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 Adeline’s mother died when she was a baby. As the fifth child, with three brothers and a sister, she was always going to be teased, but when she was a year old her father remarried a woman who had it out for her predecessor’s children. Adeline’s stepmother was half French, automatically placing her above the rest of her Chinese family. While Adeline and her four older siblings wore old clothes, ate cheap food, and weren’t allowed to see any of their friends outside of school, her stepmother’s children were pampered and treated with endless luxuries. They walked to school while their younger siblings were given money for the tram or driven to the most exclusive schools available. Adeline yearned to escape and distinguished herself at school, but her life often seemed like the worst misery possible.
This memoir was absolutely heartbreaking. I just could not believe anyone could treat a little girl so badly. It’s obvious that Adeline (her Chinese name is Jun-ling) is a clever child with a huge heart. She loves her grandparents and her aunt, the only people who treat her well, with an earnest devotion that I wished she could have applied to her parents. Instead, her stepmother convinces her father that his older children deserve nothing but the worst – subsistence food, hideous clothes, unflattering but cheap haircuts. They are mocked in school and at home alike.
I was amazed that Adeline could retain her sense of self despite all of the abuse. She has no self-esteem, but she is a good person and as such she makes friends. Eventually, people flock to her, leading to one of the saddest scenes in the book. It wouldn’t have been so bad even if the siblings that shared a mother with her had compassion, but they are either innately cruel, venting their unhappiness on their little sister, or seek her stepmother’s approval and then continue to mock her.
Adeline’s story is intertwined with the history and culture of China. It’s often obvious that this is a middle grade book and that the history is slightly simplified for the child’s mind, but it lends flavor to the story and Adeline’s surroundings. The book would really be perfect for a middle grade reader eager to learn more about the wider world – I know I learned virtually nothing of twentieth century China in school. There is a follow-up for young adult readers which I have already requested from the library and am very eager to read.
Chinese Cinderella was a fast, simple but absolutely heartbreaking read. It’s a memoir that will have you cheering for Adeline and hoping that she finally earns happiness in the end.
I am an Amazon Associate. I borrowed this book from my local library.
 Henrietta Lacks, a poor black woman, died of cervical cancer in the 1950’s. Her doctor had never seen a tumor like hers and scraped some cells off for research purposes. To everyone’s surprise, those cancer cells were the first to keep on living and separating outside the human body and spawned an entire research industry. Nicknamed HeLa after the first two letters of Henrietta’s first and last names, these cells caused a virtual revolution in research and led to cures and treatments for a variety of illnesses as well as a way to test the effects of various calamities on human tissue. But Henrietta’s family received no money and Henrietta received no recognition for her contribution. Rebecca Skloot puts together the facts and gets the family’s side of the story in an effort to earn Henrietta the recognition she deserves.
I have one word for this book and it is wow. I was incredibly fascinated – and at times saddened – by this entire book. I am not anything even close to a scientist and had never heard of Henrietta or the HeLa cells, but now I think that’s a shame. I’m glad Skloot finally got a book published and is setting up a scholarship fund so Henrietta can get the recognition she deserved, even if she’ll never know it.
The book flips between the past and the present, explaining Henrietta’s story and later that of her cells alongside Skloot’s quest to get in contact with the family and then her relationship with each of the individual family members. I read this for a book club and one of the members suggested that Skloot was essentially harassing the family with constant phone calls and visits. While I do think she was especially persistent at the beginning and that wasn’t right, the fact that the family wanted Henrietta’s story told and appreciated the recognition she received for me outweighed the fact that Skloot was pushy in the beginning. I wished that the family could have told Henrietta’s story instead, but the poor state of their education has prevented it all this time. I was pleased to hear, though, that the latest generation is going to college and grad school, so they’ll be moving up in the world.
