2022 - Non-Fiction: True Crime/Genetics/Genealogy
The Forever Witness: How Genetic Genealogy Solved a Cold Case Double Murder by Edward Humes (Pulitzer Prize Winning Author)
In November 1987, Canadians Tanya Van Cuylenborg and her boyfriend Jay Cook leave Vancouver on an overnight trip to Seattle. They vanish. A week later their bodies are found in rural Washington. The brutal crime leaves few clues – a palm print on their van door and semen - and an international manhunt fails to find the perpetrator.
The case and evidence eventually goes into long-term storage for thirty plus years until when Detective Jim Scharf looks at the case files hoping to find new clues that were missed in the original investigation. He has the DNA retested and then teams up with genealogist, CeCe Moore – “The DNA Detective” – who is well known for her work on the show “Finding Your Roots.” Moore uses proprietary DNA data sets (Ancestry, 23 & Me, GED net, etc.) to find lost relatives and connect adoptees with birth parents. In 2018 she began working in close collaboration with Law Enforcement to identify Jane/John Doe bodies and criminals. Moore has produced a record number of perpetrator identifications, convictions and exonerations of the falsely accused/convicted using DNA and genealogy records.
In genetic genealogy it's often a distant relative of the criminal (or unidentified body) who is the match in a DNA database. Genetic genealogists must then use publicly available information to construct multi-generational family trees, combing through records and documents to find potential suspects that meet the age and gender profile of the suspect. DNA phenotyping can also take trace DNA, analyze it, and offer the likelihood that the person has a particular skin tone, hair color, eye color, and more.
The author explains how genetic genealogy has exposed a looming battle between the pursuit of justice and the right to privacy. These ethical issues have divided the genealogical community into those who believe that this information should be used to solve violent crimes and give families closure and those who believe that using DNA in this way is a violation of privacy.
In May 2021 Maryland became the first state to pass legislation to regulate how genetic genealogy can be used in criminal investigations. Montana has also passed similar legislation. Some middle ground has been found and a number of high-profile cold cases have been solved using genetic genealogy as a result. I expect other states will be passing similar laws.
This is a well-written and suspenseful book. The notes section explains who was interviewed and information sources are included. The author does a great job of explaining the science and the controversies in terms that can be easily understood.
As an amateur genealogist and avid fan of the “Finding Your Roots” television series, this book was perfect for me! It is an amazing story how DNA science and old-fashioned genealogy are used to solve, not just family mysteries, but also crimes.
2017 - Non-Fiction: Science
The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee
The author, Siddhartha Mukherjee, is a cancer physician and researcher. I read his previous book, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, winner of the 2011 Pulitzer prize for general nonfiction. That book was extremely informative and helpful for me. I wanted to learn more so I choose to read this book.
The Gene is a fascinating journey through the history of genetics, beginning with the Ancient Greeks and their early theories of heredity; Gregor Mendel’s work on heredity with pea plants; and then the race to decipher DNA. The book’s final chapters describe contemporary research on biotechnology, gene therapy and genomics, as well as future developments.
Mukherjee discusses misconceptions around genetics and tempers any expectations of miracle cures for all of our ailments. That said, with ever-increasing levels of computational power and advances in our ability to edit genetic code, we are undoubtedly entering an era of immense new possibilities. With this in mind, Mukherjee urges caution and calls for further debate on the use of and restrictions that should be placed on future genetic interventions.
Threaded through the narrative are Mukherjee’s own memories and deeply personal accounts of how hereditary illnesses, including schizophrenia, have affected his own family. The Gene doesn’t shy away from difficult topics. Foremost are the disastrous eugenics programs of the early 20th century, tragically ill-fated trials of early gene therapies, and our entire notion of ‘illness.’ All of these topics are confronted with discernment and compassion.
2019 - Non-Fiction: Biography/History
The Great Successor: The Divinely Perfect Destiny of Brilliant Comrade Kim Jong Un by Anna Fifield
What did I know about North Korea's reclusive, nuclear-armed bad boy, Kim Jong Un? Not much, except that President Trump called him, “Rocket Man” and that they exchanged “love letters”. Obviously, I needed to learn more.
