The Thunderhead, Neal Shusterman

 

Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman is the second book in the Arc of a Scythe series.

Started: 11/10/2020
Completed: 1/30/2021
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

Some of the plot points in this book are really, really clear, but the ending I did not see coming.  Some of the teenage angst seems really manipulated, but, for the most part, I found this book better than the previous book in the series.  I really liked the development of how the AI operated and some insight into it.  All in all, an enjoyable book, but don't expect clever turns of phrase or any kind of complicated plot.

The Last American Aristocrat, David S. Brown

The Last American Aristocrat:  The brilliant life and improbably education of Henry Adams by David S. Brown came to my attention through a review in The New York Times, but, in fairness, I am quite interested in the Adams family.

Started: 1/25/2021

Completed: 1/29/2021

Recommendation: Recommended

Recommended By: The New York Times

Words for which I sought help:

catholicity -- liberality of sentiments or views

marplot -- one who frustrates or ruins a plan or undertaking by meddling

mendicant -- beggar

seraphic -- suggestive of or resembling a seraphim or angel

Review:

There are some assumptions built into the book.  Brown assumes that the world and times of Henry Adams are well understood at some times and repeatedly describes other times.  It is an uneven treatment, but it is hard to find fault as I would have difficulty determining what it is reasonable to assume of an audience for this type of biography.  One image that I really thought was well conceived was Brown's description of Adams' longing for Lizzy in the long aftermath of the loss of his wife as "Desire comforting Suffering."  The book is comprehensive and well written with many similar excellent turns of phrase.

Kingdom of Copper, S.A. Chakraborty

 The Kingdom of Copper by S. A. Chakraborty is the second book in the Daevabad Trilogy.

Started: 1/19/2021
Completed: 1/25/2021
Recommendation: Mild Recommendation
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

The first book of the trilogy did a good job of moving from the "normal" world to the supernatural world.  This transition was facilitated by a physical trip that performed this function.  This book, however, was almost exclusively spent in the supernatural, but did not continue the sensation of a journey.  As time had jumped five years between the books, so too was the reader instantly re-immersed in the supernatural with all of its unfamiliar terms.  Additionally, as in the previous book, clothing was frequently described using the Persian word for that particular type of dress.  This was mildly disorienting as it required pausing and searching out what type of clothing was being described.  This is both enriching and halting--it disrupts the flow of the story while dishing out detail on items of clothing that rarely have any effect on the story.  This book also seems a shadow of the history of Dara and his attack which led to his nickname, "The Scourge."

Yellow Bird, Sierra Crane Murdoch

Yellow Bird:  Oil, murder, and woman's search for justice in Indian country by Sierra Crane Murdoch was a book I picked up in a search to understand indigenous Americans a little better.  It is one of quite a few on my reading list.

Started: 1/12/2021
Completed: 1/19/2021
Recommendation: Mildly Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

This book is about the reservation.  Murdoch explains this in the Author's Note and that would have been much more helpful up front.  I kept thinking that this was basically a murder mystery, so it was hard for me to figure out why the protagonist's grandmother was a traditional dancer and you could tell that because she did not wear fancy clothing and you could see the grace of her footwork.  Why does this matter to a story about a murder?  I could not figure it out and felt that Murdoch just had trouble "sifting through the details" to find a story.  The insight into intergenerational trauma is profound.  The web of webs format of the book (a is connected to b connected to c connected to a whole other web) made it hard for me to put the story on a hook.  Because there were so many "hooks" I got caught in the trees and could not discern the forest.  The Author's Note (had it been up front) would have offered some good hooks on which I could have hung the parts of the story and could have gotten so much more from it.

It was also interesting to hear Murdoch argue that one should not generalize from this story and assume that it is characteristic of all indigenous people.  This is one piece of a very complicated puzzle.  While it offers some degree of understanding, it is not generalizable.  That is the way I approached it and it is good to see that I, at least, got that right.

The Hidden Wealth of Nations, Gabriel Zucman

 

The Hidden Wealth of Nations:  The scourge of tax havens by Gabriel Zucman (translated by Teresa Lavender Fagan) includes an introduction from Thomas Piketty.

Started: 1/10/2021
Completed: 1/16/2021
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Words for which I sought help:

dissimulate -- conceal or disguise (one's thoughts, feelings, or character)

Review:

I really didn't know I hated Luxembourg.  I thought it was just the Swiss banks, but it turns out there are tiny little places hiding wealth all over the globe.  The proposal for how to track this wealth is interesting and opens up some real possibilities for the future.  I doubt, however, that wealthy leaders will be inclined to close the loopholes.

