There Is No Frigate Like a Book

I am a life-long reader- I’ve always preferred it to watching TV or movies. I favor physical books to eBooks (call me old-fashioned) and will not buy books from Amazon. Support local bookstores, please! They’re hurting and they’re important assets in the community. It’s worth the few extra bucks. Local bookshops are always on my list of places to check out when I am traveling.

Reading seems to come in fits and starts for me. I’ll go a few months barely making any progress in a book, then I’ll have times when I rip through a couple of books in a week. Is anyone else like that?

My most recent read will always be at the top…

The Gift of Fear- Gavin de Becker

How do you know what a real threat is? American women in particular have been taught, rather incorrectly, that danger lurks around every corner. There is a lot of noise (Don’t walk alone! You need pepper spray! You need a gun! You’ll be killed if you are out after dark! Don’t travel alone!) and it often mutes the signal of real danger. The book talks about how everyone should learn how to trust and listen to their gut (fear is a gift) in order to avoid becoming a victim of harm. While the book isn’t perfect and hasn’t been updated since its 1997 debut, I think the message is sound. Rapists and murderers aren’t hiding behind every bush, but by paying attention to people’s actions, you can assess a situation and determine if it is a real threat.

Educated- Tara Westover

This book. I don’t even know where to start. I have never been so angry for, nor cheered so loud for, a complete stranger. I normally don’t get emotionally involved in what I am reading, but her story is just incredible. At so many points during this book I just wanted to give her a hug and tell her she was worth a damn.

Tara is one of 6 children of crazy, doomsday-prepper, hyper-religious whack jobs in Idaho. She was not allowed a formal education. The only books she was allowed to read were old Mormon texts. She had never heard of Martin Luther King Jr. or the Holocaust until she started college at 17. She never saw a doctor- the only medicine used in her house were herbs and essential oils concocted by her mother. Despite the deck being stacked against her and having very few people in her corner, she got into college and completed a pHd- she knew education was a way out of the horrible life she was being forced to live, but it was not easy to sever those ties and question her loyalty to the family that abused and brainwashed her.

Education is a human right and restricting or denying it is a form of control. We see it all over the world, particularly in religious extremist groups. Society failed Tara and her siblings. People saw them. People had to have known. How many others like Tara have suffered simply because no one stood up and said “hey, this isn’t normal”? Not everyone is as strong, smart, and gritty as Tara. Would you speak up? Would I speak up?