Mabith's 2017 Reads (Meredith)

Another year, another book thread.

Minimal goals - Read authors from 50 different countries and more published before the 20th century.

2017 Reads:
The Deeds of the Disturber by Elizabeth Peters
The Wiregrass by Pam Webber
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
It Didn't Start With You by Mark Wolynn
Facing the Lion by Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton

Before We Visit the Goddess by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Colored People by Henry Louis Gates Jr.
My Khyber Marriage by Morag Murray Abdullah
Miss Bianca in the Salt Mines by Margery Sharp
Farewell to the East End by Jennifer Worth

Fire and Air by Erik Vlaminck
My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me by Jennifer Teege
Catherine the Great by Robert K. Massie
My Mother's Sabbath Days by Chaim Grade
Not the Israel My Parents Promised Me by Harvey Pekar

The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald
Stammered Songbook by Erwin Mortier
Savushun by Simin Daneshvar
The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
Beyond the Walls by Nazim Hikmet

The Dressmaker of Khair Khana by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
Bone Black by bell hooks
Special Exits by Joyce Farmer
Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose

Bright Dead Things by Ada Limon
Middlemarch by George Eliot
Confessions of an English Opium Eater by Thomas de Quincey
Medusa's Gaze bu Marina Belozerskaya
Child of the Prophecy by Juliet Marillier

The File on H by Ismail Kadare
The Motorcycle Diaries by Ernesto Che Guevara
Passing by Nella Larsen
Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers
The Spiral Staircase by Karen Armstrong

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
Defiance by Nechama Tec
Yes, Chef by Marcus Samuelsson
Discontent and its Civilizations by Mohsin Hamid

The Gulag Archipelago Vol. 1 by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Patience and Sarah by Isabel Miller
Dying Light in Corduba by Lindsey Davis
Five Days at Memorial by Sheri Fink
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

The Shia Revival by Vali Nasr
Girt by David Hunt
Half Magic by Edward Eager
Dreams of Joy by Lisa See
Too Pretty to Live by Dennis Brooks

West with the Night by Beryl Markham
Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper
Defying Hitler by Sebastian Haffner
Monsters in Appalachia by Sheryl Monks
Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho

The Man Without a Face by Masha Gessen
Peace is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh
Flory by Flory van Beek
Why Soccer Matters by Pele
The Zhivago Affair by Peter Finn, Petra Couvee

The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake by Breece Pancake
The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson
Chasing Utopia by Nikki Giovanni
The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer
Young Adults by Daniel Pinkwater

Jonathan Swift: The Reluctant Rebel by John Stubbs
Black Gun, Silver Star by Art T. Burton
The Arab of the Future 2 by Riad Sattouf
Hole in the Heart by Henny Beaumont
MASH by Richard Hooker

Forgotten Ally by Rana Mitter
Zorro by Isabel Allende
Flying Couch by Amy Kurzweil
The Bite of the Mango by Mariatu Kamara
Mystic and Rider by Sharon Shinn

Freedom is a Constant Struggle by Angela Davis
Capture by David A. Kessler
Poor Cow by Nell Dunn
My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett
Elmer and the Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett

The Dragons of Blueland by Ruth Stiles Gannett
Hetty Feather by Jacqueline Wilson
In the Shadow of the Banyan Tree by Vaddey Ratner
The Last Camel Died at Noon by Elizabeth Peters
Cannibalism by Bill Schutt

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
The Food of a Younger Land by Mark Kurlansky
Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue
Words on the Move by John McWhorter

John Ransom's Diary: Andersonville by John Ransom
Child of All Nations by Irmgard Keun
One Child by Mei Fong
Country of Red Azaleas by Domnica Radulescu
Between Two Worlds by Zainab Salbi

Malinche by Laura Esquivel
A Lucky Child by Thomas Buergenthal
The Drackenberg Adventure by Lloyd Alexander
Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan
William Wells Brown by Ezra Greenspan

Partners In Crime by Agatha Christie
The Chinese in America by Iris Chang
The Great Escape by Kati Marton
As Texas Goes... by Gail Collins
Pavilion of Women by Pearl S. Buck

Classic Chinese Stories by Lu Xun
The Return of the Soldier Rebecca West
The Slave Across the Street by Theresa Flores
Miss Bianca in the Orient by Margery Sharp
Boy Erased by Garrard Conley

How to Be a Dictator by Mikal Hem
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Tears of the Desert by Halima Bashir
The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs
The First Salute by Barbara Tuchman

Come as You Are by Emily Nagoski
The Want-Ad Killer by Ann Rule
The Gulag Archipelago Vol 2 by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

2016 Favorites

Favorite Non-Fiction Reads
Wave - Sonali Deraniyagala
Evicted – Matthew Desmond
Love InshAllah - Nura Maznavi, Ayesha Mattu (editors)
Charity and Sylvia – Rachel Cleves
Under an English Heaven – Donald E. Westlake
The Warmth of Other Suns – Isabel Wilkerson
If the Oceans Were Ink – Carla Power
The Body Keeps the Score – Bessel van der Kolk
The Invention of Nature – Andrea Wulf
King Leopold's Ghost – Adam Hochschild
Needless Suffering – David Nagel
Hidden Figures – Margot Lee Shetterly
Summer Before the Dark – Volker Weidermann
Coming Out Under Fire – Allan Berube
The Emperor of All Maladies – Siddartha Mukherjee
Sister Outsider – Audre Lorde

Favorite Fiction Reads
Capital – John Lanchester
The Price of Salt – Patricia Highsmith
The Bridge of Beyond – Simone Schwarz-Bart
Bellwether – Connie Willis
Know the Mother – Desiree Cooper
The Colonel – Mahmoud Dowlatabadi
Rebels and Traitors – Lindsey Davis
The Mummy Case – Elizabeth Peters
A Brief History of Seven Killings – Marlon James
The Awakening – Kate Chopin
Kindred – Octavia E. Butler
Americanah – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Children of the New World – Assia Djebar
The Case of Comrade Tulayev – Victor Serge
Den of Wolves – Juliet Marillier
The Wreath – Sigrid Undset

Favorite YA, Children's, and younger-age comics
Moomin Comic Strip Vol 1 – Tove Jansson
Adventures of a Cat-Whiskered Girl – Daniel Pinkwater
Alchemy and Meggy Swann – Karen Cushman
The Shepherd's Crown – Terry Pratchett
The Cracks in the Kingdom – Jaclyn Moriarty
A Tangle of Gold – Jaclyn Moriarty
Nimona – Noelle Stevenson
Emma Vol 1-5 – Kaoru Mori
Long Division – Kiese Laymon
Anya's Ghost – Vera Brosgol
Pigeon Post – Arthur Ransome
Gabi, A Girl in Pieces – Isabel Quintero

Welcome back!

Happy new year!
Best wishes for some great reading :)

Hope you have a great year Meredith !

Thanks for checking in, y'all! Excited about following your threads again.

Looking forward to another great year of reads.

The Deeds of the Disturber by Elizabeth Peters

The fifth book in the Amelia Peabody series. Set in the late Victorian period the novels are generally centered in Egypt and archaeology, though this one takes place in England between digging seasons. Amelia's hated brother has dumped his two children with them, and there is constant friction between them and Amelia's son, who is usually the troublemaker.

A fun volume, if not my favorite. There are many duplicitous figures, a figure from Emerson's (Amelia's husband) past, and the meddling of a reporter. One of Peters' strengths is allowing the characters to be Victorian. They have some progressive views, but they are firmly Victorian in my behaviors and world views. As ever, Peters humor is high point as well.

The Wiregrass by Pam Webber

My local bookclub won a set of these books in a competition, and I think that's the only way we would have chosen it. I found the book pretty poor, and hitting all the negative stereotypes of a debut novel. It was a very quick read at least.

The book takes place in southern Alabama, about a group of cousins who spend most of the summer there with their aunt, uncle, and grandparents. Each summer the older cousins pull a variety of pranks at night, not exactly sanctioned by relatives but not lectured about it either. The pranks seem to mostly consist of TPing houses of people who they feel are hassling their aunt Pitty. I don't understand the appeal of doing that more than once, but I was a pretty well-behaved kid. This year there's an extra air of tension around the town.

My problems began with Webber's use of punctuation, both within sentences and the fact that she writes Ain't for Aunt. I get that she wants to show the accent pronunciation, that's fine (it's the only bit of that in the book), but why on earth would she leave the apostrophe in?! It was so bothersome. The book is also just trying to do too much. It felt like two novels badly smooshed together. On the one hand she wanted to write a coming of age, we're all growing up, learning lessons book for the cousins. On the other hand she sows very obvious hints of child molesters being in the area all through the book. I'd assumed she'd given that line up but then it comes it right at the very end. It's also a whole lot of telling rather than showing.

The pacing was definitely wrong, and there were a lot of details that just stood out as wrong to me -- a cat trapped in a mailbox gives the opener of it cuts that require TWENTY stitches, someone is using old fashioned butter churns (the stick and barrel sort) for a serious business rather than the crank varieties which are quicker and easier and have been around since Victorian times... At the very end there's also an offensive line about places in Mexico that are "safe havens" for child molesters. It's also just wrong-headed since in the US it's rare that abusers get much jail time if they're convicted at all, if anyone even believes the child. The end basically became the worst kind of after-school special speeches and dialogue.

I can't speak to the evocation of southern Alabama, but I don't recommend the book to anyone.

Oh, I love Bellwether--it showcases Willis' dry sense of humor so perfectly! Glad you enjoyed it too. Evicted is on its way to me--there's a group read going on this month over in the 75 book challenge group at this link, if you are interested.
http://www.librarything.com/topic/243885

Absolutely! Willis' humor is so perfect. Thanks for the link, I might look in.

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

Effia and Esi, half-sisters whose lives are not parallel, but alternate universe versions of each other. One is sold into slavery and taken from Ghana, one marries a white soldier. We travel along the generations, focusing a single descendant of each, moving backwards and forwards between Ghana and the US.

If you're tired of reading glowing reviews of this book, I'm afraid mine will be a disappointment. I also absolutely loved it. My only criticism is that I wanted it to be twice as long. I don't know how someone so young can write like that (Gyasi is four years younger than I am and I'm a pretty young face around these groups).

I am a sucker for a family saga, and again, all I wanted was a longer book, more time exploring the families, more time with the characters. Gyasi writes beautifully, and she touches on important aspects of history without making them feel forced or shoe-horned in. She is surely a writer to watch.

My first five star book of the year.

It Didn't Start With You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle by Mark Wolynn

I don't quite know what to think about this book. It deals with epigenetics, heritable traits (phenotypes) not explained by DNA sequence changes, and starts with things like cortisol levels in extremely stressed (closer to traumatized than normal stress) expectant mothers and similar levels present in the babies. In mice studies, anxiety-related phenotypes have been inherited by the children of the forcefully stressed mice. Fear-conditioning was also heritable. Mice conditioned to associate a particular scent with an electric shock passed down fear of that scent through two generations who were never shocked.

It's an area of science that's only beginning to be explored, so parts of the books had my skeptical brain rolling it's eyes, even when I shushed the impulse. Wolynn works with people who have unexplained psychological reactions (generally related to anxiety and depression, but also extreme and sudden insomnia) or blocks to see if there's a familial explanation then helps them confront and understand it which usually ends the symptoms. It is related to the type of memory processing explored in The Body Keeps the Score and Trauma and Recovery (both dealing with C-PTSD), wherein traumatic memories need help to be fully processed in the usual way (which usually resolves symptoms of flashbacks, intrusive thoughts, etc...).

Part of me just kept thinking "well these people probably heard X event being talked about as children and don't remember but it stayed in their subconscious," etc etc. It seems unlikely that this was true in all these cases though. Plus numerous other studies that show that this does happen to other animal species (crows, for instance) and the eggs that will make us are present when our mothers are fetuses.

It did make me think about the big trauma of my mother's life - her mom's death when she was 15, compounded by her insistence that she couldn't stay in the family house where her mother's last year contained so many teenage arguments (she stayed with her aunt and uncle for nine months or so) and the fact that my granddaddy basically refused to talk about his wife for decades. My mom almost never talks about any part of her past without loads of prodding now, let alone when I was a kid and scared to bring up her mother in any context (partly due to child fear that talk about it would curse my own mother). Then when I was a teenager I pretty suddenly became incredibly needy towards my parents, especially my mom, and in our arguments I'd almost immediately start crying no matter how minor it was (I was not the crying type). Back at boarding school (a place I truly loved), I ended up crying almost weekly because it was so hard to get her on the phone (she'd taken up training to be a whitewater rafting guide and there was very limited cell service in that area). The neediness was sudden and strange enough that I know it confused my mom. I mean, I went to sleep-away summer camp starting at age eight and didn't have even a tiny whiff of homesickness.

