Book Review: A Breast Cancer Alphabet

Title: A Breast Cancer Alphabet
Author: Madhulika Sikka
Format: Paperback
Reading Dates: 15-21 Jan 2014
Rating: ***1/2

I'm trying to figure out how I got this book. I mean I know I got it from the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program, but I don't remember selecting it and it's not normally the kind of book I'd select. That being said, I decided to dive in anyway.

Madhulika Sikka is an editor for NPR News who chronicles her experiences with breast cancer in The Breast Cancer Alphabet. It's not your normal chronicle however. The book is comprised of 26 very small chapters, each a couple of pages long--one for each letter of the alphabet. All the way from "A is for Anxiety" to "Z is for ZZZs." Her intended audience are those women newly diagnosed with breast cancer who are trying to figure out how the hell they just ended up in Cancerland, that "strange land of surgeries, and drugs and side effects, and pain and anxiety, and you didn't even have a minute to prepare for it."

Throughout the book you follow Sikka as she chronicles how she learned to deal with her body, her family, her doctors and her pain. Since each chapter is so small, it's easy to get through them quickly. Their brevity also means that they aren't deep, soul-searching kinds of chapters, if that's what you're looking for, but you definitely get a sense of Sikka's initial disorientation and her life during treatment, and the postscript follows her out the other side.

Sikka positions her book is as a counter to the idea of the pink-powered warrior that dominates much of the conversation around breast cancer. She argues that she's not a warrior, she's just a woman dealing with a terrible disease, and she counsels her readers that Cancerland is not "a world of fuzzy pink gauze, soft teddy bears, and garlands of ribbons" but a world of indignities that it is "okay to feel indignant about."

As I read the book I kept mentally comparing it to The Emperor of All Maladies, which is one of the best non-fiction books that I've read, a real must-read history of the disease, the research behind it, and the attempts to eradicate it. While A Breast Cancer Alphabet doesn't position itself as that sort of book, it gets lost in deciding what kind of book it wants to be--a memoir or a self-help book. Maybe it's because I read the book from the standpoint of a healthy woman (knock on wood), but I found the memoir parts more gripping and wish she had approached the subject solely from that angle.

Book Review: Assassination Vacation

Title: Assassination Vacation
Author: Sarah Vowell
Format: Kindle
Reading Dates: 31 Dec 2013 - 05 Jan 2014
Rating: ****

Assassination Vacation is another one of those jewels I picked up on a Kindle Daily Deal. I jumped on the offer because I so enjoyed Unfamiliar Fishes a couple of years ago.

I think I enjoyed both of Sarah Vowell's books because I think she might be my twin. My much younger, quite a bit funnier twin that stops to read all the historical markers wherever she goes like me. She's the one who does all the cool things I always wanted to do like write great non-fiction books that bring to light details about historic events that you might not even know about and she gets to travel to cool places to do it. And she was born in Oklahoma!

In Assassination Vacation, Vowell compiles a travelogue describing places she's visited associated with three Presidential murders--Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley. Now think about it--when's the last time you read a good book on the McKinley assassination? That's just one good reason you should read this book. (And if you just asked yourself "Did we really have a President McKinley?" that's another.)

Accompanying her on her jaunts through museums and graveyards are her sister and especially lovable nephew. Her stories about them bring a personal touch to the book as do her stories about her family history. The way she weaves the stories of her travels, her family, her politics, and the Presidents makes for a cant-put-it-down book, evidenced by the fact that I finished it in 5 days--way shorter than my usual several months average.

If you're looking to learn interesting stuff told in a funny way, you need to read this book. Highly recommended!

Folding Fun With Mama

My mom and dad came to visit this weekend. Mama said she wanted a book wreath for her door.

Well, you know the old saying, Give a woman a book wreath and she smiles for a day. Teach a woman to fold a book wreath and she smiles forever more.

So I taught my mom how to fold a book wreath.

Here we are earlier this afternoon. I was in charge of trimming the pages and Mama was in charge of folding them.

When we were done we had 70 rolled pages.

Next we Mod Podged the center disk.

And then we got out the hot glue gun and the real fun began. 

Then there was trimming and attaching the center disk and voila!

Just beautiful! (And the wreath's not bad either.)

My Favorite Books of 2013

It's awards season which means it's time for my 2nd annual Favorite Books of the Year list. I know how anxiously some of you wait for this post each year, and I don't want to keep you in suspense any longer, because I know there is one question on everyone's mind:

What's Stephanie wearing?

Well, wait no longer, my faithful fans, because the answer is an OU sweatshirt and bejeweled jeans. (They are my fanciest! This outfit comprises nearly my entire winter wardrobe, by the way, so you will find me in it quite regularly.)

 A message from our accountants, Ernst and Julio:
We have counted the ballots in this year's list carefully and certify that all the books included therein were read by Stephanie in 2013, though they were not all written in 2013.

And now that that's out of the way, let's get to the books!