Skloot really excels at explaining the scientific parts that are scattered throughout this book. I’m not a scientist and I have never really been interested in science, but I was surprised by how fascinating I found the various processes related in here. I was also totally astonished at how unethical the current system is. I had absolutely no idea that doctors are pretty much free to do as they like with discarded human tissue. Some do offer a consent form, but they’re not legally required to do so and it’s perfectly okay for someone else to make money off of my cells without giving a cent to me. I don’t want to hinder medical research but something about that seems very wrong. Henrietta’s family didn’t even have health insurance so they had no access to any of the treatments that their mother’s cells made possible!
This whole book is genuinely fascinating. It’s a completely readable work of narrative non-fiction that brings up a ton of issues about medical science and ethics while telling the story of a woman who should definitely be remembered and commemorated. I very highly recommend The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
I am an Amazon Associate. I purchased this book.
 In the spirit of Sherlock Holmes, David Grann attempts to solve 12 mysteries that have stymied the public and even the police force. He also looks at the nature of obsession, traveling with a scientist who is determined to catch a giant squid, investigating the strange death of a Sherlock Holmes addict, and talking with a family all employed in building New York City’s newest aqueduct. The stories are wide-ranging but are joined by common themes of death, obsession, and madness.
This collection really runs the gamut of interest. Some of the mysteries were absolutely fascinating and occasionally heartbreaking. For example, the Sherlock Holmes obsessive is the first case featured in the book, and not only is the guy’s life story interesting, but his death is genuinely a mystery. And I had no idea about any of New York City’s water problems, let alone the men who actually risk their lives down there to build a new gigantic pipeline (with protests from the very people that this pipe is going to help, no less!). But some of the stories aren’t really mysteries. I had no interest in the white supremacy group that killed people in the prisons, and it didn’t seem like all that much of a mystery to me. Nor did Haiti’s “devil” Toto Constant – and that wasn’t a particularly interesting story, either.
Throughout, the writing is smooth and very readable. Some of the mysteries had me turning the pages quite rapidly to find out the truth. It helps that Grann went to talk to many of the people featured, and it’s clear that he’s been working on the stories in this book for a long time. He definitely brought their situations to life.
For some people, these stories might all be interesting, but I think for most this is a book to pick and choose from. If The Devil and Sherlock Holmes sounds interesting to you now, I guarantee you’ll enjoy several of these well-written accounts.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free from the Amazon Vine program.
 On her search for a harpsichord, Madeline Goold comes across a square piano in an antique sale. While not playable, it’s in surprisingly good condition, and after taking note of its serial number, 10651, she sends it off for repair and decides to find out who owned it. Her search leads to a delightful and sometimes sad history of the Langshaw organists, father and son, as well as of Broadwood pianos in general and the effect the square piano had on music for the English public.
I didn’t expect much from this book, but it really was fascinating. Goold’s 1807 square piano leads her to a goldmine of information. I know very little about the history of the piano, and she comfortably filled in the blanks and provides a great bibliography for further information. I love it when historians use a small detail to examine the wider history, and that’s precisely what Goold does here. She links successfully the buyer of her square piano, Mr. John Langshaw, with the Broadwood family and their history of harpsichord and then piano making, and further expands to cover the transition from harpsichords to fortepianos and what it did to music. All of it was fascinating.
The most interesting section for me was about the Langshaw family. The elder Mr. Langshaw was disabled and thus forced to choose a different career than his father. He chose music and became a moderately successful organist, at least successful enough to educate his children, particularly his oldest son John. John followed in his father’s footsteps to become an organist, but he also had links with London and may have met the Broadwoods, from whom he commissions pianos for clients in his area. She uses copious quotes from letters to establish his history, and as such it’s almost as though I got a peek into his mind. Their family story is not always cheerful, and the piano was probably not even for them, but Goold speculates to some extent in this direction. She acknowledges that we’ll never know the answer because the relevant records have been destroyed, but her ideas are nonetheless intriguing and plausible.
