Becky's Books –

I  did it – I finished this book in spite of the fact I would nod off and have to reread big chunks; in spite of the fact that after Part 1 I had very little background; in spite of the fact that listening was okay except I could barely understand the narrator’s English!.  

Paris in Ruins:
Love, War and the Birth of Impressionism.  
By Sebastian Snaa 2024 
Rating – 8.75 / France art and military history

Smee writes very nicely, most of it is clear, with enough
poetry for the artists and enough grounded realism for
the military historians. 

And there’s a bit of romance in there – (of course there is) – this is Paris and Berta Morisot is painting along with Eduard Manet and there’s Edgar Degas and Claude Money and Frederic Bazile and Berta’s sister, Edma.  To day nothing of Napoleon. After which a dreadful war is

My problem I think was that I didn’t have the background for the military parts and I wasn’t interested enough to find out.  Nevertheless I did give the book a B+,  that’s not too shabby. 

1/10/25

THE DEMON OF UNREST:
A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War
by Eric Larson 2024
read by Scott Brick 9h 50m
Rating – 9.5 – US History/ literary/military history /

Although I was a history major in college and. buff all my life, I’ve been terribly behindr re the Civil War. There are just too many people and places and the various ideas seem endless. But sometimes one person or battle or idea is featured and it’s far better for me. That’s the case with The Demon of Unrest. The American Civil War as a whole, 1861- 1865l almost 4 years to the day, is a real challenge to “know,” but fwiw, actual military action started on April 12, 1861 when the Confederates attacked the Union soldiers who had taken over Fort Sumpter – in the bay right outside Charleston.

Larson has written the story of how that war came to be after decades of rising tension and animosity about slavery. But the Civil War was about slavery and after it ended there was no more legal slavery in the US (because it was illegal).

AND –  a question from the publisher’s Reader’s Guide:
“If the South had such a hold on the Federal government, how did the North gain control of Federal troops so quickly?”

The answer? Let’s say the US government is full of Southern supporters. Okay, these folks do the day-to-day governing filling the desks of bureaucracy from President Buchanan down to Soddy Daisy (TN) Then Lincoln wins the presidency and new Republicans fill the old desks. Oops – ?!? the South just seceded from the Union so their Congressmen stood up and walked out, too? And they took all their gov’t employees with them? Who is left, might I ask, to have such a hold on the Feds? – Nope – The exact opposite happened and the North now took hold of the government and passed the Homestead Act so that whenever the war was over Manifest Destiny could proceed.

1/5/2025

 
THE GRANDMOTHER
by Jane E. James
Read by a cast; 8h 39m
Rating:  B / caperish- Who done what? 

The real thing is I’ve been getting sick and now sicker and no I also get so tired. My main ailments are COPD (Stage 2?), rheumatoid arthritis, osteoporosis, and psoriasis. I had household help and I feel pretty good until about noon. I eat my “Meals on Wheels” lunch and after that I can do very little else the rest of the day except I do sometimes make myself do stuff.

So this blog is now on a guilt-free, one-day, or one-book, at a time basis. I think that’s the best I can do and keep my health a priority. 

1/3 / 2025

An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s

By Doris Kearns-Goodwin
Narrated by authorRating: rating – 8.

 One of America’s most beloved historians, artfully weaves together biography, memoir, and history. She takes you along on the emotional journey she and her husband embarked upon in the last years of his life.

Nice memoir of the US political scene of the era with JFK, Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, and Lyndon Jonson. This is not about the Beatles, mini skirts, or hippies.

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You’ve probably noticed my “review-blurbs” have been getting shorter and shorter and with more time between them. Sometimes I miss one or two. Sometimes I get confused while writing. Well, I’m 77 years old now and not in the best of health.

When I started blogging back in 1998 (Geocities) I was reading between 15 and 20 books a month, sometimes more.  I read literary fiction mostly and then added crime fiction plus nonfiction, history, memoirs, true crime, etc.  I was in about 5 or 6 reading groups plus working full time as a school teacher in the public school system. I loved my job! I was teaching little children to read – Kindergarten for 25 years. I’ve now been retired for 15 years.

