A RESISTANCE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, from Bookshop.org's Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers: Non-Fiction list all summer long

A RESISTANCE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES
TAD STOERMER
Steerforth Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$15.99 ebook, available now

The Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers: Non-Fiction For the week ending September 16, 2026

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: An urgent, bracing new look at American history that Ava DuVernay calls "deeply necessary for this moment."

Revisit the Salem Witch Trials, the Underground Railroad, and other resistance movements of American history to get a bold new understanding of how resistance shaped our past—and how its principles can change our future.

The United States was shaped by resistance—but not in the way we’ve been taught. The Revolution did not secure liberty; it opened the door to either liberty or oppression, where only white men enjoyed all of the benefits and protections of citizenship.

In A Resistance History of the United States, public historian Tad Stoermer shows how from the very beginning, that tension—between the ideals of resistance and the realities of power—has defined America more than the Enlightenment ideals enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

Utililizing powerful storytelling to focus on key—and often lesser-known—moments in American history, this book reveals the truth of how resistance movements from Colonial times have opposed the powers that be. Stoermer covers an impressive roster of pivotal movements, with each chapter identifying a key resistance movement and principle meant to inspire contemporary readers, including:

Bacon’s Rebellion/Metacomet’s War (1676)

Salem Witch Trials (1692)

The Black Loyalists (1783)

The Underground Railroad (1850)

Through these and many more examples, Stoermer dismantles the mythologies that pass for American history—exposing the curated nostalgia, moral evasions, and institutional silences that have long protected abusive power. What emerges is an essential look at how we can take lessons from the past to understand, and effectively respond to, the injustices we face today.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: There's a reason this story has been on the Bookshop.org non-fiction bestseller list since who-kicked-the-cat. It's organized like the podcast-a-holics like it, event by event. More like a podcast script collection than a narrative history, it is nonetheless a nevessary document of how *structural* change can get made.

I myownself don't think that's the only kind that counts, where the author does.

I'm far more annoyed by the absence of footnotes/inline citations in a serious work of non-fiction. Surely in the Age of AI it would be the work of but a moment to get that done! By itself, that was one star gone. I'm not convinced the choice of political changes enshrined in law was as restrictive as the author's use of it requires. To use my own pet peeve, where's the gay-marriage part? Where's the Homestead Strike?

So not perfect but way way better, more corrective, than the triumphalist claptrap that's extruded by the yard from more mainstram publishers. Steerforth Press does interesting work all the time even when I quibble with it. This is a fine example of that reality.

I think most readers would prefer to ear-read the book, as it plays into the podcasting ethos of it.

FORTRESS OF THE FORGOTTEN ONES, don't delay learning about them

FORTRESS OF THE FORGOTTEN ONES
FAHMIDA RIAZ (tr. Sana R. Chaudhry)
Open Letter Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$15.95 paperback, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Winner of the Armory Square Prize for South Asian Literature in Translation

In Fortress of the Forgotten Ones, Fahmida Riaz transports readers to fifth-century Ctesiphon, the zenith of the Sassanian Empire, in a brilliant historical novel that blends rich cultural memory with striking political relevance. Set against the backdrop of fire worshippers, Parsi kings, and the ancient Avesta, this ambitious tale follows Mazdak, the first socialist revolutionary in history, as he challenges the power structures of his time.

With vivid depictions of the Great Palace of King Qobad, the lands of the White Huns, and the impoverished masses, Riaz delves deep into the forces of history that shaped Mazdak’s quest for social justice. A masterpiece of historical fiction, Fortress of the Forgotten Ones is a powerful meditation on erasure, cultural identity, and the fight for justice that resonates with our contemporary world.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: What a fascinating read! I was constantly intrigued by the strangeness of the settings, and eager to get the next interesting tidbit of knowledge.

And that's where my problem lies. I genuinely could not wait for my lessons in history to commence but I was never empathetically crushed when the history was dark. I am still not sure who the characters are, but I am very clear on what happened to them. Ctesiphon is no longer a name on a map of archaeological sites, it's a place. It vibrates with events so huge their echoing claps of collapse, of rupture, their crackling roars of inflammation, reverberate (I now see) in 2026's tragedies.

That's heady stuff. It's why there are four stars up top. There'd be six if I could remember anyone's name. Events occur...curiously impersonally. Power vanishes...but no one lost it. It's a narrative choice that other authors have made over time, and more particularly when telling sweeping historical stories. If one isn't willing to create a doorstopper like War & Peace, Jean-Cristophe, or their ilk, a narrower focus on facts and events will keep pages turning.

It worked on me. It would most likely have worked on me with many more pages, too. As things stand I'm a happy reader, sated in my desire to be presented with a very interesting story about places and events completely new to me in a landscape foreign to my eyes.

I missed the portraits that could've showed me the people is all.

THE MESSI EFFECT: How the Global Legend Changed the Future of American Soccer, The Athletic journalist provides the archival data basis for future fans

THE MESSI EFFECT: How the Global Legend Changed the Future of American Soccer
PAUL TENORIO
St. Martin's Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$15.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: In The Messi Effect, Paul Tenorio, national soccer writer for The Athletic, who has spent more than a decade breaking news and providing critical insight into the power and politics of the sport, draws on his numerous high-ranking sources inside Inter Miami, American soccer, and overseas to bring readers behind the scenes and chronicle the last act of Lionel Messi.

The Messi Effect takes you inside the locker room as Messi’s arrival turned a last-place team into a global phenomenon, and into the Major League Soccer boardroom as league owners debated how to leverage Messi’s arrival to shape the future of the league and sport in America. From his cinematic debut goal to his first trophy with Miami and across two more transformative seasons, Messi’s impact was immediate and enormous. His pink No. 10 shirt became the world’s best-selling jersey, MLS stadiums sold out in city after city, and Inter Miami’s valuation soared past $1 billion.

