June Booknotes

 

“All I have learned, I learned from books.” - Abraham Lincoln

Nonfiction: China, Technology, Economics, Politics

Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future by Dan Wang

The central premise of Breakneck is that even though China and the USA are in a great power struggle, they could learn much from each other.

Wang argues that the USA has fallen prey to inertia in realizing any improvements in physical infrastructure due to a litigation driven culture. He cites the fact more than half of Congress and the many of our presidents were lawyers or held a law degree. Conversely China's 24-member Politburo contains several prominent scientists and former aerospace, nuclear, or weapons engineers and General Secretary Xi Jinping has a degree in chemical engineering. This helps to explain China’s great feats of public works leading to 11 Chinese cities having a metro network larger than New York City’s and their high-speed railway service rural areas. China is “big” on infrastructure, they have twice the number of roads built since 2000 compared to the USA. 

“China, right now, is in the midst of pursuing its own Great Society, where even its poorest provinces have impressive levels of physical dynamism. Delivering the goods is part of why consent of the governed is still pretty strong in China.”

Conversely, China is not so good when it comes to people. Among the most intense chapters are the chapters on the one-child (chapter 4) and zero-Covid (chapter 5) policies. The one-child policy was initiated by misguided demographic projections and a misunderstanding of Malthusianism theory - a demographic and economic theory suggesting that human population growth tends to outpace agricultural production, leading to inevitable famine, disease, and war. Initially, second or additional children born would not be registered meaning they would not receive free education or health care. However, the policy quickly became barbarically coercive: fines, sterilizations, forced abortions, abandonments, and infanticides. All this tragedy and agony justified in the name of meeting the *numerical targets of the government's plan regardless of the inhumanity. The lesson is the engineering mindset can be inhumane and myopic.

NOTE: *Like the current administration's immigration mindset which favors quotas over humanity.

Zero-Covid, similarly, is presented as both a demonstration of China’s effective engineering state capacity (closing borders, mobilizing resources, quarantines, digital monitoring) and of its failures (suppressing the number of cases, inability to adapt to new viral variants, disregarding human suffering). During the 8-week TOTAL lock down in Shanghai, megaphones mounted on state drones called out to citizens “Repress your soul’s yearning for freedom!"  This is just one example how an inflexible “engineering” state ignores humanity. 

China is estimated to account for 45% of world output by 2030.  We could learn beneficial lessons from China but not if we focus solely on tariffs. Tariffs are not universally good or bad, but their impact depends on who is being affected – will they enhance the lives of people? When planning for manufacturing and infrastructure projects, “engineering” has the potential to improve life for people by recognizing and embracing human rights. Wang concludes with a warning that the more Western democracies don’t deliver on the needs and wishes of their people, the more tempting it is to rely on a strongman to fulfill all their wishes.

“The ultimate contest between China and the United States will not be decided by which country has the biggest factory or the highest corporate valuation. This contest will be won by the country that works best for the people living in it.”

Tandem Read –Two books about our nation’s transition from the Gilded Age to the Progressive Era.

Here are key concepts shared by these two books.

Gilded Age – 1870 through 1890s, an era of prosperity for the rich and rapid technological advancement which masked deep societal problems like poverty, inequality, and political corruption.

Progressive Era – 1890s – 1920s, an era of political movement interested in furthering social and political reform, while curbing political corruption.

Socialism – an economic and political philosophy advocating for the collective or public ownership of the means of production, rather than private ownership.

Anarchy - a social and political movement, anarchism advocates for a society based on voluntary cooperation, self-determination, and mutual aid rather than coercive state control.

Nonfiction: American History

Murdering McKinley: The Making of Theodore Roosevelt's America by Eric Rauchway

The book begins with an account of the assassination of President William McKinley. He was known as the “handmaiden to American manufacturers” and for the McKinley Tariff which led to the panic of 1893. He is seen as the epitome of the Gilded Age. The assassination is described in detail, as is the capture of the assassin, the subsequent trial, and execution. 

Particularly interesting is the biography of the shooter, a native-born American named Czolgosz who insisted he was an “anarchist.” Czolgosz’s life story is based on research done by an alienist (we now know them as psychologists) named Briggs who was trying to diagnose whether Czolcosz was insane. 

However, Czolcosz’s story is only a portion of the book. Equally interesting is the description of what was happening in a broader American context. The larger picture of forces at play in 1901 and beyond included corporate coddling; progressivism vs. socialism; political smear tactics; criminal psychology; and social workers. Rauchway discusses how these forces led to Theodore Roosevelt’s rise to the presidency and the Progressive Era. 

The final aspect in the book was an in-depth discussion of the development of psychology as a science. There was controversy over the causes and treatment of insanity. Czolcosz’s mental condition was argued over. Many alienists promoted the idea that merely claiming to be an “anarchist” was a kind of mental illness.

This book reads like an anthology of feature articles about domestic issues in U.S. politics of the time. Murdering McKinley is a varied and fascinating picture of this period in history.

Fiction: Utopia, Science Fiction

Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy

This is the book that Czolcosz “studied steadily for eight years.” 

Published in 1888, Looking Backward was a best seller and translated into multiple languages. It sold for as little as 50 cents and was the most accessible book in the United States for many years. 