Goold also links the history with well-known composers and even uses comparisons with Jane Austen to demonstrate the importance of the piano. Cheaper pianos meant newly emerging middle class families could buy the basic models, and piano playing became an important skill for young women, even if they were never permitted to play for public audiences. I loved the way she used the piano to explore the entire culture.
I suppose the only thing that keeps this book from being perfect are the few sections in which Goold attempts to fictionalize various aspects of the Langshaws’ life. She’s not a fiction writer and these few sections, italicized to separate them from the main body of the text, make that very clear. I have to say I skipped over them after the first few, because her regular writing is much smoother and the facts were much more interesting for me than her attempts to picture the scenes.
Mr. Langshaw’s Square Piano is a very interesting little book and I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in the history of music or Jane Austen’s England. I had a great time reading it.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free from a publicist for review.
 Communist China’s Long March is famed throughout the country. Children, like the author Sun Shuyun, are taught the story over and over again in school and there are plays and films about it. The author decides to do her own version of the Long March, following in the footsteps of the Red Army and visiting the few remaining veterans along the route, with some diversions for research purposes. Through her journey, she attempts to uncover the truth of what these people endured, and of the Long March itself.
Recently, and somewhat unexpectedly, I have become very interested in China, and this book seemed like a good choice to continue with non-fiction. And it was; I liked it and I learned a surprising amount about The Long March. The author’s experience on her own Long March took a definite backseat to her exploration of the experiences of those she met and her explanations of the historical background. I was pleased with that because this could easily have become about how difficult the trip was for the author, given that it was, but she often emphasized the fact that if she was struggling, how much harder must it have been walking the whole time with threadbare clothes, no food, and no help?
I was most interested in the veterans’ stories, and how even though almost all of them endured horrifying hardships and were later targeted during the Cultural Revolution, most of them were still devoted Communists. I found this hard to believe, given all they suffered in the name of communism, and did wonder if they were genuine, but it’s impossible not to admire their devotion, courage, and resilience, so it’s hard to come out of the book without feeling the same. I felt like each of them were individuals and their stories were each fascinating and sometimes just horrifying. The women’s stories in particular were so affecting and hard to read.
What came out clearly was how difficult the Long March was, and the author did find a kind of truth in comparing the words of the survivors with official records. As she says, definitive answers are hard because documentation was destroyed, and Mao’s version of the Long March has become Chinese history. This is disturbing to me and I was glad she was driven to reveal some of the truth. The author’s surprise at her discoveries is palpable throughout the book. At one point she sees a filmmaker who is also interviewing people about this subject, and he quite blatantly tells her what they’ll have to cut out because it doesn’t fit the official version, even if the stories are true.
Overall, I found The Long March a really fascinating memoir/historical investigation. I would definitely recommend it to those who are interested in learning more about Chinese history.
I am an Amazon Associate. I borrowed this book from my local library.
 What happens when we make a choice? How do we decide which brand of jam we want in the supermarket, or what to do when we’re piloting a crashing plane and have no instructions on how to save the day? Jonah Lehrer takes a look at how we make decisions. He examines which parts of our brains do what and how we fall into traps based on how our brains are constructed. Using clear examples and fascinating, well-documented facts, Lehrer examines how we can use all of our instincts as well as our rational minds to make the best choices for ourselves.
This book was totally and completely fascinating. I didn’t really know what to expect from it except that I’d like to know more about how my brain works. Lehrer seriously delivers on his promise. His book is not too heavy on the science and I’m sure real brain function is a lot more complicated, but he distilled it down into a series of examples and explanations that I could understand and relate to what he was saying. I kept exclaiming over how true various parts were and had to read them aloud to my husband so he could get them too. I also made him read it right after I did because I just found it all so fascinating.