Things to think about.

Facing the Lion: Growing Up Maasai on the African Savanna by Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton

This is a memoir for the children's audience (Amazon says ages 11-13 but I'd say 9-11), giving us a very abridged story of Lekuton's childhood through to high school. It's told in short anecdotes, in a child's voice without much introspection, which is part of why I'd reduce the target age range. I don't bother with much juvenile non-fiction, but I'm more inclined with this type of book given my abundance of nieces and nephews (and the fact that I loved non-fiction as a kid).

It's a good one as well because frequently with non-anglophone country memoirs or history for kids there's this idea that children who are poor or who have harder lives never misbehave. That idea can be presented in a "you have it so easy" way that isn't great for kids, and Lekuton's personality certainly goes against that tide.

Good one for the grade school market, but any older and I think you'll want to supplement it with some more complex books about Kenya and/or the Maasai people as well.

>11 mabith: Jenn (jfetting) just finished Three Men in a Boat and loved it. I've strongly recommended To Say Nothing of the Dog as a follow-up.

Solid recommendation! To Say Nothing of the Dog isn't my favorite of the time travel books, but very enjoyable (all the Christie and Wodehouse and such kept giving things an Edwardian and post-war tone which I think overlooks other Victorian references which might have been used, such as Elizabeth Gaskell who was hilarious and also ridiculously shrewd about psychology).

I need to get to some more Willis this year.

Before We Visit the Goddess by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

This novel looks at the lives of three generations of women, a daughter, her mother, and her grandmother. All three have lives that take unexpected directions and all are impacted by breaking off their educations. Each also seems unable to talk about her own life to the others, meaning they sometimes make similar mistakes.

It's a family saga, though a very segmented one. We see life in India for the grandmother, life as a struggling immigrant for the mother, and life as a second generation American for the daughter. Not a revolutionary book, and sometimes felt written specifically for the "KEEP UP WITH YOUR SCHOOLING! message, but it was a good read. I enjoyed getting to know all three women, and appreciated that Divakaruni didn't feel the need to completely wrap things up in a Hallmark ending where all relationships are perfectly repaired and happy.

Relatively light read, generally recommended.

Colored People: A Memoir by Henry Louis Gates Jr.

While I may say that part of the point of a book club is to do some reading outside my own inclinations, I'm much happier when they choose a book that I've been meaning to read for some time. That's the case with this one, partly just due to its reputation but also because Gates is a fellow West Virginian.

The book is focused on daily life and changes in Piedmont, WV, on his extended family and the changing atmosphere of a separated society beginning to co-mingle. West Virginia is no haven from racism, but by and large the state integrated schools and equalized teacher pay without fuss. Gates attended integrated schools from about third grade on, and sometimes chafed against the unwritten rules of racial mixing which legislation cannot touch.

It's a time capsule book, recording the realities of his parents and grandparents lives and full of important little details. It is a book to remind people of the slowness of true change, and not meant to comfort white folks with any of idea of perfect linear improvements or unchallenged history (the older generations understanding that integration often means everyone adopting white culture and norms). Recommended.

My Khyber Marriage: Experiences of a Scotswoman as the Wife of a Pathan Chieftain's Son by Morag Murray Abdullah (pen name of Saira Elizabeth Luiza Shah)

Originally published in 1934, this memoir is a brief and pithy account of a few years of the author's life. She and her husband meet during WWI when he is in the UK studying medicine. They married first in the UK and had a daughter before they traveled back to his father's home in Afghanistan. The book mostly details her initial time there, and ends on a lengthy trip to India.

The main body of the book is interesting and the writing is engaging. It is typical of the period though, and the author keeps it light and superficial. The end bit in India was somewhat annoying and much less interesting, perhaps because the author disliked it in comparison to Afghanistan. Some of the observations there seem shaded by the preconceived prejudices that she dislikes so much in the English ideas about her husband's people.

An interesting, mostly good read, but not really close to being a great read. This was a pick for my online book club.

Miss Bianca in the Salt Mines by Margery Sharp

Apart from having a great title, this was such a fun read. It's the fourth in the "Rescuers" series, which the Disney cartoons are very very loosely based on. I've read the first three and plan to continue with the series.

They are just such silly, fun, appealing books. Sharp has such a way with her characters, and I love Miss Bianca to pieces. She is very high class but not snobbish, she is dainty and girly and also the driving force behind the rescues and the adventures. She pushes Bernard to be braver, she keeps it all going. I think having stereotypically feminine characters like this is important for children. I was never that girl growing up, but feminine characters in 80% of the media I consumed were the villains - mean, shallow, and rude. That balance is harmful.

If you see the books around, pick one up and enjoy the ride. Sharp really does have a gift and I so wish I'd had these when I was a kid.

Farewell to the East End by Jennifer Worth

The third of Worth's memoirs about her time as a nurse/midwife in London's East End. If you like the TV series Call the Midwife or Worth's other memoirs, you'll like this too. I read it mostly to be a completest, but they're an interesting slice of history in themselves.

A problem I had with this and the previous volumes are the stories with very little midwife involvement but where Worth doesn't mention how she learned the stories. One especially involves illegal abortions which don't work (and the eventual purposeful death of the infant), and I question who would have told her this story, on a subject which people often refuse to talk about now, let alone then. The entire time I'm reading these sections I just feel like Worth is taking too many storyteller liberties, and how she learned the story IS important.

The first volume might have had some of that as well, and I'm just forgetting. I am struck by how much of the books made it into the TV show. Worth died just before it aired, but I think she'd have been pleased with the casting and acting. The people playing her and her friends seem so spot-on.

Fire and Air by Erik Vlaminck, translated by Paul Vincent

Last year I had to trawl through books by Flemish authors that were available in English for not too much money (and also sounded interesting to me) to appease a Flemish friend and this was what I hit upon. Amusingly, my friend's book club had the author come to them, which is the benefit of a small country further split between two languages. I'd meant to read it before October last year, as she was coming to visit, but as you can see that didn't happen.

The book follows three generations of women, a daughter, her mother, and her grandmother. The grandmother is from the Netherlands and her husband is a Flemish Belgian. They meet as immigrants in Canada and quickly marry. The father works for a local asylum but his real passion is for pigeons. The marriage is not a happy one and one year the father does not return from his annual trip to Belgium. Their child, Elly, goes to Belgium to attempt to find her father when she's 18 or so. She discovers a few truths about his life and returns to Canada pregnant after a brief affair there.

It's not an awful book, but the relationships between the three women didn't feel true to me, or at least don't develop in a rational way. Humans are rational blah blah blah, but we demand higher things of authors than the people we know in real life. It felt mostly like Vlaminck wanted to end in a certain place and didn't worry about whether than made sense or whether or not he was showing enough of the time in-between (the books skips between specific years) to feel right. Probably needed at least 75 more pages to feel developed enough. The writing was good, though quite sparse.

My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family's Nazi Past by Jennifer Teege, translated by Carolin Sommer

Teege was born in 1970 to a white German mother and a Nigerian student. She was put in a children's home pretty immediately but still saw her mother and grandmother regularly until she was formally adopted by her foster family around age seven (at which point they felt it best that she didn't see her birth family).

At age 38 she picks up a biography about her birth mother, Monika Göth, by accident and learns that her grandfather was Amon Göth, the commandant of Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp. This is the man and the camp shown in the movie Schindler's List, which had no need of fictionalizing Göth to make him seem more villainous. The SS actually removed Göth from his post in 1944 and charged him with a variety of crimes related to the running of the camp (most of which involved heinous treatment of the prisoners, ironically). He was not tried due to the progress of the Allies but was deemed mentally ill by SS doctors and committed to a mental institution where he was arrested at the end of the war.

Part of what made this discovery so deeply shocking to Teege was the fact that her relationship with her grandmother, Ruth Irene Göth, had always been extremely loving. In her earliest childhood Irene was without question the most positive part of her life and Teege had felt truly loved by her. This was also a woman who had largely excused or defended Amon Göth, but who had also killed herself in the early 1980s. Teege felt betrayed by her birth mother, Monika, who had also struggled with being the child of a Nazi yet had never disclosed that fact to Teege when they reconnected during adulthood. There was also an internal struggle over the reactions of her many Israeli friends, as Teege spent most of her 20s there.

It's a very well-done book, with most of it written by Teege with some interspersed bits by Nikola Sellmair and some longer quotes by Teege's friends and family. The book deals mainly with Teege's personal story, but also general issues experienced by children and grandchildren of both Nazis and Jewish survivors and how Holocaust education was handled.

I was impressed with how they handled the organization of the book, which could have easily been told poorly or without the needed depth. Recommended.

WHOA! I love, love, love the books you read!

Thanks for sharing them...

Thanks for commenting, Lhea! Wide variety is what I do best with my reading (or what makes me happiest anyway).

Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie

This book has spent a lot of time being built up since its release in 2011, and I think my expectations were too high. I liked it, but I don't feel like it's anything amazing. Given Catherine's long life it also felt too short (at 672 pages).

Perhaps the subtitle implies that it won't be going into administrative topics much. However, I also didn't feel like Massie addressed the fact of Catherine being a woman and how that changed the way she was treated and perceived. This is such a missing piece, in my opinion, and one reason why I'd much rather read woman-authored biographies of powerful women. There's just a level of constant sexism that it's extremely difficult to understand if you haven't experienced it, and almost impossible to keep that constantly in mind while writing.

Good solid book, good read, just don't expect the moon.

>26 mabith: Ah, I read that one as an ARC back when Early Reviewers offered it a couple of years ago. Yes, interesting, but I agree that it could have been much more.

My Mother's Sabbath Days by Chaim Grade

I checked this out of the library pretty immediately after reading torontoc's review of it last November. It sat rather neglected until I finished up bookclub reads.

It's an extremely literary memoir, with the focus on Grade's mother, Vella, in most of the book. Grade builds vignettes, recounting specific incidences and the confusing surrounding what the war would bring. As with many families, they thought only the men would be arrested or killed, so Grade left his mother and his wife, Frumme-Liebche, and flees into Russia just ahead of the Germans. He never stands still for long and ends up as far away as Tajikistan.

The book does not move smoothly through the months and years, Grade does not fill us in on his every movement, but the book is beautiful and powerful. The chapters detailing his return to Vilna (Vilnius, Lithuania), are some of the most beautifully written, with extreme depth of feeling. This passage responding to the eternal "Why didn't you fight back hard enough?" question asked by those who did not live in the ghettos or camps, seems especially timely to me right now. The "fierce valor" bits at the beginning refer to the Russians.

“The fierce valor of these victors has confused you, and now you demand valor of us as well: 'Why did you not resist?' You have saved your life and now you want us who perished to save also your imagined honor; you want to be able to proclaim yourself before the world a last survivor of annihilated heroes. In the presence o the arrogant, of the powerful, of those who live by the sword, you call us to account for failing to exact vengeance.

“Don't you know that they deceived us? The murderers sent traitors into our midst who persuaded us that by labor we could save ourselves from death. No one returned from the grave, and the forests around Ponary hid the secret of the bloody pits even from the birds. The police and oppressors within our own ranks, to keep themselves alive one day more than the rest, assured us after each new edict that no further steps would be taken against us. And we had children and wives and aged parents to care for. They tortured us, to destroy within us the image of God; they stripped us naked, to crush us with shame and humiliation; under a hail of blows and laughter we ran to our graves—willingly, we ran! For do you know what it is to lie in a field, surrounded by executioners, and watch others being led to their death while you yourself are left behind for later—for later? Can you conceive how great a deliverance it is then to die even one moment sooner? And still you demand heroism of us, our dead hands must uphold your honor in the eyes of the peoples of the earth, who bend the knee before power, never before suffering.

“And you, stouthearted fellow that you are, what did you do while we were dying? And your brothers living far away in freedom, what did they do? Did they fall at the feet of the nations and plead for our rescue? Why did you not besiege the leaders of governments? Why did you not lie down in the streets, so that the world could not have passed by so heedless of our murder? Why did you not starve yourselves to death, nor rend your garments in mourning every day, every hour, every moment? You failed to show for our sake a Jew's self-sacrifice, and of us you demand the valor of Esau? Whosoever heaps blame upon us for our weakness has no compassion in his heart. Whosoever says that we are punished for our sins, blasphemes against God. Today on this Day of Atonement, you must pray for us. Our lives were cut short, our prayers were cut short.”

