I lost count

The title implied that there were six, but it felt like more...

At least the authors were thorough, giving not only the details of the spies themselves but of the people who worked with and around them. In George Washington's Secret Six: The Spy Ring That Saved the American Revolution, Brian Kilmeade and Don Yaeger gave a detailed accounting of the actions of the New York "Culper" ring of spies, as well as the details of other related actions.

I confess I didn't know much about Benedict Arnold before reading this book, and this gave me a much clearer picture of who he was and why he did what he did. I also learned more about Nathan Hale, who is much honored in CT, though the way the authors tell it, he seemed like a poor choice for a spy who was destined to be caught.

Anyway, if you thought spying was all James Bond, this book puts those notions to rest. These great spies in American history were great precisely because they were relatively ordinary men (and one mystery woman) who lived pretty ordinary lives, except for the fact that they were sharing everything they took care to overhear with the revolutionaries at great expense to their personal safety. 

Few people think of there being spies during "old" wars, but it was apparently common. In fact, I was surprised by how quickly the British spies confessed to spying, with the understanding that typically they would be returned in trade for someone from the other side. (That is how one famous British spy lost his life.) In fact, the British said they lost because they were outspied!

It was interesting to see how important intelligence was to America winning the war for independence, and while it was great to see so many excerpts from real letters, my only complaint was that sometimes these letters and profuse details slowed the "story" down. However, given that these were real people, this book does a great job providing a basis for its assumptions about their feelings at the time by supporting the narrative with such evidence. I also liked the epilogue, which elaborated on the theories of who the mystery female agent was since the original publication of the book.

So, if you are interested in the American Revolution, spying, historical research, or even how invisible ink came to be, then this is a great book for you.

Happy reading!

Flowers for that Peculiar Institution

It reminded me a lot of The Invention of Wings.

And given the subject matter, that's unsurprising. Yellow Crocus by Laila Ibrahim is the story of Mattie, a field slave who becomes wet nurse to Elizabeth, the first child of a large plantation owner in Virginia, and Lizabeth, as she comes to be called. The story is primarily told from two perspectives, though a bit of the story is told from Lizabeth's mother's perspective as well, and in this way the third person voice suits the story.

So, unlike Sue Monk Kidd's The Invention of Wings, which is told in first person in alternating chapters, this story can easily shift between the thoughts of the two protagonists mid-chapter (though it does so only when truly needed to maintain continuity). Also unlike the novel, this is entirely a work of historical fiction (whereas Kidd's story is somewhat based on a real abolitionist). However, like Kidd's novel (which I loved!!), the women in this story have a powerful bond that is tested by the institutions that keep them all "in their places."

From the beginning, you feel Mattie's heartache as she is forced to leave her three-month-old son with her "sister" (as we learn, when children are sold they are often adopted by another slave family...if they are lucky) and move into what is basically a generous closet next to the new baby's nursery. You get to feel how Ann (Lizabeth's mother) feels when she is not allowed to bond with her baby out of "propriety" and watches her daughter grow close to Mattie. And later, you see how Lizabeth struggles to understand how the dearest person in the world to her is considered less of a person.

I think I decided to buy this Kindle book when I read the interview with the author on Amazon, who worked in preschool and was educated in developmental psychology and attachment theory:

The idea for the story came to me in 1998 while I was with a group of people talking about Tiger Woods. Someone mentioned that he identifies as much as an Asian person as an African-American person. I thought to myself, "Of course he does, his mother is Asian. You form your core identity in relationship to your primary caregivers. It's a basic part of the attachment process."

While I still liked The Invention of Wings better (perhaps because I read it first, perhaps because I loved Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees), I think this was also a good book. If nothing else, I think telling so much of the story from Lizabeth's privileged perspective helps people today see how the Scarlett O'Hara fairy tale version of slavery is so wrong. And before anyone tries to say a book about slavery in 2016 is irrelevant, let's all pause for a moment to remember how this past February polls showed that many Trump supporters thought that slaves should not have been freed. Following Lizabeth and Mattie through their journeys really helps show how delusional it is to think that slavery is ever good for people, but also how hard it was for white people to disavow a system that brought so many perks to their lives.

