2020 Reading During Covid

 

Maybe it's just that this was such a horrible year my list didn't seem to have a lot of great reads.  It was hard to put together a list of "top five", but I'll settle on these (click on title for full review of each):

1) The Fact of a Body - A Marzano-Lesnevich 2017 Fiction

    I loved the twists and turns of this very different mystery.

2) I Am A Strange Loop - Douglas Hofstadter - 2007 Science

    I'm sorry I waited so long to read this.  Heavy reading worth the effort to synthesize science and   philosophy

3) I Think You're Wrong, But I'm Listening - S Holland and B Silver - 2019

    My effort to survive the political chaos of the last decade.. and still churning.

4) House of Broken Angels - Luis Alberto Urrea - 2018

    A wonderful story of an immigrant family that makes the experience real and personal.

5) Calypso - David Sedaris - 2018

    His dry humor and loving slicing and dicing of his family always makes me laugh.

And though I haven't received my copy, the author shared an advance manuscript with me and for anyone with children or children at heart, this is a must read:

The Only Lonely Cow - by Nancie Meek (author), Elizabeth Beatty (Illustrator)

My real focus this year has been on genealogy reading.  Of the 52 books I read, 13 had a genealogical or genetics focus, and those reviews find their way into my genealogy society newsletter.  I've been reading more non-fiction, mostly science-based, the last several years but still use fiction for enjoyment.  

In 2021 I'm determined to work off my TBR list.  I've got a couple books waiting for me at the library and three others on order.  

Check out the list on the right for the complete list of 2020 reads.  Let me know what got you through in 2020.

The German Girl - Armando Lucas Correa

This book was recommended to me by a friend who read it in the original Spanish language.  It tells a fictionalized story of a family from the St Louis, an ocean liner that departed from Europe in 1940 with over 900 Jewish refugees, headed for Cuba.  I had not heard of the St Louis before. The author weaves a tale from modern day with that of a survivor of the ship.  I thought the story was well crafted, though more detail than necessary was spent on the young girl and her friend on their trip across the ocean.  

The author also shares the story of refuges from Cuba in the late 1950s, when Jehovah witnesses and others were forced to leave the island.  A heartbreaking story that puts the trials of 2020 into perspective.  

  Published: 2016   Read: December 2020   Genre: Historical fiction

The Girls Who Went Away - Ann Fessler

 Sub-title: The hidden history of women who surrendered children for adoption in the decades before Roe v. Wade

I have been using DNA and genealogy to research unknown parentage within my own family and for others for the past five years.  This book has given me a powerful focus on the impact of adoption on the mothers who gave birth to adoptees.  Their pain is something I had not considered in my work to find birth parents for others.  I have seen first hand the impact on the adoptee but have never worked with a mother seeking her child.  Their stories told in this book and the background and information on adoptions from this period is education I should have sought earlier.

References: 

p 43 "Only when his [William Baird] case, Eisenstadt v. Baird, reached the Supreme Court and was decided in his favor in 1972 was access to birth control guaranteed to all single men and women in the United States."

Published: 2006   Read: December 2020  Genre: Non-fiction

We Are Not Ourselves - Matthew Thomas

 In this time, reading a sad book was not something I planned on doing.  This is the story of an Irish family, from the immigration of the patriarch through the maturity of his grandson.  It tells of their struggles and heartbreaks from the 1940s when the main character, Eileen grows up caring for her parents until the late 2000's when her son realizes her dreams for him.  

At its core, its the story of Eileen and and her husband's life striving for the American dream.  He's a practical, unassuming college professor, completely satisfied with teaching his students while Eileen urges him to reach farther and higher.  When he begins to act strange, spending hours on the couch listening to music, she initially thinks he's having a mid-life crisis.  Half way through the book, the real cause is revealed to be early onset Alzheimer's.  The rest of the story describes in cringe-worthy accuracy, what it is like to live with and care for someone with the disease.  It was a moving and wonderfully loving picture of family.  

