Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

JANUARY

1. by James L. Swanson

Finish date: January 6, 2014
Genre: History
Rating: A
Review: When I began this book on the JFK assassination, I leaned more toward the conspiracy theories than the lone gunman theory. It’s not that I’m all that informed on any of the particular theories, but my reasoning was two-fold. First, revenge never struck me as a strong enough motive for Jack Ruby to have killed Oswald. Shutting him up seemed much more likely. Second � and I came to this conclusion in part from Swanson's previous book, Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer - since John Wilkes Booth killed Lincoln as part of a larger conspiracy, it’s not so outlandish to think that something similar could have happened to Kennedy. But as Swanson states several times in this book, Lee Harvey Oswald was not John Wilkes Booth. He didn’t even plan an escape route.

So after reading this book, I am almost completely convinced that Oswald was a lone gunman. Swanson paints the picture of a psychopath, and in this day and age of school shootings, it’s naïve to think that one man couldn’t have done it alone. The assassins of Garfield and McKinley were also lone gunmen, as was John Hinckley Jr. A single individual can wreak a tremendous amount of damage.

On that same note, my conclusion that “revenge is not a strong enough motive� was similarly naïve. The public cries for revenge all the time. The way Swanson portrays it, the hatred for Oswald was about equal to the hatred of Osama bin Ladden after 9/11. The police station holding him got plenty of death threats.

So all in all, the book was excellent. Just like Manhunt, it was page-turning history. The Oswald sections were the most interesting, but the sections about Jackie gave me a new appreciation for her, too. “Camelot� may have been her invention, but one thing is clear, JFK’s assassination was a terrible blow to the country, and we never will know how different the world might have been had he lived.

Citation: by James L. Swanson

2. by Lois Lowry

Finish date: January 8, 2014
Genre: YA fiction
Rating: B+
Review: Dystopian youth novels aren’t a particular favorite of mine, but this one was really well done. It’s sort of like Brave New World for the younger set. It’s about an orderly society that offers its inhabitants peace and security, but at terrible costs. Those costs are only revealed very gradually through the novel, and though we understand them because of their contrast to our own reality, the inhabitants of this world are so naïve, they don’t understand what they are missing. Though not as page-turning as the present day dystopian blockbuster The Hunger Games, it really is masterful storytelling. It’s easy to see why this book was an award-winner.

One of the most intriguing statements in the book is the Giver’s observation that he has plenty of honor, but hardly any power. When the protagonist, Jonas, experiences his own powerlessness, you see what a shabby substitute honor is, which is funny because many more people crave honor than they do power. In contrast, the book depicts motherhood as a “job� that’s important, but has no prestige, so I suppose that’s neither power nor honor. This leads me to conclude that the Elders, the powerful elite, control the people with how honor is bestowed because that way, they control their aspirations. But I’ve said that in the context of our own reality. In schools, where they cannot award money, they give praise to reinforce behaviors they like and shame to punish what they don’t. That’s part of why most of us crave honor so much, though I think schools tend more to ignore people and fail to reward them than they actually shame people outright.

Power, on the other hand, is all about control. Controlling others is an unjust use of power, but control of oneself is legitimate. The Giver wants the power to restore power to others, so that’s legitimate. He sees his opportunity with Jonas. Unfortunately, the book doesn’t really tell you how Jonas succeeded. The last line would have been great as the ending of a chapter, but it was unsatisfying as the ending of a book. Of course, it was meant to make the reader want to read the sequel, and it worked on me. I’m not burning with curiosity like I was with The Hunger Games, but I definitely expect to be reading the next book some time in the future.

Citations: by Aldous Huxley

by Suzanne Collins

3. by Lionel Shriver
Finish date: January 12, 2014
Genre: Fiction
Rating: A
Review: I recently watched the movie adaptation of We Need to Talk About Kevin, and I was sufficiently intrigued to look up the book here on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ, only to discover the author's most recent book, which is about a personal topic relevant to so many of our lives: obesity.

The main character is Pandora, a successful businesswoman living in Iowa. She lives a solid, normal, middle class life, and that is something she has striven for. Because she was raised in Hollywood, the daughter of the star of a 1970's sitcom, she eschews the life in the spotlight the majority of us dream of. But her older brother has always longed to outshine his father. In his youth, he became a somewhat successful jazz pianist. But now in his 40's, he's down on his luck and has become a compulsive overeater.

Pandora makes an incredible choice. She dedicates a full year of her life to helping her brother lose weight. She even moves out of her home and sets up an apartment with him for this endeavor. Her husband sees this as a betrayal, but from Pandora's perspective, she's saving her brother's life. Because the characters are so real, you see everyone's point: Pandora's, her husband's, the kids', and of course, Big Brother Edison's.

The book has everything that makes novel-reading such a pleasure. The characters and their conversations immediately draw you in, and the insights that come through them are brilliant. The book doesn't just address the question of why we overeat; it's about the craving for recognition and the failure to be satisfied with the ordinary. In short, it's a brilliant social commentary told through the lives of really compelling characters.

Knowing the dark themes of We Need to Talk About Kevin, I was pleasantly surprised at how much humor and happiness there is in this book. That said, I must warn you: Lionel Shriver is one author who really likes to mess with her readers' minds.

Citations: by Lionel Shriver

Awesome reviews, Kressel. Go ahead and put one citation for the other books you mention at the bottom. It looks cleaner and I think it is easier just to cite them once and you get to include the author and book. Oh, and I added Manhunt to my list, many thanks :-).

by Aldous Huxley

by Suzanne Collins

by James L. Swanson

4. by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc
Finish date: January 22, 2014
Genre: Sociology
Rating: A
Review: This book was the perfect antidote to all my griping about the narrow and occasionally judgmental Orthodox Jewish world in which I live. For all the extremes the community sometimes goes to in order to protect its insularity, the overwhelming majority of kids it produces never experiment with drugs or get into trouble with the law. Boys and girls alike are virgins until their wedding night. But not so in the South Bronx. After reading the painstaking detail of the struggle to grow up there, I’d be amazed that anyone ever breaks free and joins the middle class.

