This Is Why

Finished March 27
This Is Why by Leland Spencer, interior drawings by Mackenzie Hidalgo

This humorous memoir of growing up on a farm in Idaho had a similar feel to listening to my dad tell stories of his childhood. Leland had a friend Smitty who grew up on the next farm over, and an older brother. Smitty had a younger sister. Leland's neighbour on the other side was a hard-working bachelor who lived in an army tent and his brother who lived in the house on the property.
Leland's stories are about getting into trouble with his friend, the crazy things they thought up to do like tying strings to the legs of birds to have live kites, and throwing eggs, fruit, dirt clods or other things.
He obviously likes to tell a good story, even at his own expense and has a optimistic nature about the way things are going to turnout. From fishing to learning how to drive, Leland entertains his readers.

The Girls in the Garden

Finished March 26
The Girls in the Garden by Lisa Jewell

This novel follows eleven-year-old Pip as she and her older sister Grace and mother Clare move into a terrace house in a new neighbourhood of London. The family is still in shock after Pip and Grace's dad had a mental health breakdown that resulted in him burning down their home. He is in hospital getting the help he needs, and they must start over with everything gone. Pip is steadfast in missing her father, writing him letters about their lives and new home, and observing the world around her. Grace is angry and scared and at the age where she is looking for her own identity. Clare is fearful of what lies ahead, afraid of what she saw in her husband in his mental breakdown, and worried about managing everything.
Their new home backs onto a large communal park and the girls soon find their way among the other residents. Grace begins hanging out with 5 other kids around the same age: three sisters Catkin, Fern and Willow, another girl Tyler, and a boy Dylan. She hangs out a lot at the sisters' house, liking their parents, Leo and Adele. Adele home schools the girls. As the action begins, the sisters grandfather has come to visit from Africa as his diabetes now requires amputation of one of his feet.
Pip is more of a loner, not feeling comfortable with the other kids, or their parents. Something about Leo doesn't feel right to her. She befriends and older woman with a pet rabbit, and from her learns the history behind the girl memorialized on a nearby bench, Phoebe. Pip is a quiet girl, watchful and sensitive, an important role in this story.
At the annual part party, there is much going on, music, face painting, a barbeque, and as it is also Grace's thirteenth birthday, Clare has let her have more freedom than normal. When the day grows later, Pip searches for her sister, finding her unconscious and bloody in discomforting circumstances. What happened to Grace and who is responsible is the focus of the story.
We see the interaction of both the adults, teens, and preteens here, and how relationships change and develop with the arrival of this new family in the neighbourhood. I liked the way the characters were each so different. None of them perfect.

Pax

Finished March 24
Pax by Sara Pennypacker, illustrated by Jon Klassen

This children's novel is aimed at the 10-14 age group. As the book begins, Peter is travelling in the car with his father and his pet fox Pax. Peter found the fox near death when he was a very young kit, and has had him for five years. But things are changing rapidly in Peter's life, with his father going off to war and leaving Peter with his grandfather, and when his father tells him he must release Pax to the wild, he doesn't believe he has a choice. It is an act that he regrets quickly, and that he is determined to make right.
Pax is bewildered by his situation. Why did Peter leave him, when will he return? As darkness falls and he still waits for Peter to return, he feels afraid in the large world that he is in. When hunger also begins to come for him, he doesn't know how to find food. As Pax comes across others of his kind, he must figure out how to act and what he must do to survive.
This book follows Pax and Peter in alternating chapters. The two feel a strong connection to each other and yearn for each other. As Peter moves forward, he meets a woman, Vola, who has her own story of war and its costs. Peter has not had a female figure in his life since his mother died before he found Pax, and Vola has not had anyone in her life for a long time. As the two get to know each other, they also learn the truth about themselves.
Pax is also forced to learn, from the world around him, from the wild foxes he meets who've had bad experiences with humans, from the men he sees working nearby.
This is a story about the costs of war, costs seen in many different guises. The illustrations are wonderful and evocative, a good fit for the story.

