Here's Your Hat What's Your Hurry by Elizabeth McCracken

Here's Your Hat What's Your Hurry by Elizabeth McCracken
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is one of those rare short story collections where all the stories are good. There are nine stories and my favorites are the first one, It's Bad Luck to Die, about a man who tattoos his wife a great deal, and Some Have Entertained Angels Unaware, which is both moving and hilarious. I also really liked June, Secretary of State, and the title story.

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300 Arguments by Sarah Manguso

300 Arguments by Sarah Manguso
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I love these little huge sentences. It’s a perfect collection of aphorisms for a 40-year-old “privileged” American which is not to say without our own particular type of despair.

"There will come a time when people decide you’ve had enough of your grief, and they’ll try to take it away from you."




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Netherland by Joseph O'Neill

Netherland by Joseph O'Neill
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I found this book tedious to read. I was annoyed at what felt to me to be very inorganic jumping back and forth through time; it didn’t seem like the jumping improved the narrative by giving me the information when I needed it, but just confused the narrative. The book is a little bit of a love letter to New York between 2001-2003 or so. He gets lots of details of New York right, including the 2003 blackout, but seems to miss the mark on 911 itself. It’s not a 911 book, but if you plant your characters right then and there you need to get the weirdness right.

I wasn’t bothered by the wife’s reasons for leaving, I think it was clear that it wasn’t about her fear of living in the city alone, but I was confused about her refusal to discuss it with Hans. Hans is so passive that he doesn’t insist she talk about it, and he never gains any self-awareness about how insane that is.

I found the relationship with Chuck mostly uncomfortable- two people trying to use each other for contrary ends. Which is bad, because the novel is supposed to mostly be about that relationship. O think Han’s relationship with his mentally ill Angel neighbor is more interesting but insufficiently explored.

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Rabbit Redux by John Updike

Rabbit Redux by John Updike
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This a strange book. It takes place in the 1960s, and Rabbit is racist and misogynistic, like a lot of people were/are in real life. Rabbit experiences some growth on the racist front, though Rabbit is so flawed that it's very incomplete. I noticed no growth on his misogynism. More importantly, on the racial front, Updike’s writing is grotesque, even apart from and independently of the inner workings of his the character of Rabbit. I'm not a fan of striking books because they're out-of-date (as this one surely is) because we need to look at what seemed normal in a particular time period to understand where we are now. We are still deeply flawed now, and we need to examine why we've come such a small distance in the last 60 years.

The plot mostly creeped me out and seemed overly outlandish. The description of the book above calls it "sexy" and it's the opposite of sexy. All the sex scenes are sad and horrible to me.

Updike is a really good writer and there's a lot of good writing in this big flawed book. I liked the first book better, though I've heard some people say this is their favorite of the set. I can't say I actually enjoyed this one.

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The Eye of the Heron by Ursula K. Le Guin

The Eye of the Heron by Ursula K. Le Guin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A book about oppression, freedom, immigration, non-violence, and violence disguised as an easy-to-read YA fantasy book. The writing is really lovely.

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All Quiet on the Western Front

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Beautiful and so sad. I don’t think I’ve ever read a war novel from the perspective of “the enemy” before though maybe something close to that about the Middle East. So brilliantly written, that I assume the translation is excellent.

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The Ask by Sam Lipsyte

The Ask by Sam Lipsyte
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The beginning was really funny (and sad) but after about two thirds through I got tired of the characters not developing and their situation devolving. Lipsyte is very intelligent and witty, and kudos to you if you get all his jokes. I’m sure so many of his jokes went right over my head, but oh boy will you feel full of yourself when you get some of them. Ha! Ultimately, I thought Don, a minor character, was the most interesting, though I didn’t like the direction his story took. The plot is mostly just a vehicle for satire and who cares what happens to them anyway... not me.

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Tampa by Alissa Nutting

Tampa by Alissa Nutting
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

First of all, Nutting is an amazing writer, the writing will cast a dark spell on you keep you turning the pages and plant you so deep inside the brain of her main character Celeste that you will feel your head spin. That said, the plot of the book is pedophilia, so it's super gross. I conceptualized reading this book as reading a horror book. It’s about a beautiful female pedophile and it’s somewhat based on the true story of Debra Lafave. It’s really graphic sexually so that makes it harder to read. Nutting doesn’t do Nabokov’s Lolita's suggestion of sex, she spells it out completely so that we can’t look away from the ugly monster inside the beautiful young woman.

But here are a few things I think make this topic make sense. This actually happens not that infrequently in real life, beautiful young women teachers get arrested for sleeping with 14-16-year-old students. There’s a pretty substantial list of them (google it) and those are just the ones that got caught; probably they don’t all get caught.

Secondly, in a lot of ways, the topic of the book is more about the inside of a sociopath’s brain. It reminded me a lot of the Ted Bundy documentary if it had been from the honest perspective of Ted Bundy. Sociopaths are scary and dangerous because they don’t have the same guardrails of human sympathy, empathy, nor do they possess a built-in moral framework. Can you be incapable of love and be truly human? As the character of Celeste is developed, we see that her only problem is not her perverse sexual desires, she fundamentally doesn't care about right and wrong or human life or anything aside from obtaining her personal desires.

