The Beekeeper's Lament

My husband continues to insist that my Thanksgiving reading, The Beekeeper's Lament, sounds like one of the most boring books ever written. I assure you, it’s anything but. Yes, the topic is bees and beekeeping – the types, anatomy, habits, and afflictions of honey bees and why keeping them has never been harder work. More broadly, however, this is a book about global trade, global warming, and the evolution of agricultural practices, eating habits, and urban sprawl in the U.S.  It is informative without being dull, no small task given the subject matter. The author also avoids preaching; given some of the broader, overarching topics like urban sprawl and commercial farms, the tone easily could have turned preachy, but never did.

To recap some of the more interesting facts (Trivia Pursuit, anyone?): I know now that the top agricultural exports of California and North Dakota are almonds and honey, respectively, and that honey bees are really, really important if we want to have a variety of choices in what we eat. I learned that every flower has a different taste to bees, which prefer apricot blossoms to those of the almond tree and detest the bitter flower of the onion and that bee theft is an actual problem during pollination season. I also know that if you want your honey to be honey, it’s probably best to buy it from a farmer’s market.

The act of beekeeping, too, is described in to the smallest detail, from the protective gear that must be donned to work with bees, to the processes required to maintain a healthy hive and harvest honey for sale. From developing new types of bees and bee medicines, to breeding and mailing queens (by law the U.S. Post Office must deliver bees), this book offers insight into a profession that exists, generally, on the margins. By the end of the book, I was rooting for both the bees and beekeepers, as well as for the scientists working to unravel the mystery of – and find a cure for – Colony Collapse Disorder and the many other ails that are currently afflicting the bees.

Bury Your Dead

For many years I was an avid reader of Agatha Christie mysteries, until I virtually exhausted her body of work. Bury Your Dead is the first mystery I’ve read in many years that was on par with Agatha Christie’s works. Louise Penny is a master storyteller, expertly weaving mystery and backstory into the fabric of Quebec City. She truly captures the ambiance of the city, making me wish that I had read Bury Your Dead before I went to Quebec City, rather than after I had already visited, so to seek out some of the more interesting buildings and institutions she describes. Her depiction of Quebec buried under glistening snow is enough to make me consider a winter visit, no small accomplishment. One of my favorite aspects of this book is that there are really three separate mysteries, each with a different story, set of characters, and motivations, at work here. The result is a book that is deeply engaging and intellectually stimulating, while also being a lot of fun, at least for those who like to solve a mystery before all is revealed.

The American South: The Non-Fiction

After highlighting the books I've read set in the fictional South, it seems to follow that I should next review the books I have read that were set in the real South. There are three of them, although the first one, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, I have to confess I read in late 2010, following a trip to Savannah. I will start with that one, however, as it is the best of the three.

A New York journalist moves to Savannah in the 1980s out of a love for the food, the architecture, the Spanish moss, the essence of the city. In the midst of documenting his experiences in this quintessentially Southern city, murder, intrigue, and scandal erupt. The result is one of the best stories, and best books, I have read, possibly ever. In my experience it is relatively rare for a non-fiction to read like a novel, but this book does. John Berendt brings to life not only the major players in his story, but virtually every person he encounters. One of my personal favorites is the woman he overhears excitedly describing the bloodlines of her soon-to-be...daughter-in-law. And if, "a good time, not yet had by all" is not one of the best lines in modern literature, I don't know what is. The cherry on top is that Berendt beautifully brings to life the city of Savannah: his descriptions of the city are true to life; turning the pages, one can almost hear the rustle of live oak leaves and Spanish moss as a soft sea breeze slips through the squares.