This was a banner year for good books. Last year you may recall only two books earned the coveted 5-star ranking, but this year the number doubled. Coming in at the top were The Great Dissent: How Oliver Wendell Holmes Changed His Mind--and Changed the History of Free Speech in America, Brave Genius: A Scientist, a Philosopher, and Their Daring Adventures from the French Resistance to the Nobel Prize, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, and Beautiful Ruins.

Note to self: If you ever decide to write a non-fiction book, be sure to pick the longest title you can, because that is obviously the sign of a winner.

Interesting fact #1- Beautiful Ruins was the first book I read in 2013 and Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk was the last. All you authors who want to end up on next year's list, remember that when picking a publication date.

I was very lax about writing up my reviews toward the end of the year, so I haven't said much about Billy Lynn, but it was interesting on several levels. It takes place during the 2004 Dallas Cowboys Thanksgiving game halftime show. I happened to be at that show and interesting fact #2, my-very-famous-brother produced the show. I kept waiting for his character to appear, but it didn't. (Which is probably a good thing.) On a deeper level it was about the lip service Americans pay to war and warriors while having no idea of what actually happens during war and to its soldiers. And on yet another level it is about how slimy some Texans can be. And, trust me, it's pretty darn slimy.

Beautiful Ruins is also fascinating on several levels. You can read more here if you like, but interesting fact #3 I've added it to my all-time favorite list. And it's definitely my favorite of all the above.

Three books tied at 4 1/2 stars. They were A Prayer for Owen Meany, which was a 27-hour marathon via Audible.com, but well worth the listen (great narration!), The Handmaid's Tale, an icky subject, but another Audible winner combining the great writing of Margaret Atwood and pitch-perfect narration by Clare Danes, and The Interestings, which along with The Great Dissent and Brave Genius, I picked up for free in the LibraryThing.com Early Reviewer program. (Do this!)

And finally earning a very respectable 4-star rating was Lost in Shangri-La: A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II. I picked this book up as an Audible.com Daily Deal and got way more than my money's worth. It tells the story of a plane full of site-seeing military folks who crash into a hidden valley in New Guinea and come in contact with an unknown, secluded civilization who haven't even invented the wheel yet. What I found most interesting about this story is that the author, who also doubles as the narrator, was able to go to the valley and interview natives who were children at the time to ask them to tell the story from their own point of view. Imagine being able to communicate with someone whose father was shaking a spear at an airplane and asking what they were all thinking. Amazing!

And there you have it. If you want to see all the books I read last year, including the real clunkers, check out the complete list on LibraryThing.com. Let me know below what your favorite books were this year and here's to happy reading in 2014!

Lovely Hearts

Here's some more fun for Valentine's Day. This first one is actually a custom order I made a few months ago. The buyer wanted a special gift for her husband.

I like the way that Love looks in this font. Isn't that a great curve? And the heart-filled endpapers make a great background!

So this particular one is gone, but I can make you one just like it if you'd like. Just let me know on Facebook or Etsy.

Or...you might like this one instead.

It's shiny!

Even the cover gets in on the act.

I Heart You...and You...and You...and....

So it's the new year and I promised you pictures of all the Christmas frivolity I got to make last month, so here's one neat project. There are some very fun ladies at my church who frequent the choir and like to refer to themselves as the Divas.

One of them commissioned me to make the rest of them books to show her Diva love, and here's what we came up with.

Hearts!

We covered the endpapers with sparkly paper because everyone knows Divas love sparkles...

...and then we added more sparkles because...

we could!

And then we made a sparkly Diva so everyone would know that these books were for very special people.

Hearts would make great Valentine gifts! Especially with shiny red endpapers. Want one? Request a custom order on Etsy. 

Happy New Year! And Here's to a Great 2013!

Well, the annual family book exchange is over. We all had a great time getting together to chat. Here are my brother in Dallas and my uncle in Baltimore catching up the new-fangled way.

And here is my other uncle and cousin showing them the book my uncle had just picked from that big pile on the floor.

We had 22 books in the hopper this year, and here's the one I came away with. 

I liked the Harry series so will have to give this one a try in the new year. But before we get too far into the new year I just wanted to thank all of you friends of Reading With Scissors who helped make this year such a fun one for me.

I put away enough money folding books that I was able to surprise Captain America with a new bike for Christmas.

And look at the fancy-dancy tag I made to put on it.

It kind of fell apart as you can see. Maybe if he could have waited for the glue to dry before I gave it to him. But the kids didn't get to our house until late afternoon and he was going crazy not being able to open a present, so I gave him the bike before they got there.

Speaking of gifts a few years ago my parents established a scholarship in my name at my alma mater. And thanks to your help, this year Reading With Scissors was able to make a very nice contribution to the Stephanie Dahlem Pounds Endowed Scholarship.

Thank you for sharing all the book-folding fun with me in 2013 and for buying more than a few of works. Here's to more fun in 2014! Here we go!