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!

January Booknotes

 

“Always live your life with your biography in mind.” - Marisha Pessl

Nonfiction: Biography, History, World War II

All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days: The True Story of the American Woman at the Heart of the German Resistance to Hitler by Rebecca Donner

Mildred Harnack was the only American in the leadership of the German resistance and the only American executed in Germany for resistance activities against the Nazi regime. 

Mildred Fish was born in 1902 and grew up in Milwaukee, a city with one of the largest concentrations of German immigrants in America. After her schooling, she studied and then taught English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 1926, a German graduate student wandered into a class she was teaching, apparently lost. Arvid Harnack introduced himself and apologized for the intrusion; a relationship quickly blossomed. They married and eventually moved to Germany in 1929. Mildred worked on her doctorate at Berlin University, where she also taught English. Arvid worked for the German government.

During the rise of Hitler and the Nazi regime, Mildred and Arvid joined a small resistance group to fight the brutal Nazi regime. They called their group the Circle; the Gestapo would later call it the Red Orchestra. Their group delivered important information that would help the Allies defeat Germany.

Their resistance costs them their lives. Arvid Harnack was hanged in December 1942. Mildred was initially sentenced to six years in prison, but Adolf Hitler refused to endorse the sentence and ordered a new trial, which resulted in a death sentence on January 16, 1943. She was beheaded by guillotine on February 16, 1943 after copying out and translating into English the line of the Goethe poem that is the title of this book.

Mildred Harnack was an ordinary American whose fate brought her to Germany and who, after realizing what the Nazi regime stood for, found strength to oppose it. All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days tends to skip around a bit, but I kept turning the pages! I am in awe of Mildred for what she did despite having an opportunity to escape the fascist Nazi regime and lead a safe and comfortable life in the USA.

Publisher’s Note on the Author: “Harnack’s great-great-niece Rebecca Donner draws on her extensive archival research in Germany, Russia, England, and the U.S. as well as newly uncovered documents in her family archive to produce this astonishing work of narrative nonfiction. Fusing elements of biography, real-life political thriller, and scholarly detective story, Donner brilliantly interweaves letters, diary entries, notes smuggled out of a Berlin prison, survivors’ testimony, and a trove of declassified intelligence documents into a powerful, epic story, reconstructing the moral courage of an enigmatic woman nearly erased by history.”

Nonfiction: World War II History, Family Memoir, Holocaust 

Children of Radium: A Buried Inheritance by Joe Dunthorne

NOTE: The title may lead you to think this is a book about the development of atomic bombs, it is not. The subtitle describes the book better, because this book is a “subversive family memoir.”  It “investigates the dark legacy of the author’s great-grandfather, a talented German-Jewish chemist who wound up developing chemical weapons and gas-mask filters for the Nazis.”

When Dunthorne began researching his family history, he expected to write the account of their heroic escape from Nazi Germany in 1935. Instead, what he found in his great-grandfather’s thousand-page, unpublished, partially translated memoir was a much darker, more complicated story. His great-grandfather wrote, “I confess to my descendants who will read these lines that I made a grave error. I betrayed myself, my most sacred principles. I cannot shake off the great debt on my conscience.”

Merzbacher started working with the chemical company, Auer, to produce radium toothpaste (Doramand). He also created and tested chemicals for weaponization and tested the gas-masks Nazi soldiers would wear to protect them from the chemical weapons. He did this work for two years until the Nazis began persecuting Jews, which meant he would lose his job. 

However, his boss arranged for Merzbacher and his family to emigrate to Turkey. While Merzbacher’s immediate family was “safe”, many of his relatives did not escape the Holocaust. 

In 1937 the Turkish government approved the purchase of chemical weapons from Germany, the ones that Merzbacher developed. The Turkish then used those weapons as part of a campaign of brutal killings against ethnic minority groups in eastern Turkey. In Germany, the Zyklon B gasmasks he developed were used by Nazi soldiers to operate the gassing and murder of millions of Jews. Later, when Merzbacher learned his work aided in killing Jews including his family members, he had to live with that fact for the rest of his days.

It's sometimes hard to understand how people do things without thinking of the consequences. This book delves into the morality of Merzbacher’s choices. If he refused to do his job, someone else would lead the programs. Since he proceeded should he be responsible for what we know now? 

The first half of this book is unique and provides a lot of food for thought. However, the last portion of the book veers off into events of Merzbacher's sister and away from the main story. Children of Radium would make an excellent book club pick as it provokes a discussion of the ethics of invention – is the inventor responsible for how the invention is used?

