Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife by Mary Roach

Most people believe that the soul lives on after death as an article of faith. Some people have attempted to test and study that belief through scientific means and this is the body of research that Mary Roach explores in Spook. As in Bonk, Mary Roach's writing is captivating. She writes with such humor and interest that I love reading her books and I come out of them having learned a great deal.

Roach does a thorough overview of historical research in to the supernatural and most of it, is... well, not very substantial. From studies of people who claim to be reincarnated, to psychics, to attempting to measure the soul, the key aspect of finding the research poignant seems to be whether or not you already accept the premise. But Roach doesn't just laugh at her subjects, she shows them as earnest people who truly believe and shows many who have extremely stringent scientific standards. She discusses fascinating scientific experiments that people are performing to test for the supernatural- like setting up a laptop close to the ceiling of surgical rooms that displays random images in the hopes that people who have near-death-experiences could report on what image they saw. There are others like this that would offer some level of true scientific creditiblity and I think it's wonderful that people are pursuing them- of course none have yielded results as of yet.

Roach also explores alternative explanations and is careful to try and give people the benefit of the doubt. She discusses theories that seeing ghosts might be related to electromagnetic impulses to the brain and offers pretty convincing evidence of this. Ever the trooper, she puts herself in one man's study where subjects are put in a sensory deprivation chamber and exposed to these electromagnetic impulses. And she has a bit of a supernatural experience from it! She also enrolls in a medium course to learn to become psychic. She finds that her fellow classmates aren't frauds, but genuine believers whose skills at reading people and making general guesses have convinced them of their psychic abilities.

Since this is about the science of the supernatural, it is certainly skeptical. But of course I'm a skeptic. I think someone with a different orientation would still come away from the book enjoying it, having learned from it, and perhaps with a few anecdotes that bolster their beliefs. I love that this book shows that science doesn't claim to have all the answers. There are some weird things that happen in this world and sometimes we just don't know why. I feel like lots of people want to insert an explanation that makes them happy and makes the world a little brighter, but the only thing really bolstering that belief is the desire to have the belief. I appreciate the world view that so fully embraces reality it says, "We don't know and that's okay. We'll try and find out if we can, but maybe we can't." And I have nothing but respect for the many scientists who are very much trying to find out.

Bossypants by Tina Fey

I've always been impressed with Tina Fey. Her sense of humor varies between a thoughtful depth and wisdom to a level of ridiculous absurdity that I truly enjoy. I loved her on Weekend Update, I thought Mean Girls was brilliantly touching while still hilarious, and I eat up 30 Rock. So when I heard she wrote a memoir, I knew I'd be reading it.

The book is mainly a look at her professional life with periodic insights in to her childhood. One thing that comes across very strongly is that she has an incredible sense of ethics that guides her. Given her level of success, it's pretty impressive that she's remained as down to earth as she is. The book doesn't reveal any shocking secrets or say anything ground breaking, but it does offer insight in to the mind of a very thoughtful and hilarious woman. And I found that well worth reading.

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach

I decided to start a book club here in Great Falls, and in preparation I went to Good Reads and selected some of their top non-fiction books as possible book club books. Everyone voted and somehow this book about sex was the winner. I finished the book last night and I really enjoyed it!

I might have oversold the book to my co-worker who recently started reading it and has surmised that it is kinda boring. To be fair, this is not an erotic book nor a "how-to". It's more a history of the scientific exploration of sex and some of the neat "behind the scenes" findings. It's hilarious to read about all of the various experiments that have been performed. Did you know that Kinsey had literally thousands of people come to his attic and video taped them having sex so that the could study them in detail later? Or did you know that many quadriplegics can still orgasm? This book will tell you how that's possible and what it means about how all of our bodies work. One of the most interesting details to me was that lubricant is actually blood plasma. Who knew?!? Also interesting was that women become physically aroused more easily than men, they just don't realize it. Even watching monkeys have sex will have a physical effect on most women whereas men appear to be pickier.

This book is full of random facts and stories that are just kinda fun. The author's sense of humor made the book extremely accessible to me. Her writing style is fantastic and I now plan on reading all of her books. If you like science books and aren't squicked out by blunt talk about sex, I highly recommend!

The Overspent American by Juliet Schor

I saw this book on my co-worker's desk and asked to borrow it. The book explores our consumer culture and admonishes it. It instead advocates a de-emphasis on materialism and a focus on simple living. While I'm sure I don't always live up to it, the ideals and values espoused in this book are so thoroughly internalized in my way of thinking that I found the book a bit boring.

I do not highly value stuff and I never really have. I have always valued life experiences and financial security more than stuff. While I certainly splurge on occasion and buy myself nice things, it is pretty much always after months of consideration and research and the items receive a great deal of functional use after their purchase. When I moved up here, I sold/ gave away a ton of stuff and it reinforced to me how easy it is to accumulate more stuff than you need- even though I already felt I was pretty non materialistic. I think a good amount of the stuff was accumulated when I had my own apartment and to some extent wanted to "fill it". And while it was nice to have that stuff, I think in the future I'm less likely to buy new furniture/ decorations/ etc.

