Thank you, NetGalley, for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Born to Be Hanged: The Epic Story of the GentlemThank you, NetGalley, for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Born to Be Hanged: The Epic Story of the Gentlemen Pirates Who Raided the South Seas, Rescued a Princess, and Stole a Fortune is a stranger-than-fiction tale of a motley group of buccaneers who sailed into the unknown, got rich, made lots of trouble and, for the most part, got away with it. The book's light tone allows the reader to overlook how truly terrible most of these men were--there's plenty of thieving, murder, assault, and enslavement to go around--as their journey gets continually more outlandish. Whether or not the prose holds your interest will depend on the reader. I often found it easy to get distracted and difficult to keep the people and places straight, but I can also see how others will be captivated by what Born to Be Hanged has to offer. For the rest of us, we can look forward to the inevitable movie adaptation sure to light up our screens at some point down the line....more
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24 Hours in Ancient Egypt: A Day in the LifThank you, NetGalley, for providing me with a free copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.
24 Hours in Ancient Egypt: A Day in the Life of the People Who Lived There provides an engaging look into twenty-four different roles and professions prominent in ancient Egypt, including potters and homemakers, guardsmen and exotic dancers, kings and queens, farmers and prisoners, embalmers and graverobbers. The chapters are divided by the hour of the day, and Donald P. Ryan goes above the standard of most histories by creating fictional backstories for the characters, many of which intertwine with one another. 24 Hours in Ancient Egypt can drag at times, and how interesting one finds each chapter will vary based on the readers' interests. Nevertheless, I learned a great deal of new information from this one audiobook, and it left me interested in studying the ancient Egyptians further....more
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From the moment I tuned in to Elektra, IThank you, NetGalley, for gifting me with a free audiobook copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
From the moment I tuned in to Elektra, I was instantly captivated. Jennifer Saint's Greek retelling follows three women whose lives are upturned by the Trojan War: Cassandra, the seer cursed to never be believed; Clytemnestra, wife of Agamemnon (who the book would probably have been named after if she didn't have such a difficult name); and the eponymous Elektra, Clytemnestra and Agamemnon's youngest daughter. In the tradition of an epic, Elektra spans several decades, beginning when Clytemnestra is a young woman about to be married and ending years after her death. The novel takes on a dreamy tone as it sails through time and space, creating an atmosphere perfect for an entrancing read.
Cassandra and Clytemnestra are both phenomenal characters, with the former acting as our window into a besieged Troy. In this retelling, Cassandra's curse is a punishment from Apollo after she refuses his advances. Contempt for women is a recurring motif in this story, but it's handled well enough that it never takes the reader out of the story. We see Cassandra agonize over her visions while gaining insight into fabled characters such as Cassandra's parents, King Priam and Queen Hecabe, her brothers Hector and Paris, and Helen, Clytemnestra's sister and the woman who, along with her lover Paris, helped trigger the decade-long war. Helen is one of the few people who is kind to Cassandra and does not believe that she is mad, but we never get to know her as well as the other women. She agrees to marry the Spartan king because she does not wish to leave her home, but is then willing to abandon her family for Paris. When she is finally asked directly whether she chose to leave with him or not, she prevaricates by claiming the Greeks would have found a reason to wage war on Troy without her. Maybe it's true, but it also comes across as a way for the author to avoid having to reconcile Helen's decisions with the way she is characterized here.
Clytemnestra is the true protagonist of our story, and she is one of the most well-written characters I've read in ages. Devastated when Agamemnon slays their eldest daughter as a sacrifice for fair winds on the voyage to Troy, Clytemnestra vows revenge on her husband, determined to avenge their daughter. Even in the depths of her rage, Clytemnestra is an exceptionally empathetic woman, finding herself unable to hate Helen for what she did, commiserating with King Priam after Hector's death, earning the loyalty of slaves, and even expressing anger on behalf of Briseis, the woman Agamemnon took as prize of war. Briseis is not the only one of Agamemnon's slaves to earn Clytemnestra's pity: in this version, Clytemnestra kills Cassandra out of mercy, freeing the seer from her agony at last. The only person Clytemnestra can't forgive is her husband.
