The Leavers, Lisa Ko

 

The Leavers by Lisa Ko was a finalist for the National Book Award and that is where I saw it.

Started: 12/27/2020
Completed: 12/31/2020
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: National Book Award

Review:

The story, largely, of a boy with synesthesia who is abandoned by his birth-mother.  His subsequent adoption was unsettling and his eventual search for his birth-mother dominates most of the book.  His unsettled nature mimics his birth-mother's unsettled nature.  The book does change perspective to that of his birth-mother at times and provides insight into her experiences.

I feel like I have now heard of the sense of deportation/immigration from every angle despite this being a clear novel with no effort to necessarily reflect the truth, but with a clear effort to embody the process of deportation.  In that sense it was a hard read, but I have to say that the great similes and metaphors (I especially liked the sense of security being retracted like the cord into a vacuum cleaner) made the book enjoyable without regard for content.  I think this kind of thing is what elevates a good book into a finalist for the National Book Award.

The Audacity of Hope, Barack Obama

 

The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on reclaiming the American dream by Barack Obama is a book I have had sitting around for a bit and it just seemed like the right time to pick it up with the election in the offing.

Started: 10/20/2020
Completed: 12/30/2020
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: Lots of people

Review:

It was good to hear Obama talking about the future he had yet to forge.  While I didn't agree with everything he said, it was nice to hear a calm, reasoned approach to governing.

A Peculiar Indifference, Elliott Currie

 

A Peculiar Indifference: The neglected toll of violence on black America by Elliott Currie is another book about the black experience I was inspired to read by the Black Lives Matter movement.

Started: 12/25/2020
Completed: 12/27/2020
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

The collection of statistics brought forward in this book makes it simply inconceivable that black America in particular and poverty stricken areas in general are suffering violence impacts that are inconceivable to the vast majority of white America.  The racial/ethnic disparities are nauseating.

The general approach of a guaranteed job makes a lot of sense to me and is consistent with the Green New Deal.  We shall see.

The Moon and the Other, John Kessel

 

The Moon and the Other by John Kessel is a book that I read about in the Washington Post.

Started: 12/21/2020

Completed: 12/25/2020

Recommendation: Recommended

Recommended By: The Washington Post

Review:

This book is an interesting look at how things might be different if society is structured differently.  It also is a bit of a character study so the individuals develop interestingly.  It is a brief study of growth as not that much time elapses, but using flash backs and memories, the author is able to show the changes in how the characters addressed similar situations.

Some of the plot twists are clearly manipulated.  The artificial hand stands out as a shockingly direct manipulation which could surely have been addressed in other ways.  Uplifted creatures get a casual explanation.  The lack of control exerted by Earth on the Moon seems odd.

I really like the way that all manner of drugs are administered via tea at the discretion and direction of the consumer and mixed by a barista of sorts.  That part was really clever and very Persian.

Freedom, Jonathan Franzen

 

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen is a book from an author who piqued my interest.

Started: 12/16/2020
Completed: 12/21/2020
Recommendation: Not recommended
Recommended By: An Obama list of books

Words for which I sought help:

cicatrix -- a scar left by the formation of new connective tissue over a healing sore or wound

Review:

This book was well written and the author had some excellent turns of phrase, "The kitchen was a nauseating never-cleaned sty that smelled like a mental illness."  Despite that, I found the subject matter ugly.  Who is cheating on whom with whom and wreaking havoc on one another's mental state is not something that I find interesting.  If this is intended as a cautionary tale, I already have that caution.  If this is not, then it feels more like a Peeping Tom kind of novel.  It largely made me uncomfortable for the privacy of fictional characters.

The rant on the Republican party was prescient.  It was reflective of Bush, but it was also projective of Trump.  I try hard to pay attention, but Franzen was completely on it.

Gods of Jade and Shadow, Silvia Moreno-Garcia

 

Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia is a book that I am pretty sure I saw in a list of books written by native Americans.

Started: 12/13/2020
Completed: 12/16/2020
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: Cannot remember

Review:

This book was very well written and the turns of phrase were sometimes wonderful.  I think that the story itself was new and interesting even if the basis was ancient.  The names were difficult and the distinction between the two gods who were brothers was difficult for me to hear--I could hear the difference, but I could not keep them straight.  I did enjoy how the female protagonist was a hero and brave in ways a traditional male hero is not.  It isn't just a traditional story with a female lead, it was truly a female story.

One Life, Megan Rapinoe

 

One Life by Megan Rapinoe is the autobiography of a bad ass soccer player.

Started: 12/11/2020
Completed: 12/13/2020
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

I knew that Rapinoe was gay well before I started this book.  I knew that she was controversial.  I knew that she was a wonderful player.  I have learned a lot from this book about her youth in a large family.  The support that her parents provided for Megan and her twin sister travelling the country to participant in competitive soccer games.

It was interesting to hear her talk about her brother, Brian, and his criminal behavior while also listening to The Thunderhead where an entire section of society is given the space to be criminal in a manner which does not hurt others.  It addresses the black/white differences between those on your side and those who you are against and gives form to the sense that Megan has of how the criminal is innately "evil" and the people outside of prison are primarily "good."  Megan is wide-eyed about the problems with the criminal justice system in part because she experienced part of it directly. 

The heart of this book is a call to action--LFG (Let's Fucking Go).  It is a call to halt oppression against minorities.  It is a call framed within the actions Rapinoe has taken within her own life, but it is a much broader call to action then it is an autobiography.

