Alan's bookshelf: all en-US Wed, 02 Apr 2025 21:26:17 -0700 60 Alan's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Better the Blood 61997066
Hana Westerman is a tenacious Māori detective juggling single motherhood and the pressures of her career in Auckland’s Central Investigation Branch. When she’s led to a crime scene by a mysterious video, she discovers a man hanging in a secret room. As Hana and her team work to track down the killer, other deaths lead her to think that they are searching for New Zealand’s first serial killer.

A KILLER IN SEARCH OF RETRIBUTION

With little to go on, Hana must use all her experience as a police officer to try and find a motive to these apparently unrelated murders. What she eventually discovers is a link to an historic crime that leads back to the brutal bloody colonisation of New Zealand.

A CLASH BETWEEN CULTURE AND DUTY

When the pursuit becomes frighteningly personal, Hana realises that her heritage and knowledge are their only keys to finding the killer.

THE PAST NEVER TRULY STAYS BURIED

But as the murders continue, it seems that the killer's agenda of revenge may include Hana � and her family . . .

WELCOME TO THE DARK SIDE OF PARADISE.]]> 329 Michael Bennett 0802160603 Alan 5
The interplay between the two sides of the detective's life was really came through in the writing. We learn about her traditions and her conflicts in breaking up a Maori protest early in her police career. She's a really complex character and the writing really reflects that. She shares custody of her teenage daughter with her ex-husband and fellow police officer (who is white). This family dynamics come into play throughout the novel but never overwhelm it. It's a perfect balance mixing suspense, emotion, history and family angst.

I listened to the book so I got to hear the cadence and rhythm of the native language which I never would have picked up by reading.

Great book and can't wait to read more!! ]]> 3.97 2022 Better the Blood
author: Michael Bennett
name: Alan
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/02
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: e-book, library-book, male-author, mystery, sf-library
review:
Set in Aukland, NZ a Maori detective, Hana Westerman is on the trail of a Maori who is avenging the injustices perpetrated upon the indigenous population of New Zealand by the British. The story is framed by an old daguerreotype of British sailors celebrating while a Maori man is dangling from a tree in the background - hung for no apparent reason. In modern day Aukland the murderer finds connections between those in the picture and his victims. Meanwhile Det. Westerman, a Maori herself battles races against time and the inherent conflicts of her heritage to capture the killer.

The interplay between the two sides of the detective's life was really came through in the writing. We learn about her traditions and her conflicts in breaking up a Maori protest early in her police career. She's a really complex character and the writing really reflects that. She shares custody of her teenage daughter with her ex-husband and fellow police officer (who is white). This family dynamics come into play throughout the novel but never overwhelm it. It's a perfect balance mixing suspense, emotion, history and family angst.

I listened to the book so I got to hear the cadence and rhythm of the native language which I never would have picked up by reading.

Great book and can't wait to read more!!
]]> Blackouts 65215321 From the bestselling author of We the Animals, Blackouts mines lost histories--personal and collective.

Out in the desert in a place called the Palace, a young man tends to a dying soul, someone he once knew briefly, but who has haunted the edges of his life. Juan Gay--playful raconteur, child lost and found and lost, guardian of the institutionalized--has a project to pass along to this new narrator. It is inspired by a true artifact of a book, Sex Variants: A Study in Homosexual Patterns, which contains stories collected in the early twentieth century from queer subjects by a queer researcher, Jan Gay, whose groundbreaking work was then co-opted by a committee, her name buried. As Juan waits for his end, he and the narrator trade stories--moments of joy and oblivion--and resurrect lost loves, lives, mothers, fathers, minor heroes. The past is with us, beside us, ahead of us; what are we to create from its gaps and erasures?

Inspired by Kiss of the Spider Woman, Pedro Páramo, Voodoo Macbeth, the book at its own center and the woman who created it, oral histories, and many more texts, images, and influences, Justin Torres's Blackouts is a work of fiction that sees through the inventions of history and narrative. An extraordinary work of creative imagination, it insists that we look long and steady at the world we have inherited and the world we have made--a world full of ghostly shadows and flashing moments of truth.]]> 306 Justin Torres 0374293570 Alan 3 3.76 2023 Blackouts
author: Justin Torres
name: Alan
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/27
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: e-book, fiction, library-book, male-author, national-book-award-nominee, national-book-award-winner, sf-library
review:
This recent national book award winner was an experimental novel - a young man, "nene" goes to visit an older man (Juan Gay) who he met in a psychiatric ward years earlier. The setting of visit is a residence called "The Palace". The men discuss, both gay, discuss a book called "Sex Variants: A Study of Homosexual Patterns" - an actual book written by Jan Gay (not a blood relation). All that is really a format for a discussion about homosexuality, art and identity. At times challenging, but beautifully written.
]]> <![CDATA[Cold Crematorium: Reporting from the Land of Auschwitz]]> 126918752 The first English language edition of a lost memoir by an Auschwitz survivor, offering a shocking and deeply moving perspective on life within the camps.

When József Debreczeni, a prolific Hungarian-language journalist and poet, arrived in Auschwitz in 1944, his life expectancy was forty-five minutes. This was how long it took for the half-dead prisoners to be sorted into groups, stripped, and sent to the gas chambers. He beat the odds and survived the “selection,� which led to twelve horrifying months of incarceration and slave labor in a series of camps, ending in the “Cold Crematorium”—the so-called hospital of the forced labor camp Dörnhau, where prisoners too weak to work awaited execution. But as Soviet and Allied troops closed in on the camps, local Nazi commanders—anxious about the possible consequences of outright murder—decided to leave the remaining prisoners to die.

Debreczeni survived the liberation of Auschwitz and immediately recorded his experiences in Cold Crematorium, one of the harshest, most merciless indictments of Nazism ever written. This haunting memoir, rendered in the precise and unsentimental prose of an accomplished journalist, is an eyewitness account of incomparable literary quality. It was published in the Hungarian language in 1950, but it was never translated, due to Cold War hostilities and rising antisemitism. More than 70 years later, this masterpiece that was nearly lost to time is now being published in more than 15 different languages for the first time, and will finally take its rightful place among the greatest works of Holocaust literature.]]> 248 József Debreczeni 1250290546 Alan 5
I will never understand how one person or group of people could inflict this level of brutality and torture on another. It transcends madness and hatred to a place I hope no one ever goes to again. This book must be read though for no other reason other than to reaffirm the maxim that those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it (I paraphrase).]]> 4.54 1950 Cold Crematorium: Reporting from the Land of Auschwitz
author: József Debreczeni
name: Alan
average rating: 4.54
book published: 1950
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/23
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves: audio, in-translation, library-book, male-author, memoir, non-fiction, ny-times-10-best, war-themes, sf-library
review:
I've read quite a number of holocaust related works - but nothing even comes close to the horror depicted in this work. It is the true account of a Hungarian's experience in the concentration camps. I think what made it even tougher was listening, rather than reading this work. It made the degradation feel even more realistic. The tone was very matter-of-fact and at times almost a little sarcastic, which added to the tension. How could anyone find humor in this?

I will never understand how one person or group of people could inflict this level of brutality and torture on another. It transcends madness and hatred to a place I hope no one ever goes to again. This book must be read though for no other reason other than to reaffirm the maxim that those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it (I paraphrase).
]]> The Known World 67 The Known World is a daring and ambitious work by Pulitzer Prize winner Edward P. Jones.

The Known World tells the story of Henry Townsend, a black farmer and former slave who falls under the tutelage of William Robbins, the most powerful man in Manchester County, Virginia. Making certain he never circumvents the law, Townsend runs his affairs with unusual discipline. But when death takes him unexpectedly, his widow, Caldonia, can't uphold the estate's order, and chaos ensues. Jones has woven a footnote of history into an epic that takes an unflinching look at slavery in all its moral complexities.]]> 388 Edward P. Jones 0061159174 Alan 5
The "haunting" feeling comes in the way the story is written. There's a certain nonchalance that makes the terror of slavery almost feel 'normal' (the in the South of the 1850s it was), it's just hard to read about it in those terms. The incongruity of a Black family (particularly slaves who bought their freedom) is especially jarring. The novel's strength though is in the depth of the characters. Too often novels of the south at that time play on stereotypes (and there are some of these - the sadistic overseer, the crooked slave traders), but there's always so much more. The author also brilliantly weaves past and present into the story - it jumps around but we do learn some of the outcomes of the characters.

Overall, an amazing, difficult and necessary novel.]]> 3.83 2003 The Known World
author: Edward P. Jones
name: Alan
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2003
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/09
date added: 2025/03/09
shelves: african-american-author, e-book, fiction, historical-fiction, library-book, pulitzer-prize-winner, sf-library
review:
When reflecting on this book the first word that comes to mind is haunting, both in style and content. The novel is centered around Henry Townsend, a freed Black man in Virginia who himself becomes a slaveowner. Henry dies suddenly and his land and slaves are left to his wife who struggles to maintain order. In a close reading I wondered whether that was something she really desired -running a farm with slave labor.

The "haunting" feeling comes in the way the story is written. There's a certain nonchalance that makes the terror of slavery almost feel 'normal' (the in the South of the 1850s it was), it's just hard to read about it in those terms. The incongruity of a Black family (particularly slaves who bought their freedom) is especially jarring. The novel's strength though is in the depth of the characters. Too often novels of the south at that time play on stereotypes (and there are some of these - the sadistic overseer, the crooked slave traders), but there's always so much more. The author also brilliantly weaves past and present into the story - it jumps around but we do learn some of the outcomes of the characters.

Overall, an amazing, difficult and necessary novel.
]]> Creation Lake 207300960 416 Rachel Kushner 1982116528 Alan 3 3.35 2024 Creation Lake
author: Rachel Kushner
name: Alan
average rating: 3.35
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/14
date added: 2025/02/14
shelves: female-author, fiction, hardcover
review:
I really enjoy Rachel Kushner's writing so I was excited to get this book and hear her read and speak at San Francisco's Lit Quake this year. The reading was excellent; however I struggled a bit with this book. It's the story of an undercover "spy" (more like a secret agent - we never really know who she works for) infiltrating a radical environmental group in rural France. The main character, Sadie Smith was great. However at the times the book jumped around a bit with various characters coming and going and it was a challenge to maintain the arc of the novel and the ending was a slight disappointment.
]]> <![CDATA[One Got Away (Nikki Griffin, #2)]]> 53138187 PI Nikki Griffin � a badass bookseller who punishes abusers � is back in S. A. Lelchuk's One Got Away�

Nikki Griffin, a private-investigator when she isn’t running her small bookstore, is on a case. The matriarch of one of the wealthiest San Francisco families has been defrauded by a con-man, and her furious son enlists Nikki to find the money. And find the con-man.

Nikki isn’t a fan of men who hurt women. Her secret mission, born of revenge and trauma, is to do everything she can to remove women from dangerous situations—and to punish the men responsible.

As Nikki follows the trail toward the con-man, she realizes that no one involved is telling her the whole truth. When the case overlaps with her attempt to protect a woman in trouble, and Nikki’s own life is put in danger, Nikki has to make terrible choices about who to save—and how to keep herself alive.]]> 295 S.A. Lelchuk 1250170273 Alan 4 3.84 2021 One Got Away (Nikki Griffin, #2)
author: S.A. Lelchuk
name: Alan
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/09
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves: e-book, female-author, fiction, library-book, mystery, san-francisco-theme, sf-library
review:
The second in the Nikki Griffin (bookstore owner/Private Investigator). What started out a seemingly benign blackmail case against one of San Francisco's wealthiest families is suddenly turned on its head. Nikki is hired by the scion of the Johanssen family (fictitious SF old money family) to find the family's matriarch's blackmailer. Well, not all is what it seems. The setting (Monterey, SF, Central Coast) is great as are the ancillary characters. Very engaging and great twists.
]]> <![CDATA[The New York Game: Baseball and the Rise of a New City]]> 174147455
Baseball is “the New York game� because New York is where the diamond was first laid out, where the bunt and the curveball were invented, and where the home run was hit. It’s where the game’s first stars were born, and where everyone came to play or watch the game. With nuance and depth, historian Kevin Baker brings this all vividly back to the still-controversial, indelible moments—Did the Babe call his shot? Was Merkle out? Did they fix the 1919 World Series? Here are all the legendary players, managers, and owners, in all their vivid, complicated humanity, on and off the field.

In Baker’s hands the city and the game emerge from the murk of nineteenth-century American life—driven by visionaries and fixers, heroes and gangsters. He details how New York and its favorite sport came to mirror one another, expanding, bumbling through catastrophe and corruption, and rising out of these trials stronger than ever.

From the first innings played in vacant lots and tavern yards in the 1820s; to the canny innovations that created the very first sports league; to the superb Hispanic and Black players who invented their own version of the game when white baseball sought to exclude them. And all amidst New York’s own, incredible evolution from a raw, riotous town to a new world city. The New York Game is a riveting, rollicking, brilliant ode to America’s beloved pastime and to its indomitable city of origin.]]> 528 Kevin Baker 0375421831 Alan 4
Fun fact (one of many in this booke)
The Yankees actually leased Fenway Park to the Red Sox for a time after their owner defaulted on a debt related to the sale of Babe Ruth to the Yankees.]]> 4.32 2024 The New York Game: Baseball and the Rise of a New City
author: Kevin Baker
name: Alan
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/01
date added: 2025/02/01
shelves: baseball, e-book, library-book, male-author, new-york-theme, non-fiction, sf-library
review:
"The Boys of Summer" will always be, for me, the defining book on baseball. It encompasses everything that's special about the sport - the connection to place, the myriad characters who played, owned, and managed the team and its influence on fans far and wide. However, this book comes in a very close second. It tracks both the history of New York from the late 1800s to just after WWII and the history of New York's baseball teams (Yankees, Dodgers and Giants) through that time. I've read some of this author's historical fiction about old New York (Coney Island, the Draft Riots, Harlem, Triangle Shirtwaist Fire). They are all great books and masterfully combine fact and fiction. Though nonfiction, this book really brings the reader into the time and place of New York over those years as well as show us key baseball people during that time - both the famous (Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Lou Geherig, Branch Rickey) and lesser known (at least to me) like Peter Reiser and Hal Chase. Running throughout the book is the undeniable racism of the sport and the city during that time - we see stark examples of segregation in the City and in baseball and the book ends just as Jackie Robinson is about to sign with the Dodgers. As a reader I would love to see the author continue the story, but given how meticulously researched this book is I'm sure that's no easy feat.

Fun fact (one of many in this booke)
The Yankees actually leased Fenway Park to the Red Sox for a time after their owner defaulted on a debt related to the sale of Babe Ruth to the Yankees.
]]> <![CDATA[Never a Dull Moment: 1971 The Year That Rock Exploded]]> 26792278
A rollicking look at 1971, rock’s golden year, the year that saw the release of the indelible recordings of Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, the Who, Rod Stewart, Carole King, the Rolling Stones, and others and produced more classics than any other year in rock history

The Sixties ended a year late. On New Year’s Eve 1970 Paul McCartney instructed his lawyers to issue the writ at the High Court in London that effectively ended the Beatles. You might say this was the last day of the pop era.

1971 started the following day and with it the rock era. The new releases of that hectic year―Don McLean’s “American Pie,� Sly Stone’s “Family Affair,� Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On,� Joni Mitchell’s “Blue,� Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway To Heaven,� the Who’s “Baba O’Riley,� and many others―are the standards of today.

David Hepworth was twenty-one in 1971, and has been writing and broadcasting about music ever since. In this entertaining and provocative book, he argues that 1971 saw an unrepeatable surge of musical creativity, technological innovation, naked ambition and outrageous good fortune that combined to produce music that still crackles with relevance today. There’s a story behind every note of that music. From the electric blue fur coat David Bowie wore when he first arrived in America in February to Bianca’s neckline when she married Mick Jagger in Saint-Tropez in May, from the death of Jim Morrison in Paris in July to the re-emergence of Bob Dylan at Madison Square Garden in August, from the soft launch of Carole King’s “Tapestry� in California in February to the sensational arrival of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway To Heaven� in London in November, Hepworth’s forensic sweep takes in all the people, places and events that helped make 1971 rock’s unrepeatable year.]]> 320 David Hepworth 1627793992 Alan 3 3.91 2016 Never a Dull Moment: 1971 The Year That Rock Exploded
author: David Hepworth
name: Alan
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/20
date added: 2025/01/20
shelves: british-author, male-author, music-related, paperback
review:
The author's thesis is that 1971 was the seminal year in rock history - the year the Beatles ended and the post-Beatles era began - singer/songwriters, albums (vs 45s), big rock concerts, and more. It's an interesting thesis with a decidedly UK slant and not one I strongly agree with or disagree with. However the book was a great excuse to listen to some music I hadn't listened to in a while (Rod Strewart's "Every Picture Tells a Story", "Who's Next", "Sticky Fingers" and more. I loved the gossipy aspects as well - how Jonathan Richman connects to Lou Reed connects to Talking Heads. There was some snark (the author is clearly not a J. Geils Band fan (for shame!!!) but all's forgiven. 1971 was a watershed year for sure and this book reminds us why.
]]> Headshot 174156218 An electrifying debut novel from an “unusually gifted writer� (Lorrie Moore) about the radical intimacy of physical competition

An unexpected tragedy at a community pool. A family’s unrelenting expectation of victory. The desire to gain or lose control; to make time speed up or stop; to be frighteningly, undeniably good at something. Each of the eight teenage girl boxers in this blistering debut novel has her own reasons for the sacrifices she has made to come to Reno, Nevada, to compete to be named the best in the country. Through a series of face-offs that are raw, ecstatic, and punctuated by flashes of humor and tenderness, prizewinning writer Rita Bullwinkel animates the competitors� pasts and futures as they summon the emotion, imagination, and force of will required to win.

Frenetic, surprising, and strikingly original, Headshot is a portrait of the desire, envy, perfectionism, madness, and sheer physical pleasure that motivates young women to fight—even, and perhaps especially, when no one else is watching.]]> 224 Rita Bullwinkel 0593654102 Alan 4 3.50 2024 Headshot
author: Rita Bullwinkel
name: Alan
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/10
date added: 2025/01/10
shelves: e-book, female-author, fiction, library-book, sf-library
review:
This novel takes place over a few days in Reno, NV at the Daughters of America girls boxing championship. I read some good things about the book - it was one of the 100 best by NY Times and had I not seen that I'm not sure I would have picked up a book about girls boxing. Fortunately it caught my and I read this - it was excellent. The descriptions of the fights shifted between the boxing itself (very vivid, but not overtly violent) and the interior lives of the fighters - who they were and who they would become. As a reader I really felt the competitive spirit of the boxers - both in the ring and outside as we learned of their futures and recent traumas. Overall a really great book.
]]> Good Material 96177629
Now he is. . .

Without a home

Waiting for his stand-up career to take off

Wondering why everyone else around him seems to have grown up while he wasn't looking

Set adrift on the sea of heartbreak, Andy clings to the idea of solving the puzzle of his ruined relationship. Because if he can find the answer to that, then maybe Jen can find her way back to him. But Andy still has a lot to learn, not least his ex-girlfriend's side of the story�

In this sharply funny and exquisitely relatable story of romantic disaster and friendship, Dolly Alderton offers up a love story with two endings, demonstrating once again why she is one of the most exciting writers today, and the true voice of a generation.]]> 345 Dolly Alderton 0241523672 Alan 4 3.85 2023 Good Material
author: Dolly Alderton
name: Alan
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/07
date added: 2025/01/07
shelves: british-author, british-fiction, e-book, female-author, fiction, library-book, sf-library, ny-times-10-best
review:
I decided to read this book because it was one of 2024's NY Times top 5 fiction books; ordinarily it wouldn't have caught my eye. It seemed a bit too rom-com based on the blurb. Well, thank you NYT! This was a really enjoyable book. The story is centered around a break-up between two 30-something Londoners. The guy is a struggling stand-up comic and the woman a successful insurance executive. Most of the book is told from the guy's point of view (though written by a woman). This isn't easy and she nailed it; never falling into stereotype. The last bit was told from the woman's perspective and it really brought the whole thing together - perfectly written. The book is funny, sometimes sad, but really great observations.
]]> <![CDATA[Thinking Inside the Box: Adventures with Crosswords and the Puzzling People Who Can't Live Without Them]]> 51196238 A delightful, erudite, and immersive exploration of the crossword puzzle and its fascinating history by a brilliant young writer

The crossword is a feature of the modern world, inspiring daily devotion and obsession from not just everyday citizens looking to pass the time but icons of American life, such as Bill Clinton, Yo-Yo Ma, and Martha Stewart. It was invented in 1913, almost by accident, when a newspaper editor at the New York World was casting around for something to fill some empty column space for that year's Christmas edition. Practically overnight, it became a roaring commercial success, and ever since then has been an essential ingredient of any newspaper worth its salt. Indeed, paradoxically, its popularity has never been greater, even as the world of media and newspapers, its natural habitat, has undergone a perilous digital transformation. But why, exactly, are its satisfactions so sweet that over the decades has it become a fixture of breakfast tables, nightstands, and commutes, and even given rise to competitive crossword tournaments?

Blending first-person reporting from the world of crosswords with a delightful telling of its rich literary history, Adrienne Raphel dives into the secrets of this classic pastime. At the annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, she rubs shoulders with elite solvers of the world, doing her level best to hold her own; aboard a crossword themed cruise, she picks the brains of the enthusiasts whose idea of a good time is a week on the high seas with nothing but crosswords to do; and, visiting the home and office of Will Shortz, New York Times crossword puzzle editor and NPR's official "Puzzlemaster," she goes behind the scenes to see for herself how the world's gold standard of puzzles is made.

