Four Stars

Best for:
Anyone interested in how maternity wards are run and what life for a midwife is like.

In a nutshell:
Secret Midwife ‘Pippa’ shares her time as a midwife, from starting training at age 17 through having to be signed off for stress as cuts to the NHS made staffing more and more scarce.

Worth quoting:
Audio book that I listened to while running, so I didn’t make note of any.

Why I chose it:
I find memoirs (and comedy books) to be best for running, as there isn’t a plot I need to keep track of. I also enjoy books about the medical profession and, despite not having or wanting children of my own, I find books and TV about childbirth and parenting to be kind of fascinating.

Review:
I previously read The Secret Barrister, which I found to be a great introduction to the legal system after I moved to the UK. The concept of these ‘Secret’ books is that by not sharing their names, the authors are able to provide further, more honest insight into their respective professions. One might wonder why a midwife might need to keep her identity hidden – the parents, sure, would need to be anonymized for their privacy, but the midwife?

And then you read the book, and realize it’s because if she were identifiable, she couldn’t speak honestly about the failures of management and the NHS Trust for which she works without fear of retaliation. The more I think about it, the more I get it – pretty much every worker in every field fears for retaliation when they point out the failings of their companies and managers. Why would midwifery be any different?

‘Pippa’ trains as a midwife starting at age 17, becoming fully qualified by age 20. She shares stories of successful births, unsuccessful births, stillbirths, miscarriages (including her own), and angry parents who blame midwives when things do go according to plan. She also shares her own depression and stressed caused by a complete lack of support from management. Midwives are working more with fewer resources – at one point ‘Pippa’ shares that there could be as many as 40 women on the ward with only 6 midwives available! That’s absurd.

The NHS has been receiving loads of praise lately because of their herculean efforts during the pandemic. And that praise is justly deserved – doctors and nurses have been working flat out to save as many lives as possible. But the NHS has been stripped of so much funding as of late, treated less like what it should be – a public institution providing excellent care for everyone – and more like a private business. And anyone who as lived anywhere with a primarily private healthcare system knows that is NOT the model to emulate.

The Secret Midwife is an excellent storyteller, and the person who read the audio book did a great job bringing those stories to life. I’m not sure if this needs to be a listen instead of a read, but I think either option will work.

Keep it / Pass to a Friend / Donate it / Toss it:
N/A (Audio book)

Four Stars

Best for:
Women who have felt unseen – or too seen. Women trying to figure out what they want to do, and looking for ways to do it.

In a nutshell:
Natalie is a former teacher traveling, looking for what is next. She has disordered eating, binging when she is uncomfortable, sad, uncertain. She travels, lives with her family, travels some more, looking for what feels right.

Worth quoting:
“People always hoping that others will complete them, be their other half. It’s dangerous. We’re already whole. Don’t halve yourself for someone.”

“I’ve had my own body shit too. Some people carry their baggage on the inside.”

Why I chose it:
It was part of a subscription box.

Review:
When I read the description I was a bit concerned it might turn into an Eat Pray Love situation, but it doesn’t read that way. Natalie isn’t relying on ‘exotic’ locations to help her find herself; she doesn’t try on local cultures like a costume. She uses the time to try to work on herself.

The book starts in the middle – though not in a time-jumping sort of way. Natalie has already quit her job as a teacher, and is currently in Indonesia. She’s traveling alone, and is spending her evenings in her hotel room, binge eating. She meets folks on occasion, but doesn’t tend to have a lot of fun with them. She’s not a sad person, she’s just a person trying to grow and figure herself out.

I appreciate how the book unfolds – most chapters Natalie is in a new place. One chapter she’s in Australia with her Aunt; another she’s living in Dublin with friends. She spends time living with and taking care of her grandmother. She also starts working at a gym, and while I appreciate that the book doesn’t end (spoiler alert) with her suddenly becoming a star athlete, or married, she grows, learns more about herself. It’s a little two steps forward, one step back, like life often is.

Right from the start, I could relate to Natalie a bit. Me and food haven’t always had the best relationship, although I’ve not been where she is. I have travelled alone, however, and not being the most social, I’ve spent many evenings in a hotel room, alone, eating what I found at a local convenience store, watching local TV or reading a book. Most of my time alone has been spent in Ireland, so I didn’t have language barriers, but it was still hard at times. It was also wonderful – I loved the freedom of figuring out what and where I was going each day, not having to check with anyone on my plans. And I loved having the space to think, daydream, write, plan, without having chores or anything else to do. It was fun, a bit stressful, sometimes hard, sometimes sad, but I know helped me grow. That time was a real gift, and reading this book brought me back to those times, which was pretty great.

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Donate it

Four Stars

Best for:
Anyone interested in how women have had to fight against sexism, misogyny, and racism to do simple things like run really fast.

In a nutshell:
Three women’s stories are told starting in the late 1920s through to the 1936 Berlin Olympic.

Worth quoting:
“Getting a taste of what it felt like to be good at something and then having it taken away still left her feeling crushed when she allowed herself to think about it.”

“Rules could be broken. Judges could be wrong. People did not always do the fair thing. Final results were only as reliable as the system that produced them.”