Exit West, Mohsin Hamid

 

Exit West by Mohsin Hamid was listed as one of the 10 best books of 2017 by the New York Times and that drew me to it.

Started: 12/11/2020
Completed: 12/11/2020
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: New York Times

Review:

This book is simply well written.  The turns of phrase merge cleanly with decent insights into people:

"[P]ersonalities are not a single immutable color...but rather illuminated screens and the shades we reflect depends much on what is around us."

In some ways, this is my favorite form of science fiction--what happens if a single scientific dream was realized?  It is interesting to consider this kind of thing.  This book is a good journey, but it is not a smooth journey (as one might expect).  It is a romance that stutters into a relationship and becomes a friendship of sorts.  It also speaks to the nature of both coming together and stepping apart.  In many ways it is a sad book, but it is also an interesting book.

A Promised Land, Barak Obama

 

A Promised Land by Barack Obama is the most recent book by Obama and deeply needed during Trump's reign.  This is the first volume of a planned two volume presidential memoir.

Started: 11/28/2020
Completed: 12/10/2020
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody...saw it, requested it from the library.  Of course, everyone knows about it.

Words for which I sought help:

abnegation -- the act of renouncing or rejecting something

manichean -- an adherent of the dualistic religious system of Manes, a combination of Gnostic Christianity, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and various other elements, with a basic doctrine of a conflict between light and dark, matter being regarded as dark and evil.

Review:

This is a long book.  It is also a lot of material.  This is the first book by Obama that looks back instead of looking forward.  It was a little odd to hear him read it--that created an odd sort of intimacy as he talked about his own life.  One of the things that he mentioned was that he "lost" his first name when he became president.  Most people addressed him as "Mr. President" or "sir."  As a result, while I listened to this book, I thought of him as Barack and would say to my wife that I was listening to Barack.  So, in my own way and surely inappropriately, I tried to give him his first name back.

It was interesting to hear him describe how the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) came to be (I have always seen it as a compromise bill that could not illicit the compromise it sought, so we ended up with a compromise bill when it would have been just as easy to pass a single payer plan).  The actual reasons for the compromises I saw were more complex then simply trying to get a few Republican votes and it was good to hear more about the details and reasoning behind some of the compromises.  I honestly had forgotten the many steps he had to take to shore up the economy in his first year in office and how doing so had taken up most of his time.

I was aware that the job of president was all-consuming and this is a small part of why I had not been interested in pursing it despite my mother's insistence that I would.  To hear the mechanics of how being president was so exhausting for Obama helped explain the gray hair that every president sports at the end of his first term (even Trump's wig got gray).

Obama's range of knowledge is amazing and his depth of understanding is truly impressive.  It feels like there is no topic where he would not be able to engage.  While there are several areas where I feel he did not really do what he campaigned on doing (he felt like a conservative in many ways to me while in office, not a progressive) he does a decent job of explaining some of the trade-offs he faced in his first term.  

This book ended with the killing of Osama Bin Laden which I felt was a high point when it happened.  Obama's solemn description of the process he went through (I've read of the details of the raid elsewhere), his anxiety for the men he put in harm's way, and what appears to be the relief (not joy or any thread of happiness) that he experienced when the job was done is palpable.

I respect Obama and his leadership.  I did not agree with him on everything, but I felt comfortable with the idea that he was likely taking into consideration things which I couldn't possibly know about and it was good to hear him describing just that.  

I also liked hearing more about his stand on principle with regard to Libya.  The manner in which Gaddafi died was so horrifying to me that it overshadowed the terror Gaddafi instilled in his lifetime until I read about Obama's steps to turn back his army at Benghazi.  I knew, in concept the terrible things Gaddafi had done, but I actually saw him being killed, so his death was more graphic and immediate to me then the many, many people he had killed.  Hearing about Obama's actions reminded me of the much broader picture then the few minutes that ended Gaddafi's life and reminded me of just how awful he was.  I had a similar, though shorter lived, experience with Saddam Hussein after seeing a video of his death.

The Upswing, Robert D. Putnam and Shaylyn Romney Garrett

 

The Upswing: How America came together a century ago and how we can do it again by Robert D. Putnam and Shaylyn Romney Garrett is a book about sociological change on a 125 year cycle.

Started: 11/23/2020
Completed: 11/28/2020
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

This book is the argument that there has been an I-We-I cycle across numerous variables in several categories.  Whether it is gender equity, racial equity, or economic equity (again, among others) there is a detectable cycle from a self-centered to a communal and back angle on social activity.  This ranges from policy to baby names.

The authors suggest that the key to the "We" portion of the cycle was diverse groups working together on a local level.  Examples of such groups would be the Rotary Club (maybe not so diverse itself as it was all male) and the NAACP (also not terribly diverse itself).  These groups sort of picked at the edges of issues until (in some cases such as suffrage and civil rights) they were in a position to tackle the whole issue.  This developed a sense of people working together which made society more of a group working together instead of everyone trying to "get what's owed."  The broad suggestion is that through cooperative grass-roots groups, it may be possible to turn the cycle around and get back to the "We" in 50 years or so.  Ugh.

Normal Sucks, Jonathan Mooney

 

Normal Sucks: How to live, learn, and thrive outside the lines by Jonathan Mooney seems appropriate given that I am weird.

