Becky's Books –

“Every age has its own Fascism”  Primo Levi   (the epigraph.)

I read this again for the All-nonfiction group discussion  It’s basically a little examination of some of the many faces “Fascism,”  which Albright deliberately never quite defines,  has worn from when  Mussolini used he term to today with the emphasis on the evaluation of Donald Trump.  She never labels him a fascist and I don’t believe she thinks he is – quite.  But this book is a look at some of today’s nationalist and repressive leaders as well as a bit of Albright’s own story.   A review of my first reading is at Fascism by Madeleine Albright: –

*******
Fascism:  A Warning
by Madeleine Albright
2018 / 289 pages (Kindle) 
read by Madeleine Albright 
rating  9 / history/politics – 
*******

In my first reading I was most interested in Mussolini,  Hitler, Kim Jong-un, Putin and, of course, Trump as well as Albright’s general thoughts on it all.   In that first reading I didn’t quite understand the central chapters regarding several of today’s leaders,  so that’s what I was focused on in this reading.   The leaders I had to read more carefully about are Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Erdogan of Turkey,  and Orban of Hungary – not truly “fascist,”  but the ones who use more fascist tactics than most.

These are not all the nasty, nationalist and oppressive dictators of the world of course,  but along with a few other briefer examples plus Putin and Kim Jong-un,  Albright has included a fair sampling.

So reading about all these leaders one has to ask,  what are the common denominators,  how did they come to power (most were elected but on what issues)?    She gives several generalized statements,  but nothing which could be construed as a “definition of a fascist.”   This is not disappointing but rather, as I suppose she intended,  thought provoking.

Oh I did need something a bit lighter after  Bob Woodward’s Fear – (see my review).   This was highly recommended by a reader I follow at Audible and it is well worth it (I do enjoy a good legal crime novel.)  Be aware this is not a thriller nor much of a courtroom drama.  it’s simply a thought provoking legal crime story,  a good one.

The voice of the basic 3rd person narrator here might be a bit dry if it weren’t read by George Newbern who almost breathes a whole character into it and it works wonderfully well.   I’m going to have to look out for him.

*******
Flat Lake in Winter
by Joseph T.  Klempner
2016/  (320 pages) 
read by George Newbern
rating:  A / legal crime
*******

Jonathan Hamilton is a 28-year old man who lives with his elderly grandparents because he is mentally challenged and his own parents are deceased.  They live in an old mansion on the shores of Flat Lake in upstate New York.  The book opens with him finding them dead,  brutally knifed.  He’s then arrested and the case follows the investigation and trial.  It’s fiction but written almost as though it were true crime.

Matt Fielder is called in to defend Jonathan in what is almost guaranteed to be a death penalty outcome.  Fielder is all but convinced that Jonathan did it.  But what motive could the limited Jonathan have not really understanding more than what happens on any given day?

And as he looks into Jonathan’s background,  his schooling and family, there is a real twists what with a seriously dysfunctional family and their doings but there are more twists after that.

Matt is a bit of a character, too,  likable enough,  but with his own troubles including booze and women.  I found some of his antics rather humorous.

Of possible interest:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homicidal_sleepwalking

Edit

Did you ever get the feeling that watching and reading the news in the media you only get the surface material?  This is the book which fills in the big blank spots,  especially when the events and issues change almost daily.  That’s what Woodward does best,  he is an investigative reporter with many years experience.  (I remember the Nixon era.)

First off,  Trump’s inexperience and ignorance coupled with his egoism certainly stand out from the way he organized and managed his campaign to selecting his Cabinet members,  and  all the way through to .   In some ways Trump is not always quite as bad as I thought,  in other ways he’s worse than I imagined.

*******
Fear:  Trump in the White House
by Bob Woodward
2018 / 358 pages
read by Robert Petkoff – 12h 20m
rating
(both read and listened)
*******

I read some of the incidents Woodward reports on in Facts and Fears by James Clapper and in James Comey’s book,   A Higher Loyalty and both are quoted. (links to my reviews on this site)  But this book is different in that it follows  Trump since his campaign days though the early White House days with all its issues and staff problems.

This is from Vox but it certainly fits:

“It’s barely a stretch to say Fear reads as Rob Porter, Gary Cohn, Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus, Lindsey Graham, and John Dowd’s account of the Trump administration. Woodward doesn’t explicitly identify any of these six people as his sources, but he provides pages and pages of their thoughts and motivations.”

Mostly this is an overview of incidents I followed as the years have gone by so it’s a good reminder and an actual putting-together of so many incidents one on top of the other.

Most of the incidents I knew and remembered but I’d somehow missed some things like the relationship between Lindsay Graham and Trump as well as most of the information/ policy ideas  about Afghanistan.  This book does not follow the issues, it follows Trump and the White House as they make decisions on these issues. –  ha!

But it’s more than a simple rehash,  much more.  It’s the background and fleshing out of many of  the events we saw and read about only briefly in the media. Woodward goes behind the headlines in reviewing and detailing the incidents or the lead-ups,  in a wider context and with many more points of view.   There is a lot of dialogue.

The other thing the book does,  and it really does this well, is it gives a wider context to many of the incidents and  details about quite a number of the things I knew a bit about including  the tax bill.  But there were other things I completely missed. The book focuses on foreign policy and the Afghanistan mess is very well covered from the perspective of the White House involvement. Trade issues are also examined with more depth than one ever reads about in the news.  This book is not about the issues themselves but rather about the personalities who were trying to deal with Trump dealing with the issues.

So Woodward’s book has comes with a slightly different perspective and a different organization for the material,  It’s more comprehensive re Trump and his presidency and the people around him  than anything I’ve read to date.  There’s really quite  a lot of behind-the-headlines information.

Woodward goes through the people and the incidents pretty quickly so I had to Google a few players,  like Andrew McCabe,  Rob Porter (what he did in the White House – I’d heard of his personal troubles),  Gary Cohn,  John Dowd, Peter Navarro, Stephen Miller and others who are apparently close to Trump but not heard about as often as others.

There is criticism of Obama (as there is in the other books I’ve read).

At times the narrative seems to jump around a lot, for instance,  in Chapter 22 it goes from Korea’s military potential to John Kelly worried about immigration.  And Bannon has a little something to say on most of the issues.   Jared is often involved but Ivanka has her finger in there, too,  along with Lindsay Graham and some others.  All the players are vying for Trump’s attention.

It ends too soon because it probably got to press about five months ago,  when John Dowd stopped representing Trump.  Much has happened since and more than that and I’m sure Trump has continued his tizzies.  I really want to find out how this ends!  (LOL)  But it’s a good way to be reminded of what all has happened,  to really catch up and to get the flavor of the circus playing out and an understanding of how seriously dangerous it is.

I think I’m going to make a page devoted to the current affairs books I’ve read in the last year or two.  I’m thinking the focus will be on politics, politicians, voters and some current foreign affairs rather than domestic issues because I’m not sure books like “Evicted” by Matthew Desmond should be included.

I nominated this for reading at a small group because it looked really good to me and like something the others would enjoy.   I was not wrong.   It was one of the finalists (usually 3) for the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction this year –  and I’ve already read the winner (Less by Andrew Sean Greer).

*******
In the Distance
by Hernan Diaz
2017 / 240 pages
read by Peter Berkrot  9h 17m
rating:  9.2 /  historical fiction 
(Pulitzer Prize finalist)
*******

A very tall man on an Alaska-bound schooner tells the real story of  “The Hawk,”  who is himself,  Håkan Söderström,  who immigrated to America as a young boy. This is the Introduction or Prologue.

As Hawk goes on to tell them,  he and his brother left their home in rural Sweden to to go America.  But the two get separated in Liverpool and Hawk ends up in San Francisco from where he tries to get to New York.  He knows no one and speaks no English and he encounters of variety of people and has a number of of adventures and gets in some real trouble for awhile as he tries to make his way East.  Basically he’s lost and sometimes hiding in the desert and plains for half a century,  the years between  the California Gold Rush of 1849 and the turn of the century.  The important things about Hawk are that  he’s very, very tall,  probably close to eight feet as well as being quite intelligent and resourceful.

It’s a wonder of a book – almost magical realism,  more dream-like in parts,  although, as the publisher at Cafe House Press says,  it could,  possibly,  have happened.

Reading this again for a group even though it is a disturbing novel – it’s also exceptionally good – if you can stand to read it.

The first time I appreciated it and I knew it was beautifully done,  but I was certain I hadn’t really understood it.   This time kind of cleared that up.    There are several reasons for me to read a book twice and one is because I think there was substantially more to it than I absorbed in the first reading.   That’s this time.

*******
The Vegetarian
by Han Kang
translated by Debra Smith
2016/  194 pages
read by Janet Song, Stephen Park  5h 14m
rating:  9 / contemp fiction
******* 

Other times it’s just because a book I read awhile back is on a group schedule now.  I enjoyed it at the first time and I’ve already have  the book (because I buy them) so I read it again.  That’s this time, too.

Finally,  I think I sometimes read a book just to revisit an old friends but that reason does not apply this time. My first review is at: https://beckylindroos.wordpress.com/2017/01/11/27438/

The Vegetarian consists of a series of first person narratives each of which is basically a stand alone story dealing with the same subject.

Yeong-hye’s husband, a young businessman,  tells his part of the story first.  His wife, Yeong-hye,  is simply a young   homemaker.  They live in an apartment in modern day Seoul,  South Korea and are a supposedly fairly typical couple without children.  He thinks of his wife as really ordinary and that’s really all he wants,  conformity.

One day Yeong-hye decides not to eat meat anymore due to a horrible dream she has had.  At a dinner party with his boss that evening she puts her vegetarianism  into action.  Her husband is very embarrassed and angry.  Yeong-hye is not acting in a manner appropriate to the wife of an up-and-coming businessman so her husband is angry and confused.  Later,  Yeong-hye does the same thing at her parents’ house which results in her being hit by her father.  Being a vegetarian by choice is not something good. conforming, middle class people in Korea do.

Then her sister’s husband narrates the tale of his involvement with Yeong-hye.  He is an artist and takes video movies of the two of them in various stages of sex – except they have painted themselves with  flowers and he thinks of them as intertwining.  His wife, Yeong-hye’s sister, finds the video now both marriages are destroyed. Actually,  his treatment of Yeong-hye in the videos is more abuse of her,  especially considering her increasingly fragile state.

There is a third section which the sister, In-hye, narrates – I’ll not get into that as it would be spoiler territory but I will say it’s surprising.

This is a novel of inner and outer conflict,  about social conformity,  about  violence to self and others as well as from others in a paternalist society.  It’s also about mental illness and the treatment of victims.  There is a lot packed into 194 pages – ,

https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/2016/may/violence-and-being-human-conversation-han-kang-krys-lee

For awhile reading this I felt like I’d been tricked into buying it but that was okay because I was really enjoying it.  How did I think I was fooled? I thought I was buying a political book probably because Lewis has another book coming out (next month) called “The Fifth Risk,”  a political book,  and that’s on my wish list.  This book is a political, too,  but as it pertains to the National Weather Service, Accu-weather,  some associated groups and Trump and it’s very short,  perhaps a precursor to The Fifth Risk?

*******
The Coming Storm
by Michael Lewis
2018 / 2h 27m
read by Michael Lewis 2h 27m
rating:  9.5 /  nonfiction – weather and technology
*******

Another reason I was interested is that my late husband was a research meteorologist  for NOAA  and that’s what the Lewis’  book is about among a few other things related to data collection and use.  Actually, it’s a connecting factor in most of Lewis’ books.

Lewis is not negative about data at all,  with data we can navigate risk, see problems and make progress.  Weather prediction has become very good in the last decade or two,  there’s a cutting edge.  The US has always traded weather information with other countries and they’ve reciprocated without fanfare or hype.

Lewis goes into a few things the massive data collection of weather data can be used for.  And then he goes into the Trump administration’s pathetic staffing of its departments focusing on the Department of Commerce and National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA – the Weather Service).   So with Trump,  today,  the issue is whether or not to privatize the information amassed by the National Weather Service which is paid for with tax dollars.

Barry Myers,  an attorney and the Chief Executive Officer of Accu-weather is still Trump’s unconfirmed nominee for the head of NOAA,  Myers is not a scientist at all,  but he is very rich and was a huge Trump donor,   What Myers is actually looking for is  not ways to improve NOAA,  he’s looking for ways to stop giving away their  information because his company is quite profitable.

Then Lewis goes a bit further  and looks at the distribution of wealth in the US and other more political stuff I expected – (And I’ll bet that will be in The Fifth Risk.)  With Accu-Weather the hype factor sometimes seems to become more important than the accuracy.

And think about it,  if only the people who pay private businesses for the information get tornado warnings then  or rain forecasts for their specific soil and plant growth?  This becomes about data,  statistics and probability.   Privatization may be what’s happening, but who do you trust?  It’s a coming storm.

What a wonderfully fun ride!  With all this political news and books,  I needed some good light fun,  but this is a long, “marshmallow”-like tome (New York Times metaphor) so be warned.  I think I’m more open to fantasy these days –  don’t know why – the escape of it maybe.

I’m not sure I knew what I was getting into – the Kindle and Audile samples were great but this is NOT Liu Cixin’s Three-Body Problem  (the best sci-fi I’ve read in a decade),   nor is it  The Lost Time Accidents by John Wray,   but the comparison is more apt.

*******
The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.
by Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland
2017 /  754 pages (Kindle) 
read by a cast of 6 –  / 24h 27m
rating: 8 / sci-fi-time travel & great fun
(read and listened)
*******

The story:  Dr Melisande Stokes is hired as a translator of ancient languages by the very odd but charming Tristan Lyons.   He has a well funded project underway, but it’s completelytop secret and confidential.   But Melisande is bright and figures out that the name of the project is D.O.D.O.  which she figures out to mean (shhhhh).

The job is to go back in time to when magic was real.  Yes.  Science and religion edged out the belief in magic, but due to Schrodinger’s Cat, there might be a way or a sense,  in which … well … it was real.  until photography came along.

So they have to find a witch who can use magic in the right circumstances, and they have to find a way to travel back in time.  And for awhile the task is to find a book and some seeds.  And that’s just for starters.

The story goes on for another 500+ pages made up of alternating strands,  some moderately fast-paced with limited thinking necessary but including  laugh-out-loud scenarios and dialogue. Interspersed are some fascinating snatches and accounts of science, medieval and ancient European/Byzantine cultures and US history up to 1851. I Googled some of the events and places and by golly –  some sources came up.  The historical research is excellent and detailed in surprising ways and it’s intricately woven into the main story.

So the D.O.D.O. group is looking for witches and has other tasks for some larger enterprise. Who they are working for and why is slowly revealed, but it seems mainly to gain control of the universe,  past and present through the use of magic – (aka as a kind of  quantum physics passed on through witches from the days prior to the  crusades until 1850.

As far as I know the scientific gobbledy-gook is fine because time travel is fantasy anyway.  I wouldn’t read this for any kind of literary value or for insights into human nature.  It’s mainly a very creative romp.

I can kind of tell that Stephenson wrote the seriously techie stuff like time travel in the first chapters and that Galland wrote the more historical descriptions and the romantic/sexy scenes,  but the D.O.D.O memos are a mix.  Everything works together too, because the format is a series of diary entries,  memos, emails,  transcripts and such what.

Enjoy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_and_Fall_of_D.O.D.O.

http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/reviews/the-rise-and-fall-of-d-o-d-o-by-neal-stephenson-and-nicole-galland/

Ahhh….  I had to do it –   I finished the first book in the series,  Gone to Dust,  and just went right on into the second.  It was that good  –  for me – at the moment.   This is a series of 2 so far …  we’ll hope because I will follow if there are more.

*******
Broken Ice
by Matt Goldman
2018 /  336 pages
read by MacLeod Andrews 8h 22m
rating:  A-  / 336 pages
*******

Nils Shapiro (Shap) is now actually working with Elegar   out of their joint office located in Minneapolis.

Although she’s from Warroad in far northern Minnesota, Linnea Engstrom has been reported missing because she never came home from a hockey game in St. Paul.
Then a classmate,  Haley Hausch, is reported missing and then dead.   It seems both girls were involved with guys on the hockey team.

To complicate matters, someone takes a shot at Shap –  with a bow and arrow.  And he gets a great “Nurse” thanks to his ex-wife.   Shap has romantic interests –  but he loves his rich ex.

This is no YA novel – unless we’re talking 16+ – because the parents are screwed up and the girls are a lot more involved in a lot more than kissing under the bleachers.  It gets fairly gritty.

It wasn’t quite as good as Gone to Dust , I think Broken Ice felt forced in some way – so I was a bit disappointed.    I’ll still look for further books in the series.

Nils Shapiro,  a private detective,  lives in Edina Minnesota where he sometimes helps the police with things which they can’t quite do.   This time it’s a murder victim whose body was left completely covered with –   vacuum cleaner dust.   Yes.

Nils Shapiro,  a private detective, is asked by his Edina Minnesota police chief friend to help with a strange murder victim.   Maggie Somerville, an apparently loving wife and mother,  was found dead in her home,  smothered in vacuum cleaner dust…Yes.

*******
Gone to Dust
by Matt Goldman
2017 /  294 pages
read by McLeod Andrews
rating:   A / crime
*******

Nils agrees to help,  off the record,  and so begins a good old who-done-it with plenty of contemporary elements in addition to old and new-fashioned twists.  There are several suspects in compromising situations – and Maggie had a private past as well as a difficult present herself.

This was a kind of joy to read on a slow 3-day weekend Sunday when there’s nothing going on and the blueberry muffins are in the oven.  Although there are no real shoot-outs or chase scenes and only two bodies,  besides, this is NOT a cozy even if there is a wee (very wee) bit of semi-romance going on.  I’d call it a gentle procedural maybe –  but not to gentle.

So …  yes,  I’ve got Book 2,  Broken Ice,  in the Wish List and it might come up fairly quickly.  🙂

I’ve been reading this book for a long time – there is no Audible available for it  so I have the Kindle  version and I went to bed each night meaning to get a bit more read.   And yes,  almost every night for weeks I would curl up with it,  become enchanted and promptly fallen asleep.

Ahhhh… it is so good I wanted to crawl into it and curl up to live there – and stop time.  It’s amazing what a good author can do –  because the setting is 1945 in northern East Prussia just as the Russians are about to march through en route to Berlin.   We,  the readers of the 21st century,  know what’s going to happen but the characters don’t although they certainly suspect that’s in the works.

*******

All For Nothing

by Walter Kempowski

(translated by Althea Bell)

2003 / 352 pages

rating – 9.5 –  historical fiction

*******

Various people come past on the roads in front of the Georgenhoff,  an old and now rundown family estate not too far from Koenigsberg which was then in East Prussia, Germany,  or Prussia and then Poland,  but is now a part of Russia.   They pass by alone or in groups,  walking or with some sort of vehicle.  A few stop in to see if they can get a bite of food.

The family who lives there,  Katherina von Globig and her husband Eberhard their son Peter and Auntie who had come from Silesia and never left.  They have two Ukrainian housekeepers and a Polish hired man.  Their home is a collection of  buildings as well as the manor and it is full of old things – art and furniture including a statue called “Crouching Woman”  (Georg Kolbe? Thank you WBG!) which is mentioned several times.  Behind what remains of the estate  is a settlement of newer units for people of the town of Mitkau.  A Nazi named Drygalski is in charge and keeps it ship-shape.   Several other characters live in Mitkau – the priest,  Peter’s tutor,  the mayor –  these are all friends of a sort with the Globigs.

While Everhart is on business in Italy,  Katherina is asked by the village priest to make room for a strange man who needs a place to stay for the night.   And I won’t go further with the plot except to say that it gets very interesting with plenty of tension building and danger.  “Nothing was easy…”

The themes are brilliant – there’s love and family and others – but there’s a huge almost over-arching theme of denial.  And so the way the book is structured and written, much of the whole tone of it,   fits beautifully –

The writing is perfect – it creates a place of semi-solitude in which denial and fear are easy,   in which the characters are at ease.  It’s like a retreat.   But the reader knows there are bad times coming so there is a small undertone of tension.

This had been tempting me since it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction getting rave reviews … so … I got it.   I don’t keep an active TBR shelf – I keep wish lists at Amazon and Audible and I buy as I read,  unless there is an Audible sale.  It works for me.

*******
Less
by Andrew Sean Greer
2017 / 273 pages
read by Robert Pekoff  8h 17m
rating: 8   / contemp lit – Pulitzer Prize in fiction 2018
*******

Okay,  the novel Less is generally about a middle-age man who happens to be gay.  His older lover of nine plus years has broken up with him to marry someone else so Less is really at loose ends – struggling with his age and the memories in addition to his career.  He’s an author  – a mediocre author whose books get sold,  but without any truly appreciable notice.  (His ex- is an acclaimed poet.)  He was once called a “spooner” by a reviewer  (it means homosexual).  And now he’s going to be 50 years old  –  time for a serious midlife crisis.

The book is clever overall,  and quite funny,  but what can you do with this set-up – a professional gay man getting over a love affair at the age of 50 –  or being stuck in your career at the same age.   It’s the writing which is clever and maybe a couple of the situations – like taking rubber bands when he travels because he exercises that way.

Less is obsessed with being young and sexy and sensuous – but now he’s also border-line old – not terribly attractive anymore –  and although he’s quite smart, he has no self-confidence at all.  Actually,  he’s full of self-pity, remorse and fears..  But off he goes to various literary functions throughout the world –    to New York and Mexico and then there’s Italy, Berlin,  Paris,  Morocco,  India, and,  finally,  Japan.

There’s no real plot,  his life at this point is a series of little adventures,  a picaresque if you will,  not too unlike Don Quixote except instead of chasing windmills,  Less is chasing satisfaction somehow,  or love and youth or fame –  something to give meaning to his life –  he’s grieving his lost love and his career.   The man has lessons to learn.

There’s a very personable, unnamed and mostly invisible narrator telling us where Less is and what he’s doing as well as what all goes through the poor man’s  mind as he globe-trots to various literary functions to get away from his ex- partner’s wedding and the pain of breakup at age 50.   He bemoans his fate without love and he meets other men and women and so on –

Great metaphors abound,  just floating around like the wafting aromas of  pot,  wine and perfume.  It’s nicely written with a warm and lovable self-depricating hero and a gentle skewering of the literary community.  It’s basically just a fun novel with some insights for living which apply to all – especially the ending.  (I’m not sure it deserved the Pulitzer but it’s good.)

Review at Kenyon Review:
https://www.kenyonreview.org/reviews/less-by-andrew-sean-greer-738439/

Oh I do enjoy Jane Gardam and have read several, not quite all, of her books –  God on the Rocks,  The Queen of the Tamborine, Old Filth, The Man in the Wooden Hat, and Last Friends.  plus The People of Privilege Hill,  a short story collection (links to my onsite reviews).   Those books are all wonderful, so I was quite pleased when the Bookgroup List selected Faith Fox for their schedule.

*******
Faith Fox
by Jane Gardham
1996  / 384 pages
read by Piers Gibbon
rating: 8 / 20th century lit – English comedy
*******

The narrative opens in Surrey England,  just southwest of London,  with the death of  Holly Fox,  the mother of a newborn baby, who died giving birth.  Everyone is totally aghast and at a loss because  everyone loved Holly. The time setting is the early 1990s.

The quesion is –  who will care for Faith?

There are very few options –  Andrew,  the baby’s father is so busy training to be a hospital doctor so he can’t do it and he can’t find a suitable nanny (he tries).   There’s  Thomasina,  Holly’s widowed mother, but she is too grief stricken to even look at the baby.    Andrew’s parents are old and sickly and live in the northeastern part of England so they obviously can’t do it.  But Jack,  Andrew’s brother is a priest of sorts,  and lives near his parents but he has an assortment of people living at The Priors,  his compound.  There is Jack’s  devoted older housekeeper,   his “wife” and her 11-year old son plus, last but not least,  a group of Tibetans.  That said,  he rather wants Faith for his own reasons.   And there’s Pammie,  the childless, snobbish can-do friend of Thomasina and Holly who  steps in and/or gets called in, but has her own problems.

The plot goes from one little confusion to another and kind of drags a bit in the middle but the ending makes it all worth it.

The characters are finely individualized and wonderfully well developed creatures. The plot is a bit far fetched but amusing in an English comedy sort of way.  The writing is great – perfect for this kind of book.

On a Daily Special from Audible,  I grabbed it because I really was interested in North Korea a couple years ago –  prior to the new foreign relations and other political messes – and read several books.   Although my interest has waned,  this book was different and riveting.  This one is about the lives of fairly average people –  not quite,  but …  in more detail than I’ve read before.

*******
A River in Darkness:  One Man’s Escape from North Korea
by  Masaji Ishikawa  (translated from Japanese)
2018 / 172 pages  (Amazon Crossing – pub.)
read by Brian Nishi  –  5h/54m
rating:   8.5 /  memoir
******* 

Ishikawa writes clearly and with ease – there is a nice tension because although the reader knows he will move with his family to North Korea and then much later succeed in defecting, we don’t know how this transpires.   So the story progresses chronologically.

Ishikawa’s story starts out  in Japan where he lives as the child of a Japanese mother and a Korean father.  This is hard because no one really accepts his Korean heritage and his father can’t seem to stay sober, employed and non-abusive.

Then in 1960 Dad decided a better life could be had in North Korea – there were North Korean promoters in Japan in those days,  encouraging immigration to the paradise of Kim Il Sung,  the new leader there.   The family went.

Dad was better but life was much harder for Mom because now it was her heritage which was oppressed –  and that of their children.  (This idea is explored in the novel Pachinko by Min Jin Lee – link to my review).

Ishikawa goes through his life and the telling rings totally true although the poverty is almost unbelievable.  It generally aligns with other accounts I’ve read of no food and no jobs, families split and the camps.   One new thing here is the corruption of the common people in getting more food for themselves and their families.

There’s very little humor to break the tragic sadness and fear,  but there are life changes,   jobs with promotions and difficulties, help from and troubles with neighbors,  romances, weddings,  children, hunger,  deaths,  work, police,  the stuff of life.   But we know he makes it.

Although most of the action takes place prior to 2000 the epilogue brings the reader up to date – to 1/2018.

https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/2131521/memoir-should-be-standard-work-hell-north-korea

The title is Fascism:  A Warning but the focus is,  as implied,  on Trump.  The book is basically a history of fascism from the days of WWII to our own which includes a tour through various fascist regimes of the 20th century and an introduction to (or a reminder of) their leaders  throughout that time.   It includes background on the the countries and their leaders from Italy’s Mussolini (the first)  to North Korea’s Kimi Jong-un).   The scope of the subtitle,  A Warning,  is the entire world,  but I think the focus is the US under Trump his actions/ inactions and the effect that has on the whole world.

*******
Fascism:  A Warning
by Madeleine Albright
2018 / 289 pages (Kindle) 
read by Madeleine Albright 
rating  9 / history/politics – 
*******

This was simply the next scheduled read at the All-Nonfiction Reading Group  and  I was looking forward to it because it fits in  with the political reading I’ve been doing the last few months.

Albright has written several books since her retirement in 2003,  but I’ve only read one – Madam Secretary (2003),  a memoir.

She has a doctorate with something in political science and is on the academic staff at Georgetown in Eastern European Studies – she was ambassador to the UN from 1993 -1997 and Secretary of State under Bill Clinton from 1997 to 2001 as well as active with other administrations  (Carter and GW Bush).  The history in the book is just what she lived through – with maybe of the end of WWI to establish a context for Hitler.

The epigraph is telling:  

“Every age has its own Fascism”  Primo Levi  

Yeah buddy.

With that Epigraph standing, in its own way,  as an Introduction –  and considering the bulk of the book,   it works quite well.   Albright does however,  use Chapter 1 to more or less outline the scope of the book from a general level.

The first  short chapter “A Doctrine of Anger and Fear,”  provides a wee bit of Albright’s personal background and a longer section dealing with Donald Trump and how he came to office.  Then she relates the genesis of the book.

A couple of quotes:

“What is real Fascism,  and how does one recognize a practitioner?”   

And it’s “fear and anger”  again –

 “To my mind, a Fascist is someone who identifies strongly with and claims to speak for a whole nation or group, is unconcerned with the rights of others, and is willing to use whatever means are necessary—including violence—to achieve his or her goals. In that conception, a Fascist will likely be a tyrant, but a tyrant need not be a Fascist. Often the difference can be seen in who is trusted with the guns.    (KIndle page 11)

And Albright continues from the promise of post-WWI Europe to disillusionment and the spread of of factions springing up in across Europe to witness the fledgling democracies crack under the pressure of social tensions.  Italy was first –

And the next ten short chapters  are basically 20th century history of fascist Europe from the very end of WWI to the end of the Cold War and Bosnia followed by the more recent events in Central and South America –  Venezuela and Nicaragua.

The whole point is the similarities –  that’s what keeps the narrative together.

I was absorbed until maybe Chapter 4 but then,  after WWII throughout the Cold War and beyond,  my interest waned as the histories and fascist leaders of Czechoslovakia and Bosnia and Nicaragua and Venezuela during this time were presented.   In each case Albright points out the fascist nature of their governments and leaders -focusing,  probably on their methods. .  The thing is that most of them have a kind of resonance with our experience with Trump. The history of Turkey  was more interesting, but …

**  In Chapter 12, “Man From the KGB,”  my interest picked up again – way up.  Putin,   I have very strange opinion of Putin – the better part of me completely condemns him – the more aloof part admires him but even with that I have to admit he’s a throwback to the era of the Tzars.

Chapter 13 goes back to Eastern Europe, a bit more of its history but some interesting material on the expansion of NATO and the EU as well as immigration and nationalism.

Chapter 14 is an overview of North Korea,  a subject unto itself.

** And it’s in Chapter 15,  ‘President of the United States,”  where Albright really gets on Trump and his resemblance to the leaders of the past is apparent.  (It’s apparent long before this.)   On the other hand,  not to totally give up hope, she says that she has hope that some of his methods will have positive results.

Chapter 16 goes into three different scenarios which actually “could” happen but aren’t – it’s point is how they came to be.  She hits on the reality of “left wing fascists” here.

Chapter 17 is about getting some awareness of where we actually are – how to figure it out – who a candidate is – how to figure that out.

This book does show me a huge reason Trump voters voted the way they did  –  fear was as much a part of it – maybe even more than anger.   It wasn’t, possibly,  all about what had already happened (anger) so much as what’s going to happen next  (fear);  –  “If you don’t like the way the immigrants situation is now …   And  “If you think the current entitlement state is bad and costly just wait until … ”   etc.

The Russian interference in our elections is not really mentioned here – I think it would be information overload and it’s not really within the actual scope of the book.

Churchill I believe said it – “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”  –  That applies here because the temptation,  on BOTH sides,  is to “clamp down.”

It was on sale and I guess I’m glad I got it and read it,  but it is a bit long for what it offers – it starts out great but gets lost in too many generalities.   Sheryl Sandberg has been  the Chief Operating Officer of Facebook since 2008,  but in 2015,  about two years prior to writing this book,  she was also very happily married and the mother of two young children.   Then her husband, Dave Goldberg,  died suddenly from a brain aneurism.   She went through the grief process in her own way and went on to more success – that’s what the book is about.    She,  together with Adam Grant,  a professor at Wharton,  wrote this book.

*******
OPTION B:  Facing Adversity,  Building Resilience and Finding Joy
by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant
2017/ 214 pages
read by Elise Donovan  6h 14m
rating:  6 / memoir/self-help in bereavement
*******

I’d known and experienced much of the material dealing with loss – although not death of a spouse.  And I’ve reading a lot of books for a long time including Elizabeth Kubler Ross’  On Death and Dying and Joan Didion’s  The Year of Magical Thinking.  I’ve certainly gone through my share of hard knocks.

I haven’t been much on “self-help” books since  the1990s when I read The Care of the Soul:  A Guide For Cultivating Depth And Sacredness In Everyday Life by Thomas Moore and turned to Judaism and Buddhist meditation more actively.   I’ve read a few meditation books since then, but doing it has become more important.

I picked up the book anyway and read it more for the insights I might gather for use in trying to help others than for my own needs –  my situation is relatively stress-free these days,  but you never can tell – life happens.

I noted these quotes:

***  Avoiding feelings is not the same as protecting feelings.   –

*** “How we spend our days is how we spend our lives.”  –   Sandberg gives credit to Annie Dillard.

There’s a big faith component – Sandberg is Jewish and it’s a very real part of her life but she doesn’t buy into a lot of the platitudes.

Also,  after about half way the narrative gets a bit cliched and although the first half focuses on specific bereavement-with-children issues more than any other major life disappointments,  that subject widens in the second half to a lot of different kinds of  unfortunate circumstances.   I don’t feel like it strengthened the overall message,  it more like it diluted it.  And then it gets kind of sappy or overly sentimental – but that’s  just my take on it.

Back to some of my current events and political reading and now,  having finished,  ready for another fiction. lol

Facts and Fears is  authored by a former  Director of National Intelligence and comes by way of  high recommendations from various reviewers.  Clapper was one of those guys who usually slipped under my radar during the time he was in office so it was interesting.   Actually,   this book is very much like that of James Comey,  A Higher Loyalty,  in that it’s a memoir of times and events they were directly involved in,  leading up to the Trump presidency.   But where Comey was working in the FBI,  and fired,  Clapper worked in the military and intelligence and retired shortly after Obama left office.  Their careers spanned several decades and they have a lot to say.

The first couple chapters of Facts and Fears consists of a narrative describing Clapper’s  childhood,  education, marriage and life in the military to today.

*******
Facts and Fears: Hard Truths from a Life in Intelligence
by James R. Clapper and Trey Brown
2018 / 431 pages
read by Mark Bramhail – 18h 43m
rating:  9 / memoir – US intelligence
(read and listened) 
*******

Then there are a couple of relatively boring chapters about the intelligence community’s groups and organization and leaders and a little summation of  how the IC  got to be structured that way.  Clapper presents himself well,  as expected in a memoir,  while owning up to some errors –  he had a lot of difficulties at certain times  –  Chapters 3 and 4,  made a few errors, etc.

But my interested picked way up in Chapter 5 after he started serving under Obama and being hired to working on the Osama bin Laden raid and Benghazi,  etc  The  international events and policy which I remember and am interested in start here  –  the reason I was attracted to this book.   It continues in Chapters 6 with Arab Spring,  Gaddafi, Benghazi,  and so on.   Clapper’s description of what happened on September 11-12th of 2012 is understandable,  thoughtful and insightful.

Clapper covers a lot of issues in depth from his perspective and each one is reported in chronological order.  But it seems he always inserts the wonderful statements he made –  at hearings and so on –  he lauds others though,  lots of others.  It feels like he just wants to explain himself.  It works because he’s rarely defensive;  he just wants to go on record as (whatever).

Clapper apparently does have a habit of writing letters to clarify his comments –  several incidents are referenced in the book.

Chapter 7 covers  the money troubles of 2011 with budget problems which affected intelligence and security agencies.   At some point there is no “fat to trim.”   Then there is the Boston bombing by the Tsarnaev brothers which is tacked on in this chapter for some reason.  The timing maybe – it certainly fits that if not the budget issues so well.

