Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

Reviewing this fascinating memoir today. Title: The Electricity of Every Living Thing: A Woman's Walk in the Wild to Find Her Way Home Author: Katherine May Publication Info: Trapeze, 2018. 285 pages (Kindle edition) Source: Library Publisher's Blurb: In anticipation of her 38th birthday, Katherine May set out to walk the 630-mile South West Coast Path. She wanted time alone, in nature, to understand why she had stopped coping with everyday life; why motherhood had been so overwhelming and isolating; and why the world felt full of expectations she couldn’t meet. She was also reeling from a chance encounter with a voice on the radio that sparked her realisation that she might be autistic. And so begins a trek along the ruggedly beautiful but difficult path by the sea that takes readers through the alternatingly frustrating, funny, and enlightening experience of re-awakening to the world around us… The Electricity of Every Living Thing sees Katherine come to terms w

    Title: Found in Transition: A Mother's Evolution During her Child's Gender Change Author: Paria Hassouri, MD Publication Info: New World Library, 2020. 215 pages Source: Library digital resources Publisher's Blurb: On Thanksgiving morning, Paria Hassouri finds herself furiously praying and negotiating with the universe as she irons a dress her fourteen-year-old, designated male at birth, has secretly purchased and wants to wear to dinner with the extended family. In this wonderfully frank, loving, and practical account of parenting a transgender teen, Paria chronicles what amounts to a dual transition: as her child transitions from male to female, she navigates through anger, denial, and grief to eventually arrive at acceptance. Despite her experience advising other parents in her work as a pediatrician, she was blindsided by her child's gender identity. Paria is also forced to examine how she still carries insecurities from her past of growing up as an I

  Title: A Quick and Easy Guide to Asexuality Author: Molly Muldoon and Will Hernandez Publication Info: Limerence Press, 2022. 72 Pages. Source: Library digital collection Publisher's Blurb: Asexuality is often called The Invisible Orientation. You don’t learn about it in school, you don’t hear “ace” on television. So, it’s kinda hard to be ace in a society so steeped in sex that no one knows you exist. Too many young people grow up believing that their lack of sexual desire means they are broken – so writer Molly Muldoon and cartoonist Will Hernandez, both in the ace community, are here to shed light on society’s misconceptions of asexuality and what being ace is really like. This book is for anyone who wants to learn about asexuality, and for Ace people themselves, to validate their experiences. Asexuality is a real identity and it’s time the world recognizes it. Here’s to being invisible no more! My Review: I picked this book up because I have recently had my attenti

Title: Author: Publication Info: Source: Publisher’s Blurb: Just days after Raynor learns that Moth, her husband of 32 years, is terminally ill, their home and livelihood is taken away. With nothing left and little time, they make the brave and impulsive decision to walk the 630 miles of the sea-swept South West Coast Path, from Somerset to Dorset, via Devon and Cornwall. They have almost no money for food or shelter and must carry only the essentials for survival on their backs as they live wild in the ancient, weathered landscape of cliffs, sea and sky. Yet through every step, every encounter, and every test along the way, their walk becomes a remarkable journey. The Salt Path is an honest and life-affirming true story of coming to terms with grief and the healing power of the natural world. Ultimately, it is a portrayal of home, and how it can be lost, rebuilt, and rediscovered in the most unexpected ways.   My Review: As an aficionado of hiking memoirs, I had some e

Title: Tigers of the Snow: How One Fateful Climb Made the Sherpas Mountaineering Legends Author: Jonathan Neale Publication Info: Thomas Dunne Books, 2002. 320 pages Source: Kamzang Journeys trekking library! Publisher’s Blurb: In 1922 Himalayan climbers were British gentlemen, and their Sherpa and Tibetan porters were "coolies," unskilled and inexperienced casual laborers. By 1953 Sherpa Tenzing Norgay stood on the summit of Everest, and the coolies had become the "Tigers of the Snow." Jonathan Neale's absorbing new book is both a compelling history of the oft-forgotten heroes of mountaineering and a gripping account of the expedition that transformed the Sherpas into climbing legends. In 1934 a German-led team set off to climb the Himalayan peak of Nanga Parbat, the ninth highest mountain on earth. After a disastrous assault in 1895, no attempt had been made to conquer the mountain for thirty-nine years. The new Nazi government was determined to pro