The book focuses mainly on four people: Jessica, her boyfriend George, her younger brother Cesar, and his girlfriend Coco. Jessica’s story comes first. As a teenager, she made the same mistake women of all socio-economic classes have made. She decided that “love is the most interesting place to go, and beauty is the ticket.� So Jessica dressed herself up and began hanging around the neighborhood. The first boy she attracted was Puma, a low level drug dealer. He fathered her first child when she was sixteen.

But relationships are a merry-go-round in this book, so both Puma and Jessica were involved with other people simultaneously. After all, why should Jessica differ from her mother? Of her three siblings, she only shared a father with Cesar.

Jessica’s life changed when she began to attract the notice of “Boy George,� the richest and most successful drug dealer in the neighborhood. To become George’s main girl was a status symbol, and Jessica pursued that ambition with determination, usurping several other girls in the process. Soon, like George, she became a local legend.

The story of George’s rise is one of the most interesting parts of the book. He was a disciplined entrepreneur, never partaking of the drugs he dealt. He had numerous underlings, and he knew how to manage them. He also knew when to seize on opportunities to expand his business. It reminded me of the point made in Freakonomics - the crack business is similar in structure and organization to the McDonald’s franchises. George dealt in heroin, not crack, but I’d imagine the business model is not all that different.

At its height, George’s business was making half a million dollars a week. That’s $26 million a year � and this was the late 1980’s! If his business had been legal, where would that have placed him on Forbes� list?

Though George invested some of his profits back into the business, he also spent lavishly on himself and his friends, Jessica and her family included. He bought Jessica clothing and jewelry. He made sure her mother never lacked for food (or cocaine). He took trips to Puerto Rico and Disneyworld. And once a year, he would rent a yacht and throw a party for his staff, customers, and friends.

To return to the McDonald’s parallel, I could not help but think of No Shame in My Game: The Working Poor in the Inner City by Katherine S. Newman, another book about the inner city poor, set at about the same time as this one, but focusing specifically on fast food workers. The fast food industry probably supplies more legal jobs in the inner city than any other, but no fast food worker will ever earn enough to live like George or his immediate underlings. Heck, most middle class people don’t either. So anyone who’s living in poverty in the inner city and chooses an honest, low wage job over a much more lucrative albeit dangerous life of crime deserves tremendous honor. Think of that next time you’re being served in Starbucks.

One day, on a lark, George splurged and took Jessica, Cesar, and Coco to a hotel in the Poconos. Though Cesar and Coco were only fifteen at the time, they went at it like a couple of honeymooners in their hotel suite. But they were small time compared to George and Jessica. Coco was amazed that Jessica would even deign to hang out with her. She was a “girl with all that.� But as it turns out, she and Cesar had a much better relationship than Jessica and George.

Of course, the law eventually caught up with George and Jessica. George is still serving his life sentence; Jessica got ten years. Eventually, Cesar was imprisoned for an unrelated violent crime. And from that point on, Coco is the main focus of the book. If George was the most interesting “character,� Coco is definitely the most likable. She ultimately had five children, two of whom are Cesar’s. Cesar often complained about his lot in his letters from prison, but the book makes clear that Coco has it harder, raising the kids on the outside on her own. Cesar got counseling and GED classes; Coco tried, but barely had time with the kids underfoot. She was hardly the ideal mother (and who is?), but her heart was almost always in the right place. Unlike Jessica, whose kids were raised by her friend Milagros even after her release, Coco always put her kids first. Though a welfare mother, Coco is like those fast food workers. She’s struggling against the odds with meager results, but she just keeps going because she’d rather “live right� than wrong.

Other reviewers said this book made them judgmental. I hope I don’t come across that way. What I got out of it was just how difficult it is to break out of poverty. Coco’s and even Jessica’s kids deserve every bit of help society can provide them. How else can we ever hope to close the gaping hole of inequality in this country?

Citations: by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

by Katherine S. Newman

Thank you so much!

5. by Richard N. Goodwin
Finish date: January 31, 2014
Genre: Political memoir
Rating: A
Review: Richard Goodwin served as speechwriter for Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, but he has other claims to fame. He was also the attorney who exposed the game show “Twenty One� in the late fifties (Chapter 3 of this book and plot for the movie “Quiz Show,�) and he’s married to historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. Talk about a power couple! He’s served two presidents, she’s a presidential scholar, and both of their writings have been adapted into Oscar-winning movies.

Having recently read about the Kennedy assassination (see Book #1 on this list), I turned to this book to learn more about his life, but the most vivid portrayal in the book is Johnson’s. The Great Society and Civil Rights chapters are the most exhilarating parts of the book, and the Vietnam chapters the most damning. Goodwin stresses that Johnson was much more willing to stick his neck out for civil rights than Kennedy, and though he clearly states we cannot know what Kennedy would have done in Vietnam, he also makes it clear that the Bay of Pigs fiasco made him highly cautious of listening to a small cabal of advisors. Johnson’s self-justification, also reflected in The Presidents Club, was that if he appeared weak on communism, he wouldn’t get re-elected, and his Great Society programs would go to rot. Ironically, though, because of Vietnam, he couldn’t get re-elected, and his Great Society programs went to rot. “The Great Society did not fail,� Goodwin argues. “It was abandoned.�

My main impression from this book is that Johnson was in some ways one of our best presidents, and in others one of the worst. It’s the same with the man himself. You can’t help but admire a man who grew up in the Deep South detesting the racism that surrounded him, even if his manners sometimes were brazen. But Goodwin also makes some serious accusations about Johnson’s mental stability, and I’m in no position to agree or disagree.

I’d read several 1960’s memoirs before this one, but those were from hippies and rebels. This was the first memoir I’d ever read from a member of “the establishment.� But Goodwin’s views seem to line up perfectly with most protestors�. He was pro-civil rights and anti-Vietnam. When he split with Johnson and began working with the youth movements, he found them immensely invigorating. So he concludes his memoir with a nostalgia for that the sixties ideal of “doing for your country,� reminding us that the attitude didn’t just belong to the sixties. It goes back to the founding of America. So while the book is a personal memoir with plenty of history lessons, it is also a call to action. You don’t have to agree with everything Goodwin says to learn from him. I, for one, learned plenty.

