mkboylan's 2013 Reading Part II

Time for a new thread I suppose. Think I'll go by quarters next year.

BOOK 43 - The Diaries of Adam and Eve by Mark Twain

This was my first Twain and I am sorely disappointed. Maybe I'm just cranky but it was so misogynistic. The line about a woman loving a man so much she'd continue to follow him even if he beat her just about did me in. Sheesh. Considering the time period doesn't help and neither does considering it is satire. and I typically like satire. The part about women talking too much bugged me also, especially when "the research" in the communication field shows men dominate conversations typically. Ah well. I couldn't get through Tom Sawyer as a child either, although I did love the movie and the characters of Tom and Huck. That childlike perspective made Tom Sawyer's Island my favorite hangout at Disneyland as a young early teen. I still want to try something else of Twain's perhaps when my mood picks up.

I'm still reading Economix and enjoying it.

I've had too much crisis lately to focus much and reading others' posts on here has been a nice distraction for me - a little tie to "normal" life. Things are good tho, happy endings for most, and still what my kids call First World Problems, i.e. even with health crises the decision is between which surgeon is best, not can we get the life-saving surgery. SO - getting back to normal I think!

Good luck with the crises. First world or not, they can still turn your life upside down.

yes, definitely all the best for any crises.

as for MT - men eh!

I'm glad to hear you're enjoying Economix. As for The Diaries of Adam and Eve, having read that recently as part of The Bible According to Mark Twain, I think I can say that's really not the best place to start with Twain (even though I liked it better than you did, despite being at least mildly bugged by some of the same things). It's been quite a while since I read it, but I'd say Huckleberry Finn is probably a lot better as a starting point; it's one of his best-known works for a good reason.

(And sympathies are the current crises. I figure, being glad your problems aren't as bad as other people's problems doesn't not make them problems...)

BOOK 44 - Afterzen: Experiences of a Zen Student Out on His Ear by Jan van de Wetering I've read a couple of other books by this author and liked them a lot. I was cranky when I started this one and did not like it. As I read on or my mood improved, not sure which, or perhaps it was my understanding. I liked it more. Yes - my understanding increased. It is a memoir of his experiences after leaving the "serious" study of Zen in Japan and moving to the U.S. He is Dutch which added more interest for me. He writes each chapter round a koan, those nasty little things that annoy the hell out of me. It can be used as a light read or with more thought, a deeper read. He examines the process of having a teacher, teachers' humanity, and other issues around religious institutions. I'm giving it four stars, and I think it is worth another read still.

Thanks Vivienne - it is stressful for sure!

and thanks TonyH also. and as for Twain and your "men eh?" I had to laugh because no one is a bigger sexist pig than I am. I have a ton of absolutely silly and foolish sexist stereotypes that I struggle with by saying them out loud and laughing at myself. You know, along the lines of "Real men....." should be embarrassed to walk small dogs. drive small cars (in the U.S. anyway) those silly kinds of things. I have a very hard struggle not repeating some sexist jokes. I'd like to think it is funny or harmless, but....... For example, when my son was 14, his sister was 16 and they came in the house from a trip into town and told me excitedly about the muffler falling off the old farm truck, my body turned toward him, my finger pointing at him, as I asked him if he took care of it. I had to stop myself and turn back toward my daughter, who was 2 years older, and ask HER how SHE handled it. Really an unfair impulse to turn toward the younger one because he is a male. They didn't miss it either. Now my daughter is pretty self-sufficient with cars and I don't have to worry about that one thing. She likes it to - makes her feel good. The boy? not so much into cars. He does have a small Boston Terrier tho.

Bragan - I know you are right and will check out more Twain. thanks.

Yes to challenging gender stereotypes, partly precisely because of them. I'm no good with cars.

Re: Stereotypes. I was so glad to have boys. As a little girl I loved my dolls and E-Z bake oven. But I also wanted to play with Legos and Hot Wheels cars and never got any. (Oh, what a tragedy! LOL!) So I grew up and bought them (ahem) *for* my boys. You should see the collection of Hot Wheels car my youngest has!

9 - grinning at your Hot Wheel collection. I find gender to be a fascinating topic.

BOOK 45 - The Round House by Louise Erdrich

Four stars. I enjoyed it a lot but didn't find it much different from many excellent books I have read along this line. It was only when I read the prologue that I began to understand why this book specifically was considered to be so important. Much has been written about domestic violence and rape on reservations, but this addresses some very specific legal issues regarding jurisdiction and the ability to prosecute criminals and some recent changes in legislation to help alleviate that problem. Additionally, the author examines the whole concept of what is considered justice in different cultures, and who is responsible for administering it. It sparked my interest further and I will be doing some followup studying of that issue, one I find intriguing, especially since it is not something that is done well in the U.S. in my opinion. I'm interested in the concept of Restorative Justice also, and this novel contributes to that body of work.

Thanks to RidgewayGirl for her review which lead to my reading this. If you are interested, her review if detailed and excellent on her ClubRead2013 thread.

I liked The Round House a lot too. I love how Erdrich creates interesting characters and weaves "the message" into their stories so it doesn't seems like you're reading a book with a message.

Speaking of gender stereotypes: I went to law school and began practicing law at a time when females were grossly underrepresented in the profession. My husband is an architect. Many years ago, when our daughter was about 2 or 3 and was building with blocks, her brother, who is 2 years older, came over and scolded her: "No, no Sonia--you can't be an architect. Girls have to be lawyers!" :)

13 - That is priceless! Thanks for the story.

BOOK 46 - In the Basement of the Ivory Tower by Professor X

Professor X is an adjunct instructor at both a small private college and a community college. He writes about his experiences teaching when his poor financial decisions make a second job necessary. It turns out after years of this work that he comes to love it, despite it being the low man position at colleges and poorly paid, with no benefits. Adjuncts are often the stepchildren, given little support from the administration and little office space, if any. That is common knowledge. For the record, I have worked with colleges that make excellent use of adjuncts and treat them very well.

The main focus of this author is examining whether college is indeed for everyone. He works with students who are extremely ill-prepared for college and live with great financial difficulty and time constraints, making good college level work extremely difficult. He also discusses other options such as more focus on technical and vocational schools. He wonders if nurses indeed need to study history and literature. He wonders if it is even possible for him to teach these students to write in one or even two semesters, and realizes it is not. He cannot make up for a lifetime of poor learning and the effects of poverty in a year. When you have to begin by teaching that each sentence needs a subject and a verb, you're in trouble.

Professor X makes many valid points. This is not new information and these are not new arguments. My objection to his thesis is that I think he is asking the wrong questions. Rather than asking if these many students who can't write and do not have the knowledge base necessary to succeed in college should BE in college, I think we should be asking why do we have high school graduates who cannot write and have no knowledge base. This problem begins long before they get to college or even high school. In my ten years of teaching college students with these problems, I believe we are mostly looking at the results of poverty.

I'm glad I read bfertig's review of this book in his Dewey Decimal Challenge thread, because I enjoyed reading it, just for the sheer commiseration of experience.

BOOK 47 - Economix by Michael Goodwin

I did NOT expect to see a graphic book about economics, nor did I expect to ENJOY a book about economics. It is a topic that I have avoided always, thinking it was both difficult and boring. I was so wrong. I really enjoyed this. It is very basic and I now feel as if I understand a lot more and have a decent foundation for understanding this particular world, which has become more and more important for all of us.

There are eight chapters, each of which covers a particular time period, grouped by important economic events. These divisions allowed me to stop and absorb ideas and ruminate about them before going on to the next thing. It begins with "The Distant Past to 1820", which lays the foundation with some basic definitions and explanation and the others continue to the present time. You will know not only about the effects of the Industrial Revolution and Great Depression, but also about the dot.com happenings, the Savings and Loan crisis, the mortgage and foreclosure mess, and the many government bailouts. And...you will understand. You will know what was done that was legal and caused problems, as well as what was illegal.

I recommend this book to just about anyone from high school on up because it is very well presented but also advanced enough to hold interest. It's one of those books I wish everyone would read so that we can hold our government (ourselves) more accountable.

Thanks bragan for your review. I LOVED LOVED LOVED this book and am so glad I read it.

>15 mkboylan: That sounds very interesting.

A few years ago I worked with the "underachieving" HS freshman class. The under-success I saw there had more to do with lack of attention than poverty. One kid who was flunking everything under the sun (oh, wait, he did brag about that D he was earning - a lot of them did because "A D is still passing right?") but had all the brand new contraptions that go with teenage life: newest cell phone, shoes, etc. When I asked him if he got in trouble at home because of his grades, he said "No, my mom just buys me everything." ! In my world, where I work with college bound high school kids, a lot of them have to work simply to put food on the table at home but have great grades. The only difference is is that they have (or have had) a family member, friend, or teacher care enough to tell them they can succeed. I think a lack of attention and parental involvement is a big problem too.

>15 mkboylan: You raise very important issues in your review, Merrikay. I would hate to see a system where anyone with a desire to continue to learn is denied that opportunity based on a past failure of their educational institutions. Years ago, I taught social welfare courses as an adjunct in a University Without Walls program operating in two State prisons. As you would certainly suspect, many of the students had very poor writing and analytic skills and would not have been accepted into regular college programs. But most were eager to learn and saw this opportunity as extremely important to their future upon release.

Have to agree with you there avid. I also think some of the lack of attention and parental involvement is due to poverty but certainly not all of it.

I think you also were interested in the Economix book when bragan reviewed it weren't you? or am I confused. anyway - it is great.

Yes! Very interested in reading Economix. Great enthusiastic review. "And...you will understand." Gonna have to get to this one soon.

ETA: There's another book I want to get to also titled The Price of Inequality. That might prove to be another good one.

Your review of In the Basement of the Ivory Tower brings up very interesting points, Merrikay. I firmly believe that parents need to be advocates for their children to ensure that they are receiving the proper education. I understand that there are situations where poverty can get in the way, and we need more dedicated mentors for children falling into that spectrum. Moving children ahead when they are not ready does not help. I will check this one out.

Linda, Avid, Nana, I hear you, at least I think I do. Poverty is a big part of the problem. Poverty isn't all of it and throwing money at it alone won't help. Is that what you are saying? Yeah - I agree anything to help would need to be multi-modal. I just had so many very smart and eager students at our state university who had many problems that money would have helped. My impression was that they were exhausted and overworked trying to support themselves and stay in school. They worked too many hours and were simply too tired to think. As were their parents. I would often think "My mom wouldn't have let me get away with using that kind of grammar. Didn't your parents correct you?" and "Didn't your parents take you to the library?" and no, they didn't. They were unemployed or underemployed or working two jobs and also exhausted. And so one thing we talked about a lot was the importance, once (if) they made it out. was reaching back of course, as well as working toward keeping tuition down for future students and getting into positions of employment where they could be helpful e.g. for holding the line for a 40 hour work week and fair pay. Of course it was great timing reading the Economix book at the same time! In my opinion it is both a class issue and a human nature issue. I think there will always be both greedy and lazy people, but I do think we can do better. I think programs like Head Start should be better supported and Avid, as you talk about that one person - I think that is also so true and mentoring programs can make such a difference also. Well, this conversation is too much to type and nothing new, right? So I'll just keep doing what's in front of me.

Oh yes - remembering why I retired!

and now reading Echoes from Dharamsala: Music in the Life of a Tibetan Refugee Community by Keila Diehl, just getting through the 30 page intro, which sets the research in an anthropological perspective and reviews ideas of influence from individuals to groups and vice versa. How much can a refugee adapt and receive influence from surroundings without being seen as a traitor to her own culture, and at the same time, how can she resist. Individual versus society. I love how my reading always enlivens and enlightens my previous reading and vice versa, as I continue think about students and education and that struggle. The strength of the individual versus the strength of society. Can I as an individual student work hard enough to overcome the fact that I have to work two jobs to get through school and still have time to study? Some do, right? I know I always tend to come down more empathetic on the individual in her struggle to overcome group situations and economics. And as Diehl states, one must be careful to not let our own struggle with authority effect our interpretation of refugee struggles - that part of me that wants to rebel versus the part that longs to belong. hmmmm....still referring back to In the Basement of the Ivory Tower.

and more from Diehl: "It seems that focusing on the degree to which any given research subject appears theoretically useful often overrides understanding and documenting the experience of displacement for that person or group."

And then, Merrikay, one of the reasons put forth by certain congressmen for voting against the Violence Against Women Act was that it would be unacceptable that a white man who raped a Native American woman on a reservation would be judged by Native Americans. Good comments on The Round House and I look forward to following any further reading you do.

I'm currently reading Economix, also due to bragan and am learning so much, while enjoying the process.

Another enthusiastic review for Economix which now goes on my wishlist. I will be interested in any thoughts you have on echoes from Dharamsala, as I was there back in the 1970's listening to some very strange music at a big temple.

Yay, I am so glad you liked Economix as much as I did! You know, I think I'd just about come to the conclusion that my brain was simply not wired to understand economics somehow, no matter what I read about it, and I was pretty well blown away by just how thoroughly that book proved me wrong.

26 - yes that jury of peers thing! That is a tough one. I get what the point of that is, but how about a jury of the victim's peers?! That whole thing is insane.
I look forward to hearing more of your reaction to Economix. and the one Avid recommended in 20 above sounds good too.

ah baswood that must have been fun. Love your description: very strange music at a big temple . The band in this book is on youtube. The Yak Band.

28 - Boy I sure did love it. I can,t believe the author managed to simplify the info and make it so easily understood without, I think, dumbing it down, you know? Really just trimmed the excess verbiage that is usually found. So glad you recommended it.

and my current reading - not sure how much more I will write about it, but so far:

BOOK 48 - Echoes from Dharamsala Music in the Life of a Tibetan Refugee Community by Keila Diehl

This book is reminding me of old news stories about public reaction of mainstream adults to various types of music or particular musicians over my lifetime. I'm thinking of old news clips I have seen of Elvis "swiveling" those hips, of complaints about the Beatles hair, etc. My dad thought Bob Dylan was the devil. Not literally, but if I really wanted to get to him all I had to do was put on what he called "that horrible whiney voiced guy". If he had been able to get past that to the lyrics, he would have really freaked out! We knew our parents hated it because they did not want us to rebel against their values, and I really didn't think about it much beyond that. I just thought Dylan was brilliant and didn't understand how anyone could not be in agreement with the Civil Rights movement.

