No is Not Enough

 No is Not Enough: Resisting Trump's Shock Politics and Winning the World We Need by Naomi Klein
2017
Weight: 14 oz
Method of Disposal: Mailing to Someone

Do not let the current climate wear you down.  

It is incredibly hard.  

I do not always know that I can do it.  It is challenging to dedicate your life to your work and family, and then have anything left over to help change the current tide of politics, but we all have a part to play in this community.  This book was written before the Covid-19 pandemic hit, and in it Klein warns about what will happen once it hits.  Only, she did not know what "it" was.  She writes, 

"So far Trump's unending atmosphere of of crisis has been sustained largely through his own over-the-top rhetoric--declaring cities "crime infested" sites of "carnage" when in fact the violent crime rate had been declining nationwide for decades; hammering away at a manufactured narrative about an immigrant crime wave; and generally insisting Obama destroyed the country.  Soon enough, however, Trump could well have some crises to exploit that are distinctly more real, since crisis is the logical conclusion of his politics on every front." 

So here we are, and I am exhausted.  I remember a time when there was not BIG news every. single. day.  Sometimes, multiple times a day.  He is still on the offensive and all over the board, even as Covid-19 rages.  Remember the early days of the pandemic when there were news stories coming out of California saying that ICE was still conducting raids even as there was talk of releasing people from prison due to not being able to keep them safe.  At least it made the news back then, I suppose, so we would know and could be outraged.  We have unmarked security forces patrolling protests.  Do you remember when people dying in a protest in America had become shocking?  Now, it is hard to keep up with who is getting killed and where.  Meanwhile, the "President" chuckles about staying in office past his term.  

Klein writes, "People can develop responses to sequential or gradual change.  But if dozens of changes come from all directions at once, the hope is that populations will rapidly become exhausted and over-whelmed, and will ultimately swallow their bitter medicine."  She had already laid all of this out for us in her powerful book, The Shock Doctrine.  In No is Not Enough she writes about how some populations who have been through a shock previously are less susceptible to fascism.  They see it, and they rise up and refuse it.  She writes about the inverse of the "Shock Doctrine."  A "People's Shock" rising up from below.  She seems to have, somehow, maintained some hope that globally we can rise up and ask for more, save our planet from global warming, implement a culture of caring, do the opposite of what Trump proposes in the Art of the Deal.  My optimism was waning as I read, and I found it hard to envision, but I do not want us to stop trying.

She says it is important to have a Utopia to strive for and work for.  The one she describes seems worth a good fight.

Never Enough: The Neuroscience and Experience of Addiction

 Never Enough: The Neuroscience and Experience of Addiction by Judith Grisel
2019
Weight: 16 oz
Method of Disposal: Mailing to a Friend

This book is part memoir and part scientific essay on neuroscience and addiction.  It is an excellent introduction for someone who wants to understand addiction better across a spectrum of drugs.  The author discusses the differences and similarities between stimulants, opiates, alcohol, thc, psychedelics, and other drugs.  Judith briefly mentions how others in the same or similar situation as her died, and that there is no reason she should have necessarily made it out alive and they did not.  She was in enough dangerous situations, but thank goodness she made it out.  Now, look at the work she is doing.  It is really impressive.  Think of all the talent, intelligence, and value we lose to addiction every day, with those that do not make it out.

The Last Holiday Concert

 The Last Holiday Concert by Andrew Clements
2006
Weight: 4 oz
Method of Disposal: Lending Library

Andrew Clements is a prolific children's book author who just passed away last year at the age of 70.  I, of course, have several of his books from when I worked in the Children's Department.  He was a popular one.  

Parents ask for recommendations a lot, and I always wanted to know what I was recommending.  I knew what people were buying, but I wanted to know more than that.  I feel like a lot of books try to shape the minds of children, and a lot of parents do not have time to read their children's books.  This can be good for kids raised in closed-minded, rigid households.  I, sometimes, imagined I was handing their child some kind of salvation.  A little wink wink nudge nudge that they were okay.  That they would be okay.  Even if they were gay.  Even if they loved to masturbate.  Even if they questioned God's existence.  Even if they did something terrible and regretted it.  I had books like that, which encouraged me in very subtle ways.  Not always in ways the author intended, I am sure.  Christopher Pike had a bisexual character.  The sex education book my mother gave me, embarrassing me, and which I would never read, but that I snuck peeks at, told me that homosexuality and masturbation were normal even as the sex education I was learning about in school said neither were.  Books can be so important.