Citations:

Doris Kearns Goodwin

by Nancy Gibbs

I'm sure it's worth it, but all those volumes look pretty intimidating!

Caro's Johnson is magnificent. Absolutely. One of the great biographies ever written. I have read the first three and will read the fourth and subsequent volumes.

Robert Caro(no photo)

They read quite well, Kressel, great stuff. Mike, don't forget to add the citation:

by Robert A. Caro

FEBRUARY

6. by David Mitchell
Finish date: February 8, 2014
Genre: Science fiction/fantasy
Rating: A
Review: For the first two thirds of this book, I was intrigued intellectually but not hooked emotionally, so I was leaning strongly toward a 4-star rating. The back cover describes the book as a series of “nesting dolls,� that is, stories within stories. There are six in all, each one with a unique setting and style, ranging from a ship journal in the 1840’s to 20th century crime fiction to futuristic dystopia, all of which attest to the author’s versatility. But what kept me reading was not so much the characters and plot as curiosity about how the author was going to pull all these diverse threads together. Since the review quote on the cover said, “Holy h-ll, how did he do it?,� my expectations were high. I was hoping for a plot twist on par with the Harry Potter books � something intricately foreshadowed throughout the plot yet so imaginative that the average reader couldn’t possibly predict it.

The middle story � not the central one, mind you, but the one in the middle of the book � made for the most difficult reading because it was written in an invented Pidgin English. The author employs some very clever word play in constructing the dialect, but again, that’s one of the intellectual pleasures of the book, not emotional involvement in the story. In fact, if there was any point when I considered abandoning the book, it was here. The dialect made the narrative confusing, and I often had to go back and re-read to catch the details.

By the final third of the book, I was also going back to earlier parts, but by that time, I didn’t mind anymore because as the stories came to resolution, I was getting invested in the characters. I laughed for Timothy Cavendish, was on the edge of my seat for Luisa Rey, and even triumphed with Adam Ewing, who was deceptively dull at the beginning but who delivers the book’s final redemptive message. I wouldn’t put the plot twists on the level of Harry Potter � the connections between the stories were broadcasted too obviously yet had less impact on the overall plot � but it’s masterful storytelling with a beautiful moral. I can see why it’s a blockbuster hit.

Citation: I hope I don't have to cite all seven Harry Potter books. I hope just citing J.K. Rowling is enough.

Lovely review. I shall certainly move this one up on the list.

7. by Josephine Tey
Finish date: February 10, 2014
Genre: Mystery (?)
Rating: C
Review: As an American, I’m fairly ignorant about the history and succession of the British monarchs, and while my ignorance definitely hampered my appreciation of this book, I think it had other problems. Had it been historical fiction about the royals themselves, I would have related to them as characters and remembered which Richard, George, Edward, or Henry married which Elizabeth. Had it been a straight history book in which the author presented a thesis as to why Richard III could not have killed his nephews in the Tower of London, perhaps I would have concentrated better on the arguments. But this was the story of an injured detective piecing together clues from the historical record to clear Richard’s name, so the author’s theories are presented as dialogue between the detective and his research assistant. It struck me as gimmicky, and it didn’t even work as a mystery story because it was all dialogue and no action.

Notably, the author calls the assistant a “research worker.� Heaven forfend she should call him a historian! She expresses quite a bit of cynicism about historians throughout the novel, particularly at the end. “Historians don’t care about what makes people tick,� she writes. “If they did, they’d become novelists.� Well, excuuuse me, Mrs. Successful Mystery Novelist. I used a history book, Great Tales from English History (Book 2), for background for your book, and it was more attention-grabbing than yours!

But the book had one saving grace that earned it an extra star: the concept of “Tonypandy.� This is the author’s catchword for a myth that has become accepted as history. I can accept that history is full of Tonypandy and that we should think like detectives in assessing the evidence. I also agree with her statement early in the novel that a thousand children drowning in a flood in China is a news item, while a single child drowning in a swimming pool is a tragedy. People like history when it’s personalized, not generalized. That’s why I like reading memoir and biography. But there are plenty of historians who do manage to present the personal angle in their work, and I think they do a better job of it than this novel, which employed fictional dialogue to disguise what didn’t have to be a boring history lesson.

Citation: by Robert Lacey

8. by Sonali Deraniyagala
Finish date: February 12, 2014
Genre: Memoir
Rating: A-
Review: This book is very similar to The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion; it's an artistically crafted, emotionally raw grief memoir. If anything, it is even more gut-wrenching than Didion’s because this author lost her entire family in one fell swoop; she’s a survivor of the 2004 Asian tsunami.

The hardest part for any parent will be reading about her grief for her sons. I can’t imagine any loss more painful than that. It’s no wonder she became unhinged for a time, a phase she describes with as much meticulous clarity as the tsunami itself.

But like with Didion’s book, the grief does subside, or at least it takes on a new form. In the immediate aftermath, Sonali (the author) was almost an emotional automaton, blocking out reminders so she wouldn’t have to feel too much. After five years, she began welcoming the memories because they’re all she has left.

In my last book review (see #7 above), I paraphrased a statement that when thousands of people drown in a flood, it’s a news item, but when one child drowns in a swimming pool, it’s a tragedy. The tsunami killed a quarter of a million people, and this story of its impact on one family personalizes all of the victims. For that reason, it’s an important book, even though it’s not a particularly enjoyable one.

Citation: by Joan Didion

9. by Moselle Schaffer
Finish date: February 15, 2014
Genre: Memoir
Rating: B+
Review: Animal lovers looking for an upbeat read can’t go wrong with this memoir by the owner of a small, private zoo. The author’s tone is conversational and draws you right into her world. Her menagerie is varied; she’s got camels, tigers, monkeys, llamas, goats, and more, and she tells the acquisition stories of each. The funniest stories involve unsuspecting repairmen and surprising inter-species friendships, though there are a few gross-out stories thrown in. There’s drama in it, too; she had to nurse a few of the animals through life-threatening illnesses. The author is also a pilot, and while I found her flight stories less interesting, the bulk of the book is about the animals anyway. Camel Lot sure sounds like a fun place to visit! I guess I’ll have to content myself with this book as second best.

