May Booknotes

 

“Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life.” – Mortimer J. Adler

Books by the Beach Book Club: International fiction (Montenegro)

Catherine the Great and the Small by Olja Knezevic

Catherine the Great and the Small tells the story of Katarina, who grew up in Titograd, which is now modern-day Podgorica, Montenegro. At the beginning of the book, she thinks of herself as “Catherine the Small” and then she goes through several traumatic life events and transforms into “Catherine the Great.”

We learn about Katarina’s childhood and young adulthood in the former Yugoslavia; her first love; descent into drug and sexual abuse; marriage; subsequent immigration to London; her three children; her return to Montenegro and reunion with her first love. Unfortunately, - in my opinion – the book’s ending was unsatisfying. Why Katarina thought she transformed into a “great” person is not fully explained. Maybe she was “great” simply because she survived?!

I had trouble connecting with Katarina as a character and found her to be very inconsistent and confusing. Her immigration to England was unexplored and unexplained. We learn more about her arguments with her husband than what Katarina’s life was like as an immigrant in England. I guess that experience was “small” and not worthy of exploration!

I didn't know a whole lot about Montenegro before reading this book and I still don't know a whole lot about Montenegro. The teensy-tiny bit of history I did learn through this novel was mainly about the country’s difficult transition away from socialist ideals. I can only hope that life in Montenegro is better than what was depicted in this book.

I found Catherine the Great and the Small depressing. I hope our next book club selection will contain some positivity – fingers crossed!

Fiction: Mystery, Thriller

The Club by Ellery Lloyd

The Home Group has celebrity clubs all over the world – London – Malibu – Manhattan - Paris, etc. Now they are launching their newest and most spectacular Home club yet on an island off the English coast. The name of the club is Home Island and it is a luxurious club only for the rich and famous.

The launch party is going to be the celebrity event of the decade. However, with all the celebrities and their fragile egos, the party also includes plenty of stress and tension. Plus, the Home Island management, staff, and celebrities all have secrets they will do anything, even commit murder, to keep hidden. The club, they soon discover, is someplace they would rather not be. But once the party starts, no one can leave the island until the causeway becomes passable at low tide. There is no escape from Home Island.

Even with some surprises here and there, The Club didn't deliver in terms of total satisfaction. It was overly descriptive, slow-paced (until you plow your way to the last third of the book), and full of characters that were hard to keep straight. However, I did experience some vicarious satisfaction when the “bad guys get theirs.” The Club might not be a perfect novel, but it does provide an escape from the “real world.” I was able to sit back, read, and “watch” the messy lives of the rich and famous unravel while I smugly reminded myself how lucky I am to be a “nobody.”

Nonfiction: Pre-History, Science

Doggerland: The History of the Land that Once Connected Great Britain to Continental Europe by Charles River Editors

Doggerland was 18,000 square miles of land, now submerged beneath the southern North Sea, that connected Great Britain to continental Europe. It was flooded by rising sea levels around 6500–6200 BCE. Geological surveys have suggested that it stretched from what is now the east coast of Great Britain to what now includes the Netherlands, the western coast of Germany, and the peninsula of Jutland.

Although I was aware of the supercontinent known as Pangea, I had never heard of Doggerland.  This short book explains the roles of tsunamis, Ice Ages, tectonic shifts, volcanic action, and various climate changes in the submerging of Doggerland. Unlike the early supercontinents, the inundation of Doggerland took place after the appearance of people. As water covered more of the land, the ancient Doggerland residents moved to higher ground, leaving behind settlements and artifacts.  An amazing number of once submerged artifacts are constantly being found. 

Scientists in several fields are studying why the inundation took place, as well as the nature of the peoples that settled there. Because I am interested in genealogy and DNA, I was particularly intrigued to learn about the Homo Sapiens and the Neanderthal who lived in Doggerland.  The Neanderthal extinction theories are fascinating! DNA studies continue to reveal more about our human family and how some of us still have Neanderthal DNA.

I find Doggerland an intriguing subject and, while this is not a well-written book by a long shot, I thoroughly enjoyed learning something new. 

