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LORNA'S 50 BOOKS READ IN 2019
Wonderful review, Lorna. I loved this book too.
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Lorna, Assisting Moderator (T) - SCOTUS - Civil Rights
(last edited May 09, 2019 01:24PM)
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Isabel AllendeFinish date: May 4, 2019
Genre: Memoir
Rating: A
Review: Paula by Isabel Allende is an autobiographical account of her family's experiences in Chile, writing feverishly at the bedside of her daughter, Paula, as she lay in a coma from a genetic neurological disease in Barcelona, Spain. At first it was written for Paula so that she will not be lost or afraid when she awoke; then as it became clearer that this wouldn't happen, Allende continued to write as a cathartic of the time her family was driven from their home in Chile following the military coup of 1973 and the assassination of her uncle, Salvatore Allende. She speaks to life in her beloved Chile during the tyrannical regime of Augusto Pinochet. She recounts the time her beloved grandfather was dying. Unable to return to Chile, she began writing him a letter but as she continued to write, Allende announced to her family that she had written a book. This became a bestseller in Latin America, and soon, around the world, The House of Spirits. Woven throughout the book Paula, Isabel Allende writes of Paula, the beautiful child that she was, and the courageous and giving adult that she became. It is very much a process of the stages of grief and letting go of someone that we love, as she embraces Paula's new husband and the process where together they realize that they must let Paula go. This was a beautiful and loving tribute, not only to Paula, but to Isabel Allende.
On a personal note, visiting Latin America in 1981, I became very drawn to the politics and literature of that time, particularly in Colombia, Chile and Argentina. It was hard to forget the beautiful city of Santiago, as we all gazed upon the Palace of Governors and were told that this is where Salvatore Allende "committed suicide." Or during our stay in Buenos Aires, looking down from my hotel window and seeing women marching in the park below, all dressed in black, including lace mantillas, and carrying signs with the names of family members who had disappeared. This was the weekly march of the mothers of the disappeared, the desaparecidos. Lastly, having had the pleasure and honor of attending some book signings by Isabel Allende, she always signs her books with a flower. It is in this book, she relates as the dictatorship of Pinochet was becoming more oppressive, she accepted many of the external signs of the Flower Children, "adopting flowers in her clothing, painting them on the walls of their home and car--enormous yellow sunflowers and bright dahlias. . . "
I am Chilean, I come from a 'long petal of sea and wine and snow,' as Pablo Neruda described my country, and you're from there, too, Paula, even though you bear the indelible stamp of the Caribbean where you spent the years of your childhood."
"In Chile, we are influenced by the eternal presence of the mountains that separate us from the rest of the continent, and by a sense of precariousness inevitable in a region of geological and political catastrophes. Everything trembles beneath our feet; we know no security."
" I was transported with implacable clarity to the times I lived in Chile under the heavy mantle of terror: censorship and self-censorship, denunciations, curfew, soldiers with faces camouflaged . . . arrests in the street, homes, offices. . . .helping fugitives find asylum, sleepless nights when we had someone hidden in our home, clumsy schemes to slip information out of the country."
"It came to me how for countless centuries women have lost their children, how it is humanity's most ancient and inevitable sorrow. I am not alone, most mothers know this pain, it breaks their heart but they go on living because they must protect and love those who are left."
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Lorna, Assisting Moderator (T) - SCOTUS - Civil Rights
(last edited May 11, 2019 03:50PM)
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Luke BarrFinish date: May 7, 2019
Genre: Memoir, Food
Rating: A
Review: Provence, 1970: M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child, James Beard and the Reinvention of American Taste is a beautiful book that speaks to the tumultuous times of the late 1960's into the next decade. A country, raw with the war in Viet Nam and the struggle for civil rights, was ready for a food revolution and all that was to follow. Luke Barr gives us a beautiful history of his great-aunt M.F.K. Fisher in this monumental time in how we viewed food. It was the beginning of a movement in this country led by some of our most beloved and accomplished chefs. Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher was one of our most beloved and preeminent food writers, living in Napa, California at its zenith. Luke Barr talks of the times that he visited his great-aunt as a child and his vivid memories of her home and hospitality. This is a book that is very well researched, not only did he have his grandmother Norah's memories, but he had access to all of journals and diaries of his great-aunt, M.F.K. Fisher. The focus of the book is on a period of time in 1970 when all of the gourmet chefs and food writers were able to convene in Provence, just above the Cote de Azur. Julia and Paul Child are host to all in their beautiful home they have renovated in Provence. This is a tribute to food and family and taking time to enjoy. I was fascinated with the biography and progression in the life of M.F. K. Fisher, as she realized what she wanted in her remaining years. Now I have to admit, that I would love to wile away my days in the beautiful cottage in Sonoma where she spent the last years of her life. This was the movement that put us on the path of "farm to table" that has swept across America with such force. Farmer's Markets are everywhere. As a new mom in the early 1970's at the beginning of this movement, I had a beautiful garden and fed my family from its bounty, not to mention how much I canned; so much that we had to add a pantry to our first home. This book is a loving tribute to families and food and home. This is a tribute to all who made it possible: M.F.K. Fisher, Julia and Paul Child, Simone Beck, James Beard, Alice Waters and Richard Olney.
"The nascent changes in the food world reflected the politics of the era--they were taking place I the context of Vietnam War; the civil rights, environmental, and free speech movements; and sexual liberation and feminism. But more broadly, it was the sense of freedom from the old ways, of creating something entirely new, that inspired cooks and connected them to the moment."
"Provence was where it all started. It was a place that epitomized the food-centered culture and philosophy the group stood for, a place where life and cooking and style all intertwined so easily. The farmers' markets, the heat and sun and abundance all around, the wild and slightly disheveled gardens and fantastic sproutings of rosemary, thyme, and lavender. The elegant but simple outdoor entertaining. The old tumbledown farmhouses."
"M.F. had come full circle: She could see that the seeds that she had planted were blooming. She saw it at Chez Panisse; she saw it in Glen Ellen. 'In the Sonoma Valley I see young people growing their own food and making their own bread,' she said. 'And of course the American people seem to be demanding so much more and, with exposure, choosing more wisely what they put in their stomachs."
"It is striking how cooking binds us to the past, and to the people we love, even when they're gone."
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Lorna, Assisting Moderator (T) - SCOTUS - Civil Rights
(last edited May 15, 2019 02:21PM)
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Evan ThomasFinish date: May 15, 2019
Genre: Biography
Rating: A
Review: First: Sandra Day O'Connor was a meticulously researched biography by Evan Thomas. In addition to complete access to all of the documents and personal papers in Justice O'Connor's chambers at the Supreme Court and in the Library of Congress, there were countless interviews with Justice O'Connor and her family in Phoenix, as well as speaking with Justice O'Connor's law clerks and friends throughout the country. Seven justices spoke with Evan Thomas in their chambers, including John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kegan.
Sandra Day was born in El Paso, Texas in 1930 to parents, Harry and Ada Mae Day. Taken home to the Lazy B Ranch located in the southwest in Arizona bordering on New Mexico, the ranch had no electricity, telephone or hot water, but Sandra loved the Lazy B Ranch and the big sky and vistas. O'Connor always felt that in the unforgiving vastness of the high desert, she had learned to be selfless and self-reliant. Being alone for the first nine years of her childhood, she had wild creatures for pets, including a bobcat and a baby coyote. Chico was her favorite horse, patiently waiting for her to climb back on whenever she would tumble off. She was driving as soon as she could see over the steering wheel. Because of the remote location of the Lazy B Ranch, she spent time with her maternal grandmother in El Paso, attending school. She graduated from high school at age 16 and was admitted to Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, falling in love with the architecture and academia. She went on to Stanford Law School, and was on the Stanford Law Review, graduating near the top of her class. She was classmates with Chief Justice William Rehnquist; they remained friends until his death.
After graduation, she married John O'Connor and after a stint in the U.S. Army and stationed in Germany, the O'Connor's decided to make their home in Phoenix, Arizona. John was able to find a job right away with a prestigious law firm while Justice O'Connor was asked if she could type; law firms weren't hiring women as lawyers. Not to be stopped, she began practice with a partner in a storefront law firm. Eventually, she went on to serve in the Arizona legislature elected to be the first female majority leader, which she always felt was invaluable to her tenure on the United States Supreme Court. From there she went on to serve as a judge in Arizona.
In 1981, President Ronald Reagan nominated Sandra Day O'Connor to become the first female justice on the Supreme Court. The president said, "she was a person for all seasons." Justice O'Connor saw herself as a bridge between an era where women were protected and submissive toward an era of true equality between the sexes. O'Connor was the most powerful Supreme Court Justice of her time. From October 1981 to January 2006, O'Connor was the controlling vote on many of the great societal issues, including abortion, affirmative action, voting rights and religious freedom. After retirement, she continued to be an ambassador and traveled throughout the United States and the world. On August 12, 2009, Justice O'Connor was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama, praising her for building "a bridge behind her for all young women to follow."