The symbol of the yellow crocus made sense, and if a bit obvious, it was nice that it was a symbol of hope for both women, especially when both were faced with such ugliness. It was revealing to read about runaway slaves in Virginia, especially as Ohio was so relatively close. The details about slavery weren't sugar-coated, but they weren't so terribly brutal that the story was too disturbing for many readers. For example, when Mattie is in the whipping shed, the details about the slaves creating art on the walls with their own blood is graphic enough to leave an impression (seriously, the walls are covered in blood!), but not gory. The immense suffering is understood, but it is not at the forefront: rather, the HUMANS who made the art, who wanted to leave a record that they were there, is still the focus.

And that was perhaps the most refreshing  part of this story. The characters feel real, with real struggles, and not like abolitionist caricatures. There are some vivid details (rape, childbirth, etc.) which may not be appropriate for some high school students, but they are never gratuitous and add to the authenticity of the story.

So, if historical fiction is a genre you like, if you want to learn more about American slavery from a variety of perspectives, or even if you want to learn more about childbirth and rearing before modern medicine (Mattie is a wet nurse/midwife, after all), then this would be a great book for you. It is very well written, accessible, and has, as my students love, a happy ending!

Happy reading!

Aww Nuts

So, remember how I started picking some books based on their covers?

If you look at the cover of Penny Marshall's memoir My Mother Was Nuts, you'd think it was going to be a very funny book. It was not.

For those who don't know Laverne and Shirley or Big or A League of their Own, Penny Marshall is an actress/director who is incredibly funny and talented...on screen. Amazon had good reviews, but the top review on Goodreads seems to tell the story (albeit less generously).

I know English teachers are supposed to like books (and I did finish it, because I spent $2 on it and because it did get a little more interesting in the middle, when I learned about how some TV shows and movies are made), but I thought this was terrible. Penny Marshall led this AMAZING life, knows all these famous people, and yet the story read like: "I did this. And then I did this. This guy was there. He was really funny."

I know she worked with a ghost writer, and I don't know their qualifications, but I'd have to conclude that either the ghost writer wasn't very good, Penny Marshall insisted on creative control, or she did so many drugs that she couldn't remember any details that would have made this memoir feel like a life. 

In fact, reading an interview with her reads a lot like the book. It's the exact same stuff. It's a shame, because she was the first woman to make a $100 million dollar film, and with that kind of achievement, I wanted to know more about the BARRIERS she faced. Really, the struggles she has are glossed over, including her pregnancy in college which caused her to drop out and get married. Her whole life is turned upside down, and the way the book reads, it's like she had some stale Raisin Bran for breakfast.

I did find it interesting to read how A League of Their Own was cast, as I love that film. I love that Tom Hanks wanted the part so badly, and that the character of Kit was cast before Gena Davis (they dyed the hair so they would even look remotely like sisters). I loved hearing about how Jon Lovitz ad-libbed so many of his great lines in that movie (like telling the cow to shut up). All of that trivia was interesting.

This was a very fast read (I knocked it out in a few hours) and not very difficult. If kids want to know why smoking and doing drugs and having unprotected sex is bad, they might be interested in this, but I'm guessing most teens will pass. And unless you really, really love Penny Marshall (I do), I'm guessing many adults would pass too.
But if you want to know about how Penny Marshall got where she did, if you don't want to read the online summaries of the fun facts about her movies shared in her book (like how Marky Mark became Mark Wahlberg on her watch, or how she rode around France with Art Garfunkel), then this book is for you!

Happy reading!

Judging a Book by Its Cover

I should randomly buy books on Amazon all the time!

I'm pretty sure I bought Take Me With You  by Catherine Ryan Hyde based on the pretty cover. Okay, maybe I read the back of the "book jacket" (Kindle book!), and maybe I thought I'd identify with the science teacher protagonist who has a soft spot for these children, but I couldn't tell you why I picked it...

Especially when I reached the end and read the "About the Author" section, which showed book titles that I would have immediately shunned as sappy or gimmicky...I mean, this author wrote Pay It Forward (which was turned into one of those movies I would watch only if I NEEDED a good cry).

In fact, I think when I started reading and the mechanic offers to give this teacher his two kids for  the summer, I immediately knew I would have to suspend my disbelief. I mean, who does that? But the author makes that point: that the father's offer and the teacher's acceptance of the author are irrational... and later you delve into the reasons.

The teacher, August, is on a trip to scatter the ashes of his 19-year-old son, who died in a car accident. What we learn about along the way is how responsible he feels for the accident, even though he wasn't there. We also learn, through his children, how complicated the mechanic Wes's life is, and the author does what I didn't think possible: she makes the man who sort of abandons and neglects his kids sympathetic.