This book is also giving me a more thorough understanding of the role of music in constructing culture. It is written by an anthropologist and ethnomusicologist who studied and taught at Stanford and is currently at Berkeley. The introduction then, sets up the academic anthropological perspective. The specific reasons for choosing a refugee community are addressed. THEN......Dr. Diehl goes to Dharamsala and joins a rock and roll band as a keyboardist, and the fun begins!

Dr. Diehl traces the return of traditional music to this refugee community in the form of wedding singers. Of course the refugees initially think their return to their homeland of Tibet is imminent, but as that becomes less certain, the desire to preserve their heritage increases, thus the return of the wedding singers and some other traditions that had been lost in the initial exhaustion and confusion of leaving Tibet. The older generation then, uses music to attempt to keep Tibetans tied to and committed to their homeland. If the younger generation, not born in Tibet, uses their music to tell their OWN story, who will be left to hold out the hope of revolution against China?

I like your comparison with youth music of the 1950's and 60's Merrikay.

When I was in Dharamsala there were very few western people in evidence and I suppose all that has now changed and there is a real fear that traditions will lose out to Western culture. Interesting stuff.

BOOK 49 - Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog: the Quirky History and Lost Art of Diagramming Sentences by Kitty Burns Florey

How embarrassing is that? I loved diagramming sentences when I was in grade school, and I often thought my college students would have constructed much better sentences if they had learned to do so. I mean I REALLY loved diagramming sentences! When this book was mentioned and I knew I had not read any books in that category of the Dewey Decimal system, I grabbed it. I had a lot of fun reading it - just took a couple of hours, and learned some interesting things. There was a little bit about the history of grammar and the development of grammatical rules along with some discussion of the necessity of those rules. Opinions about both sides of that issue were presented mentioning things I had not thought about as it is a topic I am ambivalent about.

I especially loved the chapter about famous authors. Florey determined if those authors were likely to have learned diagramming at the time and place they were educated, then examines their writing to decide if they benefitted or not. It was just plain fun and I learned still more about writing and styles.

There was also a bit about grammar and social class, always interesting topic to me.

I had fun reading this book, and recommend it to those who are interested in sentence diagramming. I would think that would be a pretty specific audience.

I have joined the Dewey Decimal Challenge and this book filled in a blank for me there.

Thanks to Detailmuse for mentioning this book.

31 - That must have been fun. Diehl thoroughly covers the issues of traditions and who determines, influences, changes them etc.

Still thinking about it all as I listened to the children across the street today singing the Star Bangled Banner as they were being taught by their nanny. I was thinking next time they come over I should teach them something to balance that out. Maybe Jackson Browne's I Am a Patriot or some Woody (or Arlo for that matter) Guthrie or Dylan. I'm not that much of a nationalist.

You made me think of Gillian Welch's Elvis Presley Blues "he shook it like a chorus girl . . . ", also later like a Hurricane and other things -- and "with his soul at stake" but like "he'd never seen" and thinking how different the world can seem.

and you sent me straight to youtube for a very nice half hour!

>32 mkboylan: Diagramming sentences! 8th grade, right after lunch, English class with Mrs. B. We must have diagrammed every sentence known to man. It did help me (for example, those first two sentences are not really sentences.) This book has popped up on LT a few times and I always think I need to read it and/or send it as a gift to my retired English-teacher aunt but never do. I should fix that.

I just ordered the Bernadette book yesterday! It had been on my wishlist after reading MJ (detailmuse)'s review, and I couldn't find it in bookstores, so I succumbed to Amazon. Now I'm even more eager to read it!

Oh that would be a great gift!

My LIBRARY had it!

BOOK 50 - Tiny Acts of Rebellion by Rich Fulcher

I quite enjoyed this, a few pages at a time as a break from a book I am struggling to finish. I confess to being too chicken to live out most of my rebellious fantasies so Mr. Fulcher has given me a few tiny acts I might accomplish. Who knows? Perhaps I will build up my courage and one day perform a humungous act of rebellion! In fact, he has offered up 97 chances to rebel. Most of them are pretty silly, such as flipping someone off under the table or behind your menu. But then, that's what makes them doable in my case. There is a little too much bathroom humor for me. Although, there have been times when I have seen a cranky clerk refuse the use of a bathroom to a child and I may have encouraged said child to just go ahead and throw up there on the counter.

One tiny act is to see how many extra items you are willing to go through the 10 items or less line with. Or for you grammarians, 10 items or fewer. Oh wait, that still is not a sentence. Anyway, my preference in that situation as I am counting out the items is to get to 10 and tell the clerk I will put the rest back. They always say no it's ok, but my revenge is to leave the items there. BUT......my favorite tiny act happens when a clerk has failed to remove the alarm setter-offer-thingie from an item I have bought and the alarm goes off as I walk through the sensors. I start running to see if they can catch me. That's always fun. Well, for me anyway.

Fulcher also has some good ideas for sticker bombing, one of my favorite activities. (Be sure to buy stickers that are easily removable. But then I guess what would be the point.) He suggests rebelling against poor products by going back to the store and putting stickers on toaster boxes stating things like "This toaster has a faulty....." whatever. or on a book saying
"Lousy ending".

Well, as you can see I am easily entertained. You may want to stick with Anna Karenina. Even I am only giving this one three stars.

Thanks Polaris, for putting me on to this one!

Aha! Very nice review of a book that is really just a silly diversion. But I think it's good to read ones like this once in a blue moon.

I'd forgotten the "lousy ending" sticker-bomb idea for bookstores! Funny!!

For those who like original comedy and not familar with Rich Fulcher, the first series of The Mighty Boosh is very funny. Fulcher guests as a useless zoo manager...

The diagramming book sounds interesting. I didn't learn that at school but have looked into it since then.

I’m such a completist, had to catch up on your previous thread before coming over here. You prompt much good conversation.

I hope your problems are easing. I’m not sure how young and independent your mother is, but if you get in the market for information on aging and caregiving, I recommend Jane Gross’s A Bittersweet Season. I also read Gail Sheehy’s Passages in Caregiving but found it less helpful and less readable.

>I kept getting bored, but I wanted the information
I know this feeling! In fact, I’m still interested in At Day's Close: Night in Times Past despite your terrific cautionary review.

And seriously: I can envision a book of sentences to diagram being as entertaining as a book of crossword puzzles.

Well detail, if I put your two, and you put my two on your list, we'll be even.

Thanks for the recommendations. My mom is 85 and in an assisted living facility. She has Parkinson's and was falling so much and going to the emergency room so often it was tough. She is now in a wheelchair permanently, which of course is awful for her and a relief for me. I understand it is a huge marker and not a good one, it is just that the transitions and not knowing are so tough. Now I can put her in her chair and take her more places at least, even just for a walk outside, which I think is so important. Daughter is doing well and will be back after work this week.

I really think At Day's Close is worth reading just because it (for me anyway) was such different information that I was not aware of. And as for the sentence diagramming workbook? I think you are on to something there! If you didn't have such a long wish list and TBR list you could get rich publishing!

BOOK 51 - Read Dana Stabenow's Bad Blood yesterday and really enjoyed it. I've had problems lately settling into a book and this one did it for me. It is a mystery series with a strong female lead that takes place in Alaska. I bought my first one at a bookstore up there about 10 years ago and have read them all. This one was not the best, but I just enjoyed spending a few hours in Alaska with characters I enjoy and am familiar with. Nice time.

Merrikay, that sounds like just the right type of book for a reading funk. I sometimes think of it as cleansing the palate before the next course.

BOOK 52 - In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes

First noir I have read, and I did because of DieF and Rebecca's reviews. I'm glad I got the Feminist Press edition because otherwise I really wouldn't have known anything about the book, writing, context, etc. Both the Forward and the Afterword were intriguing for me as I know nothing about this genre. So glad I read it. One of the things I liked the most about it was that it was an interesting psychological study of a serial killer without having to wade through lots of descriptions and details about the violence. It was also one of those lessons to me about learning more about what you are reading because after I reread their reviews about half way through the book, I began to pick up more e.g. DieF's remark about the subtley of the author in slipping information in made me see more of that that I probably missed previousy. Good read.

I'm glad you enjoyed that, Merrikay. I do encourage you to read The Expendable Man, which in my opinion is even better.

>43 mkboylan: merrikay -- tough indeed, and I so understand your relief. A Bittersweet Season has some heads-ups about those transitions, but oh how hard it is, during the respite of a smooth patch in eldercare, to voluntarily dive back into the deep-water pages of a caregiving book.

Enjoyed reading your thoughts on In a Lonely Place. You have hit on the difference between much of crime fiction today and the hard boiled tough guy stance of the forties and fifties. There were brutal murders back then, but the readers nose wasn't rubbed in it.

Just catching up -- great discussion on impoverished (both financially and intellectually) students and sentence diagramming (!). Must give Economix a try.

Hooray! My copy of the sentence diagramming book arrived! I think I'm going to take it with me next week when I have to take my car for its annual inspection. It should be entertaining without requiring the kind of attention that's impossible when the TV is on in the waiting room.

Bad touchstone
BOOK 53 - Exposure by Sayed Kashua

I am SO glad I read this book. It has given me still another perspective that I had not previously been much aware of. I've read a little (very little) about Palestine/Israel relationships, but most of that had been written by people who took a strong stance one way or the other. This novel is written from the perspective of two Palestinians living in Israel not on the West Bank, who seem to be apolitical. One of them is an attorney with resources, the other a social worker with none, which further broadens the perspective. This is a story about identity development of two men living as a cultural minority. There were so many consequences of that that I had not thought about so much. There are the obvious issues of religious differences e.g. stores and businesses closed on someone else's holy day rather than your own. That requires planning. The discrimination also followed the usual patterns of employment discrimination, educational discrimination, neighborhood and real estate issues, etc. At one point it felt to me, from my American experience, that I was reading about a light-skinned person of color in the United States passing as white. The stress of doing so is of course enormous, such as having to hide family ties and background ties as well as language and grammar differences, lack of knowledge about majority values, history, myths, etc. These necessary secrets block the development of intimacy in relationships, which then feeds a vicious circle. As I continued reading I began thinking about other groups living this experience, which happens everywhere, such as Northern Ireland with Catholic vs. Protestant, poor white students with scholarships to U.S. ivy league colleges, women everywhere in a patriarchal culture. Mostly this then became a reminder to me of the ways we humans are similar rather than different, the pains of identity and separation and even discrimination that we all suffer in some way, although not to this extent perhaps. It reminded me that probably most of us "plain people" are not interested in fighting with each other, but more likely it is the political leaders owned by the wealthy that cause the fighting - reminds me it is a class issue more than religious or political. Yeah yeah I know - we let them. It is a very interesting book.

Alternate title: Second Person Singular

Thanks to akeela for recommending.

Thanks Rebecca, baswood, Jane. Rebecca hope you enjoy diagramming.

and thanks detail muse - especially for recognizing the difficulty of voluntarily diving in! You hit it right on the head because I DO have several of those care taking books and AM avoiding them! It made me smile that you got that!

#52 rant over? Merrikay. I went along for the ride, good stuff.

bas - for now :)

You always bring an interesting perspective to the books you read.

BOOK 54 - Burma Chronicles by Guy Delisle 959.1

Guy Delisle accompanied his wife to Burma while she spent a year as a humanitarian worker there. They also took their son and Delisle functioned as a stay-at-home dad most of the time. He also continued his writing, drawing and animation work, including teaching locals about the art of animation. I found this graphic memoir to be fascinating as he writes about things like shopping in a foreign grocery store, joining a "moms' group" as the only dad, attending expatriate social functions, as well as living under a strict dictatorship. (little understatement there) It was refreshing to hear the perspective of an author from Quebec, espelcially. While in Burma Delisle and his family took vacations to places most people will never see, visited forbidden territories where his wife's clinics were operating and took a meditation retreat at a Buddhist monastery. I found the most interesting part to be discussions of foreign aid (these were medical relief and treatment) and the pros and cons of giving aid - pros and cons for the receivers that is. Interesting descriptions and analyses were also given regarding the motivation and purposes of those working in the field, and often motives were mixed. I very much enjoyed this visit to Burma and will be following through with Delisle's books on China and North Korea, as well as parenting.

ETA: Thanks to Wandering Star for writing about this book.

BOOKS 55, 56 and 57 -

Resistance Book 1 by Carla Jablonski
Defiance Resistance Book 2 by Carla Jablonski
Victory Resistance Book 3 by Carla Jablonski

This is a series of three graphic novels about the French Resistance written for young adults. I read them all one right after the other, in one day, and they read well as one book. I know nothing about the French Resistance other than a foolish romanticized notion and this gave me a lot of pretty good information quickly. Now I will be looking for a non-fiction memoir. This trilogy covered a surprising number of aspects of resistance. How does a person make the choice to join a resistance movement? How do those actions affect families as a whole and as individuals? How old should an active member be? There were many factions of resistance - which philosophy fits your beliefs and how to work together well, or IF to work together. What is to be done with collaborators and how do you even identify them? As you can see, these books addressed many, many ideas and issues. It also involved me emotionally with the characters. How would it be to see your children involved? How would it be to see your parents involved? What if someone you love was starving or injured and collaborated? This series has managed to address all of those issues without simplifying them or making them black and white. After reading this and looking at the colored drawings, I feel as if I have just left an epic movie. And I want to tell all my friends to go see it.

Now can anyone recommend a non-fiction memoir about the French Resistance?

>58 mkboylan: What a cool thing to find!

I read The Wolves at the Door: The True Story of America's Greatest Female Spy, about a woman who was dropped behind German lines to help the French resistance, but I can't entirely recommend it. It was mildly interesting and exciting, but not very well written as I recall. It is a bio, not a memoir. It certainly didn't get into the moral questions.

>52 mkboylan: and > 54 Agree with Barry, great stuff! :)

One of the best non-fiction books is The Resistance: The French Fight Against the Nazis by Matthew Cobb - it's not a straight-forward history but one that uses participants own voices, etc, rather like a group memoir.
Of memoirs I've heard good things about Resistance: Memoirs of Occupied France by Agnes Humbert and Outwitting the Gestapo by Lucie Aubrac.

Yes avid it was!

Thanks akeela.

and thanks Rebecca and Jargoneer. Think I'll take you at your word Rebecca and skip Wolves and go with the others. and my library has those last two Jargoneer - yay! Think I'll keep my eye out for the first one also. Thanks for taking the time to help. Not that I,ve finished my Russian ones yet!

