#35 [2025/CBR17] The Seven Sisters by Lucinda Riley

CBR17Bingo: "Arts" because this book has a heavy emphasis on sculpture and painting.

I am usually very good about writing my reviews in the order that I read the books, but Seven Sisters (2015) by Lucinda Riley somehow slipped through the cracks. Maybe I just didn't want to think about this book anymore. Seven Sisters is the first book in a series of eight, and it was chosen recently for my book club. I dutifully downloaded the audiobook and began listening to the over eighteen hours of narrative.

This book is an odd mix of family drama, history, and a little bit of Greek myth thrown in. It is about the year 2000, and six sisters all come home for the unexpected death of their adopted father, Pa Salt. These six sisters were all adopted at different times and in different places around the world. They grew up in a castle called Atlantis on the shores of Lake Geneva. Their primary characteristic seems to be their extraordinary beauty, although they are all wildly successful at whatever they've chosen to do. One is an actress, one is a model, another races boats, etc. 

Each book in the series apparently focuses on one of the sisters. Because The Seven Sisters is the first book, it focuses on the oldest sister. Her name is Maia, and she has always been more reserved and bookish. She is beautiful, of course, but she is also a language expert and spends her time translating books. Maia is also somewhat of a hermit and is the only sister still living at home. When her father dies, he leaves each daughter a clue to her heritage. Maia's clue points towards Rio de Janeiro, and she decides to travel there.

Once in Rio, Maia meets up with one of the authors she works with, and he is very helpful in showing her around. Maia is able to meet up with a woman she suspects might be her grandmother, but the older woman is very sick and doesn't want to talk to Maia. In secret, the grandmother's maid gives Maia a bundle of letters. Thus, just when I finally thought the book was finally getting somewhere, it switches focus to a new set of characters.

Sidenote: Some of my favorite books have been epistolary novels. When done well, it is a different way of telling a story, and I love it. However, when done badly, it drives me crazy. Don't stick a letter into a novel, and then have the "letter" have the exact same feeling as the rest of the novel. No one writes letters like that!

The sudden switch of focus is to Maia's suspected great grandmother Izabela Bonifacio, back in the 1920's. Izabela's father is "new" money and desperate for more power and prestige. He is excited to marry Izabela to whatever old money suitor will give him the most, and Gustavo fits the bill. Izabela is very independent, but also obedient. She is able to convince Gustavo to convince her father to go on a months-long trip to Paris with her friend's family before they get married.

Izabela's friend's father is traveling to Paris to meet with the renowned sculptor, Paul Landowski, to discuss building the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio. Izabela meets Laurent Brouilly, an assistant to Paul, and the two fall in love, but Izabela is too responsible and she leaves him in Paris to return home and marry. Unfortunately for Izabela, Gustavo turns from an awkward but sympathetic young man to a drunk rapist, and her life is miserable. When Laurent accompanies the parts of the Christ the Redeemer statute to Rio, he meets up with Izabela and they begin an affair.

I really did not like this book. In the beginning I kept waiting for it to get better, and then I only finished it because it was a book club book and I wanted to complain about it thoroughly. All of the characters felt like caricatures who only did things to serve the plot of the book. Gustavo literally turned into a different character when it was convenient for the plot of the book--he had to be bad enough that it was understandable our heroine would cheat on him. But then he switched right back once Izabela needed to come back to him. None of them felt real, and I didn't care about them. The book also went on forever with so much lost opportunity. There could have been real, interesting conflict between Izabela and her father, her husband, and her lover. But she couldn't be anything other than beautiful and obedient. She never made any decisions for herself, and then she was conveniently killed off at the end. The whole book had a very old-fashioned view of women that felt confining to me.

Surprisingly, to me, some of my book club enjoyed this book and have gone on to read the rest of the series. I don't understand it, and there's no way I'm spending more time on this series. The best thing about this book was the locations. I would love to travel to Rio, Paris, and Switzerland, and it was fun imagining myself there.

#1 [2025/CBR17] The Ride of Her Life by Elizabeth Letts

My first book of 2025 is an audiobook that I read for my book club. I wouldn't have heard of it or chosen it on my own, but that's (partly) what book clubs are for. The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America (2021) by Elizabeth Letts is the story of Annie Wilkins and her horseback adventures from Maine to Hollywood, California. 

Annie was a 63-year-old farmer, on her own in Maine, and things were not looking good. After a bad illness and lingering cough, a doctor told Annie that she would not live more than two years. In addition, she could not afford the taxes on her farm and was destined to lose it. Instead of giving up and going into her community nursing home, Annie decided that she would travel on horseback to California and see the Pacific Ocean before she died. She took her trusty dog, Depeche Toi (French for hurry up--he was named by some neighboring farm boys), and her newly purchased horse, Tarzan. (Later on in her travels, Annie was able to pick up another horse to help with the load. His name was Rex.)

The threesome headed off in November of 1954, a time when cars were taking over the road and the United States was seeing a lot of change. Although Annie did not even have a raincoat or a map when she set off, the woman, horse, and dog were all tough, determined, and seemingly cheerful on their journey. Even better, Annie found that there were many folks along the way who were willing to help her out with a place for her and her animals to stay. Annie's horseback journey seemed to hit a nostalgic nerve with many people in the country.

Annie faced bad weather, a collision with a truck, and many other challenges. She took part in parades in more than one city and was followed by national news.

On the whole, this was a nice story. I love a grand adventure, and Annie courageously took her life into her own hands. Initially I was worried about the animals, who didn't choose to trek across the United States. But, according to the book, Annie cared very much for her animals, and except for accidents, they did quite well on their adventure. It was sweet and heartening to see how people took to Annie's adventure and helped her out.

However, this wasn't a favorite book for me. I often felt like I was getting a sugarcoated version of the actual story. There's very little about her earlier life or what Annie really thought about her circumstances. I don't blame Letts for this, I think she used the information she could find. I just wanted more. In addition, the book often felt repetitive. Annie would ride on horseback, find somewhere for her to stay for the night, and do the same the next day. It probably didn't help that the audiobook narrator emoted a little too much for my taste.

In some ways, Annie's choices and adventures reminded me of a 1950's version of Nomadland. Now people are more likely to travel the country in a car, but the idea is similar. Many of today's current nomads are forced into it by circumstances, but they find that life on the road is so much better than barely (or not even) affording a tiny, run down apartment. 

#57 [2024/CBR16] Master Slave Husband Wife by Ilyon Woo

I found Master Slave Husband Wife (2023) by Ilyon Woo on NPR's Favorite Books List. It is the true story of Ellen and William Craft, who escaped from slavery in Georgia in 1848. I thought this book was solely about their escape, but Woo also describes the families of Ellen and William, their enslavers, as well as a significant time period after their escape. On the whole, I thought this book was well-written and interesting--although the pace lags in a couple of places. If you've only taken U.S. History in high school, I imagine some of it will be very eye opening. 

William and Ellen Craft were a married couple in Georgia. They had two different enslavers, but they had been given permission to marry. In some ways, they were very lucky, because they had skills as a carpenter (William) and a seamstress (Mary) that made their lives much easier than if they were forced to work in the fields. However, this didn't protect them from the harrowing ordeal of having your family torn apart at auction when an enslaver died, was short of money, or felt like getting rid of his slaves--which happened to both Ellen's and William's families. It was probably this fear that pushed them escape when they did. In fact, Ellen did not want to have children with William because of the fear of having that child taken from her. 

There were many slaves fleeing their captivity, but Ellen and William Craft stand out for the way they escaped. Ellen's mother was half white, and her father was her mother's enslaver (not uncommon, at all), so Ellen had very light skin and had been mistaken as white often before. In fact, it enraged the mistress of the house that Ellen was sometimes mistaken for one of her own children. When Ellen's half-sister was married, Ellen was given to her half-sister as a wedding present, even though she was still a young child. Ellen left her mother and moved with her half-sister to her new husband's house in another town.

