“Why do I read? I just can't help myself. I read to learn and to grow, to laugh and to be motivated. I read to understand things I've never been exposed to.” - Gary Paulsen
My January reading, in alphabetical order.
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann
Last month I read the Young Adult version of this book and wanted to learn more so I read the Adult version this month. Obviously it is longer (563 pages) because it contains tons more interesting information.
As I wrote last month, the usual textbook story I learned of Columbus and the Spanish conquistadors arriving in the Americas to find an unspoiled, barely populated wilderness, was incorrect! Contrary to what so many of us learned in school, the pre-Columbian Indians were not sparsely settled in a pristine wilderness; rather, there were huge numbers of Indians who actively molded and influenced the land around them.
Mann points out that the earliest European explorers described a heavily populated continent, with numerous towns and even cities. A century or so later their successors described an empty wilderness. Even the huge forests, vast herds of bison and the unimaginably large flocks of passenger pigeons, all of which we tend to associate with early post-colonial North America, were developments that took place only after the Indian population was drastically reduced post 1492 (via diseases, etc.). The author also presents information about many Indian societies which had developed highly complex governments, effective agricultural practices as well as written communication.
The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation by Rosemary Sullivan
Most people have read or are at least aware of Anne Frank’s diary. Over thirty million people have read The Diary of a Young Girl, the journal teen-aged Anne Frank kept while hiding for over two years in an attic with her family and four other people in Amsterdam during World War II - until the Nazis arrested them and sent them to concentration camps.
Anne, her sister Margot, her mother Edith, her father Otto, Peter and his parents, and the dentist, Fritz Pfeffer were betrayed. This book tells the story of an international team—led by an obsessed retired FBI agent – which used new technology, recently discovered documents and sophisticated investigative techniques, to solve the mystery that has haunted generations since World War II: Who betrayed Anne Frank and her family? And why?
Only Otto survived the horrors of the death camps. Immediately after the war, he searched for his family. Upon learning of their deaths, Otto wanted answers. Of course, he wasn't alone, so too do many including readers of The Diary of a Young Girl, - we all want to know what happened.
We want to hold people accountable. Who were the perpetrators? How could a person betray another person knowing they would be sent to a death camp? Why would someone intentionally put another human life in danger?
Non-fiction: Science
Breathless: The Scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus by David Quammen
In 2012 I read Spillover, a previous book by this author, That book was about deadly viruses—Ebola, SARS, AIDS, and countless other deadly viruses. These viruses have one thing in common: they all originate in wild animals and pass to humans by a process called spillover. The book ends with the question: What might the next big one be?
Fast forward to 2019 and the big one was upon us - the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, aka COVID.
Based on interviews with nearly one hundred scientists, including leading virologists from around the world, Quammen explains that:
-Infectious disease experts saw this pandemic coming, they were already studying coronaviruses. Bats are common culprits in spillovers which meant PhD scientists had to collect fecal “material” from bat caves to check for viruses! (They have my utmost respect.)
-Some scientists, for more than two decades, warned that “the next big one” would be caused by a changeable new virus—very possibly a coronavirus—but such warnings were ignored for political or economic reasons. Even Tony Fauci, with decades of experience as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was attacked because politicians didn’t like the data or information he reported. (“Shoot the messenger” - To blame a problem on whoever reported it; to hold somebody accountable for a problem because he/she brought attention to it.) Shooting the messenger doesn’t stop a virus from spreading!
-The precise origins of this virus may not be known for years, but some clues are compelling, and some suppositions can be dismissed. We may never know for sure where COVID came from. There is no single, deterministic origin of COVID. However, we have learned that there is a permanent process of evolution, adaptation, and selection in play with viruses that is shaped by chance and environment. It is this process that gives rise to novel viral lineages. This is why we need boosters, to keep up with the ongoing, genetic changes in the virus.