10. by Naoki Higashida
Finish date: February 16, 2014
Genre: Memoir
Rating: B
Review: After reading Cloud Atlas, (See review #6 above.) I was fascinated to learn that author David Mitchell is the parent of an autistic child, and that along with his wife, he translated into English this memoir of an autistic boy from Japan. The boy's name is Naoki Higashida, and he is now in his 20’s but wrote the book at age 13. It’s written mostly in Q&A form with questions like, “Why do you jump?� (hence the title) and “Why do you repeat things?�

Like many introverts, I’ve occasionally wondered if I’m on the autistic spectrum, and while I was leaning toward “no� before I read the book, I’m firmly convinced now. The way Naoki describes it, autism seems like a combination of ADHD and OCD. But he seems to know enough about how “normals� experience the world to make comparisons.

I really have no way of knowing whether Naoki’s descriptions are accurate for all autistics, though I have no reason to doubt him. It would be interesting to compare his book to other “insiders’� memoirs. The only other one I have read is Nobody Nowhere: the Extraordinary Autobiography of an Autistic by Donna Williams. This one is better.

Perhaps it’s insensitive of me to say, given Naoki’s handicaps, but short as his book is, I found parts of it repetitive. The best parts are when he diverges from the Q&A form into fiction and parable. But my favorite part of all was David Mitchell’s introduction. Again, it probably reflects poorly on me to say so, but I could relate to his experiences much better because he was writing as a parent.

The book is a short and fast read and for that reason it’s worth it. Perhaps if I were close to an autistic, I would think as highly of it as David Mitchell does. But the main thing I can say at the end of it is, “Thank G-d, my kids have been spared.� May He bring healing to all of us for whatever we need and success to Naoki Higashida in his advocacy for other autistics.

Citations: by David Mitchell

by Donna Williams

11. by Joan C. Williams
Finish date: February 21, 2014
Genre: Career self-help
Rating: A
Review: I always feel some inner resistance to reading these career self-help books. While they usually pinpoint my mistakes with dead-on accuracy, they also leave me feeling inadequate when it comes to applying their advice. The best example of that was with Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office, whose advice was, “Quit being a girl; start being a woman.� It made perfect sense to me, but it’s hard to change a lifetime of ingrained habits.

I heard of this book through an author interview on the radio and concluded that the book would probably be good for me so I should push through my usual inner resistance. I expected the book to be similar to Nice Girls, and in fact, it cited Nice Girls in the Introduction, but mostly to distinguish itself. The book argues that for all the girl vs. woman distinctions in Nice Girls, it’s still telling women to “man up.� This book warns that while women do have to change their girlish habits, they should also be aware that a backlash usually follows. In other words, it’s not all on us, nor is it all our fault. It’s not even mostly our fault. The fault is in people’s biases. Competence is seen as a masculine trait, and submissiveness/compliance as a feminine trait, and it’s a hard balance to strike.

The book goes on to describe in great detail the four patterns of bias working women have to overcome. First, there’s the “Prove It Again� bias: women have to work twice as hard to be thought of as half as good. Then there’s “the Tightrope:� women who get respect are often simultaneously disliked, and women who are liked are often not respected. The “Maternal Wall� is the belief that mothers must give 100% to their kids, and employees must give 100% to the company. How can any working mother possibly do both? Finally, there’s “the Tug of War,� which is fighting amongst women. The book also contains a chapter on how these biases play out for African American, Latina, and Asian women. There’s nothing about Hasidic women, but the author can always use my input to her on that. I’ve already written her a letter for career advice.

Though the book got repetitive in spots (how many more illustrations of Bias X do I need?), I absolutely related to it. Not only did the author come across as an expert, her tone was so warm, inviting, and helpful that, as I said, I wrote to her for career advice. She proved her competence and balanced herself firmly on the tightrope of likability and respectability. I want to learn more from her, and I trust her to have the answers. That’s the highest compliment I can pay to any self-help book. 5 stars.

Citation: by Lois P. Frankel

12. by Roald Dahl
Finish date: February 22, 2014
Genre: Children's classic
Rating: A-
Review: It may seem silly, but I read this children’s classic as a follow up to What Works for Women at Work. (See review immediately above.) It was the February read for a group I’m in, and though I’d initially planned to sit it out, it occurred to me that it was right on theme with its message of girl power, or should I say, feminine competence.

But even if Matilda does resonate with feminist messages, the book is too much fun to be looked at so seriously. My only complaint about it was that it was too short. After I’d grown to love Matilda and Miss Honey, I was ready for more adventures with them, and not just a “happily ever after.� Does anyone know if there’s a sequel?

Citation: by Joan C. Williams

13. by Anne Moody
Finish date: February 26, 2014
Genre: Memoir
Rating: A
Review: My interest in the civil rights movement was piqued recently from Remembering America, the memoir of JFK’s and LBJ’s speechwriter. (See Review #5 above.) Since that book gave a top-down look at the origin of civil rights legislation, I wanted the bottom-up viewpoint of someone who participated in the movement. I knew of this book because it was recommended (though not assigned) in a History of the Sixties class I took back in college. The professor praised it so highly, I was able to remember the name “Anne Moody� these twenty-odd years later.

To borrow a slogan from a different 1960’s movement, “The personal is political.� So it’s fitting that this is a personal memoir. For the first 250 pages, Ms. Moody tells about her childhood and adolescence in the segregated south. Her personal story may not have been typical, but it does exemplify one young girl’s struggle to rise above poverty and prejudice in order to get an education. Ms. Moody was smart, hard-working, and determined. It’s impossible to read this without admiring her.

The last quarter of the book is all about the movement. Among other things, Ms. Moody participated in the famous sit-in at Woolworth’s in Jackson (see picture below) and was beaten up for it. If there’s anything that this book made clear, it was the violence of the white backlash. I’m amazed that so many civil rights activists, black and white alike, had the courage to go on fighting in the face of death threats, beatings, lynchings, and bombings. I was sympathetic to her family members who begged her to stop. After all, she wasn’t just putting herself in danger, but them, too. And yet, on the other side, I could see why Ms. Moody questioned Dr. King’s teachings of non-violence. Who wouldn’t be enraged at the bombing of a church that killed four innocent black girls? And those are just the well-known murders.