Yet this book falls short of a full five stars due to one glaring issue: Elektra herself. Saint is able to humanize the other women in the cast, but she never quite manages to make sense of titular character. Elektra easily shrugs off her sister's murder, never believing that her father would think to harm her as well. She idolizes Agamemnon, whom she has not seen since she was a young child, and will not hear a word against him. When Clytemnestra expresses empathy for Briseis, Elektra is furious that her mother would dare question his right to conquest. She sees Cassandra arrive home with her father and thinks that Cassandra must feel honored to be a king's bed slave. She convinces her brother to murder their mother, and never experiences a moment's remorse, believing that she has finally avenged her father--a man who, again, Elektra has not seen in a decade and was too young to have truly known. Is Elektra supposed to be delusional? Perhaps, but after establishing that Agamemnon's line has been cursed by violence and vengeance, there is little indication that Elektra was wrong to continue the cycle of revenge, or that--much like her mother--she may be the next victim. Elektra was a difficult character to understand or connect with, and some of her later decisions--most notably how she uses and discards her lifelong best friend-turned-husband--make her hard to even like.
Even if the book's namesake fell flat, Elektra is still one of the best fiction books I've read during the last few years. I would recommend it to anyone who loves Greek mythology, or just anyone who simply enjoys complex, introspective characters....more
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Across the Desert follows Jolene, an impoverishedThank you, NetGalley, for granting me a free copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.
Across the Desert follows Jolene, an impoverished 12-year-old from Phoenix with a love for cartography and a stressful home life, as she embarks on a mission to rescue her online friend, Addy, after Addy crashes her ultralight plane in the desert during a livestream--a livestream that only Jolene has seen. Author Dusti Bowling does a good job of establishing why a preteen is tasked with finding a missing person: Jolene's mother is an opioid addict, the police can't file a report for Addy since Jolene doesn't know her last name, the librarian doesn't understand modern technology, and the impermanence of a livestream prevents Jolene from showing it to anyone else. At times, Jolene's journey feels a bit too drawn out and ill-fortuned (with enough focus on her dwindling water supply to make anyone thirsty), but the build-up is paid off during the last quarter of the book.
Like most adventure stories, Jolene picks up a new companion along the way. Marty, a spunky high-schooler that Jolene meets by chance at the bus stop, takes on the role of a surrogate big sister for Jolene, even as Jolene repeatedly refuses her help. Although Across the Desert embraces modern technology and concerns (namely the opioid epidemic), the story has a certain quaintness that is reminiscent of children's books from the late-20th Century. When Jolene meets Marty, she's about to board a bus to visit her grandfather who lives alone in a trailer park. The two befriend a waitress at a kitschy diner. Jolene is introduced to us as she walks to the library on a hot summer day. When Marty joins Jolene on her desert trek, she uses an old salsa jar for water, since she couldn't find a water bottle. And there are the country music names, which I can only assume were intentional--Jolene, Marty (whose real name is Martina), a pilot named Joanie Cash.
At times, Across the Desert feels like it's juggling too much at once, particularly once Jolene's mother's addiction takes center stage. The narrative takes a slightly preachy tone here, but it is luckily salvaged by the characters' relationships with each other. The bond between Jolene, Marty, and Addy is the highlight of the story, as the girls learn to lean on each other in ways both big and small. By the story's end, both Jolene and the reader are left with a sense of hope--things still aren't perfect, no, but they can and will get better. ...more
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Welp, looks like I'm the killjoy today.
A History of ToThank you, NetGalley, for granting me a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Welp, looks like I'm the killjoy today.
A History of Touch is a gory, grimy, bitter poetry collection about the horrors of motherhood, misogyny, and mistreated women. Rife with motifs of breasts, nursing, and hair torn from the scalp, most of the poems focus on the numerous miseries that women have faced throughout history on behalf of men and the burdens placed on them by nature. The anger found in these pages will surely appeal to some readers (judging by the other reviews, it certainly has), but for me it was all too violent, too caustic, and, frankly, too gross. ...more
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A.A. Milne's children's tale, Winnie-the-Pooh, haThank you, NetGalley, for granting me a free copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.