"Women's rights would become a quiet cause for Justice O'Connor--never frontally embraced as an activist on the model of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. . . .but slowly and surely furthered and fostered in her judicial opinions."
"While O'Connor's jurisprudence is not easily pigeonholed, her method of deciding cases falls into the philosophic tradition of pragmatism."
"The Court is an essential part of a long process of melding attitudes and mores with the law of the land. Rarely is there a last word. Sometimes the Court gets ahead of public opinion, or at least some well-entrenched sectors of opinion--notably in the 1954 school desegregation case, Brown v. Board of Education, and the 1973 abortion case, Roe v. Wade. (The country eventually caught up on desegregation; it remains divided on abortion)."
"For more than two decades, during tumultuous times, she had kept the Court centered."
"As you walk up the wide steps of the Supreme Court, you pass between two grand marble statues, on the right a man (Authority of Law) and on the left a woman (Contemplation of Justice). Until Sandra O'Connor arrived, every justice had been a man. She knew the burden she carried. . . More than an activist for women's rights, she had to play the role of Lady Justice, holding the scales. She brought to her job the wisdom that can come from personal suffering, from having a great love and losing it, from being a daughter and a mother as well as a role model for millions of women."
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Lorna, Assisting Moderator (T) - SCOTUS - Civil Rights
(last edited May 22, 2019 02:30PM)
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by Peter Slevin (no photo)Finish date: May 17, 2019
Genre: Biography
Rating: A
Review: Michelle Obama: A Life was a well-researched biography of First Lady, Michelle Obama, and an interesting portrayal of Barack Obama as well as an in-depth look at their relationship and friendship that sustained them both during some pretty rough times. Peter Slevin does an excellent job in describing Michelle's childhood and growing up in a working class family on the segregated South Side of Chicago, ultimately attending Princeton University and Harvard Law School. He follows her career in law at a high-powered law firm in downtown Chicago. Once she meets Barack Obama, it was interesting to watch her sort through her values as she explored careers where she felt she was giving more back to the community. The race to the White House was covered well as were the White House years. They were a First Family that brought a lot to America and the White House, forever changing how we view it. I miss the Obamas and thank them for their service.
"Michelle's projects and messages reflected a hard-won determination to help the working class and the disadvantaged, to unstack the deck. She was more urban and more mindful of inequality than any first lady since Eleanor Roosevelt. She was also more steadily, if subtly, political."
"After seeing a revival of A Raisin in the Sun in 2014, Michelle would declare the play 'one of America's greatest stories,' and call it one of her favorite."
"Drawing on themes and convictions that had long animated her, she placed herself and Barack, firmly in the historical narrative about racism and racial politics in America. She said she stood on the shoulders of Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks and Mark McLeod Bethune, an honor roll of women 'who knew what it meant to overcome.'"
"This was the executive mansion that slaves had helped build and African Americans had helped run, but it never sheltered a black president or first family. The symbolism alone was stunning."
"Michele had once called herself a 'statistical anomaly,' a black woman who had climbed from the Chicago working class into elite American society. Her place in history reflected the distance that she and the country had traveled since January 1964. Opportunities had multiplied and paths had grown smoother."
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Lorna, Assisting Moderator (T) - SCOTUS - Civil Rights
(last edited May 28, 2019 05:25AM)
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John Paul StevensFinish date: May 19, 2019
Genre: Memoir
Rating: B+
Review: The Making of a Justice: Reflections on My First 94 Years was a lovely book. This beautiful man, Justice John Paul Stevens, has witnessed so much American history as he sat on the United States Supreme Court for thirty-four years as one of our most beloved jurists. Justice Stevens was appointed to the court by President Gerald Ford and resigned during President Barack Obama's first term in office.
Justice Stevens chose to organize his memoir of his time on the Supreme Court according to a saying by Justice Byron White, that each time a justice joins the Court, it creates a new dynamic and a different institution, a new Court. Within that premise, Justice Stevens reflects on his thirty-four years as an associate justice, discussing notable cases and reflections of each of those eleven Courts of his tenure, i.e., the Stevens court; the O'Connor court; the Scalia court; the Kennedy court; the Souter court; the Thomas court; the Ginsburg court, the Breyer court; the Roberts and Alito courts; the Sotomayor court; and the Kagan court. I must say that I loved his personal connections to all of this history and his views on some controversial decisions of the Supreme Court. In the shadow of cases like Bush v. Gore and the infamous Citizens United decision, Justice Stevens gives a lot of insight. At the end of the day, I must thank the Justice for his service and say that his measured voice is missed. Besides, a photograph with his bow tie and lovely smile, and I am comforted.
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Lawrence WrightFinish date: May 27, 2019
Genre: Memoir, Non-fiction
Rating: B+
Review: God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State was a delightful memoir by Pulitzer prize winner author Lawrence Wright and a tribute to the state of Texas, and how his life is inextricably woven, not only to the history of this country, but to the state of Texas.
Growing up in the southwest, the state of Texas has always been an interesting part of history of the United States. Lawrence Wright keeps one interested as he talks about his childhood in Texas, living in many places including Marfa, Abilene and Dallas. What I loved most about the book was how he opens this book as he embarks on a long bike ride from Austin to San Antonio with his childhood friend Steve. Their goal was to visit five Spanish missions that were integral to the history of Texas and this nation. There is nothing more peaceful, consoling and hopeful than a visit to the missions. There is so much history of our nation here during these very tumultuous years.
Wright talks about all of the key cities, and how the history of the United States begins here, namely that is the "cradle of the presidents" but my favorite part is his choice to live in Austin. He and his wife met at Tulane University in New Orleans, and lived in Egypt following their marriage, and worked as teachers at the American University. When they came back to the United States, they lived in Atlanta for a few years, but when they moved to Austin, Texas, they knew they were home. This was a lovely book giving a very personal assessment of a very complex history of a pivotal state in the United States, more interesting because of the history of this family in Texas. "God Save Texas."
"I think Texas has nurtured an immature political culture that has done terrible damage to the state and to the nation. Because Texas is a part of almost everything in modern America -- the South, the West, the Plains, Hispanic and immigrant communities, the border, the divide between the rural areas and the cities -- what happens here to disproportionately affect the rest of the nation."
"The liberal tradition that Johnson embodied is practically extinct in Texas now, but so much of the country we live in was fashioned by his administration, including Medicaid, Medicare, the Civil Rights Act, public broadcasting, federal aid to the arts and education, the War on Poverty, the Immigration and Nationality Act, the Voting Rights Act, even the Gun Control Act."
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Lorna, Assisting Moderator (T) - SCOTUS - Civil Rights
(last edited Jun 10, 2019 08:42AM)
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John W. DeanFinish date: June 8, 2019
Genre: Memoir
Rating: B
Review: Blind Ambition: The White House Years is a detailed memoir by John Dean of the time he served as White House counsel to President Richard Nixon. He tries to make some sense of the cascade of events resulting from the break-in at the Watergate Hotel in Washington D.C., and the subsequent cover-up leading ultimately to the resignation of the President of the United States during his second term in office. Having been glued to the television each day beginning in May, 1973, as Senator Sam Ervin opened the first public hearings on Capitol Hill of the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, where John W. Dean later testified as the star witness for the special prosecutor's office in these proceedings, I found this book riveting because of all of the new information and taken in context. One thing that struck me was how rapidly the cover-up snowballed, involving more and more people at deeper and deeper levels of involvement and criminal activity, including obstruction of justice. Needless to say, this resulted in chaos in the West Wing, as all of the principles continued to behave as everything was normal and the country's business was being tended to. I have had this book for a while, but I decided that now would be the time to read it, since Mr. Dean will be testifying before Congress this week about his role as counsel to the president during the time of Watergate break-in and cover-up. As he famously told Richard Nixon that "We have a cancer within--close to the Presidency--that's growing. It's growing daily. It's compounding. . ."
"Mr. Chairman, I strongly believe that the truth always emerges. I don't know if it will be during these hearings. I don't know if it will be as a result of further activities of the Special Prosecutor. I do not know if it will be through the processes of history. But the truth will out someday." -- John W. Dean, June 1973
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Lorna, Assisting Moderator (T) - SCOTUS - Civil Rights
(last edited Jun 15, 2019 01:04PM)
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by Jared Cohen (no photo)Finish date: June 13, 1018
Genre: History, Biography
Rating: C+
Review: Accidental Presidents: Eight Men Who Changed the World was an interesting premise on which to base Jared Cohen's historical and biographical narrative of many of the men serving as Vice President, who were suddenly thrust into the office of the President because of death, sometimes resulting from assassination. However, the text often seemed disjointed, which may have been in part attributed to the wide scope of the subject. Basically, Cohen examines the presidency of eight vice-presidents who ascended to the office of the presidency without the Constitution having specified an order of succession. This included John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, Chester Arthur, Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson. It was an interesting look at this crucial aspect of our American history, the peaceful passage of power.