Equal parts ingenious and fun, Thinking Inside the Box is a love letter to the infinite joys and playful possibilities of language, and will be a treat for die-hard cruciverbalists and first-time solvers alike.]]> 304 Adrienne Raphel 0525522085 Alan 3 3.44 2020 Thinking Inside the Box: Adventures with Crosswords and the Puzzling People Who Can't Live Without Them
author: Adrienne Raphel
name: Alan
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/31
date added: 2024/12/31
shelves: essays, female, female-author, non-fiction, paperback
review:
This is a really entertaining collection of essays about crossword puzzles and those that love them. As an aspiring cruciverbalist, this was right up my alley. The essays ran the gamut from crossword history to famous solvers to practical applications and benefits of solving. There was a chapter on the annual puzzle tournament in Stamford, CT and even a crossword puzzle themed cruise. Very enjoyable and a good start to my 2025 goal of constructing my own puzzle!
]]> James 173754979 A brilliant reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—both harrowing and satirical—told from the enslaved Jim's point of view

When Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he runs away until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck has faked his own death to escape his violent father. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.

Brimming with nuanced humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a literary icon, this brilliant and tender novel radically illuminates Jim's agency, intelligence, and compassion as never before. James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first-century American literature.

Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780385550369.]]> 303 Percival Everett Alan 5 4.47 2024 James
author: Percival Everett
name: Alan
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/29
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves: african-american-author, e-book, fiction, male-author, library-book, national-book-award-winner
review:
This is a re-telling of the Huck Finn through the words and eyes of Jim (James) the slave (though it's not the exact plot). In this telling the slaves speak as eloquently as their masters (their patois is merely a ruse). The portrayal of the enslaved is brutal and unflinching. There's little sentimentality even when certain secrets are revealed (no spoilers here). The writing is excellent. The story moves at lightning speed, but lingers long enough to absorb the atmosphere and engage with the themes of the novel. This was truly deserving of the National Book Award.
]]> <![CDATA[Crimes of Cymru: Classic Mystery Tales of Wales]]> 152145033
Presenting fourteen stories from ranging from the 1909 through to the 1980s, this new anthology celebrates a selection of beloved Welsh authors such as Cardiff’s Roald Dahl and Abergavenny’s Ethel Lina White, as well as lesser-known yet highly skilled writers such as Cledwyn Hughes and Jack Griffith. Alongside these home-grown tales, this collection also includes a handful of gems inspired by, or set in, the cities and wilds of Wales by treasured authors with an affinity for the country, such as Christianna Brand, Ianthe Jerrold and Michael Gilbert.]]> 284 Martin Edwards 0712354085 Alan 3 3.63 Crimes of Cymru: Classic Mystery Tales of Wales
author: Martin Edwards
name: Alan
average rating: 3.63
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/25
date added: 2024/12/25
shelves: british-fiction, fiction, mystery, paperback, short-stories
review:
I picked up this collection in a wonderful Welsh town called Hay-on-Wye which whose economy is centered around used book stores! The stories spanned the 20th century and though not all set in Wales per se there was a Welsh theme in each one. All were very enjoyable and a good adjunct to my recent trip.
]]> Carrie 10592
Make a date with terror and live the nightmare that is...Carrie
--back cover]]> 272 Stephen King 1416524304 Alan 4 4.00 1974 Carrie
author: Stephen King
name: Alan
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1974
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/23
date added: 2024/12/23
shelves: e-book, horror, library-book, male-author, sf-library
review:
Ordinarily I am not a huge fan of the horror genre, but I've always appreciated Stephen King's ability to transcend genre and tell a really good story. It was also the 50th anniversary of King's first novel so it seemed a good time to finally read it. I was not disappointed - it was hard not to picture Sissy Spacek or Piper Laurie or John Travolta as I was reading, but once getting past that I was captivated. Unlike the movie, the book talked more about the study of telekinesis as well as the events at the high school. Definitely some gore, but lots of tension and really great way to finish up 2024's reading.
]]> Nothing Special 62039151
Warhol is composing an unconventional novel by recording the conversations and experiences of his many famous and alluring friends. Tasked with transcribing these tapes alongside several other girls, Mae quickly befriends Shelley, and the two of them embark on a surreal adventure at the fringes of the counter-cultural movement. Going to parties together, exploring their womanhood and sexuality, this should be the most enlivening experience of Mae's life. But as she grows increasingly obsessed with the tapes and numb to her own reality, Mae must grapple with the thin line between art and voyeurism and determine how she can remain her own person as the tide of the sixties sweeps over her.

For readers of Ottessa Moshfegh and Mary Gaitskill, this blistering, mordantly funny debut novel brilliantly interrogates the nature of friendship and independence and the construction of art and identity. Nothing Special is a whip-smart coming-of-age story that brings to life the experience of young girls in this iconic and turbulent American moment.]]> 240 Nicole Flattery 1635574315 Alan 3 3.00 2023 Nothing Special
author: Nicole Flattery
name: Alan
average rating: 3.00
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/19
date added: 2024/12/19
shelves: e-book, female, female-author, fiction, irish-writer, library-book, new-york-theme, sf-library
review:
This was an interesting novel mostly set during a few months at Andy Warhol's "Factory". The main character, Mae, a high school dropout is working as a typist transcribing tapes that will become Andy Warhol's "a, A Novel". Some interesting observations about cult/hero worship - though Andy rarely appears, he's clearly omnipresent and New York of that era. Overall though it was hard to really feel for Mae - she's escaping an alcoholic mother and a bad experience in high school, but there's not a lot depth or understanding about the choices she made. Overall though I enjoyed this book.
]]> <![CDATA[Signs Preceding the End of the World]]> 21535546 Winner of the 2016 Best Translated Book Award for Fiction

Signs Preceding the End of the World is one of the most arresting novels to be published in Spanish in the last ten years. Yuri Herrera does not simply write about the border between Mexico and the United States and those who cross it. He explores the crossings and translations people make in their minds and language as they move from one country to another, especially when there’s no going back.

Traversing this lonely territory is Makina, a young woman who knows only too well how to survive in a violent, macho world. Leaving behind her life in Mexico to search for her brother, she is smuggled into the USA carrying a pair of secret messages � one from her mother and one from the Mexican underworld.]]> 114 Yuri Herrera 1908276428 Alan 4 3.90 2009 Signs Preceding the End of the World
author: Yuri Herrera
name: Alan
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/14
date added: 2024/12/14
shelves: fiction, in-translation, male-author, paperback
review:
This is an excellent novella about a young woman crossing the border from Mexico to the US to deliver a message to her brother. The writing is sparse, but very deep. You feel the indignities and fear of the journey but never overwhelmed by it. The story moves in unexpected directions and is incredibly powerful. Themes of family, identity, faith and much more packed into this great book.
]]> <![CDATA[What I Talk About When I Talk About Running]]> 5982818 What I Talk About When I Talk About Running is rich and revelatory, both for fans of this masterful yet guardedly private writer and for the exploding population of athletes who find similar satisfaction in athletic pursuit.]]> 190 Haruki Murakami 0307389839 Alan 4 3.87 2007 What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Alan
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/14
date added: 2024/12/14
shelves: japanese-author, male-author, memoir, paperback, non-fiction
review:
This was a great book that combines two of my favorite pastimes - reading and running. I'm a fan of Murakami's novels and in this memoir (that's his definition) he looks back on his life - how he started running and writing and how the two intertwine. I loved his depiction of the New York Marathon (we ran it together along with 40,000+ others - he beat me!) as well as running along the Charles River in Boston. The style was very conversational; I felt like we were in the same room and he was sharing some stories about his life - owning a jazz club, writing a book, running a marathon, etc. Really enjoyable!
]]> <![CDATA[The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir]]> 203708995 400 Griffin Dunne 0593652827 Alan 4 4.01 2024 The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir
author: Griffin Dunne
name: Alan
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/13
date added: 2024/12/13
shelves: audio, library-book, male-author, memoir, sf-library
review:
I really enjoyed this book by the actor and producer Griffin Dunne (son of Dominic Dunne and nephew of Joan Didion). Griffin narrates his sometimes unbelievable life story of growing up in L.A., surviving in New York and coping with the unspeakable tragedy of his sister Dominique's brutal murder. He treats his family's dysfunction (mental illness, alcoholism, divorce) with the sensitivity it warrants, but not overly schmaltzy - the perfect tone. Yes, I enjoyed the name dropping and the stories of old Hollywood and 1980s New York, but I also appreciated the struggles of trying to make it in a tough business along with the writer's perseverance. Wonderful book.
]]> The Zone of Interest 20447658 Once upon a time there was a king, and the king commissioned his favorite wizard to create a magic mirror. This mirror didn’t show you your reflection. It showed you your soul—it showed you who you really were.

The wizard couldn’t look at it without turning away. The king couldn’t look at it. The courtiers couldn’t look at it. A chestful of treasure was offered to anyone who could look at it for sixty seconds without turning away. And no one could.

The Zone of Interest is a love story with a violently unromantic setting. Can love survive the mirror? Can we even meet each other’s eye, after we have seen who we really are?

Powered by both wit and compassion, and in characteristically vivid prose, Martin Amis’s unforgettable new novel excavates the depths and contradictions of the human soul.


From the Hardcover edition.]]> 306 Martin Amis 0385353499 Alan 4
It's hard to say I "liked" this book - the writing was brilliant as is all of Amis' work, but the subject matter is brutal. I'm glad I read it as it's important to remember these stories and be reminded that the most ordinary of people committed the greatest of atrocities. ]]> 3.62 2014 The Zone of Interest
author: Martin Amis
name: Alan
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/08
date added: 2024/12/08
shelves: british-author, e-book, fiction, historical-fiction, male-author, library-book, sf-library
review:
This novel, set in the shadows of the Auschwitz concentration camp is frightening in its ordinariness. While the most horrific crimes in the history of humanity take place the neighboring Doll family go about their daily routines. The husband, Paul Doll, is a senior administrator at the camp next door. He is one of three narrators in the novel. He's clearly a flawed individual in multiple ways - both knowing what he's doing and being damaged by it. The second narrator, Angelus Thomsen, is based on a nephew of Hitler. He's somewhat obsessed by Paul's wife Hannah and is himself a heavy drinker, womanizer, and an officer the camp. The third and most challenging narrator is Szmul Zacharias, a Jewish Sonderkommando (he disassembles and disposes of the bodies). His character is so troubling as it begs the question what does one do to survive - are you complicit in exchange for better food and lodging and hopes of maybe saving a family member on the outside (knowing you will die anyway) or do you take a principled stand? I don't think any of us know how we would cope and no one wants to face that dilema.

It's hard to say I "liked" this book - the writing was brilliant as is all of Amis' work, but the subject matter is brutal. I'm glad I read it as it's important to remember these stories and be reminded that the most ordinary of people committed the greatest of atrocities.
]]> <![CDATA[Down and Out in Paris and London]]> 393199 213 George Orwell 015626224X Alan 3 4.10 1933 Down and Out in Paris and London
author: George Orwell
name: Alan
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1933
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/06
date added: 2024/12/06
shelves: british-author, male-author, memoir, non-fiction, paperback
review:
In this brief memoir, the "Animal Farm" and "1984" author recounts his time living in poverty in Paris and London. It's a hyper-realistic portrayal of living on the edge and surviving day to day (easier in Paris than London) along with the daily degradations unhoused individuals face. He proposes some solutions that were progressive for its time (1930s). It would be a four star were it not for Orwell's blatant anti-semitism and ugly portrayals of Jewish people. I was really disappointed to read and discover that part of him.
]]> Highway Thirteen: Stories 195791203
In 1998, an apparently ordinary Australian man is arrested and charged for a series of brutal murders. The news shocks the nation, bringing both horror and resolution to the victims� families, but its impact travels even into the past, as the murders rewrite personal histories, and into the future, as true crime podcasts and biopics tell the story of the crimes.

Highway Thirteen , Fiona McFarlane’s newest collection, takes murder as its starting point, but it unfolds to encompass much through the investigation of the aftermath of this violence across time and place, from the killer’s childhood town to Texas, Rome, and tropical northern Australia, McFarlane presents an oblique, entrancing exploration of the way stories are told and spread, and at what cost.

What damages, big and small, do these crimes incur? How do communities make sense of such atrocities? How does the mourning of families sit alongside the public fascination with terrible crimes? And can we tell true crime stories without centering the killers? From the acclaimed author of The Sun Walks Down and The High Places comes a captivating account of loss and its extended echoes in individual lives.]]> 272 Fiona McFarlane 0374606269 Alan 4 3.67 2024 Highway Thirteen: Stories
author: Fiona McFarlane
name: Alan
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/05
date added: 2024/12/06
shelves: australian-writer, audio, female-author, fiction, library-book, short-stories, sf-library
review:
This was a fascinating collection of short stories all of them interconnected in some ways with an Australian serial killer who left his victim's bodies in a forest outside of Sydney. For example, one story is basically a true crime podcast, another is about a trick-or-treater in Texas whose sister was a victim of the killer. Another about the neighbors of the killer's parents. It's technically brilliant - although we never experience the brutality of the murders we get a holistic picture of who the killer is and how his crimes impacted so many people (neighbors, victims, the police who arrested him) in multiple ways. Really great writing and a clever concept perfectly executed.
]]> Headhunters 11777020 265 Jo Nesbø 0307948684 Alan 3 3.81 2008 Headhunters
author: Jo Nesbø
name: Alan
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2008
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/30
date added: 2024/11/30
shelves: fiction, in-translation, mystery, scandanavian, male-author, paperback
review:
I have read some of Jo Nesbo's Harry Hole mysteries which I really enjoy, but this is a stand-alone crime novel about a corporate headhunter who doubles as an art thief, his beautiful wife and a dream client (who also owns, maybe, a priceless Rubens painting). Once the book gets going it never stops - just when I thought I knew what was next, the story takes an unexpected turn. I really enjoyed it - though almost all the characters were pretty horrible people, it somehow worked - even the the ending.
]]> On the Black Hill 319964 On the Black Hill is an elegantly written tale of identical twin brothers who grow up on a farm in rural Wales and never leave home. They till the rough soil and sleep in the same bed, touched only occasionally by the advances of the twentieth century.

In depicting the lives of Benjamin and Lewis and their interactions with their small local community Chatwin comments movingly on the larger questions of human experience.]]> 262 Bruce Chatwin Alan 4 4.01 1982 On the Black Hill
author: Bruce Chatwin
name: Alan
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1982
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/29
date added: 2024/11/30
shelves: british-author, british-fiction, fiction, historical-fiction, male-author, paperback
review:
I picked this book up in Hay-on-Wye in Wales - a town almost solely focused on used book shops! It's a charming (and I use that word in all the best ways) story of two twins or grow up on farm in rural Wales and for almost all of their lives they never leave. As they world modernizes around them they resist and reject it. Their upbringing had more than its share of dysfunction and their isolation was both a comfort and a form a resilience. The descriptions of the natural beauty of the area are amazing and the depth of characters throughout made this a truly immersive novel.
]]> <![CDATA[Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town]]> 6215979
Crystal methamphetamine is widely considered to be the most dangerous drug in the world, and nowhere is that more true than in the small towns of the American heartland. Methland tells the story of Oelwein, Iowa (pop. 6,159), which, like thousands of other small towns across the country, has been left in the dust by the consolidation of the agricultural industry, a depressed local economy, and an out-migration of people. As if this weren t enough to deal with, an incredibly cheap, longlasting, and highly addictive drug has rolled into town.

Over a period of four years, journalist Nick Reding brings us into the heart of Oelwein through a cast of intimately drawn characters, including: Clay Hallburg, the town doctor, who fights meth even as he struggles with his own alcoholism; Nathan Lein, the town prosecutor, whose caseload is filled almost exclusively with meth-related crime; and Jeff Rohrick, a meth addict, still trying to kick the habit after twenty years. Tracing the connections between the lives touched by the drug and the global forces that set the stage for the epidemic, Methland offers a vital and unique perspective on a pressing contemporary tragedy.]]> 272 Nick Reding 1596916508 Alan 4
To be sure, no one forced the users to begin taking meth, but in many cases these people felt there was nothing left and why deny them a cheap high. There are no easy answers and it seems each time one addictive chemical leaves the market another one comes in but rarely are the root, societal causes addressed.]]> 3.68 2009 Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town
author: Nick Reding
name: Alan
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/26
date added: 2024/11/26
shelves: e-book, library-book, male-author, non-fiction
review:
I've been reading a lot about the recent drug crises hitting the US over the past 20 or so years - especially opioids, fentanyl and now meth. This book used a small town in Iowa that author had a connection to, but it's really a proxy for a lot of small, rural towns at this time. What I appreciated about this book is that author neither faulted, nor absolved the addicts. They were caught up in a viscous political, social and economic crisis not of their making. During the late 90s and early 2000s there was significant consolidation in the food production industry resulting in a few big Ag companies buying up the food processing and production companies and reducing jobs as well as significantly cutting back on wages and benefits. Workers were being squeezed out and meth provided an escape albeit a highly addictive and dangerous one. Further, big Pharma was unwilling to police the sale of meth precursors and the US war on drugs focused too heavily on the Colombians and not enough on the Mexican cartels. This was a perfect storm to allow cheap, easy to make, potent meth to flood these rural areas.

To be sure, no one forced the users to begin taking meth, but in many cases these people felt there was nothing left and why deny them a cheap high. There are no easy answers and it seems each time one addictive chemical leaves the market another one comes in but rarely are the root, societal causes addressed.
]]> A Toy Epic 1059983 210 Emyr Humphreys 1854110098 Alan 3 3.61 1958 A Toy Epic
author: Emyr Humphreys
name: Alan
average rating: 3.61
book published: 1958
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/24
date added: 2024/11/24
shelves: fiction, male-author, paperback
review:
I picked up this book at a used bookstore while traveling in Wales. Set on the eve of WWII the novel has three different narrators. The three are teenage boys, all in school together and all from different backgrounds. Though somewhat dated, it's interesting to note the anxieties felt by adolescent boys in 1930s Wales is no different than it was for 1970s U.S. (and probably today - hard to know what the social media impact is on that of course). The author does a great job of capturing the setting and the characters are so real - both in how the interact with each other and the world around them in their smallish Welsh town.
]]> <![CDATA[Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation]]> 54754
Forged in the fires of the Bronx and Kingston, Jamaica, hip-hop became the Esperanto of youth rebellion and a generation-defining movement. In a post-civil rights era defined by deindustrialization and globalization, hip-hop crystallized a multiracial, polycultural generation's worldview, and transformed American politics and culture. But that epic story has never been told with this kind of breadth, insight, and style.

Based on original interviews with DJs, b-boys, rappers, graffiti writers, activists, and gang members, with unforgettable portraits of many of hip-hop's forebears, founders, and mavericks, including DJ Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, Chuck D, and Ice Cube, Can't Stop Won't Stop chronicles the events, the ideas, the music, and the art that marked the hip-hop generation's rise from the ashes of the 60's into the new millennium.]]> 546 Jeff Chang 0312425791 Alan 3
The book is excellent but at times it name-dropped a bit too much. Oftentimes the author would cite an organization with a list of names but didn't provide enough background of who they were and what their importance was too the group. Minor point - overall a great overview and I'll want to read and listen more!]]> 4.15 2005 Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation
author: Jeff Chang
name: Alan
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2005
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/19
date added: 2024/11/19
shelves: male-author, music-related, non-fiction, paperback
review:
I was really excited to read this book to learn more about hip-hop and it's influence on music, culture and politics. It definitely did that. The book does a great job of tracing the genre's roots from Jamaica and spirituals to it's U.S. birthplace - the Bronx, NY. I appreciated the innovation and its DIY ethos at the time - home made sound systems and ad hoc parties. It's truly a grass roots innovation and arguably one of the last true musical innovations. Its influence on our culture, politics, fashion and art cannot be overstated.

The book is excellent but at times it name-dropped a bit too much. Oftentimes the author would cite an organization with a list of names but didn't provide enough background of who they were and what their importance was too the group. Minor point - overall a great overview and I'll want to read and listen more!
]]> Martyr! 139400713 Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! is a paean to how we spend our lives seeking meaning—in faith, art, ourselves, others—in which a newly sober, orphaned son of Iranian immigrants, guided by the voices of artists, poets, and kings, embarks on a search that leads him to a terminally ill painter living out her final days in the Brooklyn Museum.

Cyrus Shams is a young man grappling with an inheritance of violence and loss: his mother’s plane was shot down over the skies of Tehran in a senseless accident; and his father’s life in America was circumscribed by his work killing chickens at a factory farm in the Midwest. Cyrus is a drunk, an addict, and a poet, whose obsession with martyrs leads him to examine the mysteries of his past—toward an uncle who rode through Iranian battlefields dressed as the Angel of death to inspire and comfort the dying, and toward his mother, through a painting discovered in a Brooklyn art gallery that suggests she may not have been who or what she seemed.

Electrifying, funny, wholly original, and profound, Martyr! heralds the arrival of a blazing and essential new voice in contemporary fiction.]]> 331 Kaveh Akbar 0593537610 Alan 4
I really liked the way the author switched narrators and settings while also incorporated his poetry and some Iranian history along the way. A really creative novel.]]> 4.23 2024 Martyr!
author: Kaveh Akbar
name: Alan
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/18
date added: 2024/11/18
shelves: e-book, fiction, male-author, library-book, sf-library
review:
The main character in this inventive and creative novel, Cyrus Shams is a troubled young adult. As he struggles to maintain his sobriety he is dealing with tremendous loss - his parents (mother when we as a baby and his father more recently). Coupled with this he's trying to make his way as a poet and find his place in the world as a gay, Iranian-American in small town Indiana. The novel really reaches its peak when Cyrus goes to the Brooklyn Museum to talk to an artist who is dying and she offers to speak to museum visitors about death. Cyrus thinks about death often (hence the title). But the story then takes an unexpected turn.

I really liked the way the author switched narrators and settings while also incorporated his poetry and some Iranian history along the way. A really creative novel.
]]> Thorn Tree 127280356 "Terrifically vivid...Remarkable." --The New York Times Book Review: A beautifully wrought novel on the aftershocks of the heady but dangerous late 1960s and the relationship between trauma and the creative impulse.