Nonfiction: Travel, History

The Full English: A Journey in Search of a Country and its People by Stuart Maconie

I am an Anglophile! I deeply admire England, its people, culture, language, institutions, history, and traditions. I often enjoy British TV – Time Team, The Detectorists, etc. I simply have a strong affinity for all things English or British. My fantasy trip would be to Great Britain.  Obviously, I HAD to read this book.

Maconie recreated J.B. Priestley’s 1933 tour through England, from the south coast to the industrial north and back. Priestley wrote a critical and affectionate look at the country's social conditions, landscape, and people during a time of significant change, influencing public opinion and contributing to the post-World War II state.

In The Full English, Maconie’s book was written in the aftermath of the Covid pandemic, and it shines a light on an England struggling to recover from the political and economic upheavals of Brexit. Whereas Priestley travelled in a Rolls Royce, Maconie used trains, buses and cars to get around and I suspect, got to meet a lot more genuine locals that way. He did the usual touristy things, visiting the same restaurant as every other travel writer and always managed to find a local pub with good conversation.

Maconie finds hope in the small conversations and experiences that tie us together. He finds joy in multiculturalism and rejects the populist argument that the past is dead and buried in the face of wokeness, European Union interference, and a decline in the English way of life. Maconie instead shows us how society has always changed and how transformation and community are the things that will create a bright future in which all can feel like they belong. This book is funny, nostalgic, hopeful, and, in many ways, a snapshot of what modern day England is. I must go there! 

Nonfiction: History, Politics, Government

The Greatest Sentence Ever Written by Walter Isaacson

“We hold these truths to be self-evident,

that all men are created equal,

that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,

that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

This book is short enough (80 pages) for anyone to tackle and everyone probably should, especially as we approach our nation’s 250th commemoration. It is a word-by-word examination of the most famous sentence in the Declaration of Independence. In the process, it touches on some key influences on the Founders' thinking and discusses how we are still struggling to fulfill our ideals.

“Self-evident” – This phrase implies that the truths were true by definition, “discoverable by the mere operation of thought,” not contingent on observations. This was quite controversial, even revolutionary.

“All men are created equal” – In Jefferson’s original draft, he called the slave trade “a cruel war against human nature” and condemned King George III for imposing it on the colonies. Nevertheless, he was a slave owner. Abigail Adams spoke out saying the slaveholding delegates’ “pretentions to liberty are a mockery.” She wrote Jefferson directly, “The practice of slavery is a reproach to any people who boast of liberty and equality. How can those who advocate the rights of man hold their fellow creatures in chains?”

We have struggled with this phrase throughout our history and continue to struggle with it today.

“Endowed by their Creator” – This phrase reflected the founders religious outlook, known as Deism. Deists believe in a supreme being who set up natural laws and principles to govern the universe but didn’t interfere in human affairs. They viewed Jesus as a great teacher and philosopher – but not as God.* 

Later during the first House of Representatives, while debating the First Amendment, members soundly rejected the Senate’s proposal calling for the establishment of Christianity as the country’s official religion. The United States religion is All and/or None. People can be Christians and everyone else gets to be what they want to be. Nevertheless, we are struggling with Christian Nationalism today.

These are just the three phrases that stuck out for me while reading The Greatest Sentence Ever Written. While this is a small infusion of patriotism and admiration for our founding ideals, it has a valuable place in the current moment. We could all use a reminder that there are real, meaningful ideas behind the cartoon version of patriotism so often paraded by politicians.

*NOTE: The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth known as Jefferson’s Bible – Thomas Jefferson created this by using a razor and glue to create a version that focused solely Jesus’ moral teachings and cut out all mentions of Jesus’ supernatural miracles, resurrection, and divinity. 

Nonfiction: Science, Medical

Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy by Mary Roach

I can’t describe this book better than the publisher. I like Roach’s writing and this book was just as good as another of her books, Stiff. 

Publisher’s Description: “The body is the most complex machine in the world, and the only one for which you cannot get a replacement part from the manufacturer. For centuries, medicine has reached for what’s available—sculpting noses from brass, borrowing skin from frogs and hearts from pigs, crafting eye parts from jet canopies and breasts from petroleum by-products. Today we’re attempting to grow body parts from scratch using stem cells and 3D printers. How are we doing? Are we there yet?

In Replaceable You, Mary Roach explores the remarkable advances and difficult questions prompted by the human body’s failings. When and how does a person decide they’d be better off with prosthetic than their existing limb? Can a donated heart be made to beat forever? Can an intestine provide a workable substitute for a vagina?

