The Best of 2018

As 2018 gives way to 2019, it's time to take stock of the books that will stay with me into the new year. My resolution a year ago was to read more broadly, of ideas, of cultures, of places, and this I managed to do. From the Palestinian diaspora to America's opioid epidemic, my reading delved into subject matter I previously knew little of. I'll keep the same resolution for 2019.

More than previous years, my reading was also shaped by the contours of life. I read more than one work on neuroscience, and, not unrelated, an equal number on the impacts of the foods we eat on the workings of that most mysterious organ. Tony Danza's I'd Like to Apologize to Every Teacher I Ever Had, his memoir about teaching for a year at an inner city school, resonated with me in light of our decision to send our son to an urban school, rather than our suburban home district - and the ways in which my eyes, too, have been opened by the circumstances such schools face.

Out of the 70ish books I read this year, here are the ones I loved best:
 
Over the years, some of my favorite memoirs have been those of Edmund Love, the Gilbreths, and James Herriot (all of whom lived lives so rich they cannot be contained in a single volume). Mary MacLeod's Call the Nurse and Nurse, Come You Here! are works of this same, fine tradition. Each is steeped in the time and, especially, the place (the Shetland Islands) where MacLeod lived; these are easily the most delightful memoirs I read this year.

 As regards general non-fiction, three books stand out to me:  
Chesapeake Requiem: A Year with the Watermen of Vanishing Tangier Island;
The Lost City of the Monkey God;
Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates   

Chesapeake Requiem remains the most important, thought-provoking work I have read this year. Earl Swift so captures the culture, contradictions, and history of a people and a place, and in doing so brings to the fore all of the issues dividing this country so deeply today.

In a similar way, Lost City of the Monkey God poses crucial questions about the ownership of culture and history, what we know versus what we think we know, and also the limits of science, knowledge, and medicine in the face of the vast and the unknowable.

As for Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates, it's easily the most important volume on history I've read since Hero, another work that so eloquently lays out how the world's problems are not new and are perhaps more intractable that any currently-powerful individual (whenever "current" may be) would like to believe. This, too, is a story of cultural clash and the limits to reconciling cultures across such a vast schism.

For the first time, the fiction I read surpassed the non-fiction, and the year was rich was soaring, multi-generational works whose characters, plots, and prose captivated me. These five books rose to the top:

Pachinko;
What We Were Promised;
Tai-Pan; 
A Gentleman in Moscow;
Last Bus to Wisdom

The first three are set in Asia, though at varying times and in varying places, from early twentieth century Korea and Japan (Pachinko) to modern-day Shanghai (What We Were Promised), to the founding of Hong Kong (Tai-Pan); given my affinity for both history and Asia, it's not surprising they rose to the top, although plenty of Asian-centered books did not. What sets these apart is the stories they tell, the characters the authors bring to life, and the language that evokes time and place: from beginning to end, these works feel authentic.

A Gentleman in Moscow is more subtle, occurring entirely within the confines of a single hotel across the birth, rise, and decline of the Soviet Union. Through it all, Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, Recipient of the Order of Saint Andrew, member of the Jockey Club retains his loyalty to the Russia or yore.

Of all the fiction I read, though, it is Last Bus to Wisdom that left the most lasting impression on me, whose characters reached through the pages, whose words I could hear and faces I could see. I am with Donal and Herman the German yet as they ride that last bus.

Ghostland (and other unfinished stories)

For ages now, I've been slogging my way through three books, none of which is bad, but none of which grips my attention and keeps me turning the pages. Reading Idiot Brain last week, I was struck by Dean Burnett's musings on the nature of motivation and particular what motivates readers to force themselves to finish a book that they've long determined doesn't constitute pleasurable reading material. On the cusp of the new year, Burnett's veiled admonition spoke to me and I resolved not to be that reader anymore. Thus, I've reached the end of the line with these three books:

Wanderlust: A History of Walking by Rebecca Solnit

In five words: Too much philosophizing; too boring. More plainly, just because I like to do something doesn't mean a book about that activity (or object, see Paper) makes for an enthralling read.

Far Afield by Susanna Kaysen

Kaysen's Far Afield caught my eye for being set in the Faroe Islands. I'd not read anything there and, hoping it might by similar to Mary MacLeod's delightful Call the Nurse and Nurse, Come You Here!, both of which are set in the neighboring Shetlands, I harbored great hope for this fictional account of life in the Faroes. In the end, Far Afield was both too similar to too different to hold my interest. Would I consider going back to this when MacLeod is less fresh in my mind? Perhaps. But my reading list is long and the time to read too short.

Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places by Coline Dickey

Of the three books, Dickey's Ghostland is the one that held my attention longest and that I liked best. Each chapter explores a purportedly haunted place in America, from the early homes of Salem, Massachusetts, to a Toys R Us in California. Dickey visits each and explains the history behind the place, when it was first reported as haunted, the ways in which haunting is tied to the commercial value, and so on, generally systematically dismantling the notion of the haunting. "Many times a ghost story is simply an attempt to account for scattered tidbits, some disconnected facts, that don't add up," Dickey writes halfway through the book, but he's said as much at least a half dozen times before that. Ultimately, Ghostland  was just too repetitive for me. Each chapter followed the formula I've described, and, while the setting changes from hotel to home or brothel to bar, each feels the same. After 150 or so pages, I'd had my fill.

