Recent reviews

Due to my serious lack of ever updating my blog (and my feeling that no one reads it anyway), here are the links to my reviews over the past year. All books provided by Booksellers NZ, and all links below are to their blog.

Te Ara Puoro – A journey into the world of Maori music, by Richard Nunns with Allan Thomas

Barefoot Years, by Martin Edmond

The Healthy Country? A History of Life and Death in New Zealand, by Alistair Woodward & Tony Blakely

One Life: My Mother’s Story, by Kate Grenville

Forged From Silver Dollar, by Li Feng

Two Pedants: Season One, by Sean Molloy

While some were heavy hitting, making me check my values and life choices, others made me smile and chuckle to myself.

My highlight so far was definitely One Life: My Mother’s Story by Kate Grenville, from whom I will leave you with this golden advice:

"What other people did was up to them. Your job was to live - as richly and honestly as you could - your one life."

Until next time,

K xx

Book Review: Rough on Women: Abortion in 19th-Century New Zealand, by Margaret Sparrow

Originally published on the Booksellers NZ website.

I had several people ask ‘Why would anyone volunteer to read this book?’, during the course of reading it. It took me longer than usual to read; after reading about two deaths from apparent poisoning, the last thing I wanted to move on to was the heading ‘Kate’s death – wielding a whalebone?’ Following the success of Abortion Then & Now: New Zealand abortion stories from 1940 to 1980, Margaret Sparrow has created a thorough and, at times, harrowing account of New Zealand abortions in the 1800s.

No leaf has been left unturned in this book, covering abortion laws and practice in the 19th century, through to real and bogus doctors, and even self-abortion. Using any and every resource available to her, Sparrow has created a book full of real women and their real stories. With a fleeting reference to Minnie Dean, Sparrow explores the limited choices available to women, and the extremes to which they went after having an unwanted child. These included child farming, adoption, and infanticide. The latter provides a wealth of examples of women charged with murdering their own child – these women were often sent to gaol or a lunatic asylum.

The concept of helping others comes through several times in the book. Whether they were doctors turned abortionists, a neighbour being friendly, or an employer helping their domestic servant, these people faced imprisonment, as did the woman, if caught. Chemists played an integral part in the process too, often as the first port of call to provide “patient-friendly abortion services.”

While this book covers 19th century New Zealand (as expected), Sparrow devotes a chapter to ‘Lessons from history’. She takes the time to look closely at the history of the legislation surrounding abortion, and is critical of the our current laws – “New Zealand’s current laws are no better than those of the 19th century in preventing or controlling abortions, and this is not surprising.” Reading this sentence didn’t surprise me either; during university I remember one article of a student couple’s attempt to get an abortion on the grounds of simply not being ready or wanting the child. Why should a woman be forced to lie when simply she doesn’t want a child? And for exceptional cases? The argument of ‘what is an exceptional case’ will erupt, of course. But as Sparrow reminds the reader: “That rape should not be a ground for abortion is a shameful infringement of human rights.”

So why did I elect to review this book? Because, quite simply, it’s an important issue, and I believe we don’t talk about it enough. If you’d like a hard-hitting, thought-provoking, and all together gripping read, I cannot recommend Rough on Women more. Sparrow’s critical stance and outspokenness in this field makes me smile and hope that we will have a serious change for the better in the foreseeable future.

Rough on Women: Abortion in 19th-Century New Zealand

by Margaret Sparrow

Victoria University Press

ISBN 9780864739360

Book Review: I am Malala, by Malala Yousafzai

Originally published on the Booksellers New Zealand blog.

While some will have known her name before 2012, Malala Yousafzai has become a household name after she was shot in the head at point-blank range by the Taliban. Malala writes a rather powerful prologue detailing what she remembers and has been told about the shooting, titled ‘The Day My World Changed’, which I read on the bus on the way to work. The gunman asks a crowded school bus “Who is Malala?”, and she is shot. Tears welled in my eyes as I read the final line of the prologue “Who is Malala? I am Malala and this is my story”, and I struggled to continue reading in such a public arena, and so recommend reading this is a more private place.

Split into five parts, I Am Malala is a well-written, insightful memoir. It is full of powerful, and often harrowing, stories. Not only does it tell the story of Malala’s early life, her family and community, and her being shot, but it also tells Pakistan and the Swat Valley’s history, her family’s new life in Birmingham, and the struggles she still meets.

Malala tells the reader of her love for her father, but a few pages later, talks of walking out in the street and seeing the bodies the Taliban have left as warnings, with notes such as “Do not touch this body until 11am or you will be next” left on them. Malala recounts a trip to Abu Dhabi and feeling as if so many men were around her, “I told myself, Malala, you have already faced death. This is your second life. Don’t be afraid – if you are afraid you can’t move forward.”

She also is careful to remind the reader that she was not the only person shot that day, and tells how she misses her best friend Moniba. She explains that her new life is hard, “But like my mother I am lonely … The girls at school here treat me differently. People say ‘Oh, that’s Malala’ – they see my as ‘Malala, girls’ rights activist’.”