So, Ellen could pass for white, but a white woman could not travel alone with a black man. So, they decided that Ellen would dress as a white slave master, and William would be "his" slave. They made her into a young invalid man with a broken arm, so she wouldn't have to sign anything--as it had been illegal for her to learn to read or write. Then they daringly took trains and ferries up the long journey North. They told no one and had no one helping them. This was one of the most exciting parts of the book. The journey was harrowing and stressful, and they faced dire consequences if they were caught.

Once they arrived in Boston, Ellen and William connected with antislavery groups and began a circuit of lectures up North. Ellen was especially sought after because of her skin tone and was sometimes billed as the "white slave." I did think the book slowed down here a bit. Although it was interesting to get a glimpse of the antislavery movement, I lost interest in the details of every lecture.

But in 1850, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act, a desperate bone thrown to the Southern states to keep them from seceding. This act required Northern states to assist in bringing fugitive slaves back to captivity in the South. Suddenly, enslavers were back up North, specifically trying to capture William and Ellen and drag them back into slavery. This part of the book was just as fascinating as their escape. The lengths the antislavery people went to in order to keep them from being sent back into slavery was impressive. Also, I learned about the Fugitive Slave Act in school, but reading how it directly impacted and threatened the lives of two people you've been rooting for the entire book was very powerful.

Because Ellen and William were no longer safe up North, they took a ship to England where they spent some more time lecturing. Once again, I was not as engrossed in the lectures, but it was interesting to read about their experiences in England--where slavery had been abolished and race had different connotations.

Sometimes this book struggled because there was simply not enough historical information. Woo could find plenty of information on the Crafts' enslavers, but there was relatively little on the Crafts themselves--even though they'd written a book about their experiences. In addition, Woo sometimes used Ellen and William as a jumping off point to hit on other important historical aspects of slavery. This included the Fugitive Slave Act, other daring escapes of the time, the treatment of slaves, and the auctioning off of families. I feel like I learned a lot. Despite some of the slower portions of this book, I do think this book was worth reading. 

#39 [2024/CBR16] King: A Life by Jonathan Eig

I am a huge fan of Barack Obama's reading lists, and I usually pick up many of his suggestions. But Obama also often includes a hefty biography on his annual list, and these books are generally too much of a commitment for me. I was ready to skip King: A Life (2023) by Jonathan Eig, just because I didn't have the time, but then I figured I could listen to it on Audiobook.

I already knew the basics of King's life from school, but I'd never done any independent studying on him. Eig provides a lot of detailed information about how he grew up, when he met Coretta, and the early days before King became the powerful figure that he was. Eig also delves deeply into the FBI tapes as well as King's relationship with the FBI, which was fascinating. In addition, Eig discusses King's relationship and attitudes towards women. Although it was sometimes difficult to keep all the names straight, which is often a challenge for me with Audiobooks, I enjoyed this book. It was interesting to listen to, and I learned a lot. 

Martin Luther King, Jr. was only 39 years old when he was shot on a motel balcony in Memphis, Tennessee. He lived so much in such a short time, impacting countless people's lives and strongly impacting the United States as well as the rest of the world. He was an icon, but he was also a husband and father. His children found out their father was killed when the cartoon they were watching was interrupted with the breaking news. They ran to their mother who was on the phone, hearing the same news.

Eig hits on every known detail of King's life in this biography, beginning with his parents, and moving on to his death. Some of the most interesting information was gleaned from the FBI tapes. The FBI was covertly taping MLK for years. I had known this going into the book, but I did not know to what extent this was happening. I also didn't know that at the same time, MLK was having productive discussions with Kennedy and Johnson about the Civil Rights movement. Then they were going behind his back, gathering evidence of his womanizing and trying to sell it to newspapers to discredit him.

Even now the tapes make for an uncomfortable situation: They were a blatant and unnecessary violation of privacy. However, because of the tapes, we know so much more about King than we ever would have before. Eig liberally used them for his book, and more tapes may become available in the near future. This does not justify the FBI taping MLK in any way, but historians are getting something out of it now.

Although MLK was an inspiring, progressive man in many ways, this did not hold true in how he treated women. Coretta was very interested in being more active, but was consistently held back by MLK. Coretta knew she had to give up her career interests when she married, and she did. MLK was also a womanizer. Eig did not want the entire book to become a prurient look into MLK's sex life, but he did discuss Dorothy Cotton, a woman he worked with and had an affair with for many, many years. She was almost like a second wife. There were many other women, as well, and MLK seemed comfortable flirting with a married woman at a dinner filled with other churchmen. It's not a great look.

Sometimes I felt that Eig skipped over a little too much of King's treatment of women. I understand his point, but I also don't want the women that may have been hurt by him to be forgotten. Specifically, I found out on the Internet that the night before he died, King was supposed to meet up with Dorothy Cotton at the motel (they had rooms next to each other). He never showed up, though, because he was sleeping with another woman he'd met. Cotton had been up late waiting for King and was mad at him when he was murdered outside of her room. I was surprised that Eig did not include this in the book. He went into a fair bit of detail about the murder, and Cotton was an important person in his life. This was disappointing. 

On the whole, though, this book was interesting and informative. I'm glad I read it.

#38 [2024/CBR16] The Fraud by Zadie Smith

The Fraud (2023) by Zadie Smith was on many "best of" lists last year. I'd already read On Beauty by Smith, which I really enjoyed. I was hoping for more of the same with The Fraud. Unfortunately for me, I had a hard time getting into this one. I felt like Smith was intentionally writing a book that was difficult to follow, and if you didn't have a strong knowledge of English history, then you were missing out. This was a bit of a slog for me, and I was relieved when I finally finished.

Mrs. Eliza Touchet keeps the house of her cousin-in-law. Her cousin is a writer who is friends with Charlies Dickens and has one successful book to his name. Eliza has helped with the house and his three daughters since their mother died many years before. His new wife, a former maid named Sarah who became pregnant, is nearer in age to his daughters and has none of the academic interests of her new husband and Eliza.

But the one thing that Sarah and Eliza have in common is their interest in the "Tichborne Trial"--where a nobleman who was presumed to have died at sea, shows up in England ready to accept his inheritance. Sarah, of the lower classes, believes every word out of the man's mouth and vigorously defends him while Eliza sees a ridiculous farce. Even when faced with the same evidence, their opinions vary wildly.

The most important witness at this trial is Andrew Bogle who grew up as a slave on the Hope Plantation in Jamaica. This man was with Tichborne as he grew up and would know him best. Bogle consistently defends Tichborne as the real thing.

The novel jumps around throughout much of Eliza's life. We see how she came to be at her cousin's house, her relationship with him, his wife, and their daughters. We also see some scenes where her cousin is hosting a number of writers at his home and how they treat her. 

I know this book received many accolades, and I am a fan of Zadie Smith myself. However, like I said earlier, I had a hard time getting into this novel. There was not much of a plot, and the storyline jumped around so much with so little explanation, that I often felt lost. I could have been interested in a number of these characters if Smith had just settled down and really let me get to know them. There were a number of good scenes and good lines, but the book felt very inconsistent. So, instead, I kept slogging through. I know many others have really enjoyed this novel, but it wasn't for me.

#36 [2024/CBR16] A Fever in the Heartland by Timothy Egan

I read The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan about the American Dust Bowl many years ago, but it has stuck with me. I learned a lot, and I was very impressed by the writing. So when I saw A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them by Egan on NPR's 2023 Books We Love, I knew I was going to read it.

This book was very well written and eye-opening in many ways. I, of course, knew about the KKK before reading this book, but I wasn't quite aware how pervasive they were, and how much they dominated the government and police departments in many states. Also, I primarily associate the KKK with anti-Black sentiment, but in the 1920's the KKK was happy to attack Catholics, Irish, and Jewish people as well--really whatever population that was not white and protestant. 

A Fever in the Heartland discusses the history of the KKK from its inception after the Civil War, but focuses on the 1920's, and D.C. Stephenson, the Giant Lizard (or Grand Dragon--whatever silly, made-up name you want to go with) of Indiana. D.C. Stephenson was by all accounts a horrible person. He was assaulting women ever since he was a kid; he beat and abandoned his first wife and child; and he acted like a horror movie-version of Harvey Weinstein as soon as he had power and money.

