Read Harder Challenge: Solar System, Professor and the Madman, Lives They Left Behind

Reviews by Ambrea

I have three more books to add to my list for the Read Harder Challenge:

1.      Read a nonfiction book about science.

2.      Read a book originally published in the decade you were born.

3.      Read a book with a main character that has a mental illness.

First on my list is How to Read the Solar System:  A Guide to the Stars and Planets by Chris North and Paul Abel, who host The Sky at Night on BBC.  I’m actually really glad I finished this book, because it offered me insight into the solar system that I simply didn’t have prior to reading North and Abel’s collaborative book.  While it is a bit dry and quite dense, I should point out that How to Read the Solar System is not a bad book.

I mean, I was sometimes very bored with the book when the authors went into great detail about how amateur astronomers should find a specific location in space—like how to find a particular moon by Jupiter, or which filter to use in order to observe the sun (helpful, if I understood where one might find such filters.  Or if my telescope worked properly), or pinpointing the exact degree to which one might adjust a telescope to find Venus—and I found myself losing interest.  Quickly.

I’m not saying it wasn’t a good book.  I learned something interesting about each of the planets and all the different heavenly bodies that inhabit space, which was an important aspect of reading this book.  For instance, I learned that Io, one of Jupiter’s many moons, has tectonic activity (specifically cryovolcanic activity, since it’s an icy wasteland); sound waves travel faster through plasma, which gives scientists the opportunity to measure the internal activity of the sun (since it’s made up of plasma); and meteor showers are essentially the debris left behind by comets, like a dust storm that the Earth passes through during its orbit.

I enjoyed actually learning something new, even if it’s not quite as useful as one might hope.  Like I said, it’s not a bad book.  Just a little dry and dense and, dare I say it, pedantic.  It’s not something I would read twice, but it’s a vast well of information that’s sure to hold appeal for readers who greatly enjoy science, astronomy, technology, and even mathematics.  It’s definitely worth checking out, especially if you’re curious about the solar system and the explorations humankind has made.  More importantly, it gets points in my book for having an index, so I was able to easily look up the most intriguing bits of information.

Next, I looked at The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester, which was more in line with my purview.  Titled The Surgeon of Crowthorne when it was originally published in Britain, Winchester’s book underwent a slight change when it migrated over to the United States, becoming The Professor and the Madman—which was accompanied by the glorious subtitle, A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary.  I mean, how could I not be the tiniest bit enticed?

The Professor and the Madman is a story about the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary (otherwise known as the OED), specifically one of the most prolific contributors in its history:  Dr. William Chester Minor.  Minor was a surgeon during the American Civil War, who traveled to England and, eventually, found himself convicted of murder and put into a sanitarium; however, during his stint at Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, he stumbled across a call for contributors to the OED.  After contacting Professor James Murray, who oversaw the entire project, he began to offer definitions, quotations, and etymology slips for the OED.  He send thousands of paper slips to Oxford, before his death in 1920, and he quickly became one of their most productive contributors.

As crazy as it might seem, it’s all very true.

Like Eric Larson—who has written Devil in the White City, Dead Wake, and Thunderstruck—Winchester has a narrative quality to his work that makes it appealing without compromising the facts of history.  Winchester pulls from a variety of resources, including medical documents from Broadmoor, correspondence between Professor Murray and Dr. Minor and others involved in the OED, as well as several historical texts.  He uses information to benefit the story, supplying an electrifying narrative while, simultaneously, feeding its readers the true and unaltered facts.  It’s all very, very good, and I highly recommend it.

As for my final book, I read The Lives They Left Behind:  Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic by Darby Penney and Peter Stastny.  Although I suspect this final category, which recommends reading a book with a main character who has a mental illness, is referring to a fictional novel rather than a nonfiction narrative, I decided to run with ambiguous wording and read something not about one character with a mental illness, but ten.