This autobiography was written with British journalist Christina Lamb. While reading this book, a friend asked how much I thought was written by Yousafzai herself. Books co-written with an author, or in this case one of the world’s leading foreign correspondents, often raises this question. However, with all the world knows about Malala Yousafzai, it’s hard to imagine she would let someone else completely write her own story.

The book is also littered with wonderful photos that give great insight in to Malala’s world; in the end, she is just a girl wanting to learn. The dedication, comprising of simple 16 words, made me stop and think hard about what I was about to read: “To all the girls who have faced injustice and been silenced. Together we will be heard.”

In a move that is probably not all that surprising, in November this year, I Am Malala has been banned by Pakistani education officials from private schools. They claim the book does not show enough respect for Islam and have called her a ‘tool of the west’. The president of the Pakistani private schools association is quoted as saying “Everything about Malala is now becoming clear. To me, she is representing the west, not us.” No doubt she will have taken great offence to these comments, but then again her interview on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart shows how amazing she is. Definitely worth a watch.

It is hard to believe this young woman, the youngest person to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, shortlisted for Time magazine’s Person of the Year, who spent her birthday in the United Nations making one of the most powerful speeches ever to be uttered, is only 16. If this is her story up to 16 years of age, there is no doubt in the world’s view that Malala Yousafzai will change this world for the better.

I am Malala: The Girl who stood up for Education
by Malala Yousafzai
Published by Little, Brown
ISBN 9780297870920

Book Review: How to Sail A Boat, by Matt Vance

Originally published on the Booksellers New Zealand blog. 

Having grown up in Taupo, people make assumptions around my upbringing. They ask how often I went skiing, if I enjoy fishing, and how much time was spent on boats out in the lake. The answers to these are very few times, no I don’t, and not much at all. The extent of my sailing knowledge is when I capsized the tiny boat I was sailing for the first time at Kawau Island on school camp at 12. And this remains the extent of my sailing knowledge, as author Matt Vance points out “If you are now aboard and quickly leading through these pages to find out how to tack your boat, you are in trouble.” Rather than teach the reader how to literally sail a boat, Vance has created a fundamental guide to the body and soul of sailing.

Divided into sections ranging from ‘I see the sea’, ‘A most dangerous book’, and ‘Solo’, the thirteenth edition to Awa Press’s Ginger Series does not disappoint. Vance uses stories of his own sailing experiences to take you deep in to his sailing mind and manages to create vivid images of the ocean, even when on land. “My favourite time to think about boats is during meetings.  When I’m asked to contribute I have to be careful not to blurt out ‘Lee-oh’ or ‘She’s dragging’ in case I get taken the wrong way.” He takes you below deck in ‘The Rat Effect’ to share in the less than pleasant experiences aboard Siward, where the theory that too many sailors aboard a boat “the rat effect takes over: past a certain critical density, rats in a cage go berserk.”

“Just occasionally you may find a boat that is the love of your life. It will have many things, but most of all it will have indefinable beauty.” Vance’s relationship with Siward could be compared to the courting of a fine woman from a very strict father, however, in this case the father still actually owned the yacht and Vance made constant attempts to buy her off him. Slowly he wore the owner down, being allowed privileges over the years, and his persistence eventually finally paid off with while the owner selling some of his soul to allow Vance to buy some of his back.

The section ‘Sailors’ was a particular favourite, giving an insight in to Vance’s views of the different types of sailors. There are, he explains, two types of mariners: tinkerers who enjoy working on their boats and engines but don’t enjoy sailing, and the small minority who have been “over the horizon”, which Vance clearly falls in to. On top of this, he notes that 90% of boats are rarely sailed, merely given maintenance every year or so, and the true sailors equate to about half of the remaining 10%. The section ends with the tale of a lovely couple (husband in white pants and wife in a sailor’s felt cap) declaring over chardonnay “Of course we wouldn’t keep our boat here. The cruising in Marlborough Sounds is far superior”. Deafening silence follows.

The book closes with a list of ‘Dangerous Books’ every budding sailor should read, and a very detailed glossary for all those readers who, like me, had no clue of the definition of some of Vance’s stunning words. There is no need to have an in-depth knowledge or sailing or boats to enjoy. This simple sentence sums up Vance’s life as a keen sailor and loving member of many families both related and not, and in itself is a succinct summary of this book: “‘Where’s your family?’ chirped the smallest. I pointed to the yacht. Heraclitus was right: some things had changed. I smiled. I wept.”

How to Sail a Boat
by Matt Vance
Published by Awa Press
ISBN 9781877551857

Last pages geek-out.

As I mentioned in the last post, I quite enjoy the last pages in non-fiction books - that is the bibliography, index, glossary, etc. I am awesome. When I finished my degree, I got rid of most of my textbooks, but luckily my boyfriend's still got a couple. (already featured on the blog.)

Glossary.

So here we have examples of the back pages from Communication and New Media. Starting here with the glossary. The heading GLOSSARY and the heading of each term uses a simple sans-serif typeface, that looks like it's been bolded. The text book is in a serif, which is the easiest for a reader to follow. The margins on the page are large, which draws the readers attention to the information in the text block. Very basic, easy to follow.

