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."

March Booknotes

 

“Read a lot. Expect something big, something exalting or deepening from a book. No book is worth reading that isn’t worth re-reading.” – Susan Sontag

March Banned Book Club Selection

Fiction: Classic, Dystopia, Politics

1984 by George Orwell

This was a reread for me. It has been decades since I read this book and I am glad I read it again. However, this is not an enjoyable book to read! It’s incredibly depressing, and any brief moments of hope are quickly stamped out. Nor does 1984 have beautiful, ornate writing, perfect literary devices, or deep and meaningful characters. Instead, the message it presents and the ideologies it conveys make it a near-perfect novel. 

Written in 1948 and published in 1949, Orwell predicted a grim future where Big Brother (the symbol of the ruling Party Government) sees all, controls all, and crushes all hope of there being anything other than service to Big Brother.  According to The Party, words, science, and data are just fantasy that The Party can twist and turn to further their total power. Everything good is either destroyed or a lie, nobody can ever be trusted, and everything bad is somehow even worse than you imagined. 

"War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength."

We learn all of this through the personal story of Winston Smith. He lives in this dystopian society which is continually at war with the two other remaining world powers.

“War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent.”

In Winston’s world everything - from actions, movements, careers, and, even in some cases, thoughts - are monitored and recorded tirelessly. In this society, all individuals are governed by The Party who mandate conformity and allegiance. Everyone is subject to perpetual retribution if found to be in breach of strict, but overly arbitrary, laws and regulations. 

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”

Winston, a Party propagandist, is employed to rewrite books, newspaper articles, and history books to align with the actions of The Party. 

He falls in love with a woman named Julia. As their relationship is completely forbidden by The Party, they employ a range of cloak-and-dagger tactics to maintain their hidden relationship away from The Party’s eyes. This relationship sparks a sense of rebellion and non-conformity in Winston’s life. 

He obtains a forbidden book which he reads to Julia in a room above an antique shop in the Proles’ (short for proletarians, underclass/workers’) neighborhood. “So long as they (the Proles) continued to work and breed, their other activities were without importance …films, football, beer, and above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult.”

Ultimately his relationship with Julia leads him to discover the true nature of the mysterious Ministry of Love and Room 101. There he discovers the horrors of not only his senior Party managers, but he also questions his own sanity and ability to recall past events. This does not end happily.

Depressing, right? What’s worse is that while you read 1984, you might feel a dark suspicion that our lives are eerily similar to the one that Winston endures. Of course, we do not have telescreens embedded in the walls of our homes, but we have cell phones that track us and DOGE has illegally stolen our personal data.  We are distracted endlessly (like the “Proles” were) by entertainment and spectacle (24/7 television, internet, sports, and social media) and we are becoming increasingly detached from reality every day. 

The use of technology as a tool for mass surveillance and manipulation, as well as the distortion of truth and reality, are central themes in this novel and are evidenced throughout history and even today.

Many Americans have noticed similarities between Trump and the patterns found in Orwell’s 1984 and Hitler’s actions. These similarities are seen as REPEATED PATTERNS, not exact copies of totalitarianism. So, I asked myself: “Which signs of growing authoritarianism did I notice most?”

WHAT I NOTICED MOST AS A "MATURE" READER:

1. The first thing I noticed when comparing Orwell’s 1984, Hitler, and Trump is the emphasis on a single leader as the embodiment of the nation. Loyalty to him is prioritized over loyalty to institutions like Congress, the U.S. Constitution, the Supreme Court, and/or the law. This is an echo of fascist leadership cults and critical to Big Brother’s centrality in 1984.

*Trump’s constant focus on vilifying groups like immigrants, political opponents, and critical journalists functions like 1984’s ongoing “Two Minutes Hate,” channeling anger at designated enemies to consolidate support.

**Nazi propaganda portrayed Jews and other groups as parasitic, criminal, or a biological threat to the nation. Trump said immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country” and has linked them to Christian nationalists’ replacement of native-born Americans, which parallels the neo-Nazi’s far-right “Great Replacement” ideology.