Nonfiction: History, World War II, Propaganda

How to Win an Information War: The Propagandist Who Outwitted Hitler by Peter Pomerantsev

This is the story of Sefton Delmer (1904-1979) a journalist born in Berlin, who, as a fluent speaker of German and English, became the ideal person to lead England’s propaganda operations against the Nazis.

Delmer spent his childhood in Berlin and lived in Germany prior to World War II.  As a journalist, he chronicled Hitler’s rise to power during the 1930s. In England during the World War II, he launched an experimental German radio station. Delmer’s goal was to undermine Nazism from within, by turning ordinary citizens against their corrupt leaders. Pornography was employed (!!) to draw in a German audience and persuade it of Nazi corruption and debauchery.

"Hitler’s power stemmed not so much from his ability to win people over with clever arguments but by his articulating the feelings that already lay within them and taking them on an emotional journey from feeling humiliated to humiliating others. Skim through the speeches of current leaders from America to China and Russia today, and they will all play the same tunes of humiliation”.

The author is a Senior Fellow at the Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University and leads the Arena Initiative at the Institute of Global Affairs at the London School of Economics, dedicated to investigating the roots of disinformation and what to do about them. Coincidentally, as he was researching and writing this book, he was called into support a wartime propaganda effort of the US response to the invasion of Ukraine. This allows Pomerantsey to flash forward to the war in Ukraine while telling Delmer’s story. He weaves in what he's learning from researching Delmer as he seeks to fight against Putin's tyranny and lies. Though Putin rants about Nazis in Ukraine, many of his strategies originate with Goebbels. And the author also sees the same Narcissistic strategies at work in Trump's authoritarian version of the United States.

Pomerantsev believes that propaganda, as used by Goebbels, Putin, and Trump, requires that people lose their desire to think. Belonging passively to some false idea (Trump's conspiratorial State, Putin's legendary Russia, or Hitler's Aryan nation) is too easy. This book urges the reader to think, contemplate, scrutinize, and think again.

Researching the forgotten story of Sefton Delmer, a propaganda genius, allowed the author to analyze the true nature of this dark craft and how to make it successful. However, it should be used with caution because sometimes it can be used for good, as a tool that can save the world from true evil. But it is a devil's bargain, swollen with moral dilemmas: "This is the danger of dabbling in disinformation even in a ‘good cause’: it nurtures an environment of endless distrust that benefits authoritarian instincts."

Audiobook Fiction: Cozy Mystery

Murder Most English by B.D. Churston

Someone told me that I read too many “serious” books – which I totally enjoy! Hence my effort to embrace cozy mysteries. I did attempt two cozy mysteries this month, Murder at a Lakeside Library and From Beer to Eternity, which had good reviews, but I did not finish them.

I thought, “the third time is a charm,” and it was. Murder Most English is a pleasant mystery set in the 1920s.

Publishers’ Description: “Imagine Agatha Christie crossed with Murder, She Wrote...

In this light-hearted cozy mystery, Kate Forbes and her niece, Lady Jane Scott are about to become amateur sleuths. They receive an invitation to a society birthday party at Linton Hall.

At the hall, Lord Linton’s heir, Edward, has returned from years of living in Paris. Unfortunately, he’s failed to change his arrogant ways, which upsets many of the guests. For Kate and Lady Jane, looking forward to celebrating over canapes and champagne, the last thing they expect is to become amateur sleuths pitting their wits against Inspector Ridley of Scotland Yard to prevent the wrong person being hanged for murder. Faced with an ensemble of social climbers, eccentrics and schemers, aunt and niece must work together to untangle a web of secrets, lies and deceit if they're to discover whodunnit.”

I enjoyed the audiobook reader’s English accent, so I was able to mindlessly listen and escape to Linton Hall. Murder Most English is easy listening.

MORE MYSTERY!

Langham & Dupre Mystery Series by Eric Brown

Murder by the Book, Murder at the Chase, Murder at the Loch

There are nine books in this series, and I will read as many as our public library owns. Why?

1.      It is an Agatha-Christie-like-mystery.

2.      The couple who solves the mysteries are likeable, realistic, and without an overly dramatic relationship.

3.      Each book is only a little over 200 pages. Coupled with plots that move at a fast pace, Langham & Dupre mysteries are quick reads and provide an engaging break from “serious” reading.