Let me take an example that relates directly to me. In one of the chapters, Lehrer discusses how children are taught and how the education system has it somewhat backwards. Kids are praised for their intelligence, not for their efforts. He cites studies that show that children who are praised for working hard do consistently work hard and take on tougher challenges, while kids who are praised for being smart are so afraid of failing and proving that praise wrong that they choose to do easier tasks in order to maintain their projection of intelligence. Lehrer says that this is wrong because our brain learns by making mistakes – screw up once or twice, and you’ve learned something. If you don’t screw up, you don’t improve. This is so true because all my life, I’d been praised for my intelligence, and once my intelligence didn’t cut it, I felt like a failure, just as he describes. Working hard solved the problem, but I didn’t think that I had to – after all, I was smart. Mistakes are important and that’s not something we learn.
He also explains why gambling is so addictive, why Deal or No Deal is actually a fascinating insight into how the brain works, why political pundits are often wrong (and how some of them manage to be correct), and even helps to explain the credit card debt problem, as apparently our brains have a smaller sense of loss when using plastic than when using cash, so the reward of buying something seems proportionally more important. The endnotes provide plenty of references to the studies he cites, and he looks at real life examples of decision makers who rely on both instinct (their emotional brain) and conscious thought to make choices. He examines when each are important and emphasizes the importance of taking time out to mull on important decisions, as your unconscious brain will be busily figuring out the problem for you.
Mostly, Lehrer encourages us to think, to question our beliefs, understand when we make mistakes, and try to consider everything from all angles. Sometimes it’s best to rely on your feelings, like when you’re choosing jam or playing football, and sometimes it’s best to consider why you feel that way, like when you’re choosing a political party or faced with an out of control forest fire. Overall, The Decisive Moment was compelling reading. I learned so much and I can’t imagine anyone not gaining from this book.
This title is known as How We Decide in the USA. I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free for review from the publisher.
 To my surprise, my copy of 84 Charing Cross Road included The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street as well, so I figured I’d review them both together, as they sort of go together anyway.
In a search for rare books, writer Helene Hanff pens a letter to Marks & Co. booksellers in London, hoping that they’ll have what she so desires. Her initial letter sparks two decades of communication between her and the employees of the bookstore, particularly Frank Doel, who answers that letter and becomes a dear penpal to her. In The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street, Hanff finally makes a trip to London to promote the newly published 84 Charing Cross Road, visiting all the sights which had become familiar to her through the letters and through films.
It was almost inevitable that this book would let me down. My expectations were so, so high, given that this is a book for book lovers and countless people assured me that if I loved The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, I would love this too. And I did, but not as much, which was in itself disappointing. Yes, it is a totally charming and endearing story. I loved when Hanff grew so fond of the London employees that she sent them packages of hard-to-get items just after World War II when everything was still rationed. The time period felt real to me through these people that had lived through it. And of course this is certainly a book for book lovers, as Hanff’s passion for them especially shines through and definitely makes me feel like I should be reading all the books she’d read.
Unfortunately, though, I found Hanff slightly abrasive. She had a strange habit of suddenly writing in lower case, which I just didn’t understand, and she seemed to me very much like a loud American stereotype, particularly in comparison to the more somber British writers. I think I would have preferred more letters, too. There were gaps of years between some of the letters, and clearly there had been some correspondence over those years because they’d reply to one another. I kept feeling like I was missing something, and the book was so short that more letters could have been included easily.
I feel like there’s something wrong with me because I didn’t love this as much as everyone else does. All those five star reviews, everyone saying that book lovers can’t not love this book – well, clearly I should have waited and let my expectations die down a bit! There’s also the fact that the ending was spoiled for me by the back cover, which I almost never read but in this case did. That certainly hurt the book as it robbed me of the true emotional impact it could have had.
It was with a little bit of surprise that I then found myself loving the second book, The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street. I’d hardly heard of this one, as everyone focuses on the first. But here, Hanff actually travels to London, even though she’s just had a hysterectomy and is in considerable pain. Watching her discover London – and England – was like doing it for myself all over again. And if you don’t think I got as excited and moved as she did, just ask my husband, who was there (and confused by me) for most of it!