Started: 11/22/2020
Completed: 11/22/2020
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: My cousin, Amee, via my wife

Review:

Different is not normal.  There are many ways to be different, but only one way to be normal.  Those of us who are different (in whatever way) feel less than or at least other than.  Mooney talks about learning disabilities, but also addresses how he extends his understanding of differences to include anything that isn't "normal."  Sexual, physical, or simply approach to life.  I really liked the distinction between dyslexia and dysteachia.  I have thought that it is critical to meet kids where they are in order for those kids to learn.  Differences acknowledges and values the need to see kids/adults as individuals, to teach and relate to those individuals as individuals.  My father, a psychologist, has said, "people are people wherever you go."  Of course he did.  If he didn't then psychology makes little sense.  I think that people are wonderfully different everywhere and that the difference is frequently the source of what makes them wonderful.  This book was freeing to read.

Mr. Orr, a pedophile who preyed on children in my school, made me feel like a person who was valued.  He did not prey on me and, for that, I am glad.  I was so hungry for acceptance, though, he must have seen me as a potential victim.  As it turns out, for whatever reason, I wasn't his type.  I remember him, though, as someone who  believed in me.  Maybe it was just because he did and it wasn't related to his sexual desire for young men.  I hope so.  Regardless of the reality, I am glad of his support and sad for the young men who were not simply supported, but were abused.  This book brought him to my mind because he accepted the outcast and celebrated the unusual.  I hope that was not just a ploy to abuse the outcast and the unusual.

The Searcher, Tana French

 

The Searcher by Tana French is the latest from French and I have read that she has a cultish following.

Started: 11/18/2020
Completed: 11/22/2020
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Words for which I sought help:

cop yourself on -- An Irish expression meaning to get some common sense

poitín -- A traditional Irish distilled beverage, basically Irish moonshine

Review:

Chicago cop goes to Ireland to get away from it all and doesn't.  This book is rich in character and story.  The main character does not change, but the term of the book is short.  He is also not a stereotype.  The secondary characters are a mix of stereotype and interesting dimension.  This is part mystery, part adventure.  It is clever in its own way and takes a look at how unlikely people might be close and likely people not be.  It is worth the time it takes to read.  It is not uplifting, but few Irish tales are.  I have no interest in revisiting the characters--this book does not bring you close to them.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, V.E. Schwab

 

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab was reviewed in several publications and caught my attention.

Started: 11/13/2020
Completed: 11/18/2020
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

An interesting take on the Faustian bargain, mixed with a little of the invisible man.  It is an odd love story.  The way that the story develops, the changes in perspective, and the lack of an ending is itself compelling.  It gives the book a sense of honesty that the book should not have.  "It makes the whole thing seem real."  "They fit together" was a shocking statement.  It is how my wife and I see each other, but, hopefully, the relationship is better!

The Wright Brothers, David McCullough

 

The Wright Brothers by David McCullough is a book recommended to me by my parents.  I have enjoyed McCullough's writing.

Started: 11/2/2020
Completed: 11/13/2020
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: My parents

Words for which I sought help:

lacuna -- an unfilled space or interval; a gap

Review:

Listening to this book in McCullough's raspy voice was comfortable and enjoyable.  It is a positive biography of sorts and it just felt fun and good.  I liked learning more about Katherine Wright and I thought that Orville's treatment of her at the end of her life was awful, but it is easy to judge from this remove.  I had no idea that my life and Orville's had overlapped.  That was shocking.

The Rule of Four, Caldwell and Thomason

 

The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason is a book that looked intriguing at the library bookstore before COVID interrupted everything.

Started: 8/24/2020

Completed: 11/10/2020

Recommendation: Not Recommended

Recommended By:  Nobody

Review:

The opening of this book--travels in steam tunnels--reminded me of Rona Jaffe's Mazes and Monsters.  It is easy, however, to tire of the pretentious, long-winded history of Princeton. 

If you must find a book which looks down on you from Princeton with flat characters, obscure art and literature references, and a breathtaking hunt down dark library hallways compounded by a youthful love affair, then this is your book.  Otherwise, just ugh.

The Road to Character, David Brooks

 

The Road to Character by David Brooks is a frequently recommended book.  It kind of fits in with my study on what it means to be a good person.

Started: 10/29/2020
Completed: 11/02/2020 -- did not finish
Recommendation: Not Recommended
Recommended By:  Numerous people

Words for which I sought help:

apotheosis -- the highest point in the development of something; culmination or climax

beau ideal -- a person or thing representing the highest possible standard of excellence in a particular respect

Review:

It seems that these portraits hinge on religion.  Certainly on the concept of sin which Brooks feels is essential to developing character.

In the section on George Elliott, Brooks fills in a lot of detail between Elliott and her eventual husband (Lewis) by reaching for quotations about the nature of love and marriage from a broad range of authors which may or may not have reflected their actual opinions.  It is odd to have this diversion despite the dearth of material describing their courtship and marriage.

The odd thing about this book is it reads a bit like a series of conversion stories.  In the vein of, "I was lonely, alone, debauched, and I came to know some form of God, thus becoming whole."  I am just kind of past this type of reasoning.  People do not have to make a "great change" for me to appreciate their character--this author seems to only see people in terms of making a "great change" and then focuses the lens to view everything in those terms.