“It is well documented that women cannot be subjected to the same mental and physical strains that men can withstand … It is important not to overburden this developing young feminine mind with the distractions of sport and competition.”

Why I chose it:
It was a birthday gift from my mother-in-law, who knows I have a strong interests in women in sports and women’s rights overall.

Review:
If you’re mostly interested in reading about the 1936 Berlin Olympics, this is not the book for you, despite the title and cover. It’s definitely in there at the end, but takes up maybe 15% of the whole book. But if you’re interested in reading fictionalized accounts of real women athletes, fighting for their rights to compete and perform and receive anything close to the same treatment as men athletes, this is a good book to pick up.

Author Hooper follows three athletes primarily – Betty, a white woman who wins gold at the inaugural women’s 100 track event at the 1928 Olympics; Helen, a young white outcast who discovers she is an excellent runner while dealing with understanding her sexuality, and Louise, a Black woman who has to deal with both the sexism and racism of the athletic world.

These women, along with nearly every other athlete mentioned, are historic figures, and the major life events they encounter (including a plane crash that Betty survives, and sexual abuse of Helen) are all real. As the author shares at the end, unfortunately Louise is the woman she was able to find the least about in her research, though all are discussed in an afterward that shares how their lives went after the Berlin Olympics.

The author intersperses point of view chapters with letters and newspaper articles and oh MY gosh do you want to get angry? That last quote from up above, about women not being able to handle mental / physical strains, and how they shouldn’t be distracted? Flames on the side of my face. I’ve been an athlete (mostly soccer) since I was about six, and while most of the time I’ve had support and the ability to play when and where I want, the reality is I’ve faced sexism individually (when I played on a co-ed team — not from my teammates, but from opposition) and collectively (I now play in women’s soccer leagues here in England and the refs are shit and both make way too many technical calls like foul throws and then offer no protection from dirty play).

I also appreciate how the author spends time specifically focusing on the ways that Louise, as one of the two Black women who is on the women’s team during the Los Angeles and Berlin Olympics, deals with overt and casual racism all the time, from not being selected for the relay in Los Angeles despite having faster times, to being forced to sleep in lesser accommodations on the way to the Olympics. Betty, Helen, and the other white women athletes are definitely facing a ton of misogyny and sexism, but for Louise and her teammate Tidye, they have racism added on top.

As I mentioned, the book is more about the lives of the women in the eight years leading to the Berlin Olympics, but they do definitely talk about the proposed boycott, and the treatment the Nazis showed to their own athletes and to athletes from other nations. I’d say it’s hard to imagine being willing to compete at those games, but like, people went to the 2014 Olympics in Socchi, where Russia has horrible laws against people who are not straight. As I get older and more informed, the way the Olympics are run makes me less and less interested in supporting them at all (I mean, did you see the comments by the now former head of the Toyko games just, like, this month?), but I do still want to support the individual athletes and teams who work so hard to complete these amazing feats of athleticism.

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Donate it

Five Stars

Best for:
All the people, but I think white men really need to read and sit with this one.

In a nutshell:
Author Oluo explores the ways in which the elevation of the mediocrity of white men harms everyone (including white men).

Worth quoting:
“What I’m saying is that white male mediocrity is a baseline, the dominant narrative, and that everything in our society is centered around preserving white male power regardless of white male skill or talent.”

“How can white men be our born leaders and at the same time so fragile that they cannot handle social progress?”

“Perhaps one of the most brutal of white male privileges is the opportunity to live long enough to regret the carnage you have brought upon others.”

(That’s just a small sample of what I furiously underlined in the first 30 pages of the book. It’s SO GOOD.)

Why I chose it:
Ijemoa Oluo is an excellent writer. I loved her first book, and knew I needed to read this one. Due to living in the UK and different release dates (and our impatience and attempt to secure a copy from the US) we now have two copies – one for me and one for my partner.

Review:
Author Oluo is a brilliant writer. She takes on topics and explores them in ways that others may not have before. She makes connections and provides context, research, and new information to every topic she takes on. When I heard she had a new book coming out, and on such an evergreen and yet extremely relevant topic, I was excited, because I knew I’d learn something.

The book has seven chapters exploring connections between everything from the white invasion of what is now the western US to American football. I found myself wanting to share so much with my partner as I read.

For example, just in the first chapter Oluo connects Buffalo Bill to the Cliven Bundy incident in the Pacific Northwest. I was like 25 pages in and found myself saying out loud ‘oh my gosh, of course, but holy shit.’ Actually I think that could be my refrain throughout large chunks of this book – nothing is necessarily brand new, especially to people who have either taken an interest in social justice issues or have lived experiences in these areas, but the connections are on another level.

I think many of us realize how white male power constantly and consistently makes the world a worse place. The assumption that white male is ‘normal’ or ‘neutral,’ and everyone else is a deviation from that norm, a special interest, is literally killing people. White men are given repeated opportunities that women and people of color have to fight for and seldom get. And at the same time, when white men don’t reach the levels of power and supremacy they’ve been promised, they lose their shit, punishing the rest of us along the way.

I could go on, but anything I would say is said better by Oluo in this book. Just trust me and pick up a copy.

Keep it / Pass to a Friend / Donate it / Toss it:
Keep it