Musings: Two-Fisted Science & Dignifying Science

Two-Fisted Science and Dignifying Science:  Stories About Women Scientists are two graphic novels about various scientists that have contributed to history but often are overlooked.  It is written by Jim Ottaviani and illustrated by many different artists (Dignifying Science entirely by female artists).  I say it's about overlooked scientists, but this isn't entirely true- Two-Fisted Science features Galileo and Newton, too.  I found both books in the undergraduate library at the University of Michigan, but they are clearly written for a much younger audience, probably middle grade kids.

I really like these books in concept, particularly Dignifying Science, which I'll get to in more detail soon.  Jim Ottaviani writes many graphic novels, all about science and scientists, and I think he is awesome for that, particularly as he writes them for a younger audience.  So now, in between reading about Superman and X-Men, kids can read about Richard Feynman, Rosalind Franklin and many others.

I also like that Ottaviani writes about some scientists that don't get much attention (at least, I didn't know who they all were), and that he writes about them in a way that is accessible and humanizing.  We don't get epic life stories and biographies in these books, we get brief snippets of people's lives and how those people helped contribute to science.

[TSS] Musings: Palestine

Joe Sacco's Palestine is a book I've wanted to read for a very long time.  Sacco is a journalist, and he reports on areas that are in the midst of dramatic conflict.  But his reporting style is of the graphic novel variety.  I was so thrilled to see his Palestine in the library, not only because I wanted to experience his very distinctive brand of journalism, but also because I have been very interested in reading more about the Israel-Palestine conflict since enjoying Mornings in Jenin some time ago.

This book is a collection of nine separate articles that Sacco published about Palestine during 1991 and 1992.  Sacco went to Israel late in the year, from Egypt, and spent the vast majority of his time in the territories that are currently occupied by the Palestinians, with increasing encroachment by the Israelis.  Interestingly, Sacco himself is very visible through this whole story.  He doesn't believe in the idea of being an objective bystander.  Instead, he lives with the people he interviews, listens to their stories, drinks their tea (lots of tea), eats food they provide but can barely afford, and gives his own opinion on a myriad of topics.  Sacco comes across as pretty arrogant and sometimes insensitive, but he has a clear passion for what he is reporting, and that comes through loud and clear.  This is in no way an objective account; Sacco makes only a perfunctory attempt to get the Israeli point of view.  But this, too, is done on purpose.  As Westerners, we nearly always only get the Israeli side, and he wanted us to see the effects of this long-term conflict on the Palestinians.  And what he presents us with is a gruelling, intensely personal and amazingly artistic account of his two months in Palestine, and the very humanizing stories of the difficulties, humiliations and terrors that the people who live there go through daily.

Musings: Pyongyang - A Journey in North Korea

I was introduced to Guy Delisle when I read the graphic novel Burma Chronicles.  I really enjoyed Delisle's travelogue about everyday life in Myanmar, so when I saw that the University of Michigan library had Pyongyang on the shelf, I immediately picked it up.  Pyongyang takes place slightly earlier in Delisle's life, I think, as he doesn't travel there with his wife, but instead goes to work as an animator.

Pyongyang isn't really a "journey" in North Korea.  All foreigners are strictly supervised and not allowed to go anywhere without a guide.  If they do, there's a lot of ruckus created.  Apparently, no one from outside the country is allowed to see things that don't present North Korea in a positive light.  Consequently, Delisle spends the vast majority of his time in the capital city, which seems to be a pretty depressing place with insufficient power, not enough food, dimly-lit hotels and no contact with the outside world- North Korea is the only country in the world with no internet access.

I am so glad that I discovered the (depressingly small) "browsing collection" of books that the university has at its undergrad library.  The graphic novel section is small but well-stocked and I'm really looking forward to reading Stitches and Joe Sacco's political journals.  It's really nice to break up the day with a picture book, and Pyongyang was a treat in this manner.  The travelogue written in much the same vein as Burmese Chronicles - a lot of details about the ins and outs of daily life (for example, Delisle describes the fly-swatting techniques of two hotel workers in pretty great detail) and the interactions that Delisle has with the locals and foreigners with whom he shares his time.

Getting a Stamp in my Passport!