The author, Washington Post journalist, Anna Fifield, spent considerable time in North Korea both before and after Kim's ascent. Kim's very existence was only officially acknowledged a few years before the death of his father, Kim Jong Il, in December 2011 after the elder Kim launched a scramble to ensure dynastic succession to his youngest son. At the time, no one was even sure of the new leader's exact age, let alone his agenda. So in addition to her personal experiences in North Korea, Fifield interviewed defectors and other secondhand sources. She interviewed Kim’s aunt and uncle who cared for Kim Jong Un and his younger sister while they attended grade school in Switzerland under assumed names. To fill in the gaps in Kim's early years, the author also interviewed a retired Japanese sushi chef who spent 15 years in the service of the Kims. While he prepared extravagant meals for the Kim family, ordinary famine-stricken Koreans were starving to death by the hundreds of thousands.
What emerges is a portrait of Kim fully in charge and consciously channeling his grandfather, North Korean founder Kim Il Sung, to bolster his legitimacy. Contrary to prevailing stereotypes, Kim Jung Un is anything but a madman. Cold-blooded for sure – he ordered his uncle brutally executed and his half-brother assassinated by the nerve agent VX at Kuala Lumpur International Airport – Kim employs a calculated defensive strategy aimed at securing his rule.
The nuclear and missile programs were started by his grandfather and nurtured by his father but were kicked into overdrive by Kim Jong Un. And once North Korea's ability to deliver these weapons to the shores of the hated United States proved sufficiently convincing, Kim was ready to pivot — "time for the cruel, threatening, nuclear-armed tyrant to begin his metamorphosis into misunderstood, gracious, developmental dictator," writes Fifield.
And he did it! By the time of the Singapore summit between Kim and Trump in June 2018, the North Koreans appear to have cracked the U.S. president's code — that flattery would get them everywhere. At the conclusion of the meeting, Trump publicly praised the North Korean leader, calling him "very smart," and, admiring Kim's iron-fisted rule of North Korea, said that Kim was "able to run it, and run it tough."
He got that right!
2014 - Graphic Novel
Hidden: A Child's Story of the Holocaust by Loïc Dauvillier, Marc Lizano (Illustrations), Greg Salsedo (Ink), Alexis Siegel (Translator, French)
In this graphic novel for ages 8-12, Dounia, a grandmother, tells her granddaughter the story how, as a young Jewish girl in Paris, she was hidden away from the Nazis by a series of neighbors and friends who risked their lives to keep her alive when her parents had been taken to concentration camps. Dounia and her mother are reunited as World War II ends but her father was killed.
2022 - Non-Fiction: History/Biography
I Will Protect You: A True Story of Twins Who Survived Auschwitz by Eva Mozes Kor, with Danica Davidson
The author, Eva Mozes Kor, was a Romanian survivor of the Holocaust. In 1944, 10-year-old Eva and her family, who lived in a small village in the Transylvanian mountains, were deported to Auschwitz. Eva and her identical twin, Miriam, were separated from their parents and sisters. They became subjects of Dr. Josef Mengele’s medical experiments. Of the 3,000 twins the so-called “Angel of Death” experimented on during the war, only 160 would survive. Eva lost both of her parents and two older sisters to the Holocaust; only she and Miriam survived.
Since this is a first-person account of Auschwitz from a child’s point-of-view, Eva’s story is unique. It blends both her personal experience with history, and includes context about antisemitism and how the Holocaust came to be.
“This book is meant to fill a gap in Holocaust education,” co-author Davidson said. “Most Holocaust books for this age range (8 – 12) are either personal stories about escaping and hiding, or they’re textbooks that don’t have the personal connection. The escaping and hiding stories are important to tell, too, but if they’re all that’s out there, it can give the impression most Jews escaped or successfully hid.” This book reveals how two young girls, who were neither able to escape nor to hide, managed to survive the unimaginable cruelty of the Nazi regime. Then, years later, how Eva eventually found the capacity to forgive.
In 1984 Eva founded the CANDLES Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Terre Haute, Indiana to educate the public about eugenics, the Holocaust, and the power of forgiveness. She passed away unexpectedly on July 4, 2019 when she was speaking in Auschwitz; Eva traveled there twice a year to do so. This was just 15 days after she and Davidson accepted Little, Brown’s offer to publish this book.
1989 - Fiction
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (Nobel Laureate in Literature, 2017)
Stevens, the perfect butler, is at the end of his three decades of service in Darlington Hall. It is 1956 and the insular world of “great gentlemen” is fading in post-World War II England. Stevens is encouraged by his new employer, an American who has purchased Darlington Hall, to take some time off and travel. So Stevens embarks on a journey across England in his employers’ Ford. Not only is he on a road trip but Stevens is also traveling through the past in an effort to reassure himself that he has served humanity by serving the "great gentleman," Lord Darlington. But lurking in his memory are doubts about the true nature of Lord Darlington's "greatness," and much graver doubts about the nature of his own life.
