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 When Taras Grescoe wonders how ethical his seafood diet is, he sets off on a journey to find out the facts. He finds some shocking facts, particularly concerning how disgusting and unhealthy fish farming is but how illegal fishing is also depleting stocks of increasingly rare fish like cod and the stocks are at risk of collapse.
The book is written with each chapter focusing on a specific type of fish in one location. I liked this format because it provided smaller sections of interest that coalesced into one big, scary whole, with some positive notes. Grescoe is very effective at hammering his point home. He never uses fish terminology that is confusing, even when he’s on the boats. He explains the different types of traps and just how they damage the environment or catch other fish. With his positive chapters, he emphasizes that we can still eat fish healthily and ethically. He even outlines what the government can do, things that scientists have been saying for years. So it certainly isn’t all bad, just a wake-up call. The ocean does not have a bottomless supply of fish and sometimes fish stocks don’t recover – we have to do what we can now.
I think this is an important book to read for everyone who wants to eat fish in the future. Furthermore, it’s well written and clear, so it’s accessible to everyone. I recommend it. Buy Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood on Amazon.
 When she was in college, Comfort Shields met another student named Ben, a man who’d been in the navy and only returned to school at age 24. They began a relationship and fell in love. Eighteen months later, Ben killed himself. This memoir details their relationship alongside Comfort’s struggle to survive herself, to grow and learn from the experience, and forgive herself, with which she still struggles.
I wasn’t sure I was going to like this book when I heard about it. My brother passed away when I was nineteen, and I avoid the subject of death far more than the average person my age. It’s still too close to me. I took a chance, and I’m glad I did. Comfort’s struggle is oddly empowering for her and for the reader, whom she has chosen to allow into her world. This beautiful memoir succeeds as both a story of her grief and her recovery and as a tribute to Ben, who struggled so much himself. Shields writes well and clearly, telling us her story in a way that makes her sympathetic while making it clear that she doesn’t expect any. Despite the difficult subject, the book isn’t hard at all to read and is in fact engrossing. Her struggle and the situation is clearly sad, but it is focused on the positive, not the negative. It is a book full of hope and memories.
The reader watches as the relationship between Ben and Comfort is strained by his mental illness, even though they so obviously love each other and she tries so hard to keep them together. The parts when they were falling in love were extremely touching, knowing the outcome of the relationship, experiencing this dual journey.
I found the most poignant and important lesson that Comfort learned is that she could not control the life of anyone else. She could not have saved Ben; it was out of her hands and she did the best she could. She discovers this over and over again throughout the course of her life, and not only is it true for her, it’s true for us all. Her journey is inspiring and I can imagine it giving hope and help to not only people whose loved ones have killed themselves, but to anyone who has lost someone and does not know where to go next.
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I have one copy of Surviving Ben’s Suicide to give away. It’s a bit of a strange book to get excited about a contest for, considering the subject matter, but this book is so wonderful and touching that I want to spread it around and get it known! There are only two copies of this book on LibraryThing, and there should be many more. This book could be so helpful, and people are missing out. Help me share Comfort’s story, and the memory of Ben, with the world.
So. It’s easy to be entered. All you have to do is leave a comment here. If you post about this on your blog, I’ll give you an extra entry. This is actually my first giveaway, so please, enter away! You have until Sunday, July 13th to enter, and I will mail the book on Monday, July 14th. Good luck!
The Road to Wigan Pier is composed of two separate parts: Orwell’s exploration of the working and unemployed classes and later on his examination of middle class prejudices and socialism. I enjoyed the first half of the book as information; Orwell’s writing is persuasive and interesting, though I can’t say I’d regard his reporting as entirely honest, given a comparison with the diary he kept while writing the book. I assume that he’s giving us a picture, anyway, that is characteristic of the times. His images of the times are certainly very fictive, which adds to the enjoyment, not the reality of the situation.
The second half was not nearly as interesting. I’m not sure if middle class British perceptions towards the working class have changed, but overall this is not exactly what I’m interested in. Much less am I interested in socialism and how it can be applied to the situation. Moreover, Orwell skirts the deep issues and portrays only the surface of each ideology. He never quite manages to explain how socialism will solve the problem, only that it will.
Overall, an interesting read, but not entirely reliable.
Elizabeth I is fascinating. She reigned for nearly fifty years without ever marrying or declaring a successor; she brought England onto the broader world stage for the first time in centuries. This book details her life from her succession to her death, with a focus on much of her government. Both positive and negative aspects of her reign are discussed, but mostly the book just serves as a chronicle of her life and times.
This was a good biography. It took me a while to read because it involves a lot of information. Weir does a lot less persuading than in some of her earlier biographies, probably because she was given much more to work with in the Elizabethan era. Usually a myth is easily dispelled with factual evidence and no persuasion is needed. In this case, that works very well, but it doesn’t challenge any ideas or propose new viewpoints. Generally I prefer when a historian does some guesswork, or at least extrapolates from the evidence, but for the most part Weir just reports from the sources. It works for a biography, but doesn’t add much to historical understanding, just popular understanding.
Andrew Bridgeford takes a deep look at the Bayeux Tapestry, its history, and potential interpretations of its content. He is extremely thorough in his assessment, laying it out in a logical sequence that makes his arguments very persuasive. It’s fairly obvious that he is a lawyer, since he spares no time for fanciful ideas and sticks to interpretations straight from the facts.