Idiot Brain: What Your Head Is Really Up To

My latest foray into learning how brains work (and thereby being able to converse intelligently with the legion of neurologists who are part of our lives) is Dean Burnett's Idiot Brain, an entertaining look at the brain's various functions, from regulating hunger (Burnett clearly explains the process by which one always has room for a cookie) to fight or flight, language processing, and managing anger (the brain often prefers to be angry - go figure). Much of this he does with an eye toward evolution and, specifically, how our brains have not quite caught up with our non-hunter-gatherer, non-neanderthal ways.

Burnett taught me quite a bit, both about the brain in general, as well as regarding some specific - and relevant - conditions (hello, aphasia!). Honestly, it probably isn't a book that everyone needs to read, although it's never a bad thing to learn more about how a major, or in this case, the major organ works. The first half was a bit drier than the second half, but I appreciated Burnett's humor throughout.

Since most people are unlikely to read more than one brain book for fun, I also feel obliged to add a quick note of comparison to James Fallon's The Psychopath Inside. These books are very different books. Fallon is focused on psychopathic brains, but particularly the influence of genes on brain structure and function. Burnett is much more straightforward in terms of explaining how the brain works, how disorders (depression, schizophrenia, etc.) occur, and typical activity, while acknowledging individual difference. In that sense, Burnett's book is broader and, perhaps, more useful as a brain primer.

Four stars.

The Marriage Bureau: The True Story of How Two Matchmakers Arranged Love in Wartime London

Penrose Halson's The Marriage Bureau is essentially a history of the early years of the marriage agency that she later owned. That summary does little justice to the book itself, which, while obscure, is a fascinating read for anyone with an interest in World War II London.

Let's begin at the beginning: In the late 30s, Heather Jenner and Mary Oliver decided to open a marriage bureau. The decision was remarkable for so many reasons: marriage agencies simply did not exist (the bureaucrats only wished they'd been able to site a regulation against such a business in the early days!). Equally, it was so unbecoming for a young woman, especially from the upper classes, to strike out on her own this way that Mary Oliver is but a pseudonym, so afraid was Audrey Mary Parsons that her parents would learn of her work.

The clients ranged from MPs and aristocrats to shop girls, mariners, and dock workers - with a heavy does of active duty military (men and women) thrown in. Given the number of foreigners passing through London during the war, there were also no shortages of foreigners. (Notably, the original idea for the marriage bureau originated with Mary's Uncle George who suggested she try to find the many young men scattered across the Empire a wife during their rare leaves home.)

Using a system they devised, and relying heavily on the class strictures of the times, they consistently matched and married their clients. The Marriage Bureau is the story of these clients - some bordering on the hilarious and some downright tragic (there was a war on!) - but it's also the history of civilian life in a city under siege. For it's against the backdrop of air raids and ration coupons that Heather and Mary, later assisted by a broader cast of characters, do their work.

My favorite part of the book was actually the appendix, which includes the requirements of the clients, as written by themselves on their registration forms. Some were specific, as the woman who wished a man who was "Educated. Good looking. Self-assured. Mechanically minded. Handy around the house. Must have wavy hair." Another stated that any perspective husband must have a February or May birthday. The most touching are those who hope fervently to stymie the pain of war: "My boy was killed during the war. If I can find through you someone like or as near as possible to what he was I should be very grateful." The men's requirements, too, were often tinged with fear and loss and war, from the men who have several years left in the service, to the many who has lost both of his hands but is keen for any prospective wife to know that he can manage everything for himself. It is these succinct little statements that ooze zeitgeist and human nature; a collection of these by itself would be worthy reading; the rest is all icing on top.

As far as a recommendation, if you can't get enough of World War II history, particularly the more obscure bits, The Marriage Bureau will absolutely suit. For the reader who's less sold on the topic, it's probably closer to three-and-a-half stars than five.

All You Can Ever Know

Nicole Chung's All You Can Ever Know is the memoir of growing up Korean in a white family in small town Oregon circa 1985. I was interested in it as an adoption memoir, and Chung certainly touches on her emotions regarding feelings of abandonment and not fitting in. Much of the latter owes, it seems from the book, to the fact that Chung was raised in a town so small and so white that the only other people of color she ever saw were a handful of Asians in stereotypical roles (aka, dry cleaning and Chinese takeout). Chung's experience was also colored by the fact that she knew much of her early history (born prematurely, immigrant parents unable to cope with the expected special needs, etc.) and as she describes, her birth mother went as far as to attempt to make contact with her when she was still quite young.

Ultimately All You Can Ever Know vacillates between Chung's memoir of a mostly unhappy childhood and then her adult quest to locate her birth family. This she does successfully and, owing to the relationship she forges with a sister, she is also able to tell the family's story, frequently woven through chapters of Chung's own experiences.

Final verdict: I liked it, but I didn't love it. There are a lot of memoirs out there, and a lot of adoption-related books, memoirs, advice, and so on as well. Certainly there's an audience for this work, but on the whole it's a pretty niche read.

Three-and-a-half stars.

Crazy Rich Asians

Kevin Kwan makes me want to go back to Singapore. (It doesn't take much, but still.)

If you haven't yet read Crazy Rich Asians - and you should - the essence is that economics professor Rachel Chu gets more than she bargains for when she agrees to spend the summer in Asia with her boyfriend, who is also a fellow professor. Unfortunately, there are a few little details that Nicholas Young has omitted to tell her - like is family is filthy rich, the family home is basically a palace, and every woman in Singapore is angling to get her hooks into him. Also, his mother is absolutely, over-the-top cray-cray. All of which makes for an entertaining read of the highest degree.

