Elevate Difference

Reviews by Katy Pine

Poser: My Life in Twenty-Three Yoga Poses

I’ve always wondered what prompts people to write memoirs. It’s one thing to be a celebrity riding the wave of success, but quite another to be a regular Jane baring it all for the judgment of strangers. As a critic for publications as prestigious as The New York Times, Claire Dederer is no stranger to criticism; nor does she seem to fear it.

Self-Defense for Radicals: A to Z Guide for Subversive Struggle

While it’s true that most conflict can and should be resolved with nonviolence, even peace-loving radicals like Mickey Z., the author of this alphabetical guide to self-defense, acknowledge that an absolute aversion to violence is nearly impossible in our war-loving (yet God-fearing) society that seems to tolerate blood-n-guts for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. In a country where a woman is raped every forty-six seconds, peaceful resolution can quickly become a warm fuzzy afterthought. The reality is that standing up for something usually requires standing up against something.

Bluebird: Women and the New Psychology of Happiness

This short but meaningful book is a smart combination of self-help, memoir, and academic study. Gore does not surmise a remedy for the blues, she does not use her life as an anecdote to overcome defeat or as a guiding light toward beatitude, nor does she use statistics and theory to expose her education.

Working Virtue: Virtue Ethics and Contemporary Moral Problems

Working Virtue: Virtue Ethics and Contemporary Moral Problems is a book outlining how virtues can be included in modern ethical analysis. There are multiple ways to apply virtue ethics, or, as the authors like to say, to put virtue ethics "to work." Illustrating the variations are thirteen different authors giving detailed accounts of virtue ethics at work inside schools, hospitals, courtrooms and boardrooms.

It Was Great, But I Was Ready To Come Home

The mythical tropical vacation: surfing, tequila, half-naked beauties, sunsets, dancing, delicious food, and life-changing vistas. It Was Great, But I Was Ready To Come Home strips the glorified ideal of self-discovery down to its reality: bugs, dodgy tacos, heat, dodgy people, heat, dodgy beds, and heat. I watched this film with a half dozen expatriate women living in Mexico City. All of us are travelers; we've backpacked and we have our own stories that could fill up the big screen. So why would this movie be worth watching?

Road Trip USA: Cross-Country Adventures on America's Two-Lane Highways

The fifth edition of Road Trip USA comes at an opportune time. Gas per gallon is down more than a dollar from last year, and in looking at a line graph projecting the U.S. unemployment rate, if it doesn’t trigger a desire to go on an uphill hike in the Colorado mountains, it exposes that there are plenty of people out there with newly found time on their hands.

Tapologo

Tapologo is a full-length documentary shot in Northwest Province, South Africa. Directors Gabriella and Sally Gutierrez Dewar chronicle a handful of the 20,000 displaced African refugees in a squatter camp called Freedom Park. Here we are exposed to life and death in a place where fifty percent of the women are infected with HIV. The film is divided into two parts. Part one opens inside the shack of an emaciated woman receiving care from two local nurses.

Fidel's Last Days

Fidel’s Last Days is a novel about a fictional conspiracy to kill Fidel Castro by applying a poisonous topical cream to his hairline. Supposedly the CIA has attempted to assassinate Castro 638 times, but Roland Merullo leads you to believe that maybe this time, with the cream, the secret society, and the beautiful woman, it will work. It has to. The story moves effortlessly between Carolina Anzar Perez in Miami and Carlos Arroyo Gutierrez in Havana.
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