ASK Musings

Rating:

3.5 Stars

CN: Pet illness and loss.

In a nutshell:
Veterinarian Dr Attas started the first house call vet service in Manhattan and share stories of treating the pets of the ultra rich, the not rich, and the famous.

Best for:
Those who love animals, so long as one can handle some sad stories as well.

Quote that made me think:
N/A

Why I chose it:
In December we had to say goodbye to our cat of 14 years, Tigger. We knew we wanted to say goodbye at home, both to reduce the stress on him and give him a good experience, but also so his brother Jameson could know what had happened. Dr Kim works for a company that specializes in in-home euthanasia and took such amazing care of both Tigger and me and my partner. She was so kind, and so respectful. It made an absolutely horrible day bearable. When I saw a book about in-home vets, I knew I wanted to read it!

Review:
Dr Attas has always known she wanted to be a vet, and was able to make it happen. The book shares some of her early career and how she was able to volunteer with vets to confirm what she wanted to do. She talks about the first pets she adopted, including a blind pug, and she also shares some of her personal life, including how she met her husband. But most of the book is focused on the stories of the pets and the humans she encounters.

She definitely name drops, but it does make sense because these are the people who she interacts with – Joan Rivers helped her with her business when she started (after being fired by a disappointing former boss). Billy Joel, Cher, and even Paul McCartney eventually feature in the book. But the real stars are the precious animals Dr Attis treats. She shares stories of routine appointment, of devastating diagnosis, and everything in between. She talks of doting pet parents and jerks who abandon pets when something new and shiny (a baby, another new pet) comes into the home. She clearly cares about her clients.

The one thing that left me feeling kind of meh about the book and the author is how much she focuses on pure breeds. She definitely does not support puppy mills or anything like that, and she helps with rehoming and adoping pets, but I don’t recall any discussion of mutts in the book. She herself seems to have a preference for pugs, which are bred in such a way that they often have breathing problems. I would have loved to hear more about the harm created for these animals but there wasn’t much about that.

While this book is a fairly new release, most of the stories take place in the 90s, which I wasn’t expecting.

Would I recommend it to its target audience:
I think so, but again, only if one can handle some very sad stories as well.

Rating: 4 Stars

In a nutshell:
Journalist Doctorow explores how technology is getting worse and offers ideas for what can be done to reverse the trend.

Best for:
Anyone is real tired of shit like having to subscribe to be able to print something from a printer they own.

Quote that made me think:
“Companies abuse you if they can get away with it. That’s the crux of enshitification”

“A world without regulation is a catastrophe.”

Why I chose it:
It’s been catching my eye every time I’m in a bookstore but it’s hard back still, so I decided to read the audio version.

Review:
I don’t even know where to start. Doctorow is a great writer, but the main reason this is a four star rating is because I’m still not sure about the ‘and what to do about it’ part of the subtitle of the book. He does a fantastic job of describing all the ways and reasons for the failures of corporations and technology, but the solutions as usual seem to lie in having better people making laws and regulations, and having the workers organize.

The book talks about companies you’d expect – Google, Apple, Meta, uber – and how much they really do suck. For him, enshitification has three steps:
– A company starts out optimizing for its customers. This is the cool part, when companies actually care about the people they are building the product for.
– As a company gets success, they start to optimize for the business, at the expense of the users / customers.
– Finally, the company chooses to optimize for shareholders at the expense of everyone.

And the bigger the companies get, the worse it is. As opposed to ‘too big to fail,’ Doctorow says these companies get ‘too big to care.’ We have effective monopolies on certain things – especially in the social media sphere because the original product helped people connect to others, and they don’t want to lose the ability to stay connected. I meant that’s why I returned to Instagram after a year break – I was bummed that I was missing out on seeing what was going on in the lives of my friends who live overseas. And there isn’t an alternative that they all use.