Roach dives in with her characteristic verve and infectious wit. Her travels take her to the OR at a legendary burn unit in Boston, a “superclean” xeno-pigsty in China, and a stem cell “hair nursery” in the San Diego tech hub. She talks with researchers and surgeons, amputees and ostomates, printers of kidneys and designers of wearable organs. She spends time in a working iron lung from the 1950s, stays up all night with recovery techs as they disassemble and reassemble a tissue donor, and travels across Mongolia with the cataract surgeons of Orbis International.”

I like “body” books and this one was very good. The only chapter I “skip-read” was the one on “hair plugs” because I was not interested. Otherwise, I like Roach’s humor, and I learned more about anatomy and how science is attempting to create better bodies.

Nonfiction: History, Biography, World War II, Fascism

We Will Not Be Silent: The White Rose Student Resistance Movement That Defied Adolf Hitler by Russell Freedman

NOTE: This is Youth Nonfiction. The author, Russell A. Freedman (1929 – 2018), was an American biographer and the author of nearly 50 books for young people. He may be known best for winning the 1988 Newbery Medal with his work Lincoln: A Photobiography.

Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl, and Cristoph Probst, founding members of of the White Rose student resistance movement in Nazi Germany. Munich, June 1942

We Will Not Be Silent presents the White Rose history through the lives of siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl. Hans, once a willing participant in the Hitler Youth and a natural born leader, quickly realized that within the Hitler Youth and Germany as a whole, there was no place for anything other than what the Fuhrer decreed. Even singing folk songs from other countries around a campfire was met with severe reprimand.

Sophie, three years younger than her brother Hans, was a member of the League of German Girls, a part of the Hitler Youth. She was also enthusiastic at first, but like Hans, became disillusioned, especially after seeing some of the treatment the Nazis imposed on people who were not party members, or were Jews.

Disillusionment led to action when Hans and Sophie were students at the University of Munich. They, and a small group of like-minded friends, wrote and mailed Leaflets of the White Rose.  In the leaflets they exposed what they felt was the truth about the Nazi fascism and asked the citizens of Germany to take responsibility and resist.

The White Rose distributed their first leaflet in June 1942. Altogether, six different leaflets were printed and distributed all over Germany by the thousands, so many that the Gestapo began to diligently search for the members of the White Rose.

On February 18, 1943, Sophie dropped some leaflets at the University, while Hans was carrying a suitcase full of leaflets. A janitor saw them and reported them to the Gestapo After a short trial, they were executed along with Christophe Probst on February 22, 1943.

We Will Not Be Silent is inspiring and presented in a sensitive, thought-provoking manner. I think its real strength lies in the simplicity with which Freedman tells the story of the White Rose, all the while quietly letting the courage, honor, and principles of these valiant resisters shine through. He makes clear that opposing Hitler was a dangerous business. These young idealists were aware of the danger they faced and died still believing they had done the right thing.

The last two sentences in the book: “We hear their voices even today, speaking truth to power. They will not be silent.”

 

 

December Booknotes

 

“In winter she curls up around a good book and dreams away the cold.” – Ben Aaronovitch

Fiction: Historical Fiction

Daniel Half Human: And the Good Nazi by David Chotjewitz, translator Doris Orgel (from German)

"Why do the Nazis get so much pleasure torturing us?”

“Maybe the question should be why do people generally get pleasure torturing others?"

This not a story about concentration and killing camp victims. Daniel Half Human: And the Good Nazi explores the social and political conditions families experienced before the mass deportations and murders. Many people think, "Why didn't they just leave?" Daniel’s story thoroughly examines how and why people didn't or couldn’t leave. 

The book begins with Daniel, who escaped Nazi Germany, driving through his demolished German hometown in a United States Army jeep. He is serving as a translator after World War II. As he drives around, he recalls his experiences living there as a teenager… 

Initially Daniel lived a normal life as a teenage boy. Then Hitler was elected.  Hitler’s supporters praised him because he was going to make the country great again after their defeat in World War I - which they blamed on the Jews. Daniel was raised as an “Aryan” unaware that his mother was Jewish. As the Nazi’s increasingly persecuted Jews, Daniel’s mother finally told him that she is Jewish. Daniel is a half-Jew, and in the eyes of the Nazis, Half-Human.

“A pestilence has broken out, a terrible disease, and no one has noticed. It has infected everyone, and now it’s an epidemic.”

Daniel did not accept his Jewish ancestry and dreamt of joining the Hitler Youth with his best friend, Armin. Because Daniel was “Half-Human” he was excluded from the Hitler Youth, sports, and, eventually, from attending school. Meanwhile, Armin, the “Good Nazi” became a member of the SS. For a short time, the family was safe because Daniel’s father was a well-known, “Aryan” lawyer. Then one night Armin and the SS entered the family’s apartment… 

“I’m just doing my job here; everything else is no concern of mine.”

