Library Loot ~ Oct 30 to Nov 5

Who Discovered America? : The Untold History of Peopling of the Americas ~ by Gavin Menzies and Ian Hudson, 2013, history

Greatly expanding on his blockbuster 1421, historian Gavin Menzies uncovers the complete untold history of how mankind came to the Americas — offering new revelations and a radical rethinking of the accepted historical record in Who Discovered America?  This book calls into question our understanding of how the American continents were settled, shedding new light on the well-known “discoveries” of European explorers, including Christopher Columbus.  Menzies combines meticulous research and an adventurer’s spirit to reveal astounding new evidence of an ancient Asian seagoing tradition — most notably the Chinese — that dates as far back as 130,000 years ago.  He offers a revolutionary new alternative to the “Beringia” theory of how humans crossed a land bridge connecting Asia and North America during the last Ice Age, and provides a wealth of staggering claims, that hold fascinating and astonishing implications for the history of mankind.

The Fossil Girl: Mary Anning's Dinosaur Discovery ~ by Catherine Brighton, 1999, children's (England), 8/10

It's 1811.  Ten-year-old Mary Anning, her brother Joe, and their widowed mother are eking out a meager existence running a little fossil shop in the seaside town of Lyme Regis.  After a storm wipes out most of the shop’s merchandise, Mary and Joe begin the slow work of restocking the shelves.  They search high and low for fossils, and one day Mary spots a huge eye in a cliff face high above the town. She resolves to bring the creature down — no matter what the risk.  The exciting discovery and recovery of the first complete fossil of an Ichthyosaurus is told in an attractive graphic novel format, perfect for reluctant readers.  For ages 5 to 9.

I'm frustrated with this book because it let's her brother be the one who finds the fossil, not Mary.

Stone Girl, Bone Girl: The Story of Mary Anning ~ by Laurence Anholt, illustrated by Sheila Moxley, 1998, children's (England), 7/10

Mary Anning made an astounding discovery at age 12 when she unearthed the first full skeleton of a giant ichthyosaur in the cliffs above her home in Lyme Regis.  This incident — in which she was helped by a little dog she rescued from a cemetery — was the beginning of a long career that saw Mary become the world’s best-known fossil hunter.  For ages 5 to 8.

These are about a real person.  Mary Anning, born in England in 1799, discovered the full skeleton of an ichthyosaur in the cliffs above her home when she was only 12, a discovery that made her one of the most famous fossil-hunters of her day.

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire @ The Captive Reader and Marg @ The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader that encourages us to share titles of books we’ve checked out of the library.  Add your link any time during the week, and see what others got this week.

Teaser ~ The Politics of Experience

The Politics of Experience ~ by R. D. Laing, 1967

Laing was a young British psychiatrist who attacked the Establishment assumptions about "normality" with "a radical and challenging view of the mental sickness built into our society."  I've quoted from the back cover of this book that I read in the early 1970s.  Wow, that's 40 years ago!  Unpacking boxes of books, I ran across this dusty paperback and decided to share some quotes from it as today's teaser.

"As we experience the world, so we act.  We conduct ourselves in the light of our view of what is the case and what is not the case.  That is, each person is a more or less naive ontologist.  Each person has views of what is and what is not" (p. 142).

Okay, I suppose I should define ontologist for you, since I'm probably the only philosophy major here.  Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being or reality.  It deals with questions about what is.  So an ontologist is one who investigates what makes a human, human.  Have I lost you?  Okay, let's try another quote.

"Psychotherapy must remain an obstinate attempt of two people to recover the wholeness of being human through the relationship between them" (p. 53).

I never took a class in psychology, so I asked a professor of social psychology about taking his beginning class — he was visiting at my house with one of my friends.  He had been reading the titles on my bookshelves and said, with a wave toward my books, "You don't need it."  This book was probably right there on those shelves that day.

"Human beings seem to have an almost unlimited capacity to deceive themselves, and to deceive themselves into taking their own lies for truth" (pp. 72-73).

On the previous pages, Laing was describing the way our teachers teach — or taught back then, 40-some years ago, before "common core" and "teaching to the test" became the norm.  Reading snippets of this book, I notice it seems very dated.  Or maybe I just haven't thought about these ideas in decades.  Has anyone else read this book?  Or even heard of it?

Monday Mindfulness ~ Om for peace.

