Becky's Books –

Stories my Father Told Me:
From Warsaw, Moscow, Algeria, Siberia, Kazakistan, Dominican Republic 
by Dvora Treisman
2024 / 196 pages – Kindle 
Rating 9.25 / memoir-travelogue 

Quite a title there, no?  This is the book my book-group friend Dvora had been working on and meaning to get published for awhile. Well, she did it! And announced it to some of us just the other day.  I am in awe!  How many people say they’re writing a book vs how many actually do it and even get it published and sold?  Ha!

It’s a fun book – a sweet book – a book of stories told on a couple levels. Top level is that the author is telling her father’s life story as he told  her. On another level there was is a lot going on in the world during his lifetime and he managed to see so much both good and bad as well as good within bad sometimes. Sometimes he was the good.

This is like a love letter to her father and it’s pretty much what the title says it is.  Dvora’s father, Rafal Feliks Buszejkin,  lived in many places during his lifetime and he spoke 6 (?) languages. From the descriptions he must have been quite an intelligent and fun-loving man. He was certainly and remarkably hardworking. and what Dvora has done is try to write Rafal’s life and stories as he told her or wrote them to her.  One thing she makes clear is that if you, the reader, have questions, ask ow – these dear older ones might not be here when you think you might be “ready.” I know this feeling exactly!) 

Dvora has fleshed out the branches of a family tree to look like one that is flowering with friend and family blooms and the photo sections were such a delightful surprise.

The organization is natural and easy to follow with 10 basic chapters bookended by a Preface and an Afterword.  The chapters are mostly named for the places he lived and these are further divided into sections by topic or adventure or characters he met – and he had wild adventures, and met fascinating characters.  Dvora writes clearly and with enough descriptive detail and energy to keep me turning the pages, but not too quickly because there’s a mood or ambiance here worth savoring.

 I know a bit about European WWII history so jumping around all those places was quite interesting.  After Rafel leaves Poland and France for study in Algeria and elsewhere, the book becomes something of a travelogue – I adore travelogues.    

Oh. I do enjoy these books, partly because in bygone days I enjoyed the TV series, but the books are fun in their own right, too.  The spin-off books by various authors (and Jessica Fletcher, of course) started in about 1989 which was about half-way through the popular decade-long series.  The Murder of Twelve is book #51 in the spin-off series and was originally published in 2020.

The Murder of Twelve
 by Jessica Fletcher / Jon Land 
2020 / 
Read by Laural Merlington 8h 3m
Rating – A for the fun / cozy who-done-it

And after I’d got a start on reading it – maybe to Chapter 4? It felt familiar – but I’d read several books in which a group is stranded at a motel in a blizzard with a murderer on the loose.but I thought I’d probably seen it on TV years ago! Just in case, I checked my blog and OMG – I’d read it AND written a little review! – lol!

That was back in October of 2022! I read so many books I can’t remember what I’ve read much less plot details.  That’s why I keep a blog but it would help if I’d check – lol. But there are no spoilers in my reviews so I just kept reading. LOL! It was a fun 2nd read – a good decision – https://mybecky.blog/2022/10/01/the-murder-of-twelve-by-jessica-fletcher-and-jon-land/

Jessica is out of pocket while her home in Cabot Cove, Maine is being repaired.  She’s staying at a very nice motel in the area when a serious snowstorm hits. A small wedding is scheduled to take place in one the event rooms and Jessica and her friend Seth, come across an empty car on the highway as they take Jessica to the motel.  

At the hotel Jessica meets a few of the guests as they arrive for the weekend. They’re only chatting while they wait for the bride and groom to show up . Jessica is invited to dinner even though the bridal couple still have not appeared. As dinner gets started one of the guests, shortly after taking a few sips of her drink, falls over onto the table. As it turns out there has been an attempt on her life.

So what we have here is a group of people gathered for a wedding, but trapped by a snowstorm and there’s a killer involved.

The narration is great. The plot is skillfully developed with suspense being skillfully built. The characters are true to their appearances in prior books of the series.

LOVED this book!!!!   This is the book which “inspired”  The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon. And inspired is the right word because although much of The Frozen River is true (and I was surprised at how much was true!),  some of it is invented for the sake of a story appealing to contemporary readers.  A Midwife’s Tale is the story of a diary – it’s not the diary itself, but a historical type examination and evaluation and analysis of that 1400 page, 10,000-entry tome (which is now preserved in the Maine Archives.) 

A Midwife’s Tale: 
The Life of Martha Ballard Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812. 
by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich 
1991 / 501 pages 
Read by Susan Ericksen  15h 42m
Rating 9+ / women’s history (feminist) 
(Both read and listened) 

For way too long Women’s Studies has been treated like the step-child of the college history departments, but it’s still with us, stronger than ever.  Wave 1 Feminism was to get voting and certain property rights so the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848  got that formally stated, but it didn’t happen in the US for another 70 years – that is, AFTER WWI.  The  2nd Wave didn’t  start until around the 1970s when it was discovered that even with birth control, higher education, and property rights women still weren’t credited with much although this Wave was the result of a  big break from the old stay-at-home mom; she wanted equality in the work place.  Third Wave Feminism pushed through in the 1990s focused mostly on sexual harassment and related issues and the new 4th Wave. Well, the 4th Wave is pretty much aimed at the completion of all three prior Waves, or at least a continuation of the overall struggle.   

But way back in 1785 no one was thinking about women’s rights to anything or whatever was seen as equality of the sexes. Women on the frontier of the new US (think Maine) were doing what they’d always done – making homes for their families. Some of them did a few other things like being a midwife as necessary, a profession which was regular demand when there were up to 8 or 10 children or more per woman. 

Martha Moore Bullard was an 18th-19th century midwife who was trained by her mother.  In 1785, with her husband, Ephraim Ballard and their 6 living children, she moved from Oxford, Massachusetts to the Kennebec Valley in what would later be cut off from Massachusetts and become its own state of Maine.  She was 50 years old and kept her new diary until she couldn’t at the end of her life, age 77.  

This is a wonderful book,  but it’s not the diary itself because that’s too fragile and difficult to read. This is Ulrich’s study of the diary from a historical perspective. It won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1991 – that says something.  This is a history book.  