At first, I wasn’t sure I would continue reading this novel. It started slow and the main character is a butler! However, I kept reading and became totally immersed in the story. I think I appreciate it because I am old. I am not sure a young person could fully appreciate how Stevens was able to reflect back upon his life experiences and mull them over.
I love the way the book ended. Stevens is sitting on a bench awaiting the sunset when a man sits next to him. The man is a retired butler and they share many similar experiences and thoughts. It is a deep conversation between two souls who will never meet again.
“For a great many people, the evening is the most enjoyable part of the day. Perhaps, then, there is something to his advice that I should cease looking back so much, that I should adopt a more positive outlook and try to make the best of what remains of my day. After all, what can we ever gain in forever looking back and blaming ourselves if our lives have not turned out quite as we might have wished?”
1931 - Historical Fiction
The Road Back by Erich Maria Remarque, sequel to All Quiet on the Western Front (Translated from German)
Recently I watched the 2023 Oscar Nominee Movie from Germany, All Quiet on the Western Front. This World War I movie deviates from the book somewhat but is still a great movie. What was left out of the movie is, I think, one of the most important parts – how the civilians react to soldier Paul when he comes home on leave. The civilians proceed to lecture him on battle tactics with no understanding of what he is experiencing on the actual battlefield! This important aspect is included in the original 1930 film adaptation, which I prefer. Both of course are about the horror and the futility of war.
After viewing the 2023 film adaptation, I decided to read the sequel, The Road Back. This book focuses on what faced the German men when they returned to their homeland. As “losers” they are not welcomed home with parades (similar to our Vietnam vets). Instead they experienced poverty, hunger, and unemployment. Kaiser Wilhem II abdicated and fled to the Netherlands which created an unstable political climate. People began marching in protest due to the lack of food and the devaluation of currency. Maimed soldiers also “marched” in protest on crutches, led by seeing-eye dogs or pulled in carts to protest the German authorities’ disregard of their problems and needs (similar to our WWI “Bonus Army” protests) - “… they will break up and return singly to their their rooms, their narrow dwellings, their pale children and their awful misery, without much hope, prisoners of the destiny that others made for them.” The mental and physical suffering of the maimed men, those who were lucky enough to return alive, is front and center.
As a book of historical fiction depicting the situation of Germany after WWI, it is excellent. This is all due to the author, Erich Maria Remarque (pen name of Erich Paul Remark) who is one of the best known and most widely read authors of German literature in the twentieth century. As a German veteran of World War I, Remarque offers a critical examination of German history – so much so, his books were banned by the Nazis. At the forefront of his writing is the preservation of human dignity and humanity in times of oppression, terror and war.
2015 - Fiction: Mystery/Crime
Strange Shores (Inspector Erlendur #11) by Arnaldur Indriðason, translated from Icelandic by Victoria Cribb – the last book in this series.
Inspector Erlendur returns to his childhood home in Urdarklettur where he camps in the ruins of his childhood home. This is his “vacation,” a quest to discover what happened to his younger brother, Beggi, whose disappearance in a snowstorm when they were children has thrown a shadow over his entire life. While there, he is drawn into another missing person case, that of the disappearance of a local woman, Matthildur, in 1942.
It’s not just the locals who find Erlendur’s search for the truth about Matthildur perplexing, he doesn’t quite understand it himself. Parallel to this search, each night he lies down in the freezing, roofless farmhouse, and drifts off into a place where he can almost see and hear his long-lost brother Beggi. He also ruminates on what happens to mind and body during hypothermia.
Throughout the book we get a look at rural life in Iceland during the 40s and 50s, the hard working lifestyle of the local fishermen and farmers, and their old fashioned mores. All the “action” takes place within the beautiful and flawlessly described Icelandic wilderness which is juxtaposed with the current changes - a new dam being built, a port growing like a cancer on the fjord, and foreign companies sucking minerals from the landscape.
This is not a cozy mystery. It is somber and slow, full of elderly and curmudgeonly characters. Some of the characters embody the traditional characteristics of a long hard life with its attendant miseries, while others have a youthful mischievousness about them. Using pared down dialogue, Indridason has created a thoughtful, yet almost supernatural final chapter to the exploits of Erlendur.
More than a mystery, Indridason unravels his main character for us, explaining Erlendur at a much deeper level, and thereby giving the series a satisfying conclusion. As an older person, I, too, can contemplate, as Erlendur does, those “strange shores” between life and death. An excellent book!
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