 This Is What Democracy Looks Like by Dan Nott, with help from James Sturm, Michelle Ollie and the Center for Cartoon Studies (2019): With this second review, we are leaping from traumas of the body to democracy. Hmmm, we will try not to think too hard about what this transition says about our world today. A quick note, in reviewing this book, we are straying a bit and linking directly to the authors at the Center for Cartoon Studies (CCS), not an indie bookstore. We link that way because currently CCS is the best way to find this book. We review this book now, because we believe is important to immediately spread the word about this important comic that CCS created to help all of us be better informed participants in our democracy. Designed for teens, using colorful illustrations and on-point language, This Is What Democracy Looks Like describes what democracy is and how it is supposed to work. This Is What Democracy Looks Like helps provide critical context and information to move readers beyond politicians' personalities and specific election cycles concerns. And since we are in the midst of a Presidential election cycle, with so much attention is focused on personalities of the politicians and the drama of their words and deeds and mis-steps, this book is a breath of fresh air. Bonus -- CCS also created a free downloadable teacher's guide, linked to the National Council for the Social Studies's common core state standards, for those who works with our teens. According to CCS, the book's goal is to help students be empowered, informed, and civic minded. Our goal is to help more students, teachers, and readers find this book. ~ Lisa Christie  Who Killed My Father by Edouard Louis (2019). This slim volume packs a punch as the author rips into France's neglect of the working class (as seen during strikes earlier this year). He does this by chronicaling his visit to his childhood home to visit his ailing father. Tough, but full of compassion and things to think and talk about. ~ Lisa Cadow  An Odyssey by Daniel Mendelsohn (2017). This was a New York Times/PBS NewsHour Book Club Pick, but we did not know that when we picked it for this post. I loved it for its look at Homer's Odyssey and for its exploration of the relationship between a father and son when the father decides to take his son's undergraduate Odyssey seminar at Bard College. ~ Lisa Cadow  A Cloud a Day: 365 Skies from the Cloud Appreciation Society by Gavin Pretor-Pinney (2019). Clouds are poetry in the sky. Stop! Look up! With this inspiring coffee table book, Pretor-Pinney and his British Cloud Appreciation Society encourage us to do just this. These cloud passionistas want us to understand that we “live in the sky - not beneath it, but within it.” Flipping through it’s 368-pages, the reader is exposed to the heavens : from the marvel of lenticularis clouds - “the smoothest of clouds” - to a survey of art history in which painters portray status, cumulus, and cirrus clouds with centuries of white brush strokes, to awe-inspiring photographic images taken by the society’s members and shared from all over the world. This book is sure to open eyes and minds in 2020 and to help us mere mortals to see the sky in a different way - instead of staring down at our phones, it reminds us to look up, and with wonder. I learned of this book in a recent lovely New York Times piece. If you are looking for the perfect last minute gift for just about anyone on your list, look no further. This is it. And when I last checked, they still had a few ethereal copies left at The Norwich Bookstore. ~ Lisa Cadow  Erosion: Essays of Undoing by Terry Tempest Williams (2019). Reading this book of essays is like taking a long walk through the American West with your most passionate, poetic, and eloquent environmentalist friend. Williams writes with honesty and grace but also with gravity. This is not an uplifting work nor is it meant to be. She is deeply concerned about the future of her beloved Utah, democracy, disappearing birds, Bears Ears National Monument, and the management of public lands. These are serious essays about tea ceremonies in the dessert post-election 2016, the loss of loved ones and beloved places, and the degradation of important legislation. But Williams always notices the beauty around her and encourages her readers to appreciate it as well. This book is for the naturalist in your life. Its message will continue to have an impact long after the last page is turned, inspiring action, preservation and “do-ing.” ~ Lisa Cadow  Mindful Walking by Bonnie Smith Whitehouse (2019) - “Solvitur Ambulando.” Translated from the Latin, this phrase roughly means ”it is solved by walking.” As an avid perambulator, I couldn’t agree more with this premise. This lovely little book walks the reader through ways to be more present, to ease anxiety, to inspire creativity, to increase productivity, and to step away from their phones. It also includes interesting exercises and spaces for written reflection. A wonderful gift for yourself to encourage a more active and mindful year or for the friend you know who loves to take a stroll to help solve it all. Whether or not you decide to bring this book into your life, be sure to remember as you step into 2020 that “there is pleasure in the pathless woods” (Lord Byron). ~Lisa Cadow  Year of Wonder: Classical Music to Enjoy Day by Day by Clemency Burton-Hill (2018) - My husband and I have been having a rich and melodious time over the past week enjoying this book together each day. Author Burton-Hill, a host on BBC radio, has brilliantly curated a varied and fascinating collection of 366 classical works that take the reader on a journey to learn about the wonders of classical music. Her page-long descriptions of the pieces are informative and full of fun facts and allow readers to consider and discuss pieces as they listen (works are easily pulled up on YouTube or Spotify). New Year’s Day started off with Bach’s Mass in B Minor (did you know that Bach wrote over 3,000 pieces and had 20 children?) and tonight we will listen to Poulenc’s “Les Chemins de l’Amour (January 7, 1899 was Poulenc’s birthdate). We already feel enriched by this book and feel lucky to be sharing this musical learning experience over the year to come. After only one week, we would give this book a standing ovation. ~Lisa Cadow  Very Good Lives by JK Rowling (2015) Ms. Rowling's 2008 Harvard commencement speech lovingly illustrated in this book offers the perfect place to insert the check you were planning to give your god-daughter or grandson or son or niece on their graduation. Or, it is the perfect gift on its own for your favorite neighbor or babysitter upon his graduation. Ms. Rowling hits on failure and responsibility and of course imagaination. ~ Lisa Cadow and Lisa Christie  We Need to Talk by Celeste Headlee (2017) – Honestly, I can’t review this book more accurately than indie bookstore