I don’t pretend to know its value to historians today, but in the 20th century historians paid no real attention to women’s “work” or histories or much at all from women unless they individually happened to be successful in government. One historian even commented that Ballard’s diary was nothing but gardening and religion.  LOL – There is a lot of gardening (and with excellent reason) and there’s some religion  (as is appropriate for the times what with the revivals of the Great Awakening), but Ulrich also examines a LOT of social structure and legal information of the times as referred to but not explained in the actual diary.

I know that in the 20th century my farm-wife grandmother kept a similar diary/diaries for decades.  She didn’t do this to record the political events or to examine her feelings.  She did this to remember when something happened – when was it that Clara visited? Well she had that written down there in that diary with the exact date (and numbered days of the week!) always front and center.  When did I plant those beans? And where did I plant them so that if they didn’t come up nice I could remember not to do that again. Or, and in Martha’s case, when did I help Sally with her 3rd child and did it all go well?  I think all the entries are dated and the weather noted right off and that’s the reason – the exact day/date was very important to Martha.  

I got a wee tad annoyed reading some of Ulrich’s book.  It seems she has no idea why Martha might have kept a diary the way she did. And if she’s typical, no wonder the historians prior to “women’s studies” and 2nd Wave feminism came along had pooh-poohed it. But Martha’s gardening was part of her economic contribution to the family.  She did midwifery for about 6 shillings per event and she traded and sold the produce to neighbors so she could buy (or trade for) sugar and other items.  

Martha in all likelihood kept her diary to keep track of WHEN things happened.  She planted a lot of seeds and she wanted to record when she did this and where she planted that so she could take note. She wanted to keep track of how this kind of seed did when planted here or there – in shade or sun.  She wanted to keep track of when they were ready for picking and how they tasted.   She also wanted to keep track of when she had visitors, relatives or not, and when (my grandma did that).  My grandma also had a huge garden, but I don’t know (remember) if that made it to her diaries.  (I could look some day.) 

At any rate I was so surprised at how much of The Frozen River was directly from A Midwife’s Tale. The names of the characters and some of their loves and their failings. Martha was a very busy woman and there were other family problems as well – all faithful to the place and times of Martha Ballard.  But where Ulrich formed the actual diary into a very readable history,  Lawhon developed Lawhon’s work into a good novel with a great story arc, character development and tension. 

But to me it’s a fascinating book. I was a history major in the 1970s and 2nd wave feminism had just hit the colleges. Women’s Studies was a new major in 1975 I believe, but I wasn’t really interested.  I did take the History Dept course called Women in European History in 1975? I took it with a bunch of Women’s Studies students and I was NOT impressed. But the field has matured and developed as an academic study and I’ve become interested.  

As I’ve emphasized, A Midwife’s Diary is nonfiction and it actually won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1991.  I read The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon thanks to another reading group (mysteries) and Lawhon acknowledged her being inspired by it.  Many of the reviewers around the internet also mentioned A Midwife’s Tale. So basically, my reason for reading A Midwife’s Tale was the link to The Frozen River. (And I was SOOOOO rewarded!) 

With historical fiction I like to see how much and what is true and what is invented.  There are times when the authors actually include source notes but without that, I usually Google. Lawhon was very good about that and it got me interested in reading her major source.  

I don’t mind the invented parts of historical fiction if there is some purpose other than advancing the plot.  In Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud visit the Tunnel of Love on Coney Island  together. Did that happen? Nope – not a chance.  But it conveys the idea of their strong professional connection at the time. Nice. Thomas Pynchon’s book Against the Day isn’t tethered very tightly to actual events or even happenings, but it works.  And finally – Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s  One Hundred Years of Solitude is almost fantasy in its magical reality approach to history, but there are reasons for everything he puts in there and in my opinion it’s delightful and thought provoking. 

So if I find discrepancies in historical fiction I just like to see if I can figure out why the author chose to do that.  If there aren’t any actual discrepancies and the author has created a good tale out of it, that’s great and I say kudos to the author for doing her research.  (Of course there are accidents, too – Larry McMurtry forgot to put a railroad in Lonesome Dove! LOL! (He says he meant to but it just didn’t happen – omg.). I loved that book back then. It was published the same year Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian was published.

Leaving information out is not necessarily a negative because no author can get it all and it’s their book, their choice. And adding to what is historical can certainly not be a negative because the book IS fiction after all.  

However, A Midwife’s Tale is a straight and excellent history of early times in that part of Massachusetts/Maine in 1820. There had been native tribes here and then shipping and the French and Indian War took place around here.

 “Curiously, a feminist history of midwifery published in the 1970s repeated the old dismissal: ‘Like many diaries of farm women, it is filled with trivia about domestic chores and pastimes, Yet it is in the very dailiness, the exhaustive, repetitious dailiness, that the real power of Martha Ballard’s book lies.”  Ulrich has sourced this to several 19 and 20th century writers of women’s history but primarily I think to James W. North in “History of Augusta – North called the diary  “brief and with some exceptions not of general interest.”  from The History of Augusta by Charles Elventon Nash quoted in Midwife’s Tale pg 17

But the book is primarily about women’s lives as shown through Martha Ballard, a midwife and mother of 9 (?) 

So that’s enough –  I really got wordy, huh?  

I had to rate this marvelous book using a “category’ of ‘literary historical mystery.’ The history is generally good quality for contemporary fiction and the mystery is excellent. I rated the literary aspect because the history is so well used and there are occasional quotes from Shakespeare and other influential English authors.  Also, the language and style is wonderful when Lawhon describes the still somewhat wild natural environment and there is also some symbolism used quite effectively.  Lawton usually writes historical fiction and has 10 books in that general category, as well as a nice following. 

The Frozen River 
by Ariel Lawhorn 
Read by Jane Oppenheimer, 15h 5m
Rating: 8.5/A – literary historical mystery  

This book is definitely “fiction, inspired by the true story” of Martha Ballard as written by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s “A Midwife’s Tale” and which won her a Pulitzer Prize for History in 1991 (and which I’ve started).

