, he strikes the careful balance of conveying how dire the climate situation is without making it feel completely hopeless, which is less than motivational. He talks about how we have to lower the Green Premium – or the price difference between carbon-emitting energy and industrial practices and carbon-zero alternatives. He talks about areas where we already have solutions – nuclear energy, electric cars – and areas where innovation is needed – steel and fertilizer manufacturing. I also liked that unlike other climate activists Gates doesn’t advocate that we return to pre-industrial ways of living, but instead makes the case that we have to adapt carbon-zero ways of living that continue to enable and improve our current standards of living while also allowing those in developing areas of the world to attain that same standard. He doesn't claim to have all the solutions, and in several cases just states that we need more innovation to solve a specific problem, which is kind of vague, but that's where we're at. I walked away from this book much better informed about the current climate crisis and how it can be resolved. I highly recommend that everyone read it as climate change will affect your life regardless of where you live or what you do.

Get Well Soon: History’s Worst Plagues and the Heroes who Fought Them by Jennifer Wright

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Recommendation: yes, for anyone interested in learning more about how people in ages past dealt with pandemics

Review: This book was published in 2016, so well before our current COVID pandemic, but it is eerily applicable to today. Wright is a young, female historian whose voice and sense of humor in the face of death and disease make what would otherwise be a grim read enjoyable. This particular quote from the book’s introduction hooked my attention reminded me why studying history is always useful, “We have been living in an age of improbable luck. We have experienced nearly thirty years without a disease—that we do not know how to combat—killing upward of thousands of otherwise healthy young people in those core countries. I can’t say whether this good fortune will run out—I hope it won’t—but it always has in the past. We just like to forget this disagreeable fact. Forgetting is soothing and probably in our nature. But disregarding, and being ignorant of, plagues of the past makes us more, rather than less, vulnerable to inevitable ones in the future.” Well, it’s safe to say that four short years after this book was released, our luck did run out. She talks about many plagues throughout history, and draws lessons from how the leaders in those times and places responded well, or didn’t. Among a few of the lessons discussed, a few of the ones that resonated the most with me were: 1) the alarming speed with which misinformation and false cures spread during the bubonic plagues; 2) the negative impact that shaming others for contracting a disease can have on an individual’s recovery and a community’s response; 3) the miracle of vaccines that have nullified the threat of many diseases that toppled whole empires including the Romans and the Incas; 4) people need to trust their government that officials won’t lie to them or downplay the threat of the disease; 5) when people come together and work with each other we can overcome staggering and terrifying odds and problems, such as almost entirely eradicating polio. It seems to me that I’ve watched as each of these lessons has had to be relearned during the present pandemic. Hopefully, we’ve learned them well enough, as we need a massive collective effort to finally end this thing.

The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan

Rating: 3 of 5 stars

Recommendation: only if you are seriously into epic fantasy

Review: I definitely had high expectations for this book, and I’m not sure it lived up to them. As the first book of a 14-installment series, I felt like this was mostly set-up. I definitely appreciated the well-rounded and interesting characters Jordan introduced, and the world that he’s created is stunning and captivating, but to be honest, I felt like the whole thing kind of dragged. Like, it could have honestly been 200 pages shorter without losing any meaning or punch. I guess that long, drawn-out story telling is a feature of this genre, but I found it kind of annoying. I did enjoy it enough to keep reading and will definitely continue the series. Hopefully, the next books don’t take nearly 200 pages for the heroes to leave on their epic question, but we’ll see. I understand why this book is so highly praised and genre-defining, but I just wish it had moved a little quicker.

You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacy: Crazy Stories About Racism by Amber Ruffin and Lacey Lamar

Rating: 5 of 5 stars

Recommendation: if you want to read a book that helps you learn about racism in America and makes you laugh

Review: I’ve read several books about racism and how to be antiracist over the past year, and this was definitely my favorite. I never thought that I would literally laugh out loud when reading about racism, but Euffin and Lamar proved me wrong. Ruffin is a writer for late night TV, so she brings comedic life to the book and her sister, Lamar, brings the crazy stories. I think that one of the reasons that this book resonated so much with me is because it was a collection of real-life stories instead of an exposition on how to be anti-racist. Ironically though, I learned more about how to be anti-racist from reading this book than most of the others. Real-life examples of racisms are powerful teaching tools. Since I’ll never know what it’s like to be a black woman in America, the least I can do is try to understand and empathize with their experiences, and as always, reading is one of the best ways to learn how to do that.