Now in his late-sixties, Daniel lives in quiet anonymity in a converted guest cottage in the Hollywood Hills. A legendary artist, he’s known for one seminal work�Thorn Tree—a hulking, welded, scrap metal sculpture that he built in the Mojave desert in the 1970s. The work emerged from tragedy, but building it kept Daniel alive and catapulted him to brief, reluctant fame in the art world.

Daniel is neighbors with Celia, a charismatic but fragile actress. She too experienced youthful fame, hers in a popular television series, but saw her life nearly collapse after a series of bad decisions. Now, a new movie with a notorious director might reignite her career.

A single mother, Celia leaves her young son Dean for weeks at a time with her father, Jack, who stays at her house while she’s on location. Jack and Daniel strike up a tentative friendship as Dean takes to visiting Daniel’s cottage--but something about Jack seems off. Discomfiting, strangely intimate, with flashes of anger balanced by an almost philosophical bent, Jack is not the harmless grandparent he pretends to be.

Weaving the idealism and the darkness of the late 1960s, the glossy surfaces of Los Angeles celebrity today, and thrumming with the sound of the Grateful Dead, the mania of Charles Manson and other cults, and the secrets that both Jack and Daniel have harbored for fifty years, Thorn Tree is an utterly-compelling novel.]]> 400 Max Ludington 1250288711 Alan 4 3.66 2024 Thorn Tree
author: Max Ludington
name: Alan
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/03
date added: 2024/11/05
shelves: e-book, fiction, library-book, male-author, sf-library
review:
This was a very entertaining, albeit dark novel. The main character, Daniel, had created a groundbreaking work of art in the early 70s - a tree out in the desert. The art was born from the pain he felt after his girlfriend dies tragically (more about that in the novel) and he does jail time for dealing drugs. Currently Daniel is living in the guest house of a friend from that time of his life (who has since died and left the property to Daniel) and the main house is rented by a a former child actress who is also a recovering addict - Celia. She lives with her father and her young son Dean. With this premise a lot happens - but ultimately it's a story of how one comes to grip with one's past. Daniel and Celia's father deal with events very differently. They were both in SF in the late 60s - Daniel only briefly - but that time impacted them in very different ways. With all this going on, somehow the book works. The characters have depth and the settings are very real in many ways. The tangental characters add a lot to the story and it's fascinating and scary to see past and present collide in unexpected says.
]]> How the Dead Live 12412971 "A sulphurous mixture of ferocious violence and high-flown philosophy."-Prospect

The third novel in the acclaimed Factory crime series sees Derek Raymond's nameless detective leave London for a remote village, where he's meant to be investigating the disappearance of a local doctor's wife.

A fitting successor to classic noir writers such as Jim Thompson and David Goodis, with an introduction by Will Self. High-profile fans include Ian Rankin and James Sallis.

Robin Cook was born in 1931. He reinvented himself as Derek Raymond and died in London in 1994.

]]> 226 Derek Raymond 1612190154 Alan 3 british-fiction, mystery 3.94 1986 How the Dead Live
author: Derek Raymond
name: Alan
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1986
rating: 3
read at: 2015/10/10
date added: 2024/11/03
shelves: british-fiction, mystery
review:
This is the third in the "Factory" series - a very dark noir collection featuring an unnamed detective who is part avenging angel and part philosopher. His tactics are unorthodox and he delves more into the nature of crime rather than the crime itself. This book took a bit to get going. It was set in a rural area outside of London and thought the themes were captivating there were a few too many "small town" stereotypes". He's written better.
]]> <![CDATA[The Big Gold Dream (Harlem Cycle, #4)]]> 340611 156 Chester Himes 1560251042 Alan 3 3.71 1959 The Big Gold Dream (Harlem Cycle, #4)
author: Chester Himes
name: Alan
average rating: 3.71
book published: 1959
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/30
date added: 2024/10/30
shelves: african-american-author, fiction, male-author, mystery, paperback, new-york-theme
review:
This was an fast-paced, entertaining murder mystery set in Harlem in the 1950s. The murders revolved around missing money. An unsuspecting woman is set up for a robbery after hitting the numbers for big bucks. But things go awry very quickly and the bodies pile up. Very atmospheric and evocative of the era. The NYPD detectives (Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson) are great characters as the navigate the racial constraints of the time.
]]> The Appeal (The Appeal, #1) 54621096 447 Janice Hallett 1788165292 Alan 4 3.83 2021 The Appeal (The Appeal, #1)
author: Janice Hallett
name: Alan
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/24
date added: 2024/10/24
shelves: british-author, british-fiction, e-book, female, mystery, sf-library, library-book
review:
This novel is written entirely in emails and texts. I feared from the outset that it would be boring (I read too many emails all day and most are pretty dry) and gimmicky (who would write a novel this way). Well, I was gladly proven wrong! The plot revolves around a fundraising appeal to get an experimental cancer treatment for a 2 year old girl. The girl is the granddaughter of the head of an amateur theater group in suburban England. The emails are actually being provided to a couple of lawyers who are trying to solve a murder. My fear of "gimmicky" was soon allayed as each email provided really interesting insight into the characters and their motivations, weaknesses and insecurities. It was important to pay attention to the dates and times on the emails along with who was and was not copied. In sparse email language we learn a lot and over time the truth comes out. There are lots of twists and turns - some you could see a mile away and some just snuck up on you. But overall this was a definitely a "can't put down" book. I lost a lot of sleep getting through it, but it was worth it!
]]> The Party 33296311
‘As the train pressed on, I realised that my life was in the process of taking a different direction, plotted according to a new constellation. Because, although I didn't know it yet, I was about to meet Ben and nothing would ever be the same again.�

Martin Gilmour is an outsider. When he wins a scholarship to Burtonbury School, he doesn’t wear the right clothes or speak with the right kind of accent. But then he meets the dazzling, popular and wealthy Ben Fitzmaurice, and gains admission to an exclusive world. Soon Martin is enjoying tennis parties and Easter egg hunts at the Fitzmaurice family’s estate, as Ben becomes the brother he never had.

But Martin has a secret. He knows something about Ben, something he will never tell. It is a secret that will bind the two of them together for the best part of 25 years.

At Ben’s 40th birthday party, the great and the good of British society are gathering to celebrate in a haze of champagne, drugs and glamour. Amid the hundreds of guests � the politicians, the celebrities, the old-money and newly rich � Martin once again feels that disturbing pang of not-quite belonging. His wife, Lucy, has her reservations too. There is disquiet in the air. But Ben wouldn’t do anything to damage their friendship.

Would he?]]> 295 Elizabeth Day 0316556750 Alan 4 3.48 2017 The Party
author: Elizabeth Day
name: Alan
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/23
date added: 2024/10/24
shelves: british-fiction, british-author, audio, fiction, female, library-book, sf-library
review:
I don't recall why I picked this book, but I'm glad I did. The books starts with the main character and sometimes narrator, Martin Gilmore, sitting in a police station. We don't know why other than there was an "incident" at a party. From there things take off - switching voices, settings and time we see Martin go from an awkward child to the best friend of a British aristocrat. Though married to Lucy, it's obvious from the beginning he true love is Ben - a friend he met in boarding school and attended Cambridge together. The book skewers the British class structure while at the same time exposes the dangers of obsession. Slowly we learn more about the characters and the incident itself. No more said.
]]> Franny and Zooey 5113 ‘Everything everybody does is so—I don’t know—not wrong, or even mean, or even stupid necessarily. But just so tiny and meaningless and—sad-making. And the worst part is, if you go bohemian or something crazy like that, you’re conforming just as much only in a different way.�

First published in The New Yorker as two sequential stories, ‘Franny� and ‘Zooey� offer a dual portrait of the two youngest members of J. D. Salinger’s fictional Glass family.

Franny Glass is a pretty, effervescent college student on a date with her intellectually confident boyfriend, Lane. They appear to be the perfect couple, but as they struggle to communicate with each other about the things they really care about, slowly their true feelings come to the surface. The second story in this book, ‘Zooey�, plunges us into the world of her ethereal, sophisticated family. When Franny’s emotional and spiritual doubts reach new heights, her older brother Zooey, a misanthropic former child genius, offers her consolation and brotherly advice.

Written in Salinger’s typically irreverent style, these two stories offer a touching snapshot of the distraught mindset of early adulthood and are full of the insightful emotional observations and witty turns of phrase that have helped make Salinger’s reputation what it is today.]]> 201 J.D. Salinger 0316769029 Alan 3 3.97 1957 Franny and Zooey
author: J.D. Salinger
name: Alan
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1957
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/12
date added: 2024/10/12
shelves: fiction, male-author, modern-american-male-writers, paperback
review:
A short story and a novella featuring the infamous Glass family. The stories are a bit angsty and neurotic centered around Franny's crisis of faith and Zooey's professional and philosophical struggles. As a fan of "Catcher in the Rye" it's sometimes hard to get my head around some of Salinger's other works. The writing is witty, in Woody Allen New York sort of way and the themes are thought provoking, but at times a little too self pitying. Still some of the best American writing out there though.
]]> Birnam Wood 60784757 Birnam Wood is on the move . . .

Five years ago, Mira Bunting founded a guerrilla gardening group: Birnam Wood. An undeclared, unregulated, sometimes-criminal, sometimes-philanthropic gathering of friends, this activist collective plants crops wherever no one will notice: on the sides of roads, in forgotten parks, and neglected backyards. For years, the group has struggled to break even. Then Mira stumbles on an answer, a way to finally set the group up for the long term: a landslide has closed the Korowai Pass, cutting off the town of Thorndike. Natural disaster has created an opportunity, a sizable farm seemingly abandoned.

But Mira is not the only one interested in Thorndike. Robert Lemoine, the enigmatic American billionaire, has snatched it up to build his end-times bunker--or so he tells Mira when he catches her on the property. Intrigued by Mira, Birnam Wood, and their entrepreneurial spirit, he suggests they work this land. But can they trust him? And, as their ideals and ideologies are tested, can they trust each other?

A gripping psychological thriller from the Booker Prize-winning author of The Luminaries, Birnam Wood is Shakespearean in its wit, drama, and immersion in character. A brilliantly constructed consideration of intentions, actions, and consequences, it is an unflinching examination of the human impulse to ensure our own survival.]]> 432 Eleanor Catton 0374110336 Alan 4 3.79 2023 Birnam Wood
author: Eleanor Catton
name: Alan
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/07
date added: 2024/10/07
shelves: e-book, female-author, fiction, library-book, sf-library
review:
This is a fantastic book - it starts with two people reconnecting over coffee - both affiliated with Birnam Wood - a radical gardening collective (they basically plant veggies in unauthorized locations and distribute the harvest). The story picks up very quickly and somehow become entangled with a shady billionaire and his recently purchased estate. There's some illegal mining in the mix and a number of other plot elements that make this such a great book. The characters are complex and story unfolds at a fast, but not overwhelming pace. There's enough time to absorb what's going before the next bend in the plot road. Some novels can be great up until the end and then there's the ending that can be such let down that it clouds the entire book. Not there - no spoilers of course - read the book, but the ending was perfect.
]]> <![CDATA[Family Matters (Vintage International)]]> 10100526 Family Matters is a work of enormous emotional power.]]> 516 Rohinton Mistry 0307773388 Alan 4 4.14 2002 Family Matters (Vintage International)
author: Rohinton Mistry
name: Alan
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2002
rating: 4
read at: 2014/08/19
date added: 2024/09/27
shelves: indian-author, booker-prize-nominee, 1001-novels-to-read
review:
This was a classic novel in the 19th Century - British/Russian sense - family drama, vivid characterizations, and the premise that one small event ripples through your whole life and lives of others. As a non-Indian reading this I found myself digging into Wikipedia a bit to get some historical/political context, but that stuff is easy find and it's still a great story even without that.
]]> Above the Waterfall 20587589
Becky, a park ranger, arrives in this remote patch of North Carolina hoping to ease the anguish of a harrowing past. Searching for tranquility amid the verdant stillness, she finds solace in poetry and the splendor of the land.

A vicious crime will plunge both sheriff and ranger into deep and murky waters, forging an unexpected bond between them. Caught in a vortex of duplicity, lies, and betrayal, they must navigate the dangerous currents of a tragedy that turns neighbor against neighbor—and threatens to sweep them all over the edge.]]> 252 Ron Rash 0062349317 Alan 4 3.51 2014 Above the Waterfall
author: Ron Rash
name: Alan
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/26
date added: 2024/09/27
shelves: fiction, male-author, paperback
review:
Although this book had some really dark moments, it was so beautifully written that even the most dire of circumstances displayed some hope. Set in rural Carolina a local sheriff who is about to retire has to wrap up a couple final cases including finding out who poisoned the water on a resort property. The sheriff has his own demons to work through as does his girlfriend - a one-time school shooting survivor. Although this all sounds a bit melodramatic, the natural scenery and poetry of the novel paints a different story - one of redemption, hope and the many challenges of the modern world creeping in. There was a lot in this fairly short novel and I now need to read more of this amazing writer.
]]> <![CDATA[Beneath the Surface of Things: New and Selected Essays]]> 182105479
A timely and eclectic collection from one of the foremost thinkers of our time, “a powerful, penetrating and immensely knowledgeable writer� (The Guardian).

The essays in this collection came about during the unhurried months when one who had traveled incessantly was obliged to stay still, even as events flared on all sides in a world that never stops moving. Wade Davis brings his unique cultural perspective to such varied topics as the demonization of coca, the sacred plant of the Inca; the Great War and the birth of modernity; the British conquest of Everest; the endless conflict in the Middle East; reaching beyond climate fear and trepidation; on the meaning of the sacred. His essay, “The Unraveling of America,� first published in Rolling Stone, attracted five million readers and generated 362 million social media impressions. Media interest in the story was sustained over many weeks, with interview requests coming in from 23 countries.

The anthropological lens, as Davis demonstrates, reveals what lies beneath the surface of things, allowing us to see, and to seek, the wisdom of the middle way, a perspective of promise and hope that all of the essays in this collection aspire to convey.

“Wade Davis has a gift for saying the unsayable. He’s a fearless explorer in the intellectual world, as in the physical. His refusal to embrace conventional wisdom on climate change, for example, and instead think through the issue for himself, is a model of independent thinking. Even when I disagree with Wade, as with some of his bleak comments about the United States, I’m grateful for his voice. We usually live on the surface of ideas when we talk about issues such as war and racism; Wade takes us far deeper.”—David Ignatius, columnist and associate editor, Washington Post]]> 264 Wade Davis 1778400442 Alan 5 4.28 Beneath the Surface of Things: New and Selected Essays
author: Wade Davis
name: Alan
average rating: 4.28
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/24
date added: 2024/09/24
shelves: essays, hardcover, male-author, non-fiction
review:
This was a great collection of essays but a couple were particularly good. "The Unraveling of America" was a searing expose of how the U.S. handled the Covid pandemic relative to other nations around the world (spoiler: not as well). Also "Beyond Climate Fear and Trepidation" was a re-examining of the way we currently look at our approach to climate change. By no means a climate denier, Davis looks at how the radical changes proposed by "net zero" have far ranging impacts (cost, displacement) and how its impact may not be as dramatic as first thought. He looks at how by eradicating poverty and how we populate our land may have more and longer lasting benefits. I'm not doing it justice, but it's worth a read.
]]> <![CDATA[Take the Cannoli: Stories From the New World]]> 19994897 Take the Cannoli is a moving and wickedly funny collection of personal stories stretching across the immense landscape of the American scene. Hailed by Newsweek as a "cranky stylist with talent to burn," Vowell has an irresistible voice -- caustic and sympathetic, insightful and double-edged -- that has attracted a loyal following for her magazine writing and radio monologues on This American Life.

While tackling subjects such as identity, politics, religion, art, and history, these autobiographical tales are written with a biting humor, placing Vowell solidly in the tradition of Mark Twain and Dorothy Parker. Vowell searches the streets of Hoboken for traces of the town's favorite son, Frank Sinatra. She goes under cover of heavy makeup in an investigation of goth culture, blasts cannonballs into a hillside on a father-daughter outing, and maps her family's haunted history on a road trip down the Trail of Tears.

Take the Cannoli is an eclectic tour of the New World, a collection of alternately hilarious and heartbreaking essays and autobiographical yarns.]]> 226 Sarah Vowell 1439126518 Alan 4 3.90 2000 Take the Cannoli: Stories From the New World
author: Sarah Vowell
name: Alan
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at: 2019/01/20
date added: 2024/09/23
shelves: e-book, female-author, essays, library-book, non-fiction
review:
There's not a lot I can say in my review of this book other than Sarah Vowell is a brilliant writer who presents challenging topics such as the Trail of Tears and the mass consumerism of Disney World in a voice that is powerful, persuasive but never condescending or patronizing. Her essay about mix-tapes and goth culture were among my favorites in this collection, but each and every one of the essays are perfect examples of what great writing should be.
]]> <![CDATA[The Pyramid: The First Wallander Cases (Kurt Wallander #9)]]> 6746110
Revealing a side of Wallander that we have never seen, the long stories collected in The Pyramid are vintage Mankell. Here, we see Wallander on his homicide first case as a twenty-one-year-old patrolman, as a young father facing unexpected danger on Christmas Eve, as a middle-aged detective with his marriage on the brink, as a newly separated investigator solving the brutal murder of a local photographer, and finally as a veteran detective, with his signature methodical and instinctive work style, discovering unexpected connections between a downed plane and the assassination of a pair of spinster sisters.

In these five riveting tales we watch Kurt Wallander come into his own not only as a detective but as a human being]]> 416 Henning Mankell 1400095824 Alan 3 modern-american-male-writers 3.85 1999 The Pyramid: The First Wallander Cases (Kurt Wallander #9)
author: Henning Mankell
name: Alan
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1999
rating: 3
read at: 2012/07/15
date added: 2024/09/16
shelves: modern-american-male-writers
review:
An average collection of shorter Kurt Wallander stories. Aside from the the title story, "The Pyramid", the rest were not very memorable. It seems the purpose of the book was to provide some insight into the earlier days of Detective Wallandar; however for me the mystery genre doesn't lend itself well to short stories. The lives of the characters build up over time and novels and fleeting glimpses do not add much especially without the broader context.
]]> <![CDATA[The Echoing Green: The Untold Story of Bobby Thomson, Ralph Branca and the Shot Heard Round the World]]> 413472
The Echoing Green follows the reverberations of that one moment–the Shot Heard Round the World–from the West Wing of the White House to the Sing Sing death house to the Polo Grounds clubhouse, where a home run forever turned hitter and pitcher into hero and goat.

It was also in that centerfield block of concrete that, after the home run, a Giant coach tucked away a Wollensak telescope. The spyglass would remain undiscovered until 2001, when, in the jubilee of that home run, Joshua Prager laid bare on the front page of the Wall Street Journal a Giant secret: from July 20, 1951, through the very day of that legendary game, the orange and black stole the finger signals of opposing catchers.

The Echoing Green places that revelation at the heart of a larger story, re-creating in extravagant detail the 1951 pennant race and illuminating as never before the impact of both a moment and a long-guarded secret on the lives of Bobby Thomson and Ralph Branca.

A wonderfully evocative portrait of the great American pastime, The Echoing Green is baseball history, social history and biography–irresistible reading from any angle.]]> 498 Joshua Prager 0375421548 Alan 5
What made this book so good was the way the writer wove this incident into the New York and the US in the early 50s, what pro sports was like back then and the lives of these two individuals were it not for this one pitch would just be two ex-ballplayers. Neither was really the star of their team. A young Willie Mays was on deck when Bobby hit his home run and Monte Irvin was an all around better player. And the Dodgers....Robinson, Duke Snider, Preacher Roe, etc. So in some ways it's about fate and how that one moment changes everything. Would Thomson have hit the home run if he didn't know the pitch? Who knows? No matter what he still need to put bat to ball with no margin of error.

Fun facts - Thomson was Ted Williams back up in Boston for a brief period of time and Leo Durocher (Giants and Dodgers manager) is from Springfield, MA.]]> 3.98 2006 The Echoing Green: The Untold Story of Bobby Thomson, Ralph Branca and the Shot Heard Round the World
author: Joshua Prager
name: Alan
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/09
date added: 2024/09/09
shelves: baseball, male-author, non-fiction, paperback
review:
This was a fantastic baseball book about the famous "Shot Heard Round the World" when Bobby Thomson hit a walk-off homer off Ralph Branca in 1951 that sent the NY Giants to the World Series (where they lost) and send the Brooklyn Dodgers on vacation. Like Mookie Wilson and Bill Buckner, Bobby and Ralph were ever joined by this one pitch. But what I never knew until reading this was that Bobby knew what pitch was coming! The Giants had a near miraculous late season comeback as soon as a telescope was set up in the outfield and hitters could receive signals about what pitch was up next. A bit more high tech than the Astro's garbage can banging, but not much.

What made this book so good was the way the writer wove this incident into the New York and the US in the early 50s, what pro sports was like back then and the lives of these two individuals were it not for this one pitch would just be two ex-ballplayers. Neither was really the star of their team. A young Willie Mays was on deck when Bobby hit his home run and Monte Irvin was an all around better player. And the Dodgers....Robinson, Duke Snider, Preacher Roe, etc. So in some ways it's about fate and how that one moment changes everything. Would Thomson have hit the home run if he didn't know the pitch? Who knows? No matter what he still need to put bat to ball with no margin of error.

Fun facts - Thomson was Ted Williams back up in Boston for a brief period of time and Leo Durocher (Giants and Dodgers manager) is from Springfield, MA.
]]> <![CDATA[The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth]]> 44452952
From the New York Times bestselling author of Dreamland , a searing follow-up that explores the terrifying next stages of the opioid epidemic and the quiet yet ardent stories of community repair.