In reading that Wikipedia piece (after finishing the The Frozen River) I realize that a LOT more of the plot, more than I thought, really happened and was noted in Ballard’s diary (Ulrich’s book). Over a period of 27 years, she wrote more than 14,000 pages!  (Stay tuned – I’ve just started the Ulrich – both Audio and Kindle. )
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Ballar

The actual diaries are available at: https://dohistory.org/home.html (and I’m not even going to try to read them.)

Of course there’s a lot of fiction in Lawton’s book, but because she’s published 9 books of historical fiction prior to this one she’s pretty good and has a nice following. (I might try another book!)

So, and this is written without any criticism from me whatsoever, The Frozen River is obviously and nicely intended for contemporary readers. It was inspired by an actual Pulitzer Prize winning history book (“A Midwife’s Tale“) which used Martha Ballard’s diary and contents as its central subject. In other words – although it’s thoroughly grounded in historical evidence, the novel has plots for today’s readers and a heroine with whom they will identify. The heroine in these sorts of books often takes on the viewpoints of the readers in order for the author to gain reader sympathy. also Lawhon has lovely descriptions of the natural environment including a fox which could be symbolic.

The setting is Kennebec Valley, Maine, November, 1789 where Martha Ballard, a middle aged married woman works as a midwife and has a husband and 5 grown or nearly grown children of her own . Her husband and boys run a sawmill. Except for a few back stories the tale is told in a linear fashion.

After a community dance a dead body is found trapped under the new ice of the river. Martha, being a midwife, knows more about medicine and general doctoring than most folks in the community so, after he’s dragged out, she is called on for assistance until the authorities or professionals can arrive. When they do the opinions start to get mushy – accident? murder? hanging? Lots of people seem to have had grudges against this young man.

Yes, a few courtship rituals are described some medicine and It is a bit different for our protagonist who says, “Having a child out of wedlock does not make you a whore.”

Another quote: “Our Puritan fathers would have us believe that = love making rarely happens outside the marriage bed, but I know better than most that  it rately happens, for the first time at least, within that bed.” –    (Chapter “Darwin’s Wharf Monday January 18”)  

BUT! That said, don’t be so sure we in the 21st century don’t have our own prejudices. Here’s the Washington Post review of the Ulrich’s book including some statistics about illegitimate births in the 18th century and now.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/wellness/1991/01/08/unwed-motherhood-insights-from-the-colonial-era/14ff7ff2-d03d-4552-86c5-73b8c15341b0/

There are other crimes in this small town area and fraud is a big one in this book – it’s from the diary. And there are courtroom scenes which are tense and twisty.

There’s the murder of course – but there are also some interesting courtroom scenes in various locations  up there in the wilderness of central Maine.    
One refreshing aspect of this book is that it appears to lack the anachronisms common to many other historical novels aimed at women.  

I’m old and haven’t been “hip” (?- lol)  for a long time so I had to really hunt to find out what the heck “AF”  (in the title) could mean but I think  I finally got it. It means “as fuck..” So read the title again and you’ll you’ll get it.  Herriot’s book is NOT going to be your standard dry high school history book. 

This review, if you can access it, is truly excellent: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/11/12/black-history-whitewashed-america/#

Black AF  History: The Unwhitewashed story of America 
By Michael Harriot 
2023 / 426 pages 
Read by author 15h 42m
Rating:  9.5 / creative Black American History 

The time frame starts with Portugal’s Henry the Navigator and extends to Donals Trump in office. The aspects that involve Blacks or affect Blacks (for better or worse) are obviously given priority. The focus is on things which are NOT in high school text books but are definitely related to that is there. If you’re not even familiar with this background Black AF might be a rough read. 

 
Imo, it’s *almost* the equivalent of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States only its revelations are not so routinely grim – there are plenty of Black heroes and accomplishments in the stories which didn’t make it to our history books.  Also Black AF History includes excellent (as far as I can tell) source notes which my original Zinn didn’t have and for which he was criticized.  So this is NOT Zinin – it’s its own creatively written work of history.  And Herriot does not skimp on his opinions – if you can’t quite figure them out in the first 14 chapters you’ll catch them in the final two – lol 

As is often the case, I started out listening only,  but I had a feeling I’d get a lot more out of it if I had the Kindle version.. The narrator uses a slight Black vernacular with a Southern accent to emphasize and keep a certain focus on what the book is really about.  

I’m reminded of The Sellout by Paul Baily, a novel which won the Man Booker Prize back in 2015.  My on-site review of he Sellout says:  Mesmerizing and very funny I gave it chuckles and laugh-out-louds along with several nods to the serious reality of the unstated.” And that could also be absolutely true of Black AF History.  

The Sellout by Paul Beatty

And this is from the Introduction to Black AF History (p. 8-9)
“(T)he only difference between the Black AF version of history and the way America’s story is customarily recounted is that whiteness is not the center of the universe around which everything else revolves.”  Harriot says that’s because in his book America is just a parcel of land that was stolen and repurposed as a settler state using European logic and the laws of white supremacy. This book is about a strong-arm robbery. It is about family and friends trying to recover what was stolen  It is the testimony, and the verdict that a jury of our peers has never heard.”  

With all that said, it’s really quite funny in some places but painful and excruciatingly sad in others. At the same time I’m learning a lot of new stuff. The humor works to keep the narrative from becoming morose or accusatory or maybe just too long as well as to be UN-like your high school history books!) . It’s just some stories, incidents and people, which weren’t included in the formal history classes but they are certainly true and important and sourced in Herriot’s book.

I have to say also that it’s a pretty good spoof of a high school history text – at the end of each chapter there’s a section called “Unit Review” with “Three Little Questions” which are multiple choice (LOL) maybe an Activity and a very good “Supplement” or what I might call “going beyond the text.” –  LOL!  

There are “footnotes” indicated by asterisks throughout the text and those pop-up as usual in newer, quality Kindle books or you can see them all on special linked pages. 

Harriot’s Sources are in the 25-page “Endnotes” section which is basically just source information.  plus And they’re complete but without additional commentary as far as academic expectations go. The source notes are numbered within the text and lead to 

At the end of each chapter there are brief final sections which might consist of a Unit Review, a quiz or an activity plus a bit of supplemental material (Supplement) as though this were a high school text book. If it weren’t for the dark accuracy of the basic material this book could be a gentle spoof.   

