studiomikarts's reviews
89 reviews

Eat Real to Heal: Using Food As Medicine to Reverse Chronic Diseases from Diabetes, Arthritis to Cancer and More by Nicolette Richer

Go to review page

medium-paced

0.0

I went into this book with high hopes but they quickly disintegrated as I realized it was chock-full of half-baked pseudoscience. It seems like the original science is believable but what has been built on top of it is ridiculous, the blind efforts of a group of people who take a single study and treat it like gospel, instead of taking a healthy scientific and skeptic approach. The greatest evidence of this is in the fact that one of the core tenants is to juice your fruits and vegetables in order to remove the fiber (and who knows how many other micronutrients that are attached to it) but then to engage in weekly (or more often!) enemas to cleanse your system. I am only an armchair nutritionist, but even I can see the irony in these actions. How about keeping that fiber intact, and eating it, so that you don't need to enema at all??? There were a few diamonds in the rough, mostly in the recipes section. The apple crumble and banana nice cream recipes seemed the best ones; very easy and yummy looking. But they were peppered with nonsense talk about flushing cellular toxins or cleansing your organs. And detoxifying the liver? Detoxifying is literally the liver's job! Ridiculous. Anyway, I am sad to say I cannot award this book a single star, despite the goal setting section actually having a few nuggets that I felt 100% on board with and the nice glossary of resources at the end, including plenty of documentaries, books, doctors, etc. that I do truly believe in. The few good aspects only make me more sorry that I cannot recommend this book to anyone.
Empire of Ivory by Naomi Novik

Go to review page

adventurous dark tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I'm giving this a three-star rating because the growing level of violence in the series, especially the repeated inclusion of graphic animal death to no apparent end except literary flavoring, makes me want to give zero stars, while the overall story was so compelling I want to award five. So in the middle with three it is. The speciesist treatment of animals by this series, especially when the core of the emotional story is that of growing understanding between members of two different species, has become too much for me to invest any more time in it. This was my last attempt at a full reading of the Temeraire books and I don't feel sorry to have already sold my entire collection to the used bookstore.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings
The Minamata Story: An EcoTragedy by Sean Michael Wilson

Go to review page

dark hopeful informative sad fast-paced

5.0

I unintentionally started reading this. I was trying to get a Humble Bundle of books loaded onto my Kindle when I was told that this file was too big to send. That seemed odd for an .epub format, so I opened the file to see why it was so large. Well, a manga greeted me, and I flipped through the first pages, just to see if it was manga all the way or if it changed to text-only at some point, and that was enough to hook me! I went back to the beginning and read the whole thing in one go! Although the story is rooted in a dark historical event (caused by an ongoing problem: industrial pollution) it was overall filled with hope and a sense of wanting to share the story with the world to help us stop repeating history. While I can't speak to whether the latter is happening, the book has a great story, well paced, and told with lovely artwork. I'd recommend it to anyone curious about this event in Japanese history or wanting an example of the effects of pollution on human and other animal life.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings
The World Peace Diet: Eating for Spiritual Health and Social Harmony by Will Tuttle

Go to review page

challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

I'd heard of this book many times before, usually cited as a key influence in helping someone choose veganism, so when I discovered the audiobook available for free as MP3s on the author's Spotify, I dived right in. The book was more spiritual than I prefer but overall it made excellent connections and interesting arguments that I hadn't heard before. The core idea that the development of herding culture in prehistory is the source of all humanity's problems ever since, because it requires the separation and domination of others, has fundamentally changed the way I see pretty much everything in our man-made world. I hope next to acquire a physical or digital copy of the book so that I can take note of the many, many passages that spoke to and enlightened me. I'd like to be able to refer back to them in the future, and share them with others if the opportunity arises.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings
100日後に死ぬワニ 100-nichigo ni Shinu Wani (This Croc Will Die In 100 Days) by きくちゆうき, Yuuki Kikuchi

Go to review page

emotional funny lighthearted sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

Despite only possessing an intermediate understanding of Japanese, it was enough to both laugh out loud and shed tears in the course of reading this beautifully illustrated and heartfelt story. I picked up this manga from Half Price Books, never having heard of it before, but being instantly intrigued by the title. The story was masterfully executed and deeply touching 🥲 I'm so glad I came across this little book and brought it home.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings
Buddhism and Veganism: Essays Connecting Spiritual Awakening and Animal Liberation by Will Tuttle

Go to review page

challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

Chinese Buddhists believe that “in the food we eat lies our grievance and hatred; if you want to know the reason for war, just go to the butcher’s house and listen to the cries at midnight.”

This book helped restore my faith when my reverent (and naïve) view of secular Buddhism came crashing down after learning that most Buddhists knowingly participate in carnism despite the core tenants of all Buddhist practices being plainly against it. Just like the followers of every religion and non-vegan philosophy I've ever encountered, Buddhists find all kinds of ways to twist words or use historical examples to justify their own merciless choices. The essays in this collection helped assure me that I'm not the only one to see how wrong it is.
 
This essential teaching emphasizing vegan values of caring and kindness is an important healing antidote to a damaging delusion common in many Buddhist, yoga, and other spiritual and progressive communities. We can call this delusion the “enlightenment fallacy” because it arises as a false sense of individual license to do as we like because we believe we are spiritually advanced.

There are many aspects to the enlightenment fallacy, and the various rationalization narratives are all the more insidious because of the armor they bestow, hardening hearts and conveying a toxic pseudo-spirituality that harms not just the animals but everyone in any way touched by these delusions and their resulting behaviors.