In addition, Trump’s illegal firing of 17 inspectors general, firing career civil servants, and demanding loyalty from his cabinet appointees, Congressional Republicans, America’s judicial system, military personnel, and civil servants – intended by America’s founding fathers to be neutral and independent – tracks an authoritarian playbook of hollowing out USA’s checks and balances system that has worked quite well for almost 250 years.

2. Another point is that Hitler repeatedly told lies until they were accepted, while Trump’s policies feature blatant falsehoods and misinformation: 30,573 false or misleading claims just in his first term!

*Trump’s efforts to change or rewrite official government documents and websites, change history museum exhibits, and punish civil servants who present unwelcome data, or replace independent experts with loyalists are analogous to the constant revision of records in 1984 to fit the party's narrative.

3. Trump’s discrediting of independent media – “enemy of the people” – and attacks on journalists – “obnoxious reporter,” “stupid,” and “quiet piggy” – evoke both Nazi attacks on the Lügenpresse (lying press) and 1984’s state-controlled information system.

4 Oct 1933: Schriftleitergesetz (Editor's Law)
Journalists MUST be "Aryan" loyalists and their work censored by Nazi officials.

*Trump’s insistence that Americans who are getting facts from the independent media are getting “fake news” resembles 1984’s Newspeak and the Ministry of Truth’s role in manufacturing false reality. - “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

4. The 47th president’s statement to the public, “What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening,” strongly resembles Orwellian doublespeak and demands that you reject the evidence of your own eyes and ears.

*Americans have seen video footage of two people being murdered by ICE agents in Minneapolis, but were told the victims were "domestic terrorists." Americans were told only the "worst of the worst" would be targeted by ICE. Yet, we know that 60-70,000 people have been detained during the Trump 2.0 administration (Deportation Data, 27 Jan 2026), and realize 73.6% of those detained have never been convicted of ANY criminal offense (TRAC Immigration).

Trump 2.0 is not exactly like Hitler or Big Brother, but they share authoritarian PATTERNS! The attacks on truth, the rule-of-law erosion, reshaping the population along ethnic/class lines, scapegoating, and leader-cult politics in the GOP-dominated Congress, cabinet, and Supreme Court – are warning signs that if left unchecked, history shows, can lead democracies toward authoritarian regimes.

History warns us to be vigilant. 

Only a strong civil society can ensure that America, in its 250th year, remains a democratic, constitutional republic and rejects an authoritarian dictatorship.

Also, related is a really good documentary - Orwell: 2 + 2 = 5

It is available to rent on streaming services. 👍👍

Fiction: Mystery, Crime

The Girl by the Bridge by Arnaldur Indriðason, Philip Roughton (Translator - Icelandic)

NOTE: This is the second book of the Detective Konrad series. I read the first and third books. Basically, the series is about Konrad, a retired detective, who keeps getting pulled into cold cases when the only cold case he really wants to solve is the murder of his father.

The story begins when Konrad gets involved in a missing person case. A young woman has gone missing after admitting to her grandparents that she is smuggling drugs into Iceland for persons unknown. Panicked and needing answers, the elderly couple turn to retired Detective Konrad for answers. He agrees to help but urges them to involve the police. The police quickly get involved when the young woman turns up dead in her boyfriend’s apartment and the boyfriend is missing.

Konrad is also called upon by a long-time friend, Eygló. She  was a medium in the past, and has had some upsetting visions. She admits that she has “seen” a young girl over the last number of years whose aura is unsettled. It appears this apparition is a girl who was found drowned next to a bridge in Reykjavík back in 1961. While it seems like a fruitless task, Konrad agrees to look for answers in this cold case.

Finally, Konrad is still eager to solve his own father’s cold case - his 1963 murder. The three cases keep him busy and open doors to some shocking events. What Konrad discovers is chilling. This is a dark and tragic tale involving torture and child sexual abuse. Unfortunately, these fictional events can be found in our “real world.” 

