75 Reads Jo Bozarth and April Bowlby

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark is our latest read, and our last read before we take a few weeks off for spring break. One of us loved this book, and one of us really and truly did not, and that’s what makes for a fun book club chat!
Miss Brody is a progressive teacher at a rather formal and traditional girls’ school, who’s girls (the Brodie set) are being groomed to be the “crème de la crème. “ She’s in her prime, she’s got two lovers on the faculty, she’s influencing young minds. It’s a story of love, hate, manipulation, and betrayal on several levels. It’s dark, witty, funny…or just plain awful. Depending on who you ask.
If you read this book, we’d love to know which side you come down on! Find us on IG and let us know! We’re @75reads .

One day in the early 1940s Douglas Harding, an English architect, was hiking in the Himalayas when he had a shocking realization…he had no head. He realized that we can’t see what he called the eight inch ball on the top of our body, except by looking at a photo or a reflection in a mirror. If we cannot see ourselves the way other people see us, how do we know who we are?
At the moment he realized this, all sense of time past and future fell away. He forgot his name, gender, even what type of animal he was. All the traditional markers of identity ceased to exist. In Buddhist terms, Harding is describing nondualism, a mature state of consciousness in which the self is transcended.
 Harding says the eight inch “ball” on the top of his body doesn’t contain, but is all that is on offer. Chew on that, if you will. With us. As you listen to episode 28.
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Silence by John Cage is a collection of lectures and stories. Some are written in vertical columns. Some have, let’s call it interesting, spacing. And some, as Cage will tell you, have piano accompaniments, street noises, and the like. There was a lecture where he gave himself one minute to tell each story. So if the story had three lines, he had to stretch it. If a story was long, he’d have to talk fast to fit it into a minute. There’s a lecture called What Are We Doing? It’s actually three lectures sharing the same space on the page, written in vertical columns, one part in regular print, one part in bold print, and one part in italics. Mind blowing.
Even more mind blowing, thinking about what silence actually is. And does it even exist? Is sound a constant? Is it different for each individual based on surroundings, personal history, location of the individual to the sound, etc?
And mushrooms. John Cage had a thing for mushrooms.
There were short stories and anecdotes peppered throughout the book, and they were all delightful.
This is a book that any type of artist can appreciate. Also, do yourself a favor and go online and find a video of John Cage’s 4’33. Trust us.

A “monkey girl”, sleepless people (one named David Jones - not our David Jones), water diviners, an author who was a channeled spirit, psychic detectives, and so many more “Strange People”. This collection of stories relayed by Frank Edwards will entertain, will make you wonder, and will sometimes tug at your heart. 
Perhaps the most heart wrenching story, and the story with the biggest Bowie connection, is that of Joseph Merrick, the so-called Elephant Boy. Bowie played this character beautifully on Broadway in 1980.
In subsequent books, Frank Edwards tackled the subject of UFOs. In the 1960s, Bowie went UFO-spotting quite often. With a fondness for “freaks” and the paranormal, Frank Edwards seems a logical author to have made Bowie’s list.
On the pod, we're sharing some of the stand out stories from this fun, and strange, read. 

To start with, Laing states that the basic purpose of this book is to make madness, and the process of going mad, comprehensible.
The full title is The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness. Okay, what’s the definition of existentialism? It’s a philosophical movement that stresses the individual’s unique position as a self-determining agent responsible for making meaningful, authentic choices in a universe seen as purposeless or irrational.
What did this all mean to Bowie? We do know that his brother was schizophrenic. And, we go into that in more detail in this episode.
Laing’s approach to understanding the schizophrenic is one of understanding a human being, who’s world is his reality, a reality just as valid as yours or ours. We agreed that if we were trying to understand a friend or family member who was schizophrenic, this would be the book to read.
That said, it is a lot to take in. So, if you’re reading along with the book club but haven’t completed the book yet, dive into the podcast anyway. It won’t spoil the book, and it just might give you another angle from which to view it. Maybe even one close to Bowie’s.

If you follow us on Twitter you know that we’re reviewing All The Emperor’s Horses in one episode. And you know that this read is also found under the title Peking Story, which is the newer version with a chapter added at the end, which was written years after the original story was told. Intrigued? You should be!
The Emperor’s Horses is the story of a young American teaching and studying in China. He marries into the aristocratic Yu family, and into the family mansion and gardens, which are characters in this book just as much as any of the people written about here. The year is 1949, and Peking has just surrendered to the Communist army. Our author, David Kidd, marries Aimee Yu in a rushed ceremony, which is charmingly and humorously written, and we follow along as the Yu family fortune, and ancient China’s culture and civilization are dismantled. This book is funny and heartbreaking, and will give you an understanding of how devastating it was to watch a 4,000 year old empire and all its tradition and beauty crumble.
David Kidd had a certain Bowie-like flair for style, both in his appearance and in his art. His observations and descriptions of people (and what they wore) and places are wonderful! This was, on multiple levels, a beautiful read.