I am off to Ireland today for ten days of fun (and a little bit of work, too).  I have some blog posts scheduled for when I am gone, but probably won't be responding much to comments and probably won't be able to visit any of your blogs, either, unfortunately.  But I shall return in early March.

Below is a picture of the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland - I'll be visiting there Thursday, but my pictures probably won't come out nearly so pretty.  Very excited to see such a marvelous sight, though!

Musings: Nemesis

Well, I've made it to the end of this particular road that leads to Rome.  Nemesis, by Lindsey Davis, is the twentieth, and very likely the very last, book in her very popular Marcus Didius Falco historical mystery series.  And it ends quite satisfyingly, too.

Falco and family are back in Rome, dealing with significant family crises.  To take his mind off things, Falco accepts a job to find a terrifying mob-like family of former Imperial slaves that now lives in the provinces and find a way to pin many missing persons reports and murders to them so that they can finally be brought to justice.  But this mission is more dangerous than any of Falco's previous ones, and it stretches his own moral code further than is comfortable for many people.  The case also puts him straight in the path of his most hated enemy, Anacrites, and this time Falco is determined to get payback for all that the Chief Spy has made him suffer before.

Announcing the Project Gutenberg Project!

I am so excited to tell you all about this amazing project that the amazing Tasha (you may know her as Heidenkind) put together and that I am very excited to be involved in.  It's the Project Gutenberg Project!

Are you aware of the thousands of books available on the Project Gutenberg website?  A huge group of truly dedicated volunteers takes books that are in the public domain, types them up, and then puts them online for the glory of everyone having access to quality literature.  As someone who received a Kindle for her birthday last year, I've made full use of Gutenberg over the past several months and look forward to many more excellent reads provided by the website.

However, Gutenberg does not have the greatest search capabilities.  You are pretty much stuck searching by title or author, and when you have so much selection and want to find a true hidden gem, this can make the site hard to navigate and difficult to use.

That's where the Project Gutenberg Project comes in!  As the homepage says, "At PGP, we want to help readers find public domain books they might be interested in, discuss what did and didn't work for us, discover (or rediscover) classics, and celebrate our favorite books in the process."


We're just getting started, but we're totally open to other people joining our party.  Why not stop by, see what we are trying to do, and see if you can get inspired as well?

Hope to see you there!

Musings: Trickster - Native American Tales

I finally used the University of Michigan library system!  The undergraduate library is a really swanky library and has a browsing collection and just happens to be on my walk to the business school.  I stopped in today and snatched up three books, all of which I've wanted to read for some time, so it was a very successful trip.

One of the books I got and immediately delved into was Trickster:  Native American Tales - A Graphic Collection.  I've wanted to read this book for quite a while, and was so thrilled to find it waiting for me at the library.  (Isn't it awesome how libraries manage that?)  Trickster is a compilation of many Native American folk tales, shared by storytellers of several different tribes and then put into the graphic novel format by artists the storytellers chose themselves.  Some of the stories have morals, some explain natural occurrences, some teach lessons and some are just entertaining.

Musings: Londoners

Londoners:  The Days and Nights of London Now - As Told by Those Who Love it, Hate it, Live it, Left it and Long for it is a very long title for a book.  It's also quite descriptive!  Craig Taylor has compiled a Studs Terkel-esque oral history of the city from interviews that he conducted over the first decade of the 21st century.  He interviews a wide variety of people- everyone from a cab driver to a dominatrix, a cruiser to a hedge fund manager, a funeral director to a manicurist and many, many more.

It's obviously a very good time to come out with this book, in preparation for the London Olympics in several months.  But I don't know if this book sells London, really.  The people that populate it are fascinatingly varied and have very distinct voices.  But almost all of them have this hint of melancholy and loneliness.  They feel the city is too fast, too large, too unfriendly.  That you need a thick skin to live there because no one is going to look out for you except you.

Musings: The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories

The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories is the hard-copy equivalent of user-generated content.  It's such a cool idea!  Joseph Gordon-Levitt (who has come so far from his 3rd Rock from the Sun days) who is on this website, hitRECord, where people collaborate to make things, including tiny illustrated stories.  This book is a compilation of some of those stories, with the words provided by one user and the accompanying illustration provided by another.  It's a very cool idea, and such a pretty book!

