Books of 2009

I know, I know. You waited all year for this. As soon as your calendar turned to December you thought, Emily is going to post all the books she read this year soon! Your excitement was barely contained- even though you can see all the books I read as I finish them in the LibraryThing widget on the bottom right of the page. Anyway, here are my books of the year. Here is 2008 and 2007. Here are all the books I've ever read (that I can remember).

My list is shorter this year than last, since I no longer have a soul sucking commute from NJ to NYC ruining my life (that's when I did most of my reading). I've included links to Amazon so you can read the descriptions/buy them if you are so inclined.

In order from Best to Worst:

1. The Women's Room: A Novelby Marilyn French

This feminist classic follows a woman from her life as a 50's housewife, through a divorce and as she starts Harvard graduate school and meets a group of women who have gone through similar life events. I really loved it.

2. Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss---and the Myths and Realities of Dieting by Gina Kolata.
Review here.

3. Feminine Mistake, The: Are We Giving Up Too Much? by Leslie Bennets
Review here. Thinking back, I realize that it pretty much scared the crap out of me to ever stop working. I'd like to find a book not as alarmist on the realities of full time moms.

4. High Fidelity: A Novel by Nick Hornby
The most honest and least sappy love story I've ever read.

5. Before You Know Kindness by Chris Bohjalian
A tumultuous family drama, which I enjoy reading every once in awhile. Not as good as my favorite of this genre, We Were the Mulvaneys, but very similar.

6. Little Earthquakes: A Novel (Washington Square Press)by Jennifer Weiner.

7.Goodnight Nobody: A Novel by Jennifer Weiner.

8. Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety by Judith Warner.
Warner writes for the New York Times, and wrote this book about helicopter moms and how families need better choices when it comes to work/life balance and child care. She makes a very strong case.

9. Beginner's Greek: A Novel by James Collins
A love-conquers-all story, without being nauseating.

10. The Dive From Clausen's Pier: A Novel by Ann Packer
A story about a woman in her early 20's whose fiance becomes paralyzed after an accident. She makes some big life changes, which can be seen as selfish or daring. I still haven't quite decided.

11. In Her Shoes : A Novel by Jennifer Weiner
I now have read all of Weiner's books (I'm picking up her latest, Best Friends Forever: A Novel, tomorrow). I find her to be entertaining and without the mind numbing predictability of chick lit.

12. The Obesity Myth: Why America's Obsession with Weight is Hazardous to Your Health by Paul Campos.

13. How Sassy Changed My Life: A Love Letter to the Greatest Teen Magazine of All Time by Kara Jesella.

14. The Bleeding Heart by Marilyn French.

15. Perfect Fifths: A Novel (Jessica Darling) by Megan McCafferty

The end of the series about Jessica Darling, I found it a huge disappointment. The author took on a third person voice instead of writing from Jessica's point of view, and it lost much of the charm and humor found in the other four books. Also, the whole book was drawn out, confusing, and predictable.

16. I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley.
I read somewhere that she is the "female David Sedaris," which turned out not to be true because Sedaris is hilarious and Crosley is utterly boring.

17. (currently in the middle of) Commencement: A novel by J. Courtney Sullivan.

What was the best book you read this year? Any you're looking forward to reading in 2010?

Senate Passes Health Care Bill

The Senate passed the health care bill! To be honest, I'm not sure what's in it. Everything kept changing so much I gave up trying to follow. Next the House and Senate argue about it for awhile. You can read about it here, and Ezra Klein is usually a good resource for health care wonkery:

Health-care reform, by this point, has had a lot of milestones. It has cleared five committees. It has come through the House of Representatives. It has been merged into a single bill in the Senate. It has passed through the Senate. No previous health-care reform bill has come anywhere near this far. But there are more milestones left to achieve: The House and Senate need to agree on a bill. That bill has to pass both chambers again. And then the president has to sign the legislation.

Passing legislation, it turns out, is a long and ugly process. God, is it ugly. The compromises, both with powerful special interests and decisive senators. The trimming of ambitions and the budget gimmicks and the worship of Congressional Budget Office scores. By the end, you're passing a compromise of a deal of a negotiation of a concession.