"Passage of the Wise Resolution may have formalized Tyler's presidency, but it did little to stop his critics. . . . . Tyler never wavered from his decision. It set a precedent that would pave the way for seven future presidents: Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, Chester Arthur, Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Harry Truman, and Lyndon Johnson. If Tyler's precedent established a right of succession for future vice presidents, his presidency demonstrated how unexpected ascension to power may change the course of history."
"Roosevelt had a greater lust for adventure than any president who came before or after. He truly was a Renaissance Man who excelled at everything he did or exhausted himself trying. He was a prolific writer, authoring thirty-five books and more than 150,000 letters. He was a gifted and candid orator. His memory was near photographic."
"But public opinion polls from 1952 should not obscure the fact that what Truman achieved was extraordinary. The steep learning curve had made Truman his own man faster than any other accidental president in history. When Roosevelt died, the Missourian had no choice but to buckle down and learn fast. There was perhaps no man less prepared for the challenges that awaited him than Harry Truman, yet he proved to be only one of two success stories--the other being Theodore Roosevelt--among eight accidental presidents.'
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Frances MayesFinish date: June 14, 2019
Genre: Memoir, Travel
Rating: B+
Review: See You in the Piazza is a delightful memoir by beloved author Frances Mayes, focusing on her travels throughout remote regions of Italy with her husband Ed, and sometimes with their 15-year old grandson, sometimes with friends. Our first trip to Italy was a month-long journey through Italy in a little red Fiat, a well-worn road atlas, and many guidebooks. This book brought back those days with their many travel tips regarding places to stay, favorite restaurants, regional wines and recipes throughout this lovely narrative speaking to these beautiful areas of Italy not frequented by tourists.
"As we drive into the Langhe, the rollicking knolls. . . . shine bright with brilliant green vineyards, every twig and leaf well tended. On higher hilltops, castle towns silhouette against the horizon. Tiny villages nestle in the dips of valleys, surrounded by regimented rows of nebbiolo grapes that will soon become the legendary Barolo or Barbaresco wines. We're moving through mile after mile of landscape painting."
"Called Chysopolis ('Golden City') in Byzantine times, Parma is now a snow-globe town--shake it and it dazzles--a seventeenth-century steel engraving of a city on a river, a place of music and opera, a solid market town, a stop on the antique via Emilia that ran from Rimini to Piacenza. And a major food destination because of--what else:--Parmigiano-Reggiano, plus the range of prosciuttos and other salume, and the reputation for a bountiful and varied table."
"A stellar lineup, as we find out during an easy, contemplative chance to experience each wine. . . . and, oh my, Saia, whose name is from the canal system for collecting water used by the Arabs centuries ago. Dark, bursting fruit, but with a ray of Sicilian sun in each bottle. That must be, as one swallow makes you think good thoughts."
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by Edith Hahn Beer (no photo)Finish date: June 22, 2019
Genre: Memoir
Rating: B
Review: The Nazi Officer's Wife: How One Jewish Woman Survived the Holocaust was a most important memoir as told by Holocaust survivor Edith Hahn Beer. She purposely buried her story for many years, not wanting to relive the past nor to burden younger generations with her sad memories. However, her daughter Angela urged her to tell her story. In 1997, she sold her archive of wartime letters, pictures and documents to Sotheby's where it was bought by two philanthropists who donated it all to the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. The Hahn family lived in Vienna, where Edith was well-educated and almost out of law school when she was forced by the occupying forces into a ghetto and on to a labor camp where she became separated from her mother. What follows is a tragic but compelling story as we see how Edith is forced underground, eventually able to forge a new identity, and live in Germany. It is a gripping, frightening and tragic tale, while at the same time, giving us all hope in the resilience of the human spirit.
"That's all it takes, you see--a moment of kindness. Someone who is sweet and understanding, who seems to be sent there like an angel on the road to get you through the nightmare."
"I simply retreated down, down, down, trying to live in imitation of the German writer Erich Kastner, whom I always admired and who responded to the Nazi years with what was called 'internal emigration.' The soul withdrew to a rational silence. The body remained there in the madness."
"My baby lay on a blanket, laughing and cooing, wriggling with happiness as I nuzzled her little belly. And meanwhile the bombs smashed into the city over the horizon, the sky flashed with orange and black waves of death, the antiaircraft cannons roared. The earth beneath her shook and trembled--and Angela kicked her legs and laughed. She kept me sane. She made me smile in the presence of death. She was my miracle. As long as I had her, I felt that any miracle could happen, that all of the world could be saved."
"What you see is a mask of calm and civility. Inside, always, forever, I am still weeping."
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Rick AtkinsonFinish date: June 22, 2019
Genre: History
Rating: A
Review: The British are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777 is a meticulously and deeply researched history of the American Revolution by renowned historian Rick Atkinson. This first volume of the anticipated Revolution Trilogy was riveting as you watch the struggling Continental Army up against the mighty and formidable forces of the British Army and Royal Navy dispatched by King George III. This is the story of the newly formed colonies in America and their struggle, not only for freedom, but to forge a new democratic nation. Atkinson describes the first twenty-one months of the American Revolution with the battles at Lexington and Concord, to those at Trenton and Princeton, told in painful detail. We see each of these battles, not only from the point of view of the generals to the soldiers, but to those waiting at home. This was a fast-paced book as we see well known characters from our history to the more obscure. I, for one, will be anxiously awaiting Volume II of this remarkable tale of America's early and laudable history.
"Still, the British Army and Royal Navy had been driven off by a rabblement of farmers and shopkeepers. Led by low-born ascendant men like the plowman Israel Putnam, the anchorsmith Greene, and book vendor Knox. Washington had displayed persistence and integrity, as well as political agility. The revolutionary hour had passed, to be succeeded by other hours, some of them dreadful."
"That a large, balding American, renowned across Europe as a scientist, diplomat, and revolutionary, would remain inconspicuous as he trotted through the French provinces defied probability. Whatever the great man's purpose, Paris was alert and giddy while awaiting his arrival. When word spread in London of Franklin's advance in on Paris, British stocks fell."
"'Common Sense' had helped nudge Americans toward their declaration of independency, converting fence straddlers into patriots and patriots into radicals."
"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of this country. But he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph." -- Thomas Paine
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by Andrew G. McCabe (no photo)Finish date: June 24, 2019
Genre: Memoir
Rating: B
Review: The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump is a very well-written memoir by Andrew McCabe relating his lifelong history and career with the FBI, culminating in his firing by Donald Trump less than twenty-six hours before his planned retirement. This is a personal story, not only of McCabe's career but of the FBI and of its integrity and independence in protecting America and fighting to uphold its Constitution. This is a true patriot and I wish him well.
"The president exposes himself as a deliberate liar, someone who will say whatever he pleases to get whatever he wishes. . . . What more could a person do to erode the credibility of the presidency? But news reports of such episodes come and go in the blink of an eye. A common reaction is, Of course he did that--it's Trump. That's what he does. How is the whole nation not offended?'
"He went after me because the FBI opened the Russia case, which led to the appointment of a special counsel. He went after the FBI. . . . because its work has led to more than thirty indictments--with more likely to come--of individuals associated with Russian interference in the 2016 election. Those investigations raise questions bout the legitimacy of his presence in the White House--questions that prompt fear."
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Lesley Poling-KempesFinish date: June 30, 2019
Genre: History
Rating: B
Review: Having just spent a lovely week in a beautifully appointed casita just off the plaza in Santa Fe, New Mexico, I was delighted to find a copy of Ladies of the Canyons: A League of Extraordinary Women and their Adventures in the American Southwest by author Lesley Poling-Kempes, in its extensive library (a book that was even on my "to be read" list). This was a deeply researched book about some very interesting, talented and remarkable women that came to the desert southwest in the early twentieth century, falling in love with the land and the culture, and forever leaving their mark on history.
"The moonlight flooded that great, silent land. . . .The senses were too feeble to take it in, and every time one looked up to the sky, one felt unequal to it, as if one were sitting deaf under the waves of a great river of melody." -- Willa Cather
"The spell of the desert comes back to me, as it will always come. I see the veils, like purple smoke, in the canons, and I feel the silence. And it seems that again I must try to pierce both and to get at the strange wild life of the last American wilderness--wild still, almost, as it ever was." -- Zane Grey
"The Sangre de Cristo (blood of Christ) Mountains rose twelve thousand feet into the sky above Santa Fe. The town itself sat at nearly seven thousand feet above sea level, and was blessed with a clean, dry, high-altitude climate. Never too hot, never too cold, the salubrious air of old Santa Fe was scented with mountain pine and aspen, and canyon sage and cedar."
