The Middlesteins

The Middlesteins

Jami Attenberg

Our intelligence is imperfect, surely and newly arisen; the ease with which it can be sweet-talked, overwhelmed, or subverted by our other hardwired propensities--sometimes themselves disguised as the cool light of reason--is worrisome.

- Carl Sagan

Jami Attenberg's The Middlesteins opens with a devoted mother battling up four sets of stairs, bags full of food, library books weighing her down, as her exhausted, overweight daughter Edie pleads with her to carry her up. Neighbours open their doors and shrivel the emotionally complicated scene with these words: "It was just that fat kid from 6D." The doors bang shut. With that foreboding dismissal, you realize little Edie is f*cked. 

The novel then leaps ahead many years, centering around Edie's rotting legs and her inability to stop hurting herself through food. Attenberg switches perspectives between Edie, Edie's husband, and Edie's children and their families. The family members' tendency to judge and assume is highly amusing, and it's incredible how little each character actually sees into the larger drama and the smallness of their own concerns. Edie is morbidly obese, acerbic, and smart as hell. Inside her lumbering shell, though, is a timeless tenderness for her father and her own husband, who she nearly pecks to death. Black rotten teeth, hideously swollen legs, she beams love at her grandchildren and her own kids, who mostly turned out OK. I loved the individual takes on their shared reality. It is always humbling and wonderful to be reminded that truth is a many-faceted thing, and may shift and creak from day to day.

Highly recommended.

- Hannah

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The Black Swan

The Black Swan

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

A black swan is a highly impactful, often destructive event, like the tsunami that destroyed the nuclear power plants in Japan in March 2011. As Nassim Nicholas Taleb states, a black swan “lies outside the realm of regular expectations because nothing in the past can convincingly point to the possibility” of its occurrence. We tend to try to make black swans look explainable and even predictable so that it seems the situations would have been manageable if only we had been better prepared, whereas in all likelihood this wasn’t possible. Taleb suggests that we will see more and more of these events because of the growing interdependence of world events and the leveraging of power through technology.

To me the central idea of The Black Swan is the “Platonic fold,” which is the gap that exists between the map and the actual territory being described. This is important because it can cause “Platonic blindness,” a state in which we rely on familiar abstractions rather than being present to an ever-changing and  infinitely more complex reality. Taleb identifies five common errors that heighten these misperceptions and miscalculations: 1) The error of confirmation, where for example a turkey has 1,000 really good days that seem to confirm that the farmer has his best interests at heart, and then Thanksgiving Day ends very badly. 2) The narrative fallacy, in which we tell ourselves or each other a story about an event that oversimplifies or distorts it, making it more acceptable or less frightening. 3) A variety of arguments that suggest that “human nature is not programmed for Black Swans,” but rather for small, day-to-day successes or failures. 4) The distortion of “silent evidence,” such as discussing the efficacy of prayer in surviving a shipwreck when we only hear the testimony of survivors. 5) Finally there is tunnelling, where we look to known examples of risk, thereby missing the unexpected ones.

The Black Swan challenges our understanding of risk, causality, and knowledge, and our assumptions about the world. 

- Ken

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The Song of Roland

The Song of Roland

Michel Rabagliati, Trans. Helge Dascher

With a slight nod of the (pen)cap to one of the oldest surviving epics of French literature, Rabagliati offers us a tender story about age, perseverance, and immortality. The Song of Roland continues the chronicle of his alter-ego, Paul (Paul Has a Summer Job; Paul Moves Out), this time with a story about the life and death of Paul’s father-in-law, a larger-than-life patriarch, living in suburban Quebec, who faces death by cancer with the strength of character he uses to inspire and love his large Catholic family.

Rabagliati’s style is beautiful, brush-work centred, and reminiscent of European comics. Black and white line drawings on heavy paper stock always make me notice the impact, psychological and physical, of light on a scene. A bright scene, with lots of white space for sky, can make a reader feel a sense of peace. Heavily hatched lines or darkly filled backgrounds feel sinister, foreboding. Rabagliati is fantastic with the weight of his drawings, and the way this scenery is reflected in the emotions of his characters. A typical scene of four or five panels can pass with few words, just facial and body language, and much conveyed.

This book is part of the excellent BDANG series (I believe the acronym is Bande Dessinees en ANGlais), which aims to translate major French-language cartoons into English in order to interest a new market in French Canada.

- Dan

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Beyond Belief

Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape

Jenna Miscavige Hill

You might think that acronyms like MEST and Out 2D are the latest in texting communication. But if you are a Scientologist you know that MEST means "matter, energy, space, time" and Out 2D refers to someone who has had an affair. If you are at all critical of the church you are deemed an SP, or suppressive person. Very bad. This was the label given to Nicole Kidman when she separated from Tom Cruise. SPs are so evil that their family and friends are mandated to have nothing to do with them.

