Book reviews on THIS blog? Seriously?

I almost never read non-fiction, for the probably-dumb reason that it's really hard to maintain interest in the same subject for 300+ pages. (Hell, I don't even read that many long novels anymore; I'm a short story person.) However, right now I'm in the middle of two very interesting non-fiction books, which I might as well talk about!

The first is At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson, in which his curiosity about some of the features of his English country house led him to questions like "why do we use salt and pepper?" and "what does the board refer to in 'room and board'?" This is the kind of stuff that basically preoccupies me all the time. I love history, but I couldn't care less about battles or presidents or dates. I care about the history of common people (like you!). What keeps my interest throughout this book is the sheer amount of subjects covered: paleo-biology, materials science, economics, agriculture, medicine, and my favorite misunderstood discipline, evolutionary psychology. It's like a linear version of my Wikipedia jaunts, and in fact it's taking me a long time to read this book because I keep having to look things up on Wikipedia, which leads to even MORE interesting facts. At Home is currently my "at night" book, which is probably a bad idea since I either feel compelled to jump on the Internet at 11:30 (and stay on until one), or pepper my husband with factoids.

"Did you know that a third of English people in the 1800s were servants?"
"I don't care, go to bed."
*continues reading* "This is so weird! Did you know that in medieval times, tables were just long pieces of wood that diners kept balanced on their knees? And that they carried furniture from room to room?"
"SLEEPING."
"Well, fine. I won't tell you about the surprisingly astonishing feat of the human domestication of corn, then. You'll just have to endure the rest of your tiny, incurious life not knowing about it. I hope you can live with that."

So basically, if you're looking for a book to irritate your SO with, you should probably pick this up.

Book #2 is Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things by Randy Frost and Gail Steketee. Hoarding shows are a guilty pleasure of mine; yeah, I know it's basically misery porn, but as I'm not out ridiculing hoarders in the wild I think I'm okay with watching from the safety of my own cluttered home. Exploring the various reasons why people become hoarders, Frost/Steketee devote each chapter to one hoarder in particular, with various side stories thrown in for added clarification of points/misery pornlets. Before I started watching Hoarders, I thought that I might be a hoarder, but I'm not. I'm just really disorganized. And there is a difference: True hoarders agonize over whether to throw away a piece of junk mail or expired food, disorganized people just tend to not notice the crap is there, because there's always something more interesting than cleaning. Always. Sure, sometimes the mounting piles on my flat surfaces tend to overflow, but throw away everything on the table and I won't cry. (Actually, I've lost important things this way, because I got overwhelmed and said "okay, everything out!" and it turned out there was something I needed in that paper pile. Whoops.) The tone is more Slate than "dense psychological case study." The only objection so far is that all of the hoarders featured are women, even though hoarding is largely evenly split along gender lines. It couldn't be because men's hoards (tools, computers, car parts) are considered useful and women's (clothes, shoes, magazines) are considered frivolous, could it? But I'm only a little less than halfway through, so, maybe there are more men later on. And the featured patients are the responders to a survey, and of course men would be a lot less likely than women to admit they have a mental problem. Recommended for everyone who enjoys prurient peeks into someone else's messed up life to distract them from how messed up their own is.

(Incidentally, there's at least one person who's been featured on Hoarders who probably belonged more under the category of "tragically disorganized." It was some woman in her twenties whose house was buried in paperwork. She's notable because whenever the cleanup crew asked her if she cared if they threw something away, she said she didn't care. Usually, hoarders care a lot. She didn't show any anxiety or even interest throughout the cleaning process. I remember this mostly because it reminded me of myself if I were even a hair more disorganized, glimpses of my possible future and all. It was kinda funny to see the therapist ask her about her anxiety level, all concerned, and her being all "yeah, whatever, it's just junk mail." Although maybe that means she's actually more screwed up. Hrm.)

Time Travel for Poor People

Today marks the first day of Daylight Savings Time, the happiest half of the year. As I didn't know very much about Daylight Savings Time other than that I think it's awesome, I took it upon myself to fall into the Wikipedia trap and learn a little something.

First of all, the real name of it is Daylight Saving Time. Because the inventors were not hicks who add a superfluous "s" to everything. Anyways, moving on.

George Vernon Hudson

DST's original proponent was an amateur entomologist named George Vernon Hudson, who hailed from New Zealand, one of the upside-down lands. Hudson realized that shifting the clock one hour forward would give him more time to collect bugs, and also to maintain the complex series of straps and pulleys that all denizens of the upside-down lands must use in order to keep them tied to the Earth's surface. The idea was then stolen by Englishman William Willett, who allowed it to take over his entire life. Like an old man incensed by a proposed skate park, he wrote letters to the paper promoting "British Summer-Tyme," published proto-zines on the topic, and wore a large clock around his neck set an hour early, always proclaiming "yeaaaahhh, chaaap!" He did not live to see his dream become reality, dying of influenza because he pawned his coat to buy a thousand "Spring Forward!" promotional 1" pins for members of Parliament.

Many people think that DST is an energy saver, which is one of the reasons it's practiced so widely. But in fact, there is almost no real energy savings, and some energy losses, since people tend to drive more when the sun is out. Seasonal depression is lessened, but skin cancer rates rise. Retailers like DST because people spend more, but it is hated by bars and farmers, the former because people don't like sitting in dank bars spending money when the sun is out, the latter because corn knows that it's really an hour later and stubbornly slows its growth in protest. DST has been shown to reduce crime. Even murderers would rather enjoy the sun's rays than sit in some dark basement going all Dexter on someone. Basically, the statistics are mixed and can be skewed either way depending on your objective, like all statistics.

As a fan of daylight who can't easily get up before nine a.m. without assistance, I love DST. Yeah, I'm pretty jet-lagged for a week after it goes into effect (though it's worse in the fall), but it's a small price to pay for being able to romp outside for an extra hour longer for the next six (and now eight, thanks, Obama!) months. If it were up to me, we would have year-round DST, at least until the funding comes through to build a giant replica of the sun to shine 24/7/365, angering farmers everywhere.