What Kwan does especially well is infuse his characters (most of them anyway) with genuine likability so that even when the reader is struck dumb by the behavior, you can't help but root for them. Also, the infusion of Singapore. I love a book that enables to me to recapture the best of a place that I've visited, and Kwan does that so well with the city state.

Five stars.

Dolley

I have mixed feelings on Rita Mae Brown's Dolley. In the plus column, is that it's a fairly lighthearted work of historical fiction. Alternating between current action and dairy entries allows the story to be told from multiple angles. Certainly, there were echoes of Empire of Mud, with the references to streets so bad the British may break their ankles on the march into town, and the Congressmen gathered in, or possibly fleeing from, their boarding houses. All of which is to say, Brown has done a nice job of capturing the zeitgeist of the era.

In the minus column is that Dolley herself seemed to border occasionally on "whiny," (not a trait I've ever heard associated with her), and I wondered if the real individuals obsessed as much on Washington and Hamilton as the characters Brown created. In the balance, these are relatively minor flaws.

Certainly, this is no 1812: The War That Forged a Nation, but neither is that what Brown is looking to accomplish. If you're looking for a relatively mild, fictional account of the politics and presidency on the eve of the British laying waste to Washington, Dolley is your book. Just be forewarned: the more things change, the more they stay the same, in politics as in life...

Four stars.

What We Were Promised

This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for great books (and the time to read them!), not least Lucy Tan's What We Were Promised. This novel is the story of a Chinese couple who has made good on the dream of American educations and American jobs and, finally, a triumphant return as expats to a China they discover they hardly know.

Wei, or Boss Zhen, is a highly successful marketing executive with a reality tv show that allows his estranged brother, Qiang, to contact him for the first time since he walked out of Wei's wedding 20-some years before. In the U.S., Lina was an energetic and popular Chinese teacher. In Shanghai she has devolved into the quintessential taitai; the book opens with her accusation of theft against a longtime maid that, coupled with Qiang's phone call seems to have sent the family, including 12-year-old, home-from-boarding-school-for-summers-only, Karen, into a tailspin. At the center of the action, and able to witness all of the jealousies, insecurities, and half-truths is maid Sunny.

Tan quietly tells their story from the alternating viewpoints of Wei, Lina, and Sunny, each of whom is trying to come to terms with past and present, obligations to family versus self, and the nature of incurring and canceling debts, especially the kinds that can't be counted in dollars and cents.

I absolutely loved this book. I was reminded frequently of Pachinko, particularly in regards to the nature of family dynamics and what is owed to the individual dream and the collective good.

Five stars.

The Underground Girls of Kabul: In Search of a Hidden Resistance in Afghanistan

The Underground Girls of Kabul is a fantastically informative, provocative, and depressing look at the plight of women and girls in Afghanistan. Author Jenny Nordberg begins with a quest to unravel the mysteries of those girls who are raised as honorary sons in boy-happy Afghanistan. The practice, which she traces across much of the former Zoroastrian empire, is hundreds (thousands?) of years old, and practiced by families from every ethnicity and income bracket. In fact, Nordberg first considers the issue when she learns that one of the female Parliamentarians has an honorary son - and was once one herself.

Nordberg approaches to her subject matter thoughtfully, delving into the historic, religious, and cultural origins of the practice, as well as the present day norms. Nordberg is also careful to consider how such fluid gender designations - accompanied by rigid gender roles - impact the identities of those who experience life as girl-boy-woman. (Perhaps not surprisingly, little if any attention has been paid to this issue in Afghanistan.)

Through this lens, Nordberg also provides a glimpse of daily life in Afghanistan - and, boy, is it depressing. Although, as long time Kabul resident and expat Carol le Duc observes to Nordberg, "This can be an awful place to be a woman. But it's not particularly good for a man, either." No matter: however rich, intelligent, or ambitious, the lot of an Afghan woman's life is unquestionably bleak; it's certainly a study in contrasts to those women profiled in All the Single Ladies. Such notions of independence are clearly many generations are away for All the Afghan Ladies.

Five stars.

The Dying of the Light

Diana Cooke was the last of a her line, a line unbroken back to Pocahontas. By the end of World War I, when Diana makes her much awaited debut, her beloved Saratoga is an albatross around her neck, one that compels her to marry a brash "Captain" whose greatest attribute is his bank account. Almost immediately they loath one another, seeking out new ways to exact cruelty one on the other, the only mutual interest being the unearthly love each possesses for their son, Ashton.

The Captain's death relieves Diana of the burden of being his wife, though leaves her again financially on the brink. Not until her grown son is sent down from Yale and returns home permanently, prep school and university roommate in tow, will her finances - and the state of Saratoga - be set right. Saratoga saved, every other aspect of Diana's life quickly spins away from her, resulting, we can only assume in the tragedy that opens the forward: Saratoga a fire-scarred ruins, the bones among the ash presumed to be those of the mistress.

So here's my take: So. Much. Melodrama. I alternated between enjoying the story Robert Goolrick was creating and feeling it was just too much. Like, too, too much. In the same way, the prose was frequently beautiful, but occasionally too overdone. Perhaps this was a tool Goolrick used to create an overwrought, melodramatic narrative. If this is how the reader is intended to feel, well done. If not, I could have gone in for just a little less drama and fewer beautiful words.

Three-and-a-half stars.

Heads in Beds: A Reckless Memoir of Hotels, Hustles, and So-Called Hospitality

Jacob Tomsky's Heads in Beds purports to be a tell-all on the hotel industry. Instead I found it mostly recounted Tomsky's personal exploits, frequently involving alcohol, often a hustle, and almost always some choice expletives, most commonly beginning with the letter F. So, no, it didn't really appeal...which is unfortunate, because it had potential, especially in the early chapters.