At the moment I don’t know if I’ll write so much as one more blog entry.  I know there won’t be as many and they won’t be as long.  Realistically I might probably simply list the books, type one sentence about it, and give it a rating.  I do need some way of remembering what I’ve read.  (Although now might be a good time to go in for some rereading LOL!) 

The real thing is I’ve been getting sick and now sicker. I get so tired. My main ailments are COPD and rheumatoid arthritis.  I’m okay until about noon. I eat my “Meals on Wheels” lunch and after that I can do very little else for the day. So this blog is now on a guilt-free, one-day, or one-book, at a time basis. I think that’s the best I can do and keep my health a priority. 

BUT! I just don’t know how much I can do! I do need some way of remembering what I’ve read.  (Although now might be a good time to go in for some rereading LOL!)  I think I’ve read 3 books since the New Year but that’s it. Now come the “reviews,” such as they are.  So the last I can do is l list them and “rate” them

The explanation – “On the first Saturday of every month, a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six other books to form a chain. Readers and bloggers are invited to join in by creating their own ‘chain’ leading from the selected book.” If you don’t know how the #SixDegrees meme works, please check Kate’s blog – booksaremyfavouriteandbest. It’s interesting and the participants are creative and intelligent so it’s fun. This post is my contribution. (Thanks, Kate, for having me.)

First off,  I thought I’d read Orbital but alas, although I do own the book I have zero memory of it and it’s not noted in my blog.  Shoot!  I’ll have to read it now, guess. (But uff-da, as my Norwegian grand-mama would say.)  

What I found in my blog was a book called Phantom Orbit by David Ignatius which I read in late May of this past year (2024).  So I’ll connect those two to start me off. (LOL!).  

https://mybecky.blog/2024/05/27/phantom-orbit-by-david-ignatius/

1.  So first up is Orbital by Samantha Harvey and leads to ..

2.  Phantom Orbit by David Ignatious which I enjoyed and gave it an A on my rating scale (1-10 for literature and A-F for more “genre” books – some books are both – literary mysteries for instance).  Ivan (from Moscow) and Edith  (from the CIA) meet in Beijing where they work on satellite systems and fall in love. They go home but later, much later, there a connection is made. –  … which leads me to …

3. The Maniac by  Benjamin Labatut – yes, it’s another “sci-fi,” but this time we have a guy who’s probably somewhere on the Autism spectrum (as they say now) but plays a mean game of “GO.”  He’s so good in fact that he’s scheduled to play in a world tournament involving computers – or A computer, I should say. https://www.youtube.com/watch?

The computer and the game are called “Alpha Go.”  

4.  And then we move another degree out to The Three-Body Problem which is a serious and classic type of Science Fiction tale from Chinese author, Liu Cixin (2008). And Cixin developed that tale into two more books so it became The Three-Body-Problem trilogy dealing in all kinds of physics problems   The trilogy is also known as “Remembrance of Earth’s Past” trilogy.

5. And The Three-Body-Problem kinda-sorta reminds me of  The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula LeGuin because of the duality (which doesn’t exist)  in everything.  Or else all is one. . 

And you will note that these are all linked by more than being recent Sci-Fi ( except LeGuin’s is a bit older.)

6.  Finally, in the sixth link of a chain I can only think to come up with something by Connie Willis – female sci-fi writer extraordinaire!   She’s also quite Christian which is apparent in her delightful anthology of sci-fi short stories, “A Lot Like Christmas.”  (I’m going to have to read that again next year. It’s wonderful.)

Becky 

The Department Q series comes to a thrilling conclusion when the team must turn inward to solve the cold case that has put their own leader behind bars, a place where his enemies are plentiful and time is quickly running out.