While it certainly may be helpful and healing to practice viewing the pain and loss that we personally experience as transient and illusory, it is the height of delusion to discount the pain and loss we inflict on others by rationalizing it as being transient and illusory.
 
Admittedly, some of the passages and, in one case, an entire essay were disheartening. For example, seeing the weak excuses of high level Buddhist leaders for their continued support of animal abuse makes me feel hopeless and powerless. But on the whole, the writings included here were both reassuring and empowering. Some even went so far as to offer practical advice for furthering the vegan movement, to help others choose the side of the animals and our shared livable environment. In fact, the last chapter inspired me to get more involved on social media for the first time in many years, by showing how self-isolation only hurts the cause (and lets down those who are trapped in the system).
 
Perfect free will is an illusion, because our thoughts, inclinations, and actions are not ours alone. They are manifestations that have their origins in the seeds planted by many factors, from personal upbringing to society to global history.

Modern veganism is here because slaughterhouses and factory farms are here. As the violence reaches ever more extreme levels, the vegan response represents our awakening to compassion and radical inclusiveness.

Only when I “give myself a break” from time to time can I heal, get stronger and cope better with the fact that we are surrounded by unrelenting evidence of animal suffering.
 
Ultimately, I'm very happy I bought this book. It's exactly what I needed. I'd love to own a physical copy someday, that's how much I loved it.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings
Curly Girl: The Handbook by Lorraine Massey

Go to review page

funny informative inspiring lighthearted fast-paced

4.5

The only thing that could make this book better is if it eschewed animal exploitation in haircare! I took a little off my star rating for that, but otherwise this remains one of my favorite beauty and self-care books. This was my second read-through and was a good refresher not only for the haircare practices, but for the philosophical grounds on which those practices stand. In particular, anti-curl sentiment is grounded in racism and curly hair care saves time, money, and the environment! The reason I reread this book was actually for the DIY recipes and I've now incorporated the lavender spray into my regular routine. I admit I skimmed a lot of sections, but that was actually due to the various audiences the book addresses which don't apply to me, including children and men. The sense of humor peppering the writing made this an easy read and I enjoyed the chapters at the end for Q&A, fancy updos, chemotherapy advice, and (humorously) a 12-step program and horoscopes.
Kapaemahu by Joe Wilson, Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu, Dean Hamer

Go to review page

informative mysterious fast-paced

3.0

While I thought the illustration in this book was beautiful and effective as a storytelling medium, the way the text presented the story and related information was disjointed and jarring. The first half of the book is told as a proper story, mysterious and powerful, but then it suddenly changes tone and simply begins sharing facts and related opinions, with no transition. The abrupt change ultimately felt unnecessary once I reached the end, which included an entire section describing the history of the story's subject in more detail. I like the way the book was written in both Niihau (a Hawaiian dialect) and English, so that's a point in its favor.
Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching: A Book About the Way and the Power of the Way by Ursula K. Le Guin

Go to review page

challenging inspiring mysterious reflective medium-paced

2.0

It's hard to review this book, and especially to give it a fair star rating, because I am convinced that Ursula K. Le Guin did her utmost to bring Lao Tzu's work into the modern era. It is thoughtfully done, thoroughly explained, and soundly researched. But my final impression of the core material is that the reason Lao Tzu's work has endured for over two millennia is not due to its inherent wisdom but to its nonsensical nature. As the book's introduction suggests, one can flip to any random page, read an excerpt, and feel enlightened. However, unlike others' experience of these writings as a fountain of universal truth, at best I think the words are interpreted the same way as a tarot card. Yes, there are some thoughtful gems scattered throughout, but for the most part, the words can easily be twisted to suit whatever situation or position one likes. And in some extreme cases, the ideas presented are antithetical to those that most people associate this work with. For instance, I present my notes about a certain section:

I'm not on board with the idea of being against invention or progress. It's hypocritical for someone to be using writing to express such ideas. Writing and language are not natural, they are creations. According to the book's own philosophy, the book itself, its method of communication, and the messages it sends, are all deviations from the Way. When uncut wood is the ideal, we would be living naked in the open, just trying to survive to the next day. And if the argument becomes, "Well, a little progress is ok," everything that has been argued thus far disintegrates in hypocrisy.

Despite my overall negative impression of this book, I did find value in having read it. Not least of which was seeing how many of my favorite stories have been influenced by, and have even directly quoted, this material! To end this review on a positive note, here are a couple quotes that fellow film fans might appreciate:

This is the way.

Nothing in the world 
is as soft, as weak, as water;
nothing else can wear away
the hard, the strong,
and remain unaltered.
Madly, Deeply: The Diaries of Alan Rickman by Alan Rickman

Go to review page

challenging emotional funny informative inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

2.5

For some time I had this book on my wishlist, as something I wanted to own, but then I spotted it at my local public library and decided to read it that way. Thank goodness I did. Although I loved Alan Rickman's work (particularly in Dogma and Harry Potter) reading his diaries ended up being a major chore. The foreword and introduction by the editor were excellent, but the meat of this massive tome was very hard to read, both logistically and cognitively. Until about 35% in, when the entries began to mention movies I was familiar with, it barely kept my attention. It wasn't all bad, I want to make clear. There were many moments when I laughed out loud, others that encouraged me as a storyteller, and still others that made me think (especially, seeing the way he lived his life, it's actually no surprise Alan Rickman succumbed to illness in the end. Rather than thinking he was taken from us too soon, I now think it's a miracle he lasted so long). All said, the final line in the afterword did make me tear up 🥲 Thank you for all the joy you continue to bring into the world, Alan Rickman.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings