With A Big Thanks to Libraries: 2025 Edition
It’s an annual tradition! I truly love to read. Every book that I read, though, is not blogged. More than a few are simply read and enjoyed; some are worthy of notes without a full post. That latter group, “briefly noted,” is in the post below.
Keep reading!
Laura Gray-Rosendale’s memoir, College Girl, is a haunting exploration of trauma. Gray-Rosendale is a fearless writer. She also is an extremely successful academic, an honored professor of English at Northern Arizona University, and a feminist scholar and activist. In 1988, as a junior at Syracuse University, she was brutally raped and beaten by an intruder into her apartment. A flat mate called the policy and the attacker was caught. College Girl examines the attack, Gray-Rosendale’s short and longer-term responses to it, and her later re-examination and re-connection with the friends and colleagues that helped her through the ordeal. The writing is powerful and raw, and in many ways, awful – for there is no real justice (the rapist got off relatively easy; the university and police were not supportive), and as the author admits, there is no real “knowing.” What can one say, think or do in the face of trauma like this? Nonetheless, Gray-Rosendale confronts it, works through and fights on. She helps us understand trauma and how its damage can radiate and remain.
Gothic comes in many shapes and sizes, almost all of them interesting. T. Kingfisher’s A House With Good Bones is a contemporary gothic novel, a horror story with a strong streak of fantasy. The book’s true author is Ursula Vernon, a prolific writer across ages and genres. Much of what carries A House is the strong voice of the narrator, an engaging and idiosyncratic character who shares many similarities with Vernon. The plot is familiar: a troubled house, changes in those that we know and love, and the eventual discovery of a long-ago unresolved trauma, often caused by real evil. There is much to enjoy in this book, just not a ton that will stick with you for the long term.
George Lakoff‘s The Political Mind confused me. He’s a linguist cognitive scientist (emeritus) at UC Berkeley, with a lengthy and successful career. The focus of his research are “conceptual metaphors,” a way that he believes we make sense of complicated issues. In 2008 he penned this short book, one of many that he has written, for the popular press. In it he explains how cognitive science, especially brain studies, explains the difference between liberals and conservatives. His political categories – and his perspective – is very much about advancing a liberal agenda. That colors his data, his language, his categories and the coherence of his arguments. Lakoff’s willingness to jump into arguments with broad, unsubstantiated assertions in support of his categories, undermine the effectiveness of the project. His calls for a “new enlightenment” and ways of thinking made little sense. Overall, this book is an ambitious swing and miss.
When I have taught American foreign policy in the twentieth century, the US’s sponsorship of a coup in Iran in 1953 often figures prominently. Sold to President Eisenhower as an anticommunist effort, the underlying issues were more about self-determination and the painful legacy of colonialism. Stephen Kinzer’s All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror is a super popular history of the event. Kinzer is a journalist with several strong books (Bitter Fruit is fantastic) and he knows how to research and tell a story. This history of indifference, arrogance, luck and contingency highlights the power of consequences – intended and unintended. Much of the world is still paying the cost. Super read and if I ever teach the subject again, a good counterpoint to Roosevelt’s history.
Lincoln H. Day was a sociologist, environmentalist, activist and educator. Along with his wife Alice, he wrote and researched many works. The Future of Low-Birthrate Populations, written in 1995, sketches out the key factors facing the world as populations shift. The book underscores the difficulty of population forecasting – a challenge Day readily admits – while simultaneously picking up the key factors and questions that need to shape demographic forecasting. While much has changed in the past 30 years, many of Day’s concerns remain critical. He is very strong on economic, environment and basic quality of life questions. This dated book retains merit.
Ann Morrow Lindbergh, the wife of the famous aviator Charles, was a most interesting woman. Born into a wealthy and accomplished family, she was a senior at Smith College when she married. Ann led a public life, from the wedding to the kidnapping of her first child, to her flying and aviation. Through it all, she wrote, fiction and non-fiction. Criticized before WWII for her conciliatory views, after the war Ann’s poetry and other works rehabilitated the Lindbergh’s image. Her Gift From the Sea was one of the most popular books of the 1950s. Carefully crafted and a reflection on modern life – especially the lives of women – it is both philosophical, sociological and deeply personal. Lindbergh both embraces and rails against the ties that ground her life and give it meaning. Modern and anti-modern, Gift is a small gem of a work.
Some folks love to read mysteries. Others avoid them. I rarely gravitate to the mystery section of the book shop or library, but when I’m given a recommendation and a book, I dig in. A good mystery is engaging, exciting and entertaining. On that theme, I’m most grateful for being given Ann Cleeves’ Raven Black. Cleeves is an extremely strong crime writer. She knows pacing, structure, where and how to bury clues, and truly appreciates process, which drives prose, plot and suspense. This book, set in Shetland off the coast of Scotland, takes full advantage of the topography and climate of the setting. Characters know each other, their histories, and are, in many ways, trapped by their surroundings. Cleeves uses this to her advantage, weaving information and action through various characters’ viewpoints and behaviors. The story involves the murder of a young women, an outsider. There is an easy suspect, a dark history, and a careful investigator. Cleeves spins out the story – and clues – with just enough misdirection to keep the reader guessing. The timeline is short. It is a very clever work.
The MacCrackens were an extraordinarily successful family. I first learned of Henry MacCracken when researching a history of NYU. Henry was the university’s late 1800s chancellor who raised money and built the university’s Bronx campus. His eldest son, John Henry, was president of Westminster College and then Lafayette College. His younger son, Henry Noble, served as the longest tenured president of Vassar College. Henry Noble published quite a bit, and among his works is an idiosyncratic history, Blithe Dutchess: The Flowering of an American County from 1812. Penned in 1958, the work is a humorous amalgam of stories, personalities, trivia and hard history. It covers the Dutch, wars, and more than one would imagine about a charismatic publisher, activist and bookseller, Paraclete Potter. While perhaps not the most rigorously argued history, Blithe Dutchess is entertaining and great for thumbing through. And the family’s successes continued. Henry Noble’s son Calvin D. MacCracken was an influential inventor.