A.A. Milne's children's tale, Winnie-the-Pooh, has been a classic since it was first published almost a century ago, and now after having finally read it, I can fully understand why. This is a delightfully quirky, creative, and clever story, capable of making full-grown adults laugh out loud. And while the narrator can be a bit over-the-top, there's no denying that his spirited performance adds to the fun. No matter what your age, there's something of value here for everyone....more
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If I needed to pick one word to describe MThank you, NetGalley, for providing me with a free copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.
If I needed to pick one word to describe Misha Collins' poetry collection, Some Things I Still Can't Tell You, it might be "mushy." Another might be "dull." Collins does have a certain kind of talent--his poems flow easily, and he is adept at catching the ambiance of each scene--but their focus on the mundane, combined with a stream-of-consciousness format, is hardly memorable. The most profound moment is reserved for the Acknowledgements, when Collins reveals that he and his wife of thirty years, who so many of these sentimental poems are written about, have now separated, casting a depressing if poetically tragic (no pun intended) pall over the rest of the book. I can appreciate Collins' departure from the buzz-phrase style of many modern day poets, but without a bit more wit, Some Things I Still Can't Tell You fails to stand out. ...more
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Break Your Glass Slippers is the fiThank you, NetGalley, for providing me with a free audiobook edition of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Break Your Glass Slippers is the first entry in Amanda Lovelace's You Are Your Own Fairy Tale trilogy, and is also my least favorite (through happenstance, I ended up reading the trilogy in reverse order). It certainly is the least original, riddled with clichés about body positivity, toxic males, and girlbossery. (At one point, Lovelace even starts referencing memes). I have read enough of her work to know that Lovelace does possess real talent (particularly in this series' final installment, Unlock Your Storybook Heart), but here wit is instead replaced with lectures about feminism and privilege.
If there is one thing I must credit Lovelace for, it's that she always tries to deliver a positive message, even when sifting through a quagmire of family and relationship drama. But the themes presented here have been done so many times now that, without taking on a new position or approaching the subject from a different perspective, it becomes just another brick in the pile of forgettable soundbites....more
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This Vicious Grace is a mixed bag. The concept isThank you, NetGalley, for granting me a free copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.
This Vicious Grace is a mixed bag. The concept is interesting, the prose is strong, and the main protagonist is likable enough to root for as she faces the wrath of gods and villagers. On the other hand, the slow pace begins to drag as the story wears on, and the love story is exactly what you would expect from this genre, with the love interest being such an archetypal Brooding YA Hero that his picture could be used to headline the Wikipedia page. I enjoyed the few spare moments we got with the supporting cast of characters, although all are relegated to the background--with the exception of one character who becomes very likable after his personality unexpectedly does a complete 180 halfway through the story--and I would have liked to see more of their powers in action. The final conflict is not terribly exciting, although it takes a much more interesting turn at the very end.
And yet, for all my ambivalence, I still found myself eager to find out what happens in the next installment. All things considered, The Vicious Grace has promised, and I hope to see it cultivated as the series continues....more
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Daniel Stashower's American Demon: Eliot NeThank you, NetGalley, for providing me with a free copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.
Daniel Stashower's American Demon: Eliot Ness and the Hunt for America's Jack the Ripper details the brutal yet oft-forgotten Cleveland Torso Murders and the Safety Director whose career was haunted by them. Ness, the wunderkind who gained national fame for the key role he played in bringing down Al Capone, had the drive and vigor that would put the Energizer Bunny to shame: a relentless workaholic by day and partyboy by night, Ness came to Cleveland vowing to rid the city of corruption and quickly gained respect for delivering on his promise. Yet Ness' near-impeccable record was clouded by a string of at least a dozen gruesome murders, committed in the 1930s by a serial killer in a time when the concept did not yet exist, and who always appeared to be three steps ahead of the police. Although two prime suspects were eventually put forward--one whom modern detectives believe was likely the killer--the murders were never officially solved.
American Demon does a fine job of recounting the cold case, but the finished product is a bit underwhelming. Was Ness' career and psyche really undermined by the Torso Murders, or was that more the result of his own personality and decisions? (As one contemporary notes, Ness peaked young). And for a case where nearly every victim remains unidentified, more focus could have been given to them rather than to the investigators who may have been driven to solve the case as much by politics as by a desire for justice. Ultimately, Ness feels too detached from his own story--a mysterious protagonist rather than an impassioned human that the audience can connect with--to give American Demon enough of a pulse....more
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Much like Amanda Lovelace's other poetThank you, NetGalley, for providing me with a free audiobook copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Much like Amanda Lovelace's other poetry collections, Shine Your Icy Crown uses fairy tale elements to explore personal and social issues. The two are tied together through a family metaphor--when Lovelace speaks of a brother who gets away with everything, she could be referring to a real brother or to men in general; when she expresses how she feels estranged and unappreciated by her parents, she could be speaking literally, or she may be talking about society at large. Most important is "big sister," who acts as a guiding star throughout the tale, giving confidence to the speaker when she's at her lowest. Perhaps Lovelace is speaking of her own sister, but it could just as easily be a reference to other women, specifically older generations.
Lovelace is not without talent, and she manages to steer her work towards themes of strength more often than negativity, but Shine Your Icy Crown falls short on originality. It is riddled with tired clichés and ruminations on feminism and gender roles, including I-don't-need-no-man affirmations (such as when she says that she doesn't have time to make a man a sandwich because she's "busy saving the world"), girl bossery (the story ends with her telling her haters to "bow down") or the use of phrases like "patriarchy" and "slut-shaming" (seriously, poets, try to be a bit more poetic). This rhetoric eventually crosses the border from impassioned to preachy, and if there's one thing that we didn't come here to read, it's a sermon. Having previously read Unlock Your Storybook Heart, the final entry in the trilogy (through happenstance, I ended up reading them in reverse order), I would argue that Lovelace's work is best when it's at its most intimate. The wider the berth, the less compelling it becomes. ...more
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This is a challenging review to write. PartiallyThank you, NetGalley, for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
This is a challenging review to write. Partially because I have so many thoughts about what I read, and partially because most of those thoughts are very critical. As someone who grew up listening to country music and considers Kacey Musgraves and Maren Morris to be two of my favorite singers, I wanted to like this book a lot more than I ultimately did. It’s hard to write a negative review when so much of the response is overwhelmingly positive, but I still want to be honest. As the author herself points out time and again, honesty is part of what makes country music great.
But first, the positives. Her Country is at its strongest when it lets its protagonists—mainly Kacey, Maren, and Mickey Guyton—speak for themselves. Most of the women here come across as likable and interesting people when left to their own devices, and I enjoyed learning about their childhoods, career paths, and creative processes. Author Marissa Moss details the sexism and double standards prevalent within the music industry, while also reminding the audience of just how female-forward country music has been in the past. Radio play for female country artists is at a critical low, and I vividly remember a years-long period of time when the only women whose voices you’d hear were Carrie Underwood, Taylor Swift, and occasionally Miranda Lambert. At the same time, country had periods where it was the most feminine genre in the industry, particularly during the 90s, and Moss never fails to recount the many women who found success on the country airwaves for the better part of the 20th Century. She also speaks about the role empathy plays in country music, and why it’s what makes the genre so compelling. The best parts of the book were when the curtain was pulled back on the songwriting process, and we were shown the many partnerships and inspirations behind singles both iconic and overlooked. As a New Yorker, I especially appreciated how Moss took the time to shine a light on the huge yet little-known country music fan base in my state.