"The word was getting out: In New Mexico, a new society based on art and creativity was flourishing within and alongside some of the oldest and most picturesque indigenous communities found in North America."
"I found that the sunshine in New Mexico could do almost anything with one: make one well if one felt ill, or change a dark mood and lighten it. It entered into one's deepest places and melted the thick, slow densities. It made one feel good. That is, alive." -- Mabel Dodge Luhan
"I want to go right back into that canyon and be mauled by its big brutality, though all my bruises are not gone yet. It's a country that drives you crazy with delight, and that's all there is to it. I can't say anything more intelligible about it." -- Willa Cather
"It was August and high summer, and the sky over Pedernal was intensely blue. The road led O'Keeffe across the hot, dry landscape of red-gold sandlands and deeply carved arroyos to a cluster of adobe buildings beneath the sheer walls of the luminous cliffs. 'Perfectly mad-looking country--hills and cliffs and washes too crazy to imagine all thrown up into the air by God and let tumble where they would.'"
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by David W. Blight (no photo)Finish date: July 6, 2019
Genre: Biography
Rating: A
Review: Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom by David Blight was a beautiful and meticulously researched biography of one of history's giants of the nineteenth century. From his humble beginnings as a slave in the south, he ultimately escaped slavery as a young man in Baltimore, Maryland. Frederick Douglass worked tirelessly for the abolition of slavery and reconstruction after the Civil War. He later fought just as relentlessly for the suffrage movement. As a young child he had been taught to read by one of the slave owners mistresses and quickly learned the power of the spoken and written word as he became, not only one of our greatest orators, but also a very respected and prolific writer. This biography relates the complexities of his two marriages and very large extended family. This stunning book is brimming with beautiful prose throughout as Douglass continues to fight for civil rights and justice at a very critical time in our national history. It was a very uplifting book.
"Above all, Douglass is remembered most for telling his personal story--the slave who willed his own freedom, mastered the master's language, saw to the core of the meaning of slavery, both for individuals and for the nation, and then captured the multiple meanings of freedom--as idea and reality, of mind and body--as perhaps no one else ever has in America."
"Powerful oratory, he learned, could 'scatter the clouds of ignorance and error from the atmosphere of reason. . . .irradiate the benighted mind with the cheering beams of truth.'"
"My joys have far exceeded my sorrows and my friends have brought me far more than my enemies have taken from me." -- Frederick Douglass, 1881
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Lorna, Assisting Moderator (T) - SCOTUS - Civil Rights
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Jon Meacham Finish date: July 6, 2019
Genre: History
Rating: B
Review: Songs of America: Patriotism, Protest, and the Music That Made a Nation was a delightful book to read over the Independence Day weekend, as it was a journey of America's history brought to life through its songs. From the music during the American Revolution and the War of 1812 to songs of the Civil War and the fight for civil rights and the abolition of slavery, featuring Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Also explored in music was the long struggle for the cause of women's suffrage and equal rights. It continues to highlight the music in the wake of World Wars I and II, wonderful patriotic and moving songs capturing the mood and economics of the country at that time. There is a wonderful section told through music of the continuing struggle for civil rights as fought by Martin Luther King and Presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson during the tumultuous 1960's and the escalation of the Vietnam War. This book concludes with the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, featuring the music of the times, including Bruce Springsteen as well as old favorites like Irving Berlin's God Bless America and Katherine Lee Bates, America the Beautiful, important in our healing process. It is a patriotic look at the historical context of music in our sometimes tumultuous history at a time that we may need it.
"Such are the sounds of our history, whispers from the American pageant. They are glimpses and glimmers from our common story, a story of promises made and broken, of reform and reaction--a story fundamentally shaped by the perennial struggle between what Abraham Lincoln called 'the better angels of our nature' and our worst impulses."
Two wonderful reviews, Lorna. They both sound like such interesting reads.
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Lisa SeeFinish date: July 9, 2019
Genre: Historical Fiction
Rating: B
Review: The Island of Sea Women was the latest historical fiction novel by one of my favorite authors, Lisa See. This book was set on the small Korean island, Jeju, and focused on the matriarchal society consisting of the haenyeo forming the diving collective of women supporting their families while their husbands remained at home and cared for the children. This was a sweeping book encompassing the time of Japanese occupation in the 1930's and 1940's, World War II, the Korean War and into the modern era. At the center of this epic tale is the story of two young girls, Mi-Ja and Young-Sook, who become inseparable friends in spite of their differences in background and culture. We follow this oftentimes tumultuous relationship throughout this period of history. Once again Lisa See has enlightened her readers to see a very different culture as she expands our horizons, as well as delivering a gripping story.
"Jeju is her home, an island known for Three Abundances: wind, stones, and women."
"Her house is the nest where she hides the joy, laughter, sorrows, and regrets of her life."
"'The government labels the haenyeo a cultural heritage treasure--something dying out that must be preserved, if only in memory. How does it feel to be the last of the last?' If they're academics, they'll want to talk about Jeju's matrifocal culture, explaining, 'It's not a matriarchy. Rather it's a society focused on women.'"
"Fall down eight times, stand up nine. For me, this saying is less about the dead paving the way for future generations than it is for the women of Jeju. We suffer and suffer and suffer, but we also keep getting up. We keep living. You would not be here if you weren't brave. Now you need to be braver still."
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Lorna, Assisting Moderator (T) - SCOTUS - Civil Rights
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Casey CepFinish date: July 12, 2019
Genre: Non-fiction
Rating: A
Review: Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee was the first book of author Casey Cep and an amazing debut it was. Ms. Cep has a delightful way of presenting factual data, of which she researched diligently. Basically the book focuses on the serial murders of a lot of relatives of the Reverend, who coincidentally happened to have taken out large insurance policies on the victims. Also central to this tale is the larger-than-life defense attorney, Tom Radney. He first defended the Reverend Willie Maxwell, and later his killer, Robert Burns, shooting the Reverend in front of three hundred-plus witnesses. During this time, Radney formed a friendship with Nelle Harper Lee, returning to her native Alabama to witness this trial as material for her next book. What happens throughout this book is riveting as it unfolds in a most interesting way. There are many questions throughout that holds one's interest and why not, a perfect storm of plots circling, and, at the heart of it, an author that still is surrounded in mystery and controversy. This book will not put any of that to rest but will make you wonder more. I loved it.
"We are bound by a common anguish."-- Harper Lee
"But if Radney missed his political career, that loss was mitigated by how much the courtroom felt, to him, like the campaign trail. Like many politicians, he had always been extroverted and charismatic, and he loved the performative aspects of being a trial lawyer. After years of trying to win over tens of thousands of voters, he found it easier to convince twelve jurors."
"The first requirement of a sound body of law is, that it should correspond with the actual feelings and demands of the community, whether right or wrong. If people would gratify the passion of revenge outside of the law, if the law did not help them, the law has no choice but to satisfy the craving itself, and thus avoid the greater evil of private retribution." -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
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Lorna, Assisting Moderator (T) - SCOTUS - Civil Rights
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Robert A. CaroFinish date: July 13, 2019
Genre: Memoir
Rating: A
Review: Working by Robert Caro is a riveting book that basically highlights his career of bringing us no less than two Pulitzer prize winning biographies among his most commendable body of work. Caro was intrigued by power and his first biography was that of Robert Moses, who essentially built New York City. His next endeavor was the extensive biographies of Lyndon Baines Johnson. I must say that I have a lot of very dear historians that I have been drawn to over the years, but this biographer stands apart. I was so struck with the early years of Lyndon Baines Johnson and the Texas Hill country, of not only his roots, but that of his family and ancestors. Caro, realizing that he would never be able to understand Johnson's personality nor what drove him unless he lived in the Texas Hill Country, which he and his wife did for three years; and this is how you develop a sense of place. It was in those first several chapters of the first book about President Lyndon Johnson, that I was just riveted with the hardscrabble life that these people survived, and the difference that Johnson was able to bring to the people of the Texas Hill Country.
"And therefore I came to feel that if what I had for so long wanted to do what was to discover and disclose the fundamentals of true political power--not theoretical political power but the raw, naked essence of such power--then perhaps the best way to do that was through portraying the life of Robert Moses."
"By' a sense of place,' I mean helping the reader to visualize the physical setting in which a book's action is occurring: to see it clearly enough, in sufficient detail, so that he feels as if he himself were present while the action is occurring. The action thereby becomes more vivid, more real, to him, and the point the author is trying to make about the action, the significance he wants to grasp, is therefore deepened as well."
"It was a step--a big step--toward justice. That's why I tried first to figure out, then to explain how Lyndon Johnson managed to do it. Hard to figure it out, hard to explain it. Harder to do it."
