Empire of Pain, Patrick Radden Keefe

 

Empire of Pain:  The secret history of the Sackler dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe is the story of the family behind the pain killer OxyContin and how their actions led to a an abuse epidemic.

Started: 5/28/2021
Completed: 6/1/2021
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: I think I read about this in The New Republic, but it is possible that I read about it many other places as well.

Review:

The Sacklers got away with it.  It is nauseating to look at this story.  These people compromised the FDA, the CDC, and various other federal agencies.  They abused bankruptcy proceeding even faced a Senate hearing and basically walked away unscathed.  It is shocking.

Hidden Valley Road, Robert Kolker

 

Hidden Valley Road: Inside the mind of an American family by Robert Kolker was recommended by my parents.  It is a story of a mental health problem that runs through a large family.

Started: 5/25/2021
Completed: 5/28/2021
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: My parents

Words for which I sought help:

aphasia -- loss of ability to understand or express speech, caused by brain damage

funicular -- a cable railroad, especially one on a mountainside, in which ascending and descending cars are counterbalanced

obstreperous -- noisy and difficult to control

Review:

I really did not want to read this book.  Who wants to read about the horror of a bunch of schizophrenic children?  In general, I'm not thrilled about large families either.  My parents, however, insisted that this was an important book to read.  So, I read it.

Make sure that your prenatal vitamin has lots of choline.

All of the children in this family suffered.  They suffered because of mental illness and an inability to provide help (in part because the family was too large for a single income).  The healthy children suffered from physical abuse (both received and doled out) as well as the anxiety and other traumas that comes with living among the mentally ill.  The family was too large for the parents to provide the intense and personalized support that normal children need, forget the support that mentally ill children require.  It is clear that even with time and resources, these parents had some serious problems themselves that would have prevented them from providing the kind of loving environment the children needed.

It is amazing that science can study a family like this.  It is not amazing that such a family exists.  I just don't know what to say.  This book is absolutely worth a read.  It is worth suffering through the appropriately described trauma.

The Empty Throne, Bernard Cornwell

 

The Empty Throne by Bernard Cornwell is the next in the Last Kingdom Series.

Started: 5/24/2021
Completed: 5/25/2021
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

These books now have an easy rhythm to them and I know the characters well.  They are quick and easy and I do enjoy the twists and turns that I do not see coming.

The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende

The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende is something I read about in a New York Times book review.

Started: 5/20/2021
Completed: 5/24/2021
Recommendation: Not Recommended
Recommended By: NYT

Review:

I really dislike long drawn-out descriptions of torture.  Add to this a man who is run by a murderous temper and it is hard to like this book.  There are no characters I liked and several for whom I felt sorry.  I walked away with no lessons learned.  The book was well written and the plot was well developed.  I just didn't like it.

The Code Breaker, Walter Isaacson

 

The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, gene editing, and the future of the human race by Walter Isaacson is a book about the creator of the CRISPR gene editing tool.

Started: 5/15/2021
Completed: 5/20/2021
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

Being short is not a disease.  Now that that is over with, this book is pretty interesting.  The examples of things people choose to use when talking about the effects of gene editing (such as height) aside, this is a thorough and interesting approach to looking at the burgeoning field of gene editing.  Doudna plays a central role, but this is not really a biography (despite the billing).  We do learn some of her life, but this is not a detailed look at her life.  Rather, this is a detailed look at the newly created field of gene editing (looking at a lot of the editors, not just Doudna).  I learned that my high school and college biology are no longer up to talking about RNA and DNA.  They are the merest introduction and this book was swiftly over my head.  It does not help that I have little interest in this field in general and find the terms confusing.  I think that if I took more time to study the area, I would find this book a mere introduction, but I didn't and probably won't, so this book was a bit of a struggle for me in terms of the base material.  I do find it interesting what is possible and, like the discussions of AI, I have a feeling that we are slipping behind on the ethics front.  Which leads us back, full circle, to what genetic "diseases" people might want to fix.

Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir

 

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir is the first book of the Locked Tombs Trilogy.  I have some concerns about this book because I'm not into horror and this has the potential to have plenty of horror in it, but reviews also mentioned the humor.  I believe I noticed it on the Locus Award list.