More Than Just Finding a Cure

I wrote briefly during Domestic Violence Awareness Month that Breast Cancer Awareness Month gets a lot more notice, with pink ribbons everywhere and hundreds of products that donate some of their proceeds to help cure cancer. Something that stood out to me in a post on about all those pink ribbons was this, about Yoplait donating some of their proceeds to find a cure for breast cancer:

Yoplait yogurt is made with milk from cows that have been injected with a synthetic hormone called recombinant bovine growth hormone (referred to as rBGH or rBST). There are a number of health concerns surrounding the use of rBGH, and breast cancer is one of them.

This brings me to something that bothers me about cancer societies. They all are constantly raising money for a cure, and while a cure for cancer would be a significant scientific discovery that will save many lives- why aren’t these cancer societies raising more awareness about what can contribute to CAUSING cancer? How come the Susan G. Komen Society isn’t pressuring dairy farmers to stop using bovine growth hormones in their cows? This doesn’t just tie to breast cancer- there are hundreds of carcinogens in our environment. Anti-perspirant, for example, uses aluminum, a carcinogen, to block the pores from producing sweat. There are many pesticides on fruits and vegetables, not to mention the vast array of cancer causing chemicals being found in our own water, which the New York Times is currently doing a lengthy expose on. Carcinogens are everywhere. So why aren’t more foundations that are looking for cure also working to stop letting carcinogens into our environment as much as possible? As we all know, cancer societies have a lot of power and influence on people and the media in this country, and I think using that power for this purpose would do a lot of good.

I am not implying here that every case of cancer is preventable if we all switch to organic milk and Tom’s of Maine deodorant. I know that cancer is a complicated disease that a lot of times is hereditary, and I do hope they find a cure. However, I also wish these cancer societies would wield their enormous power to make our food and environment more healthy and free of as many carcinogens as possible.

Nelson Amendment Fails, NJ to Vote on Gay Marriage

The Nelson amendment, which was kind of like the Senate version of the Stupak amendment, was voted down today.

The measure, which failed 54-45, addressed the scope of restrictions on coverage of abortion services for people who receive subsidies to buy insurance. The outcome was expected, but could cost the support of Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), who has threatened to filibuster the $848 billion bill unless abortion restrictions are tightened.

In other political news, New Jersey is expected to vote on gay marriage this week:

New Jersey law currently permits civil unions, but many gay rights advocates say it is a failure because it does not provide the same protections as a civil marriage, like the right to visit a partner in the hospital or to have coverage on a family insurance policy.

Marsha Shapiro and Louise Walpin, a gay couple who have been together for 20 years, said that despite their civil union, they have faced job discrimination and been repeatedly denied insurance benefits. “The State of New Jersey has promised us the right to equal legal protection,” said Ms. Walpin, 58. “Our family has suffered enough. Please support us and give us the legal protection that we need.”

Visit Garden State Equality for more information and how you can help.

On "The Biggest Loser."

Before Thanksgiving, the NYT posted this article about how health takes a backseat on the reality TV show "The Biggest Loser:"

The series also highlights the difference between the pursuit of engaging television and the sometimes frenzied efforts of contestants to win, perhaps at the risk of their own health. Doctors, nutritionists and physiologists not affiliated with “The Biggest Loser” express doubt about the program’s regimen of severe caloric restriction and up to six hours a day of strenuous exercise, which cause contestants to sometimes lose more than 15 pounds a week.

At least one other contestant has confessed to using dangerous weight-loss techniques, including self-induced dehydration. On the first episode of the current season, two contestants were sent to the hospital, one by airlift after collapsing from heat stroke during a one-mile race.

I never watched the show, but last week I sat through the first part of the two part season finale. The four final contestants were sent home for 60 days where they were still expected to drop weight before another weigh in. It was challenging for the contestants, especially the one guy who is married with a small child. He said that between working 12 hours a day, over an hour commute, and household chores not to mention spending time with his family, he found it difficult to make time to go to the gym everyday. Two contestants confessed that "not being able to spend 6-8 hours a day" at the gym made losing more weight difficult. I was shocked by how nonchalantly they talked about their day-long work outs, and how normal it seemed to them. They were obviously disappointed in themselves that they couldn't spend that much time in the gym anymore.

