My Brain On Books XXXVII - Reverse Thon

   

 

I am reading for The Office of Letters and Lights the folks who bring us NaNoWriMo today as I love what they are doing for literacy with their Young Writer's Programs and because I've participated in NaNo every year since 2004.  I have been blessed to have it in my life and would like to give something back if only kudos and link love.  I'm putting this plug at the top in hopes some who stop by will check out their site and see all the great things they do to foster love of reading and writing and story in kids. 

This post will be organized like a blog inside a blog with recent updates stacked atop previous ones. I may be posting some updates on Twitter @Joystory and the Joystory fb fanpage. But this is where I do anything more than a line or two.  Including mini-challenges that don't require a separate post..   

Be sure and see my tribute poem to Dewey and the Thon she birthed at the bottom of this post

My new folding camper rocker which will be an integral part of thons from now on.

4:44 PM (Saturday) Wrap up

So I lost about 5 hours to sleep and another one or two to post sleep confusion but still I read in a total of 14 books in the last 24 hours.  5 in the first 12 hours and another 9 in the last 5 hours.

The following are the 9 from today:

Attack from Within

by Barbara McQuade

A breakdown on the use of disinformation, misinformation and propaganda in the media and politics.  Explains how to identify it and guard your mind against it's influence.  Analyses it's danger to democracy because of it's effect of muddying the waters of political discourse so that citizens are so polarized they can no longer communicate effectively across the divide due to there no longer being any agreement on what a fact.  McQuade also talks about how the current business model of media makes them complicit in the creation and perpetuation of this confusion

Medgar ad Myrlie

by Joy-Ann Reid

The story of Black rights activist Medgar Evers and his wife Myrlie who carried on his cause after his assassination.  It is an education in the history of the issues as well as a love story ad a portrait in courage.  Two portraits--unless Megar and Myrlie are both in the same frame.

The Chapter

by Nicholas Dames

A natural history of The Chapter as a literary and editorial device from antiquity to today.  The most interesting take away is how chapter division has come to create a sensation of time in our minds as we read.  And from there becomes the ubiquitous metaphor that trips off all our tongues: I'm starting a new chapter in my life.

Surprised by Oxford

by Carolyn Weber

A memoir about a young Canadian woman who went to Oxford to study Romantic Literature and there encountered the Gospel and enough compelling arguments in its favor that over the next several years she became convinced and committed to Christianity.  I still like this theme on two counts  One I never got to experience conversion since I was born into it and why does a fish need to be converted into believing doctrines about the necessity of water?  Two I'm still looking for my own Christian tribe as I still identify as Christian even tho 90% of the Christians I've personally encountered in my life would challenge me on that assumption.  When I think the thot, I'm a Christian in my head I always include a caveat.  Like:

• I'm a Christian but I'm not a bully
• I'm a Christian but I don't believe I have a right to force you to be one.
• I'm a Christian but I would still befriend a _______ without feeling the need to proselytize them
• I'm a Christian but won't go to church until I find one that will accept me just the way I am
• I'm a Christian but I'm also a feminist
• I'm a Christian but I don't believe in the inerrancy of scripture as that would define the God of the Old Testament as a genocidal malignant narcissist. 
  
• I'm a Christian but I don't believe in hell as that makes an oxymoron out of the phrase Loving Father.
• I'm a Christian but I trust the scientific method more than the 3000 year old sacred texts
• I'm a Christian but I won't let anyone whether from the pulpit, the government or my family tell me what I can or cannot read, listen to, watch, play, or love. I would even dance if I knew how.
• I'm a Christian but I'm a progressive liberal because my moral code is not defined by the ten commandments but by the Fruits of the Spirit: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Mercy, Temperance

So I still read memoirs like this and Christian apologetic along with the sacred texts of many other religions and their apologetics.

White Trash

by Nancy Isenberg

An intense investigation into the history of class in America and how it is perpetuated by policy and prejudice.  It is a stain on our national character as dark as that of slavery and yet another way in which our ideals as defined in the Constitution have not been fully realized.  our 'more perfect union' is still a work in progress but we can't make progress if we do not adequately define the problem.

Our Enemies Will Vanish

by Yaroslav Trofimov

Trofimov is an investigative reporter on the ground in Ukraine since the beginning of the war.  This is an eyewitness account of the first year of the current conflict.

