Posts filed under 'Nonfiction'
…these are just a few of the stories animal behaviorist and trainer Karen Pryor includes in her latest book, Reaching the Animal Mind: Clicker Training and What It Teaches Us About All Animals. Karen Pryor has been training animals since the early 1960s. The animals she has worked with include dolphins, horses, hermit crabs, wolves, dogs, humans, and many more and her approach is a no-punishment, reinforcement based approach. I am always in favor of gentler, more peaceful ways of living, so books like this appeal to me. But beyond that, I really love the stories Pryor shares about how she and others have been able to bring out fun and sometimes very complex behaviors in various animals. And Pryor peppers her book with online slide shows and videos of animals learning. One of the funniest videos is a ferret’s “a-ha” moment with clicker training. First the ferret is clicked and rewarded for looking at a ball, then for increasingly interacting with the ball, then the ferret goes off behind a pillow and pauses back there. Suddenly she comes bursting out from behind the pillow and jumps on the ball with all four feet. She’s made the connection - she knows she’s able to make the clicks and treats happen and in her excitement she falls off the couch, bumps the ball and chases it across the room and through a cardboard tunnel. One of the greatest gifts of clicker training methods is this, “When animals realize that the click gives them control over good things happening, they have made a permanent shift. Their environment begins to make sense. They want to know more.”
One of my favorite stories is the story of the surfing ponies. Pryor raised and trained Welsh ponies while living in Hawaii. She gathered a group of 5th and 6th graders and taught them to use the phrase “good pony” as the marker and molasses flavored feed as the reinforcer. After supervising the process of training the ponies to be ridden and to drive a cart and many other complex behaviors, Pryor began to leave the children with a list of what to work on during training sessions. This freedom led to the children bringing the ponies to Pryor’s home on the beach to show off their surfing techniques. Riding bareback, with only halters and lead ropes on the horses, the ponies waded into the surf, swimming out past the break, then waited, and turned towards shore when the wave rolled in, riding the wave all the way back. Then they cantered up the sand, where the children hopped off and the ponies rolled in the sand, shook and waited for the children to clamber back on and do it all over again.
If you like animal anecdotes, or information about animal behavior and learning, this book won’t disappoint.
For more information about Karen Pryor and clicker training you can visit her website.
If you’re interested in some fabulous and free video tutorials for clicker training dogs, check out professional trainer Emily Larlham’s you tube channel.
July 28th, 2010
Karen - Sequoya
One of the worst things I can ever envision is to be imprisoned for a crime you didn’t commit. Imagining someone having to go through the indignities, loss of freedom and choice, and the endless monotony of being in prison when they’re innocent horrifies me. How do you get through that? Knowing you’re innocent and spending time in a system that is set up for the guilty? Very tough to imagine. But what about going to prison for a crime you did commit? Is that less scary? Going to federal prison for a criminal choice you made ten years ago? That’s what Piper Kerman experiences in her memoir Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Woman’s Prison.
Fresh out of Smith College Piper is at loose ends. When a friend tells her about being involved in drug smuggling with a West African kingpin, Piper thinks it sounds exciting. She agrees to help by transporting cash illegally and has no real thought about her actions or the possible consequences. Though the life seems exciting Piper soon gives it up and moves to San Francisco where she starts fresh and eventually finds love. Flash forward a number of years and Piper is now in New York with her boyfriend (soon to be fiancée) Larry. She’s got a job she likes and lots of friends. A seemingly perfect life. Until the knock on her door and the news that she’s been indicted on federal conspiracy charges. After learning that she could face up to fifteen years in prison Piper takes a plea deal and agrees to serve fifteen months. And then she waits. For six years Piper waits to start her prison time as the government pursues a case against the kingpin. When that falls through Piper’s time begins. She surrenders herself to the Federal Correction Institution in Danbury, CT to start her one year sentence.
The world she enters is scary and foreign. Rules, big and small, must be learned quickly. On the first night she is told that prisoners never sleep in their beds - they sleep on top of them, why isn’t clear but to avoid creating waves Piper complies. Asking how long someone is going to be there, okay, asking what they did to earn a prison sentence, not okay. While the interpersonal rules are important even more so are the rules set by the facility and the guards: always be where you’re supposed to be for the four-times-a-day head count, submit to a strip search each and every time you have a visitor, do what you’re told when you’re told. As she learns to navigate her new life Piper gains a new appreciation both for the friends and family she hurt by her behavior and for the women who are sharing her new life.