BOOK 58 - Murdock Tackles Taos by Robert J. Ray

Sometimes I choose books just because I want to spend some time in that particular location, so I often jump at books, particularly mysteries, that take place in Taos, New Mexico. There are several books in the Murdock series so enough people are happy with them to keep the author writing them. However, I won't be reading anymore of them. The story seemed improbable to me, as did the relationships between characters. They weren't real enough for me to become involved with or attached to. I'm pretty tolerant of sex and violence in mysteries or thrillers, but this one was a little over the top for me. Violence toward animals and cannibalism are not pleasure reading for me. I did feel somewhat confused by this book and wondered if the author was aiming for an over the top, Tarantino type story and satire. This seemed likely when I came across character names like Whitbread and Highborn (something to that effect). If you are a Tarantino fan like I am, this book might be for you. It just didn't work for me.

This was an early reviewer win.

Violence toward animals and cannibalism are not pleasure reading for me.
Ewww .... yuck!

65 - Pretty gross and I was caught off guard in this early review book.

I think I'll skip this author.

>65 avidmom:. Agree with avid. Ewww!

I thought you might like this article. :)

http://latinafatale.com/2011/07/21/how-to-talk-to-little-girls/

Nice article Avidmom. I love that I have granddaughters who would rather play with Legos and building blocks than with Barbies.

BOOK 59 - Pitch Black by Youme Landowne and Anthony Horton

I first learned about Anthony Horton when he died in a fire in his underground home in a subway tunnel in New York City. Mr. Horton was given away by his birth parents and then spent years in the foster care system. He was involved with the criminal justice system and lived in homeless shelters. He found the shelters to be dangerous and undesirable places. While running from the transit police, he accidentally found the underground subway tunnel community that exists in New York, as well as in many other cities such as Las Vegas. Somehow through all of this he maintained a noticeable kindness that was remarked on by others and thus made friends and benefactors. Some of these benefactors attempted to help him live a "normal" life which he did for awhile. However, he was not able to find happiness in that aboveground life and returned to the tunnels, where he lived in his two room tunnel home which was furnished with a sofa, bookcases, bed and other items found in the trash. After reading about Mr. Horton and his artwork in the tunnels and finding that some of his work had been published, I wanted to find his book.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/07/nyregion/the-fiery-end-of-a-life-lived-beneath...

The book is co-written by an artist Mr. Horton met in the subway with whom he formed a friendship. It is basically a graphic memoir with illustrations by both authors. I think it is an important work as well as a fascinating story and includes his rules for living underground. The most important one may be "Remember, anything you need can be found in the garbage." Five stars

69 - Avid you were SO right! I loved that article. Thanks so much for posting it. I always struggle when I see those little girls because I am not going to comment on their looks but that is still the first impulse because they ARE so cute! After all, some say we have an anthropological built-in response to oooh and aaah at little creatures with big eyes. Well no more struggling with topics thanks to you and the article: What are you reading? is the question of the day. You'd think I would have come up with that on my own. It is something I ask children, but now it will be my stock question. Thanks!

Wow, Pitch Black -- gotta read this one.

BOOK 60 - Britten and Brulightly by Hannah Berry

Graphic books are relatively new to me and I am still sampling them from different genres within the genre. This one is billed as a mystery graphic novel and mysteries are some of my favorite books, so I grabbed it. It has also been praised as a great first book by this author, who is based in Brighton. The story takes place in London, the home base of the main character, who is a private detective. I haven't read many British mysteries so probably missed a lot, but certainly enjoyed it. The famous British understatement is found here and makes for lots of smiling in the middle of a murder. Hmmmm.....is that a good thing? Not sure about the talking teabag, but I intend to check out Berry's other books. 3 stars

Thanks to bragan for his review on Club Read. And I also had problems reading some of the script by the way bragan. And the dry humor was the best part!

Well I am totally flummoxed by the Pitch Black touchstone which seems to go to the book sometimes and sometimes to a sci fi movie.

Excellent review and information about Pitch Black and Anthony Horton.

BOOK 61 - Seeking Palestine Ed. by Penny Johnson

One of the most powerful books I have read, this is another one of those non-fiction books that almost reads like a novel. I found it emotionally evocative as well as educational.

There are three sections of essays. The first section tells what it is like to be an exile living outside of your home country, while the second part talks about being an exile within your occupied home country. The last section brings things together and talks about the future. Different perspectives are presented as these authors make themselves vulnerable by exposing their truths.

Here are a couple of excerpts that I found interesting:

From Sharif F. Elmusa "Portable Absence" , talking about the Palestinian style of mixing poetry and prose which was new to me and very intriguing:

"Perhaps poetry is a form of exile or the two interact, like two medications, and amplify each other's actions. Perhaps a poem is the silence in which the stranger wraps himself to preserve memory, to resist the gravity of the new abode."

"Writing in English brought me into a more intimate relationship with American culture and, at the same time, heightened my sense of exile."

"Britain sends expats to other lands. India immigrants, and Palestine exiles."
and this heartbreaking insight from Raja Shehadeh "Diary of an Internal Exile"

"We had lost the confidence to rely on ourselves rather than waste our energy by blaming our troubles on others and expecting them to do what we could do ourselves."

This collection certainly brings up many questions about belief systems such as that of private property, government, solidarity, types of power and power dynamics, state, self-defense and on and on. Never mind the idea of how you define home. I have never lived in a place where my family lived for generations and have not felt this attachment to a place, although if someone told me to get off mine, I'm sure I'd understand quickly. I do get the attachment to the ideas and symbols and people. These issues are all explored as the authors investigate these things for themselves and wrestle with their own identity issues. Clearly the group culture of other countries compared to the more individualist U.S., a country of immigrants who kept moving west as soon as they got settled are big influences from my perspective. This book brought me a lot of clarification. And made me think a lot about comparisons with U.S. govt. versus Native Americans, Irish versus English, English versus Maori, and too many stories about ethnic cleansing. I highly recommend this book - 5 stars

_____________

I just went over to Stretch,s thread and re-read the discussion there by the many Club Read 2013 members who have read this book. I'm so glad you all had that conversation so I would choose to read this wonderful book also. Stretch and others I see also had difficulty relating to the need to hold on to a geographic place - well, I can't even word it right, because it is obviously much more complicated than that, but again, I can't even imagine rebuilding my home if it were destroyed by fire, earthquake, tornado, mudslides, as so many people do. I would not want to live there. I'm not even big on just visiting places that hold bad memories for me. I'll go back to do any necessary healing or reclaiming psych work,l but I am not going to live there.

Again tho, I really love this book and wish I could have a reunion with my former Palestinian students. I was very touched by their activism on a conservative campus in the U.S. and knocked out when I saw them lying on the ground at a die-in. They have way more courage than I do. Thanks to everyone who reviewed and discussed. this very excellent book.

ETA: Wish I could remember who said "The only way out of this is together."

and of course the poem, by Rumi:

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I will meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about
language, ideas, even the phrase each other
doesn't make any sense.
"The Great Wagon" Ch. 4 : Spring Giddiness, p. 36 - Rumi

Both Pitch Black and Seeking Palestine sound like very, very powerful works.

That is a beautiful poem by Rumi.

I may have to add both of these to the wishlist.

Merrikay, you might enjoy Christopher Fowler's Bryant & May mystery series. I think there are nine or ten of them. They take place in present day London, and have just enough history & quirkiness to make them a really fun book to read. I have been listening to them on audio, and the reader is great. He has the main characters spot on.

I'm glad you enjoyed Britten and Brulightly. And that it's not just my eyes that have trouble with the text! (My eye doctor wants me to get bifocals. I am resistant.)

Wonderful review of Seeking Palestine, Merrikay. I own it now and am looking forward to reading it soon.

Thanks Merrikay for such a passionate and heartfelt review of Seeking Palestine. I served in the IDF during the 90s and witnessed my fair share of shameful and wrong behaviour towards Palestinians. One didn't, or still doesn't, need to be a soldier though to see these things happening on a daily basis if one is prepared to stop and look.

Things can often look bleak and hopeless in that part of the world, and current events in Syria only serve to underline how fragile and volatile civilisation can be. Something that many complacent westerners can often take for granted, as we pontificate on who is right or wrong (where of course many of the root causes lay at the doors of empires past and present...). However, perceptions can and do change, albeit very gradually, in Israel/Palestine, and I remain optimistic that we will make it to peace in the end. Then of course the really hard work will begin - in trying to undo all the damage that has been done to both 'sides' and attempting reconciliation. I know that I have to read this book.

I already have Seeking Palestine on my wish list thanks to Dan's review. If I didn't, your review would have put it there... It has pushed it up the TBR pile.

My local library doesn't have it, so I will be buying it soon.

Great review of the Seeking Palestine essays.

>74 mkboylan: - the talking tea-bag bothered me as well. I kept wondering if there was a meeting with the publisher who (strongly) mentioned that the best-selling graphic novels in English all have a strain of fantasy so would it possible to, you know, add something fantastic. Unfortunately the talking tea-bag is fantastical and not fantastic.

85 - I wondered if it was a cultural thing I wasn't getting.

I've been in serious remiss of your thread. Somehow part 1 was unstared and I failed to notice. Anyway got a ton of catching up to do.

Excellent review of Seeking Palestine ! We all seem to have slightly different take always. I love when a book can do that. Like I said before I can't necessarily relate to the attachment to the land. I readily identify with western transient attitude of our culture. But be attached to the idea of a place is something I can get and something I put much thought into until your review
. While the land and things of what I call home are relatively meaningless to me personally, the idea of not having a place to think of as home is something I can't fathom being without.

>85 Jargoneer:, 86: I assumed, after a few brief moments of confusion, that it wasn't an actual talking tea bag, but meant to be an indication of the guy's rather unstable mental state. I mean, nobody else ever heard the thing talk...

>88 bragan: - to be honest I began to think that as well.

I also lied above and my talking jar of coffee has told me to be honest. I read an interview with Hannah Berry where she said the tea-bag came first, that 'Stewart' (bad pun alert) was created in art school to cheer up a friend. (That's art school for you, in other segments of further education people take you to pub - of course, being art students they may already be in the pub).

To be doubly honest I've now lost my train of thought so this message is now just going to drift to a conclusion.

I thought maybe the author was unstable. I'm afraid my neighbors may hear me laughing.

on 11, late ... i know :)
I read your comments on Round House by Louise Erdrich some time ago and i found it very interesting. I did read The plague of doves by her and i found it an amazing story and very well written. Did you like it?
Sadly, Round House is not translated into dutch yet.

BOOK 63 - Jerusalem Chronicles from the Holy City by Guy Delisle

I am now totally sold on Delisle and just ordered Shenzhen a Travelogue from China and Pyongyang: a Journey in North Korea, having already read Burma Chronicles. I have read a few books about Israel and Palestine lately so have been gaining different perspectives. In this fictionalized account of Delisle's trip to Jerusalem, perspectives are not only presented from Israelis, Palestinians, and Muslims, but from different subgroups within those groups. This deeply enriches the information offered. Delisle takes tours of one place for example, with two different tour groups, one from each "side". He hears from the Israeli group about Palestinians killing Israelis, and from Palestinians about Israelis killing Palestinians. He learns from separate sources about subgroups from each that have helped and given shelter to the other side. And he also hears from conservative and liberal groups from all three religions/groups. I find that especially interesting as well as hopeful. It is also interesting to compare attitudes with Israel of those who Iive in Tel Aviv with those in Jerusalem.

An interesting view of daily life in this area of the world is presented. For example, taxis will not travel in both sections of Jerusalem, which results in big inconvenience, especially during off hours. There are actually three sabbaths in the area between Christians, Jews and Muslims, so you have to know which store to go to when, as well as which group sells what and refuses to sell other items. One common sight is people walking down streets carrying rifles slung over their backs or pistols in their hands. Another weird experience is sitting on a beach during a much needed day off and knowing the jets flying over are on their way to bomb Palestinian areas, especially when you know and love both.

I am embarrassed to report my surprise at the large amount of international intervention and assistance offered in this area of the world. Once again, my ethnocentricity surprises me. The author himself is Canadian and I believe his home is France.

There is an incredible amount of information packed into this graphic novel and I highly recommend it. Also, once again I seem to have a deeper or more complete experience with the graphics included. You know that feeling when you look up from your reading and realize you are not actually in that place you are reading about? It is very strong for me with graphic books. I almost feel as if I toured the holy places and attended both NGO and embassy gatherings as well as those of locals. Five stars.

I didn't know about DeLisle before, and I'm not sure how I feel about graphic novels, but all of the books you mention sound fascinating.

Interesting review of Jerusalem Chronicles from the Holy City so interesting in fact that I typed out the title of the book into Google images and found many examples to get a feel for the art work of this graphic book.

BOOK 62 (out of order) - Days of Destruction Days of Revolt by Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco

Hedges and Sacco examine colonialism in the United States by actively investigating communities of Native Americans both on and off reservations, poverty stricken neighborhoods (reservations) in Camden, New Jersey, mining areas in West Virginia, and current day slavery in Immokalee, Florida (which Senator Bernie Sanders calls the bottom in the race to the bottom). Each separate section on these places and topics include history and facts of colonial takeover laid out very clearly and logically. The authors have managed to make institutional racism and discrimination, something that many people struggle with understanding or believing, very clear. That is quite a feat.

Each section is also illustrated with personal stories of local individuals, families or groups with detailed stories of their struggles. This makes this one of those educational books that read so well you can't put it down. Although I DID put it down between sections that were so self-contained I could get the complete idea, theory and real stories in one sitting and then let the information percolate for awhile before I went on to the next section. The authors draw clear connections to illustrate how and why people make some of the choices that look destructive from the outside, such as why we take our rage out on each other, burning our own communities, etc.

I am American so it is especially eye-opening to see these terms such as colonialism applied to myself as a colonized person. No matter how much I read, learn, study and come to understand and believe these ideas, I am still sometimes surprised to hear this language applied to the U.S. It is so much easier to think in terms of the other while I am, e.g., reading about Palestine and -you know - OTHERS!