The book ends in 1945, when Daniel, now in the U.S. Army, is interviewing captured German soldiers. If soldiers answer “No.” to the questions about being members of the Nazi party and the SS, they are freed and provided with a small stipend of cash. Daniel overhears a soldier being interviewed at a table nearby and instantly recognizes the voice. It’s Armin, his former best friend – the “Good Nazi” …

Through Daniel’s remembrances we are shown how Germany transitioned from a civilized nation to a catastrophe for the Jewish people and millions around the world. The subtle escalation of events coupled with Daniel and Armin’s storyline helps to explain how a situation so horrific could progress. Hate and fear create an environment in which fascism flourishes - anytime, anywhere. 

Fiction: Mystery

Death at the Sanatorium by Ragnar Jónasson, translator Victoria Cribb (from Icelandic)

NOTE: Last month I read the second book (The Mysterious Case of the Missing Crime Writer) in this trilogy not realizing there was a first book! So, this month I read the first book in the Helgi trilogy.

Publisher’s Description: “1983 At a former sanatorium in the north of Iceland, now a hospital ward, an old nurse, Yrsa, is found murdered. Detective Hulda Hermannsdottir and her boss, Sverrir, are sent to investigate her death. There, they discover five chief physicians, two junior nurses, a young doctor, and the caretaker, who is arrested following false testimony from one of the nurses, but subsequently released. Less than a week after the murder, the chief physician is also found dead, having apparently fallen from a balcony. Sverrir, rules his death as suicide and assumes that he was guilty of the murder as well. The case is closed. 2012 Almost thirty years later, Helgi Reykdal, a young police officer, has been studying criminology in the UK, but decides to return to Iceland when he is offered a job at the Reykjavik police department—the job which detective Hulda Hermannsdottir is about to retire from. He is also a collector of golden age detective stories and is writing his thesis on the 1983 murders in the north. As Helgi delves deeper into the past, and starts his new job, he decides to try to meet with the original suspects. But soon he finds silence and suspicion at every turn, as he tries to finally solve the mystery from years before.”

There is a lot of misdirection in this book, as well as subtle clues. I thought details were interesting but inconsequential, then they ended up being a turning point in the whole case. Like The Mysterious Case of the Missing Crime Writer, the ending is a cliffhanger!

Nonfiction: Philosophy, Spirituality

Everyday Dharma: 8 Essential Practices for Finding Success and Joy in Everything You Do by Suneel Gupta

I found this book while browsing the shelves at my local public library and I am so glad I did! Gupta explains that we are conditioned to believe in "arrival fallacy" - a belief that once we achieve the next step, whether that's a promotion, more money, buying a house etc., we will be happy. However, once the moment arrives, the happiness is short-lived and soon we find ourselves chasing the next moment. Over time it leads to burn-out, and stress coupled with the realization that outer success alone (wealth, job, social standing) rarely leads to inner success (happiness, fulfillment, well-being). Why? Because we are not living our dharma. 

Dharma is a multifaceted concept from Indian religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism) meaning duty, cosmic law, righteousness, or the path to truth. It signifies living in harmony with the universe's natural order, fulfilling one's inherent purpose, and adhering to moral principles.

Gupta then explains eight elements of “everyday” dharma:

Sukha – Uncovering your essence. There may be societal expectations, judgement, or other people's priorities keeping you from who YOU really are. Your sukha never leaves you – through the way you express it can change over time. 

Bhakti – Full-hearted devotion. Bhakti is less about devotion of time, and more about devotion of heart. We tend to focus too much on the number of hours we spend on a task and not enough on the QUALITY we bring to each hour. 

Prana – Energy over time. Rather than letting energy seep out throughout the day, pool your prana, and then unleash energy the precise moment your dharma needs it most. Scheduling mindset versus scheduling time. 

Upekha – Comfort in discomfort. To practice upekkha is to be unwavering or to stay neutral in the face of the fluctuations of worldly fortune. This reminds me of Viktor Frankl’s observations on his life in Nazi concentration camps: “The experiences of camp life show that man does have a choice of action … Man can preserve a vestige of spiritual freedom, of independence of mind, even in such terrible conditions of psychic and physical stress.”

Leela – High play. Leela can also be translated as “divine play.” In other words, play, sport, or enjoyable pastimes are part of your divine plan – your dharma. Take time for leela. 