This book did not have those kind of lessons or questions, but it did have something to say about being a leader, being a part of a team, recognizing that you do not always know what other people are going through or who they are.  It was not my favorite Clements book, but I thought it was alright.  I definitely was not worried it would hurt anyone.

On the Bright Side, I'm Now the Girlfriend of a Sex God

 On the Bright Side, I'm Now the Girlfriend of a Sex God by Louise Rennison
2003
Weight: 4.8 oz
Method of Disposal: Recycling

I got this book while working in the Children's Department of a bookstore.  I saw potential there.  I thought the author might not shy away from teenager's having sexual awareness and that, because of this among other reasons, teenagers might be more likely to enjoy the book/reading in general.  I finally read it, but I was underwhelmed in many ways.  A few of them were unexpected.  The slur "lezzie" gets thrown around a bit.  The main character rushes in the showers at school so the lezzie gym teacher does not ogle her.  The other girls call the main character a lezzie a couple times.  The book is all about her fixation on one guy, and how she lashes out at her family, friends, and even a guy she is dating, trying to get that older guy back even though she is 14 and he is 17.  Spoiler Alert: The whole book she is worried she will be moving away from him to go to New Zealand but, at the last minute, she does not have to.  Her mom and dad call it off.  It would have been one thing to just not like the book,  but it was another to leave it wondering if it would do more harm than good in the world.  I know a lot of people really enjoyed it.  I, clearly, am not one of them.

Poetry Reviews

Lilies and Cannonballs Review: Volume 1, Number 2/Fall/Winter 2004-2005
Columbia Poetry Review No. 15 2002
Weight: 1 lb
Method of Disposal: Donating

I always enjoy reading poetry reviews and literary journals.  You never know what you might find in them.  Generally, there are authors I have never heard of and a chance to discover something or someone new.  I am sure I gained these while I was in college, and I have been carrying them ever since.  I have re-read them and will be sharing them now.

The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2019

The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2019 Edited and Introduced by Edan Lepucki

2019

Weight: 7.8 oz

Method of Disposal: Sending Away

At some point in each year, I will find myself in a bookstore narrowing down what I should buy or looking for something new to read and there, magically on the anthology shelf, will be The Best American Nonrequired Reading.  I love reading it and purchase it every time.  It was originally my college Creative Writing professor (whom I adored) that introduced me to it, and I have enjoyed it ever since.  I never think to buy it until I am in a store for some other reason but, ultimately, the realization that it exists once again will hit me.

It is usually a fun combination of short fiction, short non-fiction, poetry, and comics.  It sometimes will also include other fun, off-the wall content, like Chuck Norris jokes.  It is just enjoyable to read, and it exposes you to authors that you maybe do not know about.  The selections are made once a year by high school students in California and in Michigan.  I like that for a lot of reasons.  1.  I am fairly certain my brain is so different than it was in high school by now that I could not even dream of knowing what a high schooler might like.  Therefore, I am reading a selection from someone not in the same space as myself and that is insightful.  2.  It gives me hope to see what the high schoolers choose for us to read.  For example, 2019 had an incredibly diverse sample, and it was delightful.  Could the youth really save us?  I am not someone who thinks that.  I am not someone who expects that.  But, could they?  3.  I, generally, feel like I do not like teenagers.  I hated myself when I was a teenager.  This makes me remember that all teenagers are not the same and that in fact they are at a very exciting, challenging, passionate, wild time of their lives and that there is a lot of value in that for them but also for all of us.  Never stereotype a group of people!  When you do you will always end up proven wrong.

The Communist Manifesto

The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels

1998

Weight: 12 oz

Method of Disposal: Giving Away

Let me just warn you now,  I am not going to have some valuable or life-changing insight on The Communist Manifesto.  So much has been written and said about it over the last 172 years, and Communism itself existed before it was written.  One thing that does seem to be true to me is that many people speak about it that have absolutely never read it, and they have also never read anything else about Communism since.  Communism is a dirty word to this day.  Communists cannot be trusted, and they are stupid.  On the other side of that, there are people who embrace Communism as the anti-however they were raised.  They embrace it without attempting to understand it or the other options, and there are many of these people who have not tried to learn further than the sound bitess they get on tv either.

This manifesto is important because it is still relevant almost 200 years later.  That says something.  Whatever the solution, there is a problem with a small minority benefiting from the blood and labor of a working class majority, and the dream of the working class coming together as a whole is inspiring even if it is consistently undermined by our other differences. 

"The Communists are distinguished from all the other working-class parties by this only:

1.  In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interest of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality.