reviewers did, so I am totally copying their review here. I will say, I think this book – once I actually incorporate some of its advice – may change my life. So from the indie bookstores’ review, “today most of us communicate from behind electronic screens, and studies show that Americans feel less connected and more divided than ever before. The blame for some of this disconnect can be attributed to our political landscape, but the erosion of our conversational skills as a society lies with us as individuals. And the only way forward, says Headlee, is to start talking to each other. In We Need to Talk, she outlines the strategies that have made her a better conversationalist—and offers simple tools that can improve anyone’s communication.” I add this book here to help you have great conversations during all those gatherings you will host and attend in 2019, and because I think we all could use some help having better conversations. ~ Lisa Christie  When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalinithi (2016) – Chances are good that you’ve heard of this best selling memoir but may not have read it given the heavy subject matter. At the outset, we know that the author, 36-year old Paul will succumb to lung cancer at the height of his career as a neurosurgeon. Don’t let this put you off from reading his incredible story and from benefiting from the insights he gleaned during his short life. Kalinithi is a brilliant writer who was curious from a young age about the workings of the mind and it’s connection to our soul. He studied philosophy and creative writing before committing to medicine which gives him other lenses from which to explore profound questions. He is candid with the reader about his personal and professional struggles. Ultimately I found this book hopeful and inspiring. When I turned the last page I immediately wanted to share it with loved ones. ~ Lisa Cadow (and seconded by Lisa Christie)  Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (2015). Ta-Nehisi Coates is a national correspondent at The Atlantic, where he writes about culture, politics, and social issues. This book is a letter to his son about race in America. As another of our favotire authors wrote about this book, “I’ve been wondering who might fill the intellectual void that plagued me after James Baldwin died. Clearly it is Ta-Nehisi Coates. The language of Between the World and Me, like Coates’ journey, is visceral, eloquent, and beautifully redemptive. And its examination of the hazards and hopes of black male life is as profound as it is revelatory.” ~ Lisa Cadow and Lisa Christie  All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung (2018). As a mother to two sons, adopted from South America and raised in overwhelmingly white Vermont, this book was truly difficult for me. Chung’s stories of growing up as the rare person of color in her predominantly white community in Oregon and the trauma that she had to work through as a result, hit a little too close to home. Her difficulties with identity and her adoption, tugged hard at my heart and my guilt. Her writing is poignant and pointed as she tells her tale of finding her birth family, exploring her own feelings about motherhood while preparing to give birth for the first time, and discovering what family means to her. In short, this book is a great memoir for anyone interested in the experiences of people of color in the USA, the experiences of adoption in the USA, and how families are formed no matter your race or birth status.~ Lisa Christie  My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor (2018). I used this book for one of the book clubs I run in my health coaching job. In this memoir, Jill Bolte Taylor, a thirty-seven- year-old Harvard-trained brain scientist desxcribes her life before and after she experienced a massive stroke in the left hemisphere of her brain. She watches her mind deteriorate to the point that she could not walk, talk, read, write, or recall any of her life-all within four hours. However, her stroke was a blessing and enabled many revelations. A great book for intense discussions about life and thinking. ~ Lisa Cadow  Something/anything by Brene Brown (assorted years). We first heard of Ms. Brown because of a TED talk. Then she seemed to be everywhere – on multiple NPR interviews, in magazines, books in friends’ homes. So we picked up a book or tow of hers and read. In all, she takes her research studying difficult emotions such as shame, fear, vulnerability from her career at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work, and adds insights from her own “mid-life unraveling” and other real life adventures. Her messages throughout are more insightful than they may at first appear. And, she reminds us all that courage, compassion and connection are gifts that only work when exercised. ~ Lisa Cadow and Lisa Christie  The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown (2013) – Not sure why I never got around to reading this, but I am so glad I finally did. What a terrific tale of triumphing – ultimately over Hitler, but also over horrendous parents, poverty and low expectations. ~ Lisa Christie  Unbelievable by Katy Tur (2017) – An up front and personal account of the 2016 presidential race from a MSNBC and MBC reporter who followed Trump from the time when everyone thought his candidacy was a long shot all the way through his election. As Jill Abramson said in a New York Times book review – “Compelling… this book couldn’t be more timely.” (The author was the recipient of the 2017 Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism.) ~ Lisa Christie  Notorius RBG by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik (2018) – This was the perfect counterpoint for me to absorb last winter/spring after another school shooting. Why you may ask? Well, it reminded me that there are fabulous people out there in high places looking out for people who don’t have voices. It also provided a superb look at the life of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It would also be an excellent primer to read before seeing RBG in theaters. ~ Lisa Christie  Counting Coup by Larry Colton (2001) – Mr. Colton journeys into the world of a group of Crow Indians living in Montana, and follows the struggles of a talented, moody, charismatic young woman basketball player named Sharon. This book far more than just a sports story – it exposes Native Americans as long since cut out of the American dream. ~ Lisa Christie  We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2014) – Ms. Markle is a self-proclaimed feminist. This gorgeous, concise long-essay-of-a-book might help her to articulate why as she travels the UK in her new role. We envision her handing these books out like candy as she performs her new duties. Previously reviewed by us on our post entitled Beyond the Marches. ~ Lisa Christie
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