Published:  2014  Read: December 2020  Genre: fiction

Arizona Pageant - Madeline Ferrin Pare

 Sub-title: A Short History of the 48th State

I picked this gem up at an Estate Sale, a guilty pleasure I endulged with a friend one weekend during the pandemic.  Written in 1967, it's true to the sub-title.  The author covers Arizona's history in multiple chapters, each addressing a different topic; geography, native peoples, Spanish and Mexican exploration and settlement, land ownership, mining, industry and politics.  Having lived here most of my life, it was an eye-opening and enriching overview of the state.  I discovered many names that live on in their namesake towns and streets.  Mostly, the evolution of the state from wild west frontier through statehood and ending with Barry Goldwater 60's, gave me a perspective on the States' personality and peoples.  

I'll be reading older books more often to understand the people and places in a point in time.

Published: 1967  Read: November 2020  Genre: History

Brain on Fire - Susannah Cahalan

Sub-title: My Month of Madness

Recommended by my sister, this was a fascinating and terrifying read.  A young journalist starts acting strangely; paranoid, not sleeping, hallucinating and catatonic.  After weeks of unsuccessful treatment in the neurological floor of a New York hospital, she is finally diagnosed with anti-NMDA-receptor autoimmune encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain due to the over activity of the immune system.  

A rare condition whose treatment had only been determined a couple of years before her illness, she came out of the experience to write the story of the spiral into madness.  Fascinating and horrifying at the same time.  She points out that many who may have the condition are mis-diagnosed with schizophrenia and/or autism.  A good read and commentary on medical diagnosis as a skill as well as a science.

Published: 2012  Read: November 2020  Genre: Non-fiction

Riding with the Ghost : a Memoir - Justin Taylor

 This was a tough story to read, it was given to me by Library with my holds.  The author reveals his relationship with his father, a man tortured by failure, a broken marriage and declining health.  In examining his father's life, he reflects on the affect it has had on his own life.  The book rambled for a large part of the middle, finally coming back to the story in the end.  Not a satisfying read.

Quotes:

"At what point does my presumption of his right to self-determination become itself a form of negligence, of harm?"

"So what do I want?  I want the life I have more than the life I might have had instead.  I want to not make the compromises my parents made." 

Published: 2020 Read: November 2020 Genre: Memoir

The Magical Language of Others - E J Koh

 

This was a different read, given to me by the librarian when I asked for some non-fiction reading.  The relationship of a Korean mother and daughter is revealed through the letters of the mother from Korea to her young daughter in the US.  EJ's parents left her and her brother in the US on their own for 7 years while the parents worked in Korea, presumably to earn more money.  The young EJ could not read the letters until she was older and in graduate school where she majored in poetry and translation.  It was a difficult read, feeling the pain and anguish of the daughter as her narcistic mother brushes off her fear and encourages her to be happy.  Not for the faint hearted.

Published: 2020  Read: November 2020  Genre: Autobiography

The Widows - Jess Montgomery

This was a recommendation from a fellow reader that told me it was a good book about strong women.  I agree!  It's the story of a woman, Lily, in the 1920s in Ohio coal country who is widowed when her sheriff husband is murdered.  She discovers secrets of his past when a former lover of his, a widow from a coal mine accident that killed her husband, seeks her out.  They are both embroiled in the fight to unionize the miners as they investigate his murder.  While seemingly far-fetched, the book is based on the true story of the first female sheriff in Ohio.  The characters were detailed and complex and the story moved along well.  Good read and I'll look for more from this author.

Published:  2018   Read: November 2020  Genre: Fiction 

Family Trees - Francois Weil

 Sub-title: A History of Genealogy in America

This was a fascinating read for me because it brought the arc of history to the story of U.S. genealogy.  The writer is a scholarly, respected historian.  He addresses the history of genealogy in the United States from the early pilgrims up to 2012, touching the edge of DNA research.