I like Indriðason’s writing even if his plots are dark and “gritty.” He has a real gift for recreating the Nordic atmosphere and transporting me back to Iceland … thankfully, my visit there was wonderful and crime free!

Nonfiction: Religion, Spiritualty, Philosophy

Oneness; Great Principles Shared by All Religions by Jeffery Moses

NOTE: This book has been recommended by Mother Teresa, the Dali Lama, and my brother, Greg – who gifted me this book! 💗

Using the quoted words of major religions’ scriptures, this book draws into focus the fact that, despite the seemingly polarizing differences of all the world's great religions, there is a common universal truth. In fact, the moral values we all hold dear surpass the boundaries of denominationalism. Oneness focuses on the precepts known, organized religions have in common and spirituality in general by presenting the commonalities among them.

The title – Oneness - says it all, and I can't think of anyone that wouldn't benefit by giving it a thoughtful and self-reflecting read. This book might be especially helpful for people on the fence about “religion” since Oneness is about spirituality and basic morality. When we observe how many organized religions are practiced today by excluding anyone and everyone who doesn’t share their “positions”, it is no wonder many people are disappointed in organized “churches.” Too often religious denominations lack an emphasis on our common spiritualty that can benefit ALL of humanity. 

Oneness gently encourages you to be a better person and broaden your interpretation of spirituality. It also reminds us to leave the elitism of a particular religious denomination behind and to consider the meaning of a universal, eternal truth shared by all religions.

This is a book that can serve as a morning or evening meditation since the “chapters” are very brief. For me, reading Oneness was cathartic, refreshing, and encouraging. It is a book I return to daily.

Fiction: Historical Fiction, Thriller

Operation Napoleon by Arnaldur Indriðason, Victoria Cribb (Translator - Icelandic)

NOTE: Yes, another book by Arnaldur Indriðason!

In 1945, at the end of World War II, a German bomber flew over Iceland during a blizzard. The crew became lost and crashed the airplane on the Vatnajökull glacier, the largest glacier in Europe. Bizarrely, there are both German and American officers on board the airplane. One of the German officers leaves the wreck and tries to walk to the nearest farm with a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist. He disappears and all the men on the airplane freeze to death. 

Then, in winter 1999, the US Army goes to Iceland to secretly remove the airplane from the glacier. They are less than truthful when describing their intentions to the Icelandic government. By coincidence two members of an Icelandic rescue team on a training exercise run into the Americans and are captured. But just prior to and during their capture, one of them contacts his sister, Kristin before his phone is taken away. She tries repeatedly and unsuccessfully to return his call. She knows something bad must have happened. Kristin will not rest until she discovers the truth of her brother's fate even as her pursuit puts her in great danger. 

After much death-defying action, Kristin finally learns about the secret operation. This knowledge, in turn, leads her, to a remote island off Argentina in search of the key to the mystery of Operation Napoleon.

Even allowing for the usual suspension of disbelief that is required for thrillers, this one pushes the limits of credibility at many turns, particularly with the ending. The Americans (with one lone exception) are depicted as the enemy intent on riding roughshod over tiny Iceland. There are many characters and the plot jumps back and forth in time. Even though I like Indriðason’s work, this book left me flat. His Inspector Erlendur books are his best (especially Jar City) and his Detective Konrad books are even better than Operation Napoleon.

Nonfiction: History, Humor, Short Stories

SNAFU: The Definitive Guide to History’s Greatest Screwups by Ed Helms

Note: SNAFU originally meant: “Situation Normal, All F***ked Up,” the polite version = “Situation Normal, All Fouled Up” 

This is a book to read when you want to be distracted from current events. Somehow the short stories of historical screwups remind one that survival is possible. SNAFU is full of interesting historical tidbits of rather disastrous situations. 

Some of the SNAFUs are fascinating – like the time a bomb was accidentally dropped due to having the safety back-up disconnected during take-off (?!). Or the Mars probe team using English units with metric calculations. The probe crashed on Mars; billions of dollars were wasted. Also related to space was the idea to set off a nuclear bomb on the moon!