After leaving his wife and child, D.C. Stephenson went up to Indiana, saw a strong sentiment against "outsiders" that he could exploit and went to town. He would bribe ministers to talk up the Klan in church, and presented the KKK as a group that was focused on morality. (Although the Klan was against drinking and sex, they were also very much a white supremacist hate group. The author makes sure to emphasize that the huge percentage of Indiana who joined the Klan knew what they were signing up for.) Stephenson was especially hypocritical because he was an alcoholic and an abusive womanizer.

In the 1920's the KKK was at the height of its powers. A Klan member had just been elected as governor of Indiana. Denver had a Klan mayor and governor. The governor was trying to force out all the Catholic and Jewish professors from the University of Colorado. And the Denver Mayor was stacking the ranks of policemen as well as the prosecutor's office with Klansmen. (This hit very close to home because I'm from Denver.) In Indiana, Stephenson was counting on the governor to appoint him as a U.S. Senator when the spot became vacant. He was even eying the presidency.

There were valiant people who fought back against the KKK, including journalists who pilloried them in the press, the Notre Dame quarterback, and many others. But they faced harassment, death threats, arrest, and the loss of their livelihood. There was no where to turn when the police and judges were also Klan members.

***SPOILERS & TRIGGER WARNING***

What ended up taking down this power structure in Indiana was the trial of Madge Oberholtzer. The book and some reviews have claimed "the bravery of one woman" made the difference, but I think that's a little disingenuous. In order to take down Stephenson, there had to be a prosecutor willing to take the case in spite of threats to his person and family, as well as judges to keep the trial relatively fair. 

Madge first met D.C. Stephenson because she wanted him to use his influence to keep her job in education. Stephenson was immediately obsessed with her. One night he sent his goon squad to pick her up from her house--saying it was work related. Once at his house, he kidnapped her, took her away in a train where he brutally assaulted her and kept her for over two days before dumping her back at her home with her parents. At one point, Madge took poison, wanting to end her life after everything he'd done to her. Stephenson never got her medical help, and locked Madge in the rooms above his garage--even while Madge's mother was knocking on his front door desperately looking for her daughter.

Once Madge finally got home, it took her several weeks to succumb to her wounds and the poison. In that time, she told her story to an attorney who had it notarized as a dying declaration. This declaration was used in the trial for murder against D.C. Stephenson.

Part of what made this book so hard for me to read, was that I really thought Madge survived and testified in the trial against Stephenson. That's why I thought they were calling her "brave." It was heartbreaking for me to read about Madge's parents enduring the slow, painful death of their only daughter--especially after everything she'd suffered. I'm so sorry for what happened to her, and I'm impressed she was able to tell her story before she died. However, I also wonder if Stephenson would have even gotten in trouble if Madge hadn't died. He'd already attacked a large number of women, and they had been too scared of his influence to press charges. It's very likely that if Madge survived, she would have felt the same way--understandably. Also, as we all know, the United States justice system does not have a great track record when it comes to prosecuting crimes of rape. Even in the murder trial, Stephenson was trying to portray Madge as a slut. This angle may have been more successful if there was not a dead body involved.

***END SPOILERS & TRIGGER WARNING***

Besides being utterly devastated by the Klan's reach, their numerous vile hate crimes, and the harrowing story of Madge's horrific ordeal and death, it struck me how easily we can lose control of our democracy to literal evil.

"Democracy was a fragile thing, stable and steady until it was broken and trampled. A man who didn't care about shattering every convention, and then found new ways to vandalize the contract that allowed free people to govern themselves, could do unthinkable damage." (332)

I couldn't help but make comparisons to a current political candidate. In many ways he is similar to D.C. Stephenson: hungry for power no matter the cost, mistreating women, using his power to bully those who disagree with him, pretending to be religious, and attacking minorities for his own gain.

"He discovered that if he said something often enough, no matter how untrue, people would believe it." (41)

By the time the KKK lost most of its power, many of the things they were fighting for, they had already achieved. Immigration was limited to just a trickle for the "unwanted" groups. [Anne Frank was denied entry into the United States because of restrictive immigration laws backed by the KKK.] In addition, lynchings, violence, and discrimination against Black Americans didn't stop with Stephenson. Finally, the U.S. policies on forced sterilization inspired the Nazis before World War II.

I thought this book was very good and well written. It's an important part of history that we don't want to forget. So, I do recommend it. However, this book was very difficult to read and not uplifting in any way. It may have been billed as one brave lady triumphs over the KKK, but I didn't feel much triumph reading this.

#34 [2024/CBR16] When Crack Was King by Donovan X. Ramsey

I found When Crack Was King: A People's History of a Misunderstood Era (2023) by Donovan X. Ramsey on NPR's Favorite Books last year. I needed another audiobook for my commute and decided to give it a try. 

Ramsey grew up in the 80's and 90's during the worst of the crack cocaine epidemic. In this book, he delves into how it affected people's lives, how it became such a problem, people's perception of the crack epidemic, and the government's response to it.

Ramsey follows four people who suffered from crack addiction or grew up with parents who were crack addicts. Telling their stories in such detail really personalizes the damage the drug did to them, their family, and the neighborhood. These personal stories may have been my favorite part of the book. In addition, I felt that Ramsey gave another recent book I read, Lucky Me by Rich Paul, some more context. Rich Paul's mother was addicted to crack, and it had a huge impact on Paul as he grew up.

Another very important aspect of this book is that Ramsey challenges some long-held assumptions about the crack era. He points out the fearmongering and blame that was focused on the black community. Specifically, he discusses the studies on "crack" babies, that suggested an entire generation of kids were going to be born with severe physical and mental defects. This would put a severe strain on the country's social net and this was trumpeted in the U.S. media. In hindsight, it turns out those studies were not accurate. They used small sample sizes and could not separate co-factors. 

In addition, the government was at best negligent, and at worst complicit, when it came to addressing the crack cocaine epidemic. Some government employees wanted the Black communities to ruin themselves with the drug while others simply didn't care. Ramsey compares this to the current opioid epidemic, which has much more government support and focuses on rehabilitation. (Although, I have to say that even though Ramsey is correct, it is hard to drum up significant community compassion when it comes to drug addicts of any type).

I did listen to this book instead of reading it, which sometimes makes it more difficult for me to remember the details. But this book certainly educated me about an era I knew little about. It also changed my perspective on how it was handled by the media and the government. Recommended.

#33 [2024/CBR16] A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

I started A Gentleman in Moscow (2016) by Amor Towles with high expectations. When my book club chose this book, one of my friends (who often aligns with me as far as liking similar novels) said it was one of her favorite books. And then the New York Times had it high on its list of best books of the 21st Century. Even when I started the first chapter, I really liked the tone of the novel. Unfortunately, my expectations were a little too high. This is not one of my favorite books. I didn't mind it, but I had a hard time getting into it. 

In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is sentenced by a Bolshevik tribunal to house arrest in the Metropol for being an unrepentant aristocrat. The Metropol is a very fancy hotel in Central Moscow. Instead of dismantling the posh hotel, the Bolshevik higher ups, as well as foreign journalists, use it for themselves.

Count Rostov is forced out of his spacious accommodations and put up in a tiny, old attic room. He spends his next thirty or so years in that hotel. One of the first people he really interacts with is a precocious little girl named Nina. They explore the hotel together and become friends, although she eventually leaves the hotel to go to school.

Another significant person in the Count's life is the famous actress, Anna Urbanova. It's mostly just attraction, especially at first. However, they regularly see each other when she is in town. Count Rostov also has some important friendships with a number of staff at the hotel. 