This book is hard hitting and depressing, but does not leave the reader there. The closing section is about the Occupy movement, its history, founders, possibilities for the future and to NOT coin a phrase, "Being the change". This history of Occupy has not received a lot of media attention so many think it was simply very spontaneous and unorganized, although before the physical occupation began, well trained teams were already in place to provide legal services, security at the park, medical services and food as well as the famous library and educational team. These are people who know revolution, how it has worked historically, and are full of creative ideas such as my personal favorite movement, Strike Debt. The media kept saying Occupiers were simply a bunch of homeless addicts going nowhere and accomplishing nothing. And yes of course there were plenty of homeless and addicts. The beautiful difference is how they were included and cared for rather than ostracized. The media kept asking all the wrong questions of Occupy - who are your leaders and what are your demands. You'll also develop an understanding of those issues before you finish the book. AND.....you will finish it quickly - it is a fast and easy read and still covers all of this! Amazing accomplishment! Five stars and highly recommended.

SO - if you cant tell, I REALLY REALLY loved this book.

Some very nice reviews. I am going to check the library for the last two.

I’m happily infected with your enthusiasm for Seeking Palestine and the graphic-format books.

82 - Thanks so much Polaris for your comments above re Seeking Palestine. I kept thinking about you and wondering about your IDF experiences while I was reading Jerusalem Chronicles. There were lots of drawings of Israeli soldiers, and a few had arrows pointing to them saying "18 year old boy" and that just kills me. As you say, one doesn't have to be a soldier to see these things, and, one doesn't have to live in the Middle East. There are plenty of what Chris Hedges calls "sacrifice areas" here in the U.S.

87 - Hi Stretch! I do love getting the different perspectives, and I got a lot of that in the Jerusalem Chronicles. I like having friends whom I totally disagree with but respect. It seems like such a luxury to get that different perspective from someone you trust. Know what I mean? e.g. I'm a big fan of both the atheist Christopher Hitchens AND the Christian Chris Hedges. I've read enough of both of them to at least trust their sincerity (as well as irony) and wow what great diversity!

91 - Sorry, I haven't read The Plague of Doves yet. I was thinking about my review of The Round House tho and that I only gave it four stars because it wasn't anything new to me, but gave Solar Storms, which may not have been as good, five stars because it was one of the first I read that addressed some Native American issues. Doesn't seem fair or consistent........

93 Rebecca - for the record I wish Delisle had not fictionalized his experiences in Jerusalem and don't know why he did. The first of his books that I read, Burma Chronicles was not fictionalized and I'm left wondering how much of Jerusalem was.

94 - Basswood - I don't find Delisle's drawings as emotionally evocative as some other work I've seen. Wait what I mean is, the expressions on his characters' faces don't show as much emotion - the work does. What did you think?

Yay 96 and 97 - Nana if you read any, let me know what you think.

>95 mkboylan: That book sounds really good. Depressing maybe, but good.

current day slavery in Immokalee, Florida???
That's got me incredibly curious - in a "not so sure if I really wanna know" way.

Well you can of course just google it :), but as I was reading it I thought oh yes of course I knew they did that. Hedges just calls it by its real name. Actually its not Hedges that calls it that, but their local labor group. I still was shocked thought. I still want to think those things can,t happen here. But then I live on the I5 corridor in Sacramento, a big route for human trafficking so you,d think I couldn't be shocked on this topic.

ETA: oh I wish my keyboard designer would have put the apostrophe where it belongs. My fingers are too old to change.

I have finally realized that the thread I had starred, http://www.librarything.com/topic/154304, is actually not your current thread. I'm terribly slow on these things, Days of Destruction Days of Revolts sound like a must read. I must search out a good used copy.

Great review of Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt -- whatever happened to the Occupy movement? It has just seemed to have faded away....

Yolana - Sorry - I haven't been able to figure out how to delete that thread. Glad you are here.

The Days I read was a library book and I'm thinking I want my own copy but I'm trying to resist.

103 Thanks Jane. Unfortunately the media doesn't give much coverage to Occupy. I follow what is happening on Facebook and twitter. You can just search for Occupy and many will pop up. My favorite thing they are doing is Debt Strike and Rolling Jubilee, which involves buying out foreclosures and paying off loans, which is really making the banks mad. That is FUN. They are also assisting in continuing to stop foreclosures by occupying chosen homes. Still fighting with banks. Chris Hedges just got arrested demonstrating at Goldman Sachs, and he is also suing Obama regarding the National Defense Authorization Act's legalization of the use of military force....blah blah blah. Currently, Occupy groups around the U.S. are making plans for summer action. It just fascinates me to see the difference in media coverage and alternative media e.g. Free Speech TV. - more than you wanted to hear? Sorry - I just find it so interesting and it all interacts with my reading e.g. Orwell's Homage to Catalonia. What I personally want for myself regarding all of this is to stop whining and even trying to change anything and just living well and according to my beliefs. Ok I'm done. Back to my current reading about the French Resistance. The more things change..........

#102 Resistance is futile : )

I've looked at Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt in the bookstore and always thought that if I bought it, I'd never get around to reading it even though it looked intriguing. Your review makes it sound much more readable than I had imagined and also very worth reading.

Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt sounds very interesting. I am still waiting for Occupy to re-appear this year. The lack of press coverage drives these groups underground, sometimes that can be more dangerous to the status quo - let's hope so. Thumbed of course

MK -- interesting info on ongoing Occupy action. There was a huge article in today's paper about equity firms buying up real estate in SW Florida as speculative investment -- pretty scary: http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20130615/ARTICLE/130619730/2416/NEWS?Title=...

The issue the Occupy movement has, especially in the US where all the main media channels are privately owned, is that the people who report the news are also part of 'capitalism at all costs' brigade - i.e., people who lose their homes don't work hard enough (ignoring the fact the parent company has just moved the factory to India/China/Mars in order to make more profit for Wall Street. What is interesting is that they always quote Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations as a defining text while ignoring the fact that Smith would have been appalled by the way they treat people. Capitalism is some form is probably the best economic system but unrestrained capitalism most certainly isn't.

There was a report on the BBC this week reporting that wages has declined faster in the last 5 years than at any other time unless, of course, you are senior management in large corporations. The only positive aspect I can think of is that at least I'm not Spanish, where unemployment is currently 27.1% and youth employment 57.1%.

Rant over.

I'm adding Jerusalem Chronicles to the ready to buy list, I've needed a good Graphic Novel this year and one that touches on the conflict in that region, may be what I'm in the mood for. I love multiple perspectives on controversial subjects as long as they're respectful of the other side. In my opinion we need more programs and materials for debate, but not the angry kind of debate that passes as news. Christopher Hitchens is the only non-theist I can read on a regular bases (and I am an non-theist) because he does on occasion exhibit some respect for the theist side. I'll have to try some articles from Chris Hedges, still haven't found a religious side of the argument that doesn't make me mad.

BOOK 64 - Resistance a Woman's Journal of Struggle and Defiance in Occupied France by Agnes Humbert translated by Barbara Mellor.

This is the first thing I have read about the French Resistance other than a fictionalized short account. I am also ignorant regarding French history, so - grain of salt recommended. However, I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in that topic or the topic of resistance in general.

The first section of the book is a journal kept by Humbert during her experience as a founder of one of the first groups of the Resistance. The second section is in journal format but written after her experience in French and German jails and labor camps after being convicted of aiding and abetting the enemy (of Germany, during the occupation). Of course she was unable to keep a journal during that time. She returns to her immediate journalling when freed from the labor camps, for the third section, before her return to Paris.

There are about 40 pages in the Afterword by Julien Blanc, explaining the very interesting process of vetting the journals. How do we know they are real, how do we know they were indeed written by Humbert, etc. How do we know the things Humbert wrote were true? The description of this process alone is with reading for those of us unfamiliar with this process.

An extensive Appendix is included listing many documents about the Resistance and relating them to Humbert's writing.

For me, it is this combination of journal, memoir, explanation of primary vs. secondary sources that makes this a five star book. Without that, it would have been four. This combination gives us an interesting and detailed story in combination with historical documentation and a fascinating read.

Humbert is an interesting figure, educated, cultured and financially able to sit out the war in another safer place. However, those very privileges seem to have given her the knowledge, health and love of country that caused her to make the choice to stay in occupied France and fight. I was at first disappointed to find the initial section about the Resistance to be so short, but learned that Humbert's Resistance continued throughout her prison time and on into her Nazi hunting activities. The initial resistance was a lot about forming the structure of her cell and connecting with and educating others. Humbert seemed to have astute awareness of where individuals were in their own process of politicization and how to work with people where they were, with what they were willing to do. Many initial activities were educational involving the design and placement of posters, publishing propaganda, using political graffiti, etc. many things necessary at the beginning of a movement that seem to some to be rather innocuous (as some would say of today's Occupy movement activities). Only five months of these activities were enough to convince the Nazis however, that this movement was trouble.

Humbert's times in prison and labor camps were also works of resistance. For example her refusal to stand when a German entered her cell - when she heard them coming she stood up before they got there so as not to be seen as obedient. There were many small examples of this behavior which I see as things she was able to do, as small as they were, that kept not only her own passion up but those of her cohorts. In the labor camps her resistance to contributing to the war effort took place as sabotaging what ever products she was working on. EVERY product.

One of the best parts of the book for me personally was learning about the liberation experience. This was not presented as a movie experience with the hero rushing in, but rather the slow, real process involving keeping life going during this time of reorganization. Humbert was both compassionate and fiery in her pursuit of war criminals and the rebuilding of the town. She began her hunt by speaking with German pastor's wives in the areas where she went, asking them to tell her who had been forced into the Nazi party unwillingly and helped prisoners in secret, so that she could help protect them. Then she questioned those people and got more and more information that led to many arrests. For me, this last section was especially enlightening.

Fascinating book - excellent and important read - five stars.

ETA: Thanks Jargoneer for recommending this book. I really learned a lot and it was painless.

I have read several fictional books about the resistance, but I don't think any non-fiction. This sounds quite good. My husband and I have watched several documentaries about it. We like the history channel, as there is often something interesting playing. On to my wishlist... thank you.

Excellent review of Resistance a Woman's Journal of Struggle and Defiance in Occupied France. I will definitely get to read this book soon.

BOOK 65 - The Property by Rutu Modan

Rutu Modan was born in Israel and educated in Jerusalem. She is an award winning illustrator and cartoonist. This graphic novel is the first of her books that I have read, but not the last. It is the story of a young woman who accompanies her grandmother on a trip from Tel Aviv to Warsaw for the first time since her Jewish grandmother was exiled from the Jewish ghetto of Warsaw. A not uncommon story, it involves loss of property, loss of loved ones and close friends, as well as betrayal. It's a good story with excellent graphics. I particularly liked that this took place in Warsaw because I haven't read much about Poland in this time period. It is both quick and informative, with excellent art work. Four stars.

Thanks to torontoc for recommending it.

The French resistance book sounds fascinating; I'll look for it! Thanks.

Thanks for your review of Resistance : a woman's journal of struggle and Defiance. It's going on my wishlist.

Ditto what Vivienne said. You certainly have been reading some very, very interesting stuff lately! :)

My thoughts are with our members in Calgary where the flooding is horrendous. Hope all are safe.

106 - Yolana - Ha! I am afraid so!

Rebecca if you get Days of Destruction let us know how you or IF you like it.

Baswood - thanks for the thumbs up!

Well said jargoneer - If anyone wants to know what Occupy is doing an easy way is Twitter. I don't tweet, but I have an account which allows me to search Occupy which brings up a ton of Occupy tweeters. I follow the ones that I am specifically interested in, and also give myself a broad base across the U.S. as well as International groups. I don,t want to be interrupted by tweets, so I decline having them sent to my phone and ljust go to my online account to check them when I want a peek. Very easy to quickly scan.

Stretch - I hear you about getting mad, but when I want to read an opposing view by someone I respect, Hedges is my go to guy, as well as The Christian Science Monitor. I love it when I find people I really like that I disagree with.

All of you interested in the Resistance reading, I'll be posting a new review in a day or two I think, of Outwitting the Gestapo (Thanks again jargoneer for the recommendation of this one also.

109 -Jane - Thanks for posting that link. Isn't that horrifying? It just makes me so ill. I'm glad to start seeing more info about that because so many are still defending the banks. Especially nice news about Bank of America this week with the lying to customers about mortgages, wasn't it? Sheesh. Thanks again.

Thanks for your review of Resistance, by Humbert, certainly on my wishlist now.

Just catching up again... such a good thread going on here - so many good books!

'Days...' sounds really interesting, and I loved your passionate review. Had to thumb it of course! On the wishlist it goes.

Also 'Resistance...' - another inspiring review and despite feeling a little resistanced out lately - I know that's only temporary, and that I'll want to read this one as well in the end. So that one's wishlisted too.

Glad you liked Rutu Modan's latest. I plan to get that one as well, as I really enjoyed Exit Wounds when I read it last year. Oh, and Guy Delisle's book on Jerusalem is another one I added not long ago...great minds eh!

>119 mkboylan: My sympathies also to Calgary and southern Alberta. I always think of Alberta being filled with sunshine. These are very difficult days, and only the beginning. Calgary is our nearest "big city" so I feel they are my neighbours. Coincidentally, it was exactly one year ago when a similar storm combined with melting snow on the mountains created overflowing creeks and rivers here, ripping up roads and bridges and with all the related problems of no water or power.

UrbanDictionary.com
June 22: Book hangover

When you've finished a book and you suddenly return to the real world, but the real world feels incomplete or surreal because you're still living in the world of the book.
"I have a really bad book hangover today, I could hardly concentrate at work."

BOOK 66 - Outwitting the Gestapo by Lucie Aubrac

This is the third book I have read on the French Resistance, which I am finding to be a fascinating subject. The first book was fiction, the second more of a personal although very educational journal. This third book is written in journal form but is giving me much more history about the formation of the Resistance. It is giving me a big picture of the breadth of the Resistance, both inside and outside of France, as well as in both occupied France and free France. More forms of resistance are described way beyond propagandizing, education, and recruitment and on into freeing prisoners, and other military operations. In other words, forming an active and national army of resistance. Attention is given to the large number of groups with different perspectives and goals. The difficulties uniting the units into a common one working together is especially interesting to me. Can you imagine when one group with no weapons is in a better position strategically to carry out an operation, getting a better armed group to give them their weapons? It came to mind last night when I was listening to Obama on Charlie Rose, explaining the difficulty of understanding things that were happening if you did not have ALL of the information available to him and others, indeed if you had "not sat in that room" with all of the briefings. This intelligence gathering, information sharing, and policy making was of course also greatly hampered not only by the political disagreements, but by the circumstances of war and occupation. Even when communication systems were developed, there were constant arrests which meant everything had to be developed all over again with different sources, resources and people recruited.