This is a book about one man's legacy in a rapidly growing and changing game. It's a story about the business of sport and how a player can be both athlete and economic engine. It’s an inside look at how the business of MLS evolved historically and in real time after the legend’s arrival. And it's the story of how a GOAT rides off into the sunset, the choices he makes, and the aftereffects of his greatness for future generations.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: At 39, Lionel Messi owns the World Cup scoring all-time record: 18 goals at the FIFA World Cup, the most by any player in the tournament's history. He's amassed his record over the course of six appearances; the sixth-place scorer with 13 all-time World Cup goals achieved twelve of those thirteen in one World Cup in 1958. We are, in other words, talking about the absolute pinnacle of the sport's possibilities.

Lionel Messi won't keep his record, most likely, as a 27-year-old Paris native called Mbappé is tied for fourth in this astoundingly talented pool of athletes with a long career ahead.

Bear in mind this data is being spouted by a midcentury-modern old queer guy who loves baseball since the 1969 Miracle Mets shat on the Orioles in game seven of the misnamed World Series, grew up in the fatherland of high-school football mania (Friday Night Lights was a documentary, people), and eschews all television...and I still know this stuff. Soccer has come a very very long way in the US since 1994 when MLS was first organized after the first-ever US-hosted World Cup.

Author Tenorio traces the growth of the sport through the lens of Messi's career. As a huge media market, the US has been the Great White Whale of soccer forever. It's been the Messi years that have turbocharged the sport's rise here. Politics, logistics, demographics, marketing are all discussed by sports journalist Tenorio as he brings all the relevant developments and history together for future fans.

As with all human endeavors, the gigantic oceans of cash sloshing into the World Cup's governing body has led to breathtaking corruption and appalling capitulation to moneyed interests' importuningsfor more and more and more of a share in the pilf. There has never been another way for it to be, so of course it's what's happening now. (Eg, the water breaks making Fox/Disney very very very rich.) Author Tenorio doesn't gloss over greed. Messi's career as his lens means he's got a lot of time-relevant data about scandals galore. The FIFA Peace Prize, anyone?

A lovely gift for your newly minted soccer/football fan, one that will catch them up on why the US seems finally-at-last to be getting on the global sports train. I will not be dull, if this read is any indicator.

BOOMTOWN: The True Story of the Wickedest Town in Texas, latest social-history story from Pappalardo's searching eye

BOOMTOWN: The True Story of the Wickedest Town in Texas
JOE PAPPALARDO
St. Martin's Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$15.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: The true story of the corrupt and violent town of Borger, Texas in 1927--and the legendary Texas Ranger tasked with taming it.

Texas, 1927.

Just a year after the town of Borger, Texas was founded, the press called it “the wickedest in the state" for good reason. The town, sprung into existence overnight to support the oilfields, had become a lawless haven for bootleggers, pimps and gamblers, run by a crooked city hall.

That environment attracts some of the most unsavory characters in prohibition America, including a gang of murderous bank robbers who head into Borger to spend their money on booze, gambling and prostitutes. In the span of weeks, the gang kills three law enforcement officers, bringing the worst heat legendary Texas Ranger Captain Frank Hamer, who led the 1934 posse that tracked down and killed criminals Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. His arrival threatens to break even this hardest boomtown in America--if it doesn't kill him first.

What follows is one of the most thrilling and violent untold stories from the era of gangsters, lawmen and vice. Author Joe Pappalardo brings to life a town previously lost in the haze of history.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Immersing myself into the chaotic cesspool of greed, interlocking scams, interdependent grifters and graft-grabbers, and general chancers that made up (apparently) the entire population of Borger, Texas, in its heyday was exhausting.

I get the impression it was pretty exhausting for the folks who were busily grabbing everything they wanted, as well as the OTHER folks trying to catch them in at least one explicitly illegal act, as well. I am completely convinced not one of them made old bones. Murdered or just worn out these were some intense alive people.

I wasn't so much involved in the read as I was sucked along in the story's slipstream, wondering who the hell this woman was or why that lawman's name rang a bell...turns out two chapters back he was doin' the nasty with another guy's wife...until nothing made a whole lot of linear sense.

Normally I'm a stickler for linear sense in a history story. This one, not so much. It's a social history for one thing. It's footnoted to a fare-thee-well for another. Y'all killjoys can do a timeline by following those, if it's that important to you. I got a far more interesting ride from sitting in my seat and letting Author Pappalardo direct my attention where he wanted me to look than I would've in a more traditionally structured narrative.

I can't think of a much more timely topic to read about than a bunch of greedy sociopaths in charge of an ugly little burg with too much money and too little to spend it on. It was as edifying in the 1920s as it is now (not at all, in other words) and as instructive: Do NOT let greedy people make their own rules. It does not end well for anyone, and only a few ever get the misery they've so richly earned.

PICKY: How American Children Became the Fussiest Eaters in History, Dr. Spock has a LOT to answer for

PICKY: How American Children Became the Fussiest Eaters in History
HELEN ZOE VEIT
St. Martin's Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$14.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: An eye-opening investigation into why American kids no longer eat broadly and with gusto

Are children naturally picky? It sure seems that way. Yet, amazingly, pickiness used to be almost nonexistent. Well into the 20th century, Americans saw children as joyful omnivores who were naturally curious and eager to eat. Of course, this doesn't make sense today. Don't kids have special taste buds? Aren't they highly sensitive to food's texture and color? Aren’t children incapable of liking “adult foods,” and don’t parents risk harming kids psychologically by urging them to eat?

But Americans in the past didn’t think any of those things. They assumed that children could enjoy the same foods as adults, and children almost always did. They loved spicy relishes, vinegary pickles, and bitter greens. They spent their allowances on raw oysters and looked forward to their daily coffee. So how did modern kids become such incredibly narrow eaters? The story is fascinating – and about much more than rising abundance. Picky shows how fussy eating came to define "children’s food" and reshape American diets at large. Maybe most importantly, it explains how we can still use the tools that parents used in the past to raise happy, healthy, wildly un-picky kids today.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: I wasn't a picky eater because I was raised by parents who loved food. I'm so grateful to them for the lesson they each taught: "try it, if you don't like it you don't have to finish it."

I'm also old. This message was more common among the Depression-era denizens who raised me than postwar-boom kids who raised the picky eaters we're discussing in this book.

