Staff Review: Inside the O’Briens by Lisa Genova

Inside the O’Briens

by Lisa Genova

In this book, author and neuroscientist Lisa Genova once again invites us into the lives of a family dealing with a neurological disease. Her previous books have given readers insight into Alzheimer’s Disease (Still Alice), autism (Love Anthony) and Left Neglect (Left Neglected). Rather than a laundry list of symptoms and medical-speak, though, she always gives us characters you come to care about and relate to, and shows you what the impact is not only on the sufferer, but the family as well.

This time, it’s Huntington’s Disease, and it has a devastating effect on the O’Brien family. Joe, the father and husband, is a Boston cop with 25 years of service, a loving wife and four grown kids who all still live at home with them. What he initially dismisses as a bad knee, random twitches and normal outbursts of anger turns out to be Huntington’s Disease.

While it’s a crushing blow for Joe and his wife, Rosie, to accept the fact that he is facing only about 10 more years to live and an agonizing death, it’s overwhelming when they’re told that each of their four children might have the genetic marker for the disease. You wouldn’t think it’s possible to compound this kind of pain, but on the night they finally decide to tell their children about Joe’s diagnosis, they find out that their oldest son and his wife are expecting a baby — a baby who well might end up with HD if the father, JJ, has inherited it from Joe.

The four children are left with the dilemma of getting a test to see if they are gene positive for Huntington’s or living with uncertainty. As they each struggle in their own ways, Joe’s symptoms progress to the point of being so noticeable that he has to leave the police force — a tremendous blow for a man for whom the uniform and badge are a part of his very being. Rosie is being her usual selfless and supportive self, while internally struggling with the possibility of losing every member of her family to Huntington’s. It tests her strength and her faith.

The emotions are raw and real in this book, as a family deals with bottom-line issues. Lisa Genova has done it again.

– review by Deborah

Staff Review: Walt Disney and the Promise of Progress City by Sam Gennawey

Don’t forget, our Disney Book Club will be meeting this upcoming Wednesday, April 1st, at 6:30pm to discuss Walt Disney and the Promise of Progress City. Please come and join us. Whether you’ve read the book before or just want to know more about Walt Disney, it’ll be a fun and entertaining evening for you. For more details, visit our ‘Upcoming Events’ page or visit the event’s page on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/events/434000056765860/

Walt Disney and the Promise of Progress City
by Sam Gennawey

In the months before his death, Walt Disney unveiled his plans for an Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (called EPCOT for short), a centrally planned city that utilized the latest technological innovations to create a new kind of urban center. Developing a city may seem far-fetched for a man best known for his innovations in animation, but author Sam Gennawey traces Disney’s interest in urban planning and designing public spaces from its roots in his backyard steam train and the design of his Burbank Studio all the way through to Disneyland and beyond. Along the way, the reader is introduced to failed projects, like a proposed ski resort, as well as the successes. Walt Disney died before his proposed city could be built, but Gennawey extrapolates what may have in Florida today had Disney’s plan been carried out as he envisioned it.

I found this book to be absolutely fascinating and eye-opening. As a frequent visitor to Disneyland, I’m very familiar with Main Street USA, the “land” at the entrance to the park. It has an old-timey, classic appeal and as you walk down the street, toward the Sleeping Beauty Castle, it’s a comforting and calming experience. Sam Gennawey explains many of the architectural tricks and cues that help create this experience for guests, and as I read I found a new appreciation for the care and attention to detail that Disney and his Imagineers devoted to the appearance and layout of the buildings. As Gennawey continued to other areas of the park, I mentally followed in his footsteps. He also talks about some of the innovations Disney brought to his theme park, like the dedication to preventing litter and maintaining the appearance of the buildings, and how his ideas spread to other parks and eventually became standard practice.

I also loved reading about lesser-known Disney projects. We’re all familiar with the phenomenal success of Disneyland, but I’ve only heard of his proposed Mineral King project in footnotes or asides. It was a proposed ski resort, to be located near Sequoia National Park in the Sierra Nevada mountain range. I hesitate to call it “Disneyland in the mountains” but in many ways that’s exactly what was planned. The resort was to be an entertainment destination, with wilderness lectures, outdoor activities, restaurants, a conference center, and planned ‘attractions’ similar to the ones at Disneyland. The project was eventually shut down by the United States Forest Service after protests and a lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club. As a Disney fan, I’m so curious about what Mineral King would have been like, but as a Sierra Club member I’m also horrified at the thought of the impact of the described resort on the environment just outside one of the most beautiful parks in California. It would have been interesting, but I’m glad the decision was made not to go with the Disney proposal.