Locked In:
A Department Q Novel, Book 10
By: Jussi Adler-Olsen, Caroline Waight – translator
Narrated by: Steven Pacey=
Series: Department Q , Book 10

On the day after Christmas, head of Department Q, Detective Carl Mørck, finds himself handcuffed in a police car headed for Copenhagen’s Vestre prison. After fifteen years, a violent case from his past has caught up with him. Charges of drug trafficking and murder threaten to destroy his life and career. But he is being framed. Someone has a million-dollar bounty on his head to make sure he doesn’t talk, putting him in grave danger among the prison’s incarcerated criminals and corrupt officers. The question that remains is, Why? 

Carl’s colleagues at the Copenhagen Police Department instantly turn their backs on him, leaving the ever-loyal Department Q team as his only hope. In search of answers, Rose, Assad, and Gordon must disobey direct orders from way up the chain to try to unravel case. With only one another to trust and Carl’s battle against the unknown mastermind’s henchmen worsening by the day, they must work faster than ever before if they are to clear his name—and save his life.

This is a debut novel and a stunning one. I was sure it had won awards last year, but on double checking I see that idea has to be remedied. I did read Talty’s “Night of the Living Rez” from last year but that’s a collection of stories about people living on a “Rez.”  So when I saw ads for “Fire Exit” I knew it would be similar.  And Christmas season or not, and it was calling out to be read.  

Fire Exit
by: Morgan Talty
Read by: Darrell Dennis; 6 h 35 m
Rating:  9 / contemporary fiction 

From the porch of his home, Charles Lamosway has watched the life he might have had unfold across the river on Maine’s Penobscot Reservation. On the far bank, he caught brief moments of Roger and Mary raising their only child, Elizabeth from the day she came home from the hospital to her early twenties. But there’s always been something deeper and more dangerous than the river that divides him from this family and the rest of the tribal community. It’s the secret that Elizabeth is his daughter, a secret Charles is no longer willing to keep.

But it’s been weeks since he last saw Elizabeth and Charles is worried. As he attempts to hold on and care for what he can: his home and property, his alcoholic, quick-tempered and big-hearted friend Bobby, and his mother, Louise, who is slipping ever-deeper into dementia—he becomes increasingly haunted by his past. Forced to confront a lost childhood on the reservation, a love affair cut short, and the death of his beloved stepfather, Fredrick, in a hunting accident—death that he and Louise cannot agree where to lay the blame—Charles contends with questions he’s long been afraid to ask. Is it his secret to share? And would his daughter want to know the truth?

This is a masterful and unforgettable story of family, legacy, bloodlines, culture and inheritance, and what, if anything, we owe one another.

I missed blogging several books which I read in November. They are:

MYSTERY – CRIME  

The Waiting by Michael Connelly, 2024 Read by a small castRating: A / crime thriller-procedura (#5 of Renée Ballard/ #
Slow starting but worth it and i’ve grown rather fond of Renée. It’s now the retired also very ill Harry Bosch, with Renée Ballard, a new LAPD hire Harry helps with the Cold Case Files she’s assigned to. Bosch’s adult daughter Madeleine is also on the scene looking toward her dad as she works her way up in the LAPD. This cases involve a serial rapist and murderer. ********

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Handbook for Homicide
By Addison Moore, 2024 
Read by a  (** Virtual Voice!!**) 
Rating:  Maybe a C – at best. 
(#1 – Thanksgiving Day Murder and Killer Cozy Mystery series) 

This looked like it might be a good “cozy” for me and it seemed quite inexpensive. (I haven’t found a really good cozy since Monic Ferris retired.).Unfortunately, it’s silly and I don’t like either occult OR romance. There are 3 more in self-contained series and I wonder if I’ll bother.  The “virtual  voice” is okay unless you want to differentiate between male and female characters.  Too bad.  

