You Never Forget Your First, Alexis Coe

You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington by Alexis Coe.  I cannot remember why I picked this one up, but I think it was a review in the New York Times.

Started: 4/28/2020
Completed: 4/30/2020
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: New York Times?

Review:
This is a quick biography which does some gap filling for other biographies.  Mostly, it focuses on Washington's relationship with slaves.  His expressed desire to free them and his actual actions which did not (until after both his and Martha's deaths, which left Martha worried for her life in the presence of slaves whose freedom only awaited her demise after Washington's death).  It is good at identifying some of the other issues in other biographies (particularly an obsession with Washington's thighs and generally his Adonis-like proportions).  This biography does not spend a lot of time talking about battles nor does it address the intricacies of his presidential policies, but Coe does spend a good deal of time talking about how his contemporaries saw him.  I think that is refreshing.

Arguing with Zombies, Paul Krugman

Arguing with Zombies:  Economics, politics, and the fight for a better future by Paul Krugman is a book recommended in The Atlantic.

Started: 4/26/2020
Completed: 4/28/2020
Recommendation: Recommended, but this will not age well
Recommended By:  The Atlantic

Review:

This book is mostly timely.  Its time has also mostly passed.  It is interesting to see Krugman address his accurate predictions and talk about what is important to track in the way of political economics.  The fact that the GOP has become untethered from the truth makes it less important to address economic arguments which are based on truth rather than cult.  If the GOP ever returns to truth, then they might be able to reenter the discussion, but as long as it is just a cult evaluation, there is truly no place for them in a reasonable discussion.  Just another way of saying that facts matter.

The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson

The Splendid and the Vile:  A saga of Churchill, family, and defiance during the blitz by Erik Larson is a look at World War II.

Started: 4/19/2020
Completed: 4/25/2020
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By:  My mother, who said that this was not one of Erik Larson's best, but that she really liked the way he wrote.

Words for which I sought help:

snog -- to kiss and caress amorously

Review:

In the end, my mother did not enjoy the book, but worked her way through it.  I, on the other hand, really liked the juxtaposition of the English and German perspective.  This is largely a biography of Churchill during the war, but it also throws in notes from German diaries.  In addition, Churchill's family gets a bit of perspective.  All of these people were very complex and trying to talk about all of them in a single volume (even a small library) is difficult.  I like the way that Larson was able to share the same events from multiple perspectives simultaneously without making the material dull.  Not every event was viewed from each character, but it seems that when there was a single event that multiple people saw differently, Larson honed in on it and provided the different viewpoints.   This made for a rich read.

A Colony in a Nation, Chris Hayes

A Colony In a Nation by Chris Hayes is a book that was referenced during a news show that included the author.  My wife and I were watching the show while travelling and both of us were impressed by Chris Hayes, so I put this book on my list of things to read.  This book focuses on the criminal justice system.

Started: 3/23/2020
Completed: 4/22/2020
Recommendation: Highly Recommended, but primarily for white people
Recommended By:  Nobody

Review:

This book is about perspective for a white audience.   Black people know all about this, but it is a surprise to a white audience to hear about how black people live.  Driving while black, gets a new meaning.  Chis Hayes takes a guillotine to white privilege.  If you are black, I don't know, but maybe this book is validating--sort of stating the obvious.  If you are white and you do not understand the experience that Chris Hayes throws out, then you are in deep need of this book.

There is no doubt in my mind that the world would be a better place if everyone were treated equally.  I, like Chris Hayes, think it would even be better for a white male.  I do not think that opportunity is a zero sum game.  I do not think that love is a zero sum game.  I do not believe that fairness is a zero sum game.

I was particularly struck by how Mr. Hayes pointed out that when seeking "justice" we look to treat the privileged like the oppressed rather than treating the oppressed like the privileged.  Our criminal justice system meets our horror at all levels...couldn't we look at how to improve the life of the criminal and find a way to help the criminal become a functioning member of society?

The City We Became, N.K. Jemisin

The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin is the latest new book by this author and I have enjoyed everything else she has written.  This book was read by Robin Miles and the audio production was amazing.

Started: 4/14/2020
Completed: 4/19/2020
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Words for which I sought help:

mandala -- a symbol that holds significance for both Buddhist and Hindu religions.