Because of the long-standing fear I mentioned at the beginning of this review I was intrigued by Piper’s experiences. Her year-long stint made for fast reading and the people she meets are universally interesting if not universally good: Pop the Russian mobster’s wife who rules the kitchen, Nina the Italian mother-figure, Crazy Eyes who sees Piper as a “real woman” able to handle her amorous ambitions, the list goes on. Each has a story and each has an impact on Piper who sees how the system is failing this women, many of whom are non-violent drug offenders (one elderly woman in her 70s was serving 4 years for a wire charge - she took phone message for a drug dealing relative) caught up in the process and given little in the way of rehabilitation.
My one issue with the memoir is that Piper sometimes skims the surface of the emotional fallout. Her friends and family are supportive and loving at all times. Supportive I understand, but there had to be some anger there, some frustration and disappointment. Piper touches on these things then floats on to new topics. And she can come across as a bit smug when she discusses her own upbringing, the fact that she went to Smith (mentioned more then once) and that the counselors and guards see her and know that she’s different then the rest of her fellow prisoners. But these are small complaints and don’t really change the fact that this makes for a fascinating and accessible read.
July 23rd, 2010
Jane J. - Central Library
I really like Kelly Corrigan’s writing. I don’t necessarily agree with everything she writes, but I appreciate her honesty and humor. It’s not easy writing about cancer in a funny way, but she sure did that in The Middle Place, so I was eager to read her new book about parenting.
Lift is a slight book and I was able to read it straight through twice in a couple of hours. Essentially, it’s an open letter to Kelly’s children to give them an idea of what she’s thinking and feeling about them and about being their mother while they are young. It’s personal, candid, and made me weepy.
A couple of stories really got me: she recounts a serious medical scare and time spent at the children’s hospital with her younger daughter. She had been at this same hospital years earlier when she was on a work assignment photographing babies in the NICU and she compares her attitudes during these separate visits. She writes of the tragic death and funeral of her favorite cousin’s teenage son and how a family continues to live life after something like that happens. She also shares the difficult decision a friend made to become a single parent and how it worked out in the most amazing way.
Not all of the thoughts or stories are tragic. Kelly admits that she doesn’t like to cook and worries that her family doesn’t eat dinner together. She questions the length of time she did or didn’t nurse her babies. She yells at her kids. She’s a real person and I find this very relatable.
The title of this book is taken from a description of hang gliding, “turbulence is the only way to get altitude, to get lift. Without turbulence, the sky is just a big hole. Without turbulence you sink,” (page 42). Parenting is just like this.
July 13th, 2010
Molly - Central
The Male Brain by Louann Brizendine is a short book that explains so much about male behavior. It’s all about the hormones. Mainly (or should I say manly?), it’s about the testosterone.
Brizendine starts with the Greek Gods and testosterone stars as Zeus. Many other hormones make an appearance, including vasopressin, estrogen, and a hormone called MIS (mullerian inhibiting substance). Brizendine details how the various hormones affect male development from conception through childhood, to the teen years and into mature manhood.
All of the life phases are marked by different levels of testosterone, but the chapters I found the most remarkable focused on the toddler, teen and daddy brains. There are surges in testosterone in the toddler and teen years. Toddler boys must move or die! That makes sense and anyone who has seen a two-year-old banging his toys around knows it’s true. Do you have a sullen teen at home? It takes a while for that huge surge in hormones to level out.
And things get really crazy with expectant fathers. Pheromones from the mom affect the hormones in the dad. Testosterone decreases and prolactin increases. Couvade syndrome, or sympathetic pregnancy, can start at the end of the first trimester and can contribute to weight gain and nesting in dads. After the baby is born, the brain is rewired to put the daddy on high alert, to hear the baby crying, for example. Senses are heightened in the same way senses are heightened when one falls in love. This sensitivity is intensified with skin-to-skin contact. According to Brizendine, this combination of hormones, brain rewiring and physical touch enables new fathers to experience some serious baby/daddy bonding. The daddies who bond with their babies lead to better health for the daddy, the baby, the mommy, the marriage, and I daresay, society as a whole.