Is it strange that I related far more to her passion for British history than I did to her passion for books? Because I certainly did. She’s a very different reader than me, and I’m sure that has something to do with it. In any case, there is something magical about a place you’ve read about in history books coming to life, and I could palpably feel her excitement. I know what it’s like to walk along paths I’d previously only dreamed of walking on, places where history that I love happened, where writers that I love wrote, where generations of other people have sat and dreamed and thought and changed the world. It’s awe-inspiring, and that’s what I loved about this book. I can still remember that thrilling first vision of green that was England from my plane window and there Hanff and I turned out to have quite a bit in common after all. And I found her visit to Marks & Co extremely moving – it closes down by the time she finally gets to see it – and her visits with her correspondents were touching and sweet. I liked her a lot better in this second book and I wonder now if I should reread the first with this new perspective.
Both of these books are worth your time. Don’t let expectations get to you and take it as it comes – and DON’T read the back cover!
I am an Amazon Associate. I purchased these books.
 This graphic memoir depicts the childhood of Marjane Satrapi during and after the Islamic Revolution in Iran. She remembers when she first was required to wear a headscarf, when school changed, when she learned the danger of protesting, among many other things in a rapidly changing world. Interspersed with the severity of the revolution is the fact that the author was definitely a child; she was jealous of other people’s fathers because they’d been in prison and become “heroes” with cool stories, for example, and she decides that she wants to be a prophet. With simply drawn black-and-white pictures, this memoir successfully reminds us that people in Iran are still people like us, only living in far different circumstances.
I loved The House of the Mosque, which I read last week, and then Dawn at She is Too Fond of Books recommended this one in a review, and Andrea at Canongate Books left me a comment saying she had this one as well. I’d heard of it before, but this all just seemed like huge incentive to read it now. So naturally, I went to the library and took it out immediately, and it’s so short that I managed to read it the same day.
I really enjoyed it. I felt like Persepolis dealt with tough issues but had that human touch throughout. I appreciated the author’s mission to show us that Iran is more than terrorism and weapons, it’s an ancient culture with real people. It certainly has problems now, but there’s no reason to forget its past and the fact that all the people who live there are not exactly thrilled with their own government. The author, for example, is thrilled when her parents smuggle her modern posters, clothes, and a Michael Jackson button, only for her to get in trouble when women who are more committed to the new government see her in her new jeans and jacket.
I even liked the black-and-white drawings. They’re quite simplistic but Satrapi shows individuality with small touches and conveys emotion with them quite effectively. There is some violence depicted, but it’s not realistic enough to bother anyone, just enough to show that it must have been horrible.
Overall, Persepolis is a book I’d definitely recommend. It’s a fast and even enjoyable read that really touches on important – even essential – issues about the world today. I’m definitely interested in reading its sequel and hope my library has that one, too.
I am an Amazon Associate. I borrowed this book from my local library.
 From the back cover:
The Big Switch, Nicholas Carr’s best-selling look at the new computer revolution, makes a simple and profound statement: Computing is turning into a utility, and the effects of this transition will ultimately change society as completely as the advent of cheap electricity did. From the software business to the newspaper business, from job creation to community formation, from national defense to personal identity, The Big Switch provides a panoramic view of the new world being conjured from the circuits of the “World Wide Computer.”
This is a fascinating, and terrifying book. Anyone who blogs, and probably anyone who reads this blog, really should be reading it. Carr first outlines what computing as a utility really means. He explores the difference that our newest essential utility – electricity – had on our lives, and then extrapolates what happened there to computing and the internet, which has become an essential part of almost everyone’s life in the United States and in many other countries. I really enjoyed these historical sections and I felt like Carr laid everything out clearly enough to make fairly boring subjects sound really exciting and relevant. He makes it really clear that the development of electricity only seems linear in hindsight, and so we cannot really expect the development of the internet to seem the same way at the moment, or expect that all wild predictions about it will eventually come true.