****

The Princess of Las Vegas 
by Chris Bouhjallian
Read by Saskia Maarleveld
Rating –  B  / mystery/thriller 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2024/04/18/princess-las-vegas-chris-bohjalian-review/

This was actually kind of funny and compelling for some reason (but Bouhjallian is a very proficient writer of fiction)  and it had an abundance of twists and a nicely drawn protagonist (the Princess) but for some reason it was lacking tension  – it was never a really serious mystery or thriller – maybe more of a a “zany” caper?  

*******

NONFICTION –

War: 
by Bob Woodward,  2024
Read by Robert Petkoff 
Rating – 9.5 / history-biography 

This is Bob Woodward doing what Bob Woodward has done all his working life. It’s a memoir of himself and his work telling us about United States issues starting in 1971 at the Washington Post investigating Richard Nixon and Deep Throat.  And he wrote what he found out and what he thought until until he got to 2024, retired from the Post, but now investigating Donald Trump.  He’s seen the times of war and writes about it so well.  

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Black Pill: How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life
by Elle Reeve, 2024
read by autho
Rating – 8

This is the nonfiction story of how the alt-right white Christian 
Nationalists, and other right-wing groups involved in the far right 
social platforms and web-sites of the internet had a disastrous rally
in Charlottesville. Unite the Right was a white supremacist rally 
taking place August 11 and 12 of 2017 – the first years of Trump’s 
presidency. Trump said something about there being good people 
on both sides which raised the ire of the liberals. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unite_the_Right_rally

The antifascists in various guises and under a number of colors, met them and violence ensued. https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2024/07/10/black-pill-elle-reeve-review/

In “Black Pill: How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society, and Capture American Politics,” the intrepid CNN correspondent Elle Reeve dives deep and wide in pursuing some of the characters who attended and were later to be found in jail or back at home or at the larger and more Black Pill:How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison, Society, and Capture American Politics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unite_the_Right_rally
This is the nonfiction story of how the alt-right white Christian Nationalists, and other right-wing groups involved in the far-right social platforms and web-sites of the internet had themselves a rally which ended up violent. Unite the Right was took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, from August 11 to 12, 2017. 

A bunch of anti-fascists met them and violence resulted.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2024/07/10/black-pill-elle-reeve-review/
In Black Pill CNN correspondent Elle Reeve presents her the results of her investigations, how individual participants came to get involved, where she found them, and so on. 

************

The Talented Mrs Mandelbaum
The Rise and Fall of an American Organized-Crime Boss 
by Margalit Fox, 2024Read by Saskia Maarleveld,  6h 17mRating:  8 / US History – True Crime
This is the story of  Fredericka Mandelbaum, a Jewish-Italian woman who, along with her husband, Wolfe Mandelbaum, immigrated to the US. That was in 1850,  a decade before the Civil War,  and while at first they bought small businesses, their employees were out stealing and Mrs  Mandelbaum was doing the fencing.  she went into robbery alongside their employees, then fencing what had been stolen and becoming the first female organized crime boss.  She managed to advance from her very lowly “entry level” position to head honcho of her large slice of the crime world.  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fredericka_Mandelbaum

Historical Fiction / (non-crime)
   
Flags on the Bayou ~
By James Lee Burke, 2024
Read by a cast; 9h 15m
Rating:  8.5–   / Civil War tale 
(a stand-alone)

From Amazon:
When Hannah Laveau, an enslaved woman working on the Lufkin plantation, is accused of murder, she goes on the run with Florence Milton, an abolitionist schoolteacher, dodging the local constable and the slavecatchers that prowl the bayous. Wade Lufkin, haunted by what he observed—and did—as a surgeon on the battlefield, has returned to his uncle’s plantation to convalesce, where he becomes enraptured by Hannah. Flags on the Bayou is an engaging, action-packed narrative that includes a duel that ends in disaster, a brutal encounter with the local Union commander, repeated skirmishes with Confederate irregulars led by a diseased and probably deranged colonel, and a powerful love blossoming between an unlikely pair. As the story unfolds, it illuminates a past that reflects our present in sharp relief.