There’s a lot of complex information here, but for me, I am looking at my son, my husband, my father and my brother in a whole new light. It’s great! If only I could get them to read Brizendine’s The Female Brain…
June 28th, 2010
Molly - Central
It’s sure to be a conversation starter. I’ve decided the only books I can listen to in the car to and from the library must be memoirs read by the author themselves, makes me feel like I’m just listening to a friend chat on the way to work. Isabel Gillies, author and reader of Happens Every Day: An All-Too-True Story**, has been my traveling companion the last few weeks and her story is a doozy.
Isabel and Josiah are childhood acquaintances, vacationing in the same small Maine town with their families every summer, when they meet up at a friend’s wedding and fall instantly in love. Graduate school, marriage and two kids later they find themselves in the small town of Oberlin, OH where Josiah has landed a coveted poet professorship and Isabel, a former film and tv actress, has enough credentials to teach in their small theatre department. Isabel falls in love with Oberlin, their white picket fence life and her new family. Josiah falls in love with another professor.
Isabel writes with complete detail about their new academic life which is nothing like her Upper West side NY upbringing, including making friends with her new female colleagues. The woman that Josiah falls for is someone in their circle and Isabel writes with complete honesty the complexity of their relationships. Isabel’s close family and friends help her through this ordeal, but her “chin up” attitude is what is most remarkable. Her story, unfortunately is one that “happens every day” but the daily details of a marriage dissolving is something to which normally therapists are the only front seat spectators. Well written, funny and insightful Isabel shares what it truly feels like to have someone fall out of love with you, but she never seems like a victim in the affair and after much analyzing comes out the other side stronger and wiser. Since divorce and remarriage touches many families, this memoir will strike a chord and be an ideal addition to a long car ride that doesn’t involve children. Next up on my listening memoir list, The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry: Love, Laughter and Tears in Paris at the World’s Most Famous Cooking School by Kathleen Flinn, much lighter fare and a lot less heartbreaking. Does true love trump staying with your wife and two sons? Let the road trip discussion begin.
**For another take on Gillies’ book read Mary’s review.
June 24th, 2010
Katharine - Sequoya
Last week Kim Ukura wrote an article for 77 Square about summer reading (several MPL staff members - past and present - were quoted, yay us!). They included some reading lists (thrillers, nonfiction and teen reads from MPL staff, yay us squared!) and that got me looking for other summer lists. And how’s this for serendipity? Just as I was looking for those lists, Madison Public tweeted about Oprah’s “Biggest, Best Summer Reading List Ever”. Book number two on that list? The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender which Kylee already reviewed on MADreads (yay us cubed!)
Other summer lists that might interest you:
10 Top Summer Cookbooks from NPR
15 Great Beach Reads from Indie Book Sellers
Entertainment Weekly’s 18 Books We Can’t Wait to Read this Summer
Historical Fiction from NPR
LA Times: 60 Books for 92 Days
Salon’s Nail-Biting Summer Reads
Summer Romances from Salon
If all those lists are overwhelming you, how about starting with the book that’s appearing on most of them. The Passage by Justin Cronin is an “ambitious epic about a virus that nearly destroys the world, and a six-year-old girl who holds the key to bringing it back” according to Amazon which rated it one of the best books of the month for June. I’m already on the waiting list for this one but there are many more that are grabbing my attention. What are you looking forward to this summer?
June 17th, 2010
Jane J. - Central Library
Historian Nathaniel Philbrick has made his name writing stories of the sea, most notably history set near his home in Nantucket. His latest work, The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull and the Battle of the Little Bighorn, takes him as far as imaginable from the stormy Atlantic: the deceptively placid landscape surrounding the Little Bighorn River, and the site of the pivotal battle for the American West. Yet even in the unfamiliar territory of eastern Montana, Philbrick’s trademark command of detail and narrative sweep rightfully sets The Last Stand alongside his earlier work, and might even be, in this reader’s opinion, his best work yet.
