November Books: Nonfiction

 Another month had arrived. I continue to read my large book of mystery stories by women, which I began near the end of November. Before that, I read a bunch of other stuff. I never really know what I will read in a given time frame--it's just whatever strikes my fancy at the time. I read several books of nonfiction last month and learned some stuff--always a good thing! 

The Dalai Lama’s Little Book of Wisdom

Bill picked up this book for me a few years ago, either at a charity shop or in a wee free library. It’s taken from parts of talks given by the Dalai Lama at various times. It’s a nice compact volume that one can dip into here and there or read straight through.

Medieval Women: A Social History of Women in England 450-1500 by Henrietta Leyser

I picked this up in a charity shop the day before things started to close due to the pandemic. The subtitle pretty much says it all. The author breaks the book up into different categories to describe the lives of women during the time frame she is interested in. She uses various sources material—official records, literature, religious texts—to gain an understanding of how women lived, what the cultural and societal expectations of women were, and how this all changed throughout the time period she writes about. It was an interesting read.

That Place We Call Home: A Journey Through the Place Names of Ireland by John Creedon

This book is exactly what it says in the subtitle. The author is a guy Bill listens to on RTE Radio 1—he plays all sorts of music from the 1920s to today. He also does occasional TV documentaries for RTE television and this book was built on one he did about place names. It was an interesting book with a lot of fun language anecdotes and some history. I was a wee bit disappointed that there wasn’t more in the book about Mayo and Donegal, the places where we’ve lived and visited. There was a bit about those places as well as Galway, where we have been a couple of times, but mostly it was about parts of the country that we haven’t been. It was still interesting.

Breaking and Mending: A Junior Doctor’s Stories of Compassion and Burnout by Joanna Cannon

I came across this title while scrolling through the e-book section of the library website and recognised the author’s name from two of her other books, The Trouble with Goats and Sheep and Three Things About Elsie, both of which I loved. This is a wonderful book. I was gripped from the start and read it in an afternoon. Here is the description from the site:

"A few years ago, I found myself in A&E.

I had never felt so ill. I was mentally and physically broken. So fractured, I hadn't eaten properly or slept well, or even changed my expression for months. I sat in a cubicle, behind paper-thin curtains and I shook with the effort of not crying. I was an inch away from defeat... but I knew I had to carry on.

Because I wasn't the patient. I was the doctor."

In this powerful memoir, Joanna Cannon tells her story as a junior doctor in visceral, heart-rending snapshots.

We walk with her through the wards, facing extraordinary and daunting moments: from attending her first post-mortem, sitting with a patient through their final moments, to learning the power of a well- or badly chosen word. These moments, and the small sustaining acts of kindness and connection that punctuate hospital life, teach her that emotional care and mental health can be just as critical as restoring a heartbeat.

In a profession where weakness remains a taboo, this moving, beautifully written book brings to life the vivid, human stories of doctors and patients - and shows us why we need to take better care of those who care for us.’

Irish Aran: History, Tradition, Fashion by Vawn Corrigan

I came across this book when scrolling through the history section of the e-book page on the library website. I am not sure how it is that I hadn’t seen it before, but was glad to find it, because it was quite interesting to this knitter. Not all of the information was new to me, but a lot was. The author situates Aran knitting, a particular sort of highly textured design originally made in fishing communities using locally produced, roughish, lanolin-rich wool, in the place of origination, the culture, Irish design, other kinds of Irish craft like crochet, lace, and embroidery. She writes about how it became trendy and was exported worldwide, providing income for women through the years. She writes about various businesses and cooperatives that were created around Irish textiles, like Donegal tweed (which is a type of yarn and of weaving) and yarn spinning. Many of the places she discusses are places I have been, and I have used some of the yarn made in these places, so it was fun to get a bit of the back stories. One place she mentioned a lot was Studio Donegal. Unfortunately, the day I was there happened to be a day in which the person who demonstrates the weaving was ill, so we didn’t get to see that. Reading this did explain one thing, though. As we were meandering around in the goft shop, I noticed that the hats were all knitted flat and seamed. There is nothing wrong with this, but I wondered why the knitters didn’t just work in the round. Reading ths book, I learned that these were most likely made by a particular type of machine that requires a different skill set and makes flat pieces of fabric. I also learned that many designers, who still use elements of Aran design in their work with smoother, softer, and more luxury fibres, will often put blackberry stitches in their designs. No one has figured out a way for machines to be able to make this stitch, so if you see a blackberry stitch, it was knit by hand. I knew that crochet cannot be done by machine, but I didn’t know this about blackberry stitch. 

A Crowded Loneliness by R.H. Sin

This was categorized as poetry in the e-book section of the library website. It is a new book, dealing with the isolation of the pandemic response. It wasn’t what I expected. While there were some poems, it was more a collection of shorter or longer paragraphs containing the author’s thoughts. Then I remembered that when I looked up this person’s name to find out more about them, I discovered that he is a male instagram poet. Reading it as a sort of learning experience about what instagram poetry looks like made it more interesting for me. I’m not on instagram because it’s owned by Facebook, which I happily avoid. I don’t think I would be inclined to read any more of this person’s work, but I am glad I read this one, just to see what it was like. I think that for a different sort of person his words could be compelling and helpful. 

I hope this month has started off well for you!

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