But Wes isn't the focus of the story. While August is the protagonist, the real "stars" are the children, Seth and Henry. I love the real and metaphorical journeys they take in the novel, and how the book's parabolic arc (while again, a bit cheesy), feels right and sweet. In fact, I remember reading what I thought was the "end" and realized that I was only 58% finished (again, love that Kindle books calculate this and the estimated minutes left in the chapter based on my reading speed). So, while in retrospect I should have seen the ending coming, I was so focused on what would happen at the end of August's trip with the boys that I forgot to think ahead to their lives after. And I was glad that the rest of the story wasn't a "happy ending," but something that reflected the nuance that would inevitably be a part of a "real" story.

So, while the book isn't necessarily high literary fiction, I found it a great beach read, and I highly recommend it to people looking for something uplifting (but not sappy), emotional (but not gimmicky), and real (despite the somewhat ridiculous premise). Oh, and it is all about nature and a dog! (Did I forget to mention that?). I learned a great deal about many of our national parks, and having never been out West to actually see the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone, I loved the descriptions. (Although I don't know if I'd like all the camping...I would have joined Troop Beverly Hills if that was an option in Girl Scouts).

I think boys and girls would like this book, and there was NOTHING in here that I thought was especially inappropriate for high school (or middle school  for that matter). There is a great deal about drinking and alcoholism, but the protagonist is in recovery, and I liked the realistic way the book handled his addiction. Given how much I came to "understand" the boys alcoholic dad, I think it would be a great book for helping students understand how human their parents (and teachers) are--even if they don't have drinking problem.

"It's sort of like he's a good person and a bad person at the same time. Which I think is...not possible."

"Seth. It's not only possible, it pretty much describes every human being on the planet. Everybody is a good person and a bad person at the same time. The only real variation is in the balance."

So, had I judged this book by its author (and not just its cover), I would have missed out on an enjoyable and inspiring read.

Happy reading!

Have Mercy!

What sold me was a review that said it would be a great companion to To Kill a Mockingbird...

I didn't realize that the majority of Just Mercy took place in Monroeville, Alabama, where Harper Lee was raised, or that this too involved the story of a black man wrongfully accused and convicted of a crime.

Unlike Atticus Finch, however, the protagonist of this story is the author, a black lawyer who is keenly aware of how unjust the system as. Race is thus always an element of this story, even when the people Stevenson defends aren't black, as he encounters his own challenges as a black attorney in Alabama (and other places across America).

With that said, this was not as "heavy" a book as it could have been. I really enjoyed reading it (couldn't put it down), and couldn't wait to find out what happened in the "main" story of his defense of Walter McMillian, a black man who had two strikes against him: success and a white girlfriend. When the local sheriff couldn't find a suspect for the murder of a beloved young white girl, he jumped on the chance to arrest McMillian once someone pointed the finger in his direction. At least that is how the book tells it...and in this memoir, Stevenson shows how much evidence had to be ignored to try and convict McMillian. (I don't think I'm spoiling anything by sharing one shocking example: his entire family was with him at the time of the murder! But their alibis didn't count when stacked against the testimony of a white criminal looking to make a deal!)

And this was all happening in Harper Lee's hometown, a place that celebrated the "justice" seen in the movie by using its courthouse to lure English majors and lawyers to spend tourism money. The irony is not lost upon Stevenson, who sees that the racism, classism, and even sexism portrayed in the novel is still alive and well in the modern day despite Harper Lee's indictment of the system.

As much as I wanted to know what happened, I liked how the author interrupted this story to share some of the other cases he worked on. At first I thought it was a poor conceit, but as he reviewed these other cases, it became clear he was showing, through example, just how unfair the system is to the poor, the too-young-to-know-better, the mentally ill, young mothers, and people of color. I read this book on my Kindle app, and found myself highlighting paragraphs that either shocked me (the statistics about how much we spend on prison vs. education weren't new to me, but were still shocking) or touched me.

Thus, when we returned to McMillian's story, the unfairness of it all was less shocking. His story--while an egregious example of injustice--was then framed as just ONE example of all the injustices occurring in our nation today. It also showed how "political" the law is, with district attorneys, judges, and politicians afraid to put what is "right" before what is popular for the sake of votes, money, and ease.