This review can’t go into all the interesting things I learned (and hopefully I correctly understood), but here are a couple of times I didn’t know but made me feel gross:
– Amazon requires those who sell on their site to sell it at the same price elsewhere. And Amazon shipping costs companies a ton, so sales on Amazon not only suck for the company but also suck for all of us because even if we don’t buy it on Amazon, Amazon influences it.
– App stores take a 30% cut of everything sold through apps. THIRTY PERCENT. Now I understand why I have to buy books on the Libro FM website and can’t buy any through the app — it’s to save that 30%. Gross.

There’s also a huge part of the book focused on right to repair and digital rights that is also infuriating. The anecdote about a ‘carve out’ to allow blind people the ability to convert digital books to be used with adaptive technology is especially farcical.

My biggest take-away isn’t necessary that capitalism is the cause of all this (though, I mean, it’s a big part of the problem), but that our governments are completely failing on this front. There needs to be much stronger regulation as well as much more freedom for the consumers. Which is hard to focus on right now for lots of us since many are fighting for other rights (like the right to not be shot or disappeared by ICE agents, or the right to not be forced to give birth, or the right to have safe workplaces).

There is a lot in this book, and the audio version is read by the author, which I don’t usually see in these types of books, so that was fun. His tone and delivery were needed given the gravity of the topic.

Would I recommend it to its target audience:
Absolutely.

Two Stars

In a nutshell:
A pandemic has hit, and London is in full total lockdown (like, checkpoints and military shooting people who aren’t supposed to be there lockdown). While building a temporary hospital, contractors discover bones that were not there the day before.

Best for:
I’m not sure.

Quote that made me think:
N/A

Why I chose it:
I’ve been mostly enjoying this author this year and this one was available from the library.

Review:
Wooof. So this book had so much potential, but I struggled to finish it. It starts with a note from the author, where he shares that he wrote this book years before the COVID pandemic but no one was interested in it. Then, when the pandemic hit, he tried again and it was published. And I sort of get why publishers would be interested in a book set in a pandemic that doesn’t seem to be exactly ABOUT the pandemic, but this wasn’t great.

The main character is a detective who is about to leave the force. Like, in two days. I can’t even recall his name, but he is estranged from his wife and just done with the job. But he is called to a scene where bones of what turns out to be a young child have been dropped. The story itself goes on with some different point of view chapters, including from someone involved in the murder, and one of the forensic investigators.

The issues I had were with the language choices and character choices the author makes. The child in question turns out to be a young Chinese girl with a facial difference (cleft palate). I genuinely don’t understand why the author felt the need for that to be a defining characteristic, and why he repeatedly had characters talk about how ‘ugly’ the girl must have been. The fuck? What purpose does that serve? Even if they wanted the character to have a standout feature, why make it a facial difference that they would all then hammer home? It’s just weird.

And then there was the forensic officer who uses a wheelchair, and all sorts of language choices and descriptors that I would maybe expect to find in a book written in the 70s, not one published in the 2020s. Their inability to walk does play into the plot of the book at least, but the way the character is treated left me feeling icky.

The background discussion of the pandemic was interesting, especially the distribution of flu treatment, the dire situation in hospitals, and the very serious lockdown rules. IT was much more drastic than the COVID rules, showing how different things might have been with an even deadlier virus. But the rest of the book was not for me.

Would I recommend it to its target audience:
No, because I think it is a bit insulting to the reader.

Rating:
3.5 Stars

In a nutshell:
Fin has been summoned to return to the island he left nearly two decades ago to assist in a murder investigation.

Best for:
Those who like a mystery with roots in childhood.

Quote that made me think:
N/A

Why I chose it:
May is author who writes mostly mysteries set on the island of Lewis, which is one of my favorite places in Scotland. I accidentally started reading the final book in the series, so immediately jumped back to pick this one up, which is the starting point.

Review:
May is an interesting writer, and paints vivid pictures, though at times the phrases he chooses seem a bit over the top. Once I got used to his style, I was absorbed into the book.

The chapters alternate – third person perspective following Fin, an Edinburgh police officer on leave whose 8-year-old son has just passed away. He and his wife are destroyed, and their marriage is struggling. When Fin is called to a murder similar to one in Edinburgh he worked, he is required to return to his home island of Lewis. His wife is livid, but he still goes.

