41 thoughts on “March Books”

1. I finished Normal People this past week. I can't remember where I'd heard about it. On here, maybe?

   It was a good book but I hated it. I can't stand to see two people continue to make bad decisions and have their lives spiral downward. That's why I wasn't a big fan of Gilligan's Island as a kid.

   1. It was a good book but I hated it.

      Everything I've heard about Normal People has convinced me that this would be my reaction as well.

   2. I felt that way reading Sidney Sheldon's Master of the Game.

   3. LOL. The people on Gilligan's Island didn't spiral downward! They could have been Lord of the Flies, but they managed just fine. It was almost utopian, in fact!

      1. I don't know about that. Did you ever watch the movie? They couldn't cope with civilian life once they got off. They were basically Brooks from Shawshank!

   4. I loved it! I get what you're saying, but their decisions somehow felt so true to life that I could appreciate it. I probably talked about the book here, but it's going to take someone with admin powers to figure that out for sure.

2. Three Novels Read in February. All three novels were translated from French, kind of an odd coincidence for this month:

   Exposition by Nathalie Leger

   The White Dress by Nathalie Leger

   Books 1 and 3 of Leger's tryptych about art and women. (Book 2 - A Suite for Barbara Loden was published a couple of years ago). Leger writes incredibly well, and the ideas in the books are so good. I started these shortly after I finished Leslie Jamison's Make it Scream, Make it Burn and the way Leger frames and puts ideas into writing just blew Jamison out of the water. Exposition is about Virginia Oldoini, who set out to be the most photographed woman in the world (this was in the 1850s or so). Interspersed with the thoughts about what story her pictures tell, the author also ruminates on the images of her own childhood and what they reveal or obscure. The White Dress has the story of the artist Pippa Bacca, who set out to hitchhike across Europe wearing a wedding dress as a way to promote world peace. In this case, the author contrasts this trust in humanity with the relationship between her mother and father and their relationship with her.

   Both were really good, although not page-turning novels by any stretch. You have to settle in for ideas and ruminations and contrasts and images held up against each other to see what sparks.

   Vernon Subutex 1 by Virginie Despentes

   Despentes is always referred to as "provocative" in every blurb I've seen. The characters in this book certainly have their dials set to provocation. I got tired of so many diatribes and so many racist, xenophobic, homophobic, misogynistic, intolerant screeds. The book was what it set out to be, and there is always a place for righteous anger and disgust at these things, but it felt like a blunt object in this case, so that kept me from really getting anything out of it.

3. I've been eating up The Murderbot Diaries ebooks, with just Exit Strategy and a short story to read before the April release of Fugitive Telemetry.

4. I only managed to finish two books in February - Abaddon's Gate, book #3 in the Expanse series and "The Vital Abyss" one of the Expanse novellas that is suggested to be read between 3 & 4

   I've since started Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar by Simon Sebag Montefiore and Cibola Burn, book #4 in the Expanse series. Splitting my time between two larger tomes meant neither got finished.

5. I’m currently in the middle of Nate Chinen’s Playing Changes: Jazz for the New Century, reading a chapter a week along with a friend. We’re pairing the chapters with two recent jazz albums, each of us selecting one, and then having a discussion by phone at the end of the week. It’s been a lot of fun. I’m also finishing Elliott Chaze’s Black Wings has My Angel (in the New York Review of Books edition), a noir novel that came with a compelling recommendation from a friend. I pounced on it because it’s a (rare?) noir novel not set in any coastal megalopolis, with some chapters taking place in rural stretches along the Gulf Coast and in the southwestern US, and a few city-based chapters in Denver and New Orleans. It’s lived up to its recommendation.

   1. I finished Black Wings has My Angel; it held up to my friend’s recommendation all the way through. He had just finished Kenneth Fearing’s The Big Clock, also an NYRB edition, and also gave it a strong endorsement. I thought, “What the heck? Might as well...”

      I absolutely love noir, but I do still have a saturation point. I might need to take a break after this, I suspect.

6. Love me some Saunders, but I don't think I'll end up reading that book. Congratulations, by the way is a favorite graduation gift to give, though!