Jenna Miscavige Hill’s recent expose of Scientology, Beyond Belief, couldn’t have a better title. If even a quarter of what she relates is true, you will find yourself wondering how this organization could possibly have tax-exempt status in the U.S. and why it hasn’t been investigated for child abuse, kidnapping, and fraud. The Church is so litigious that recently Random House of Canada decided not to distribute one of their authors who has just published his own book on Scientology called Going Clear.  They know how to control and instill fear.

Jenna is third-generation Scientology. Her parents were part of Sea Org, which as far as I can tell is the clergy. They had her before they rose up the ranks, as Sea Orgers are not supposed to have children. They were often separated, having been assigned different tasks around the world. Jenna was left to live in a camp in California with other children of Sea Orgers. She saw her parents once a year. Her day consisted of early rising, followed by manual labour in the morning and studying in the afternoon--seven days a week. These kids studied the hallucinatory and copious works of L. Ron Hubbard, or LRH, as everyone called him. It sounds as close to brain washing as I can imagine.

The media has loved Beyond Belief (see, for instance, this Globe and Mail article). That’s because Jenna is the niece of David Miscavige, the leader of Scientology. He is the eminence grise behind her many horrifying attempts to leave the church. The story would definitely make a great Hollywood blockbuster. Perhaps Paul Haggis could direct it. But it will also get you thinking about religion, democracy, control, child rearing, and what is fair in this crazy, polarized, materialistic world that we all live in. "Going clear" is the highest realm in Scientology. When in his song "Famous Blue Raincoat" Leonard Cohen asked, "Did you ever go clear?" I had no idea what he was talking about. Now I do.

By the way, non-Scientologists are called wogs. That’s a derogatory and I suppose in some way a racist term. The Globe and Mail reported this weekend that the newest church opened this Saturday in Cambridge! See also this article in the Cambridge Times.

- Barb

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Eating Disorders Awareness Week: Resources for Parents and Others

This week (Feb. 4-10) is National Eating Disorder Awareness Week, and both Laura from F.E.A.S.T. (an international organization that helps parents and caregivers support people suffering from eating disorders) and Andrea Lamarre from the Guelph-Wellington Eating Disorders Coalition have provided a suggested reading list to increase awareness around eating disorders and related issues.

	Help your Teenager Beat an Eating Disorder, by James Locke and Daniel Le Grange Locke and Le Grange provide the tools you need to build a united family front that attacks the illness to ensure that your child develops nourishing eating habits and life-sustaining attitudes, day by day, meal by meal.
	Brave Girl Eating, by Harriet Brown In this emotionally resonant and compelling memoir, journalist and professor Harriet Brown takes readers—moment by moment, spoonful by spoonful—through her family’s experience with the nightmare of anorexia.
	Eating with your Anorexic, by Laura Collins This poignant and informative narrative relates how one mother  treated her daughter's life-threatening anorexia using the Maudsley Approach, a home-based, family-centered therapy developed in Great Britain in the 1980s.
	My Kid Is Back, by June Alexander and Daniel Le Grange My Kid is Back explains how family-based treatment can greatly reduce the severity of anorexia nervosa in children and adolescents, allowing the sufferer to return to normal eating patterns, and their families to return to normal family life.
	Decoding Anorexia, by Carrie Arnold Carrie Arnold, a trained scientist, science writer, and past sufferer of anorexia, speaks with clinicians, researchers, parents, other family members, and sufferers about the factors that make one vulnerable to anorexia, the neurochemistry behind the call of starvation, and why it’s so hard to leave anorexia behind.
	Life Without Ed, by Jenni Schaefer and Thom Rutledge For years, author Jennifer Schaefer lived with both anorexia and bulimia. She credits her successful recovery to the technique she learned from her psychologist, Thom Rutledge. This groundbreaking book illustrates Rutledge's technique.
	Goodbye Ed, Hello Me, by Jenni Shaefer Goodbye Ed, Hello Me shows you that being fully recovered is not just about breaking free from destructive behaviors with food and having a healthy relationship with your body; it also means finding joy and peace in your life.
	The Diet Myth: Why America’s Obsession with Weight is Hazardous to Your Health, by Paul Campos After years spent scrutinizing medical studies and interviewing leading doctors, scientists, eating- disorder specialists, and psychiatrists, Professor Paul Campos shows that we can safeguard our health without obsessing about the numbers on the scale.
	Making Weight – Men’s Conflict With Food, Shape & Appearance, by Arnold Anderson The first book to explore why so many of today's men are experiencing problems that have traditionally been considered "women's issues."
	Hooked on Exercise: How to Manage Exercise Addiction by Rebecca Prussin, Philip Harvey, and Theresa Foy DiGeronimo The authors discuss the causes of exercise abuse and how to get the maximum benefits from a regular exercise program without crossing the line to unhealthy amounts of activity.

