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."