Becky's Books –

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.
*********

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.

I knew who Naomi Klein was before I read this – I read her prior book, This Changes Everything, and gave it the reasonably high ranking of 8.5. She’s very smart and writes well, but, fwiw, has no degree backing that up. In most places this book was fascinating and kept me turning the pages for hours – more hours than what they said because I reread parts of it, sentences or sections or even whole chapters and highlighted many, many times.

Doppelganger
By Naomi Klein 
2024 / 398 pp Kindle
Read by author, 14h 47m
Rating 9 / non-fiction, “content creation
& social media”
Both read and listened.

But I was so confused in the first chapter I wondered how far I’d get. Doppelganger (a personal life double) was selected by the All-Nonfiction reading group for our April read, but I started about 2 weeks early. That way I leave time for a 2nd reading during the actual month of April.   

It seems Klein’s Doppelganger is Naomi Wolf, who, at eight years Klein’s senior, had been writing and speaking on women’s issues for several years prior to getting involved in actual politics. Now Klein was being drawn into politics and this was when Klein really started paying more attention to Wolf. People got the two women mixed up.  Klein has written nine books to Wolf’s eleven. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Wolf
https://brownstone.org/articles/an-update-from-naomi-wolf/

But Klein’s politics stayed generally left-ish, while Wolf’s moved to the right and extreme right in the political controversies after the early days of Covid-19 and the anti-vaxxer crowd grew. Those and related issues is what Klein explores from the idea that there is a line of positions on political issues which is known as “liberal” or “progressive” or maybe something else. Likewise there is a line with positions representing a range of opinions for voters on the right side of that spectrum.

Klein has developed the idea that some people take a diagonal line when they adopt the position of the opposing “side” for an issue. For instance, a person who is very health-oriented for herself and her family will suddenly buy into the conspiracy theories and become opposed to the covid vaccine and masks or whatever. Or a person who is very pro-women’s issues is suddenly a Second Amendment fan. (That’s Wolf to an extent.) –

In the book, Kliein explores a lot of fascinating history and then along comes Covid-19 and masks were a very hot issue. They were either okay or NOT okay – masks became a Fascist thing NOT a health thing. Dr Fauci was lying and Steve Bannon would tell the truth. But there were other issues during that time. There was serious bigotry which became Black Lives Matter and George Floyd. There was Jew-baiting and so on which had its own history brought to the US by immigrants. .

Klein analyzes these people and their issues through what she calls  “diagonal policies” where some “progressives” seem to take on the colors or positions of the “conservatives,” but it could go back to socialists vs fascists or hawks vs doves from the days of Vietnam lies and protests.

There has to be a greater cause –  now there has to be a greater cause for people to switch –  I suppose that happened then too.  

Chapter 6 –  Wolf’s turn:  9/5/23 and this is a great review from New Republic:
https://newrepublic.com/article/175254/naomi-klein-naomi-wolf-doppelganger-journey-unnerving-world

Chapter 10 is fascinating “Autism and the Anti-Vax Prequel”.  There’s a lot of history re autism and fascism/Nazism here Klein’s sources look good.  The thing is that Klein’s own son is autistic and she was involved with the folks who believed that rumor. She is Jewish and that has its own bag of rumors about them and spread by them.

Doppelganger is somewhat lengthy and it lost its charm a few times, but it always refreshed. I think I’d like to read it again – we’ll see.

About 6 years ago (series book #3, Winterkill)  Joe and his wife, Marybeth had a foster child living with them for awhile and the family grew very attached. But Alice was murdered in a dispute regarding her natural mother. Now, (yes, like 6 years later) Sheridan, Joe’s eldest daughter,  gets a text message from someone who says she’s April.. Yeah? – But wasn’t she cremated 6 years ago? Joe has to “look into it.”

Below Zero
by C.J. Box 
2009
Read by David Chandler, 10h 22m
Rating: A / mystery-thriller 
(#9 in Joe Pickett Series) 

Meanwhile there is a father and son team each of whom is looking out for what they see as his own interests The son wants to get radical about fighting environmental problems while Dad is trying to make up to his deceased daughter before he dies himself. Dad has a LOT of money to leave to heirs. The two blow up an RV supreme after shooting the inhabitants.  

And Joe and Sheridan find Nate and go after whomever they can get to help save April.  The FBI and other enforcement agencies join them because the RV is only one of several incidents and deaths  This is just part of Box’s usual bad-ass suspense and violence scenes juxtaposed with loving family scenes interspersed. It’s kind of like a cozy with benefits.  And yes, there are a few laughs along the way. 

I had a hard time with this book because I kept getting interrupted and ny reading became very disorganized. I was listening only (to a library book) and I’d realize I didn’t know what was happening and replay a chapter and still not get clear. I finally settled down this morning and, starting from where I pretty much understood things, finished it off.  Yes, I really wanted to know if April survived and where she went – etc. so I couldn’t just put it aside. LOL

And I thoroughly enjoyed the last 90 minutes or so –  40 pages?  This book is probably quite good but to me, personally, this time, it was kind of wasted.  I’ll write it down though so I remember that I read it (in a manner of speaking).  

This is the sequel to Nita Prose’s  best-selling debut novel, The Maid (2022).  The thing about this series is that the 1st person narrator likely has Asperger’s and her social skills are quite limited. That’s a huge part of the point, an unstated, but overarching theme of the series maybe.   Molly is very bright about words and there’s nothing wrong with her thinking skills,  it’s mainly her people skills which are different (the phrase from the book).  

The Mystery Guest
By Nita Prose
2024 /
Read by Lauren Ambrose 8h 23m
Rating; A / 8 – literary cozy crime 

Molly Gray, a hotel maid in “The Maid,” has been given a promotion to Head Maid at the Regency Grand Hotel where a VIP mystery guest turns out to be J.D,  Grimthorp a famous author who, after sipping two sips of tea, drops dead only a sentence into his prepared remarks.  

 Molly prepared and her young assistant delivered Mr Grimthorp’s cup of tea to him on a tea tray handy for extras. Then Grimthorp adds 2 heaping spoonfuls of honey to the cup and within minutes is on the floor, a dead man.  As the investigation is underway Molly interacts with a few people from the prior novel but for the most part this is a new cast.  

There are several characters From the prior book continuing on  there’s Cheryl a coworker, Molly’s boss, and Detective Stark.  Juan Manuel is only a walk-on because he’s been emporarily away. And there’s Gran, of course, although she died several years ago, sh’s in Molly’s thoughts and memory – almost as a ghost.  

“His back is as straight as an exclamation point.”  Molly thinks this and it’s a wonderful metaphor because it’s original but also it suits the light-heartedness of the  book and more especially it suits Molly, a very bright but autistic 1st person narrator about 8 years old or so – (mid-grade school).  But the book has many more literary attributes, the themes of being different, there are literary allusions scattered around and the novel’s language, heavily cliche’d,  is fully appropriate to the characters.  

This is the 1st book in the Sheriff Porter Beck series by Bruce Borges who has a couple of standalone to his credit, but this is his first series.  The second book. Shades of Mercy, is due out this summer.  

The Bitter Past
By Bruce Borgos
2024 / 
Read by James Babson, 10h 1m 
Rating: C / historical fiction / 
Mystery-espionage-thriller 
(#1 in Sheriff Porter Beck series)

From the publisher: 
Porter Beck is the sheriff in the high desert of Nevada, north of Las Vegas. Born and raised there, he left to join the Army, where he worked in Intelligence, deep in the shadows in far off places. Now he’s back home, doing the same lawman’s job his father once did, before his father started to develop dementia. All is relatively quiet in this corner of the world, until an old, retired FBI agent is found killed. He was brutally tortured before he was killed and clues at the scene point to a mystery dating back to the early days of the nuclear age. If that wasn’t strange enough, a current FBI agent shows up to help Beck’s investigation.

From me: 
This was a great concept with some interesting characters, but for me it got confusing with so many characters and the plot didn’t quite stay within the realm of reality. For some reason I found it compelling in its own way so I finished even though it was from the library  and no loss if I didn’t.   It was rather fun in places and relaxin to read.  It’s kind of like a thriller spy novel which takes place mostly on the high desert around the borders of Arizona, Nevada, and Utah borders.  

It would be very easy to confuse this as another book in The Dublin Murder Squad series by Tana French, but it’s not.  This is the second book in the Cal Hooper series which first appeared as The Searcher (same author) in 2020. The last Dublin Murder Squad book was published in 2016. .

The Hunter 
by Tana French
Read by Roger Clark 16h 24m
Rating A++ / mystery-thriller 
(#2 in Cal Hooper series)

Those characters from The Searcher continue to be featured in The Hunter, with the addition of  Johnny, Trey’s usually absent father,  Sheila, her over-worked mother, as well as some other assorted characters. Just like The Searcher, this book starts out slow getting the main characters nice and firm before the plot starts tangling up.

If there were similarities between The Searcher and Shane the old book by Jack Scheifer (book 1949 and movie 1953) which is set in Wyoming of the 1880s,  then The Hunter follows up by being reminiscent of The Luminaries  by Eleanor Catton, (book  2013 and TV mini-series 2020).  which is set in the 1860s in New Zealand but also concerns a gold find. 

In The Hunter, two years have passed so Trey is now 15, still misses her brother and wants revenge. She also misses her charming but no-account father, Johnny, who is often absent for long periods of time.  Cal Hooper has become a kind of father-figure to Trey with neighbor Lena as his love interest and the busy-body next door still snooping and gossiping .

This time Johnny has returned and finds a “business” acquaintance has followed him. It turns out the two of them seem to be working out some scheme to swindle the townspeople due to finding gold someplace and selling shares. It’s a bit complicated.  We’re aware now that Trey’s brother was killed and no one has been held accountable so Trey wants revenge.  That means there will be a couple mysteries to be solved because someone else is going to die.  

This is a masterfully written crime novel with the tension building slowly across several threads into a complete fiery climax. Also, to add some literary merit, there are fair themes woven in as some characters learn lessons about retribution, sacrifice, and family. I suppose there could be a third novel in the series, but the ending is quite satisfying as it is.  