Nine Black Robes

by Joan Biskupic

A narrative of the Supreme Court of the last decades as it swung inexorably to the right, focusing especially on the impact of the Trump era and how those changes reverberate into the future casting their shadow over and shackling even the present progressive leaning administration.

The Persuaders:

At the Front Lines of the Fight

 for Hearts, Minds, and Democracy

by Anand Giridharadas

Talks about the need for the art of persuasion for activists, politicians, educators and everyday citizens fighting for democracy in an era of polarization ruled by disinformation and rigid tribal thinking.  Giridharadas focuses especially on the propensity of individuals to just write off those who disagree with them when what is needed is more inclusion not less.  So how do you persuade without being a bully?  How to you contend with the disinformation that has formed the opinions you are trying to change?  How do you make human connection with those who have been primed to see you as the enemy?

Project 2025: Mandate for Leadership

by The Heritage Foundation

It touts itself as 'a comprehensive policy guide for the next conservative U.S. president' and brags that their previous editions were used for the first 100 days agendas in the administrations of Reagan, both Bushes and Trump. 

I don't have the stomach right now to describe what I'm seeing in here.  It gives me nightmares.  Google and read it for yourself.  Free copies are easy to find as well as free synopsis.  And finally in the last two weeks there has begun to be serious media coverage including influencers on social media.

12:22 PM (Saturday) Just Ugh

I'm not sure when I fell asleep exactly but my best estimate is between 4 and 5 AM.  I was counting on my 8:44 AM alarm to wake me but I forgot it doesn't go off on weekends.  Then I got woke by the doorbell at 10:30.  It was a registered letter from the State.  Due to an administrative error they have overpaid me on food stamps for over a year and now going forward will take back the overpayment from the lesser amount (assuming I continue to qualify for food stamps) at the rate of $10 a month for however long it takes to get back their $1400 and change.

It has taken me two hours to process this info and the range of emotions it triggered: fear and shame being the primary.  I guess there is some anger too but anger is a tricky emotion for me to recognize and process.  It was taboo in my upbringing so it tends to feed back into the fear and shame cycle.  Which feeds the anxiety and depression. Which makes focus on anything else hard.

I guess it is too bad I don't owe the state half a billion dollars in unpaid taxes as then I might be eligible to run for president.  

Ha.  That's snark!  That's not typical for someone on the spectrum.  Huh.  I used to be completely clueless with irony, satire and snark.  But I recognize that as some of that anger peeking around the corner.

This is probably inappropriate content for a read-a-thon post.  But it is part of my experience of the thon today.  I'm hoping that posting this will help me let go of the whirl of emotions and get back to reading for the 4 hours left of the thon.  It's not like there is much evidence of anyone seeing this anyway.

I know I said in the previous update that I'd have more to say about Familiaris today but I think I'll save it for an actual review after I finish the book.  I'd loose another hour of the thon to gather my thots.

Hmm.  I think I'll let the Kindle robot read to me while I fix and eat something as I've not eaten for close to twelve hours.  Unless the cream in my coffee counts.

12:34 AM (Saturday) - Just now about to post the 9:44 update

Familiaris

by David Wrobleski

I need to grab a high protein snack and maybe some caffeine and then I'm going to reward myself with a long immersive read in Familiaris by David Wrobleski.  But since I had only 5 hours sleep last night, chances are high I'll have to sleep before dawn and if that sleep catches me while reading I may have to wait until I wake to have anything coherent to say about it.  Tho I can say this much: this story lives up to the standard set by Wrobleski's first book, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle.  This one is a prequel, telling the story of the founding of the family dog breeding farm and the creation of the special breed featured in Edgar's story.  There are mystical elements maybe even magical realism involved.  It begins just after WWI and I believe continues on to at least the beginning of WWII.  But I'm not sure as I've not peeked ahead.  I'm already 50% in on this nearly 900 page tome.  I could easily spend the rest of the thon trying to finish it but I'm also being called by all the titles on my Libby shelves (nearly 20) and also the borrowed via KU and Prime on my Kindle (another 30) and dipping into as many books as I can in a single day is one of my fav things to do and is also one metric I can still compete in during thons.