At some point, Nina comes back to the hotel--a young adult now. She has become a devoted member of the party and is sent off on a mission for the country. She ends up marrying one of the young men on her team and having a little girl. The next time she sees Rostov, she is rather desperate. Her husband has been arrested and sent to Siberia. She wants Rostov to watch over her daughter, Sofia, at the hotel while she follows her husband and gets settled up there. Suddenly the Count is, for all intents and purposes, the guardian of a young girl.

My favorite parts of this book were when the Count was interacting with either Nina or Sofia. The children seemed to bring a little life to the book and the Count, and really showed his humanity. In fact, looking back on it, there were a number of memorable scenes that I did enjoy reading. But these scenes were often sandwiched between pages where I would get a little bored. On the whole, it did not suck me in as much as I was expecting.

First, Count Rostov did not feel like a real person to me. I guess he was very reserved, but his feelings didn't show through on the pages. Second, I wish there was more detail explaining what was going on--both outside and inside of the hotel. Dramatic life and death things were happening with his friends and the world, but they're only hinted at. Finally, this book sometimes seemed more like a fable than historical fiction. Rostov was always safe and never got into trouble. Either circumstances just allowed everything to work out or a friend stepped in at the last moment. Again, this made it feel less real to me because I never worried about him. 

I also kept getting distracted because I was wondering how his life imprisonment at the hotel worked financially. I know he had gold coins, but the Bolsheviks didn't know that. Was he paying for his room and board, or was he "assigned" to the hotel, so the hotel just had to house him? What if he didn't have those gold coins? What if he ran out of money? 

I give this novel props for its originality, and there's nothing I really disliked about it. It just didn't draw me in as much as I was expecting.

#27 [2024/CBR16] At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson

I've already read A Walk in the Woods and The Body by Bill Bryson, and I found them both entertaining and informative. So, when I went looking for another audiobook for my commute, I decided to give At Home: A Short History of Private Life (2010) by Bryson a shot. 

Bill Bryson lives in an old parsonage in a rural part of England, and he uses this home as a framework to work through a lot of history that made his home a home. Although he goes into a number of specifics about his own home, including when it was built, who lived there, and how it has transformed over the years, he also uses his home as a jumping off point to explore a number of other somewhat related topics. 

These topics vary from the World's Fair in 1851 with a never-before-seen iron and glass building (the Crystal Palace), the spice trade, various inventions that have changed how we live, and many different architects and builders. It's sometimes hard to imagine where Bryson will go next, and it's often hard to keep the many people and topics he brings up straight in your head--especially when reading it on Audiobook.

I did find this book generally interesting, but it is my least favorite of the Bryson books that I've read. I found it more difficult to follow and pay attention. I really did lose interest in the architect discussions. I also got frustrated at Bryson's lack of focus on anything but white people. I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt because his writing stems from his home in rural England. But he goes on tangents that encompass history from around the world. He was even discussing--in great detail--the invention of the cotton gin, but he never even mentions slavery. There were a number of times I felt the book left glaring holes in his history. I would have been much more satisfied if we had less discussion of architects and a wider view of some of his topics.

#22 [2024/CBR16] Lafayette in the Somewhat United States by Sarah Vowell

Many months ago, I was getting ready for a short road trip to New Mexico and Texas, and I needed something to listen to. I've read a couple of history books by Sarah Vowell, and I enjoyed her take and irreverent style. When I saw, Lafayette in the Somewhat United States (2015) by Vowell, I decided to read it. 

Before reading this book, everything I knew about Lafayette was from Hamilton. In fact, I imagined Daveed Diggs, the original Lafayette from Hamilton, as I read this book. First, I need to admit that I read this book so long ago, that I'm having a hard time remembering many of the details. Add to that, a couple of years ago, I read You Never Forget Your First by Alexis Coe, which if you can't guess by the title, is a somewhat irreverent biography of George Washington. These two books may have gotten mixed up in my head a little bit at some point.

Sarah Vowell likes to dig into the interesting little tidbits of history instead of getting bogged down in the depths. She begins the book with Lafayette returning to the United States to overwhelming support. Over 1/3 of New York City was out on the streets to see him arrive, and his face was plastered and sold on anything and everything, including handkerchiefs. He was like an incredibly popular rock star.

I knew that Lafayette was French and an important officer in the American Revolution from Hamilton, but that was about it. There were a number of things I learned from this book that surprised me: Lafayette was only 19 when he came over to America to help fight the revolution. He came against the wishes of his father-in-law and had to sneak out of France. He arrived in South Carolina and had to get himself unglamorously up to Pennsylvania where he was not even wanted. Apparently, the troops were flooded with French officers who spoke no English and were not very helpful. Lafayette offered to work for no pay, so he would not be turned away.

Lafayette distinguished himself in battle, and was quite fearless. And then he went back to France where he just missed getting beheaded because of his nobility and became a hero there as well. (However, I really don't remember much about this part of the book). 

One thing I do remember learning from this book was how pivotal France's help was in the United States winning its independence. It's something that we don't think about (or even know about) today. But we were desperate for money. The troops were starving and had no shoes; the conditions were terrible. So, it was funny when Vowell recounts visiting D.C. back after 9/11 when Congress was screaming about "Freedom Fries" and hating on France for not joining in on our war in Iraq. I think she found it ironic when Lafayette square was right outside.

On the whole, I recommend this novel for the history buffs that would appreciate it. I do think it would have retained more if I had read it instead of listening to it on Audiobook, though.

#43 [2023/CBR15] The Icepick Surgeon by Sam Kean

My husband's brother gave him a paperback copy of The Icepick Surgeon: Murder, Fraud, Sabotage, Piracy, and other Dastardly Deeds Perpetrated in the Name of Science (2021) by Sam Kean. My husband read the book and enjoyed it, and it looked interesting. It was in my mind as a to-read book, but--as often happens--there was always something else to read and I kept putting it off. However, once Bingo got going, I was sure I could use it for something, which finally pushed me into reading it.

The Icepick Surgeon was a well-written book that kept my attention. Kean discusses a number of scientists and doctors who did bad things. Sometimes these things were done to further science, sometimes they were done for money, and sometimes they were done purely for ego. In twelve different chapters, Kean delves into twelve different stories: beginning with the pirate/naturalist William Dampier in the late 1600's and ending with Annie Dookhan who was convicted of falsifying drug test results for thousands of criminal cases in 2013.

Each story is detailed and fascinating, but this is not always a fun book to read. Humans are capable of some horrible things, and I often had a pit of dread in my stomach as I read. For instance, one chapter is all about how Edison and his underling tortured dogs and horses with electricity to try to prove that AC is more dangerous than DC. This eventually led to the first electric chair, which was not a success.

Some of these stories I'd known about before. I had definitely heard of the Nazi's medical testing during World War II. I had also heard of the Tuskegee syphilis experiments. But I had never heard of Dr. John Cutler and his STD experiments in Guatemala. I guess because Cutler was in a foreign country, he felt freed from any ethical standards. After World War II, Cutler infected prostitutes, prisoners, and asylum inmates with STD's without their knowledge or consent. This is an American doctor that worked for the U.S. government and had his agency's approval during his experiments.

One of the most egregious cases was an asylum patient named Bertha. "Dr." Cutler injected syphilis germs into her arm in February of 1948. She developed lesions and her skin began peeling off, but he denied her any treatment for three months. By August 23, 1948, Bertha was clearly dying. I guess because she was already dying, Cutler felt it was okay to inject gonorrheal pus into her urethra, eyes, and rectum, and then he reinjected syphilis. "Within days, Bertha was weeping pus from both eyes and bleeding from her urethra. She died August 27." (168) I can't even wrap my head around being able to do this to another human being. 

Other chapters that really captured my interest were the Harvard professor that psychologically tortured an underage Ted Kaczynski for three years (Kaczynski was only seventeen when he first got to Harvard). This work may have been used by the CIA to help them with interrogations, but it seemed the professor really enjoyed making Kaczynski as upset as possible. Finally, Dr. John Money insisted that a young boy named Bruce could simply be changed to Brenda after his penis was destroyed as a baby by an incompetent surgeon. It's not only that Money was wrong, but he had no scientific basis for his finding, he was driven by ego, he lied to the child's parents, and sexually abused Bruce and his brother when they came for follow up appointments.