Once there, he is faced with old friends he hasn’t seen in 18 years. This leads to alternating chapters, from the first person perspective of Fin, at various stages of his life. It’s not totally linear, but follows major points in his life, like when he became an orphan. These chapters provide insight into island life, and into relationships with people who now appear to be murder suspect, as well as into the victim.

There’s also a side storyline about a cultural practice of men going to an island to cull birds, and it is so descriptive I could feel the saltwater.

It took awhile to get into for me, but once I was into it I found it enthralling, and I’m looking forward to reading the second book in the series.

Would I recommend it to its target audience:
Yes – the twists and revelations are well foreshadowed but not totally obvious.

Rating:
4 Stars

In a nutshell:
Author Wachter-Boettcher explores what is so very wrong with modern technology.

Best for:
Those interested in how horribly tech has gone wrong, and the problems that persist today.

Quote that made me think:
“When those values reflect a narrow world view, one defined by privileged white men dead set on disruption at all costs, things fall apart for everyone else.”

Why I chose it:
This has been on my to read list for years, and the audio book was available in Libby so finally decided to check it out.

Review:
This book was written around 2016/2017, so it is a bit outdated, in that things have gotten even worse. The information in this book is pre-Twitter’s switch to become Elon’s and white supremacy at large’s playground, pre-most of generative AI, and pre Trump 2.0. But the author does predict in general terms things that have come to pass, and it’s just frustrating that in ten years, instead of making tech better and safer, it’s just gotten even worse.

This book is just chock full of examples of how technology is not working for the majority of people, and serves instead the whims of the tech billionaires and their minions. For example, Pure Gym had a long list of titles (Mr / Miss etc) that members had to select as part of their membership. When one woman who was a Dr and used that title tried to access the women’s locker rooms, she couldn’t, because in the system, Dr coded to male. Basically, default options that are created by a homogeneous group (generally well-off white dudes) don’t lead to positive experiences. Like the period tracking app that assumes the main reason people want to track their cycles is because pregnancy (seeking or avoiding), which leaves out anyone who doesn’t have sex that could result in pregnancy.

The book also explores how certain tech – like Facebook (now Meta) becomes the arbiter of things that are way too important to be left to tech bros. Like the ‘real name’ controversy, where individuals using chosen names, or names that don’t fit into white European norms (such as indigenous names) are rejected, and people have to appeal for recognition. When technology becomes essential, we struggle with the private sector wanting all the benefits of being essentially a utility but without any of the regulation or oversight.

It also addresses the ‘pipeline’ problem – the claim that if we just fix the pipeline, there will be more diversity in tech. But the reality is even as the pipeline expands and diversifies, the end point is a sewer. Not many people want to work in a cesspool of overinflated tech egos that’s only getting more and more disgusting.

It’s obviously not an uplifting book, but I do think the information is important to know and to keep in mind as we all interact with more technology every day.

I listened to the audio book and I found the voice artist to be distracting. Do you remember the Vanessa Bayer character from Saturday Night Live? The young theater kid? The voice artist was a member of SAG and seemed to overact a lot of narration. It was unpleasant to listen to, but the content of the book itself was engaging.

Would I recommend it to its target audience:
I think so, with the caveat that it is ten years old, so while still depressingly relevant, some of it is outdated.

Rating:
3.5 Stars

In a nutshell:
A series of very short suggestions for ways to reconnect with one’s self and the world.

Best for:
Those of us who may find ourselves easily distracted and/or hoping to focus more on what is important in our lives.

Quote that made me think:
“What, among everything you encounter, could be made better somehow?”

Why I chose it:
I spend so much time on my phone, multi-tasking, and sort of floating through life, and I was hoping this would give me some ideas of how to be more intentional with my time and attention.

Review:
This book was not quite what I expected, which is my own fault, as I didn’t spend enough time looking through it when I bought it. Instead of containing traditional chapters, it has five sections, each containing suggested projects along a theme. Each project is rated on a scale of 1-4, with one being very easy to do and four being challenging / very involved.