And there are excellent line drawings at the beginning of many chapters. These look similar to the ones in my old history books – circa 1965? but they were old when I used them.  

There was only one place where I got a bit aggravated – that was in the next to last chapter where the whole point of the book is revealed – this book is an argument FOR reparations.  I have no particular problem with reparations at all but if the US were to do that 1. How much would it cost,  2. Would we be able to take care of climate change needs, basic universal income, basic defense needs, education needs (through college) and so on?   

I’ve now read this books two full times with some parts going for 3  times,  I was both listening to Klein read as I followed a long but sometimes just reading when I wanted a second go at a sentence or paragraph but sometimes just listening when it was so smooth and easy to follow.  It’s a really good book, but I couldn’t give it a 10 because I thought it was rather poorly organized and somewhat confusing about some things.  I’m so glad I read it though.  

Doppelganger
By Naomi Klein 
2024 / 398 pp Kindle 
Read by author, 14h 47m 
Rating 9 / non-fiction
Both read and listened

The title itself is part of the confusion. Doppelganger is the flip side of a person – an “evil twin” or a “psychic shadow” or perhaps someone having other similar attributes.

** But if I have a doppelgänger, then am I the other person’s doppelganger, too?  I don’t like this a bit because does that make me the evil twin to that other person? **  

Klein then explains how there are a lot of similarities between herself and Naomi Wolf, but there are also a lot of differences. Among the similarities are they are both female, Jewish, youngish, and popular writers. The differences are that Klein is a very liberal Democrat (who campaigned for Bernie Sanders in 2016).  Meanwhile Wolf has become, for her own reasons, a Trump supporting Republican.  

 As the book goes on there’s a loose chronological ordering as different issues come up starting with 2nd wave feminism where they agreed, mainly, but Wolf was more strident and had several books published. Klein is several yeas younger than Wolf so her career was a bit later than Wolf’s but then Wolf took off in a somewhat different direction.  But both women wrote about political issues although Wolf was more interested in feminist issues while Klein went for the economic and environmental issues and with her son being autistic, came across the anti-vexers and conspiracy theories right before Covid.   

During this period Klein published No Logo (1999), The Shock Doctrine (2007), and This Changes Everything (2014). 

For Wolf there was the feminist issue followed almost directly by the conspiracy theories in general although she was involved to a degree in Occupy Wall Street, the Edward Snowden affair, and finally Covid-19 controversies.  

Klein has a theory expressed in the book that people may be following a liberal-Democrat stand on general issues until they come to something different, Covid-19 for instance, and take a side-step.  She calls that a diagonal.  Wolf definitely made a diagonal,  I don’t see where Stein took any side-steps although she might have and I missed it??? (I don’t think so.) 

Does a diagonal reveal your doppelganger? Is it like a mirror showing your opposite or your shadow? And that brings us to Mirrorlands. Wolf certainly did seem like Klein’s opposite for awhile and it bothered Klein –  people kept getting them  confused/conflated and one might think Klein was opposed to the vaccines – which she was totally not.    

And then there’s the whole “mirror world’ which Klein said she starts discussing the alternate social media platforms where people understand what you say when normal people apparently don’t. Mirror World is where everything looks okay but you know, you feel, that it’s not. It happens when someone you know well and love gets too involved in conspiracy theories and apparently falls down some rabbit hole. They now live in the mirror world and you seem very strange to them.

Part Four,  the last chapters, deals with a variety of things like Israel and Palestine, especially topical right now.  But she talks about Red Vienna, the socialist utopia (almost?) in Vienna prior between WWII and 1934 and Hitler. p 328 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Vienna

Klein gets very determined and almost excitable in the last chapters.  I know she’s talking about an impossible dream, the idealistic pinnacle and I’m much too pragmatic to believe we can ever get there entirely. But she has a LOT of good ideas which, if ever given the opportunity we should grab a few. “If you don’t know where you’re going,” as my old Public Administration professor used to say, “any road will take you.”

It’s definitely a mystery –  the Prologue is the deposition of Genevieve Bainbridge concerning the involvement of her three granddaughters in a murder. Then in Chapter 1 the story jumps back to 1930 and the first murder where the body of an 8-year old girl is  found in the pile of linens  at the end of the laundry chute.   

The Golden Gate 
By Amy Chua 
2023. 13h 18m
Read by Robb Moreira, Suzanne Toren, Tim Campbell
Rating – A+/ historical fiction mystery  
(CA. 1930s to after WWII). 

Chapter 2 is 1944 again with has Detective Al Sullivan remembering his childhood n the lobby of the same hotel where this time a prominent businessman-politician has been murdered in his room – then again in another room.  (? – yes.) But actually although there are two very distinct murders, they’re wound together so it’s really one mystery.  

So it is a mystery, but it’s more than that, It’’s historical fiction and includes a lot of California history mainly in Berkeley in the San Francisco East Bay Area, between the years of 1930 and 1944.  Yes, there are several characters of Chinese-American descent in common with Amy Chua, the author so there’s some Chinese history in there as well 

The protagonist and frequent 1st person narrator (in the 1944 scenes which is most of the book) is Detective Al Sullivan whose father was Mexican and who helpfully speaks fluent Spanish. He has a young niece whose mother is an addict, so Miriam tails Al instead of going to school This is a wonderfully light touch for the novel which is primarily a bit on the noir side.  

 It’s really quite good until it “seems to” get a bit far-fetched with Madame Chiang Kai-Shek in there for a bit, (some could be true) … but Chua manages to work it all in.  The only thing which really bothered me was that the protagonist, Detective Al Sullivan, says “Miss” or “Ma’am” or sometimes “Sir” way too often.  

Overall I enjoyed the read.  

Okay – I hope I’m done with this book but I may have to check it again for a 3rd read because that’s when I study a book – not often but it does happen – (see Pale Fire by Nabokov).