-While it can’t be disproved 100%, it is highly unlikely that the virus originated in a lab. Many people, and a few scientists are concerned that COVID seemed to be “well adapted for infecting humans.” Surprising to me is the fact that multitudes of mammals around the world were also infected and died from COVID. Dogs, cats, tigers, lions, millions of minks in Denmark, and even White Tail Deer in the United States have been infected by humans and/or other animals with COVID. So was COVID “uniquely, peculiarly well adapted for infecting humans?” Or did the virus naturally mutate in animal hosts recombining RNA - making it more infectious? We do know that infected human beings created chains of infection through social gatherings and travel to cities around the world - spreading the “big one.”
Many more questions need to asked, researched and, hopefully, answered. Thank goodness, there are dedicated scientists to pursue the answers!
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
Demon Copperhead takes place in Appalachia using the rich, powerful language of “hillbillies.” Whatever you think of when you hear the word “hillbillies,” think again because Demon Copperhead is a potent re-envisioning of Dickens’ David Copperfield. There are many similarities between the two novels but Demon Copperhead is definitely an American novel.
It is the tale of the life of Damon Fields, known as Demon and nicknamed Copperhead for his red hair. He is born to a drug-using teenage mother in a trailer in Lee County, Virginia - Appalachia. Even in this poverty-stricken county, they stand out by being almost destitute. Because his father died before his birth and his mother was in and out of rehab, Demon has been partly raised by their neighbors the warm-hearted Peggot family. Eventually his mother marries her boyfriend (“he has a steady job”) who turns from disciplinarian into a merciless stepfather. Demon’s mother eventually dies from an overdose.
Demon wants the Peggots to “take him in.” However, Mr. and Mrs. Peggot are already raising their troubled grandson (his mother is in prison) and are unable to “take in” Demon. His stepfather has a new girlfriend and no interest in him so Demon enters the foster care system. Demon observes that “a kid is a terrible thing to be, in charge of nothing.”
From that point on Demon becomes a casualty of the “monster-truck mud rally of child services.” He is not helped by case workers who don’t read his file nor cash-strapped foster parents who are only in it for the money. Demon is literally farmed out as field labor to a tobacco farmer. While there he befriends two other foster care boys, Tommy who has a habit of sketching skeletons and the charismatic, pill-popping high school quarterback, known as Fast Forward.
Eventually Demon finds a foster home with Coach Winfield and his daughter Agnes, who goes by Angus – “like the cow.” Under Coach’s care Demon becomes a rising high school football star – until an injury pushes his recreational drug habit into full-blown opioid addiction.
Demon then battles to find a purpose in life, to achieve sobriety and to transcend the failure of those around him “to see the worth of boys like me, beyond what work can be wrung out of us by a week’s end. Farm field, battlefield, football field.”
It’s all there: the odds against which no child stands a chance – and also the outsiders, some loving and others less so, who offer only a limited form of help. When you’re a child born into a life without choices, success sometimes consists simply of surviving against the odds.
Non-Fiction: Historical Crime
Fatal Switch: Murder on the Panama Road by Louise Stanton Warren
A young Cuban-American woman – Marie Louise Gato - the daughter of a wealthy Jacksonville, Florida cigar manufacturer, is murdered steps from her front door in 1897. On her deathbed, she names her assailant, Edward Pitzer, a neighbor who has been stalking her for years. The murder results in an epic trial, an almost unbelievable battle of the legal giants of the time – but it really happened!
For Whom the Book Tolls (Antique Bookshop Mystery #1) by Laura Gail Black
Jenna accepts her uncle's invitation to stay with him in small-town Hokes Folly, North Carolina. He emailed her asking for help in his antiquarian bookstore and also to help him solve a “mystery.” But soon after she arrives, Jenna finds her uncle's dead body at the base of the staircase in the bookstore.
In his will, Jenna’s uncle has left her his bookstore and apartment. As she tries to settle his affairs, she stumbles across the “mystery” and is determined to find out who killed her uncle.
