The History Book Club discussion

Alisa, here is your new thread for 2012.

Our Format:

JANUARY

1. Winston S. Churchill
Finish date: March 2008
Genre: (whatever genre the book happens to be)
Rating: A
Review: You can add text from a review you have written but no links to any review elsewhere even goodreads. And that is about it. Just make sure to number consecutively and just add the months.

Yay! I'm on the board with my first book of 2012 and it did not disappoint.
JANUARY
1. by Linda Greenhouse
Finish date: Jan 15, 2012
Genre: Supreme Court
Rating: B+
Review: Justice Blackmun had a long and distinguished career on the bench, and for a reluctant appointee he took the job on with industriousness that typified his personality. Owing to the fact that he took copious notes and kept them all (a one-man discovery treasure trove!), the author had a first hand account of what he was thinking when he analyzed cases as well as his interaction with his fellow Justices on and off the bench. If you are familiar the the Court and it's landmark rulings, you know Justice Blackmun as the author of the majority opinion in Roe v. Wade, the still controversial decision protecting a woman's right to choose which he authored early in his court career. The author uses his papers regarding abortion rights, the death penalty, and sex discrimination cases to provide insights into his jurisprudence. She also examines his complex and long relationship with Warren Burger, which frankly I found fascinating. I had no idea they were childhood friends and remained close personal friends for many years, yet was a relationship that fractured during their respective tenures on the bench until the end of their lives. One of the things that intrigues me is the way in which the Justices develop personal and professional relationships regardless of the differing positions they may take on issues that come before the Court. This book satisfies that curiosity in touching on Justice Blackmun's relationship with many of the Justices he served with, from Thurgood Marshall to Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia. Enjoyable, informative, well-written, I very much enjoyed this book.

Congrats. (smile)

2. by Essie Mae Washington-Williams with William Stadiem
Finish Date: Jan 16, 2012
Genre: memoir
Rating: B
Review: A memoir full of conflicting feelings and actions told with amazing personal grace. Strom Thurmond was the longest serving Senator when he retired at the age of 100, and easily one of the most controversial figures over the course of his career. Many remember him as a staunch segregationist. Which makes the circumstances of this book all the more confounding - the author is his daughter, who was the product of an affair he had as a very young man with his family's black maid. Essie Mae grew up in the early years of her life thinking that the two people who raised her were her parents. She was being raised by her mother's sister and her husband. Surprise! This discovery was dropped on her in the most unusual way, first by her mother, and eventually her mother introduced her to the man who was her biological father, the Senator. This book tells the story of Essie Mae's discovery of her unusual family lineage, her eventual relationship with her father, how she kept it a secret until after his passing, and her reconciling of her feelings throughout the course of her life. Strom Thurmond's politics always made my stomach turn and this book did not endear him to me at all, despite the generous forgiveness bestowed on him by Essie Mae. Even though I read the book, I am still trying to imagine how she came to terms with her feelings and her father. Remarkable.

It is an amazing book, Alisa. Thurmond was the most bigoted of all the Southern Senators and yet he wasn't above fathering a child with the family black maid. I think that Essie Mae has to be one of the most forgiving women that ever lived.

Jill I don't know how she endured the gut-wrenching pain of never being publicly acknowledged by her father much less him ever really acknowledging it to her. She cuts him slack for the bigotry by justifying as politically expedient. That takes a level of forgiveness I find hard to fathom. Ugh.

3. by Marshall Goldsmith
Date Finished: Jan 17, 2012
Genre: business/self help
Rating: C+
Review: I'm not a fan of most business books and reading this was part of a work-related project. That said, the content is good given the subject matter. It is about the 20 bad habits that people demonstrate in the workplace and provides ways in which to address to improve. Where this book bogged down for me was the prolific use of anecdotes to demonstrate a point, repeatedly. If the author had cut down the examples to about half it would have been a much better read. Probably more useful as a reference book than reading cover to cover.

FEBRUARY
4. by Margaret Truman
Date Finished: Feb 13, 2012
Genre: murder mystery
Rating: C
Review: This book was just average. For a murder mystery whodunit this book came in with an easy to follow plot and characters that fit their role pretty well. The good guys and bad guys were revealed quickly and there were a few mildly curious bit players. Ultimately I felt like I was waiting for the plot twist that never came. As a predictable mystery goes it was fine, but not a book I would recommend for someone who likes to chase around complexity in their mystery reading selections. Maybe good for a mindless beach read or airplane ride, but for me it was mystery light.

Too bad your last two were yawns. Thanks for the heads up.