I was discussing my frustrations with this book with my wife who immediately recognized Brooks as a columnist and then a quick review of his wiki page (linked above) made it clear that Brooks has a tendency to have a thought and then to carry that thought through facts whether the two meet well or not.  This might explain why I found the book so odd and difficult to understand.  It simply did not make a lot of sense.  OK.  Stopped reading.

The Poppy War, R. F. Kuang

 

The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang got a simply wonderful review by a blogger who said that it truly haunted him (in a good way?).  There have been other good reviews.  It was a finalist for both the Nebula and the Locus awards.  I think that I first saw it on the Nebula awards website.  This is the debut novel for Kuang and is the first in The Poppy War Series.

Started: 10/25/2020
Completed: 10/29/2020
Recommendation: Not Recommeneded
Recommended By: Generally good reviews

Words for which I sought help:

immure -- enclose or confine (someone) against their will

Review:

This book has a grand scale with decent character development.  It is well written.  I simply did not like it.  I did not enjoy the scenes of genocide and the relish to have it repeated.  I found the characters off-putting with the lead character particularly off-putting.  It is just not the kind of escape fantasy into which I was comfortable escaping.

At the Mountains of Madness, H.P. Lovecraft

 

At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft is a book I have broadly avoided as I associate Lovecraft with horror and am not much interested in horror.

Started: 10/21/2020

Completed: 10/21/2020

Recommendation: Mild Recommendation

Recommended By: Brian D'Amato

Words for Which I Sought Help:

arabesque -- an ornamental design consisting of intertwined flowing lines, originally found in Arabic and Moorish decoration

crinoid -- relating to or denoting echinoderms of the class Crinoidea, which comprises the sea lilies and feather stars

Review:

There is no question that the style of writing is dated.  The quality of writing is quite good, but this sort of sounded like a travel journal.  A first hand account of a new adventure told by someone aware that the telling was going to be read by others.  I'm not terribly fond of the style.

The nature of the horror was not what I was expecting, which was welcome.

Black Sun, Rebecca Roanhorse

 

Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse was recommended  in the New York Times.  This is the first book of the Between Earth and Sky trilogy.

Started: 10/22/2020
Completed: 10/25/2020
Recommendation: Mildly Recommended
Recommended By: New York Times

Review:

 At base, I guess, this is an adventure novel.  There is plenty of action.  There is duress.  There are both minor and major difficulties overcome.  This book might be sufficiently stand alone if the trilogy never comes to fruition.

I like that this book leverages the Mesoamerican mythos.   Despite, however, being in a wholly different environment, it does not feel that way.  The rooms are made of stone, but other than that descriptor, it is not clear how they are different.  One of the major characters has a terrace outside his room, but there is no discussion of the wind and rain whipping into the room or any kind of covering that keeps it out.  It is as though there is a glass door.

The time aboard ship in a large reed canoe does not feel different from being in a small steamboat.   The dimensions are all smaller, that is true, but there is no feeling of the oars pushing the boat forward (the captain listens to the lap of waves against the hull to determine direction--this seems mindbogglingly difficult in a reed canoe with so many people as the hull would be quite thick).  During a storm oars are used as outriggers without any explanation of how the oars are actually attached to the canoe.  It is unclear what the boat moves with without the oars or if it just drifts in response to the storm (equally unclear is why removing heavy trade goods that could serve as ballast would be a good idea).  There are references to a tiller, but that seems impossible on a reed boat...a steering oar seems more likely.  There is no talk of anything to keep the beat for rowers who row for days at a time (some singing might work).  It just feels unlikely.  There is no talk of maintenance of a reed canoe (which is likely required constantly) other than to put resin in places (again, an unlikely way to seal a reed canoe which generally seals because the reeds expand).

The book also features lots of bright mono-colored clothes, but aside from white this is not supported in the Americas.  I imagine it would be hard to keep such multi-colored clothing clean.  Black clothing seemed to be reserved for warriors, so it is odd that one of the characters who wore black was not viewed as a warrior.  Clothing was used to distinguish clans (but, like Scotland, this was based on the combination of colors and the weave).

It is easy to find fault and there are plenty of fantasy novels that are not period accurate and who also feature windows that never let in wind and rain.  Being locked in a room and forgotten for days doesn't seem to involve a privy in those books as well.  I guess a fantasy is about being immersed in something alien and different, which is fine if it is truly alien and different and not an effort to be something that used to be real.

Running Out of Time, Margaret Peterson Haddix

 

Running Out of Time by Margaret Peterson Haddix is a young adult novel that I decided to pick up quite some time ago and I cannot remember why.  Maybe some touch point to tie in with younger people.

Started: 10/21/2020
Completed: 10/22/2020
Recommendation: Not Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

I think that this is a good idea, but it is such a simple plot.  I guess that is what makes it a young adult novel.

Donald Trump v The United States, Michael S. Schmidt

 

Donald Trump v The United States: Inside the struggle to stop a president by Michael S. Schmidt is another Trump book.  Yeah, I know.

Started: 10/16/2020
Completed: 10/21/2020
Recommendation: Mild Recommendation
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

As usual, the people in Trump's world are nauseating.  Schmidt is a journalist and this book is told from his perspective as an exciting story of jumping from source to source.  Lots of journalists write this way.  It is rare that the book is really about the journalist and this mechanism of telling the story throws unnecessary "stuff" into the book.

