Around the Year in 52 Books discussion
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Weekly Question - Feb 26 - What You've Learned
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I’ve just finished The Door by Magda Szabó. I loved the book, and learned a bit about post WWII Budapest. I found myself going back and forth to wikipedia to figure out people or war events that were in the narrative. Must admit I had never heard of the Siege of Budapest.
I learned a lot about the Oxycontin scandal in the States from reading Demon Copperhead and On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous.On a lighter note, I learned about the early life of Henry VIII's last queen from Katharine Parr: The Sixth Wife.
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This author has been recommended to me by multiple people lately!
I learned about the history of Hungary in the 19th century in the novel Century in Scarlet. I didn't know they had several attempted revolutions. From the novel True Biz I learned about the controversy surrounding cochlear implants for kids and how they often worked poorly.
I also learned a lot from Facing the Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes in World War II. I knew about the internment camps and the heroic behavior of the Japanese-American troops. But I never thought about what it was like in Hawaii, where the Pearl Harbor attack occurred, but over 50% of the population had Japanese ancestry. (They weren't removed, but were ejected from the military at first.)
And from the book After the Vote Was Won: The Later Achievements of Fifteen Suffragists, I learned that Helen Keller was a fervent suffragist and activist, who left the Socialist party because it wasn't radical enough for her!
This is a bit strange ... InThe Lager Queen of Minnesota there is a inconsequential mention of "mayflies" (we call them fishflies here) flying round and covering a bridge that sent me on a deep dive. They really do occasionally use SNOWPLOUGHS to clean the mounds and mounds of bug carcasses off bridges. A large emergence of mayflies is a sign of a healthy river and good for the ecosystem as they feed birds and fish. So some other places use pitchforks to scoop the bugs back into the river.
True Biz and Mad Honey are two books whose titles alone have specific meanings that I was unaware of. True Biz mean serious straight forward talk - no BS. Other than the title the book made me aware of how little I knew about the deaf community and opened my eyes to some ablest perspectives I had/have. Robin you mention the controversy around cochlear implants this was really eye opening. In general how they are perceived in the community was interesting.
I had no idea that if bees feed on a specific types of rhododendrons they can produce a very different kind of "mad" honey. It can give you various symptoms including hallucinations and even in large doses lead to death. In general there are some interesting bee, bee keeping and honey related facts throughout the book. I really enjoyed how they were sprinkled in and often related back what was happening in the book.
Sheena wrote: "This is a bit strange ... InThe Lager Queen of Minnesota there is a inconsequential mention of "mayflies" (we call them fishflies here) flying round and covering a bridge that sent ...""They really do occasionally use SNOWPLOUGHS to clean the mounds and mounds of bug carcasses off bridges." I just have no words - but OMG! seems to fit. It just gives me the heebie-jeebies.
Samantha wrote: "True Biz and Mad Honey are two books whose titles alone have specific meanings that I was unaware of. True Biz mean serious straight forward talk - no BS. Other th..."
wow. i knew rhododendrons and azalea bushes were poisonous from root to leaf, but that is a cool fact that you can make poisoned honey from it too.
From The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World I learned of role social media has played in the genocide in Myanmar and sectarian violence in Sri Lanka.Facebook, YouTube, Reddit, Google, Instagram, Twitter (and several others) are called out specifically for contributions to the trends toward radicalization that is so obvious to anyone who spends time on these sites. The bottom line is that the more outrageous content keeps engagement levels high, and this is the metric the social media companies are using to measure success, and of course it is all profit motivated.
The author presents his case through a mountain of documentation he has gathered from insiders and research. This evidence is presented within the narrative and in the book’s end notes.
I think anyone who regularly participates in social media can benefit from understanding what algorithms and machine learning are doing to society, and how they are engineered to direct users’ attention to more extreme content, regardless of whether or not it is true.
The Chaos Machine is on my tbr, too! I'm exicited to read that. I've learned this week a couple of definitions about sexuality and romantic inclination that I didn't known before:
- cupiosexual/-romantic: no sexual/romantic attraction but still interested in sex/romance
- quoiromantic: not be able to distinguish between platonic and romantic love
Also I've learned that:
- Oakland is the most diverse city in the country
(from The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed Their Lives )
Mod
Most recently, though, I guess I got more familiar with the Periodic Table - having given up Chemistry aged 14 - with The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements.
I also learned a lot more about just how smart chimpanzees are from My Life with the Chimpanzees, which while written for a younger audience offered an interesting insight. Following on from that, I'd like to read In the Shadow of Man, which is her adult biography of the same period of time.
