Elderhood Review, Little Fires Everywhere on TV, How to Forget by Kate Mulgrew, Save Me the Plums by Ruth Reichl, The Scent Keeper by Erica Bauermeister, The 5th Gender by GL Carriger, The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal

I'm very late in getting this round of reviews up, but we had to get a new modem and deal with even more computer network issues, so between that and a spate of grief as my father was laid to rest two weeks ago (and I was unable to attend his funeral service in Iowa, for various reasons. However, my brother Kevin brought a song to the service that was one of dads favorites, "I Believe" and also read a poem that I think dad would have liked), I am only now able to sit here and write reviews of the 5 books I've read in the last 8 days. I will start with a review of a book that I would love to have a copy of, because it discusses the rampant ageism that is defining our society these days.

Review: Elderhood: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life

For many, old age is a far-off concern shuffled to the back of their minds, where it distorts under the societal obsession with youth and beauty. For Louise Aronson, thoroughly accomplished in both the medical (American Geriatrics Society Geriatrician of the Year) and literary (A History of the Present Illness http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz40661124 fields, aging and the elderly are her passion. In Elderhood: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life, she gathers roughly three decades of case histories, criticism, curiosity and wisdom to offer readers a holistic, compassionate understanding of the third stage of life: elderhood.

From the beginning, Aronson is quick to point out how limited the dominant cultural understanding of old age is, as it distinguishes between the "successful aging" of some while bemoaning the illness and disability of others. She exposes the default of ageism time and again in her meticulous consideration of medical and family networks, political policy, municipal oversights, capitalist ambition and nearly every other sector of life that comes in contact with (or at the expense of) the elderly. Which is to say, society as a whole.

Older bodies aren't simply longer-lived versions of younger ones, just as adult bodies aren't simply bigger versions of children's. In Aronson's paradigm, each stage of life (childhood, adulthood, elderhood) requires a certain style of attention key to a person's quality of living, but the medical system regularly fails its oldest and most fragile patients by treating them in accordance with standards set by younger, whiter, straighter and maler norms.

Elderhood, like the life station it studies, is dynamic, multifaceted and full of wonder. Aronson's writing, too, flexes with vibrant energy as she discusses in lucid, candid detail the ways she has seen the healthcare system neglect the overall well-being of her patients, her colleagues and herself.

"When health care organizations proclaim value-based patient care is their top priority but institute productivity metrics that prioritize numbers of patients seen over whether those patients' needs are met, when they adopt electronic record systems that undermine the doctor-patient relationship, when their clinicians experience record levels of burnout and work dissatisfaction and they do nothing to alter the fundamental mechanics of daily life in their hospitals and clinics, an Orwellian story unfolds in the imaginations of patients and doctors alike."

Mixing empathy for the whole person and fury toward the systems that undermine that, Aronson draws on published studies and scientific data, as well as numerous literary sources (Rebecca Solnit, Vivian Gornick, Oliver Sacks, Bill Hayes et al.) to craft this monumental book. Intimidating as it may seem, elderhood becomes welcoming and generous in Aronson's deft care. --Dave Wheeler associate editor, Shelf Awareness

When I was attending Lesley College (now Lesley University) in Cambridge, MA, I used to visit the Harvard Co Op, and the Harvard Book Store.

A Favorite Bookseller Spring Moment: Harvard Book Store http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz40798809 Cambridge Mass., shared a gorgeous photo on Facebook of the bookshop on a sunny weekend day http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz40798810, noting:

" 'Sweet May hath come to love us,

Flowers, trees, their blossoms don;

And through the blue heavens above us

The very clouds move on.'

--Heinrich Heine, Book of Songs, New Spring, No. 5

My Library book group read Little Fires Everywhere, and while some liked it a bit more than others, most of us felt that the two main mother figure characters were annoying and frustrating in equal measure. The book got about 7 stars out of 10 from the group, but it was a grudging 7 stars. The discussion was lively, though, and I look forward to seeing this limited TV series based on the book.

TV: Little Fires Everywhere

Joshua Jackson (The Affair) is "set as a lead opposite Reese Witherspoon, Kerry Washington and Rosemarie DeWitt in Little Fires Everywhere http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz40798824, Hulu's upcoming limited series based on Celeste Ng's book," Deadline reported.

Developed and written by Liz Tigelaar (Casual), the series comes from Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine, Washington's Simpson Street and ABC Signature Studios. The cast also includes Megan Stott, Jade Pettyjohn, Jordan Elsass, Gavin Lewis and Lexi Underwood.

Tigelaar is serving as executive producer and showrunner, with Witherspoon and Lauren Levy Neustadter executive producing for Hello Sunshine, along with Washington and Pilar Savone for Simpson Street, and Lynn Shelton. 