   I've read several books since last time. I really enjoyed:

   The Fifth Season is the first fantasy book I’ve read in a long time. Fantasy used to be my favorite genre, but over the years I have not been pulled into the fantasy books that I picked up. I struggled through some and gave up on others. The book was a refreshing breeze. The world building is approachable enough that I did not realize until I finished the book that there was an appendix in the back defining its newly created words. As with most fantasy novels, there is much within the book that is speaking to our real world and daily lives. In some areas the world of The Fifth Season is incredibly more punishing to the looked-down-upon of its society. In other areas the world of The Fifth Season does not look down, or even look twice, at groups of people who are marginalized in reality.

   The Song of Achilles was a fast read for me as well. As someone who knows nothing of the classics, I had read Madeline Miller's Circe a year or two ago and found that enjoyable. Were I knowledge about the classics, maybe I wouldn't have liked this book. But I did!

   I had more so-so reactions to The Reluctant Fundamentalist and Ready Player Two. They were OK reads, though.

   Oh, I also read Amusing Ourselves to Death. I almost put it away in favor of reading a synopsis somewhere, but it caught me about halfway through (it's a short book). In any case, it's only pushing me further down the "don't bother paying attention to the news" path I was already on.

   1. Oh, and I'm trying Readng as a Goodreads alternative. If anyone wants to connect there.

      1. I got away from Goodreads as part of my de-Amazoning, I'll give Readng a try

         1. Goodreads is a doorway to my library - screw Bezos

   2. I loved the entire Broken Earth trilogy. The next two books are equally enjoyable.

      1. That's great to hear! I need to get to them soon.

   3. The only Saunders I've read was Lincoln in the Bardo, and I thought it was enjoyable and inventive.

      1. If you like short stories at all, Tenth of December is really good.

         1. co-sign.

         2. I'll go a step further and say almost every time that I read a book of short stories it becomes a trudge, but not so with Tenth of December.

7. Finished From Beirut to Jerusalem by Minny's own T. Friedman, and the Atlas of Countries that Don't Exist (Middleton).

   At page 611 of Stick's Washington read (Chernow).

8. My son asked me to read the Hitchhiker quadrilogy. We're halfway through the second book. He now walks around the house pretending to be Marvin.

9. My trip through the presidents has picked up some steam. I read about 2000 pages this month, which is not quite what I need to average to complete the project in one year, but I am pretty happy with my progress.

   On the first day of the month, I finished, Washington, A Life by Ron Chernow, which I talked about last month. Subsequent to that, I completed John Adams by David McCollough, Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, and James Madison, A Biography, by Ralph Ketcham. Wowzers.

   Let me first say that I am an engineer by education, I had a miserable US History teacher in high school, so I've come at this project with a fair amount of ignorance. My goal was to learn, truly learn about the American presidency and the current political climate through the lens of history. I've learned a ton(!) and I wonder how much of it will be in my memory a year from now, but it has been enjoyable.