If you want to know in critical detail how McGann was integral to Trump's adding judges and if you want some mild insight into the Mueller report, this is your book.  If you are pretty sick of Trump and his appalling behaviors, this book is literally nauseating.

I listened to this book over the course of my choice to vote for Biden.  There is that.

The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkein

 

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien is a book I have picked up more than once and thought I might read again.

Started: 10/15/2020

Completed: 10/16/2020

Recommendation:  Highly Recommended

Recommended By:  My Father (originally)

Review:

The version that I listened to this time was a BBC radio dramatization.  It was quite enjoyable, but a different experience then the book itself.

A Deadly Education, Naomi Novik

 

A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik is by Naomi Novik so I'm going to read it.  It is the first book of The Scholomance trilogy.

Started: 10/13/2020
Completed: 10/15/2020
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

I really like Naomi Novik and this book was no disappointment.  While this is a look, once more, at a wizard school, it is refreshing.  It is a well crafted story that is a story, not a mystery.  It is a look at characters...a look at people.  Of course, they are under terrible circumstances.  It is a story of life and death, but it is an interesting look at how individuals, both popular and unpopular, struggle in their own circumstances.  It is kind of a "Survivor" style of book.  Well worth the time.

It Was All A Lie, Stuart Stevens

 

It Was All A Lie: How the republican party became Donald Trump by Stuart Stevens is another book about Republicans.

Started: 10/12/2020
Completed: 10/13/2020
Recommendation: Mild Recommendation
Recommended By:  My wife

Review:

This is a book written by a conservative for conservatives.  As such, some of the positions assumed made me queasy.  Having said that, however, it is an interesting insight into how Republicans have moved away from a party of principal and become a party of power.  Some of the history of the modern conservative movement was new to me and did not focus on things like the Heritage Foundation and the Koch brothers as so many others have.  It did spend a lot of time on Nixon's "Southern Strategy" and basically made the argument that the party has skewed to the party of white people (a diminishing demographic).  There is little doubt that things like the Lincoln Project (the author is part of that effort) and Principals First will try to bring the Republican party back to fundamental principals and this author is surely making that effort.  I wonder if it will work.  Being able to use "alternative facts" (because facts have a liberal bias as Stephen Colbert says) is heady and frees the Republicans from reality, but it also untethers them from reality.  I would rather have a constructive dialog with someone argues from facts instead of someone yelling how great their candidate is.

The Space Between Worlds, Micaiah Johnson

 

The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson is a book about understanding the multiverse.

Started: 10/10/2020
Completed: 10/12/2020
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

This is a nice angle on the multiverse.  There is a good explanation for not being in two worlds at once and an interesting approach to moving between worlds.  There is a little romance on the side that is pretty clear and there is lots of abuse to explore.  This is a rich novel with a lot of different ways of experiencing the same story.  The superstition and the science mesh nicely as good alternate explanations.

Twilight of Democracy, Anne Applebaum

 

Twilight of Democracy: The seductive lure of authoritarianism by Anne Applebaum is a book reviewed in The Atlantic.  Of course, it is more about the risk of Trump.

Started: 10/7/2020
Completed: 10/10/2020
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: The Atlantic

Review:

How can he think that?  This question comes to my mind most times I hear Trump speak.  The platitudes, the vicious attacks, the simplistic thinking from him nearly drives me crazy.  "It turns out it was a lot more complicated then I thought" is the phrase that always follows once he drives down some ridiculous path ("just replace Obamacare with something better").  This book addresses that.  There are people who are comfortable with complexity and people who are comfortable with simplicity.  Trump is a simplistic thinker who has managed to change his past to maintain his simplistic thinking.  The reason he turns everything chaotic is because the thinking is so remarkably black and white and he is comfortable changing on a dime from one simple approach to another.  Applebaum argues that this black and white thinking leads to authoritarianism and as the convoluted speech of Jefferson, Franklin, and Adams demonstrate, the founders were comfortable with complexity.  Oh.

Conditional Citizens, Laila Lalami

 

Conditional Citizens by Laila Lalami is a book reviewed in the New York Times.  It seemed like a good book to read about immigrants.

Started: 10/7/2020
Completed: 10/7/2020
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

This book is mostly about personal experience (with some good statistics thrown in to suggest that the personal experience in many cases is typical).  The value is high.  The particular examples are useful to identify casual insults, casual disregard, and intended attacks on those who are citizens, but not treated as equals.  I like this book because of the diversity that is built into the author, her family, and her community.  Lalami is insightful, she carefully surrounds her point with analysis from diverse points of view.  The hollow voices on the periphery (and sometimes at the center) demonstrate their ignorance as Lalami does her best to be understanding, to be considerate, and to wonder how someone could think that the bizarre position held is somehow reasonable.  I love this kind of careful analysis.

Benjamin Franklin, Walter Isaacson

 

Benjamin Franklin: An American life by Walter Isaacson caught my eye as I was looking for a different book on Franklin.

Started: 10/4/2020
Completed: 10/6/2020
Recommendation: Mild Recommendation
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

I have read an early Franklin biography (I typed it into Project Gutenberg).  I learned things from this biography that the previous simply omitted.  This biography, however, remains an homage to Franklin.  There is nothing wrong with that, but it obscures the individual.  I was interested to learn about his first son and the complications that came with it.  It seems to me that an entire book could reasonably be written on that topic and not explore it fully.  I was disappointed with the author taking Franklin's position with regard to John Adams, whom I deeply respect.  It certainly affected my view of the biography and, no doubt, leaves me an unfair reviewer.