As "experts" got hold of the conversation around food (author's scare quotes), the wheels came off. We know from decades of research findings being reported and then challenged, the "experts" (remember, not my scare quotes!) have been tarred by the backlash that keeps growing against expertise in general. It feels kind of justified to me, in this case, because there are no real reasons that the advice the "experts" gave should have been heeded as none of them made any sense at all. But, well, expertise needs to be respected. It's the world now that does NOT respect expertise that's in terrible trouble.

Author Veit has researched the question "is a generation of US-born kids pickier in their food choices than earlier generations?" and presented findings and posited reasons for the findings. It is a fascinating topic. The sources are broad-based and wide-ranging; cited in line which I appreciate; and to the extent I randomly sampled credible. What they aren't, and what the book itself isn't, is prescriptive. Nowhere in the text is there a solution to a problem identified. It was not promised, it was not suggested in the research sources to be intended; I bring it up because I don't want to give the impression there is anywhere anything about addressing the behavior being studied.

I get the impression that the title led previous readers down that garden path. Don't be one of them! I'm interested in the subject of picky eating because it seems so absurd to allow it. I was glad to read Author Veit's study because I feel much less...superior...about the realities of the issue. I think there's a lot of value in this lens on our present social moment's roots and results. I felt there was genuine curiosity, a real "I need to know" on the author's part, and I resonated with that feeling. It gave me a four-star reading experience. I was impressed with her research, her cogitations on the research, and convinced by her conclusions based on them. I was perhaps less drawn in than I might have been by the shifts I felt between the presentation of her digests of research and the chattier tone of her presentation of her conclusions drawn from it...this was more like feeling some charming cocktail-party acquaintance was suddenly taking me into the lecture hall.

Entirely irrelevant to the value I received from the read. It was a factor that impacted me on a reading-pleasure level alone. You might feel entirely differently. I hope you will get the book to find out for yourself.

COMICS AND STUFF, subtle work about an unsubtle medium and its message

COMICS AND STUFF
HENRY JENKINS
NYU Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$34.00 ebook, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Considers how comics display our everyday stuff—junk drawers, bookshelves, attics—as a way into understanding how we represent ourselves now

For most of their history, comics were widely understood as disposable—you read them and discarded them, and the pulp paper they were printed on decomposed over time. Today, comic books have been rebranded as graphic novels—clothbound high-gloss volumes that can be purchased in bookstores, checked out of libraries, and displayed proudly on bookshelves. They are reviewed by serious critics and studied in university classrooms. A medium once considered trash has been transformed into a respectable, if not elite, genre.

While the American comics of the past were about hyperbolic battles between good and evil, most of today's graphic novels focus on everyday personal experiences. Contemporary culture is awash with stuff. They give vivid expression to a culture preoccupied with the processes of circulation and appraisal, accumulation and possession. By design, comics encourage the reader to scan the landscape, to pay attention to the physical objects that fill our lives and constitute our familiar surroundings. Because comics take place in a completely fabricated world, everything is there intentionally. Comics are stuff; comics tell stories about stuff; and they display stuff.

When we use the phrase "and stuff" in everyday speech, we often mean something vague, something like "etcetera." In this book, stuff refers not only to physical objects, but also to the emotions, sentimental attachments, and nostalgic longings that we express—or hold at bay—through our relationships with stuff.

In Comics and Stuff, his first solo authored book in over a decade, pioneering media scholar Henry Jenkins moves through anthropology, material culture, literary criticism, and art history to resituate comics in the cultural landscape. Through over one hundred full-color illustrations, using close readings of contemporary graphic novels, Jenkins explores how comics depict stuff and exposes the central role that stuff plays in how we curate our identities, sustain memory, and make meaning. Comics and Stuff presents an innovative new way of thinking about comics and graphic novels that will change how we think about our stuff and ourselves.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Stuff is a nightmare. Stuff is all I got. Stuff...is. Dealing with stuff, yours. mine, or no one we know's, is a full time career.

Comic books are stuff. They're about stuff. They are, in short, great wats to explore stuff and its role in our lives.

A subtle person uses the medium to critique, analyze, and...sometimes...take to task the message and its architects. Henry Jenkins is subtle; he uses the medium to make plain what can easily fall outside the awareness of the consumer: This is a story, an entire social universe, construted around the Love of Stuff.

It seems harmless enough phrased that way. It's hard to see from inside the system what the system's designed to do. Like investigating the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics, the theory is as close to proof of intent as we'll get...we can't observe what is, by definition, outside the system we're working within to perform the measurement.

In other words, you can't see the nose on your face unless you're looking in a mirror (or its equivalent reflective surface). Henry Jenkins is offering that mirror.

Highly recommended for your graphic-novel readin' sophisticate.

AIN'T NOBODY'S FOOL: The Life and Times of Dolly Parton, a fine book about an amazing woman

AIN'T NOBODY'S FOOL: The Life and Times of Dolly Parton
MARTHA ACKMANN
St. Martin's Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$15.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: A larger-than-life new biography of country music legend and philanthropist Dolly Parton.

In Ain't Nobody's Fool: The Life and Times of Dolly Parton, Martha Ackmann chronicles the life of an American Original. From her impoverished childhood in the Smoky Mountains to international stardom as a singer, songwriter, actress, businesswoman, and philanthropist, Dolly Parton has exceeded everyone's expectations except her own. During a time when the Beatles set the standard for contemporary music, Dolly appeared on a local country music television show that her high school classmates thought was pure cornpone. The day after her high school graduation, she boarded a bus for Nashville, but record executives turned her down. One said her voice sounded like a screech owl.

When Dolly finally got her foot in the door, her talent and focus catapulted her to the top of country charts, the pop world, and movie stardom. Yet her success came at a price. Shunned by many in Nashville who saw her ambition as a betrayal of her country music roots, Dolly became the target of death threats, lawsuits, and a judge who threatened to throw her in jail. She nearly collapsed on-stage and later succumbed to depression that pushed her to the brink, but she refused to be counted out and came back stronger than ever developing Dollywood, the amusement park that became the economic engine of East Tennessee, and founding the Imagination Library that provides free books to children around the world. Her philanthropy to health organizations led to creation of the Moderna COVID vaccine. And, finally, she returned to her roots, recording bluegrass albums that became the most celebrated of her unparalleled 60-year career.