9:44 PM - First session dip into 4 NF

The Injustice of Place
by Kathryn J. Edin, H. Luke Shaefer, Timothy J. Nelson

An examination of the root causes of poverty in America, tracing the cause and effect back centuries in some areas.  A few of them: cronyism, nepotism and outright corruption between local property and business owners and local office holders; embezzlement of public funds into the pockets by office holders and their family and friends often under the rubric of 'privatization' which is really siphoning off the public funds (local, state and federal) into local business and nonprofit claiming to provide the service the funds were meant for but really over 50% of the funds end up in the pockets of those running the organizations; stripping and or poisoning local resources including timber, minerals, soil and labor by non-local corporations sweeping in to build factories and other infrastructure at public expense with the promise of economic growth for generations only to abandon the community built around their business only a few decades later with degraded soil, water, air and a sickened population. 

American Idolatry

by Andrew L. Whitehead

An examination of the Christian Nationalism movement that now has the Republican party in its thrall.  Whitehead identifies three core beliefs of this movement that he believes conflict with the core message of the gospel: The wish and willingness to use power fear and violence to impose their doctrinal beliefs on everyone including their obsession to 'return' America to the Christian identity they claim the founding fathers created. Which is just objectively false based on the Constitution forbidding the establishment of an official religion at any level of government from federal to state to local. Several of the colonies had to rewrite their own local constitutions and by laws after the Revolution in order to be accepted into the Union.  The Boston Puritans anyone?

This is a topic that I've been reading obsessively in for decades.  Ever since I escaped the cult I was raised in in the 90s and shortly thereafter discovered the existence of this concerted effort on the part of powerful religious organizations and uber wealthy individuals to remake the entire nation into something resembling the cult I was raised in.  I've shied away from sharing my thots on this issue here (except for some of my personal story around losing my faith family) but this thon post will contain the opening salvos of my foray into sharing what I've learned about this movement and how close they are to reaching their goals and what that would likely mean for citizens lives going forward.

If you think this is hyperbole Google Project 2025 A Mandate for Leadership and read a synopsis if not the whole 900 page document from the Heritage Foundation which is their blueprint for how they will run every single government agency according to their version of biblical principles.  It is on my 'stack' for the thon (loaded on my Kindle) so I hope to share some thoughts about it before tomorrow evening.

Based on my personal experience with the sect I was raised in I know the viciousness of doctrinal disputes when only words and excommunication from the community are the available weapons. Our sect imploded on itself only two generations after it was founded.  We believed ourselves to be one big happy family. Or at least I believed that until I was 35. It took less than two decades to destroy, leaving behind a devastation of hundreds of intermarried families whose wives and children were forced to stand on the side their husband was on and forbidden to associate with any extended family members whose male head of household was on the other side.  That included my mother and her twin sister! But it was especially hard for the young children suddenly bereft of beloved relatives and friends.

I remember thinking at the time how fortunate it was that the Brethren did not have the power of Law or lethal weapons to enforce their rigid beliefs.  Project 2025 intends to have both.

Still not worried?  How will you feel when they close the libraries or pull all the books off the shelves that offend their 'Christian' sensitivities and replace them with material they approve of?  They are already experimenting at the local level all over the country by disrupting the meetings with obnoxious protestors wherever library funding or textbooks are being discussed for city, county or school libraries and where those with this agenda have achieved office they are already implementing some of it. (ie Governor Santis in Florida).

OK I guess I took this a little too far into the personal for a 'review' or 'synopsis' but that has always been hard for me to do--sound objective about whatever it is I'm reviewing.  I tend to have a passionate investment in nearly every book on my TBR or currently reading lists.  I think my attempt to dampen that passion for fear of offending is why I stopped reviewing and then let my blog lapse.  Because so much of what I really want to say on any topic I'm interested in doesn't feel safe.

We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I

by Raja Shehadeh

A portrait of a father/son relationship between activists for Palestinian rights under first British rule then Jordan and then Israel.  They seem to have the same passion but different ideas on how to achieve it.  Their personality styles clash and they communicate without listening.  So it wasn't until is father's murder in 1985 that Raja begins to learn who his father really was.

In telling this poignant story about their relationship, Shehadeh also explores the history of the Palestinian experience since WWII.  The focus seems to be more on the West Bank than elsewhere in Israel.  But I can't be sure since I'm only 2 chapters in.  It's a short book so I might finish it by thon end.