I plan to create a timeline to visualize the events and milestones in the growth of the subject over the decades.  A keeper for my reference shelf.

Quotes:

p 35 "...the exceptionally detailed genealogical record that the patriarch Josiah Chapin began in 1762 at age 92.."

p. 40 "In 1771 the publication of the Genealogy of  the family of  Samuel Stebbins..." Signaled change from family based genealogies to published family genealogies.

p. 131 "Turn of the [19th] century patriotic societies nationalized genealogy."

p. 186 "During the 1950's and 1960's ...archivist of the United States acknowledged that the most numerous single class of searchers were genealogists. In the early 1960's the head librarian [of Fort Wayne Public Library], Fred J Reynolds, increased the library's focus on genealogy...Reynolds persuaded the Newberry Library [in Chicago] to let him make two copies of a large proportion of its genealogical holdings.  He returned the originals and one coy to Chicago and kept the second.  At least 15,000 and perhaps as many as 30,000 books were thus added to the FWPL." 

Update: Created genealogy presentation titled "American Genealogy" 

Published: 2013  Read: November 2020  Genre: History 

 

 

Less - Andrew Sean Greer

 Yawn...why did this win the Pulitzer Prize?  I found it boring, directionless, and who cares?  A writer about to turn 50 goes on an around-the-world trip to avoid attending the wedding of his last boyfriend.  It read more like an excuse for the author to tout his far flung travels.  Sigh, I'm probably not "hip" enough to get it.

Published:  2017  Read: October 2020 Genre: Fiction

In Pieces - Sally Field

 I am really liking my local librarian!  When I pick up books I've put on hold she/he offers to give me some others I might like to read.  This memoir was one picked out for me.  It was a touching story, hard scrabbling, straight talk and family survival.  A good read about a real woman.

Published: 2018  Read: October 2020  Genre: Memoir

Quote by Carl Jung: 

"Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment and especially on their children than the unlived life of the parent".

The River of Consciousness - Oliver Sacks

 I think I've read all of Oliver Sacks' books over time; Uncle Tungsten, Hallucinations, The Mind's Eye, and Musicophilia are in my blog list.  This volume was published posthumously and is described as based on an outline he created two weeks before his death.  It's a series of thoughts on our minds and thoughts and demonstrates Sacks' ability to link disparate topics in new ways.  I miss him.

Quotes:

[In a chapter on Scotoma: Forgetting and Neglect in Science]

"It was first necessary to seize on an 'anomaly,' a phenomenon contrary to the accepted frame of reference, and, by according in attention, to enlarge and revolutionize that frame of reference."

"Scotoma [technically, a partial loss of vision or blind spot in an otherwise normal visual field] surprisingly common in all fields of science, involves more than prematurity, it involves a loss of knowledge, a forgetting of insights that once seemed clearly established, and sometimes a regression to less perceptive explanations.  What makes an observation or a new idea acceptable, discussable, memorable?  What may prevent it from being so, despite its clear importance and value?"

I marked this passage because it made be wonder what in genetic genealogy is ahead of its time, an anomaly that will be revealed?  

Published:  2017  Read: October 2020  Genre: Essays

Calypso - David Sedaris

 I thoroughly enjoy David's writing and NPR shows and this book was an equal delight and a poignant revelation of how family shapes our outlook on life.

Quote: [speaking about a peer from his youth whose life took a different path]  

"At what point had I realized that class couldn't save you, that addiction or mental illness didn't care whether you'd taken piano lessons or spent a summer in Europe."

Published: 2018  Read: October 2020  Genre: Memoir

House of Broken Angels - Luis Alberto Urrea

 Two years ago in October 2018 I attended my second Nashville, TN Festival of the Book where I heard Luis speak.  He's a wonderful storyteller and I added this book to my TBR list.  I loved this story.  It's about the last birthday party of a family patriarch who is dying of cancer.  His family migrated from Mexico when he was a small boy.  The story of their lives on both sides of the border is a revealing look into first generation experience, the bonds of family and the hope for the future.  A great read.