The story is also incredibly inspiring. The author came from humble beginnings, attended Harvard law, started a nonprofit practice to defend the defenseless (at a time when money was being cut to provide people with a defense....kind of like today!), and ended up winning all sorts of awards in addition to successfully arguing in front of the Supreme Court!

Maybe I'm the only person who would pick this as a beach read, but I found this to be well-paced, and interesting on both an academic and "popcorn" level. And, as has been the trend, apparently I picked a book that is being made into a movie! (Check out the handsome actor who will play young Bryan!)

Michael B. Jordan, who will star  in the movie, release date TBD.

 

While there are definitely disturbing facts in the book, nothing is so graphic that I would say this is not appropriate for high school. In fact, I think a young adult audience would connect with Stevenson right out of college and appreciate the look "behind the scenes" of our American system, which teenagers are already skeptical of. Oh, and I think adults would really like it too :)

Happy reading!

Barely Breathing

Definitely crying when I finished this one...

Whereas it took me a week to finish my last "for fun" book, it only took me a few hours to read When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi (and contributors).

The author with his wife and daughter.

As you will no doubt read in the book jacket, this is the true story of Paul Kalanithi, before and after his diagnosis with stage IV lung cancer at 36 years old. In fact, he died while working on the book in March 2015, and so his wife writes his final chapter.

But it isn't so much the story that is remarkable (though I love that he shared his journey to find himself, dual majoring in biology and English, and even earning a masters in English before deciding to become a doctor). What is interesting about this book is the voice and perspective, written as a "convert" in so many ways--from scholar to healer, from doctor to patient--though he never forgets to sprinkle in the wisdom from his favorite authors along the way. He found inspiration in poets and writers, especially those with medical training ("I took meager solace in knowing that William Carlos Williams and Richard Seltzer had confessed to doing worse, and I swore to do better. [...] Technical excellence was not enough.")

The author at work.

I personally loved learning about what doctors, and more specifically what neurosurgeons have to go through to become "doctors," and Kalanithi is very candid about how hard it is to keep perspective that patients are people when overwhelmed by responsibility. Although he seems to gloss over some episodes that could have been elaborated on more (like how these pressures drove his good friend to suicide), given that this is an unfinished book, it's pretty compelling.


I loved how connected to literature the novel was. In fact, the author confesses that "it was literature that brought [him] back to life" after being confronted with the certainty of death (though not the certainty of when that death would come). Paul wanted to know what makes life meaningful, and believed that poetry, literature, and language were essential to life. 

His wife, Lucy, writes in the epilogue, "Paul confronted death--examined it, wrestled with it, accepted it--as a physician and a patient. He wanted to help people understand death and face their mortality." (You can watch a short interview with her below.)

So, if you are looking for an inspirational true story, if you have been pondering what makes life worth living, if you are interested in medicine, if you know someone struggling with cancer, or if you just want a good cry, I would say this is a great book for you.

Happy reading!

Reading for Work

So, you know how you just want to read for pleasure?

I know, we all want to kick back and read Harry Potter or The Hunger Games and eat Cheetos, but sometimes we have to read for work. And if you are lucky, you love your work enough that this reading isn't such a chore.

Over the past few days, I read three books on writing centers: Richard Kent's A Guide to Creating Student-Staffed Writing Centers: Grades K-12, Ben Rafoth's anthology A Tutor's Guide: Helping Writers One to One, and Pamela Farrell's classic High School Writing Center: Establishing and Maintaining One. They all came in from Amazon (I know, the evil empire) around the same time, and I plowed through them hoping to find the "answers" to what a writing center is supposed to look like.

But here's the secret: books don't give you answers! Now, before everyone revolts and starts bringing torches and pitchforks to teachers' houses, let me clarify: books give you the information, the benefit of other people's experiences, and the tools to help YOU find your answers.

True, none of these books by themselves had everything I needed, but by reading all three, I found many of the tools I needed to continue my work preparing for the fall.

I'm sure most of you won't read these, but I thought it was important to share that while adults read for pleasure and to stay informed, they also read for very practical purposes (like reading the CT DOE guidelines for applying to renew teaching certifications...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz). And while reading for work isn't always fun, if you really want answers, then the reading is worth it. Having "done the reading" is rewarding.

So, if any of you are doing "required" reading and cursing about it, just think about how rewarding it will be when you finish...and remember that if you let yourself, you may just enjoy it!

Happy reading!

It's Between Me and...