Not the Israel My Parents Promised Me by Harvey Pekar, art by JT Waldman

I'm still new to Pekar's work, but was looking for a non-fiction comic and this was on my list. Pekar was born in 1939 in Cleveland to Jewish Polish immigrants. His father was a Zionist via religion and his mother was a Zionist via politics (she was not religious, whereas his father was a Talmudic scholar). He grew up supporting and repeating their views.

As the years went on Pekar began to feel like the leadership of Israel was going wrong, had mixed feelings about the creation of Israel to begin with, and became relatively outspoken about it. Perhaps as a response to reactions he got, we have this book. It was released about two years after Pekar died, and I'm unsure whether the text had already been edited and set in stone before his death or not.

I found it to be a really interesting read, and very illuminating in terms of the history of Israel, especially in its first couple decades. Pekar gives his opinions, of course, but a lot of the book is just straight history, explaining the necessary background to talking about Israel at all. The history is in brief, of course, but it seems to be a great primer.

The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald

This is one of the books I got via SantaThing, and it sounded like a fun book-oriented novel. Sara is a young, Swedish woman who has been corresponding with the older Amy, who lives in small-town Iowa. Sara is awkward with no real friends and spends all her time reading. Amy convinces her to come for a long visit (two months), but once Sara arrives she finds that Amy has died (it turns out she had a long-term fatal disease which she never disclosed). The town decides to treat Sara as their first tourist and take control of her. When no one will let her pay for anything she comes up with the idea to open a bookstore (as a volunteer, not a paid worker) in a space Amy owned and sell her books, trying to connect various people with the perfect book for them.

Not a bad premise but it was all far too fluffy for me with grating aspects. The town also seemed very unlikely, in terms of its size vs having an open restaurant and various stores. My earliest years were in a barely incorporated town of about 300 people and even by 1994 all the in-town stores had closed, and that was when the local aluminum plant was still open. Broken Wheel, Iowa is described as having only three cross-streets so I feel like there can't be many more than 300 people there and they mention all the local farms being sold. Plus no one letting her pay for ANYTHING and stating that most of the locals don't pay but sort of trade services really didn't ring true either (and how would that work, the restaurant still has to buy supplies using money...). It was so idealized, which just didn't work for me.

Then there's Sara who constantly brings up characters and plot points in books with no warning as though these are real things and who feels no compulsion to explain once it's obvious the other person has no idea what she's talking about. There's adorable-awkward and then there's self-centered/rude awkward. Plus Sara is frequently giving away major plot points even in pretty recent books which seems an unlikely trait in an avid bookworm. This trait also rubs off on the locals. But of course the town falls in love with her and with having a book shop and the locals all grow as humans and scheme to look well-read and cultured to show up the snooty larger, neighboring town that people move to. Also apparently no one is properly handling Amy's estate, they're just letting this stranger live in her house and use property that Amy owned. I thought for sure Amy would have willed the stuff to Sara since she basically planned that Sara would come after she died, but nope. I'm not even going into the romance element.

Not recommended except maybe for vacation ultra-fluff, but only if you have no experience of small towns and are feeling tolerant.

Stammered Songbook: A Mother's Book of Hours by Erwin Mortier

This was absolutely beautiful, it is the book about Alzheimers that I've been looking for. Mortier is a novelist and poet, and this memoir is made up of mostly short (one page or less) bits of writing. Short statements about a particular moment or issue as time goes on. It's extremely effective and Mortier is just a beautiful writer. In the beginning he used "self-conscious" in a way that didn't seem quite right, and I wonder if that's a translation issue or not, or just the usual conceit that language=self-awareness.

This passage in particular sums up many of the themes:
“I don't want to see her wasting away (and somehow I do, somehow I want to confront the proof of her disappearance). I don't want to see her all skin and bone twitching and trembling in her final bed (and I do want to see it), I don't want to have to think: this body that is shot through with attacks and spasms is no longer my mother (I'm prepared to think it if I have to). And I don't want to have to think too often: this trembling skeleton, this wreck, is still my mother (and I'm prepared to do that too). Why can't I say: she's no longer with us, without feeling a stab of pain in my ribcage? Why can't I say either: there is still something of her in her, without feeling pain too? And apart from that, if we decide that it's worthwhile to go on treating her for all kinds of things, for whom is it worthwhile? And if we were to decide that it's gradually become enough, for whom are we deciding that: for her or for us?”

And this passage I just like a lot:
Others who have died have strengthened me in all kinds of strange ways. With their lips that had fallen silent, before the earth covered them for ever, they quickly spelled out to me what probably matters most as long as we're breathing: that love is attention. That they are two words for the same thing. That it isn't necessary to try to clear up every typo and obscure passage that we come across when we read the other person attentively—that a human being is difficult poetry, which you must be able to listen to without always demanding clarification, and that the best thing that can happen to us is the absolution that a loved one grants us for the unjustifiable fact that we exist and drag along with us a self that has been marked and shaped by so many others.

Savushun by Simin Daneshvar (also titled A Persian Requiem)

A modern Iranian classic, it follows the life of a family during the Allied occupation of Iran during WWII. A beautiful work, strolling down so many side streets in the events and issues.

I feel like there is so much I missed in this reading though, cultural and historical things mainly. It was that sense of not quite getting the heart of the characters or the events. Definitely one I want to re-read in print later this year, but I think I can recommend it based on this first reading.

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

It's a classic and constantly quoted for good reason. Beautiful writing, one to pick through numerous times. I need to buy a copy for my personal library.

Beyond the Walls: Selected Poems by Nazim Hikmet

I first came across a Hikmet poem in a collection of poems in translation and immediately chided my friend in Turkey for not mentioned Hikmet before.

This is a good selection, read slowly a couple poems a night for a few months, which is a great way to do poetry collections. I've really enjoyed his work and highly recommend it.

The Three Storks Restaurant

We used to meet at the Three Storks Restaurant in Prague.
Now I stand eyes closed by a roadside,
you a death's distance away.
Perhaps there's no Three Storks Restaurant in Prague.
I'm making it up.

We used to meet at the Three Storks Restaurant in Prague.
I used to look in your face and sing from my heart
the prophet Solomon's Song of Songs.

We used to meet at the Three Storks Restaurant in Prague.
Now I stand eyes closed by a roadside,
you a death's distance away.
in a cracked mirror, awry, deformed.

Now I stand eyes closed by a roadside,
you a death's distance away.
O Sonya Danyolova, dear old friend,
nothing's so soon forgotten as the dead.

(August 1959)

A Sad State of Freedom

You waste the attention of your eyes,
the glittering labour of your hands,
and knead the dough enough for dozens of loaves
of which you'll taste not a morsel;
you are free to slave for others--
you are free to make the rich richer.

The moment you're born
they plant around you
mills that grind lies
lies to last you a lifetime.
You keep thinking in your great freedom
a finger on your temple
free to have a free conscience.

Your head bent as if half-cut from the nape,
your arms long, hanging,
your saunter about in your great freedom:
you're free
with the freedom of being unemployed.

You love your country
as the nearest, most precious thing to you.
But one day, for example,
they may endorse it over to America,
and you, too, with your great freedom--
you have the freedom to become an air-base.

The tentacles of Wall Street may grab you by the neck;
they could despatch you to Korea
one of these days
there to fill a hollow with your Great Freedom.
Yes, you're free
with the freedom of an unknown soldier.

You may proclaim that one must live
not as a tool, a number or a link
but as a human being--
then at once they handcuff your wrists.
You are free to be arrested, imprisoned
and even hanged.

There's neither an iron, wooden
nor a tulle curtain
in your life;
there's no need to choose freedom:
you are free.
But this kind of freedom
is a sad affair under the stars.

The Dressmaker of Khair Khana: Five Sisters, One Remarkable Family, and the Woman Who Risked Everything to Keep Them Safe by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon

Lemmon's recent career has been about looking at businesses created and run by women in the aftermath of war and great changes in their countries. Kamila Sadiqi was the second eldest (I believe) daughter in a Kabul family. She had received a teaching degree but when the Taliban takes Kabul she can no longer teach and the older men in her family must leave the country for their own safety. The sisters must find a way to make money. Despite the new regulations keeping women at home clothing still sells well, so Kamila decides that's the business to start. Her older sister is a talented seamstress and they learn from her. It is dangerous to be on the street at all, let alone to approach shop owners. The subtitle of this book is rather misleading, as it kind of implies that someone outside the family was the one taking the risk.

The subtitle also downplays a big part of the story - the Sadiqi sisters begin to employ more and more neighborhood women, training them and thus allowing them to earn money (and learn an important skill) as well. They did not merely keep themselves safe but improved the lives of as many people as they could. Their work also allowed their younger brother to keep attending school.

A good book, though very short and thus sparing on some more personal detail. Though I'd much rather have a short book that includes all the information than a long book that's been stretched out just for the sake of length. Recommended.

A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck RE-READ

This is a reread from middle school that I was suddenly reminded of. I was looking for a re-read book, since January was almost over with no books re-read, and remembered our class shock at the rather graphic opening. The book is at minimum semi-autobiographic, with the title character sharing the author's name. The book starts with Robert skipping school and coming across a pregnant cow in distress. the calf is stuck and Robert uses his pants to hook around the calf and pull her out. The cow is still in distress and appears to be choking, so he reaches into her mouth to pull a goiter off her throat being bitten up quite badly in the process. The neighbor who owns the cow brings new that the cow actually had twins which look particularly fine, and to thank Robert he gives him a piglet that's just been weened (and names one calf Bob).

The book is among the crop of early specifically-YA novels, first published in 1972. It has been frequently challenged due to graphic depictions of animal breeding, birth, and death, and for having an unmarried couple who openly cohabit. Thinking back to the timing I think our teacher chose the book specifically because it was often challenged. The English teachers at the middle school all banded together on the issue of banned books after a prominent banning (or perhaps just attempt to ban) The Color Purple. I don't think that was in our district, but just got a lot of national press (this would have been 1996 or 1997). I'm very proud of those teachers, given that this was in small-town West Virginia in a county where the largest towns still only had 5000 residents.

There are pretty reasonable criticisms of the book as playing into normalizing male violence and violence as a means of coming-of-age for boys. However, as a book used in class in can serve as a platform to discuss that issue in literature and in society in general.

As with many books involving farming, there are no happy endings and the end of this one is particularly bleak.

Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood by bell hooks

bell hooks is one of the godmothers, perhaps the absolute godmother, of intersectional feminism, the idea that we cannot separate various identities and look at them singly when we investigate oppression. Black women's experience as women and experiences as black people do not exist in separate spheres but always in combination. Lately I've seen the phrase "intersectional feminism" used without real understanding of what it means, for example a list of books supposedly all about it also included numerous older works by second-wave feminists, such as The Feminine Mystique. When the utter lack of intersectionality of this period (and of women like Friedan) is precisely what led to the use of the term and that movement.

Okay, back to this particular book. It's beautifully written in short vignettes that make you keep saying "just one more." They focus on a variety of issues, but the clear theme is the feeling of being an outsider within her own family and her nearly lifelong feelings of depression. hooks was born in 1952, in rural Kentucky. Her family, like many others, moved into the town of Hopkinsville in part to be closer to the schools after desegregation. hooks makes it clear in the book's preface that these are her memories and she wanted to let them keep the magical, mystical veneer of childhood and how her imagination worked. I found it very effective. The book is a monument to the child she was, with an understanding of her imperfections and her glories.

“Only grown-ups think that the things children say come out of nowhere. We know they come from the deepest parts of ourselves.” pg 24

The book deals with racism, and the effects of racism, but also with the wrong places quick, unthinking, analysis can get us. We see hooks begging to have her hair straightened, even though she has 'good hair' because she wants to be part of the group all sitting and chatting, tacking turns getting the hot iron (vs actually wanting straight hair).

“Real good hair is straight hair, hair like white folk's hair. Yet no one says so. No one says Your hair is so nice, so beautiful because it is like white folk's hair. We pretend that the standards we measure our beauty by are our own invention—that it is questions of time and money that lead us to make distinctions between good hair and bad hair.” pg 91

Recommended. I knew hooks more from out of context quotes than much else, and wanted to have this picture of her growing years before I read more.

Special Exits by Joyce Farmer

This graphic memoir began its life in short bursts, before this type of book became common, mailed to artist R. Crumb. Born in 1938, Farmer was part of the underground comics scene in the 1970s, particularly working on the feminist anthology series Tits and Clits. Never able to make money from her comics she started work as a bail bondsman while also devoting more time to care for her aging father and step-mother.

I am not sure why she changes the names for the comic, but many authors seems to feel freer using different names even while also being totally open about a work being autobiographical. It becomes more and more clear to Farmer that her father and step-mother are struggling and are not able to take care of each other. Despite the topics raised, there is less angst in this work than in other similar pieces, perhaps due to the happier relationship Farmer has with them (vs, say, Roz Chast).

Farmer's artwork greatly appeals to me, and also seems SO indicative of the underground comics of the 1970s. It's a moving, 'can't put it down' work that I ended up reading in one sitting despite telling myself I'd just read a few pages and then go to bed.

Absolutely recommended. Especially if you've been meaning to read one of the other works about caregiving for parents but feel they're too serious or grim. Not that this book is lighthearted, it is absolutely about end-of-life care and issues related to that, something about it just feels easier. Perhaps because the parents are a bit less cranky? I can't quite pinpoint it.

Very interesting reading you are doing!

You read such a marvellous variety of types of book :)

>37 mabith: Great review! I've not yet read anything by bell hooks, and I need to correct that oversight.

>39 ronincats: >40 Eyejaybee: It's the only way to read for me!

>41 jfetting: hooks always seems so good at getting to the heart of things, though I wish her teachings were less relevant at this point in time...

Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them by Francine Prose

This book is largely concerned with close reading a text, and it's benefits to the reader and the aspiring writer. I'm not a close reader by nature, but I didn't really go through any college lit courses that might have helped instill that. I don't honestly feel like I'm missing much by not doing that, as a reader, but I dabble in writing so thought I'd pick this up.

Prose takes us through various examples and looks are particular scenes in a novel, the writer's strengths, examples of great dialogue, etc... She also talks about teaching literature, it's joys and perils. While reading Chekhov after her classes she frequently finds him countermanding lessons she's given students (rules like not suddenly killing off your principal character at the end of a short story).

A good read with some interesting points. I need to pick up a print copy as I had to skip her section on Middlemarch. I don't mind spoilers that much, but since I'd just begun reading the book I preferred to avoid them (with the other examples in this I'll have forgotten the details if/when I pick those books up).

I don't recommend the audio edition. Some audiobooks are over careful about the change in media, making sure to change lines like "as you read this" to "as you listen to this," which I roll my eyes at. This one, however, took ZERO pains for the listener making some sections on grammar and such semi-unintelligible. It also would have been better to have a second reader to switch two for the book excerpts. Not that it's super hard to tell a quote from Prose's text, but every little bit helps.

Bright Dead Things by Ada Limon

I can't remember how this book of poetry made it on to my to-read list. I'd like to read a short volume of poetry every month and haven't made much of a library list of volumes yet, so went with this.

This particular book just wasn't for me. They are pretty all personal poems, lots of "I", "we", "you", yet I never felt like Limon let us in. She was beyond a frosted glass wall, and in the end most of the poems were vague. It was generally frustrating. Writing a truly compelling "I" poem is no easy thing. Here's one I liked a bit more than the authors, but nothing really grabbed me in this volume.

The Problem With Travel

Every time I'm in an airport
I think I should drastically
change my life: Kill the kid stuff,
start to act my numbers, set fire
to the clutter and creep below
the radar like an escaped canine
sneaking along the fence line.
I'd be cable-knitted to the hilt,
beautiful beyond buying, believe in
the maker and fix my problems
with prayer and property.
Then, I think of you, home
with the dog, the field full
of purple pop-ups--we're small and
flawed, but I want to be
who I am, going where
I'm going, all over again.

Middlemarch by George Eliot

Now I can understand why this novel is considered one of the best English classics. It's a wonderful book, and I loved every second of it. Eliot is so skilled at the pacing and dialogue. She also doesn't take the obvious Victorian Novel route, especially in regard to upholding Moral Character by punishing character's bad behavior. Eliot is all shades of gray. Her grasp on psychology is incredibly firm, and she has a gift for humor. I laughed immoderately at the auction scene and Mr. Brooke's dithering. I already really liked Eliot, but this just blew me away. I almost wanted to start re-reading it right away.

Plot wise we focus on a few families in the town of Middlemarch, and especially on the characters' marriages. Dorothea Brooke insists on marrying a much older scholar. She had idealistic dreams of helping him with Great Weeks, being the perfect helpmate and being taught by him so both can improve the world. This doesn't really work out as she planned. Meanwhile her younger sister marries the well-off country Gent who was in love with Dorothea. They are not absolutely miserable marriages, but these bad choices (and a few other poor marriages as well) impact everyone and drive the story on.

Again, LOVED IT. Eliot was a goddess. Despite being quite a long book it felt like it went by really quickly.

Confessions of an English Opium Eater by Thomas de Quincey

Picked up due to needing a new non-fiction audiobook for the kitchen. I feel like I read too much recent stuff (with non-fiction that's generally best), so I tend to jump at classic non-fiction even if it's not a title I'm really drawn to (if it's not overly long, anyway).

This was about as I expected. Sort of interesting but not the book for me. De Quincey is fairly insufferable, especially regarding how superior the English are at using opium vs Foreigners. Englishmen get all sorts of gains from opium you know, not like the Turks... on and on.

I am extra Not The Audience for this book due to having taken opiates prescribed for my pain. For most of us in severe chronic pain you don't get any pleasurable symptoms, and the first time I had to take it involved two hours of waking nightmares/illusions while my body seemed to be paralyzed, meaning I was unable to stand up and shake it off. Fun.

Great reading, as I remember from previous years too! (Although I might skip Confessions of an English Opium Eater...) Looking forward to seeing what else you pick up this year. :)

Thanks, Tania! I'd certainly skip it...

Medusa's Gaze: The Extraordinary Journey of the Tazza Farnese by Marina Belozerskaya

The Tazza Farnese is a cameo libation cup/plate carved of sardonyx agate. In has had a fair few owners, some of whom have damaged it and others unsuccessfully tried to ensure it would remain in their family's possession after the owner's death. It was also broken into a number of pieces and glued back together in the recent past. Here is a picture of one side:


The tazza is believed to have been made in 2nd Century BCE in Alexandria. It's thought that Octavian took it to Rome after his victory there. There are periods where we know just where it was and long periods where it doesn't surface at all. Its cache rises and falls with the fashion of hard stone carving and the birth of the large scale cameo industry.

It was an interesting book, and a pretty good read, but nothing really spectacular. I've also waited too long to review it due to helping with preparations on a house I'll be moving into next month (exciting but I am running myself ragged and that's not good for anyone).

Child of the Prophecy by Juliet Marillier RE-READ

The third in the Sevenwaters trilogy (I count the next three as a separate trilogy). Good, but not my favorite of the group. In this one we follow Fainne, Ciaran's and Niamh's daughter, raised by Ciaran in the druidic fashion. When she is 14 or 15 her grandmother, the sorcerer who responsible for Sorcha's brothers turning into swans in the first book, comes to teach her darker arts and attempt to use her as an agent at Sevenwaters to disrupt their plans and the prophecy.

It is a slightly harder book to love because Fainne is less able to express her care for others, is weak in the face of her grandmother, and slow to trust those who would help her. She is probably a more realistic character, all things considered and I do still have a soft spot in my heart for the book.

The File on H. by Ismail Kadare

I really enjoyed this book. Kadare's writing is so wonderful and shines best in print, I think. H. refers to Homer, as the book revolves around two university students who go to Albania to study the last place (supposedly) where the epic poems are still performed by wandering entertainers. They want to prove whether or not the Homeric epics were written by one man or edited by Homer or whatever else.

The book is a satire on provincial customs and dysfunctional government, but also a line in the sand for Albanian history. The scholars and the expedition mirror one undertaken in Serbia studying the same issue of oral epics. This put that area on the map but ignored the tradition in Albania, a fact that's apparently still ignored today with relative frequency.

As usual, there are many layers and views one can take, Kadare's trademark! There's also plenty of wry humor, and it was just a really enjoyable read.

The Motorcycle Diaries: A Journey Around South America by Ernesto Che Guevara

Guevara began traveling around South America in 1948, taking breaks from medical school to travel. In January 1952 he and Alberto Granado leave on a long journey lasting most (or maybe all?) of the year. They largely eat with and meet local and also show up at most hospitals they pass. This period is supposed to have had a large effect on Guevara shaping his later principals.

An interesting little account, with questions as to editing and veracity and such. Not something I absolutely loved, but good. It's interesting to meet these figures before they've fully opened up politically.

I've never heard of Kadare before, but that does sound like an interesting book!

Kadare is awesome! A friend of mine is a super fan of his. I've only read four of his books so far, but The Siege is still my favorite. I checked The File on H. out from the library almost as soon as I'd finished Twilight of the Eastern Gods, so that tells you something.

Passing by Nella Larsen

First published in 1929, the titles refers to light-skinned African Americans 'passing' as white in order to cross the color line, largely to gain more opportunities and a better life. While the novel conforms to some "tragic mulatto" stereotypes it is a complex work which in the end focuses on human nature and jealousy. Childhood friends Irene and Clare happen to meet in NYC, one lives in Harlem with her husband and two children, the other is 'passing' and married an upper class white man.

I really enjoyed Larsen's writing, and the complexity of the world, the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality. I feel like I don't have anything very intelligent to say about it, but I'll definitely be reading her other novel, Quicksand.

Recommended.

Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers RE-READ

It's been a very long time since I read this first Peter Wimsey novel, and I might engage in a slow re-read of the series. Really feeling full up on English casual anti-semitism between this and Middlemarch (and probably Confessions of an English Opium Eater.

What was interesting was how much Sayers foreshadows Clouds of Witness, the second Wimsey novel. I feel like she had a clear plan of these first two books and stuck to them. She also has a great fondness for the "if this were a novel we'd have all sorts of clues" type of statements, which I also love.

In this book a man disappears and a body turns up in random bathtub, appearing to be the body of the missing man. But of course Wimsey knows better. Sayers gives us Wimsey as an already established talent of detection, we don't see him grow or improve particularly, Wimsey is always just Wimsey.

In spite of the faults, I do really enjoy these novels. Sayers, Josephine Tey, and Agatha Christie all have such distinct voices.

The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness by Karen Armstrong

This is Armstrong's memoir chronicling her life after leaving the convent where she'd lived and served for seven years, having left home to become a nun at age 17. She joined just as sweeping changes were being made in Catholic convents, and the harsh regime was being softened to an extent. Armstrong, however, was trained in the old ways and found them hard. She also had undiagnosed epilepsy, which led to fainting spells that the nuns derided as self-indulgent and attention seeking. She left the order barely able to cope with secular life, and with her self-worth very badly damaged.

What perhaps saved her is that she worked to get her undergraduate degree in English literature while she was a nun. If she had not had that experience of the outside world I believe she would have had an even harder time coping. As she worked on further degrees her epilepsy worsened and a whole string of psychologists told her the symptoms were due to anxiety or depression (symptoms which included total disassociation type blackouts, finding herself suddenly in one place with no memory of how she got there). Most of her psychologists refused to address her time in the convent, instead saying it was her earlier childhood that was the root of her issues. It was absolutely shocking that no one recognized this as epilepsy.

It's a wonderfully written book, and interesting to come to it after reading three of her books on religion. For a fairly long period Armstrong 'lost' her faith, due partly to the very strict view of faith and belief which she was taught in the convent. I FELT her struggles and triumphs in this so much. I rejoiced and raged on her behalf, and for me that's the mark of a really successful memoir.

Highly Recommended.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

I've been looking forward to this novel for a while, and it did not disappoint.

In this version of our world a devastating virus kills perhaps 99% of humanity in just a few days. Services like power, water, and internet quickly cease and survivors turn to scavenging and take up residence in abandoned buildings mostly outside of the cities.

We move back and forth between the days before the epidemic and the years after, following specific people and slowing seeing a map of connections unfold between them. This is a technique which can be frustrating or clumsily done, but Mandel handled it beautifully. The balance was just perfect for me.

I did have some quibbles with the survivors' skill levels and interest in re-learning old methods of doing things. Mandel spends little to no time on this and even 15 years after the epidemic they seem to rely largely on scavenging vs creating. Surely libraries would be a prime hub of habitation in this situation, but oh well. It's a small quibble but did nag at me throughout the reading so I'm deducting half a star.

That said, I still loved the book and I'll definitely re-read it before too long. Recommended to everyone. It's one of those "science fiction for people who say they don't like science fiction" books (though I suppose it only baaarely qualifies as SF to begin with).

>58 mabith: I loved this as well, and have already re-read it a couple of times. Her other books are marvellous, too. All totally different to this, and indeed to each other. I found Last Night in Montreal, which was, I believe, her first published novel, absolutely amazing. The last chapter, and particularly the last two or three paragraphs, were so haunting.

I also loved Station Eleven, although I haven't read any of her other books. (Must rectify that...)

And I'm glad you liked Passing as well, I read that some years ago and it's always stuck in my mind.

Good reading here. I also really liked The Spiral Staircase and Station Eleven.

>59 Eyejaybee: James, I remembered that you re-read it pretty soon after your first reading and I can see why. I'm excited to read her other books.

>60 wookiebender: Tania, hopefully the rest of my book club loved it too, since I suggested it! That always makes me nervous. I'm definitely still thinking about Passing. At first I felt like the shift towards the end didn't fit, but as the book settles I feel like those were the best choices the author could have made (in terms of not keeping the act of 'passing' in a vacuum).

>61 ronincats: Roni, have you read any of Armstrong's comparative religion books? I'm curious about the differences in reaction to The Spiral Staircase between people who have read her other books and people who haven't.

>55 mabith: Having read Passing, I'm following your example and adding Quicksand to the tbr pile. It's only $2 on the Kindle!

Also adding The File on H. to the wishlist. Kadare's Chronicle in Stone is sitting on my shelves, and I've read The Successor and Broken April.

I will definitely try to read Nella Larsen this year! Thanks for the reminder!

I've read quite a few of her books, including A History of God, The Great Transformation, The Battle for God, Buddha, Muhammad, Islam: A Short History. What kind of difference are you seeing?

Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi

I was working in a bookstore when this book came out in 2003, and it's been on my to-read list since then. It's definitely worth getting to sooner rather than later. I'm at the beach, so this review is extra cursory.

The book is well written and well organized, and covers a lot of ground. Because Nafisi is a professor, she's able to give us insight into various backgrounds and how they are impacted by the changes in Iran through her students.

She talks about reading and teaching numerous books, not just Lolita, and her love for literature came through so strongly.

Good read, recommended.

>63 pamelad: Larsen's writing style really drew me in. For what it's worth, Chronicle in Stone is probably my least favorite Kadare so far, but I like his writing style enough that I'll want to get to all his books eventually. I really, hugely recommend The Siege.

>64 LheaJLove: Hope you like her!

>65 ronincats: I just mean a difference in reader reaction. In Armstrong's general religious books I think her spirituality is very apparent, but for so much of The Spiral Staircase she believes she's lost every ounce of her faith.

Defiance: The Bielski Partisans by Nechama Tec

This is a story I became familiar with due to the movie of the same name. The movie is, of course, sensationalized, but I think represents the spirit of the Bielski brothers well (though I felt like it sort of redistributed them amongst the brothers).

The books is really well done and fascinating. The Bielski's grew up in what was then eastern Poland (now western Belarus) in a large Jewish family. In 1941 when Germany invaded four of the Bielski brothers were able to flee into the forest and started a unique partisan group. It did not just welcome fighters or those who already had weapons, but all people and was specifically dedicated to trying to rescue Jews (many of the Soviet partisan groups were deeply anti-Semitic). In their group 1,236 Jews survived the war, living in the forest from 1941 to 1944, and managing to avoid absorption into Soviet groups which would end protection of non-fighting men and most women.

Tec largely avoids hero worship here, and tries to include varying accounts of key events or views of the camp life itself and of the Bielskis. Really well done book, fascinating story, recommended.

Yes, Chef by Marcus Samuelsson

This is an honestly forward memoir by the well-known Swedish chef. Samuelsson is upfront about racism in the industry, his successes and failures, the harshness of the high-end food industry in general, and times when he's badly let himself and his family down.

Samuelsson was about three or four when he and his older sister were adopted from Ethiopia by a Swedish couple. Their mother died in a tuberculosis epidemic and they were separated from other family by the civil war.

I've really liked his attitude when I've seen him on TV and I wanted his perspective and experiences of racism in the food industry. A good book, and I appreciated his willingness to own his mistakes. I love food and cooking, but I can't imagine wanting to be at the top so much that I'd go years without seeing family and work 14 hours a day six or seven days a week. It's a strange, ridiculous industry.

Discontent and its Civilizations: Dispatches from Lahore, New York, and London by Mohsin Hamid

I'm so far behind on my reviews now, due to moving house and having very little energy or brain enough to think.

This book is a collection of pieces published in various magazines and newspapers during a specific period. I've not forgotten what the period was, because it's been quite a while since I finished this.

The articles were interesting, they hung together pretty well, and they helped fill some big gaps in knowledge. Recommended.

The Gulag Archipelago Vol 1 by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

One of the true forerunners of the literary, not-at-all-dry non-fiction we enjoy today. Solzhenitsyn is adept at balancing his personal experiences and first-hand knowledge with a wider account.

I can't truly do the book justice, but it's still relevant and a very good read. Highly recommended. I blew through the 27 hour audiobook very quickly.

Patience and Sarah by Isabel Miller

This is a historical fiction romance between two women set in the early 19th century. It's a classic in the LGBT staple, and one of the relatively rare historical fiction books in that genre.

While the love develops between Patience and Sarah rather quickly (it's quite a short book), I ended up loving it. It was an extremely vivid reminder of when I met the love of my life and how instantly I fell for them.

Of course there are obstacles in the way of their happiness, but they are overcome. The book is also inspired by a real woman who lived for decades with her 'companion' in this period. Having read Charity and Sylvia, a non-fiction work, it was easy to feel that this was a pretty plausible book.

Lovely little romantic break.

A Dying Light in Corduba by Lindsey Davis RE-READ

This is the eighth novel in the Falco series, one of my favorite groups of books. Davis is sharp and funny and adept at including lots of historical details without it feeling forced.

In this volume Falco is soon to be a father but he and Helena are nevertheless drawn out of Rome to Corduba, Spain, to investigate issues in the olive oil trade. He is caught between competing schemers in the spy office of the palace.

A good one, but not one of my favorites. It's a bit too fraught with impending parenthood but Davis finds much humor in it. She'll always be a favorite of mine.

Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital by Sheri Fink

This was the pick for my non-fiction book club but I'm the only one who finished it. The other members found it so depressing they had a hard time reading it. While it's a serious book about a massive disaster, it doesn't really rank highly on my Depressing Reads scale (I mean, it's no Mao's Great Famine).

During and after hurricane Katrina, the hospital thought they were in okay shape until the real flooding began. There was not clear communication between the staff and the company that owned the hospital, and this helped encourage an atmosphere of panic.

Before and as some people were being evacuated a few figures discussed euthanizing patients with Do Not Resuscitate orders, and those who would never get better. After the disaster their actions were scrutinized by patients' families and law enforcement.

Were these measures necessary? How does one rank life in a disaster and think clearly during a time of intense panic? An interesting, important read. Recommended.

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman RE-READ

A re-read for my book club. I really enjoyed my first read of it and quite enjoyed the re-read. However, I don't think it would hold up all that well for the third read.

Most people in the book club really enjoyed it, though we ended up having a long segue about end of life care, DNR orders, and funerals. Was a great meeting.

Ove is a grumpy old man who will judge by the car you drive and how well you follow posted signs. He has decided to kill himself as his wife has died and he just wants to be with her again. However, the needs of his neighbors keep getting in the way. It's a feel good book, but in the best sense.

The Shia Revival: How Conflicts Within Islam Will Shape the Future by Vali Nasr

I do wish I'd paid attention and looked for the updated version of this book, as I'm pretty sure this is the original 2006 edition. Ten years have brought a lot of movement to some of these topics.

The book was interesting and well written, delving into the differences between Shia and Sunni Islam, plus how and when these branches occurred. The history is good, but the focus on current events is better. Two sects banding together to fight a foreign power gives hope that differences will be resolved, but in reality it often just prolongs conflicts by creating a civil war once the imperialists are out.

Very educational, and a book I needed to read. Recommended.

Girt: The Unauthorised History of Australia by David Hunt

This is a humorous look at the history of Australia's colonization. The title comes from the Australian national anthem and the line "Our home is girt by sea," much made fun of by Australians. Plus it gave Hunt the opportunity to title the sequel book True Girt.

It was fun and a pretty good read, but not amazing. Some of the jokes worked for me and other fell flat or annoyed me. It's just that kind of book, so best to pick up when you're in a forgiving mood.

I wouldn't give this to anyone as a gift, but it wasn't bad and I'll probably read the next book.

>71 mabith: I can't remember - have you read Gulag? Similar topic, and made me want to read more about the subject. Adding this one to the list...

Great review of The Shia Revival. I'd also like to learn more about modern Islam, so thanks for reviewing that.

Jennifer, I have! I got to it last year or the year before. Solzhenitsyn's account has the added bonus of feeling so close to the events and being wonderfully literary.

I highly recommend Islam: A Short History by Karen Armstrong ahead of something more niche like The Shia Revival.

Half Magic by Edward Eager RE-READ

Still such a fun read, though not quite up to the quality of, say, L. Frank Baum or Arthur Ransome. I first read this in high school at the behest of a friend. I'll re-read the others in the series too this year, I think.

Four children find a magic coin that grants wishes, but only by halves. So a cat could half-talk, the mother accidentally wished herself halfway home, etc... Originally published in 1952, it has one child state that the US hadn't always been friendly and fair to other nations. Shocking!

Dreams of Joy by Lisa See RE-READ

This is the sequel to Shanghai Girls and pretty much picks up right where the former ends. These must be read in order.

After a fight with her family and the death of her father, Joy, a second generation Chinese American, decides to return to China, a place she's never been. She believes in the ideal of the communist state and also wishes to find her father. She arrives just in time for Mao's disastrous Great Leap Forward, which would go on to cause a massive famine and extensive death in the countryside. This book got me reading a lot of non-fiction about mid-century China.

I applaud See for creating a balance. Joy can see the bad sides of Mao's China though she believes in the dream, and her mother, Pearl, can see the good sides though she believes Mao is harming China overall.

Recommended for historical fiction fans.

Too Pretty to Live: The Catfishing Murders of East Tennessee by Dennis Brooks

Brooks is a local of Tennessee, and has worked as a prosecuting attorney for 17 years. He was directly involved in reviewing this case prior to making a case against two women who helped push the killers to action.

Jenelle Potter grew up extremely cossetted by her parents. She was an average young woman with an auditory processing disorder which severely limited her ability to understand tone of voice. So someone making a joke or mocking threat would seem serious. She also seemed to inherent her mohter's penchant for hyperbolic overreaction.

Jenelle created fake personas and accounts online in order to respond to and post messages on Facebook and a local forum. This escalated to her creations of a CIA agent character who began e-mailing her parents, saying that Jenelle was being bullied or targeted by specific local people and encouraging her father and boyfriend to act to stop it. It went so far as saying that the CIA agent would 'back them up' during the aftermath.

It's a complicated story that was constantly mishandled by the press, who kept referring to it as a killing motivated by a Facebook unfriending.

A good read, but just an average/typical true crime story, nothing super special. Good background, recommended for the true crime fan.

West With the Night by Beryl Markham

This autobiography was originally published in 1942 and details a short period of Markham's life, focusing on her work as a horse trainer and pilot. She seems like a really interesting figure and the book was good. Not great or amazing, or as detailed as one would expect from a modern memoir, but good.

Recommended. The writing is better than one usually gets in this period for memoirs. There is some speculation that because she only wrote the one book that she didn't actually write it, which seems a bit silly, but who knows. Nice read regardless.

Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper RE-READ

Doing a lot of re-reads while I unpack my house, and this was such a joy to revisit. It's such a great mixed novel. You've got the SF element, an anthropological element, a legal element, etc... It's a short book but effective and one of my favorite science fiction novels.

Highly recommended.

Defying Hitler by Sebastian Haffner

This book was written in 1939-1940 but unpublished until after Haffner's death. It is depressingly relevant, particularly in the way people react to extreme shifts to the right wing. The parallels were illuminating, if rather soul-crushing.

It serves as a reminder to fight complacence on every front, and to remember that "we lived through X regime" is a statement that frequently only applies to those with privilege, and doesn't apply to marginalized and vulnerable groups.

Recommended.

Monsters in Appalachia by Sheryl Monks

A collection of short stories focusing on human monsters (abusers in all forms). Some I liked pretty well, some just left me feeling nothing in particular. Monks is good at writing a certain kind of child's voice and it's those stories which are most successful.

If you're looking for recent short stories by a West Virginian author (maybe a state challenge?), this isn't a terrible one to pick up. I believe the 1970s stories by Breece Pancake are a bit more highly regarded though.

Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho

This fantasy novel is reminiscent of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, in that it features an alterative, magical, world set during the Napoleonic wars. When the similarities became clear at the beginning of the book I was nervous that it would affect my reading of it. I quickly lost these doubts, however, and ended up really enjoy the book. It's a lighter, more humorous read, but one which still tackles important societal themes without preaching.

I absolutely adored the man character, Prunella. Her personality made the book SO much fun. Great fantasy novel, I'll definitely read more from this author.

The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin by Masha Gessen

This book was part of a list of books to read in order to understand modern Russian politics. It's extremely well written, and focuses on both the end of Soviet period and Putin's personal history.

It's alarming and enlightening, and I'm really glad I picked this up now. Highly recommended.

Peace is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh

One of the earliest of Hanh's books. I picked it up at an unfortunate time, getting a call about having to battle my insurance to keep my best medicine right after I started the book. I listened to it while feeling scared and anxious and having to sift through ten years of medical records to find some very specific records.

The book is useful and well-intentioned. I should have stopped my reading of it given my mood, but stubborn-me plowed ahead. It is hard to disconnection from negative events enough lately to appreciate Hanh's messages, but I think it's important to try. One can't fight 24/7 without some breaks and reminders to find the positives in daily life.

>88 mabith: Thanks for flagging this up. I will definitely be looking out for it. I feel so woefully ignorant of Russian politics.

James, I'm the same, but attempting to remedy that a bit. The books will deal with the height of the USSR, the end of it, and the last 15 years or so seem the most helpful. One can't understanding the present without understand the past, etc...

Flory: A Miraculous Story of Survival by Flory van Beek

Memoir of a Dutch Jewish woman and her experiences in hiding during WWII. As with so many Holocaust survivors, van Beek's survival in hiding depended largely on sheer luck. This is interesting to me since the Netherlands had one of the highest amounts of collaboration with the Nazis of similar occupied countries (75% of the Jewish population was killed, higher than the rates in Belgium or France).

It is a counterpoint to memoirs of the camps or those who posed as Aryan to live on the outside. It's not a literary masterpiece, but not poorly written either. It does rather make it sound like every third Dutch citizen was in the resistance, but if they hadn't been lucky with that she probably wouldn't have survived to write this book.

There were many poignant and too-relevant moments about when the Nazis first invaded. All of the "they don't really mean to do these horrible things they say, don't take it so seriously" comments.

Why Soccer Matters by Pele

This memoir gives us Pele's life story, his challenges, failures, and triumphs, and also a wider look at how the sport has been a force for good. It was a good read, and Pele seems very upfront about his life. I enjoyed the fact that he cried at the drop of a hat.

I, being relatively young, hadn't realize that Pele was the one who coined the phrase 'the beautiful game' or that he'd played in the North American Soccer League (precursor to the MLS).

Wasn't expecting too much from this read, but I ended up really enjoying it. Recommended for soccer fans.

The Zhivago Affair: The Kremlin, the CIA, and the Battle Over a Forbidden Book by Peter Finn and Petra Couvee

This book gives a brief account of Boris Pasternak's career but of course focuses on Doctor Zhivago and it's publication history (and Nobel prize). It's well written and very interesting. I knew that he had to refuse the prize, but I didn't know about the extensive role in the CIA played in influencing the Nobel committee and printing copies of the book to serve as propaganda. The number of young writers who went to work for the CIA was also rather disturbing, and contrary to our stereotypes of literary types.

Good read, recommended.

The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake by Breece Pancake

Possibly the best West Virginia author we've ever seen, who sadly committed suicide when he was 26 (in 1979). Previously he'd had several stories published by The Atlantic Monthly, and he has been praised by Margaret Atwood, Kurt Vonnegut, and Joyce Carol Oates.

The stories did not disappoint, and managed to feel very realistic and simply written but the language was also somehow beautiful. I highly recommend them for the short story enthusiast and anyone doing an "authors from 50 states" type of project (or go with Denise Giardina or Davis Grubb, NOT Pearl S. Buck, who I love but she's clear that China was her home and NOT Jeanette Walls who lived here for maybe five years).

The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson

I'd already decided this was not a book for me based on various LT reviews, but then my book club chose it. I think it was pretty foolish to put this directly after our read of A Man Called Ove, but oh well. While Ove was amusing and charming and a bit feel good, the humor in this book really didn't work for me.

The concept is a bit Forest Gump (man finds himself involved in various famous events) and was carried too far for too long. The present day storyline is more interesting which made the flashbacks even more frustrating. Just wasn't a good book for me. I'm not sure if it's just me or if there's some key bit of Scandi humor I'm just not finding.

Chasing Utopia by Nikki Giovanni

I'm a fan of Giovanni's poetry and we chose this for my non-fiction book club since it's National Poetry Month (and her poetry is usually autobiographical). The poems were mixed in with short pieces of prose, which I really enjoyed.

Her poetry often has such a playful air, it's really joyful stuff to read. Recommended.

The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer RE-READ

A re-read for my online book club (that's my last book club!). It's a long book, and I'm sure many feel it could have been at least 100 pages shorter without losing much, but I love every word and I love the pacing.

It's an doorstopper of a historical novel, following a Hungarian Jewish family from the 1930s through to the end of the war and a bit after, mostly focusing on middle brother Andras who goes to Paris in the mid to late 1930s for architecture school. While there he meets and falls for a woman nine years older than he is (who's also a Hungarian Jew).

As you'd guess from the setting, there are difficult times ahead for these characters on a variety of fronts. I found the love aspect to be well written generally and just enjoyed the quiet style Orringer brings. It's not a frantic book, but it's fraught and even though this was a re-read I still found myself completely wrapped up in it. Picking up my other books felt like culture shock.

Recommended.

Young Adults by Daniel Pinkwater

I didn't know this book existed until I read The Agony and the Eggplant (literary criticism of Pinkwater's relatively slim body of YA work). The book contains his novella Young Adult Novel, which I have read many times, and two shorter sequels, Dead End Dada (wherein they explore zen) and The Dada Boys in Collitch (wherein they go to college).

As a 'weird' kid in middle school and high school there are some groaning similarities with the Dada Ducks performative "not like other teens" shtick, and Pinkwater certainly intends it. In many ways they're satires of young adult work. The two sequel pieces are some of the few works which mention girls or sex at all.

Fun read as per usual with Pinkwater. The book also contains some random short art pieces and an essay written by a fictional person regarding Pinkwater denying that his books have meaning.

More for the Pinkwater devotee than the casual audience.

Jonathan Swift: The Reluctant Rebel by John Stubbs

This wasn't a horrible book, but it was far too exhaustive for my interest level. Stubbs gives us every detail he possibly can and in the process loses his thesis about Swift being a reluctant rebel.

That thread is still in the book, but it really gets lost in the trees. I also found Swift pretty darn annoying, which I'm sure colored my feelings. If you're looking for a comprehensive biography, this is that. Whether it's the best out there I can't say, and I'm not really willing to investigate it at this point!

I wouldn't really recommend it for the casual reader, but your mileage may vary.

Black Gun, Silver Star: The Life and Legend of Frontier Marshal Bass Reeves

Really interesting book about a fascinating man and an interesting period in US history. Reeves was born into slavery in 1838 before fleeing into Indian territory during the Civil War, where he became fluent in Cherokee, Seminole, and Creek languages. After the Thirteenth Amendment he farmed in Arkansas with his wife and had 11 children. Reeves was recruited as a deputy marshal due to his familiarity with the Indian territory and languages.

Good read, though it's disappointing that we don't have more personal information about Reeves. Due to the lack, the book ends up being a cataloging of various cases he worked on and the criminal and legal issues of them which can feel somewhat tedious. Generally recommended though.

The Arab of the Future 2: A Childhood in the Middle East, 1984-1985 by Riad Sattouf

Given that volume two only covers two years, I'm not sure how many books are planned for this series... In it Sattouf welcomes a little brother and starts attending school.

They're interesting books, but hard to love. I do like Sattouf's drawing style, but something about them slightly turns me off.

Hole in the Heart: Bringing Up Beth by Henny Beaumont

This is a graphic memoir about the author's daughter Beth who was born with Down Syndrome. While this is frequently caught during pregnancy, it was unexpected for everyone in this case.

Beaumont is brutally honest with her thoughts and feelings, including worrying she couldn't love Beth or that her older daughters wouldn't love her. She struggled for a long time, and in a quest to remove perceived obstacles for Beth ended up ignoring what was really in her daughter's best interest.

It was a shocking read for me, and as I say Beaumont is BRUTAL in her honesty. It's a really good example of how toxic internalized ableism is. I know her thoughts and experiences are common, and I know it's good for them to be voiced, but I still marveled at some of her feelings. I don't have (or want) children of my own, so I'm sure there are aspects I'm not 'getting' here.

Our main family show when I was a little kid was Life Goes On, which I still think of one of the best, most realistic family shows ever produced. One of the main characters has Down Syndrome, and growing up watching him no doubt helped my thought process on this. It's too bad Beaumont didn't have something similar, as I think it would have greatly reduced her pain.

The last bit of the book is a celebration of Beth, and of how much their relationship improved after Beaumont accepted their situation and stopped trying to push it to the background.

Sometimes I loved the art style and sometimes I really disliked it, which is odd. The faces were somehow too realistic at some points while the rest of the bodies weren't. I don't know. Beaumont says that doing the book and drawing Beth so much allowed her to re-experience some of the simple visual celebration that she missed out on when Beth was a baby.

Recommended, just be forewarned about the brutality of Beaumont's first feelings. I applaud how honestly she wrote this and how she doesn't shy away from showing her failings as a parent.

MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors by Richard Hooker

Novel is perhaps stretching it. This is really a series of vignettes, very episodic which lent it a choppy feel. I can see why the draft was rejected so much and surprised that this is the result of very serious and careful professional editing.

It was just an odd experience, being so familiar with the TV show. I need to watch the movie again to remind myself how they dealt with the choppiness.

Sort of recommended? It's short, but I didn't get all that much out of it.

Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937-1945 by Rana Mitter

The title really says it all. Chinese resistance was vital in keeping Japan's occupying force busy and moving more slowly through the pacific. Yet because of the victory of the Communists and wanting to quickly make amends with Japan their role in the conflict has been minimized.

The book covers Mao's and Chiang's roles and backgrounds in fairly deep detail and covers some of the reasons the fight against Japan and the aftermath went as it did.

Good read, recommended.

Zorro: A Novel by Isabel Allende

Allende gives us her version of how Zorro became Zorro from earliest childhood onward. It's a straight historical novel, no magical realism elements, and I absolutely loved it. Loved her vision of this life, loved the way it was told, was just totally swept away by it.

Fair warning, I grew up loving Zorro from toddler-hood onward, so your mileage may vary. It made me want to watch all the Zorro movies again, especially the oldest ones that I haven't seen since childhood.

I did have the old TV theme stuck in my head frequently though - Zorro, the fox so cunning and free! Zorro, who makes the sign of the Z!

Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement by Angela Davis

This is a collection of interviews and talks with and by Angela Davis, all after the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Davis talks about racism, feminism, intersectionality, US police violence, and the vital work of finding parallels between various freedom movements.

Because this a compilation of things there's definitely some overlap. It is still well worth reading and I highly recommend it.

Flying Couch: A Graphic Memoir by Amy Kurzweil

I'm afraid this graphic memoir didn't make much of an impression on me. The theme is very mixed between the author, her mother, and her grandmother. She partially tells her grandmother's Holocaust story, touches on therapy and having a mother who's a children's psychiatrist, and deals with her own early adulthood.

It wasn't bad, the art style was fine, it just didn't stick with me or compel me to find more by the author.