Nature’s Temples: 
A Natural History of Old Growth Forests   X2+ lol    
by Joan Maloof
Kindle 2016,  216 pages 
Rating 10 / forest conservation 

Reading print books (rather than listening to audio books) is much harder on my aging plus “dry” and allergy-prone eyes, although I love doing them together. That’s called “immersive reading” for me – lol.  Nature’s Temples is in Kindle format only and it was also for a reading group discussion with yours truly being the fearless leader – LOL – so I figure I should read the books, if possible.  And yup,  it was possible but it took a long time going a few pages per reading session. – https://mybecky.blog/2024/03/01/natures-temples-by-joan-maloof/ (my review on this site – and I don’t mention how tired I got or how long it took or how much I had to skim!) 

 So when I finished, rested and was about 1/2 way through on the second time I just had to shut the Kindle down for days (during which time I read /listened to other books  – like Doppelgänger by Naomi Klein.).    

Now, a couple weeks later, I finally finished the last half of the  second reading.  It’s really good  stuff but I had to go back and take a 3rd (!) peek at some parts because I’d forgotten – (oh no, not my brain/memory in addition to my eyes and hips (etc.)! And even after the group discussion was finished (3/31) I still wanted to get at those last chapters because I. was particularly curious about them.  

For instance, we know that trees provide us with oxygen but not, “Two trees provide enough oxygen for one person to breathe over the course of a year.” P 140 – I had to read and think about that a minute.

And/or …  

“… the highest natural oxygen levels ever recorded were in the old-growth Rockefeller Grove in northern California’s Humboldt Redwoods State Park.”    

Also – the bit about aesthetics (in the Humans chapter) was terrific as was the specificity of the benefits to our health. – Wow!  See pages 141 to 146 – 

 On this 2nd reading the first chapters had more or less stuck, but the chapters on fungi and worms were particularly interesting and enjoyable. – Why?  I was rested and I’d had a lbit of background in fungi from “Entangled Life by Mervin Sheldrake  https://mybecky.blog/2021/08/17/entangled-life-by-merlin-sheldrake/ 

 Then came chapters on Water, Fire and Carbon before hitting the final chapter on “The Largest Trees.”    

“Thank God they cannot cut down the clouds.”  Henry David Thoreau – 

I love trees – I always have. They are so big and they seem protective in some way. Kids for the last couple generations have loved dinosaurs – I think it’s because they’re big and seem like protective friends.

I read this back in February putting a blog post review up on March 1 – https://mybecky.blog/2024/03/01/natures-temples-by-joan-maloof/ but I only gave it a rating of 8.5 and that’s because it’s not in Audible format which is much easier for me to read. Okay fine – I had the Kindle. The second reading was much better as usual and here I give it a 10.

Nature’s Temples: 
A Natural History of Old Growth Forests  
by Joan Maloof
Kindle 2016,  216 pages 
Rating 10 / forest conservation 

This time I was impressed by several things – I don’t usually care for nature books which are heavily poetic – trying to convey to me the sense of wonder the author had when observing. Otoh, I don’t have the background for many of the more scientific books. It’s very nice when an author is able to meet my level –

Maloof’s book was a bit over my head in some places – but I googled a few times and on the second reading I understood more readily.

As I said in my first review the organization is great. The unfortunate thing about it – for me anyway – is that the best chapters are towards the end! LOL! Oh well –

Some little things are still unclear –

pg 239: “Two trees provide enough oxygen for one person to breathe over the course of a year. On average, each tree removes 4.3 pounds of air pollutants while producing this oxygen. In a single year trees filter 17.4 million tons of air pollution in the US, preventing 850 deaths and 670,000 cases of acute respiratory symptoms.” –

“Does that mean two trees” (in one year or in their lifetimes?) “provide enough oxygen for one person to breathe in one year.” I’m going with two trees in one year provide enough oxygen in one year for one person but …? I have a couple small but mature maple trees outside my kitchen window – will that do it for me? It doesn’t seem like enough. (I have other trees, oaks and elms) along the front and side of my house.)

I loved the chapters about worms and fungi the worms chapter was all new material and I read about fungi in Entangled Life by Mervin Sheldrake – I mentioned that in my first review, too. (The term “review” is sometimes used very loosely in this blog – lol) –

In Chapter 14 Maloof gets to “Humans and the Forest” where she addresses aesthetics of old forests vs younger forests and it appears that according to her research humans see old forests as being more beautiful. (And I’ve seen other scientific studies about how humans address and appreciate “measure”? beauty. (We are sensing something – how is our body responding?)

I’d only read one of Baldwin’s book when I was told I should read The Fire Next Time (I can’t remember who told me that.)  The book I read was Native Son it was a long time ago.  The Fire Next Time is more famous.  It’s short and angry and sad. It was published in 1963, so I have to wonder if things are still the same as they were then.  Then there was no Civil Rights Bill or Voting Rights Bill or Affirmative Action or Blacks appearing in all sorts of roles on television and other media.  

The Fire Next Time 
by James Baldwin 
1963
Read by Jesse L. Martin 2h 25m
Rating – 9.5 

I’d only read one of Baldwin’s book when I was told I should read The Fire Next Time (And I can’t remember who told me that.)  The book I read was Native Son it was a long time ago.  The Fire Next Time is more famous.  It’s short and angry and sad. It was published in 1963, so I have to wonder if things are still the same as they were then.  In 1963 there was no Civil Rights Bill or Voting Rights Bill or Affirmative Action or Blacks appearing in all sorts of roles on television and other media.  

Yes, Mr. Baldwin – Negroes have succeeded in this country (US) as shown by Barack Obama in 2008 – 2016.  Overall though Baldwin was optimistic in what he calls those days of revolution . I wonder if this is the way that Ta-Nehisi Coates feels about things – there are certainly similarities in The Fire Next Time (1963) and Between the World and Me (2015).

I’m tempted to read it again – it’s short and I felt like a lot of it was difficult to really comprehend. It felt dated in some way – I know we still have a lot of terrible racism but I honestly think it’s getting better overall – Floyd George wasn’t the usual thing. When I went to grade school (In 1963 I was 9 years old and believed my teachers – especially one who said a Catholic would never be elected President and that many slaves were happy being slaves and there were many good, decent slave-owners.