Sam Quinones traveled from Mexico to main streets across the U.S. to create Dreamland , a groundbreaking portrait of the opioid epidemic that awakened the nation. As the nation struggled to put back the pieces, Quinones was among the first to see the dangers that lay synthetic drugs and a new generation of kingpins whose product could be made in Magic Bullet blenders. In fentanyl, traffickers landed a painkiller a hundred times more powerful than morphine. They laced it into cocaine, meth, and counterfeit pills to cause tens of thousands of deaths―at the same time as Mexican traffickers made methamphetamine cheaper and more potent than ever, creating, Sam argues, swaths of mental illness and a surge in homelessness across the United States.

Quinones hit the road to investigate these new threats, discovering how addiction is exacerbated by consumer-product corporations. “In a time when drug traffickers act like corporations and corporations like traffickers,� he writes, “our best defense, perhaps our only defense, lies in bolstering community.� Amid a landscape of despair, Quinones found hope in those embracing the forgotten and ignored, illuminating the striking truth that we are only as strong as our most vulnerable.

Weaving analysis of the drug trade into stories of humble communities, The Least of Us delivers an unexpected and awe-inspiring response to the call that shocked the nation in Sam Quinones’s award-winning Dreamland .]]> 432 Sam Quinones 1635574358 Alan 4
Of course there are no easy answers, but certain themes come through as hopeful signs - especially the importance of community and connection. Lives in isolation (re: Covid) are especially fertile grounds for addicts.

What I appreciated most about this book and Dreamland is that solutions are given almost equal weight to the problems. Too often "issue" books focus on what's wrong and don't spend enough time on looking at what can be done.

]]> 4.32 2021 The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth
author: Sam Quinones
name: Alan
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/08
date added: 2024/09/08
shelves: e-book, library-book, male-author, non-fiction, sf-library
review:
This book is a continuation of the author's examination of the opioid crisis that he documented in his excellent book "Dreamland". As the prescription crisis began to abate a new challenge arose - cheap "designer" drugs made in labs - specifically fentanyl and meth. These were much cheaper and more easily accessible, but potently addictive drugs flooding our nation's streets. Similar to Dreamland, the author puts personal judgment aside and looks at the facts. We untold numbers of people addicted to these new drugs and wreck havoc on brain chemistry and can result in violent and disturbing behavior. No longer is it the placid junkie nodding off, but the hallucinating user showing signs of psychosis from the new "P2P Meth" made cheaply on Mexican labs. He delves into the science behind addiction with parallels to sugar/salt addiction in how it re-wires the brain and how all these substances are pushed to willing recipients seeking some pleasure and the evolution to addiction.

Of course there are no easy answers, but certain themes come through as hopeful signs - especially the importance of community and connection. Lives in isolation (re: Covid) are especially fertile grounds for addicts.

What I appreciated most about this book and Dreamland is that solutions are given almost equal weight to the problems. Too often "issue" books focus on what's wrong and don't spend enough time on looking at what can be done.


]]> <![CDATA[A Conspiracy of Faith (Department Q, #3)]]> 16101098
Carl’s investigation will force him to cross paths with a woman stuck in a desperate marriage- her husband refuses to tell her where he goes, what he does, how long he will be away. For days on end she waits, and when he returns she must endure his wants, his moods, his threats. But enough is enough. She will find out the truth, no matter the cost to her husband—or to herself.

Carl and his colleagues Assad and Rose must use all of their resources to uncover the horrifying truth in this heart-pounding Nordic thriller from the #1 international bestselling author Jussi Adler-Olsen.]]> 504 Jussi Adler-Olsen 0525954007 Alan 4 4.04 2009 A Conspiracy of Faith (Department Q, #3)
author: Jussi Adler-Olsen
name: Alan
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/28
date added: 2024/08/28
shelves: e-book, fiction, in-translation, mystery, scandanavian, sf-library, library-book
review:
I love the cynicism and very dry humor of Scandinavian detectives. The Department Q series is especially great as it focus on cold cases. In this book the proverbial "message in a bottle" washes up in Scotland and somehow ends up in Copenhagen. It leads to a years old kidnapping and murder whose villain continues to ply his trade. There are some subplots that carry over from the first books and quirky characters for sure, but the mystery itself is the heart of the book. I truly could not put this down - it moved so quickly and kept me on the edge of my seat even knowing who actually committed the crime early on. Great book!
]]> Fates and Furies 24612118
At age twenty-two, Lotto and Mathilde are tall, glamorous, madly in love, and destined for greatness. A decade later, their marriage is still the envy of their friends, but with an electric thrill we understand that things are even more complicated and remarkable than they have seemed.]]> 390 Lauren Groff 1594634475 Alan 4 3.55 2015 Fates and Furies
author: Lauren Groff
name: Alan
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/26
date added: 2024/08/28
shelves: e-book, female-author, fiction, library-book, national-book-award-nominee, sf-library
review:
There are times when I read a book and really love the writing, the plot and the setting, but really just don't like any of the characters. This was one of those times. The novel is the story of Lotto and Mathlide - they met in college, fell madly in love and got married. Lotto, a failed actor becomes a successful playwright. On the surface they live a glamorous New York City lifestyle complete with a country home and lots of friends. But the story unfolds like a peeling onion. First from Lotto's perspective and then Mathilde's. There are analogies to Shakespeare and ancient myths throughout but as the story unfolds nothing is what it really seems. Honestly, I just didn't like Lotto or Mathlide (or their families), but I appreciate it's just as hard, if not harder, to create odious characters as it is charming ones and the ability to keep me enthralled throughout is proof positive to that point.
]]> <![CDATA[Some People Need Killing: A Memoir of Murder in My Country]]> 124961437 A fearless, powerfully written on-the-ground account of a nation careening into violent autocracy—told through harrowing stories of the Philippines� state-sanctioned killings of its citizens—from a journalist of international renown

“My job is to go to places where people die. I pack my bags, talk to the survivors, write my stories, then go home to wait for the next catastrophe. I don’t wait very long.�

Journalist Patricia Evangelista came of age in the aftermath of a street revolution that forged a new future for the Philippines. Three decades later, in the face of mounting inequality, the nation discovered the fragility of its democratic institutions under the regime of strongman Rodrigo Duterte.

Some People Need Killing is Evangelista’s meticulously reported and deeply human chronicle of the Philippines� drug war. For six years, Evangelista chronicled the killings carried out by police and vigilantes in the name of Duterte’s war on drugs—a war that has led to the slaughter of thousands—immersing herself in the world of killers and survivors and capturing the atmosphere of fear created when an elected president decides that some lives are worth less than others.

The book takes its title from a vigilante whose words seemed to reflect the psychological accommodation that most of the country had made: “I’m really not a bad guy,� he said. “I’m not all bad. Some people need killing.�

A profound act of witness and a tour de force of literary journalism, Some People Need Killing is also a brilliant dissection of the grammar of violence and an important investigation of the human impulses to dominate and resist.]]> 428 Patricia Evangelista 0593133137 Alan 5 4.19 2023 Some People Need Killing: A Memoir of Murder in My Country
author: Patricia Evangelista
name: Alan
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/12
date added: 2024/08/12
shelves: e-book, female, female-author, library-book, non-fiction, ny-times-10-best, sf-library
review:
This book chronicled the violent and murderous presidency of Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines (2016 to 2022) which was marked by thousands (exact number unknown) of extrajudicial killings. Duterte was elected on a law and order platform promising to eradicate drug users, drug dealers and any "drug personalities" by any means necessary. His methods were violent and wholly unconstitutional. What separated this book from just a recitation of the events was the author's writing about her coverage of the time - people she met, things she saw. Additionally she provided insights into the history and politics of the Philippines. It was a horrifying time and by sharing certain stories it really brought home how brutal this regime was to ordinary (mostly poor) residents. This is a really important book and a reminder of how precarious democracy is.
]]> <![CDATA[Charlie Hustle: The Rise and Fall of Pete Rose, and the Last Glory Days of Baseball]]> 181346643
Pete Rose is a legend. A baseball god. He compiled more hits than anyone in the history of baseball, a record he set decades ago, which still stands. At the same time, he was a working-class white guy from Cincinnati who made it; less talented than tough, and rough around the edges. He was everything that America wanted and needed him to be, the American dream personified, until he wasn’t.

In the 1980s Pete Rose came to be at the center of the biggest scandal in baseball history. Baseball no longer needed Pete Rose, and he was magnificently, publicly cast out for betting on baseball and lying about it. The revelations that followed ruined Pete, changed life in Cincinnati, and forever altered the game.

Charlie Hustle tells the full story of one of America’s most epic tragedies, the rise and fall of Pete Rose, one of the greatest baseball players of all time. Drawing on first-hand interviews with Pete himself, his associates, as well we on investigators, FBI and court records, archives, a mountain of press coverage, Keith O’Brien chronicles how Pete fell so far from being America’s “great white hope.� It is Rose as we've never seen before.

This is no ordinary sport biography, but cultural history at its finest. What O’Brien shows is that while Pete Rose didn’t change, America and baseball did. This is the story of that change.]]> 440 Keith O'Brien 0593317378 Alan 4
On a side note, though the scandal was well documented, I hadn't recalled there's a strong connection to New Bedford, MA.

Really great baseball book!]]> 4.38 2024 Charlie Hustle: The Rise and Fall of Pete Rose, and the Last Glory Days of Baseball
author: Keith O'Brien
name: Alan
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/05
date added: 2024/08/05
shelves: baseball, e-book, library-book, male-author, non-fiction, sf-library
review:
This is a great character study of Pete Rose - the title says, his rise - from one of the greatest hitters in the game (albeit a bit of slap hitter and not much power) to his downfall from gambling on games he managed. The author does a great job of staying away from the argument as to whether Pete belongs in the pantheon of all time greats (Mays, Aaron, Williams, Ruth) but the fact he has more hits than anyone that played the game is an amazing accomplishment. But hubris was Rose's downfall - this could be any Greek tragedy - Rose collected lackeys to do his biding, gambled away a fortune and left lots of people out to dry (ex-wives, girlfriends, "business" associates, teammates). He is not a nice person. But at the same time his transgressions were the worst kept secret in MLB. It's amazing what you can get away with when you're famous. I particularly liked the segue into the steroids scandal of the 90s - same thing - give the fans what they want (home runs) and damn the torpedos.

On a side note, though the scandal was well documented, I hadn't recalled there's a strong connection to New Bedford, MA.

Really great baseball book!
]]> <![CDATA[The Ghosts of Belfast (Jack Lennon Investigations #1)]]> 8179241
From the greedy politicians to the corrupt security forces, the street thugs to the complacent bystanders who let it happen, all are called to account. But when Fegan’s vendetta threatens to derail a hard-won truce and destabilize the government, old comrades and enemies alike want him dead.


From the Trade Paperback edition.]]> 327 Stuart Neville 156947706X Alan 4 mystery, irish-writer 3.88 2009 The Ghosts of Belfast (Jack Lennon Investigations #1)
author: Stuart Neville
name: Alan
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2013/05/05
date added: 2024/07/29
shelves: mystery, irish-writer
review:
This was an exciting page turner - I wouldn't call it a mystery since the reader knows very early on who did it, but more of a political thriller. The story centers around an off-balance ex-IRA solider in Belfast who is wrestling with his demons - the victims of a war in which innocents were killed. Though some characters were too stereotypical (e.g., the crooked politician, the obese gangster), there was a lot of interesting historical background about the "resolution" of the troubles in Northern Ireland.
]]> The Fraud 66086834 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780525558965.

From acclaimed and bestselling novelist Zadie Smith, a kaleidoscopic work of historical fiction set against the legal trial that divided Victorian England, about who gets to tell their story—and who gets to be believed.

It is 1873. Mrs. Eliza Touchet is the Scottish housekeeper—and cousin by marriage—of a once-famous novelist, now in decline, William Ainsworth, with whom she has lived for thirty years.

Mrs. Touchet is a woman of many interests: literature, justice, abolitionism, class, her cousin, his wives, this life and the next. But she is also sceptical. She suspects her cousin of having no talent; his successful friend, Mr. Charles Dickens, of being a bully and a moralist; and England of being a land of facades, in which nothing is quite what it seems.

Andrew Bogle, meanwhile, grew up enslaved on the Hope Plantation, Jamaica. He knows every lump of sugar comes at a human cost. That the rich deceive the poor. And that people are more easily manipulated than they realize. When Bogle finds himself in London, star witness in a celebrated case of imposture, he knows his future depends on telling the right story.

The “Tichborne Trial”—wherein a lower-class butcher from Australia claimed he was in fact the rightful heir of a sizable estate and title—captivates Mrs. Touchet and all of England. Is Sir Roger Tichborne really who he says he is? Or is he a fraud? Mrs. Touchet is a woman of the world. Mr. Bogle is no fool. But in a world of hypocrisy and self-deception, deciding what is real proves a complicated task. . . .

Based on real historical events, The Fraud is a dazzling novel about truth and fiction, Jamaica and Britain, fraudulence and authenticity and the mystery of “other people.”]]> 464 Zadie Smith Alan 4 3.25 2023 The Fraud
author: Zadie Smith
name: Alan
average rating: 3.25
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/22
date added: 2024/07/22
shelves: british-author, british-fiction, e-book, female-author, fiction, library-book, historical-fiction, sf-library
review:
This was another great NYT Top 5 fiction selection. The novel centered around a real life trial in 1860s/1870s Britain. A butcher named Arthur Orton claimed to be an heir to a wealthy, landed family in the UK - the Tichbornes. However what added the real depth and complexity to the novel were those observing the trial, specifically Eliza Touchet who moves in with her cousin the British novelist William Ainsworth. And in Ainsworth's circle are Charles Dickens and William Thackery. Plus his kids and wives. In other words, there's a whole moving around and at times it was hard to keep track. The narrative jumped around in time and location but to me it was all about the characters and their observations of the trial, literary celebrity, British slavery and a lot more. A hard novel to summarize for sure, but a great one to read!
]]> North Woods 71872930
When a pair of young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become home to an extraordinary succession of inhabitants . An English soldier, destined for glory, abandons the battlefields of the New World to devote himself to apples. A pair of spinster twins survive war and famine, only to succumb to envy and desire.A crime reporter unearths a mass grave, but finds the ancient trees refuse to give up their secrets. A lovelorn painter, a conman, a stalking panther, a lusty beetle; as each one confronts the mysteries of the north woods, they come to realize that the dark, raucous, beautiful past is very much alive.

Traversing cycles of history, nature, and even literature, North Woods shows the myriad, magical ways in which we’re connected to our environment and to one another, across time, language and space. Written along with the seasons and divided into the twelve months of the year, it is an unforgettable novel about secrets and fates that asks the timeless how do we live on, even after we’re gone?]]> 372 Daniel Mason 0593597036 Alan 4 4.12 2023 North Woods
author: Daniel Mason
name: Alan
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/21
date added: 2024/07/22
shelves: fiction, hardcover, historical-fiction, male-author
review:
This was an excellent book about a house...I was skeptical at first, but the NYT picked it as one of the 5 best fiction books of 2023 and that endorsement carried weight! It was excellent - yes, the house in Western Massachusetts was a character throughout, but it was about those that called it home - as well as the flora and fauna that existed around it. It was an excellent conceit to capture the history of the area and our country (treatment of native Americans, attitudes towards sexuality, mental illness and how we live with nature itself). Excellent book.
]]> Let Us Descend 87556695
“‘Let us descend,� the poet now began, ‘and enter this blind world.’� � Inferno, Dante Alighieri

Let Us Descend is a reimagining of American slavery, as beautifully rendered as it is heart-wrenching. Searching, harrowing, replete with transcendent love, the novel is a journey from the rice fields of the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans and into the fearsome heart of a Louisiana sugar plantation.

Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, is the reader’s guide through this hellscape. As she struggles through the miles-long march, Annis turns inward, seeking comfort from memories of her mother and stories of her African warrior grandmother. Throughout, she opens herself to a world beyond this world, one teeming with of earth and water, of myth and history; spirits who nurture and give, and those who manipulate and take. While Ward leads readers through the descent, this, her fourth novel, is ultimately a story of rebirth and reclamation.

From one of the most singularly brilliant and beloved writers of her generation, this miracle of a novel inscribes Black American grief and joy into the very land—the rich but unforgiving forests, swamps, and rivers of the American South. Let Us Descend is Jesmyn Ward’s most magnificent novel yet, a masterwork for the ages.]]> 305 Jesmyn Ward 198210449X Alan 4 3.68 2023 Let Us Descend
author: Jesmyn Ward
name: Alan
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/18
date added: 2024/07/18
shelves: african-american-author, audio, e-book, female-author, fiction, historical-fiction, library-book, sf-library
review:
The novel is the story of Annis, an enslaved teenager in the deep south who survives the brutality of slavery with the help and guidance of spirits and her mother. This was a really challenging book - at times lyrical and beautiful and other times violent and distressing. The contract of the brutality of slavery and the natural beauty of the setting was unsettling. Running throughout the novel were the spirts guiding and sustaining Annis through her journey. It was a harsh and brilliant book - similar to the other books of Jesmyn Ward's that I've. She is truly one of the best authors writing today!
]]> Wandering Stars 174147294
Colorado, 1864. Star, a young survivor of the Sand Creek Massacre, is brought to the Fort Marion Prison Castle, where he is forced to learn English and practice Christianity by Richard Henry Pratt, an evangelical prison guard who will go on to found the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, an institution dedicated to the eradication of Native history, culture, and identity. A generation later, Star’s son, Charles, is sent to the school, where he is brutalized by the man who was once his father’s jailer. Under Pratt’s harsh treatment, Charles clings to moments he shares with a young fellow student, Opal Viola, as the two envision a future away from the institutional violence that follows their bloodlines.

Oakland, 2018. Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield is barely holding her family together after the shooting that nearly took the life of her nephew Orvil. From the moment he awakens in his hospital bed, Orvil begins compulsively googling school shootings on YouTube. He also becomes emotionally reliant on the prescription medications meant to ease his physical trauma. His younger brother, Lony, suffering from PTSD, is struggling to make sense of the carnage he witnessed at the shooting by secretly cutting himself and enacting blood rituals that he hopes will connect him to his Cheyenne heritage. Opal is equally adrift, experimenting with Ceremony and peyote, searching for a way to heal her wounded family.

Extending his constellation of narratives into the past and future, Tommy Orange once again delivers a story that is by turns shattering and wondrous, a book piercing in its poetry, sorrow, and rage—a masterful follow-up to his already-classic first novel, and a devastating indictment of America’s war on its own people.]]> 315 Tommy Orange 0593318250 Alan 4
What this book does (at least in my opinion) is try to explain how trauma transcends generations - and though we do our best to shake it or cope with it or ignore it, it somehow lingers. In this case the trauma is America's attempt to eradicate its native population and after that failed ignore or marginalize its existence. Heavy stuff to be sure, but rarely do the characters display vengeance or anger, but more so perplexity and struggle.

The writing is brilliant - complex, poetic and transcendent. The characters deep, challenging and at times frustrating. The story is brutal and so very sad, but necessary to help us make sense of what's been done and how we move through it. All traumas have different root causes and manifestations, but all have the same results. Don't expect answers or solutions, but rather a deeper understanding with more questions. ]]> 3.83 2024 Wandering Stars
author: Tommy Orange
name: Alan
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/02
date added: 2024/07/02
shelves: fiction, hardcover, historical-fiction, native-american-author
review:
It's not feasible to write any kind of review of this book without acknowledging the author's first book "There, There", but I'll try. Although there are some common themes and characters that both books have, one does does not need to read the former to appreciate the latter (but please read it, it's an amazing book!).

What this book does (at least in my opinion) is try to explain how trauma transcends generations - and though we do our best to shake it or cope with it or ignore it, it somehow lingers. In this case the trauma is America's attempt to eradicate its native population and after that failed ignore or marginalize its existence. Heavy stuff to be sure, but rarely do the characters display vengeance or anger, but more so perplexity and struggle.

The writing is brilliant - complex, poetic and transcendent. The characters deep, challenging and at times frustrating. The story is brutal and so very sad, but necessary to help us make sense of what's been done and how we move through it. All traumas have different root causes and manifestations, but all have the same results. Don't expect answers or solutions, but rather a deeper understanding with more questions.
]]> Clete (Dave Robicheaux, #24) 197525334
Clete Purcel—private investigator, former New Orleans cop, and war veteran with a hard shell covering a few soft spots—is Dave Robicheaux’s longtime friend and detective partner. But he has a troubled past. When Clete picks up his Caddy from a local car wash, only to find it ransacked by a group of thugs tied to the drug trade, it feels personal—his grandniece died of a fentanyl overdose—and his fists curl when he thinks of the dealers who sold it.

As Clete traces the connections in this far-reaching criminal enterprise, Clara Bow, a woman with a dark past, hires Clete to investigate her scheming, slippery ex-husband, and a string of brutal deaths link back to a heavily tattooed man who lurks around every corner. Clete experiences shockingly lifelike hallucinations and questions Clara’s ulterior motives when he and Dave hear rumors of a dangerous substance with potentially catastrophic effects. The thugs who destroyed his car might have been pawns in a scheme far darker than they could’ve imagined.