It is a tale of time travel when Julian West, a wealthy Bostonian, falls into a deep trance. One-hundred-thirteen years later, in the year 2000, he is “awakened” by a doctor into a utopian America. 

West discovers a world greatly changed from the Gilded Age he left and now experiences an America in which social classes do not fight one another but work together in peaceable recognition of their common interest. There is no private industry, the state owns all capital and manages all production, replacing competitive private business with a single, massive public cooperative. 

Citizens are part of an "industrial army," they have no money, and consumer goods are rationed via “credit” cards. This novel offers a revolution without bloodshed and a peaceful evolution of social thought. 

Looking Backward has no violence, - nothing to indicate Czolcosz, who studied it for eight years, was influenced by its content to shoot President McKinley. It is a utopian tale.

When it was published during the Gilded Age there were extensive slums, sweatshops, and unsafe factories. All this existed alongside the skyrocketing wealth of a handful of men. A social movement began when people realized the Gilded Age didn’t represent the pinnacle of human society.  There had to be something better – hence the transition to the Progressive Era and the book’s popularity.

Looking Backward is frequently assigned in history courses due to its depiction of the differences between capitalism and “socialism.” However, as literature, it reads more like a lecture from someone who can't stop pontificating. The plot is boring and the characters are flat. Bellamy imagines a future economy with mind-numbing detail. Yet, it remains one of the most influential utopian novels. 

Nonfiction: Survival, Interpersonal Relations, Biography

A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck by Sophie Elmhirst

This is the true tale of a couple, Maurice and Maralyn Bailey, who couldn’t have been more different, yet so perfect for each other. He was solitary, and compulsive, and she was charming, and enterprising. Neither Maurice nor Maralyn wanted a conventional lifestyle, Maurice was looking for an escape, and Maralyn was looking for an adventure. They were going to sail, just the two of them, from Great Britain to New Zealand

They sold their home and lived meagerly while Maurice oversaw the construction of their sailboat, which took several years. In June 1972 they set sail to New Zealand without a radio and using only a compass and sextant to navigate. Maralyn didn’t even know how to swim.

After passing through the Panama Canal into the Pacific Ocean, and nine months after setting sail, a breaching whale struck their sailboat. As their sailboat was sinking, they gathered what they could into an inflatable life raft and attached dinghy, which they shared for the next 118 days...

The survival story is fascinating, and it reads almost like a novel. The physicality of their ordeal - catching sharks and birds with bare hands, fishing hooks made of safety pins, cutting eggs out of a turtle, etc. makes for some squeamish reading. But the book focuses on the most important thing that kept them going, their marriage.  The strength of their partnership was essential to their survival.  Maurice would not have survived without Maralyn; he wanted to give up but Maralyn kept him focused on their future. 

After their rescue, the press initially focused on Maralyn as the unnamed “wife” and a “small brunette” who they assumed had followed her husband rather than being the main driver behind the adventure and their survival. Maurice always corrected the reporters and flat out told them he was only alive because of Maralyn’s strength of character. 

The Bailey’s did sail again, and their marriage survived until Maralyn’s death from cancer in 2002. Maurice didn’t fare well after Maralyn was gone. Just “surviving” each day was an immense struggle on his own.

A Marriage at Sea is an unforgettable true story of extreme survival, human resourcefulness, battles with despair, and sustained hope. It's filled with details of this couple's ordeal at sea, what happened afterwards, and the years that followed. It's a fascinating read!

Fiction: Realistic Fiction, Ireland

Ordinary Human Failings by Megan Nolan

“Really, who would care about a family like theirs? Theirs were ordinary human failings, tragedies too routine to be of note.”

This gritty novel follows the lives of an Irish immigrant family, the Green family, in a public housing estate in 1990s London. Ten-year-old Lucy Green is suspected of being responsible for the death of a three-year-old girl, Mia. Why did this tragedy occur?

We travel back ten years and learn about the members of Lucy’s family. Her grandmother Rose, the family martyr, was the only person who displayed any affection toward Lucy, but she died a few years ago. That left her grandfather, John a recluse, and her uncle Ritchie, an alcoholic. Her mother, Carmel, became pregnant with her when she was a teenager. Carmel’s boyfriend moved away and, in the 1980s Ireland, abortion was prohibited. Carmel tries unsuccessfully on her own to end her pregnancy and fails. She then goes into a deep denial about her condition. Once Rose finally realized Carmel was pregnant, they traveled to England when abortion was legal, but it is too late and Carmel was already 5 months pregnant. So the family relocated from Ireland to London to avoid scandal. After Lucy’s birth, Carmel was distant and never displayed any concern for her daughter. Grandmother Rose was Lucy’s surrogate mother until her death.

After Rose died, 10-year-old Lucy was basically ignored by her family, and she began to have behavioral issues at school. Then Mia was found dead after playing with Lucy. She was taken into police custody, and her family was subjected to scrutiny from their neighbors, the press, and law enforcement. The scrutiny and Lucy’s plight compel each of the family members to reflect on their own lives and the dysfunction within their family. Every member of the Green family made poor choices. It was one bad decision after another.

Even though the characters frustrated me, Nolan’s intimate and intense writing ignited my empathy. I can understand why the Greens did what they did, and I found myself caring for a broken family in need of healing. This was a depressing, intriguing story which, fortunately, had a hopeful ending.