Seva – Forget yourself to find yourself. The road to your dharma will appear when you turn your attention from serving yourself to serving others. As President Truman said, “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.”

Tula – Letting go and taking charge. Balancing and maintaining harmony by releasing control, accepting people and situations as they are, and finding personal peace. 

Kriya – Action leads to courage. Without deliberate action, your dharma slips from hope to regret. Even if you can't see exactly what is ahead, take the first step. Instead of living with a map, live with a compass realizing you may need to take detours or create a new route. It is always better to fail at your own dharma than to succeed at someone else’s.

Each chapter is filled with real-life examples of “regular” people and famous people who have successfully found their dharma. Also included are some practical tips to help you live your dharma. One of the most touching quotes for me was this: "the meaning of life is to find your gift; the purpose of life is to give it away!"

Audiobook Nonfiction: True Crime

Guilty Creatures: Sex, God, and Murder in Tallahassee, Florida by Mikita Brottman

Publisher’s Description: “On the face of it, Denise Williams and Brian Winchester had the perfect, quintessentially Southern lives. The two were hardworking devout Baptists and together, with their respective spouses, formed a tight-knit friendship that seemed unbreakable. That is, until December 16, 2000, when Denise’s husband Mike disappeared while duck hunting on Lake Seminole on the border of Georgia and Florida.

After no body was found, it was assumed that he had drowned and was consumed by alligators in a tragic accident. But things took an unexpected turn when Brian divorced his wife and married Denise. Their surprising marriage was far from happy and in 2018, he confessed to police he killed Mike with Denise’s help nearly two decades earlier.”

The whole story is in the title and summary description, so there's not a whole lot of surprises in reading the book. Guilty Creatures is scandalous with a lot of finger pointing, he said/she said, and betrayal. It's a moral lesson most people learn early in life - adultery and killing are wrong. Just get a divorce!!!

Fiction: Realistic Fiction

Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

NOTE: Initially, everyone seemed to praise “Nineteen Minutes,” a 2007 bestseller about a school shooting but now it tops a list compiled by PEN America of the books most banned in schools. It is banned in the Florida counties of Hernando, Marion, Polk, and Volusia. Of course I had to read it!

Peter Houghton would hardly be considered a typical seventeen-year-old teenager. Because one morning, he loaded his backpack with four guns, went to school and killed nine students and a teacher. The title refers to the astonishingly brief period that Houghton took to complete his brutal spree. Nineteen Minutes examines the genesis of that event and the people affected by it from every conceivable perspective - families, victims, survivors, witnesses, parents, friends, police, and the law.

Picoult expertly examines a myriad of issues - teenage angst; "in" crowds; drug use; bullying; teen sexuality; peer pressure; privacy; parenting - and creates a gripping fictionalized version of a tragic event that is difficult to put down. At the end of this astonishing tale, I predict many readers will feel sympathy for the convicted mass murderer while many will not.  Picoult's amazing ability to present an issue from a wide variety of perspectives without herself being judgmental will at least give readers an understanding as to how such a horrific tragedy might come to pass! Highly recommended.

Fiction: Military Fiction, Historical Fiction, War

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

“Vietnam was full of strange stories, some improbable, some well beyond that, but the stories that will last forever are those that swirl back and forth across the border between trivia and bedlam, and the mad and the mundane.”

The Things They Carried is a collection of linked short stories that provide a powerful portrayal of the experiences of American soldiers during the Vietnam War. The narrative is structured around the physical and emotional burdens carried by the soldiers, both tangible and intangible. The title story, “The Things They Carried,” serves as a foundation for exploring the weight of war, both literally and metaphorically.

“He would have explained to his father that none of these decorations was for uncommon valor. They were for common valor. The routine, daily stuff – just enduring – but that was worth something wasn’t it? Yes, it was. Worth plenty.”

The stories are characterized by a haunting realism that captures the complexity of the soldiers' emotions, relationships, and the moral ambiguities of war. O’Brien explores themes of death, trauma, and the enduring effects of war on the individuals who participate in it. 

“When a man died, there had to be blame … You could blame the war. You could blame the idiots who made the war …You could blame the enemy … You could blame the people who were too lazy to read a newspaper, who were bored by the daily body counts, who switched channels at the mention of politics.”

This book is a contemplation on storytelling as well as the impact of war on the human psyche. O’Brien draws on his own experiences as a soldier in Vietnam to objectify his experiences and then carries them forward by inventing incidents to explain and clarify “the things they carried.” The nature of memory, the ethical dimensions of war, and the ways in which literature can illuminate human experience are fully evident in The Things They Carried. Excellent!