Margaret Sanger: A Life of Passion by Jean H. Baker

from goodreads

2 stars

Christmas is coming soon! Every year that I am a parent I feel less excited and geared up for Christmas. It's not that I don't like Christmas, I do. I think it is the fact that I am doing everything now. My parents gave me a lovely Christmas experience every year. My mom would bake, we would have delicious food with all the trimmings. We had nice gifts. Not overly extravagant or plentiful, but nice. We would all sing Christmas Carols together as mom played the piano. We would go tobogganing. It would be a fun time of love, friendship and memories.

Flash forward to now and I am the person who is supposed to be presenting this Christmas magic and honestly I don't have the inclination. I don't feel like baking for hours on end. I don't feel like making a turkey with all the trimmings. I don't feel like getting anyone any presents (though I am not heartless and I do). And I don't prioritise practice time so I am not as good as my mom so their is rarely Carol singing. Tobaganning is fun but it sucks when you have to drive to a snow hill instead of having it right outside your front door (like my childhood home.) But, I guess this is when I can think, what is my energy level and what little bit of magic can I sprinkle into my kids experiences.

Hopefully in a few years when I don't have a crazy baby that constantly puts things in his mouth and when I feel like I am more put together I will feel more excited for the Christmas season and put more effort into making it super special for my family. Until then, well, at least we have a tree!

Synopsis

This is a biography on the woman who was the face of the early birth control movement in the United States.

My Thoughts

This book was weird. I loved it, I loathed it, I became apathetic to it.

The first few chapters that dealt with Sanger's early life I found really interesting. I liked learning about the events that caused her to pick up the crusade of birth control. I am profoundly grateful for the women who did. I am definitely a woman who has taken advantage of the ability to choose when to have children and how many. It is such a foreign concept to me, living now, that birth control could ever been seen as something not normal. But the obstacles men put up against birth control was crazy. Their arguments didn't even make sense! It was heartbreaking hearing about the women who were told by their doctors not to have any more children but where denied the tools and knowledge on how to prevent further pregnancies.

This book did a good job and delving into these contrary policies and showing how commonsense birth control was and how birth control was really a class thing.

If Baker had just left the book at this, the beginnings of the birth control movement, this would have been a fantastic read. Unfortunately she continued into the rest of Sanger's life. The writing was good. The subject I found boring. Perhaps if I was more inline with some of Sanger's other views such as open marriage and eugenics I would have found more interest. But since both those practices are abhorrent to me I just kept flicking the pages waiting for the book to end. I just didn't care about her private life. I think she was egocentric and catty. So perhaps the rating I gave should be higher, because you can't fault the author on the life of their subject. I just didn't care for it and the book just dragged on and on and on. Like I never thought it was going to end.

While it lost the passion it had at the beginning this was a quasi worth while read. If you are going to read it just read the first few chapters. They are full of interest and vitality. Otherwise it might be worth getting a different title if you want to learn about the birth control movement as a whole.

Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Hugette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune by Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell Jr.

from goodreads

3 stars

Have you ever looked at houses or buildings and wondered what it's like inside? I have been doing that for as long as I can remember. Growing up I had a few houses that I would pass that I always tried to envision what it would be like inside or what it would be like living there. My neighbour's house went up for sale recently and I waited with bated breath for the listing to be put up on realtor.ca so I could look at the inside. (I thought going to the open house might be a bit too creepy.)

I know I am not the only person with this curiosity of what goes on behind closed doors. Many cities now have an open door day where different businesses or unique houses open their doors for the public to go in and view the inside. This really has been going on for centuries as even the great heroine Elizabeth Bennett went voyeuring around Pemberley. Who knows what our fascination with houses is. I guess it is the whole seeing how the others live thing. It could be our whole comparing nature. All I know it is a societal quirk that will most likely not go away anytime soon.

Synopsis

Hugette Clark is the heiress to a large fortune yet was most mysterious. Many of her employees had never met her. This book looks at her life, her properties and what she did with her wealth.

My Thoughts

I went into this book with no preconceived notions. I had no idea who she was or who her father even was. For being one of the wealthiest men in the U.S.A. and having a county in Nevada named after him, I had no idea he even exsisted. The name Rockerfeller I have heard of but Clark, nope.

Hugette came across as being very generous and kind hearted but very eccentric. She was one who seemed to live with her heart and not so much with her head. She was someone who seemed to like being able to help others out and was one who lived with money just always being available (which in her case it was). It was crazy to hear some of the amounts of money she put towards her dolls. And how exacting all her miniatures had to be. She was definitely some one with a great eye for detail.

Hugette was very reclusive. It would have been interesting to know if this was because of phobias or if she was just content with her own company or if her father instilled a fear of other people and how they would only like her for her money and not her.

I loved the pictures in the book. Hugette's art work was beautiful.

If you are reading this book you will definitely get some helpful advice from it. The first is watch out for taxes, they are going to get you. The amounts she had to pay on property taxes each year alone was insane. But in the U.S.A. there is also a gift tax, so anytime she gave large sums of money to friends or employees as a gift she had to pay tax on that amount and man... that came to a hefty bill too. The second is make sure you have a will, don't wait until you are old and feeble. That will give your crazy family an in to being able to contest it. Her family was a bit nuts. Those people didn't even have a relationship with her yet all of the sudden showed care and concern as she went into her centennial year.

Near the end of the book a lot of focus goes onto her care in the hospital where she lived out the rest of her life (for like 10 years of it). She had a nurse that was there every day for over 12 hrs a day. Yes, that woman should have been well compensated and there was probably genuine love and trust between them. But okey smokes. The amount of money Hugette gave her nurse and the nurse's family. It seems sort of suspicious. Perhaps nothing nefarious was going on but, perception needs to be taken into account and to me, well the jury is still out on it.