There are technical issues in Her Country, especially towards the beginning. Moss spends a lot of time making lists, describing every detail of what concert goers are wearing or what a particular artist listened to growing up. There’s also a great deal of repetition, with many stories being dug up again and again (the blacklisting of the Dixie Chicks, Tomatogate, etc). A lot of the language is crafted to appeal to the Twitter crowd more so than the average reader, such as her use of the word “Latinx” (a term that polling has shown to be overwhelmingly unpopular among Hispanics). I often found myself questioning who this book’s target audience was—certainly not traditional country fans, at the very least. Then I realized that Her Country was probably intended for someone like me: a twenty-something woman from a blue state who loves many of the women profiled here. But as much as I enjoyed learning more about the stars of this book, there were other, more worrisome aspects of Her Country that got in the way of its strengths, and illuminated the cultural divide within this country more than they bridged it.
There are numerous times in this work when details are twisted or omitted to fit a particular narrative. Moss claims that Taylor Swift was eventually demonized as a public figure, which she argues is par for the course in country music, yet she fails to mention that Taylor’s short-lived downfall happened several years after she officially departed country music for pop, and concerned a feud between her, a rapper, and a reality TV star. She points out the double standards in Leann Rimes’ and Jason Aldean’s respective cheating scandals—her career was ruined, his remains untouched—but doesn’t take note of Miranda Lambert’s numerous affairs with married men, which also did little to damage her career. George W. Bush is panned for not supporting gay marriage when he was president, even though most politicians at the time were against it, including Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Singers like Maren and Taylor are praised for embracing their creativity by going pop, but the unspoken truth that pop music also tends to pay better is just that—unspoken.
The most egregious example is the blacklisting of the Dixie Chicks (now just “The Chicks”), who were met with outrage after they publicly criticized Bush and the Iraq War. There’s no denying that the Chicks were unfairly treated, but in all the pages Moss dedicates to the scandal, there’s no reflection about why their stance garnered so much controversy besides sexism. Moss never considers how the collective trauma of the most brutal attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor stoked the public’s response, or that the enormity of this catastrophe is was prompted such extreme reactions (despite all her remarks about how country singers are told to just “shut up and sing,” none have ever faced this magnitude of backlash when they spoke about other contested issues, which lends credence to the uniqueness of this situation). Nor does she factor in the role of xenophobia—though Moss includes one throwaway line about how “some people” were upset that the Chicks spoke against the president on foreign soil, she does not consider how strong anti-American sentiment was in Europe during the War on Terror (which was profound enough that European scholars have written entire theses about it), thus adding insult to injury. Here, in a book published twenty years after the fact, is the perfect opportunity for this kind of reconsideration. But there’s none of that; instead, it’s simplified as a character assassination by ignorant rednecks.
Which brings us to the second issue: Her County is the ultimate liberal good/conservative bad story. What makes the women of this book exceptional—and therefore worthy of mainstream attention—is their rejection of traditionalism and embrace of what country considers taboo. They’re not like those rednecks, see? They’re good liberals like us, just with a twang! I agree that inclusion and the acceptance of marginalized groups is undoubtedly a good thing, but the sentiment runs deeper than that. By claiming that artists like Kacey and Maren are the “true” artists of country music and the inevitable future of the genre, unlike those bros in trucks or crooners who sing about why they love their hometowns, Moss promotes the belief that conservatism is inherently wrong and that conservatives shouldn’t have any cultural influence or spaces of their own. Bush and Trump are both skewered, while Mickey’s chance to perform for the Obamas and Maren’s fundraising for Biden are considered, respectively, an incredible honor and a sign of integrity. Almost every male country singer mentioned is written off for one perceived flaw or another, with the exception of the very-publicly liberal Jason Isbell, who is showered with praise multiple times throughout the book. This goes without further explanation or justification because Her Country is written with the assumption that the audience already shares these beliefs. Moss even praises Kacey for “evolving” politically, unlike the simpletons who were “unable to.” Conservative singers are corporate, uninteresting, and cheap, while liberal ones are the only hope to save the genre. Country music is one of the few cultural areas where conservatives have any real influence, but even that is too much to permit.
