Sub-title: Life on a very small island
This is a little gem I picked up in the used bookstore. The author grew up on a small island in Maine, worked many years as a fisherman and then captain of a fishing boat in the ocean and in this story returns to her hometown to try lobster fishing. She's real and honest and loving of her neighbors, family and friends. The life of a lobster-woman is the backdrop to the relationships of the people of the tiny island. A quick read from a spunky gal.
Published: 2002 Read: June 2015 Genre: Auto-biography
Friday, June 26, 2015
The Seven Daughters of Eve - Bryan Sykes
Sub-title: The Science that reveals our genetic ancestry
I ordered this via Amazon because it was a layman's description of how mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is passed down from mother's to their children. Daughters pass it on to their daughters and the author contends that it remains relatively unaltered for thousands of years. The record of his research and findings was fascinating and I hope to do a mtDNA test someday. He goes into detail of how mitochondrial genetics, classified all modern Europeans into seven haplogroups.
Like other reviewers, I thought he departed from scientific findings to fanciful interpretation in "describing" each of the seven lines of mtDNA he traced in modern populations. It's still a compelling read for those interested in DNA research and application.
Quotes:
p. 28 - Like more familiar instruction systems such as language, number or computer binary code what matters is not so much the symbols themselves bu the order in which they appear."
Question: what other simple instructions systems are there?
p. 71 - using mtDNA to disprove descendants of Russian czar
p. 126 - Neanderthals are not our ancestors
p. 128 - explanation of mules and why Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal may have split
Published: 2001 Read: June 2015 Genre: Science
I ordered this via Amazon because it was a layman's description of how mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is passed down from mother's to their children. Daughters pass it on to their daughters and the author contends that it remains relatively unaltered for thousands of years. The record of his research and findings was fascinating and I hope to do a mtDNA test someday. He goes into detail of how mitochondrial genetics, classified all modern Europeans into seven haplogroups.
Like other reviewers, I thought he departed from scientific findings to fanciful interpretation in "describing" each of the seven lines of mtDNA he traced in modern populations. It's still a compelling read for those interested in DNA research and application.
Quotes:
p. 28 - Like more familiar instruction systems such as language, number or computer binary code what matters is not so much the symbols themselves bu the order in which they appear."
Question: what other simple instructions systems are there?
p. 71 - using mtDNA to disprove descendants of Russian czar
p. 126 - Neanderthals are not our ancestors
p. 128 - explanation of mules and why Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal may have split
Published: 2001 Read: June 2015 Genre: Science
Water Witches - Chris Bohjalian
Picked this up at my friend's house in Memphis on the way back from the John C Campbell Folk School. A young girl, her mother and aunt are dowsers - they find water for wells for people. The world of the dowser in modern times in Vermont where they live is played out against a battle between environmentalist and a ski resort. I enjoyed the writing and the folksy portrayal of small town life. The relationship between father and daughter is central to the story and keeps the narrative moving until the central conflict is resolved. Good read.
Quote: [grandfather on building something for his grandchild]
"I'm enough of an optimist to build the thing...but I'm not stupid enough to ever expect to use it."
Published: 1995 Read: June 2015 Genre: Fiction
ISBN:0-684-82612-7
Saturday, June 20, 2015
A Gracious Plenty - Sheri Reynolds
This is the story of a girl disfigured by a bad burn as a child who becomes the caretaker of the cemetery run by her father and mother after their passing. She's alone and ostracized by most of the community and realizes at a young age she can talk with and see the dead in her care. The mediator, guide to the dead, tells a new member:
"In this place, you've moved beyond experiences. It's your stories that keep you down. You can't leave until you've told them."
"We chose our truths they way we chose our gods, single-sightedly, single-mindedly, no other way to feel or see or think. We lock ourselves into our ways, and check all the truths to one."
I read this book while taking a creative writing class in Brasstown, NC, at JCC. It's was a perfect counterpoint to the class, an example of weaving many scenes, dialogue, narrative and reflections into a story arching from an initial conflict between the girl, now a young woman, and the dead, and the families they've left behind. A good read.
Published: 1997 Read: June 2015 Genre: Fiction
Monday, June 1, 2015
Chasing Daylight - Eugene O'Kelly
Sub-title: How My Forthcoming Death Transformed My Life
Now that's a sub-title that makes me pick up a book. The author, CEO of KPMG, a global accounting and financial consulting firm, finds out at 55 years old that he has inoperable brain cancer and less than six months to live. He chooses to apply the skills, talents, and attitude that led to his success in life to having a successful death.
It was disconcerning at first to see the business skills and practices I'd worked with in my career being applied to dealing with death. But the author knew what he wanted to do - go out as successfully as he had climbed to success in life.
Some quotes that illustrate where he came from, how he functioned at work:
"I cultivated the ability to make big shifts quickly. When something in my life no longer worked I could abandon it with little sentiment,"
"One sanctuary from all the intensity was golf. ...I admired what the game called for: honor, personal accountability, precision, mental disipline, and endurance."