If you haven't heard of Between the World and Me,

then you need to enter the conversation.

Ta-Nehisi Coates memoirish book is only about 150 pages, but it took me a good week to read. It is dense, and often it is raw, and it raises questions and truths about America that make all of us uncomfortable. It is heavy reading, but the way the author intertwines the personal with the abstract keeps this book from feeling overly academic or preachy.

The author and his son, as a baby.

The book is written as a letter to his son, though the open nature of the letter means that everything he says is between the world and him. (I know kids, duh!) The title also clearly references prominent African American author Richard Wright ("And the sooty details of the scene rose, thrusting themselves between the world and me"), and in many ways echoes Wright's Black Boy, revealing what it means to grow up black in America...but including the diversity of the experience as well as the unfortunate unity that comes from race.

Richard Wright

And what I found interesting is that the author calls into question this whole idea of race. Throughout the book, he both explicitly and implicitly argues that race is a construct, an invention of those who would be part of the "white" race to grant and deny power. The combination of narrative, history, and current events makes this argument persuasive.

Being what many people would consider a white woman, I felt profoundly conflicted about the novel. I can never truly empathize with the author or his experience, but I feel guilt and shame on behalf of the system that privileges me. I felt guilt about how I benefit from the perverse race situation in America, and then I felt almost angry that the author wasn't providing answers, but seemingly only blame. But then, as I finished the book, it became clear that HE didn't have the answers. The point of writing this as a letter was to share his frustration, his struggle, and his wisdom as he searched for the best answers he could.

So, as I'm at a loss for words trying to better describe this book, let me share with you some of the passages that stuck out/stuck with me.

 "The point of this langauge of "intention" and "personal responsibility" is broad exoneration. Mistakes were made. Bodies were broken. People were enslaved. We meant well. We tried our best. "Good intention" is a hall pass through history, a sleeping pill that ensures the Dream."

"At the onset of the Civil War, our stolen bodies were worth four billion dollars, more than all of American industry, all of American railroads, workshops, and factories combined, and the prime product rendered by our stolen bodies--cotton--was America's primary export. [...]Here is the motive for the great war. It's not a secret."

"The killing fields of Chicago, of Baltimore, of Detroit were created by the policy of Dreamers, but their weight, their shame, rests solely upon those who are dying in them. There is great deception in this. To yell "black-on-black crime" is to shoot a man and then shame him for bleeding."

"She alluded to 12 Years a Slave. 'There he was,' she said, speaking of Solomon Northup. 'He had means. He had a family. He was living like a human being. And one racist act took him back. And the same is true of me. I spent years developing a career, acquiring assets, engaging responsibilities. And one racist act. It's all it takes.'" 

If you search the internet, you will find it abounds with quotations from this book; it is that poignant. (You can also find a lot of videos of interviews with and talks by the author.)

This is a book I would recommend to many people (whether they want to read it or not). I think to conversations I've had with students about race in our little part of Connecticut, and this book really helped me think differently about the words I use when talking about "race" with students. It made me think about how I might inadvertently be reinforcing corruption in the name of keeping things civil...it just made me think.

So, if you are interested in "race" in America, if you have ever felt powerless, if you are a person who likes to be challenged, and if you want to read quality writing, then this nonfiction book is for you.

Happy reading!

Obama!

So I'm not interested in getting all political here...

and I know I have been writing about books mainly so far, but I just read Michelle Obama's speech to the DNC, and I was really blown away by the rhetoric of that speech. (And I'm using rhetoric in the correct, neutral, Aristotelian definition.)

As many writers have acknowledged, she probably did the most "damage" to Trump--and she never once uttered his name. Such was the craft with which the speech was written.

However, I'm not interested in the Trumpiness of it, but rather I wanted to share some of my favorite lines, lines that I think speak not to democrats or republicans, but to our national character and what we hope for. For example, when she explained how she and her husband tried to explain how to handle insults, she said, "that when someone is cruel or acts like a bully, you don’t stoop to their level. No, our motto is, when they go low, we go high." In it's simplicity, in it's parallelism, people get the picture.

She framed the election as a question of role models, and again used repetition, parallelism, and the logic of elimination to make her point:

"And make no mistake about it, this November when we go to the polls that is what we’re deciding, not Democrat or Republican, not left or right. No, in this election and every election is about who will have the power to shape our children for the next four or eight years of their lives."