Accessory to War: The Unspoken Alliance Between Astrophysics and the Military by Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Avis Lang

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Recommendation: yes, especially if you like popular science and learning about government acquisitions

Review: I work for the U.S. Government reviewing large acquisition projects – when the government procures a good or service – in NASA and the Department of Defense. I also am married to a physicist whose funding for most of his research during grad school and all of it in his current job after, comes from the military or had military applications. As such, I was already inclined to be interested in the topic of the relationship between science and the military. Tyson observes that, “War is almost as unique to man as is science. Moreover, from the dawn of civilization science and war have been inseparable companions, locked in a partnership that neither desires and that neither is capable of dissolving.” While Tyson is an excellent communicator and able to convey complex technical ideas simply and understandably, I think this book could have been a bout 100 pages shorter. He spends a lot of time walking through the history of astronomy and telescopes, which maybe other people will find interesting, but I didn’t. He spent the last half of the book talking about the military industrial complex and its complex and co-dependent relationship with science and academia. He sounded the warning bell about the U.S. Air Force (now Space Force?) extremely aggressive space policy and notes that, “Most threats envisioned in the US military’s space doctrine simply do not exist in an operationally deployed form.” Of course, that doesn’t stop them from spending billions of dollars to build systems to defend against these non-existing threats. Finally, Tyson quotes Pres. Eisenhower and notes that, “no modern country could be militarily preeminent without also being scientifically eminent,” and advocates for more science funding, not only to maintain military preeminence but also for the pure pursuit of knowledge.

The Empress of Salt and Fortune (The Singing Hills Cycle #1) by Nghi Vo

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Recommendation: yes, if you like interesting ways of telling fantasy stories

Review: This book was a recommendation from a booktuber (@bookbornreviews) that I share very similar tastes with. After reading several 500+ page books, this short novella was a breath of fresh air and proved that a fascinating fantasy story doesn’t have to be epic in length. I loved the storytelling feature in this book. Our protagonist is a Chinese cleric who travels around the land collecting stories to preserve. On this assignment, she visits the site of exile of the recently-deceased empress. We get a story-within-a-story: first the story of the cleric, and second the story of the empress’s rise from exile to the throne told to her by her life-long servant who remains at the estate. I also loved the cleric’s animal companion! It has adventure, political intrigue, and romance all wound together in an intriguing and highly-effective style that can be read in one sitting! I highly recommend for anyone who wants a quick and excellent read.

When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain (The Singing Hills Cycle #2) by Nghi Vo

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Recommendation: yes, if you liked the first

Review: This book is the sequel to The Empress of Salt and Fortune and employs a similar story-telling style of a story-within-a-story, but only our intrepid cleric character carries over from the first book. In this one, our animal companion is replaced by three hungry female tigers that can change into human women at will. After getting cornered by the three women/tigers, our cleric spins a tale of love and lust between an ancient tiger and her human lover to keep the tigers from eating them while they wait for rescue to arrive. The most interesting part of this story was hearing the different versions told by the cleric and the tigers. It showed that your personal identities shape and influence how we perceive the world, and how any story has more than one side. I don’t think it was as good as the first, but it was still a solid, short read. I’ll definitely read anything else Vo produces as well. She’s a great storyteller.

Piranesi by Susanna Clark

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Recommendation: yes, if you’re looking for a unique fantasy story

Review: This book shows the breadth and range of the fantasy genre. Not all great fantasy books come in at 600+ pages and need 14 volumes to tell. In this case, the story involves a magic system with very soft rules that are only explained enough to give the story some sort of sense. Our protagonist – Piranesi – is one of two inhabitants of the House, a giant, white marble building full of statues and containing an ocean. He spends his days exploring the House and charting its tides. I can’t really tell you more than that without giving it away, but it’s an intriguing premise with an unreliable narrator. The author skillfully leaves clues to help us and Piranesi figure out what’s going on and how to survive. I loved it. If you’re looking for a quick, quirky read that is kind of brain-bending, I highly recommend.

Mommy Corner

Chloe is so proud that she can climb all the way to the top of the jungle gym at the park. We'll make a climber of her yet.

We're enjoying living in colorful Colorado, and even found time to go on a hike. I think Maya had the most fun.

Right before a big snow storm, I realized that I couldn't find Chloe's hat or gloves. I went to two different stores and eventually located this hat and some very thin gloves that we doubled up when the big storm hit. Maya liked the hat too.

We enjoyed the second largest snowstorm in Denver's history. We got about 28" at our house. Here's Chloe on our little slide that got completely buried.