The Lives They Left Behind explores the lives of Willard State Hospital patients who were admitted to the hospital during the late 19^th and 20^th centuries.  Penney and Stastny provide an in-depth look at some of the permanent residents at Willard, as well as offer a glimpse at the big picture of mental/psychiatric care during its most formative years.  The book also provides photographs and illustrations that further illuminate the care patients received, and what sort of trials they went through with their mental illness—or perceived mental illness.

Altogether, I found it to be a fascinating book.  It’s an examination of psychiatric care that provides history and statistics, which can prove to be a bit dull, but it also connects on an emotional level and delivers nuggets of truth that are sometimes like a punch in the gut.  It’s a tough read sometimes.  For instance, I had a hard time reading about the electroshock therapy that often caused patients to have convulsions, or the medications which were prescribed that often did more harm than good—or, worse, how some patients were treated even if they didn’t suffer from a psychiatric disease.

Patients, like Ethel Smalls or Margaret Dunleavy, were most likely suffering from other conditions rather than a mental disorder.  Ethel Smalls likely suffered from PTSD after losing her children and spending years on the receiving end of her husband’s temper, enduring years of abuse that left her in a fragile state.  Likewise, Margaret Dunleavy was hospitalized after an uncharacteristic outburst due to a personal tragedy and chronic, debilitating pain.  Neither woman displayed the usual characteristics of a mental disorder, rather they were hospitalized because they were inconvenient.  It’s a heartbreaking fact that gives the book an undercurrent of tragedy that shocked me.

Nevermore Nonfiction Picks: Washingtons, Astronomy, Laura Ingalls, Microbes, Poverty

Reported by Ambrea

Our readers brought a great selection of nonfiction to Nevermore this week, looking into the life of a favorite childhood author, digging deep into the history and the relationships of the Washingtons, America’s First Family, and delving into the natural world.  Starting out, one of our readers volunteered $2.00 a Day:  Living on Almost Nothing in America by Kathryn J. Edin and H. Luke Shaefer.  A startling exposé of poverty in America, $2.00 a Day provides insight into the families who struggle to make ends meet and, in some case, resort to desperate measures to keep food on the table and a roof over their head.  Edin and Shaefer interview dozens of impoverished families, compiling research and individual stories to illustrate a startling fact:  1.5 million American households subsist on just $2.00 per person per day—which includes almost 3 million children.  According to our Nevermore reader, $2.00 a Day offers a glimpse into the lives of people who are homeless, who are living from hand to mouth and holding on by the tiniest threads.  It’s illuminating, she said, because it shows readers the truth behind families that struggle financially in the United States.  It’s eye-opening and jarring, but it’s definitely worth reading.

Next, our readers looked at a classic children’s author with Pioneer Girl:  The Annotated Autobiography, written by Laura Ingalls Wilder and edited by Pamela Smith Hill.  In her newly published autobiography—which disappeared in the 1930s—Wilder recounts her childhood:  she recalls their journeys from Kansas to Missouri, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and even to the Dakota Territory; she recounts the unforgettable stories of her childhood; and she puts into words the pioneer life experienced by millions of others.  Our Nevermore reader was quite pleased with Pioneer Girl, saying it was full of interesting information and quite candid as it showed all the struggles that Wilder and her family faced in their journey through the western states and territories.  However, she wished it would have offered more about Garth Williams—a prolific artist who illustrated dozens of classic children’s novels, including Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie—and delved a little deeper into the publication and creations of the “Little House” series.  Altogether, she said it was an interesting book and deserved to be looked at by fans of Laura Ingalls Wilder, or any interested in pioneer history and lore.

Switching gears, our book club looked at the natural world—and healthy eating—in The Hidden Half of Nature:  the Microbial Roots of Life and Health by David R. Montgomery and Anne Biklé.  Montgomery and Biklé are on a mission to bring life back to their yard, feeding the soil a steady diet of organic matter and compost, planting new crops that will help bring their soil back to life—and it works.  Impressed by results, the authors begin to chronicle their adventures with bacteria and microbes found in soil (and the human body) and show how both can benefit from a little organic TLC.  Our Nevermore reader initially thought The Hidden Half of Nature was mostly a book on gardening and imbuing new life to one’s garden, but she found it had much more to do with health and building human immunity through the cultivation of beneficial bacteria and microbes.  While it wasn’t quite what she expected, she said she found The Hidden Half of Nature to be highly technical and very interesting.

