Against the Tide, by Tui T. Sutherland

Against the Tide, by Tui T. Sutherland

This is the fifth book in Spirit Animals, a middle-grade fantasy series imagined by Brandon Mull. It continues the story of the four kids who have been paired to the four fallen Great Beasts rather than to a normal spirit animal. I won't say more, for fear of spoilers for earlier in the series.

Cute book. I like the way this series is written by different authors for each book, because it introduces me to new authors. This one was quite enjoyable. I got a couple of good laughs, and it was hard putting this short book down.

Roots, by Alex Haley

Roots, by Alex Haley

This is the epic story following the family of Kunta Kinte, who was kidnapped as a teenager from his home in Africa to be a slave in the US. His family is dramatically followed down the line to Alex Haley, the author. There is a well-known miniseries based on the book (it was pretty good), as well as a newer one which I've not seen. The first one follows the book almost perfectly. For the most part, this was an excellently written character-driven book. I enjoyed following the family down the generations. Unfortunately, Haley ruined it by claiming that it was actually his heritage, which it was not. That was a lie. It was also apparently plagiarized (including even some of the characters) from another book. :( Knowing that took some of the admiration I would have otherwise felt for the book. Still, it was quite good...and a good start for Black History Month.

Incarceration Nations, by Baz Dreisinger

Incarceration Nations, by Baz Dreisinger

Dr. Dreisinger travels to different prisons around the world, giving 2-day seminars to the prisoners and comparing the pros and cons of each prison system.

I admit this book wasn't quite what I expected. I expected it to have more complaints (with evidence) about the problems of overincarceration. Although it did contain such comments, that was not the point of the book. It was a fascinating description of different prisons throughout the world and what they were doing right (and wrong) in rehabilitating their inmates. She left some prisons feeling uplifted and left others feeling quite depressed. I found the book quite interesting even if it wasn't quite what I expected.

American Psychosis, by E. Fuller Torrey

American Psychosis, by E. Fuller Torrey

In this strongly stated book, Torrey describes how the formation of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) was formed, accompanied by well-meaning, but ill-planned federal programs for the out-patient care of mental ill patients and the emptying of state-funded mental hospitals. Due to terrible conditions in state hospitals and to the discovery of antipsychotics, many well-intended people wanted to improve the condition of mentally ill people by giving them independence and better living conditions through outpatient treatment. So the founders of NIMH, with the help of President Kennedy, began a federal program intended to care for patients on an outpatient basis, as well as providing resources which were intended on reducing the onset of mental illness in future generations. Unfortunately, as the state hospitals closed en masse, these federal programs didn't do their job as intended. The federal programs focused too much on trying (and failing) to reduce the new onset of mental illness, and not enough on taking care of people who were released from hospitals. Many people from the hospitals had nowhere to go and/or stopped taking their meds (for various reasons). The populations of homeless and jailed/imprisoned mentally ill people skyrocketed. Violence by and against people with mental illness skyrocketed. Chaos ensued.

New Year, New Project

Hi all! Did you miss me? I know last year I was sketchy. I had so many big plans, and they all fell through. I went manic for the first 6 months of the year, and then had to pick up the pieces of my life for a while. Then, I found a wonderful man, and am now planning a wedding. Yay!

I have only one reading project this year, and because I now know that Real Life will always get in the way at SOME point, I will not recruit others, but make it a personal project which I can put down and take up at any time. Other than that, I just joined a book club which reads one non-fiction and one fiction book per month. 

Currently reading: 

New Month, New Plan

Ok, I totally dropped the ball on The Unwinding. I know I did. And I'm way behind on my Bible reading. But, as you know from my last post, I have my excuses. Real life does get in the way sometimes. I wasn't entirely honest in my last post when I said everything was going normally besides my dad's surgery. I also broke up with my boyfriend during that time. We just got tired of arguing about politics, and we realized we'd never been in love...so what's the point? And thus ends that era in my life. I've started online dating and met some interesting people. Interesting. Indeed. And then when I thought everything was settled down to start reading again, well, I was intimidated by being behind on my own goals. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to say thank you to everyone who participated in The Unwinding discussion, and I'm sorry I dropped the ball. But I'm going to start over with Strangers in Their Own Land, and now that I'm not behind on the reading, I'm positive I can get this blogging ball rolling again. :)

I'm Back! You were worried, weren't you?

Hey all! Sorry I disappeared from my blog for a while. My dad was having carotid-subclavian bypass surgery and I was helping him out. He's doing great now, so it's back to the grind. Unfortunately I totally missed all discussion of Exodus - which I haven't even started yet. I'll read that at the same time as starting Leviticus, though, so that I stay on schedule. Just need to put a fire under my butt and catch up. I'm supposed to post my questions for The Unwinding Part II on Monday the 6th, I MIGHT be able to get that far by then, but no promises. I might be a couple of days late. But I'll catch up!