Not sure what is next but hopeful it will be better than the last two. I had high hopes for Margaret Truman but her style was just too predicatble for my tastes. Oh well.
Margaret Truman

MARCH
5. by John Paul Rathbone
Date Finished: Mar 10, 2012
Genre: history of Cuba
Rating: B
Review: Interesting story of Julio Lobo, dubbed 'The Sugar King of Havana' appropriately for his reign of the Cuban sugar industry in the post-WWII era until the takeover of Cuba by Fidel Castro. Lobo was a colorful personal character and shrewd capitalist, and that alone made for some good reading. The politics of Cuban rule is certainly part of this story as well and one that interplayed with the story of Lobo's turbulant and storied business and personal life. You get a very strong sense of Lobo - as someone who lived life with gusto, had intense and passionate beliefs and relationships, and was an unrelenting captialist and eye for one of the world's most cherished commodities. If Julio Lobo had been born in another country, you can't help but to think he would have been an iconic titan of capitalism! The book's shortcomings lay in how the author told this story. He interjected his own family history into the story, which arguably was relevant, but the way in which he did it was too personal for my taste and distracted from the flow and tone of the book. The book would be better had he used that information more objectively. Lots of pictures - loved the visual.

6. by Laura Hillenbrand
Date Finished: Mar 31, 2012
Genre: WWII
Rating: A+
Review: I am so moved by this book it is hard to know where to begin. This is an amazing story on so many levels - personal resilience under unimaginable circumstances, the horrors of war, and the unique collection of people whose paths crossed over the course of Louis Zamperini's life and experiences in every way - growing up, entering and serving in the military, civilian life, and through his post-war experience. The author told this amazing story brilliantly and researched every detail meticulously. She brought this story to light in a way I'm not sure others could. It was a book that was hard to read sometimes because of what was going on in the story, yet it was so compelling it was hard to put down.

Will have to bump it up my TBR list Alisa

This was definitely one of the top books in 2010 and is just an amazing story about an amazing individual. I also love the fact that Zamperini, who turned 95 in January, is still active and touring and speaking around the United States. He was in Houston last fall and will be speaking at the Pacific World War II Museum in Fredericksburg, Texas later this month.

An A+ from you, Alisa, moves this book onto my TBR list as well.

Craig wrote: "This was definitely one of the top books in 2010 and is just an amazing story about an amazing individual. I also love the fact that Zamperini, who turned 95 in January, is still active and tourin..."


I was wondering if he was still alive, and still on speaking engagements, that is amazing! It must be quite an experience to hear him speak, or to meet him.

And Michael, Blackieblack, Jill, worth moving up in your reading queue.

APRIL

7. by John Berendt
Date Finished: April 14, 2012
Genre: italian cultural history
Rating: B-/C
Review: This book could have been so much more than what it ultimately turned out to be. The plot ostensibly centers on the fire that destroyed the Fenice opera house in Venice, and the mystery surrounding the cause, with elements of italian life woven into the story. On the plus side, the author clearly did his research on the fire, the Fenice, and in fact moved to Venice to conduct his research. Unfortunately, the book turned into a cross between the author's personal travelogue with a tell-all of the expat community living in Venice. I kept reading, expecting (from having read this author's work in the past) that he would tie it all together artfully at the end. Nope.

8. by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn

Date Finished: April 24, 2012
Genre: human rights
Rating: A
Review: Amazing and powerful stories that are so raw in their truth it can be hard to remember that it is all true. After the first 30 pages I had a hard time forging on. Reading about brutality perpetrated on women and girls in modern times is difficult to stomach. But each story had a result where things changed for the better, eventually, as a result of what these women endured. I would not go so far as to call it a happy ending - these aren't fairy tales. The point the authors make is illustrated by these stories but they include a lot of documented research about the impact of education and microfinance programs have on the developing world for all of us if these programs are specifically focused on women and girls. I may add more to this review in the coming days, but it's kind of hard to know where to stop. I was deeply impacted by what I read and will be thinking about this for a long time. Extra bonus at the end of the book is 'the four things you can do in the next 10 minutes' along with a list of organizations that make a sustainable difference to the lives of many.

9. by John Grisham
Date Finished: April 28, 2012
Genre: fiction
Rating: B-
Review: This was good, not great. I like Grisham's writing and this was novel lite for him. Quite a topic departure - no big thriller novel and the story is based on major league baseball and a tortured family relationship. It's a short quick read, but told with purpose if not a little melancholy.

