The Most Powerful Court in the World, Stuart Banner

 

The Most Powerful Court in the World:  A history of the Supreme Court of the United States by Stuart Banner

Started: February 28, 2025
Completed: DNF
Recommendation: Not Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

I did not check when I started, but Stuart Banner is a member of the Federalist Society.  I knew something was off as I started reading the book because the first step was to normalize politicization of the Supreme Court.  It worried me as it started, but as the book went on it became an apologist for such things as Dred Scott (bad decision, but Tawney was a pretty good guy).  As I was listening to the book after about a quarter of the way through things added up and I checked to see if Banner was a member of the Federalist Society.  Sure enough, he was.  So I started this book thinking that I was getting a historian's perspective and I realized that I was getting a right twist on everything.  Really threw me off coming from a UCLA professor in good standing.

Stone Yard Devotional, Charlotte Wood

 

Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood

Started: February 26, 2025
Completed: February 28, 2025
Recommendation: Not Recommended
Recommended By: Booker Prize committee

Review:

As I have read more Booker Prize winners, I've come to understand that the committee has a long standing favoritism for blood, gore, and torture.  This particular book only falls short on the torture angle (though there is a fair amount of emotional distress and general angst).  I think I am going to use the Booker Prize as an indicator of a book I do not want to read.

The Silence of the Girls, Pat Barker

 

The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker

Started: February 23, 2025
Completed: February 25, 2025
Recommendation: Mild recommendation
Recommended By: The Booker Prize folks

Review:

You cannot get a Booker Prize unless there is some horror in your book.  That is just the truth.  This book is about the horror of women surviving the sack of their city (in this case in and around Troy).  It is pretty horrible.  Lots and lots of blood and gore as well as serial rape.  Not a fun read.  Well written

The Strategists, Phillips Payson O'Brien

 

The Strategists:  Churchill, Stalin, Roosevelt, and Hitler how war made them and how they made war by Phillips Payson O'Brien

Started: January 24, 2025
Completed: February 2, 2025
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By:  This probably came to me through The Atlantic magazine where O'Brien is a frequent contributor

Review:

This book is neither history nor biography.  It looks at the development of strategic thinking of the major leaders during World War II.  To some extent it is amazing what we now know of how they thought.  It was also interesting to see what drove their thinking.  I cannot say that this will change my thinking (I don't operate on a global scale), but it was interesting to see how failure functioned and how success required deference.

Someone Like Us, Dinaw Mengestu

 

Someone Like Us by Dinaw Mengestu

Started: January 13, 2025
Completed: January 20, 2025
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: I'm sure I read a review someplace, but I cannot remember where.

Review:

This is an oddly introspective book which is reminiscent of MC Escher's drawing of hands drawing hands:

There is also a playfulness with both tense and location.  This book is interesting in other ways as it looks at death from several different angles.  At one point, the narrator is told how to lie:  basically, use Steve Bannon's approach of "flooding the zone" with extraneous information so that it is difficult to tell what is the lie and what isn't and basically distracts the questioner from the question that was asked.  It was shocking to realize that this is what my own children did (I cannot count the number of times I pointed out that they had provided a lot of information without actually answering the question I had asked).  It must be a cultural thing that is common in many cultures, but seems to be lacking in American culture (or maybe it is simply lacking in my friend circle).

Night Watch, Jayne Anne Phillips

 

Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips

Started: January 14, 2025
Completed: January 19, 2025
Recommendation:  Not Recommended
Recommended By: The Pulitzer Prize Committee

Review:

Why is torture so important to prize winning novels?  This book had horrifying descriptions of systemic abuse.  I don't know what to say.  The prose was excellent, the character development was good, the plot was a little bit easy to see, but, on the other hand, there were good and reasonable twists.  I just couldn't get over the torture and will always remember this book with a chill.

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.