Fiction: Historical Fiction, Thriller

The Tenth Man by Graham Greene

NOTE: The last time I read anything by Graham Greene was in my English Literature Survey class in high school. I was browsing the shelves in our public library, saw this and decided it was time to become reacquainted with Mr. Greene.

The Tenth Man was written in 1944 when Greene was under contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The manuscript did not make it into production and was in MGM’s archives until 1983 when it was published with an introduction by the author. In 1988 it was made into a television movie in the Hallmark Hall of Fame series is available on Prime Video. I have not watched it, yet.

During World War II, in occupied France, a German aide-de-camp and a sergeant are shot and killed by an unknown member of the Resistance. The Germans decide to retaliate by shooting one man in every ten being held in a prisoner of war (POW) camp. The prisoners are instructed to draw lots to see who will be shot. A wealthy Paris lawyer, Chavel, draws a lot.

Chavel then offers his home and his entire legacy to anyone that is willing to take his place. Amazingly a young man suffering from tuberculosis, Janvier, accepts his offer. Chavel then draws up the legal documents of transfer and then Janvier’s will so that upon his death the house and legacy are left to Janvier’s mother and sister.

Later, when he is released from the POW camp, impoverished Chavel returns to his home where Janvier's mother and sister now live. He hides his identity and becomes their servant, calling himself Charlot. Eventually, an imposter arrives at the house claiming to be Chavel … 

At first The Tenth Man seems like a simple and straightforward story, it is only 150 pages. However, is a moving tale about guilt, love, and ultimately, the value of life. This is the story of a man who gave all his worldly treasures in exchange for his life and then had to deal the unexpected consequences of his actions.

Banned Book Club Fiction: African American, Historical Fiction (Reread)

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

This is a wonderful novel about an independent Black woman, Janie Crawford in 1930s Florida. She is on a quest for self-discovery, identity, and genuine love. 

The novel begins when Janie returns to her hometown after several years away. She left years earlier with a younger, scandalous lover, but now Janie returns alone and faces the town's gossip. 

“They made burning statements with questions and killing tools out of laughs. It was mass cruelty.”

Janie then tells her best friend, Pheoby, what has transpired during her time away. She begins her life story as a preteen living with her grandmother, Nanny. Nanny arranges her first marriage to an old, rich man, Logan Killicks. Her marriage is not a loving one and Janie feels treated like property. She grows restless and leaves Logan. 

Next Janie marries ambitious Jody Starks, who eventually becomes the mayor of Eatonville, Florida. While this marriage offers her social status, Jody proves controlling, silences Janie, and is abusive. He ignores her as much as possible and builds his empire in the town. Then Jody dies and Janie meets Tea Cake Woods. 

"He drifted off to sleep, and Janie looked down on him and felt a soul-crushing love. So her soul crawled out from its hiding place."

Finally, Janie finds true love with Tea Cake, a man much younger than her. Though he is poor, he treats Janie as an equal, allowing her to express her true self. Unfortunately, tragedy strikes …

"The wind came back with triple fury and put out the light for the last time. They sat in company with the others in other shanties, their eyes straining against crude walls and their souls asking if He meant to measure their puny might against His. They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God."

In 1997, Their Eyes Were Watching God was banned in a Virginia county because parents objected to Janie’s relationship with the much-younger Tea Cake. It seems surprising that the age gap between Janie and Tea Cake was their big issue - not the initial loveless, arranged marriage to an older man - not the twenty years of abuse she suffered at the hands of her second husband!!

“Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone. Dawn and doom was in the branches”

This is a classic American novel expertly written about the evolution of a voiceless, impressionable teenager into a woman who finally takes control of her own destiny and speaks her mind. Throughout her evolution Janie learns the difference between societal expectations of a “stable” marriage and a true emotional connection. Their Eyes Were Watching God is a quiet, beautiful monument to a woman's strength and endurance.

Nonfiction: Literature, Politics, History

Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics by Stephen Greenblatt

NOTE: I haven’t read any Shakespeare since college! So, I have never really thought about how many times William Shakespeare warned us about the dangers of tyrants until now! 

Macbeth, Winter’s Tale, Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, Henry VI, King Lear, and of course the play involving the most notorious hunchback in history, Richard III – all are explorations of the darkness of power that leads to malicious intentions and evil deeds.

These tyrants have no loyalty to country, and if they are ousted from power, they are quick to turn on their country, even embracing the nation’s enemies to punish those who would not let them be the dictator they dreamed of. 

Shakespeare’s depiction of Richard III brilliantly illustrates how tyrants view the world: “He is pathologically narcissistic and supremely arrogant. He has a grotesque sense of entitlement, never doubting that he can do whatever he chooses. He expects absolute loyalty, but he is incapable of gratitude. The feelings of others mean nothing to him. He has no natural grace, no sense of humanity, no decency. The tyrant is not merely indifferent to the law; he hates it and takes pleasure in breaking it. He hates it because it gets in his way and because it stands for a notion of the public good that he holds in contempt.”

The tyrant is utterly obsessed with winning, and any losses he may experience are always going to be blamed on those around him. He is too childish to accept his own missteps; therefore, valuable lessons are not learned that would help him to become a better leader. He never has to feel personal regret.