A Secular Age, Charles Taylor

 

A Secular Age by Charles Taylor is an approach to an understanding of the current era from a philosophical point of view.  The book is huge and is likely to keep me busy in the car for a long time.

Started: 12/30/2020
Completed: 1/13/2021, did not finish
Recommendation: Not Recommended
Recommended By: Cannot remember

Review:

Anytime someone equates believing something that can be proven with something that requires faith, I'm pretty much done.

The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri

 

The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri was short listed for the Man Booker Prize prize.

Started: 1/9/2021
Completed: 1/12/2021
Recommendation: Mild Recommendation
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

This book is fairly well written, though I found the repetition tedious (I am sure it was intentional and a way of establishing frames of reference from different perspectives).  The subject matter--effectively how to handle different kinds of loss (both well and poorly)--is what makes this a mild recommendation.  The book is not upbeat.  It is not a "pleasant journey."  This book is a harsh journey through repeated loss and the implications of loss.  I just do not enjoy that.

Hamilton Fish, Amos Elwood Corning

 

Hamilton Fish by Amos Elwood Corning is the only biography (of which I am aware) of Hamilton Fish who was Grant's Secretary of State during both his terms.

Started: 1/3/2021
Completed: 1/10/2021
Recommendation: Mild Recommendation
Recommended By: Nobody

Words for which I sought help:

disapprobation -- strong disapproval, typically on moral grounds

precipitancy -- rashness and suddenness of action

vituperation -- bitter and abusive language

Review:

This biography was written in the early twentieth century and contains references that reflect that.  The major issues for which Fish was "famous" are little known today.  I am familiar with many of them from having read a biography of Grant.  It was that biography that got me searching for more information about Hamilton Fish.  This biography does record his accomplishments, but does not really offer any insight into the man as an individual.

Luster, Raven Leilani

 

Luster by Raven Leilani was a book that I put on my library list, but I cannot remember why.  I probably read a review...

Started: 1/7/2021

Completed: 1/9/2021

Recommendation: Mild Recommendation

Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

This is a weird book.  There are so many things that feel preposterous and unnecessary.  It is, however, a compelling book and I found it hard to not be drawn back to it.  The number of loose ends is amazing--it feels like nothing is wrapped up in any way.  None of the characters are particularly compelling and the overall weirdness of the book makes it hard to find somewhere to grab.  Maybe if I lived in a rat/cockroach infested apartment in New York that would somehow give me some entre.  I wonder, however, as I do live in a mostly white suburb (not Jersey, but still) and the book is placed there as well yet it offers me no way to grasp at the book.  It is hard to read a book in which I feel I am constantly flustered and falling.

If spoilers bother you stop reading.

The list of things that are not resolved is just staggering (I truly think it is every plot point):

• Does Edie make it as an artist/is her art any good?
• Does this odd three-way continue?
• Who shot the dog?
• How does Akila handle being assaulted?
• Does Eric fall into full bore addiction or does he recover?
• Does Edie make it in her new job or does she immediately lose it?
• Does the adoption stick?
• What happens to Edie's first roommate?
• What is the second roommate like?

Do I really want to know the answer to any of these given that the answer is likely to be some other weird open ended thing?

An American Marriage, Tayari Jones

 

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones was on my library list, I'm not sure why I picked it up.

Started: 1/6/2021
Completed: 1/7/2021
Recommendation: Not Recommended, Not finished
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

This book is well written.  I just cannot take the sadness and the agonizingly slow dissolution of something valued.

Ready Player Two, Ernest Cline

 

Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline is the sequel to Ready Player One.  This one is also read by my friend, Wil Wheaton.  Of course, if you run into Wil Wheaton, you might, uhm, need to remind him that I am his friend...

Started: 12/31/2020
Completed: 1/6/2021
Recommendation: Mild Recommendation
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

I did enjoy social commentary such as:  "I was even beginning to wonder if the invention of a worldwide social network was actually the great filter that theoretically caused all technological civilizations to go extinct instead of nuclear weapons or climate change.  Maybe every time a species grew intelligent enough to develop a global computer network, they would then develop some form of social media which would immediately fill these beings with such an intense hatred for one another that they ended up wiping themselves out within four or five decades.  Only time would tell."

