Biography, Autobiography, Memoir discussion
Challenges
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Reading Challenge Nov. -Dec.-Jan.
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Selina wrote: "Fishface wrote: "Selina wrote: "Koren wrote: "Selina wrote: "Enjoying the The World of Laura Ingalls Wilder: The Frontier Landscapes that Inspired the Little House Books so far. Als..."They lump all of the drugs exposure these days under FAS even though most of the drugs' effects are virtually unstudied -- especially combinations of drugs, which are obviously super common, like people taking meds for schizophrenia and smoking pot at the same time. Some of the kids who come into my agency are crack, heroin or meth babies, some of them terribly impacted and all of them completely different from each other. I wish someone would get on the stick and really follow all women through their pregnancies and get a handle on how it works, but as it stands, not only are most women never drug tested until they give birth, but a lot of them still don't even have prenatal care or health coverage to make prenatal care possible.
The truism in mental health right now is that "we know alcohol is by far the most dangerous to use during pregnancy," but I say we can't know that until we really study the matter.
Oh, but to answer your question, yes, I referred to The Broken Cord. At the time he adopted his son (before meeting Louise Erdrich), there was no name for his son's problems and zero awareness of what to do about it. (Was that in the late 1960s?) A lot of the book is just about them pinning down what was going on with the poor kid. I crap you negative: it was only in 2017 that the staff in this building was offered a training in how to deal with kids who have FAS. This is really a story about how Michael Dorris was trying to map completely uncharted territory.
Mod
3 stars
This book is a great one for the challenge. The author is from the United States and she goes to New Zealand and meets her future husband and she decides to research his Maori history. This book goes back to the 1600's and the title refers to the first explorers that came to New Zealand and were met on shore by the Maoris. The author goes back and forth in the narrative, between her present day relationship and her husband's family history. She does a great job of describing the New Zealand culture and landscape and she mentions quite a few foods I've never heard of. (It seems sea food is quite common. Selina, do they really eat the heads of the fish in New Zealand?
Towards the end she tells of her own family history and lo and behold, her maternal grandparents were raised in Minnesota and she even includes a chapter with some historical info on Minnesota so I think this book could work for two parts of the challenge, Minnesota and New Zealand. A bit of a coincidence, The 1862 hanging of 36 Indians in Mankato, Minnesota is mentioned in the book and was talked about in the last book I read
. I have seen the memorial stone in Mankato where the Indians were hanged and it makes me very sad. I also learned about the Treaty of Traverse de Sioux, which was I interesting because the library network I belong to is called Traverse De Sioux and I never knew the history of the name until now. The story goes that the Indians were willing to sign the Treaty of Traverse de Sioux because they were starving and were under pressure to sell their land from the white settlers. They received only pennies per acre and what they thought would be annuities from the government. But then they were given a second sheet of paper to sign, which they thought was simply another copy of what they had already signed, but no, the paper they signed said that if the Indians owed the fur traders money, their stipend would go to the fur traders instead. And of course, most of the money went to the fur traders.
Mod
I found a book I think will be perfect for the New York part of the challenge:
The Job: True Tales from the Life of a New York City Cop by Steve Osborne
. This will be night and day compared to the books that were more historical in nature.
There are seven? Laura Ingalls Wilder books in the Little House series it seems she started out in Wisconsin and didn't get to Minnesota until the fifth book? The TV series was named after the third book, as the first one was Little House in the Woods. Has anyone read the whole series? Or watched the whole show. Which one is the best..? Is it the same storyline as the books or did they change it?
Koren are you asking if Maoris eat the fish heads or everyone. Yes Maori eat fish heads and some of them were known as headhunters but that was when they were cannibals, except they did not eat the heads of people but preserved them.
Asian people eat fishheads too but that is because we eat the entire fish, cooked with the bones in usually its not filleted to keep all the flavour, and the cheeks of the fish are the juiciest and best part.
The Yankees -- New Englanders -- feel the same way about cod's cheeks. See Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World.
Mod
I think Fishface is getting nervous with all this talk of eating fish!
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The TV series was named after the thi..."
Thanks Selina. Talking about eating fish heads was a little nauseating to me!