4.      You do not have to read them in order, they read well as stand-alone mysteries.

Based in 1950s London, Donald Langham is a World War II veteran and a successful author of detective mystery novels. Marie Dupre is his literary agent’s assistant. Together they solve a variety of mysteries. I read the third book in the series, Murder at the Loch, first because it has the most interesting cover!!

Murder at the Loch (#3) –Langham is invited to a remote Scottish castle to solve an intriguing mystery involving a 1945 German airplane submerged in the loch. Then a guest at the castle is murdered. Is the murder related to the submerged airplane?  Dupre joins him as they both attempt to prevent a killer from striking again. This book was as good as its cover, so I read the first two books in the series next.

Murder by the Book (#1)– Who is killing the crime writers of London? Will Langham be the next victim? I am glad I didn’t read this first, otherwise I might have not read the others! It was “okay.”

 Murder at the Chase (#2) – Is the village of Humble Baron really haunted or does someone just want it to appear that way? How did Edward Endicott disappear without a trace from inside his locked study? This was good.

These mysteries feature good writing, engaging mysteries and the characters really made these books worthwhile reading. Not just Langham and Dupre, but the whole cast: villains, suspects, minor characters - all are fully developed. I am glad I chanced upon Langham & Dupre one afternoon while browsing my local library’s shelves!

Fiction: Magical Realism, Time Travel

This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub

This Time Tomorrow involves time travel, but it’s the magical type of time travel, not the sci-fi kind with complicated, mind-bending scientific explanations. This wonderful book focuses on relationships and life choices. If you could go back in time, would you?

New Yorker Alice is approaching her 40th birthday, she is working in the admissions office of an exclusive and expensive school, which she attended. She is feeling as if she had never left. Meanwhile her father, Leonard, is dying and  Alice visits him as often as she can. Realizing he could die at any moment; she reflects on where she is in her life and what she has and has not achieved.

On her 40^th birthday, Alice “celebrates” by getting drunk, vomiting in a gutter, and finally falls asleep inside the gardening shed outside her childhood home. When she wakes in the morning, it is 1996, her 16^th birthday, and she is in her childhood bedroom.

Alice discovers that she can return to this day again and again, always going back to her 16^th birthday and then forward to age 40. This means that Alice has a chance to spend more time with her dad, appreciate him in ways she didn’t the first time around, and perhaps help him (and herself) make different life choices.

Each time Alice goes forward to age 40, she must live with the different choices she has made during her time travel. Armed with a new perspective on her own life and her father’s, some past events take on new meaning. Is there anything that she would change if she could? Can regret be avoided? What exactly is a “happy life?” All thought-provoking questions that inspire self-reflection not just for Alice, but also for me, the reader.

It would be a dream come true to have more time with, or to know our parents when they were young. A poignant and beautiful book!

NOTE: The author, Emily Straub’s, father was also an author, Peter Straub. He was a highly successful author of horror fiction and a poet. Emily wrote this book and shared it with her father before his death in 2022. You can tell she was writing about what she knew - “grief was something that moved in and stayed. Maybe it moved from one side of the room to the other, farther away from the window, but it was always there.”

Nonfiction: Sociology, History, Politics

White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy by Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman

This book is heavy on research (25 pages of citations) and discusses four compounding factors of the “rage:” White despair, outsized political power, veneration of White culture and values, and media triggering of Whites.

White rural voters hold the greatest electoral sway of any demographic group in the United States. “By 2040, 70 percent of Americans will reside in the fifteen most-populous states and choose 30 of the 100 U.S. senators. Concentrated in smaller and more rural states, the remaining 30% of the population will elect 70 per cent of senators. No matter how distorted these population ratios become, each state is guaranteed its two senators – past, present, and forever.”

Yet rural communities suffer from poor healthcare access, failing infrastructure, and severe manufacturing and farming job losses. Rural voters believe our nation has betrayed them, and to some degree, they’re right. They have failed to reap the benefits from their outsize political power and, as a result, they are the most likely group to abandon democratic norms and traditions. Their rage—stoked daily by Republican politicians and the conservative media—now poses an existential threat to the United States.