  Title: Beyond the Call: The True Story of One World War II Pilot's Covert Mission to Rescue POWs on the Eastern Front Author: Lee Trimble with Jeremy Dronfield. Read by Donald Corren Publication Info: Audible Audio, 2015. 11 hours. Hardcover 2015 by Berkley, 352 pages. Source: Library digital resources   Publisher’s Blurb: Near the end of World War II, thousands of Allied ex-POWs were abandoned to wander the war-torn Eastern Front, modern day Ukraine. With no food, shelter, or supplies, they were an army of dying men. The Red Army had pushed the Nazis out of Russia. As they advanced across Poland, the prison camps of the Third Reich were discovered and liberated. In defiance of humanity, the freed Allied prisoners were discarded without aid. The Soviets viewed POWs as cowards, and regarded all refugees as potential spies or partisans. The United States repeatedly offered to help recover their POWs, but were refused. With relations between the allies strained, a plan wa

Title: All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation Author: Rebecca Traister Publication Info: 2016, Simon and Schuster Audio. 11.5 hours. Hardcover, 2016, Simon and Schuster, 339 pages. Source: Library digital services   Publisher’s Blurb: In 2009, award-winning journalist Rebecca Traister started All the Single Ladies about the twenty-first century phenomenon of the American single woman. It was the year the proportion of American women who were married dropped below fifty percent; and the median age of first marriages, which had remained between twenty and twenty-two years old for nearly a century (1890–1980), had risen dramatically to twenty-seven. But over the course of her vast research and more than a hundred interviews with academics and social scientists and prominent single women, Traister discovered a startling truth: The phenomenon of the single woman in America is not a new one. And historically, when women were given options beyon

  Title: 101 Ways to Go Zero Waste Author: Katheryn Kellog Publication Info: Countryman Press, 2019 Source: Library digital resources Publisher’s Blurb: We all know how important it is to reduce our environmental footprint, but it can be daunting to know where to begin. Enter Kathryn Kellogg, who can fit all her trash from the past two years into a 16-ounce mason jar. How? She starts by saying “no” to straws and grocery bags, and “yes” to a reusable water bottle and compostable dish scrubbers. In 101 Ways to Go Zero Waste , Kellogg shares these tips and more, along with DIY recipes for beauty and home; advice for responsible consumption and making better choices for home goods, fashion, and the office; and even secrets for how to go waste free at the airport. “It’s not about perfection,” she says. “It’s about making better choices.” This is a practical, friendly blueprint of realistic lifestyle changes for anyone who wants to reduce their waste.   My Review: I found the ton

  Title: Raven's Witness: The Alaska Life of Richard K. Nelson Author: Hank Lentfer. Read by Basil Sands Publication Info: 2020 Tantor Audio. 8:29. Original 2020 by Mountaineers Books. 256 pages. Source: Library digital resources Publisher’s Blurb: Before his death in 2019, cultural anthropologist, author, and radio producer Richard K. Nelson's work focused primarily on the indigenous cultures of Alaska and, more generally, on the relationships between people and nature. Nelson lived for extended periods in Athabaskan and Alaskan Eskimo villages, experiences which inspired his earliest written works, including Hunters of the Northern Ice.     In Raven's Witness , Lentfer tells Nelson's story--from his midwestern childhood to his first experiences with Native culture in Alaska through his own lifelong passion for the land where he so belonged. Nelson was the author of the bestselling The Island Within and Heart and Blood . The recipient of multiple honorary