“The tyrant is obsessed by loyalty from his inner circle … the only people who will serve him are self-interested scoundrels … he wants flattery, confirmation, and obedience.”

This is a book about Shakespeare. It doesn't mention contemporary politics at all, not even once. Why would it? It is a book about how Shakespeare's plays explore the concept of tyranny, and of what happens in a country when flawed, selfish, foolish people use power for their own benefit. Any connection between the contents of this book and contemporary politics are entirely in the mind of the reader. Ultimately, I think Greenblatt is using Shakespeare to remind us of our duties not to let tyranny go unchecked. 

“Shakespeare believed that the tyrants and their minions would eventually fail … the best chance for the recovery of collective decency lay, he thought in the political action of ordinary citizens.”

May Booknotes

 

“A word after a word after a word is power.” - Margaret Atwood

Banned Book Club Fiction: Realistic Fiction

Forever by Judy Blume

NOTE: I read this book in high school, so this is a reread as a “mature” woman. Here is the author’s explanation of why she wrote Forever: "This book was first published in 1975. My daughter Randy asked for a story about two nice kids who have sex without either of them having to die. She had read several novels about teenagers in love. If they had sex the girl was always punished—an unplanned pregnancy, a hasty trip to a relative in another state, a grisly abortion (illegal in the U.S. until the 1970's), sometimes even death. Lies. Secrets. At least one life ruined. Girls in these books had no sexual feelings and boys had no feelings other than sexual. Neither took responsibility for their actions. I wanted to present another kind of story—one in which two seniors in high school fall in love, decide together to have sex, and act responsibly."

In Forever, Kath and Michael meet at a New Year's Eve party. They're attracted to each other; they grow to love each other. Kath’s parents and grandmother discuss sex with her. They advise her about sex but do not explicitly forbid it. Kath’s mother said:

"It's up to you to decide what's right and what's wrong ... I'm not going to tell you to go ahead but I'm not going to forbid it either. It's too late for any of that. I expect you to handle it with a sense of responsibility though ... either way."

Kath’s conversation with her grandmother isn’t threatening nor does it shame girls who have sex:

"Just be careful ... that's my only advice."

"Of what?"

"Pregnancy."

"Grandma!"

"And venereal disease."

"Really ... "

"Does it embarrass you to talk about it?"

"No, but ... "

"It shouldn't."

Her grandmother gives Kath Planned Parenthood brochures so Kath knows where to go for help in choosing birth control. Once Kath and Michael decide their love is “forever,” they make love. Nothing tragic happens to them even though they have sex. It's the beginning of an intense and exclusive relationship, with a future all planned ... until Kath's parents insist that she and Michael put their love to the test with a summer apart...

What I like about this book:

• There are conversations about sex between Kath, her parents, and grandmother. 
• Birth control is accessible and is viewed as a responsible choice. 
• A teenage friend of Kath’s decides to give birth not because abortion is viewed as a horrible thing to do but because that is HER CHOICE.
• It’s a portrayal of a responsible and loving teenage relationship.
• Sex needs to be two things: (1) consensual, and (2) enjoyable for both partners. Kath had the ability and the right to make informed and responsible choices about whether to have a sexual relationship or not.
• This book had a positive effect on my life! 

Audiobooks Fiction: Paranormal, Horror

The House on Cold Hill and The Secret of Cold Hill (House on Cold Hill #1 & #2) by Peter James

The House on Cold Hill is about the Harcourt family - Oliver, Caro, and daughter Jade. They move into a huge, dilapidated Georgian mansion called Cold Hill House. Although the home inspector told them NOT to buy the mansion due to its dilapidated state, Oliver insists they spend all their money on this “dream house” with plans to refurbish it as their budget allows. His plan is to live in Cold Hill House happily ever after. 

The plan doesn’t work out. Very quickly after moving in, Oliver sees a mysterious woman in an old-fashioned blue dress floating through a room and a friend spots a presence in the background while on FaceTime with Jade. There are other “residents” in this house, and as the history of the house is unraveled, the forces start to become more malevolent.

The sequel, The Secret of Cold Hill, is about what happens after Cold Hill House is torn down and a new housing development is built on its site. The site is still under construction but the first two families arrive and they are very different. Maurice and Claudette Penze-Weedell selected their house for retirement. Across the street a much younger couple, Jason and Emily Danes, selected their house to fulfil their career dreams. Before long, both couples notice that all is not well in their new homes.

These are easy-to-listen-to because the reader is excellent. Plus, the chapters are very short. As “ghost stories” both were well written but there were some things that I found irritating. For example, the Harcourts and the Danes experience obviously paranormal events and they ALWAYS say, “There must be a rational explanation” – repeatedly, ad nauseum! 

No, a television turning on when it is unplugged or a circuit breaker physically switching off as you stand there staring at it are not “rational” events. When cockroaches pour out of the freezer, the Danes try to convince themselves that it’s their "overactive imagination" or "the stress of moving into their new house"! Finally, each time the wife suggests leaving the house (yes, please!) the husband insists that they stay. “We can work this out.” (!?) or “We are stronger together.” (?!)