The areas of focus are ‘looking,’ ‘sensing,’ ‘going places,’ ‘connecting with others,’ and ‘being alone.’

The book feels a bit more like a collection of bits of performance art, and indeed the author very openly borrows many of the suggested practices from performance and other types of artists. Which isn’t quite what I was expecting, but it was still interesting to contemplate nonetheless. Example projects are as basic as ‘notice something new every day’ and as complex as ‘exhaust a place.’

There are definitely some projects in here that I plan to pursue, but it will require some intentionality. Unlike, say, a ‘do this each day’ type of book, where each day you’re assigned a new task, this book is just a catalog of ideas, and its up to me to actually pick one and go with it. For me, the easiest ones would probably be in the ‘looking’ and ‘being alone’ sections, which probably means I should start with the other sections.

Would I recommend it to its target audience:
Yes, with the understanding that some of the suggestions will likely be a bit much.

Rating:
3.5 Stars

In a nutshell:
Actress and dancer Kelly Bishop tells the story of her life.

Best for:
Fans not just of Gilmore Girls, but fans of theatre, and those who just appreciate a clever woman.

Quote that made me think:
“Aren’t we lucky that there’s such a wide variety of dreams to choose from, and so many people who choose them.”

Why I chose it:
I watched Gilmore Girls on streaming and found the characters interesting. Thought this might be an interesting read.

Review:
This is a good memoir, at least by my measure, which is this: did I learn something new about the author’s life (yes) and did it feel like they were as honest as reasonable (yes). I came away thinking that Bishop is the rare person who is not brutally honest – they are just honest. There’s only apologizing when it is warranted, but there isn’t the cruelty that so often comes with it. Basically, I get the sense that Bishop is who the average ‘I just tell it like it is’ person THINKS they are, when in reality the vast majority of them are just assholes. And she does not strike me as an asshole.

She has also lived a FASCINATING life. I’m not going to get into it all here (that’s the point of the book, right?), but she was part of the workshop that resulted A Chorus Line, and one of the characters is basically based on her life. And she won a Tony award for it (coincidentally, she won the same night as future TV husband Edward Hermann). And who could forget that she was Baby’s mom in Dirty Dancing? And of course, the role that millennials likely know her from – Emily on Gilmore Girls.

Some things that really stood out to me where her love of animals, and her very clear desire to NOT have children. It’s one of the first things that comes up in the book (a musing she had as a child herself), and she sticks to it throughout her life. She shares in the book that she had an abortion when she had an unexpected pregnancy, and she doesn’t apologize for it or make excuses, because she doesn’t need to. She just shares why it was the right choice for her.

Her personal life had rough aspects to it – a horrible father, and a not-great first husband. But her second husband was clearly her great love, and she speaks of him (and his experience with cancer and ultimately his death) with an almost poetry.

The section on Gilmore Girls is not as long or detailed as I would have expected given the title of the book, but it makes sense if you think about how long a life she has lived. It is interested, for sure, but I probably would have enjoyed more.

The quote I chose to pull out I loved because I think it’s a great thing not just for aspiring dancers, or actors, or artists in general. None of us need to live the same lives, and that’s a good thing. We can dream of having children, and dream of not having children. We can dream of dancing in the West End or of teaching five year olds how to read. We can dream of being surgeons, or of partners, or of singletons traveling the world. Bishop dreamed first of ballet, then of acting, and she managed to turn those dreams into reality.

Would I recommend it to its target audience:
Yes, though if all you are looking for is hot Gilmore Girls gossip, you will be disappointed, as she spends maybe 15% (at most) of the book on that. Which makes sense, as it only ran for 7+1 seasons, and Ms Bishop has lived a long life.

Rating:
4 Stars

Lots of spoilers below (though I don’t spoil the unexpected plot point in part three).

In a nutshell:
Isabel is forced to share her home with her brother’s girlfriend Eva, and Isabel is not one to share. But events transpire, and plots twist, and lives change.