Am now reading Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder and just got to the part where Laura gets married. Yes the book answered a lot of my questions that the other book raised. I'm interested in how that area became a dustbowl, and also wondered why settlers insisted on intensively farming the dry land for grain when it was more suitable grassland for grazing cattle. It seems like Lauras parents were actually squatters not the pioneers that they made out to be and at some stage they even left lands behind to run away from debts. But they were chasing the American Dream I suppose. Although its sad they could never 'get ahead' . So many parallels to what the american govt did to the Indians with what the NZ colonialists did with the Maoris, convinced them to sell their land for next to nothing and then kind of trashed it. We have a treaty thats meant to be honored but the maori often feel that its not. The chiefs signed in good faith, but seems the pakeha took advantage, annexed the land and the maori lost their sovereignty or as they felt rights as an indigenous people to look after the land. The crown was meant to protect the maori. I dont know its complicated. We did a workshop and seminar on the history of the treaty for work once and the speaker was american why because she was impartial and could see it from an outsiders perspective. Treaties are like a double edged sword methinks plus when you have two cultures colliding something always lost in translation.
I mean Im still trying to sort out my heritage which is Chinese and how that fits in with NZ culture, in the past it was not pretty. Theres still much prejudice but the thing is nzers are now actively selling their land to many rich overseas chinese and theres so much speculation and landbanking going on. If the transaction was fair then ok but theres one thing I learned if you really love the land you just wouldnt sell it at any price. Maybe you could lease it. Say if I somehow was seen as owning NZ and even if offered me a trillion dollars for NZ would I take the money or would I tell them to get lost, its my homeland. It would be like if someone offered you 6 million dollars for your spouse, or your child. You maybe rich but you just lost your home or your family, and you have no right to it anymore.
I posted my review; not sure if sharing it here is redundant, but here it is. Thank you for this reading challenge, which I very much enjoyed. Come On Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All: A New Zealand Story by Christina Thompson
This was a thoughtful, enjoyable read. I appreciated all that I learned about Maori and Polynesian culture, especially their incredible seafaring ability and the meeting of Europeans and Maori people over hundreds of years. As an academic, it is clear that Thompson has done her research, and knows her subject matter both on an intellectual and personal level. Readers will learn a great deal, even if they think they know a fair bit about Hawaiian or Pacific Islanders. That said, at the end of the book I didn’t have a deep sense of either the narrator or her family as individuals. I would have liked to get to know them all better, to understand their struggles and their challenges, and even to understand what drew the two of them together so passionately in the first place. But this is a minor quibble about a carefully crafted and intelligent memoir.
I finished rest of Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilderbut sort of had to skim some of it because the biographer kept going on about her daughter Rose, who she kept calling Lane (her married name, even though she got divorced) and whenever referring to Laura she wrote Wilder, I just found that annoying after a while I mean what is wrong with referring to them by their Christian names? I wasnt really interested in reading about her daughters troubled life especially when the biographer seemed to really dislike her, without really trying to understand the dynamics of the mother daughter bond. Rose was Laura's only child that survived so I can imagine that would have been a huge burden of expectation placed on her. Escaping to the city seemed like her only choice...it would seem to succeed at homesteading you just need to have lots sons to help work the farm. I mean its tough physical work farming the land. I dont quite understand why everyone was growing just wheat though, because so many farmers grew wheat that there was an oversupply and so the prices dropped for a bushel and it wasn't even enough to cover the cost of the planting it in the first place! And if that crop failed you didnt have anything else to fall back on. Why didn't they just graze cattle?! I dont understand why farmers in the US put their stock into feedlots, givng them surplus grain that they had to grow and stockpile rather than let them feed naturally on the grass that was already there...as long as they keep moving and its not overgrazed, there shouldnt be any problem?! And then its naturally fertilized by the animals manure. Which can then be used for small crops if the land use is rotated regularly.
It did mention about the dustbowls..basically the grass was ripped out topsoil was plowed and then blew away as it was so dry, there was no irrigation, which is really sad because now there is no more prairie. I wonder what happened to the population of native americans after that and what they thought of the dustbowls that ravaged their former terrirtories that they had lived in. Perhaps one day they will restore and reclaim the land that the government kind of conned them into ceding if they ever confess to being wrong. I've heard of govts apologising to groups they wronged in the past before, and there being reconciliation and compensation for grievances.
