October Book Reviews
As October came and passed so did the 48 books that passed through my grey matter. I continue to read simply for my own personal interest. I could bore you and list the many reasons, and facts, that support continued reading, and continuing one’s education especially later in life. I do not pretend to be some avant-garde who will one day reign supreme on Jeopardy, but for the pure pleasure of learning new things, and going on new adventures. With that here are the many journeys which I partook in during October:
Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man’s Fundamentals for Delicious Living—Nick Offerman
Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage—Alfred Lansing
We Don’t Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland—Fintan O’Toole
An Elegant Defense: The Extraordinary New Science of the Immune System: A Tale in Four Lives—Matt Richtel
The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During The Blitz—Erik Larson
The Infernal Machine: A True Story of Dynamite Terror, and the Rise of the Modern Detective—Steven Johnson
Into Siberia: George Kennan’s Epic Journey Through the Brutal, Frozen Heart of Russia—Gregory J. Wallance
The Longest Con: How Grifters, Swindlers, and Frauds Hijacked American Conservatism—Joe Conason
Carmageddon: How Cars Make Life Worse and What to Do About It—Daniel Knowles
Carmageddon was one of those impulse grabs while perusing the “available now” titles on Libby. This is very well written, and is an eye opener to the greater harms cars cause, outside of their emissions. One fun topic covered is comparing US parking lot laws and regulations to European nations, then bringing the staggering fact that America’s parking lots, if consolidated, would cover the entire state of West Virginia. This was a quick read and worth checking out.
Season of the Swamp—Yuri Herrera
Bury My Heart at Chuck E. Cheese’s—Tiffany Midge
A History of Delusions: The Glass King, a Substitute Husband and a Walking Corpse—Victoria Shepherd
How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, and Doom—Johanna Hedva
Assyria: The Rise and Fall of the World’s First Empire—Eckart Frahm
When We Walk By: Forgotten Humanity, Broken Systems, and the Role We Can Each Play in Ending Homelessness in America—Kevin F. Adler and Donald W. Burnes with Amanda Bank and Andrijana Bilbija
This one was very powerful and leaves me at a loss for words. A MUST read!
Hillbilly Highway: The Transappalachian Migration and the Making of a White Working Class—Max Fraser
The Book of Animal Secrets: Nature’s Lessons for a Long and Happy Life—David B. Agus, M.D.
White Supremacy Is All Around: Notes from a Black Disabled Woman in a White World—Dr. Akilah Cadet
Dream Witchery: Folk Magic, Recipes & Spells from South America For Witches & Brujas—Elhoim Leafar
The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade
Martyr!—Kaveh Akbar
Barack Obama’s Summer reading list selection, yes the wait lists are long for the titles he selected. However each of the books selected by President Obama for reading I have truly enjoyed and are worth investigation.
The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook—Hampton Sides
Barack Obama’s Summer reading list selection
A Spectre, Haunting—China Miéville
Mad Egypt’s Golden Couple: When Akhenaten and Nefertiti Were Gods on Earth—John Darnell and Colleen Darnell
Red Rabbit—Alex Grecian
How Civil Wars Start and How to Stop Them—Barbara F. Walter
How civil wars start: well Donald Trump is hell bent on this as we all know.
Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen—Jazz Jennings
James—Percival Everett
Goodbye Christopher Robin: A. A. Milne and the Making of Winnie-the-Pooh—Ann Thwaite
No Time Like the Future: An Optimist Considers Mortality—Michael J. Fox
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism—Dr. Robin DiAngelo
The Disobedience of the Daughter of the Sun: A Mayan Tale of Ecstasy, Time and Finding One’s True Form—Martín Prechtel
Embracing Hope: On Freedom, Responsibility & the Meaning of Life—Victor E. Frankl
Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies: A Guide to Language for Fun and Spite—June Casagrande
The Book of Joy—His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, with Douglas Abrams
Hidden Figures—Margot Lee Shetterly
Fascism: A Warning—Madeleine Albright
This might as well be a comparison of Donald Trump to known current and deceased fascist world leaders from WW2 to present
Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis—Jonathan Blitzer
She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders—Jennifer Finney Boylan
A beautiful memoir on life as a transwoman, coming out to family, children, and so much more.
When We Were Very Young—A. A. Milne
In Pieces—Sally Fields
Mad Honey—Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan
This was an amazing book from start to finish. Jodi Picoult and “Jenny” Finney Boylan beautifully narrate a teen love story, with more than a few twists and turns. I can say I reached out to Jenny Boylan regarding this book, and her other titles which I also recommend for the memoir fan, and was very inspired to hear back and her encouraging words for my own writing.
We Are a Haunting—Tyriek White
Long Black Veil—Jennifer Finney Boylan
1. Good Clean Fun: Misadventures in Sawdust at Offerman Woodshop—Nick Offerman
1. If It Sounds Like A Quack…-A Journey to the Fringes of American Medicine—Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling
· Whenever a doctor cannot do good, he must be kept from doing harm-Hippocrates circa 400 B.C.
· I hasten to wish that you may take a dose of your own poison by mistake and enter swiftly into the damnation which you and all other patent medicine assassins have so remorselessly earned and do so richly deserve—Mark Twain (letter responding to a man who sold the elixir of life, a one true cure that he promised could heal meningitis and diphtheria, the diseases that killed Twain’s two young children, 1905)
1. Black Klansman: Race, Hate and the Undercover Investigation of a Lifetime—Ron Stallworth
“If one black man hated by a bevy of good, decent, dedicated open and liberal-minded whites and Jews, can succeed in prevailing over a group of white racists by making them look like the ignorant fools that they truly are, then imagine what a nation of like-minded individuals can accomplish.”—Ron Stallworth
This is the funny true story of how the KKK allowed a black police officer to be accepted into their organization, and the ensuing counterintelligence activities by the Colorado Springs PD to stop KKK activity and expansion in the town. The movie is very good and accurate, but the jokes just hit a bit harder if you have read the book.
1. Call Them by Their True Names: American Crises (and Essays)—Rebecca Solnit
Apologies for trimming back on the descriptions this post. I am happy to have brought the reading list to the current month!! As I finish this post I have met and passed my reading goal of 500 books for the year!! I should warn the brave readers out there that so far I have finished 85 books in November as midnight is about to strike marking: 11/28/2024. My amazing wife has just decided to play ‘Istanbul (Not Constantinople) by They Might Be Giants so that is very stuck in my head, and my cue to call it a wrap for this post.
I am on bluesky. Comments, questions, suggestions etc. are always welcome and, as always, Thanks for stopping by The Bohemian Broadside. Stay inspired and just keep swimming!