Book Report

 

Time for a Book Report!

My rating system:
10 – life-changing, an all-time favorite
5 - average for what I read
1 – terrible; why did I finish it?

 

Kindred Beings by Sheri Speede – This was really an excellent book. The author, a veterinarian, learns of the plight of chimpanzees in Cameroon. These intelligent beings are facing some nightmarish stuff – their land is being taken, they are often hunted and killed, and some of them have spent decades in chains (literally) at hotels as amusement for guests. Speede spearheads a sanctuary for them. Honestly I loved every aspect of the book. Hearing about the chimpanzees and how they act, how they form bonds with humans (and they can also be aggressive and “bad” too, just like humans). The challenges Speede faced and how she dealt with them. She even provides the right amount of info on her personal life – enough to see that she’s human and makes mistakes, and how she deals with obstacles. A joy to read. Grade: 8

 

Where the Waters Divide by Karen Berger and Daniel Smith – The authors are a husband and wife pair who walked the Continental Divide. The Continental Divide is not as well-known as the Appalachian Trail or the Pacific Crest Trail, but basically the Continental Divide runs north-south on the west coast, from border to border. They started in New Mexico and walked through Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana up to the Canadian border. The book was published in 1993, and although it doesn’t say what year they completed their trek during, it is clear that the Continental Divide was (or is) not as clearly marked or as well laid-out as the other two trails. In any event, I love reading books about long-distance hikes. This one was pretty good; the major downfall is that the authors go off on too many tangents, weighing the account down a bit. It was nice to read that, similar to in a book on my last report, the authors found most strangers were very willing to help in a multitude of ways. Grade: 6

 

The Book of M by Peng Shepherd – A novel taking place in the near future. Across the globe, various people start to lose their shadows, and then shortly afterwards they gradually begin to lose their memories. And then bizarrely, they sometimes develop the ability to change reality based on that memory loss. (Someone forgets what money is, so all the money around her turns into blank paper). Needless to say, this causes society to break down. Our main characters are a husband and wife who had been staying in a remote resort for a wedding. The novel is long and it really requires you to suspend disbelief, which I struggled with. (For someone who watches stuff like Legends of Tomorrow, X-men, and Supergirl, I sure have different standards for the printed word!) But truly there just was too much “this can’t happen in real life!” here. I loved that the author had a ton of racial/ethnic/gender diversity among her characters though. And despite the aspects of the novel that I didn’t love, I kept on reading. Grade: 5

 

Non Obvious: How to Predict Trends and Win the Future by Rohit Bhargava – The book is exactly what the title says. The author is a futurist; he predicts trends and apparently has published a book like this each year for the past several years. There was a lot to love in this book. He extensively covers his methodology. He reviews his past trends predictions and rates them. He provides cautions on trend-predicting, and he’s great at laying out how you can put each trends to work for you in your business and personal life. I do think this sort of book is good to read for anyone in the business world, plus it’s so accessible. I wrote down a few websites he recommended to check out later, ordered a book or two that he recommended, and made some mental notes. Grade: 7

 

Rules for Revolutionaries by Becky Bond and Zack Exley – A book for political organizers written by two prominent members of Bernie Sanders’ team. Part of me had to suspend the “wait, he didn’t actually win” reaction and remind myself that he did far better than he “should” have done. The advice seemed good, and since I am a geek for this stuff – and I want to remember it – I’ll summarize it:

-       Fighting racism needs to be central to everything you do (I totally agree)

-       Leverage volunteers and give them responsibilities. You won’t have the funds to hire all the staff you need. Treat volunteers as well as you treat staff

-       There was a lot of focus on phone-banking. I hate phone-banking. But I get it: you reach more people than you can via canvassing (going door to door). They talk about getting an auto-dialer system where the volunteer doesn’t have to actually dial the numbers but rather a computer does. I’ve used it a few times and hated it because it was very hard to tell when someone had answered, and that delayed time could lead to an annoyed person on the other end of the line.

-       They talked about how to take the energy at local meetings and harness it into concrete action. That’s always hard! I loved the nitty-gritty of their methods. (Even though a lot of it resulted in more….phone banking. God I hate phone banking).

-       Get lots of small donations by many people instead of fewer rich backers. That makes total sense. You need numbers and a mass movement

-       There was also lots of good advice on dealing with “the annoying” and making your organization well-run. On that first point, YES – every social/political group is going to get at least 1 annoying person, and I’m so glad they addressed that. And many such groups also ignore basics of good management, so there was also good advice on that.

-       Conditions constantly change on a campaign and you need to be flexible

-       When you have masses of volunteers, you need to think about what the authors call “rinse and repeat” – how you can give them work that they can do and that is easily scalable

-       Engage people who are new to politics.

Grade: 8