"It's true that I think of the Lyndon Johnson books in terms of very large historical events and trends, because the books are the story not just of Lyndon Johnson, although even in those terms it's a monumental story--the desperate young man who pulled himself out of this incredibly lonely and impoverished place, who rose to the very height of power in America, what he had always dreamed of, and then gave it But the books are also supposed to be a picture of America during the years of Lyndon Johnson."
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Harriet Beecher StoweFinish date: July 19, 2019
Genre: Classic
Rating: A
Review: Uncle Tom's Cabin is the classic novel about the cruel reality of slavery in the American South written by Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1852. It is said that her book had such an enormous impact on the antislavery movement that when Abraham Lincoln met Stowe, he alluded to the fact that her book started the Civil War. In the Introduction to the edition I read, it is said that Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin specifically to protest the Fugitive Slave Law essentially making it illegal for any citizen to aid a runaway slave in addition to requiring that slaves who escaped to the free states were to be returned to their owners without the right of going to trial. I found it to be a compelling novel that vividly portrayed the realities and inherent cruelty of slavery in a very personal and impactful way.
"There are in this world blessed souls, whose sorrows all spring up into joys for others; whose earthly hopes, laid in the grave with many tears, are the seed from which spring healing flowers and balm for the desolate and distressed."
"Oh, had I the wings of the morning, I'd fly to Canaan's shore; Bright angels convey me home, To the new Jerusalem."
"When a heavy weight presses the soul to the lowest level at which endurance is possible, there is an instant and desperate effort of every physical and moral nerve to throw off the weight; and hence the heaviest anguish often precedes a return tide of joy and courage."
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Lorna, Assisting Moderator (T) - SCOTUS - Civil Rights
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Melanie BenjaminFinish date: July 21, 2019
Genre: Historical Fiction
Rating: B
Review: Mistress of the Ritz is the latest historical fiction novel based on the life of Blanche Auzello, an American actress who falls in love with Paris and Claude Auzello, Managing Director of the famed and iconic Ritz Hotel, that later became the headquarters of the Luftwaffe during the German occupation of Paris during World War II. It was during this time that Blanche became involved in the French resistance at great personal risk. It is an interesting and compelling story, certainly making me want to learn more about the lives of Claude and Blanche Auzello.
But at the time, she saw only where her future lay. In Paris, this magical city she never wanted to leave, this city that had cast a spell upon her. In Paris, with Claude, her Claude, she'd called him without knowing exactly why. Her knight in shining armor, her Don Quixote, tilting at windmills--and princes--for her."
"Her words--of accomplishment, of pride, of bravery--flutter to the ground, unspoken. Claude can't see them there, these broken, ruined things, stillborn"
"But he writes down the names of the missing. . . .Why does he do it? Perhaps he has some vague ideal of trying to find them, when--when this is all over, if it will ever be over. Perhaps he simply needs to mark their existence by noting their absence."
"They are in danger of becoming immune to the horrors surrounding them. This is what an occupation does--it wears you down until you accept evil. Until you can no longer fully define it, even. Let alone recognize it."
"Marriage is not defined by what we hope to gain, but by what we are willing to sacrifice."
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Peter HellerFinish date: July 26, 2019
Genre: Literature, Novel
Rating: A
Review: The River is the latest novel by one of my favorite contemporary authors, and once again, Peter Heller does not disappoint in this riveting and powerful book about two young college students embarking on a wilderness river experience canoeing in northern Canada. Jack, the more pragmatic and introspective of the boys grew up in Colorado on a ranch; and Wynn, less judgmental and always seeing the goodness in people, grew up in Vermont. Meeting during their college orientation at Dartmouth, Jack and Wynn bonded immediately, loving one another as brothers and sharing a mutual love of adventure, the outdoors and great literature. Spending their days fishing and gathering berries as they made their way through the northern river system, camping at night reading their favorite books by the fire, it was a pretty idyllic experience until the smell of smoke permeated the air. Jack, climbing a tree, quickly realized that the forest was ablaze leaving them only a few days, at most, to make their way up the tributaries and navigate the many falls along the river system to Hudson Bay. I could not put the book down. This was a beautiful and powerful story of friendship, trust and survival. Peter Heller is known for his vividly descriptive and beautiful prose. And some of my favorite passages:
"Across the river and downstream, high up, somewhere over where the fire should be, there was a pale cloud that drifted and elongated and accordioned into a high curtain of softest light, and as he watched, it spread silently across the northern sky. It pulsed with inner radiance as if alive and then poured itself like a cascade to the horizon and shimmered with green. A pale green cataract of something scintillant that spread across an entire quadrant and sang as it fell with total absence: of sound, of substance, of water or air."
"Now an arc of greener light shot from the top of the falls and jumped the current of the Milky Way and ignited a swirl of pink in the southeast that humped and crested like a wave."
"The northern lights had just enacted what the heat and sparks would do when they jumped the river. It was like a portent--more: a preview--and it was as if every cantlet and breath of the night was filled with song--and silent. It was terrifying and unutterably beautiful."
"The northern lights lay against the northern horizon and they pulsed and flared like the lava inside a volcano and spread in pinks and purples; he had never heard they could become those colors."
"The implacability and violence of nature always awed him. That it could be entirely heedless and yet so beautiful. That awed him. But also its intricate intelligence. Its balancings. Its quiet compensations. It was like some unnamed justice permeated everything. He would not go further than that. Still, the workings of nature made the voracious, self-satiating intelligence of humans seem of the lowest order, not the highest."
Great review, Lorna. I'm hoping to read this too.
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Julie SatowFinish date: July 27, 2019
Genre: Non-fiction, History
Rating: B
Review: The Plaza: The Secret Life of America's Most Famous Hotel was a delightful look at the Plaza Hotel in New York City from the opening of its first location in 1890 to the luxurious hotel it became when it reopened its doors in 1907 at Fifty-Ninth Street and Fifth Avenue overlooking Central Park. This is not only a well-researched history and biography of the famed Plaza Hotel and many of its famous residents as well as its investors over the years, but a remarkable history of New York City and America from the Gilded Age, the Jazz Age and Prohibition, through two World Wars, the bringing down of the World Trade Center and through 2018. If you love history, New York City, architecture, this is the perfect book.
"Great hotels have always been social ideas, flawless mirrors to the particular societies they service." -- Joan Didion
"America was going on the greatest, gaudiest spree in history and there was going to be plenty to tell about." -- F. Scott Fitzgerald
"New York had all the iridescence of the beginning of the world,"Fitzgerald wrote of this period. "The returning troops marched up Fifth Avenue and girls were instinctively drawn east and north toward them--we were at last admittedly the most powerful nation and there was gala in the air."
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David RobertsFinish date: August 2, 2019
Genre: Non-fiction, History
Rating: B+
Review: Escalante's Dream: On the Trail of the Spanish Discovery of the Southwest is a riveting look at the legendary expedition of Franciscan friars, Francisco Atanasio Dominguez and Silvestre Velez de Escalante, in July 1776. In 2017, the author David Roberts and his wife attempted to retrace the steps of the Franciscan priests' journey, as they had been charged by the governor of New Mexico to discover a route previously not explored in the unknown and rugged Southwest to Monterrey, California. Armed with Escalante's journal, Roberts attempted, not only to recreate the world as the explorers had seen it two-hundred forty-one years ago, but to include the hardships and the many unforeseen dangers in this previously unexplored territory. Ultimately the Dominguez-Escalante expedition had to turn back towards Santa Fe, well short of their goals. The parallel adventures are chronicled by David Roberts as he relates his own journey in comparison with the priests' journey. Being from the southwest, I loved all of the history, as well as the geography and beautiful scenery that was explored. This is stunningly beautiful country that leaves one in awe. One can only imagine what it must have been like for Dominguez and Escalante in 1776.
"Just off Highway 84, a cluster of Hispanic towns flourishes today. Aficionados of New Mexico's Spanish heritage have created a must-see drive along State Highway 76 though the old villages northeast of Santa Fe: Chimayo, Cordova, Truchas, Trampas, Penasco."
"A pair of statues of the Virgin Mary, one gazing up in beseechment, the other, hands clasped in prayer, staring at infinity in the west, composed a vignette of both hope and sorrow. Fresh flowers had been inserted in every cranny in the bedrock, and small figurines of the Virgin had been balanced on every available ledge, from which hung rosary beads. . . The cliff dripped with nature's tears."
". . . . the Spaniards reached the Dolores River. . The Padres knew the name of the river from Riviera's expedition. . . Their predecessor must have been in a gloomy mood as he traversed this lovely corner of Colorado, for the full name he gave the stream is Rio de Nuestra Senora de Los Dolores, or River of Our Lady of Sorrows, and the full name of the Animas is Rio de las Animas, or River of Lost Souls."