Published: 2018  Read: September 2020  Genre: Fiction

She Has Her Mother's Smile - Carl Zimmer

Sub-title: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity

Zimmer is science writer and journalist. This book is a tome, 574 pages, a little large for late night reading.  The book spans a wide variety of topics related to inheritance and heredity.  A fascinating read with many details of the science of heredity to pursue further.  Reading this book got me to follow the author on Twitter. 

Passages I flagged:

[because the first diagrams of families evolved to be displayed as trees] "the French gave these pictures a name in honor of their forking shape: "pe de grue"  meaning "crane's foot."  In English, the word became pedigree.

"When viruses infect bacteria, they typically land on their victim and inject a string of DNA inside.  Many microbes can chop off the tip of this incoming DNA and insert it into a stretch of its own DNA, called a CRISPR region. (CRISPR is short for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats.)" 

"If you go back far enough in the history of a human population, you reach a point in time when all the individuals who have any descendants among living people are ancestors of all living people." [Yale mathematician Joseph Chang]

"For some reason, the hard bony case surrounding the inner ear was often rich with DNA, even when none could be found elsewhere in a skeleton".

[microchimerism] ..."most mothers experience [it].  ..research has revealed that all pregnant women have fetal cells in their bloodstream at thirty-six weeks.  After birth, the fraction drops, but up to half of mothers still carry fetal cells in their blood decades after carrying their children."

"..so called cumulative culture is a hallmark of our species.  Humans are constantly adding on to the practices they've learned, creating complex new forms of culture." 

Published: 2018  Read: August/September 2020  Genre: Historical Science 

Before and After - Judy Christie and Lisa Wingate

 This is the book I wanted to be written when I read the fictionalized story of the Tennessee Children's Home Society.  It's the true stories of several of the children who were adopted through the Home run by an unscrupulous woman, Georgia Tann, who for over 30 years trafficked in children with impunity.

The first three-fourths of the book are positive, upbeat stories of how the children's lives turned out well despite always having a feeling of being different.  Most were raised as only children who were adopted into well-to-do homes.  The last few stories were not so positive.  The writing was weak and I was frustrated that the writers didn't seem to attempt to research adoption or unknown parentage. I also felt that their lack of organization in pulling the adoptees together was inexcusable, as if they were just trying to promote themselves and write a book and needed the stories to pull it together.  

Published: 2019  Read: September 2020   Genre: Non-fiction

I Will Be Complete - Glen David Gold

 

Back in 2018 I went to the Southern Festival of the Book in Nashville for the second time with my good friend, Kathryn.  It's a long weekend of many author's speaking about their books in multiple venues.  I'd started reading Glen David Gold's Carter Beats the Devil at one time but didn't finish it.  Listening to him tell the story of writing this memoir had me adding it to my TBR list and I finally got it from the library this month.

He had a tumultuous childhood, growing up in California with a flitty, flawed, bohemian mother and a boom to bust, cold father.  The book focuses on the disastrous relationship with his mother and his finally breaking away from her.

I felt that while their relationship was fraught with dysfunction, he was still a privileged, well-off, only child whose native intelligence did not extend to his emotional smarts.

Quotes:

"Recently a friend asked why it was so hard for me to understand that people are what they do.  It was a concept so slipper I needed to write it down and stare at it like an advanced algebraic equation."

"There isn't much that causes people to recoil more than sensing someone wants to be liked." 

"Regardless of the pride I took in the empty place in my chest, I still had a contrary faith I believed in so deeply that I'd mistaken it for an axiom.  If I love you hard enough I can fix you.  It doesn't work like that.  This is what I want to say so it's as familiar as the stars and sunrise: your love is not enough. 