Remember the old saying that Ginger Rogers did everything Fred did only backwards and in high heels? Well Lucie Aubrac did it all pregnant while caring for a small son. Altho, as I sit reading about Aubrac's plan to liberate her husband from the Nazis, I look across at my husband and think poor thing, he would have been doomed. I don't think I have that kind of courage. I think I might have the courage to fight in the moment of capture, to hit and kick and shoot even if I had a gun, but the courage to plan a sneak attack involving me crossing borders and bribing Nazis? Not so much. Especially when said Nazi is Klaus Barbie.

This book has excellent footnoting relating journal entries to facts of history and events of the time. It is very helpful for me as I have no knowledge of French history. Wish there had not been so many cute guys in my one world history class to distract me. As for the history class Aubrac is teaching during the Resistance, she is addressing ancient history and her Jewish students light up when they hear the names Mesopotamia, Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, Abraham, Moses, etc. and the Catholic students find interest in the tablets of law. "My young students recognize each other as equals in the identity of a faith that originated with the nomad shepherds of the desert." Then on to studying metal industries of the U.S. and U.S.S.R. and the students realize "industrial power is on the side of the Allies."

This book just kept getting better and better. I was a nervous wreck for the last one third or so as the action increased. It's been a very long time since a book made me so physically tense.

The main thing that happened for me in reading this, is turning my grade school education about history and especially war, especially war of one country against another country, into a much more realistic picture of the intricacies and number of groups, alignments, complicated politics, etc. involved. Not everyone in France supported the fight against the Nazis of course, just as every German did not support the Nazis. Some people think the Aubracs were heroes, some think they were traitors. It reminds me once again of the foolishness of becoming involved in the politics of other countries where one cannot possibly understand all of these intricacies. I don't know the truth of these stories but this was one good book. Five stars.

Edited to fix touchstones and say again thanks Jargoneer.

Great review, this book is going to the top of my wish list. Thanks Merrikay.

Hi Luna - hope you enjoy it.

Polaris - Thanks for the thumbs up.
I'll definitely be getting Exit Wounds.
and Polaris, if you are resistanced out perhaps you know enough to add more comments here. It was only AFTER I read the book that I discovered some controversy about the authors. Anyone familiar with French history I'd love to hear your comments about these things.

Vivienne I am still a little tense! Let me know if you read it.

and now I think I've had enough! I'm going to curl up with the new Harlan Coben, Six Years - you know - relaxing with a FAKE murder mystery.

Merrikay, your last few reviews have made my wish list groan. I can just hear it saying no more! Wonderful reviews.

I read a book a year or so ago called The Nazi Officer's Wife: How One Jewish Woman Survived the Holocaust. It was a memoir by Edith Hahn Beer. As I was reading it, I kept thinking about how terribly frightened she must have been

>125 mkboylan: Another great find and another one for the old wishlist - which by now has outnumbered the books read for the year. I don't think I'd have that kind of courage either. Have you ever seen the movie "Life Is Beautiful" where the non-Jewish wife volunteers to get on the train to the concentration camp to be with her husband and little boy? There's a scene where the young Nazi officer is trying desperately to talk her out of it but she refuses to stay put. That's always, always blown me away.

Wish there had not been so many cute guys in my one world history class to distract me.
LOL! The more I read about history either in the books I read myself or the books other people here on CR/LT read I think "How did I get to be my age and remain so totally ignorant of so many things?" !

That sounds like another great book, Merrikay, and another addition to my wish list!

Merrikay - another great review. I've added Outwitting the Gestapo to my wishlist as well. It sounds brilliant. And thanks Colleen for mentioning The Nazi Officer's Wife, that one sounds fascinating as well.

Excellent review of Outwitting the Gestapo

BOOK 67 - Six Years by Harlan Coben

Can a mystery have too many twists and turns and characters? Well yes, if those turns or characters don't each move far enough along for the reader to become invested in them. I have read all of Coben's books and will read his next one too, but this one isn't his best. I don't actually know exactly what happened because I wasn't that interested and kept finding myself drifting off rather than paying attention. I do wonder how I would feel about this book if I thought it was a new author, or at least NOT Coben. I might judge less harshly. But it is Coben and I do expect more so, two stars.

Edited to fix touchstones.

128 - Well THAT sounds like a good book with yet another perspective that has to be interesting. Thanks.

129 - No I can't bear to watch Nazi movies (unless they involve Brad Pitt). Just had enough, you know? These books were not focused on the Holocaust details specifically so were easier to take. and I wonder with every book I read, how can I have not known about that?!

Rebecca, Polaris, baswood, I'd love to know what you think if you read these. We all have such different perspectives. You know like I just didn't know much about this topic. Those with more history background might say "Ho Hum!" like I did with The Round House and actually also with The Kite Runner - think I had just read too many on those topics for anything to seem new.

Excellent review of Outwitting the Gestapo, Merrikay. I like the parallels to current day issues that you reference.

Wonderful review of Outwitting the Gestapo!

>I wonder with every book I read, how can I have not known about that?!
Me, too. So often.

BOOK 68 - The Girls of Atomic City by Denise Kiernan www.girlsofatomiccity.com has videos, photos, maps

I was born in Tennessee and used to work in aerospace so when I saw this book about Oak Ridge, Tennessee it caught my eye immediately. Oak Ridge was one of the locations for the work of The Manhattan Project to get an atomic bomb ready for use on Japan in WWII. Kiernan does an amazing job of interweaving the personal experiences of those involved with this project with other information about the science and politics involved.

Kiernan begins with the scientists of Europe who are working on splitting the atom and describes how many scientists brought different pieces of information to the table. She reports that it is a woman who suggested the possibility of nuclear fission and how it might be done altho she is never really credited for her work. It makes interesting reading seeing how they fit the pieces together though and Kiernan gives very clear explanations of the science involved. I did not expect to be able to understand that part, but I did fairly well.

The rest of the book focuses on the stories of several women and men who work specifically at the Oak Ridge site making the "product". This location eventually has a population of about 75,000. It begins with government and military agents recruiting workers by telling them they were needed to work on a secret project that may very well end the war, but they could not know what it was or where they were going to live. The recruiters played on patriotism and fear about relatives who were fighting overseas. These workers were literally picked up by a cab or bus and put on a train or other form of transportation and taken to Oak Ridge.

Before the workers arrived we see the usual process of manifest destiny play out on the poor rural population around Oak Ridge. Families are poorly compensated typically, and that of course is a book in itself, but one that has already been written. Then the construction workers are brought in to build housing for the coming workers. Houses for middle class family employees, dorms for single workers, huts with no windows in a segregated area for African Americans who are typically held to the same work they are outside, janitorial, etc. Schools are eventually built for the white children of workers but not for the Af Ams. One historian said it was the first community he was aware of that had been built with slums deliberately planned.

Workers are told what they need to know to do their piece of the project and nothing else. They don't even actually know what they are doing or at least what the purpose is. For example some women are spending hours a day sitting on a stool reading gages and spinning dials, not knowing what they are measuring. Some are testing pipes for leaks, not knowing what the pipes are for. They are not allowed to discuss ANYTHING work related with anyone, no family, no friends, no one, which stresses all relationships. Workers are recruited to spy on each other and to be merely accused by an informant was cause for dismissal. Anyone breaking the rules disappears quickly. When fired they are not given a clearance to work on anything else outside of this work for six months. No one can hire them for any job without that piece of paper. All of this stress makes a very tense situation and causes mental issues for some. One case of a "mentally ill" man is described wherein he is literally held captive because he has figured out the secret and wants to warn the emperor of Japan. The weight of what they have been involved in eventually effects many workers. Other workers injured in accidents were also used for medical research. A psychiatrist is called in to help and gets some treatment and some recreational relief. Movies, and bowling alleys are built for white people, while if lucky African Americans may be able to catch a glimpse of the outdoor movie screen from a nearby hill. Although they manage to make their own recreation.

Although there are hard circumstances, many seem to thrive. They have employment and are being paid well. They are also learning new skills. They make their own fun also with dances put on in tennis courts and houses. They form groups with people with similar interests to develop hobbies and other social groups, and have access to some hiking and other outdoor activities.

As I review my highlights here are some things I found especially interesting.
Kiernan describes the setting as an "Orwellian backdrop for a Rockwellian world".

"The challenges of living with military supervision were replaced by the challenges of living without it." (employment, police and fire services, public transportation, elections, etc. when the war ends and the situation changes.) A change is reported to research and development of peace time uses for nuclear power.

After the war one woman goes to put flowers on her brothers "grave" in Pearl Harbor. She cries in her grief. A Japanese tourist nearby asks her if she lost someone here and when the answer is yes, she embraces the woman and says she is so sorry. Counterpoint to the guilt some workers feel.

The author does a way more balanced job of reporting than I have done here, and describes her process as melding together individual memory, collective community memory, primary source material, media coverage, etc.

If George Bush or Barack Obama asked you today if you would work on a secret project to end our wars but he couldn't tell you what it is or where you will go or for how long, what would your answer be? Five stars.

135 - Thanks Linda - Everything I am reading these days seems to have parallels to the present. Boy that Atomic City one sure did for me as I thought about weapons of mass destruction and the fact that military enlistment rates are directly correlated to income. Very interesting.

Thanks Detail!

I will be traveling for a few weeks so may be slow to respond, depending on internet access. This little summer trip around parts of the U.S. will of course involve lots of reading and many stops at bookstores, so here is my first catch, which actually happened while I was still in town and hubbie was getting a new tire - across the street from a thrift shop. :)

First book stop of this trip was in Shingle Springs, CA at the St. Francis Thrift Shop: Shutterbabe by Deborah Copaken Kogan and Dorothy Parker Stories for $1 each.

How interesting that you read Girls of Atomic City now as I'm getting closer and closer to the day that the bomb will be dropped on Japan in No Ordinary Time.

Have fun on your trip. When you get to St. Louis, make sure to check out Union Station and go up in the Arch for me. The view from up there is spectacular.

I've been eager to read The Girls of Atomic City but holding out, hoping for audio, which I think I'd get to sooner. Happy to see your 5-stars.

Have you read Evidence of Things Unseen by Marianne Wiggins? It's friendship and love amid WWI-era photography, radiation, and the development of the atomic bomb in Tennessee.

Enjoy your travels!

and avid are you enjoying No Ordinary Time?
I have been to Union Station and enjoyed it. Haven't been inside the Arch yet, but must say I was caught off guard by how stunning it is. I don't know why, I just hadn't thought much about it but wow when I saw it I was surprised. Gorgeous! Now I get it! We are due there around July 20. Yesterday we crossed the Mojave Desert while it was 126 degrees. Wow. We were comfortable in our truck, but left our fifth wheel (trailer) in an RV park and got a hotel room last night! Now we are in Flagstaff and 95 seems so balmy!

Detail, Evidence of Things Unseen just went on the wish list - it sounds really interesting.

I'm now reading Around the Bloc by Stephanie Elizondo Griest and very much enjoying her trip around the communist block countries. Started in Moscow. Beijing is next, then Havanna.

>141 mkboylan: No Ordinary Time has been a fantastic and very informative read. There was so much going on during that time period! Only two more chapters to go and I will be done - and I seem to be avoiding finishing it because I think I'll miss the Roosevelts too much. Book hangover here I come .....

126 degrees!!!!
Yikes.
"Started in Moscow"
Good idea. When it's hotter than h### outside, read about cold places. ;)

142 - I was actually thinking I should watch Dr. Zhivago.

Oh yahoo - used book shopping on vacation!

First book stop of this trip was in Shingle Springs at the St. Francis Thrift Shop: Shutterbabe by Deborah Copaken Kogan and Dorothy Parker Stories for $1 each.

Second book stop Flagstaff, AZ thrift shop (Savers):
Gender Diversity Crosscultural Variations by Serena Nanda
Fiasco by Jack Anderson
Bananas How the United Fruit Company Shaped the World by Peter Chapman $7 total

BOOK 69 - Holy the Firm by Annie Dillard

When I read Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Dillard, I knew I wanted more. The line that stayed with me from that first book was Dillard talking about the oneness of all of life. She is so clearly taken with and in love with that idea and with nature. She said that if people falling out of airplanes that were crashing understood that oneness and continuity, they would be falling through the sky saying "Thank you God! Thank you!" knowing that what came next would be wonderful also, whatever it was. That was published in 1974. Holy the Firm was published three years later in 1977 and includes a story of a little girl who was in an airplane crash. The child was severely burned when some type of fuel gel stuck on her face causing excruciating pain and destroying her face. Holy the Firm describes other instances of the cruelty and horror of life, as well as its beauty. Can these extremes of beauty and pain possibly be all of one cloth? This is one of the main questions Dillard explores in this lovely and beautifully written book. It reminded me of driving through forests in Alaska and realizing that it was the combination, the togetherness, of both the dead and the living trees that was making this forest so beautiful. Once again, Dillard's use of language is spectacular. The part of this book that will stick with me is her description of a few moments of her experience living alone in a cabin in the Pacific Northwest. She is overwhelmed by the beauty of the world as she stands looking at the Cascades Mountain range and is stunned. Then she says to herself, "Oh my God there is more!" and turns around and faces the Puget Sound and is knocked out by its beauty, water, clouds, islands, mist. It reminds me of driving up the east coast of the south island of New Zealand and being stunned by the beauty on both sides, mountains on one side, ocean on the other, where to look? Because there is always more, isn't there?

That one sounds like a pleasant read. In the same vein (and same DDC, by the way) is Murray Pura's Majestic and Wild, which delivers a good combination of devotional literature and nature writing.

The Girls of Atomic City Wow! this is all news to me. Excellent and fascinating review Merrikay.

The Girls of Atomic City really sounds interesting, and is headed to my wish list. Great review!

Holy the Firm sounds interesting. I'd like to read Annie Dillard's The Writing Life one day. Merrikay I really like what you wrote about the Alaskan forest. I love telling people I meet doing my job that I can love a dead tree as much as an alive one.