If Midnight in the Garden... is the micro-version of the South, Dominion of Memories: Jefferson, Madison, & the Decline of Virginia is the macro-version. Focused largely on the early nineteenth century, this book sets the stage for the American Civil War. Laying open the vast difference of opinion on the extent of state's rights even among the founding father's, one has the feeling while reading this that such bloody conflict had been inevitable for at least two generations. Further, reading of the state of Virginia's railways and roads (often impassable even to the best addresses), one sees the futility of the Southern cause: clearly, clearly, no army could move efficiently through this state, saddled as it was with unmatched railroads, muddy, rutted "roads" and a white population essentially at war with itself. (Not only in the traditional brother-against-brother sense of the Civil War: in Virginia, wealthy aristocrats from the Tidewater area had resisted so much as giving the vote to less wealthy whites from present-day West Virginia; the latter successfully created their own state in the midst of the Civil War after contemplating as much for decades.) In the end, I came away with the sense that the founding fathers were united only against the British, therefore, setting up a fledgling nation for inevitable internecine conflict.

The Plantation Mistress covers a similar time and place: the ante-bellum South of the early- to mid-1800s. This past spring Ben and I had the opportunity to visit two plantations just outside of Charleston, one of which was celebrating Women's History Month (March) by highlighting the role and work of the plantation mistress. To learn more, they recommended reading this book, in which one learns that, contrary to being Scarlett O'Hara, the overwhelming, vast majority of Southern women wished to be Scarlett. Make no mistake, there were wonderfully wealthy women in the Old South who sat on their porch drinking mint juleps and gossiping the afternoon away. Most women, however, were more likely to be found nursing a sick child or up to the elbows in pickling brine or checking the cellar stores or, or, or. Where a woman would not be found, however, is basically anywhere other than home: travel for women was greatly restricted, to the extent that many describe feeling trapped, especially when the husband was traveling and the children (if there were any) were away at school. In those cases, the plantation mistress, often far removed from her family and sometimes as young as 16 or 17, might be the only white woman for miles around, leaving her in state of utter isolation. The result of this isolation is a treasure trove of personal letters to husbands, mothers, sisters, and friends; this book is all the richer for the generous portions of these letters that pepper the pages.

The American South: The Fiction

Looking over the books I have read this year, a few trends pop out at me: I have read a tremendous amount of non-fiction, especially biographies, this year. I have read a half-dozen books set in Europe between the 1920s and the 1940s. And I have read quite a few books focused on the life and times of the American South. As a region, it captures the imagination perhaps better than any other, no doubt thanks in large part to one of my all-time favorite books, Gone with the Wind. Yes, I’m blaming Scarlett. Before I get to the real South, though, the one covered in non-fiction books, I’m going to indulge in Southern-set fiction, starting with the biggest bit of mind candy I enjoyed all year: Rhett Butler’s People.

I was unfamiliar with Rhett Butler’s People until my mother presented me a copy for my reading enjoyment. Enjoy it, I did. Donald McCaig beautifully depicts Civil War-era Charleston; having been there twice recently, part of the fun for me was imagining these places, many of which still exist, in the setting he creates. He also deftly incorporates most of the iconic scenes from Gone with the Wind, while building a backstory for Rhett and presenting a future beyond, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” All of the familiar characters make appearances and, except Scarlett, become more sympathetic, while a host of new faces also appear. In addition to lively sketches of ante-bellum and Civil War Charleston, McCaig sets an important handful of scenes in New Orleans, the bustle of a still-half-French city springing forth from the pages. This is mind candy; the writing is clean and fine, but the most redeeming feature of this book is that it allows those of us who loved Scarlett the first time to indulge in her antics anew, without rereading the same dog-eared pages we’ve already learned by heart.

Before I fast forward 100 years from Scarlett and Company and travel west to Jackson, Mississippi, to arrive at the The Help, I should mention briefly my third foray into the world of Scarlett O’Hara. Against the advice of Elizabeth, to whom I owe this whole project, I read The Wind Done Gone. I will say nothing more of it here, other than to reiterate that it was against her advice, and to note that had it been any longer, it undoubtedly would have made the ignoble Did Not Finish list.

