May Booknotes

 

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

Banned Book Club Fiction: Realistic Fiction

Forever by Judy Blume

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

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

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

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

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

"Of what?"

"Pregnancy."

"Grandma!"

"And venereal disease."

"Really ... "

"Does it embarrass you to talk about it?"

"No, but ... "

"It shouldn't."

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

What I like about this book:

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

Audiobooks Fiction: Paranormal, Horror

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nonfiction: Memoir, Spirituality, Science 

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

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

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

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

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

Nonfiction: Self Help

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

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

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

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

There were a few quips that resonated with me:

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

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

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

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

Nonfiction: History, Cold War

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nonfiction: History, Memoir, Politics

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

April Booknotes

 

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

Nonfiction "Reread": History, Memoir

The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nonfiction: American/Family History, Memoir

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

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

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

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

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

I highly recommend this book. 

Graphic Nonfiction: Memoir

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

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

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

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

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

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

Audiobook Fiction: Contemporary Fiction, Satire

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fiction: Classic Romance, Humor

A Room with a View by E.M. Forster

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

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

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

Nonfiction: Cookbooks, History

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

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

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

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

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

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

Book Club - Nonfiction: American History

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.