I was a little disappointed that the book did not mention the Civil Rights Act of 1964 at all. It did mention JFK’s assassination. But LBJ was at the nadir of his disfavor with the public when the book was published, so perhaps Ms. Moody had nothing good to say about him at that point. I wonder what she’d say today.

This book was a fast, absorbing, and informative read, though I would not say it is the definitive book on the civil rights movement. It is exactly what I was looking for initially: the perspective of one person on the ground. Nor is it a rose-colored account; at times, it is downright raw. But the personal is political, and for that reason it’s simultaneously a slice of history and a lesson in the values of bravery and self-discipline.



Citation: by Richard N. Goodwin

Great review, it sounds like a good book!

MARCH

14. by Sonia Sotomayor
Finish date: March 4, 2014
Genre: Memoir
Rating: A
Review: The face of Justice Sonia Sotomayor has been beckoning me from the library shelves for a while now, but what finally prompted me to read her book was Random Family, an in-depth study of the lives of another Latino family in the South Bronx. (See review #4 above.) Nobody in that book even made it out of the middle class, much less to national prominence, so I wanted to know the secret of the Justice’s success. Apparently, she wrote the book to share it � not to boast, of course, but to educate and inspire.

For the writing of a Supreme Court Justice, the book is surprisingly open. She doesn’t just tell you about her education and career; she delves into personal issues, like her divorce and her struggle with diabetes. The result is that you end up not just admiring Justice Sotomayor, but liking her as a person, too.

So what is the secret of her success? Why didn’t she end up like the women in Random Family? First, unlike them, her family life was more stable. Her mother did not set the poor example of having children with multiple fathers. Also, she was able to turn the disadvantages in her life into advantages, a phenomenon described in David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell. Her father’s death when she was nine (a specific theme in David and Goliath ) forced her into early self-reliance, as did her diabetes. Because she did not consider herself pretty, she didn’t make the mistake of Jessica in Random Family: “Love is the most interesting place to go, and beauty is the ticket.� Believing herself to be lacking the ticket, she concentrated on her schoolwork instead, and that earned her a ticket to Princeton. But perhaps most admirable of all is that of all the lucrative doors Princeton could have opened for her, she chose the pursuit of justice over wealth, never forgetting where she came from and how she might make this world a better place for others. What an awesome woman! May G-d bless her with continued success.

Citations: by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc

by Malcolm Gladwell

That sounds like one for my TBR pile, Kressel. Usually I don't like autobiographies but this one sounds particularly open and honest. Thanks for the tip.

I'd like one on Ruth Bader Ginsburg. All the ones I saw listed on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ were for young adults.

15. by George Eliot
Finish date: March 15, 2014
Genre: Classic/Fiction
Rating: A+
Review: After falling in love with Daniel Deronda a few years ago, I knew I should read Middlemarch, widely regarded as George Eliot’s masterpiece. My interest was piqued further when J.K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy was called a “modern-day Middlemarch.� But at 800 pages, it’s a book that you have to make time for. And since it didn’t have Jewish themes like Daniel Deronda, I assumed that however good it might be, I couldn’t possibly love it as much.

What finally got me to take the plunge was the Leonard Lopate Book Club. Leonard Lopate is a radio host on WNYC, and though he interviews several authors a day, he has a “group read� once a month, and this month’s book is the fan memoir My Life in Middlemarch by Rebecca Mead. She will be the guest on March 28, so finally, it was time.

The comparison to The Casual Vacancy is very apt, not just because both books examine the life of a small town through an ensemble cast, but in pacing. The first half introduces the characters and their relationships, so some parts, though not most, are slow. In the middle, something major happens that hooks you more than anything previously. The last quarter is a roller-coaster ride. And in the last fifty, a thought crossed my mind that I was sure never would, “Dorothea is awesome! I love this as much as Daniel Deronda!�

Rebecca Mead first read Middlemarch at age seventeen. When I was seventeen, I was already a die-hard fan of Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë, but I didn’t discover the brilliance of George Eliot until middle age. I can’t imagine it being any different; George Eliot is for mature tastes. She does character, dialogue, and love just as beautifully as Austen and Bronte, but she intersperses it with historical and poetic references. In Daniel Deronda, she focused on “the Jewish problem,� something I know plenty about. The backdrop to Middlemarch is Parliamentary Reform in 1830, so quite likely, there was a whole level to this novel that I completely missed. But I understood the love stories perfectly, and that’s the most important thing.

Though I wasn’t ready for Middlemarch at age seventeen, I really wish I’d read it at twenty-four, when I began dating for the sake of marriage. That’s the big difference between Eliot and Austen and Bronte. While they wrote about courtship that ended (usually) in “happily ever after,� Eliot wrote about marriage, which, to borrow from the Christian wedding vows, is really “for better or for worse.� Young romantic women dreaming of finding Mr. Darcy ought to be warned about the mistakes most people � men and women alike � are prone to make because of unrealistic expectations. This book is not just about making mistakes, but recovering from them. So not only does it take a mature mind to read and appreciate George Eliot, it takes a mature soul to accept her message.

Citations: by George Eliot
by J.K. Rowling
by Rebecca Mead
Jane Austen
Charlotte Brontë

Kressel wrote: "MARCH

15. by George Eliot
Date Finished: March 15, 2014
Genre: Classic/Fiction
Rating: A+
Review: After falling in love wi..."

Love your reviews, Kressel. Middlemarch has been on my list forever.

Take the plunge!

Kressel, thank you for posting your reviews. They are all written so well and you are thoughtful in your remarks.

Thank you so much for saying so!

How nice to hear from such an enthusiastic Middlemarch fan. I love that book and George Elliot (aka Mary Anne Evans) as well.

Great review. Are you also reading My Life in Middlemarch?


by George Eliot

by Rebecca Mead

Ann wrote: "How nice to hear from such an enthusiastic Middlemarch fan. I love that book and George Elliot (aka Mary Anne Evans) as well.

