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.

To Say Nothing of the Dog, Connie Willis

To Say Nothing of the Dog: Or, how we found the Bishop's bird stump at last by Connie Willis is a book that I picked up in the Labor Day sale thinking that it would be good to have something funny on the shelves.

Started: 3/25/2020
Completed: 3/30/2020
Recommendation: Mild Recommendation
Recommended By: Nobody

Words for which I sought help:

Aspidistra -- a genus of flowing plants native to eastern and southeastern Asia

jumble sale -- a sale of miscellaneous secondhand articles, typically held in order to raise money for a charity or a special event; a rummage sale

MacGuffin -- an object, device, or event that is necessary to the plot and the motivation of the characters, but insignificant, unimportant, or irrelevant in itself.

Review:

Completely disoriented again.  Of course, so is the protagonist.  Still mostly confusing.  This reminds me of Jonathon Strange & Mr. Norrell which I started 3 times, but could never get through.

I did not find this book funny.  It is several layers of love story facilitated by time travel, which is truly just a mechanism to tell the story and allow most of the story to occur as though it were a historical novel.  The mechanism of time travel also allows for both confusion and for the protagonists to reveal their hearts to one another (as the "time lag" causes them to say things they would otherwise not).

The Bishop's bird stump is a MacGuffin, so one needn't really focus on it.  It could be that the book is a mystery, although I didn't really feel it was. It sort of defies a clear catalog.

Tightrope, Kristof and WuDunn

Tightrope: Americans reaching for hope by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn is a book that I had identified to read, but I cannot remember why.

Started: 3/22/2020
Completed: 3/25/2020
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

In the beginning of this book, the authors mention their friend Wes Moore (The Other Wes Moore) and I know that this book is going to be similar to others I have read on poverty in America.  It is heartbreaking to read these books and shocking how clearly the issue of a single mistake by a poor family simply crushes the whole family.

It seems like the authors have unwittingly used Bernie Sanders stump speech numbers and woven them into the life stories of people the authors knew.  This brings the statistics to life and serves as a single point of validation.  It makes the numbers more believable and easier to remember.  The policy proposals are more modest than what Bernie has proposed, but that does not invalidate them as a stepping stone to a better America.

The Flight Portfolio, Julie Orringer

The Flight Portfolio by Julie Orringer was on a list of top books to read.

Started: 12/31/2019
Completed: 3/23/2019
Recommendation: Not recommended
Recommended By:  A list of top books for 2019

Review:

I really did not enjoy the narrator, Edoardo Ballerini, who seemed to be moaning plaintively throughout the book.  Everyone has there own predilections, but, to me, this seemed to give the book a certain draining quality.

There were some nice twists of phrase and I particularly enjoyed:  "He put the ticket into his vampiric device and returned it double punched and drained of value."

The summaries of this book suggest that there is a huge moral question addressed:  How do we weigh human lives?  This book does not suggest that there is more than one way.  It seems to be largely an issue of chance and even more one of opportunity.  The main character seemed unable to discern what is truly a matter of life and death and what is not.

This book, in general, is a love story.  It uses the Nazi invasion of France as a back drop.  I've noticed that poor romances often use dramatic circumstances to force drama into a romance which can hardly stand on its own.  I find this romance to be rather hollow (lots of heavy breathing, moments of wrapping one another for safety, and endless longing).  It has an odd addition of some sort of comedy of errors due to statements that "could not be made" and misunderstood intentions (coupled with dubious calls to honor).  In general, I did not enjoy the book, but felt I was slogging through it looking for something that simply never came.

There was a reference to the Master's School motto (my mother's alma mater...she called it Dobbs), "Do it with thy might."