Although ‘General’ George Armstrong Custer* is one of the most chronicled figures of the American West, his actions on June 25, 1876 and before remain clouded in the haze of battlefield memories or died with his forces on Battle Ridge. The portrait Philbrick creates doesn’t stray far from the prevailing image of most modern histories: a cock-sure fighter whose decisions were based as much on his previous luck as they were on the situation at hand. Sitting Bull, the other well-chronicled player of the day, had the sense to recognize that even with his vastly larger forces at the Little Bighorn, the reality of dwindling buffalo herds meant that the traditional way of life for his people would soon end. But where Philbrick’s narrative really shines is in the detailed accounts of the lesser-known individuals of battalion and the battle itself. Even before the Seventh Cavalry set out from its North Dakota base, the troop was a mass of petty arguments, clashing egos and, as Philbrick speculates, a command that was set up to fail. On Sitting Bull and the Native American side, attempts to cooperate with the U.S. government had only led to hunger, disease and broken treaties. When the fight proper begins, the establishment of each individual and their grievances makes the action read almost like a novel, and the fate of each fighter resonates that much more.
And what of the Last Stand itself? Since the only survivor of Custer’s final fight was a wounded cavalry horse named Comanche and Lakota accounts differ, Philbrick presents a possible scenario based on partial accounts and archeological discoveries. But whether the Seventh had organized a final defense or the day ended in a melee will probably never be known. Regardless of the outcome, both sides knew the events at the Little Bighorn would mark a turning point in the history of West. And indeed, Philbrick notes that Little Bighorn came right at the time America was turning from the internal warfare that characterized its first hundred years to the overseas expansion of the next century. In Philbrick’s recounting of the story, it is a gripping final fight.
*Although promoted to the rank of general during the Civil War, Custer had since been court-martialed and held the rank of lieutenant colonel at the time of the Little Bighorn.
June 10th, 2010
Katie H.
I heard about Stacy Horn from my friend and yours, Citizen Reader. But instead of reading Horn’s books, I went to her blog. I was smitten right away, especially since I ‘heart’ NY - where Horn lives. She posts photos she has taken during her everyday walks around the city, plus her cats, the pigeons she feeds and other cool stuff. The photos caught my eye but her writing got me coming back for more. Basically she blogs little bits about her life - lots about those cats, her singing with the Grace Church Choral Society, and lately, her job with the Census Bureau. Now that I’m just SO familiar with her life, I figured it was time to read one of her books. Having lost a few people in my life lately, I picked up Waiting for my Cats to Die: A Morbid Memoir.
From the get-go, Horn admits she’s having a midlife crisis. She’s forty-something, single, living with her two diabetic cats, addicted to TV, and her business, Echo, an online community, is failing and no one will buy it. She cannot be more than 12 hours away from her cats, since she has to administer so many medications to them. Plus she’s obsessed with death, so much so that she:
- She volunteers time weeding and cleaning a cemetery.
- She sort of believes her friend who says there’s a ghost in her apartment.
- She interviews the elderly to get their take on life and death.
But my favorite side of Horn is the time she spends poring over records in city archives (she still talks about this on her blog), investigating the identity of her ghost, and wading through the contents of someone’s ancient basement. She seems tireless in her dogged pursuit of the mystery of someone’s identity, the core of their lives, fulfilling the need she has to honor that person’s time on earth, even though they may have been dead for many years.
Her book is blog-like, with scattershot, short “chapters” on cats, death, work and music. She’s going somewhere here, taking you with her in her acceptance of growing older, ever closer to growing up, getting older, dying. However, through it all, you know she doesn’t want to die (eek, neither do I!). I couldn’t put it down; it felt like being inside the mind of a friend who’s funny, introspective, kinda wierd but in a good way, and going through the same search for the meaning of life that you are. Stacy doesn’t solve the mystery of life (dang!). But she does seem to find her own peace with the gift of the possibility of what life has to offer. And she brings you along with her.