Even though I rolled my eyes many, many times while I listened to these books, I did find them enjoyable. James is a gifted writer and has a talent or characterization. Plus, he adds touches of humor within the haunting plots. After listening to these books, you can bet that if I wake up and find my bed rotated 180 degrees while I slept, I am "outta here!"

Nonfiction: Memoir, Spirituality, Science 

In My Time of Dying: How I Came Face to Face with the Idea of an Afterlife by Sebastian Junger

In 2020, Junger, 58 years old, had a near-fatal health emergency (a ruptured aneurysm on a pancreatic artery; his odds of surviving, even with timely medical intervention, were around 10%), and while doctors at the hospital worked frantically to save his life, Junger had a profound near death experience that forced him to consider the possibility of an afterlife for the first time. 

“My dead father appearing above me in a trauma bay is the least of it. When I tried to find the ICU nurse who had suggested I try thinking of my experience as something sacred rather than something scary, no one at the hospital knew who she was; no one even knew what I was talking about. It crossed my mind that she did not exist. My experience was sacred, I finally decided, because I couldn’t really know life until I knew death, and I couldn’t really know death until it came for me.”

Junger shares his family history and upbringing. We can understand that an encounter with the afterlife would be a shock in his family of atheists and scientists. He goes on to share all sides of the debate: stories from those who encountered the afterlife during near death experiences; perfectly rational explanations from scientists regarding brain activity at the time of death; and stories from others, like himself, who understand and believe in the science but who nonetheless had profound near death experiences that seemed to promise a continuation of the consciousness after death. And when Junger gets to the latest in quantum physics - explaining how unlikely the existence of the universe, and our place within it as sentient beings, really is - it’s easy to be persuaded to believe in something more.

In My Time of Dying is an intriguing account of Junger’s experience: part memoir, part investigation into the nature of reality, and part personal processing of his experience and consequent research.  This book is only 162 pages, but it is well written and interesting throughout. Junger expertly blends awe and reason – an excellent book.

Nonfiction: Self Help

Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad by Austin Kleon

Although I already knew many of the ten things listed, Keep Going is a review of good habits. 

One concept that stood out was dumping the idea that one's passion or hobby should be turned into a vehicle to make money. Kleon states, “Art is for life, not the other way around.” 

It reminds me of people, who when they learn I’m a runner, say, “You should run a marathon.” I believe, “Running is for life, not the other way around.” I don't need to turn my passion into a competition to "win." I run to run. Artists don't need to turn their creations into money. They create to create. Art is FOR life.

There were a few quips that resonated with me:

• Forget the nouns: Do the verbs. – “I don’t’ know what I am. I know I am not a category. I am not a thing – a noun. I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process.” – R. Buckminster Fuller
• Pay attention to what you pay attention to: “Tell me to what you pay attention, and I will tell you who you are.” – Jose Ortega y Gassett
• To change is to be alive: The Dunning-Kruger Prayer – “Let me be smart enough to know how dumb I am and give me the courage to carry on anyway.”

This book is a little shot of motivation to help you stay creative and remain true to yourself. It encourages you to take time and let the creativity in your life filter through.

These basic terms lay the foundation for the life experiences in Tunnel 29 and The Wall.

• Iron Curtain: The boundary that symbolically, ideologically, and physically divided Europe into two separate areas after World War II.
• Cold War: The geopolitical, ideological, and economic struggle that emerged between capitalism and communism from 1945 to 1991.
• Communism: The ideology of the Soviet Union and other countries; a system of government in which the state controls all social and economic activity.

Nonfiction: History, Cold War

Tunnel 29: The True Story of an Extraordinary Escape Beneath the Berlin Wall by Helena Merriman

NOTE: The author, Merriman, is a journalist and podcaster. She interviewed 80-year-old Joachim Rudolph in his apartment in Berlin in 2018 for a podcast. The interview lead her to write this book detailing how 29 people escaped from East Berlin to freedom in the West by tunneling under the Berlin Wall at the height of the Cold War.

In August 1961 the Berlin Wall was erected, not to keep people from coming into East Germany but to stop the flood of East Germans leaving. If people from the East tried to escape, they were shot or imprisoned. 

In 1962 Joachim and four friends began to dig a tunnel from the West to the East to help people escape. It was an audacious plot. It took careful planning, hard work and sleepless nights to dig 400 feet of tunnel. Complicating their efforts were the border guards, the Stasi, and spies. It is estimated that 1 in 6 people in the East were spies. Who can they trust? Who can they not trust?

Tunnel 29 is so much more than an account of one escape attempt. Merriman weaves historical facts and background into the tunnel tale seamlessly. This is an eye-opening account of life in the early 1960's, the Stasi, Border Police, and neighborhood spies. Through the escapees’ stories we can learn why freedom was so meaningful that people risked their lives and the lives of their loved ones to escape. 

“Picture Book” Nonfiction: Memoir, History, Cold War

The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain by Peter Sís

NOTE: The Wall was the 2009 One Book One Community selection in Loudoun County, Virginia (where I was a public librarian). Even as a reread, this book is simply fantastic! The Wall is a valuable history lesson, and an emotional story of a young man whose imagination and creativity allowed him to endure the times of authoritarianism in Czechoslovakia.