Gripping and violent yet interlaced with Clete’s humor and fierce drive to protect those he loves, Clete brings a fresh perspective to an iconic series. James Lee Burke proves yet again that he is the “heavyweight champ� and “great American novelist whose work, taken individually or as a whole, is unsurpassed� (Michael Connelly).]]> 336 James Lee Burke 0802163076 Alan 4 3.77 2024 Clete (Dave Robicheaux, #24)
author: James Lee Burke
name: Alan
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/29
date added: 2024/06/29
shelves: fiction, male-author, hardcover, mystery
review:
This is the 24th Dave Robicheaux book and the first narrated by his sidekick Clete Purcel. I found that a bit disorientating, at least at first. As with most of his books the plot is a little all over the place but with a certain darkness throughout along with the conflicted history of the South and a nice dose of Louisiana atmosphere. I did lose the threads a few times but it all came together at the end. Not the best of the series, but a B+ Dave Robicheaux book beats most other mysteries by a lot.
]]> <![CDATA[The 13th Juror (Dismas Hardy, #4)]]> 341587 The 13th Juror, Dismas Hardy, lawyer/investigator, undertakes the defense of Jennifer Witt, accused of murdering her husband and their eight-year-old son as well as her first husband, who had died nine years earlier from an apparent drug overdose. While preparing his case, Hardy learns that both of Jennifer's husbands had physically abused her. But Jennifer refuses to allow a defense that presumes her guilt. She is not guilty, she claims. Hardy is now driven to seek an alternative truth a jury can believe. As the trial progresses, the complex truth itself begins to change, to bend, to fade in and out of focus as the clock keeps ticking on Jennifer's fate, until there seems only one person left to convince, and she is "the 13th juror"—the judge. The 13th Juror is a stunning and suspenseful novel of moral ambiguity, of good intentions, bad judgements and the tortuous path to ultimate justice.]]> 544 John Lescroart 0451215931 Alan 3 4.14 1994 The 13th Juror (Dismas Hardy, #4)
author: John Lescroart
name: Alan
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1994
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/16
date added: 2024/06/18
shelves: e-book, fiction, library-book, male-author, mystery, san-francisco-theme, sf-library
review:
The next book in the Dismas Hardy series - in this iteration Dismas is now a defense attorney. He's working on a capital case where a woman is accused of murdering her husband and child. Though she's been battered throughout her marriage she refuses to use this as justification as she insists she did not commit the crime (despite the evidence). The book does a great job of unraveling the threads and tearing down the prosecution's case. A great procedural and I love the SF atmosphere.
]]> Nightcrawling 58537371
One night, what begins as a drunken misunderstanding with a stranger turns into the job Kiara never imagined wanting but now desperately needs: nightcrawling. Her world breaks open even further when her name surfaces in an investigation that exposes her as a key witness in a massive scandal within the Oakland Police Department.]]> 277 Leila Mottley 0593318935 Alan 4
The novel is beautifully written despite the dark subjects. The descriptions of the northern California colors, sunshine and even fog paint a warm picture of a cold environment. The characters are all so real - there's no falsity to them. As as reader I craved more compassion from them, but it would have ultimately been fake and thus unsatisfying. Parts of the book were really hard to read - sex and violence are one and the same at times and so much distance between characters. But, when the distance closed and true compassion shone through it was wonderful! The author never flinched and thus neither did the reader.

I really liked this book - it was not easy, but it was real.]]> 3.95 2022 Nightcrawling
author: Leila Mottley
name: Alan
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/25
date added: 2024/05/26
shelves: hardcover, fiction, female-author, female, african-american-author, african-american-authoer, library-book, san-francisco-theme
review:
The novel, set in Oakland in 2015 is narrated by Kiara, a young African-American woman has more responsibility and pressure than any 17/18 year old should have. Her mother is incarcerated (for reasons we learn about 1/4 of way into the book). Her brother is not working as he tries to jump start his rap career. Her drug-addicted neighbor really can't care for her son, so Kiara has taken over that as well. All the while Oakland is gentrifying, her rent is going up and she can't find steady. With that backdrop of despair, Kiara makes a tough decision - nightcrawling (prostitution). Through that she becomes embroiled in an Oakland police scandal.

The novel is beautifully written despite the dark subjects. The descriptions of the northern California colors, sunshine and even fog paint a warm picture of a cold environment. The characters are all so real - there's no falsity to them. As as reader I craved more compassion from them, but it would have ultimately been fake and thus unsatisfying. Parts of the book were really hard to read - sex and violence are one and the same at times and so much distance between characters. But, when the distance closed and true compassion shone through it was wonderful! The author never flinched and thus neither did the reader.

I really liked this book - it was not easy, but it was real.
]]> The Chinese Groove 58978261
Eighteen-year-old Shelley, born into a much-despised branch of the Zheng family in Yunnan Province and living in the shadow of his widowed father’s grief, dreams of bigger things. Buoyed by an exuberant heart and his cousin Deng’s tall tales about the United States, Shelley heads to San Francisco to claim his destiny, confident that any hurdles will be easily overcome by the awesome powers of the "Chinese groove," a belief in the unspoken bonds between countrymen that transcend time and borders.

Upon arrival, Shelley is dismayed to find that his "rich uncle" is in fact his unemployed second cousin once removed and that the grand guest room he’d envisioned is but a crappy sofa. The indefinite stay he’d planned for? That has a firm two-week expiration date. Even worse, the loving family he hoped would embrace him is in shambles, shattered by a senseless tragedy that has cleaved the family in two. They want nothing to do with this youthful bounder who’s barged into their lives. Ever the optimist, Shelley concocts a plan to resuscitate his American dream by insinuating himself into the family. And, who knows, maybe he’ll even manage to bring them back together in the process.]]> 304 Kathryn Ma 1640095667 Alan 4 3.89 2023 The Chinese Groove
author: Kathryn Ma
name: Alan
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/22
date added: 2024/05/22
shelves: asian-american-author, e-book, female-author, fiction, library-book, san-francisco-theme
review:
This was the SF Library's annual "One City One Book" selection which have been consistently great books. This novel's narrator and main character, Shelley, is a student from China studying English. His widowed father gets together enough money to send him to the US to study English where Shelley has ambitions to be a poet. He anticipates using his "Chinese Groove" to ingratiate himself with relatives who he presumes to be wealthy business owners. Well, it would be a boring book if it all worked out as planned! Shelley arrives to a luke warm welcome in SF, but he's nothing if not resourceful and begins to make his way despite a number of setbacks. It's a great SF story - the setting, characters and even SF's notorious fog lend realism. As with all great stories there are ups and downs, a few twists and turns, but overall a great read.
]]> <![CDATA[When Crack Was King: A People's History of a Misunderstood Era]]> 63024187
The crack epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s is arguably the least examined crisis in American history. Beginning with the myths inspired by Reagan’s war on drugs, journalist Donovan X. Ramsey’s exacting analysis traces the path from the last triumphs of the Civil Rights Movement to the devastating realities we live with a racist criminal justice system, continued mass incarceration and gentrification, and increased police brutality.

When Crack Was King follows four individuals to give us a startling portrait of crack’s destruction and devastating Elgin Swift, an archetype of American industry and ambition and the son of a crack-addicted father who turned their home into a “crack house�; Lennie Woodley, a former crack addict and sex worker; Kurt Schmoke, the longtime mayor of Baltimore and an early advocate of decriminalization; and Shawn McCray, community activist, basketball prodigy, and a founding member of the Zoo Crew, Newark’s most legendary group of drug traffickers.

Weaving together riveting research with the voices of survivors, When Crack Was King is a crucial reevaluation of the era and a powerful argument for providing historically violated communities with the resources they deserve.]]> 448 Donovan X. Ramsey 0525511806 Alan 4 4.35 2023 When Crack Was King: A People's History of a Misunderstood Era
author: Donovan X. Ramsey
name: Alan
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/17
date added: 2024/05/17
shelves: african-american-author, audio, library-book, male-author, non-fiction, sf-library
review:
A fascinating and important book about the crack epidemic that plagued the US in the 80s and 90s. The author, a journalist, relayed the history of the epidemic through the lens of 4 main witnesses/participants - Kurt Schmoke - the Mayor of Baltimore at that time who gained notoriety through is advocacy of decriminalization of drugs; Elgin Swift - a street hustler/dealer whose dad was an addict; Lennie Woodley - a recovered addict and former sex worker and Shawn McCray - former dealer and basketball prodigy and current community activist. Through all their eyes we see first hand the devastation and at time hypocrisy of the "war on drugs". Further it shows the disproportional destruction the epidemic had on Black communities throughout the country. Interspersed throughout the narratives was the history of drug, crime, racial, economic, foreign and incarceration policies, urban policy and the impact of Hip Hop on the rise and ultimate fall of the use of this deadly drug. All in all a really comprehensive history of a very shameful moment in our country's history whose impact still reverberates.
]]> Chain-Gang All-Stars 61190770
Loretta Thurwar and Hamara "Hurricane Staxxx" Stacker are the stars of Chain-Gang All-Stars, the cornerstone of CAPE, or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment, a highly-popular, highly-controversial, profit-raising program in America's increasingly dominant private prison industry. It's the return of the gladiators and prisoners are competing for the ultimate prize: their freedom.

In CAPE, prisoners travel as Links in Chain-Gangs, competing in death-matches for packed arenas with righteous protestors at the gates. Thurwar and Staxxx, both teammates and lovers, are the fan favorites. And if all goes well, Thurwar will be free in just a few matches, a fact she carries as heavily as her lethal hammer. As she prepares to leave her fellow Links, she considers how she might help preserve their humanity, in defiance of these so-called games, but CAPE's corporate owners will stop at nothing to protect their status quo and the obstacles they lay in Thurwar's path have devastating consequences.

Moving from the Links in the field to the protestors to the CAPE employees and beyond, Chain-Gang All-Stars is a kaleidoscopic, excoriating look at the American prison system's unholy alliance of systemic racism, unchecked capitalism, and mass incarceration, and a clear-eyed reckoning with what freedom in this country really means.]]> 367 Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah 0593317335 Alan 4 4.13 2023 Chain-Gang All-Stars
author: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
name: Alan
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/12
date added: 2024/05/13
shelves: african-american-authoer, african-american-author, fiction, male-author, paperback, national-book-award-nominee
review:
A really brutal novel about an "action sport" whereby incarcerated individuals fight each other to the death in hopes of earning their freedom. The novel, horrifically violent at times casts a harsh light on our current penal system. There's no pretense of rehabilitation, the only hope is committing more murders in hopes of release for a select group of prisoners. The sport itself (in the novel) is very popular which is disturbing in its own right. Though hard to read at times, the themes are important and provide much to think about.
]]> <![CDATA[The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism]]> 17334495 Team of Rivals, captures the Progressive Era through the story of the broken friendship between Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, culminating in their running against one another for president in 1912.]]> 910 Doris Kearns Goodwin Alan 5
His relationship with Teddy Roosevelt is a different story and one hard to figure out. When Roosevelt left office he basically handed Taft the nomination and supported him through his first term. However as Taft was preparing for re-election Roosevelt's politics took a sharp left turn and Taft's a slight right one. Ultimately their infighting (it got pretty nasty) tore the party apart, led Roosevelt to start a third party (the short-lived Bull Moose Party) and handed Woodrow Wilson the election.

Also in the book was a brief history of 'muck-raking' journalism - committed writers like Ida Tarbell who wrote long, thoughtful and well researched exposes of the injustices of the times (Standard Oil's dominance, corrupt politicians, shady business deals). Sadly too, that era is gone - I doubt our 280 character attention span could handle such detail.

Lastly, the author, Doris Kearns Goodwin, is amazing. She brought all these characters to life and for the most part was an objective chronicler of this fascinating time in our nation's history.]]> 4.12 2013 The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism
author: Doris Kearns Goodwin
name: Alan
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/04
date added: 2024/05/04
shelves: biography, hardcover, female-author, presidential-biography
review:
I was having a hard time finding a good biography of Taft (next in line for my presidential biography quest), but this book came highly recommended as a Taft biography in and of itself and then some. It did not disappoint. I didn't know much about Taft (except he had a summer home in Beverly, MA) but this really gave a detailed overview of his life and his complicated relationship with Teddy Roosevelt - who went from mentor to enemy to friend. Taft was a driven, smart, intelligent and kind soul. Unlike today's politicians he put party in country ahead of himself and fought the good fight. He wouldn't last a day in today's polarized, self-serving political landscape. He was liberal for his time - believing that government served a function to help those less fortunate and he believed in things like child labor laws, eight hour work days and direct election of senators. HIs role as governor general in the Phillipines may paint him as a colonial overlord, but he did ultimately believe in the independence of the Phillipine people and was widely admired there for his work.

His relationship with Teddy Roosevelt is a different story and one hard to figure out. When Roosevelt left office he basically handed Taft the nomination and supported him through his first term. However as Taft was preparing for re-election Roosevelt's politics took a sharp left turn and Taft's a slight right one. Ultimately their infighting (it got pretty nasty) tore the party apart, led Roosevelt to start a third party (the short-lived Bull Moose Party) and handed Woodrow Wilson the election.

Also in the book was a brief history of 'muck-raking' journalism - committed writers like Ida Tarbell who wrote long, thoughtful and well researched exposes of the injustices of the times (Standard Oil's dominance, corrupt politicians, shady business deals). Sadly too, that era is gone - I doubt our 280 character attention span could handle such detail.

Lastly, the author, Doris Kearns Goodwin, is amazing. She brought all these characters to life and for the most part was an objective chronicler of this fascinating time in our nation's history.
]]> Their Eyes Were Watching God 37415 238 Zora Neale Hurston 0061120065 Alan 4 3.98 1937 Their Eyes Were Watching God
author: Zora Neale Hurston
name: Alan
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1937
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/02
date added: 2024/05/04
shelves: african-american-author, classic, e-book, female-author, fiction, library-book, sf-library
review:
I recall reading this book back in college and in that recall was the fact I never really "got" it; I struggled a bit with the dialect and growing up in a mostly all white town and going to a mostly all white college didn't expose me to the racial undertones in the book. 30 years later in a more diverse and challenging world, the racial issues were much clearer and lots more books under my belt I appreciated the beauty of the character's speech. It remains a challenging book. It is the story of a Black woman in Florida in the early days of the 20th century and how she navigates her personal independence from the men in her life. She's a very strong character and though life hits her hard she seems to bounce back up and maintain her integrity throughout. Definitely worth the 30 year wait.
]]> <![CDATA[Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania]]> 22551730
On May 1, 1915, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. The passengers were anxious. Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone, and for months, its U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic. But the Lusitania was one of the era's great transatlantic "Greyhounds" and her captain, William Thomas Turner, placed tremendous faith in the gentlemanly strictures of warfare that for a century had kept civilian ships safe from attack. He knew, moreover, that his ship - the fastest then in service - could outrun any threat.

Germany, however, was determined to change the rules of the game, and Walther Schwieger, the captain of Unterseeboot-20, was happy to oblige. Meanwhile, an ultra-secret British intelligence unit tracked Schwieger's U-boat, but told no one. As U-20 and the Lusitania made their way toward Liverpool, an array of forces both grand and achingly small - hubris, a chance fog, a closely guarded secret, and more--all converged to produce one of the great disasters of history.

It is a story that many of us think we know but don't, and Erik Larson tells it thrillingly, switching between hunter and hunted while painting a larger portrait of America at the height of the Progressive Era. Full of glamour, mystery, and real-life suspense, Dead Wake brings to life a cast of evocative characters, from famed Boston bookseller Charles Lauriat to pioneering female architect Theodate Pope Riddle to President Wilson, a man lost to grief, dreading the widening war but also captivated by the prospect of new love. Gripping and important, Dead Wake captures the sheer drama and emotional power of a disaster that helped place America on the road to war.]]> 430 Erik Larson 0307408868 Alan 4
The author did a great of focusing on various parties in the days leading up to and following the event including the German U-Boat captain, the Lusitania captain, various notable passengers, President Wilson and his budding romance with Edith Galt, and Winston Churchill and British intelligence. What's fascinating was how many minute events (tides, currents, weather, delays) could have avoided this tragedy, but instead over 1,000 people died by an act of utter cruelty. ]]> 4.10 2015 Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania
author: Erik Larson
name: Alan
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/14
date added: 2024/04/15
shelves: hardcover, male-author, non-fiction
review:
I've read several books by Erik Larson - each of them really well written chronicles of important historical events. This book detailed the sinking of the luxury liner "Lusitania" which was destroyed by a German U-Boat (submarine) as WWI was raging in Europe. This act of terrorism ultimately led to U.S. involvement in that bloody war.

The author did a great of focusing on various parties in the days leading up to and following the event including the German U-Boat captain, the Lusitania captain, various notable passengers, President Wilson and his budding romance with Edith Galt, and Winston Churchill and British intelligence. What's fascinating was how many minute events (tides, currents, weather, delays) could have avoided this tragedy, but instead over 1,000 people died by an act of utter cruelty.
]]> <![CDATA[Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic]]> 22529381
With the same dramatic drive of El Narco and Methland, Sam Quinones weaves together two classic tales of American capitalism: The stories of young men in Mexico, independent of the drug cartels, in search of their own American Dream via the fast and enormous profits of trafficking cheap black-tar heroin to America’s rural and suburban addicts; and that of Purdue Pharma in Stamford, Connecticut, determined to corner the market on pain with its new and expensive miracle drug, Oxycontin; extremely addictive in its own right. Quinones illuminates just how these two stories fit together as cause and effect: hooked on costly Oxycontin, American addicts were lured to much cheaper black tar heroin and its powerful and dangerous long-lasting high. Embroiled alongside the suppliers and buyers are DEA agents, local, small-town sheriffs, and the US attorney from eastern Virginia whose case against Purdue Pharma and Oxycontin made him an enemy of the Bush-era Justice Department, ultimately stalling and destroying his career in public service.

Dreamland is a scathing and incendiary account of drug culture and addiction spreading to every part of the American landscape.]]> 384 Sam Quinones 1620402505 Alan 4 4.22 2015 Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic
author: Sam Quinones
name: Alan
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/11
date added: 2024/04/15
shelves: e-book, library-book, male-author, non-fiction, sf-library
review:
The breadth of the opioid crisis continues to amaze me - the fact that so many people knew how addictive these drugs were and did nothing to stop it is mind boggling. This book paralleled the ongoing over-prescription of Oxy with the rise of cheap black tar heroin in the smaller cities in the US. Each was causing massive destruction and addiction and each used similar tactics - effective marketing and efficient distribution networks. As tolerance to prescription opioids grew black tar heroin became the logical next step. The true pain of these addictions was very realistically documented by the writer. There was some hope at the end of the book, but this was a crisis that should have never happened.
]]> <![CDATA[The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store]]> 65678550
Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, which served the neighborhood's quirky collection of blacks and European immigrants, helped by her husband, Moshe, a Romanian-born theater owner who integrated the town's first dance hall. When the state came looking for a deaf black child, claiming that the boy needed to be institutionalized, Chicken Hill's residents—roused by Chona's kindess and the courage of a local black worker named Nate Timblin—banded together to keep the boy safe.

As the novel unfolds, it becomes clear how much the people of Chicken Hill have to struggle to survive at the margins of white Christian America and how damaging bigotry, hypocrisy, and deceit can be to a community. When the truth is revealed about the skeleton, the boy, and the part the town’s establishment played in both, McBride shows that it is love and community—heaven and earth—that ultimately sustain us.]]> 385 James McBride 0593422945 Alan 4
The story begins in the 1970s when a body is discovered and quickly shifts back to the 20s and 30s and we learn whose body it is and why it's there. As the story unfolds we meet some great characters and learn their secrets. I loved the way the writer lets the narrative unfold at a perfect pace - never rushed, but always moving forward. The characters are so real and the writing brings them to live.

I've read a lot of James McBride's books - fiction and non-fiction and continues to be one of my favorite writers.]]> 3.84 2023 The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
author: James McBride
name: Alan
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/22
date added: 2024/03/24
shelves: african-american-authoer, african-american-author, e-book, fiction, library-book, male-author, sf-library
review:
I really enjoyed this book. The story is mostly set in Pottstown PA; a rural enclave not far from Philadelphia. The part of town, Chicken Hill, is predominately Jewish and African American and the title of the book comes from the store run buy a Jewish woman, Chona and seems to be one of the few spots in town not plagued by the racism endemic to the time and location. Chona's husband, Moshe, runs a couple theaters where Black musicians and patrons are welcome.

The story begins in the 1970s when a body is discovered and quickly shifts back to the 20s and 30s and we learn whose body it is and why it's there. As the story unfolds we meet some great characters and learn their secrets. I loved the way the writer lets the narrative unfold at a perfect pace - never rushed, but always moving forward. The characters are so real and the writing brings them to live.

I've read a lot of James McBride's books - fiction and non-fiction and continues to be one of my favorite writers.
]]> <![CDATA[Drums & Demons: The Tragic Journey of Jim Gordon]]> 191615470 The blazing rock opera of the greatest drummer of all-time, Jim Gordon, from the legendary Wrecking Crew to redefining the genre on the Seventies� biggest hits and outrageous tours, and ultimately to the most shocking crime in rock history—a story of musical genius, uncontrollable madness, and the big fill

Jim Gordon was the greatest rock drummer of all-time. Just ask the world-famous musicians who played with him—John Lennon, George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Tom Petty, Frank Zappa, Steely Dan, Ringo Starr, Harry Nilsson, Joe Cocker, and many more. They knew him for his superior playing, extraordinary training and technique, preternatural intuition, perfect sense of time, and his “big fill”—the mathematically-precise clatter that exploded like detonating fireworks on his drum breaks. But as best-selling author and award-winning journalist Joel Selvin reveals in Drums & Demons, the story of Jim Gordon is the most brilliant, turbulent, and wrenching rock opera ever.

Drums& Demons follows Gordon as the very chemicals in his brain that gifted him also destroyed him. His head crowded with a hellish gang of voices screaming at him, demanding obedience, Gordon descended from the absolute heights of the rock world—playing with the most famous musicians of his generation—to working with a Santa Monica dive-bar band for $30 a night. And then he committed the most shocking crime in rock history.

Based on his trademark extensive, detailed research, Joel Selvin’s Drums & Demons is at once an epic journey through an artist’s monumental musical contributions, a rollicking history of rock drumming, and a terrifying downward spiral into unimaginable madness that Gordon fought a valiant but losing battle against. One of the great untold stories of rock is finally being told.]]> 304 Joel Selvin Alan 4
The book was well written and never veered into salaciousness - the crime doesn't surface until the very end of the book. It was amazing that he could function at such a high level and still conceal what was going on in his head. My one question throughout was whether the his drug and alcohol abuse made his condition worse, or staved off the demons until they couldn't. I guess we'll never know. ]]> 4.29 Drums & Demons: The Tragic Journey of Jim Gordon
author: Joel Selvin
name: Alan
average rating: 4.29
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/13
date added: 2024/03/13
shelves: hardcover, male-author, non-fiction, music-related
review:
What a sad yet fascinating story. My only knowledge of Jim Gordon was that he was the drummer on the amazing album by Derek & The Dominoes (Layla and Other Love Songs). One of my favorite records. I saw his name on some Traffic records too, but I had no idea that he played with everyone from Carly Simon to Frank Zappa to the Beach Boys! He was THE session drummer and also toured with Delaney and Bonnie, Joe Cocker and the Everly Brothers. But what I also never knew, until his recent passing, that he suffered from a debilitating mental illness (most likely schizophrenia) and her murdered his mother. It's such a sad and tragic story. In his effort to quell his voices, Jim self-medicated with any drug imaginable in prodigious quantities. None of it really worked.