The library has all of her books, and I’ll probably read them. I’m just afraid I might not like them as much, since they’re not about her. But in her newest, Unbelievable: Investigations into Ghosts, Poltergeists, Telepathy, and Other Unseen Phenomena from the Duke Parapsychology Laboratory, she takes on a favorite subject. It’s waiting for me in my ‘To Be Read’ pile. Can’t wait.
May 27th, 2010
Lisa - Central
(and birds). I’m talking Dewey the library cat, Christian the lion, Wesley the owl and Alex the parrot. To name a few. Don’t even get me started on Hachikō, the faithful Japanese dog who waited every day for nine years to greet his deceased owner. We could be here all day.
I’m now adding Oscar to the list. Making Rounds with Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat by David Dosa is the true story of a cat that lives in an elderly care home for those with dementia. By all accounts, Oscar doesn’t really like hanging out with people. In fact, he hides most of the time. But the residents of Steere House love him, and it turns out that he has a special talent. This remarkable cat shows up in the residents’ rooms as their time is nearing, providing comfort to the residents and their families during those final moments at the end of life. Consider this your tearjerker warning.
If Oscar makes a visit, the staff knows to notify the family. If family members are already there, they know not to leave. Dr. Dosa recounts many varied and notable stories about Oscar and his impeccable track record, including when multiple residents were dying at the same time and when a resident left Steere House for the hospital and Oscar still kept vigil in his room. It’s uncanny.
I was hoping there would be more of an explanation of the science behind Oscar’s power of perception, but there is no concrete answer. It’s probably smell. I don’t know much about cancer sniffing dogs, but it seems like the same principle applies here. None of the other cats at Steere House have this ability and Oscar was not trained to do this, but has been doing it since he was a kitten. I wonder if Oscar had offspring, would they inherit this trait?
All of the stories here are touching, and many, amazing. While you wait for the book, visit the Steere House website for more background information and photos of Oscar!
May 24th, 2010
Molly - Central
Making Toast: A Family Story by Roger Rosenblatt is a touching and very personal memoir detailing the first year after the sudden death of his adult daughter, Amy who was a doctor and mother of three young children. Rosenblatt, who has had a long career as a writer and an essayist, and his wife Ginny were asked by their son-in-law to move in and live with the grieving family to help care for the children.
Ginny assumes many of the jobs formerly done by Amy in the care of the children and in many ways is repeating the traditions and tasks used when raising her own children. Rosenblatt admires and praises the work she does every day. He says that the only role for him is to be the family buffoon, making up silly songs for the children, and choosing a different word for every day. That and making toast. Toast is actually made, daily in fact, by Rosenblatt who makes the family breakfast every morning. It becomes part of the ritual for the start of the children’s day, and through this seemingly mundane task - despite the family tragedy - life goes on. The three children are very young, the youngest is a toddler. Though the whole family is suffering, the loss touches the children in ways unique to them.
This is a very poignant family story, about both death and life. This is close knit family forced to cope with an inexplicable death. It will move most readers to tears at times. If you’re interested, Rosenblatt was interviewed recently on the PBS newshour. It’s worth checking out.
May 10th, 2010
Mary K. - Central
The other night, as I was mixing up some dough for a pastry recipe, my mind wandered to the 1922 case profiled in Deborah Blum’s entertaining The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York of a Manhattan bakery that unwittingly was the source of a mass case of poisoning. In that particular case, dozens of office workers were ill after the Shelbourne Bakery’s huckleberry pie came served with a dash of arsenic. That case, like the many others profiled in The Poisoner’s Handbook, testifies to the appalling ease with which poisons were available in the early twentieth century.
Readily available poisons yes, but a surprising lack of curiosity about how to identify them–at least until New York City hired its (possibly) first non-corrupt medical examiner, Charles Norris. It is Norris and his team of scientists that are the heroes of Blum’s story. Like any true hero, Norris faced insurmountable odds. Poison was everywhere: arsenic lurked in wallpaper dye, radium illuminated watch faces, and carbon monoxide belched from the exhaust pipes of innumerable Model Ts. With no real government oversight to keep toxic materials out of the hands of unwitting innocents–or those not so innocent–Norris and his band of scientists were essentially left to invent and establish forensic science in the U.S.