Other Resources

Eating Disorders: A Parent's Guide, by Rachel Bryant-Waugh and Bryan Lask
Live Large! Affirmations for Living the Life You Want in the Body You Already Have, by Cheri Erdman
Big Fat Lies: The Truth About Your Weight and Your Health, by Glenn Gaesser
Honey, Does This Make My Butt Look Big? A Couple’s Guide to Food and Body Talk, by Lydia Hanich
Talking to Eating Disorders: Simple Ways to Support Someone with Anorexia, Bulimia, Binge Eating, or Body Image Issues, by Jeanne Heaton and Claudia Strauss
101 Ways to Help Your Daughter Love Her Body, by Brenda Richardson and Elaine Rehr
Give Food a Chance, by Julie O'Toole

A Sisterhood of Travellers

To be honest, right now during the last week I haven't had the slightest urge to crack open a book or even pay attention to anything on the pages of the usual mags I flip through. Not even a quick pop into the library for my weekly browse! My mind has been elsewhere, it seems, but I don't fret and never do, because I know the eventual tug toward a nice-looking cover or a word that catches my eye always pulls me back from the drought.

My book choices flow like cycles throughout the year. Fiction for one month, history the next. I can binge for ages on travel lit, which I notice happens more during warmer months, although I always keep watch up back in the travel section for anything new that jumps out at me.

Surfing, street food, endless stars in a desert sky. I don't know what it is, but a great travel read really seems to feed the soul and open the mind to all of life's possibilities. I tell you, reading travel lit (written by women especially) makes me feel normal. It's hard to explain the feeling, that itch, the bug, the lust to move and explore. It's like being part of some secret club--these strangers, these comrades. So comforting to read the very thoughts and feelings I have expressed that no one but a traveler could fully understand. Favourites like Tales of a Female Nomad, Go Your Own Way: Women Travel the World Solo, and the great read Wanderlust by Elisabeth Eaves, all written by women who took the leap.

Their stories aren't always happy or fantastical, but that's the point. They can be as simple as ordering some food, cramming onto a packed train, being chased by monkeys, a hot kiss against a hostel door, and the occasional scam, theft, missed connection thrown in when you least expect it. (Isn't that how it always goes?)

The best kind of travel—the kind I wanted to experience—involves a particular state of mind, in which one is not merely open to the occurrence of the unexpected, but to deep involvement in the unexpected, indeed, open to the possibility of having one’s life changed forever by a chance encounter.

- Elizabeth Eaves

Who knows what will happen, where the turn you make will take you? It's scary, it's adventurous, it's travel. Isn't that an exciting thing to think about? I love how Eaves references the Talking Heads song "Once in a Lifetime" before some travels, and it's so fitting. YOLO just isn't gonna do.

You may ask yourself, what is that beautiful house?
You may ask yourself, where does that highway go to?
You may ask yourself, am I right, am I wrong?
You may say to yourself, my god, what have I done?

P.S. I am so keen to check out new release On the Road, opening at the Bookshelf Cinema Feb 8.

- Ashley Varangu

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Jazz Improvisors Raid The Bookshelf!

I'm Dawn Matheson, proud member of The Bookshelf's extended family--as a customer, former bookseller, event organizer, Off The Shelf writer, and general bookstore flirt. Now I get to contribute some video to The Bookshelf's cyber-home, starting with this footage of multiple Juno-award winner Jane Bunnett blowing her horn and flitting her flute between the bookshelves. 

In 2011, Bunnett was the inaugural Improviser in Residence with the Improvisation, Community and Social Practice project at the University of Guelph under the direction of Dr. Ajay Heble. Her residency was supported by Guelph's Musagetes Foundation. It was my job to follow her around and document some of her collaborations and interventions with the Guelph community. I ended up making six videos, plus pasting together this Bookshelf footage. Some of the other videos can be found at the Improvisation, Community, and Social Practice website, and on a DVD in a gorgeous publication put out by ICASP and Musagetes entitled "Things That You Hope a Human Being Will Be." 

Nicholas Loess shot around 20 minutes of Bunnett and fellow musicians making a ruckus at the bookstore amongst unsuspecting book browsers. I edited that footage into five minutes of tape in the attached video. Enjoy!

- Dawn Matheson

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