[Light spoilers ahead.] Finally, there’s a lot of truth about how society lets beautiful people get away with so much more than unattractive people. The book also highlights how the legal system frequently blames the victim. Specifically, because the perpetrator is a woman, it kind of flips the script, but some things remain the same. This book, while gruesome to read, definitely made me think about a lot of problems in society.

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Hark by Sam Lipsyte

Hark by Sam Lipsyte
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The writing is good, and the subject of the book seemed like the exact sort of thing I’d love: an anti-modern-culture focus (mindfulness) guru turned unwilling cult leader. But the style was impossible for me to get past. I’m not a fan of absurdist ironic fiction such as that of Douglas Adams, but at least Adams’s writing has a light quality. This was absurdist and another reviewer used the word “caustic” and I can’t find a better word. The characters are real but the style makes them seem cartoonish at the same time. I don’t think I got anything from the book really.

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The Mueller Report by Robert S. Mueller III

Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election by Robert S. Mueller III
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The beginning of the report reminds us that all of our intelligence agencies confirmed that the Russians "influenced" our election by 1) buying lots of ads that were pro-Trump and anti-Hillary, 2) posing as Americans in online social media, 3) hacking Democratic and Republican email servers and releasing only Democratic emails, 4) attempting to hack directly into voting machines (but were stopped by the Obama administration on this count). Numerous Russians have also already been prosecuted for this in the US.

Part 1 of the Report: Conspiracy with Russian Interference in U.S. Election

Paul Manafort joined the Trump Campaign on March 2016 and was campaign chairman from June to August 2016. (Manafort has been under investigation by the FBI since 2014 and under investigation by all branches of US intelligence since at least 2017 for communications and financial transactions with the Russian government.)

On August 2, 2016, Paul Manafort met in New York with Konstantin Kilimnik, "who the FBI assesses to have ties to Russian intelligence." Kilimnik delivered "....a peace plan for Ukraine..." (for those of you not following along, Russia has been occupying the Ukraine for some time, "peace" means letting Russia get away with that). "... "Manafort acknowledged to the Special Counsel's Office was a 'backdoor' way for Russia to control part of eastern Ukraine; both men believed the plan would require candidate Trump's ascent to succeed (were he to be elected President)."

"They also discussed the status of the Trump Campaign and Manafort's strategy for winning Democratic votes in Midwestern states. Months before that meeting, Manafort had caused internal polling data to be shared with Kilimnik, and the sharing continued for some period of time after their August meeting." This was not just a one-off event, Manafort was illegally working with the Russian government for years.

He was charged in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia with conspiracy to defraud the United States, money laundering, failing to register as a foreign lobbyist, making false statements to investigators, and witness tampering. He is a F#$#% TRAITOR. He is now a convicted felon.

Michael Flynn began as an adviser to the Trump Campaign in February 2016. 1) Flynn accepted money from foreign entities without the required approval. 2) On Flynn December 29, 2016, he asked Russia's ambassador Sergey Kislyak, "to refrain from escalating ... in response to sanctions that the United States had imposed against Russia that same day." The sanctions were imposed on Russia for their interference in the American elections. [Presumably, Flynn offered them something to avoid retaliation. Maybe lifting of these sanctions once Trump was inaugurated?] 3) Flynn then lied to the FBI about this meeting. Trump appointed Flynn to be National Security Advisor from January 23, 2017, despite warnings from numerous people about his potential crimes.

On December 1, 2017, Flynn pleaded guilty to "willfully and knowingly" making "false, fictitious and fraudulent statements" to the FBI regarding conversations with Russia's ambassador. He is now a convicted felon.

Also, on June 9, 2016, Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort met with a Russian lawyer to get opposition research on Hillary Clinton (which is illegal). Trump Jr. keeps claiming it was mostly about adoption but the Mueller Report explains how the Russians offered to help the campaign with information about Hillary in exchange for working to lift the Magnitsky Act. The Magnitsky Act was a 2012 bipartisan bill passed by the U.S. Congress to punish Russian officials responsible for the death of Russian tax accountant Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow prison in 2009. It authorizes the US government to sanction human rights offenders, freeze their assets, and ban them from entering the U.S.

Meanwhile, Trump, through Cohen, was trying to negotiate with Russian authorities to build hotels in Russia. They also lied about how long this continued.

There are many more horrible things in this part but these are the most important I think. We can get lost in the mountains of crimes coming out of this administration, but it's important to see the worst offenses in the Mueller Report clearly as they are an attack on our country and our democracy. On the other hand, note that a lot of evidence is missing because it was encrypted and Donald Trump refused to be deposed for the investigation. So this might just be the tip of the iceberg.