A lot has changed since 1963 and even more since 1865. I think I’d need to read the book again, very carefully, to understand what Baldwin is meaning when he says this or that.

Oh my, with some bookkeeping on my table to be done this weekend I think I’ll do this first – LOL.   In 6 Degrees of Separation, hosted by Kate at She Reads Novels we have the general category“Travel Books” selected as the starter and I love travel books – the good ones anyway.  LOL!    

I’ll go with TRAVELS IN SIBERIAn – by Ian Frazier which I read prior to my current blog so I have no url  (2011)  but I loved it and it was quite popular at the time.  This is not one of the usually selected quintessential travelogues, but it’s one of the contemporary classics I think of when I think “travelogue,” From Moscow or St. Petersburg, several times across, Frazier makes his way by land across Russia toVladivostok and on. This got incredible reviews and a few awards as well.
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From Siberia we go to THE TREE LINE: The Last Forest and the Future of Life on Earth by Ben Rawlence which was published in 2021. This is a climate change book and Rawlence travels the northern tree line around the globe. “The arctic tree line is the northernmost latitude in the Northern Hemisphere where trees can grow; farther north, it is too cold all year round to sustain trees.[21] Extremely low temperatures, especially when prolonged, can freeze the internal sap of trees, killing them.”  (Actual trees- not shrubs.)  
NOTE!!!! The tree line is moving further and further north as the earth warms and human populations are being affected. This was a very good book after I got into it and by the time I finished I was incredulous – oh dear!  
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And since I’’m in the arctic lands I’ll just go a bit south to Alberta, Canada for a book called FIRE WEATHER: A True Story From a Hotter World by John Vaillant in which a gigantic, enormous fire is being experienced as a consequence of global warming – (2023) 

Valiant tells us the whole story of the Fort McMurray Fire of 2016. This was Alberta’s largest wildfire evacuation and the costliest disaster in Canadian history. By “whole story” I mean he covers the origins of the forest, the origins of what we know as western civilization up there which came with the oil industry, the way bitumen works, and the troubles it’s all causing.  The main idea though, is that scientists have been warning us for generations now and – this is what it’s like – it’s worse than
they thought. 
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Fire Weather makes me think of CITY ON FIRE (2022) by one of my favorite crime writers, Don Winslow. This is the first book in a trilogy about a boy who grows up near Providence on the Atlantic coast of Rhode Island. Danny Ryan gets involved with his father’s Irish group of hard-working, hard drinking, hard playing commercial fishermen who, along with their kids, get into some drugs and then gang activity. But the “good guy” Danny Ryan,  commits his own crimes after which he takes his suddenly motherless infant son to Las Vegas, where his mother already lives and where there are different and more powerful gangs. 
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So then I can’t help but think of another book with the same title (!) CITY ON FIRE. which was written by Garth Risk Hallberg and published in 2015. This one concerns New York City in the 1970s – mostly 1977 and hits the tensions, the arts, the kids, the music, plus a little who-done-it thrown in.

It’s not much of a “separation” but how could I resist when I read two pretty good books with the same title? In my defense they’re not the same city and it’s not the same fire – LOL!
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And for the 6th book in this little “chain of separation,” (ha! – see below) I’ve come up with THE FIRE NEXT TIME by James Baldwin (1963) This now classic addresses race, racism, poverty and injustice between blacks and whites in the US. I’m wondering how his book compares to the Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (2015 and which I did read). Re the Baldwin, it’s only been about 60 years. (!!!)

I’ve not read this but it’s in my Wish List at Audible, it’s short, and I want to get to it right now – but I’ve still got that bookkeeping to do.  From here I know I could get very political for several books,  but we’re all spared by the number 6.  

Also – (P.S.) About midway through this post I got to suspecting I was supposed to see how far separated I could get with these 6 degrees but I couldn’t help myself having read two books with the same title AND each with a rating of 9, both since 2015. I’ll do better next time.

This is Book 3 in Dan Winslows Danny Ryan series, but I’ll bet it’ll be called his “Cities”series. I’ve been a Wnslow fan since The Dawn Patrol (2008) and I the latest books were some stand-alone stories when they attracted my attention at Audible. Then came The Cartel but I had to go back to pick up The Power of the Dog and go on to The Border – I did love that series.

City in Ruins
by Don Winslow
2024
read by Ari Flaikos, 8h 57m
Rating – A++ / crime thriller with lit tones
(#3 in Danny Ryan trilogy)

And then came the “Danny Ryan” books and an announcement that this was the end. Winslow read the works of Aeschylus decades ago and it fascinated him. He dreamed of writing a modern day version so there are epigrams from heading every chapter.

Winslow was retiring. Oh dear. But I think he started going through his old writings because this is about when his old novellas and some short stores started appearing on “the stands”

In book 1, City on Fire, Winslow introduces Danny Ryan and some Rhode Island fishing families. There were some gangs there too, so the Ryans became the Irish gang, but there were Italian gangs, and some Black gang encroachment from New York. They all vied for power by violence, but for a long time the main money was in fishing.

Then drugs came in and in City of Dreams Danny’s father an old-time a shot-caller doesn’t want any part of it so Danny Ryan gets the nod. But now a kind of war breaks out between the gangs. Danny ends up leaveing town with his infant son, Ian, (whose mother died of cancer) and a few cronies and a “shit-load” of money he’d skimmed in all the confusion. Danny heads for Las Vegas where his mom has “done well,” and those who go along choose California. And Danny’s mom there and finds more action – gangs – trying to control the money. Danny wants nothing to do with that, but can’t quite stay completely out of it. He gets a casino license.
( ** Up above, do a search for Winslow and you’ll come up with about a dozen books.**)

In City in Ruins, the final book in the trilogy, Danny and Ian have settled in with his mother and the locals including a few “wise guys,” He has his old buddies from Rhode Island along with some new friends and business associates from various places including family.  Gang activity is strictly prohibited and pretty well enforced. He’s already rich and has a motherless 11-year old son. What now? He wants to buy in on his main rival’s casino. He wants to put up a bigger casino. He wants to get more – always.