Best for:
People who appreciate good writing and storytelling and who aren’t deterred by very descriptive sex scenes.

Quote that made me think:
“Isn’t that strange, how that works? You can think something that used to be true but isn’t true anymore but still believe it in your bones.”

Why I chose it:
My partner and I only exchange books for Christmas, and this was one he picked out for me.

Review:
This book is broken down into three parts. The first part is a lot of build up and setting the scene. We learn about Isabel – this is all from her perspective. We learn she and her family left Amsterdam during the war and relocated to this home – Isabel, her mother, and her two brothers. Her mother has died, and her Uncle has left it to her brother Louis, but Louis is letting Isabel live there until he decides to settle down,.

Isabel is unyielding. She is controlling, and severe. She reluctantly goes on dates with a neighbor occasionally, but she has no friends to speak of, is harsh to the maid who keeps up the house, and is judgmental of everyone. Then Louise needs to go away for a month, and asks Isabel to host Eva. Eva appears to be everything Isabel is not – bit whimsical, kind, extroverted. Of course things are going to clash.

But the end of the first part / start of the second part, readers can see where this is going. Spoilers kick in here …

Eva and Isabel find themselves attracted to each other. It’s intriguing and well written (though not surprising at all). There is also quite a lot of sex in this part, and I’ve never been a fan of reading sex scenes. I understand why the author includes them, and I’m not sure how the book could exist with even watered down versions of these sections – it teaches us a lot about who these women both are. But that doesn’t change the fact that I really had to force myself to keep reading, as I wanted to see what would happen next. And to be clear in case it isn’t – I don’t like reading sex scenes between or among any variation of genders. I’m sure I could talk through it in therapy or something but eh, usually it’s not an issue in books I choose for myself.

The thing is I am so glad I kept reading, because part three is extraordinary. I didn’t see it coming, it was so well written, and I just was stunned by it. Without spoiling this part, I will just say that it was such an interesting exploration of trauma, and responsibility, and what we owe to others once we have all of the information.

Would I recommend it to its target audience:
Yes, if you don’t mind a lot of spicy bits in the middle.

Rating:
3 Stars

In a nutshell:
Montreal Inspector Sime (pronounced Sheem) Mackenzie has been tasked with leading a team to investigate a murder that has taken place on a tiny English-speaking island in the heart of French-speaking Canada.

Best for:
Those who enjoy stories that have elements set in current day as well as the distant past (in this case, about 200 years ago).

Worth quoting:
Nothing stuck out to me.

Why I chose it:
So I finally bought a book by Peter May – a famous Scottish crime novelist. And then I realised it was the 4th book in a trilogy (I know – hence why I didn’t know it was part of the series) that I hadn’t yet started. So I immediately put that down, and found this (standalone) audio book at my library.

Review:
When I started reading this book, I didn’t know it took place in two areas: Entry Island and its environs, and Lewis island, the outer Hebrides. I should have known May would work Lewis into the plot, as he is famously from there and writes about there, but I didn’t, so when that kicked off the book, I was confused. It eventually makes sense, but it took awhile for me to get up to speed.

There are two stories here. One is of Sime, who is a bilingual Inspector sent to look into a murder that took place in a tiny island of only English speakers. That part of the story is fairly standard crime fare – who did it, is it who we think, is there a twist, etc. The character of Sime is tortured, again, as we often see. His marriage has fallen apart but he still must work with his wife, he isn’t sleeping, and he’s not doing the best job of investigating this murder (did the wife do it?), partly because he gets a bit sidetracked thinking he has some connection to the wife of the victim.

The second story is the one I found much more interesting – the story of another Sime, who lives on a croft in the island of Lewis in the mid-1800s. His family deals with so much horror, including the potato famine (which I didn’t know had also affected Scotland) and the Highland Clearances, which are a nightmare that I don’t think people in the US are taught much about. We follow Sime as he eventually makes his way to Canada, and again, I didn’t realise so many Canadians would trace their ancestors to Scotland, and then … Nova Scotia. New Scotland. Wooooof.