OM is a beautiful word.  It has the same roots as the words I AM or AMEN.  These words are the sound of the Divine, the All That Is.  It is a great mantra for meditation, and it can bring you profound peace.

This word is also on the pendant I'm wearing.  It is used to symbolize the Hindu religion.  From the top, going clockwise, these are the religions symbolized on my pendant:

• Christianity ~ the cross
• Taoism ~ yin-yang shows opposites in balance
• Islam ~ crescent and star
• Judaism ~ six-pointed star
• Buddhism ~ eight spokes represent the Eightfold Path
• Hinduism ~ the word Om (or Aum)

The Dalai Lama said, "When there is peace among religions,there will be peace in the world."

Sunday Salon ~ fortune cookie edition

BOOKS

Last week I wrote about buying a book I already had, and Helen @  Helen's Book Blog commented:

"That's really funny that you have bought the same book twice (and from the same store!). Even better is that you haven't read it yet, right? Maybe it's a sign that it should be your next read."

What do you think?  Is it a sign?  Should that book be at the top of my TBR (to be read) stack?  How do you choose what comes next?

And more BOOKS

Three books found their way home with me this past week:  one bought, one found, one a repeat.  I'm at different stages of writing a couple of books, one on Women Unbound and one on prayer (which is not, in my opinion, what most people think it is).  That may explain these titles, and the teasers I've pulled from each one:

The Feminine Mistake: Are We Giving Up Too Much? ~ by Leslie Bennetts, 2007, women's studies

"And I'll freely confess that some of my contributions to school bake sales were store-bought.  So what?" (p. 171).

"It has become inescapably clear that choosing economic dependency as a lifestyle is the classic feminine mistake.  No matter what the reasons, justifications, or circumstances, it's simply too risky to count on anyone else to support you over the long haul.  In an era of disappearing pensions, threats to Social Security, high divorce rates, a volatile labor market, and attenuating life spans, the social safety net continues to erode even as the needs grow -- particularly for women, who are twice as likely as men to slide below the poverty line in their later years" (pp. xxiii-xxiv).

I've Got to Talk to Somebody, God: A Woman's Conversations with God ~ by Marjorie Holmes, 1969, prayer

"Oh, God, how I dread cleaning the refrigerator.  And I mean that not as an oath, but a prayer.  There it stands, singing away so faithfully, keeping our foods fresh for us.  Reluctantly I open it, and instead of being grateful for its overflowing plenty, I want to back away and slam the door."

The Faith Club: A Muslim, A Christian, A Jew — Three Women Search for Understanding, by Ranya Idliby, Suzanne Oliver, and Priscilla Warner, 2006, religions

In 2009, I used a quote from Priscilla (the Jew) as a teaser, so this time I'll let Ranya (the Muslim) speak about her children:

"I hadn't thought much about their religious identity.  To me, one's religion is primarily an accident of birth.  Yet, after 9/11, I becane concerned that our Muslim religion meant more than that.  I felt that being Muslim and American might be more of a challenge than a privilege that my children were inheriting" (p. 91).

FORTUNE COOKIE : a story

I had lunch with my friend Emily at a Chinese buffet this week, and we got fortune cookies with the bill.  She opened one and said, "I think I got yours."  That's a funny reaction, so I reached for it, but she said, "No, open that other one first."  It was pretty non-descript, since I can't even remember what it said, so she swapped with me.  Here's the one Emily said was mine:

"You have a friendly heart and are well admired."

How nice!  Emily says she's shy, and it's true that she is less likely to become instant friends with anybody within the sound of my voice.  Last week, for example, my other friend, Donna, went to the ladies' room before we left a restaurant and I had made friends with our waitress and the manager while waiting for her.  I'd already learned the manager had to reprimand his own mother once — for insubordination, no less — when he hired her to work for him in a restaurant in another state.  I asked him, "What did you get for Christmas (or your birthday) that year?"  The question surprised him, and he got a look on his face, saying, "Good question!  Hmm, I don't remember."

Anyway, as we walked out to the car, Donna shook her head and said,

"I leave you alone for just one minute...."

Maybe Emily's right, that it was my fortune cookie that said, "You have a friendly heart."

FAMILY

My granddaughter wrote about her daughter playing with her daddy, "Cheetos!  I guess I should get on to them for playing with their food."  One of my daughters commented, "I would tell you that they will out-grow that, but probably not."