Great review. Are you also reading [book:My Life in Middlemarch|178839..."

Yes, I'm reading it now. The author will be on WNYC on March 28. You can stream it online if you're not in New York.

16. by Rebecca Mead
Finish date: March 22, 2014
Genre: Memoir/Biography
Rating: B+
Review: The closest parallel I know to this book is the movie “Julie/Julia,â€� except while that was one-half Julia Child biography and one-half fan story, this book is mostly a George Eliot biography with fan story at the beginning and end and excerpts from Middlemarch itself sprinkled throughout. Reading each has its own pleasures, but grateful as I was to learn more about George Eliot/Marian Evans without wading through the intimidating George Eliot a Biography by Gordon S. Haight, I would have enjoyed more fan story, which was the most emotional part of the book. I suppose it was just like the pleasure of Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ â€� reading someone else’s reaction to a book you’ve already read.

My favorite insight into George Eliot was her correspondence with her fan, Alexander Main. I also liked the corroboration that she was indeed influenced by Jane Austen, something most readers of both authors will suspect. But Rebecca Mead could not have said it better: Dorothea and Celia may have started off as Austenesque heroines, but Eliot soon turned the marriage plot right on its head and went in her own direction. As I said in my own review of Middlemarch, (see #15 above) younger readers dreaming of Mr. Darcy can benefit from Eliot’s take. Only the lucky minority get “happily-ever-after.� The hidden lives of quiet nobility that we do get, though, can be satisfying compensation.

Citations: by George Eliot

by Gordon S. Haight

Jane Austen

17. by Stephen King
Finish date: March 28, 2014
Genre: Fiction
Rating: A
Review: I hereby take back any snooty thing I’ve ever said about Stephen King. I think he must be one of the most talented writers alive today. What really knocks me out about him is his versatility. His characters have distinctive voices, and he places them in such different circumstances and plotlines. That came through particularly in this book, which is a collection of four novellas. The title is Different Seasons, and that says it all. Each one of these stories is gripping, and each one has a uniquely different set of characters in completely diverse settings. I’m completely bowled over by Stephen King’s unending imagination!

I suppose I should say a few things about each story individually. The first is “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption,� the reason I read the book. I’d seen the movie first, and I must say, it’s one of the best adaptations I’ve ever seen. It was really true to the book. And even though Red in the book is supposed to be a red-haired white guy, I had Morgan Freeman’s voice in my head the whole way through. I think it was my favorite of the collection, but it’s very hard to say because all the other stories were so good, too.

The next story is “The Apt Pupil,� and this was the most disturbing of the collection. It had no supernatural elements, so it might not fall under the horror genre, but the two main characters were certainly horrible, especially to a Jewish reader like me. I was sorry to say goodbye to Red of Shawshank when I started it, but it didn’t take long before I was absolutely riveted. Horrible as the main characters were, they were human enough that I was invested in their story.

The third story was called “The Body,� and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I’d seen the movie version of it, too. It was “Stand By Me,� and I saw when it first came out decades ago. It’s the story of four twelve-year-old boys told as the reminiscences of a man who, like King himself, became a successful writer. On two occasions, the novella diverges into the narrator’s “writing,� and while the second of his stories grew right out of the main narrative and was great comic relief, the first was completely crass and didn’t add a thing to the novella. Otherwise, I absolutely loved it and can’t wait to watch the movie again.

The final story was “The Breathing Method,� and it was the only one with supernatural elements. Other Goodreaders said it was the creepiest, and while I agree that it was decidedly in the horror genre, the realistic horror of “The Apt Pupil� creeped me out much more.

Stephen King also added an afterword to the book, and in it, he said that he could have written “literary� or “brilliant� books, but then he’d only be read by a handful of literary college students. Instead he’s written dozens of page-turners peopled with gripping characters, and who’s to say that’s not just as much of a literary accomplishment?

18. by Dovid Landesman
Finish date: March 29, 2014
Genre: Religion (Jewish)
Rating: A-
Review: The author of this book is a high school teacher, and there’s nothing like being surrounded by questioning teenagers to force a person to come up with solid, persuasive answers about our faith. Of course, many books about our faith are preachy and/or dull because they sweep the issues under the rug so that all that’s left is a sugar-coated yet impossible picture of how we as Jews are supposed to live. This book is not one of those. Rabbi Dovid Refson of Neve Yerushalayim called it “common sense� on the flap, and I agree wholeheartedly.

Rabbi Landesman considers himself an equal-opportunity critic. He addresses the issues right on the fault line between the Modern and Ultra-Orthodox: secular education, earning a living, Zionism, and serving in the Israeli army. He describes himself as Ultra-Orthodox in personal observance, but closer to Modern on all the issues listed. I agreed with him on almost everything, though I didn’t think his reasons for why women are lax in tznius were accurate. Oh, well. He’s a man, after all.

This is an excellent book, but it’s not for the newly frum. A reader would have to have lived in the frum community a while to appreciate the issues he’s raising. A less modern friend told me she would not show this book to her kids, who are frum and obedient and fit well into the Ultra-Orthodox world. But it’s ideal for my questioning teenage son. Now I just have to get him to read it. . .

Fabulous job Kressel - great reviews.

And your format is spot on aside from Date Finished should be Finish date - this is not your fault - the sample given was not the standard - to assist there were a lot of threads to set up and there was a minor error made in the format.

See actual standard:

Our Required Format:

JANUARY

1. by Winston S. Churchill
Finish date: March 2008
Genre: (whatever genre the book happens to be)
Rating: A
Review: You can add text from a review you have written but no links to any review elsewhere even goodreads. And that is about it. Just make sure to number consecutively and just add the months.

So does that mean I should go and change everything to "Finish date" or is this just information for going forward?

If you would then you would be "standard perfect" (smile) - And beaucoup thanks for understanding that mistakes happen. Not your fault.

Well, I am a grammar perfectionist. I'll probably make the corrections at some point, but probably not till after Passover.