That Blum centers her research on Jazz Age New York City is no coincidence: New York was the wettest city in the nation during Prohibition, a fact that gave Norris and his closest associate, Alexander Gettler, considerable practice in investigating poisonings from the illegal hooch people were guzzling by the gallon. As bootleggers turned to more desperate means to give people a buzz, the government nearly outdid them in killing off drinkers in an effort to reform them. With dry advocates lobbying for stricter enforcement, government agencies added more bizarre substances to industrial alcohol (up to and including adding petroleum) in efforts to stymie bootleggers. As a result, Norris’s lab was kept busy autopsying thousands of poisoning victims each year, each one adding to the growing knowledge bank of deadly poisons.
Blum builds up her narrative through a host of poisons, blending in specific cases and the toxicologists’ efforts to prove innocence or guilt. She creates a real sense of the long hours and hard work involved. No slick CSI-style labs here; Norris and Gettler’s lab must have appeared to be a chamber of horrors to the uninitiated. But even for those readers who flunked chemistry, Blum creates a vivid, sometimes unintentionally amusing,* portrait of Prohibition-era America and the birth of a culture plunging into a strange new world filled with unknown and potentially deadly new chemicals.
And what became of the Shelbourne pie poisoner? To find out, you’ll just have to read the book. But I would recommend taking a close look at any pastries before you bite in.
*The saga of one street cleaner dubbed Mike the Durable is a prime example.
May 4th, 2010
Katie H.
The South Madison Branch Book group discussed The Soloist by Steve Lopez on Saturday, April 17 as part of Porchlight’s Community Read program.
Steve Lopez discovered Nathaniel Anthony Ayers - a musician who studied at Julliard and suffers from schizophrenia – playing music in a busy tunnel near skid row in Los Angeles. He wrote about him for his column in the L.A. Times and their relationship developed into a friendship. The book chronicles his experiences trying to get Nathaniel into a safe sheltered place to live and into treatment for his schizophrenia. Some of the attendees had backgrounds in the mental health field and others had volunteered at food pantries; there were also a couple of students who had done some reading on mental illness for a class.
Overall readers seemed to enjoy the book and noted that the writing style of a journalist differs somewhat from regular fiction writing. We discussed the realities of befriending a homeless man with schizophrenia and how that must have affected the author’s life, as well as what the impact on Nathaniel might be if and when their relationship comes to an end. We all wondered what has happened to Nathaniel since the book was written. There was plenty of discussion regarding the use of medication to treat his illness vs. having only friend or family relationships and/or contact with agencies for support, as well as the ethics of forcing someone to get treatment. One mom said she had hoped the book would answer for her the question of what to teach her children to do when they encounter homeless people on the street asking for money.
A couple of book suggestions were made, both during the meeting and after. One of the students recommended The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat by Oliver W. Sacks for insight into how medications for mental illness can affect a person’s life. Next up on May 15th for the South Madison book discussion is The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein.
May 3rd, 2010
Lori - South Madison
Previous Posts
…these are just a few of the stories animal behaviorist and trainer Karen Pryor includes in her latest book, Reaching the Animal Mind: Clicker Training and What It Teaches Us About All Animals. Karen Pryor has been training animals since the early 1960s. The animals she has worked with include dolphins, horses, hermit crabs, wolves, dogs, humans, and many more and her approach is a no-punishment, reinforcement based approach. I am always in favor of gentler, more peaceful ways of living, so books like this appeal to me. But beyond that, I really love the stories Pryor shares about how she and others have been able to bring out fun and sometimes very complex behaviors in various animals. And Pryor peppers her book with online slide shows and videos of animals learning. One of the funniest videos is a ferret’s “a-ha” moment with clicker training. First the ferret is clicked and rewarded for looking at a ball, then for increasingly interacting with the ball, then the ferret goes off behind a pillow and pauses back there. Suddenly she comes bursting out from behind the pillow and jumps on the ball with all four feet. She’s made the connection - she knows she’s able to make the clicks and treats happen and in her excitement she falls off the couch, bumps the ball and chases it across the room and through a cardboard tunnel. One of the greatest gifts of clicker training methods is this, “When animals realize that the click gives them control over good things happening, they have made a permanent shift. Their environment begins to make sense. They want to know more.”