Kean frames these stories as not just a sensationalistic view of other peoples' suffering, but to honor the victims, remember what happened to them, and learn--so that this kind of thing doesn't happen again. He ends the book with potentially new ethical dilemmas that might come up with space travel, artificial intelligence, and other technological advances.

In the end, this book was sometimes hard to read, but it was consistently interesting, and I definitely learned some things.

CBR15Bingo: History

#32 [2022/CBR14] The Confidence Men by Margalit Fox

I found The Confidence Men: How Two Prisoners of War Engineered the Most Remarkable Escape in History  by Margalit Fox on NPR's Best Books of 2021 List. I found it listed under "funny stuff," although I probably wouldn't categorize this book that way myself.

This non-fiction story takes place during World War I, in a Turkish POW camp for British officers. We first meet Harry Jones. We learn how he joined the war, how he was taken prisoner, and how he came to be at the remote POW prison. Later in the book, we meet Cedric Hill, an Australian pilot who had practiced being a magician before the war and can make almost anything when he puts his mind to it.

The late eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds was a heyday for spiritualism, and there were scammers having seances and pretending to get in touch with the deceased all over the world. The unrest and uncertainty of the war, along with great leaps in technology helped as well. If people could talk to each other across the world, why couldn't they talk to the dead? Harry Jones made a Ouija board because he was bored, and he began to control it to trick his fellow officers and amuse himself.

At some point Jones joined forces with Cedric Hill, and the two continued to fake out their fellow officers. But then their captors showed interest, and the two began to use the "ghosts" to control their captors. Then they came up with an elaborate, long-term scheme to get themselves sent back to England.

This was a pretty fascinating tale. It's hard to believe what lengths Hill and Jones took when convincing their captors of the ghosts, but it's even harder to believe that the captors bought into it. ***SPOILERS*** The two had an amazing plan of escape, and if it had worked, they would have been nothing short of conquering heroes. However, their first plan fell through, so the two faked mental illness, spent months in a Turkish mental hospital, and were eventually sent back to England only a couple of weeks before the rest of the officers in their prison. Personally, I would have done the easier route and stayed in the Turkish POW prison until the end of the war. ***END SPOILERS***

One of the most striking aspects of this story for me was the incredibly disparate treatment between the soldiers and the officers. Ordinary soldiers were sent to a labor camp where the death rate was incredible. The officers all stayed in a couple of large, abandoned houses. It was crowded and could be cold, but they received a stipend and could shop for food in the town. They made skis out of floorboards and were allowed to ski around the neighborhood in the winter. They received care packages and letters from family--although the letters were often heavily censored and care packages rifled through. Their primary problems seemed to be boredom, a lack of purpose, and not knowing how long they would be stuck there. This book made me want to understand more how differences in class affected people in WWI. I felt like there was a lot there that was not explored.

On the whole, I found this book interesting and easy to read. 

#52 [2021/CBR13] Caste by Isabel Wilkerson

I was happy when my book club chose to read Caste (2020) by Isabel Wilkerson. I'd already read The Warmth of Other Suns by Wilkerson and had Caste on my reading list. Although the underlying theme is still race in America, I found Caste to be very different from Warmth of Other Suns. Caste explains how slavery created a caste system in America that still survives today. Wilkerson does this by exploring the eight pillars of caste and comparing the caste systems in America, India, and Nazi Germany. Although I found Warmth a little more interesting because Wilkerson focused on the lives of specific people, I thought this book was very well written and enlightening.

The eight pillars of caste:

1. Divine will and laws of nature: Just as the "untouchables" in India were told they should accept their lot and work hard to be born into a better life, the Bible was used to defend slavery. Noah cursed the descendants of his son, Ham, with servitude. The belief that African-Americans were descended from Ham was a primary justification for slavery.

2. Heritability: In America, if you were born to a slave mother, you were a slave. It didn't matter that your father was Thomas Jefferson, and you were 3/4 white. 

3. Endogamy and Control: endogamy is limiting marriage within a certain community. No fuss was given when landowners raped their female slaves to bring them more slaves. But intermarriage was unthinkable. 41 of the 50 states passed laws making intermarriage a crime. Alabama did not throw out its law against intermarriage until the year 2000. [Fortunately, the Supreme Court holding in Loving v. Virginia made this law unconstitutional in 1967.] "Even then, 40 percent of the electorate in that referendum voted in favor of keeping the marriage ban on the books." (111)

4. Purity v. Pollution: The Jim Crow laws in the South are examples of separating the castes. Wilkerson discussed how intensely (and often violently) swimming pools were kept segregated. She had a heartbreaking story of one black boy who played on an all-white baseball team. They decided to have a party at the local swimming pool, where he was not allowed. All his teammates were inside splashing around, while he sat in the grass, outside the fence. Eventually his coach convinced the lifeguards to let the boy into the pool. They had all the white people get out of the water, and then put him on the raft and pushed him around the pool. He was told, no matter what, do not touch the water.

5. Occupational Hierarchy: Post slavery, Black people were severely limited in what kind of jobs they could do, and there was intense, and often violent, pressure for them to "stay in their place." In addition, the South Carolina legislature decreed after the Civil War that "no person of color shall pursue or practice the art, trade or business of an artisan, mechanic or shop-keeper." without obtaining an [expensive] license that is only good for a year. The license only applied to people of color, cost $100 and had to be renewed every year. $100 in those times was close to $1,200 today.

6. Dehumanization and Stigma: Unfortunately, Wilkerson had plenty of examples to show dehumanization from slavery, post-slavery, and much more recent times. The prevalence and acceptance of lynches is especially disturbing. These were family functions where they sold memorabilia and sent postcards to family and friends. In addition, James Marion Sims, who would later be heralded as the founding father of gynecology did horrific experiments on slave women giving birth. [Wilkerson recommends Medical Apartheid by Harriet A. Washington for more on this subject.] It's also very reminiscent of the medical experiments of the Nazis.

7. Terror as Enforcement, Cruelty as a Means of Control: During slavery there was whipping, burning, castration, and other horrors to keep people in line. After slavery there was also lynching and other violent reprisals for any Black person who did not conform.

8. Inherent Superiority v. Inherent Inferiority: the assumption that one is better than the other to justify their conduct toward the lower caste. 

Wilkerson also discusses how the caste system still affects all Americans today. It gives us health problems, it limits opportunity, and it affects us deeply--sometimes consciously and sometimes unconsciously. It is here that it is especially helpful to see the comparisons between India and the United States. I think it might be easier for an American to see the long-term consequences of a caste system in India, where Americans are more of a neutral observer, than in the United States, where our perception has already been affected by the caste system here.

Highly recommended. I will leave you with some random facts I learned while reading.

-"The French writer Alexis de Tockqueville toured antebellum America in the 1830s and observed that only the 'surface of American society is covered with a layer of democratic paint.'" (79)

-"[W]hite felons applying for a job were more likely to get hired than African-Americans with no criminal record."

-During WWII the French military was told by the US military to not be so friendly with the black soldiers. "The fact that military command would take the time in the middle of one of the most vicious wars in human history to instruct foreigners on the necessity of demeaning their own countrymen suggests that they considered adherence to caste protocols to be as important as conducting the war itself." (225)

-Majority of white voters did not support President Obama in either election; Obama carried every state that Abraham Lincoln had won in 1860.

-In 2015, police were killing unarmed African-Americans at 5 times the rate of white Americans.

-Federal government paid reparations to the slave owners but not the slaves.

-The third Monday in January is Robert E. Lee Day in Mississippi and Alabama.

#45 [2021/CBR13] You Never Forget Your First by Alexis Coe

You shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but sometimes the cover makes you laugh and then you decide you should read it. That was the case with You Never Forget Your First by Alexis Coe. I saw it on NPR's Best Books of 2020 List and laughed out loud. My interest was also piqued because I've recently been exposed to some George Washington history from both Hamilton the musical and Alexander Hamilton the book.