And now, The Help. I loved virtually everything about this book, but it is the characters that truly made it for me. The Help is peopled with examples of the worst of us bipeds: aloof socialites, poor parents, cruel dates, and manipulative friends and family. Regularly I thought, “oh, but I know that person…” Cheering as each received their comeuppance may be in poor taste (no, of course not), but who couldn’t smile at the thought of Hilly returning home to find her lawn sprouting toilets of every hue? Or abed as the deed of “the terrible awful” is immortalized in black and white? Yes, there were (and are) people like Hilly, and they have created more than their share of trouble in this country, but there are also plenty of Skeeters and Aibileens, so it is only just that when one turns the last page of the book, each of these ladies has found a way forward while Hilly is stuck in neutral.

The Rest of World War II: Hotel on the Corner... and Lost in Shangri-La

Since the last two books that I read were focused on World War II or the run-up to World War II, I think it makes sense to look back at two other books I read this year focused on the same time period. The books, one fiction and one, essentially, journalism are very different from one another with one exception: the war in focus is that with the Japanese, rather than the Germans.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is the only fictional novel I read this year set during WWII and is a relatively light read about the clash of cultures - Asian and American - on the West Coast during WWII. The author deftly examines what it means to be an American, to be young, to be a child in a country at war, while also exploring fear, both raw, wartime fear, and the more insidious "fear of the other," and what those fears can do to a family and a nation. This book paints an excellent portrait of the brutal, seemingly arbitrary decision to "intern" thousands of Japanese-Americans, many with only distant, tenuous ties to Japan, in camps they were forced to build themselves during World War II. It is a searing portrait of upheaval, loss, and ultimately forgiveness and redemption. Indeed, I would have thought this book really excellent were it not for one small, but important detail: the use, in the book, of the Internet in the mid-1980s. I appreciate poetic license, but even months later find this one, seemingly small, detail continues to nag at me.

In contrast, Lost in Shangri-La is the true story of three members of the U.S. military, including one WAC, who survive a horrific plane crash that kills 21 of their friends and colleagues, deep in the New Guinea jungle. I have a hard time putting my thoughts about this book into words because it is so impossible that it’s hard to believe it really happened. Not only is the setting surreal, deep in a jungle inhabited by virtually unknown, cannibalistic tribes, but the entire idea of an office commanding a flight to gawk at said tribes in the middle of the war is also mind boggling. Add to the mix that three people survived the crash and ensuing inferno and picked their way through the jungle and into the arms of one tribe, and this had to be one of the most improbable, most fascinating episodes of the war.

It is a credit to the writing that the story tells itself so smoothly, but the intricately-researched history (of the area, the tribes – from agricultural techniques to war paints – and of previous European expeditions to the area) contributes greatly to the “it can’t be” sense of place and time that so perfectly imbues Shangri-La. The rescue, too, the “bahala na” attitude of the men asked to carry out this task, amazes. And while Margaret’s gumption is a thing to behold, ultimately John McCollum is the hero of the book. From bandaging the wounded and marking the dead, to signaling for U.S. military planes and befriending tribal chiefs, to his last ultimate high-altitude task, he makes the impossible happen. I believe most of us would hope, on our best day, to muster half the strength, courage, and wherewithal that John exhibits throughout the ordeal.

In the Garden of Beasts

By pure coincidence, the next book I read after The Orientalist was In the Garden of Beasts, which had been recommended to me by an MSU colleague and was finally available at the library. The setting of both books is very similar: Europe in the interwar years, fraught with the tension of rising Nazism in Germany and rising communism in Russia and Eastern Europe. This book, however, focuses largely an American perspective and American motives for when and why the U.S. tried – or didn’t try – to confront Germany’s Nationalist Socialists.