The main story is fine, standard crime novel fare, but the story set in the 1800s was riveting, and was what saved the book for me.

Would I recommend it to its target audience:
For the target who enjoys historical fiction, yes. For the target who enjoys a modern-day crime mystery, not so much.

Rating:
2.5 Stars – a solid ‘fine.’

In a nutshell:
Investigative journalist Scott Carney explores the various ways humans sell bodies and body parts.

Best for:
Those interested in the ethics of these issues and who aren’t squeamish.

Lines(s) that stuck with me:
N/A

Why I chose it:
The audio book selection from my local library is ROUGH. Virtually none of the books on my TBR list are available, so I started scrolling non fiction and this seemed interesting. Also … medical things fascinate me, as does ethics.

Review:
How can you ethically procure a non-renewable resource? Or a resource that requires someone to literally give of their own flesh? And what about when that resource is needed to save a life? What if that resource isn’t actually needed, but people really want it?

Carney’s book explores a variety of scenarios where human anatomy is procured in ways that may be unethical, questioning both the black (or ‘red’) market approach as well as the legal routes for securing these resources. He looks at getting bodies and bones for anatomy studies, blood for surgery, eggs for surrogacy, kidneys for transplant, volunteer for drug trials, and even babies for adoption.

One critique that I think holds for this book is that in nearly every example (save, if I recall correctly, blood donation, which I’ll get to below), Carney really only explores the red markets of other countries, usually India, though sometimes China as well. For example, he (rightfully, I believe) explores the unethical nature of so many international adoptions, including situations where parents didn’t actually think they were relinquishing their children – and where US adoptive parents refuse to return those children. But he doesn’t explore the ethics of US domestic adoption. In fact, I think there is a real missed opportunity here to explore the actions of those who provide something that no one actually needs – a baby. This also goes for the section on egg harvesting and surrogacy.

Most of what else Carney explores one could argue is a necessity – blood for a surgery, or a kidney to stop needing dialysis, or, at a higher level, stem cells for research purposes. And the question becomes: if someone needs it, is it right that another person should be prevented from providing it if they are remunerated? And what is the cost of that to the seller/donor, and to society? How much is your kidney worth, and if you are possibly not able to feed your children, how low a price might someone offer?

I found the chapter on blood donation especially fascinating. A little over a decade ago I served on the junior board of the non-profit who manages blood collection (not the American Red Cross) in the city I used to live in. I also used to donate blood regularly (the UK makes you wait much longer between donations, so I can’t donate as regularly here) and platelets on occasion. I was shocked (not that shocked) to learn that in the 60s, corporations managed and paid for blood donations and then sold the blood to hospitals. When non-profits got involved, these corporations actually filed claims of an anti-trust nature, saying these non-profits seeking volunteers were preventing them from making profits, and for awhile US government agreed, fining these non-profits daily. Fucking WILD. Also, there was a whole thing where prisoners in Alabama were ‘donating’ blood, and that blood wasn’t screened, and was sold to Canada, leading to a lot of issues.

Carney argues that one of the best things we could do is require that all human body parts and resources have a name associated with their donation. Every pint of blood, every organ donation, every body. While some argue that privacy is the ethical choice, Carney argues that having a name will reduce the likelihood that someone is coerced to give their flesh and bone. While it wasn’t providing my name, as a blood donor they trialed a project where I would get a text when the blood I was donated was used, which was pretty cool, and probably an incentive for others to keep donating when they had the chance.

There’s much more in the book – the above are just the areas that really stood out to me. And as I said, there seems to be a real issue around the countries that Carney chose to focus on – India and China cannot be the only places participating in unethical human organ / blood / tissue procurement, and it feels weird that (as best as I can recall) Carney doesn’t really even pay lip service to the issues taking place in any of the other 200+ countries in the world.

Would I recommend it to its target audience:
Sure, but probably as an audio book as you could get the washing done at the same time., and with the caveat that there might be some bias in what the author has chosen to highlight.