This year I'm trying to live off of a VISTA living stipend which comes out to below minimum wage. While I'm close to living off of it, I am subsidizing it a touch with savings. I think my lower threshold for a content, non-deprived feeling living experience involves spending about $12,000 to $15,000 a year. When I was making money, I did spend more than this. And when I go back to making money, I'm sure I'll let more expenditures come- exotic travel, maybe a new gadget, etc., but I'd like to make some of my lifestyle changes more permanent. After selling so many books when I moved, I don't think I'm likely to buy books anymore when I know that libraries are perfectly capable of ordering any book I might want. Right now, spending $10 at the movies sounds like a crazy waste of money when I know it will be rent-able on DVD for $1 in just a few months. I very rarely eat out right now- something I spent over $1,500 on last year!!! I've started really thinking about how much gas costs and calibrating that in to decisions about going places- something I never gave any thought to before. And these little things add up. I most certainly want to keep my basic living expenses as minimal as possible. I love the concept of not being owned by your life style and having the freedom to not have money concerns have a large voice in life choices.

If these concepts don't resonate with you, you might enjoy The Overspent American. Otherwise, I say skip it.

The Sexual Paradox: Men, Women and the Real Gender Gap by Susan Pinker

I ordered this through Inter Library Loan and unfortunately only read half of it before I had to return it in order to avoid $1 a day late fines. Since I only read half of it, I've debated whether or not to post an entry on it, but I've decided to go for it.

The book makes the claims that the biggest reason for the gender gap in pay has to do with women opting for more emotionally rewarding careers/ lifestyle choices than men. I found this argument to be quite salient. While there's no question in my mind that in some work environments sexism is probably alive and well, it seems to be pretty rare. In my experience, those women who are good at what they do and want to work 60+ hour a weeks seem to receive raises and get promotions just as easily as the men doing those things. But it does seem that there are fewer women willing to do that then men.

Pinker furthers her case by pointing to education statistics versus workplace statistics. More women are educated than men. On average, women do better in school, across the board, than men do. Many ivy league schools now have "reverse discrimination" in that while trying to keep an equal gender balance, the average male resume is less impressive than the average female resume. About half of all law school grads are female, but only about 1/4 of practicing lawyers are female. The academics clearly show that ability is far from the issue, and yet most women do not go after the most lucrative careers.

The book goes further to blame this difference on innate biology. It states that estrogen tends to create minds that are more empathic and social whereas testosterone tends to create minds that are better at single minded focus. She cites many studies that are pretty fascinating to support this. One study measured fetal testosterone levels in boys throughout pregnancy and found a direct inverse correlation between how much testosterone they had and their later verbal skills. Those with the most testosterone spoke later and with fewer words than those with less testosterone.

While I think she convincingly makes her case that men and women are biologically shaped to be a bit different, I do think she undersells the role that social and pragmatic concerns have on the gender wage gap. If a woman is socially considered to be more responsible for raising children than men, is it any surprise that she's less likely to work crazy hours and is more likely to value lower stress careers and more flexible work environments?

Overall, I recommend the book. I wish I'd read the second half and could more thoroughly expound on her ideas. But from what I did read, I enjoyed the way she meshed her ideas and case studies with genuine scientific studies and statistics. It certainly is an interesting angle from which to look at the issue.

Cancer Milk by Seth Luther

I learned on my first day that one of my co-workers, a former VISTA, had written a book. It was described as being like Kurt Vonnegut's work. Since I read almost everything Vonnegut ever wrote, I figured I might like it and asked to borrow.

It was fun and totally lived up to the Vonnegut comparison. Lots of random stuff happening that somehow comes together to form a quasi-coherent story. The devil's son decides to spread cancer to the world and a boy who talks to goats must go to the goat home planet to find the cure to cancer. It was fun and I enjoyed. :)

Hollowing Out the Middle: The Rural Brain Drain and What It Means for America by Patrick Carr and Maria Kefalas

At my work, there is apparently a list somewhere of recommended reading that will help you understand the business. One of my coworkers had this book in their collection and mentioned it was on the list so I asked to borrow it.

The basic premise of the book is that every place has it's ambitious, non-ambitious, and those in between. In small, rural areas, the ambitious leave and those who stay have few and poor opportunities available to them. The book further comments that the small towns have designed the system in such a way that those from "good" families will be the ones that succeed and others will be looked over.

The lack of opportunities struck me a bit because people really don't make much here. Working the grant department, grants often have people's salaries listed in them if the grant is paying part of their salary. So I know what many people make. People with master's degrees are barely getting $30K. $50K puts you at the top of the pack. Admittedly, this is a non-profit, but my roommate has bemoaned the extreme lack of good paying jobs and it seems to be a common issue. Jobs are key to a successful economy and rural areas just don't have too many. That said, I don't know that there really is a "fix" to it as the book suggests. Let's say you got two really highly skilled companies in to a rural area and supported the schools in such a way that they were making enough skilled workers. What happens when one goes out of business or moves? Those skills aren't easily transferred in a rural area. Since employers can disappear at any time, it makes since that highly skilled jobs are concentrated in urban areas where workers have a multitude of places that they can turn to in case something happens to their employer. It also makes sense that rural areas tend to be concentrated with low skilled jobs that most people could potentially do. While it's unfortunate for those people that technology has made their jobs so extremely low skilled that they now pay very little and have fewer job opportunities in total, I feel like this book is largely bemoaning change. It's important to recognize the downsides of technological advancements and a service based economy and that's what I got from this. There are people out there whose lives are worse off because of things we largely see as positive and it would be great to help them. I am not convinced though that most rural towns truly can be revived to thriving economies.