Us Against You, Butchering Art, Island of the Mad

Here are my latest finds:

1. The Butchering Art by Lindsey Fitzharris about the advent of sterile surgery. Definitely a topic I wouldn't chose! Ew. The book is vivid about surgery practices of the nineteenth century and they were gruesome. As in cringe-when-I-read it gruesome. But factual, so therefore fascinating. Surgery had to start somewhere. If you like historical novels, give this one a try. Fitzharris is a fine writer and I always admire an author who can make a topic (like surgery) that I think: "No thank you", to be something that's actually pretty interesting because of the way she tells it.

2. Us Against You by Fredrik Backman, the sequel to Beartown. Some sequels are total letdowns after the first fine book, and I wondered if Backman could keep it up. He can. Adult themes, not for my tween readers, but I'd love to suggest it to a (non-offended!) book club of intelligent readers. Backman is one of the few authors would can make me heartily laugh and get to profound realizations in the same paragraph.

3. Island of the Mad, the next in my favorite detective series starring Mary Russell as a sidekick to Sherlock Holmes. I was waiting for this to arrive at my library because it was just published a few months ago. And Laurie King keeps up her Laurie King self. Bedlam mental hospital! Venice! Fascists! Cole Porter! Sherlock Holmes as Zorro! If King only did a great mystery plot, I'd be hooked. But King has this expansive vocabulary! Like the word "susurrations", which means "a whispering sound" and King uses it to describe the ocean waves. Marvelous.

She plays with the concept of gender identity, so if that makes you nervous, or you have a young reader you don't want to go there yet, now you know.

Happy summer reading!

Educated by Tara Westover, and Idaho

One of the latest "to read" books is Educated by Tara Westover. It was recommended to me by a friend, then I kept seeing it on book blogs and books lists and more smart friends were talking about it. (I LOVE my smart friends!)

Tara grew up in rural Idaho and there's a reason rural Idaho has the reputation it does, I can vouch for that because I lived there myself for a while. When my kids ask me for stories about my childhood they know that any story about Idaho is going to turn into a tall tale: that when you drive into town you go back in time, that the dinosaurs wander the streets, and that the only day of summer is the 4th of July---that one is true actually. I tell these tall tales because the reality is just too weird to describe, and I wasn't happy there. When we moved to California, I came back alive.

But all these years I've wondered if my memories of rural Idaho were tainted because I was there when I was 8 years old and we left when I was 12, and those were awwwkkkkwarrrd Deborah years. Maybe it was just me.

But the way Tara describes rural Idaho living, I can firmly say: Nope. It wasn't me.

I'm talking small town Idaho, by the way. I'm sure Boise is better, it must be.

Of course, Tara's parents had plenty of issues, while I had parents who didn't. So it wasn't her home life I could identify with, but the attitudes of the people in the town and the general life perspective. You'd have to live there to get it, but it's what makes Napoleon Dynamite funny.

So rural Idaho is the setting. Where people stockpile guns and only heal with herbs and are suspicious about government everything. And that's considered normal. Add to this that Tara's dad is manic depressive and paranoid, and her mother is living his warped reality, and there's abuse of all kinds in the home, they live their own version of Mormonism, and Tara is homeschooled . . . . well that's a story.

But what makes an interesting story is that Tara gets out to the rest of the world.

The saddest thing to me is how well she portrays what happens in the mind of a family member who has been taught her role---children get this young, what role they are expected to have. The dark side of this is abuse where family members are taught to accept and even continue harmful family patterns. This would be a funny story about a weird family if it weren't for that abuse. And that Tara is taught to accept it.

The redemption of the story is that when Tara gets out to the rest of the world, she gets away from the abuse. But oh, the battles in her mind and heart to do it.

This would be a fascinating read for any book club. For people who are going to get all "Well most Mormons aren't like that!" huffy, they'll be offended.

Of course most Mormons aren't like this. But let's examine the dark side of when religion is used as justification for crazy behavior, and that can be found in any faith.