Ain't Nobody's Fool is a deep dive into the social, historical, and personal forces that made Dolly Parton one of the most beloved and unifying figures in public life and includes interviews with friends, family members, school mates, Nashville neighbors, members of her band, studio musicians, producers, and many others. It also features never before seen photographs and unearthed documents shedding light on her family's hardscrabble life. More than anything, Martha Ackmann's fresh and animated new book proves Dolly Parton knows just who she is and she ain't nobody's fool.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Author Ackmann, she of The Mercury 13, knows how to present the stories of women in powerful positions without triumphalizing or trivializing their struggles, obstacles, and successes. Miss Dolly deserves no better biographer.

As a longtime fan of the woman, and one who came to appreciate her musical talents despite not much liking the genre she's performed in for decades, I enjoyed my time spent here. It was a lot like renewing my acquaintance with someone once dear who's been out of touch. A couple years ago I reviewed an illustrated book about her career, DOLLY PARTON: 100 Remarkable Moments in an Extraordinary Life, with a similar degree of pleasure.

What I most enjoy about reading the life and times of Miss Dolly in this book is the context, the societal setting of her triumphs and her struggles. The way the book is written is to offer a fan a history lesson sweetened by a favorite celebrity's life experiences. This is, to me, a strength...I'm alway interested in why and how before what. The greatest stregth of the read is the very clear-eyed assessment of the whys and hows...overcoming misogyny to make a huge mark in the music and entertainment industry, overcoming depression and isolation to turn notoriety into lasting fame...all while using her celebrity to serve, to help, to lift others higher than they could have reached on their own.

It is inspiring, humbling, enlightening.

What an ordinary person would've done when faced with those obstacles is...surrender, collapse, give up. It's a mark of Miss Dolly's indomitable spirit and drive that she collapsed but rebounded; failed but got up to do it again, only better; got rejected, but went where she was wanted, instead of curling up in a ball and crying until the cows came home. It's not luck alone that makes someone successful, and this book makes that so very clear you can see it from space.

As a biographer of a living person Author Ackmann took full advantage of the mountains and mountains of information our modern age makes available. The notes are copious, but you can ignore them if you like. I myownself was delighted to see them because the force of nature that is Miss Dolly deserves all the ink spilled on her doings in television production, literacy programs, the music and theme-park industries...the list is impressive.

What you won't get in this work is celebri-tea. There's nothing breathlessly revealed, no salacious little gossipy nuggets. This is a biography about a very serious, focused, driven person whose successes span more than sixty years and counting.

It is respectful. That is refreshing, warranted, and welcome.

I left the read more uplifted than entertained. Again, to me, a feature not a bug. i think it's a great Yule gift for your Dolly fan, for anyone who feels ground down and needs uplift without treacle, for someone who admires women's success stories.

Pretty much anybody not into toxic masculinity, then.

ERIC HUANG'S PAGE: PRESIDENTS; TRAILBLAZERS; SCIENCE, all art by Sam Caldwell

SCIENCE: Fascinating Facts You Never Knew About All Things Science!
ERIC HUANG (illus. Sam Caldwell)
words & pictures (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$12.99 paperback, available now

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: Everything you think you know will be proven wrong in this myth-busting guide to science, from chemistry to geology, engineering, astronomy and even technology.

Science is all about figuring out how things work. It means asking questions and conducting experiments to discover and test possible answers. Science affects every aspect of life, from what you’re wearing and what you had for breakfast, to the weather outside.

Through science, you can examine the smallest atoms to the largest galaxies – and get to know the universe just a little bit better. But how much do you really know about science?

For example, we all know that . . .

Moons are smaller than their planet

Summer is caused by Earth being closer to the Sun

Water is an element

Tectonic plates don't move that much anymore

AND that engineers are people who fix things

Do we . . . ? Because . . . OH NO THEY AREN'T!

Misconceptions about our world are everywhere, but none of them are true! In Oh No They Aren't: Science myths are busted about science from chemistry to geology, engineering, astronomy and even technology.
In this fresh and funny guide learn about how our world works from atoms and molecules to volcanoes and solar systems, or even artificially intelligent robots. Stylishly designed and humorously illustrated by Sam Caldwell, Oh No They Aren't: Science brings important STEM topics to life for kids, uncovering how our world works and making science FUN accessible for everyone.

In the Oh No They Aren't . . . series popular misconceptions in science and nature are dispelled. Check out the Oh No They Didn't . . . companion series for hilarious history and popular culture myth-busting.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Busting myths is an eternal pleasure to kids. They like knowing stuff you don't, or you pretend you don't if you're smart, and here's a kid's motherload of trivia to ask you "did you know...?" about.

experimental conditions

methodology explained

As expected in this series, Author Huang and Artist Caldwell explain in fun, easy-to-digest pieces, the whys, whos, and hows of science as a method of understanding the world.

who thinks about rocks?

What makes these books so valuable to parents and other invested adults is the easy in of humor and vibrant art melding with kid-friendly questions-answered formatting. I've never known a kid who was not popping with questions about everything. No one can hope to keep up with the little natural-born scientists, wanting to know why and how and when about stuff we've forgotten decades before they were born.

Except, of course, dinosaurs:

cool!

Beats there a heart so dead to wonder as to be indifferent to these long-dead monsters of the Earth? (I already know the answer is "no" so no need to try to tell me otherwise.)

A wonderful way for you to see if your kid-giftee is interested enough in science to pursue it through schooling years.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

TRAILBLAZERS: Fascinating Facts You Never Knew About Amazing Trailblazers!
ERIC HUANG (illus. Sam Caldwell)
words & pictures (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$12.99 paperback, available now

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: Learn about innovative figures past and present in this myth-busting guide to trailblazers—everything you think you know will be proven wrong!

Trailblazers have made extraordinary contributions throughout history.From inventing everyday household items we take for granted to breaking barriers in sports and medicine, their impact on the world is undeniable. But how much do you really know about the innovators who’ve shaped our world?