The part that I liked most about this was Bridgeford’s extensive use of primary sources. He pulls in plenty of Anglo-Saxon, Norman, and French chronicles, as well as various records and writing of other types. He does occasionally use the work of other historians, but I was very impressed with the depth of his research into the original chronicles. He links the tapestry with various contemporary accounts in an attempt to separate out the true thread of events as well as who may have created or paid for the tapestry and why. He takes an indepth look at various misunderstood aspects of the tapestry and postulates why they are they and what they could possibly mean. He even makes a suggestion as to the author of the Song of Roland.
Bridgeford’s strict use of facts and logic assists the reader in understanding his ideas and are a great support to him. His suggestions never seem implausible, even if they occasionally diverge from orthodox opinion. His footnotes and bibliography are extensive. Definitely a recommended book for anyone interested in 11th century medieval history.
This biography is probably among the worst that I have read. It reads like a novel, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but in this case, it fails to provide a convincing portrait of Josephine.
Carolly Erickson covers Josephine’s life from the great storm of her childhood in Martinique to her death. At times, her portrayal of Josephine as sweet, generous, grateful, and natural is at odds with the calculating promiscuous woman she also attempts to show. She doesn’t debate either view, but instead attempts to combine them and it comes out a bit strange. The book reads like a tabloid at times, not using Josephine’s own words but those of her observers. Josephine’s letters are occasionally used, but not often enough, especially when Erickson boldly states what Josephine was thinking or how she felt. As ostensibly history, I feel that a biography should state where these impressions are coming from, or if they’re the biographer’s imagining, since they are not fact. The sources are largely in French, which does make sense, but prevents me from researching further in order to discover the truth.
I found I didn’t like Erickson’s Josephine; despite protestations of strength she comes across as weak-willed, jealous, and whiny. That may well be how she was, but overall I didn’t like her much. I preferred Sandra Gulland’s Josephine, since while her trilogy is historical fiction, it uses more source material and provides a view of a Josephine harassed in every way but still true to herself, jealous but attempting to deal with her husband’s infidelity. That isn’t necessarily the truth either, but I preferred it. Also of note is the fact that Gulland maintains that Josephine never had the numerous affairs that Erickson ascribes to her. The evidence for these affairs is in fact scanty, and until more is found we’ll probably never know whether or not Josephine was loyal to Napoleon.
In addition, this book is only 350 pages long and doesn’t delve into any of the issues of the time, merely grazes over them in an attempt for a summary.
I think I will seek out a more scholarly account of Josephine since I don’t trust this one. I prefer a biography to be written more as a history, dealing with conflicting viewpoints and attempting to discern the truth, rather than a popular account that reads like a novel and challenges nothing. Very disappointing.
Paul Murray Kendall, the author of this biography of Richard III, one of the most controversial English kings, carefully and painstakingly constructs Richard’s life and times through contemporary fifteenth-century sources, resolutely attempting to thrust away the “Tudor tradition” once and for all.
Necessarily, it takes a long while to get through a volume so heavy with facts and references, especially considering Kendall backs up nearly all of his points with lengthy endnotes. These are welcome and flesh out every aspect of Kendall’s thought processes as he attempts to show us the man who has been so maligned. What emerges is a picture of an honest, well-intentioned man, perhaps too eager to seize a throne, let down by nearly all of his contemporaries. As Duke of Gloucester, Richard won the allegiance of the North, a task which no one had yet managed since William the Conqueror, if not before. He stood by his brother and his brother’s children, for the most part. As King, Richard forgave many of his enemies, bestowed annuities on helpless people, and passed laws entirely for the betterment of society. He did not ask Parliament for a tax despite facing two rebellions, and in general focused largely on increasing the well-being of the poor. He even compares Richard to Henry VII, and Henry comes out the worse for it.
The matter of the Princes in the Tower also comes into play, as do Richard’s motives for dethroning his nephew Edward V. In each case, Kendall addresses the matter logically and with plenty of evidence from the sources he has consulted. Richard comes out of all this possibly guilty, but understandably so, especially in the latter case. Kendall doesn’t believe that Richard killed the princes, and neither do I, though my opinion has been formed for some time now.
Kendall’s writing is at times overly flowery and it’s fairly obvious that this book is over fifty years old. That doesn’t negate its virtues, but it does make for occasionally slow reading, especially compared to current popular biographies. This is very easy to read compared to the original sources, of course. One must also keep in mind that other evidence has been discovered in the years since Kendall’s biography; nevertheless this one remains a cornerstone in the case for Richard III and should be read as such.
I particularly enjoyed the excerpts from Richard’s letters displaying characteristics of his that Kendall wanted to show. I’ve read several medieval biographies at this point and the glimpse into the subjects’ minds is fascinating. Richard’s mind is no less, and it is in these letters that we can feel closest to the king who was betrayed by so many people and even by his own generous policies.
With this biography, Kendall tries, and succeeds, at building a picture of Richard III that is not marred by Tudor legend, a picture of a man and not a monster. He goes through each source and attempts to extract what is true and what is false. I can’t say if he has the whole truth, because I don’t think anyone ever will, but he does a remarkably convincing job.
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