My favorite SNAFU was “Operation Acoustic Kitty.” This was a secret CIA plan to turn cats into portable spying devices. A surgeon implanted a microphone in the cat’s ear and a radio transmitter at the base of its skull. The surgeon also wove an antenna into the cat’s fur. Acoustic Kitty tolerated the surgery and made a full recovery. Next, the agents tried to train the cat to sit next to a park bench to record the conversations of foreign agents. Unfortunately, when CIA staffers drove Acoustic Kitty to the park for her first test at capturing the conversation of two men sitting on a bench, Acoustic Kitty wandered towards and then away from the bench. Anyone who has a cat knows they train you; you do not train them! The CIA agents obviously were not familiar with cats.

SNAFU covers a variety of well-researched topics. Helms has done a great job of succinctly describing these (at times, seemingly fantastical) events but in a humorous way you would expect from a comedian. This is a fun and easy-to-read book recommended for people who want to look back on history’s SNAFUs with a critical, but also tongue-in-cheek view. 

February Booknotes

 “To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.” ―Victor Hugo

Tandem Read: To read  two nonfiction books (tag-team-style) about the same subject(s). In this case,  freedom of religion and Christian Nationalism. 

1. America’s Best Idea: The Separation of Church and State by Randall Balmer

The author, Randall Herbert Balmer, Ph.D. (Princeton University, 1985), is an ordained Episcopal Priest and historian of American religion and holds the John Phillips Chair in Religion at Dartmouth College.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." – First Amendment, US Constitution
The First Amendment to the US Constitution codified the principle that government should play no role in favoring or supporting any religion, while allowing free exercise of all religions (including unbelief). Over 200 years later, the separation of church and state via the First Amendment created a uniquely diverse religious culture while protecting government from sectarian conflict. 

 
 "I assert that unlimited freedom of religion, consistent with morals and property, is essential to the progress of society and the amelioration of the condition of mankind." -John Adams
This book explains the historical context of the First Amendment starting with the first European colonists. The focus is on some (Quakers, Baptists, Puritans, etc.)  who left England because their government limited their freedom of religion. America’s Best Idea also references occasions of religious leaders and politicians who reinforced the idea of freedom of religion before we became a nation and at our nation's beginning.

"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion, and as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility of Mussulmen, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries." – President John Adams, Treaty of Tripoli, June 7, 1797
Throughout our nation’s history, politics has been threatening the integrity of religion. In addition to the history of the “separation of church and state,” Balmer also explores the changes taking place at an accelerating pace in recent years. Adherents to a Christian Nationalism ideology have grown more vocal and emboldened and are increasingly moving into positions of power. The current Supreme Court has shifted away from excluding the influence and practice of religion at public institutions and in our laws and policies and has moved dramatically toward protecting the inclusion and promotion of religion in publicly funded undertakings. Balmer argues that the future of religious freedom in American public life is increasingly uncertain.

NOTE: I also recommend American Crusade by Andrew L. Seidel (May 2023 Booknotes) which documents how the Supreme Court is currently ignoring our First Amendment right of freedom of religion.

2. Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person's Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds by John Fugelsang

Excellent book!! The author, John Fugelsang, the son of a former nun and a former priest, is more widely known as a comedian, political commentator, and entertainer. Although he avoids claiming to be “Christian,” he clearly understands and follows Christ’s liberal teachings of compassion, inclusion and love for the poor, the sick and the marginalized.

“Spiritual people use religion to become better people. Fundamentalists use religion to pretend they’re better than other people.”
This is a book defending Christianity and the Bible against fundamentalists and Christian Nationalists. Fugelsang’s approach - comparing extremists’ stated beliefs with Christ’s actual words - makes for informative and even entertaining reading. It also provides helpful context for anyone who wants to understand why extremists believe what they do and how their beliefs are not centered on Christ’s words and are, instead, used to promote political power.