"If the name Escalante rings any bell in the brain of the casual traveler today, it is the one that peaks in Grand Staircase--Escalante National Monument, the vast federal reserve of canyons, mesas, and streams decreed by President Bill Clinton in 1996--2,937 square miles of backcountry that ought to gladden the heart of the most jaded outdoor aficionado."
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Lorna, Assisting Moderator (T) - SCOTUS - Civil Rights
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Reese WitherspoonFinish date: August 3, 2019
Genre: Memoir, cookbook
Rating: B
Review: Whiskey in a Teacup: What Growing Up in the South Taught Me About Life, Love, & Baking Biscuits was a delightful memoir of what growing up in the south meant to actress and author Reese Witherspoon. It was a wonderful change of pace, packed with the wisdom of her grandmother Dorothea, and many wonderful recipes, one I had to save - the iconic black-eyed peas with collard greens for New Years Day celebrations. Having spent a lot of time traveling through the South in recent years, I enjoyed this book.
"Dorothea always said that it was a combination of beauty and strength that made southern women 'whiskey in a teacup.' We may be delicate and ornamental on the outside, she said, but inside we're strong and fiery. Our famous hospitality isn't martyrdom; it's modeling. True southern women treat everyone the way we want to be treated: with grace and respect--no matter where they come from or how different from you they may be."
"To me, southern womanhood is about both the teacup and the whiskey--the music and the manners, the hospitality and the fight for fairness."
"One historical note that I just love: When the suffragettes were marching, at one point they started wearing red lipstick so they would all be wearing the same bold color and stand in solidarity with one another. I love how this little thing that many had in their purses became a powerful political symbol."
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Lorna, Assisting Moderator (T) - SCOTUS - Civil Rights
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by Ben Lewis (no photo)Finish date: August 9, 2019
Genre: Non-fiction, Art History
Rating: B+
Review: The Last Leonardo: The Secret Lives of the World's Most Expensive Painting was a most engaging and meticulously researched book describing the search for what the author, Ben Lewis, describes as "the Holy Grail of art history." The focus is on a portrait of Christ, the Salvator Mundi, the Savior of the World, thought to be a masterpiece by Leonardo da Vinci. What follows is the gripping tale of how this painting was found in a small art gallery in New Orleans and the unusual provenance that ultimately comes to light regarding this painting that sold for four-hundred fifty million dollars. Controversy still surrounds this painting but the book provides much to think about.
The other thrust of the book is the question of art restoration and the controversy between many art dealers, art historians and art museum curators regarding how restoration should be approached to preserve the work of the masters. On a personal note, when we were in Milan in 1999, we visited the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie to view Leonardo's masterpiece, The Last Supper. It was undergoing a complete restoration at the time. Although scaffolding was erected throughout, we were able to get quite close and see the team at work restoring the painting in anticipation for the Great Jubilee in 2000 in Italy. It was a unique experience that we still treasure today.
"Whatever the day was when the first brushstrokes were applied to the 'Salvator Mundi,' Leonardo had by then become one of the most celebrated living artists of the Italian Renaissance, alongside Boticelli, Piero della Francesca, Raphael, Michelangelo, Giovanni Bellini, Andrea Mantegna, and a dozen others."
"The story of the 'Salvator Mundi' is not just a tale about who bought and treasured this painting. It is also a tale of who mistreated it. Art in seventeenth-century England could be loved, or it could be reviled."
"In the recent restoration of 'The Last Supper,' no attempt was made to repair the damage caused by time, the elements, wars, and above all, previous restorations. Instead, all the over-painting, the work of previous restorations was removed and, where there was nothing underneath, neutral watercolor tones were used."
"In the recent restoration of the Sistine Chapel, the accumulated grime and all the layers of varnish were removed, highly controversially, back down to the fresco surface, while the Louvre curators resist removing the darkened varnish on the 'Mona Lisa,' even if it would make the painting more colorful."
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David McCulloughFinish date: August 12, 2019
Genre: American History
Rating: B+
Review: The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West was an all-encompassing story of the pioneers who ventured west to explore and settle the Northwest Territory lying northwest of the Ohio River in the latter part of the eighteenth century and well into the nineteenth century. The initial expedition was led by the legendary veteran of the Revolutionary War, General Rufus Putnam. Another legendary American was the Reverend Manasseh Cutler of Massachusetts, who was a powerful influence in the passage of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, importantly declaring that there was to be no slavery in the new Northwest Territory. Another key person in the exploration and establishment of the Ohio Territory was the oldest son of Reverend Cutler, Judge Ephraim Cutler. He fought for the ideals of his father as expressed in the Northwest Ordinance. Historian David McCullough allows one to be part of this experience by his engaging historical narrative of this important time in America's history.
"As one widely respected later-day historian, Albert Bushnell Hart of Harvard University, would write, 'Never was there a more ingenious, systematic and successful piece of lobbying that that of the Reverend Manasseh Cutler' and the Great Northwest Ordinance of 1787 stands alongside the Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence as a bold assertion of the rights of the individual."
"J.S. Buckingham and Charles Dickens were both struck by the immense and lamentable difference between life on the northern and southern sides of the Ohio River. . . Dickens said succinctly, 'Where slavery sits brooding. . . . there is an air of ruin and decay.'"
"Still another foreign traveler of note, Alexis de Tocqueville from France, who was to write one of the most brilliant studies of the American character, would conclude that if there were dark times ahead for the new country and its people, they would be brought about by the presence of slavery. 'They will owe their origin, not to the equality, but to the inequality of condition.'"
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Lorna, Assisting Moderator (T) - SCOTUS - Civil Rights
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Betty SmithFinish date: August 18, 2019
Genre: Novel, Classic
Rating: A++
Review: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was a beautiful novel that resonated with me. This was a timeless classic that was first published in 1943, but I still could relate to Francie Nolan in this coming-of-age novel at the beginning of the twentieth century. I am just so sorry that it has taken me so long to read this beautiful book and to meet Francie Nolan. I related to her experiences throughout and it moved me as so few books do. I loved the trips each week to the library by Francie as she systematically attempted to read all the books in the library, and at the same time, she was enthralled by the brown vase that always had the flowers of the season. You have to love the metaphor of the tree growing in the concrete as Francie's favorite time was reading out on the fire escape in the shade of the tree. As we come to know all of the Nolan family, we become immersed in the immigrant experience. There is a reason that some books stand the test of time, and it may be the universal truths that we all share. Francie Nolan, I will never forget you, we shared a lot, albeit in different times.
"Everything struggles to live. Look at that tree growing up there out of that grating. It gets no sun, and water only when it rains. It's growing out of sour earth. And it's strong because its hard struggle to live is making it strong. My children will be strong that way."
"OH, MAGIC HOUR WHEN A CHILD FIRST KNOWS IT CAN READ PRINTED WORDS!"
"From that time on, the world was hers for the reading. She would never be lonely again, never miss the lack of intimate friends. Books became her friends and there was one for every mood. There was poetry for quiet companionship. There was adventure when she tired of quiet hours. There would be love stories when she came into adolescence and when she wanted to feel a closeness to someone she could read a biography. On that day, when she first knew she could read, she made a vow to read one book a day as long as she lived."
"A new tree had grown from the stump and its trunk had grown along the ground until it reached a place where there were no wash lines above it. Then it had started to grown towards the sky again."
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Ruth Bader GinsburgFinish date: August 31, 2019
Genre: Biography/ Memoir
Rating: A
Review: In My Own Words was a wonderful and comprehensive book by Ruth Bader Ginsburg published in 2016. While, I do not normally listen to audiobooks, this was an excellent format for this selection. Although the book is narrated by Linda Lavin, there are many sections that are the words of Ruth Bader Ginsburg from many of her speeches, classes, legal opinions and her writings. The book is dedicated to her husband Marty, as much of the book is a loving tribute to the powerful and beautiful partnership and marriage that he and Ruth both shared over the years. There are many sections that speak to Ginsburg's early career in many landmark cases and decisions when working for the ACLU. Justice Ginsburg was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1993 by President Bill Clinton. An enjoyable section was when the Ginsburgs were approached by the advance search team for a supreme court justice on behalf of President Clinton. Ginsburg speaks of her evening waiting for the call from the President, later culminating in her appointment to the Supreme Court and the preparation that night of her acceptance speech. A highlight was then listening to Justice Ginsburg's speech as she spoke on the White House lawn the following day. I felt there was valuable insight as far as the inner workings of the Supreme Court, particularly during Justice Rehnquist's and later Justice Roberts' courts, and how cases are selected and opinions are determined. Justice Ginsburg is well known for many of her wide-reaching dissenting opinions. It was an interesting and fascinating look at not only Ruth Bader Ginsburg but the United States Supreme Court and how our body of law is determined.