The book was well written and never veered into salaciousness - the crime doesn't surface until the very end of the book. It was amazing that he could function at such a high level and still conceal what was going on in his head. My one question throughout was whether the his drug and alcohol abuse made his condition worse, or staved off the demons until they couldn't. I guess we'll never know.
]]> <![CDATA[The Oyster War: The True Story of a Small Farm, Big Politics, and the Future of Wilderness in America]]> 23281473
Environmentalists, national politicians, scientists, and the Department of the Interior all joined a protracted battle for the estuary that had the power to influence the future of wilderness for decades to come. Were the oyster farmers environmental criminals, or victims of government fraud? Fought against a backdrop of fear of government corruption and the looming specter of climate change, the battle struck a national nerve, pitting nature against agriculture and science against politics, as it sought to determine who belonged and who didn’t belong, and what it means to be wild.]]> 256 Summer Brennan 1619025272 Alan 4
My one critique (there has to be one) is that the author sometimes was too much a part of the story - I appreciate she's from the area and this issue really resonated with her, but it took away from some of the objectivity. And this is a minor criticism - the book was great and with all great books left me with more questions than answers.]]> 3.99 2015 The Oyster War: The True Story of a Small Farm, Big Politics, and the Future of Wilderness in America
author: Summer Brennan
name: Alan
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/03
date added: 2024/03/03
shelves: female-author, non-fiction, paperback, san-francisco-theme
review:
This was a selection for our local book club (but had been sitting on our shelf for a while). A local (Point Reyes Station - Marin County north of SF) details the struggle between a local oyster company whose oysters are farmed in National Park Service waters and the park services attempts to take back the waterway for public use. However that's a drastic oversimplification of the issue. The book goes into diverse topics such as the history of oyster farming in this area (I was surprised to learn that oysters are not native to these waterways), the native claims to land, various indigenous and non-indigenous flora and fauna, Fox News, Dianne Feinstein, public versus private rights regarding land (whose is it and who took it from whom), and a lot more. It was a dense book with so much going on but addressed a complex topic in a really effective way.

My one critique (there has to be one) is that the author sometimes was too much a part of the story - I appreciate she's from the area and this issue really resonated with her, but it took away from some of the objectivity. And this is a minor criticism - the book was great and with all great books left me with more questions than answers.
]]> Eastbound 61953755 Eastbound is both an adventure story and a duet of vibrant inner worlds. In evocative sentences gorgeously translated by Jessica Moore, De Kerangal tells the story of two unlikely souls entwined in a quest for freedom with a striking sense of tenderness, sharply contrasting the brutality of their surrounding world.]]> 160 Maylis de Kerangal 1953861504 Alan 4 4.02 2012 Eastbound
author: Maylis de Kerangal
name: Alan
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/02
date added: 2024/03/02
shelves: e-book, female-author, fiction, in-translation, library-book, sf-library, ny-times-10-best
review:
This concise, lyrical novel (one of the NY Times top 5 fiction books of 2023) follows two passengers on the trans-Siberian railway. One is a young Russian military conscript who is anxious to avoid his service and the other a French woman running from her Russian boyfriend. The amazing part of this novel is that so little happens and so much is revealed about the characters (the two protagonists as well as other peripheral characters). It's beautifully written - so subtle and so deep.
]]> <![CDATA[Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs: A Journey Through the Deep State]]> 61358585 A wild, humane, and hilarious meditation on post-privacy America--from the acclaimed author of Thrown

Who are you? You are data about data. You are a map of connections--a culmination of everything you have ever posted, searched, emailed, liked, and followed. In this groundbreaking work of narrative nonfiction, Kerry Howley investigates the curious implications of living in the age of the indelible. Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs tells the true story of intelligence specialist Reality Winner, a lone young woman who stuffs a state secret under her skirt and trusts the wrong people to help. After printing five pages of dangerous information she was never supposed to see, Winner finds herself at the mercy of forces more invasive than she could have possibly imagined.

Following Winner's unlikely journey from rural Texas to a federal courtroom, Howley maps a hidden world, drawing in John Walker Lindh, Lady Gaga, Edward Snowden, a rescue dog named Outlaw Babyface Nelson, and a mother who will do whatever it takes to get her daughter out of jail. Howley's subjects face a challenge new to history: they are imprisoned by their past selves, trapped for as long as the Internet endures. A soap opera set in the deep state, Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs is a free fall into a world where everything is recorded and nothing is sacred, from a singular writer unafraid to ask essential questions about the strangeness of modern life.]]> 233 Kerry Howley 0525655492 Alan 4
Fast forward 20+ years to 1/6/21 and all those who rampaged through the Capital that day did so live on social media! It seems some have willingly sacrificed their privacy making the covert surveillance almost seem quaint.

It was an interesting treatise on the trade off we make between convenience and privacy. No questions were answered, but lots asked.]]> 3.76 2023 Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs: A Journey Through the Deep State
author: Kerry Howley
name: Alan
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/21
date added: 2024/02/21
shelves: e-book, female-author, library-book, non-fiction, sf-library
review:
I picked this up because it was one of the NY Times top 5 Non Fiction books of 2023 and it did not disappoint. At its core, the book was a "history" of the surveillance state from 9/11 to 1/6. What's fascinating is right after 9/11 the government was actively watching us all and there was appropriate outrage. Players like Edward Snowden and Julian Assange blew the whistle on what was going on (though perhaps not everything needs to be out on the open). A big part of the book focused on Reality Winner who is currently serving 5 years for leaking a classified document (though "The Intercept" could have done a much better job of protecting their source).

Fast forward 20+ years to 1/6/21 and all those who rampaged through the Capital that day did so live on social media! It seems some have willingly sacrificed their privacy making the covert surveillance almost seem quaint.

It was an interesting treatise on the trade off we make between convenience and privacy. No questions were answered, but lots asked.
]]> <![CDATA[The Cartel (Power of the Dog, #2)]]> 23602561 The Power of the Dog comes The Cartel, a gripping, true-to-life, ripped-from-the-headlines epic story of power, corruption, revenge, and justice spanning the past decade of the Mexican-American drug wars.

It’s 2004. DEA agent Art Keller has been fighting the war on drugs for thirty years in a blood feud against Adán Barrera, the head of El Federación, the world’s most powerful cartel, and the man who brutally murdered Keller’s partner. Finally putting Barrera away cost Keller dearly—the woman he loves, the beliefs he cherishes, the life he wants to lead.

Then Barrera gets out, determined to rebuild the empire that Keller shattered. Unwilling to live in a world with Barrera in it, Keller goes on a ten-year odyssey to take him down. His obsession with justice—or is it revenge?—becomes a ruthless struggle that stretches from the cities, mountains, and deserts of Mexico to Washington’s corridors of power to the streets of Berlin and Barcelona.

Keller fights his personal battle against the devastated backdrop of Mexico’s drug war, a conflict of unprecedented scale and viciousness, as cartels vie for power and he comes to the final reckoning with Barrera—and himself—that he always knew must happen.

The Cartel is a story of revenge, honor, and sacrifice, as one man tries to face down the devil without losing his soul. It is the story of the war on drugs and the men—and women—who wage it.]]> 616 Don Winslow 1101874996 Alan 5 4.33 2015 The Cartel (Power of the Dog, #2)
author: Don Winslow
name: Alan
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2024/02/11
date added: 2024/02/12
shelves: fiction, male-author, paperback
review:
This is one of those rare "I can't put this down" books. It's a complex (meaning lots of names to keep track of) saga of the Mexican drug cartels circa 2006-2012ish). DEA Agent Art Keller from Winslow's first book in the series "The Power of the Dog" is back again battling his nemesis Adán Barrera, a major drug lord whose escape from prison kicks off the mayhem. At times its hard to keep track of who is aligned with whom and the violence (torture especially) can be a bit gratuitous, but the story moves at lightning speed with amazing writing and plenty of plot twists to keep the reader guessing.
]]> <![CDATA[Crook Manifesto (Ray Carney, #2)]]> 61812836 Colson Whitehead continues his Harlem saga in a novel that summons 1970s New York in all its seedy glory.

It's 1971. Trash piles up on the streets, crime is at an all-time high, the city is careening towards bankruptcy, and a shooting war has broken out between the NYPD and the Black Liberation Army. Amidst this collective nervous breakdown furniture store owner and ex-fence Ray Carney tries to keep his head down and his business thriving. His days moving stolen goods around the city are over. It's strictly the straight-and-narrow for him -- until he needs Jackson 5 tickets for his daughter May and he decides to hit up his old police contact Munson, fixer extraordinaire. But Munson has his own favors to ask of Carney and staying out of the game gets a lot more complicated - and deadly.

1973. The counter-culture has created a new generation, the old ways are being overthrown, but there is one constant, Pepper, Carney's endearingly violent partner in crime. It's getting harder to put together a reliable crew for hijackings, heists, and assorted felonies, so Pepper takes on a side gig doing security on a Blaxploitation shoot in Harlem. He finds himself in a freaky world of Hollywood stars, up-and-coming comedians, and celebrity drug dealers, in addition to the usual cast of hustlers, mobsters, and hit men. These adversaries underestimate the seasoned crook - to their regret.

1976. Harlem is burning, block by block, while the whole country is gearing up for Bicentennial celebrations. Carney is trying to come up with a July 4th ad he can live with. ("Two Hundred Years of Getting Away with It!"), while his wife Elizabeth is campaigning for her childhood friend, the former assistant D.A and rising politician Alexander Oakes. When a fire severely injures one of Carney's tenants, he enlists Pepper to look into who may be behind it. Our crooked duo have to battle their way through a crumbling metropolis run by the shady, the violent, and the utterly corrupted.]]> 336 Colson Whitehead 0385545150 Alan 4 3.82 2023 Crook Manifesto (Ray Carney, #2)
author: Colson Whitehead
name: Alan
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/04
date added: 2024/02/04
shelves: african-american-author, e-book, fiction, library-book, male-author, sf-library
review:
Really 3 novellas with some overlapping characters in 1970s Harlem. Within each story the main character, Ray Carney, battles the challenges of NYC of the time - racism, corruption (on all sides), politics and street crime. Although Ray is no angel, he does adhere to the "Crook Manifesto" while keeping his legit business (a furniture store) going. Very evocative stories interweaving real and fictional characters (and some fictional characters are thinly disguised). Colson Whitehead remains one of my all time favorite writers!
]]> America Fantastica 90588971 464 Tim O'Brien 0063318504 Alan 4 3.36 2023 America Fantastica
author: Tim O'Brien
name: Alan
average rating: 3.36
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/01
date added: 2024/02/01
shelves: audio, fiction, library-book, male-author, sf-library
review:
A timely satirical novel about our current social and political environment. The book kicks off with a bank robbery/kidnapping in rural northern California. From there the "hero" of the novel Boyd Halverson and kidnapped Angie Bing travel around the country in stolen cars - Boyd trying to right past wrongs and Angie along for the ride. Simmering in the background is the "post-truth" world of the Trump/Covid era. Ultimately it's a novel about truth - what is it, who owns it and how to find it. The novel is very funny at times and extremely dark at others - and the darkest episodes are the most truthful.
]]> <![CDATA[The Dark Vineyard (Bruno, Chief of Police, #2)]]> 6665040 --------------------------------------
Benoît (Bruno) Courrèges - devoted friend, cuisinier extraordinaire and the town's only municipal policeman - rushes to the scene when a research station for genetically modified crops is burned down outside Saint-Denis. Bruno immediately suspects a group of fervent environmentalists who live nearby, but the fire is only the first in a string of mysteries centering on the region's fertile soil.

Then a bevy of winemakers descends on Saint-Denis, competing for its land and spurring resentment among the villagers. Romances blossom. Hearts are broken. Some of the sensual pleasures of the town - a dinner of a truffle omelette and grilled bécasses, a community grape-crushing - provide an opportunity for both warm friendship and bitter hostilities to form. The town's rivals - Max, an environmentalist who hopes to make organic wine; Jacqueline, a flirtatious, newly arrived Québécoise; and Fernando, the heir to an American wine fortune - act increasingly erratically. Events grow ever darker, culminating in two suspicious deaths, and Bruno finds that the problems of the present are never far from those of the past.]]> 309 Martin Walker 1847249159 Alan 4 fiction, mystery, paperback 3.86 2009 The Dark Vineyard (Bruno, Chief of Police, #2)
author: Martin Walker
name: Alan
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/21
date added: 2024/01/22
shelves: fiction, mystery, paperback
review:
I picked this book up at an English language bookstore in Periguex France very close to the author's home and the setting for this enjoyable series. In this book an American conglomerate (Gallo?) is interested in buying land in the small village of St. Denis where Bruno is titular Chief. There's more to the family wine business than meets the eye - there are deaths, patronizing comments about American wine, and really good food! I'm looking forward to the next in the series!
]]> <![CDATA[Hard Evidence (Dismas Hardy, #3)]]> 607403 A Japanese call girl with a long list of bigshot johns is the defendant. But a series of bizarre twists and turns blows the case wide open, making Hardy himself a target for everyone from the victim's sexy daughter to the vengeful judge who wants Hardy to sizzle . . . .
"A gripping courtroom drama that may well be Lescroart's breakthrough novel . . . As always, Lescroart creates compelling, credible characters and holds the reader's attention through every step of the plot." � Publishers Weekly
"A compelling combination of courtroom drama and whodunit . . . Sparked with crackling dialogue and vivid scenes of its San Francisco setting . . . Lescroart is a fine writer." � Richmond Times-Dispatch
]]> 688 John Lescroart 0451206460 Alan 3 3.93 1993 Hard Evidence (Dismas Hardy, #3)
author: John Lescroart
name: Alan
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1993
rating: 3
read at: 2024/01/16
date added: 2024/01/16
shelves: fiction, male-author, mystery, paperback, san-francisco-theme
review:
This is my third Dismas Hardy book where Dismas moves from DA's office to the defense side of the table. It was a good, fast read. Enough twists and turns to keep it interesting, but not overwhelming. The best parts of these books are 1.) the San Francisco setting - especially the Little Shamrock and 2.) the cast of supporting characters. Can't wait to read the next and the next....
]]> <![CDATA[Portal: San Francisco's Ferry Building and the Reinvention of American Cities]]> 77265018 320 John King 1324020326 Alan 3 4.08 2023 Portal: San Francisco's Ferry Building and the Reinvention of American Cities
author: John King
name: Alan
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/01/11
date added: 2024/01/12
shelves: e-book, library-book, male-author, non-fiction, sf-library, san-francisco-theme
review:
A really enjoyable book about San Francisco's famous ferry building and how it's use has changed as the city has grown and changed - from before there were bridges, to highways, earthquakes and rising sea levels. The author did a great job of brining in other waterfront cities (Boston, NY, Baltimore) and how their waterfronts changed in similar ways. A great overview of the city's history as well.
]]> The Bee Sting 62039166 From the author of Skippy Dies comes Paul Murray's The Bee Sting, an irresistibly funny, wise, and thought-provoking tour de force about family, fortune, and the struggle to be a good person when the world is falling apart.

The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie’s once-lucrative car business is going under―but rather than face the music, he’s spending his days in the woods, building an apocalypse-proof bunker with a renegade handyman. His wife Imelda is selling off her jewelry on eBay, while their teenage daughter Cass, formerly top of her class, seems determined to binge-drink her way through her final exams. And twelve-year-old PJ is putting the final touches to his grand plan to run away from home.

Where did it all go wrong? A patch of ice on the tarmac, a casual favor to a charming stranger, a bee caught beneath a bridal veil―can a single moment of bad luck change the direction of a life? And if the story has already been written―is there still time to find a happy ending?]]> 645 Paul Murray 0374600309 Alan 4
I would say this novel was almost too perfectly written. Think of a Steely Dan album - the production is amazing, the sound pristine and the musicianship beyond compare. But it lacks soul. Take the Rolling Stones' masterpiece "Exile on Main Street" - a little sloppy, spotty production, a missed note or two, but it rocks - it oozes feeling. So I guess a little more Keith and a little less Donald would have been a great mix, but still an amazing book.

But, the ending.... ]]> 3.92 2023 The Bee Sting
author: Paul Murray
name: Alan
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/09
date added: 2024/01/11
shelves: booker-prize-nominee, e-book, fiction, irish-writer, library-book, male-author, sf-library
review:
This was a fairly dark novel about an Irish family dealing with some turmoil around the time of the financial crash of 2008. The patriarch of the Barnes, Dickie, has taken over the family automobile dealership but it has it the skids as the economy collapses (though there's more than the economic downturn at play here). The novel alternates perspectives between Dickie, his wife Imelda, their son PJ and daughter Cassie (and some others). The transitions both backwards and forwards in time were easy to follow.

I would say this novel was almost too perfectly written. Think of a Steely Dan album - the production is amazing, the sound pristine and the musicianship beyond compare. But it lacks soul. Take the Rolling Stones' masterpiece "Exile on Main Street" - a little sloppy, spotty production, a missed note or two, but it rocks - it oozes feeling. So I guess a little more Keith and a little less Donald would have been a great mix, but still an amazing book.

But, the ending....
]]> <![CDATA[McSweeney's Issue 70 (McSweeney's Quarterly Concern)]]> 91380711 252 Claire Boyle 1952119634 Alan 4 3.61 McSweeney's Issue 70 (McSweeney's Quarterly Concern)
author: Claire Boyle
name: Alan
average rating: 3.61
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/07
date added: 2024/01/07
shelves: paperback, short-stories, fiction
review:
Great collection of short stories from a a variety of authors (plus some great illustrations and an essay about Neil Diamond's Brooklyn). Altogether amazing content.
]]> <![CDATA[Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands]]> 59069071 Celebrated cartoonist Kate Beaton vividly presents the untold story of Canada.

Before there was Kate Beaton, New York Times bestselling cartoonist of Hark A Vagrant fame, there was Katie Beaton of the Cape Breton Beatons, specifically Mabou, a tight-knit seaside community where the lobster is as abundant as beaches, fiddles, and Gaelic folk songs. After university, Beaton heads out west to take advantage of Alberta’s oil rush, part of the long tradition of East Coasters who seek gainful employment elsewhere when they can't find it in the homeland they love so much. With the singular goal of paying off her student loans, what the journey will actually cost Beaton will be far more than she anticipates.

Arriving in Fort McMurray, Beaton finds work in the lucrative camps owned and operated by the world’s largest oil companies. Being one of the few women among thousands of men, the culture shock is palpable. It does not hit home until she moves to a spartan, isolated worksite for higher pay. She encounters the harsh reality of life in the oil sands where trauma is an everyday occurrence yet never discussed. Her wounds may never heal.

Beaton’s natural cartooning prowess is on full display as she draws colossal machinery and mammoth vehicles set against a sublime Albertan backdrop of wildlife, Northern Lights, and Rocky Mountains. Her first full-length graphic narrative, Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands is an untold story of Canada: a country that prides itself on its egalitarian ethos and natural beauty while simultaneously exploiting both the riches of its land and the humanity of its people.]]> 430 Kate Beaton 1770462899 Alan 4 4.41 2022 Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands
author: Kate Beaton
name: Alan
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/29
date added: 2023/12/29
shelves: female-author, graphic-novel, hardcover
review:
Excellent graphic novel! The artist/author is from Nova Scotia and spent two years working in the Oil Sands in western Canada after college to help pay down her student loans. The artistry was fantastic - she really captured the bleakness and isolation of working so remotely. The narrative encapsulated so many issues -the gender dynamics of working in a remote and isolated area where men out-number women by 50 to 1, the environmental impact of the oil extraction (the title refers to the death of hundreds of ducks), the socio-economic inequalities and the day to day challenges of being a recent college graduate. A powerful story beautifully told and illustrated.
]]> <![CDATA[Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us]]> 59808605 Strangers to Ourselves, a powerful and gripping debut, Rachel Aviv raises fundamental questions about how we understand ourselves in periods of crisis and distress. Drawing on deep, original reporting as well as unpublished journals and memoirs, Aviv writes about people who have come up against the limits of psychiatric explanations for who they are. She follows an Indian woman, celebrated as a saint, who lives in healing temples in Kerala; an incarcerated mother vying for her children’s forgiveness after recovering from psychosis; a man who devotes his life to seeking revenge upon his psychoanalysts; and an affluent young woman who, after a decade of defining herself through her diagnosis, decides to go off her meds because she doesn’t know who she is without them. Animated by a profound sense of empathy, Aviv’s exploration is refracted through her own account of living in a hospital ward at the age of six and meeting a fellow patient with whom her life runs parallel―until it no longer does.

Aviv asks how the stories we tell about mental disorders shape their course in our lives. Challenging the way we understand and talk about illness, her account is a testament to the porousness and resilience of the mind.]]> 288 Rachel Aviv 0374600848 Alan 3 4.10 2022 Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us
author: Rachel Aviv
name: Alan
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2023/12/29
date added: 2023/12/29
shelves: female-author, non-fiction, hardcover
review:
An interesting study of mental illness and the varied approaches to treating it over the years. The case studies were compelling particularly when paired with the author's own struggles.
]]> All the Sinners Bleed 61884832 A Black sheriff. A serial killer. A small town ready to combust.

Titus Crown is the first Black sheriff in the history of Charon County, Virginia. In recent decades, Charon has had only two murders. After years of working as an FBI agent, Titus knows better than anyone that while his hometown might seem like a land of moonshine, cornbread, and honeysuckle, secrets always fester under the surface.