2.  In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole."

"They have no interest separate and apart from the proletariat as a whole."

Abolish the family, women are not just a means of production, workers unite.  This is a manifesto.  In true form and in the style of a rallying call, ideas are made simplistic and passionate so as to inspire large groups of people quickly.  To bring people together for change but, as with anything like this, the world is more complicated than what is in these pages.  These pages are a tool, but they are not THE answer. 

Tiger Eyes

Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume

1982

Weight: 4 oz

Method Disposal: Giving Away

It is no secret that, in general, Americans do not have a healthy connection with death and dying.  I sure do not and have been looking for tools and resources on my own in an attempt to get more comfortable with the most uncomfortable of subjects.  I always think I am preparing myself, but there is no preparation and it is jarring and disorienting in the largest, most earth shaking ways when death touched you, even on the periphery.  I am scared to face the death of my loved ones, but I am also determined to be better at being supportive of those I love who are grieving.  Unfortunately, it is not something that you can learn from reading a handbook, and it is not something you can protect yourself from.

I did not pick up this book to learn about death.  I picked up this book to revisit the work of Judy Blume as an adult, and I had also never read Tiger Eyes.  I recognized the style right away, even though I did not know the story.  Tiger Eyes is about a teenager who loses her father to violence and her struggle to overcome depression, anxiety, and grief afterwards.  She must do this within a family of other people who are also grieving.  She wants and needs her mother, but her mother is lost in despair too.  She is not always her best self and neither are her mom, her aunt, her uncle, but they are also not their worst selves.  They are just hurting people.  

I think young adult books like this, centered heavily on character development, are so helpful and important to our emotional growth.  Young adults do not always feel comfortable asking questions and, if they are like I was, they would not even always know what to ask.  You are learning so much so fast, and what you are learning is not just your school curriculum.  If a young adult will read and wants to read, they can learn without fear of judgement, without having to know what is right and wrong to ask, and you are just led through it without even realizing you are learning.  Learning by experience even if you, personally, are not the one doing the experiencing.  Do not get me wrong, you do not read Tiger Eyes and then become a person who knows what it is like to grieve, but you do develop empathy and concern.  There is a template, if you ever need to see one again or if you needed one to begin with, that shows you that there is still life after the death of a loved one.  Books like this one do not make everything better, but their value is subtle and that value collects in your brain, with all the other information you have gained from life, from other books, from other people.  Thank you, Judy Blume, for tackling the hard stuff, even though it is not easy to face the darkness.

The Green Book

The Green Book by Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas M. Kostigen

2007

Weight: 11.2 oz

Method of Disposal: Giving Away

Things I liked about this book:

• Please God, we need to do something about climate change. This message is clear in the book.
• The authors try to meet you where you are at and often.  They do not say "do not fly in an airplane."  They say limit your flight or, if you do fly, do these things while you travel to limit your damage to the environment.
• The use of famous people to make it more trendy.
• I found there are some things that I know better than to do them, but I had grown lazy about it.  This book helped remind me that even the little things can matter.

Things That Work Less For Me

• It was published in 2007 so there is a lot that is irrelevant now or the conversation has changed.  PDAs, camera film, and beepers are rarely used so are no longer worth mentioning.  Often, while reading, this would give me hope that we had already done things that would help us so much just because certain items had become antiquated.  Then, we would get to the next page, and I would realize e-waste and increased electric usage had likely wiped out many of the improvements we had made in other areas.  It is time for a revised addition! 
• The use of famous people may work for some folks but also felt a little superficial to me.  These people are not living paycheck to paycheck.  They can buy any car they want, multiple cars, and they can buy anything and everything energy efficient.  Sacrificing seems less painful if you have so much.
• On the one hand, I want people to do the easy things and make a difference.  On the other hand, I want to be sure that people know that, just because they brush their teeth in the shower and don't buy farmed fish, there is still so much more that needs to be done and so much of that is systemic.

Gwendolyn Brooks Selected Poems

Selected Poems by Gwendolyn Brooks

1999

Weight: 6.1 oz

Method of Disposal: Giving Away

If you have not read Gwendolyn Brooks' poetry then you should go do that right away.  It is fantastic.  If you read this book, don't stop here.  My guess is that most of you know her or have at least read, "We Real Cool," as she is the first black person to win a Pulitzer and that is the poem I have seen the most.  I do find it shocking (though I know that I should not) that, given the number of awards she won, I did not hear about her before I went to college.  Read her, share her, and ensure that never happens to another student.  Brooks is too good and too important.