Title: The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West Author: David McCullough. Read by John Bedford Lloyd Publication Info: Simon & Schuster Audio, 2019. 10hrs 23 min. Source: Library digital resources   Publisher’s Blurb: As part of the Treaty of Paris, in which Great Britain recognized the new United States of America, Britain ceded the land that comprised the immense Northwest Territory, a wilderness empire northwest of the Ohio River containing the future states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. A Massachusetts minister named Manasseh Cutler was instrumental in opening this vast territory to veterans of the Revolutionary War and their families for settlement. Included in the Northwest Ordinance were three remarkable conditions: freedom of religion, free universal education, and most importantly, the prohibition of slavery. In 1788 the first band of pioneers set out from New England for the Northwest Territory u

  Title: 81 Days Below Zero: the Incredible Survival Story of a World War II Pilot in Alaska's Frozen Wilderness Author: Brian Murphy. Ready by Richard Ferrone Publication Info: Audible Audio, 2015. 8 hrs, 42 min. (Hardcover Da Capo Press, 2015) Source: Library digital resources   Publisher's Blurb: Shortly before Christmas in 1943, five Army aviators left Alaska’s Ladd Field on a test flight. Only one ever returned: Leon Crane, a city kid from Philadelphia with little more than a parachute on his back when he bailed from his B-24 Liberator before it crashed into the Arctic. Alone in subzero temperatures, Crane managed to stay alive in the dead of the Yukon winter for nearly twelve weeks and, amazingly, walked out of the ordeal intact. '81 DAYS BELOW ZERO' recounts, for the first time, the full story of Crane’s remarkable saga. In a drama of staggering resolve with moments of phenomenal luck, Crane learned to survive in the Yukon’s unforgiving landscape. His

    Title: Here If You Need Me: A True Story Author: Kate Braestrup Publication Info: Little Brown & Co., 2007. 211 pages Source: Gift from a friend   Publisher's Blurb: Ten years ago, Kate Braestrup and her husband Drew were enjoying the life they shared together. They had four young children, and Drew, a Maine state trooper, would soon begin training to become a minister as well. Then early one morning Drew left for work and everything changed. On the very roads that he protected every day, an oncoming driver lost control, and Kate lost her husband. Stunned and grieving, Kate decided to continue her husband's dream and became a minister herself. And in that capacity she found a most unusual mission: serving as the minister on search and rescue missions in the Maine woods, giving comfort to people whose loved ones are missing, and to the wardens who sometimes have to deal with awful outcomes. Whether she is with the parents of a 6-year-old girl who had wander

It's happened again! Lost track of the days of the week, but there is a review for you today, and my clock says it's still Monday :) Title: The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars Author: Dava Sobel Publication Info: Viking, 2016, 336 pages Source: Library Digital Resources   Publisher's Blurb: In the mid-nineteenth century, the Harvard College Observatory began employing women as calculators, or “human computers,” to interpret the observations made via telescope by their male counterparts each night. At the outset this group included the wives, sisters, and daughters of the resident astronomers, but by the 1880s the female corps included graduates of the new women's colleges—Vassar, Wellesley, and Smith. As photography transformed the practice of astronomy, the ladies turned to studying the stars captured nightly on glass photographic plates. The “glass universe” of half a million plates that Harvard am

I've listened to a couple of books lately that were about the Olympics in the 1920s and 30s, so I'll comment on both of them here. The first was: Title: Fire on the Track: Betty Robinson and the Triumph of the Early Olympic Women Author: Roseanne Montillo Publisher: Random House Audio, 2017. Original published by Crown Publishing Group, 2017. 304 pages. Source: Library digital resources Publisher's Summary:   When Betty Robinson assumed the starting position at the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam, she was participating in what was only her fourth-ever organized track meet. She crossed the finish line as a gold medalist and the fastest woman in the world. This improbable athletic phenom was an ordinary high school student, discovered running for a train in rural Illinois mere months before her Olympic debut. Amsterdam made her a star. But at the top of her game, her career (and life) almost came to a tragic end when a plane she and her cousin were piloting crashed.