But while Her Country explores the hurdles faced by marginalized groups in the industry and in society at large, it completely overlooks the role of wealth and class. In addition to learning about Kacey, Maren, and Miranda’s childhood talent and ambition, we also learn about their privileged upbringings—all had families that supported their dreams from the time they were old enough to sing and devoted the girls’ formative years to building their careers, booking gigs, and getting them record deals. Moss focuses on how hardworking and determined they are, but not their material advantages. Perhaps no singer emulates this better than Taylor Swift, who is portrayed as a victim when “critics” panned one of her massively successful and critically acclaimed albums (no mention of who these critics were though), and is applauded for having the self-possession as a teenager to turn down a record deal where she wouldn’t be given full control of her music. What Moss doesn’t mention is that Taylor grew up in a mansion and that her father was a shareholder at the record label she eventually signed with.
And herein lies the issue at the heart of Moss’ argument that singers shouldn’t be told to just “shut up and sing.” Country singers make millions of dollars pretending to be poor. They write songs about life on the farm and struggling to make ends meet from penthouses in Nashville and palatial estates in Georgia. People who actually face these predicaments in real life let them do it—and get rich off of their pain—in exchange for entertainment. What they didn’t sign up for is for these same people to practice what journalist Michael Lind calls “celebrity imperialism”: a moralizing from the rich and famous about how the working class should be as ethically pure as them. Maren Morris can sing about defunding the police (and she has), but she does so from her gated community guarded by private security. She’s not one of the tens of millions of people who would suffer from these policies. (If you want to know what crime is like for regular people, well, take a look at New York). Kacey Musgraves can tweet about how racist and awful her fellow Americans are (and she has), but she’s doing it from an iPhone that some of those same people paid for. No, country singers don’t have to shut up and sing. They don’t owe us anything beyond what they sell to consumers. But you can’t begrudge people for not wanting to be preached to by the same people who capitalize on their suffering.*
I love both Maren and Kacey’s work and hope they continue to put out great music. I hope Mickey’s career takes off. Maybe Her Country will bring in some new fans who are currently unfamiliar with these talented women, but I doubt it will do much to win over fans of mainstream country music. Her Country simply misses the mark too many times.
*In fairness to Maren, she recently put out an album/song called “Humble Quest” which seems to indicate that she’s aware of this dynamic....more
Thank you, NetGalley, for providing me with a free ARC of this poetry collection in exchange for an honest review.
Having previously read Amanda LovelaThank you, NetGalley, for providing me with a free ARC of this poetry collection in exchange for an honest review.
Having previously read Amanda Lovelace's Women are Some Kind of Magic trilogy, I found Unlock Your Storybook Heart to be surprisingly pleasant and uplifting in comparison. I have yet to read the first two installments in this new trilogy, but as Lovelace herself notes in the preface, this is the type of series that can easily be read out of order. Using the motif "her books say," Lovelace crafts bite-sized poems that tie the ordinary to the fantastical, exploring topics such as the loss of a parent, self-worth, mental health, Sapphic love, family, and domestic bliss. The prose is largely unpretentious, although there are some exceptions (much like how the term "rape culture" has yet to be used successfully in a poem, "heteronormativity" remains equally as elusive). As a finishing touch, the poems are accompanied by simple illustrations that amplify their sense of coziness. It's a rare thing to find a poetry collection that explores joy more than it does misery, and I am glad to have read one of the few that does....more
Well, that was. . . something, I guess. The Temptation is the final (as of now) Secret Circle book, penned by a ghost writer under the name of L.J. SmWell, that was. . . something, I guess. The Temptation is the final (as of now) Secret Circle book, penned by a ghost writer under the name of L.J. Smith. It is extremely fast-paced, to the point where it reads more like a summary of a story than a story itself. There are some interesting concepts here, such as the resurrection of a line of power-hungry witch ancestors connected to the Black Death (note: this was written long before COVID-19), but none are given any room to breathe and percolate. Worst of all is the repetitiveness of our heroine, Cassie's, mistakes. If insanity is the act of doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome, then Cassie is in serious need of psychiatric evaluation, since she has spent the last three books continually trusting her half-sister, Scarlett, only to then be betrayed by her yet again (until the plot requires her not to be, that is).