I got this one at that super sale a week or so ago and have been looking forward to it, a bit nervous that it might be horrible. – LOL  Ido enjoy reading seasonal books – I’ve been doing Christmas murder mysteries for about 7 years? –  But any other Christmas story will do and I don’t read ONLY seasonal books in that month.  My goal is to find 1 good new one per season a year but I think I usually read between 5 and 7 or 8.  

Silent Night, Deadly Night
by Vicki Delany 
Read by Amy Deuchler 8h 22m
Rating:  B+ / cozy 
#4 in the Year-Round Christmas series

I started on book #4 because that’s what was on sale but actual series goes from 1 – 8.  This time a group of women who went to school together in that small town of Rudolph have gotten together for a reunion. Then the women start gossiping about each other and squabbling. One of them gets quite ill at supper. She’s taken to the hospital and dies. She’s been poisoned and teh police 

The first real night together they are gathered at the home of Merry Wilkinson whose Mother had the idea for the reunion of her college classmates.  They were all good friends in college but secrets and years have taken their toll.   

These are great characters.  I feel like this year my standard Christmas book is kind of boring – even this one – This is the new book/author though and it has perked things up.

This recording was never a book – it’s an “Original” from Audible, but Beth Macy is the author and all her interviews in it she did for this book and she original people read it. I feel like for now I’ve had plenty of opiate addiction talk and books. 

 This is okay – it’s not read, it’s more like a podcast with taping rather than actors.  I’m not fond of it. But I did finish. It’s very sad.  

Macy does explore the controversies surrounding drug treatment – should the patients go “cold turkey” as they do in Alcoholics Anonymous, or should they do Medically Assisted Treatment (MAT).

Okay – I can do Spell the Month in Books with a theme of Christmas or Nonfiction –  (at least I think I can) –  so I did both – 

Christmas Theme:

D.  Despite the Odds: A WWII Christmas Story by Kaitlin Phillips 

E,  Everyone Has a Christmas Secret by Benjamin Stevenson

C   A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

E   Esther’s Gift:  A Mitford Christmas Story  by Jan Karon 

M.  Murder on the Christmas Express by Alexandra Benedict

B  The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson 

E   Evergreen: A Novel by Belva Plain 

R   The Red House Mystery by A.A. Milne 

And NonFiction titles  using the letters in “December”

D   A Day in the Life of Abed Salama. by Nathan Thrall

E.    Enough by Cassidy Hutchinson 

C. Covered With Night by Nicole Eustace 

E  Evidence of Love:  by Jim Bloom and  John Atkinson

M  Magnificent Rebels: The First Romantics  and the Invention of Self
by Andrea Wulf 

B.  J.G. Boswell and the Making of A Secret American Empire
by Mark Arax and Rick Wartzman

E.  Everything Trump Touches Dies – by Rick Wilson 

R. The Room Where It Happened by John Bolton

Some readers call this type of crime fiction “Females in Jeapardy” – aka FemJeap,” describing the nature of the crimes. Parts of the books can be extremely violent, bloody, gruesome because Methos is no different from other crime authors these days. Most of his books are horror shows, graphically describing the damage one human being can do to another.  Crimson Lake Road seems different at first, but wait about saying until you’ve turned the last page.  

Crimson Lake Road
by Victor Methos
read by Brittany Presley, 10h 58m
Rating: A- / legal thriller 
#3 in Desert Plains series 

From book #1 in this series the reader has known that the protagonist, Jessica Yardley a police investigator, was married to a serial killer who is now in prison thanks in very large part to Jessica’s efforts.  There is quite a lot about this series that is “unlikely” at best, but the story line and writing are so good I just bought into it.  Jennifer was pregnant when her husband went to prison. In this book, the child is now grown into a woman, Tara.

This time a woman is left beaten very badly and is found dead. A couple weeks later another woman is found beaten but this time she ends up in a hospital and reveals to Jessica that her attacker was her live-in boyfriend, a doctor. Jessica starts investigating and then in another week or so finds out her own daughter eesis missing. Meanwhile, lawyers,  prosecutors and defense attorneys abound because the hospitalized woman’s boyfriend was pretty easy to arrest.  (The courtroom drama is excellent with new-to-me little tidbits re procedures.) 