I don’t quite remember why I got this book.  It was actually available at the library, it had great reviews, it was a memoir, and the sample struck me right. Also it really felt like something I could stand to read right now even if it deals with cancer and possible death, it seemed like it could be inspirational in some way.   

Between Two Kingdoms:
A Memoir of a Life Interrupted  
by Suleika Jaouad,  2021
Read by author – 13h 2m – 
Rating: 8/memoir, cancer/grief/recovery

Suleika Jaouad, whose parents are Tunisian Muslim and Swiss Catholic was only 22 years old when she was diagnosed with myeloid leukemia (blood cancer) and given about a 35% chance of survival.  With a very supportive family and boyfriend,  treatment was started, but it wasn’t a smooth road. There were all sorts of hurdles and unexpected setbacks. She found writing as a creative outlet and that worked for her while life went on whether she was in the hospital or not, on chemo or not. 

When she was finally released from actual treatment she remembered what one of her readers had written to her, that the end of treatment was just the beginning of recovery. She realized she was moving forward knowing there would be no 100% recovery.  And then we have Part 2. 

Suleika’s journey in Part 2 from the link at the bottom of the page:

Out of treatment, she contacts patients and others she’s known one way or another through treatment and travels cross-country to see some of them. The rest of the book shows the reader how Suleika heals and and stretches herself and the ways many of her friends and penpals are getting their lives back or making new ones. They’re  adjusting to living life with a new awareness, but Suleika has a hard time letting go and moving on.

This was a nice relaxing read – just right for now. It reminded me there are people who have it a lot worse than I do with my age and ailments and recoveries of many kind’s.  And there are people who even have it worse than those people who have it a lot worse than I do.  I’m grateful for what I have. 

Suleika is the author of the “Life Interrupted” blog/column in the New York Times which she started working on during her illness. 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/suleika-jaouads-journey-between-two-kingdoms

 Beck in November I read the excellent American Midnight by Adam Hochschild (my review on this site) which mainly covers the years 1917-1921 in the US.  Those years were full of fear, political repression, overt racism, anti-immigrant sentiments and a deadly pandemic, all seemingly unrestrained by governmental efforts. That was published in October 2022 and six months later Timothy Egan’s A Fever in the Heartland is released.  So now, more than a year after that I catch up.

A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Take Over America 
and the Woman Who Stopped Them
by Timothy Egan  2022
read by Timothy Egan. 10h 29m
Rating: 9.25 / Americana history

There is some overlap in the subjects of these books but Egan’s book uses a wider time frame for his narrower study while Hochschild’s book shows a number of threads being interwoven.  In Egan’s book we see how the Ku Klux Klan was tripped up by the Grand Dragon’s own excesses and the woman involved. (see subtitle) –  They’re both excellent books in part because it’s  a very interesting era in American history and also because both writers are award-winning word-smiths. 

Egan starts at the end of the Civil War when the original KKK got started in their lust for vengeance in Polaski, Tennessee – that attempt kind of fizzled but a new beginning was found in Indiana where they weren’t exactly up front about their doings.  This is where D.C. Stephenson, a poor but indefatigable young man with a swagger and a demented dream was hired by the KKK to increase the membership. Steve (as he was called) figured he could do better than that. The leader of the area’s KKK at the time hated blacks, Jews, immigrants. Catholics and all associated ideas which seemed to be spreading rapidl. Stephenson’s ideas were right in line with those of the KKK, except he wanted more material benefits. And he wanted to be the national leader.

There are lots of names, dates and laws and they all build up to a picture of an essentially lawless group of people (mostly men) who were involved in all aspects of racism from snubs to lynchings to burning buildings and general terrorism. Then one of the lower leaders took over in Muncie, Indiana which had an amazing amount of Klan Activity. 

And so we get to follow this guy, D.C. Stephenson, who thought of himself as above the law (“I am the law!”) but had some serious personal issues with women, money, and violence. 

The narrative at one point got somewhat lurid, but perhaps not. What happened happened and was used as evidence at the trial in Chapter 16. “The Last Train to Chicago.” Before and again after that it’s mostly about the Klan in a somewhat wider sense. I consider this to be True Crime. but Audible has it listed as American history – (which also applies and maybe is a better general category for it).  

Fwiw, Muncie Indiana was chosen for a landmark study called “Middletown” by two Columbia sociologists. In the 1920s they judged Muncie to be the “typical” American town/  I remember reading about that study in college but I don’t believe I ever there was so much Klan activity in Middletown Muncie! My goodness!  (And the studies go on even today.)   
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muncie,_Indiana

The Klan, via Stephenson, almost “owned” Muncie via their ideas, extreme racism, patronage, loyalties and violence. That sort of thing was present in many towns and cities north and south. There were also some anti-Klan folks and a few of them stood up for their ideas when trouble broke loose. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Klan
The Klan went national with a march in Washington DC in 1925 but that was the same year it came to the troubles in Muncie 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._C._Stephenson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Sterilization_Act_of_1924