The Bite of the Mango by Mariatu Kamara

This is a memoir by a young woman who was born in 1985 in Sierra Leone, and a survivor of the Civil War there. When out with relatives to get supplies they are taken by rebels. She and her siblings all have their hands cut off and are separated but survive and find each other again back at a hospital. Kamara was also raped by a family friend shortly before this happened, which resulted in a pregnancy. She was 12.

It is another book where I wonder if I knew anything about this conflict when I was 12, and Kamara is just a year younger than me. I read Newsweek, but the active wars when I was a child seemed so numerous in my head. Perhaps that informed the period where I almost exclusively read books about the Holocaust thinking they would teach me to be strong when it was my turn to struggle.

A well done book about a difficult subject. Don't go near the audiobook, terrible "trying to sound like a child by using a strange pacing" reader.

Mystic and Rider by Sharon Shinn RE-READ

Needed a book I knew I liked after some of these reads... It's really the first in one massive book in many ways, but not my favorite series of Shinn's. She does a bit too much telling rather than showing in this one, by having the core characters explain the whole political system of the country to a new-to-the-shores person who joins their group.

They're a carefully chosen group of 'mystics' (people with strange powers, think X-Men) and Kings Riders who are investigating hateful attitudes toward and crimes again mystics by non-mystics. Pretty good fantasy, and if I recall she hits her stride in later books. All of Shinn's work is very character driven, and each book slightly shifts focus to a different couple of people in the group.

Capture: Unraveling the Mystery of Mental Suffering by David A. Kessler

There's some interesting stuff in this book, but I don't think Kessler adequately explained the notion of 'capture' (being overrun by some destructive and at least semi-delusional way of thinking) and I don't think he's really qualified to write this book. He's a pediatrician and administrater and was the commissioner of the FDA for seven years in the 1990s.

He goes flits around various cases of well-known and unknown people (such as David Foster Wallace) but it's not done well enough to serve much purpose. Not a horrible book, but I don't particularly recommend it.

Poor Cow by Nell Dunn

I forget who in Club Read posted about this in the last couple years, but it instantly went on my to-read list. Written in 1967 it follows a young woman in London with a baby son and husband who's a thief. When he's caught and taken sentenced to jail her dream of a sweet little cottage and happy domesticity is cut short. She and her friend Beryl engage in light sex work, more akin to the 'sugar daddy' relationship you hear about today, but with very modest gifts/sums of money.

The book alternates between third person and first person narration in a way that really worked for me. It's a book where not much happens but you just want to keep reading. I read it in two sittings. The book was inspired by Dunn's time working in a factory and interviewing young women from poor backgrounds in London (though Dunn was born to privilege herself).

Definitely recommended. I don't know how to describe it in a way that does it justice.

..
My Father's Dragon trilogy by Ruth Stiles Gannett RE-READ

A quick re-read of some of my favorite children's books, partly because this past week was apparently children's literature week. I love these books so much and have really fond memories of them. A sweet adventure story with funny names and funnier incidents.

The books are particularly good for early readers because they're a bit more challenging than an I Can Read book, but there are lots of pictures (wonderful ones at that), and it's really one longer story broken into three which encourages a child to start the next book. They're just sweet and, to me, timeless.

Hetty Feather by Jacqueline Wilson

Middle grade historical fiction based in the late Victorian period and following orphan, Hetty Feather. She is initially in a family home in the country but doesn't realize it is only a foster home until she (and her fellow foster siblings) are old enough to go back to the foundling hospital. When she is wrenched away and sent there it is a traumatic shift. Hetty, like any good fictional orphan, has an over abundance of spirit and cannot be crushed (and like many fictional orphans she's intellectually gifted and a natural storyteller).

This was a fun read, and certainly something I'd pass on to my nieces and nephews. At one point Hetty runs away and there's a good contrast with life in the founding hospital, which is frequently unpleasant, and life alone on the streets which is, of course, even harder.

In the Shadow of the Banyan Tree by Vaddey Ratner

This is 90% Ratner's memoir of her childhood's disruption by the Khmer Rouge takeover of Cambodia. She doesn't change names, but squashes the timeline and maybe having it billed as fiction let her feel more freedom about it. Seems a bit silly to me, I'd rather have the true picture of her time in various locations and camps than have an "altered for dramatic effect" version.

It is an important look at the lives of some of Cambodia's wealthy elite after the takeover. Her father was part of the royal line and of course the changes in her life were massive. It's a good book but the idea of "which bits are distorted or false" just niggles away at me.

The Last Camel Died at Noon by Elizabeth Peters

If loving these silly historical mysteries is wrong I don't want to be right. I just love them and particularly love Barbara Rosenblat's readings of them. Plus this volume has SUCH a great title.

That said, things go way beyond the norm in this one and while I still enjoyed it, I'd say it's my least favorite I've read in the series. The ridiculousness that happens is very in keeping with Victorian fantasy imaginings, but I was rolling my eyes a bit.

Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History by Bill Schutt

Well written popular science book about cannibalism, mostly in non-sapien animals. Schutt touches on humans most in survival situations but often brings up our ideas around cannibalism and how that shifts. Plus the "eat your own placenta" thing that's come into semi-vogue again (my sister is a doula and dried and capsuled a placenta for someone last year). Of course he mentions some serial killer cannibalism stuff, but mostly in passing.

Great read, recommended. I couldn't find my headphones though, was listening to the audiobook on my phone while I did some garden stuff and may have accidentally freaked out some neighbors. So maybe don't do that.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

One of those books I meant to read some time ago, but because I didn't particularly like The Blind Assassin or Oryx and Crake I wasn't really in a hurry to read more Atwood, even if this is a classic. It's not a book I *loved* but I did quite like it, certainly more than anything else by her. My book club chose it for this month.

The book is perhaps even more relevant now than when first published (in 1985). With the TV show coming out and a sort of sequel I'm sure a lot of people will be reading this in 2017, whether new to them or as a re-read.

Interestingly, it seems like at least half of the bookclub actively disliked the book. The time shifts which come without warning or special notation were mostly to blame, but I think they were essential in communicating that specific atmosphere. The narrator is young enough to remember when the world was different but needing to put that out of her mind in order to focus on survival, only to have certain memories come flooding back with a specific phrase or smell. I enjoyed not being able to predict what would happen in the end, though I think Atwood took the easy way out. I was fairly convinced she'd kill Offred off, and kind of feel that would have been a better choice.

The new audiobook version is read by Claire Danes, who did a very good job.

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

This was Mistry's fairly long second novel which focuses on The Emergency period in India, 1975-1977 when a state of emergency was called allowing the Prime Minister (then Indira Gandhi) to rule by decree, and suspend civil liberties and elections.

The characters have a variety of backgrounds but are brought together in various ways. I really loved Dina and her unwillingness to simply appease her brother. It was a good read though I often felt I was just letting it wash over me than connecting with it. Word of warning, it's pretty dark with lots of death and maiming and such. I do think it's worth reading though.

The Food of a Younger Land: A Portrait of American Food--Before the National Highway System, Before Chain Restaurants, and Before Frozen Food, When the Nation's Food Was Seasonal by Mark Kurlansky

Talk about a long subtitle! This book alternates pieces written by members of the Federal Writers Project, part of the WPA during the Great Depression with commentary on the writers, the food, and the regions written by Kurlansky. The original writings were started when the FWP was waning and were never edited or published. It's a very valuable treasure trove, and includes MANY recipes.

Interesting book, though it's basically what I expected. I'm a food person, so perhaps that's why there were no real surprises here. In WV I'm not sure how much of this stuff has really changed, frankly! Lots of interesting bits and bobs though, and a fun read.

Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue

A book about Cameroonian immigrants to the US around 2008, one of whom works as a chauffeur to a man who works at Lehman Brothers (and seems to be the only one concerned with the direction things are going, economically). His wife is working part-time and going to pharmacy school as they attempt to apply for asylum.

A good book, interesting and a nice read, but not very deep. Where it touches on societal and cultural issues it does so extremely lightly. Nowhere near the depth of Americanah, which I wasn't expecting though I did expect a touch more depth here.

Still recommended, just don't go in with sky-high expectations.

Some fascinating books here - I am always impressed by the spread of your reading. I think the book on Cannibalism sounds particularly interesting.

It's definitely been an interesting month! Without the wide spread I tend to feel burnt out on books. I picked up Cannibalism based on bragan's excellent review.

Words on the Move: Why English Won't--and Can't--Sit Still (Like, Literally) by John McWhorter

I really like McWhorter's books. He's excellent at giving you solid information in a very accessible way, rather than just random facts with no background. As the title indicates this is a response to people who get hotted up over language changes. It's both a reminder on the fact that language is always changing and full of examples on the way specific target words (literally in non-literal situations) have been used that way for a very long time.

McWhorter admits he has language change issues that still annoy him, primarily because he was taught "this is wrong." There are some very specific language 'mistakes' that irk me only because a specific teacher was so het up them. The truth is that incorrectly using less than/fewer than makes absolutely no different to sentence clarity, which is the whole point of language rules. We'll all be happier if we can remember clarity is king and the rest is always shifting.

Great read, recommended.

John Ransom's Diary: Andersonville by John Ransom

This is a diary written by a union soldier confined in the Andersonville prisoner of war camp. Originally published in 1881, it covers his incarceration there and his escape. It's stayed a little more in the public knowledge because it's quite compellingly written.

Good read, interesting historical document to have.

Such a Lovely Little War: Saigon 1961-63 by Marcelino Truong

Graphic memoir covering the author's early childhood at the point where they moved from the US back to Vietnam. Truong's father was a Vietnamese diplomat and his mother was French. Truong was born in 1957, so I'm not sure how much of the book comes from his own memory.

Interesting little time capsule, and relatively enjoyable art style. I did find Truong's art to be incredibly stiff though, and unable to convey movement. There is a next installment cover about twelve years in London after they left Vietnam which I'm a bit more interested in given the age of the author.

Child of All Nations by Irmgard Keun

Not the first Keun on my list, but the first that was easily available to me. It's told from the point of view of a child whose parents have a rocky marriage and whose father is often leaving them broke in hotels across Europe while he tries to squeeze publishing advances out of various people.

It's interesting in that Keun seems very present in both the narrator but puts her life experiences into the father (not being able to publish in Germany but writing in German being one of them). The family in the book travel almost everywhere Keun herself did. I first became aware of her when reading Ostend: Stefan Zweig, Joseph Roth, and the Summer before the Dark and was drawn to her attitude.

This book does not seem to be her best though, and I wonder if she pounded it out while being months late for the deadline like the father in the book might have done. It wasn't terrible, just not hugely compelling and ends slightly oddly.

One Child: The Story of China's Most Radical Experiment by Mei Fong

Fong was born to Chinese parents in Malaysia, so she kind of has an insider/outsider perspective here. It was a good read, and great to have more information on this policy, it's up and down enforcement, and it's wider effects.

This policy is one of the most well-known things about communist China. It was never 100% enforced and those with money could sort of buy themselves out of it. It has now become a two-child policy but those who grew up hearing the message that having two-children is selfish and bad for the child and family often say they only want one child. Far from the children being "little emperors," they're often crippled by the anxiety of earning enough to support themselves and take care of their parents.

It's a very well done book and fascinating to the end.

Country of Red Azaleas by Domnica Radulescu

I really enjoyed the author's novel Train to Trieste so I was excited about this one. It was a bit of a let down. It's not a bad novel, and might be the favorite if I'd read it first, but I felt they trod the same ground too much. This felt especially apparent in the main character's marriage.

The book follows best friends Lara and Marija, who meet in early childhood in Belgrade, Serbia. Marija's family is Bosnian and the war separates them. Lara marries an American and moves to the US while Marija returns to Sarajevo to work as a journalist. When Marija effectively disappears Lara is driven to find out what happened to her friend.

A good book, but not a great book for me. Maybe different if you read this one first or maybe it's that the first was more autobiographical.

Between Two Worlds: Escape From Tyranny: Growing Up in the Shadow of Saddam by Zainab Salbi

Salbi's family was of mixed Iraqi and Iranian heritage and were Shia at a time when that could be a death sentence in Iraq. Saddam Hussein wanted their friendship and this couldn't be refused without danger. They existed in an inner circle but had to act incredibly carefully to make sure they continued pleasing Hussein, who insisted on being called Uncle. Salbi was deeply scarred by this act to the point of being unable to speak his name and unable to talk about their lives in his shadow due to the danger it might pose to her family still in Iraq (she came to the US to marry).