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   The Adams book is just a beautifully well written book and captures Adams with a pretty sympathetic view. Reading this book in the abstract would paint Adams as a true American hero, but of course I'm not reading it in the abstract. One of the things I was looking forward to was how Adams saw the Congress during the war since Washington was constantly complaining about Congress's failure to fund the war effort. But, unbeknownst to me, Adams spent a good part of the war in Europe, in France, England, and the Netherlands. During his time in France, he struck up a friendship with Jefferson, which eventually became quite strained once they got into the business of governing. He spent a great deal of time away from his wife, on two different trips, taking JQA on one trip and JQA and another of his sons on the second. His wife Abigail eventually joined him. Adams was faced with some difficult diplomatic tasks, including securing some vital funding for the war effort. Alas, his overall efforts in Europe were not as good as he might have hoped. As president, he kept Washington's cabinent, you know the one where Hamilton and Jefferson had bailed. Jefferson was his VP and not exactly a partner. He faced a ton of opposition from Jefferson and Madison all through his presidency and his Alien and Sedition Acts were a black mark. And he eventually lost re-election to his own VP when Hamilton, a person in his own party, sunk him. The part of the book that I enjoyed the most was his post-presidency and his rekindling of a relationship with the retired Jefferson. Adams appeared to be so happy to have that connection (more so, I think, than Jefferson) that he wrote to him way more than Jefferson reciprocated. In the letters, he sometimes challenged Jefferson about old issues. I really hated to see this book end. After reading two really good books about Washington and John Adams (greatly aided by the communications between Adams and his wife when he was away from her in Europe and in Congress), the Meacham book about Jefferson was a pretty big let down. The consensus on that book is that it is more entertaining than informative and I'm not all that sure about the entertaining part. He tells the story, but I found the accounts of Jefferson's interaction with Adams much better described in the Adams book. Likewise, the Madison book does a better job of describing the encounters between Jefferson and Madison than this book does. This book hints at the idea that Madison was pretty god damned important to the Jefferson presidency and that is not refuted in the Madison book. Will Young kind of warned me that this book was not exactly on par with some others I might read and he is correct. I almost feel like reading about Adams and Madison that I need another book about Jefferson. Before starting this project, if I was going to be asked to describe Jefferson, I would say, Declaration of Independence, Louisiana Purchase, and he founded the University of Virginia. Also, he liked to spend money. (I've toured Monticello and it is pretty impressive as compared to the relatively simple Mount Vernon home -- although, let's be clear, Mount Vernon is an unbelievably beautiful location.) After having read this book, I'd say he was pretty lucky with regard to the Louisiana Purchase, that he actively undermined a lot of good things that Washington and Adams were trying to do, and that his Secretary of State was his superior intellectually. I'm not saying he was a bad president, but I am saying I don't think he was a great president. But, it is hard to argue that he didn't heavily influence how the government of the United States would be run for a pretty good length of time. As for the book itself, it is the least satisfying of the four I've read by a fair amount. The Madison book. Wow. 671 pages with a lot of words per page and very dense. This was the biggest project so far and what a payoff. This book was written 50 years ago and a better editor could have reduced it by about 10% and that would have been fine. There's a lot of stuff that was in there that wasn't all that important. But, the story of how drafting of the Constitution is very interesting and Madison's impressions of it are key. He wasn't happy about the Senators being apportioned equally, but he had to swallow that. With a Senate being apportioned by population, he favored broad powers, but with that change, he felt that the powers should be much more limited. This book does a much better job of describing the Louisiana Purchase and how Napolean wanted to go empiring in North America, but when he sent 20,000 troops to fight in Haiti and most of them died to yellow fever, he realized that he wouldn't be able to manage a big time campaign in NA, so he just dumped it on the US. An amazing turn of events for the US. This book also describes an event shortly after the founding of the University of Virginia where there was unrest. Meacham describes it in passing with one sentence. Ketcham describes a meeting with the unruly students with Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe in attendance (!!!!!!) and how Jefferson's actions had a profound effect on how the situation was resolved. That's the difference between Ketcham and Meacham. Meacham doesn't tell you what happened. Ketcham tells you and it is very interesting and paints Jefferson in a pretty sympathetic light. Ketcham's treatment of the founding of UVA is vastly superior and you understand how, once again, Madison is there to support his predecessor to the presidency. Madison's presidency is interesting and the War of 1812 is well recounted. Madison made some mistakes -- his and Jefferson's decision to scale back the Navy that Adams built was a huge self own. Madison did not have the benefit of a Washington in charge of his army and the sacking of DC was especially galling. But, the result of the war was huge boon to Madison and cemented the country's independence. I think a huge takeaway from this war was England's recognition that they would never be able to win a war in North America, no matter what. Sure they could plunder the cities and burn down the Capitol, but they were never going to be able to subdue a huge country on the other side of the ocean and rule over it. Perhaps a lesson that we could learn in the 21st Century, hmmm? I finished the Ketcham book yesterday, and man, it was great. I think it was the best of the four books so far and that's allowing for the fact that it is at least 70 pages too long. It is informative and it really made me appreciate Madison, even as you see his warts. There's no varnishing his mistakes and the impact of his "abhorrence" of slavery while also owning over 100 human beings. An interesting aside is that both Jefferson and Madison died pretty much broke -- Daniel Webster bought a slave from Dolley Madison to give her money and then he freed the slave. Meanwhile, the only non-slaveholder of the first four presidents died with a $100,000 estate despite not inheriting any money. Hmmm. Anyway, Ketcham was a professor, not an entertainer. But, he can still string together a compelling narrative while supplying the detail to tell you the story. Highly recommend.

   1. I appreciate these reviews as I'm likely never to read the books myself.

   2. One thing I meant to add about Madison was that as president he tried very hard to maintain his ideals about how the federal government should function (limited!). But, he found out during the war that sometimes, you know, you kind of have to do things or the whole damned thing is going to burn to the ground. However, his last act as president was to veto legislation that he approved of, but that he felt (wrongly, I think) needed a Constitutional amendment. Imagine that kind of behavior in 21st Century America.