Then a year to the day after Titus’s election, a school teacher is killed by a former student and the student is fatally shot by Titus’s deputies. Those festering secrets are now out in the open and ready to tear the town apart.

As Titus investigates the shootings, he unearths terrible crimes and a serial killer who has been hiding in plain sight, haunting the dirt lanes and woodland clearings of Charon. With the killer’s possible connections to a local church and the town’s harrowing history weighing on him, Titus projects confidence about closing the case while concealing a painful secret from his own past. At the same time, he also has to contend with a far-right group that wants to hold a parade in celebration of the town’s Confederate history.

Powerful and unforgettable, All the Sinners Bleed confirms S. A. Cosby as “one of the most muscular, distinctive, grab-you-by-both-ears voices in American crime fiction� (The Washington Post).]]> 338 S.A. Cosby 1250831911 Alan 5
Ha! There's lots of well intentioned, formulaic and entertaining participants of the genre. And then there's this. For me, a great, really great crime story needs to excel at the following:

Crime solver - they should be damaged (slightly, since all of us are and we should relate somehow), complex, multi-dimensional and a some, not a lot, but some comic relief. Titus Crown fits the bill here. A Black sheriff in a Virginia county still fighting the Civil War Sheriff Crown carries some history and baggage. His lack of humor (as his colleagues note) is his comic relief.

Setting - It doesn't need to be glamorous or recognizable, but we need to feel it. This novel is set rural southeastern Virginia. Not an area I've though about visiting but then this quote "The pine trees gradually gave way to large mounds of pampa grass and wild irises and cattails that shot up from the marshland like the quills of a porcupine." Head of nail - meet hammer. I'm there and want to see and live it.

Supporting cast - they can't just be window dressing but can't overtake the story - this is Titus' story to tell, but without his father, brother, girlfriends (past and current), deputies and neighbors the story has no dimension. Each character brought into the story adds a dimension - some likable, most not, but all essential.

I do hope Sheriff Crown shows up in another book, somehow, somewhere!]]> 4.19 2023 All the Sinners Bleed
author: S.A. Cosby
name: Alan
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/12/25
date added: 2023/12/25
shelves: african-american-authoer, african-american-author, fiction, male-author, mystery, hardcover
review:
I really enjoy great crime fiction - if you think about it, crime fiction, on its face is pretty simplistic - there's a crime (usually a murder, sometimes a robbery) and somebody (police, private eye, amateur sleueth) solves it. Simple, right?

Ha! There's lots of well intentioned, formulaic and entertaining participants of the genre. And then there's this. For me, a great, really great crime story needs to excel at the following:

Crime solver - they should be damaged (slightly, since all of us are and we should relate somehow), complex, multi-dimensional and a some, not a lot, but some comic relief. Titus Crown fits the bill here. A Black sheriff in a Virginia county still fighting the Civil War Sheriff Crown carries some history and baggage. His lack of humor (as his colleagues note) is his comic relief.

Setting - It doesn't need to be glamorous or recognizable, but we need to feel it. This novel is set rural southeastern Virginia. Not an area I've though about visiting but then this quote "The pine trees gradually gave way to large mounds of pampa grass and wild irises and cattails that shot up from the marshland like the quills of a porcupine." Head of nail - meet hammer. I'm there and want to see and live it.

Supporting cast - they can't just be window dressing but can't overtake the story - this is Titus' story to tell, but without his father, brother, girlfriends (past and current), deputies and neighbors the story has no dimension. Each character brought into the story adds a dimension - some likable, most not, but all essential.

I do hope Sheriff Crown shows up in another book, somehow, somewhere!
]]> Ill Will 30687788 Two sensational unsolved crimes—one in the past, another in the present—are linked by one man’s memory and self-deception in this chilling novel of literary suspense from National Book Award finalist Dan Chaon.

“We are always telling a story to ourselves, about ourselves,� Dustin Tillman likes to say. It’s one of the little mantras he shares with his patients, and it’s meant to be reassuring. But what if that story is a lie?

A psychologist in suburban Cleveland, Dustin is drifting through his forties when he hears the news: His adopted brother, Rusty, is being released from prison. Thirty years ago, Rusty received a life sentence for the massacre of Dustin’s parents, aunt, and uncle. The trial came to symbolize the 1980s hysteria over Satanic cults; despite the lack of physical evidence, the jury believed the outlandish accusations Dustin and his cousin made against Rusty. Now, after DNA analysis has overturned the conviction, Dustin braces for a reckoning.

Meanwhile, one of Dustin’s patients gets him deeply engaged in a string of drowning deaths involving drunk college boys. At first Dustin dismisses talk of a serial killer as paranoid thinking, but as he gets wrapped up in their amateur investigation, Dustin starts to believe that there’s more to the deaths than coincidence. Soon he becomes obsessed, crossing all professional boundaries—and putting his own family in harm’s way.

From one of today’s most renowned practitioners of literary suspense, Ill Will is an intimate thriller about the failures of memory and the perils of self-deception. In Dan Chaon’s nimble, chilling prose, the past looms over the present, turning each into a haunted place.]]> 496 Dan Chaon 0345476042 Alan 3
That said, brilliant writing and I look forward to reading more from this author.]]> 3.35 2017 Ill Will
author: Dan Chaon
name: Alan
average rating: 3.35
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2023/12/21
date added: 2023/12/21
shelves: e-book, fiction, library-book, male-author, sf-library
review:
I'd call this more of a "psychological thriller" than a mystery - though there are some unsolved murders and possibly a detective. The novel shifts time frames from the 80s to the mid 20-teens. There's a possible faulty murder conviction with satanic cult hysteria in the earlier time frame and possibly a serial killer in the later time frame. I say "possibly" because we're never really sure who is lying and who is telling the truth - who is the victim and who is the criminal. It's an interesting conceit and for the most part it worked really well, but at times it dragged and sometimes it's OK to wrap up at least one loose end.

That said, brilliant writing and I look forward to reading more from this author.
]]> <![CDATA[City of Light: 10 (The Landmark Library)]]> 58849362

A sparkling account of the nineteenth-century rebuilding of Paris as the most beautiful city in the world, as part of the stunning Landmark Library series. 'This really is an impressive book' Sebastian Faulks.

'Brisk, vivid and unexpectedly stirring... No one writes as evocatively and entertainingly about Paris as Christiansen does'Mail on Sunday.

'Every page is a pleasure, every building, every gas lamp brought shimmering to life... Don't board the Eurostar without a copy'The Times.

'A wonderful book, amazingly vivid... But also a truly original work of scholarship' Theodore Zeldin.

In 1853 the French emperor Louis Napoleon inaugurated a vast and ambitious programme of public works, directed by Georges-Eugene Haussmann, the prefect of the Seine. Haussmann's renovation of Paris would transform the old medieval city of squalid slums and disease-ridden alleyways into a 'City of Light' � characterised by wide boulevards, apartment blocks, parks, squares and public monuments, new railway stations and department stores and a new system of public sanitation.

City of Light charts a fifteen-year project of urban renewal which � despite the interruptions of war, revolution, corruption and bankruptcy � would set a template for nineteenth and early twentieth-century urban planning and create the enduring and globally familiar layout of modern Paris.]]> 184 Christiansen 1838932089 Alan 4 4.00 2019 City of Light: 10 (The Landmark Library)
author: Christiansen
name: Alan
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/18
date added: 2023/12/18
shelves: male-author, non-fiction, paperback
review:
A great overview of the building of "modern" Paris - most of which still stands today despite several wars, the Prussian siege and the Commune. Through sheer will Hausmann and Louis-Napolean upgraded a decaying city neglected by earlier years of turmoil and war. Progressive for their time they built up innovate ideas like wide boulevards and modern sewers. They also exploited workers ran up tremendous amounts of debt. I liked the way the incorporated the history of France into the re-building of Paris and reading this book just after a trip to Paris made it all come alive!
]]> <![CDATA[Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith]]> 1214116
At the core of Krakauer’s book are brothers Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they received a commandment from God to kill a blameless woman and her baby girl. Beginning with a meticulously researched account of this appalling double murder, Krakauer constructs a multi-layered, bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, polygamy, savage violence, and unyielding faith. Along the way he uncovers a shadowy offshoot of America’s fastest growing religion, and raises provocative questions about the nature of religious belief.


From the Trade Paperback edition.]]> 372 Jon Krakauer 0385511515 Alan 4
Interspersed with details of the case is a history of the Mormon religions from its founding by Joseph Smith in upstate to New York to its current state. I've read a number of Jon Krakauer's books and he handles complex topics (religion, history, morality) with such clarity. He discusses some of his personal feelings (not too many) in the book's conclusion, but otherwise it's a fairly neutral narrative, yet very readable and compelling.

In a country like ours that values religious freedom so dearly, can we break the law and justify it using the "religious freedom" defense? Like refusing to bake a cake for a same sex couple? How slippery is the slope?

Fascinating book - excellently written!]]> 4.32 2003 Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith
author: Jon Krakauer
name: Alan
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2003
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/11
date added: 2023/12/14
shelves: audio, library-book, male-author, non-fiction, sf-library
review:
A fascinating book about a true murder case in Utah committed by two "fundamentalist" Mormon (the schism between the more conventional Mormon and the fundamentalist sects are explained in the book). The assailants murdered a young woman and her daughter (the sister-in-law and niece of the assailants "under the banner of heaven" meaning it was a revelation that instructed them to carry out the killings.

Interspersed with details of the case is a history of the Mormon religions from its founding by Joseph Smith in upstate to New York to its current state. I've read a number of Jon Krakauer's books and he handles complex topics (religion, history, morality) with such clarity. He discusses some of his personal feelings (not too many) in the book's conclusion, but otherwise it's a fairly neutral narrative, yet very readable and compelling.

In a country like ours that values religious freedom so dearly, can we break the law and justify it using the "religious freedom" defense? Like refusing to bake a cake for a same sex couple? How slippery is the slope?

Fascinating book - excellently written!
]]> <![CDATA[Charles Bovary, Country Doctor: A Portrait of a Simple Man]]> 38911971
As a once-promising novelist who was tortured by the Nazis and survived a year in Auschwitz, author Jean Améry had a particular sympathy for the lived experience of vulnerability, affliction, and suffering, and in this book—available in English for the first time—he asserts the moral claims of Dr. Bovary. What results is a moving paean to the humanity of Charles Bovary and to the supreme value of love.]]> 184 Jean Améry 1681372509 Alan 3 3.34 1978 Charles Bovary, Country Doctor: A Portrait of a Simple Man
author: Jean Améry
name: Alan
average rating: 3.34
book published: 1978
rating: 3
read at: 2023/12/06
date added: 2023/12/07
shelves: fiction, essays, male-author, paperback
review:
This was what the blurb called an "essay-novel" - a mix of fiction and non. It had been a couple years since I read Madame Bovary, but the story came back quickly. In the fiction part of the book, the author uses Charles (the cuckolded widow) as a narrator and character after his wife's suicide. The essay part was a bit too academic for me (meaning I struggled with it!). It was an enjoyable, if not challenging book, but ultimately satisfying and piqued my interest in reading more Flaubert and even re-visiting Madame Bovary.
]]> A History of France 38821260 A History of France a portrait of the past two centuries of the country he loves best.

Beginning with Julius Caesar's conquest of Gaul in the first century BC, this study of French history comprises a cast of legendary characters--Charlemagne, Louis XIV, Napoleon, Joan of Arc and Marie Antionette, to name a few--as Norwich chronicles France's often violent, always fascinating history. From the French Revolution--after which neither France, nor the world, would be the same again--to the storming of the Bastille, from the Vichy regime and the Resistance to the end of the Second World War, A History of France is packed with heroes and villains, battles and rebellion, stories so enthralling that Norwich declared, "I can honestly say that I have never enjoyed writing a book more."

With his celebrated stylistic panache and expert command of detail, one of our greatest contemporary historians has deftly captured France's sweeping historical trajectory in an inviting, intimate tone, and with a palpable affection for the enchanting landscape and richly colorful culture.]]> 400 John Julius Norwich 0802128904 Alan 3 3.89 2018 A History of France
author: John Julius Norwich
name: Alan
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2023/12/01
date added: 2023/12/03
shelves: e-book, library-book, male-author, non-fiction
review:
With a trip to France coming up I wanted to get an overview of this country's lengthy and important history. This seemed like a good starting point. It's tone was almost a little too casual and a little too much emphasis on the physical attributes (often negative) and sexual dalliances of the monarchs. However it did provide a good starting point. I wished there was more than just the military and political history of this country. It seemed there was always a war and a marriage (with a substantial dowry) to another royal family to settle the conflict. I would have liked more social, cultural and economic history thrown into the mix, but there's only so much one can put into a book with such broad scope.
]]> Dog Soldiers 380364 Dog Soldiers perfectly captures the underground mood of America in the 1970s, when amateur drug dealers and hippies encountered profiteering cops and professional killers—and the price of survival was dangerously high.]]> 342 Robert Stone 0395860253 Alan 4 3.71 1974 Dog Soldiers
author: Robert Stone
name: Alan
average rating: 3.71
book published: 1974
rating: 4
read at: 2023/11/29
date added: 2023/12/03
shelves: e-book, fiction, library-book, male-author, national-book-award-winner, sf-library
review:
A freelance writer in Vietnam decides to try his hand at heroin smuggling. What could possibly go wrong? Pretty much everything! The novel is fast-paced and captures the chaos of the early 70s (drugs, war, sex) perfectly. It is a dark novel for sure, but that's reflective of the times. It was clear from the outset that no one really knew what to do with the contraband, but there was money to be made so it was at least worthy a try.
]]> A Dog's Ransom 391883
In 'A Dog's Ransom', Highsmith blends a savage humor with brilliant social satire in this dark tale of a highminded criminal who hits a wealthy Manhattan couple where it hurts the most when he kidnaps their beloved poodle. This work attests to Highsmith's reputation as "the poet of apprehension" (Graham Greene).]]> 271 Patricia Highsmith 0393323366 Alan 4 3.49 1972 A Dog's Ransom
author: Patricia Highsmith
name: Alan
average rating: 3.49
book published: 1972
rating: 4
read at: 2023/11/25
date added: 2023/11/25
shelves: female-author, fiction, paperback
review:
This was a really dark novel (from a writer that knows how to do them well) about one small event - a policeman investigating a dog's kidnapping - that spirals out of control. A police patrolman on the upper west side of Manhattan is called to investigate the kidnapping of a wealthy book editor's dog. The criminal is an unemployed construction worker who tries bribing the dog owner and his wife. From there things move quickly - each step along the way I kept thinking "don't do this..." and of course the characters do. I won't given anything away, but the novel took turns I didn't expect but ultimately it seemed the ending was fated.
]]> <![CDATA[Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World]]> 61108472 The first comprehensive, global history of Silicon Valley, from railroad capitalists to microchip assemblers, showing how Northern California created the world as we know it

Palo Alto is nice. The weather is temperate, the people are educated, rich, healthy, enterprising. Remnants of a hippie counterculture have synthesized with high technology and big finance to produce the spiritually and materially ambitious heart of Silicon Valley, whose products are changing how we do everything from driving around to eating food. It is also a haunted toxic waste dump built on stolen Indian burial grounds, and an integral part of the capitalist world system.

In PALO ALTO, the first comprehensive, global history of Silicon Valley, Malcolm Harris examines how and why Northern California evolved in the particular, consequential way it did, tracing the ideologies, technologies, and policies that have been engineered there over the course of 150 years of Anglo settler colonialism, from IQ tests to the "tragedy of the commons," racial genetics, and "broken windows" theory. The Internet and computers, too. It's a story about how a small American suburb became a powerful engine for economic growth and war, and how it came to lead the world into a surprisingly disastrous 21st century. PALO ALTO is an urgent and visionary history of the way we live now, one that ends with a clear-eyed, radical proposition for how we might begin to change course.]]> 720 Malcolm Harris 031659203X Alan 3 3.91 2023 Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World
author: Malcolm Harris
name: Alan
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2023/11/10
date added: 2023/11/10
shelves: hardcover, male-author, non-fiction
review:
Our local book club selected this tome - at first I was psyched to read it. There had been some favorable reviews and I'm always interested in learning more local history. Sadly, I was let down. The author has a very snarky style to his writing - he spends a lot of time railing against the inequities inherent in modern capitalism, but does little to suggest solutions. And there was tremendous breadth - from the gold miners to Facebook in 600 pages. There were definitely some interesting tidbits including a cabal of eugenicists at Stanford and the murky death of Mrs. Leland Stanford. But overall, it was a little too superficial. Perhaps digging deeper into some of the seminal events of the times would have made for a more satisfying read.
]]> <![CDATA[American Overdose: The Opioid Tragedy in Three Acts]]> 40396413
Journeying through lives and communities wrecked by the epidemic, Chris McGreal reveals not only how Big Pharma hooked Americans on powerfully addictive drugs, but the corrupting of medicine and public institutions that let the opioid makers get away with it.

The starting point for McGreal's deeply reported investigation is the miners promised that opioid painkillers would restore their wrecked bodies, but who became targets of "drug dealers in white coats."

A few heroic physicians warned of impending disaster. But American Overdose exposes the powerful forces they were up against, including the pharmaceutical industry's coopting of the Food and Drug Administration and Congress in the drive to push painkillers--resulting in the resurgence of heroin cartels in the American heartland. McGreal tells the story, in terms both broad and intimate, of people hit by a catastrophe they never saw coming. Years in the making, its ruinous consequences will stretch years into the future.]]> 336 Chris McGreal 1541773772 Alan 5 4.15 2018 American Overdose: The Opioid Tragedy in Three Acts
author: Chris McGreal
name: Alan
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2023/11/08
date added: 2023/11/09
shelves: audio, male-author, non-fiction, library-book, sf-library
review:
I've read a number of books about the Opioid crisis and most have focused on the Sackler family/Purdue Pharma or the towns hardest hit by the crisis. Although all have been great (especially "Empire of Pain"), none have looked at the tragedy so holistically as this book. No one gets away unscathed here - and rightfully so. This was an avoidable tragedy - everyone knew these drugs were dangerous but the riches were too great and for politicians the desire to hold on to power was far greater than the desire to do what was right. Sure - a few brave folks spoke out, not soon or loudly enough. There are so many misaligned incentives - from hospital grades needed for funding (give me pills and you get a good grade) to pharma lobbyists to greedy distributors and yes, people who just wanted a new high. This is an incredibly thoughtful, well-researched and frightening books.
]]> <![CDATA[Down the River Unto the Sea (King Oliver, #1)]]> 35173689 From trailblazing novelist Walter Mosley: a former NYPD cop once imprisoned for a crime he did not commit must solve two cases: that of a man wrongly condemned to die, and his own.

Joe King Oliver was one of the NYPD's finest investigators, until, dispatched to arrest a well-heeled car thief, he is framed for assault by his enemies within the NYPD, a charge which lands him in solitary at Rikers Island.

A decade later, King is a private detective, running his agency with the help of his teenage daughter, Aja-Denise. Broken by the brutality he suffered and committed in equal measure while behind bars, his work and his daughter are the only light in his solitary life. When he receives a card in the mail from the woman who admits she was paid to frame him those years ago, King realizes that he has no choice but to take his own case: figuring out who on the force wanted him disposed of--and why.

Running in parallel with King's own quest for justice is the case of a Black radical journalist accused of killing two on-duty police officers who had been abusing their badges to traffic in drugs and women within the city's poorest neighborhoods.

Joined by Melquarth Frost, a brilliant sociopath, our hero must beat dirty cops and dirtier bankers, craven lawyers, and above all keep his daughter far from the underworld in which he works. All the while, two lives hang in the balance: King's client's, and King's own.]]> 336 Walter Mosley 0316509647 Alan 4 3.58 2018 Down the River Unto the Sea (King Oliver, #1)
author: Walter Mosley
name: Alan
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2023/11/07
date added: 2023/11/09
shelves: african-american-author, african-american-authoer, edgar-award-winner, fiction, library-book, male-author, mystery, sf-library, new-york-theme
review:
I always like starting a new series, especially if it's an author I like. This time Walter Mosley's detective, Joe King Oliver (named after the jazz musician King Oliver) is in New York City (close to my old neighborhood!). He's a former cop who carries a very large chip on his shoulder after being framed for assaulting a woman (a heavily edited video did him in). Now he's re-building his life as a private eye and the woman who framed him wants to make amends and a convicted cop killer's attorney has somehow given up...lots of characters, lots of twists and a great New York/Brooklyn/Staten Island background. All these ingredients cooked up a fantastic start to the series.
]]> The Shipping News 7354
A vigorous, darkly comic, and at times magical portrait of the contemporary American family, The Shipping News shows why E. Annie Proulx is recognized as one of the most gifted and original writers in America today.
(back cover)]]> 337 Annie Proulx 0743225422 Alan 0 national-book-award-winner 3.88 1993 The Shipping News
author: Annie Proulx
name: Alan
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1993
rating: 0
read at: 1998/08/01
date added: 2023/10/31
shelves: national-book-award-winner
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Baltimore Blues (Tess Monaghan, #1)]]> 351654
A former Star reporter who knows every inch of this town—from historic Fort McHenry to the crumbling projects of Cherry Hill—now-unemployed journalist Tess Monaghan also knows the primary suspect: cuckolded fiancé Darryl "Rock" Paxton. The time is ripe for a career move, so when rowing buddy Rock wants to hire her to do some unorthodox snooping to help clear his name, Tess agrees. But there are lethal secrets hiding in the Charm City shadows. And Tess's own name could end up on the ever-expanding list of Baltimore dead.]]> 336 Laura Lippman 0061210021 Alan 4 3.51 1997 Baltimore Blues (Tess Monaghan, #1)
author: Laura Lippman
name: Alan
average rating: 3.51
book published: 1997
rating: 4
read at: 2023/10/26
date added: 2023/10/26
shelves: audio, female-author, library-book, mystery, sf-library
review:
I always like starting a new detective series - this was the first in the Tess Monaghan series. Set in her hometown of Baltimore, Tess is still reeling from losing her job as a reporter when her paper folded (2 years prior). Her rowing buddy hires her as a "detective" to spy on his fiance and things spiral from there. It was a fast moving plot with the twists and turns one expects from a great mystery. Tess is an engaging detective and I look forward to more of her books. I also liked the "dated" nature of the story - fax machines, michrofiche and floppy disks.
]]> The Furrows 59900679 How do you grieve an absence? A brilliantly inventive novel about loss and belonging, from the award-winning author of The Old Drift.