There are a lot of characters here and a lot of loopy-loops with the plot but I was hooked. And although the fem-jeep is pretty much at the center of the crimes- these are not graphically described.  (Whew!). 

Parts of Methos’ book are “meh,”  but quite often they are creative and funny  These are terrific reads if you can stand the occasional very graphic violence. 

I read the first two Molly the Maid books and liked them very much.  I saw there was a Christmas theme for a future book so I put it on my Wish List for later.  

Mistletoe Mystery 
By Nita Prose 
Read by Lauren Ambrose
Molly the Maid Series #2 1/2
Rating: C / romantic mystery 

In the prior books of this series, Molly’s character very carefully developed and she was presented as being somewhere “on the spectrum” (autism spectrum). It was done very well and I enjoyed it; there’ve been several books where a main character is autistic or “on the spectrum,” and that is  not even mentioned. Rather, it’s something the reader understands from the speech and actions of that character.   This time there was far less indication  she might be anything other than slightly Asperger’s (and we’re ALL on that spectrum somewhere.  Molly remains very attached to her grandmother who died several years ago and prior to the first book in the series,  Also, there will be a real book #3, The Maid’s Secret, on sale in Spring, 2025.  

For the last 10 or so years I’ve made a tradition of reading seasonally appropriate books when I can.  As far as I can tell (by checking Audible for when I read that book) this little “tradition” of mine started in 2011 – that’s 13 years.  As a result of that read I went on to read all of Ferris’ book.  She’s passed away now but I remember what a kick I got out of those silly books – loved them!  

I’ve been reading a variety of Christmas books since then – mostly they’re just okay – like a grade of C+.  But then I found the David Carpenter books – every year he publishes a new book as well as a  Christmas story and with him I don’t follow every book like I did. 

And it’s continued every year since. The rule is that I choose at least one new (to me) book about the holiday and read it for that holiday.  I’ve been far more successful with Christmas than any other holiday, although I try New Year’s, Thanksgiving, and Halloween and sometimes – like with Halloween – I read the same few books over and over as the years pass.- lol.   

 Note – I do NOT like romances OR occult (a wee bit of them is ok ay).  And Monica Ferris was first for me and was good enough that she got me started and kept me going through ALL her books – in order.  Also,  I do read other things in those holiday month, not JUST holiday books. And I can’t start until December 1 and I have to finish by January 7.  I usually read between 5 and 10 Christmas books a year.  
I’ve got a small stash of Christmas themed mysteries to get me though. There are more and more published every year and I also discover new-to-me authors.  

You’ll see my reviews through the month. I’m wondering what stories I’ll be reading this year.

Becky 

This is the nonfiction story of how the alt-right white Christian
Nationalists, and other right-wing groups involved in the far right
social platforms and web-sites of the internet had a disastrous rally
in Charlottesville. Unite the Right was a white supremacist rally
taking place August 11 and 12 of 2017 – the first years of Trump’s
presidency. Trump said something about there being good people
on both sides which raised the ire of the liberals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unite_the_Right_rally

The antifascists in various guises and under a number of colors, met them and violence ensued. https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2024/07/10/black-pill-elle-reeve-review/

In “Black Pill: How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society, and Capture American Politics,” the intrepid CNN correspondent Elle Reeve dives deep and wide in pursuing some of the characters who attended and were later to be found in jail or back at home or at the larger and more Black Pill:How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison, Society, and Capture American Politics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unite_the_Right_rally
This is the nonfiction story of how the alt-right white Christian Nationalists, and other right-wing groups involved in the far-right social platforms and web-sites of the internet had themselves a rally which ended up violent. Unite the Right was took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, from August 11 to 12, 2017.