“If you want to trigger and enrage Christian nationalists, Jesus will show the way. Stand up for the oppressed, welcome the stranger, love your enemy, fight poverty and injustice, resist violence, and choose compassion. Or just ask them which of Jesus teachings justify their politics.”
Using his wit, Fugelsang takes on more than a dozen misstated and misused interpretations of Christ’s recorded words, addressing topics such as biblical literalism, anti-feminism, homophobia, abortion, sex, immigration, pro-life politics, guns, non-Christian religions, racism and, of course, atheism. He constantly challenges fundamentalists who selectively cherry-pick and misquote Bible verses out of context. He urges everyone to fully read and understand the true relevance of those passages to Christ’s message. Fugelsang especially calls out verses used to justify extreme beliefs about sex and marriage that originated with Paul NOT Christ.

“Christianity is under attack—but by divisive right-wing fundamentalists who publicly worship Jesus while fighting against, voting against, and legislating against his actual commandments.”

The author clearly knows the Bible, often pointing out numerous errors in religious extremists' sources, interpretations, and historical contexts. His own deeply held respect for Christ’s message is evident in every chapter, as he contrasts hateful fundamentalism with Jesus’ words and actions. He demonstrates how to avoid the radical dogmas of organized religious extremists and focus instead on the personal teachings of a great moral leader – Jesus Christ.

“Not only are Christians supposed to prioritize following Jesus’s words above the other parts of the Bible, that’s also quite literally why this religion got its name.”
Most importantly, he concludes the book by noting that there are both “Christians” and “Christ followers,” and that the two groups are “not always necessarily the same.” Christ followers are worthy of respect for acting according to the core messages of their ethical leader. 
“Remember—if your church isn’t telling you to love your enemies but keeps telling you who your enemies are, you’re not really in a church.”

Nonfiction: Memoir

Bread of Angels: A Memoir by Patti Smith

This is an intimate memoir! Patti Smith takes us from her post-World War II childhood in rat-infested, condemned housing and a rich world of imagination through to her teenage years and beyond. 

“Everything that happens years before we are born sets the stage for our existence. How happy I am that the throw of the dice, from so far afield, begat the circumstances for me to be born.  Rearranging pieces, tiny bits of truths revealed.  Standing in a patch of dried vegetation , cacti, desert flowers under a sky vomiting stars, I chant the same words as my ancestors, feeling a sense of human continuity.” 
Although highly successful, she leaves it all behind to marry her one true love, Fred “Sonic” Smith, with whom she creates a life of devotion and adventure on a canal in St. Clair Shores, Michigan. But her life isn’t a “happily-ever-after” life. Smith suffers profound losses and grief. She must rebuild her life, by writing again—the one constant on a path of her life. Now in her 70’s, we meet Patti Smith on the road again, traveling to commune with herself, as she lives to write and writes to live.

I love Patti Smith’s writing! She can transform the banal into the beautiful, the ordinary into the enchanted, and hurt into hope. I especially enjoyed the chapters about her childhood. They are gorgeous – full of captivating detail and atmosphere. During her teenage years, things become more rushed and unfocused, which is just how a teenager may have experienced those years. The only part of the memoir that I was disappointed in was the story of her great love, Fred. It wasn’t as illuminating as the rest of the writing. He remains elusive and vague, perhaps because Smith found writing about him too difficult. Finally, there is a lot of name-dropping, which I found both irritating and fascinating. However, her writing remains, on every page, profound and moving.
“We are on this chessboard Earth, we attempt to make our moves, but at times it seems as if the great hand of a disinterested giant haphazardly sends us on a trajectory of stumbling. What do we do? We step back and seek within ourselves what is needed to be done and serve the best we can.”

 

Nonfiction: Archeology, History, Science
Crypt: Life, Death and Disease in the Middle Ages and Beyond by Alice Roberts

Crypt studies seven burials across time – in this case the medieval period – from about 1000CE to 1500CE. The burials are a launch point for a wider discussion covering archaeology, genetics, disease pathology, and history. It is the study of DNA from ancient bodies that has been the biggest innovation over the last 25 or so years, and it has been applied to a lot of existing archaeological collections as well as new digs. It can show how diseases have emerged and evolved over the period of human history.