Chasing Chaos

Finished March 20
Chasing Chaos: My Decade In and Out of Humanitarian Aid by Jessica Alexander

This memoir covers the years 2000 to 2010, with an epilogue in 2013. Jessica started her career in advertising but found that unsatisfying and switched to work in the humanitarian aid arena in her mid-twenties. It took her some time to find her way in this world, choosing the educational route that provided a base of knowledge that would take her to the senior role she is in by 2013 with the U.N. Her first field job was in Rwanda in 2003, following which she returned to New York. Again back in the field in 2005, she was first in West Darfur in a role involving children and then in North Darfur where she was coordinating a refugee camp. Her next field job, also in 2005, took her to Sri Lanka and Indonesia following the tsunami relief work and evaluating the success of projects. She again returned to New York and then a Fulbright scholarship took her to Sierra Leone in 2006-2007 to study the reintegration into society of the child soldiers there. Back home in New York by 2008, she took a desk job and resumed a more normal life until the earthquake in Haiti in 2010 took her there for six months to monitor the aid there. By 2013 she was still in New York working for the U.N., and teaching at three institutions while pursuing her Ph.D.
Her experiences in each of the countries she worked in was different, depending on her experience, her role, and the state of the country itself. She is very open about her experiences, discussing frustrations, culture shock, and burnout issues. Everyone she meets is human, with skills and flaws. She has changed people's names and identifying information to protect their privacy, which I think makes her more able to discuss the realities of the situations.
This book was enlightening on this field of work, making real the environments, human reactions, and politics involved.

Tell Everyone

Finished March 19
Tell Everyone: Why We Share & Why It Matters by Alfred Hermida

This book looks at the phenomenon of sharing information online. UBC professor Alfred Hermida looks at social media, digital journalism, and online storytelling in this interesting analysis on how we are social creatures in this new environment.
Chapter one looks at news sharing. Hermida looks at instances where this was done well, like the movie theatre shooting in Colorado, and instances where misinformation had the upper hand like the Boston Marathon bombing. He puts this in the historical context of news dissemination from newsboys hawking on street corners to the mix of comedy and journalism in venues such as The Daily Show. He looks at how ordinary people now have the ability to refute "official" versions of a news event. He examines issues such as context loss and the illusion of privacy.
The second chapter looks at the psychology behind the urge to share. From social capital to bonding, personal expression as a means of defining ourselves, to the kinds of relationships we develop online, this looks at sharing more closely. Hermida looks at what benefits we get from sharing including self-fulfillment to helpfulness to a feeling of connection.
Chapter three looks at what kinds of information we share. Most of it aligns with the kinds of things we share when we socialize in person: what we are doing, gossip, updates on news, and the kind of "wow" stories that often lean toward urban legend. Emotional impact of a story drives us to share more widely. Interestingly, social media tends toward sharing positive news, the opposite of traditional media, although sad can be appealing to share if it is framed in a hopeful way. Fear is not a driving force in sharing, but anger can be, especially if it offers a connection to a personal experience. Disgust is also a strong driver.
Chapter four looks at how connections play a role. Celebrities sharing everyday experiences, people sharing reactions to news events in a "where were you when" sort of way, How the news reaches us rather than us going looking for it. Hermida looks at this in historical and cultural context as well as the algorithms present in social media and how they influence what we see. He shows that the common idea that social media causes us to be in "filter bubbles" where we only see news with the same view that we have personally is not actually true. The way that information moves in social media can counter this selective lean and bring us broader viewpoints. One of the most interesting historical tidbits in the book came in this chapter. Early newspapers offered blank space for people to add their own news and comments before sending the newspaper on from the city to rural friends and family. Some even were designed to be folded up with a space to put an address for mailing on. Historical instances of this use have proved quite interesting from a social history viewpoint.
The fifth chapter looks at who has risen from the ranks in terms of social news sharing to be more well known, whether it is as a trusted source that others find and build up through referrals, or through mass appeal. This type of influence tends to be more ephemeral in nature in social media than it has been traditionally.
Chapter six looks at the role of dissemination of information in crisis situations. Hermida looks at sharing of information from the Japanese earthquake of 2011 and compares it to how information was shared about the Portuguese earthquake of 1755. The dissemination was slower, naturally, in 1755, but the pattern was similar. He shows how the collective sharing of this type of information can even beat official channels in terms of how fast a warning can get out to those who need to know. Other events he looks at are the Haiti earthquake of 2010, Hurricane Sandy in 2012, and Queensland flooding in 2011. He also talks about the disaster myth. This is the idea that people who are most affected by a natural disaster are stunned by the situation and unable to help themselves. In reality, victims are often the most likely to step in and help others around them.
Chapter seven looks a consumer power in this information context. Social media gives individuals the voice to speak out against companies and governments to tell their side of the story when traditional media doesn't give them a voice. Hermida looks at how companies have handled this, both well and badly. He discusses how early social media reaction to products or services can be good forecasting tools for the success of such offerings. Fans can become ambassadors for a brand if handled well.
Chapter eight looks at the darker side of online information sharing, when lies and rumours take on a life of their own and spread, affecting reputations and situations in a negative and damaging way. He discusses what signs we can look for to determine with such information is true or false, sometimes looking at the nuances of language or details and sometimes stepping back and looking at the bigger picture of data around a situation or new event.
The last chapter is on the politics of online information. From the Arab Spring to Idle No More, individual voices have made a difference to outcomes despite political pressure and mainstream media to silence those voices.
This was a very interesting look at social media and its role in our lives.