The last fifth or so of this book is more intriguing than the rest, but even then, the resolution is rushed and lacks any emotional punch. Normally with a book like The Temptation, I'd say that the ideas are solid, it only needed a stronger writer. But in this case, the story could have been infinitely better with one writer in particular: the original author, L.J. Smith....more
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Jefferson Morley’s Scorpions’ Dance: The PresidenThank you, NetGalley, for granting me a free copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.
Jefferson Morley’s Scorpions’ Dance: The President, the Spymaster, and Watergate is a real-life Cold War thriller, filled with schemes, conspiracies, political scandals, and cold cases. Ostensibly centered around Watergate, this is a tale that goes much deeper than the corrupt yet tragic figure of Richard Nixon. Charting the CIA’s newfound power in the postwar era, and their contentious relationship with the White House, Morley does not shy away from exploring conspiracies, nor is he so inclined as to try to debunk them. He does not challenge the claim that JFK won the 1960 presidential election in part because of his family’s mob ties in Chicago (a claim that more and more historians have come to accept over time), but he also declines to exonerate the CIA from any potential role they may have played in Kennedy’s assassination (a conspiracy that remains controversial to this day). Here we’re shown a symbiotic relationship between the CIA and the presidency, with the two being forced to work together while also seeking to undermine each other through spying and blackmail. Along the way, Scorpions’ Dance exposes a legacy of war, political assassinations, and lies that would put any espionage novel to shame. ...more
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Written by an earnest and enthusiastic CanadianThank you, NetGalley, for providing me with a free copy of this ebook in exchange for an honest review.
Written by an earnest and enthusiastic Canadian author, Return of the Artisan: How America Went from Industrial to Handmade charts Americans' slow-moving embrace of small businesses, entrepreneurship, and homemade products. Beginning in the 1960s and receiving a huge boost during the COVID-19 pandemic, Grant McCracken's short, wide-spreading examination of the artisan revolution is more of a cultural analysis than an economic one, and focuses on the many different avenues artisanry has taken--Etsy, family farms, restaurants, craft sales, side gigs--along with the contributing factors that have allowed it to flourish--health consciousness, technology, economic crises, the fading relevance of "coolness" and brand recognition. Modern artisanry is as wide-reaching as it is contradictory, with an emphasis on both the creative and liberal, as well as the conservative and traditional.
The subtitle perhaps places a bit too much emphasis on just how much artisanry has challenged industrialization, and McCracken does grudgingly admit that most artisans still struggle to make ends meet on one job alone. The wide scope of the book can be a bit scatter-brained at times, and by championing the cultural over the practical, McCracken does leave some questions unanswered, such as how regular people can support artisans if their prices are so exorbitant, and whether an artisan market can ever hope to compete with a corporate one. Nevertheless, Return of the Artisan shines a light on all the ways creativity has blossomed in our society, and it provides an optimistic contrast to the negativity served by most commentators today. ...more
Thank you, NetGalley, for providing me with a free digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Politics is an unpredictable field, and Thank you, NetGalley, for providing me with a free digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Politics is an unpredictable field, and when the unexpected strikes, adjustments have to be made—which sometimes means tossing whatever speech was originally planned for that day into the trash bin. The context of a discarded speech, and why it was set aside in the first place, is at the heart of Undelivered: The Never-Heard Speeches That Would Have Rewritten History. Written by professional speechwriter Jeff Nussbaum, Undelivered unearths more than a dozen planned speeches that would have radically altered the course of history. Whether they were reactive (such as Eisenhower’s apology for the failure of D-Day or Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential victory speech), or proactive (such as New York City Mayor Beame’s decision to declare bankruptcy in 1975, or Boston Mayor White’s refusal to continue busing a year earlier), each speech is evaluated based on the headspace of the politician and their speechwriters at the time, and the events that led them to put aside their planned remarks.