Sis uses annotated illustrations, journals, maps, and dreamscapes to show what life was like for a child who loved to draw, proudly wore the red scarf of a Young Pioneer, stood guard at the giant statue of Stalin, and believed whatever he was told to believe.

But during his teen years he began to question Communist control and why he couldn’t draw what he wanted. The Czech people were denied art, music, and books unless it was approved by the government. 

Then news from the West slowly filtered into the country. Sis learned about beat poetry, rock 'n' roll, blue jeans, and Coca-Cola. He let his hair grow long, secretly read banned books, and joined a rock band. 

Slowly, the Iron Curtain began to recede resulting in the Prague Spring of 1968. Sis was a teenager who wanted to see the world and meet the Beatles. For him and millions of other Czechs this was a magical time. It was short-lived, however, brought to a sudden and brutal end by the Soviet-led invasion. 

However brief, Sis had a glimpse of new possibilities. He understood creativity could be discouraged but not easily killed. In 1982 traveled to Los Angeles, California to create an animated film about the Czech Olympic athletes. Sis did not return to Czechoslovakia. Instead, he remained in the US and was granted asylum.

I grew up during the Cold War, but it was one of those things that existed in the background of my childhood. I was told that Communists were “bad’ and "not nice”, but I never really got it. Now I get it. The Wall is a great history lesson about life in an authoritarian country.

Nonfiction: History, Memoir, Politics

An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s by Doris Kearns Goodwin

I can’t describe this inspirational book better than the publishers! “Dick and Doris Goodwin were married for forty-two years and married to American history even longer. In his twenties, Dick was one of the brilliant young men of John F. Kennedy’s New Frontier. In his thirties he both named and helped design Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and was a speechwriter and close advisor to Robert Kennedy. Doris Kearns was a twenty-four-year-old graduate student when selected as a White House Fellow. She worked directly for Lyndon Johnson and later assisted on his memoir.

The Goodwins’ last great adventure involved finally opening the more than three hundred boxes of letters, diaries, documents, and memorabilia that Dick had saved for more than fifty years. They soon realized they had before them an unparalleled personal time capsule of the 1960s, illuminating public and private moments of a decade when individuals were powered by the conviction they could make a difference; a time, like today, marked by struggles for racial and economic justice, a time when lines were drawn and loyalties tested.

Their expedition gave Dick’s last years renewed purpose and determination. It gave Doris the opportunity to connect and reconnect with participants and witnesses of pivotal moments of the 1960s. And it gave them both an opportunity to make fresh assessments of the central figures of the time - John F. Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Robert Kennedy, Eugene McCarthy, and especially Lyndon Johnson, who greatly impacted both their lives. The voyage of remembrance brought unexpected discoveries, forgiveness, and the renewal of old dreams, reviving the hope that the youth of today will carry forward this unfinished love story with America.”

As I learned from reading White Trash last month, the poor were at the heart of LBJ’s Great Society reforms including programs to eliminate poll taxes and voting discrimination, and education and health funding. Many Americans benefited from the Great Society programs! This is how Dick Goodwin described working on the Great Society: “The White House was boiling with excitement and activity, … We all felt that way. This is what it was all for. We wanted to – no, not wanted to – we believed we were about to make the country far better from top to bottom. It was an awesome, intoxicating time.”

I am left with a deep appreciation for Dick and Doris Kearns’ contributions to our nation. I agree with Doris – “We are clearly in the midst of a profound ‘testing time’ today, and at such times, I have long argued, the study of history is crucial to provide perspective, warning, counsel, and even comfort.” 

I believe we will survive our “testing time” and that there are still public servants who believe they can “make the country far better top to bottom.” 

April Booknotes

 

“A book is the most effective weapon against intolerance and ignorance.” - Lyndon Baines Johnson

Nonfiction "Reread": History, Memoir

The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman

NOTE: I read this book decades ago and it still has much to say! In 1992, Maus became the first graphic novel to ever win a Pulitzer Prize (the Special Award in Letters). Then in 2022, Maus was in the news again, because a school in Tennessee removed the book from its 8th. Grade Holocaust curriculum, deeming it “inappropriate” on account of eight “curse” words and nudity. The nude woman is drawn as a mouse. 

Publisher’s Description: “Maus tells the story of Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler’s Europe, and his son, a cartoonist coming to terms with his father’s story. Maus approaches the unspeakable through the diminutive. Its form, the cartoon (the Nazis are cats, the Jews mice), shocks us out of any lingering sense of familiarity and succeeds in ‘drawing us closer to the bleak heart of the Holocaust’ (The New York Times).

Maus is a haunting tale within a tale. Vladek’s harrowing story of survival is woven into the author’s account of his tortured relationship with his aging father. Against the backdrop of guilt brought by survival, they stage a normal life of small arguments and unhappy visits. This astonishing retelling of our century’s grisliest news is a story of survival, not only of Vladek but of the children who survive even the survivors. Maus studies the bloody pawprints of history and tracks its meaning for all of us.”

This is a heartbreaking story, told in a unique way, which does not make it any less real or any less hard-hitting.

“Yes, life always takes the side of life, and somehow the victims are blamed. But it wasn’t the best people who survived, nor did the best ones die. It was random!”