Tomsky more or less lost me when he got tired of his job and packed off to the Europe to live a backpacker's lifestyle until the money ran out. Returning to the States, he settled on New York and, out of options, returned to the hotel industry where he learned the real tricks of the hustle (aka scam). He did confirm for me others bits of hotel lore I've heard over the years, such as never, ever, ever drink from a glass in a guest room and the do not disturb sign is a very good friend. Also, valet parking: not a good idea.

As rapidly as the travel industry is changing, I'm curious how much some of the "advice" in Heads in Beds holds true a decade on. Certainly, I would expect that as the industry consolidates (think Marriott-Starwood merger), front desk staff have less autonomy than they did in the early 2000s, particularly at the mid-tier properties. (I also assume that hotels track individual guests more closely than in the past. Try Tomsky's mini-bar hustle on multiple properties in the same chain and I bet they catch on pretty quickly.)

Two-and-a-half stars.

The Story of Arthur Truluv

Elizabeth Berg's The Story of Arthur Truluv is a sweet enough story. The elderly, recently-widowed Arthur meets lonely, teenaged Maddy at the cemetery where he eats lunch with his late wife and she escapes the bullying and tedium of high school. Perhaps improbably, they forge a friendship, first with one another and then - individually and jointly - with Lucille, Arthur's equally-elderly neighbor. All of them are grappling with grief and with change, and loss is an elemental part of the story and their relationships with one another

Overall, I liked the story, although I am growing a bit weary of the genre. Glancing through reviews on Amazon, it's clear I'm not the only one who sees similarities with Ove, Hendrik Groen, and that other widower Arthur, Mr. Pepper. Too, I was bothered by the timing of the closing chapters; I simply couldn't make the dates add up in a way that made sense and seemed true to the rest of the story.

I was especially fond of Arthur, though, as well as his neighbor Lucille. On more than one occasion I was reminded of my great-grandfather, a widower who lived around the corner from his brother's widow, but would only rarely visit with her lest the neighbors notice. I am grateful for any book that offers an opportunity to reminisce about my grandfather, but such sentimentality can only take me so far.

Four stars.

All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation

All the Single Ladies suffered for being neither what I had anticipated (a bit more objective history looking at the women's rights movements, I think, although with, perhaps, some profiles on notable singles such as Susan B. Anthony or historic "near singles" like Amelia Earhart or Hetty Green, either of whom I believe would definitely qualify as an independent woman), not particularly relatable.

In terms of the latter, I was bothered most by the feeling that Rebecca Traister's central argument seemed to be that marriage is generally a raw deal for women. I won't argue about the historical accuracy of that sentiment, but for a book written in 2016, it seemed remarkable un-modern. There was a passing nod to marriages that just might kinda sorta be equal, an ambivalent acknowledgement that some women earn more than their husbands, but I felt it was glossed over as quickly as possible so as not to get into the way of this problematic (for me) central premise.

I felt, too, that Traister concentrated too much on women in big cities - New York, Boston, Atlanta, DC - and not enough time exploring the experiences of those in small towns whose experiences are likely quite different from the hard charging women whose stories began to run together.

On the whole, I was disappointed.

Two stars.

A Duty to the Dead

A Duty to the Dead is a World War I-era mystery, starring Bess Crawford as Hercule Poirot. Bess is a nurse on the hospital ship Britannic when the ship hits a mine and she breaks her arm in the ensuing chaos. Forced to return to Britain and await new orders, Bess has the time to carry a dying message to the family of one of her most beloved patients. Unfortunately, it appears this message is the last thing the family wants. As Bess tries to unravel the who, what, and why, she finds herself drawn into the sphere of an ever more mysterious family, and - frankly - increasingly improbable circumstances.

What I liked: A Duty to the Dead is a quick read, and it's highly readable. I'd read The Walnut Tree by Charles Todd several years ago, so I was confident I like Todd's writing, and A Duty to the Dead didn't disappoint. Bess is spirited and Todd covers the period well.

What could have been better: The circumstances were entirely to improbable for me to fully immerse myself in the mystery. That said, I still enjoyed this book and would read another Bess Crawford mystery in the future (though where she gets the time to play private detective in the midst of the Great War is perhaps its own mystery!).

Four stars.

The Psychopath Inside: A Neuroscientist's Personal Journey into the Dark Side of the Brain

James Fallon is a neuroscientist who has spent decades studying patterns of brain activity when he discovered that the activity and structures of his own brain were highly similar to the patterns of the psychopathic brains he'd been analyzing. In a quest to understand how and where his hypotheses might be wrong - after all, he'd believed these particular patterns to be the domain of murderous madmen - he began to delve deeper into the genetics that determine so much of our thoughts, feelings, actions, and emotions.

On the whole, I thought The Psychopath Inside was a fascinating look into brains and the intersection between nature and nurture. It certainly made me want to learn more about my own brain activity and genetics. Fallon occasionally got a bit too deep into the weeds and as a result it sometimes felt more like I was reading a neuroscience text. On the whole, though, the book is highly readable and extremely interesting.

French Exit

If I were to describe Patrick deWitt's highly entertaining French Exit in a single word, it would be "quirky." Frances Price and her grown, but highly immature son, Malcolm, have lived a life of wealth and privilege, becoming increasingly eccentric as their money disappeared and the scandal around the death of their late husband and father, Frank, grew.