It starts and ends with the protagonist, a meek, mild-mannered history professor who is far from the first choice for the position of U.S. Ambassador to Germany but is willing to accept it when FDR’s administration essentially runs out of better options. Initially an unsympathetic character, Professor Dodd is hoping for a sabbatical of sorts in accepting the position and moving his family, including his highly promiscuous, scandal prone, 24-year old daughter to Berlin. Initially reluctant to believe, let alone relay, the violence of life in Germany, Dodd soon becomes the loudest voice for the U.S. to take a stronger stance against Germany. Here the story becomes utterly fascinating.

In studying World War II, I particularly remember two reasons for U.S. – and European – reluctance to become involved: 1) Following “The War to End All Wars,” a desire for peace so strong as to blind men and nations to Hitler’s obviously wicked acts and plans. 2) In the U.S., a desire for America to not become bogged down, or even part, or Europe’s “squabbles.” In a word, isolationism. In the Garden of Beasts presents two additional motives: 1) Germany owed the U.S. money and despite, or perhaps because of, the Great Depression, the U.S. and U.S. bonds holders were determined to get it. Time and again Dodd and the State Department go around over the need to press Germany to pay up. Between Germany’s crushing reparations to other European nations and the worldwide depression, this notion is laughable. 2) A concern among top American officials that any attempt to highlight or disparage the increasing anti-Jewish policies in Germany would cause German leaders to point out for all the world the parallels between the Nazi Jewish laws and the Jim Crow laws of the American South (and the treatment of blacks in southern states).

Indeed, I wished this last point had received more attention because it struck me as one of the most compelling reasons for the U.S. failure to denounce Nazism. When I read it, a light bulb went off in my head and it really seemed to me like the missing piece of the puzzle explaining why the U.S. sat idly by waiting for a race of people to be obliterated.

Ultimately, it’s amazing that Dodd took the appointment in the hopes of achieving, essentially, a sabbatical to complete his opus on the antebellum South. In the end, however, he was the most sympathetic character for me and, while I disagreed heartily with his motives for accepting the posting in Berlin, I was truly sorry for him to have not finished his Old South.

Books I Didn't Finish

Before I look back on some of my favorite books that I’ve read this year, I want to reflect on the two books that I did not finish (DNF). Before deciding to not finish a book, I really do use the 200 page rule: I read, and try to enjoy, at least 200 pages of a book before declaring it a lost cause. Some wonderful books, including by one of my favorite authors, John Irving, start slowly. As a result, I finish – and enjoy – the vast majority of the books I begin reading. Of the 50 I’ve read so far this year, only two (four percent of the total) have fallen into the DNF category.

I learned of My New American Life through the Post’s summer reading list, a usually wonderful source of reading ideas. The premise of the book sounded interesting: a young Albania woman (Lula) comes to the U.S. to work as a nanny in suburban New York/New Jersey, goes about adjusting to life in this country, and has her life thrown into a bit of turmoil by the appearance of a couple of Albanians (mobsters) who may or may not have known her or her family in Albania. The premise seemed promising enough, but the characters and the story never developed. Lula walks to the library. Lula goes to the supermarket. Lula prepares an after-school snack for her charge. Lula lives a quiet suburban life. I get it; in many ways, it is my life. And Lula’s shopping trips sounded about as exciting as mine. Maybe that would have been okay, had I cared about Lula – or anyone else in the book. I didn’t. After roughly 250 pages, I decided I’d read enough.

The second book I did not finish was far more disappointing. Having read most of Mark Twain’s work, I eagerly anticipated the release of his autobiography. Unfortunately, it bore virtually no resemblance to his other work that I had loved: little wit or charm, few characters to connect with, no common threads holding it all together. The anecdotes in the Autobiography of Mark Twain, at least those in volume one, appeared to be random recollections, presented in no certain order, and in very dry prose. As I read, I felt it must get better, that surely the next page, the next story would be the one to turn the tide in favor of the book. Half-way through the 700+ page tome, I closed the book for the last time and returned it to the library, unfinished.

