Shadows on a Nameless Beach, Patricia Page

This is a memoir of Chris Car, the son of Patricia Page. He committed suicide at age 39 alone on a farm road. This is a local author (to Pescadero) published by Pigeon Point Press, one of several small nonprofits under the umbrella of the Pescadero Foundation. The book covers the first year after his death, and is poignantly beautiful. One of the reviews says it is a book to cherish, and I feel that way. I think I'm going to send it to my Mom, who has lost two sons.

The memoir is about the places the author shared with her son, how it reminded her of him, and how she coped with his memory and her own need to go on. She includes many details about the flora, fauna, especially birds (her son was a birder) that she encounters. Its an intelligent, sensitive, very personal look at grief.

Selkie Girl, by Laura Brooks

Shannon lent me this book, saying it was very emotional and meant for teenagers, but interesting because it explored the folk lore of the Orkney Islands. One of the best values it taught, imho, was the value of life, and the intelligence of marine life. The legends or folk tales have it that selkies are seals who can live either as humans or seals, and that on Midsummer Eve, what we would call the Summer Solstice, selkies come to dance with humankind in the celebration of Summer. The main character, a girl of 16, goes through a search for the "knowin'"--trying to understand her mission or purpose in life. The stories she learns as a human and as a selkie help her to understand her place in life, and to control her emotions, to be patient, and to let her fate play out. These are all very much the issues that young girls face, or young humans I should say, and its a well told story. Of course there is a love interest, but everything is very innocent, and I would say it would be the perfect gift for a girl 11-15 who likes to read, and who is reflective, seeking her place in the world.

In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan

This reminded me of a story I read a long time ago about zoos in the United States trying to keep sloths alive. Sloths live in jungle forests (maybe Borneo), move very slowly, and eat apparently nothing but the leaves of a specific tree. So zoos would move the tree to what seemed like a good habitat for sloths, but they would die anyway. Years of experimentation and research (and dead sloths) later, they discovered by watching sloths in the forest that they need all the little ants, and fungi, and lichens, and micronutrients that grew in the forest on the leaves, not just the leaves. In other words, they were missing essential ingredients from their environment. Michael Pollan makes the case in defense of food, real food, and against nutritionism and nutritionists who think they've identified all the micronutrients we need and are nevertheless making us increasingly unhealthy with our Western Diet. What it amounts to is that we, just like all other creatures, no the whole environment, the micronutrients from multiple sources, and multiple whole foods, and that the synergy of eating whole foods in combination that we've learned from our mothers (or our grandmothers, or great-grandmothers) is what will keep us healthy. Over and over again researchers have come back to the basic inescapable conclusion that there is a synergy to whole foods that is more than the sum of its parts, and that we need to go back to living in a culture that grows, cooks, and eats local produce. His bottom line: eat real food, mostly green leaves, and not too much, in real meals with real people. It sounds so basic, so fundamental, but it represents a huge revolution in how we actually live right now in our fast-paced somewhat mindless culture.

I highly recommend this book, and urger those who can to support their local CSA (community supported agriculture).

Practical Intelligence continued

This had some great ideas, and exercises, on how to use more of your mind, and use ideas and ways of thinking that we may have discarded. For example, some people feel that thinking emotionally is always bad, or that being totally rational is robotic. Albrecht talks about rational/emotive thinking as being on the same spectrum and to be used to look at the same issue or problem from different perspectives. He quotes from Zen teachers, American psychologists, and neuroscientists in exploring the capacity of the brain to know well quickly (as in Blink), or to unravel a problem with group input in an organized way--zone thinking. He also has some great strategies for thinking more clearly about ourselves, especially so that we end negative self-talk that makes us feel unworthy or depressed.

It wraps up many of the thoughts in his two previous books but adds a great deal to them. I liked it.

Practical Intelligence, the Art and Science of Common Sense, by Karl Albrecht

I've been reading this book on and off for the last few weeks. Its about how to create a more holistic and positive approach to thinking, and to develop the kinds of intelligence in synchony we normally think of as polar opposites. For example, intuition and logical thinking are often considered mutually exclusive or antagonistic. Albrecht creates the term intulogical thinking and shows how to combine these skills. The book should really have been called Holistic Thinking, Expanding your Intelligence, because although the results are no doubt practical there is nothing very common about it. I've learned a lot so far, but it is a bit of a drag that many parts of the book are excerpts from the two previous books of his I recently read. Nevertheless, this is a fascinating read. Parts of it were used in Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers, but its good to read the original source for more insight.

I'm still reading it and enjoying it, in between other books. Of the 3 books of Albrechts I ordered, I think the most helpful to me personally was The Power of Minds at Work, because I could immediately apply what I learned. But this is a powerful book and I continue to learn from it.

The Last Oracle, by James Rollins

This is a thriller/mystery science fantasy novel about autistic savants used for the purpose of overthrowing world governments for the personal ambitions of an egomaniac and his mother. We are allowed to see the points of view of several characters, including at least one of the autistic savants, and as the plot unfolds we see many spy agencies involved on all sides.

The author keeps the writing and the action interesting with odd twists and turns of the plot, miraculous escapes, amazing inventions, and very unusual words. The character development is good--you even feel close to a couple of evil spies--and see a ridiculous romance unfold, but the amazing inner thoughts of Pyotr and Marta, empaths who must save the world, is most haunting.

I had to go to LA recently for a pension seminar and it kept my attention on the plane and the Metro, and in my hotel room, so although it was a complex plot with many characters, it remained a page-turner throughout. There is an interesting section at the back where the author describes the facts that the story was based on. Its surprising how much of the book could be true. Scary even.

This isn't exactly a classic, but how many of us only read classics? If you like science fiction or mysteries or spy thrillers, here it is all wrapped in one.