Two other things drew me to this book. First, it is written by a woman, which seemed a refreshing change from many other founding father biographies. Second, I appreciated that it was short. Even though I find George Washington interesting, I wasn't ready to devote myself to a 1,000 page tome. I can only handle those once in a while and it hasn't been that long since I read Alexander Hamilton. Clocking in at a comfortable 300 pages felt much more achievable.

I ended up listening to this book while on a road trip. I'm sure I lost some of the details with my wandering mind, but on the whole I found it interesting and informative. Of course, the downside to a manageable size is that the historical detail and discussion is somewhat limited. However, Coe managed to get through George Washington's entire life with some fascinating detail. Some of the political intricacies that I'd read in Alexander Hamilton were missing, but I thought Coe did a good job with what she decided to focus on.

One point Coe made in her book was how other historians portrayed George Washington. She stated that they often go on about his muscular thighs and vigorously defend his sexual morality and virility. George Washington never had any children of his own. He married the widowed Martha Washington who had already had two children. Coe pointed out the historians who argue that Martha Washington (the healthy woman who had already had two kids) must have become barren because it's not possible that George Washington was sterile. They also deny that George Washington may have become sterile from an STD. It was a long time ago. We don't know what happened, but blaming George Washington's lack of kids on Martha smacks of sexism, and I appreciate that Coe pointed it out. In this vein, Coe also discusses the common portrayal of George Washington's mother as an uneducated, heartless shrew, which also seems unfair when you look deeper.

Coe also devoted a chapter to George Washington and slavery, which is often glossed over in U.S. History classes. Washington was a pretty run-of-the-mill slaveholder. He had his slaves whipped, went after those that ran away, and split up families. It's true that he freed his slaves in his will, but not right away. Martha had to either die or free them herself. And slaves she owned from her first marriage were split between her children upon her death.

My least favorite part of this book was when Coe resorted to listing a bunch of facts. When Coe wrote about the Revolutionary War, she listed many of the battles, who won, and how many soldiers were killed and injured on each side. Maybe this is more informative in book form where you can skim over the list, and have some idea of the dates and number of soldiers involved. However, having someone read a bunch of numbers to you with no context is just painful and I didn't learn anything from it.

Recommended.

#8 [2021/CBR13] Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen

I saw that Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Text Book Got Wrong (2018) by James W. Loewen was available on audiobook from my library, and I decided to give it a try. I took AP U.S. History and AP European History in high school. I did well in those classes, but I didn't love them. I've enjoyed reading in-depth biographies about historical people, but the grand sweep of those classes was boring. Fortunately, I took enough history classes in college that this book wasn't wholly a surprise to me. However, it still changed my perspective.

Loewen's basic premise is that high school history text books are so focused on minimizing controversy and promoting patriotism that we end up with bad, boring history that minimizes the opposition to and contributions of minorities. In fact, history is the only college class that doesn't build on what you learned in high school but has to go back and fix what you learned before. For this book, Loewen read twelve different high school history text books, looking at how they were written, and what they chose to focus on..

Loewen has plenty of examples to bolster his theory. He began his book talking about Helen Keller's radical socialism and Woodrow Wilson's racism. Both historical characters feature in his example history books, but their arguably more important contributions to history are ignored. Loewen goes on to discuss Christopher Columbus, the myths surrounding him and perpetuated by history books, as well as his true legacy. I'd already learned about how Columbus treated the people he "discovered," but some of the primary sources were still shocking to hear. Loewen has many other examples, including U.S. anti-democratic intervention in countries around the world.

Loewen also discusses how racism is erased from the history books. Beginning with Columbus's changing perspective of the people he encountered, the racism deeply entrenched in justifying slavery, and maybe barely, if at all, recognizing the imprisonment of Japanese Americans in World War II, he has many examples. The problem with this, along with denying a large portion of Americans their story, is that it is difficult to understand the cause and effect of many historical events when you try to explain it without mentioning racism or racist motivations.

Another large portion of this book is dedicated to why our history books are the way they are and how we can change them. It's a worthwhile discussion although I probably appreciated the historical discussions more. On the whole, I found this book very interesting and enlightening. Loewen has given me a new appreciation for history.

#49 [2020/CBR12] "Alexander Hamilton" by Ron Chernow

I learned from watching an interview with Lin Manuel Miranda that he was inspired to create the musical Hamilton after reading Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton (2004) while on vacation. I had been sucked into all the hype surrounding the new musical and was looking into reading the book myself. Then I saw how long it was and changed my mind. However, a couple of things made me reconsider. First, the movie of the stage production of Hamilton came out on Disney+ so I was able to see it all for the first time. Second, Cannonball Bingo happened, and I decided that Alexander Hamilton would be perfect for my white whale square. (And it would have been if I'd only read it faster.)

Alexander Hamilton is certainly full of dense history and politics, but I enjoyed imagining the actors from the musical as I read. It's also very well written. Chernow makes sense of the myriad details and did well at humanizing his subjects--getting inside their heads as much as possible with the information he had. Chernow detailed all of the amazing aspects of Hamilton's life that I'd learned from the movie, including: Hamilton's illegitimate birth, his mother's death, his amazing deliverance to New York, his role in the Revolutionary War and his work with George Washington, his affair with Maria Reynolds, his son's death at a duel, and then Hamilton's own death in a duel at the hands of the Vice President of the United States.

Chernow was also able to go into significantly more detail about the politics of the time, Hamilton and Jefferson's constant political fighting, and Hamilton's amazing contributions to building the country up from nothing. Hamilton's ability to work hard and plan and execute his ideas was incredible. It was almost a running joke that Hamilton could simply stand up and orate off the top of his head for over six hours. I had also had no idea that Hamilton was so instrumental in the National Bank, our understanding of the Constitution today (especially the implied powers), the stock market, and even our military academies. Hamilton did seem to do best when he worked under the calming influence of Washington. Left to his own devices, Hamilton was too honest, outspoken, and driven to not make significant political enemies

There is no way to talk about everything in this book, so I will stick with only a couple things that struck me as I read. First, was how much I could relate all the political drama of starting a country to politics now. The brand new United States fell quickly and dramatically into partisan fighting. The leaders of the country were doing everything they could to sabotage one another, and the papers printed every hysterical accusation they could come up with. Hamilton apparently wanted the U.S. to become a British colony again, he was stealing money from the Treasury, and the world would fall apart if the Federalists retained power. It was actually reassuring to see that the U.S. had made it through circumstances very similar, or even worse, than today.

Secondly, I had a deep interest in the women in this book. Chernow does a relatively good job of discussing them, considering this is a book on Alexander Hamilton and that there is almost no information on the women in his life. But his mother, his wife, and his mistress are all fascinating figures. I'd like to think that circumstantial evidence points to Hamilton getting his brain from his mother. It's just sad that she was not able to realize her full potential. Pushed into marriage at a young age, her very unlikable husband wasted away the small amount of money she had and actually put her in jail when she tried to leave him--thinking this would make her appreciate him. Yet she was able to leave him and go into business for herself--something pretty unheard of for women at that time. Because her first husband refused to divorce her, her relationship with Hamilton's father could never be legally realized.

Eliza Hamilton is also a strong, captivating figure. She stood by Hamilton's side for years--through the public humiliation of the first sex scandal in the United States, and through her dedication to his legacy for years after his death. Because she did not save her own letters, we are missing a lot of her life. I was incredibly frustrated reading about the duel, and the position she was unknowingly put into. Hamilton headed off to the duel with Aaron Burr without telling her. She had no idea that her husband was risking his life, possibly leaving her with seven children, significant debt, and no income. And after he was mortally injured, they only told her that he was having spasms until she arrived and saw the damage herself. In pretending to "protect" Eliza by keeping information from her, they kept her from having any sort of control over her own life. Also, Eliza was more than strong enough to know the truth. She had to deal with losing her mother, father, son, and husband within the span of four years, and she went on to do incredible work on her own.