In Chapter 8 he is very hard on Edward Snowden (No Place to Hide – my review)  Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange for their “leaks” about US intelligence and military misdeeds and especially the way Snowden did it – and how he talked about it later – saying Clapper was lying before Congress.    He gets quite defensive here but he’s angry about it all which hit on him personally.   Still,  he acknowledges real errors –  it’s a thoughtful book.

Chapter 9,  Not a Diplomat:   Diplomatic duties and the trip to North Korea to get a couple US prisoners.  North Korea  and Clapper’s surprise trip to fetch two US captives there –

Chapter 10 –  Unpredictable Instability –  This is an amazing chapter –  perhaps especially coming from Clapper –  it’s about the instability of the US and what that could lead to.   This chapter also concerns cyber-security as witnessed by the theft of the Office of Personnel Management in

Chapter 11 – The Election –  background and detail – some new to me including RT (Russia Today – a Russian propaganda machine still alive on YouTube –  Clapper dings Comey.

Re the election of  Trump – page 395:

“Of course the Russian efforts affected the outcome. Surprising even themselves, they swung the election to a Trump win. To conclude otherwise stretches logic, common sense, and credulity to the breaking point. Less than eighty thousand votes in three key states swung the election. I have no doubt that more votes than that were influenced by this massive effort by the Russians.”

Chapter 12 –  Facts and Fears –  the aftermath – from the Trump campaign’s surprise and ignorance  – up to the intelligence report to Obama,  Trump and the Congress and   Clapper was going around saying “It’ll be okay”  but not quite believing it.

He emphasizes how he’s a “Truth to power”  guy.   There are moments of humor or glimpses of personal life which serve as some necessary tension relief.

Obama is not presented as anything like a saint – he gets angry and so on, but he’s generally a kind, considerate, humble, thoughtful guy.

In general –  I knew  about Putin in the Ukraine and  surprised to see him agreeing with some of what Tim Snyder says in The Road to Unfreedom, but some of what he said about Putin in Syria was new.

Definitely worth the read –

I got a bit re-energized about crime novels so I’m continuing to  read them. I picked this one up on the recommendation of a friend.  It wasn’t exactly what I was expecting so it took me awhile to get into it,  but when I did … Wow!

“Genre-ically,”   it’s either fiction backed up with recent and well-researched information,  or it’s nonfiction creatively presented with fictionalized characters and drama –  (I have to call it fiction because in terms of pages used,  it’s more a story with a plot and so on, ,  but…  )

*******
Trafficked
by Peg Brantley
2018 / 368 pages
read by Sandra Murphy  9h 5m
rating:  A+/8   crime-thriller  (fiction and non-) 
*******

It’s the nonfiction part is about the sex traffic industry and its child victims from first set-up and snatch through the torture (nothing graphic) as well as escape and family reunification.

The fictional story line follows the story on a fictionalized and more intimate level,  Three young teenage girls are kidnapped and sold into the sex trade –  Mex Anderson and Kate are hired by their families to help find and get them back- these are not law enforcement people.

We readers kind of know this happens,  but what we likely don’t know is the extent of the crime or the depth of the pain.  We need to know that it’s traumatic, ugly, NOT rare,  even here in the US of A; in Atlanta, Louisiana, L.A, Colorado, all over, wherever there are young girls to be snatched and the internet to make them available to buyers.  This often  involves organized crime, drug cartels and young men who owe a lot of money.  The nonfiction of the book should be far more widely known – even if it is uncomfortable.

Brantley provides the information and sources for the reality of the child sex trade and it’s a good thing in at least two ways:  First,  the information is good to have and 2  it breaks up what could be an intense fictional story – much harder for me to read – with the news-clip realities which are somewhat less graphic.  And the book is very specific but never graphic in the way pornography is.

I’m not sure if the realities bring the story to life or the fiction brings the realities to life;  it’s that good no matter which way you read it (or both).

The plot line itself follows different threads  – first there are the stories of three unrelated teen girls who are of different ages, backgrounds,  skin tones –  Coming from a family of wealth,  the 17-year old Alexis is more mature and has an attitude of privilege.  Jayla is Black, age 15, smart and  ambitious with dreams to get out of her poor background.   Finally there’s Olivia,  age 12 and emotionally needy.   These girls have to deal with other girls in the same situation as well as the men involved – mostly snatchers and pimps.

And there is the story of the private detectives, including Mex Anderson,  on the hunt  for the daughter of wealthy parents,  who,  along with Kate, his assistant and romantic interest,  and Darius their computer guy and all round helper.

And then there is the information,  a thread in itself after awhile,  from many sources.    I’m almost reminded of Robert Bolaño’s 2666 with less literary involvement (Bolaño is a poet)  and the addition of fictionalized women characters – the info is very similar in some ways,  from news clippings and reports. .

Early on I almost preferred the information sections,  but as the story progressed the pieces of the fiction grabbed me as they turned into a page-turning thriller.

The narrator doesn’t do justice to the narrative –  she has a bit of a little girl’s voice and it doesn’t quite suit the cops, pimps and drug lords  she portrays but I got used to it and it worked.