Let's take a moment for me to orient you to what's here
On the pages linked to this one there are dozens of book reviews.
To make finding what will interest you easier, I've given you two browsing pages (the Book Shelves) -- one for fiction, the other for non-fiction. If you hover your cursor over the title, my rating of the book appears. Then there are two pages of reviews (right .... one for fiction, one for non-fiction). I've arranged all the books in each category in alphabetical order by author.
I approach my book reviews from the perspective of my subjective experience of reading the book. There is a bit of a synopsis of the book there too, but you will figure out how I feel about it.
Here are the links:
Fiction Bookshelf
Non-Fiction Bookshelf
Fiction Reviews
Non-Fiction Reviews
But that's not all that's here on these pages. Immediately below is a review of my most recent reads. Below that is the title of the book I am currently reading.
And then we get to my faves. There is a memoir I really recommend (and a couple of other memoirs too). Then there are my top picks for each of the fiction and non-fiction categories. Finally, there's an interesting grouping of four books that have helped me come to terms with a perplexing social/ political issue.
To make finding what will interest you easier, I've given you two browsing pages (the Book Shelves) -- one for fiction, the other for non-fiction. If you hover your cursor over the title, my rating of the book appears. Then there are two pages of reviews (right .... one for fiction, one for non-fiction). I've arranged all the books in each category in alphabetical order by author.
I approach my book reviews from the perspective of my subjective experience of reading the book. There is a bit of a synopsis of the book there too, but you will figure out how I feel about it.
Here are the links:
Fiction Bookshelf
Non-Fiction Bookshelf
Fiction Reviews
Non-Fiction Reviews
But that's not all that's here on these pages. Immediately below is a review of my most recent reads. Below that is the title of the book I am currently reading.
And then we get to my faves. There is a memoir I really recommend (and a couple of other memoirs too). Then there are my top picks for each of the fiction and non-fiction categories. Finally, there's an interesting grouping of four books that have helped me come to terms with a perplexing social/ political issue.
My most recent fiction review.
POTOK, Chaim
The Gift of Asher Lev
★★★★★
Several personal themes reverberate at this stage of my life. Firstly, I struggle to reconcile my early life within a constrictive religious context with the kinder and more gentle humanistic perspective I adopted in adulthood. While I’m free of the religious narrowness now, it still haunts me and triggers emotional reaction. The second is my struggle to engage the creative side of my mind, to do so in writing and music. There are dry spells affecting the ability to create meaning and beauty in my artistic ventures.
These same two themes entwine in The Gift of Asher Lev. It is a sequel, taking place twenty years after Potok’s prior novel, My Name is Asher Lev. We re-encounter Asher as he has been shattered by the formal criticism of his last show. His prior work had propelled him to the apex of the European fine arts community. The recent scathing, and probably apt, criticism has left him unable to paint. The plot of the novel then has Asher returning to involvement his childhood religious community. Early in his career as an artist he’d been exiled from that community in Brooklyn New York because his controversial paintings offended its spiritual sensibility.
Asher returns from his exile in southern France to attend the funeral of his uncle. Asher’s father is a prominent member of the religious community, an emissary of the well-loved Rebbe who leads that Hasidic sect. Asher comes back as a husband and a father of two children as well as an artist. As he returns his parents want him to stay so they can enjoy relationship with their grandchildren and daughter-in-law. His parents, still longing to be in relationship with him have been bewildered and hurt by the nature of his artistic expression but still lovingly accept him as their son.
Asher struggles with internal conflict. His art is an expression of his creative integrity and he wishes to be able to pursue it again. However, he doesn’t feel he can be creative in the religious community and family home. He yearns to go back to France where he is free to paint. But also in Brooklyn Asher is drawn back to his participation in the rites and conservative traditions of his faith and sees how it may be a positive environment for his children. Additionally, Asher has to consider the well-being of his wife, a Holocaust survivor. She seems to belong back in his childhood home. Asher struggles knowing his family may be better off in the place Asher himself cannot abide living in. Thus he must balance what he brings into this world through his art and what he brings into the world as a husband and parent.
This novel immerses the reader both into the complicated and restless mind of the artist and the intricacies of a unique culture.
These same two themes entwine in The Gift of Asher Lev. It is a sequel, taking place twenty years after Potok’s prior novel, My Name is Asher Lev. We re-encounter Asher as he has been shattered by the formal criticism of his last show. His prior work had propelled him to the apex of the European fine arts community. The recent scathing, and probably apt, criticism has left him unable to paint. The plot of the novel then has Asher returning to involvement his childhood religious community. Early in his career as an artist he’d been exiled from that community in Brooklyn New York because his controversial paintings offended its spiritual sensibility.
Asher returns from his exile in southern France to attend the funeral of his uncle. Asher’s father is a prominent member of the religious community, an emissary of the well-loved Rebbe who leads that Hasidic sect. Asher comes back as a husband and a father of two children as well as an artist. As he returns his parents want him to stay so they can enjoy relationship with their grandchildren and daughter-in-law. His parents, still longing to be in relationship with him have been bewildered and hurt by the nature of his artistic expression but still lovingly accept him as their son.
Asher struggles with internal conflict. His art is an expression of his creative integrity and he wishes to be able to pursue it again. However, he doesn’t feel he can be creative in the religious community and family home. He yearns to go back to France where he is free to paint. But also in Brooklyn Asher is drawn back to his participation in the rites and conservative traditions of his faith and sees how it may be a positive environment for his children. Additionally, Asher has to consider the well-being of his wife, a Holocaust survivor. She seems to belong back in his childhood home. Asher struggles knowing his family may be better off in the place Asher himself cannot abide living in. Thus he must balance what he brings into this world through his art and what he brings into the world as a husband and parent.