And when she said,

"I want a president who will teach our children that everyone in this country matters, a president who truly believes in the vision that our Founders put forth all those years ago that we are all created equal, each a beloved part of the great American story."

it was hard not to think about all the "glass ceilings" that would be shattered, but in a positive, warm tone.
 

I haven't watched it (I have trouble sitting through applause), but I think you should definitely read it.

Happy reading!

In the Dark

Goodreads recommended this, and the title sounded very interesting...

But I was expecting something else. I had heard an interview with the author on the radio, and it sounded interesting. Honestly, with a title like Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget, I was expecting some really interesting drunk stories. What I learned was that drunk stories really aren't all that interesting, and that was exactly what the author's message was.

That isn't to say that this was a boring book--rather, it was a memoir about recovery, not about the glory of drinking. And, in fact, the author explicitly addresses what a problem it is that our culture glorifies drinking, especially as a way to "free" or empower women. Rather than simply detailing the many times she reached the bottom of a wine bottle, the author gets to the bottom of this complicated relationship between American culture and alcohol.

And this worked, as I was hoping to find a book that clearly connected to the school's Health, Wellness, Fitness, and Sports theme for summer reading, and this definitely fit the bill for health and wellness...in that this memoir detailed how not well the author was and what it took to make her both physically and mentally healthy again.

In fact, I found the scientific explanations she gave for things to be some of the most interesting parts of the book. She spoke to Aaron White, an expert on blackouts, and learned that "it's not the type of drink you put to your lips, it's the amount of alcohol in the blood and how quickly you get to that level. Fragmentary blackouts start at a blood-alcohol content around .20, while en bloc blackouts start around .30." And because women are smaller and metabolize alcohol more slowly, it takes less to put them in the dangerously drunk zone. Oh, and when people black out, it's because their brain is essentially being poisoned to the point that it can't work to form memories, which apparently is why drunk people sound like a broken record, since they can't remember what they told you 5 minutes ago. So, I liked how this book dispelled the myths about how "awesome" it is to be drunk--without it sounding preachy. After all, this woman lived that scene for decades.

I found the introduction "Women Who Drink," to speak to the conflict that many modern young women face when presented with the choice to drink--or the choice to do much of anything.

I drank to drown those voices [...] I wanted the same freedom from internal conflict that my male friends seemed to enjoy. So I drank myself to a place where I didn't care, but I woke up a person who cared enormously.

I think this speaks to many women and girls, who want to "Let it go" and shed their inhibitions, but think that they cannot do it without a chemical fix. However, there is a notion that alcohol excuses actions or consequences, and Hepola does a great job showing that those consequences are rarely really ignored, and that they do add up, especially in regards to sex. (Yes, there is sex in the book...and curse words. I'd argue the minimal details about sex help further the author's point about the problems with judgment when drinking--and the reasons many women drink. I can't defend the cursing except to say its the author's chosen voice.)

This was also an interesting "writer" story, as Hepola explored the difficulties of writing and the literary "tradition" of alcohol abuse: "I became, as Irish author Brendan Behan once said, 'a drinker with a writing problem.'" The fear of judgment that is inherent in writing is shown through the lens of someone who wrote a great deal for online content, where the comments section empowers "any random dude with a Tumblr account" to take people down.

What I liked about the book, aside from the author's straightforward style, the messages about female empowerment, and the unsentimental way she wrote, was the theme: health comes from being unafraid to be yourself. So many of her bad choices tied back to fear, and so, perhaps, in telling her story, more women and men can learn to be brave--and healthy.

Happy reading!

Burned!

Binge reading! The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America

Even the title sounds cool, right? When I saw this as a $2 Kindle book deal, I knew I had to read it. I had been binging on books (hence the quick succession of blog posts), and I thought I would take a chance on something I wouldn't normally read. (And, as seems to fit a developing theme in the books I've chosen this summer, I learned after reading that there is a PBS documentary about this event, inspired in large part by the book.)

The subject of Timothy Egan's book is the Big Burn, also known as the Great Fire of 1910, which burned a swath of forest the size of my home state of Connecticut out west in Washington, Idaho, and Montana. It is said to be the largest wildfire in US history. However, the subject was really also the events that led to the creation of and "saving" of the national forests and US forest service. Ironically, the fire that destroyed so much national land was what rescued the conservation movement in America from a quick death because of special interests cutting funding and using loopholes in the law to log, mine, and otherwise pillage the land for profit.

