The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother), Rabih Alameddine

 

The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) by Rabih Alameddine

Started: January 26, 2026
Completed: March 4, 2026
Recommendation: Not Recommended
Media: Audio
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

The plot line is pretty good, but I found the way the plot developed to be off-putting.  I am OK with a character who does not like himself, but a character who does not know himself?  A character who treats his own internal issues as laugh lines?  Meh.

The Rediscovery of America, Ned Blackhawk

 

The Rediscovery of America:  Native peoples and the unmaking of U.S. history by Ned Blackhawk

Started: June 3, 2024

Completed: June 10, 2024

Recommendation: Recommended

Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

There is a through line.  We have screwed the Native Americans at pretty much every turn.  They did not lie down and take it, but they kept getting hit.  The book was hard reading as the details are pretty horrifying and I have the feeling that Blackhawk spared some of the truly horrific.  Oh, and pretty much every treaty was broken by anyone who treated with Native Americans.

The Rabbit Hutch, Tess Gunty

 The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty

Started: 3/4/2023
Completed: 3/6/2023
Recommendation: Not recommended
Recommended By: Several best books lists

Review:

I think that this novel just had too many major characters.  It seems like there was so much story only partially told.  In one sense, I think it is supposed to be a character analysis, but in the end it sort of became an extended look at a few days with lots of flashbacks.  The flashbacks helped explain some motivations but the way the story unfolded left me confused about which piece went where.  It felt to me like the author took one quotation from Hildegarde von Bingen about the presence of a glowing man and then tried to write a novel around it.  I just had trouble following the book and was not invested in any of the characters.

Stamped From the Beginning, Ibram X. Kendi

Stamped From the Beginning:  The definitive history or racist ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi was on an anti-racist list (Dr. Clint Smith on Pod Save The People) provided in response to the George Floyd protests.

Started: 6/28/2020

Completed: 7/4/2020

Recommendation: Highly Recommended

Recommended By: Dr. Clint Smith

Review:

This book uses the mechanism of following several individuals over time in order to bring the experience of those individuals  and provide a personal feeling to the history.  I think that this is very important in order for people to view events of a time from those who lived at that time.  The weakest of these is Angela Davis who ties the Birmingham Church bombing to President Obama.  Unlike Mather, Jefferson, or Du Bois, Davis is not at the heart of anti-racism, she seems to be in the mix, but not, herself, a leader.  It is probably too difficult to pick a single individual in the time frame to try and characterize the moment or provide a foil through which to view it.

White supremacy is clearly identified.  I think it is more important, however, that Kendi spells out what an Anti-Racist is.  He realistically argues and demonstrates that these labels are fluid and no one person embodies all of the characteristics all the time.  This realistic point of view is very different from my history classes where someone was a certain label.  The label was undermined when even a casual look at the individual revealed pieces inconsistent with the label (Hitler loved his dogs and had a mistress whom he seemed to love--this flies in the face of him being evil incarnate  unless you realize that Hitler can be evil even though he may have done some good things).  Kendi offers a more nuanced look at racists and forces everyone to consider how to turn their own racism into anti-racism.

Personally, I found uplift suasion compelling for a long time.  As I met more and more Black people who were exceedingly capable and in many cases much smarter then I, I lost the idea that Black was different by virtue of being black.  I thought that if this was the way I thought, then surely it was the way others thought, so uplift suasion would be compelling (White people just needed to go meet some Black people).  I never, ever thought that if it would be compelling, it would have already worked.  White people have had many generations to be persuaded and have not been--I should have known that since I didn't walk in the door seeing all people as equal, my parents and society did not.  Racism is nurtured, not nature.  We need immediate equality.

Freedom is not a constrained resource.  In that way, it is like love.  If society doles out freedom to all, freedom does not become less available when someone else gets some.  Freedom does not deplete when it is shared.  Like love, a society which enhances freedom becomes better.  A society that diminishes freedom becomes worse.

The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen is a book I cannot remember why I selected, but it seemed to me at the time like the author was particularly good.  I think it had something to do with the National Book Award.

Started: 5/22/2020

Completed: 5/24/2020

Recommendation: Mild Recommendation

Recommended By: National Book Award?

Review:

This is a carefully crafted story with insights into how it might feel to suffer from dementia.  It is also about how people fool themselves and others.  It is rife with mistakes that people could make and rife with patterns of mistakes that people can fool themselves into making.  The story is told from multiple points of view that occasionally overlap.

It feels like this is a vignette in a much larger story that starts well before the book does and goes on well after.  That makes sense.  The anchor to the story line is an aging father and grandfather who starts on the edge of dementia (though flash backs show a fully lucid individual, as one would expect) and ends with his being in full dementia.  This is not, really, however a story about his dementia, but more a story about how everyone around him changes during his struggle with reality.

I was not moved by the story and, though it was well told, have some trouble recommending it.  I didn't gain any insight from it and tale is overall a little sad. 

Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates was exceedingly well received when it was printed and Ta-Nehisi Coates has become an exceptional American commentator since.  I wanted to read this book and understand better his message.