APRIL

19. by Tim Harford
Finish date: April 3, 2014
Genre: pop(?) economics
Rating: B+
Review: I’m a fan of Tim Harford a/k/a “the Undercover Economist.� He’s an academic who has thrown his hat into the pop economics genre, but while he does use a conversational tone and real life examples, he doesn’t dumb the concepts down. Unfortunately, that means that I don’t always understand what he’s talking about. That was especially true of this book, the fourth of his that I’ve read so far. It’s the shortest and written in a Q&A style that anticipated my questions and threw in jokes here and there, but it was still the hardest to understand. Harford explains the reason for that. His previous books were about microeconomics � how people make decisions � and that’s something everyone can relate to. This book was about macroeconomics � the big concepts like GDP, inflation, the causes and cures for recession. Macroeconomics is complicated, which is why the world is in such a mess. Nobody can agree on which principle to apply when.

So here’s my take-away from this book. There are Keynesians who believe that recessions can be solved by government stimulus, and then there are classical economists who believe that markets naturally correct themselves. The debate between them is fiercer than nature vs. nurture used to be amongst psychologists, but just like the answer to nature vs. nurture turned out to be nature and nurture, the right approach to macroeconomics is a hybrid of the Keynesian and classical views. A recession caused by a weakening of demand � people afraid to spend money � can benefit from government intervention. A recession caused by a weakening in supply can be cured by government staying out so that innovative people are free to come up with alternatives to whatever supply of commodities has dried up.

But having said that, I still don’t quite get it. If a country suffers a famine, it seems to me that their best way out of it is aid from other richer nations. And second, while I understand that spending money keeps the national and global economies running, if I would spend less and save more, I’d be doing much better in personal economy. If a whole lot of people came to that conclusion and acted on it, it would be better for them, so why should it be worse for everybody? Questions like this have got me scratching my head. But since nobody’s asking me to create monetary policy, I’m not going to break my head over macroeconomics. I read the book, I got what I could out of it, and now I'll move on. I’ll work as hard as I can, save as much as I can, and hope that living a fiscally responsible life will improve not just my own well-being but the well-being of the larger world.

Other books by Tim Harford:

Not sure what the exact dates of passover are. But the corrections will have to be made. Sorry for the inconvenience and thank you for your understanding. You are not alone and I look forward to reading more of your very complete reviews. Some very interesting books.

Regarding your newest post: you are looking better.

Passover ends on April 22. Perhaps I'll get to it before then.

That gives us hope (thank you - smile). Happy Passover in advance. Remember Kressel the format is not optional. Well you have two done - You only have to add the month in caps and bold over the first book completed in that respective month.

20. by Rebecca Mead
Finish date: April 5, 2014
Genre: Sociology
Rating: B+
Review: It’s aptly fitting that this expose on the wedding industry was written by a lifelong fan of Middlemarch. (She also authored the book in Review #16 above.) Like Lydgate and Rosamond, today’s young couples are buying into a very expensive dream of what weddings and marriage are supposed to be. The difference is that in the 21st century, most brides and grooms aren’t particularly religious, are living independently of their parents, and have probably already been intimate. A traditional wedding celebrates a young couple leaving their parents� home to start one of their own. Most of that rarely applies today, yet weddings have just grown bigger and more lavish. Why? Really effective marketing.

Now, some of the examples in the book are really over the top. The Disney Company, for example, has gotten in on the act. Since they’re responsible for implanting the Cinderella dream into so many girls� minds anyway, they’ve taken the next step by offering “fairy tale� wedding services when those girls grow up. You can have your own horse-drawn carriage with footmen for $2500! After all, your groom is your Prince Charming, isn’t he?

As excessive as that may seem, how many of us have still bought into the “dream wedding� on some level? How many of us assume that the high price of a wedding is an expense you just have to live with when you get married, like paying rent and bills? I certainly did. My wedding was low budget by Orthodox Jewish standards, but if I had had a smaller gathering in my parents� backyard or at the Prospect Park picnic house, I would have felt I was letting down the community by not being able to host them all.

This book is about American weddings, though. The takonos, caps on wedding expenditures recommended by Orthodox rabbis, got a mention, but the book was not about us. Our weddings may have gone up in price, but they’re still traditional. In the modern, secular world, the best you can get is “traditionalesque.� The big white dress may have near universal appeal, but the flavor of the ceremony certainly varies. The book takes you from Las Vegas to Aruba to capture the wedding industry’s many varieties.

Any married woman reading this book will end up re-examining her own wedding choices. I, for example, figured out that the reason I was so insistent about having live flowers at my wedding � an expense I later regretted � was that I had been a flower girl at my cousin’s wedding at the age of eight. I loved my little basket full of flowers. I spent all of a second admiring the floral arrangements at my own wedding, though. I had bigger things on my mind.

I don’t know how a bride-to-be would experience this book. I could see it adding to pre-wedding jitters, but it is an excellent warning about all the predatory salespeople out there, poised to milk the bride and her family for all they can. They succeed because they’re selling such a beautiful dream. Weddings are inherently fascinating to many women, me included. So if you’re one of us, chances are, you’ll be riveted by this book.

Citations: by George Eliot

by Rebecca Mead

21. by Mary Roach
Finish date: April 12, 2014
Genre: Science/Humor
Rating: B+
Review: After reading Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers last year, I thought I’d had my fill of Mary Roach. Sure, she makes science fun, but she also likes grossing her readers out. And this book, which is about digestion, seemed even more fraught with danger than Stiff. After all, I hope to enjoy many more meals in my future, and I didn’t want them ruined. But like with Stiff, a group read got me to jump in. It wasn’t with a Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ group this time, though. It was the Leonard Lopate Book Club on WNYC.

As I said, the book is about digestion. . . from top to bottom. In other words, it has a chapter on spit and several on sh__. It was these latter chapters that made me tired of the book. They had their laugh lines and interesting historical tidbits, just like all Roach’s writing, but how many chapters of that can one person endure? Yet now, even though I’ve finished the book, I’ve begun reading it aloud to my teenage sons. One is interested in science (the reading aloud was his suggestion), and the other is taking Biology in school this year. I’m having more fun on this second read because of all the in-between chatting with my kids. But I don’t know if we’ll make it to the final chapters with Pesach around the corner. I hope we’ll be talking about the Haggadah instead.

