The Cost of Free Land, Rebecca Clarren

 

The Cost of Free Land:  Jews, Lakota, and an American inheritance by Rebecca Clarren

Started: January 13, 2025
Completed: January 13, 2025
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

This is a great look at how native Americans were pushed back from their land and how others benefitted.  More importantly, this is also a good book about how to try to heal the impact of that loss for the Lakota.  I have had the good fortune of meeting one of the decedents of Red Cloud and I have seen first hand the impact of native American disenfranchisement.  Clarren does  a good job of capturing the impact from a white person's point of view and also has done some deep soul searching to try and figure out how to make amends.  Truly a good book that is actually doing good.

Trust, Hernan Diaz

 

Trust by Hernan Diaz

Started: 10/5/2023
Completed: 10/8/2023
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: The Pulitzer Prize

Words for which I sought help:

sauternes -- a French sweet wine from Sauternes in the Graves section of Bordeaux.

Review:

What an amazing book.  A story within a story within a story within a story.  Yep, that many layers.  And each story teller has an interesting and distinctive way of telling their own story.  I cannot imagine what it took to put this story together but I was riveted.  Simply awesome.

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?

Destiny of the Republic, Candice Millard

Destiny of the Republic:  A tale of madness, medicine, and the murder of a president by Candice Millard is a book that I decided to read after hearing Ms. Millard on NPR.


Started:  6/26/2013
Completed: 7/3/2013
Recommendation:  This book got the Best Book awards for a reason.  It is great.   Read it.
Recommended By:  NPR

Review:

When thinking of presidents, Garfield rarely jumps to mind.  Frankly, I only knew his name because he was assassinated.  Equally obscure to me was Chester Arthur (his VP who became president upon his death).  This book is not really a biography of Garfield although it covers the basics.  It is, however, a good character sketch and also gives a great look into the leading figures of the day.  I love the way that I got surprised at all the coincidences and the people tying into the president.  In some ways, I think that this story is the intersection of the American Ideal with Reality.  The boat crash which partly opens the story is a wonderful metaphor for what everyone thinks will be the good side of the American dream crashing into the reality of people with too much power.  This book is remarkably well written, carefully engaging, and myopically fascinating.