It looks like you are doing so well,

Bentley wrote: "It looks like you are doing so well,"

A few weighty tomes coming up later in the year so trying to get a jump on this now. I went a little overboard shopping when Borders went out of business. Heaven help me on my next trip to Powell's in Portland!

MAY
10. by Lorenzo Carcaterra
Date Finished: May 3, 2012
Genre: non-fiction biography
Rating: A
Review: Excellent book very depressing at times, a vivid story that took guts for the author to tell. Very compelling true story of a young boy and his three friends growing up in Hell's Kitchen in the 1960s. Life in the multi-ethnic impoverished neighborhood in those days was rough and the author told his experience vividly. Survival was a daily struggle, for everyone. Without giving too much away, the four boys end up getting sent to a juvenile detention facility in upstate NY. The experiences there change their lives profoundly, in different ways for each, some good some not so much. It contains instances that are unbearably difficult to comprehend and will make you wonder how on earth human beings can do such things to each other. The evil some people perpetrate on others confounds me. There can be redemption, healing, and justice in the end, but not always.

11. by Brini Maxwell
Date Finished: May 11, 2012
Genre: style and fashion
Rating: C
Review: For this type of book I thought it was just ok. Brini has a few good quips sprinkled through her advice book and I like her sense of wit. It started out fun but turned into a random assortment of recipes and craft projects. The recipes were nothing special but easy enough, but the craft projects were borderline tacky and complex. Maybe making centerpieces constructed using felt and colored plexiglas are supposed to be part of the humor, but it seemed just tacky and cheap. She had a show when the Style network was new so I expected more.

12. by Harlan Coben

Date Finished: May 28, 2012
Genre: mystery fiction
Rating: B/B+
Review: Very good mystery novel, it kept me in suspense until the very end figuring out the who-done-it answer. There was enough complexity and multiple layers of activity to keep the story line moving briskly without getting weighed down by excessive gratuitous violence or sex, which I find frustrating in most standard modern mystery novels. There was a 'things are not always as they seem' theme that was smartly woven into the story line. First book I have read by this author and I liked it, would definitely pick up another one.

13. by Mitchell Zuckoff

Date Finished: May 18, 2012
Genre: WWII non-fiction
Rating: B/B+
Review: Story of a non-combat mission plane crash that occurred during WWII in Indonesia, from the flight through the rescue and recovery mission. Not everyone survives the crash, but those that do are stranded in a difficult to reach and previously unexplored jungle valley on New Guinea, which at one point was dubbed Shangri-La. Those who survived the crash encountered tribal people who had never seen a white man much less ever been exposed to any form of industrialization, and what little was thought to be known about the tribal people mostly turned out to be wildly inaccurate. The book was a touch dry in places, but now that I reflect on it the author did a great job of telling the true story without overdramatizing in his written style. I marvel a little at how people in those days kept diaries, men and women, and how many of those diaries survived some brutal conditions. It is a nice little gift that was left behind, and part of what the author was able to draw on in reconstructing the story. Lots of photos which was an added treat. There are some very funny snippets that highlight how silly people can be when operating off of false assumptions. Overall a very good book and fascinating story!

Thanks.

Fixed, thanks.

September
14. by Robert K. Massie
Date finished: Sept 2012
Genre: Russian history
Rating: B+
Review: The story of the life of Catherine the Great, the last empress of Russia. Before reading this I knew precious little about 18th century Russia or its imperial rulers. My image of imperial rulers is that they live sheltered, decadent lives with little concern for world affairs beyond their castle walls. Nothing could be further from the truth in this woman's story. This story was artfully told with depth, detail, and written in a way that was very engaging and held my interest. I found it fascinating, lively, at times a little disturbing, and enlightening. Excellent book, thoroughly enjoyable.

disclosure: I received this book for free through the History Book Club on Goodreads.

15. by Jenny Lawson
Date finished: Sept 2012
Genre: humor, memoir
Rating: B+
Review: I give this author credit for writing a gutsy and very candid look into her life and personal issues and just putting it all out there. I typically shy away from memoirs written by people barely at mid-life who have done little more than live everyday life. What exactly is worth the time reading? I decided to break my rule when I read a thoroughly hilarious blog post she wrote and was intrigued to see her humor in a book. Honestly, this gal has had some struggles in her life fostered by some pretty unusual things that happened during her youth. At times I felt sorry for her, worried about her sanity, and laughed out loud - very loudly in fact - at some of her vignettes. It dragged a little toward the end but she tied it up nicely. Very satirical style, which I like in humor but it's not for everybody.