So as interesting as the details of the fire and the people who both lived through it and tried to fight it

are, it is just as interesting to hear about the politics behind the event and the creation of the National Forests. I'm not a political buff, so I wasn't sure how I would like this book, but I was stunned by how much 1910 sounded like 2016. Reading about the games that the senators were playing, the big money of big energy buying off politicians, and the way rich men ran the nation (even if they seemed well-intentioned, as the author paints Teddy Roosevelt), I couldn't help but think about how little politics seems to have changed...well, except that our congress "acts" by not acting.

There were details Egan pulls together that stirred my conscience. For example, when Ed Pulaski, one of the forest rangers who saved many men--who was being denied pay because Congress was refusing to release money--asked for compensation because of the extent of the burns he suffered fighting the fire as ordered, I wanted to jump through the page and slap some of those men in power. Egan definitely rooted for the "little guys" in this, which was funny, as many of these little guys had grown up privileged and attended Yale. But anyway, the injustices that abounded before and after this event are not sugar-coated, and this makes the book both infuriating and satisfying.

Another notable detail that I enjoyed was the unit of "Buffalo Soldiers" who served more than honorably to save citizens and fight the fire. In the accounts Egan digs up, the reader hears about the prejudice these men face and how honorably they serve despite it all. Given that many of the white people living on the "frontier" at that point had not really seen black people, they only had prejudice to guide them. Satisfyingly, in the accounts following the fire, the white citizens acknowledge their bravery and their sacrifice. I really appreciated the inclusion of their story--and their heroism.

I only wish this book had a bit more to say about the negative side of Roosevelt. Its not to say I don't like the man--in fact, I knew so little about him that this book was a treat in that respect--but given the well-rounded portrait Egan paints of most of the men in the book, I felt the absence of "skeletons" in Teddy's closet to be notable. Likely it was simply beyond the scope of the book, but these missing details made it feel a bit one-sided.

I think the author did a nice job balancing the politics with the action; nonfiction can easily become as dry as the forests of the book if put in the wrong hands, but Egan was able to balance the banal with the unique and the sentimental. If someone is interested in learning about how wildfires work (and how to fight a fire), how the forest service started, how Teddy Roosevelt rose to power, or even how many people in power back in the day thought they could speak to ghosts, this book is for you. This is one of those books that you don't know you are interested in until you give it a shot, and I recommend you do just that.

Happy reading!

Muy Caliente!

It's getting hot, so...

time for Inferno by Dan Brown. Yeah, that Davinci Code guy. I hadn't thought about him in a while, but then when watching a Youtube video, I saw the trailer for the upcoming movie.

And, since I hadn't read a good popcorn book in a while, I thought it only right to see if this was on the shelf of my local library.

This is another in the Robert Langdon series (Angels and Demons, The Davinci Code), and so I assumed that old Professor Langdon would be receiving phone call in Chapter 2 asking him to come to such and such place in Italy to solve a mystery about art and religion. (And really, don't all college professors receive random phone calls to take all-expense paid trips to foreign countries to run for their lives?)

However, I was pleasantly surprised when the book began with Robert Langdon awaking in a hospital, unsure of how he arrived there. While the amnesia conceit is a favorite of soap operas, in this case it provided a fun "double dose" of mystery, as Langdon was not only trying to solve the mystery of who he could trust and what this map in his possession was all about, but also the mystery of what happened to him (and how did he end up in Italy?). So, while the running for life/art mystery/conspiracy/beautiful woman sidekick/Italian setting stayed true to the pattern of these books, there were other aspects that, to my delight, broke the pattern.

At first, it seems like the Consortium is the big conspiracy bad guy here, but as you read, you inevitably question whether the WHO, American government, or some other unknown group is behind all the trouble. This is a slight, albeit important departure from his other books where the conspiracy is evident early on (although who is the real bad guy is always open to question). I also liked that while much of the book was about art, one of the main influences was Dante's Inferno, telling the tale of Dante's descent into hell (and subsequent ascent).

Actually, the book covers both the book and a painting of Dante's circles of hell, which I hadn't seen (and which, to my chagrin, the book doesn't show). Seeing this helps show how the different sinners suffer in the different circles, and moreover, I appreciate how each person is literally "stripped" of their trappings. Perhaps this is purposeful symbolism on Brown's part, since in this story Langdon is "stripped" of his memory, his possessions, and even his sense of who to trust, or maybe this is just coincidence. Either way, it's interesting.