Finally, Mariah Reynolds was the woman who tempted Hamilton into political ruin. It is unclear whether her initial intentions were to use the relationship for political or monetary bribery or if she actually liked him. But even Mariah was forced into marriage at only fifteen years old to a husband who used her as a prostitute.

There is so much fascinating history in this book, with so many interesting figures, I feel like I could go on forever. Although I'll read a dense history book every once in awhile, I would not have read Alexander Hamilton if not for the musical and the movie. But I'm glad I read it, and I would recommend it to anyone who has a lot of time to read.

#23 [2020/CBR12] "Pachinko" by Min Jin Lee

Pachinko (2017) by Min Jin Lee is my second Cannonball Bingo entry. I am using Pachinko to fill the "Uncannon" entry--a book not written by an old, white man. Min Jin Lee is a woman who was born in South Korea before moving to the United States at age seven. Even better, her book is a four-generational story of Koreans living as immigrants in Japan before and after World War II. It certainly gave me a new perspective on the lives of people whose stories I previously knew nothing about.

I'd heard of this book from a number of sources (it's a National Book Award Finalist), so I had it on hold at the library. However, I kept putting off reading it. I was slightly intimidated by its size and scope. I know very little of the history of Korea and Japan, and I thought I might find it a difficult read. But when my friend invited me to a Pen and Podium lecture where Min Jin Lee would be speaking, it renewed my interest. Unfortunately, the speaking engagement was canceled because of Covid, but I wanted to read Pachinko anyway, in the optimistic hopes of it being rescheduled--someday.

I really enjoyed this book. I was worried that it might be densely historical and unrelatable. That was not the case. Lee focuses on her characters, their relationships, and their humanity, which makes this book feel universal. Lee stated in the reading group guide at the back of the book that, "[a]bove all, I wanted the narrator to be sympathetic to every character's plight." I think she succeeded. Every character feels real. Even though their actions differ greatly, and you might not agree with them, you can see and understand their motivations. Lee also explores themes surrounding immigration, identity, homeland, bigotry, and prejudice.

Sunja lives near a small fishing village in Korea with her parents during the Japanese occupation. "Nobody should expect praise, and certainly not a woman, but as a little girl, she'd been treasured, nothing less." However, after her father's death, she is seduced and impregnated by a much older, wealthy man (Hansu). She refuses his offer to become his mistress and instead marries Isak--a kind, honorable young minister who happened to be staying at their guest house on his way to live in Japan.

Sunja leaves her mother and home to travel to Osaka with Isak. They live with Isak's brother, Yoseb and his beautiful wife Kyunghee in a ghetto area of the city--the only place Koreans are allowed to live. Their lives continue on with plenty of injustice and suffering. World War II breaks out, which also affects their lives deeply. The end of World War II brings an end to Japanese colonization of South Korea, but the beginning of a separated Korea. I appreciated that Lee approached the war from the characters' points of view. She didn't go into detail about strategy and fighting. We only learn that men are going off to war, that food is getting even scarcer, and the atom bomb severely damages someone they know.

We follow Sunja in this story, but also her children, her in-laws, her grandchildren, and her mother. This could have been a very dark story, and it certainly is in parts. However, there is so much love, care, and devotion within Sunja's family that it is often uplifting as well. I sometimes find books with such a long narrative challenging, but I was always interested in what was happening. I am impressed by what Lee was able to do. Most of the time when I think of immigrants, I think of immigrants coming to America. To see immigrants trying to succeed in a different country but facing the same bigotry and prejudice that they've often seen here was thought provoking. One romantic relationship between a Korean-American woman and a Korean-Japanese man was particularly interesting. Yes, they were both Korean, but their experiences were so different they had a hard time relating to each other. Definitely recommended.

Quotes:
"You are very brave, Noa, Much, much braver than me. Living every day in the presence of those who refuse to acknowledge your humanity takes great courage."

"Patriotism is just an idea, so is capitalism or communism. But ideas can make men forget their own interests."

"[B]ut she had prematurely reached the stage in a woman's life when no one noticed her entering or leaving a room"

"He'd washed off most of it, but a shadow of the stain remained on his fingertips."

"There was more to being something than just blood. The space between Phoebe and him could not close, and if he was decent, he had to let her go home."

Comment from the author:
"I am interested in the physicality of women who live their daily struggles with integrity; their beauty captivates those who know them."

#4 [2020/CBR12] "The Giver of Stars" by Jojo Moyes

Once again, I was sucked in by my library's "Lucky Day" books. The Giver of Stars (2019) was just sitting on the shelf looking all shiny and new, and I couldn't resist. The blurb said something about the friendship of women and library books, and that was enough for me. I've only read one other book by JoJo Moyes, Me Before You, and I enjoyed it more than I had expected. I was more than willing to give a second book by Moyes a try.

The book takes place in depression-era Kentucky. Alice was always something of a nuisance to her family in England. She falls in love with Bennett Van Cleve when he comes to visit, and she's happy to escape her family home, marry him, and follow him to Kentucky. But when she gets there, it's not everything she expected. Instead of an exciting American city, they go back to a very small town in the mountains of Kentucky. The home is nice, but is shared with her overbearing father-in-law. Bennett allows his father to control most aspects of their life, and their adjacent bedrooms with paper thin walls does nothing for their sex life.

As time goes on, and Bennett's feelings for her seem to wane, Alice grows more and more miserable. At a town meeting, she hears about the Pack Horse Library Project, funded by the Works Progress Administration. Alice volunteers to help. She meets Margery O'Hare, a strong, unconventional woman who teaches her the routes through the mountains. Margery's father was an abusive alcoholic involved in a longstanding feud with the McCullough family. Margery was relieved when her father finally died and vowed never to get married.

The other women that work at the library include: Beth, another tough, unconventional woman; Izzy, struggling with a bad limp from polio but forced to join the crew by her mother; and Sophia, a "colored" woman that Margery knew as a child. Sophia does not ride out, but organizes the books and ledgers in the safety of the building.

***SPOILERS***
There's a lot of drama in the small town of Baileyville. Margery actively but secretly fights against the mine, owned by Alice's father-in-law, making an enemy of him. Margery is also attacked by a very drunk Clem McCullough on one of her routes but manages to get away. Alice is badly beaten by her father-in-law when she refuses to stop working at the library and she flees to live with Margery.

At the same time, Alice discovers that she has feelings for Fred Guisler, the man whose land and horses they use for the library. Margery discovers she's pregnant with Sven's child. She loves Sven but does not want a child or marriage.

When the body of Clem McCullough is found, dead for months up in the mountains with a library book near his head, Alice's father-in-law makes sure suspicion falls on Margery. She is arrested and has to give birth in jail. For awhile, things look pretty bleak and she gives her baby to Sven and tells him to leave. Then the library women are able to make contact with Clem's daughter, Verna McCullough. She is heavily pregnant and was obviously both physically and sexually abused by her father. She testifies that her father was returning the library book when he died, making his death appear to be more of an accident than homicide. Margery is set free and everything ends pretty happily ever after.
***END SPOILERS***

I found this book to be consistently interesting and fun to read. I like the idea of female friendships giving women strength and opening up new horizons. I'm all for a little feminism. I also love the idea of literacy and books helping those who wouldn't normally have access to such things. I liked and cared about the characters. I even found myself crying at one point, even though I have a cold and crying was the last thing I needed.

However, this book wasn't perfect. The characters did not feel true to the time or place, more like modern women transplanted into 1930's Kentucky. I'm sure there was the odd progressive feminist in Kentucky in the 1930's but there wasn't enough character development to make them believable. Many of the characters had only one defining characteristic. Margery grew up in a severely abusive home with an alcoholic father. She vows never to marry but has no problem finding a sweet, loving man for a committed relationship. In fact, the love interest men, Sven and Fred, were unbelievably patient, kind, and supportive. Certainly not a bad thing, except they didn't feel real. Oddly, this book often reminded me of Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman. There is a courageous heroine, and a story with easy-to-identify bad and good guys. The characters are likable and the stories can be fun, but you never shake the feeling that you're in a cartoon version of the Wild West.