Started: 1/22/2020
Completed: 1/24/2020
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By:  Everyone

Review:

This book is a letter.  This book is a tribute.  This book is a cautionary tale.  This book will move you.  All of that and I do not live in the world in which Coates grew up (despite being in Prince George's County, Maryland because his world is not a place, but a mentality--he calls it a tribe). 

I am definitely not a member of his tribe.  I live among people who are.  This is one tribe I would never hope to join.  I recognize and appreciate the good parts of this tribe, but I am sad for the situation that caused it to arise.  I want to eliminate the need for this tribe to exist.

In the meantime, however, it is important to understand the internal dialog that Coates exposes.  How can I hope to change my own errors without understanding the effect of our culture on people who grew up like Coates.  I thought I had an intellectual understanding of this tribe (I have no hope of understanding this tribe in any other way), but I was wrong.

A really, really important piece of understanding for me was the talk of the body.  Coates focuses repeatedly on the integrity, safety, and nurturing of his body.  Why?  Because those things cannot be taken for granted (as they are in many ways by me).  Our culture has exploited the bodies of Coates' tribe in every way imaginable and we continue to do it.  Members of his tribe are mostly black and brown, but not exclusively and, again, nobody should be a member of this tribe.

One step, one way, to start to make change happen is to respect everyone's body.  Especially those whose bodies have historically not been respected.  I say this in the same sense as "Black lives matter."  Yes, everyone's lives matter, but the point is that all too often black lives have not mattered, so take a moment and remember that black lives matter.  Take a moment and remember that black and brown bodies matter.  Yes, like everyone's bodies matter, but don't forget that black and brown bodies matter.  Unless you feel like an attack on the body of one of Coates' tribe is an attack on "everyone's" body, then you aren't getting it.  We all need to protect everyone. 

I need to work to make this an action, not just an idea and it is going to start, for me, by supporting District Attorney candidates all over the country who see the mass incarceration of black and brown people (yes, everyone, too) as wrong.  Who support the elimination of cash bail.  Who oppose stop and frisk.  I will start by doing a small part to protect people's bodies.  I will do more, but that is where I will start.

I also think it is insightful that Coates refers to Howard University as the Mecca, but is not a religious man.  He feels the need to have a focus, a center, a heart for his understanding of the world and this book says to me that Howard University is that place for him.

In The Heart of The Sea, Nathaniel Philbrick

In the Heart of the Sea:  The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick received the National Book Award in 2000 and was subsequently made into an unsuccessful moving by Ron Howard.  I listened to the unabridged audio version which tells the true story behind Moby Dick.

Started: 12/9/2016
Completed: 1/9/2017
Recommendation: Recommended, but you need a strong stomach
Recommended By: Nobody

Words for which I sought help:

consanguinity -- kinship; close relationship or close connection

Review:

The book starts at the end with the survivors being found by another whaleship.  That is as good a place as any.  There is a fair amount of time spent talking in graphic detail about the process of killing and recovering the oil from a whale.  It is nauseating.  This is a recurring theme, however, throughout the book and seems to pop up again just when you might have thought you'd been through it enough.  One would think it would pale in comparison to the cannibalism, but it does not.

This is a well written book that is difficult to assimilate.  The story is gripping and the characters are relatively interesting.  There are tons of interesting facts about whaling I never considered (like a boat only had around 20 people on it) and the implications of the hunting on the family (whale hunting took about 3 years per voyage).  The chronicling of bad judgement and bad mistakes (as well as bad luck) is enough to make you think that the survivors must have used up their bad luck in this one event.  Of course, they didn't and the whole story is more interesting for it.

House of Sand and Fog, Andre Dubus III

House of Sand and Fog By Andre Dubus III is an Oprah Winfrey Book Club Selection in 2000 and a National Book Award Finalist in 1999.  There are plenty of descriptions, reviews, and analysis from this time frame, so I'm not even going to try to provide a decent introduction here.

Started:  November 22, 2009

Completed:  November 24, 2009

Recommendation: Not recommended

Recommended By: Picked this up at a yard sale.  I had no real knowledge of it, but the back caught my attention.  I read the first few paragraphs and found the approach interesting.  There was a note about the National Book Award on the front, but I didn't know about Oprah until I started writing this review.

Review:  The book is well written and the change of perspectives are very well done.  That having been said...the plot just sucks.  The events that are described are awful.  Now, some people like that but I don't.  This book doesn't have a happy ending and there is no "message" being sent.  There is an argument to be made that this is a character study, but I don't see the characters being developed as the book progresses (the time frame is much too short to allow that).  At best, this strikes me as a modern tragedy (in the Greek sense).  Fundamental flaws in each character are exploited by the plot line and run, arguably, to their logical conclusion.  The result is a sad, sad book where everyone makes reasonable decisions within their own selfish point of view but no one is made better by the book.  There is a meager effort to look at what is "right" or even altruistic but the very mildness of the approach suggests that this is not a course to be pursued, but a character flaw in itself.  I found the book very dissatisfying.