In a lot of ways, Undelivered is the best English lesson you never received in school. Nussbaum succinctly explains why certain speeches land and others don’t, with brief lessons on pathos/logos/ethos, the passive voice, dog whistles, and why apologies sometimes just make the audience angrier. (Not to mention the importance of soundbites, which are cleverly emphasized by the short excerpts from undelivered speeches at the beginning of each chapter). If there’s any drawback to this, it is only that the speechwriting lessons can at times distract from the speeches themselves.
Nussbaum does a fair job of avoiding modern politics, but there are a few unfortunate exceptions. He crams in an obligatory lecture on the evils of Donald Trump in the book’s conclusion (I’m guessing the publisher is to blame for this), and no one born after Kennedy’s assassination should still be showering the 35th president with so much uncritical praise. Nevertheless, Undelivered is a treasure trove of little-known documents and history lessons, and will prove a valuable resource for both readers and teachers (history and English) alike....more
Thank you, NetGalley, for granting me a free copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.
"There's nothing more useless than a dead liberalThank you, NetGalley, for granting me a free copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.
"There's nothing more useless than a dead liberal." ~ Lyndon B. Johnson
What It Took to Win: A History of the Democratic Party traces the history of the self-declared "people's party" from the early years of Andrew Jackson all the way up to the election of Joe Biden. Kazin is surprisingly fair in his assessment of the party, refusing to shy away from the Democrats' long association with slavery and white supremacy, while also applauding their twentieth-century pursuit of civil and equal rights. He covers Jackson's influence at length before delving into Wilson's mixed legacy, FDR's triumphs, the realignment under LBJ, Jimmy Carter's short, befuddled tenure as Commander-in-Chief, and the ongoing debate over just how progressive Obama really was. (What It Took to Win is noticeably light on the Clintons, both Bill and Hillary, possibly because of their growing unpopularity in the post-MeToo world). There is an obligatory anti-Trump declaration towards the end, but Kazin is able to stay on track, preferring to discuss the Democrats rather than indulge in the national Trump obsession.
But while What It Took to Win is fair, it's also fairly boring. There are a few paragraphs about how the party needs to unify to remain victorious, and how they cannot continue to be the people's party without the support of the working class, but otherwise, this book lacks much of a thesis. It's merely an overview of the party's history, without the argument that makes a persuasive work or the little-known secrets of a scandalous tell-all. What It Took to Win will undoubtedly be a valuable resource for research, but it's less compelling as recreational reading....more
I had first discovered P.J. O'Rourke when I read (or listened to in this case, as it was an audiobook) his commentary on the 2016 election, How the HeI had first discovered P.J. O'Rourke when I read (or listened to in this case, as it was an audiobook) his commentary on the 2016 election, How the Hell Did This Happen? and found it funny and insightful. Sadly, I cannot say the same for A Cry from the Far Middle, which bills itself as a reflection on the partisan hellhole we've fallen down, but more often than not veers into old-man-yells-at-cloud territory. The few laughs I got out of this book did not make up for the drudgery that was O'Rourke's commentary on kids these days, and I can only hope that his next work will be a bit more inventive....more
Not a great year for me in terms of number of books read. That said, I get the impression that I read more nonfiction than most people on Goodreads, sNot a great year for me in terms of number of books read. That said, I get the impression that I read more nonfiction than most people on Goodreads, so here are my top 10 favorite nonfiction books read in 2021:
1. Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit by John Douglas 2. The New Right: A Journey to the Fringe of American Politics by Michael Malice 3. Lucky: How Joe Biden Barely Won the Presidency by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes 4. Darkest Hour: How Churchill Brought England Back from the Brink by Anthony McCarten 5. Playing with Fire: The 1968 Election and the Transformation of American Politics by Lawrence O'Donnell 6. The New Class War: Saving Democracy from the Managerial Elite by Michael Lind 7. The Killer Across the Table by John Douglas 8. Taking Paris: The Epic Battle for the City of Lights by Martin Dugard 9. The Red and the Blue: The 1990s and the Birth of Political Tribalism by Steve Kornacki 10. Boomers: The Men and Women Who Promised Freedom and Delivered Disaster by Helen Andrews ...more
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