The chapters look at a mass grave in Oxford whose members met violent ends;

• a leper colony near Winchester;
• Thomas Beckett’s possible burial at Canterbury Cathedral, 
• burials at Norton Priory near Runcorn showing evidence of Paget’s disease, 
• plague pits and evidence for the Black Death,
• Henry VIII’s sunken ship, the Mary Rose, with its hundreds of skeletons, 
• and finishing with a mysterious burial inside a church in York containing a skeleton with evidence of syphilis.

One of the most interesting chapters for me was about the Black Death. While Paget’s disease and leprosy both show clear signs of disease on the bone, the Black Death does not since it kills its victims in days, or even hours giving little time for bone to be affected. This means that genetic methods are used to diagnose the disease in ancient remains. Genetic methods were first applied in 2000 but the results were disputed. The identity of the disease micro-organism for the Black Death was confirmed as Yersinia pestis in 2011. History has blamed rats for carrying fleas with the Black Death which, it was supposed, then bit humans. Now it is theorized that once a person was infected, the Black Death was then spread from human to human via body lice. 

The second most interesting chapter was about the mysterious skeleton with signs of syphilis in an unusual burial in a York church, All Saints on Fishergate. The burial is unusual because it is a pit burial in the apse of the church. The buried skeleton contains crater-like lesions characteristic of advanced syphilis. The origin of syphilis is still a mystery; there has long been a “Columbian Hypothesis” that Columbus brought syphilis back from the New World (in exchange for a wide range of diseases brought from the Old World) – however genetic analysis has failed to find the syphilis bacteria in remains prior to 1492 in either the New or Old World. 

The burial is thought to have been of an anchoress, possibly Lady Isabella Germann, buried circa early1500s. I was not familiar with an “anchoress.” An anchoress is a medieval Christian woman who voluntarily withdrew from secular society to live in a permanent, consecrated cell, to pursue a life of intense prayer, contemplation, and asceticism. (Men recluses were called anchors.) Lady Isabella Germann was an anchoress inside a church cell that had black curtains so she couldn’t look out and no one could look in. Idleness was considered a sin so she kept busy by mending clothes and by digging a pit with her hands – a pit that one day would become her grave. Which leaves me to wonder, how did the anchoress contract syphilis?

The disease pathology sections are interesting but can be quite lengthy. The chapter on the skeletons of the Mary Rose sailors with its of discussion the skeletal features arising from archery, was a bit tedious.

After reading this book it is clear to me that the various diseases mentioned, leprosy, syphilis, and Black Death went through periods of high prevalence across human history. Filled with osteobiographies, Crypt is an accessible and compelling book. It is a must read for anyone with an interest in archeology.

 

Nonfiction: Memoir, Psychology
Notes on Being a Man by Scott Galloway

I saw Galloway being interviewed on television and decided to read his book. He is not a psychologist, but he is a clinical professor of marketing at the New York University Stern School of Business. Since marketing involves “reading” people (psychology) and he is a man, I felt he may have some credibility on this subject. 

Publisher’s Description: “Boys and men are in crisis. Rarely has a cohort fallen further and faster than young men living in Western democracies. Boys are less likely to graduate from high school or college than girls. One in seven men reports having no friends, and men account for three of every four deaths of despair in America. Even worse, the lack of attention to these problems has created a void filled by voices espousing misogyny, the demonization of others, and a toxic vision of masculinity. But this is not just a male issue: women and children can’t flourish if men aren’t doing well. As we know from spasms of violence, there is nothing more dangerous than a lonely, broke young man.
Scott Galloway has been sounding the alarm on this issue for years. In Notes on Being a Man, Galloway explores what it means to be a man in modern America. He promotes the importance of healthy masculinity and mental strength. He shares his own story from boyhood to manhood. He explores his parents’ difficult divorce, working through his anger and depression issues, trying to make money, and raising two boys. He shares the funny, often painful, lessons he learned along the way.
Some of these lessons include:

• Being a good dad means being good to their mother.
• Action absorbs anxiety.
• Find what you’re good at—follow your talent.
• Get out of the house.
• Take risks and be willing to feel like an imposter. This is a key to professional success—and masculinity.
• Acknowledge your blessings—and create opportunities for others. Be of surplus value.
• Be kind. That’s the secret to success in relationships.”