How to Forget: A Daughter's Memoir by Kate Mulgrew is her second memoir, after Born With Teeth, which was a celebrated and well received work by my fellow Iowan, iconic actress Kate Mulgrew, who played Captain Janeway on Star Trek Voyager and Red on Netflix's Orange is the New Black. Born With Teeth (BWT) was a charming and fascinating memoir of the early years of Kate's career, and her reunion with the daughter she gave up for adoption 30 years ago. How To Forget (HTF) by contrast, is a blistering memoir that is about growing up in the Mulgrew household with two idiosyncratic parents who were both struggling with mental illness and physical ailments that eventually dragged them to terminal diagnosis, from cancer (father) to Alzheimers (mother). Kate comes home to help her parents passing, and this book muses on the roles she played within her family and for her parents until their demise. 

While this limits the charm factor of the book, Kate is still a deft and incisive wordsmith who outlines her parents lives, and her childhood in evocative paragraphs that make you feel as if you're right there with her, roaming the fields around the family farmhouse in Dubuque. Though I lived and learned in Dubuque at Clarke College (now Clarke University) for 4 years, the rural and suburban areas (and bars) that Kate describes are mostly places I never saw or visited. Yet when she and her mother stop by one of the new homes being built near their farmhouse, because her mother wishes to see inside and nose around about how others live, I could easily see, in my minds eye, the lady of the house with her plate of fresh cookies and her white carpeting being kind and accomodating, but only so far, because the Mulgrews were invading her family's privacy, and her bedroom was just a bridge too far. That kind of reaction sums up most of the people I met while in DBQ to a T. Here's the blurb:

In this profoundly honest and examined memoir about returning to Iowa to care for her ailing parents, the star of Orange Is the New Black and bestselling author of Born with Teeth takes us on an unexpected journey of loss, betrayal, and the transcendent nature of a daughter’s love for her parents.

They say you can’t go home again. But when her father is diagnosed with aggressive lung cancer and her mother with atypical Alzheimer’s, New York-based actress Kate Mulgrew returns to her hometown in Iowa to spend time with her parents and care for them in the time they have left.
The months Kate spends with her parents in Dubuque—by turns turbulent, tragic, and joyful—lead her to reflect on each of their lives and how they shaped her own. Those ruminations are transformed when, in the wake of their deaths, Kate uncovers long-kept secrets that challenge her understanding of the unconventional Irish Catholic household in which she was raised.
Breathtaking and powerful, laced with the author’s irreverent wit, How to Forget is a considered portrait of a mother and a father, an emotionally powerful memoir that demonstrates how love fuses children and parents, and an honest examination of family, memory, and indelible loss.

While I can understand how Kate loved her parents, I personally did not like them at all after reading about their treatment of Kate and her 7 siblings. Her father is a cold and cruel, selfish, anorexic man who lives on cigarettes, alcohol and the occaisional hamburger without a bun. He refuses to admit to any physical ailments for himself or his wife, and he never bothers to support his most successful child by watching her on stage, screen or TV. Ever. His denial of the physical aspects of life lead to him having stage 4 cancer because he refuses to visit a doctor until Kate works with her siblings to force him to deal with his symptoms (he dies 3 weeks later). When his wife is diagnosed with dementia/Alzheimers, he refuses to believe it, though proof of her failing memory and health is right in front of him. Instead, he blames his daughter for working with doctors to try and mitigate her symptoms and bring in a housekeeper/home health aid to care for her so she doesn't have to wither and die in a nursing home. Kate's mother (whom Kate insists is a snob because of her East Coast upbringing) is also an anorexic person who constantly admonishes her daughter to watch what she eats so she doesn't gain any weight, while selfishly not attending to her children by cooking or cleaning for them, and when they are hungry, telling them to run outside to the surrounding farmland and figure it out for themselves. On top of this negligent behavior, Joan(her mother) forces her young teenage daughter to accept a secret pact to act as her mother, because her own mother died at a young age. What a horrific thing to foist on a child, forcing them to act mature and not allowing them to have a childhood devoid of horrible adult secrets, such as her mother's affair with a local Catholic priest. Joan Mulgrew also forces her daughter to watch her flush her miscarried fetuses down the toilet, a rather gag inducing thought, when Joan claims that she had 18 miscarriages out of 8 live births. I somehow felt that this was why when Kate's mother asks her to help her commit suicide, so that she doesn't have to descend into the final stages of her disease, where she has no mental cognition and can't do anything for herself, that Kate relies on Joan's vanishing memory to keep her from having to actually give her the pills and help her die with dignity. Because Joan hangs on for years, suffering until the very end. My own father died of Lewy Body Dementia two months ago, so I can understand how Kate felt in dealing with her mothers end of life decisions. While this wasn't an easy book to read, then, I'd still give it an A, and recommend it to anyone middle aged who has elderly parents and has to deal with their final journey. 