All in all this was an interesting book about an eccentric recluse. There were parts that were thoroughly riveting. There were parts that were down right dull. But this was a great view into someone's life. Though she lived differently than most would choose to, especially given her financial status, she was not portrayed as a weirdo or as someone who was not all there. The author portrayed her as simply a woman, who had an interesting upbringing, an interesting time in her adulthood and has someone who lived as she wanted to live. And for that lack of judgement I thank the author.

The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe

from goodreads

4 stars

It can be hard seeing your parents age. You still remember them vividly as strong people capable of anything and then one day they are more frail, slow and dependant on others. They look similar to who they once were but they aren't the same and won't be.

That is what happened to me this year. At Christmas I was almost sure that my mom was not long for this earth. Thankfully I was proven wrong but she will never be back to what she was health-wise. My dad, his mind has been going for awhile but his body still seems to be in tip top shape. Being the youngest and since my parents had me so late in life I knew growing up that this would be my reality. It is still crazy to see my once strong willed mother feeling anxious and scared, but I know we are doing the best for them and she knows that too. Seeing them age just means we need to make and share memories while we still can, something I am excited to do.

Synopsis

The author's mother is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. They decide to spend the chemo time talking about life and books.

My Thoughts

This was a thoughtful and beautiful homage to Schwalbe's mother and the power of reading. What an interesting lady. The books that they read sound interesting too. Some I had read myself others I had never heard of but they sound really cool. I liked how the books they read seemed to really add texture to their life and to the situations they found themselves in. Isn't that the same for us?

At times when I was reading this I asked myself, would it have been as interesting if she hadn't been so dynamic in her own life? She had been a world traveller working tirelessly to help refugees around the world. She new lots of people and was constantly trying to make a difference. This added another dimension to this book. I don't think this book could be written about any other familial book club and have the same result. It was definitely person specific to make it work.

I liked how this book made you think about what you were doing in life to make the world better. You don't have to do a lot to make the world even a little teeny bit better, but that is what we should be striving for. You don't know where these acts of making the world better will lead.

I liked how this book basically said that we are all in an end of your life book club. We know our time on earth is finite and that we will go the way of the dodo at some point. We just need to read, glean what we can from it and become the best us we can.

This is a great book, it has given me a ton more books I want to read. It is sad to know I will never read all the books I want to in this life, but I am excited for the challenge.

The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker

from goodreads

4 stars

While I do not consider myself to be a "Trekkie" I do really enjoy the Star Trek franchise of shows. I love how it can deal with social issues such as racism, sexuality and identity without it being in our face. Because it is dealing with alien races and cultures those topics seem to be less taboo then if it were on other shows.

I particularly enjoyed how TNG dealt with the character of Data. He was an android that was very human like and wanted nothing more than to be fully integrated into human life. Many times during the series the talked about questioning what was human and what wasn't. Did Data have humanity? Did he have a conscience? Were his emotions any less valid than that of a flesh and blood human? These kind of questions can be posed in various ways in the non Star Trek world too, but the concept of what makes us human is a very interesting topic to explore. Are we as human as we really think we are?

Synopsis

It is near the turn of the twentieth century. Chava is a Golem, a woman made of clay, whose soul purpose in life is to serve her master. When her master dies shortly after she is awoken, Chava finds herself in New York City. A city full of people's desires that she feels drawn and overcome to fulfill.

Ahmad is a Jinni who was set free by a tinsmith and has to come to grips with being bound to human form and not be as free as he is used to.

Both creatures have to figure out how they will fit into this new world they are in. When they meet they learn things from each other that help them find their path.

My Thoughts

This was a really interesting book. I really enjoyed the question of humanity. Does the golem have a conscience. Can she be empathetic and can she think for herself despite the limitations and drawbacks that being a golem has. It was interesting to see the struggle the rabbi had when he was helping her and trying to figure out what he should do about her. I really loved the character of Chava. My heart went out to her and I was hoping that she would be able to find her way and find happiness at the same time.

The book also discussed the topics of free will, thinking for yourself and things that are pre-destined or inherited. It also discussed the concept of "just because you can doesn't mean you should." How we need to overcome our selfish desires and look outside ourselves to help with our own contentment.

The book itself was sort of a mishmash of a lot of things. It was a fantasy type book with characters like the golem and the jinni. But it also seemed to be part historical novel as the setting of New York at this time was almost a character unto itself. It was obvious that a lot of research went into New York at the turn of the century and I learned a lot more about it then I thought I would ever know. Because of these many differences in genres at play there were times when the story sort of lagged a bit. Other parts seemed to speed ahead. I am glad that I persevered to the end. It was definitely worth it.

There were jumps between timelines. When it first happened it was a bit awkward because I didn't know what was happening and if other parts were connected or what. Everything made sense in the end but some of the transitions were a bit awkward. And some of the things in the desert kind of went on and on. I'm glad that I got some background knowledge on the jinni but some of it could have been a bit better edited to make the story a bit tighter.

There were also a few characters that I wasn't sure what the point of them was. They could have been out of the story and it would have flowed just fine. They didn't detract from the story, but their impact on either of the two main characters didn't enhance the story very much and the plot could have been changed to go around their absence. But that was really a minor thing.

All and all I did enjoy this book. I enjoyed the main story more than the fringes that it sometimes went off on. I found the character of Chava to be quite lovely and I thoroughly enjoyed her development. Ahmad was a bit harder to like but by the end you love him and find him actually quite admirable. When I started this book I really didn't know what to expect but what I got was great. Definitely worth the read.