Review:

For some reason, I really enjoy humanized concepts.  I enjoyed Piers Anthony's Incarnation of Immortality series.  I immediately felt comfortable with a person embodying a borough of New York.  I am not a New York fanatic...I stayed once in Queens in a school trip, but it was at night and a ton of us in a small house.  I do not pretend that I am a New York guy and I am sure that there are a lot of fun things about New York that went over my head (I had no idea that Staten Island was a borough of New York).  I happened to be in Manhattan when the bomb went off in the World Trade Center (I was staying in the hotel the night before), so I have a tiny, very short term perspective on Manhattan that is linked to a singular event.  I can remember standing in front of St. Patrick's Cathedral and being amazed at this Gothic style church somehow, inextricably linked to the sky scrapers that surrounded it.  I remember looking at the names in the cemetery, briefly, but not taking enough time to remember the details.

This book talks about the embodiment of New York.  There is an avatar for each borough and each avatar experiences New York differently.  The embodiment of the whole of New York is late to the story and is the only one to experience New York as a whole.  This is just a fun story of New York fighting off invasion from an extra dimension.

I think that there is tremendous value in listening to this book.  There was a lot of work that went into the audio version and it is truly a performance.

Supreme Inequality, Adam Cohen

Supreme Inequality: The supreme court's fifty-year battle for a more unjust America by Adam Cohen is a book that was mentioned in an article I read, but I cannot remember which article or where.

Started: 4/8/2020
Completed: 4/14/2020
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: Some article

Review:

What a great book!  The details of how the Supreme Court have changed over the course of 50 years is pretty impressive.  I have felt that the country is heading into a corpotacracy, but that has been from the perspective of major politicians (like how Reagan would not be considered right by the current GOP).

It is personally painful to see how the Supreme Court is changing and how it is accelerating under the justices that Trump has put in place.  It is pretty horrible and it is hard to imagine how things will move forward cleanly.

The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein

The Shock Doctrine: The rise of disaster capitalism by Naomi Klein and I think I read about it in an article in The New Republic.

Started: 4/6/2020
Completed: 4/8/2020
Recommendation: Must Read
Recommended By: The New Republic

Review:

It turns out that the stunning and horrible turn-abouts happening around us (from Katrina recovery to Iraq) are happening for a reason.  Blackwater isn't just an opportunist, it is part of a concerted effort.  "Free market" Republicans are pulling from Milton Friedman's economic theories.  These were taught in Chicago and his adherents are often referred to as "Chicago Boys."  These economic theories have NOT worked out anywhere they have been tried and in order to put them in place, people die (no exaggeration--remember Pinochet in Chile?  This article talks about all the details as it was happening in 1976).

The book describes a variety of different actual tortures.  It is very, very hard to read about that.  You have been warned.

The Obelisk Gate, N.K. Jemisin

The Obelisk Gate by N. K. Jemisin is the second book in the Broken Earth series.

Started: 4/4/2020
Completed: 4/6/2020
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

Wow.  This book tears apart relationships and defines the nature of relationships over and over.  This feels like a world that could really live.  It could really exist.  What a wonderful book.  A certain degree of horrifying, but a very interesting idea and a wonderfully well developed concept.

The idea of a sentient planet is interesting (I once read a book by Hoyle that had a sentient cloud that devoured stars).  The effect of the Moon on the world reminds me of The Three Body Problem and also the Helliconia series.

Everfair, Nisi Shawl

Everfair by Nisi Shawl was from a book list I found in the Washington Post.

Started: 3/31/2020
Completed: 4/4/2020
Recommendation: Mild Recommendation
Recommended By: The Washington Post

Review:

I have trouble seeing this as fantasy.  I guess, in a sense, it is a steampunk novel, but it seems more like fiction in a historical setting (like Dracula or alternate histories).  Clearly I am in the minority.  The rich collection of ideas that the author has collected are enjoyable and the struggle to create a country from whole cloth is well presented.  The complexities of bringing a heterogeneous group into a homogeneous country are far more than presented in the book, but it would take many books and be quite tedious to pursue this in detail.  I think it was interesting how the book highlighted individuals and tried to tease out how individuals play a role in creating a common society.  This focus also gave the author a chance to humanize the book with personal faults.  Magic played a role, but it was somewhat incidental and was used to suggest that magic provided some of the good leadership that allowed the country to be created and to morph into something that seemed better for all.  Such a thing is done through compromise, compassion, and a fight for understanding.