"Just months before and for my whole life before, I had been used to --and expected-- people operating at a very high standard....our indexes for evaluating people was conpetency."
He applied his ability to "make big shifts" to recognizing he needed to be more forgiving of himself and others. "And what if I didn't shoot par? If things didn't go as planned? That would have to be good too. There was always something that could make even a bad day or a bad round good. One nice shot. One kind gesture. Something."
He rethinks his beliefs about commitment. "In business...your commitment was routinely measured by how many hours you were willing to work". He understands after dealing with his suddenly shortened future that commitment is really about depth. "..commitment is measured not by the time one is willing to give up but, more accurately, by the energy one wants to put in, by how present one is." He reflects "Before my illness, I had considered commitment king among virtues. After I was diagnosed I came to consider consciousness king...For one thing it could help others to understand the end better. Maybe we'll discover that death is even something worth embracing."
I could see as the story went on that he was, in his last few weeks, embracing the real priorities of life; family, friends and being involved in the present moment. "Soon I realized to identify whole breeds of people who did not live in the present, despite what they may have believed. They lived either in the future or in the past, or maybe nowhere at all....People who don't listen, who ask questions without waiting for the whole answer."
He embraces simplicity. He observes that many of the people he knows "have no clear timeline to stop what they were so busy at, to step back, to ask what exactly they were doing with their life. Part of me understood that they couldn't stop, because if they did stop they would stop being relevant. But being relevant was not relevant. At some point its time to transition."
He applied his same organized, goal oriented mind to what he called "unwinding" from the relationships in his life. He began with "the outer circle", saying goodbye, saying why people mattered to him, sharing the good memories, reaching closure. It's something encouraged in hospice to help those dying to accept their circumstances and he was more peaceful with the relationships in his life by making the effort to reach out and end those relationships in a deliberate way.
The book's last chapter is written by his wife, Corinne. At the end, he was doing all he could to help her and his children, and himself to experience a good death. A powerful, moving read because the author stayed true to who he was, without apologies, and embraced the changes he recognized he needed to make before his life closed.
Published: 2006 Read: May 2015 Genre: Auto-biography
ISBN: 0-07-147172-3
Now that's a sub-title that makes me pick up a book. The author, CEO of KPMG, a global accounting and financial consulting firm, finds out at 55 years old that he has inoperable brain cancer and less than six months to live. He chooses to apply the skills, talents, and attitude that led to his success in life to having a successful death.
It was disconcerning at first to see the business skills and practices I'd worked with in my career being applied to dealing with death. But the author knew what he wanted to do - go out as successfully as he had climbed to success in life.
Some quotes that illustrate where he came from, how he functioned at work:
"I cultivated the ability to make big shifts quickly. When something in my life no longer worked I could abandon it with little sentiment,"
"One sanctuary from all the intensity was golf. ...I admired what the game called for: honor, personal accountability, precision, mental disipline, and endurance."
"Just months before and for my whole life before, I had been used to --and expected-- people operating at a very high standard....our indexes for evaluating people was conpetency."
He applied his ability to "make big shifts" to recognizing he needed to be more forgiving of himself and others. "And what if I didn't shoot par? If things didn't go as planned? That would have to be good too. There was always something that could make even a bad day or a bad round good. One nice shot. One kind gesture. Something."
He rethinks his beliefs about commitment. "In business...your commitment was routinely measured by how many hours you were willing to work". He understands after dealing with his suddenly shortened future that commitment is really about depth. "..commitment is measured not by the time one is willing to give up but, more accurately, by the energy one wants to put in, by how present one is." He reflects "Before my illness, I had considered commitment king among virtues. After I was diagnosed I came to consider consciousness king...For one thing it could help others to understand the end better. Maybe we'll discover that death is even something worth embracing."
I could see as the story went on that he was, in his last few weeks, embracing the real priorities of life; family, friends and being involved in the present moment. "Soon I realized to identify whole breeds of people who did not live in the present, despite what they may have believed. They lived either in the future or in the past, or maybe nowhere at all....People who don't listen, who ask questions without waiting for the whole answer."
He embraces simplicity. He observes that many of the people he knows "have no clear timeline to stop what they were so busy at, to step back, to ask what exactly they were doing with their life. Part of me understood that they couldn't stop, because if they did stop they would stop being relevant. But being relevant was not relevant. At some point its time to transition."
He applied his same organized, goal oriented mind to what he called "unwinding" from the relationships in his life. He began with "the outer circle", saying goodbye, saying why people mattered to him, sharing the good memories, reaching closure. It's something encouraged in hospice to help those dying to accept their circumstances and he was more peaceful with the relationships in his life by making the effort to reach out and end those relationships in a deliberate way.
The book's last chapter is written by his wife, Corinne. At the end, he was doing all he could to help her and his children, and himself to experience a good death. A powerful, moving read because the author stayed true to who he was, without apologies, and embraced the changes he recognized he needed to make before his life closed.
Published: 2006 Read: May 2015 Genre: Auto-biography
ISBN: 0-07-147172-3
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