This book is an odd successor.  Instead of the scrappy underdog kid, you have arguably the richest man in the world.  As a protagonist it is an entirely different story.  Instead of a quest to win a prize, this book becomes a huge hostage crisis.  The romantic subplot falls very flat with me as opinions seem to change in minutes from one pole to another.  The excitement and urgency of the first novel felt like a video game in book form with a lot of fun trivia.  This book did not carry that feeling forward at all.  The trivia (the minutiae of Tolkein's unpublished works and the Silmarillion were drudgery and I broadly like that stuff--while the broad swipes, such as the nature of each of the ages was omitted) was not fun--it sort of felt like a lecture.

The ending made some sense, but, like other details that could have been omitted without any loss and would have been so much better if they were accurate.  On a simplistic level the time it takes to travel to proxima centauri is not decades but much longer and the thought that solar panels could provide power in interstellar space is simply ridiculous.  It is also easy to see that if one has photographic memory for eternity, the need for storage space grows to infinity--this is a trivial and immediate observation.  Who knows, maybe this will be the basis for the next book, but I'm not sure I would read it.

The Order of the Day, Eric Vuillard

 

The Order of the Day by Eric Vuilllard is a book that came up when I was looking into the beginnings of World War II.  This was translated by Mark Polizzotti.

Started: 1/2/2021
Completed: 1/2/2021
Recommendation: Mild Recommendation
Recommended By: Nobody

Words for which I sought help:

apothegm -- a concise saying or maxim; an aphorism

Review:

Vuillard is clear that he does not like the Nazis or anyone associated with them.  In the beginning of the book he describes a group of businessmen as lizards standing on their hind legs.  In this role, however, he is careful to use accurate names and to identify individuals who had the opportunity to stand up to Hitler and his crew early on.  In some cases, he leverages transcripts of the Nuremburg trials.  

I particularly like his observation that, "It is strange how the most dyed-in-the-wool tyrants still vaguely respect due process, as if they want to make it appear that they aren't abusing procedure, even while riding roughshod over every convention."

This book is a short walk through tipping points from the funding of the Nazi party to the advance into Austria.  At each tipping point, someone is found wanting.  Someone could have prevented the war is the underlying point, but did not have the character, the moxie, or the courage to stand up to the Nazi's in general and Hitler in particular.

Fantasyland, Kurt Andersen

Fantasyland:  How American went haywire: a 500-year history by Kurt Andersen is a book about United States history and how love of the fantastic and sensational has led to Trump.   This book received the Forkosch Award by the Council for Secular Humanism (the award is now given by the American Historical Association).

Started: 2/27/2020
Completed: 1/2/2021
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: my wife

Words for which I sought help:

brobdignagian --  gigantic

charticle -- a combination of text, images, and graphics that takes the place of a full article.

gradgrind -- one that is patently and usually as a matter of outspoken policy marked by a materialistic and philistine outlook; an uninspired and assiduous seeker after facts

muscilage -- a viscous secretion or bodily fluid; an adhesive or glue

Schengen Area -- an area in the European Union within which no passports are needed to move between countries

solipsism -- the view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist

tendentious -- expressing or intending to promote a particular cause or point of view, especially a controversial one.

virtusoic -- displaying or characterized by exceptional technical skill in music or another artistic pursuit.

Review:

This is a long book that makes a huge number of important points and weaves a fabric that really should be seen as a whole.  Because I cannot hope to provide that in a several paragraph review, I pulled a few quotations from the book that I think it is important to remember:

"Instead of squarely facing the uncomfortable facts -- slavery was wrong, secession a calamitous mistake--they shifted into excuse and deny mode.  For a great many white Southerners, defeat mad them not contrite and peaceable (like, say, Germans and Japanese after World War II) but permanently pissed off."

"Our special American alloy of Protestantism and the Enlightenment also generated our extreme, self-righteous individualism.  I have searched for the truth and discovered it (Protestantism and Enlightenment).  My intuitions are equal to the facts (Protestant).  My skepticism is profound (Enlightenment) except concerning my own beliefs (Protestant).  Who I am is whatever I imagine myself to be (both), and You're [sic] not the boss of me (both)."

"We must call out the dangerously untrue and unreal."

"Nations and societies have survived and recovered from far more terrible swerves, eras that felt cataclysmic as they were happening.  the good news, in other words, is that America may now e at peak Fantasyland.  We can hope."