I didn't read many graphic novels last year at all because I had pretty limited library access.  This adorable book really made me miss the graphic format because the combination of prose and pictures really can hit you pretty deeply.  Sometimes, I'd read the words and think, "meh," but then the illustration would be so evocative and lovely that I would then dwell on the words much longer than I otherwise would have.

There were many cute and funny stories in this volume ("The element of surprise wasn't allowed near the Periodic Table" and "Well, look who I ran into," crowed Coincidence.  "Please," flirted Fate, "this was meant to be"), but in general it has a melancholy air.  For example:

I am a little embarrassed to admit just how sad I was about the hopeful egg's upcoming dire end.  Something about those wide-spread arms, standing at the precipice, really got to me!

Another story describes how lonely the sun is because when he comes out, all his friends disappear.

My favorite is one that I can't find a photo of online, unfortunately, but has two adorable little kids dressed up as superheroes, and the text reads:
"It's HE-RO," the boy argued.
 "No," the girl insisted, "it's HER-O."

I will now pronounce that word the feminist way, thank you very much!

Really an adorable book that I think would work well as a graduation gift or a "just because" gift that is sure to bring a smile to someone's face.

Note:  I received this book for free to review.

[TSS] On Spoilers

What confounds me about spoilers is that I do not know when they start.  Really, when does the plot of a book stop being a teaser summary and start veering into spoiler territory?  20 pages in?  50 percent in?  On the penultimate page?  I never know where to draw the line.  This is why plot summaries for books are so impossible for me to write; I'm so terrified that someone will accuse me of having "spoiled" the book for them that I instead cripple myself from writing any sort of useful plot summary at all.  I feel like everyone has a different set of criteria for defining a spoiler and so it is impossible to please everyone.

I clearly don't know where the line is for any spoiler situation, based on the below scenario:


A few weeks ago, I watched an episode of Once Upon a Time.  Soon after that, I made one of my rare appearances on Twitter and said something like, "That episode of Once Upon a Time just broke my heart."  Someone  responded, we started chatting and I got excited because I don't know anyone else in my daily life that actually watches Once Upon a Time.  So much of what I miss about my previous experience on Twitter is the ability to have these really in-depth conversations with a bunch of people at once about subjects that interest and matter to you, and so it was really great to get back on randomly and have an almost instantaneous connection with someone on a topic like that.  Also, Once Upon a Time is by the makers of Lost, so there is a LOT to talk about with regard to plots, secrets, possibly developments, etc.  I was ready to dig deep into the conversation.

And then, very quickly, I was chastised for talking about the show by another Twitter user because I was giving away spoilers.  She is also an avid watcher of the show, and it hadn't aired yet in her region.  And she was DVRing it, anyway, so didn't know when she'd get around to watching it.  She would prefer me not to give away any more information about the show.  Apparently, talking about TV show plots is an "obnoxious" thing to do on Twitter, and I and other plot spoilers should be ore careful.

Musings: Craze - Gin and Debauchery in an Age of Reason

Whew, this book has been on my TBR since summer 2006, so I felt quite satisfied changing its mark in LibraryThing from "To Read" to "Currently Reading" and then finally adding the tag "2012" as I completed it.  Taking books off the TBR pile feels so GOOD!  You'd think I'd do it more often just for the thrill of it.

Craze:  Gin and Debauchery in an Age of Reason has such an amazing title, I am a little disturbed that I let it sit on my shelf unread for so long.  Really, how could I go over five years without reading a book that has the word "debauchery" in the title?

Craze is about the proliferation of gin, a potent new alcohol, in London during the mid-18th century.  It was a pretty new liquor from the Continent that the London distillers fiddled with (pretty horribly, from what the book says) and sold at very cheap prices to the working poor in England's capital.  This alarmed the upper classes because there was a lot of drinking going on, and moreover, the drunkenness was visible to the rich, which was NOT ok.  So laws were passed- several, in fact- over the course of about 20 years.  This book details the Gin craze, the laws to govern distribution of the liquor, and the citizens' reactions to those laws.