During the middle of the episode, the four contestants ran a marathon. I will confess here that I was in the shower for the segment where they "trained" for the marathon- but after watching how difficult it was for all of them to run it it was obvious they didn't train the way actual marathoners train. In fact, several times people from the show praised them as they were running, "You're doing this without barely any training!" Isn't it a little unsafe that they didn't get the appropriate training before running 26.2 miles?

And finally, the weigh in. Danny, originally their largest contestant ever intially weighing in at over 400 pounds, got on the scale and found he had lost 59 pounds in 60 days. "That's almost a pound a day!" the host exclaimed. A POUND a DAY?! Ok, time for some math. There are 3,500 calories in a pound of body fat. Sane diets say you should work on a deficit of 500 calories a day in order to lose a pound a week. But if Danny lost 60 pounds in 60 days- does this mean he was burning 3,500 calories a day? This is how it seems to me- and it also seems so dangerous and flat out AWFUL.

The show has over 10 million viewers a week. It has spawned a $100 million dollar licensing franchise, including video games which were hawked on the show. 200,000 people submit applications for the show each year. The popularity of it will probably only continue to grow along with the nations waist lines, which is unfortunate given how unhealthy and unrealistic it is for anyone not on the Biggest Loser Ranch. Of course, a reality show that followed people losing two pounds a week for a year in order to lose a large amount of weight wouldn't be half as dramatic, would it?

Women and Weight Lifting

I consider myself a fairly active person. I enjoy running and when the weather gets cold I go to the gym about 3-4 times a week. I usually mix it up between the treadmill and the elliptical machine, but very rarely go over to the weight machines. I usually don't feel comfortable enough to go to the machines and especially the free weights, because they don't seem to me to be a very female friendly zone. This is usually where most of the men are, and when I walk from the locker room from the gym I feel enough of them look at me- I don't want to draw more attention to myself at the free weights.

Some might see this as silly- the gym is for everyone, right? We all pay the same every month and have the right to use any and all of the equipment. But as a woman, I know I'm not alone on this one. I've spoken with female friends who feel the same way, and guy friends who don't really get it. Last night I came across an interview in Bitch magazine with Krista Scott-Dixon, who runs stumptuous.com, a website devoted to women's weight training. "The website aims to make weightlifting accessible to both beginning lifters and experienced power snatchers-it's a lifting term!- as well as combating misinformation and stereotypes about women, health, and gym culture." Scott-Dixon said that many women tell her that they don't feel the gym is a friendly space, and she said, "I tell women to find and build community...seek out other women, and supportive men, and deliberately interact with them in positive ways." Her website goes into more detail with tips on how to get started, but there is also a lot on the site about misinformation that is fed to women about health and fitness. This post, "Lies in the gym," goes into not just what she's heard, but tons of feedback from females who have heard ridiculous things- like that heavy lifting makes their ovaries drop, or that they shouldn't weight lift if they aren't ugly. Common myths Dixon goes into are that men train and women "tone," women shouldn't lift heavy weights because it will make them huge and masculine, and that building muscle will push fat out and make you look bulky.

I'm glad a site like this exists, and I'm going to take some more time to peruse through it. It's nice to know I'm not the only one who doesn't feel entirely comfortable at the gym-especially with weights- and that there are tips for female beginners that deal with that issue. However, all this aside, I still think I'd be most comfortable at a female only gym. Or at least one where more women used the weights.

Image from stumptous.com

Arrested Over The Daily Show

Maziar Bahari is an Iranian Newsweek journalist who was interviewed by Jason Jones of The Daily Show when Jones was in Iran during their tumultuous election earlier this year. After the interview, Bahari was arrested, held and interrogated for over 100 days because the government didn't understand that The Daily Show is a satirical news program:

Maziar Bahari

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