Overall, this is an incredible book that is a must-read for those who are interested in reading about WWII and the Holocaust. Even if you don’t usually read graphic novels, I still suggest picking this one up. You won’t be disappointed.

Nonfiction: American/Family History, Memoir

Freedom Lost, Freedom Won: A Personal History of America by Eugene Robinson

NOTE: As my children and husband will attest, I enjoy presenting our family history within the context of world and American history. All my "family happy hour" PowerPoint presentations are entitled: “Learning American History through Family History.” As soon as I heard Eugene Robinson describe his book on television, I realized he shared my same approach to family history. 

Robinson, a Washington Post journalist and MSNOW commentator, follows his family history from Henry Fordham, a slave who purchased his own freedom in 1851, up to his own experience today. Through his ancestors, he traces their experiences in our shared, American history:

• Reconstruction
• World War I
• 1919 race riots 
• Great Migration
• World War II
• Civil Rights movement 
• Election of Barack Obama,
• Subsequent backlash of the Trump presidencies.

Robinson is masterful at weaving his own family's story into our nation’s story! As I read, I felt his horror and delight as he discovered his ancestors and their experiences within our history. His comparisons of Reconstruction backlash (Jim Crow) to Project 2025 are chilling. Yet he ends with his optimistic father’s quote, “Don’t you ever let anybody tell you that nothing has changed.”

I highly recommend this book. 

Graphic Nonfiction: Memoir

It Rhymes With Takei by George Takei, Harmony Becker (illustrator), Steven Scott, Justin Eisinger

NOTE: If you only know George Takei from Star Trek, you only know a fraction of his life. I read Takei’s award-winning bestseller They Called Us Enemy about his family’s experience in a Japanese internment camp during World War II. It was banned in Tennessee. Takei also served as the Honorary Chair of American Library Association’s 2025 Banned Books Week. This is a full-color graphic memoir of his extraordinary life.

Publisher’s Description: “George Takei has shown the world many faces: actor, author, outspoken activist, helmsman of the starship Enterprise, living witness to the internment of Japanese Americans, and king of social media. But until October 27, 2005, there was always one piece missing—one face he did not show the world. There was one very intimate fact about George that he never shared… and it rhymes with Takei.

Now, for the first time ever, George shares the full story of his life in the closet, his decision to come out as gay at the age of 68, and the way that moment transformed everything... Combining historical context with intimate subjectivity, It Rhymes With Takei shows how the personal and the political have always been intertwined." 

Takei speaks openly from his experiences as someone who lived the first 68 years of his life “in the closet” and as an activist for many human rights causes throughout his life. His story is one of hope, and one that, though dark at times, can serve as inspiration to people when they face hardships. 

For a graphic book, It Rhymes With Takei has a lot of text!  It is well worth reading. 

Audiobook Fiction: Contemporary Fiction, Satire

Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books by Kirsten Miller

This novel, told through a series of interconnected stories, is about what happens when a small Georgia town experiences a movement to ban books. 

Lula has become a local celebrity by embarking on mission to rid the public library of all the books she deems “inappropriate” – she has read none of them. Then she starts her own Free Little Library in front of her home: a cute wooden hutch with glass doors and neat rows of the “wholesome” literature that she thinks everyone should read.

“When you have everything, the only luxury left is taking things away from others. It was an indulgence that Lula Dean certainly seemed to relish.”

One night someone secretly replaces the books in Lula’s little library with banned books wrapped in the “wholesome” books’ dust jackets. The Girl’s Guide to the Revolution is wrapped in the cover of The Southern Belle’s Guide to Etiquette. A jacket that belongs to Our Confederate Heroes ends up on Beloved. The Clue in the Diary jacket covers a copy of Speak. One by one, neighbors who borrow books from Lula’s little library find their lives changed in unexpected ways.

"Now Melody was beginning to wonder if there might be a much bigger group who’d been holding their tongues—people who minded their own business until push came to shove. It was starting to look like the book-banning business may have shoved them a step too far.”

This is not a subtle story.  It's at times a humorous but also a bracing and unapologetic exploration of many topics at the forefront of America's current attempts to deal with book banning, white supremacy, anti-Semitism, and Christian nationalism. All the townspeople who’ve been borrowing from Lula’s library are changed by what they’ve read. 

“Once Jesus arrived on the scene, all those Old Testament laws no longer applied. The New Testament tells us we’re supposed to follow Christ, not the old ways. And as far as I know, Jesus never said a damn thing about gay folks or barbecue. But he sure did talk a lot about love.”

This book almost reads like a fairy tale with heavily stereotyped characters. The “bad” people are over-the-top bad, and the “good” people are obviously good. However, you can see they are simply ordinary people with their key characteristics heavily emphasized. A good example is the parents of a young college student. They are convinced that he is being “brainwashed by liberals” at college. They watch the “news” all day which is full of stories emphasizing fear. Consequently, they think anyone who doesn’t agree with the “news” must be out to “get them” and they are not safe anytime or anywhere. It’s so bad that when their son comes home and is turning the front door handle, the fearmongering father reaches for his gun. 

Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books is a relevant and necessary book. It's a reminder that, historically, the book-banners have never been the good guys; that fearmongering is an insidious disease; and that censorship is an attack on our free speech and intellectual freedom. The best thing about Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books is that it reminds us of the power of books, about how they can empower and connect us, no matter how different we are.