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Lorna, Assisting Moderator (T) - SCOTUS - Civil Rights
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Barbara KingsolverFinish date: August 31, 2019
Genre: Novel
Rating: A
Review: Flight Behavior is author Barbara Kingsolver's stunning novel where she returns to her roots in Appalachia to write an endearing and sobering tale of the life of Dellarobia Turnbow as she encounters the migration of the Monarch butterflies, normally from Canada to Mexico, but that process has somehow gone awry. This is the background of this exquisite novel that explores the comparison of the Monarch butterflies that are forced to alter their pattern due to the climate changes in order to survive, as well as Dellarobia Turnbow, also forced to alter her life because of a teen-age pregnancy. This was a beautiful and thoughtful book that has two parallel tracks and should make one consider what role each of us play in this world.
I must add that Barbara Kingsolver established and funds the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction. It was created to promote fiction that addresses issues of social justice and the impact of culture and politics. I have to give her kudos, not only for all of her magnificent books, but also her vision.
"A small shift between cloud and sun altered in the daylight, and the whole landscape intensified, brightening before her eyes. The forest blazed with its own internal flame."
"The sun slipped out by another degree, passing its warmth across the land, and the mountains seemed to explode with light. Brightness of a new intensity moved up the valley in a rippling wave, like the disturbed surface of a lake. Every bough glowed with an orange glaze."
"This butterfly forest was a great, quiet, breathing beast. Monarchs covered the trunks like orange fish scales. Sometimes the wings all moved slowly in unison. Once while she and Ovid were working in the middle of all that, he had asked her what was the use of saving a world that had no soul left in it. Continents without butterflies, seas without coral reefs, he meant. What if all human effort amounted basically to saving a place for ourselves to park? He had confessed these were not scientific thoughts."
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Lorna, Assisting Moderator (T) - SCOTUS - Civil Rights
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Michael BennetFinish date: September 7, 2019
Genre: Political History
Rating: A
Review: The Land of Flickering Lights: Restoring America in an Age of Broken Politics by Michael Bennet is an engrossing account of his view of the American democracy since the first Continental Congress. Colorado's Senator Bennet was supervisor of the Denver Public School System when he was appointed by Governor Bill Ritter in 2009 to fill the remainder of the term for Senator Ken Salazar, recently appointed to President Obama's cabinet. He has served the state of Colorado well and has long been looked to as the voice of reason. Senator Bennet is currently one of the presidential candidates for 2020.
Bennet speaks not only of his time in the Senate but weaves throughout this book, much of the history of America and how our democracy was viewed by scholars, poets and other governments. Also woven throughout his book, Bennet draws upon his family experiences. It is interesting that on his father's side, his family can be traced to the Mayflower where his mother and her parents escaped Poland during the Holocaust.
Senator Bennet focuses on five main areas of government where he feels mistakes have been made and then presents ways to get out of the gridlock and begin to move our country forward. The first problematic area explored by Bennet is that of the highly charged confirmation process of judicial appointments and its effects. The second area of examination is the politics of corruption and the problem of climate change and what it portends for the future of America. The third area is the problem of inequality that is growing exponentially as the wealthy are enjoying lavish tax cuts while the working class is falling further behind. Fourth is the sabotage of the nuclear arms deal that was forged with Iran and multiple other countries and the resulting consequences. The fifth area addressed is that of immigration and the impact of our failed policies. It is a very thoughtful book, one that perhaps we should heed.
"We had become the land of flickering lights, in which the standard of success was not what we were doing for the next generation of Americans, or to enhance our role in the world, but instead whether we had kept the government open for another few minutes." --- Michael Bennet
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Lorna, Assisting Moderator (T) - SCOTUS - Civil Rights
(last edited Sep 14, 2019 11:46AM)
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Wallace StegnerFinish date: September 11, 2019
Genre: Novel
Rating: A
Review: Crossing to Safety was the beautiful and quiet novel by Wallace Stegner, that has become an enduring classic about the evolving and lifelong friendship between two couples, the Langs and the Morgans, meeting in Wisconsin when Sid Lang and Larry Morgan were beginning their first university teaching jobs in Madison during the Great Depression. Charity Lang and Sally Morgan form an instant bond of friendship and comradery in this character-driven novel. It is within the context of this enduring friendship that all of the complexities of human nature are explored. This tale unfolds in the words of Larry Morgan, the narrator, having grown up in New Mexico, is also a published novelist, while the Langs have deep Eastern and academic roots. This was a magnificent work that I will definitely read again. While this is the first novel that I have read by Wallace Stegner, it certainly will not be the last.
"Considerate la vostr semenza: fatti non foste viver come bruti, ma per seguir virtute e canoscenza. 'Consider your birthright,' we told each other when fatigue or laziness threatened to slow our hungry slurping of culture. 'Think who you are. You were not made to live like brutes, but to pursue virtue and knowledge.' Very high toned. We all hitched our wagons to the highest stars we could find."
"I could give all to Time--except-- ROBERT FROST
What I myself have held. But why declare
The things forbidden that while the Customs slept
I have crossed to Safety with? For I am There
And what I would not part with what I have kept."
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Mary Doria RussellFinish date: September 14, 2019
Genre: Historical Fiction
Rating: B+
Review: The Women of the Copper Country is based on true events when a woman led the strike against Calumet & Hecla Mining Company, one of the largest copper mines in the world, in Calumet, Michigan. Annie Klobuchar Clements was hailed as the American Joan of Arc as she led the labor strike protesting unsafe working conditions in the mines resulting in death and severe injuries beginning in June 1913. This was at a time when workers were rising up throughout the country and speaking out about better working conditions including mine safety. Charlie Miller is sent to help organize the union walkout but is a little threatened by six-foot Annie Clement, as she leads the protest. However, when news photographer Michael Sweeney arrives in Calumet, he knows he can sell this story in the photographs of the protest movement. This was a gripping and powerful story told in beautiful, sharp prose as only Mary Doria Russell can do.
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Cormac McCarthyFinish date: September 18, 2019
Genre: Post-apocalyptic Fiction
Rating: A
Review: The Road is a profound and moving account of a man and a boy as they make their way through the gray and grim landscape of an America that has been burned to ash leaving a gray wilderness. This was the winner of the Pulitzer prize in 2007 for fiction. Long resistant to reading this work, I found myself immersed in the journey of this father and son as they try to make their way to the coast. The trust and love in their relationship keeps one engaged in this riveting account of the struggle and fight for survival at all costs.
"Dark of the invisible moon. The nights now only slightly less black. By day the banished sun circles the earth like a grieving mother with a lamp."
"All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes. So, he whispered to the sleeping boy. I have you."
"He walked out in the gray light and stood and he saw for a brief moment the absolute truth of the world. The cold, relentless circling of the intestate earth. Darkness implacable. The blind dogs of the sun in their running. The crushing black vacuum of the universe. And somewhere two hunted animals trembling like ground-foxes in their cover. Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it."
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Jean Edward SmithFinish date: September 21, 2019
Genre: History
Rating: B+
Review: The Liberation of Paris: How Eisenhower, De Gaulle, and Von Choltitz Saved the City of Light was a well-researched and riveting examination of the liberation of Paris in the closing months of World War II as the allies swept across France causing the retreat of the German forces. Jean Edward Smith has focused on the pivotal roles that three courageous men played in the preservation and liberation of Paris. Charles de Gaulle led provisional government and the French Resistance against Nazi Germany during the war. De Gaulle was concerned that France would fall under Communist rule and implored General Eisenhower to liberate Paris. While many of Eisenhower's superiors were against going into Paris fearing that it would prolong the war, General Eisenhower, the allied commander who led Operation Overlord, ultimately made the decision to liberate Paris. Likewise, the efforts of the German commandant, Dietrich von Choltitz, were equally important in the preservation of the art and monuments that the Nazis had ruled would be destroyed. How all of this is accomplished results in a remarkable book and an important piece of history.
"Eisenhower on his own authority had changed plans and was going to liberate Paris. It was clear to him what had to be done. It was also clear that he had to cast this as a military issue, not a political or humanitarian one, and that he must maintain a low profile and leave it up to the French. Eisenhower's decision to liberate Paris was one of the great decisions of World War II. And it was not without cost. By diverting supplies and fuel to the French capital, he undoubtedly prolonged the war. But he avoided another Paris Commune in return."