Rage, Bob Woodward

 

Rage by Bob Woodward is the source of outrageous statements of a new and different kind.

Started: 10/2/2020
Completed: 10/4/2020
Recommendation: Mild Recommendation
Recommended By: Everyone

Review:

This is good reporting.  It ties together perspective on current events in near real time.  It is unsettling to hear Trump talk about his own actions.  It brings together, in my opinion, what it must be like to talk to Trump about direction.  It seems that things go back and forth...that he generates a sense of how critical his own decision making in in retrospective.  He is uncomfortable with sharing credit.  He seems to have a set of internal talking points (things like his position in the poles, the state of the economy, etc.)  He does say things at points that make sense--things that surprised me.  In general, however, the surprise is that his opinion was so normal.  For the most part, however, his opinions vary over time and seem to be whatever clicks as an internal "best bet." His bottom line is money.  Always money.  Everything comes back to money.

Evil Geniuses, Kurt Andersen

 

Evil Geniuses:  The unmaking of America, a recent history by Kurt Andersen is a look at how robber barons returned to the USA and how to move forward.

Started: 9/26/2020
Completed: 10/2/2020
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

Andersen is brilliant.  His ability to do thorough research and then bring the vast knowledge he acquires to bear on a single topic is truly impressive.  He views the issues through many lenses although his focus is how the USA has become afraid of the new.  The United States used to wrap its arms around newness and wring as much from it as possible.  The conservative (and more the libertarian) movement has quashed the desire to embrace the new and Andersen shows why and how this happened.  There is no doubt that we need to move away from socialism for the rich and brutal capitalism for the rest.  We need a way to share the wealth that all of the United States generates with all of the United States.

Burning Down the House, Julian E. Zelizer

 

Burning Down the House:  Newt Gingrich, the fall of a speaker, and the rise of the new Republican party by Julian E. Zelizer is a book that talks about how Newt Gingrich brought on Trump.  It is a concept I have asserted, so I thought it would be good to know it inside and out.

Started: 9/23/2020
Completed: 9/26/2020
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By:  The Washington Post

Review:

I really did not pay much attention to politics below the president until Gingrich became Speaker of the House.  I was very interested in Anderson and participated in an in class debate as Ford in elementary school, but I had only the most superficial understanding of the issues.  Listening to this retrospective on how Gingrich came to power was shocking.  His follow-on behavior seems almost predictable.  The coalescence of events that led to Gingrich's rise to power (including one-sided radio talk shows) were also factors that were below my level of perception at the time.  This book is an excellent review of Gingrich's all-out character assassination approach to opponents.

The gamesmanship that has overcome our political system had its beginnings in the events described in this book.  It is a Republican thing and the character assassination that the Republican party started has also been used by the Democrats, but the scale is always so much different.  The GOP is without shame.  The hypocrisy with which Gingrich deployed his smear campaign (having himself been guilty of some of the things that he accused the Speaker of doing) and the partisan nature of his attacks only on Democrats.

Stakes Is High, Mychal Denzel Smith

 

Stakes Is High:  Life after the American dream by Mychal Denzel Smith was on a list of books to read about racism; I think it was in The Nation.

Started: 9/21/2020
Completed: 9/23/2020
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: An anti-racist list

Review:

"It is important here to define 'justice' as the US legal system has perverted our sense of what constitutes it.  It cannot be punishment or retribution for harm caused--justice is not revenge.  Rather, justice is a proactive commitment to providing each person with the material and social conditions in which they can both survive and thrive as a healthy and self-actualized human being."

Mychal Smith puts words and concepts into perspective.  He is quick to point to the heart of a matter and derive a world view consistent with this understanding.  I need this kind of writing as a lifeblood.  This kind of book moves my heart, captures my brain, and forces attention.  Wow.

"What does not have to end is our commitment to each other."

Quiet, Susan Cain

 

Quiet:  The power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking by Susan Cain is a book that I thought might apply to me.

Started: 9/18/2020
Completed: 9/21/2020
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

The person reading the book, Kathe Mazur, does a wonderful job.  I have a hearing problem right in the area of women's voices, so I sometimes find women readers difficult to hear, but, for some reason, Mazur makes everything clear.  Her voice may be a little deeper, which truly helps me.  She may enunciate well.  She might just be impassioned on a quiet topic.  Listening to her read is calming and informative.  A really good experience.

This book is really informative.  As an introvert myself, I see where I have tried to behave as an extrovert and how wearing it is.  I plan to take the suggestions to heart and to find comfort in the quiet.  Quite honestly, listening to audio books has really helped me do that.

Super Sad True Love Story, Gary Shteyngart

 

Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart got good reviews all over and I'm pretty sure I read about it in the New York Times.

Started: 9/15/2020
Completed: 9/18/2020
Recommendation: Not Recommended
Recommended By: A lot of places

Review:

The horrifying dystopia envisioned in this book is too close to home.  Ruth Bader Ginsburg died today.  Surely that tempers my perspective.  I did not find the book shocking, but I was  uncomfortable with things like a "suck dick" T-shirt being "hip."  It seemed intended to shock and the casual reference to body parts and sexual positions tied to a "fuckability ranking" seemed cheap.  The characters were flat and plot path was clear.  I just didn't like it.