I so desperately wanted to get an ARC of The Girls of Atomic City for DDC 976, to no avail (instead I have a political history of Mississippi). I'm very glad you got a lot out of it. For now, it is relegated to the distant post-project wishlist.

Well Gerard, at least go play on the website awhile!

www.girlsofatomiccity.com

I'll have to check out Pura. Thanks.

Polaris - Re dead trees? I had been misdiagnosed with emphysema and of course immediately did all the research and came up with a life expectancy and started listing the things I would miss, e.g. kids graduating, weddings, etc. The trip to Alaska was therapeutic and taught me a lot about life and death. Then when I tried to get into a study at UCLA for experimental treatment, the diagnosis was found to be mistaken. But not till the lesson was learned. :) So I'm glad there are two of us who like dead trees! Couldn't have live ones without them, right?

Nana and Bas I really enjoyed it and also had known nothing about it and Tennessee is my home state. What the heck?

FREEBIES today from Sedona, Arizona Public Library:

The Edge of Everest
Violence Terrorism, Genocide, War
Capirotada a Nogales Memoir
Deals with the Devil and Other Reasons to Riot

An Underground Education
Somebody's Heart is Burning
In Patagonia
The Voice of the Desert

WOW! Right? and the last four will fill in blanks for my Dewey Challenge!

AND - for $2 - Ubuntu by Siobhan Loftus whose touchstone still isn't working. No one on LT has that and I was sure it was recommended by someone in Club Read. Anyone?

The Edge of Everest, In Patagonia and The Voice of The Desert - 3 great scores there for starters!

Deals With the Devil and Other Reasons to Riot has got to be one of the best titles I've seen in a while...

Quickly catching up here...

The Girls of Atomic City sounds fascinating.

I was mesmerized by the Arch in St. Louis, though we didn't go up in it.

Great haul from the Sedona Library! -- We're off in couple of day to go north, hope I can find some similar enticements!

Nice haul!

>152 mkboylan: It was your lucky day! Great haul!

BOOK 70 - Around the Bloc by Stephanie Elizondo Griest

Stephanie Griest managed to spend a year abroad for school, obtain grants and jobs, and travel to several countries in the communist bloc. In this book, she writes about her year in Moscow, Beijing, and a few weeks in Havana. She was inspired to these things when she heard a talk by a journalist describing what she perceived as a pretty exciting life. She asked him what she had to do to get a job like his. He said to study journalism and learn Russian, so that is what she did.

I found this to be a wonderful and fun travelogue describing a young woman's experiences in communist or post-communist countries in the 90s. It certainly gives a good idea of what life was like and how it was lived during these times. However, for me the most enjoyable part was watching the author's cognitive growth as she compared her own culture to other cultures. Some of the things she had to wrestle with to understand were small, e.g. her difficulty finding a volunteer position. She wanted to more deeply experience the life around her and thought becoming involved in a local organization would be helpful and keep her away from the temptation of the easy way of hanging around with ex-pats. There is difficulty in getting people to understand what she would like to do because they don't get the concept of volunteering. Finally, they say, "Ohhhh! That's communism! We don't have to do that anymore!" However, she finally finds an orphanage that is willing to take her on. She is not happy with the way the children are treated and learns a lot about preparing children to live in a society unlike her own.

Another thing she experiences is coming across a dead man in a grocery, just lying in the aisle, his purchases around him, no one paying any attention. Than another customer appears and begins taking his purchases of food for herself. Griest does not know what to do and finally flees. This causes her great remorse. It reminded me of when I was in Panama, in the countryside outside of Colon, being shown around with a group of GI's with a Panamanian citizen and friend serving as a a guide and driver. We came upon a body in a ditch and didn't know if he was alive or not. We wanted to investigate, but our Panamanian friend/driver said we needed to get the hell out of there before we were involved in a nightmare. As Griest wrestles with this horror, she, as usual, makes comparisons to her own culture. It is so easy to be horrified by "the other". Her thoughts reminded me of times in the U.S. when witnesses have failed to come to the aid of rape victims, murder victims, assault victims. Is that worse than ignoring someone who is already dead?

Griest continued to make comparisons on a trip to the countryside with a local friend. She was struck by the generous hospitality, to the point of having difficulty eating all of the food that she was expected to eat or hosts would be insulted. She also noted "As we drove deep into the countryside we seemed to transcend a year a mile." Gone were the more modern accouterments of city life, such as bathrooms. She also noticed the effort people put into making their homes beautiful, with hanging rugs, art, etc. She noticed that each home she entered was decorated in a very similar manner, and realized she was looking at people using what was made available to them such as certain types of rugs. She thought about the fact that in the U.S. it was similar in that we decorate in similar manners also, but that in Russia it was about supply, whereas in the U.S. we demand our decor. Not sure I agree with that - I get her point, but I get pretty cranky about the things offered in our stores here in the U.S. also. If you aren't wanting the current styles, good luck finding anything different. Perhaps this is one reason vintage items are so popular here now.

Griest is also a little obsessed with revolutions, wanting people to continue to be politically active and push for more. She wonders why she keeps seeing old Russian vets laying flowers on Lenin and Stalin's graves and doesn't understand why they still honor them. She wonders if it is for the same reason her own country reveres Christopher Columbus, a man who obliterated entire populations of indigenous people so that his own kind could steal their land and riches? Do human beings inherently need to make heroes out of their nations and founders?

In Beijing when she wonders what happened after Tiananmen Square, what happened to that spirit and again, why aren't people still fighting for more? She learned from her friends that they are focused on the economy and living a better life, which they are doing. They tell her that her systems is corrupt as well and it isn't the system so much as human nature - there will be corruption no matter which system so they don't care which system, they just want to live as best they can.

Griest manages to make many deep friendships with locals who help her to understand what she is seeing, and to see the commonalities in our human nature and needs across cultures as well as the differences. She struggles mightily with all of these issues and comes to appreciate both these cultures as well as her own. She develops the ability to hold and accept multiple perspectives and appreciate them rather than judge, which is a wonderful thing to watch! She agrees with one who said that if you live in Moscow a week, you will write a book. If you live there a month, you may write an article, but if you live there for a year, you won't write anything.

Five stars

Great review of what sounds like a really interesting book.

Finally, they say, "Ohhhh! That's communism! We don't have to do that anymore!"

Heh heh.

Excellent review of Around the Bloc. Stephanie Griest sounds like someone who learnt an awful lot through her travels. Fascinating stuff.

Great review and great title, too!

That book sounds interesting, and your personal experience must have made the adrenalin soar.

Around the Bloc sounds interesting, Merrikay. Thanks for the great review.

Lovely review of Around the Bloc, Merrikay!

Another lucky hit at the Public Library, this time in Cortez, CO where they sell them for $1 a lb. which means for $4.50:

Sky's Witness a Year in the Wind River Range
by C. L. Rawlins
The Pleasure Book by Julius Fast
Perma Red by Debra Magpie Earling and
The Last War by Ana Menendez which was on my wish list thanks to Janeajones!

and THEN: at the local bookstore, used copies of

Young Stalin ($6) by Simon Sebag Montefiore
which many of you have read
Journey to Nowhere by Shiva Naipaul
Boomer: Railroad Memoirs by Linda Niemann
Communistic Societies of the United States by Charles Nordhoff

ah what sweet deals!

158 - I know! I couldn't help but think of George Bush dependence on faith-based organizations. Didn't realize that was communism.

159-163 Thanks all of y'all. It may have been a little too long, but that is for me and my memories. It was a really fun read. Oh and I left out the "boyfriend" parts!

Fascinating stuff in Around the Bloc.
Nice haul too in 164.

I'll have to check out Railroad Memoirs. Both my parents (along with two uncles and an aunt) worked for the railroad. My dad was a brakeman. Very cool!

Wonderful review of Around the Bloc -- I'll have to keep an eye out for it. Great haul in Cortez!

>157 mkboylan: Great review of a book that you gave a lot of thought.

Nice book haul, Merrikay. I'm especially interested in the Naipaul, as I intend to purchase a couple of his books when I travel to London next week.

I think Debra Magpie Earling is an interesting Native American writer. There were some incidents in Perma Red that were unforgettable. I also love her short story, "Real Indians" which I have in a collection called The Best of Montana's Short Fiction.

Loved your review of Around the Bloc. Like others, I've left a thumbsie.

Thanks stream song - I miss seeing your posts when I was on another thread.

I just luckily stumbled across Perma Red!

BOOK 71 - Two Winters in a TiPi: My Search for the Soul of the Forest by Mark Warren

Nana saw this book on Amazon ebooks and thought I might like it. She was so right. Mark Warren is a naturalist who taught outdoor skills, and so much more, to all ages. He wanted to teach respect, appreciation and love for the outdoor world, animals and plants. His work included elementary school programs as well as senior citizens and all ages in between. Most of the book takes place in the forests of north Georgia in the U.S.

After completing his undergraduate work, Warren was accepted into medical school. He called the school and said he wouldn't be showing up because he had changed his mind. However he still had some scientific training which he took to the woods with him and that is one of the things that made the story fun for me. Warren told the usual tale of becoming one with the world and running with the deer, but then gave some of scientific explanation for it, which I always think is fun. For example when he talked about trees communicating with each other he talked about some research in that area. He said that it had been found that when a tree was ill or was experiencing an infestation of insects for examples, the trees surrounding it responded by going into a self-defense mode. Can't remember the details and have NO biology knowledge, but the trees pulled something in their leaves back into itself, the harder part of itself, making the tree less vulnerable. That makes sense to me. Polaris are you here? Can you enlighten us about this? or anyone else? So Warren gives some explanation for what used to be considered old wives tales or new age gobbledygook and I always love it when I come across that kind of info.

When Warren's rental home in the woods burnt down, he decided to try living in a tipi and did so for two years. There is a lot of detail about building tipis and how they function that I found a little tiresome, and yet I had wondered about some of those things. Smoke, for example, problems with rain and other things were explained and was interesting.

There is also information about the Cherokee and their relationship with the world and with the government. I spent yesterday afternoon in the Anasazi Center in Cortez, CO and just left feeling so sad. It is a wonderful BLM museum, but I was just so struck by one particular photo that was described as being taken during the American Occupation. Something about that terminology and the reality of it struck deeper. The only place that made me more sad than that was Little Big Horn.

You can see there is a lot of variety in this book and it is a quick and interesting read. Thanks Nana for telling me about it.

Four stars.

I'm glad you liked it. :-)

I forgot to ask you if it satisfied anything for your Dewey Challenge?

Great review of Two Winters in a Tipi, Merrikay!

Very interesting sounding book; thanks for telling us about it.

is that really true about the trees going into self-defence mode?

I think that a tree that was being attacked could have some sort of internal chemical response to that, but not sure how it would work.

Where is Polaris when we need him?

>176 baswood: Unfortunately, not enough to save 8 beautiful majestic Ash trees on my cousin's street this week in Illinois. They had become infested with the Emerald Ash Borer, which is native to Asia and Eastern Russia. So sad when invasive pests wind up where they are not supposed to be, with no natural enemies.

I've read several tree related books, and some papers as well, that mention the phenomena of trees 'communicating' with each other when they sense an untypical form of attack. Trees: Their Natural History by Peter Thomas is an excellent general book on trees (for expert and lay readers alike). I'm embarrassed to say that off the top of my head I don't remember all the specifics - ahem, it's been a few years since I was cramming all that 'botany' stuff...my day to day work is with hazard assessment really and amenity tree management, so I don't get into the science all that frequently unless there is a new disease to read up on, or the latest climate change introduced pest from foreign climes...
So, please forgive my vague comment Merrikay!

Bas - to answer your question specifically: Yes it is true.

All trees are doing it pretty much all the time right under our noses. Most of the symbiotic relationships that trees & fungi form with each other underneath our feet in natural (and not so natural) rooting environments are extremely beneficial to both parties (known as mycorrhizae). Occasionally though, a pathogenic fungus can colonise a tree which might provide a good supply of food and shelter to it. It varies considerably from tree species to species, and also the veracity of colonisation really depends on the fungus concerned, and the decay strategy, but the tree will instantly react to the foreign 'invasion' by closing down wood vessels and blocking potential routes of ingress for each fungus' advance party of probing hypphae. Trees are huge living organisms and like animals are really quite hormonal. Hormones determine the timing of fruiting, leaf flush, leaf fall, new growth, etc. etc., and are also responsible for governing defensive responses. They can stimulate growth of substances such as Suberin - a blocking/plugging agent (the key ingredient of cork by the way), or Pectins (the glue like cement which holds together the building blocks of woody cell anatomy - also found in fruits, jam (jelly) etc..) - and countless other 'bio-chemical weapons of mass defence'.

Apparently, there are certain hormonal responses, that transfer from tree to adjacent tree (normally when they're of the same species I think), so this is probably in the area that Mark Warren is referring to in Two Winters in a TiPi: My Search for the Soul of the Forest. Leaves are the 'workshops' or kitchens of the tree, in that they cook up the air and the sun's energy and turn it into stored energy (photosynthesis) that can be used later when needed - this is where the hormone production begins - for stimulating fruit growth, fending off invasive fungal pathogens, etc. etc. - and so the cycle goes...

Nana, no I already had something in that spot, but wanted to read Tipi anyway. I'm trying to have 50% or so of the books I read this summer fill in spots which leaves room for that spur of the moment find like this.

Thanks Darryl and Rebecca. And bas and all, I defer to Polaris.

and Polaris I think you've been busy with a brotherly visit lately so special thanks for taking the time to respond. I was getting afraid I was going to have to google it my own self! :) That is such interesting stuff. I managed to get all the way through undergrad and grad school without even one biology course, which I sure regret (like I'd still remember it!) so I seriousy know nothing about bio or botany. I know I'm missing out. I might check out the tree book. I was also glad you covered the part about hormones and info transferring from one tree to another. I had never thought of plants having hormones. Don't know how I thought they reproduced without them.

Thought of our discussion about dead trees today. I was on a train from Durango to Silverton CO, surrounded by a zillion trees, at least, in all stages of living and dying (guess we all are). Stunning scenery going from 6700 to 9300 ft.

Speaking of "clean coal" (WTH?) the train was a coal powered steam engine and I got cinders in my eyes a couple of times, my clothes were covered with cinders, when I got home I realized my hair was full of it also, and I just kept thinking about those trees and how the heck they were going to process all of that trash. But actually, I don't want to think about that part anymore!

