More Money Please: The Financial Secrets You Never Learned in School, by Scott Gamm

More Money Please:

The Financial Secrets You Never Learned in School 

Author: Scott Gamm 

Publisher: Plume 

Publication Date: April 30, 2013

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I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels my stomach leap into my throat when I think about money. Just the words finances, budget and debt make me feel like I'm going to throw up. It's not that I don't know how important it is to understand where my money goes and how to budget it, and it's not like I'm even that "bad with money." It's just stressful. 

But Scott Gamm gets that. He knows I don't like thinking about money. He knows you don't like thinking about money. So he didn't fill his book with lots of extra noise about how you should "feel" about your finances, or try to convince you to enjoy doing taxes. He just got right to the point. He's like your straightforward, reliable friend who comes to help you move by loading sh*t on to your truck, not spending hours talking about where you got this particular teapot. He's to the point and he gets it done.

This book is like that. It's filled with practical, specific and straightforward advice. Some of it is a lot more applicable to Americans than Canadians (things like tax laws and student loan procedures) but the principals are sound. How to make a budget. How to choose a bank. Why you need to be saving for retirement now. There's even a section on job search skills, which I assume is aimed at a younger reader who is new to the job market.

I can't say he alleviated my low-level stress about thinking about handling my money, but he gave me a very helpful guidebook for actually doing something about it.

What Learning Leaves, poems by Taylor Mali

What Learning Leaves

(New and Revised Edition)

poems by Taylor Mali

Publisher: Write Bloody

Publication Date: November 15, 2012

(First published January 7, 2012)

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It wouldn't be National Poetry Month without at least one review of a book of poetry, would it? Apparently not. But I can't think of any book of poetry I'd rather be reviewing than that of Taylor Mali. He's one of my top five favourite slam poets of all time, he's amazing, he's smart AND he's a teacher. It would be harder for me NOT to be a fan of his than to just go ahead and love him (which I do). 

What Learning Leaves contains many of my favourite Taylor Mali poems (including "What Teachers Make" and "Like Lilly Like Wilson" which you can see him perform in the videos below) as well as many I hadn't read before. As I was reading them, I kept getting up to read them aloud to my partner Mike, who is a junior high (middle school) teacher. He particularly liked the notion of "saving the world one eighth grader at a time" and making his classroom a "like-free zone" (as in, like, not, like, letting students say, like, like all the time).

Hit the jump to see videos of Taylor Mali performing some of his poetry. He's truly outstanding.

Digital Wildlife Photography, by John and Barbara Gerlach

Digital Wildlife Photography

Authors: John and Barbara Gerlach

Publisher: Focal Press

Publication Date: November 14, 2012

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Boy, if there was ever a book that needed a subtitle, it's this one! I thought it was a book OF wildlife photography, not a book ABOUT wildlife photography! It's my fault for not reading the description better. I was really looking forward to some beautiful, high-res photos of wildlife, like what's on the cover. Instead it's a book about how to get the most out of your digital camera when trying to take pictures like that on your own. So disappointed!

That's not to say that YOU'LL be disappointed because now that you know what the book is about, it might be exactly the book you're looking for. Unless you're looking for a coffee table style book of glossy animal pictures, in which case you will be disappointed (but don't say I didn't warn you). Here are some of the topics covered in the book:

Chapter 1 - Cameras and Accessories: The Best Wildlife Camera SystemsChapter 2 - Choosing and Using Lenses: Selecting Quality LensesChapter 3 - Exposure StrategiesChapter 4 - Precise Focusing TechniquesChapter 5 - Shooting Quality ImagesChapter 6 - The Crucial Role of LightChapter 7 - CompositionChapter 8 - Electronic FlashChapter 9 - Getting Close to Wildlife

Not covered: Adorable little lambs jumping over their mothers. For those photos, you should really check out the Flickr stream of photographer Roeselien Raimond. She has nothing to do with this book, but she took this photo. Look! It's a leaping lamb!

Photo by: Roeselien Raimond
It's not in the book. It has nothing to do with the book. It's just an awesome photo.

Odd Couples: Extraordinary Differences Between the Sexes in the Animal Kingdom, by Daphne J. Fairbairn

Odd Couples

Extraordinary Differences Between the Sexes in the Animal Kingdom

Author: Daphne J. Fairbairn

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Publication Date: April 28, 2013

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I think the problem with this book is that it is a scientific paper trying to be a commercial book with wide mainstream appeal. As a result, it's neither. The author acknowledges that she tried to reach a broader audience by limiting the scientific jargon--which resulted in over a hundred pages of notes, appendices, glossaries and charts in the back of the book--but she doesn't seem to understand what she could have added to the book to give it more lay appeal. There are almost no photos or illustrations in the book see update below (but lots of charts! charts everywhere!), and the ones that are included are mostly line drawings of sea creatures (I think I saw an octopus penis but, honestly, I'm not even sure). Where are the photos?* As a lay person, I was disappointed.