Everyone knows that…

Martin Luther King Jr. used every method possible to fight for civil rights

Ruth Handler founded Mattel and created Barbie dolls

William Shakespeare came up with the story of Romeo and Juliet

AND Florence Nightingale’s family supported her dream of becoming a nurse

Or did they…? Because… OH NO THEY DIDN’T! Misconceptions about famous figures from the past and present are everywhere, but they’re not always true! In Oh No They Didn’t: Trailblazers, myths are busted about over 50 trailblazers—politicians, legends, athletes, activists, scientists, entrepreneurs, creatives, and more.

In this fresh and funny guide written by Eric Huang, learn about inspiring innovators from all over the world and their influence on history and pop culture. Stylishly designed and humorously illustrated by Sam Caldwell, Oh No They Didn’t: Trailblazers makes learning fun with surprising facts and a playful, upbeat approach to nonfiction.

Oh No They Didn’t: Trailblazers is the perfect, inspiring guide for ALL young readers to learn about influential innovators, including parts of their stories that may have been left out of traditional history books or media. In this easy-to-read book, you’re sure to discover lesser-known pioneers who deserve to be celebrated, too!

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: A lot of adulthood is about unlearning what "everybody knows" about stuff. Almost always the myths about leaders are not true, or are skewed, to present them in one kind of light. It can be pernicious; more often than not it's just inaccurate, sloppy, careless uninterest in pursuing facts.

who we're talking about

Kids casting around for models of action, for examples of change-makers, often run into misinformation because The Culture℠ is hell-bent on perpetuating one narrative that might or might not include the truth about someone they do, or could, admire and emulate.

what we're saying

By choosing leaders and forerunners in different social movements, Author Huang offers the kid-reader a chance to see what areas of effort they might be interested in exploring more, and if nothing appeals, still demonstrating that there are always people who take up the torch to light the way for others to follow.

It's a life-changing message to receive. There's a wildly plastic moment in a kid's life where you can form life-changing and course-setting fascinations and commitments, and this book is aimed at that moment.

ecology

civil rights

But equally valuably, showing a kid that the world can be changed by example is, in and of itself, a wonderful investment in their, thus in our, future.

We need more leaders in fields we've never even heard of; we need kids to grow up thinking for the whole world, and all in and on it. A book like this can help them get in tune with that huge idea.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

PRESIDENTS: Fascinating Facts You Never Knew About U.S. Presidents!
ERIC HUANG (illus. Sam Caldwell)
words & pictures (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$12.99 paperback, available now

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: Do you know the Presidents of the United States? Well, OH NO YOU DON'T!

In this myth-busting guide to the Presidents of the United States, their Vice-Presidents, First Ladies, and presidential pets, everything you think you know will be proven wrong!

Do you know everything there is to know about the Presidents of the United States? OH NO YOU DON'T!

The people who have served as President of the United States of America are some of the most famous people on the planet. But how much do we really know about the presidents? We all know that...

President Abraham Lincoln freed enslaved people by signing the Emancipation Proclamation,

Thomas Jefferson introduced ice cream to the US,

Andrew Johnson was impeached by the House of Representatives and kicked out of office,

AND that Theodore Roosevelt had teddy bears named after him because he once refused to shoot an injured bear...

Do we...? Because... OH NO THEY DIDN'T!

These commonly held misconceptions about our Presidents are everywhere, but none of them are true! In Oh No They Didn't: Presidents, commonly held misconceptions about the Presidents, Vice-Presidents, First Ladies, and presidential pets are all dispelled. This myth-busting guide to the White House and everyone in it is an irreverent, fun, and enriching way to learn about US political figures and history.

Stylishly designed and humorously illustrated by Sam Caldwell, Oh No They Didn't: Presidents is a hugely entertaining and trendy take on US history for young readers. This myth-busting series makes history accessible to everyone, taking an alternative and gripping approach to teaching the true facts about the past. Dive in to learn what else you were taught in school that is completely WRONG!

In the Oh No They Didn't... series, popular misconceptions in history and culture are dispelled, busting myths about famous people and events of the past!

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: The very existence of an office as powerful as the US presidency guarantees its occupants serious global fame while in office. Along with that comes the misinformation, mistakes, major misunderstandings, that come with fame.

The presidents...and first ladies...of the US over the past two hundred fifty years are not all included. The choices Author Huang and Artist Caldwell have made bust the most deep-rooted or best-known misinformed facts about these famous people.

sample spreads

It's an enjoyable way to learn about the honorable past of the US presidency.

BEYOND THE VEIL: The Victorian Obsession With Death and Mourning, lovely to look at, if weird and morbid

BEYOND THE VEIL: The Victorian Obsession With Death and Mourning
PAUL GAMBINO
Frances Lincoln Ltd (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$29.00 all editions, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Beyond the Veil is a visual exploration of Victorian mourning, charting the often peculiar and at times macabre ways of how the living memorialize the dead.

Beyond the Veil is a visual tour through the curious history of how we deal with death—the grief and mourning, the funerals, symbols, and ceremonies.

From Victorian England across to the US, learn about the often peculiar and at times macabre ways of how the living memorialize the dead.

Humans have always had ways of marking death, but in Victorian England death became a morbid obsession that went global—death was as much ‘celebrated’ as it was a source of fear and sadness. Queen Victoria herself became a figurehead of grief after the death of her beloved Prince Albert in 1861. Her ensuing fascination with death took many visual forms—from her ritualized embrace of black clothing to the building of ostentatious monuments—and massively influenced cultural norms in both the UK and further afield.

The Victorians built complex cemeteries, collected precious memento mori, commissioned bizarre death portraits, and obsessed over the correct mourning attire and funerary protocol, while turn-of-the century America saw reflections of many of these cultural phenomena. The bestsellers of the period were often about life and death (think Frankenstein and Dracula), while the art, architecture, and style—with its often dark and heavy gothic overtones—revelled in the glamorization of death. Beyond the Veil brings this extraordinarily elaborate and stylised visual culture together while expertly explaining and elaborating on its most peculiar and fascinating aspects.

For example, it explores:

The influence of Queen Victoria’s personal mourning on fashion and social custom.

The rise of Victorian cemeteries and funerary architecture.

The art of memento mori and post-mortem photography.

The emergence of spiritualism, seances and afterlife communication.

The fascination with gothic literature, symbolism and the romanticization of death.

Beautifully illustrated throughout with archival photography, artworks and design,Beyond the Veil is a must-have for lovers of history, art, and the macabre. It invites readers to step into the shadows of the past and discover how Victorian mourning shaped our modern relationship with grief and remembrance.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Lovely, design-heavy gift book, perfect for your history-minded or Victorian-obsessed giftee's coffee table. It's nicely written, easy to read, but...crucially for a book on this subject that depends on the quality of its sources...has no notes or bibliography worth spending time on. I certainly don't expect academic-standard citations, but more than the absolute minimum should've been attainable.

My longstanding dislike of Queen Victoria...won't someone, anyone, write an alternate history where Princess Charlotte lives through bearing Leopold's son?...hit glowing hot hatred as I read about how her abused-child narcissism totally screwed the entire world while she pouted and shouted about her playtoy...sorry, husband...being taken from her before she was tired of him.

contents page spread

English society, and the broader colonial sphere in Scotland and Ireland, out into the wider Anglophone world, began to follow some truly weird death and mourning customs:

sample of essay; interior spread about hair art

...because in the time before effective antibiotics, sanitation, and city planning, there was wide scope for mourning the loss of literally anyone close to you from some unexpected cause.

This chapter spread says it all:

Shadow of the Scythe indeed!

As an illustrated overview of a subject that can easily consume academic careers, this is a successful book. As a beautiful gift object, it also succeeds. As a jumping-off point for looking into the truly obsessive, dysfunctional Victorian worldview, it does a fine job.

spiritualism rose to prominence in this atmosphere

sensationalism about murder did, too

some trivia fragments

Altogether a book I'd think your serious-minded luxury-item-worthy giftee will like.

DARK LONDON: A Journey Through the City's Mysterious and Macabre Underworld, for the ghoulish giftee closest to your heart

DARK LONDON: A Journey Through the City's Mysterious and Macabre Underworld
DR. DREW GRAY
Frances Lincoln Ltd (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$22.99 hardcover, available now

Rating: 4.75* of five

The Publisher Says: Dark London brings together the history of the city’s seamier side, picking out the most scandalous, curious and bizarre aspects of London’s shadowy and fascinating underbelly.

From dark crimes of passion to shocking tales of grave robbing, gruesome murders, dens of iniquity, Victorian séances, and haunted houses—not far beneath London’s everyday bustle and glitter there has long been a fascinatingly rich underworld of criminality, superstition, scandal, and macabre debauchery.

In Dark London, social historian Dr Drew Gray, a specialist in the history of crime and punishment, delves into the city’s grim yet compelling past, uncovering the people and places that shaped its darker identity.

Across more than 100 real-life cases and curiosities, he explores how London became both the heart of a growing empire and a stage for vice, greed, and human fallibility.

Highlights include:

The London Burkers, a notorious gang of resurrectionists whose leader confessed to stealing and selling nearly 1,000 bodies to London’s medical schools in the 1830s.

The Whitechapel Murders of 1888, still the world’s longest running serial murder mystery.

The prisons of Newgate and Pentonville, where shifting attitudes towards justice revealed the tension between punishment, reform, and moral control.

The legend of Spring-heeled Jack, the terrifying, leaping figure who caused panic across London’s streets.

The Great Stink of 1858, when London’s polluted Thames brought the city to a standstill and forced a revolution in sanitation and public health.

Dark London brings together the history of the city’s seamier side, picking out the most scandalous, curious and bizarre aspects of London’s shadowy and fascinating underbelly.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: London's been a world city, most of the time, since the Romans lost Colchester in 60CE and moved their colonial government there. Lots of scope for serious weirdness of the supernatural stuff sort, and viciousness (or just misguided trying to help) of the human sort. Both leave separate kinds of stains on the memory of society, locally as well as internationally.

Author Drew Gray's biography as provided by Frances Lincoln Ltd:

Dr. Drew Gray is a social historian of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries who specialises in the history of crime and punishment. Drew is Head of Subject for Culture (Humanities, Media, & Performance) at the University of Northampton and teaches modules on both the History and Criminology programmes. His previous works include Murder Maps: Crime Scenes Revisited; Phrenology to Fingerprint 1811-1911 and London's Shadows: The Dark Side of the Victorian City.

That's one helluva CV. The gent knows how to present the facts and images in tandem, all illustrated books from him to date, so why would this one fail? Spoiler: It doesn't.

The history of crime, the historical context of punishment, the social context of these dark patches of London's history aren't exhaustively explored in this handsome gift book. I felt the illustrations were well-chosen and -presented; but sometimes pulled well above their weight in explication of societal details. I can't give full five stars because I was niggled by this, despite this being the book's literal purpose for being an illustrated overview.

We all have a well-loved ghoul somewhere on our gifting list. Someone who really enjoys the frisson of crime and punishment, who wants that extra thrill of knowing what humans are capable of...and this is the book for them. It's also very much a book for your Londonphile/Anglophile giftee. I think you, faithful reader, might like it for your own coffee table.

Here, look at some of the more than a hundred images:

contents

punishment

murder

spooky stuff

humanitarian harms done

A very nice gifting idea for Yule...especially suitable for the Goth nibling/grandchild.

THE PRICE FOR THEIR POUND OF FLESH: The Value of the Enslaved, from Womb to Grave, in the Building of a Nation, capitalism has a lot to answer for

THE PRICE FOR THEIR POUND OF FLESH: The Value of the Enslaved, from Womb to Grave, in the Building of a Nation
DAINA RAMEY BERRY
Beacon Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$13.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Groundbreaking look at slaves as commodities through every phase of life, from birth to death and beyond, in early America

In life and in death, slaves were commodities, their monetary value assigned based on their age, gender, health, and the demands of the market. The Price for Their Pound of Flesh is the first book to explore the economic value of enslaved people through every phase of their lives—including preconception, infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, the senior years, and death—in the early American domestic slave trade. Covering the full "life cycle," historian Daina Ramey Berry shows the lengths to which enslavers would go to maximize profits and protect their investments. Illuminating "ghost values" or the prices placed on dead enslaved people, Berry explores the little-known domestic cadaver trade and traces the illicit sales of dead bodies to medical schools.