The Orientalist

The Orientalist is the only book I have purchased this year, from a used book shop in Ann Arbor, and as the result of not having a CADL due date staring at me each time I opened it, it took me several months to get around to reading it. Perhaps that is a shame, since this is one of the most intricately woven, intensely researched books I've had the pleasure of reading this year.

So much about this book impressed me, but nothing more than the way Tom Reiss wove together so many seemingly disparate stories. These stories encompass the series of Russian revolutions, the creation of the Pale, the desert histories of Persia and its re-emergence as Iran, the morphing of the Ottoman Empire into Turkey and the end of the caliphate, the history of mountain Jews in the Caucuses, and ultimately the Machiavellian view in Western Europe and the U.S. that Nazism be, for lack of a better word, embraced in order that Communism and the "red menace" of the Bolsheviks spread no further west. The research and crafting of these histories alone is an immense undertaking, but none of them is the primary story of The Orientalist.

That is the story of world-renowned author Leo (Lev) Nussimbaum, aka Essad Bey, aka Kurban Said and his remarkable life. From a childhood in Baku, Azerbaijan, at the time of the Russian revolution, to death in Fascist, WWII Italy, he seems to have witnessed every major event of the first four decades of the twentieth century. Understanding that only 10 years after his death John Steinbeck was not familiar with him, Nussimbaum/Bey/Said helps frame the sheer amount of detective work Reiss undertook to bring this project to fruition. In addition to being beautifully written and seamlessly crafted (no small feat considering the number of intertwined stories), Reiss does an exquisite job of relaying his own experience researching and writing the book, his interviews with numerous quirky characters, his dogged hunt for documents large and small, and the surprises along the way.

Growing Up Amish

I first encountered this memoir while looking for a quilt rack in the heart of Northern Indiana Amish country with my mom. Walking through Shipshewana and seeing the legions of Amish, bicycling, buggy-ing, and strolling through the streets, I became more and more intrigued by the idea of their lives: no electricity, no cars, no conveniences of any kind. How did they make it work? So when I found Growing Up Amish staring at me from shelf-after-shelf of store-after-store, I thought I had found the answer to my myriad questions on Amish life.

Unfortunately, I was wrong. A better title would perhaps have been Leaving the Amish, as the author does time and again, but the memoir is unfortunately devoid of details about growing up Amish. The majority of the book in fact focuses on late adolescent and early adulthood years, with sparse offerings on how it was to grow up without such common comforts as central heating or lightbulbs. What chores were assigned from what age? How did the author perceive the "English" as a child? And once among them, which aspects of the larger world most excited - and most disappointed? 

On a separate note, I found the writing style choppy and distracting, with an abundance of incompletely developed thoughts, and therefore sentences, in nearly every chapter. I prefer richer writing, with more fully developed characters, and I had a hard time mustering much interest in the partially developed individuals in this book. That may also have to do with the undertones of bitterness that are present throughout the book, such that the author's assertion "despite harboring some resentment at the Amish in general for a number of years, I have come to terms with the aftermath..." (p. 269)  rang hollow to me. 

Overall, this memoir disappointed, as it only scratched the surface of what it could have been, had the author truly wished his reader's to understand how it was to grow up Amish as much as he wished them to understand why he chose to leave the Amish.

The Project

At the end of 2010, my good friend Elizabeth revealed to me a New Year's resolution that I couldn't help but appropriate: read a book a week in the coming year. As an avid reader, and having just completed my dissertation, and therefore having a new-found freedom, this challenge was more than I could pass up. And so it began, back in January with Daniel Okrent's brilliant work on Prohibition, Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition. 

As I continued to make my way through book-after-book, my husband encouraged me to put my praise and my criticisms into a blog, the result of which is "This Year in Books;" the maintenance of which is also known as my 2012 New Year's resolution. Going forward, I will write about books as I read them, but in the waning weeks of 2011, I'll be recapping this year's books, and will end the year with a full list of the books I read this year.