In some ways I was reminded so much of The Godfather with its gang violence all the way to the old and the very top. The families and associates sprawl as they compete for “business” and power. I remember reading Mario Puzo’s bestseller and having to lightly skim (or actually skip) the graphic violence until I could see who was left alive. I loved the book though and I read

Not this time. I read every word but got pretty confused sometimes. There are a lot of characters some and Danny’s schemes and dreams are complex through all three books. I didn’t look at reviews prior to or during my reading, but after I finished reading I did.

Nope again. I read every word, but got pretty confused sometimes. There are a lot of characters some and Danny’s schemes and dreams are complex through all three books. I didn’t look at reviews prior to or during my reading, but after I finished reading I did.

I think the main themes are kind of the usual – how family, love, honor and loyalty will sustain a man but greed and pride are always around and highly motivating.

Oh soooo fine to be back in John Lescroart’s Dismas Hardy and this has plenty of Abe Glitsky in there, too!   Long ago I listened the Dismas Hardy books at Audible  and I was going in order  but then,  with Book 8 they switched narrators around more than once and I just quit for a long time but when I tried his latest book,  The Fall, in March of 2022 and The Missing Piece in 2023!  Now the narrators seem to be being switched around.  

The Oath
by John Lescroart 
2002 
Read by Robert Lawrence 13h 5m
Rating:  A+ / mystery-crime-procedural-legal 
(#8 in the Dismas Hardy series) 

I never minded the length of Lescroart’s novels before but I think now that novels in general might be getting shorter. This 2003 book is 13 hours in length, but prior to this his looks had been 15 and 18 hours long.  Although I certainly don’t pick for that, these days most of my books run in the 10-12 hour range. Oh well –  it’s as good as ever even if I’m not used to the length anymore.   

The problem is that the young rather idealistic Doctor Eric Kensing has turned to Dismas Hardy to defend him when Glitsky is roughly questioned him about a the murder of  Kensing is scared but drops some information on Hardy which expands the investigation by Abe Glitsky.  A hospital has lots of characters and the Intensive Care Unit has lots of deaths and money seems to flow among the elites.  Poor Glitsky is trying to train a couple of apparently incompetent new recruits and those scenes are often pretty funny.   

ME –  the number of characters makes it a bit confusing.  The chapters seem to start abruptly and it sometimes takes a bit to figure out who and what is involved in the new scene.  But the plot is great, as usual, as it twists and surprises with regularity ending in true thriller form.  The narrative has occasional lighter sections for family arc and humorous lines a dotted with occasional humor.  There’s an interesting little acknowledgements section re the workings of a big city hospital.  

Enjoy –  I’ll be reading the next Dismas Hardy book, #9, which I missed and, fortunately for me, continues with Robert Lawrence as narrator. Also, Abe Glitsky is newly recovered from his gunshot woulds in book #8 and back at work. Then I have one more missed book remaining – The Rule of Law. – #18 with Jacques Roy narrating. (See? I told you I’d read all the David Colacci books and if I’ve missed a Dismas Hardy book or an Abe Glitsky book I’ll pick them up when I see them – I don’t know what they are!)

Interesting but twisty and hard to keep track of the names. 

The Heron
By Don Winslow
Read by Ed Harris 1h 6m
Rating – B / short story –

Dr Amy Thunig (B.Arts, M.Teach, PhD) is of the Gamilaroi woman and mother who resides on the unceded lands of the Awabakal peoples- ) This means she is Indigenous Aboriginal and living on the islands east of Australia.  

Tell Me Again
by Amy Thunig
2023
read by the author
and Clementine Ford 4h 14m
rating 7 / memoir – Native Australia

So this is a young Australian woman sharing her experience as the daughter of Native Australians who are addicts and alcoholics with prison records and frequent relocations. There is some very real poverty and racism in virtually all areas of her life. And her life with addict parents is pretty much what you’d expect, lies and hiding and moving, parental neglect along with some abuse.

It took me awhile but I got used to it. I actually appreciate memoirs written, at least in part,  with the point of view of the author at the time of the events;  like if things happened when I was 10 I would want to write what I remembered happening and what I was thinking and feeling then – what was life like for me? Sometimes that point of view works giving me insight into the minds of youngsters –  (I was a Kindergarten teacher for many years.)  

The book is made up of 28 short chapters divided into three parts basically, but not strictly, in chronological order. The chapters seem to be based on the memories she has with more philosophical type ideas toward the end.

But there were enough moments of loving humor scattered through this book and some kind of redemption because I kept reading about familial love even in that dysfunctional family, and it spreads outward to extended family, tribe and ethnic group – maybe further.    

I’m sure some of my students lived in families similar to Thunig’s.  There was an Indian reservation up the road maybe 15 miles and those kids came to our school. There were kids, many of them, in town and on the Rez,  whose parents were drug addicts or in jail and the kids didn’t have food in the house and so on. The collection of short stories Night of the Living Rez by Moran Telty feels very similar to Tell Me Again – Poverty probably affects children in similar ways all over the world. 

And I am totally reminded of Jeanette Walls’ book, “The Glass Castle” (2005) which spent months and months on The NY Times Best Seller list back then.  I tried it but couldn’t finish because it was just too sad for me personally.  But the Walls book was really rather original and Tell Me Again is not quite so much – not to me, anyway. Oddly though, Thunig, ike the Wells family, uses castles for fantasy and metaphor.  Maybe not such an odd thing for very poor girls since ancient times. 

Maybe this should have been categorized as historical crime or something other than just True Crime because, from the customer reviews, several people weren’t really interested in the way this story is told; one truly did not get the point.  It’s NOT a standard-issue True Crime book in which the story of a sensational-type murder is retold (there are different ways) with the ending resolved (or mostly). Genealogy of a Murder has a far more universal (or literary) theme dealing with connections and outcomes.  

Genealogy of a Murder: 
Four Generations, Three Families, 
One Fateful Night
By Lisa Bliken 
2023/ 370 pages
Read by Erin Bennett 12h 56m
Rating: 9/ B; literary true crime, history 

This is the story of several families who immigrated from Italy, Ireland, and Russia during the very late 19th century and first half of the 20th.  It starts with the immigrations (all separate), but builds and twists around to the shooting death of a police officer and its aftermath.