This was a somewhat “okay” book. More a memoir than a psychological “think-piece.” It is entertaining with some good advice. The book is at its strongest when it stays relationship based. There is a lot to gain from his introspection into his fraught relationship with his divorced father and closeness with his single mother; the openly self-criticizing evaluation of why his first marriage ended; and the love he cultivates with his kids through being more emotional.

What I didn’t like was his argument that men are mostly valued for their wealth and objects displaying wealth. He wrote, “studies show the number one reason women like men is their resources.”  While he expands this beyond money and into a concept of responsibility and emotional availability too, but the gold-digger sentiment his initial statement obviously indicates is a BIG turn off. And then he goes on to say, “The objects signaled my value as a mate so I could attract an evolutionary superior mate.” What a horrible sentence! It reminds me of the White Supremacists (Great Replacement Theory) who think we need to reinstate “good” factory jobs which will make men more “evolutionarily attractive to women,” which leads to more “white” births. We have heard that before - the Nazi's goal and method of increasing the “Aryan” race – beyond horrible!

Fiction: Mystery, Crime

The Quiet Mother by Arnaldur Indriðason, Translator Philip Roughton (Icelandic)

NOTE: This is the second book of the Detective Konrad series. I read the first book, (Darkness Knows) in 2021 but I haven’t read the second book in this series - yet. Basically, the series is about Konrad, a retired detective, who keeps getting pulled into cold cases when the only cold case he really wants to solve is the murder of his father.

The Quiet Mother has parallel plots. One plot, ongoing from the previous books in the series, is Konrad's search for the murderer of his father, a search conducted in conjunction with a woman, Eygló. Konrad's father, in partnership with Eygló's father, were spiritual scammers, who possibly scammed the wrong person, because both died in 1963.

The primary plot in this mystery involves Konrad's search for the murderer of an older woman, Valborg, who had asked Konrad to help find the child she had given up for adoption in the early 1970s. Konrad had refused to help her and now feels guilty. Consequently, he decides to conduct the search he had initially turned down in hopes of discovering Valborg's killer.

Two distinct storylines, and both connected to events that happened in the past. The narrative jumps from one story thread to the other, and from one timeline to another. I was able to read it as a standalone but, from the beginning, the “jumping” between plots with no explanatory narration, made it challenging. However, after a few chapters, I was able to make sense of both plots. 

The Quiet Mother has all the elements that make Indriðason a strong author - well-developed characters, super plotting and a genuine sense of atmosphere. Icelandic mysteries tend to be dark but then they are dealing with a dark subject - murder.

Nonfiction: Science, Crime
V is for Venom: Agatha Christie's Chemicals of Death by Kathryn Harkup

Written by former research chemist Kathryn Harkup, each chapter takes a different Agatha Christie novel and investigates the poison used. From carbon monoxide to strychnine, and every poison in between, Harkup explores their respective chemical properties. V is for Venom has elements of chemistry, science, history, and true crime. It examines why certain chemicals kill, how they interact with the body, and the feasibility of obtaining, administering, and detecting these poisons, both when Christie was writing and today.

Unlike blunt-force trauma or gunshot wounds, poisons allow for subtlety, misdirection, and delayed consequences, the perfect tools for a mystery writer who thrived on psychological subtlety. Christie’s background as a pharmacy assistant during WWI gave her firsthand knowledge of lethal substances, and Harkup argues convincingly that this expertise was central to her success. She also explains the real-world poisoning cases that may have also inspired Christie’s plots. 

I particularly enjoyed the Appendix: Christie’s Causes of Death which lists the titles of her books and the methods of murder. Plus, there is a wonderful bibliography of related books and an index. Interesting, thorough, and well organized, but a quick read, I highly recommend this book to current and future Christie fans!