Save Me the Plums by Ruth Reichl is the 8th book that Reichl has written, and the 6th book of hers that I've read (along with my mother, who also loves her evocative food writing).  This memoir focuses on Ruth's 10 years as editor of Gourmet Magazine, a very swank glossy food mag that she revamps and revitalizes with the help of key staff members and the publisher, the infamous Si Newhouse. After working as the restaurant reviewer for the NY Times and the LA Times, Ruth writes of her astonishment at the riches she unlocks as an editor, including limousine service, clothing allowance, a huge office and a phalanx of people hired to help her create her visions for each issue. I would imagine she also got paid an annual salary well within six figures. Having been a regional magazine editor myself in my 20s, I can understand the lure, but only from the impoverished trenches, as I got none of those perks when I became an editor, and when I asked for a raise from the poverty wages of 22K, I was told that I make "enough for a girl" by the publisher. Still, it's fun to read about what you can do when you have financial and physical support and a whole world of possibilities for your publication. Here's the blurb: When Condé Nast offered Ruth Reichl the top position at America’s oldest epicurean magazine, she declined. She was a writer, not a manager, and had no inclination to be anyone’s boss. Yet Reichl had been reading Gourmet since she was eight; it had inspired her career. How could she say no?

This is the story of a former Berkeley hippie entering the corporate world and worrying about losing her soul. It is the story of the moment restaurants became an important part of popular culture, a time when the rise of the farm-to-table movement changed, forever, the way we eat. Readers will meet legendary chefs like David Chang and Eric Ripert, idiosyncratic writers like David Foster Wallace, and a colorful group of editors and art directors who, under Reichl’s leadership, transformed stately Gourmet into a cutting-edge publication. This was the golden age of print media—the last spendthrift gasp before the Internet turned the magazine world upside down, (blogger's note: in other words,before newspapers and magazines began to shut their doors forever).

Complete with recipes, Save Me the Plums is a personal journey of a woman coming to terms with being in charge and making a mark, following a passion and holding on to her dreams—even when she ends up in a place she never expected to be.
The prose is, as in all of RR's books, fantastic and drool-worthy, as she paints pictures of beautiful dishes and delicious lunches, and her book flies by with that unputdownable view into the Gourmet life. I'd give it an A, and recommend it to foodies everywhere.

The Scent Keeper by Erica Bauermeister is only her 4th book of fiction, but, as with all of her other novels, it's a gem. Though based on a fictional island in the PNW/BC area, EB uses her fine grasp of evocative prose to get readers to see and more importantly smell every forest glade, every clam freshly dug up on the beach, every salty tide that washes up Emmeline's wishes. Here's the blurb: Erica Bauermeister, the national bestselling author of The School of Essential Ingredients, presents a moving and evocative coming-of-age novel about childhood stories, families lost and found, and how a fragrance conjures memories capable of shaping the course of our lives.

Emmeline lives an enchanted childhood on a remote island with her father, who teaches her about the natural world through her senses. What he won’t explain are the mysterious scents stored in the drawers that line the walls of their cabin, or the origin of the machine that creates them. As Emmeline grows, however, so too does her curiosity, until one day the unforeseen happens, and Emmeline is vaulted out into the real world—a place of love, betrayal, ambition, and revenge. To understand her past, Emmeline must unlock the clues to her identity, a quest that challenges the limits of her heart and imagination.
Lyrical and immersive, The Scent Keeper explores the provocative beauty of scent, the way it can reveal hidden truths, lead us to the person we seek, and even help us find our way back home.

Though, SPOILER, Emmeline discovers that her father lied to her for her entire childhood, she also unearths her mother's secrets, and in so doing, eventually brings her mother back into her childhood world, and into understanding her daughter. Honestly, I was engrossed in the pages of this book from the start, and if reading this book doesn't make you appreciate the beauty of the forest or the sea or nature, then you're beyond hope, in my opinion. A well deserved A, with a recommendation for anyone who enjoyed Diane Ackerman's splendid A Natural History of the Senses, or any of EB's other wonderful volumes.

The 5th Gender by GL (Gail) Carriger is a science fiction/fantasy novel with gay and transgender/5th gender characters that delves into sexuality in a fairly frank manner. Though I've read most of Gail Carriger's steampunk fantasy novels, and more than a few of her novellas, I wasn't quite prepared for her zesty and lengthy descriptions of sex between the main characters, Detective Hastion and the transgendered Tristol, a purple alien with sentient hair who has both a womb and a penis. While I think it is great that trans/gay sex is portrayed in a novel as so wonderful and normal, I am generally not a fan of pornography, either in books or film. The only other thing that bothered me about the book was the possesiveness that Detective Drey shows toward Tris, who seems to want to be "kept" like a cat or dog by the station policeman. That doesn't seem like a healthy relationship power balance to me. Anyway, here's the blurb:

