Title: The Pioneer Woman Cooks A Year of Holidays
Author: Ree Drummond
Genre: cookbook, non-fiction

After a stressful semester I needed a relaxing and quick read. I always seem to read cookbooks when stressed and the Pioneer Woman's new cookbook called out to me from the library's New Books section. I have never seen the Pioneer Woman show on the Food Network since we don't have cable and I have only read one other cookbook by her, but I do occasionally read her food blog and follow her on Facebook.
This is one of the few cookbooks where I wanted to make 90% of the recipes (usually I'm limited by my own food quirks and strawberry allergies). The food photography is gorgeous and is accompanied by Ree's down-to-earth writing style. Each step in the recipe has a thumbnail picture- why don't all cookbooks have this feature? It's literally mouth-watering.

Title: What's Math Got to Do With It? Helping Children Learn to Love Their Least Favorite Subject
Author: Jo Boaler
Genre: non-fiction, education issues, mathematics

I am a math hater. I am 34 years old and I have yet to find a math teacher that makes math interesting and useful to me. I highly doubt that I will be using quadratic equations later in life. I am going back to school for my Bachelor's degree in Anthropology and even though I took and passed a math class at another college for my A.A. degree, I have to take College Algebra again! My teacher is not the greatest and I am really struggling with this course and all the homework is consuming my limited spare time.

When I read this book, I felt like Jo Boaler had been secretly following me my whole life. All the things I hate about math and math class, she brings up in this book:

1. Math classes foster passive learning (students sit quietly and copy formulas for an hour). Was your favorite class in high school or college a passive-learning class or was it an active-learning class full of ideas and opinions? "Another major problem with passive approaches to mathematics is that students work in silence. One problem is that students often need to talk through methods to know whether they really understand them." (46)
2. Formulas and methods that do not make sense, "The fact that students are drilled in methods and rules that do not make sense to them...leaves students frustrated because most of them want to understand what they are learning." (43)
3. The numerous math formulas students need to "learn/memorize" have never made sense to me: "The girls were able to accept the methods shown to them and practice them, but they wanted to know why they worked, where they came from, and how they connected with other methods." (125) Have you ever had a math teacher take the time to explain all this? Jo Boaler also explains that emerging brain research show that boys and girls use different parts of the brain to learn the same thing!

Jo Boaler also devotes a chapter or two to the dangers of standardized testing:
"American children are tested more than ever before, tested more than students in the rest of the world. The tests used in America are rejected by most other countries." (84) She also states that multiple choice tests do not truly show what students have learned or understand or prepare them for life: "Multiple choice does not tell you much about how well they will handle more advanced material or solve complex problems in the workplace." (87)

This books needs to be read every parent, teacher ,principal, Board of Education member, senator, etc., in this country!

Title: A Guide for the Perplexed
Author: Dara Horn
Genre: fiction, historical fiction

Oh, my poor neglected blog, how I have missed you! The lack of updates for the past few months has been due to college taking over my life. I had to devote any spare minute/hour I had to keeping up with my three classes. Thankfully, all my hard work paid off- I received an A in all three classes! Now I get a mini-break until the spring semester starts up again on January 6th. Enough about me, now some good stuff....

A Guide for the Perplexed is a mixture of regular fiction and historical fiction due to three interweaving stories (the reader learns how all three timelines and plots are connected at the end of the novel). Josie Ashkenazi, a genius and the envy of her sister, Judith,  lives in present-day Massachusetts and has designed the Genizah: a software program that records your daily life and categorizes every important or mundane moment for your convenient retrieval later. (And you thought Facebook was intrusive...) Josie's inspiration for the Genizah program came after a near-fatal asthma attack in the woods and from the real-life genizahs (archives) that are located in every Jewish synagogue.
Judith urges Josie to travel to Egypt to sell the Genizah program to the Alexandria library. Near the end of her trip, Josie is kidnapped and made to create a genizah for her captor who recently lost his teenage son to police brutality. While Josie is being held prisoner, Judith is taking over Josie's life back in the States and moves in with Josie's husband and daughter. Towards the end of the novel,  Judith finally decides to do the right thing and atone for her past actions and hatred against Josie.
I can't give any more of the plot away but this was a nice, intelligent, yet escapist book to read after a very stressful semester.

Title: Dexter's Final Cut
Author: Jeff Lindsay
Genre: fiction, books-to-TV, mystery

I've been on a non-fiction reading bender lately, so it was nice to take a "break" and read some fiction. That said, I had mixed feelings about this book. Lindsay's writing and Dexter's wittiness was spot on, as always, but Dexter got him into some major moral dilemmas in this book which I was uncomfortable with (Dexter, of course, was not).
A TV show is filming in Miami and Dexter and Deborah become "technical advisers" to the show. Basically, this means they become glorified babysitters for the celebrities who will be playing their characters on the show. Dexter becomes caught up in the glitz and glamour of Hollywood as his duties are taken a step further and he becomes bodyguard to Jackie Forrest, the beautiful starlet. Our favorite serial killer who keeps a low profile and stays in the shadows, becomes enamored with publicity, his client's fame and the wonderful food that surrounds celebrities. This infatuation with a different world causes Dexter to become dissatisfied with his "normal life" that he had previously created for himself: Rita, the kids, work, etc. As Dexter is about to make a choice that will change his life forever, his first foray into the world of humanity and human emotions comes crashing down on him.