Yes, deWitt's novel has it all, all far as eccentricities grow, from an acquaintance who knows when a death is about to occur and communes with the dead to a mother and son who communicate with one another via separate phone lines installed in their respective bedrooms, to a cat possessed of the soul of the dearly deceased.

So what is this quirky little book? Once the money runs out, Frances and Malcolm book passage on an ocean liner and flee New York for Paris to begin again in the borrowed apartment of a friend. Thus installed, they befriend an equally quirky cast of characters and fill their days improbably, including in conversation with their cat. It's absurd, truly, and had I read the description before starting the book, I'd have been highly apprehensive that this was another Confederacy of Dunces. Fortunately, I didn't read the description that closely and, as a result, read and enjoyed French Exit.

Four stars.

This Cold Heaven: Seven Seasons in Greenland

I won't lie: this book was a slog. Several years ago I read - and loved - An African in Greenland, written in the 1960s, and hoped that Gretel Ehrlich's This Cold Heaven would be similar. While Ehrlich does weave the accounts of her own time in Greenland in the late 1990s throughout the book, it was mostly a re-hashing of those who had gone earlier, much, much earlier, with at least half the book devoted to recounting the voyages and work of Knud Rasmussen in the early twentieth century.

It's not that Rasmussen's voyages are uninteresting, but Erhlich is prone to philosophize a bit too much for my liking, particularly when reflecting back on those earlier travelers. I did eventually begin skimming such chapters as "The Time Between Two Winters, 1922" and "The Mackenzie Delta, 1924." Where Erhlich's work shines best is in describing the culture and people - as opposed, for example, to her sentiments on the universe when traversing the ice. Her accounts of the Children's House are fascinating, and I had to actively remind myself that the scenes she witnessed occurred when I was in high school. (In that sense, it was a bit similar to Call the Nurse, which is perhaps not surprising when considering the Hebrides in the 70s were virtually as remote as Greenland in the 90s!)

The strongest part of This Cold Heaven and the part I enjoyed most was the last hundred pages, which leaves Rasmussen and company behind almost entirely and tells instead of Ehrlich's time in Greenland in 1998 and 1999. It is here that she writes most of the people, the society, and the magnitude of the shift they are experiencing.

At the end of the day, though, this just wasn't close to my favorite memoir or best travel writing and I say only devotees of Greenlandic history need add this one to their list.

Two stars.

Meet You in Hell: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership That Changed America

I first learned of the connection between Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick in The Johnstown Flood (synopsis: dam on artificial lake for the pleasure of the likes of Carnegie and Frick fails and the ensuing flood kills thousands, but no one is held accountable). Meet You in Hell mentions the flood only in passing, but focuses much of its attention on a disaster of another sort, the Homestead strike of 1896, which was crushed by Frick.

In building to the climax, author Les Standiford details the complex rivalry and partnership between the two men. Frick was a coke magnet, coke being one of the key ingredients in the making of steel. In a bid to control coke supplies, and in conjunction with a much broader deal, Carnegie turned over the day-to-day management of his companies to Frick, who devised the strategy that crushed the unions. In the midst of ensuing bad press, Carnegie essentially disavowed any knowledge of Frick's plans setting the stage for a bitter feud that would last until their dying days. (The title is taken from Frick's response to Carnegie's near-deathbed request to meet. His response was that he'd meet him in hell, where they were both going, in Frick's estimation.) Certainly the decadence of the gilded age is on display here.

I previously enjoyed Standiford's Last Train to Paradise about another titan of industry and found Meet You in Hell to be a similar work. I hadn't heard of the Homestead strike, but couldn't help but think of the similarities between the battles between the steel workers and Frick and those between the miners and mine owners depicted in The Devil is Here in These Hills. 

Four stars.

Fly Girls: How Five Daring Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History

Fly Girls delves into some of the lesser known aspects of the "Golden Age of Flying" from the late 1920s until Amelia Earhart disappeared on her round-the-world flight a decade later. Specifically author Keith O'Brien revisits the history of women pilots during this era, not only Earhart, but many others whose names have long since faded from the national conscience: Ruth Nichols and Louise Thaden, Ruth Elder and Florence Klingensmith, with plenty of ink devoted as well to that most famous flier, Miss Earhart.

O'Brien does justice to each of these women, and Fly Girls works as a min-biography for a half dozen of the earliest women pilots. More crucially, O'Brien examines the prejudices these early pilots faced, including the rather preposterous regulation against flying immediately before, during, or after menstruation. Unfair, no doubt, but not terrifying. No, the terrifying risks were borne by all pilots, male and female alike, and again and again O'Brien documents the horrifying results of early planes, rudimentary airfields, and nascent navigation.

Frequently these crashes occurred at the National Air Races, an annual exhibition of the finest pilots and fastest planes, and attendance at which often outdrew the World Series. (I lost track of the fatalities somewhere in the middle years.)

Part history of flight, part women's history, Fly Girls is ultimately a look at an entire era - the zeitgeist, the mores, the thrills of victory and the agonies of defeat. In that sense, it serves as a reminder of the sacrifices early pioneers in any discipline must make.

Five stars.

So Much Life Left Over

The narrative of Louis de Bernieres's So Much Life Left Over has the feel of a short story collection. The chapters are are told from the perspective of friends whose lives were upended by World War I - psyches shattered, fiances and brothers killed, dreams derailed. In the aftermath of the war, they've settled across the world, in Ceylon, in India (modern day Pakistan), in Britain, and are busy building new lives in the shadow of the Great War.

de Bernieres follows them through the decades: marriage and children; careers and displacements; unbearable or stoically-borne heartbreaks. Soon, another war is upon this and these friends who were raised in the midst of an all-but-disappeared way of life (think Downton Abbey) are old enough to have fought once, and young enough to volunteer again - sometimes alongside their children.