This novel immerses the reader both into the complicated and restless mind of the artist and the intricacies of a unique culture.
SIMARD, Suzanne
Finding the Mother Tree
★★★★★
Back in 2010 a female summer student working for a logging company is sent to check on the health of the previous year’s replanting of a forest clear cut. She finds the spruce seedlings in poor health. Despite being planted correctly, their needles were yellowed. Some had died so replacement planting was needed.
They seemed to be missing something.
This young woman, functioning in a man’s world of government policy makers and corporate profit seekers, sets out to find out what that missing something is. Her discoveries take the reader underground into the complexity of the forest floor and the vital role that fungi play in the health of trees, in the very forest itself. Her findings challenged the prevailing policy of reforestation, the taking out other vegetation with herbicide so that seedlings would be “free to grow”. She finds instead that trees thrive when there are companion species beside them and the soil is rich in fungi connecting their roots.
Her carefully conducted research in the BC forest clear cuts unravels the web of interconnectedness. Surprising findings spin out as her research builds. For example, as much as the birch feeds the fir tree in its leafy summer through the interconnection of the fungi around the roots, the fir in turn feeds the birch in spring and fall when the birch’s leaves are down. It is more a matter of cooperation between species than competition. Study upon study propels her to ask even more provocative questions. It culminates in her project of thirty years later, understanding how Mother Trees hundreds of years old, nourish the diversity of species around them, even preferentially sending benefit to her own kin, the seedlings from seed the Mother Tree had produced.
Of course the author, in her first-person account, is not just a scientist. This intensely personal book mingles her life story with her scientific quest. Right from her experiences with her grandmother as she grew up in the BC forest through to the passing the passion of forest ecology onto her own daughter, she better understands her own role as a woman from her scientific quest to grasp the wisdom of the forest. Using the tools of rigorous science she discovers for our science focused culture what the aboriginal peoples living before us in the forest knew.
At that very root of the story (pun unintended) is the appreciation of complexity. Diversity of species, both in trees and fungi, work in harmony for mutual benefit. She finds grace in that complexity. Her work illustrates what reductionistic science misses in mistakenly simplifying ecosystems. There is resiliency and the capacity to heal from trauma in complex systems like the forest because they are more than just a sum of their parts. In my professional role as a psychologist, I also observed this principle in human complex systems, both within the individual and within society. I was delighted to see the same insight illustrated so exquisitely in the natural sciences.
They seemed to be missing something.
This young woman, functioning in a man’s world of government policy makers and corporate profit seekers, sets out to find out what that missing something is. Her discoveries take the reader underground into the complexity of the forest floor and the vital role that fungi play in the health of trees, in the very forest itself. Her findings challenged the prevailing policy of reforestation, the taking out other vegetation with herbicide so that seedlings would be “free to grow”. She finds instead that trees thrive when there are companion species beside them and the soil is rich in fungi connecting their roots.
Her carefully conducted research in the BC forest clear cuts unravels the web of interconnectedness. Surprising findings spin out as her research builds. For example, as much as the birch feeds the fir tree in its leafy summer through the interconnection of the fungi around the roots, the fir in turn feeds the birch in spring and fall when the birch’s leaves are down. It is more a matter of cooperation between species than competition. Study upon study propels her to ask even more provocative questions. It culminates in her project of thirty years later, understanding how Mother Trees hundreds of years old, nourish the diversity of species around them, even preferentially sending benefit to her own kin, the seedlings from seed the Mother Tree had produced.
Of course the author, in her first-person account, is not just a scientist. This intensely personal book mingles her life story with her scientific quest. Right from her experiences with her grandmother as she grew up in the BC forest through to the passing the passion of forest ecology onto her own daughter, she better understands her own role as a woman from her scientific quest to grasp the wisdom of the forest. Using the tools of rigorous science she discovers for our science focused culture what the aboriginal peoples living before us in the forest knew.
At that very root of the story (pun unintended) is the appreciation of complexity. Diversity of species, both in trees and fungi, work in harmony for mutual benefit. She finds grace in that complexity. Her work illustrates what reductionistic science misses in mistakenly simplifying ecosystems. There is resiliency and the capacity to heal from trauma in complex systems like the forest because they are more than just a sum of their parts. In my professional role as a psychologist, I also observed this principle in human complex systems, both within the individual and within society. I was delighted to see the same insight illustrated so exquisitely in the natural sciences.
What I'm currently reading
A highly recommended memoir.
The Dark Threads (★★★★★) is a memoir of an unnecessary and traumatic journey of a young woman through the mental health treatment system. I have the privilege of getting to know this author (we met on Twitter no less!). We are beta-readers for each other and email pals with daily correspondence. Her memoir depicts psychiatric diagnosis and treatment at it's worse. It is horrifying to read. But she has survived.
I have also pictured below a couple of other memoirs which I really enjoyed.
I have also pictured below a couple of other memoirs which I really enjoyed.
And some other fascinating memoirs...
My Fiction Faves
You can find the reviews for these books with the other fiction reviews through this link
My Non-Fiction Faves
You can find the reviews for these books with the other non- fiction reviews through this link.
A final thought ...
While I worked as a psychologist I didn't have the time or mental energy to read. The books reviewed on the following pages have come into my life over the last seven years. I've found myself expanded by them in understanding the human condition and the context in which we explore our subjective experience of living the life we have. I hope you will find here the books that will do that for you too.