It seems rural Americans are angrier with urbanites, liberals, and Democrats than they are with conservative Republicans who raised gobs of agribusiness - Big Ag (Conagra, National Meat Association, etc.) - campaign cash and then slashed funding to benefit family farms, small towns, and rural people.

So, unfortunately, instead of supporting an increase in family farm grants; help for small town and rural businesses; support for rural medical care or transportation infrastructure, Republications take massive agribusiness contributions, and then simply tell rural voters to blame the “elitist liberals and Democrats.” Because of the way rural Americans have been told to “feel,” they support politicians who vote against their own interests. Republicans’ inaction in Congress speaks volumes about their real opinion of rural Americans – they just want their votes, period. 

Finally, one factor discussed really hit home, the veneration of rural culture and values. A popular opinion holds that rural culture, and values are superior to any others. Small-town people are automatically praised and revered by politicians as “real Americans” while everyone else is “less than.” This reminded me of what I read in How to Win an Information War, only in this case Republications are “articulating the feelings that already lay within them and taking them on an emotional journey from feeling humiliated to humiliating others.”

 There is much, much more in White Rural Rage! This is just the “tip of the iceberg.” Worthwhile reading!

“Thanks to the inflated power that smaller states enjoy in the Electoral College, the past two Republican presidents entered the White House despite having lost the popular vote. … Then Donald Trump was elected. What happened next? On cue, Republican support for electing presidents based on the national popular vote dropped by half, from 54 percent to 27 percent…  

Nonfiction: Science, Psychology

Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time by Michael Shermer

“Science is not the affirmation of a set of beliefs, but a process of inquiry aimed at building a testable body of knowledge constantly open to rejection or confirmation. In science, knowledge is fluid and certainty fleeting. That is at the heart of its limitations. It is also its greatest strength.”

This book explores the difference between science and pseudoscience. Shermer is a skeptic and discusses topics ranging from alien encounters to creationists to Holocaust deniers.

A skeptic is: “one who questions the validity of a particular claim by calling for evidence to prove or disprove it.”

I found Shermer’s discussion on Holocaust deniers the most interesting. My first big “take away” was the convergence of proof. No one piece of evidence stands alone, all the pieces converge to create history. Holocaust deniers tend to pick one piece that they say “doesn’t’ fit” and ignore all the rest of the evidence. They are unable to see the convergence of proof.

Written documents – Letters, memos, blueprints, orders, bills, speeches, articles, memoirs, and confessions.

Eyewitness testimony – accounts from survivors, guards, commandants, local townspeople, and upper-level government officials.

Photographs – Official military and press photographs and films, civilian photographs, aerial photographs, German and Allied film footage.

Physical evidence – Artifacts found at concentration camps, work camps, and death camps.

Demographics – All the people who the deniers claim survived the Holocaust are missing. Where did they go?

My second “take away” was moral equivalency. SS Officer Adolf Eichmann was charged with managing the mass deportation of Jews to ghettos and killing centers. He was a key figure in the "Final Solution." During his trial in Jerusalem on Nazi war crimes, he never denied his role in the Holocaust. Instead, he argued that “these crimes had been legalized by the state” and therefore the people that “issued the orders” were responsible, not him. In other words, “other guys were doing it, so I should be off the hook.” The judge did not let him off the hook, Eichmann was held responsible for his actions.

*NOTE: This reminded me of the “What about Hunter Biden?” refrain used by Trump supporters. They think that somehow another person’s alleged criminal actions let Trump “off the hook” for his alleged criminal actions. Neither man should be "off the hook," that is for our courts to decide. Also, I am reminded of Rod Blagojevich, former Illinois governor and convicted felon. His 14-year sentence for charges of corruption, including attempted extortion of a children’s hospital and conspiracy to commit bribery was commuted by former President Trump in February 2020.  What does Blagojevich, a former Democrat and now Trump supporter, have to say for himself now, “I was put in prison for practicing politics.” In other words, “other guys were doing it, so I should be off the hook.” Good golly … as my mother would say, “If everyone is jumping off a cliff, are you going to jump, too?”