Of course, most of the book is devoted to EPCOT. I really enjoyed Sam Gennawey’s projection of what EPCOT would look like if it had been completed; it’s a great thought exercise that showcases Disney’s creativity and his forward-thinking. I certainly enjoy the EPCOT theme park and what it offers today, but neither it nor the Disney city of Celebration really encapsulates Disney’s vision. Anyone who has enjoyed walking around Disneyland or the Magic Kingdom, admiring the architecture and the themed lands, will learn a lot from this book. Those who are curious about the urban planning and want to explore a centrally-planned city will also find it difficult to put this book down.

– Review by Suzi

Staff Review: Egg and Spoon by Gregory Maguire

Egg and Spoon
by Gregory Maguire

In a desperately impoverished village, Elena Rudina struggles to feed her sick mother. Her father is dead; her brothers driven away by poverty and the demands of the Tsar. With no food and allies trapped in the same pathetic position, Elena has little to hope for. Then a train breaks down in town, and Elena catches the attention of Ekaterina – “Cat” for short – a wealthy girl being brought by her great aunt to the Tsar’s grand ball. After a sudden accident, the two girls find their roles reversed. Elena impersonates Cat and settles into a life of luxury while the former princess struggles through the rough life of a Russian peasant child. Events are thrown into further chaos when Cat stumbles across the lair of Baba Yaga and they discover that one of Russia’s great magical beings, the Firebird, has gone missing. This disaster threatens to unravel Russia and unseat the Tsar if they cannot locate and restore the missing bird, setting in motion a great quest that will either save Russia or destroy the world.

Combining The Prince and the Pauper with traditional Russian folklore, Gregory Maguire crafts a modernist fairy tale immersed in the weight and beauty of Russia tradition. This world is one where a house can walk on chicken feet, an enormous dragon sleeps trapped in ice, and matryoshka dolls come to life to dance with toy soldiers. The trademark lyricism and precision of word choice that characterizes his writing is in full force, and it suits the fairy tale atmosphere very, very well. The only nod to modernity is the wise-cracking Baba Yaga, who exists out of sync with time and constantly slips anachronistic slang into her speech. She’s a bit weird and unhinged, but would you want her any other way? Of course not.

The story is narrated by a monk, imprisoned by the Tsar for a crime left unrevealed until near the end of the novel. He makes little side comments and observations to the reader, comparing the lives of Elena and Cat to traditional Russian folklore and his own life experiences. It doesn’t add much flavor or character to the narrative. No, the monk’s asides merely slow the pacing in key scenes in a manner distracting rather than dramatic.

Still, it’s a decent adventure story. I enjoyed it far more than Maguire’s famous Wicked series. The two girls are very realistic, created with the prejudices and attitudes appropriate to their class and then forced to grow beyond their normal boundaries. Baba Yaga is always entertaining, and her magical world melds so seamlessly in the wild Russian woods with the “real” world that you do end up believing, if only for a few minutes, in ice dragons and firebirds.

– Review by Suzi

Staff Review: Think Like a Freak by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner

Think Like a Freak

by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner

Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, the two authors of Freakonomics and Superfreakonomics return for a third book, this time offering to help readers retrain their brain to “think like a Freak” – in other words, to apply critical thinking to every day life. Whether you need to fix a small problem in your day-to-day routine or initiate a global revolution, Levitt and Dubner have created a short list of steps to thinking like a Freak. Each step is accompanied by a story or two illustrating the point, introducing readers to a Japanese eating contest champion, a doctor who drank a concoction laced with bacteria to induce ulcers and pave the way to finding a cure, and why obviously fake scams like Nigerian e-mail campaigns still make money for the scammers.

Some of the rules in Thinking Like a Freak include:
– Put away your moral compass (so you can see the problem clearly)
– Learn to say “I don’t know”
– Think like a child
– Take a master class in incentives
– Learn to persuade people who don’t want to be persuaded
– Learn to appreciate the upside of quitting

Some of these rules seem pretty obvious: if you never say ‘I don’t know’, you’ll never learn, right? (At least, that’s what my dad always says.) Other rules fly in the face of business culture: feeling free to quit flies in the face of the American “stick it out” attitude. Some rules come with a caveat or two. ‘Think like a child’ does not mean ‘act like a child’. But in each chapter, as each one of these rules is explored in detail, a new way of thinking and tackling problems emerges in such a way that anyone can apply it to their lives.