Title: Pandora's Lunchbox: How Processed Food Took Over the American Meal
Author: Melanie Warner
Genre: non-fiction, food issues, health

"Just because it's edible doesn't mean it's good for you" (xvii)
Melanie Warner's mom, quoted above, was onto something and way ahead of her time. While most kids had the freedom to eat whatever processed food came their way, Melanie was only allowed to eat whole foods; "gooped-up" foods were not allowed in the house when Melanie was growing up.

Nowadays, food science has taken technology and food processing to a whole new level: hexane is used in the manufacturing of soybean oil, synthetic Vitamin D is created from sheep grease in Chinese factories (won't be buying vitamins anymore), other vitamins are created from coal tar and acetone. Yuck!

Warner takes us through the history of American cereal. Americans used to eat oatmeal and various meat products for breakfast until the Kellogg brothers figured out how to create cereal flakes. Sugar was added to make the flakes more palatable and now modern cereal grains undergo extrusion and gun puffing before they are filled in the cereal box. Unfortunately, "industrial processes like extrusion and gun puffing ... dismantle foods to the point where there's not much left for our digestive systems to do" (65). So what's the big deal about that? "Depriving our stomach of its gastric duties by giving it disassembled food appears profoundly to alter energy metabolism and the dynamics of hunger and satiety" (65). Sounds like our stomach needs to work out too.

Warner, like other food-issues authors I have read, discovered that food scientists don't partake of the products they create; the food scientists she interviewed bought their produce at farmer's markets, planted their own garden, and cook their own meals from scratch (one scientist she interviewed even makes his own yogurt!).

Not only are synthetic chemicals and vitamins added to our food, but there is special category that food scientists refer to as "food-contact substances." These are "things manufacturers use in their packaging and apply to machinery to keep it running" (109).

The American food industry is like a dog chasing its own tail. Natural nutrients are taken out of a food to make it cheaper to produce. Then synthetic vitamins and nutrients must be added back to said food product so that it can be marketed as healthy. To make sure these vitamins stick to the product, more chemicals must be used. Oy vey, when will it all end?

Title: The Genius of Dogs: How Dogs Are Smarter Than You Think
Author(s): Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods
Genre: animals, non-fiction, science

Is your dog smarter than a 5th grader? Could your dog possibly be smarter than you? If you answered yes to these two questions, you are not alone. Brian Hare is an animal behaviorist who has been studying canines and their cognitive abilities. Using various experiments, Hare hypothesizes that dogs' genius came about due to domestication. (No, he is not saying that wolves and foxes are dumb but dogs perform better on animal intelligence tests which are talked about extensively in the book)
Hare also hypothesizes that canine domestication occurred through the use of breeding for non-aggressive personalities (friendliness) versus breeding for a certain physical trait.

Title: The Cat Whisperer: Why Cats Do What They Do- and How to Get Them to Do What You Want
Author: Mieshelle Nagelschneider
Genre: non-fiction, animals, cats

We used to have a cat with "issues." Rusty would chew things; this was a habit he acquired as an adult cat. He would chew shoelaces, holes in clothes (new clothes, of course), and chomp on computer mice cords and speaker wires, yet, he somehow never shocked himself. Our vet never found anything physically wrong with Rusty and I would always joke that Rusty needed a shrink... Imagine my pleasant surprise when The Cat Whisperer  appeared at my local library.

I have had pet cats for my most of my life; after observing various felines for so long, you think you have a pretty good understanding of the feline universe, but I did learn a few things:
1. Your sweetest cat is usually the most anxious. All that cuddling and rubbing against you may actually be your cat's way of trying to self-soothe (29).
2. Spatio-temporal hierarchy (61). This is a mouthful that means "kitty timesharing." I have noticed this behavior among my four cats but I didn't know it had a name. Examples: Midnight and S'mores will follow me into the bathroom in the morning as I get ready for work. My other two cats, Oreo and Cocoa, will not be in the bathroom at the same time as Midnight and S'mores. At night, Oreo will snuggle by my feet or behind my knees. Cocoa will snuggle near my chest. Midnight will be hanging out in the room but not on the bed. S'mores will be hiding in the closet and will come out every now and then for some head rubs. Oreo will groom Cocoa but not the other cats; Midnight and S'mores will groom each other but not Cocoa or Oreo.
3. Flehmen response. Do you ever see your cat sniff a spot (or some stinky shoes) and make a weird face? This is the cat sniffing and tasting a scent, "A can take in the taste and scent of something simultaneously with this organ [Jacobson's organ], which is just behind the incisors in the roof of the mouth" (209).
4. The plague spread throughout Europe in the Middle Ages after widespread persecution of cats.
5. There are 40 to 70 million homeless or feral cats in the United States but "relatively few homeless or stray dogs (21)." Why the feline to canine disparity? Cats are not highly valued as dogs (21).

So how did Mieshelle Nagelschneider become a cat behaviorist (and get paid for it)? As a little girl she would (try) to befriend the feral cats near her family's ranch. A combination of patience, experimental techniques, and having a special gift set on her on the track of helping cats and their humans resolve difficult cat psychological issues. Working as a vet tech and moonlighting as a pet sitter helped solidify her work with cats. When she starts feline behavior therapy, she first corrects the behavior of the human (usually the cause of the cat's behavior problem):

"Cats are more often killed for unwanted behavior than for any other reason. Imagine if the number one killer of human beings was not disease but behavioral problems. We'd view this as a mental health epidemic" (20).