Anyway, I won't spoil this mystery/thriller, but I can say that I was not expecting the ending or the rationale behind the evil that the "villain" planned to unleash. Given this ending, I'm very interested to see how the filmmakers will handle the plot (and how audiences will receive it).

Perhaps it was because I wasn't expecting much from this book that I liked it so much. Critics have some negative things to say about it, and while I can't disagree in retrospect, in the moment, it was a fun read. I'm terrible about mysteries (I can usually see what is coming), so I appreciated the twists in this story and the unique scientific aspect to it (as opposed to the religious bent of his first two novels). In fact, its made me curious enough that I might pick up The Lost Symbol, which I heard was a stinker, but I might give it a chance in case the critics have tried to make a good popcorn novel live up to more than it is.

If you like a good mystery, if you worry about how the world might end, or if you have a lot of time to spend sitting in a beach chair, then I recommend this book for you!

Happy reading!

The Holocaust fiction I bought and read the night before Elie Wiesel died...

Heavy summer reading...

So, when I saw a note for 80% off select Kindle books, I had to take advantage of it. I saw Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum, and the "book jacket" description sounded like it appealed to my interest in historical fiction:

For fifty years, Anna Schlemmer has refused to talk about her life in Germany during World War II. Her daughter, Trudy, was only three when she and her mother were liberated by an American soldier and went to live with him in Minnesota. Trudy's sole evidence of the past is an old photograph: a family portrait showing Anna, Trudy, and a Nazi officer, the Obersturmfuhrer of Buchenwald.

Driven by the guilt of her heritage, Trudy, now a professor of German history, begins investigating the past and finally unearths the dramatic and heartbreaking truth of her mother's life.

What I didn't realize was just how "real" this book would be. In the first few pages, the reader meets Anna and Trudy at Jack's funeral, and all that is clear is that theirs is a house filled with silence. Then, the book flashes back to Weimar in 1939, as Anna begins seeing Max, a Jewish doctor who helped her save her Nazi father's dog. We learn how Anna falls in love with Max and the lengths she goes to in order to try to save him...and her unborn child.

But when Max is taken to Buchenwald, Anna must balance her desire to save her love and the other innocent men in the prison camp from her need to protect her child. For a while, she makes a "noble" choice, giving up her home to live a life serving the resistance and raising her "tainted" child, but soon the horrors of Buchenwald spill out of the camp...

I'd read a bit about Buchenwald because this was the final stop for Elie Wiesel, whose memoir Night is the subject of study in one of my classes. In many ways, it was a "typical" concentration camp, with forced labor, arbitrary executions, and terrible conditions. However, the book shared these facts (and the fact that this was
one of the sites for Nazi medical experimentation) in a manner that showed just how "everyday" this was for the people who lived around the camp. It was an interesting historical fiction perspective. In the midst of Anna's story (revealed through flashbacks to the past interrupted by Trudy's story in the present), the reader sees not only those who try to help the men in the camps, but also those who perpetrate the atrocities...and those who lived around the camps. When Anna has to choose between death and the advances of the Obersturmfuhrer, the reader sympathizes with her choice.

However, the rest of the town knows little about Anna's choices outside of what they see in public, and Trudy knows nothing about that time except what she remembers in little flashbacks and nightmares about her childhood. When Trudy helps another professor with an interview project hearing from survivors of the war in Germany, we also see how complicated that time was for "everyday" citizens.

What struck me was that while this book was billed as a sort of tragic romance, I found it to be just plain tragic. The details are graphic, and while this is likely authentic, it makes parts of the book hard to stomach. When rape comes up, it is explicitly described, and while this shows how sadistic some people were and how helpless others were, it isn't easy to read. (So be warned--adult content is very much a part of this book!) In a non-spoiler, I appreciated how the author detailed what happened after the camp was liberated and the residents of Wiemar were made to go through the camp. This is a detail that is often left out of history books, and while it seemed just to make people face up to what they did (or didn't do), the author presented this in such a way as to create sympathy for bystanders like Anna.

I don't want to spoil the ending, but I will say that the author does a good job of dangling the promise of a happy ending in front of the reader, and the need to know if and how the realities of Anna's past would be revealed to Trudy kept me going through the tough stuff.

Not exactly light summer fare, but an interesting historical fiction.

Happy Reading!