Fiction: Classic Romance, Humor

A Room with a View by E.M. Forster

Publisher’s Description: “Lucy has her rigid, middle-class life mapped out for her, until she visits Florence with her uptight cousin Charlotte, and finds her neatly ordered existence thrown off balance. Her eyes are opened by the unconventional characters she meets at the Pension Bertolini: flamboyant romantic novelist Eleanor Lavish, the Cockney Signora, curious Mr. Emerson and, most of all, his passionate son George.

Lucy finds herself torn between the intensity of life in Italy and the repressed morals of Edwardian England, personified in her terminally dull fiancé Cecil Vyse. Will she ever learn to follow her own heart?”

Published in 1908, this is a classical Edwardian romance with a good dose of humorous satire. I almost gave up on this book because I knew how it would end, but the humor kept me reading. Who cares if the plot was predictable? I didn’t, I just wanted to laugh. It’s a fun book and the mushy ending made me smile.

Nonfiction: Cookbooks, History

To Die For: A Cookbook of Gravestone Recipes by Rosie Grant

To Die For is an inspiring collection of recipes that have been preserved on gravestones and is a result of the COVID pandemic. In 2021 the author attempted to complete an internship for her master’s degree in library and information science. But because of the pandemic, most libraries and archives were shut down. However, cemeteries were open. 

Grant interned at the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C. There she had to create a social media account for a topic she cared about. Since she has always been fascinated by cemeteries, she posted about the ways people choose to be remembered or choose to remember their family members. This was a subject with deep, personal meaning because she lost both of her grandmothers to the pandemic. While mourning, surrounded by family, she realized how important food is to our memories. 

Then Grant stumbled upon a gravestone with a recipe on it. Intrigued, she started searching for more recipe gravestones which led to this book. If a recipe is included in this book, it is because the family wanted it to be included.  Grant interviewed each family and they explained why they decided to put the recipe on their family member’s gravestone, and what the recipe meant to them.

 “I wanted to visit the gravestone, see their worlds, and bring their recipes back to life in a way I hoped would honor their memory.”

A picture of each recipe – from Spritz Cookies to Guava Cobbler to Chicken Soup to Homemade Fudge, and more - on its respective gravestone is included.  All forty recipes are paired with family interviews, photos of the recreated dishes, and cherished family keepsakes.

Book Club - Nonfiction: American History

White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg

Isenberg upends assumptions about America’s supposedly class-free society. Throughout White Trash, there is an awareness of a cruel aspect of our supposed ideal. She shatters the argument that liberty and hard work make it possible for the poor and the downtrodden to reap the benefits and pleasures of upward social mobility. 

“The argument of this book is that America’s class history is a more complicated story than we’ve previously considered.”

Encompassing history, sociology, economics, psychology, and popular culture, Isenberg starts with the class system brought to the New World by British colonists. Focusing on the language and behavior of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson who both spoke freely about poor whites as the lower class of people, we can understand why the newly independent United States of America was not a class-free society. Isenberg then traces “white trash” throughout our nation’s history.

“Poor whites are still taught to hate—but not to hate those who are keeping them in line. Lyndon Johnson knew this when he quipped, “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”

This is a comprehensive history with 125 pages of citations and an index – serious reading! Obviously, a lot of this history is depressing like our history of eugenics. Eugenics is a now discredited, pseudoscientific ideology aiming to "improve" human populations by favoring desirable heritable traits through selective breeding, forced sterilization, and segregation. This early 20th. century movement was widely popular and embraced by Theodore Roosevelt. Poor women and men were targeted by government for FORCED sterilization because they were deemed “white trash.”

Carrie Buck, with her mother, Emma. They were poor.
Carrie was raped and had a daughter.
While the rapist went unpunished, Carrie was ordered sterilized
by the United States Supreme Court.
(Buck v. Bell, 1927)

Our "good" class history includes the New Deal and The Great Society. These two federal programs have had the greatest positive impact on poor people’s lives. 

During the Depression, the Tennessee Valley Authority was extremely successful. White, poor people benefited greatly with the program’s focus on soil conservation; flood, malaria, and pollution control; reforestation; and overall land-use strategies. Communities, like Norris, Tennessee, were planned to include libraries, schools, training centers, recreation and health facilities.

 "In the 1930s, ... a good number of voices paid attention to poor whites ... the problem was not 'No one knows what to do with him.' It was this: 'No one wants to see him as he really is: one of us, an American."

Later, the poor were at the heart of LBJ’s Great Society reforms including programs to eliminate poll taxes and voting discrimination, and education and health funding. Many Americans benefited from the New Deal and Great Society programs! However, then as now, social programs beneficial for the poor still draw the ire of right-leaning conservatives who consistently vote against social programs for the poor.

White Trash is an engrossing historical study of class in our democratic society where social mobility has traditionally been held as a bedrock truth yet rarely achieved.

"Throughout its history, the United States has always had a class system. It is not only directed by the top 1 percent but is also supported by a contented middle class. We can no longer ignore the stagnant, expendable bottom layers of society in explaining the national identity. The poor, the waste, the rubbish, as they are variously labeled, have stood front and center during America's most formative political contests."