A bunch of anti-fascists met them and violence resulted.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2024/07/10/black-pill-elle-reeve-review/
In Black Pill CNN correspondent Elle Reeve presents her the results of her investigations, how individual participants came to get involved, where she found them, and so on.

Great book –  This is the 2nd read but it didn’t get a 10 last time because there were a lot of new Ideas in it for me.  I’d not thought about it much – I’d read about dictatorships but as I came to find out at some point during the second read – these are not the same things,  even if North Korea is both of them. 

Autocracy, Inc; 
The Dictators Who Want to Run the World
by Anne Applebaum
Read by author
Rating:  8.75 / modern history 

This time the pieces fit and I realized that most autocracies are more complex than one dictator running his own country for his own profit and pleasure.  like  An autocracy is a kleptocratic network of financial structures and all the security and technological services and forces to go with them. Keeping them secure for one particular personal entity or a group of nations.  I learned how they operate within their borders and sometimes across borders. I learned how they operate out of the basic greed of the top autocrat and others.  I learned that the phenomenon spreads. And I learned about a guy named Gene Sharp and his ideas.   oo

Good book and I am so glad I read it. The narrative covers the time frame of sometime just before  2020, when Joe Biden won the Presidency of the US, through 2020 when Trump lost the election (and his mind, I think) through 2024 when he won the presidency for reals. That era would include the latest Palestinian/Israeli war as well as the Russo-Ukraine conflict. This is all told by Bob Woodward, the 

War 
by Bob Woodward 
October 2024
Read by Robert Petkoff
Rating – 9.5 / history-biography 

The word “War” in the title could be referring to the Israel-Palestinian conflict which is still going on, or it could be the Russia-Ukrainian fighting of the same general time period.  Russia invaded Ukraine in February of 2022 and on October 7, 2023, Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group which holds power in some areas,  charged out of Gaza and onto Israeli lands and neighborhoods.  

The narrative starts in 1989 when Trump is being interviewed by Woodward about some- thing unstated, (to get his personality)but using interviews and news sources the book tells Woodward’s tale. It’s more the story of US foreign policy from both the presidencies of Donald Trump and Joe Biden with an emphasis on Biden.  And the “War” could be either one because neither of them is over yet.  And we don’t quite ever know where mots of the quoted sources are from because that’s the way Woodward has had to work for much of his career.  He gets to the reality but his sources don’t want to reveal themselves.  
There are a few maps if they help but there’s a whole gallery full of photos – mostly colored and glossy. Some of them give a real flavor of life in those times. 

This is a book I savored and it could certainly do with another read but …

Mrs Fredericka Mandelbaum came to the US from Germany with her husband Wolf but it wasn’t all that easy to make money in New York in 1850. So she decided she needed to become an entrepreneur and started selling the goods her ring of thieves would bring to her.  There were many thieves in her circles and they took a LOT of stuff including jewelry and money and cars and whatever wasn’t tied down. and Fredericka became rich. 

The Talented Mrs MandelbaumvV
The Rise and Fall of an American Organized-Crime Boss by Margalit Fox, 2024
Read by Saskia Maarleveld 6h 17m
Rating – 7.5 / History – True Crime

I just wasn’t all that impressed by this one. I finished it but it was just the average story of the averages mob boss who happened to be a woman – and, while I”m at it, Jewish.

“One hundred years ago, New York City was in the midst of what newspapers decried as “a Jewish crime wave.” The causes were complex, but most observers at the time laid the blame on Prohibition, which created a lucrative black market for alcohol overnight.

“’Shifty-eyed boys of the slums,’ a reporter noted in 1922, ‘suddenly began to wear $200 suits of clothes, to flash five-carat diamonds, to drive high-powered cars, to shoot craps for $100 a throw,’ Led by Arnold Rothstein (nickname: ‘the Brain’) and fueled by the phenomenal profits of the bootleg booze trade, Jews by the mid-1920s dominated the illicit industries of gambling, narcotics, labor racketeering and loan-sharking in the city.