So Much Life Left Over is ultimately an ode to what it means to be alive, the many ways large and small in which we all must compromise, the events both large and small that can derail plans in an instant. Quietly, each of these characters must learn to live with what life has inflicted, choices that de Bernieres helps his reader understand apply not only to Daniel and Rosie and Wragge and Archie. Oh, there's humor along the way, generally courtesy of Rosie's dotty mother, and I wouldn't term it a tearjerker by any stretch of the imagination, but it is, nonetheless, a quietly philosophical work.

Four stars.

Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World

Recently one of my favorite journalists wrote a review of a restaurant that he said was so bad that "I'm only writing about it as a warning." I'm not delusional enough to think I have anywhere near the audience or influence as this gentleman, but all the same, I'm reviewing Reader, Come Home only to warn you off it.

If you know me personally, you know that we have a particular, personal interest in neuroscience in our house, and also a child on the cusp (we hope!) of learning to read. Maryanne Wolf's book seemed like a "must read" from both perspectives, and from the first few pages, I foolishly hoped it would provide me practical insights on preparing my son for this brave new world. According to the back cover, Reader, Come Home, is a "must-read" and "a game changer for parents and educators." As if.

Here are my take-aways: 1) Read to your children. 2) There's some evidence that reading hard copy, instead of electronically, increases retention. For some people. 3) It's probably not good to use technology as a babysitter - it might just rot the brain a bit. And, no, that's not the scientific term for what happens. Admittedly, I was shocked by the statistic that the average amount of time spent by three- to five-year-old children on digital devices was four hours a day in 2015.

That said, I'm going to presume there's not much new here for most anyone who would pick up Reader, Come Home. The neuroscience could be new, but I found Wolf's explanations far too obtuse, and for all the times she used the word "plasticity," there was little there about what we parents might do, if anything, to fully maximize this magic time.

Zero stars.

Dear Mrs. Bird

Dear Mrs. Bird is a lighthearted take on a brutal time: life in London during the blitz. Emmy Lake is a girl with serious pluck, and when she lands her dream job in journalism, she is a woman on the make, dreaming of her life as a war correspondent. Unfortunately, she's forgotten to ask any questions at her job interview, and only learns that the new job is not, in fact, at the London Evening Chronicle, but at a little-known ladies' weekly, whose fierce Editress, Mrs. Bird, also writes the advice column.

Mrs. Bird wouldn't deign to let any Unpleasantness into her column, though, and has a long list of Unmentionable Topics; any letter that veers into even questionable territory is to be summarily cut up. Emmy feels a genuine sympathy for many of these women, and plots to answer their most personal queries with her own experience, and the advice a few friends. The results are predictable, which doesn't make them any less comical.

What AJ Pearce does so deftly is weave this lighthearted tale with the nightly air raids and war time troubles, in general. Emmy and her flatmate Bunty are spunky, fun protagonists, characteristics they share with Dear Mrs. Bird.

Four-and-a-half stars. 

Chesapeake Requiem: A Year with the Watermen of Vanishing Tangier Island

Chesapeake Requiem may well be the most powerful, provocative book I read all year. Earl Swift spent a year on tiny Tangier Island, deep in the Chesapeake Bay, living amongst the few hundred residents who call it home. These hardy individuals, whose numbers are dwindling by the year, primarily make their living off the water and nearly all of them can trace their lineage back to the pre-Revolutionary settlers.

Swift captures the spirit of Tangier, which is rife with contradictions, so eloquently that I practically felt I was there next to him. As the title says, Tangier Island is slowly disappearing. Never mind that the stages of disappearance can be traced to at least 1850; the bottom line is that the island likely has but a handful of years left. Like many rural places, though, the demographics are also working against the continuation of Tangier and the way of life there. As Swift notes, the end of Tangier will likely come down to a race between climate change and demographics. 

As for that climate change bit: the population of Tangier Island is skeptical, and that's putting it mildly. They do agree that their island is disappearing, and they're desperate to save it, but they believe the culprit is "erosion" and not "rising sea levels" and I'll leave it to the reader to split those hairs - although Swift does a fine job of both providing the scientific background and the Tangier perspective. The federal government has been concerned about the rapid disappearance of the island as well, primarily for the migratory bird habitat it provides, and has "studied" the issue on and off for the past 20 years. 

Like much of Rural America, Tangier Island was and remains Trump Country. While this may seem one contradiction too many, by the time Swift had enumerated all of the various studies and the studies of the studies and so on, I was sympathetic to the notion of wanting someone who promised to slash red tape. And build walls. Tangiermen really, really, really want a seawall, and their mayor has even gone on the record as saying maybe Washington should just build them a sea wall if the folks in the Southwest don't want one. Desperate times call for desperate arguments.

It would be easy enough for Swift to have created caricatures; presumably most of his readers won't have visited Tangier, nor perhaps have firsthand experience with many from the tiny towns that dot this country. Why not confirm the stereotypes? Yet, Swift has done a commendable job of presenting a holistic portrait of the men and women who call Tangier home. Time and again I was struck by how hard they work and how hard life is. Up and at 'em closer to midnight than daylight, as Swift observes, and not just occasionally, but every. single. day., the men work the water until either it claims them (not too uncommon, unfortunately - remember, commercial fishing is the most dangerous occupation in America) or until they physically can do it no longer. 

