You Make It Feel Like Christmas, by Louise Marley

Louise Marley, October 2020

Elizabeth Holly is a book editor, and the younger daughter of the Holly family. That's the Holly family of "Holly Jolly Christmas," Britain's longest-running Christmas program. 

Agatha Holly has been determined for the last two decades or so to teach everyone how to have the perfect Christmas--even if drives her family to insanity.

Lucy Holly, the older daughter, has grown up to found her own production company and produce her mother's Christmas extravaganza. In pursuit of her mother's continued success, she hasn't hesitated to use Elizabeth's, or rather "Beth's, as she's known on air, clumsy moments and awkward missteps and unsuccessful attempts at rebellion as hilarious laugh moments--making her the star of thousands of hilarious, but humiliating, gifs and memes.

That's why Elizabeth has refused to participate for the last several years, and this year, after a disastrous date resulting in a quite public unwanted marriage proposal, is heading for a not-yet-opened hotel to be a test-run guest for a traditional Christmas. Or at least, that's what she thinks.

Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, by Caroline Criado Perez (author, narrator)

Blackstone Publishing, ISBN 9781982699383, June 2019

We live in a world driven by data, an ocean of data that in theory should enable us to make much better decisions. Yet, to a truly frightening degree, that data leaves out half the human race--the female half.

One way is, of course, in medical studies. For a long time, women weren't included at all. Only men were included in medical studies, and it was just assumed that of course the same data, at least when adjusted for weight and height, will apply to women. Yet the reason women aren't included in studies is because women's bodies are different, and in some ways more complicated. It's bizarre that no consideration is normally given to whether this might mean that drugs and treatments might affect women differently.