The Tombs of Atuan, Ursula K. Le Guin

 

The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin is the second book of the Earthsea Cycle.  I have read it before, but couldn't resist a revisit.

Started: 9/14/2020
Completed: 9/15/2020
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By:  Nobody

Review:

It is a good story.  It is well told.  I enjoyed it!

The Hardest Job in the World, John Dickerson

 

The Hardest Job in the World:  The American presidency by John Dickerson seems appropriate in the current environment.

Started: 9/10/2020

Completed: 9/14/2020

Recommendation: Not Recomended

Recommended By:  I read about this book in The New Republic, I think

Review:

Dickerson does his best to offer a positive spin on Donald Trump while clearly indicating how Trump has demolished the standards by which presidents are measured.  To my way of thinking, Dickerson's argument is a categorical set of reasons Trump should not be president and has failed.  Dickerson, instead, looks at Trump as potentially reforming the nature of the presidency.  This book largely takes a Truman forward look at the presidency and there is some reason for doing this, but Dickerson does not make the case for why his focus is there.  My guess is that this is where his knowledge lies.

I was hoping that this book would talk more about how hard the president's tasks are (which it does), not how the process of becoming president makes one unsuitable for the tasks.  I came into the book thinking that Dickerson would take a non-partisan look at the nature of the presidency, but from his looks at Ronald Reagan (literally, all glowing and no indication of how the presidency was hard on him) it became quickly clear that this was going to be a look at how Republicans have both met the nature of the presidency (Reagan, Lincoln, and Eisenhower) and how Republicans have pretty much demolished the presidency (Nixon and Trump) with scant attention paid to anyone else.

It would have been really informative if Dickerson had addressed how difficult the potential for impeachment makes the presidency, but this opportunity was lost.  I don't know, but I have not been impressed with this book which repeats itself frequently and fails to ultimately enumerate why it is so hard to be the president (while given passing reference to structural issues and having to be responsive to the electorate).

The conclusion offered a variety of criteria on which to evaluate a president without any effort at weighting the different elements and without any indication of priority beyond, "the more the better."  

The Bully Pulpit, Doris Kearns Goodwin

 

The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the golden age of journalism by Doris Kearns Goodwin was recommended by a friend during a discussion group.

Started: 8/29/2020

Completed: 9/10/2020

Recommendation: Recommended

Recommended By: Ann, from the discussion group

Words for which I sought help:

honeyfuggle -- to obtain by cheating or deception

trenchantly -- vigorously or incisively

Review:

I learned so much about these two men and the journalists around them.  It was truly fascinating to see how their lives intertwined and how they both leaned upon and repelled one another over time.  It was good to learn how they negotiated their stormy friendship.  As always, Goodwin's prose is both accessible and clear.  Well read.

The Biggest Bluff, Maria Konnikova

 

The Biggest Bluff:  How I learned to pay attention, master myself, and win by Maria Konnikova seemed like a good poker book and now that I am in a weekly game, I figured I should pick up some more books on poker.

Started: 8/26/2020

Completed: 8/29/2020

Recommendation: Recommended

Recommended By:  The New York Times

Review:

This is not a poker primer.  It does offer something of an insight into what it takes to be a professional poker player.  I am confirmed in my belief that I would go waaay too far if I ever decided to pursue poker seriously--I am far better off not playing or just playing in meaningless games.

It is interesting, however, to hear a little of how Konnikova decided to apply some of her poker experience to her real life and how playing helped her understand herself better.  She is much too young for this to be some sort of autobiography--we learn little about her, so it is not an autobiography.  It is not really a memoir.  It is about a budding poker player and her very personal experience to becoming a professional.  That is enough for one book.

A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin

 

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin is a book I have read several times and I enjoy the Earthsea Cycle.

Started: 8/24/2020

Completed: 8/26/2020

Recommendation: Highly Recommended

Recommended By:  Nobody

Review:

I come back to this cycle without having read it for 20 or so years.  I often cite it as my favorite set of books, but it has been long enough without Ged and I think it is good to spend time with him once more.

The audio version by Harlan Ellison is just amazing.

The Overstory, Richard Powers

 

The Overstory by Richard Powers is a book that just has wonderful reviews.

Started: 8/18/2020

Completed: 8/24/2020

Recommendation: Recommended

Recommended By: Nobody

Words for which I sought help:

breakfast pap -- porridge or oatmeal, South African

Review:

Gotta love any book that references Flatland or The Lord of the Rings, but this has both!  I read Galatea 2.0 before I started keeping this blog, so I had a sense for Powers' prose.  I should have guessed that his bent would lead towards environmentalism, but, for some reason, I thought this would be a science fiction type of book.  It is not.

This book leaves enough for the future that it seems as though a sequel is intended.  On the other hand, it is reasonable that the author would leave this story partly told.  Powers does a good job of weaving together a bunch of people, making them all individuals, and making it clear who is doing the thinking when.  The book is a tapestry of ideas with a wide range of perspectives on what is broadly the same problem.  There is definitely a bias, but that is to be expected from someone who likes to tell a story, not just document lives or occasions.  This was a good read and well worth the time.

Scythe, Neal Shusterman

Scythe by Neal Shusterman is the first book of the Arc of a Scythe series.  I saw this in the library book store and it looked interesting to me.  I checked a quick review on the phone and decided to pick it up.  This is a young adult novel and I have no idea why I keep picking up young adult fiction these days.