Lest the reader have their own ideas about when that might be, Swift provides a sketch of two hale watermen working their boat in high seas, on a day when he can barely remain upright. One of the two is 81 and the other recently celebrated his 86th birthday. Crabbing is not for the faint of heart. In his year on the island, Swift witnesses heartbreaking tragedy, as well as the reaction of the town to that tragedy, which can largely be summarized as doubling down on hard work, faith, and taking care of their own.

Ah, faith. The municipal water town is painted with a cross, and I'm sure you've already guessed there's no shortage of prayer in the school. (That would be the K-12 school, enrollment 58, where the class of 2016 was uncommonly large for having 7 graduates.) There are two churches, though, and if attendance isn't mandated, the blue laws restricting Sunday commerce as well as the dry laws restricting any alcohol sales on-island are. 

By the end of Chesapeake Requiem, I felt I actually knew some of the individuals, and wanted to know them better. I would say I've added Tangier to my bucket list, for the just-caught crab cakes and crab hush puppies if nothing else, but I recognize I'm unlike to make it there before it - or its denizens - disappears. At its heart, this is a book that asks its readers to think about the myriad people and cultures that comprise this country, the ways in which we fit together, and how we value one another, our beliefs, and our land. For these reasons, Chesapeake Requiem should be required reading for anyone who lives in this country or wants to understand it better.

I'd give it six stars if I could.

The ones I haven't finished...

I have read a number of truly outstanding books this summer (see A Gentleman in Moscow, Call the Nurse, Tai-Pan, and Lost City of the Monkey God for just a few of the highlights). I've also started and abandoned a number of clunkers, which I'll cover here very briefly:

American Scoundrel: The Life of the Notorious Civil War General Dan Sickles 
Sickles was the first person to successfully use temporary insanity as a defense against committing murder after he murdered his wife's lover, Philip Barton Key (son of Francis Scott Key). As portrayed by Thomas Keneally, Sickles was also a spendthrift, womanizer, swindler, Tammany Hall politician, and general scumbag. I gave up on this one both because I could hardly stomach Sickles and because I felt the book, though excellently written, was too much in the weeds. (I also recognize that those issues go hand-in-hand and if I hadn't been so thoroughly put off by Sickles's person, I might have found the additional detail interesting rather than repulsive.)

Bunker Hill: A City, A Siege, A Revolution
I picked up Nathaniel Philbrick's Bunker Hill because I was interested in deepening my knowledge about the American Revolution, about which I've read significantly less than the Civil War of either of the World Wars. Honestly, it was just too dense for my level of interest and I found I just wasn't that interested in every actor and every scene leading up to the break with Britain. Like American Scoundrel, I have no complaints about the book or writing per se, and think a reader with a strong interest in the topic would find this a worthy read. I've simply decided life is too short, and my reading list too long, to continue slogging away at those that don't fully capture my attention.

Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China
Leslie T. Chang's Factory Girls has been on my reading list for ages and I finally tackled it this summer after a few days in Vietnam left me looking for hard facts and data on the phases of globalization and transition from villages (or in some cases, "villages") to cities. Unfortunately, I would categorize Chang's work as a bit more anthropological in nature, and while she unquestionably creates a dynamic and accurate portrayal of migrant life in China (circa early 2000s), there is far, far less (virtually nothing in the 170 pages I read) about the larger causes, both in China and elsewhere, that lead young people, especially, to leave their native villages for a chance in big, and often anonymous and frightening, cities. Chang also commits one of my pet peeves and inserts herself and her family story into her work, with little to no payoff. It's not that her personal history is uninteresting; it's just not why I was reading the book, and it was a distraction. In any case, for those looking to put a personal face on the migrant experience in China, Chang provides that. For those looking for another lens through which to understand globalization, I'd argue not so much.

Dirigible Dreams: The Age of the Airship
Dirigible Dreams opens with great promise and potential, as C. Michael Hiam provides a riveting survivor's account of traveling aboard the ill-fated Hindenburg. Unfortunately, that is simply the prelude to the highly-detailed history of the birth of airships, which emerged as the brain child of German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin in the early twentieth century. From there Hiam traces the innovations that Germans, British, and Americans made, particularly for military use. I'm not sure whether he got back around to the Hindenburg or not - I lost interest about two-thirds of the way through in the midst of numerous disasters and crashes, but without the most famous of the doomed airships in sight. 

Summer, in a nutshell.

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

I would challenge anyone to read Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food without becoming angry at Big Food and the government for systematically robbing our food supply of its most vital nutrients year-by-year. (I almost fell off the couch when I read that today's eater would need to consume three apples to get the same nutrition in a single 1940-era apple.) I would also challenge anyone to read this and without deciding to make some serious changes to their diet: I couldn't help but feel that even the "whole foods" that we often buy aren't nearly as whole as I thought. I signed us up for a CSA before I got to the last page.

I read this as a follow-up to Genius Foods, which I read to gain insight on the most neuro-friendly diets. The good news for readers is that the two books agree; similarly, readers of Food of a Younger Land will be familiar with the advice to eat only food that would be recognizable to our ancestors. Pollan does spend significant time detailing the ways in which foods are changing - look no further than the apple example above - and in this way his work is similar to that of Bread, Wine, Chocolate only much more readable. In fact, I argue that of all the books in the food-is-bad-and-becoming-worse genre, In Defense of Food is the quickest and easiest read; although it covers similar terrain to Pollan's The Botany of Desire, In Defense of Food is much more accessible - and much less dry.

If you do one thing for your health this year, read this book. Also, if you're still eating margarine, it's probably best to give that up, stat.