Secret Harvests

by David Mas Masumoto

A phone call alerts Masumoto, a peach grower in California, that his mother's 90 some year old aunt is still alive but in hospice in the institution her family had committed her to around the time of the WWII Japanese Internment camps.  He'd known his mother had a sister but he'd been led to believe she had died during the war though how had been left vague.  Family whispers said of her she had been off, some went so far as to say 'retarded'.  So this memoir is Masumoto's exploration into the double discrimination inflicted on his aunt (racial and disability) and how learning this family secret led him to explore his identity as a Japanese American and farmer and what motivated his family to continue to build their legacy in a land that did not want them.

Discrimination and the trauma it inflicts is one of my passions.  Another is ethnically diverse (from me) cultures from memoirs to novels to histories.  This is another short book that I just might finish before 5pm tomorrow.  Oh wait a minute.  Today!  I've spent three hours on this update so it is past midnight already.

6:00 PM - Almost ready to read

Didn't get this post prepped before my caregiver arrived this afternoon so had to wait until she left.  Way too busy going shopping for thon food, visiting my 93 year old Mom and then putting away refer and fridge food.  Then I had to prep this post including editing the intro meme, setting up the photo shoot and now this but at least the set up serves double duty as that's where I'm headed as soon as I drop my link over on the Dewey hub.  I forgot to sign up so no one will know I'm participating if i don't do that.

My first book will be Injustice of Place by Kathryn J. Edin and two others.  I'm starting there because it is a Libby book that is due in three hours and I want to read another chapter before trying to renew.

5:00 PM - Intro Meme

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?

Kelso Washington USA.  Across the Cowlitz river from Longview where I grew up and had been living with my elderly mother between January 2013 and late July 2021.  I moved into my 400 square foot efficiency unit in late July 2021.  This  post was a photo essay of my new space.

So this is my ninth thon in my own home, counting the Reverse Thons in August 2021 & 2023.

2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?

Non-Fiction: American Idolatry by Andrew L. Whitehead

Fiction: Familiaris by David Wrobleski (am about 50% in on this 900 page book)

3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?

Savory: Jalapeno Poppers

Sweet: chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich

4) Tell us a little something about yourself!

• Widowed September 2020  It still smarts at unexpected moments.  But at least it is usually only once or twice a month now instead of constantly.  
• Began iving alone for the first time ever three years ago this month. Sometime in the last few months it began to feel like home.
• Legally blind with RP aka tunnel vision.  Have only a sliver of vision left in center of right eye.  The rest is shadows and shimmers.
• Have struggled with mood disorder of Anxiety and Depression and insomnia since grade school
• Diagnosed with high functioning autism in 2015.  In my 50s!
• Have a caregiver who comes in five days a week to help with chores and errands I can't do alone. 
• I proved during this move that I have more volume in fiber art supplies than in clothes by at least thee times.
• I probably have double the volume of clothes in tree-books but since I still haven't got them all moved over I can't be sure.

5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?

This is my 37th thon so there aren't many variations I haven't tried. 

Right off the bat I'm starting with a sleep deficit so I'm probably going to have to catch some sleep at some point.  Which makes me pout cz doing the 24 hour used to be my super power and it is the only metric I excel in anymore with both vision and hearing issue challenges making it impossible to rack up impressive numbers of pages or books finished.

Oh but I can rack up impressive numbers of books opened in 24 hours.  Especially with non fic.  I prefer to read one chapter of NF and set it aside for another for several hours and then spend several hours immersed in a novel.

Besides my devices loaded with ebooks, I have checked out books on CD from the library and hope to crochet while I listen.

The weather is perfect for venturing outside to sit on my front porch in my new folding rocker.  Or even walk to the Gazebo across the courtyard.  My caregiver helped me practice for months last year to make that walk with just my cane and I finally 'graduated' last August.  So now I'm not such a shut-in that I can't take three steps after letting go of the door handle or porch post without panicking.

Doing anything but especially reading or writing for a full 24 hours used to be my superpower but not so much anymore.  Now that I'm in my mid sixties the price I pay for that self abuse is significant as all my systems are less forgiving. 

Ah but the ONE thing that I could do different that could make a lot of difference in the quality of the experience is to do a better job than in the past of staying hydrated and getting up to move regularly.

Ode to Dewey

by Joy Renee

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