A species that has no word for murder, has a murderer aboard their spaceship.
ALIEN
Tristol lives in exile. But he’s built a life for himself aboard a human space station. He’s even started to understand the complex nuances of human courting rituals.
Detective Hastion is finally flirting back!
MURDER
Except that Tristol’s beloved space station is unexpectedly contacted by the galoi­ – a xenophobic species with five genders, purple skin, and serious attitude. They need the help of a human detective because there’s a murderer aboard their spaceship. Murder is so rare, the galoi don’t even have a word for it.
Tristol knows this because he is galoi.
ROMANCE
Which means that he and Detective Hastion are on the case… together.
Delicate Sensibilities?
Contains men who love other men in graphic detail, regardless of gender, biology, or skin color... and lots of emotively sexy tentacle hair.
New York Times best selling author Gail Carriger (writing as G.L. Carriger) brings you a light-hearted romantic cozy mystery featuring an adorable lavender alien and his human crush.

I really didn't feel that this book was as lighthearted or cozy mystery-oriented at all, it was much edgier than that, and there was less romance than there was actual graphic sex scenes that describe acts in excruciating detail....I've never read so much about  ejaculate in my life. That said, the actual story was pretty good, though if I had known about the sex scenes prior to buying the book I might not have made the purchase. So I'd give the book a B, and recommend it to gay or trans people who like science fiction.

The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal is an alternative history novel that posits the question of what would happen if the earth were struck by a meteorite in the 1950s and female WASPs and pilots from WWII, and their women human calculator counterparts had to figure out a way to get humanity into space and onto another planet before earth succumbs to greenhouse gasses and climate change and burns up? With vivid prose and unforgettable characters, Kowal weaves a story of triumph over misogyny, racism and anti semitism that had me turning pages into the wee hours. Here's the blurb:

On a cold spring night in 1952, a huge meteorite fell to earth and obliterated much of the east coast of the United States, including Washington D.C. The ensuing climate cataclysm will soon render the earth inhospitable for humanity, as the last such meteorite did for the dinosaurs. This looming threat calls for a radically accelerated effort to colonize space, and requires a much larger share of humanity to take part in the process.
Elma York’s experience as a WASP pilot and mathematician earns her a place in the International Aerospace Coalition’s attempts to put man on the moon, as a calculator. But with so many skilled and experienced women pilots and scientists involved with the program, it doesn’t take long before Elma begins to wonder why they can’t go into space, too.
Elma’s drive to become the first Lady Astronaut is so strong that even the most dearly held conventions of society may not stand a chance against her. Publisher's Weekly: Kowal’s outstanding prequel to her Hugo-winning novelette “The Lady Astronaut of Mars” shows the alternate history that created a mid-20th-century Mars colony. In 1952, mathematician and pilot Elma York is on vacation with her rocket scientist husband, Nathaniel, when a meteor strikes Chesapeake Bay, obliterating most of the East Coast. Elma quickly realizes that this is an extinction event, and that the only option for humanity’s survival is off-world colonization. In a compelling parallel to our own history, Elma, who is Jewish, fights to have women of all races and backgrounds included in the burgeoning space program, squaring off against patriarchal attitudes, her own anxiety, and an adversary from her past service as a war pilot. Kowal explores a wide range of issues—including religion, grief, survivor’s guilt, mental health, racism, misogyny, and globalism—without subsuming the characters and plot. Elma’s struggles with her own prejudices and relationships, including her relationship with herself, provide a captivating human center to the apocalyptic background. Readers will thrill to the story of this “lady astronaut” and eagerly anticipate the promised sequels.

I agree with Publisher's Weekly that Elma's journey is thrilling and eye-opening, lest those of us in the 21st Century forget what life was like for our mothers and grandmothers, who, despite their brilliant minds and skills, were faced with rampant sexism and closed doors to advancement at every turn. I also think it is easy for women and men today to forget that even though the Holocaust was a recent and horrible stain on humanity in the 50s, there were still those who snubbed or harassed Jewish people based solely on their religion. Even those who found the Nazis repugnant were willing to work with former Nazi scientists like Werner Von Braun (to whom my father claimed we were related by blood, which is a ghastly thought) to get a leg up in the space race. Though I loved Elma's attitude of doing her best to keep women in the center of the space race, and her efforts to help women of color become astronauts as well, I was put off my her constant anixiety-induced vomiting and fear of the press/media. It got to be a bit much the 4th or 5th time it happened, and it made an otherwise forward-thinking, intelligent woman seem like a weak and mousy housewife. I kept wanting to tell her to take the tranqs and kick Colonel Parker in the nuts. At any rate, this was a compelling, fascinating story that has me salivating for the sequel. I'd give it an A and recommend it to anyone who enjoyed Hidden Figures, the book or the movie, and any other women-driven books about the past.