by Marsha M. Linehan

This is not a self-help book but a memoir. Marsha Linehan was the developer of a therapy for suicidal patients called Dialectical Behavior Therapy, or DBT, and was herself a mental patient, institutionalized from ages 18-20 after a sudden breakdown.

She is not a writer. Episodes repeat themselves or hit sudden dead ends. Sadly, electroshock treatment while in the institution wiped out all or nearly all of her memory of her life up to that point, and she relies on others for insights into her childhood. It is hard to make a coherent picture of her in her youth… a popular vivacious “motor-mouthed” girl, but worn down at home by a berating, fault-finding mother.

Through it all she has maintained a strong faith; a devout Catholic through most of her life, now a Zen Master. She has had mystical experiences and seems a very neurologically interesting person.

The snapshots of her life as a pious young girl resonated particularly with me “At one point I decided to sleep without a pillow, as a sacrifice to God.” This was so something I would have done. My own sacrifices veered more towards the giving up of foods. It was always Lent for me. I was skipping desserts every other day, then two out of three days… next thing you know I’m a teenager with an eating disorder. But I digress. She also quits a sorority as a sacrifice, and she feels strangely like she should not write about this particular episode, because at the time she promised God she would never tell anyone this real reason why she quit the sorority. She takes her vows seriously. Indeed, while she recognizes that life in a convent was not her calling, she takes vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience as a kind of “lay nun.”

DBT, the behavioral therapy she developed, is described in detail. But this is not a self-help book. This is a therapy for the most difficult of cases, people who have engaged in self-harm and are a real threat to themselves.

Her life trajectory – personal, professional, and spiritual – was interesting to follow; I like reading almost any life story, and the writing doesn’t have to be great. Here is someone who went through the “hell” of mental illness, and in her words, got herself out determined to help others get out of hell too. She seems to have achieved success and I was happy to see her end in a good place.

This was extremely humanizing. The stories are so varied. We need to find some kind of solution to this whole situation.

by Sofi Thanhauser

I want to give 5 stars to the chapter on wool and 3.5 to everything else. The chapter on linen I liked, because I just like hanging out with textiles and talk about old clothes; but as the first chapter, it falsely led me to believe this was going to be one of those non-fiction books that is just one well-researched fact after another. Instead, the next chapter, on cotton, was all about how terrible cotton is and has always been. That’s not my type of book either, but for a different reason. I don’t like just reading about how everything is awful, over and over. The chapter on silk was OK; but then, for synthetics, we get intensive details of various worker strikes earlier last century. I wanted to read a book about textiles, not the history of labor unions.

But then finally, WOOL! It’s interesting Thanhauser ordered her chapters the way she did; one would have expected the ‘primitive’ materials to come first and synthetics last; but I think she put wool last because it was the most positive chapter, where small mills and handcrafters save the day after all that nasty environmental damage and class warfare.

Thanhauser by the Wool chapter has proven herself a super-intelligent, serious researcher; so it was fun to see her discover my tribe of fiber-festival-goers and handspinners. She visits Fingerlakes Woolen Mill in New York, which could stand in for my own friends at Green Mountain Spinnery in Vermont or any of hundreds of small-scale mills we all know and love. She visits with people rescuing equipment from the now-defunct American Textile History Museum of Lowell, Mass. And she goes to “Woolfest” in Cockermouth, England. I was seriously planning to go to Woolfest in 2012, before familial hard times hit. It does indeed sound akin to the High Holydays experienced on this side of the pond at the New York Sheep & Wool Festival in Rhinebeck or (shout-out) the Vermont counterpart at Tunbridge. Alas, “I had to admit it [as do I]: Woolfest was a gathering of old women.” So many gray heads I counted while vending at Tunbridge. Not that there’s anything wrong with that!

Fun fact: the University of Wyoming created a Wool Department in 1907 and for a time was the only university to offer a PhD in wool. Imagine being a Doctor of Wool – I love it!