Booknotes 5.17

The Once and Future Sex: Going Medieval on Women’s Roles in Society, by Eleanor Janega, published 2023, history, 286 pages. An interesting book. Among other things, it makes a point which hadn’t occurred to me before, that what a society considers attractive typically correlates to what wealth gets you — light skin back in medieval times because you didn’t have to to work outside, nowadays a tan instead because you have leisure time for sunbathing or vacationing, etc. (I don’t think the correlation is 100%, to be clear, but there does seem to be some connection.) Havana: A Subtropical Delirium, by Mark Kurlansky, published 2017, nonfiction, 202 pages. I went into this having liked Kurlansky’s Cod, but alas, this one didn’t work as well for me. (I stuck with it because one of my family lines is from Cuba and I want to know more about the history and culture there.) I did enjoy reading about Cuban post-embargo constraint-driven creativity and ingenuity, and I didn’t know the sloppy joe…