Our Nevermore group also took another look at science (and technology), but in a very different context:  religion.  In God’s Mechanics:  How Scientists and Engineers Make Sense of Religion, Brother Guy Consolmagno records how a handful of people who love science—who may even be scientists and engineers or “techies” (as Consolmagno dubs himself)—reconcile their scientific/technological mindset and their religious practices.  Consolmagno, a Jesuit Catholic planetologist, shows how he comfortably brings together his profound, unprovable religious beliefs with his love of theoretical planetary science.  Our reader said he found the author to be much less dogmatic than he expected, giving the reader a very different view of religion and religious practice than he’d seen.  Overall, God’s Mechanics was a very fine book and very enjoyable, offering a glimpse into religion without being overbearing or “preachy.”

Last, our readers checked out The Washingtons:  George and Martha, “Join’d by Friendship, Crown’d by Love” by Flora Fraser.  In 1759, George Washington—then a young bachelor and the newly appointed owner of Mount Vernon—wed Martha Dandridge Park Custis, a charming and (incredibly) wealthy widow, officially beginning their forty-year marriage and the tumultuous saga of their lives.  Fraser provides insight into the public face that the Washingtons present, as the Revolution waged and the politics of early America enveloped them, and the domestic bliss that the Washingtons cultivated at Mount Vernon, New York and even Philadelphia.  The Washingtons is, according to the cover, “a remarkable story of a remarkable pair as well as a gripping narrative of the birth of a nation—a major, and vastly appealing, contribution to the literature of our founding fathers…and founding mother.”  Our Nevermore reader couldn’t have agreed more.  He said Fraser’s book was incredibly detailed and precise, offering an intimate look at the first First Family of the United States and the relationship of George and Martha Washington as the suffered under the strain of a Revolution—and the politics of early American republic; however, it was also very good.  He called it a “delightful book,” saying it provided a comprehensive and enjoyable look at the Washingtons and the early United States.

How to Tell Toledo from the Night Sky by Lydia Netzer

Reviewed by Kristin

How to Tell Toledo from the Night Sky by Lydia Netzer is one of those page-turners that I just couldn’t stop reading.  Irene Sparks and George Dermont have been arcing through their lives separately, not knowing that their mothers planned their meeting before they were born.  Netzer’s characters have such quirky, appealing personalities.  In a world that recognizes differences are what make us special, these two non-conformists shine brighter than the stars.

Irene is a serious scientist, an astronomer who has created infinitesimal black holes in her lab in Pittsburgh.  With this breakthrough, the world-famous Toledo Institute of Astronomy invites her to join their ranks.  George is also a research fellow and instructor at the Institute, but with a dreamy outlook and a desire to find the reality of God through the immense reaches of the physical universe.

As Irene moves back to Toledo to accept this prestigious position, her mother has just died from a fall down the stairs.  Irene hadn’t spoken to her for years, as her mother had immersed herself deeper and deeper into her astrological beliefs while Irene moved forward with her unsentimental scientific research.

George had been told by a psychic that he was destined to be with a brown haired astronomer whom he would meet in Toledo.  After dating almost every available brunette at the Institute, George sees Irene at the annual welcome banquet and in an instant, he realizes, “It’s you.”  For George, their fate is locked.  Irene, well, she’s not so sure.

Irene and George struggle with knowing each other and discovering the multifaceted layers of their histories.  Are they truly meant to be together?  Or has this all just been a tangle created by their mothers more than two decades earlier?  Writing not just a love story, Netzer weaves together a story with beautiful language that shows how two unusual people learn to make sense of their lives, the world and the universe.

Netzer’s previous book, Shine, Shine, Shine is another beautiful novel that mixes socially awkward people and love. Read that review here.

To experience a fresh voice in new fiction, explore the worlds created by Lydia Netzer.