One of the most reliable forms of written humor is the self-deprecating first person narrator, obsessed and wrestling with silly challenges. It could be the Englishman or American in the south of France, or perhaps the intrepid traveler nursing a flawed vehicle through a complicated journey. In The $64 Tomato, our author and guide is William Alexander, an increasingly compulsive gardener. He and his family purchase a house in upstate New York (Mr. Blandings, anyone?). Their home comes with a troubled history, well-known to the locals. After several years of adjusting to semi-rural life and settling into the community, Alexander decides to build a vegetable garden. Whim becomes plan becomes obsession in this cute book. He pokes fun at himself as he learns about gardening, a most humbling proposition, as anyone who has tried to grow plants knows. The book is funny, at times, but like zucchini, one only needs a little. And most gardens, even with one plant, provide more than enough.
Rebecca Solnit is an exceptionally strong writer and thinker. She publishes works of fiction, of non-fiction, essays, books, and articles in the mainstream press and less well-known journals. Her interests are wide ranging, but center around questions of the environment, human justice and feminism. Intellectually rigors and accessible, I am a major fan. Her 2014 collection of essays, Men Explain Things To Me, exemplifies her brilliance. It is short book, worth returning to, and a powerful reminder that we have not moved all that far from the gender problems of the early 2000s. In fact, I wonder if we have taken a major step back from the promotion of real equity and acceptance. The challenges run much deeper than “mansplaining” as Solnit points out. And don’t forget, she can be very funny when she wants to. This is a little volume with a lot packed into it.
Victoria Woodhull is one the most interesting celebrities of 19th century America. Clairvoyant, speculator, speaker, provocateur and the first woman to run for president, Woodhull embodies much of what makes America a special – and kind of crazy – place. She advocated for women’s rights, “free love” – which meant something different then – and a host of changes that may not seem all that radical today. A powerful figure who has been the subject of multiple biographies and studies, Woodhull continues to attract attention and scholarship. Eden Collingsworth’s The Improbably Victoria Woodhull is an easy to read, accessible biography. The book emphasizes the sensational and does a fine job situating Woodhull and her sister, Tennessee (Teenie) within the larger trends and figures of the period. If you know the trends and figures, you would want more. Woodhull was abused, married at 14, and through all manner of challenges crafted an international profile and a more than impressive life. Yet she also was incredibly difficult to pin down. Collingsworth wrestles with her elusiveness throughout.
That Which Makes Us Stronger is a semi-autobiographical work of fiction by Greg Triggs. A show director, producer and writer, Triggs creates for a living, often humor. This novel, about a young man from the Midwest growing up in a complicated family, filled with love, divorce, addiction and hardship, is 70% based on Triggs’ life. It is funny, but only in a bittersweet sort of way. One wants the characters to be safe, to make healthy choices, to be accepted and to triumph. Unfortunately, life interferes. Happily, Triggs is successful and has found a way to move beyond the trauma. With laughter and love.
Walter Moers has an extraordinary imagination, a creative ability that is off the charts. A German author, illustrator, and artist, Moers created Zamonia, a world with all manner of flora, fauna, unforgettable characters and adventures. Plus a refreshing lack of humans. Moers’ works are textual with lots of pen and ink drawings. The books defy genre, more fantastic literature than science fiction. The first in his Zamonia series is The Thirteen and a Half Lives of Captain Bluebear. Published in 1999 and popular everywhere save the United States, the book is a memoir of a blue bear who knows not his origins. Bluebear grows, travels, has amazing adventures and along the way introduces us to Zamonia. Short on plot and long on stories, it as entertaining and memorable read – creative to a fault.
One of America’s funniest novelists, Carl Hiaasen, relies on a tried and true recipe: mix Florida crazies, pompous and idiotic criminals, intrepid heroines, and flawed yet lovable heroes with outlandish crimes, and a dash of environmental seasoning. His books are extraordinarily popular, tasty humorous treats that have just the right amount of teasing umami. But what can one do when reality is so over the top that satire no longer seems satirical? Hiassen’s latest, Fever Beach, rides that line. Ridiculous characters, over the top plot, and a message of tolerance all point in the right direction. On the other hand, not as many chuckles can be squeezed from mocking hapless white nationalists when white nationalism is in the news? Hiaasen skewers with the best of them. The recipe, though, is due for an upgrade, a remix. I hoped for more with this one.
I had high expectations for Science Under Siege: How To Fight the Most Powerful Forces That Threaten Our World. Written by Michael E. Mann, a distinguished professor of Earth and Environmental Science at Penn University, and Peter J. Hotez, Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. the book does a fine job categorizing the nation’s leading anti-science forces. These are plutocrats, petrostates and their supporters, pros (professionals), propagandists, and the press (false equivalencies lead to distrust). Mann and Hotez have been on the front line of promoting science, most visibly with regard to climate change and covid. They’ve been attacked and threatened, and know first-hand the difficulties that accompany entering the public sphere. Nonetheless, they view it as essential for science, and mankind’s future. Unfortunately, while they have rigorous science on their side, the authors do not evidence much understanding of their opposition. Financial gain and confusion are posited as the only motives. For faith and support of science to increase, deeper and more nuanced understanding of our current information and political environment are needed. But if you’re seeking for a forward-looking polemic, give Science Under Siege a look.
David Potash