Non-Fiction: Photography/History
Our America: A Photographic History by Ken Burns
I am a big Ken Burns fan. His Civil War series on PBS, in fact all of his documentaries, make extensive use of historical photographs. Another reason why I chose this book is my volunteering. I enjoy my volunteer work digitizing and cataloging historical photographs, so it is no accident that I fell in love with this book!
The first part of the book is just photographs, one per page, relating our history from the beginning of photography (1839) until the present. Then in the back, organized by page number, is the description of the historical significance of each photograph. The first time I “read” the book, I simply enjoyed looking at the photographs. Then I went to the back to read the explanatory text for each one – from the best of America’s history to the worst of America’s history. This is an expansive and honest look at our history.
I am going to let Ken Burns explain this wonderful book in his own words:
“This book is entitled Our America, and it was conceived and created in the spirit of assembling photographic evidence of our collective past ...
... glimmers of light amid the dark and perilous divisions that threatened still to overtake us...
The Parachute Drop by Norbert Zongo, Christopher Wise (Translator)
In the fictitious African country of Watinbow, a corrupt leader from hell commits a murder (via malfunctioning parachutes) in order to suppress a suspected coup. However, the corrupt leader is still overthrown and, making a narrow escape, he flees into the countryside. Unable to provide for himself, he finally experiences how the regular people are living in his country. Yet, even after those he has persecuted help him, he still yearns for political power. Finally he returns to the capital where his destiny awaits.
This was a quick, satirical read. Lest you think this book is inconsequential, the author, Zongo, was arrested and beaten for writing this novel. He wrote, “I can’t imagine a more dangerous villain in our country than a corrupt leader. Even a murderer can only inflict limited damage, before he is finally caught, but a tyrant who ruthlessly exploits his people inflicts immeasurable damage.”
We Are Proud Boys: How a Right-Wing Street Gang Ushered in a New Era of American Extremism by Andy Campbell
Andy Campbell begins with the origins of the Proud Boys hate group. Founder and shock jock, Gavin McInnes mocked a 12 year boy on his December 14, 2015 show because the boy sang “Proud of Your Boy” at his children’s school recital. From that moment on, “proud of your boy” became a running “gag” on his show. Just learning that the origins of the nation’s most violent, notorious political gang can be traced to one hateful man making fun of a child should tell you all your need to know about this gang, but there’s is so much more.
The book describes and provides documentation of the many violent activities of the Proud Boys from their origin through the January 6, 2021 insurrection. The book spends a lot of time explaining how Donald Trump and his group of sycophants in the GOP assisted in the Proud Boys’ rise and rapid growth over the past several years. From Trump’s “Stand back, Stand by” comment during the 2020 Presidential debates through his encouragement to violently take over the United States government, it’s all here.
These are not "just a bunch of guys who like to get together and drink beer." They are the most successful violent, political extremist group in the digital age and are a domestic threat to American citizens. All their words and actions are focused on the notion that’s it is okay to violently attack people as long as you hurt people with whom you disagree politically or people who “look different.”
White Noise by Don DeLillo
I read this because the Netflix movie version came up in my suggested viewing list and I wanted to read the book before I watched the film adaptation.
I found it to be a very QUIRKY novel! Here is a description of this humorous book:
“White Noise tells the story of Jack Gladney, his fourth wife, Babette, and four ultra-modern offspring as they navigate the rocky passages of family life to the background babble of brand-name consumerism. When an industrial accident unleashes an "airborne toxic event," a lethal black chemical cloud floats over their lives. The menacing cloud is a more urgent and visible version of the "white noise" engulfing the Gladneys—radio transmissions, sirens, microwaves, ultrasonic appliances, and TV murmurings—pulsing with life, yet suggesting something ominous.”
I enjoyed the middle of the book the most. I was actually laughing while the family was fleeing in their car from the “toxic event.” After that, it became rather dark and depressing. If it wasn’t for the Netflix suggestion, I probably would not have read this book. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
PS: The movie was just as quirky as the book.
No comments:
Post a Comment