Started: 5/13/2021
Completed: 5/15/2021
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: Locus Award

Review:

This is a good book.  You are taken to a far different world and despite the constant presence of bones and some degree of reanimation, this is not a horror novel.  At no point was I worried about being scared; it did not keep me up at night (in fact, I fell asleep while listening at one point when I was listening just before what turned out to be a nap).  The subplot characters are a little flat, but the major characters are quite rich and they explore their relationship well.  The whole of the concepts behind the science fiction parts are quite believable (although it seems magic, not science, is the order of the day).  The use of swords is explained nicely.  The quest portion of the book was fairly good although there were sections that I simply would not have been able to figure out without the author describing events I did not see or relationships that were simply not described.  All-in-all, a pretty enjoyable book and I'm looking forward to the next in the trilogy.

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, Claire North

 

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North (a pseudonym for Catherine Webb).

Started: 5/9/2021
Completed: 5/13/2021
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

The idea of being reborn is not new.  This, sort of, Groundhog Day version kind of addresses time travel paradoxes and goes with the concept of parallel universes only the branches seem to occur whenever a person is reborn into their own life.  Thus you get the chance to relive your life and try to live it better (with Chaos Theory playing a role, small changes can have big effects).  Harry August relives most of the twentieth century and offers insights into how we can view the same events differently and how people can change for the better and for the worse.  It is a good read, but it is not a light read.  I think it takes time to consider all the implications.

Meanwhile, the prose is not compelling.  The plot is fairly predictable (although the details are pretty interesting).  There are two plot twists that are excellent and compelling but mean little to the book's outcome.  The ending felt very predictable to me, although the jumps between lives and between time frames within those lives were disorienting and I occasionally lost track of which life and which event went with which life.  Because the author, helpfully repeats details, one is not lost long.

The Golem and the Jinni, Helene Wecker

 

The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker was on a list somewhere of good books to read.

Started: 5/6/2021
Completed: 5/9/2021
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: Some list

Words for which I sought help:

lowering -- to look angry (pronounced like, "glowering," without the initial "g")

Review:

What a fantastic book!  I really liked the way that the different characters came into view, changed, and, even, surprised.  It was amazing how clear the different perspectives were and how cleverly the interactions went together.  I was drawn into a new world very possibly part of this world's past.  It looks like a sequel is coming, but it is hard to imagine that this was the intent on first writing.  In many ways this story is whole and does not call for a subsequent book, although the hook was left.  Regardless, I relish the opportunity to return.

Foundryside, Robert Jackson Bennett

 

Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett is the first book in the Founders Trilogy and I cannot remember how I stumbled upon it.

Started: 5/2/2021
Completed: 5/5/2021
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

This is a real shot at world building and it is pretty awesome.  I really enjoyed the approach to magic and I think that this book was realistic about how such a thing would dramatically change the world.  Of course, this isn't "our" world and so it isn't how magic changed our world, but how magic played such a pivotal role in Bennett's world.  I also like it when magic has limits and this world has those kind of limits.

The reality of feudal poverty and the truly ugliness of cities without real methods to handle sewage, close living quarters, and lack of clothing is pretty well done.  There are limits because this is fiction (it is hard to believe that anybody would wear all black in a society that moves between "hot and humid" and "very hot and very humid."  It also seems like mud would not be prevalent in that environment--whereas dust would seem to be ubiquitous.  Those few things, however, are all that kept me from feeling fully immersed.

A Game of Birds and Wolves, Simon Parkin

 

A Game of Birds and Wolves:  The ingenious young women whose secret board game helped win World War II by Simon Parkin was on a list of upcoming books and a quick look at the description was compelling.

Started: 4/29/2021
Completed: 5/2/2021
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

I am not big on war books.  This one, however, which mixes gaming and war as a means of understanding tactics caught my eye.  Add on that this is the story of women (at a time when women were not welcome) as analysts and players and this was a must-read for me.  This book offers an excellent broad look at the war in the Atlantic and the effort to bring food and supplies to beleaguered England.  Alternatively, it also brings to light how crucial the Germans felt it was to starve England.  Unfortunately, it is light on details of the women.

Roberts, who headed the tactical unit, is a man and well covered.  Despite his personal feeling that he and the WRENs who served with him did not receive the credit they deserved, at least there is some lasting memory of his work.  The WRENs however are known by name in some cases, by to whom they were married in others, and simply by function in yet more.  The book does a great job of describing the circumstances at the time, detailing much of Roberts' life, and offering insights (clearly gleaned from diaries and other original sources) of the WRENs themselves, but he does a much better job of putting the reader in Roberts shoes then in any of the WRENs.

I think that the lack of detail of the WRENs is due to a dearth of source material and not a failing of the author who clearly wanted to find a way to document their contributions without straying from the facts.  All in all, this is a good read, but not the detail of the life of women in the British navy I had hoped it might be.