I don't want to tell you what happened. I want to tell you how it felt.

Cassandra Williams is twelve; her little brother, Wayne, is seven. One day, when they're alone together, there is an accident and Wayne is lost forever. His body is never recovered. The missing boy cleaves the family with doubt. Their father leaves, starts another family elsewhere. But their mother can't give up hope and launches an organization dedicated to missing children.

As C grows older, she sees her brother everywhere: in bistros, airplane aisles, subway cars. Here is her brother's face, the light in his eyes, the way he seems to recognize her, too. But it can't be, of course. Or can it? Then one day, in another accident, C meets a man both mysterious and familiar, a man who is also searching for someone and for his own place in the world. His name is Wayne.

Namwali Serpell's remarkable new novel captures the uncanny experience of grief, the way the past breaks over the present like waves in the sea. The Furrows is a bold exploration of memory and mourning that twists unexpectedly into a story of mistaken identity, double consciousness, and the wishful--and sometimes willful--longing for reunion with those we've lost.]]> 288 Namwali Serpell 059344891X Alan 4 3.20 2022 The Furrows
author: Namwali Serpell
name: Alan
average rating: 3.20
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/10/26
date added: 2023/10/26
shelves: female-author, fiction, african-american-author, library-book, e-book, sf-library
review:
This was an interesting book - it opens with a 12 year old Cassie Williams and her 7 year old brother Wayne going to beach and Wayne "disappears" (you'll need to read the book to find out what happens). The disappearance tears the family apart each family soothes their grief and relates to the loss in different ways. The second half is almost a separate book where a "Wayne Williams" comes on the scene (fear of spoilers - I'll stop here). It was a beautifully written book and I loved the San Francisco scenes (the 22 bus!!).
]]> <![CDATA[Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem]]> 1067289
London, 1880. A series of gruesome murders attributed to the mysterious 'Limehouse Golem' strikes fear into the heart of the capital. Inspector John Kildare must track down this brutal serial killer in the damp, dark alleyways of riverside London. But how does Dan Leno, music hall star extraordinaire, find himself implicated in this crime spree, and what does Elizabeth Cree, on trial for the murder of her husband, have to hide?

Peter Ackroyd brings Victorian London to life in all its guts and glory, as we travel from the glamour of the music hall to the slums of the East End, meeting George Gissing and Karl Marx along the way.]]> 281 Peter Ackroyd 0749396598 Alan 0 3.74 1994 Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem
author: Peter Ackroyd
name: Alan
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1994
rating: 0
read at: 1998/05/04
date added: 2023/10/24
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow]]> 58784475 In this exhilarating novel, two friends—often in love, but never lovers—come together as creative partners in the world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality.

On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn't heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won't protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts.

Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before.]]> 401 Gabrielle Zevin 0735243344 Alan 4
However the books's main themes (friendship, identity, work) were framed by the gaming motif, but one does not have to be a gamer to embrace the characters. The characters really made the book - Marx, Sadie and Sam are very different but their affection with and for each other was so real. Like all humans, they were imperfect and carried with them the baggage of their upbringing, but their devotion to their games and each other felt true. I really liked this book - games and all!]]> 4.12 2022 Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
author: Gabrielle Zevin
name: Alan
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/10/08
date added: 2023/10/08
shelves: e-book, female-author, fiction, library-book, sf-library
review:
I was a little hesitant to read this book when I heard it as about video games. I'm not a gamer so wasn't sure if I'd like it, but I'd read too many good reviews, so I jumped in! I'm glad I did. Yes there was a video game element to the story, but not in a bang bang shoot 'em up version of what I thought (mistakenly) video games were all about. As I learned there's creativity, artistry and community.

However the books's main themes (friendship, identity, work) were framed by the gaming motif, but one does not have to be a gamer to embrace the characters. The characters really made the book - Marx, Sadie and Sam are very different but their affection with and for each other was so real. Like all humans, they were imperfect and carried with them the baggage of their upbringing, but their devotion to their games and each other felt true. I really liked this book - games and all!
]]> The Candy House 58437521 From one of the most dazzling and iconic writers of our time and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, an electrifying, deeply moving novel about the quest for authenticity, privacy, and meaning in a world where our memories are no longer our own—featuring characters from A Visit from the Goon Squad.

It’s 2010. Staggeringly successful and brilliant tech entrepreneur Bix Bouton is desperate for a new idea. He’s forty, with four kids, and restless when he stumbles into a conversation with mostly Columbia professors, one of whom is experimenting with downloading or “externalizing� memory. Within a decade, Bix’s new technology, Own Your Unconscious—that allows you access to every memory you’ve ever had, and to share every memory in exchange for access to the memories of others—has seduced multitudes. But not everyone.

In spellbinding linked narratives, Egan spins out the consequences of Own Your Unconscious through the lives of multiple characters whose paths intersect over several decades. Egan introduces these characters in an astonishing array of styles—from omniscient to first person plural to a duet of voices, an epistolary chapter, and a chapter of tweets. In the world of Egan’s spectacular imagination, there are “counters� who track and exploit desires and there are “eluders,� those who understand the price of taking a bite of the Candy House.

Intellectually dazzling and extraordinarily moving, The Candy House is a bold, brilliant imagining of a world that is moments away. With a focus on social media, gaming, and alternate worlds, you can almost experience moving among dimensions in a role-playing game.� Egan delivers a fierce and exhilarating testament to the tenacity and transcendence of human longing for real connection, love, family, privacy and redemption.]]> 352 Jennifer Egan 1476716765 Alan 4 3.62 2022 The Candy House
author: Jennifer Egan
name: Alan
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/10/04
date added: 2023/10/04
shelves: audio, female-author, fiction, library-book, sf-library
review:
A fascinating exploration of technologies impact on a disparate, but interrelated group of people. At times the narrative was confusing, but overall a fascinating listen; the different voices really helped differentiate the characters and the chapter-themes (emails, tweets, etc.).
]]> Flux 61774690
Combining elements of neo-noir, speculative fiction, and '80s detective shows, FLUX is a haunting and sometimes shocking exploration of the cyclical nature of grief, of moving past trauma, and of the pervasive nature of whiteness within the development of Asian identity in America.

In FLUX, a brilliant debut in the vein of William Gibson’s Neuromancer and Ling Ma’s Severance, Jinwoo Chong introduces us to three characters —Bo, Brandon and Blue� who are tortured by these questions as their lives spin out of control.

* After 8-year-old Bo loses his mother in a tragic accident, his white father, attempting to hold their lives together, begins to gradually retreat from the family.

* 28-year-old Brandon loses his job at a legacy magazine publisher and is offered a new position. Confused to find himself in an apartment he does not recognize, and an office he sometimes cannot remember leaving, he comes to suspect that something far more sinister is happening behind the walls.

* 48-year-old Blue participates in a television exposé of Flux, a failed bioelectric tech startup whose fraudulent activity eventually claimed the lives of three people and nearly killed him. Blue, who can only speak with the aid of cybernetic implants, stalks his old manager while holding his estranged family at arms-length.

Intertwined with the saga of a once-iconic '80s detective show, Raider, whose star has fallen after decades of concealed abuse, the lives of Bo, Brandon and Blue intersect with each other, to the extent that it becomes clear that their lives are more interconnected and interdependent than the reader could have ever imagined.

Can we ever really change the past, or the future? What truth do we owe our families? What truth do we owe ourselves?]]> 341 Jinwoo Chong 1685890342 Alan 3 3.33 2023 Flux
author: Jinwoo Chong
name: Alan
average rating: 3.33
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2023/09/22
date added: 2023/09/24
shelves: asian-american-author, fiction, hardcover, male-author, nervous-breakdown-book-club, nervous-breakdown-bookclub
review:
I often (too often?) sing the praises of The Nervous Breakdown Book Club. For over five years now I get a random book in the mail - fiction, non-fiction, new writers, established ones, writings of all genres and voices. Flux was one of these books. It's a time-travel novel with one character as a child, young adult, and older man. It goes back and forth in time and voice and there's a nefarious tech company with an Elizabeth Holmes-type leader as well as retro crime noir with an Asian actor who ends up running for president on his celebrity status. In other words, a whole lot of stuff. At times the threads were hard to connect, though I think I would have been better served by reading this book in a few sittings instead of spreading out between other books - my horrible/wonderful habit of having multiple books going on at once.
]]> Such Kindness 62585977
In constant pain, addicted to painkillers at the cost of his relationships with his wife and son, Tom slowly comes to realize that he can never work again. If he is not a working man, who is he? He is not, he believes, the kind of person who lives in subsidized housing, though that is where he has ended up. He is not the kind of person who hatches a scheme to commit convenience-check fraud, together with neighbors he considers lowlifes, until he finds himself stealing his banker’s trash.

Who is Tom Lowe, and who will he become? Can he find a way to reunite hands and heart, mind and spirit, to be once again a giver and not just a taker, to forge a self-acceptance deeper than pride? To one man’s painful moral journey, Dubus brings compassion with an edge of dark absurdity, forging a novel as absorbing as it is profound.]]> 336 Andre Dubus III 1324000465 Alan 4 3.93 2023 Such Kindness
author: Andre Dubus III
name: Alan
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/09/11
date added: 2023/09/11
shelves: boston-them, e-book, fiction, library-book, male-author, sf-library
review:
The protagonist of the novel, Tom Lowe, is well, "low". He's recovering from a painkiller addiction brought on by a bad fall brought on by taking out a poorly thought out sub prime mortgage. And he continues to suffer from chronic pain and only medicates with cheap vodka. The author has hit on most of the main early 2000s calamities - sub prime mortgages, opioid addiction, and inadequate health care. On top of all this, Tom's divorced has a distant relationship with his 20 year old son. With all these misfortunes it's easy to understand why Tom wallows in his own misery. But over the course of a few days Tom begins to see the other side of life and experiences gratitude, friendship, connection and not quite salvation, but a road out. I really appreciated the author didn't wrap it all up in a neat package, but left us with a feeling that maybe Tom's life going forward will not be so bad. I won't spoil anything - a lot happens - some good, some not, some expected, and some not. But the author does an amazing job of keeping the story realistic and plausible and not overly sentimental. Kind of like life itself!
]]> <![CDATA[We Don't Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland]]> 56769525 Angela’s Ashes, Fintan O’Toole, one of the Anglophone world’s most consummate stylists, continues the narrative of modern Ireland into our own time. O’Toole was born in the year the revolution began. It was 1958, and the Irish government—in despair, because all the young people were leaving—opened the country to foreign investment. So began a decades-long, ongoing experiment with Irish national identity.


Weaving his own experiences into this account of Irish social, cultural, and economic change, O’Toole shows how Ireland, in just one lifetime, has gone from a Catholic “backwater� to an almost totally open society. A sympathetic-yet-exacting observer, O’Toole shrewdly weighs more than sixty years of globalization, delving into the violence of the Troubles and depicting, in biting detail, the astonishing collapse of the once-supreme Irish Catholic Church. The result is a stunning work of memoir and national history that reveals how the two modes are inextricable for all of us.]]> 616 Fintan O'Toole 1631496530 Alan 5 4.31 2021 We Don't Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland
author: Fintan O'Toole
name: Alan
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2023/09/07
date added: 2023/09/08
shelves: audio, library-book, male-author, non-fiction, sf-library
review:
I listened to this fascinating book about the history of modern Ireland as told by someone who lived through it (from the late 1950s to today). It was a powerful mix of history/current events and memoir. I had to remind myself that Ireland as we know it today is a fairly new country having broken off from England in the early 20th century (the six provinces of Northern Ireland notwithstanding). There was a lot of focus on the IRA and related "troubles" starting in the late 1960s through the 1990s. Also the economic rise and fall (Celtic Tiger years), political corruption, church oppressiveness and abuse, migration, immigration and cultural touchstones. It was a really dense book but the insights really gave me a sense of Ireland separate and distinct from the US media portrayals and the author's insights were very vivid - I felt like I was having a beer in the pub with him. A great book to listen to as well.
]]> <![CDATA[Brothers and Sisters: The Allman Brothers Band and the Inside Story of the Album That Defined the '70s]]> 61884952
New York Times bestselling author Alan Paul's in-depth narrative look at the Allman Brothers' most successful album, and a portrait of an era in rock and roll and American history.

The Allman Brothers Band’s Brothers and Sisters was not only the band’s bestselling album, at over seven million copies sold, but it was also a powerfully influential release, both musically and culturally, one whose influence continues to be profoundly felt.

Celebrating the album’s fiftieth anniversary, Brothers and Sisters the book delves into the making of the album, while also presenting a broader cultural history of the era, based on first-person interviews, historical documents, and in-depth research.

Brothers and Sisters traces the making of the template-shaping record alongside the stories of how the Allman Brothers came to the rescue of a flailing Jimmy Carter presidential campaign and helped get the former governor of Georgia elected president; how Gregg Allman’s marriage to Cher was an early harbinger of an emerging celebrity media culture; and how the band’s success led to internal fissures. The book also examines the Allman Brothers' relationship with the Grateful Dead―including the most in-depth reporting ever on the Summer Jam at Watkins Glen, the largest rock festival ever―and describes how they inspired bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd, helping create the southern rock genre.

With exclusive access to hundreds of hours of never-before-heard interviews with every major player, including Dickey Betts and Gregg Allman, conducted by Allman Brothers Band archivist, photographer, and “Tour Mystic� Kirk West, Brothers and Sisters is an honest assessment of the band’s career, history, and highs and lows.]]> 352 Alan Paul 1250282691 Alan 4 4.08 Brothers and Sisters: The Allman Brothers Band and the Inside Story of the Album That Defined the '70s
author: Alan Paul
name: Alan
average rating: 4.08
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2023/09/04
date added: 2023/09/05
shelves: hardcover, male-author, music-related, non-fiction
review:
As an Allman Brothers fan this was a fascinating look at the band's origin - their rise and fall (their subsequent rise is a whole separate story!). At one time they were America's most popular rock band - co-headling a show with the Grateful Dead that drew over 500,000 fans to Watkins Glen in upstate New York (actual attendance is subject to debate). They sold out huge venues and started a whole genre of music (Southern Rock). Along they way the suffered tragedy (Duane Allman's and Berry Oakley's tragic deaths), got ripped off by disreputable managers, helped elect a president (Jimmy Carter) and became tabloid fodder (Gregg & Cher's marriage). Oh - and a whole of drugs too. But the music remains and they rose from the ashes in the 2000s with Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks.
]]> <![CDATA[Where the Bodies Were Buried: Whitey Bulger and the World That Made Him]]> 28258982 New York Times bestselling author of The Westies and Paddy Whacked offers a front-row seat at the trial of Whitey Bulger, and an intimate view of the world of organized crime—and law enforcement—that made him the defining Irish American gangster.

For sixteen years, Whitey Bulger eluded the long reach of the law. For decades one of the most dangerous men in America, Bulger—the brother of influential Massachusetts senator Billy Bulger—was often romanticized as a Robin Hood-like thief and protector. While he was functioning as the de facto mob boss of New England, Bulger was also serving as a Top Echelon informant for the FBI, covertly feeding local prosecutors information about other mob figures—while using their cover to cleverly eliminate his rivals, reinforce his own power, and protect himself from prosecution. Then, in 2011, he was arrested in southern California and returned to Boston, where he was tried and convicted of racketeering and murder.

Our greatest chronicler of the Irish mob in America, T. J. English covered the trial at close range—by day in the courtroom, but also, on nights and weekends, interviewing Bulger’s associates as well as lawyers, former federal agents, and even members of the jury in the backyards and barrooms of Whitey’s world. In Where the Bodies Were Buried, he offers a startlingly revisionist account of Bulger’s story—and of the decades-long culture of collusion between the Feds and the Irish and Italian mob factions that have ruled New England since the 1970s, when a fateful deal left the FBI fatally compromised. English offers an authoritative look at Bulger’s own understanding of his relationship with the FBI and his alleged immunity deal, and illuminates how gangsterism, politics, and law enforcement have continued to be intertwined in Boston.

As complex, harrowing, and human as a Scorsese film, Where the Bodies Were Buried is the last word on a reign of terror that many feared would never end.]]> 464 T.J. English 0062290991 Alan 3 3.70 2015 Where the Bodies Were Buried: Whitey Bulger and the World That Made Him
author: T.J. English
name: Alan
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2023/09/03
date added: 2023/09/05
shelves: boston-them, e-book, library-book, male-author, non-fiction, sf-library
review:
I've been endlessly fascinated with the Whitely Bulger saga since living in Boston in the 1980s/early 90s. The politics, crime, corruption - all proving that truth is far stranger than fiction. This book focused primarily on Whitey's trial. After being tipped off about his imminent arrest, Whitely fled. After many years on the lam he was caught in Santa Monica living a pretty nondescript life. His trial revealed his life as an FBI informant (though never officially confirmed it was pretty obvious) and the related corruption of the Boston area FBI. Of course the true tragedy is that many innocent people died or went to prison for crimes they never committed. It really boggles the mind that so much went on with no one blowing the whistle. It's almost as if the most powerful politician in Massachusetts and the states leading organized crime figure were brothers!
]]> <![CDATA[The Dreamt Land: Chasing Water and Dust Across California]]> 41883929 The Dreamt Land, he travels the state to explore the one-of-a-kind distribution system, built in the 1940s, '50s and '60s, that is straining to keep up with California's relentless growth.

This is a heartfelt, beautifully written book about the land and the people who have worked it--from gold miners to wheat ranchers to small fruit farmers and today's Big Ag. Since the beginning, Californians have redirected rivers, drilled ever-deeper wells and built higher dams, pushing the water supply past its limit.

The Dreamt Land weaves reportage, history, and memoir to confront the "Golden State" myth in riveting fashion. No other chronicler of the West has so deeply delved into the empires of agriculture that drink so much of the water. The nation's biggest farmers--the nut king, grape king and citrus queen--tell their story here for the first time.

It is a tale of politics and hubris in the arid West, of imported workers left behind in the sun and the fatigued earth that is made to give more even while it keeps sinking. But when drought turns to flood once again, all is forgotten as the farmers plant more nuts and the developers build more houses.

Arax, the native son, is persistent and tough as he treks from desert to delta, mountain to valley. What he finds is hard earned, awe-inspiring, tragic and revelatory. In the end, his compassion for the land becomes an elegy to the dream that created California and now threatens to undo it.]]> 576 Mark Arax 1101875208 Alan 5 4.42 2019 The Dreamt Land: Chasing Water and Dust Across California
author: Mark Arax
name: Alan
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2023/08/21
date added: 2023/08/21
shelves: male-author, non-fiction, paperback
review:
This book is a lot of things - the personal history of the author and his family who immigrated from Armenia to Central California. The geological history and tragedy of California's central valley torn apart and overfed by convoluted water policies. The political of history of California from its earliest days to the current senator and recent Governor. The topics themselves may not seem overly compelling (water, smelt, gold rush, pomegranates) but in the author's hands they form a compelling narrative of a state that's bigger than most countries and how man continually tries to tame nature.
]]> <![CDATA[The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War]]> 61089467 352 Jeff Sharlet 1324006498 Alan 3
All that said, it felt voyeuristic and slightly patronizing, with a dash of smugness. It also highlighted just how starkly divided our country is - the people he meets and interacts with live in a parallel universe. My criticism isn't that their exposure wasn't tactful (it wasn't, never hurtful or mean), but there was an underlying tension that was never resolved. His "subjects" are not good people - they are racist, sexist, homophobic and paranoid. But why? What happened? Granted it's not his obligation to answer those questions, but I wish he did more than just these people a platform. ]]> 3.98 2023 The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War
author: Jeff Sharlet
name: Alan
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2023/08/09
date added: 2023/08/09
shelves: e-book, essays, male-author, library-book, sf-library
review:
I've tried to stay clear, recently, of overtly partisan political books regardless of whether I agree or not. They get too polemical and avoid nuance of all sorts. But...this book got a great review in the NY Times and it seemed like it would be "different" than some of the others of this sort. Well, for the most part is was - the writing was amazing. The writer's essays about his journeys across the country and his encounters with Trumpers of all sorts (mostly of the far extremes) was more literary and though he never justified the extremism he provided more context - religious and political.

All that said, it felt voyeuristic and slightly patronizing, with a dash of smugness. It also highlighted just how starkly divided our country is - the people he meets and interacts with live in a parallel universe. My criticism isn't that their exposure wasn't tactful (it wasn't, never hurtful or mean), but there was an underlying tension that was never resolved. His "subjects" are not good people - they are racist, sexist, homophobic and paranoid. But why? What happened? Granted it's not his obligation to answer those questions, but I wish he did more than just these people a platform.
]]> <![CDATA[Devil in a Blue Dress (Easy Rawlins, #1)]]> 37100 263 Walter Mosley Alan 4 3.89 1990 Devil in a Blue Dress (Easy Rawlins, #1)
author: Walter Mosley
name: Alan
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1990
rating: 4
read at: 2023/08/09
date added: 2023/08/09
shelves: african-american-author, male-author, mystery, paperback
review:
Where it all begins - I can't believe I haven't read this yet! Set in LA right after WWII we learn how Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins gets his start as a private eye helping a corrupt white businessman locate a femme fatale, yes, in a blue dress. Mosley's portrayal of post-war LA rivals Chandler, but his social insights surpass him. Sure, it's a convoluted plot, but that makes it fun. Loved it!
]]>