Mod
Selina, I'm not a farmer so not a good one to answer your questions, but it seems that the original settlers just didnt have a clue. They didnt have much money to get started in farming and my guess would be wheat was the easiest to buy and the profits were good at the outset. Most of them didnt arrive with much and could only buy what was available. I also dont think they had a clue about erosion or what would happen after all that land was tilled.
I'm trying to think what the name of the book was about the Dust Storm and when I think of it I will let you know.
Mod
Here it is:
The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl
If you can find this book about the Dust Bowl days it is really good and explains it a lot better.
Thanks for the recommendation Koren, those pictures of the dustbowl storms I saw on wikipedia are so freaky! Yes It seems they were rather ignorant and also kind of mislead about the land they were taking over. It seems almost like karma happened for the ones that took it. Its a very dry region unlike near the mississippi river and east, its in the rain shadow of the rockies, so just gets no rain. Silly me I went and borrowed nearly the entire series of The Little House Books and now got started, starting with Little House in the Big Woods and am now onto Farmer Boy. I feel like a really lazy city child in comparison to all the hard work Almonzo did when he was just only a boy. All I had to do really was tag along with my mum to go shopping and the food was there, I didnt have to grow it or trap it or catch it! Sure mum prepared and cooked it but she didnt take all day. And imagine just not going to school cos of work to be done at home! That excuse would not wash in my schooldays. For a city/suburb child work usually meant your parents went elsewhere on a long rush hour commute.
I had a taste of country lifestyle when I volunteered as a wwoofer. But even the wwwofing properties often werent able to pay their way or break even, thats why they required wwoofers to help, and sometimes the owner had to work elsewhere or commute into town just like a suburbanite!
Because Little House is a series for children I'm sure the hardships that Laura's family faced were glossed over or omitted a little. I think when people look back and with nostalgia, if theyd survived and dont feel resentful about it they remember it as the best time. People always say to children when they grow up they will look back fondly on childhood years because responsible adulthood is hard! Perhaps for Laura she was shielded from a lot of the economic reality or chose not to focus on the negatives. Unlike the memoirs of poverty Angelas Ashes or the Glass Castle nothing that traumatic happened (her parents were both sober!) and life was seen as an adventure.
Mod
which takes place in Belleza's home town of New York City. NYC couldn't be more different than my hometown of 1,000 people in Minnesota. In my town most days, the cops most important job is probably catching a stray dog. The author tells some pretty interesting stories and he writes like a guy you are just kicking back and having a beer with and listening to his stories. If anyone thinks they want to be a cop from watching shows on TV, this book will set them straight, as he tells us quite a few times that real life is not like the shows on TV.
Well I was curious about this book but wasn't at first my cup of tea Come On Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All: A New Zealand Story. While the history is interesting and well-researched as you'd expect from a Phd scholar, I kind of feel like the memoir side a bit wanting, and also a bit disturbing that she treats her husband a bit like a pet, kind of look what I bought home, and even the whole secret marriage thing...? Like what...?There were also at times something that reminded me of Paul Theroux's 'Happy Isles' book, that she wasn't that interested in other people, but her own romantic ideas of adventure and escape. She did go back to her parents, but I kind of get the impression like her husband is grist for her writing mill. That's what makes it a rather uncomfortable reading this marriage, we only get one side, what about Seven and how he feels about living in America? Or how he feels about her as a person? Also there is less about living in New Zealand as they bounce from one academic stint to another, mostly in Australia.
I'm just a bit disturbed that she thought it was ok to show her maori sister-in-law pictures of preserved heads and expect her to be as fascinated as she was. She was probably grossed out. If there's one thing I don't enjoy is when people make assumptions like that, for example, that I might know all about living in China and it's history when I had never even been, or just be fascinated with all things Chinese, or relish eating chicken feet and dogs just because it might have been part of my ancestry in the distant past.
That's the problem though when you start looking at people as solely Maori, or Pakeha, or American, while it's important where they may have come from, I wonder if she can see beyond that lens of culture and see people as just people. There's one bit where the author kind of presumes that Seven doesn't think anything about the future. That he's just hungry. It could be that or it could be he's just being honest and is saying he's hungry and voicing it. It could be simply his personality rather than his culture. Some people live in the present and aren't that fussed about the past or future. It that goes across different cultures, its not really a Maori thing. Maybe she wrote that to reinforce her ideas about Maoris as cannibals?
I kind of think If I get married I'm a bit wary of someone who might decide they only like me because I'm from a certain culture so expected to behave a certain way, or simply because I'm exotic and 'other' - to them. But then there is something to be said for inbreeding, which is a point. You don't want to get together with someone who could be related to you, like your cousin. lol.
I stumbled upon a nonfiction travel book about New Zealand. If any of you doing this challenge might need such a book, here's the link.
A Land of Two Halves
Author: Joe Bennett
Synopsis: After 10 years in New Zealand, Joe Bennett asked himself what on earth he was doing there. Other than his dogs, what was it about these two small islands on the edge of the world that had kept him—an otherwise restless traveller—for really much longer than they seemed to deserve? Bennett thought he'd better pack his bag and find out. Hitching around both the intriguingly named North and South Islands, with an eye for oddity and a taste for conversation, Bennett began to remind himself of the reasons New Zealand is quietly seducing the rest of the world.
Diane wrote: "I stumbled upon a nonfiction travel book about New Zealand. If any of you doing this challenge might need such a book, here's the link.[book:A Land of Two H..."
Yes, a good intro to what it's like living here, written by an Englishman, who kind of fancies himself as a bit of a Bill Bryson like character. He also writes a regular column for NZ Gardener magazine, which is mostly drivel about his clumsy attempts at gardening!
Our country seems to attract a lot of restless travellers. Just the other day we heard some tragic news about a young backpacker from UK who went missing. Her body was found not that far from where I live, in fact that morning I was on that road on my way to work. But I didnt see anything. A young man she was last seen with has been charged with her murder.
Just seems to reinforce the stereotype that if people come here, the natives will kill and possibly eat you. That it's dangerous. Even the book 'the sheep stell' was about some dodgy kiwi male trying to capture an unsuspecting visiting foreigner.
The childrens picture book 'Where the Wild things are' could have possibly be set in NZ. Especially when the wild things say to Max 'Oh please don't go, we'll eat you up, we love you so!'
Mod
[book:A..."
I think I will skip any vacation plans to New Zealand but I would love to visit Rachel in Vancouver. I have a niece that lives near Calgary but I think that is pretty far away.
Koren wrote: "Selina wrote: "Diane wrote: "I stumbled upon a nonfiction travel book about New Zealand. If any of you doing this challenge might need such a book, here's the link.[bookcover:A Land of Two Halves|..."
Me too, I would love to fly to Vancouver and then catch the scenic train to Toronto where some of my (married!) cousins live.
I kind of kept on with this challenge Koren. My next book is The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl
I find it fascinating. In New Zealand we don't have deserts, although some places seem deserted, they aren't true deserts like in Australia where most of it's just sand. I heard they have dust storms there too.
But to have dust storms due to bad farming practices and eroded soils, after only a few years of farming..that's just crazy. But not just that - I have read The Grapes of Wrath. Those poor people, promised so much land by the govt but got little in return. I just feel they got conned, like the Inuit who were told by the govt to move up further north but there were actually no seals up there for hunting. Goes to show some people in govts have just no clue. It's like when well-off people say to the unemployed oh just go find a job when there are no jobs available. And the unemployed don't even have the capital or resources to set up their own businesses. Or they get given cruddy make-work jobs that aren't even enough to live on!
Mod
My next book is The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl
I find it fascinating. In New..."
Oh, I'll bet they have a clue. The rich get rich and the poor get poorer.
Both books you mentioned were very good. It is unbelievable that so much harm could come from those early farming practices, but they honestly didnt know what they were doing. Some people still dont.
Just reading this book, the Worst Hard time it's brilliant. I see it won the National Book Award. I'm trying to think of a book that really shows you what it's like to live in NZ and not just a foreigner's idea of what it's like to move here. We always get whinging Poms (i.e englishmen) who complain that's it's not like England. Well of course it isn't! What do they expect? Its like reading a Year in Provence which depicts all Provencal French people as bumbling fools or really weird just because they are not English. If you can find this one, it's good story about my hometown/city...and why it's different from all the rest of New Zealand.
The Life And Times Of Auckland: The Colourful Story Of A City
Finished reading The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust BowlMy thoughts, wow shocking but what happened after? President Roosevelt got USA a New Deal and tried to reverse what the previous govt had done with the land, basically bought it back from the failed homesteaders. Apparently lots of trees were planted (that died) and water was brought up from the ground from aquifers which the books said would probably run out in 2010. (This book was published in 2007). There were some photos of the dust storms but it all just sounded pretty bleak, and I now look at the Wizard of Oz movie in a new light. It probably really was all in black and white, no wonder Dorothy just wanted to leave! The sad thing is she would say 'there's no place like home' but home would have been a tar-paper shack or a dugout and there would have been no trees, green grass or anything except a pile of dirt and dust and sticks.
I never thought of the Gale family as living in the Dust Bowl. But it was destructive farming practices that caused the whole problem. It was endless prairie covered with happy bison and so forth before we got there...
Mod
I googled the years of the Dust Bowl (1930 to 1940). Wizard of Oz came out in 1939 so if Kansas was not experiencing the worst of the Dust Bowl they probably were at least in a drought. Selina, I think for her home was where people loved her, it didnt matter what the economic circumstances were.
Koren wrote: "Selina wrote: "Diane wrote: "I stumbled upon a nonfiction travel book about New Zealand. If any of you doing this challenge might need such a book, here's the link.[bookcover:A Land of Two Halves|..."
Ha! Would love to meet you for a coffee in Vancouver one day, Selina and Koren! I'm still living in France for the next few months...but will be back in not too long. Thanks again for the challenge and Happy New Year to all.
Mod
[bookcover:A Land ..."
Wouldn't that be fun! Too bad we are all so spread out around the world or we could arrange something. A Goodreads convention! That would be a blast. Amazon should set something up!
Mod
Koren wrote: "It seems that everyone that wanted to do the challenge is done. Do we want to do something different for January?"I thought of something similar...each of us read a book by a person with the same name as another member. Preferably a bio or memoir, non-fiction but could be anything. Or the subject could have the same name
As I found this one Smashed: Growing Up a Drunk Girl by Koren Zailckas
Or you could read about someone with the same name as yourself, but I already did that. That was this one I read a few years ago Selina, Countess of Huntingdon: Her Pivotal Role in the 18th Century Evangelical Awakening It was really interesting tho finding out about someone with the same name as you, but lived a totally different life.
Fishface I don't know about your christian (first name) but others could read Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World if they want to pick your name.
Mod
I thought of something similar...each of us read a book by a person..."
I've read Smashed. It was ok. I was thinking about something that had a broader range of books to choose from. I know some people didnt do the last challenge because it was too difficult to find the books.
Hmm something easy to find...Read a mills and boon? I've never read one so it would be a challenge. And then point out all the plot holes.
Read a book with a title starting with X. A challenge, but maybe not too hard...and it could be any book of any genre.
Ok I've thought of another challenge. I'm sure everyone likes music, what about we all read a bio of a band that we interested in. It has to be a group that most people have heard of just to narrow it down a bit. It could be one member of the band or a bio about the whole group.
eg Beatles, Abba,
Mod
I'm sure everyone likes music, what about we all read a bio of a band that we interested in. It has to be a group that most people have heard of just to narr..."
I am currently reading a memoir by Bobby Hart, who was a huge songwriter in the 60's and is most famous for writing songs sung by the Monkees. I think this time around I will make it a pretty broad category so everyone should be able to find something and see how much participation we get. Let's make it anything relating to music.
I'm excited about this challenge. The only thing I love more than books is music. I have 8 books to choose from....At least.
Mod
I have 8 books to choose from....At least."
I'm excited to see what everyone picks.
Biography, Autobiography, Memoir
Books mentioned in this topic
Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World (other topics)Smashed: Growing Up a Drunk Girl (other topics)
Selina, Countess of Huntingdon: Her Pivotal Role in the 18th Century Evangelical Awakening (other topics)
The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl (other topics)
The Life and Times of Auckland: The Colourful Story of a City (other topics)
More...
Laura lived to be 90 years old. Imagine being born in a time where you moved from one place to another by covered wagon and at the end of your life actually flew in an airplane. Laura did not leave a written description of her airplane trip. I wish she would have.