This book is the culmination of more than ten years of Berry's exhaustive research on enslaved values, drawing on data unearthed from sources such as slave-trading records, insurance policies, cemetery records, and life insurance policies. Writing with sensitivity and depth, she resurrects the voices of the enslaved and provides a rare window into enslaved peoples' experiences and thoughts, revealing how enslaved people recalled and responded to being appraised, bartered, and sold throughout the course of their lives. Reaching out from these pages, they compel the reader to bear witness to their stories, to see them as human beings, not merely commodities.

A profoundly humane look at an inhumane institution, The Price for Their Pound of Flesh will have a major impact how we think about slavery, reparations, capitalism, nineteenth-century medical education, and the value of life and death.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Almost ten years ago, I read this appalling chronicle of the profit-and-loss mentality as applied to human beings.

It horrified and appalled me.

Cliometrics, the science of statistical analysis applied to databases of historical origin (eg, census data, tax rolls), is a discipline we've only developed in the past half-century or so. The wealth of data regarding enslaved people collected by different governments and organizations has made tracing the stark outlines of how the property impacted the economy; Author Daina Ramey Berry had to come along before someone got up the support and the courage...it definitely took a lot to do this work in a post-Ferguson/George Floyd world...to merge the statistical analysis of the past with the stories of the people who lived it.

No, it's not a breezy little bagatelle to read. It is a work of solid, enduring value to historians, and to historical researchers in economics and medicine and sociology and anthropology. I'm not going to apply the "a-word" to it, you know the one; it sends all y'all's wallets into torpor. Instead I'll note that the style's readable, there's flashes...rare, but there...of humor; and for the non-fiction snobs, there's no getting away from the fact that it's got deep roots in the primary and secondary sources.

There are quite a number of period illustrations to, um, liven things up. I found them somewhat distracting, which could be good when I was in a darker passage, or bad, if the illustration was cheerless. I'm glad on balance to have them included.

HATE: The Uses of a Powerful Emotion, does what it says

HATE: The Uses of a Powerful Emotion
ŞEYDA KURT
Verso Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$9.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: A radical re-imaging of a revolutionary emotion. An international bestseller across Europe.

Who is allowed to hate? Hatred, this grating, corrosive feeling, is omnipresent, roaring from the streets or whispered in bourgeois homes. It thrives in parliamentary speeches, conspiracy theorists' fantasies and children's bedrooms—and certainly not in secret, even if many would like to see it restricted there.

German bestselling author Şeyda Kurt frees hatred from its banishment and sets out on the trail of its potential for resistance. She is particularly interested in people as subjects of hatred in a capitalist, racist and patriarchal world. Who are these haters and what power relations do they base them selves on? Who is allowed to hate? Which feelings paralyse, and which ones guide us to a fairer, more caring society?

Ruthlessly, humorously and going beyond any self-righteous indignation, Şeyda Kurt explores the possibility of a serviceable hatred that connects with people who feel a deep sense of discontent and helps us to find a collective way forward.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: I got this title because the question "Who is allowed to hate?" is existentially important for an old queer man living in the felonious yam's interregnum of horrors.

What a privilege it is to hate, to feel free to express, and to demand others attend to, this toxic, corrosive, personal hellscape. The unexamined heights of selfishness and power arrogated to one's self via, usually, group membership is astonishing. I suspect, along with the thinkers Author Kurt draws explicitly from, that all humans feel hatred. It is the implicit...or arrogated..."right" to speak it out loud and expect that to be just ducky with those who hear you is such an outstandingly arrogant act.

It is a short book, barely two hundred pages, so of necessity it does not pretend to be magisterially comprehensive. We're given a lot of food for thought, some data, mostly though we're in what felt to me like a graduate-school party conversation about the roots and consequences of expressing hatred publicly and with impunity. Consequential parts of Author Kurt's argument are explicitly related to settler colonialism. The way these two things intertwine is best expressed by the nostrum "Peace is always the peace of the victors." The loudest criticism is very much perceptible as carefully aimed without ever having the...nerve, foolishness, whichever way you choose to go with it...to explicitly call out the current wars of extermination being pursued.

Surprisingly to me, the author does not demonize hate itself, acknowledging the role this powerful (if caustic) emotion can play in the pursuit of justice. In this time of need for fuel to resist injustice and oppression, that struck me as both welcome and wise.

As a read, the style of the writing is more free-form than not, often venturing into poetical and storytelling modes. I wasn't always thrilled by this. It's also true that one should be prepared for flashes of humor (they mostly didn't land for me) that feel...off-message, forced. So it was a case of loving the message but barely liking the messenger's voice that led me to rate the book a hair under four stars.

I still think you'll enjoy your read of it, if you're ready for what's on offer.

THE REBEL ROMANOV: Julie of Saxe-Coburg, the Empress Russia Never Had, not *quite* as advertised but enjoyable

THE REBEL ROMANOV: Julie of Saxe-Coburg, the Empress Russia Never Had
HELEN RAPPAPORT
St. Martin's Press (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$15.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: From the New York Times bestselling author of The Romanov Sisters comes the story of a courageous young Imperial Grand Duchess who scandalized Europe in search of freedom.

In 1795, Catherine the Great of Russia was in search of a bride for her grandson Constantine, who stood third in line to her throne. In an eerie echo of her own story, Catherine selected an innocent young German princess, Julie of Saxe-Coburg, aunt of the future Queen Victoria. Though Julie had everything a young bride could wish for, she was alone in a court dominated by an aging empress and riven with rivalries, plotting, and gossip―not to mention her brute of a husband, who was tender one moment and violent the next. She longed to leave Russia and her disastrous marriage, but her family in Germany refused to allow her to do so.

Desperate for love, Julie allegedly sought consolation in the arms of others. Finally, Tsar Alexander granted her permission to leave in 1801, even though her husband was now heir to the throne. Rootless in Europe, Julie gave birth to two―possibly three―illegitimate children, all of whom she was forced to give up for adoption. Despite entreaties from Constantine to return and provide an heir, she refused, eventually finding love with her own married physician.