The Sunday Salon's Facebook page links to other blogs.

Caturday ~ which of these things?

Two of these things ...
look ready for Halloween.

Beginning ~ with a letter

Paris, France, January 1952

Lucy was dead.  Eleanor Roosevelt sat alone in her suite at the Hôtel de Crillon and looked at the obituary a friend had mailed to her the week before.  It was from the newspaper in Aiken, South Carolina, dated January 7, 1952:  "Lucy Page Mercer Rutherford, fifty-seven years old, died from complications of kidney disease.  Widow of Lord Edward Rutherford."

Eleanor vs. Ike ~ by Robin Gerber, 2008

It is a time of turmoil, with the nation mired in an unpopular war in Korea and with Senator Joseph McCarthy stirring up fear of a lurking Communist "menace."  Racial discrimination is rampant.  A woman's place is in the home.  And when a shocking act of God eliminates the Democratic presidential nominee, the party throws its support to an unlikely standard bearer:  former First Lady and goodwill ambassador to the world Eleanor Roosevelt.  This fast-paced book pits the unforgettable Eleanor against the enormously popular war hero Gen. Dwight David ("Ike") Eisenhower.  But while the opponents promise "an honest campaign," their strategists mire the race in scandal and bitter innuendo.  Suddenly Eleanor finds herself a target of powerful insiders who mean to destroy her good name — and Ku Klux Klan assassins dedicated to her death — as she gets caught up in a mad whirl of appearances and political maneuvering ... and a chance encounter with a precocious five-year-old named Hillary Rodham.

I'm finally getting around to reading this novel, which I mentioned last year in a Friday Five about women:

Name a famous woman from history with whom you would like to have lunch.

Eleanor Roosevelt was first lady when I was born in 1940.  Eleanor vs. Ike, a 2008 novel by Robin Gerber, is hiding in a box somewhere in my apartment.  When I find the right box, I'll read this alternative history of a political campaign between the unforgettable Eleanor and the popular war hero Gen. Dwight David Eisenhower, known as Ike.  I was twelve when Ike was elected in 1952, but what fun if Eleanor had become the first woman president.  Will it happen in this book?

The book has been unpacked from that box, and I'm ready to read it now.  I read to explore ideas — this book explores the idea of a woman running for president of the United States six decades ago.  Apparently, the majority of people in the United States are still unable to imagine such a thing.

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings on Fridays.  Click here for today's Mister Linky.

Pickpocket, toolsmith, or professional nose ~ what's your job?

"The mind boggles at how many forks on the road of life are possible to lead us to different careers."

That sentence stood out for me as I read an article about peculiar professions at AbeBooks.com.  And there are many jobs in the article:  brushmaking, professional pickpocket, airline stewardess (an old book that's 50+ years old).  And from the comments I gathered these:  artisan blacksmith, worm farmer, bovine podiatrist, and "professional nose."  Yes, that's what she said.  Two more jobs from the book cover used to illustrate the article:  toolsmith and steelworker.

My baby sister was born when I was almost five years old.  That's when I decided to be a nurse in a hospital and work with babies.  That lasted until I learned nurses don't get to sit around playing with babies.  In first grade, I wanted to be a teacher.  In third grade, it was magician.  In fifth grade, I was planning to be a doctor healing people in the Belgium Congo.  (Revealing my age, aren't I?)  I ended up a stay-at-home mom, until I was divorced and finished college, at which time I worked as a "manpower planner" (no longer a politically correct job description).

Over time, I became an editor of two in-house publications; an instructor doing management training; a freelance writer published locally, nationally, and internationally; an ordained minister; an adjunct college teacher; and a bookstore owner.  Oh, yeah, I was also a library assistant while in college and at one point had a part-time job stuffing the comics and advertising in the Sunday newpapers as they came rolling along a conveyer belt.  I'm a walking collection of former jobs and careers, many — if not most — having something to do with books and words.  I keep remembering other jobs, like drawing the illustrations for a couple of books when I was in my 20s, and being a file clerk after school when I was in my mid-teens.

What's the strangest or most interesting job you've ever done — or heard of?  At what age did you decide on whatever it is you now do for a living?
__________

ADDED an hour later:

I've found what I want to be, if and when I ever grow up!  I want to be a Diction Fairy like this one.  Books and words, as I said earlier.  Yep, the diction fairy covers those.