The Warmth of Other Suns

The Warmth of Other Suns makes The Help look like a piece of shit.

I finished this book the week of Thanksgiving, but with the semester wrapping up and the holidays I haven't had a chance to write about it until now. I had to read it as my "context book" for my Intro to Library and Information Science class. I had 6 options, and this was the only one available as an audiobook, so it won. I'm so glad this is the book I chose, because it is a fantastic book. Because I don't feel like writing it all out again, here's what I wrote about Warmth for my context book discussion (You can ignore the last two paragraphs if you want, that's where I had to talk about how the book related to libraries):

In The Warmth of Other Suns, Isabelle Wilkerson tells the story of the wave of Southern African-Americans who moved out of the South to cities in the North and West. Between 1910 and 1970, the African-American population of cities such as Chicago and Detroit grew by 40%. Wilkerson interviewed hundreds of people about their experiences during the “Great Migration.” She includes many stories from her various interviewees, but the majority of the book focuses on three: Ida Mae Brandon Gladney, who moved from Mississippi to Chicago in the ‘30s, George Swanson Starling, who left Georgia for New York in the ‘40s, and Robert Joseph Pershing Foster, who moved from Louisiana to Los Angeles in the ‘50s. Every story is different, but there are definitely common themes. Each person in the migration was looking for better opportunities than what they could find in the south.

The Warmth of Other Suns only mentions libraries explicitly once, when Wilkerson notes that it was illegal for African-Americans to use the “White” libraries in the Jim Crow-era South. However, there are other connections to library science that can be made. In addition to the segregated libraries, Wilkerson mentions how a popular weekly African-American newspaper, the Chicago Defender, had to be smuggled into the South, because it was not freely available. Limiting the access of information by banning the Chicago Defender and having separate libraries would clearly be a violation of today’s ALA Bill of Rights.

While not nearly as significant as access to information, there is also the simple fact of changing demographics. I can’t find the exact numbers, but Wilkerson mentions that the demographics of Chicago went from around 1% African-American at the beginning of the Great Migration to 33% at the end of the migration. This is a huge change in demographics in just a few decades. Public librarians at the time would have had to adapt to provide services to a large number of patrons coming from the rural South, which was a different culture than that of large Northern cities. In the library where I work I have occasionally helped people who are new to the area find resources they need, from the best ice cream shop and playgrounds for their kids to where to find good job resources. Rural Southerners fresh to the big cities would have needed similar assistance, and a library could have been a good resource.

So that's a general overview of the book, but I guess I should explain my opening statement. Two weekends ago I watched the movie The Help with my parents (we have semi-weekly movie nights). I'd already seen the movie when it was in theaters (I took my mom and grandma to see it, because we're a ridiculously cute family). The thing that was different this time watching The Help was that I had read The Warmth of Other Suns. Since Warmth is about the migration of black Americans from the South to the North and West, it understandably contains many stories about inequality and brutality in the South to explain why so many were fleeing. Some of the stories are absolutely horrifying. I find the phrase "necktie parties" profoundly disturbing. What does this have to do with The Help? Neither the book nor the movie really gives any idea of the danger the maids were in by speaking out against their white employers. Watching the movie now after having read Warmth just makes The Help seem somewhat dishonest. The Help wishes it was as profound as The Warmth of Other Suns, but it's just a watered-down, cartoonish version of American history. The Help is designed to make you feel good because you're not racist like Hilly; Warmth makes you feel bad that your ancestors were white Southern farmers. Does that make any sense?

I don't really know how to end this review, so I guess I'll just leave you with the Richard Wright poem from which Warmth takes its title:

“I was leaving the South
to fling myself into the unknown . . .
I was taking a part of the South
to transplant in alien soil,
to see if it could grow differently,
if it could drink of new and cool rains,
bend in strange winds,
respond to the warmth of other suns
and, perhaps, to bloom”

Grammys? I thought this was a book blog!

Two of the books I reviewed this year have been nominated for Grammys. Abby may have thwarted my attempt to completely dominate the homepage with my own reviews, but she can't take this one away from me! I've reviewed 100% more Grammy nominees than she has! That may have something to do with the fact that this is a book review blog and not a music review blog, but whatever.

