Here is a strange and, when you think about it, disturbing fact about our culture: Girls are more often, and more openly, encouraged to do “boy things” than boys are to do “girl things.”

Can it be a good thing—for our personal relationships and for society—for females to grow up with an awareness of and appreciation for males, without the reverse occurring?

A few weeks ago, I was gift shopping for a boy in kindergarten and his younger sister. I bought three books with male protagonists, thinking that both of them could read and enjoy the books. I shied away from the books with female protagonists, thinking that only one of them would appreciate those.

And then I read the Washington Post article What are we teaching boys when we discourage them from reading books about girls? This article says it perfectly. It is one of the most profoundly important articles I have read this year. It’s not a long article, but every sentence is a gem. I urge you to read it.

How wrong I was in that bookstore! And I consider myself an open-minded person! Ach! I am upset with myself, but the situation is easy to rectify: I’m going to go back and buy the kids three more books—with girl protagonists.

I just finished a book that shall not be named.*

It’s a work of nonfiction, published relatively recently, and enjoying a certain amount of popularity. In it, the author expresses opinions on various subjects. While I agreed with many of these opinions, I disagreed with others.

Despite my disgruntlement with some of its content, I read the book cover to cover. It was a page-turner, so that helped. But even if it wasn’t, I may have finished it anyway. I believe it’s important to read and consider alternate viewpoints. Otherwise, how can we know where we stand? It is only in relation to others that we can establish an identity of our own. It can be refreshing to read skeptically—to forge out a path, through ideas, to who you are and what you believe.

And there are further reasons to get intimate with alternate viewpoints. Sometimes, you disagree because you don’t understand a perspective fully enough; reading about it can clear things up. Other times, the more you read, the more you disagree—and the more you arm yourself with arguments against the viewpoint, should you need them. It’s empowering to be able to talk about a subject lucidly and armed with facts. It’s also empowering to know, in your own mind, why you are living your life a certain way—which may differ from that of many, or even most, of your family, friends, and neighbors.

Do you read skeptically?

*When I feature a book on this blog—that is, when I write one or more book previews on it—this means that I believe the book is, while not necessarily perfect (what book is?), certainly excellent, interesting, and worthy of being added to one's nightstand stack. Sometimes I read books that do not meet this (admittedly biased) standard. To stay within the scope of this blog—which is to highlight nuggets of wisdom in great books and elsewhere, and to carve out a heartfelt and hospitable nook amidst the wilderness of the Internet, rather than to offer comprehensive critiques, first-rate examples of which are easy to find elsewhere—I will refrain from identifying these books by name, author, or other means.

So I did it—just couldn’t help it!—I judged a book by its cover and title and nothing else.

An ad in a magazine caught my eye. The cover was a bold splash of color, which on closer inspection turned out to be face paint on a face. The title was Perfect Me: Beauty as an Ethical Ideal. I was intrigued.

My local bookstore didn’t have it in stock, but I found it at the bookstore across town. After the briefest of flips through the pages, I bought it.

As it turns out, Perfect Me is a scholarly work by British philosopher Heather Widdows. The style is so scholarly, in fact, that I remain pleasantly astonished that it was in stock at a bookstore not attached to a university. The work is about the judging of people, including others and oneself, by how well they conform to modern—and, Widdows argues, increasingly global—beauty ideals. She argues that we should not judge people for either conforming to norms or not conforming to norms:

“Women recognize the extreme costs of rejecting all beauty norms,” she writes, pointing out that adhering to beauty standards can offer real benefits, from career and social successes to the joys of self-improvement and communal bonding. On the other hand, not adhering to beauty standards can save significant time, money, and effort; be better for one’s health; and promote more positive societal values.

Do you sometimes find yourself, despite yourself, judging others or yourself (or books!) superficially?

Welcome to the first contest of my blog! Win a free book! The contest ends Wednesday, August 29, so act soon!

One of the best books I’ve read this year is The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante. To enter a drawing to win a copy of it, do any of the following things. If you do more than one, you will be entered multiple times. However, you may enter only once in each category, for a maximum of three entries per person.

1. If you haven’t already subscribed, subscribe to the newsletter. (If you have already subscribed, unsubscribing and resubscribing does not count—sorry!)
2. Leave a comment on one of my three posts about The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante. You can comment on anything relevant to the post, or on why you want to read The Days of Abandonment. The three posts include Blocked, Who Am I?, and Imprisonment.
3. Leave a comment on this post about a good book you’ve read recently. I’m always on the lookout for good books to read, and I’m sure many others are, too. (Advertising a book you wrote yourself does not count—sorry!)

You may, if you wish, use an alias instead of your real name. However, you must use your real email address, and I will notify the winner by email. The winner must send me a physical address so I can snail mail the book. (I will even pay for shipping—lucky you!!)

By entering the contest (i.e., doing 1, 2, or 3 above), you are giving me permission to, if you win, use your name (or alias) when announcing the winner in a future post.

The contest starts now—Monday, August 20, 2018, at 8:00am EDT (UTC−04:00)—and ends on Wednesday, August 29, 2018, at 11:59pm EDT (UTC−04:00). To be entered into the drawing, you must complete your entry (i.e., do 1, 2, or 3 above) within that time frame. The exact time for purposes of this contest is determined by the timestamp on my website.

I, Liza Achilles, will be the sole judge as to who is entered in the drawing (and how many times). Failure to comply with the rules, as judged by me, will result in disqualification.

You can win only one contest on my blog per calendar year.

Questions? Ask them in the comments. Good luck!!

I seem to remember reading, years ago, a book in the “for Dummies” series (or was it the “Idiot’s Guide to” series?) that began by informing the reader—me—that I was no dummy.

What a relief it was to learn that!

I had plucked the book off the shelf because of its witty title. Hey—it was witty the first time I saw it, though the books have been around long enough that the wittiness has rubbed off. Anyway, the witty title got the book in my hand, but if the author had written the thing with the assumption that I actually was a dummy, well, of course I would have felt insulted and slid it back on the shelf.

I had a similar experience recently, upon noticing the book Why Buddhism Is True by Robert Wright. That’s a bold claim! Curious but skeptical, I flipped through the first pages. And what I found there caused me to buy the book.

Why Buddhism Is True begins with a highly nuanced, five-part disclaimer on its title. This made me laugh. I also appreciated the thoughtfulness that went into the disclaimer; it reveals that Wright is a critical thinker who knows that most subjects are more complex than can be conveyed in a simple statement like “This is the truth!” However, he (or his publisher) recognizes that “This is the truth!” is better at grabbing attention.

The point is, marketing works; and reflective writing matters, too. Why construct an intricate argument, or create a work of art in language, if no one finds the book’s exterior funny or interesting or lovely enough to pick up in the first place?

*The title of this blog post should be read with the utmost nuance. The word awesomest is slang and not acceptable in formal writing; my use of it is ironic or jocular, and the reader should not take it seriously. Also, by the awesomest I mean "one among many" and by truth I mean "possible interpretations."