The Education of a Coach by David Halberstam

The Education of a Coach by David Halberstam
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The book contained some interesting insights into Belichick's background and football strategy. The beginning suffered from a lack of chronology jumping back and forth between young Bill Belichick and his father Steve. It also felt like there wasn't enough about his most important time on the Patriots, in part because his early years on the Patriots were somewhat devoid of the bitter politics he encountered at his other jobs, and in part because this book came out in 2005, and since then Belichick has been coaching the Patriots an additional 12 years and won another 2 Super Bowls. I am a Patriot's fan via my Massachusetts-born husband, and I was disappointed that Belichick didn't pull out any defensive magic last night in Super Bowl LII.

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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As other readers have mentioned this book is more like two books. The popular science fiction portion of the book deals with the study of the HeLa cell lines named for the woman whom they were taken from, Henrietta Lacks. The other portion of the book is the story of Henrietta Lacks and her family which really highlights many of the injustices towards black Americans particularly in the realm of science and medicine. Both stories also lead into conversations about the evolving law regarding consent and control over one's genetic information and material.

The first story about the scientific research on HeLa is bazonkers (doesn't matter that bazonkers is not a word, something like that is needed for emphasis). I'm usually pretty up-to-date on what's going on in Science but I definitely missed some of the stranger HeLa cell research.

The second story about the family is touching, upsetting, and angering. Although at times this part feels a bit meandering with an examination of a large family. I was mostly interested in the story of her daughter Deborah probably because she's the person Skloot got to know the best.

The status of our rights regarding our genetic material is both frightening and frustrating.

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My Escape from Slavery by Frederick Douglass

My Escape from Slavery by Frederick Douglass
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a follow-up to Douglass's autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and fills in the missing information about how he escaped from slavery.

Frederick Douglass is one of the best writers of all time. His subject matter is captivating, but his skill as a writer is both technically perfect and extremely moving.

Some favorite sentences:
"This contest was now ended; my chains were broken, and the victory brought me unspeakable joy."
"I was without home, without acquaintance, without money, without credit, without work, and without any definite knowledge as to what course to take, or where to look for succor."

And this! I love this: "While in this situation I had little time for mental improvement. Hard work, night and day, over a furnace hot enough to keep the metal running like water, was more favorable to action than thought; yet here I often nailed a newspaper to the post near my bellows, and read while I was performing the up and down motion of the heavy beam by which the bellows was inflated and discharged."

Available free here: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~drbr/doug...

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Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Excellent memoir (in the form of a letter to the author's son). Strongly recommend every American read this as soon as possible. Coates writes prose as if it is poetry. He clearly and simply traces the relationship between American economics, slavery, the Civil War, the modern South, police brutality, city projects, and the uphill battle of those trying to move away from the history. He manages to pack a lot into a very short book. Between his beautiful writing and his economy of words, I wasn't able to put the book down until I was finished.

It's particularly interesting reading this book right now, when the current presidential election is mired in these very issues. The thing that's different now, is that the racist-sexist forces in our country have failed to hide their intentions this time. With their true intentions on display a majority of the "other" seem to have banded together: Women, black people, Hispanic people, GLBT, and others voting together en masse against the typical oppressors. As Gloria Steinem says racism and sexism are closely related and intertwined. It keeps the maximum number oppressed and also helps keep everyone divided. It's not a conspiracy, it's simply that authoritarians want to keep as much power for themselves and away from as many others as possible, so everyone is "lesser." One thing that Coates stresses though is that even if a majority are moving away from racist-sexist attitudes, it takes only one act of state-sanctioned terrorism by the police to take away all security. And sadly there have been many more than one.

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Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was a fun pulp read. It's a perfect beach read with adventure, strange characters, and almost-but-not-quite Jane Austin-style romance.

A lot of reviewers are annoyed because, being a product of its time, the story was sexist and racist, which is true. Really though, it was also really just misanthropic. If you examine it carefully, the most moral, kind-hearted, and brave character is Kala, the great ape female that adopted Tarzan. The other animals are the most moral because they kill to eat or for dominance, but never for torture or pleasure as the humans do.

I'm trying to decide whether to read the second one in the series because there is a bit of a question at the end of the first.

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