Started: 7/25/2020

Completed: 8/24/2020

Recommendation: Recommended

Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

I enjoyed this novel.  It is a coming of age story, but there is plenty else.  There is young romance and old romance and enough overlap to be interesting.  I like the way the dystopia plays out and the idea that everyone is effectively immortal so some people have to do selective killing in order to prevent over population is tenable.  I think it will be worth reading the whole series.

The Wave in the Mind, Ursula K. Le Guin

 

The Wave in the Mind:  Talks and essays on the writer, the reader, and the imagination by Ursula K. Le Guin is a book I picked up as soon as I heard about it, but well after the author's death.

Started: 8/15/2020

Completed: 8/18/2020

Recommendation: Highly Recommended

Recommended By:  Nobody

Words for which I sought help:

didactic -- intended to teach, particularly in having moral instruction as an alternative motive (in its used in this book, it appears that there was no moral instruction intended--the lesson was about the nature of poetry's mechanics in contrast to prose)

Review:

This was not the book I was expecting, but I am glad to have read it.  I have experienced the pacing of a novel, but I have not thought about it until reading this book.  I know that writers agonize over word choice, sentence structure, etc.  I have not had a coherent explanation for why this causes writers so much pause.  Is it critical to say, "onward" or "forward?"  Maybe it might be an issue with the patois of a given speaker or the environment in which something is said (a cowboy on the trail in the midwest might reasonably say "onward," but an English lord in India might be more inclined to say "forward"), but beyond that it has mystified me.  Le Guin explains that "onward" is likely not stressed in either syllable, or stressed in both ("onward" or "ONWARD").   "Forward," however is stressed in one or the other "FORward" or "forWARD."    In the former, it is usually elongated "FOOOORward."  This kind of stressing effects the pacing of the sentence.  That is part of the agony.  Part of the effort to bring forward a cohesive whole.

Beautiful Swimmers, William Warner

Beautiful Swimmers:  Watermen, crabs, and the Chesapeake Bay by William W. Warner is a book recommended to me by my father.

Started: 8/12/2020

Completed: 8/15/2020

Recommendation: Mild Recommendation

Recommended By: My Father

Review:

I am quite sure that this book is out of date.  It was updated in 1993.  As an environmentalist, it is worth hearing how people make a living in the Bay.  As a vegetarian, it is not as appetizing as it is to a carnivore.

My parents had a house on Tillman Island for a while and got to know some of the people who did this kind of living--I was only an occasional visitor.  It sounds like a brutal and difficult life to live.  There is frequent talk of the "freedom" of fishing, but I don't see it.  Like watching "The Most Dangerous Catch," it is interesting to get a sense of this occupation.  Also like watching that show, it is amazing how difficult a life it is and how hard it is for me to imagine myself in their stead.  Like any job that requires hard labor, one wonders how retirement is possible and how living on the knife edge of a single mistake must be trying.

The book does not discuss health care for the watermen, but I imagine that there is little or none.  Here are people who risk life and limb on a regular basis for a small return and have no safety net.  This book, which I think was intended to be uplifting, made me sad to think of the people on the Bay who are just scraping by with real risks all around them.  It is good that most enjoy their work. 

The Cycle of the Gift, Hughes, Massenzio, and Whitaker

The Cycle of the Gift:  Family Wealth and Wisdom by James E. Hughes Jr., Susan E. Massenzio, and Keith Whitaker is a book I saw on Mahogany books as highly recommended and I thought I'd give it a chance.

Started: 7/28/2020

Completed: 8/14/2020

Recommendation: Not Recommended

Recommended By: Mahogany Books

Review:

I was not fond of this book.  It was timely in that we started working on our will not long after I started the book, but it seemed mostly common sense to me.  Of course, one man's common sense is another man's wisdom, but I find it hard to believe that people need to be told most of this stuff.  I was unaware that a philanthropic trust could be created for as little as $10,000 and that surprised me.  The idea of linking grandchildren and grandparents using such a trust was a cool idea and I will remember it.  Otherwise, I got precious little from the book.

The Impostors, Steve Benen

The Impostors: How Republicans quit governing and seized American politics by Steve Benen is a book that was reviewed in Washington Monthly.

Started: 8/10/2020

Completed: 8/12/2020

Recommendation: Recommended

Recommended By: The Washington Monthly

Review:

I watched Democrats repeatedly try to negotiate with Republicans and have the negotiations go nowhere.  It seemed like Democrats would make concessions to Republicans and then Republicans would vote against the bill anyway.  This book documents exactly how that happens.  The Republicans were not negotiating in good faith.  They were simply trying to undermine as much as possible legislation that they could not stop.  I had come to the conclusion that it was pointless to negotiate with Republicans and that Democrats just needed to do the right thing and pass the best legislation that they could craft.  This book goes to great lengths to explain why that is the right course of action.  It also explains one of my favorite phrases, "facts have a liberal bias."  Republicans simply do not care about the facts and build a fantasy version of the world against which they can rail.

It should be noted that this is a very left book.  There is no effort to curb adjectives or offer anything seemingly like "both sides."  That is fine, this is a book that is intent on describing how the Republican party has abandoned governing.  As such it demonstrates that point.  All the sources are strong left, because the book appeals to a left audience who finds those sources appealing.  Is this THE definitive book on Republicans in the Trump era, no.  It is, however, a collection of very strong arguments and a coherent narrative and that is refreshing.