#1 [2020/CBR12] "Say Nothing" by Patrick Radden Keefe

"Claude Lévi-Strauss once observed that, 'for the majority of the human species, and for tens of thousands of years, the idea that humanity includes every human being on the face of the earth does not exist at all. The designation stops at the border of each tribe, or linguistic.'"

I was quite lucky to read Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland (2019) as my first book of 2020. My book club chose it as our next book, so I was already reading it when I discovered that it was also one of Obama's 2019 book recommendations. This book was a well-written mix of murder/mystery and some history of The Troubles in Northern Ireland.

The mystery is all about finding out what happened to Jean McConville in 1972. It's hard to get a more sympathetic victim. She was a recently widowed, mother of ten children, and only 38 years old. She was taken from her apartment in front of her children at gunpoint and was never seen or heard from again. It was assumed it was the work of the Provos, a more violent faction of the IRA. McConville's children were left orphans, separated, and sent to government institutions and orphanages. Many of them faced deplorable conditions and abuse.

In order to understand the circumstances surrounding McConville's disappearance, Keefe writes a lot about the years of The Troubles in Ireland. It is embarrassing how little I knew about The Troubles going into this book, so I learned a lot while reading this. While the Republic of Ireland is majority Catholic, Northern Ireland is a British territory and majority Protestant. A sizable Catholic minority in Northern Ireland faced severe discrimination. Many were nationalists who wanted the British out and to be reunited with the Republic of Ireland. Many of the Protestants were unionists interested in staying under Britian's rule.

In elaborating on The Troubles and the work of the Provos and Catholic Nationalists, Keefe focused on four people heavily involved at the height of the violence. Dolours Price and her sister Marian initially preferred non-violent means for change. But after being attacked while marching for peaceful change, Dolours changed her mind and joined the Provos. Dolours and Marian rose quickly in the ranks and became part of a secret group of leaders. Dolours came up with and masterminded a plan to deploy car bombs in London.

Dolours was a fascinating character: bright, charismatic, and likable. She was also a woman who defied gender roles, which I found rather inspiring. At the same time, she was very young and Keefe portrayed her as probably caught up in the excitement of the operations without truly understanding the consequences--certainly the long-term consequences.

There was violence and hypocrisy on both sides of this conflict, but because Keefe focused on the Provos, that's where it was really obvious. I was very irritated reading about how Dolours and other Provos righteously argued that any violence they perpetrated was justified. Or when they blew up a bomb near Harrod's in London close to Christmas, and then said they weren't trying to kill civilians. When reading with hindsight and the objectivity of not being personally involved, the violence seems wholly unnecessary and detrimental.

Besides the Price sisters, Keefe also wrote a lot about Brendan Hughes and Gerry Adams. Adams was a great one for hypocrisy. As one of the leaders of the Provos, he always kept himself out of the fighting, only directing the action. As the years went by, Adams found himself gaining more power by focusing on politics. When he did this, he continuously denied ever being a part of the IRA, even though it was a ridiculous lie. As unlikable as he was, though, he was also instrumental in finally obtaining some peace in Northern Ireland.

There was a lot going on in this book, and I found it both educational and fascinating. Not only do we see the violent actions of the youthful Provos in the late 60's and 70's, but we also see what became of those fighters as they aged and the world changed. I would definitely recommend this book.

***SPOILERS***
As the book continues, we learn that Jean McConville was one of about twenty people that the IRA "disappeared" during The Troubles. It sounds like McConville was murdered and secretly buried on the direct orders of Gerry Adams--the Gerry Adams who denied being in the IRA and later met with McConville's family, sympathetically telling them that he hoped they would find their mother's body. We also discover who likely shot the gun that was responsible for Jean McConville's death.

However, I felt slightly unsatisfied with the conclusion. Dolours later says that McConville was killed by the IRA because she was a spy for the British. But Keefe argues how unlikely that would be, and I agree. What I wanted to know was why the IRA thought McConville was a spy. Sure, I now know who pulled the trigger, but it was this misinformation that led to McConville's death. Hughes and Dolours had different, but specific, stories of how McConville had worked with the British. If they weren't true, where did they come from? I guess it's just another theme of the book that history is dependent on memories and the willingness to talk, and sometimes you just can't get both.

#42 [2019/CBR11] "Turn Right at Machu Picchu" by Mark Adams

I do enjoy going on trips, and I had a long backpacking trip in the Grand Canyon planned for October of this year. Unfortunately, I could not get a permit, so I was left with some vacation time and nothing to do. I decided to join a tour company I'd used before and go visit Peru and Machu Picchu. I'd never been to South America, and the trip included some hiking over a 15,000 foot pass, which sounded beautiful and interesting.

Because I was going with a tour company that I trusted, I did very little research. I knew I would be safe and be taken to cool places, and that was enough. But I wanted to get as much out of the trip as possible, so I started working through my Rosetta Stone for Spanish. I also looked into books I might read to get some knowledge and understanding of where I was going.

And that was when I found Turn Right at Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time (2011) by Mark Adams. This book was a New York Times bestseller with high ratings on Amazon. I realize I'd seen it before, too, but never got around to reading it. Suddenly, I had the inspiration I needed.

Turn Right at Machu Picchu is really three intertwined stories in one. The first is the story of Mark Adams and his underdog adventure as he treks along the Inca trail, discovering many of their wonders along the way. The second story is that of Hiram Bingham III, the man credited with "discovering" Machu Picchu, or at least bringing Machu Picchu to the attention of the western world. Finally, the third story is that of the downfall of the Incan empire. Each separate thread was interesting on its own, and the book as a whole was the perfect thing for me to read before my trip.

Mark Adams is an entertaining writer as he describes his challenges and tribulations in the Peruvian wilds. His guide is a hard-ass Australian with great knowledge and love for Peru and its amazing artifacts. He takes Mark up and down steep mountainsides and shows him things that most tourists don't get to see. Adams's self deprecating approach and discomfort with camping are probably relatable to a lot of people. He also describes and gives some context to most of the ruins that I was able to see on my trip.

Hiram Bingham III is another fascinating character, and Adams does a good job in telling his story in a relatively objective manner. Bingham undoubtedly accomplished a lot, and he worked hard to be successful. He planned and implemented a number of major expeditions under very difficult circumstances. However, it is hard to "discover" a major Incan city when the farmers who live on it show it to you. He certainly brought this knowledge back to America, something the Quechuan farmers were not in a position to do.

What I remember most about him, though, is how he married a rich, young woman. He was given a house to live in and a yearly stipend that was larger than any salary he was going to make as a teacher. He was able to gallivant about the world because he was financed by his wife's family while she stayed at home bearing children. I was also irritated by his treatment of a woman explorer attempting to summit a Peruvian peak before him. First, he asked her to wait because he wanted a chance to climb it first. And then he called her a spiteful spinster (or something). He's definitely a product of his age, so I don't want to judge him too harshly, but he wasn't a favorite of mine.

Finally, Adams discusses the final years of the Incan empire. This was all very helpful for me to gain some understanding of where Machu Picchu (and other historical sites) came from and why, and how old they were. Two things especially stuck out while I was reading. Tupac Amaru was the last indigenous monarch of the neo-Incan states. If that name seems familiar, that's because Tupac Shakur's mother liked the story of the Incan rebel, and named her son after him. I had no idea.

Atahualpa was the emperor when the Spanish initially arrived. They kidnapped him and held him ransom. After the ransom was paid, they killed him. It's a fascinating story, but what stuck out to me, again, was just a couple sentences in the book. Atahualpa had a ten-year-old bride, who subsequently became the mistress to Pizarro, bearing him two sons. She later married a Spaniard who wrote one of the better histories of the Incan people. I think her story is incredible, and I cannot imagine all the things she saw and what she went through.

Although keeping track of all the names and places could sometimes be confusing, I still found this book informative and entertaining. Perhaps its best for people planning a trip to Peru or especially interested in history, but I think anyone could find it worth reading.