The author got interested  because her step-father was involved and his part had always bothered him although it was totally non-criminal. As Belkin says in the Introduction.

“The story was compelling: a young army doctor is stationed at a research lab at a maximum-security prison and becomes friendly with a prisoner, one who himself is a subject of the doctor’s research. The prisoner asks for the doctor’s help, the doctor helps, things go terribly wrong, and a police officer is murdered.”

This is about the lives of those families, the milieu in which the younger ones grew up, went to school, worked, fought in wars, married and raised children who would go to school and work and get married, etc. There are 4 main families, the Troys, the Cosentinos, the Tarlovs, and the DeSalvos from Italy, Ireland, and Jewish Russia and there are 2 central generations in each making for a lot of characters/people. 

“How did one become the cop, one become his killer, and one become my stepfather, the doctor who inadvertently set this shooting into motion? How any of us become who we are has long been a fascination of mine, a central thread...”  Pg 7

There are a couple of main characters without direct family connections but are heavily involved in the main theme which is, quite simply, “How do we become who we are?”  And secondarily, “Whose fault is it?” or, “Who/what gets credit?”

In order to tell her story with that focus, Belkin  has to go into US social patterns of the era(s),  It’s almost like a social history of the US during this time with WWI, the Great Depression, WWII occurring plus science and industry booming, ethnic divisions still standing, booze flowing (even though Prohibition gave it a nick) and immigrants wanting their share of the American Dream.  

 So this small bunch of immigrants from Italy and Ireland and Russia get tangled in 50 years and 3 generations of familiar immigrant experience the end result of which was the killing of a police officer on the streets of Stamford, Connecticut.  The cop-killing was by a member of one of the families who simply could not control himself generally. None of these people are involved in gangs although there were certainly Irish, Italian, and Jewish gangs.  Some of the characters have brilliant minds, others not so much. Some are alcoholics, some are devout, some are ambitious, some cannot control themselves. 

 Yes, it is historical true crime because the actual event took place in 1960 so that’s more than 50 years ago (my rule of thumb) actually going back to the 1800s.  I suppose it’s literary true crime because there are a number of literary lotions and the structure is rather original.  And it’s a bit philosophical because the main point/theme/quesino it raises or explores is specifically stated on page xvi in the Introduction where Bilken says,  

“How did one become the cop, one become his killer, and one become my stepfather, the doctor who inadvertently set this shooting into motion? How any of us become who we are has long been a fascination of mine, a central thread in the knot of who I am.” 

She then proceeds with the histories of  the four focus families, the Consentinos and the DeSalvos from Italy, the Troys from Ireland. and  the Tarlovs from Russia. What follows is an interesting tale of immigrant families, poor and poorer, from Russia, Italy, and Ireland who landed on the East Coast of the US in the late 19th century and ear;u 20th. There is a mix of ethnicities here and I can just visualize this as historical fiction rather than historical history although it’s not fiction by any means. She relies on historical sources as much as she can or when the story turns personal and then her sources are interviews.

But even before moving on to the 1930s, there’s a chapter for some background on Jolliet Prison in Illinois which, in Belkin’s hands, hold its own interest including successes and tragedies under different wardens who could be as reform-minded as the era promised, or not. 

In a surprise appearance we have Clarence Darrow appearing in “The Roaring 20s” to plead for very reduced sentences for Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb.

It’s all building up to the “murder” and its aftermath. How did each of these people become entangled to the point of being involved in some way and why?  A cop is going to be killed, we know that from the Introduction (or page 7 ir we skip the Intro). But who will do the killing and how? And then, looking at the whole, who is at fault and for what part OR who contributed to the killing of a police officer?  

One of the fascinating threads is that about Nathan Leopold at Statesville Prison and how he and Richard Loeb pushed for the positive things they could do, the studying and researching on subjects important to Columbia University.

And the ending, the last 10% or so, does prove to be something of a thriller.

Enjoy –

This is a good book to listen to – it’s literary enough in some ways and the narrator is well-suited to the narrative.   HOWEVER – a warning – the story or plot line – is slow and quiet for a long time.  It starts at a care home in Portland, OR, 2005-2006. The Parts are huge breaks in the story – From Part 1 in 2005-2006 the story line goes back to 1942 – 1960, then to 1945, and from there returning to 2006. That’s what the table of contents says, anyway – I’m not so sure the narrative is that neat. .  

The Librarianist
by Patrick deWitt 
2022 /
Read by Jim Meskimen,  10h 2m 
Rating 8 , general fiction 

So the first chapters of this book feel good, but after awhile it gets a bit claustrophobic and frustrating in what appears to be a somewhat interesting but bitter-sweet and basically mediocre love triangle. Keep reading anyway, at least until you get a couple chapters into Part 3, that’s about half-way. The narrative goes back to 1960, when Bob was 11 years old. That’s where the whole thing picked up for me. (It was like landing in Oz and everything in color in that Wizard movie with Judy Garland – 1939.)

I loved The Sisters Brothers, de Witt’s 2nd novel but hadn’t heard of him since. Okay fine, but to my surprise he’d written 3 more novels, the last of which was The Librarianist.

I was ready to just return it to the library when I got to “Part 3 1960.” And that’s when everything changed for me.  

Backing up, the first time frame is 2005 – 2006 when Bob Comet, a retired librarian, kind of accidentally becomes a volunteer at the local care center, an assisted living facility.. He has never married and lives in the house his mother bequeathed him. He loved working at the library but working at the care center has its rewards. The main plot is how he got to be in this situation via the one woman he’d ever loved and said plot follows him as they fall in love and find themselves in a triangle with Bob’s good buddy.   

 The plot is mostly character driven so it’s slow with some emphasis on Bob’s emotions.  

The next section, “Part 2 1942-1960,” follows Bob Comet from about 8 years old to just out of college and starting his career at the library.

Following that is Part 3 1945 when Bob was 11. And after that adventure it flips back to 2006 for Part 4.

The whole atmosphere is like the characters – it’s calm and slow with quirky characters and some heartbreak and jolly laughs.  Enjoy.