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by Nancy F. Koehn (no photo)Finish date: September 27, 2019
Genre: History
Rating: B+
Review: Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times was an interesting examination of five individuals during the most challenging and difficult periods in each of their lives and how they were forced to draw on their internal reserves to exercise courageous leadership and the ability to motivate others to join their cause. One of the most striking examples of this is during the presidency of Abraham Lincoln when the country is torn apart due to the Civil War and his dilemma of attempting to bind the nation's wounds and bringing it together in common cause. Author Nancy Koehn also examines the life of former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass, including the many times he was challenged in his struggle, not only for the abolitionist cause but for the rights of women. There is a riveting and interesting account of polar explorer Edward Shackleton, whose ship Endurance. was trapped in the ice floes in 1915, putting all of the crew members at risk, and the decisions Shackleton made as well as the lengths he would go to preserve morale. Also included are the accounts of clergyman Dietrich Bonhoeffer as he resisted the Nazis in Germany during World War II and the environmental issues raised by author Rachel Carson, best noted for her groundbreaking book Silent Spring, warning against the deleterious effects of pesticides.
Nancy Koehn begins each section with the crises that each of these leaders faced, then a brief biography emphasizing the challenges they had growing up which may have given them the tools needed to face the various dilemmas. Her premise is that leadership is a learned and measured response by each of these remarkable and courageous individuals. There was a lot to think about as we explore leadership, particularly in today's troubled world crying out for moral leaders.
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Lorna, Assisting Moderator (T) - SCOTUS - Civil Rights
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Rusty YoungFinish date: September 28, 2019
Genre: Historical Fiction, Latin America
Rating: A
Review: Colombiano is a riveting look at Colombia, South America following the reign of terror of drug lord Pablo Escobar and the Medellin with the illegal trafficking of cocaine and all of the associated crime and human carnage and devastation. Rusty Young is from Australia and was in Colombia for four years secretly working for the government of the United States in Colombia. It was during this time that he became aware of the shocking stories of the child soldiers and he vowed that one day he would tell their compelling stories and let their voices be heard.
Pedro Gutierrez is a bright and loving fifteen-year old boy, happy with his parents on their little farm, their finca and in love with his girlfriend Camilla. These are the halcyon days when Pedro loves his village, fishing trips with his father, hanging out with his best friend, Palillo, and planning his future on the family farm. Then one night his world is shattered when the Guerillas come to their farm accusing his father of being a traitor and assassinate him in cold blood while Pedro watches in horror. He takes mental notes of the killers and vows that he will avenge his father's death. He and Palillo join the paramilitary, the Autodefensa and his life is forever changed. They vow also to rid their community, Llorona, of the Guerillas and all of the crime associated with their occupation. This is a riveting and in many ways a violent book but I am afraid very accurate in its portrayal. However, it is also a story of love and loyalty and family, as well as the exploration of vengeance and what can result. This was an outstanding book, perhaps a little long but it was a quick read. The characters were well developed and the sense of place compelling. Clearly the author, Rusty Young, was successful in his mission of telling the stories of the child soldier in a searing and unforgettable way. Mr. Young says it best in the following quotes from the Author's Prologue in his book:
"The more emotionally involved I became with the child soldiers' stories, the harder I found it to maintain any pretence of journalistic objectivity. Ultimately, I decided to weave their stories into a novel."
"These children's pasts were complicated and painful. Their stories affected me deeply and changed my life. I felt they needed to be told."
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Wallace StegnerFinish date: October 12, 2019
Genre: Historical Fiction, Novel
Rating: A
Review: Angle of Repose is the Pulitzer-prize winning fictional work by Wallace Stegner awarded in 1972 that has become a contemporary classic. It was considered by Stegner to be the masterpiece of his literary career and substantial body of work. The narrator is Lyman Ward, a retired history professor afflicted with a chronic debilitating condition that has left him in a wheelchair subsequent to the amputation of one leg. His wife has left him and he is resisting his son's suggestion to put him in an assisted-living facility. It is at this point, that Lyman Ward decides to go to the home of his grandparents and research their interesting history, as they were pioneers in the burgeoning west, and perhaps find himself in the process. His grandfather Oliver was an engineer specializing in mining, canal and water projects, while his grandmother Susan was writer and artist, often having to support the family. With his grandfather's engineering projects, the family lived in remote areas in California, Colorado, Idaho, South Dakota and Mexico. It is a multi-generational saga with very complex and interesting characters giving much insight into families and relationships weaving together all of these stories. It should be noted that the fictional Susan Burling Ward is based on the life and writings of Mary Hallock Foote, a nineteenth-century writer and illustrator. This timeless classic is not to be missed.
"Remember the one who wanted to know where you'd learned so casually a technical term like 'angle of repose'? . . . But you were too alert to the figurative possibilities of words not to see the phrase as descriptive of human as well as detrital rest. As you said, it was too good for mere dirt; you tried to apply it to your own wandering and uneasy life. It is the angle I am aiming for myself, and I don't mean the rigid angle at which I rest in this chair. I wonder if you ever reached it."
"What really interests me is how two such unlike particles clung together, and under what strains, rolling downhill into their future until they reached the angle of repose where I knew them. That's where the interest is. That's where the meaning will be if I find any."
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David GrannFinish date: October 16, 2019
Genre: History, Native Americans
Rating: B+
Review: Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann was a riveting book about the plight of the Osage people as they were driven from their homeland in Kansas in the late 1800's to the new territory of Oklahoma by the early twentieth century. Interestingly, the author points out that Oklahoma means "red people" in the Choctaw language.
After the discovery of oil on reservation of the Osage people and the assignation of "head rights" to the Osage people, there was a pattern of untimely and suspicious deaths of many of the Osage and affecting an inordinately large number of families. Ultimately there was a local sheriff that began to take an active interest in some of these deaths determining that it was related to the theft and misdirection of the "head rights" to the oil. It was at this time the new young director of the newly founded Federal Bureau of Investigation, J. Edgar Hoover sent former Texas Ranger and FBI special agent, Tom White, to Oklahoma to begin an intensive investigation into the ultimate question of how many of the suspicious deaths of the Osage people were actually murder. What follows is a gripping account of a true crime story taken from the pages of history. It should be noted that there are many historical photographs included throughout the book which adds to one's understanding and experience of this very tragic time in American history.
"Today our hearts are divided between two worlds. We are strong and courageous, learning to walk in these two worlds, hanging on to the threads of our culture and traditions as we live in a predominantly non-Indian society. Our history, our culture, our heart, and our home will always be stretching our legs across the plains, singing songs in the early morning light, and placing our feet down with the ever beating heart of the drum. We walk in two worlds."
"By the early twentieth century, Bigheart and other Osage knew that they could no longer avoid what the government official called the 'great storm' gathering. The U.S. Government planned to break up Indian Territory and make it a part of a new state called Oklahoma."
The historian Burns once wrote, To believe that the Osages survived intact from their ordeal is a delusion of the mind. What has been possible to salvage has been saved and is dearer to our hearts because it survived. What is gone is treasured because it was what we once were. We gather our past and present into the depths of our being and face tomorrow. We are still Osage. We live and we reach old age for our forefathers."
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The History Book Club
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Finish date: May 2, 2019
Genre: Novel
Rating: A
Review: Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese was a truly beautiful book, it may be one of my favorite for the year. I loved not only the beautiful and haunting prose, but the people that made up Missing Hospital in Ethiopia at the tumultuous time of the reign of Haile Selassie. Verghese is a physician, born in Ethiopia, and a professor at Stanford University Medical School. Having a medical background, I loved all of the medicine that is pivotal to the many plots that unfold in this absolutely beautiful story of our humanity and the strong bonds of family. At the heart of this story is the birth of twin boys, Marion Praise Stone and Shiva Praise Stone, born from the love between an Indian nun, Mary Joseph Praise and the British surgeon, Dr. Thomas Stone, both at Missing Hospital in Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia. Their mother dies in childbirth and their devastated father flees from the delivery. The obstetrician Hema arrives in time to deliver both babies and pledges to give them a home. Ultimately, another physician from India, Ghosh, embraces Hema and the baby boys and they become a family, living at Missing. What transpires sweeps through the upheaval in the Ethiopian government as these boys grow to manhood, both with an interest in medicine. This was an epic novel with a strong and emotional pull to the people in this book. I loved, loved it and I'm sorry that it has taken me this long to get to it.
"We are all fixing what is broken. It is the task of a lifetime. We'll leave much unfinished for the next generation."
"A childhood at Missing imparted lessons about resilience, about fortitude and the fragility of life. I knew better than most children how little separated the world of health from that of disease, living flesh from the icy touch of the dead, the solid ground from treacherous bog."
"The world turns on our every action, and our every omission, whether we know it or not."
"Medicine is a demanding mistress, yet she is faithful, generous, and true. She gives me the privilege of seeing patients and of teaching students at the bedside, and thereby, she gives meaning to everything I do. Like Ghosh, every year, at commencement, I renew my vows with her: I swear by Apollo and Asclepius and Hygieia and Panaceia to be true to her, for she is the source of all . . . I shall not cut for stone." Abraham Verghese, Stanford, California, June 2008