Thanks again Polaris and everyone.

P.S. I liked your description of photosynthesis!

There's a Coursera course this fall called "What Plants Know". Just sayin.

(Love me some Coursera).

streamsong! Thanks so much. I just signed up. I told my husband I just signed up for a course about what plants know and he said what kind of plants? Like nuclear power plants? ummm......no. I knew nothing about Coursera. and another whole new world opens up.

179 - Colleen you said it! I've just discovered Ash Dieback (Chalara fraxinea) on mature trees for the first time in my borough yesterday, and again today...Bad news....there's nothing to stop it spreading rapidly across the UK.... it destroyed almost 90% of Denmarks Ash trees and now we have it. And sh is such an important species. Arguably THE most important in Britain - both in terms of numerousness (word?) and its spread in all habitats. It's also extremely versatile firewood - it burns green, which is always handy when camping in near wet Welsh woodlands...

Emerald Ash Borer is one we've been warned about but so far has only been confirmed in 2 very localised locations over here - both near port locations on the North Sea coast. People that deny climate change being a reality are fools. We will probably have more and more invasive pests and diseases, with no local predation - at least initially. It may only take a decade or so for local birdlife and wildlife to start honing in on whatever the latest critter is, but that can sometimes be too late.

I'm resigned to losing many hundreds, of Ash trees in my patch over the next few years... At least I'm hoping it may lead to some extra funding for tree planting in residential areas. I can dream...

I find that so sad. People don't seem to understand that there are reasons for laws which regulate transport of live plants from one country to another. The American Chestnut was just about wiped out in the early 1900's due to a blight brought in from an Asiatic chestnut. The American Chestnut provided habitat and food for several animal species which have had to adapt to other sources. And for those who deny climate change, don't get me started. :) There are so many fools, as you call them, who just won't open their eyes.

My neighborhood streets were all canopied by huge elms and over the 20+ years we've lived here, probably 2/3 are gone. :( My yard has an ash that had no sign of infection last year but does this year, despite "vaccination." :(

Merrikay you've interested me in Around the Bloc and Two Winters in a Tipi. And streamsong thanks for the info about the Coursera on trees. Temple Grandin recommends that site...

if you live in Moscow a week, you will write a book. If you live there a month, you may write an article, but if you live there for a year, you won't write anything
I like this and believe it (about familiarity in general).

MJ, My cousin lives in your neck of the woods, and they just lost 8 beautiful ash trees on their street this week, and are hoping to save several others.

Nana, part of the problem is the importation of goods from Asia. The Emerald Ash Borer is an Asian beetle which reportedly first came to North America on pallets in shipping containers. This might explain why Polaris is finding its presence confirmed near ports. The larvae then basically bore into the vascular system of the plant, causing that die back at the top.

Another problem is bringing cut wood from an infested area to an clean area. There are prohibitions against doing this in some areas around here.

Yes Sassy, the timber infected with Emerald Ash Borer (and also Asian Longhorn Beetle while we're at it), is packing material on east Asian imports. I didn't actually see them near the ports in the east as I'm over in Wales in the west, but we get notifications and suchlike.

It's not really an Asia specific problem, as there are lots of other climate change related pests/diseases coming from all parts of the world. Chestnut Leaf Miner from the Balkans for example... and contrary to the common misunderstanding over here that the 1970s' Dutch Elm Disease was from the Netherlands, it actually came in to Britain from the United States. It's a side effect of globalisation I suppose.

Sassy, we can only hope that some of the infestations are caught before they become too widespread. I remember years ago, that New Jersey had such a bad gypsy moth problem that cars from New Jersey were being inspected before California would let them cross the border for fear of bringing the ugly little pests into the state.

Yes too horrible about the ash trees. too sad. sorry about the Dutch Elm and borers. driving through northern New Mexico is too depressing also with whole forests visibl dead from beetles.

We've also for well over a decade now had something called the hemlock woolly adelgid which has killed many of the beautiful hemlocks in the northeast. It also is an Asian insect that sucks sap from the tree. Because these trees created dense shade, their deaths have other implications, like warming of streams which impacts fish life.

The real problem with all these new pests that are spread by global transport and goods shipments is that our native insects and other predators don't recognize them as food, so the normal way that pests and hosts and predators stay in balance with each other doesn't work. That's why they can cause such devastation.

There are other problems besides the deaths of trees we love to look at. Many trees provide important habitat for animal species, and also control soil moisture and chemistry, so loss of key species of trees can have widespread impact on ecosystems. Further, out in the western US, where a lot of the pine trees have been killed, the dead trees contribute to the ferociousness of wildfires and because they no longer old the soil, their deaths can lead to erosion and pollution of water systems.

BOOK 72 - Rising Tide the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America by John. M. Barry

Recommended by my doc who went to med school in Tennessee and knew I was born in Memphis. I can't believe I lived there and a flood of such great impact occurred and I knew nothing about it. Neither was anyone else I asked aware of this flood. Were you? Seems like this should be in U.S. History books. Maybe I was asleep that day. This is coming in sections.

Barry begins by describing the attempts of humans to control the uncontrollable forces of nature. There are at least two facets to this, the first being the engineering involved. The Mississippi is like no other river in the world when it comes to patterns of flow, currents, strengths, etc., and the time is the late 1800s. The ravages of the U.S. Civil War are still being felt, government is being re-formed and re-structured in the south, so the battle is also being fought about who will hold the responsibility (and perks) of controlling the river. A civilian, James Eads is considered to be one of the five greatest engineers of all time. He believes the way to control the river is with spillways and reservoirs. The Chief of the Army Corps of Engineers believes the way to go is using only levees. There is enough detail here to satisfy the engineers among readers, and it is basic enough for the rest of us to develop some understanding. All of the methods seem to have pros and cons of course, with interesting details that come up such as the fact that high levees result in increased river velocity, which means the river then digs its own channel even deeper. This was one of the disputed theories however, that was used to fight about who was better qualified to make these decisions. I found this fighting to be pretty disgusting albeit typical still today e.g. global warming. They had data - they hid it. I thought I was in a room with some preschoolers fighting and thought they just needed to be sent to their rooms. Eads determined that it would be most effective to use both methods, but Buchanan (Corps of Engineers) wouldn't compromise. He was just vicious, hid reports, lied, etc.
Imagine that! Of course there was a lot of money involved in which methods would be used and who would do the work.

193 I don't know why, but I was surprised that the predators didn't recognize the new species as food. I would have thought they would have figured it out.

I read and loved The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough, which chronicles the flood of Memorial Day 1889 in Johnstown, PA. Greed was a culprit there too. This line from the back cover says it all: "the danger of assuming that because people are in positions of responsibility they are necessarily behaving responsibly."

I will need to look for Rising Tide the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America. It sounds quite interesting.

>194 mkboylan: mk I have Rising Tide in my wishlist thanks to a mention by Rebecca so look forward to your series of comments, sounds like you're enjoying it.

194, 197 Yes, I loved Rising Tide which I read some 15 years ago now. I learned so much from it about US history and about Herbert Hoover.

195 As for the predators (in this case essentially other insects), I think they "learn" to avoid unfamiliar potential food items because they could be dangerous, poisonous, etc. They don't have reasoning powers, so they have to rely on their genetic programming. This is also one of the reason exotic invasive plants can spread so rapidly.

Yesterday in Durango, CO used bookstore, picked up:

Ten Million Steps by M. J. Eberhart and
One Life at a Time, Please by Edward Abbey

Moved today to Pagosa Springs, CO and went to the library for used books - no luck.

Thanks for the info Rebecca. Also glad to hear you liked Rising Tide. It is pretty amazing. I am enjoying it Detail! and my husband read it before me and enjoyed it, as did my mother, her sister, and my next door neighbor! In fact, I had one sent to my aunt because she and my mother can remember their dad driving them down to the Mississippi to see floods, altho not this one. Mom was born in 1928 near Memphis.

Nana - I bet that McCullough WAS excellent! Thanks for the reminder.

Rising Tide is also on my wishlist already, but I don't yet have a copy. If it hadn't of already been there I'd be adding it now.

In the late '70s I worked for the Social Security Administration in Arkansas in a town on the banks of the Mississippi River. One of the perennial challenges there was determining and proving the age of persons whose births had been unrecorded since they were delivered at home by midwives. In interviewing these people our standard question was "Do you remember the great flood? How old were you then?" That would often trigger stories about the hardships people went through and the changes in their lives.

72-2 Rising Tide

The next section focuses on Senator LeRoy Percy, U.S. Senator from Mississippi 1910 - 1913. Percy was one of those men who did some good things for bad reasons. I HATE that! I just can't feel any appreciation for the good work. Percy wanted to build an empire, a society that he shaped to his own liking. He was ruthless when it suited his purpose and bullied others into doing things his way. He wanted an educated society as well as physical comfort. To that end, he organized local government to his purposes, using his wealth to put those he wanted into office and on committees. He brought transportation in the form of railroads, as well as banks to finance it all. He worked to bring people to Greenville, Mississippi who would do the work he thought necessary, such as building roads, schools, churches, and stores. He sought out foreign and domestic investors to form plantations and clear land and establish cotton farms, showing that the soil in the Mississippi Delta area would produce four times as much cotton as other areas, and do it without fertilizer that others were using. He, along with others in the area, enticed many African Americans to the area as sharecroppers. While other landowners were abusive and actually murderous to the sharecroppers, Percy claimed that he could get more work out of them, and thus more money, by treating them well. He brought in medical care, school, and other social services when others did not believe in education for blacks. And he was indeed, more successful. He stated that profit was his motive, and that he did not believe blacks were equal to whites. This was after slavery was ended, at least by that name, but the treatment of blacks was still horrendous to the point I don't even want to repeat some of the things done here. They made me sick to my stomach. Of course I was aware of whippings, rape, indiscriminate murder of blacks as well as other torture, but some of the methods in this book were new to me and I'm having a hard time shaking the feelings. One of the things done during an earlier flood was making black men use their bodies as sandbags trying to keep the levees safe. They were forced at gunpoint to lie down in rows on top of the levee and on top of each other. These were free men who had been picked up off streets and forced into trucks and brought to the levee. Percy did work to stop much maltreatment and murder.

Percy was also instrumental in bringing workers to Greenville, offering them sharecropping for example, and paying better than others. When he could not get enough African Americans, he attempted to recruit Italians. The belief of the time was that white men would not do the hard work required in the fields that were pretty much hell, with high temperatures and high humidity, and still pretty much jungle. Italians were not considered to be white so it was thought they might work out. Percy's influence in Washington (or should I say ownership of) extended to the Italian government who agreed to support this move. The ensuing mistreatment of them and the horrible conditions, ended in rebellion of Italians and failure. Ultimately, Percy's sharecropping with African Americans was his greatest success when he treated them well. Percy's whole life was tied up in this empire he had created and he was going to fight to keep it.

One of the reasons Percy worked hard to keep African Americans and later Italians working both on plantations and as sharecroppers, was to keep out what he considered to be white hillbilly trash rednecks. The floods influenced other people living there to move away, opening up room for the poor whites. This opened up a whole new issue - the Ku Klux Klan moved in. It was difficult for me to believe the size of membership and influence of the KKK. I thought of it mostly as a southern organization, although not completely. However, I did not know it had in place the mayors of Portland, Oregon, and Portland, Maine simultaneously. The battle between Percy and the KKK was incredible. Altho many tried to keep the KKK out of their counties, Percy was ultimately the only one who succeeded. No matter how many books I have read or movies I have seen, I still was not prepared for the detail and facts about the KKK treatment of African Americans presented by John Barry. It is still difficult to believe that many people were involved all the way up to presidents of the United States who made supportive statements at least about their work.

201 - Ah Steven that must have been something to hear! Someone must have written it up. I may have to look for more. I sure wish I had known to talk with my grandparents about it.

Your review on Rising Tide is quite interesting &, in >202 mkboylan: very upsetting! I was always told about the big earthquake that changed the course of the river, but never the Flood of '27.

72-3 Rising Tide

At last we reach the actual flooding of Greenville. Leading up to it, armed guards patrol the levees because both sides want to blow up the other side of the river levees, so that their side will be safe. Additionally, people who live further south want to blow up more northern levees (and vice versa) for the same reason. The guards shoot at anyone who they deem is behaving suspiciously. That means anyone who approaches the levee. Engineers are still arguing about the best actions and truth is being kept from the people, but they finally begin to move. It is too late and happens too fast. There are a very tense couple of chapters describing this part of the flood.

The next section moves to the potential flooding of New Orleans. It opens with setting the same stage, or at least a very similar one to what we saw in Greenville: people with money run the show as usual, and own the politicians. Incredibly complex maneuvering takes place with each party trying to put responsibility for decisions onto other people. Barry talks about the idea presented by many that New Orleans and Louisiana as a whole, are the most corrupt place in the world. The corruption is blatant and of course, mythical. I must say it doesn't sound a lot different from the U.S. government of the last couple of decades both nationally and what I have seen locally. Control of media is complete in New Orleans. Battles continue over what is the best move to make to save the city, and which parts of the city. A way is found to save the rich parts, by sacrificing the poorer parts, specifically two parishes. Much manipulation is accomplished but ultimately the poor are simply bullied into giving up and being evacuated. The levee that protects them is blown, flooding their land and homes. This is making me ill. Remind you of anything else you have heard about in New Orleans? Or elsewhere for that matter?

204 Yes Avid! Terribly, horribly upsetting! As I have said, the maltreatment is nothing new; I'm wondering if the writing and personal details and stories is what is making it so difficult for me. That's what good writing does, right? Makes it all too real?

Ha! Humane Society Thrift Shops always have the best used books.

Storming Las Vegas by John Huddy
Unauthorized America by Vince Staten
Anchored in Love by John Carter Cash
Football for Women by Donna Foehr
As Far as the Eye Can See by David Brill
Anne Sexton a Biography by Diane Wood Middlebrook

All for $4.81

ok so maybe the only one you want is the Sexton. Still...

Are you still reading Rising Tide? It sounds a horrendous story.

208 - Oh yes - lots more to come. This author is amazing. The research is incredible and the interweaving of all of the information is - well, I just don't know how he did. it.

Enjoying your ongoing descriptions of your Rising Tide reading. It is reminding me of why I was so impressed by it when I read it so long ago.