I’m not an economics person. I took both a macro and a micro class in college and barely made it through. Think Like a Freak isn’t at all like those economics textbooks I struggled through. Freak‘s stories incredibly entertaining and interesting because the focus is not on number-crunching, but on the stories behind the numbers. Reading about how competitive eater Kobayashi figured out how to eat hot dogs more efficiently so that he could smash the world record is fascinating, while learning about the clever way that the charity Smile Trains was able to smash through their fundraising goals through a campaign that promised to stop future mailings really changes how I would approach fundraising in the future.

This was the first Freakonomics book I read, and I enjoyed it so much that I immediately went out and got the two previous volumes, and I’ve been listening to the podcast every week. It’s definitely worth checking out, whether you’re new to Levitt and Dubner or a long time fan.

– Review by Suzi

Staff Review: Empress Dowager Cixi by Jung Chang

Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China

by Jung Chang

Selected as an imperial concubine as a teenager, Cixi was initially just another beautiful woman at the court of the Chinese emperor. But when she gave birth to a son, the future heir to the throne, she quickly grew in power and influence. When the Emperor died, and her son was just five years old, Cixi shared the title of Dowager Empress with the wife of her former lord. The two women, Dowager Empress Cixi and Dowager Empress Ci’an, ousted the regents appointed to rule for their son, and in a remarkable partnership the two empresses ruled through the Tongzhi and Guangxu Emperors’ regencies.

Dowager Empress Cixi became the dominant political power, and through her new role she confronted the problems posed to China by the increasing political influence of Western powers. Through compromise and careful diplomacy, Cixi worked with diplomats and her vast Chinese bureaucracy to modernize China. During her remarkable forty-seven year reign, Cixi worked tirelessly to bring her army and navy up to date with current technology, outlawed foot-binding, and tried to pave the way toward a constitutional monarchy.

I have previously enjoyed a fictional account of the life of Empress Cixi in Pearl Buck’s Imperial Woman. The story introduced me to this extremely unusual, intriguing woman, and I wanted to know how much of the story was true. It seemed impossible that a woman could have really managed the affairs of China for nearly fifty years.

This biography is fascinating. Jung Chang seeks to rehabilitate the Empress past her Western reputation as an aged dragon upon the throne. I mean, she doesn’t transform Cixi into a benevolent, enlightened, democratic ruler – nothing crazy like that! – Chang simply provides much of the context that explains how Cixi’s worldview was formed and why she made many of the choices that she did. In the process, the book enlightens a great deal about a woman’s world in China during the second half of the 19th century, and while it’s obvious that Cixi had a very exceptional life she was still very much a part of that mindset, and the limitations it set upon her reign makes me wonder what she could have accomplished had she been active just fifteen or twenty years later.

At times, Chang seems to be rooting just a little too enthusiastically about her subject. She’s so excited to overturn the idea that Cixi was a merciless tyrant that she glosses over some of the unpleasant things that Cixi did during her reign, and the mistakes made in her name. Likewise, she grants Cixi some extraordinarily progressive ideals towards the end of her reign, positing that if she had lived a few more years China would have had a radically different future under a constitutional monarchy.

As a woman restricted to the Forbidden City, Cixi sent Chinese men all over the world to be her eyes and ears, to learn about the Western ways that so threatened China. Reading these men’s impressions of European courts or American cities provide some of the most intriguing and entertaining passages of the book – talk about culture clash! Meanwhile, in China the wives of foreign diplomats occasionally met with Cixi – as a woman she was unable to meet the diplomats face-to-face, but she could interact with their families – and their accounts of her life and personality provide the most intimate looks into her world.

Cixi was a remarkable woman and it’s well worth taking the time to read about her. I find her inspiring – not because she ruled China, but because she was a woman who worked really hard and truly maximized the potential of the opportunities that came her way. To rise from a low-ranking concubine to the power behind the throne and to maintain that control shows that in every way, she was a truly imperial woman.

– review by Suzi

Staff Review: Still Alice by Lisa Genova

Still Alice
by Lisa Genova

Alice Howland is an intelligent, happily married 50-year-old Harvard linguistics professor with a full and accomplished life. But seven pages into this book, the reader gets the first inkling that something is wrong in this near-perfect picture. Alice eventually learns that she has early-onset Alzheimer’s, and the rest of the book takes us all down the rabbit hole of this disease.