Future Crimes

Finished March 17
Future Crimes by Mark Goodman

This book covers a lot of issues around internet security and privacy, and I liked the apt quotes drawn from entertainers, writers, politicians, scientists, and other sources.
The author uses examples to illustrate many of the concepts given here, and that really shows the effect on real people of some of these vulnerabilities.
The book is divided into three sections.
The first section sets the stage by introducing the vulnerabilities, with aforementioned examples. The concepts here include cybercrime as it first appeared, malware, and security vulnerabilities. Goodman shows how the global connectivity we now enjoy is also a weakness. He discusses how Moore's law, which is about exponential growth in technological change also applies to criminal technology. He looks at many of the "free" sites and programs we use, such as social media and discusses the realities of "terms and conditions" we accept and how we and our information are really products to the companies that run them, rather than customers. He looks at how all the data we have out there about ourselves is used and how the data, while seemingly benign by individual piece, adds up to big vulnerabilities for us. He also refutes the notion that not creating online profiles is a protection. He takes a close look at apps and the information they gather about us from contacts to GPS location. He reveals the industry of "friends" in social media and just how many don't exist will likely surprise you. He talks about the manipulation of data and how this can plant false information about you from location to actions.
The second section of the book takes a closer look at the criminal world that exists in the online world, something he refers to as Crime, Inc. He reveals the cutting edge nature of the technologies involved and how criminals are often in the group of early adopters of new technology. He discusses the various criminal roles that exist in the hierarchy of organized crime in this world. He talks about the nature of funding and how money gets moved around. He discusses hacking, both software and hardware and how the growth in Internet of Things, technologically-tied home access and controls, medical technology devices, robots and drones all open us up to being left vulnerable in ways we never dreamed of. He includes a section on biotech and its vulnerabilities to our safety.
The third section is more hopeful. Entitled Surviving Progress, it looks at ways to mitigate the vulnerabilities discussed in the earlier sections, things the industry should be doing, things we can do as individuals, and suggestions for how we can come together to tackle these issues in a way where more heads mean more protection.
I found this book fascinating, the first couple sections stomach-churning at times, but the last section giving some positive thoughts about how we can overcome the vulnerabilities.

The Lake House

Finished March 13
The Lake House by Kate Morton

This novel, like many of Morton's others has linked stories from the past and present. Here, the link is the house of the title. In the present, London police officer DC Sadie Sparrow is on a leave from her job, visiting her grandfather at his home in Cornwall. Her grandfather moved here recently, after the death of her grandmother, and therefore Sadie hasn't been here before. She is a very driven woman, with good instincts about her cases. A recent case on a missing woman has got her in trouble as she was sure the woman did not leave of her own accord, despite a note, and Sadie grew frustrated when others on the force dismissed her opinion. She made an anonymous comment to the press that has her superiors unhappy and is taking some time for things to die down.
She isn't a woman who can sit still however, and as she does one of her runs around the area she finds a large estate where the grounds and house show signs of abandonment. Her curiosity piqued, she puts her energies into this new mystery. Once she finds that the family more or less left the house unlived in after the disappearance of the young son of the family in 1933, she wants to unravel the mystery of his disappearance. Working with the local librarian, and an elderly man who was a young policeman on the case, she continues her research, asking the surviving owner for a meeting and permission to access the house.
When eighty-six year old Alice Edevane gets Sadie's letter, she is brought back to that summer when she was sixteen and the events that transpired. She is now a well-known mystery writer, with a young assistant Peter who helps her organize her work and obligations. At first, she finds the reminder upsetting, but gradually realizes that these events have haunted her life and influences her personal relationships.
As the past and the present come together, secrets of many kinds are revealed.
I really enjoyed this book, and the mysteries of the plot. Sadie and Alice are both strong women, with hidden secrets that they must deal with to move forward positively.