>184 mkboylan:-- I love that you signed up for the Coursera course. Our librarian at work (research lab) had sent around info about the various MOOC (massive open online courses) about a year ago when people here on LT were also beginning to buzz about them.

I think they are really an exciting innovation.

72-4 Rising Tide Hoover! What an interesting person. I knew nothing about him. He seems to suffer from severe social phobia most likely related to being orphaned and separated from his siblings. He was shifted around from one home to another. Two additional influences mentioned by John Barry are his Quaker background of silence, community and responsibility to society, and the "rationalism and purpose of engineering". It seems his main lifetime ambition was to see the world run according to engineering principles. He was also successful enough in business to be considered at one time "the highest paid man of his age in the world".

Hoover also thought competition caused waste and cooperation was the efficient way for things to be done. One of his first big successes was feeding occupied Belgium. He managed to manipulate Britain and German in this effort. Somehow he managed to espouse and put into practice these ideas of cooperation, while maintaining a belief in the importance of individualism. At the same time after the war, when many were studying the nature of society, he described the "brutality of industrialism and capitalism". However, he did not believe in mass rule, stating that crowds accomplish nothing and there is a need for rule by an elite meritocracy. Again though, he believed that if things were done according to engineering principles, it would result in "a plan of individualism and associational activities...." Well, now I am clearly going to have to read a biography of Hoover. Any recommendations?

Coolidge appoints Hoover to manage the flood problem, and manage it he does. I find the details of bringing order to chaos in this nightmare of refugees who need homes and food amazing. One of his cohorts in the Red Cross suggested that they "centralize policy but decentralize execution". It was more efficient AND allowed blame to be placed locally when there were problems. Clever devils those politicians. Still, I think a good idea?

While Hoover was working at this level, organizing transportation, camps, food, local individuals were performing rescue operations. "Tens of thousands of people were clinging to trees" or on their roofs, the water was 90 miles wide with whitecaps, and they had few boats. Those who had them began constant patrol and rescue. Some of those who didn't started building them. People worked individually and also organized themselves into groups. This is heartrending reading. Those of you who read Zeitoun? multiply his work and his stories by about a zillion it seems.

The good PR involved in this effort results probably in Hoover's election to the presidency as a Republican, although he was also asked to run by the Democrats.

I finally finished Rising Tide today and will have a few more remarks probably. I am having really bad internet issues.

Spent yesterday in Los Alamos, NM, and hit the jackpot at the public library once again:

*Breaking the Rock the Great Escape from Alcatraz by Jolene Babyak
*China Road a Journey into the Future of a Rising Power by Rob Gifford
Moon Shot the Inside Story of America's Race to the Moon by Alan Shepard and Deke Slayton
The Collaborator of Bethlehem by Matt Beynon Rees
*Norris Bradbury 1909-1997 by Virginia Nylander Ebinger
ISBN 0941232344 530.092

*for my Dewey challenge

all for $6.81

It was quite interesting being in Los Alamos again after reading The Girls of Atomic City and The Bells of Nagasaki. They have a great museum that illustrates the history of the development of the bomb and it was gratifying to see a couple of women scientists included for a change. This was my second time at this museum and I was glad to get to go again. There is a section that has pro and con input about dropping the bomb, with Eisenhower's and Major General Groves', Chief of Staff, statements that there was no need to actually drop the bomb because Japan was ready to surrender. You know that whole old argument and disagreement. It is a weird and interesting and horrible story. I found it particularly interesting to compare the politics involved with those in Rising Tide, meaning just looking at who is actually running the show.

My husband got to wander around the building that was his dining hall when he worked there a few months in about 1963. It is a beautiful old lodge similar to Ahwanee at Yosemite. No access to where he lived or worked.

Los Alamos is at such a beautiful site too, isn't it? I was there more than 20 years ago and I remember driving there from Phoenix along some back roads (some still dirt, I'm sure the rental car company loved that!) and it had just a stunning view. Probably a lot more development around there now, I imagine. It must have seemed so remote when people were working there during the war.

Very interesting comments about thinking about both the bomb and Rising Tide. And it's just stunning how terrible a president Hoover was after being effective working on the flood.

Yahoo! Santa Fe, NM, Public Library:

*North to the Night by Alvah Simon
*Journey of the Jihadist by Fawaz A. Gerges
That's Funny, You Don't Look Buddhist by Sylvia Boorstein
Garbage Land by Elizabeth Royte
Unsui: A Diary of Zen Monastic Life by Eshin Nishimura

$8

Yes Rebecca, Los Alamos certainly is a beautiful place! There are only about 13,000 people working there now, still pretty small and downtown pretty closed up on Sundays. And yes I was so disappointed how Hoover changed.

I've enjoyed your review of Rising Tide. I did add it to my wishlist after your first installment.

It sounds like you are having a wonderful vacation.

72-5 Finally finished Rising Tide

The author moved to the next generation in Mississippi and Louisiana, only to find little difference. The rich still ran things. They broke all promises to recompense those who lost their homes when they made the decision to blow a levee to protect New Orleans and their wealth. The good that the wealthy did for African Americans was to meet their goal of keeping enough labor in the south to run their businesses. They were unable to stop the great migration of African Americans out however. Many of the old guard did lose power and Gov Long was elected so there was a real shift in power. Fighting continued about what needed to be done to prevent future flooding, and things ended up back at the beginning. There WAS a shift from citizen responsibility for the river to more government responsibility, which was a big change in philosophy. However the government was still owned by the wealthy so......the more things change.....the more they stay the same.

This book was an enjoyable read in many ways. I learned a lot about a variety of subjects. However, I also found it depressing and had to keep looking at my reactions of hopelessness, feeling the world has never gotten better and never will, evil will prevail, etc., or at least return with each election or change of government, just in a different manifestation. These are not new ideas of course, so I couldn't understand why it was bothering me so much. I have decided part of that is because it is an excellent book! The research behind the information plus the author's presentation, makes me feel it is fairly truthful and unbiased. It is very well documented. Additionally, the mix of technical information and political systems is supported with detailed information about the individuals involved, their lives and relationships, so I became emotionally involved. I wanted to see people succeed and do good things. I wanted to see my government succeed I guess also. Also there was probably more of a reaction for me because this did happen in my birthplace and involved and reminded me of my ancestors, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc. and what it was like growing up in the South. Was it as bad as the Holocaust because it seems to have upset me more? In fact, it WAS a holocaust. No gas chamber involved, just taking white people off the levees and putting them in boats and taking them to safety, while leaving African Americans on the levee, and preventing them at gunpoint from getting on the boats. Letting the poor literally starve to death or die from lack of healthcare. If other readers think I am overreacting, is it because I AM overreacting, or because they are in denial? For me personally, I think I am also working on accepting humanity the way it is and using a more circular, cyclical way of thinking about the world rather than such a EuroAmerican linear way of thinking. Humans may not be evolving as much as I would like, but perhaps so what? Perhaps that is human nature and cyclical it is. Each generation has to have it's own process. ok I'm rambling. Someone else read this so I can hear what you all think! and Rebecca, anymore thoughts from you about this book or your experience of reading it? Even though it was 15 years ago. I think it's time for me to lighten up a little and read something fun. Maybe even funny.

Yes definitely time to lighten up a bit Merrikay, don't depress yourself too much because of your reading. I understand where you are coming from though and the facts uncovered in Rising Tide are all too familiar.

I'm afraid, being a pessimist, I tend towards the belief that human nature will never change. I do think there has been some small progress over time and I would like to believe, as Dr. King said, that the "arc of history bends towards justice," but sometimes I just have to shake my head and wonder.

One "good" thing that can be said about the reactions to the flood was that it impelled many of the African-Americans who survived to migrate north and west where there was by and large less lethal racism.

Merrikay, if you want lighter fun reads, some of my go-to reads are Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons, The Straight and Narrow Path by Honor Tracy (out of print, though), Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead by Barbara Comyns (not so light, but definitely fun, and how can you resist the title), and We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson (ditto). I also had fun in the past year or so with To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis, The Cornish Trilogy and The Salterton Trilogy by Robinson Davies, and of course the Inspector Montalbano mysteries by Andrea Camilleri.

>mk I so understand your reaction to the historical events ... and the contemporary. Rebecca's recommendation to read something uplifting is great (I'm also noting her list!) and I'll add a suggestion for Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand. If you really want comforting, listen to it on audio read by Edward Herrmann.

Merrikay, 3 things -

- Really appreciated reading your Rising Tide updates/reviews, really whetted my appetite to get a copy eventually. I love the passion in your final review. I think it's completely understandable that a natural disaster so severely compounded by the failings and greed and despicable nature of absolute power; happening where your ancestors lived, in the land where you grew up, would be so utterly affecting in a way that another travesty somewhere else in the world, or in another time, might well not have. (Apologies for such a horribly clumsy sentence, I hope you know what I'm trying to say.) I think it's very human of you. I think it must be a measure of quite how well written this book is that you have felt such a visceral reaction to it. If only there was a way to freeze time - so that my reading self could just settle down with a copy, and read it, and then discuss it with you further! Despite the heartbreaking nature of the history told within, I look forward to reading it.

AND:

- Great score at Los Alamos - my local library has an audio version of The Collaborator of Bethlehem and it's on my wishlist. I've not yet read anything by Matt Rees, so I'll be very interested to hear what you think of that one when you eventually read it.
(ETA - questionably fun fact: William S Burroughs went to school in Los Alamos.)

- Mm Santa Fe... (Bad Blake in Crazy Heart fell in love with a girl in Santa Fe - he was gonna move there...) - anyway North to the Night looks like a great read - right up my alley - so I've added that one as well. Thanks.

Half -Price Books in Oklahoma City:

Betty Shabazz by Russell J. Rickford Subtitle Surviving Malcolm X
The Psychology of Revolution by Gustave Le Bon
Restorative Justice Ideas, Values, Debates by Gerry Johnstone

$10

Merrikay, you are doing quite the tour...and picking up bargains along the way. Nice!

thanks Bas, Rebecca, Detail, Paul, Nana. Yall all cheered me up! Thanks for the great book suggestions. They all sound kind of fun and I think maybe especially Cold Comfort and The Straight and Narrow Path.

It was great timing for me to hear about Obama's comments about racism, altho I haven,t actually gotten to hear them yet. Just makes me happy he said SOMETHING.

Oh I hope you DO read it Paul and others too. It is an amazing work. AND I will be on the Mississippi tomorrow! Oh and I finished The Collaborator and will review it soon. I enjoyed it altho I must say it certainly wasn,t light. :) Good stuff and helpful too - reminds me of looking for the "Third Way". and North to the Night? My husband read MOST of it and laughed periodically. He enjoyed it mostly. I had to laugh because he usually skips the relationship stuff in books and focuses more on the technical, and this time when the author's wife had to skip town for awhile my husband started complaining it was getting boring. I'm all "See!"

Yes Nana lots of nice bargains, right? We usually go to the Rockies and then Portland to get out of the Sacramento heat. This time we committed to meeting our daughter in St. Louis for a week. (She lives near us in Sac.) I don't know what I was thinking because I really don't do well with humidity and heat, but we have been lucky this trip. After St. L I will be driving until it is reasonably cool somewhere!

I still have more catching up to do because I have had very bad internet service, so more later. Because I found a MAGNIFICIENT bookstore in Oklahoma City! to tell yall about.

Oh Paul did you realize the author of Collaborator is from Wales? and like you, lived in Israel? I think you will like it a lot.

Merrikay, here's a link to the president's speech and a transcript too.

Sorry about the internet service. Ours (and our cable TV) just came back on after being off since 11 this morning, so I'm catching up.

225 - No I did not! That's not too common a scenario either! I'm definitely keeping an eye out for that one.

Bon continuing voyage!

Left Bank Books, St. Louis:

Mother Earth an Epic Drama of Emma Goldman's Life by Martin B. Duberman

$2 I DO love Emma Goldman!

I enjoyed your thoughts on Rising Tide, sounds like I'd have to steel myself to read it.

Thanks Yolana - it is well worth reading.

Rebecca thanks for the link. I had mixed feelings upon listening. I think his comments will speak to some people and be helpful, and it could be more. Altho, it reminds me of what a nun said to me one time. It was a class for teachers and the topic of cognitive development was up. I was wondering about responding to very black and white thinkers. Her suggestion: GENTLY introduce disequilibrium. Altho, another friend told me that Eldridge Cleaver said to him, there are five ways of reaching different people:
1. Money
2. Physical power
3. Religion/morals

oh great I can,t remember anymore!

I am getting very far behind in writing about my reading, but that is a good thing - I'm on vacation, altho my husband keeps saying we can't be on vacation because we're retired. Well maybe but it feels WAY different than being home with all those responsibilities!

:) I love being retired. And yes it is different when you are on vacation. Although my hubby would agree with yours.

>230 mkboylan:-231 hmm is that because (some) men think vacation = not-work (thus no difference in retirement) and (some) women think vacation = not-home (thus a big difference)?

>232 detailmuse: Oh, in our case, I am sure that is the case. :)

Definitely!

BOOK 73 - The Collaborator of Bethlehem by Matt Beynon Rees

After my last read I was looking for something light, and went to my usual, a mystery. Well, light it wasn't, but a good transition perhaps. I just stumbled across this book and grabbed it. Matt Rees writes out of his experience as a journalist covering the mid-East for over a decade for Time, Newsweek, and The Scotsman. He was born in Wales which I thought brought a unique perspective to his story.

This book has all of the standard ingredients of a good murder mystery, but with some added twists. The location (Bethlehem) includes an occupied Palestinian camp. The interaction, blame, motives, etc., are complicated by the characters from three groups, Palestinian Christians, Muslims, and the Israeli occupiers. I'm American and had to keep stopping and thinking these relationships through and putting the characters in perspective. I finally realized that I was trying to fit the story into my American framework rather than just hearing what the characters were actually experiencing themselves. That was a challenge, and well worth the effort. The main character was very helpful in that because of his personal refusal to hold people in stereotype. He is definitely NOT a black and white thinker but sees many shades of grays and many possibilities. The author has clearly developed an excellent grasp of the complicated relationships between groups living in the mid-East as well as old tribal histories and forms of government. I learned a lot in reading it and will be reading the other three in this series. Highly recommended, with a potential to help the reader understand the mid-East a little more, and perhaps even the reader's own ambiguity in her own relationships.

ETA: The titles were different in the U.S. and U.K.