While Alice is actually a composite based on the author’s interviews with Alzheimer’s patients, the confusion and pain she and her family experience are no less real. I read this book while living on Cape Cod — where much of the book takes place and where the author lives — and while caring for my mother, who suffered from dementia. While dementia looked very different in my 92-year-old mother than it did in Alice, this book gave me insight into my mother’s frustrations, and it gave me even more compassion for what it might be like inside her mind. For me, that was the gift I got from reading this book.

Alice and her family react to her symptoms and, later, her diagnosis with the usual denials: “Everyone forgets things now and then….” “I’m just having a really bad day….” “Stress can do this to you….” Eventually they accept her diagnosis, playing out family dramas that existed long before the plaques and tangles of Alzheimer’s took root in Alice’s brain.

While the subject matter isn’t exactly uplifting, Alice’s determination and spirit keep the book from being depressing and melodramatic. She and her family adapt to this disease, which affects the family as much as it does the patient.

As she moves through the advancing phases, Alice at one point challenges herself to summon enough of her formerly brilliant mind to address an Alzheimer’s Association conference in Boston.

“I am a wife, mother and friend, and soon to be a grandmother,” she tells the attendees. “I still feel, understand, and am worthy of the love and joy in those relationships. My brain no longer works well, but I use my ears for unconditional listening, my shoulders for crying on, and my arms for hugging others….I am not someone dying. I am someone living with dementia.

“My yesterdays are disappearing, and my tomorrows are uncertain, so what do I live for? I live for each day. I live in the moment.” Ironically, Alzheimer’s gives its sufferers what so many without the disease are searching for: the ability to live moment to moment, without regretting the past or fearing the future.

The film version of Still Alice opens nationwide (and at the Los Gatos Theatre) Jan. 30, but there’s still time to read the book before seeing it. Even if you have no personal connection to Alzheimer’s disease, Lisa Genova’s characters will make you care about them. If you like her writing, check out her other books (Left Neglected, Love, Anthony, and the soon-to-be-released Inside the O’Briens). All are novels that center around people with brain disorders, a natural topic for Genova, who has a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Harvard and a degree in bio-psychology.

– review by Deborah

Staff Review: Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi

Boy, Snow, Bird
by Helen Oyeyemi

One cold winter in the 1950s, Boy Novak leaves her rat-catcher father. She flees from her life in New York to a small town in Massachusetts, where she finds employment at a small book shop. She soon marries Arturo, a widower, and becomes stepmother to his daughter, a bright child named Snow. When Boy’s daughter Bird is born, the family’s secret is revealed: Arturo and his family are light-skinned African-Americans passing as white. Boy sends Snow away to live with her aunt, but as the years pass Bird becomes curious about her half-sister and decides to hunt her down. Boy, Snow, Bird is a haunting, dark spin on the classic fairy tale Snow White, utterly transforming the classic story into something new.

Fairy tale retellings have been all the rage in the last decade, and it’s hard to find a truly fresh take on one of these classic stories. Oyeyemi’s novel succeeds because she doesn’t force her adaptation to be a literal retelling. There’s no magic, no dwarves, no poisoned apple. But the story still has recognizable elements: a loveless stepmother, a beautiful child, and a hunter.

I say that there’s no magic, but that isn’t quite true. Mirrors and reflections play an unusual and important role in the story. There’s no “Mirror mirror on the wall” speech and inanimate objects never talk back to Boy or Snow, but reflections reveal much throughout the narrative.

Race and identity are intimately tied up in each character’s experience. It’s New England in the 1950s and 1960s, after all! One of the reasons Boy fascinates the Whitman family is her beautiful platinum blond hair; in many ways, she’s the epitome of “white” beauty, and Arturo’s marriage to her is considered a triumph. Snow is doted upon by her grandparents because she is so very white-looking; when dark-sinned Bird is growing up her grandmother barely takes notice of her.

Boy, the evil stepmother, is surprisingly sympathetic. While some of her views are fairly progressive – when she finds out that her husband’s family is African-American she barely reacts – others are not. She rarely shares the motivation for her actions with the reader, leaving us to guess. Why did she send Snow away? Was she punishing Auturo’s family by sending away the grandchild they loved? Was it to protect Bird, so she wouldn’t have to grow up constantly compared to her light-skinned sister? Does she genuinely dislike the child? Perhaps it’s a combination of all these things; perhaps Boy herself isn’t sure why. Usually it bothers me when writers leave motivation so vague, but this story has such a shifting, dream-like quality that the uncertainly suits it perfectly.

– Review by Suzi