P.S. - Totally cool tidbit. This book actually mentions Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ!

Citation: by Mary Roach

22. by Lacy Crawford
Finish date: April 13, 2014
Genre: Fiction
Rating: A
Review: As of this writing, it’s two days till Pesach. I have a ton of cooking to do, not to mention some last touch-ups on cleaning, and yet I’ve done something utterly foolish and yet thoroughly pleasurable: I’ve let myself get addicted to a novel. I started it on Shabbos, continued through on Saturday till 1:00 in the morning, and when I woke up, instead of getting to my Pesach cleaning, I went right back to the novel until I finished it. And now, here I am, writing about it � though I made myself get two pots going on the stovetop first.

The novel is about the college admissions process, which for me is always an emotional topic. My own first two years of college were absolutely nightmarish, so even though I am the middle-aged mom of a kid old enough to be applying for colleges himself right now (and isn’t because he’s in yeshiva instead), it takes very little to send me right back to my own pre-college process. Rare is the day that goes by without my thinking, “If only I’d taken Course X in high school and chosen College Y instead of University Z, perhaps my life now would be happier.� And yes, I know it’s foolish and even faithless to think that way. The point of this book � and I agree with it � is that if you don’t let other people run your life, you’ll become the person you’re meant to be no matter what college you attend.

The protagonist of the book is Anne, a twenty-seven year old single woman who earns her living coaching high school seniors on composing their college entrance essays. As I learned from the non-fiction book on the admissions process, The Gatekeepers: Inside the Admissions Process of a Premier College, these essays really do get read and are an important part of the evaluation process. The parents who typically hire Anne are wealthy and have high and often specific expectations for their kids. “Don’t tell me about any colleges I’ve never heard of,� one parent tells Anne. He wants his son at Amherst.

Anne’s caseload is made of six students this season, five of whom have paying parents and one of whom is a potential scholarship student she’s volunteering to work with. The paying parents all have big dreams for their kids, but the kids have dreams of their own, and they don’t always conform to their parents�. How each one resolves (or fails to resolve) that conflict is the thread of the whole book, and you see their growth through their essays. While dealing with their pre-college issues, Anne is struggling with life’s next Big Decision: marriage. Since I’d just finished One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding, (see review #20 above), the parallels were clear to me. Just like marketing has created the Bridezilla culture, college marketing has created a culture of overbearing parents and overwhelmed kids. If anything, the college process is worse because it forces the kids to market themselves, and too often, the message they get is: “Sorry, kid, but you’re just not good enough for us.�

I would highly recommend this book, along with the non-fictional The Gatekeepers: Inside the Admissions Process of a Premier College, to all parents and kids on the verge or in the midst of applying to college. The parents in this book are so over the top, anyone can laugh at them. But the main message is for the kids. You don’t have to go to Harvard to have a happy life.

Citations: by Jacques Steinberg

by Rebecca Mead

Love reading your reviews, Kressel!

Thanks so much for saying so!

23. by Ruchama King Feuerman
Finish date: April 19, 2014
Genre: Fiction
Rating: A
Review: I didn't think Ruchama King Feuerman could possibly beat her first book, Seven Blessings, but if this book didn't do it, it definitely matched. Like Seven Blessings, it's a love story set in Jerusalem, but what's different about it is that in addition to the man and woman in the love story, there's a third main character: an Arab. This allows the book to venture beyond the subject of marriage and into the Arab-Israeli conflict, but to call it "political" puts way too mundane a stamp on it. The conflict is described in religious and spiritual terms, and refreshingly, the viewpoint is neither radical or polemic.

Overall, the book really captures the feeling of Jerusalem, particularly with its cast of quirky minor characters milling around the Kabbalist's courtyard. It's got a beautiful message and is the perfect book for a Shabbos or yom tov afternoon when you want to relax but still keep your mind in something Torah'dig.

Citation: by Ruchama King Feuerman

24. by Anna Quindlen
Finish date: April 20, 2014
Genre: Self-help
Rating: B
Review: My one and only outing this Passover was to a little town in upstate New York called Sugar Loaf where a group of craftspeople live, work, and sell their crafts. The man who serves on the town's Chamber of Commerce also owns a little shop called "Be Positive," and he is the one who gave me this book. It was a pleasant enough read, but I didn't find the insights to be anything I didn't already know. That famous quote that "Nobody on their deathbed ever wished they'd spent more time at the office" appears in there twice, which is quite a lot of a repetition for such a short book. Basically, the message is to remember to smell the flowers as you live your life, which was an especially fitting message to read in picturesque Sugar Loaf, where I doubt anybody is getting rich, but everyone is striving to remain true to their art.

25. by Michael J. Fox
Finish date: April 20, 2014
Genre: Self-help/memoir
Rating: B+
Review: This little memoir by actor Michael J. Fox is marketed as a gift book for a new graduate, but anyone who grew up with him will enjoy it. First of all, he is nothing like Alex Keaton. Far from an over-achiever, he dropped out of high school to go to LA and pursue a career in acting. Because he was successful, he didn't even get his high school equivalency diploma until his middle age. Till then, though, he was learning the lessons of life, and he summarizes them in this short book. His years of poverty in LA were a surprise to me, and his reflections on his current struggle with Parkinson's are inspiring. It made me curious to read more of his writing, and I definitely want to pass the book on to my son. So this book is not just a good gift for a new graduate. Share it with an "underachiever" you love!

26. by Michael Connelly
Finish date: April 23, 2014
Genre: Legal thriller/fiction
Rating: B+
Review: The transition from the mystical Jerusalem of In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist (see Review #23) to the gritty LA of this book was jarring at first, but the plot soon gripped me. Mickey Haller, the tough but honorable protagonist, and the circumstances he lands in are definitely formulaic, but the book is still a page-turner. Having recently read about the real state of public defense in Chasing Gideon: The Elusive Quest for Poor People's Justice, I knew to take this fictional legal thriller with a few grains of salt, but I did like the views the author expressed about criminal defense in general. So good enough that perhaps someday I will check out the next Mickey Haller novel, but not awesome enough to make it even close to the top of my to-read list.

Citations: by Ruchama King Feuerman

by Karen Houppert