Between Bossypants and If You Ask Me (And of Course You Won't), I'm going to have to root for Betty White. Yes, I enjoyed Bossypants so much that I listened to the audiobook after having already read the book (and then I asked for the book for Christmas so that I could read it again), but I have to be honest and say that Betty White's performance is just better. I love Tina Fey with all my heart, but all the whispering asides in the Bossypants audiobook didn't really work.

Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition by Daniel Okrent:

Snippet of Amazon's summary: Writing with both wit and historical acuity, Okrent reveals how Prohibition marked a confluence of diverse forces: the growing political power of the women’s suffrage movement, which allied itself with the antiliquor campaign; the fear of small-town, native-stock Protestants that they were losing control of their country to the immigrants of the large cities; the anti-German sentiment stoked by World War I; and a variety of other unlikely factors, ranging from the rise of the automobile to the advent of the income tax.

That should give you an idea of the range of this book. Okrent leaves no rock unturned in this detailed history of the Prohibition era. The book starts with the political manueverings and personalities that got the 18th amendment passed. All fascinating. It moves on to describe the legal, political, judicial, economic and social impacts of Prohibition's enactment and enforcement, not just in the United States but in Canada, the Caribbean and Europe. Finally it tackles the rather fast fall from favor and repeal of Prohibition and closes with a short reflection on how the movers and shakers of the time have been essentially erased from our cultural memory.

In individual paragraphs and sections, the book is great. The stories are carefully researched and detailed and the individuals and events are really interesting. When taken in portions of more than a couple of pages however, it's just dense. Especially the first half where the movement is kind of gelling from different sections of society. There's no overarching narrative, so it's hard to stay engaged. I ended up reading it in 15 minute stints on my lunch break (thus, it took 4 months to finish). The actual Prohibition-era sections were much more fun, a lot of Baptists & Bootleggers type stuff.

Fans of history will enjoy this book, especially those that are amazed by the power of lobbyists (hint: Prohibitionists invented modern lobbying). It may be dense, but the individual stories are fascinating and often amusing. I recommend the book and intend to check out the PBS miniseries that is it's companion.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

I finished The Book Thief on Saturday, and I've been trying to figure out how to write about it ever since. I enjoyed the audiobook immensely. Allan Corduner's performance is fantastic, and listening to his performance may actually have made me more emotional than had I read the paper version of the book.

I wanted to include some quotations from the book in my review, because Markus Zusak's writing is very lyrical. Some could argue that it's overly-flowery, but I think it works, especially considering our narrator. However, since I listened to the audiobook, it's hard to actually remember the quotes I liked, since it's not like I can just bookmark the page and come back to it later. I tried googling for quotes, but most of the good quotes I found were all super spoilery. So you'll just have to live without examples of Zusak's prose.

The Book Thief is told from the perspective of Death. An appropriate narrator for a book that takes place in Germany during World War II. Death is a compassionate and actually quite witty narrator. Death tells the story of Leisel Meminger, the titular book thief. The first book Leisel steals is The Gravedigger's Handbook, which she finds in the snow next to her little brother's grave. She later goes on to steal a book out of a fire at a Nazi book burning, and a bunch of books from the wealthy mayor. Books are the most important things in Leisel's life, next to her best friend and next-door-neighbor Rudy, and her foster parents Hans and Rosa.

I don't want to spoil any of the plot of the book, but should you choose to read The Book Thief, I would recommend keeping a box of kleenex nearby. I'm just saying. I know it's hard to believe, but a book narrated by Death in Nazi Germany has some sad parts.

How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran

The blurb on the back of the book is so apt I'm just going to copy it here.

1913 – Suffragette throws herself under the King’s horse.
1969 – Feminists storm Miss World.
NOW – Caitlin Moran rewrites The Female Eunuch from a bar stool and demands to know why pants are getting smaller.

There’s never been a better time to be a woman: we have the vote and the Pill, and we haven’t been burnt as witches since 1727. However, a few nagging questions do remain…

Why are we supposed to get Brazilians? Should you get Botox? Do men secretly hate us? What should you call your vagina? Why does your bra hurt? And why does everyone ask you when you’re going to have a baby?

Part memoir, part rant, Caitlin Moran answers these questions and more in How To Be A Woman – following her from her terrible 13th birthday (‘I am 13 stone, have no friends, and boys throw gravel at me when they see me’) through adolescence, the workplace, strip-clubs, love, fat, abortion, TopShop, motherhood and beyond.

So there's that. I picked up this book as part of the A Practical Wedding Book Club and loooooved it. Moran talks about feminism the same way I feel about it. And she's fiercely feminist without giving up the fun things about being a girl (bitching, dressing up, sleeping with musicians).

Moran is terribly funny and the book is a very well put-together memoir/manifesto. Each chapter starts with a (usually traumatizing) episode on Moran's road to womanhood (getting her period, falling in love, having a baby) and segues into a discussion of the effect of the kyriarchy on modern women. Only not as boring as I made that sound. It hilarious. I lol'ed out loud. Several times.

I'm trying to think of a particularly funny passage to share, but it's hard to pin one thing down. The time Moran and a friend were thrown out of a strip club accused of being hookers? Her night with Gaga in a BDSM club? Discovering that even with professional stylists and designer duds, she still didn't look like a model in 98 out of 100 photos? Life's tough out there for a girl.

As a warning, Moran writes very conversationally and is British. I had a bit of difficulty following some of the celebrity references (other than those about Jennifer Aniston) and I had no idea what TopShop is. Not a big deal really, the context comes across. Additionally the book was only published in Britain so Amazon shipping is slow and $$$. I bought my copy used on alibris.com and got it faster and cheaper.

So basically everyone should read this book. Its amusing, affirming, it made me fall in love with Lady Gaga and finally, finally gave me a simple litmus test for detecting sexist bullshit - "Is it polite? Are the boys doing it?" Yay for feminists having fun :)

Bossypants by Tina Fey (audiobook)

I know what you're thinking. "Wait a tick, hasn't Miranda already reviewed Bossypants? What is this, a 'Best of UBC' week?"

Yes, I already reviewed Bossypants. No, this is not a "Best of" thing, because that would pretty much consist of this because it lead to this. This is actually a review of the audiobook version of Bossypants. It was just as good as the print version, maybe even better if you take into account the fact that included is the actual audio of the Sarah Palin/Hilary Clinton SNL bit.

The only problem I had with the audiobook was with sound quality. This is the first time I've tried a downloadable audiobook from the library, so I don't know if it was this specific book or if this is how all downloaded audiobooks sound. Or maybe it's my iPod, which is almost 6 years old. Or maybe it's my car stereo, which is 10 years old. At times during the book Tina would say things sort of under her breath, which didn't really work in my situation because I was listening while driving down a loud interstate in a car whose stereo has basically no volume control. And the whole time Tina sounded a little muffled. But the book itself was great.

There was one section that I had forgot about from the print book that apparently I didn't talk about in my first review. It's the only part of the book I don't like. It's a part where Tina responds to her online critics. This section is not nearly as clever as the rest of the book and really seems kind of unnecessary.

But, all in all, this is still one of my favorite memoirs. I recommend the audiobook just as highly as I recommended the print version.

If You Ask Me by Betty White

So I still haven't gotten the audiobook copy of The Warmth of Other Suns that I ordered from another library. Hopefully it'll get here next week after I get back from my Georgia vacation. I needed something that I could listen to on my way to and from class last night, but not something that was going to be more than a couple of discs, because I don't want to have to put off listening to Warmth (I have to read it for school, and I'd really just like to get it over with). So I looked over the list of audiobooks I had on hold, and one of them happened to be just two discs (about 2 hours and 15 minutes) long: If You Ask Me (And of Course You Won't) by Betty White.

If You Ask Me is a collection of stories from Betty's life. Did you realize that Betty White is 89 years old? I mean, I knew she was old, but I didn't know she was almost ninety. I guess I didn't realize she was so old because my great aunt Betty B. was about Betty W.'s age when she died, and Betty B. wasn't nearly as fun or spunky as Betty W. One of my favorite stories in the book was when Betty is talking about how she doesn't want to be a cougar. She often meets men she finds interesting but she doesn't want to go out with them because usually they're all younger than she is. "He might be only 80!"

This is the first time I've listened to an audiobook read by the author. For a memoir like this, it really adds to the story because you feel like Betty White is just talking to you, telling you stories about Saturday Night Live and her pets. I really enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone who needs a quick, fun read.