Carr uses the second half of the book to explore what widespread use of the internet has done to society. He attempts to show that rather than widening our horizons, the internet narrows them as we can be more and more specific about who we associate with, what we look for, and what we contribute to. He cites an experiment which showed that even if people had only a mild preference to live around one or two people like them, they ended up with a neighborhood split between different races. He extrapolates this to the internet and it definitely had me thinking about the many splits in the blogosphere. There are definitely splits between just book bloggers, let alone the many other “types” of bloggers out there, so his analogy obviously isn’t far off. He also demonstrates how the great deal of culture happening on the internet for free is seriously degrading jobs, yet another event that has actually come to pass more so than when the book was written. People will now happily research, write articles, and make videos, among other things, and distribute their results for absolutely nothing, all taking away paid jobs. Another aspect of this was how few people are required to run businesses through the internet. There is a guy who runs a dating website in Canada all by himself, earning thousands per day. He shows how the internet is becoming essential and inevitable to our lives, and then how it’s already changing everything. He doesn’t offer any solutions to what he clearly is casting as a problem, but as he demonstrates how wrong predictions have been in the past, it would be almost hypocritical of him to suggest what should be done.
I don’t want to go into more of this book because it truly is fascinating and scary in many ways. As someone who uses the internet daily and often for hours, its relevance to my own activities was quite startling. I read this one for The Newsweek 50 Books for Our Times reading project hosted by My Friend Amy, and seriously, it is worthy of its spot on that list. This is very appropriate for our time. Of course, I suspect it will become outdated because not everything will happen as Carr implies, but The Big Switch is a thoughtful, absorbing, and somewhat terrifying read for 2009, and for 2010.
I am an Amazon Associate. I purchased this book.
 In this hilarious book about the science of sex, Mary Roach takes a broad look at all the sex researchers who have put their reputations on the line to study something derided by others. She mainly focuses on the last hundred years, discussing such sensitive topics as the female orgasm, male impotence, and animal sexuality with more than a touch of humor that makes this book a surprisingly quick and amusing read, with some information tucked in where no one would ever suspect it.
I have heard a lot about Mary Roach, mostly good. I’m not sure how comfortable I am with her other two books, so I decided to start with this one, especially given that my library had it. I definitely didn’t make a mistake there. This book was constantly laugh-out-loud funny. I was trying to get it read fairly quickly as someone else had placed a hold on it at the library by the time I tried to renew it, so I sat and read it straight through in one solid blast of information. I did not expect it to be so funny. Sex definitely can carry awkwardness, anyone who remembers sixth-grade health class knows that, but Roach turns it around and makes that awkwardness funny, especially when she comments on the roundabout ways the scientists used to describe it in their papers in order to justify their research.
I also found the book to be very informative. This is, after all, non-fiction, and packed with facts about sex. It may be funny and easy to read, but it delivers what is essentially a history and summation of sex research, broken up into categories which are chosen for maximum interest and amusement potential. Most of this information isn’t exactly useful, but it’s certainly not going to be found anywhere else.
Even the way Roach carries out her research is made to be amusing. She writes about the difficulties of figuring out what these scientists actually did, given that she can’t get their videos or equipment, of talking to current researchers, and even of using herself and her husband as subjects in a study. She’s so up front and frank about these things that it’s impossible to feel uncomfortable even when she’s describing being naked in an MRI machine. She travels around the world in aid of her research and must have garnered herself quite a reputation, but part of this book’s aim seems to show us that this is a perfectly valid and interesting research field. It’s awkward, but there is certainly work to be done, and the results are surprisingly worthy.
In my opinion, Bonk is definitely the way popular non-fiction should be done. Funny, light-hearted, but still factual and informative. I definitely recommend this book. Even if the subjects of Spook and Stiff make me somewhat uncomfortable, I’ll probably look into them anyway just because I enjoyed this one so much.
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