It's not that I couldn't follow along with the science of the book. My first year as an undergraduate was spent as a biology major. So I have some background. Some, but not a lot (as you may have guessed, I switched majors pretty early on). But the thing is, am I the target audience? I felt like anyone with less knowledge of biology would be lost (I was straining at times) and anyone with more (like a biologist) would find the book too "dumbed down." As for me, I was a little bored. I really wanted the glossy pictures of the male and female elephant seals or some high-res shots of those "female tubeworms with harems of minuscule males" I was so excited about.

Just know what you're getting into. I'm not saying the book is terrible. But it is NOT a coffee table book, if that's what you're hoping for. 


*UPDATE: I was contacted by the author who assured me that the finished book does, in fact, contain full colour photos. She even sent me a few to look at. It really does make a big difference. It's always hard to know which things will be different in the final copy of a book, compared to the advanced digital galley, but I really wish the galley had better indicated what the photo spread would be like. I do, however, stand by my initial assessment of the tone of the book. But photos help a lot.

**UPDATE UPDATE: The author had her publisher send me a finished print copy of the book. While that was very nice of her, it didn't make that big a difference. There are fewer pictures than I thought there'd be (STILL!) and they're mostly of the walruses. Meh. I'm thinking it'll be a future giveaway or else I'll donate it to my library.

In the Tree House, by Andrew Larsen (illustrated by Dušan Petričić)

In the Tree House

Author: Andrew Larsen

Illustrator: Dušan Petričić

Publisher: Kids Can Press

Publication Date: April 1, 2013

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In the Tree House was not what I expected. I had previously been rather hard on artist Dušan Petričić after he illustrated a new edition of Robert Munsch's Mud Puddle. (It wasn't that it was bad, I was just partial to the original drawings by Sami Suomalainen.) But this book could not have been more different. The illustrations reminded me of a cross between Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree and Pat Shewchuk's In Lucia's Neighborhood (illustrated by Marek Colek). They are lush and textured and rich and simple, all at once. My partner and I enjoyed reading this to our three-year-old as much as she enjoyed hearing it.
The story is very sweet, and also struck a chord with me as an adult, as much as it did with my child. It's about a boy who lives in a city (or well-lit town or suburb) and dreams of building a tree house and gazing up at the stars in the night sky. The latter dream may not be possible, since the street lights in his neighbourhood make it difficult to see any stars, but he does get to build the tree house, with the help of his dad and his brother. The story is about their relationship with each other, the neighbourhood and the night sky, as much as it is about the tree house.

In the Tree House made me nostalgic for my own childhood, which included stars, tree houses and older siblings who grew up so much faster than I did. My daughter liked this book, but I loved it.

Which is Round? Which is Bigger? by Mineko Mamada

Which is Round? Which is Bigger? 

Author: Mineko Mamada 

Publisher: Kids Can Press

Publication Date: March 1, 2013

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This is a simple picture books for toddlers and preschool books that will delight young children with shape "tricks." It'll show a picture of an apple and an anteater, for instance (I think it's an anteater...hedgehog maybe?), and ask "Which is round?" Obviously the apple. But then on the next page, the apple will be bitten into and the armadillo will be curled into a ball. NOW which is round?

It's cute and I like the way it not only teaches shapes and proportions, but it also challenges perception based on movement and changing positions. Very young children tend to create broad categories for the things around them (a ball is round, therefore all round things are balls; an apple is a fruit, therefore all fruits are apples...or balls) so this kind of "trick" will bring giggles to younger toddlers. It was a little young for my three-year-old, but she still enjoyed the pictures.

Congratulations to the winners of the JOE THE MONKEY GIVEAWAY!

Congratulations to the winners of the JOE THE MONKEY GIVEAWAY!

CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR TWO WINNERS: LISA L. AND MORGAN D.!!

THANK-YOU TO EVERYONE WHO ENTERED THIS MONTH'S GIVEAWAY. KEEP CHECKING BACK FOR NEXT MONTH'S GIVEAWAY, WOMEN, SEX, POWER AND PLEASURE, BY EVELYN RESH.