I recently read The Kiss Quotient series by Helen Hoang. Though I rated them kinda low, 2-3 stars, I'm still glad I read them for their representation of people with autism. There are two different main characters with autism and the comments and reviews I read said that they were portrayed realistically. But I learned more from the "Author's Note"s in the books. I learned that women with autism are less likely to be diagnosed than men because they can unconsciously hide their symptoms better than men can. Outwardly, it can seem like they don't have emotions, but they do, it just manifests differently.
Sheena wrote: "This is a bit strange ... InThe Lager Queen of Minnesota there is a inconsequential mention of "mayflies" (we call them fishflies here) flying round and covering a bridge that sent ..."Wow! That's quite interesting.
I’ve recently read several books set in the Caribbean Islands and I’ve learned a lot about the culture in those countries and every one of them had a calabash in it. So, I now know what a calabash is!
I learned a lot about issues in Australia regarding the way Aboriginal people and communities have been treated by white Australians by reading Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia. I didn't even know a certain word was a slur to Aboriginal people. Honestly, I knew very little, so I learned a lot. I read a book called Broad Strokes: 15 Women Who Made Art and Made History and learned about several artists who were new to me. I learned that a painting hung in the Louvre for years that was the work of a woman artist, but credit for it had been given to a male artist.
I learned that the subject of "wild rice" can be a contentious one amongst certain Native American groups from The Sentence.
I learned that using a dreamcatcher and even making your own dreamcatcher isn't seen as cultural appropriate by the Ojibwe (commercialized dreamcatchers that don't even benefit the Ojibwe is a different story) because of their origin story and what they mean as long is there is respect and understanding from The Story of the Ojibwe Dreamcatcher.
I learned about certain coping tactics of women who have ADHD including list-making to keep from becoming overwhelmed with tasks from Women with ADHD: The Complete Guide to Stay Organized, Overcome Distractions, and Improve Relationships. Manage Your Emotions, Finances, and Succeed in Life.
Does learning about yourself count? I've learned that I have a blind spot when it comes to modern history but whenever I try to read about Soviet history I fall right asleep.
I'm currently reading My Heart Is a Chainsaw and because the main character is a slasher film aficionado, I am learning about slasher films like Friday the 13th and Halloween from her. It even has some interesting background on the filming of the movies themselves.
I am currently reading The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do To Get More of It by Kelly McGonigal and I'm learning a lot about myself, why do I feel so mentally tired usually and many more. :)
I learned about leverage buyouts & RJR Nabisco from reading Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco. I also learned about 1980's Wall Street.
Mod
Yes, learning about yourself absolutely counts!
Last fall I started reading Milkman, then realized I didn't know much about the Troubles of Northern Ireland so I added Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland as supplemental reading. I learned so much, combining those books. A lot of the unexplainable "weirdness" of Milkman made a lot more sense with the added context.
I've been reading Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story, Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War and When Christ and His Saints Slept so I've been learning lots from them.But I think the most interesting tidbit I recently learned was just a small line in City of Veils. It said that devout Muslims shouldn't read fiction because if they're spending time in a fictional world, they're not appreciating the real world that Allah created.
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I just finished The Old Drift, which included a lot of references to Zambian history, something I knew very little about. It reminded me a lot of the experience of reading Midnight's Children, another dense and convoluted work of magical realism that I learned a ton of real life history from (in that case, about the partition of India and Pakistan). I find books like this to be quite challenging, but very worth it.
I often find myself reading randomly and ending up with two or three books set in the same region of the world. The times may be different, but the setting is the same. And, sometimes the subject of the mystery or the novel may be the same. Invariably when that happens I learn something about the area or subject previously not known.And, my favorite real time learning came from a mystery. I learned about Google tracking. I am not a techy and so this was not something that I had known about my Android. Wow! Settings here I come!
[book:Let The Dead Lie|7664676)
It takes place in Durban, South Africa
I learned more about the beginnings of the Apartheid in South Africa. That it was not a longstanding law, that it was started after the second WW, makes it even more horrendous.
Around the Year in 52 Books
Books mentioned in this topic
Let The Dead Lie (other topics)Midnight’s Children (other topics)
The Old Drift (other topics)
The Wind Knows My Name (other topics)
Olga Dies Dreaming (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Magda Szabó (other topics)Magda Szabó (other topics)
Of course this could be from a nonfiction book intended to convey information, but it could also be fiction that introduced you to a new culture or locale. Or maybe you learned something about yourself or life in general.