At a time when many royal brides meekly submitted to disastrous marriages, Julie proved to be a woman ahead of her time, sacrificing her reputation and a life of luxury in exchange for the freedom to live as she wished. The Rebel Romanov is the inspiring tale of a bold woman who, until now, has been ignored by history.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Why on Earth does Rappaport need the figleaf of "allegedly" in the book description? A very minor figure in Russian history, and invisible outside it...this is barely non-fiction, there's so much reading between the lines...who's going to troll her for "disrespecting" this nonentity?

One big reason she's been ignored by history is she didn't make any. All she did was leave a husband she detested, run off and have adventures all across Europe, and do exactly nothing for anyone not herself. Pretty much the picture-perfect spoiled princess, sort of like "Sissi" only without the heir-bearing.

Why I liked it is it gave me a fascinating glance into a family that ought to be much netter studied: The Saxe-Coburg ducal dynasty, a branch of the Bavarian royals, the Wettins. Shake a royal family tree and a bunch of 'em will fall out. I mean, a branch of 'em is still on the throne of the United Kingdom and another of that of Belgium. Their close cousins used to be rulers of Portugal and Bulgaria. They were the mothers of Romanov tsars, and countless other royals, from the early 18th century onwards.

It's thrown into stark relief that, when reading this book, the long shadow of Napoleon and more generally the upheavals in France from 1789 forward have made a heavy screen against the study and awareness of the rest of Europe's eventful history at this time. Julie's peripatetic life, though little enough noted, did leave some personal traces. These are presented in their context so I got a good grounding in events seen from the not-Napoleon side. Dynastic marriages, border disputes resolved thereby, things about the power politics of the time I hadn't really been aware enough of to know I didn't know about them, all form this story's backdrop.

What this wasn't, however, was a spicy, entertaining, gossipy book about an interesting woman who had the principles to abandon a luxe life. That's what the title suggested I was going to get; it's a good, illuminating history of a time from an angle new to me. It's not juicy or gossipy. Much about this poor woman and her life was simply not worth risking the ire of Imperial Russia to preserve. I suspect this absence of source material is a calculated act by agents of the Romanovs, to disguise the extremely awful way this poor thing was treated by all and sundry in their court, and by her own family to disguise their sale of one of their own into what amounted to slavery (albeit gilded by trappings of wealth) to save their own hold on political power.

A survivor, this lady was; a rebel, not so much based on this story as told here.

THE GOOD MOTHER MYTH: Unlearning Our Bad Ideas About How to Be a Good Mom, opening a conversation Society needs to have

THE GOOD MOTHER MYTH: Unlearning Our Bad Ideas About How to Be a Good Mom
NANCY REDDY
St. Martin's Press (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$14.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Timely and thought-provoking, Nancy Reddy unpacks and debunks the bad ideas that have for too long defined what it means to be a "good" mom.

When Nancy Reddy had her first child she found herself suddenly confronted with the ideal of a perfect mother—a woman who was constantly available, endlessly patient, and immediately invested in her child to the exclusion of all else. Reddy had been raised by a single working mother, considered herself a feminist, and was well on her way to a PhD. Why did doing motherhood "right" feel so wrong?

For answers Reddy turned to the mid-20th century social scientists and psychologists whose work still forms the basis of so much of what we believe about parenting. It seems ludicrous to imagine modern moms taking advice from mid-century researchers, yet their bad ideas about so-called “good” motherhood have seeped pervasively into our cultural norms. In The Good Mother Myth, Reddy debunks the flawed lab studies, sloppy research, and straightforward misogyny of researchers from Harry Harlow, who claimed to have discovered love by observing monkeys in his lab, to the famous Dr. Spock, whose bestselling parenting guide included just one illustration of a father interacting with his child. Blending history of science, cultural criticism, and memoir, The Good Mother Myth pulls back the curtain on the flawed social science behind our contemporary understanding of what makes a good mom.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Misogyny begins at home. You drink it in with your mother's milk. She is, after all, "just your mother." That phrase resounds in my brain as one of the most invidious, viprously poisonous idiocies that passes unquestioned from many a mouth.

The myth of Motherhood is exalted...pedestalized...and thus an extremely effective weapon in misogyny's arsenal of control. A woman, a human female, is reduced to her biological capacity for reproduction. It is an important function but not, as the Cult of the Mother makes it, a predestination and (not incidentally) a life sentence.

The author's struggles with the reality of being a mother versus the snake-oil sold to her by The Cult of Mother led her into paths of research done during my, and my generation's, childhoods. It was done by men. It was deeply embedded in capitalist norms then being solidified, codified, and imposed to create a Cult of Mother to support a culture of mothers without agency since that belonged to husbands and experts. Never mind that the sample sizes were uneven and the methodology unreliable, uncintrolled often enough; never mind that a lot of the research designs adopted were unethical. Hear the Word of Your Lord And Master, woman: feel this or be forever lacking, wanting in human feeling, LESS THAN.

It's a vicious self-springing trap for someone in a deep emotional, existential, physical crisis often enough exacerbated by sudden and/or acute depression. Author Reddy takes us through the orthodoxies of our youth, hers too, and parallels them with her own struggles.

What this book sets out to offer the reader is a footing to view the mountain of garbage "science" and the reeking cesspits of "how YOU should feel" liberally sprayed with "...but it's NATURAL" as though Nature isn't the one and only source of all the ills and plagues of Humanity's time on Earth. Yes, it is. We too are part of Nature, not apart from, above it.

Our actions are natural, they can not be otherwise because we live within the laws of nature.

I offer four stars to the read, not docked too far for its lack of rigor...her models for that failing are the great and good of the subject's past...or for its tooth-gritting tendency to repeat itself...see previous parenthetical...but in recognition of its undeniable attack from within the fortress by a victim of The Cult of Mother, therewith to offer aid and comfort to others who experience what she has.

That deserves all five stars. I can't honestly warble my fool lungs out about the execution. It's above average and it makes its case clearly if anecdotally. It is a read that spoke my truth to me, so I resonate to its vibes.

Women: Do NOT settle for becoming what your biology hands you. Decide for yourself who and what you want to be.

Signed, A Pissed-off Man.