Part 2 of the Report: Obstruction of Justice

Part 2 is basically just a laundry list of the hundreds of times Donald Trump obstructed justice by impeding the investigation into confirmed Russian interference in the election. I may or may not be exaggerating "hundreds," because I lost count but triple digits is not impossible. (Here are the main groupings of his obstructions: https://time.com/5573521/donald-trump. Obviously obstruction of justice is a crime, so if Donald Trump were not currently President he'd be in jail as a convicted felon for these offenses. I realize that many people don't care about this. However, they really should especially care about all the instances where Trump specifically obstructed the investigations into Manafort and Flynn who sold out our country.

Our survival as a democracy depends on enough people mustering up some righteous indignation about not just Russia's acts, but all the traitorous acts against us by US citizens.

Full report available here: https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf.

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Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A series of poems that form the author's memoir. Very cleverly constructed and beautiful, sad, and moving in many parts. Might be kind of confusing for kids, who appear to be the intended audience, but it would work if a parent read it with them and explained all the background history.

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Mrs. Bridge by Evan S. Connell

Mrs. Bridge by Evan S. Connell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a beautifully-written and enjoyable read, but it's not an easy book to sum up because of its moral ambiguity. Mrs. Bridge is a complete person and you feel for her and for her somewhat mysterious children, listless friends, and servants, though Mr. Bridge is left mostly in the shadows.

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Appointment in Samarra by John O'Hara

Appointment in Samarra by John O'Hara
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Even if this wasn’t taking place during the Great Depression, the characters would still have seemed pretty self-absorbed. The sentence writing is good but the plot feels disorganized and most of the characters feel extraneous. The best parts were about the relationship between Julian and Caroline English.

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A Delicate Aggression by David O. Dowling

A Delicate Aggression: Savagery and Survival in the Iowa Writers' Workshop by David O. Dowling
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My interest waxed and waned while reading this. As other reviewers mentioned it was more of a collection of biographies about certain teachers and certain students at the Iowa Writers Workshop MFA in three different eras. I was originally hoping to learn more about the actual program, especially the modern era because my husband attended for fiction writing in the early 2000s, but it didn’t provide that. Nonetheless, I found the information about Paul Engle, Flannery O’Connor, and Marilynne Robinson very interesting. Engle created and managed to fund an amazing program and the author is confusingly kind of negative towards him. But overall, I’m glad I read this.

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The Losers Club by Andrew Clements

The Losers Club by Andrew Clements
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Great book for kids about having a love for reading and practicing your values even when it’s hard. There are many other great children’s books mentioned inside this book, and my third grader is already talking about reading them.

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You Are Not a Stranger Here by Adam Haslett

You Are Not a Stranger Here by Adam Haslett
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is an excellent collection. Almost all the stories are about mental illness with a few exceptions. I especially appreciated “Notes to My Biographer,” “The Good Doctor,” “The Beginnings of Grief,” and “Devotion” (one of the few in the collection not about mental illness). After the first four the stories were harder for me to get through, but still very good.

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The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante

The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This feels very real, especially the way she completely loses focus as she experiences depression. It felt very intense to read this.

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Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman

Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was short and definitely inspired some deep thinking. I've had some of these dreams myself, and some of these scenarios (like no memory) exist here in this universe.

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Mr g by Alan Lightman

Mr g: A Novel About The Creation by Alan Lightman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What a strange little book. I’ve never read anything quite like it. It starts like Douglas Adams book, then it’s full of delightful physics, and then it goes somewhere unexpectedly nihilistic. Possibly Lightman himself would disagree with that final assessment but that’s how experienced it.

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Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It took two attempts for me to finish this book. The first time I lost interest in the beginning. The second time, I lost interest half-way through and finished it anyway. There's a lot of great writing and I was somewhat engaged in the female characters, but Dick always seemed lacking somehow, and that feeling just increased. I also wasn't interested in the meandering plot. So this was not the most enjoyable read for me.

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Convictions by Marcus J. Borg

Convictions: How I Learned What Matters Most by Marcus J. Borg
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is part memoir and part the author’s beliefs. I largely agree with what he wrote but I think his book “Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary” is much better (5 stars) because it is thoroughly explained with relevant history. In addition to the memoir aspects, this is mainly the conclusions from ”Jesus” without the arguments for the conclusions. Still a lovely book, just not as helpful to anyone with differing opinions.

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Jesus by Marcus J. Borg

Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary by Marcus J. Borg
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As a young person, I grew up nominally Catholic but was raised with people who held evangelical-style views, even when they were Catholic. Observing their attitudes and behavior, I was more or less pushed away from Christianity. I have been reading a lot of books about religion generally and also Christianity specifically in the last few years, and I read the Bible cover to cover maybe two years ago. This book is written by a serious religious historian, and is exceptionally well-written and reasoned. It also most closely expresses my understanding of Jesus Christ. Thank you so much for recommending this author, Renee Kahl!

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Life and Times of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass

Life and Times of Frederick Douglass: His Early Life as a Slave, His Escape From Bondage and His Complete Life Story by Frederick Douglass
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Wonderful autobiography. The only slightly silly reason I gave it 4 stars and not 5 stars, is because "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass," and "My Escape from Slavery" were compact power-punches of writing. By contrast, this one was long enough that it had time to meander, for example, into topics like Douglass's relation to the Freedman's Savings Bank that to a modern reader isn't as interesting.

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