Bibliography.

As these are the same book, the page layouts are all the same. Using APA style, the bibliography is easy to follow for those people that actually need to look at it. The same serif and sans-serif are used for the body text and headings. 

Index.

To the index! Again, same typefaces as above. Each letter isn't marked, but there is a full line space between the end of one and start of the next, making it super easy for the reader to follow. Where there are more headings under a larger heading, for example 'advertising', a five-character indent is used to show the difference between the two. This is also used when the main entry is longer than one column width. The use of column helps guide the reader's eyes down the page, and creates a page that doesn't look cramped. The information given is important, and it needs to be legible.


And to psychology!

Here's the glossary from Psychology 7/e. The margins are nice and large, creating a nice spacious page. The title is a good distance from the top of the page, helping the reader to know where to start. The word in the glossary is in bold, with the definition starting a small indent in to the right. Again, this is helping the reader to easily find words, and read the definitions. The page number in the bottom right has corner is B1, which helps to distinguish between the main body text, and the bibliography sections. The following two pictures are a part of this B page section as well.

Being a fancy textbook, and rather large too, this book has a name index. The title starts at the same place as the glossary, keeping things consistent. The names are listed alphabetically by last name, followed by the every page number that that name appears on. There's a small line at the top, in the same size typeface as the rest of the page, which explains the finer points.

Here's the subject index of the book. It's very similar to the index in the media book above. If a main heading has subheadings underneath, they are indented by around five characters to help the reader distinguish the difference. Like the name index, the page has the small text at the top to help the reader understand what each number and their certain formatting means. 


Almost done!
K.

Hail to the headings.

When a book has headings, they need a hierarchy. Without one, wonderful students like myself may get awfully confused about what's important and what's not. I've got examples of heading hierarchies from three books, a mass-market alternative healthcare cookbook (if that makes sense...), a media studies textbook from first year, and a first year psychology textbook donated to the cause by my lovely boyfriend. I'll look at the spine, typography including margins and typeface, and headings in each book. I'll do the covers in a later post, most probably.

Three good lookin' spines.

Here are the three books I'll be checking out. Each spine of the book fits it's purpose in terms of audience well. A Year with James Wong is for the mass-market, and a bright and eye-catching spine is perfect for an everyday person. 

Communication and New Media was a textbook a few years back at Victoria, and the simplistic yet attractive spine serves it's purpose: to look nice enough on your shelf without being super fancy since it's a book only students and specialists would buy. The same goes for Psychology, this is one edition out of date for PSYC101/2 at Victoria. The cover image is repeated at the top, and the three colour band wraps around.

Chapter heading (CH). Click for larger image.

Section heading (SH) and A heading

A, B and C headings

B and C headings

Here's an example of a chapter heading (CH), section heading (SH), and A, B, and C headings from A Year with James Wong. 

The use of green and orange are a recurring theme repeated from the cover and spine. Each CH, SH, A and C use a sans-serif typeface while B headings are the only ones to use a very slight serif, odd. Although B headings are more important than C. CH numbers are green, titles are grey, SH are also green, as are B, while A and C are orange. 

Examples from these pictures of these headings: 

CH - 2 THE BASICS: GROWING AND MAKING
SH - GROWING

A - GROWING YOUR OWN PHARMACY

A - GROWING: IDENTIFY YOUR GARDEN TYPE

B - Your garden's microclimate

C - Type 1 – City-centre gardens and the far south-west

B - Soil science

C - A It's sandy soil

C - B It's clay soil

C - C It's loamy soil

B - To dig or not to dig?

Does that makes sense? I think it does. Basically that's what you do when editing a manuscript, figure out which headings are more important than the next and label then in, more or less, the way I just did.

Creating a hierarchy of headings in a book is an easy and logical way of guiding readers through the book. They are especially helpful to a book with a contents page and index. No one wants to be flicking through pages trying to find one heading that doesn't stand out because the hierarchy makes no sense. Each of these three books have a contents, index, and glossary, which we'll be looking at another day.

Here're a few pictures from the other two books and an explanation of the hierarchy of them.

Communication and New Media

CH - 7 TELEGRAPHY, THE TALKING WIRELESS, AND TELEVISION

A - OBJECTIVES

A - KEYWORDS

B - Telegraphy

C - Inequality of access

C - 'One culture fits all'

B - Implications and strategies for Australian election campaigns

Every heading uses an sans-serif typeface while the body text is in a serif. This is a very common feature of books, keeping the headings and text in the same font family, but changing basic features to make it different enough to distinguish. 

CH - BIOLOGICAL BASES OF BEHAVIOR
SH - THE ORGANISM AS A MACHINE
A - MIND AS MECHANISM
A - DESCARTES AND THE REFLEX CONCEPT
SH - HOW THE NERVOUS SYSTEM IS STUDIED
B - [all captions in margins]


Speaking of margins, Psychology has some fantastic left and right margins. This is for the use of pictures and diagrams to illustrate the text. 
This book also uses both sans- and serif typefaces, again to help the reader follow the text. The colours of the A headings alternate throughout the book between orange and blue as you move through each section.

More to come,
K.