While she became extremely active in organizations to help women in wartime, particularly during the wars in the Balkans and the aftermath of the rape camps. This book is her finally trying to share her own history after listening to the trauma of others for so many years.

Well done book and utterly fascinating. Recommended.

DNF - How to Be An Indian in the 21st Century by Louis V. Clark (Two Shoes)

This was an ER book and though it's short I couldn't get more than 15 pages in even skimming. The poems are incredibly simple and felt very immature. It is rhyming poetry and I think it's very difficult to write modern, serious rhyming poetry that *doesn't* read as immature. I tried simply focusing on the prose pieces/introductions but it was more of the same, extremely simplistic and staccato in style.

I am not sure who the intended audience for this book is, but it's clear I'm not in it. Forcing myself to finish a book I'm not enjoying generally does no favors to the book or me, so I've given this up.

Malinche by Laura Esquivel

This novel springs from a real person, Malinche also known as Malinalli, a Nahua woman who was an interpreter and intermediary for Hernan Cortes and his men. I don't know enough about the real story to judge the accuracy or validity of Esquivel's version, but it was a very interesting and often uncomfortable read. Esquivel places her as mostly a pawn of history, stuck between a rock and a hard place and trying to do her best for her people.

Interesting read. Didn't love it but liked it. It's short, and worth looking at, I think.

A Lucky Child by Thomas Buergenthal

Buergenthal was born in 1934 in Czechoslovakia to a German Jewish mother and a Polish Jewish father. Initially relatively well off, they had to flee when he was 5 or 6 and ended up in the Kielce ghetto in Poland before being taken to Auschwitz and Sachsenhausen.

Beurgenthal was indeed lucky, as were any children who survived the camps. In a slight fluke he was put in the hospital wing at Auschwitz on arrival and thus didn't go through the initial selection.

A good memoir, and a rare one, as children his age surviving the camps was very rare.

The Drackenberg Adventure by Lloyd Armstrong

Third book in the Vesper Holly series. She is a teenage girl combination of two-thirds Sherlock Holmes, one-third Indiana Jones and heaps of fun. In this they visit a fictional eastern European country and almost immediately run into Helvitius, Holly's arch-foe.

Not my favorite in the series, particularly as Alexander goes for nothing but stereotypes in depicting the Roma people. He usually seeks to thwart stereotypes, so I was a bit disappointed there.

Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan

Five short stories by a Nigerian author. They are varied, but I think identity plays a role in each (waited too long to write this review). Akpan seems especially good at writing children. I didn't love this collection, and let it wash over me more than engaging with it.

William Wells Brown: An African American Life by Ezra Greenspan

A substantial biography of 19th century author, William Wells Brown. He was born into slavery in Kentucky around 1814 but escaped when he was 20. His novel Clotel (1853) is considered the first to be written by an African American, and speculated on the descendants of one of the founding fathers and their slave.

Brown wrote and was successful in many different types of writing and was active in the abolition circuit and generally lived a fascinating life. I read Clotel recently, which was a very interesting experience. It's a choppy work, but full of interesting details and I was eager to learn more about Brown's life.

Interesting book, well-written, recommended.

Partners in Crime by Agatha Christie

The second book published using Tommy and Tuppence, but this time it's a set of short stories. They're fun, snappy little pieces, including one where Tommy is mimicking Poirot. No one can say Christie didn't have fun with her characters...

Nice little diversion.

The Chinese in America by Iris Chang

Sweeping history which is impeccably told and endlessly fascinating. We lost such a great non-fiction talent when Chang killed herself. She covers a huge amount of information in this book without sacrificing depth. There's a good mix of local/regular people's feelings vs what the government was doing and it was just an all round great read.

Highly recommended.

The Great Escape: Nine Jews Who Fled Hitler and Changed the World by Kati Marton

For some reason the subtitle leaves out that they're also all Hungarian (maybe some were transplants, I forget now), as is Marton.

Really neat history and amazing to have so much talent concentrated in a relatively small space. The book covers scientists Leo Szilard, Edward Teller, Eugene Wigner, and John von Neuman, photographers Robert Capa and Andre Kertesz, film directors Alexander Korda and Michael Curtiz, and writer Arthur Koestler (best known for Darkness at Noon).

Marton has done wonderfully with this diverse group of people, giving us their past and present without getting bogged down or confusing the narrative. Fascinating book done well. Recommended.

As Texas Goes...: How the Lone Star State Hijacked the American Agenda by Gail Collins

One of those books full of things you feel you really should have known before. Collins is such a great writer and does non-fiction very well with a lot of humor. If you like Mary Roach, Collins is perhaps her rather toned down sister.

Aside from vague oil industry issues I really didn't realize how many policies (largely horrible ones) were coming out of Texas. Especially interesting to me since my mom's family largely lived in Texas for my whole childhood. And we visited twice a year for a period. Great read.

Pavilion of Women by Pearl S. Buck

I'm already a fan of Buck's writing but this novel blew me away. It was written about at the mid-point of her career, in 1946, and I think it's superior to The Good Earth. The novel has a wonderful delicacy and does not go down the more predictable routes. I feel like it's clear how much Buck was missing China and how much she feared the communists having control.

Madame Wu has turned 40 and decides to end her romantic life with her husband and disconnect from some of the household duties. She finds her husband a concubine who he doesn't really want and the household rather spirals from there. The novel is really about her growth as a human and the bad ways we sometimes treat each other when we're just trying to help, plus the idea of selfishness masquerading as selflessness.

Beautifully written, impeccable psychology, with the wars to come only background hints and a sort of ominous atmosphere (the book is set in the 1930s).

Recommended. SO GOOD.

Classic Chinese Stories by Lu Xun

Five short stories by a classic Chinese writer of the 20th century. He was adopted by the Communist party for his messages about the common people, though Mao admitted that if he'd lived he would have been imprisoned later. Imagine being so secure in your power that you admit that the man you made a hero of would have eventually been seen as an enemy.

Interesting little stories, and I do see why he appealed to the early Communist and Nationalist groups. I'll be looking for a larger collection, I think.

The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West

Absolutely brilliant short novel published in 1918. Kept me invested and unsure what the end would be all the way through but ends on a devastatingly perfect note.

A soldier is injured and while in hospital sends a few letters which make it clear that he's lost his memory and believes he's 20 again and just parted from the first girl he fell in love with. Given that he's been married for 7 or 8 years this is problematic.

Really interesting work, and the only novel published by a woman during WWI that was also about WWI. I can't believe scholars largely dismissed it until the late 20th century. Highly recommended.

The Slave Across the Street by Theresa Flores

Memoir about Flores' mid teenage years starting when she was sexually assaulted by a boy whose cousins took pictures which they used to blackmail her for about two years. The family was powerful at the school and running some sort of illicit operations, using her as a sex slave apparently to 'reward' people working for them. She feared going to her family due to their very conservative ideas about sex and the fact that the family was focused on her father's job and promotions. Though she lives at home during this period I believe she's justified in calling it human trafficking. There's no other word that better describes what happens.

Part of her purpose in writing this book is to remind people that this kind of abuse is not limited to vulnerable girls from poor and troubled families (though her family was actually quite troubled and dysfunctional enough, frankly). It's an important part of the conversation, though her ending conclusions about what parents can do to prevent this kind of thing happening are inside out, in my opinion. If her family hadn't given supreme importance to her father's career and reputation, if her mother hadn't been so extremely closed off and negative about sex (her mom once said if she got pregnant she'd be kicked out of the house immediately), then Flores might have felt comfortable going to them after the first assault. The solution is not to basically stalk your kids and give them no room, that will lead to more secret keeping and lying. If you're open with your child and can show that you trust them, they're more likely to trust you. Since you cannot protect your child every second of the day building a strong base of trust is the best way to prevent this kind of long term abuse.

Miss Bianca in the Orient by Margery Sharp

Oh Margery Sharp, these children's novels are a sheer joy.

I think the first couple in the series are the strongest, but I just adore them. She really builds well-rounded characters, and they're funny to boot, if with regular oddball notes.

Boy Erased by Garrard Conley

A memoir about Conley's young adulthood realizing he was gay and the sexual assault in his first year at college which brought things to a head. His father was deeply involved in a fundamentalist Christian church but he and Conley had a very close relationship. Conley struggled to live up to his father's expectations and with his own self-hatred.

At college he made friends with a young who was a religious youth leader. This man later assaulted Conley and admitted to assaulting a 14 year old boy as well. Conley went to the campus leadership but was basically told not to make waves. The young man then started spreading rumors that Conley had approached HIM. This got back to his parents who had extremely negative reactions. Both were adamant that he couldn't remain gay, and Conley agreed to go into whatever treatment they wanted.

The book then focuses on the 'conversion' therapy he underwent. Though it was one of the less extreme treatments (patients were only there during the day), it was still a desperate attempt to 'unmake' the people there.

It was so ridiculously similar to some of the nonsense in the movie But I'm a Cheerleader, which is about conversion therapy (and SO GOOD). The movie version is only barely a parody.

How to be a Dictator by Mikal Hem

An irreverent look at the methods of dictators around the world (mostly or all in the 20th century). Both darkly humorous and very informative!

Good read, recommended.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

A novel about two women's lives in Afghanistan spanning a few decades of change in the last 20th and early 21st centuries. I liked it, but didn't love it. It is very much written for the western gaze in a somewhat propagandistic way. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, John Steinbeck wrote some works that were very much propaganda but still really enjoyable due to his wonderful writing style. I'd say he was a bit more skilled than Hosseini though, and I've read a fair bit about the region already.

Good, but not destined to a be a favorite. Friends also tell me that his three novels are all very similar, so I don't feel led to get to his other works.

Tears of the Desert: A Memoir of Survival in Darfur by Halima Bashir

Bashir grew up in the Darfur region as part of the Zaghawa tribe. She did well in the village school and was sent to further schooling in Khartoum. There she was a suddenly away of the dismissive and discriminatory attitude many people of Arab ddescent had against black Muslims in Sudan.

She studied to be a doctor and completed her studies just before the war in Darfur broke out. She gave a journalist an opinion that was contrary to that of the Sudanese government and was questioned before being removed from her position and sent to work in a small village in Darfur. Later she testified about a massive gang rape of school girls by Janjaweed and was held captive, assaulted, and raped in response.

This is one of the strongest memoirs by this generation of African writers that I've read. Bashir is more open and spends about half the book on her childhood and education. A difficult subject, but a good read. Recommended.

The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs

Originally published in 1961, this work is still EXTREMELY relevant. Having just moved out of a large-ish (about 110 units), subsidized housing building for elderly and disabled low-income people only, I can better understand the work than I would have prior to that experience. Jacobs goes into the incorrect assumptions made about housing and city development and gives many real world examples. The writing is also just fantastic.

Really great read, and I highly recommend it.

Some marvellous and enlightening reading here, Meredith, as always.

James, June was certainly an interesting month.

The First Salute: A View of the American Revolution by Barbara Tuchman

This was Tuchman's last book before her death. Definitely not my favorite by her, or favorite subject for history. In school it felt like we covered the colonial period and the American Revolution every single year, over and over and over with very little nuance added as we aged.

Tuchman isn't able to find a strong enough narrative line to make this book as enjoyable as some of her others, but it was still interesting.

Come As You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life by Emily Nagoski

I'm pretty happily celibate, but I know people have raved about this book and I do love a good popular science read. I didn't expect it to have much in it for me, but did find a few interestingly relevant bits. Very well-written, and the audiobook, read by the author, was well done and quite fun.

Nagoski follows a few couples with varying issues (or perceived issues, really) around sex through the whole of the book, taking side trips into researches and specific topics going back to these couples all through the book. This made it much more compelling and grounded.

The Want-Ad Killer by Ann Rule

I think I mentioned earlier that it's time I admit my love for true crime books and TV. This book covers serial killer Harvey Carignan, who used want-ads for a job to lure in young women who he would rape and sometimes kill. Before those crimes he was actually sentenced to death after his first murder in Alaska but was set free on a legal loophole.

Rule does these things very well, as one can see from how many books she's published!

The Gulag Archipelago Vol 2 by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Two down, one left to go. The second 600+ page volume of Solzhenitsyn's epic work. It is narrative and personal and full of the folklore of the camps. There is so much dark humor that it's not the depressing slog you might expect. The writing is also just excellent of course, and very compelling.

It should be a must-read.

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