      1. Also, there was a fair amount of angst about whether acquiring the Louisiana territory was Constitutional. Imagine that. A world power hands you a huge tract of language for pennies an acre and you are worried about whether the government has to power to accept that gift. These same people owned other human beings. The incongruity of their thinking is REMARKABLE.

         1. One other thing that I wanted to say about Adams is that for all of his warts, I firmly believe that he was a true American hero after reading the Jefferson and Madison books. One of the things that he did was lend support to the Madison administration when Federalists in Massachusetts were down right disloyal and it seems traitorous. Madison, who was a severe critic of Adams, appreciated that support and I think it showed that he was first and foremost, an American patriot.

      2. Here's another thing that I thought was very interesting. Both Washington and Madison married young widows who had children, but neither of these presidents had children of their own. Both of them, though, had step children who were real problems. Jacky Custis was a ne'er do well who Washington was unable to get straight. He died at the age of 26.

         Dolley Madison's son Payne Todd, was a gambler and a drinker who ran up almost ruinous debts that Madison paid off. He ended up selling land to finance his step-son's gambling habit, which totaled into the tens of thousands of dollars (real money back in those days). After Madison died, his wife was destitute, so Payne literally robbed his mother of her inheritance.

         Both Martha Washington and Dolley Madison were pretty young (Martha was 28, Dolley was 26) when they married for a second time, so these children were under the care of the presidents from a relatively young age. It seems that they may not have been too attentive to their stepsons and both turned out to be scoundrels.

   3. Are you planning to read Ammon's book about James Monroe? I read that one about 15 years ago and thought it was dry but pretty good at filling in some details about the first president who wasn't really a Founding Father.

      1. Yes, I just started it.

10. I finished Ducks, Newburyport, and it was phenomenal. One of the best books I've ever read. I can't say enough good things. The book touched upon everything. I couldn't believe how many times arcana from my daily life just popped up in the book. Despite being published on July 4, 2019, there was even a passage about a black man being choked by police for passing a counterfeit $20. If you do get around to reading it, you can actually talk to DG and I about it!

    I then read Real Life by Brandon Taylor. While it's getting all sorts of fiction buzz, I wasn't particularly into it. Admittedly, I'm not a queer black man (and a book is focused on the main character's struggle about his identity), but the characters almost seemed to be too generic to me.

    I'm just about done with David Treuer's The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee, a book about the Native American experience since 1890. It's very good (and a little Minnesota-centric because Treuer is from the Leech Lake Reservation) but also a little bit disorganized. It can't quite decide if it's a history book or a book of anecdotes, and it struggles threading that needle in a few places.

11. I adored Tenth of December when I read it a number of years ago, but I haven't read any other books by Saunders since then. Someday!

    The peperoncino's Harry Potter obsession continues. We just recently finished Half-Blood Prince, though he made me skip the chapters leading up to and including

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    Dumbledore's death. (He knows that it happens but doesn't want to actually get all the details. Though I have a feeling we're missing some important things but skipping over those parts.)

    1. Oh yeah, reading with the little ghost:

       We read The Care and Feeding of a Pet Black Hole by Michelle Cuevas. It was pretty good, considering I mixed up the author I was looking for and checked out the wrong book (I was looking for this one - same last name, astronomy theme, I got close!)

12. Last night I finished A Man Called Ove, and it's worth a recommendation. Just a sweet little book. A bit heavy-handed and predictable in both the beginning and the end, but the middle is a fun little ride, and I both laughed out loud and cried at this book, so that's something.

    1. I agree. I thought it was really good.

    2. A while ago, I was book shopping with my mom and I was reading the back cover of this book, and she said that she had read it and really liked it, but said that she couldn't imagine a book less likely to match my reading taste.

       Not sure what that says about my reading taste, but I chuckled at the memory when I saw the title come up here.

       1. I'd guess that what she meant was "this book is about normal people in normal places dealing with normal things, and you clearly have no tolerance for anything remotely normal, and would it hurt you to call a little more often?"

13. you clearly have no tolerance for anything remotely normal

    I am a proud owner of this T-shirt.

    1. 😅

14. No books read this month. I am a month behind on my Economist. Maddow's Bag Man is sitting on my bedside table, judging me.

    And I just bought Donna Jackson Nakazawa's The Angel and the Assassin. Really looking forward to reading that.

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