Island of Sweet Pies and Soldiers

Sara Ackerman's Island of Sweet Pies and Soldiers is a great lesson in not judging a book by its cover. "With war on their doorstep, friendship will sustain them": not the jacket cover declaration that would normally have me snatching it off the shelf. Fortunately, I'd seen a better description from my pals at BookBub before I got to the library - plus, any book set in Hawaii earns a few points just for setting. In any case, I digress.

In the prologue, the reader learns that young Ella Iverson has witnessed the disappearance of her father, the town's principal, and it slowly being eaten by the secret. Her mother, Violet, is at a loss as to how to either help her daughter or encourage her to share her torment. Both are distracted by the arrival of marines at Camp Tarawa. One of them just happens to be the brother of Violet's very best friend and boarder, Jean, who bounds into their lives with an exuberance that's been missing since Herman disappeared a year ago. When they realize his fondness for home cooking, they decide to feed the soldiers and earn a little extra at the same time with a pie stand selling only the most delectable creations.

In addition to painting a vivid portrait of life in Hawaii during World War II, Ackerman also deftly handles the many emotions of the soldiers, training by day for battles yet to come on Island X, and enjoying the island culture for all they can in their down time. Similarly, Island of Sweet Pies and Soldiers offers a convincing and informative portrayal of interactions between the haole, the Japanese, and the native Hawaiians at a time when the former were vastly outnumbered by the latter two groups.

The romance and mystery are admittedly predictable, but the storytelling here is fantastic. I wasn't surprised in the least to read that many elements of the story are based on the author's grandparents' experiences in Hawaii during World War II. Even the lion.

Four stars.

Falling Angels

Tracy Chevalier's Falling Angels opens with the death of Queen Victoria, which sends families across Britain into cemeteries to mourn her passing. It is in one such cemetery that the Colemans and Waterhouses find themselves, and where the daughters, Maude and Lavinia, become fast friends. The mothers, in particular, are uneasy about this friendship, as the Colemans are the Waterhouses "betters." Despite the firm class strictures in Edwardian England, the girls remain steadfast friends through the years, often including the gravedigger's son, Simon, in their hijinks.

While the story is written from multiple viewpoints (the mothers, the daughters, the husbands, the servants, and even Simon all have their say), Kitty Coleman is the true protagonist around whom the core storylines spin. In an era in which women were supposed to be content simply to be content,  Kitty Coleman has never been content, not since she was made to stay at home while her brother went off to school. Having become a wife and mother out of obligations to her class and gender, she neither excels at nor enjoys either role, moving blandly through each day. Dissatisfied and, frankly, depressed, she gambles heavily on friendship with the manager of the local cemetery as well as on the women's suffrage movement. The consequences of these decisions unspool, unexpectedly and rather disastrously, throughout the last half of the novel.

I found the constant change in narration to be distracting at first; this was a hard book to get into and to feel any affinity for the characters. Ultimately, I was won over, though, and not only by the characters. The plot is well thought out, and I was especially taken with Chevalier's research and writing about the suffrage movement in the early years. Sylvia Pankhurst makes the expected appearance, but it's the day-to-day scenes of sewing banners and distributing pamphlets that bring the movement alive. If the plot is not quite as original as At the Edge of the Orchard, it is close, and in the end, I found I could not turn the pages and read the ending fast enough.

Four and a half stars.

Dancing with the Devil in the City of God: Rio de Janeiro and the Olympic Dream

Brazil is the first developing country I visited, in the 90s when I was in high school. I remember being blown away by the levels of dysfunction I witnessed - including that when our friends sold their home it was purchased by a customs agent...with suitcases of cash. Returning a few years ago for a conference, I had a box of stress balls and pens impounded by customs, who then implored my office for six months to return to the country and retrieve them. And so on.

Dancing with the Devil in the City of God is written by a Brazilian, Juliana Barbassa, thus lending credence to the notion that the dysfunction is not simply an American perception. Barbassa, who has lived and worked around the world, jumped at the opportunity to return to the city of her birth as the AP's correspondent there, only to discover the layers of dysfunction that were previously hidden to her. Chapter-by-chapter she dissects many of these, from the corruption within the police department to environmental degradation (read: raw sewage flowing through every river and onto the beaches), to the contradictory attitudes toward prostitution and, frequently, gay rights. Political shenanigans naturally figure prominently as well.

The backdrop for Barbassa's work is the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics, the deadlines for which are firm and inflexible, not subject to individual whims. While there is potential for such deadlines to positively drive change, Barbassa generally finds that instead decisions are taken too quickly, with an eye only for what the world will think and who can make the most money (hint: it's usually a property developer), as opposed to being grounded in urban planning or public policy imperatives.

Dancing with the Devil in the City of God concludes with the 2014 World Cup; the Olympics which figure so prominently in the discussions around waste water treatment and the removal of the favelas are still two years away when the book ends. So, too, the trials of Lula, the former president who is simultaneously an inmate serving a 12-year sentence for corruption and his party's nominee for president in this year's election. If Barbassa isn't already working on another book about Brazil, it's not for a lack of material.

This is a great read for anyone looking for perspective on the developing world in general, and Brazil in particular. The contradictions continue to flummox and frustrate Barbassa (who is at her finest in describing the process necessary to rent an apartment), so rest assured the reader will be no closer to solving the enigma, either, but this book provides excellent insight into the Brazilian culture today. It has the further advantage of reading, at times, like a travelogue, invoking the gorgeous scenery, as well as some of the highs and lows of Brazil's international diplomatic and business relationships.

Four stars.