Book 72: Call the Midwife: Shadows of the Workhouse

I was looking for something a little lighter to read one night, and found this. Well, it wasn't particularly light, since the workhouse and grinding poverty aren't very fluffy.



But still, I really enjoyed it! The stories are remarkable--it wasn't that long ago that all these grim things happened.

Book 71: Juggling Twins

Not many people are going to find this applicable, but I have been reading a few twin books.



This one was ok. The first chapters were helpful, dealing with feeding and routines for two tiny babies at once. Later chapters didn't seem so helpful for me, since this is not my first rodeo, as they say.

Book 70: Tomatoland

According to this book, if you've eaten a tomato in winter, or one at a fast food joint, you've eaten a tomato grown and picked by slave labor. And here's the thing: it probably didn't even taste good.



This book is about what it takes to grow tomatoes year-round for the U.S. market and what the consequences of that are for worker health, worker rights, and the environment.

Book 69: Alone Together

This was a fascinating exploration of robots (I know, that sounds kind of silly) and networks and how they affect us.



I don't encounter very many robots in my day-to-day existence, particularly not those that are trying to appear human. But the author describes a robotic baby seal named Paro that is being marketed to nursing homes as a companion for the elderly. Other robotic toys like My Real Baby have been used in similar situations. The author expresses some concern that we are shortchanging ourselves and our elders by thinking we are actually having relationships with robots. One of the most enlightening quotes in this section comes from a child who says of these robotic companions, "Don't we have people for these jobs?" (Well, yes, we probably do, Susie, but we don't value those jobs enough to pay people very well for them, and they are generally overworked and quite low status. So Grandma will have to talk to a cute robotic seal instead of having a relationship with a reasonably-paid, not-overworked human caregiver.)

The more interesting section of the book was the second, about networking and social media and how we use it to mediate our relationships. This I can (sadly) relate to: we have many superficial relationships that we tune into and out of as it is convenient for us.

Book 68: Escape

I have this morbid fascination with polygamy--I often have dreams (nightmares?) about polygamy, and yet I am still interested in learning more about it.



This book was more disturbing than I expected. The brutality toward women and children in the community is very upsetting. I was also honestly surprised at how different the FLDS doctrine seems to be from LDS teachings. I definitely knew the two groups were different, but I had no idea just how different we were.

Some have criticized Carolyn Jessop, saying that her experience was not the norm and her family was more violent and disfunctional than the rest of the community. This probably means I'll have to read more about the FLDS to be able to get a more complete picture.

Book 67: The Good Life Lab

I thought this would be so interesting: a book about a couple who went off-grid and learned to make stuff out of the waste stream. I was hoping for something like No Impact Man, and the author does mention Colin Beavan's book, but her reading of it was so different from mine that I was frustrated and puzzled.



Unfortunately, The Good Life Lab was just kind of weird and nonspecific. For instance, the author describes how her partner desulfates dead batteries so that they can still be used. But what kind of batteries does this work for? (My in-house engineer tells me it only works for lead-acid batteries, not your average household rechargeable battery.)

There were some aspects of the book that I liked, and the illustrations were nifty (though not that easy to appreciate in ebook format). But overall, I felt kind of "huh?" about the whole thing.

Book 66: Chains

This was a book club pick, and I actually read it!



It's a young adult title, and I liked it quite a lot--for a young adult book. It moved quickly, it didn't have too much annoyingly obvious exposition, and the characters and story were interesting.

Book 65: Orange is the New Black

I decided to try this book out, even though I was a little put off by the fact that there is a Netflix series by the same name (and somewhat based on the book).



I found it a really interesting examination of how our actions affect others, how people change and grow (or don't), how very different women build a community, and how the penal system sometimes makes no sense at all. There's some deep thought in the book, as well as interesting characters of all types.

After reading, I gave the Netflix series a couple of minutes to see if it was as good. Um, no. Definitely not my kind of viewing. A memoir cannot easily be made into a popular TV show--at least not one that I would want to watch.

Book 64: Alignment Matters

You might have heard me talk about minimal shoes or body alignment. If you know me in person, you have probably noticed my footwear over the last year and a half!

This is the "why" of it all:




This book is taken from Katy's blog, Katy Says. I have read most of Katy's blog before, but reading it in all in a few sittings, organized by topic, made a lot of things clearer than they had been before, and motivated me to keep working on my body. There is much, much more I should be doing, but what I have been doing has kept me feeling really great during this unusual pregnancy I'm having. My back and hips feel better than I did throughout my last pregnancy, which is a small miracle, considering that I am 3 years older and am carrying two babies instead of one. Yes, that's right: I am pregnant with twins.

I really think almost everyone I know could benefit from Katy's work. There's a bad alignment epidemic out there, folks: people thrusting their ribs, tucking their pelves, lumbering instead of walking, and suffering from foot, hip, knee, back, neck, and shoulder pain.