 

Published: 2018  Read: September 2020  Genre: Memoir

I Think You're Wrong (But I'm Listening) - Sarah Stewart Holland & Beth Silvers

 Sub-title: a guide to grace-filled political conversations

With the divisive state of our country, this is a must-read book.  The authors have a podcast called "Pantsuit Politics" which they started in November 2015.  Their goal is to discuss and analyze political topics in a respectful, understanding way.  They provide an approach for having conversations with others who have different views from your own.  They emphasize the nuances and complexity of these discussions and advocate that we eliminate the "either/or" of our talks and strive to understand, empathize and dig deeper into the thoughts of others.  I encourage everyone to read it and consider their approach and try it out - it might make for a better world or at least a better family gathering!

Quotes:

p 68 [ask Why] "truly great leaders clearly identify, communicate, and act based on the reason their business or organization exists.  "Why" is always propelling "how" and "what".  For values or guiding principle to be truly effective they have to be verbs.  "it's not "integrity," it's "always do the right thing".  ...we can all tap into a personal value that can guide a more inquisitive, productive discussion about any political topic.

"We're all guilty of assuming that a step in a direction we don't embrace or understand will lead to extremes."

"Imagine the transformative impact of viewing our fellow citizens as though our big, messy country wouldn't be complete without them, as though we all belong here together, as though the challenge or working through a diversity of perspectives is an inherent, beautiful part of the American experience--of the human experience." 

"...we don't engage in dialogue or participate civically to change other people but rather to better understand them, ourselves, and the ideas we are discussing.  In political conversations, we have to meet people where they are and assume they'll stay there."

"Our brains might instinctually categorize in binary ways; however, our journey need not end there.  When we release ourselves from picking [a side] we also allow our brains to release their death grip on confirmation bias.  Embracing the paradox helps us realize that politics is not a collision of good and evil; it' a painstaking analysis of valid, competing priorities."

"Somewhere along the way, we decided as a country that we don't want to be uncomfortable at any time, for any reason. "

"We all grow through the discomfort of emotions like grief, rage, and sorrow, but first we have to allow ourselves to feel those emotions....There is only one good question: What are you unwilling to feel?"

"My constant refrain: You're free to speak.  You aren't free to speak without consequences."

"Social media platforms' technology is built on algorithms.  The problem social media platforms are trying to solve is how to gain and keep your attention...the system is built to please you, not to challenge you [or your thinking]".

In their chapter on "Exiting the Echo Chamber" they discuss an empathy map that helps you gain deeper insight into a point of view where you both intellectually understand someone else's feelings and vicariously experience those feelings.   We ask ourselves about the other person:

What do they think and feel? What really matters, major preoccupations, worries and aspirations?

What do they hear? what do friends say, what their boss says, what influencers say

What do the see? what is their environment, who are their friends, what does the market offer them?

What do they say or do? what is their attitude in public, appearances, behavior toward others?

What causes them pain, fear, frustration and what obstacles do they experience?

What do they want to gain, wants and needs, measures of success, obstacles to achieving?

In the final chapter they recommend taking the 5 commitments:

1) commit to recognizing and putting down your defensiveness

2) commit to learning something in a discussion

3) commit to having a dialogue instead of giving alternate speeches

4) commit to assessing whether you're the right person to say what is on your mind

5) commit to ending the discussion knowing that you have strengthened the relationship.

Published:  2019  Read: August 2020  Genre: Politics

The Magicians - Lev Goldman

 In this strange time, the library is doing car seat delivery and when I pick up the books I chose they offer "bonus" books.  This was one of those bonus books and it was delightful.  It weaves in a Harry Potter-like special school for children with "magic" talent with a twist.  The young people graduate and find that their lives are still a challenge for those who are different.  A clever story and an interesting read.

Published: 2009   Read: September 2020  Genre: Fiction

Rhett Butler's People - Donald McCaig

One of my all-time favorite stories is Gone with the Wind, both the book and the movie.  I didn't want to spoil my memories and hadn't sought out the sequels that were written.  Earlier this year, I picked up this novel written with the approval of the heirs of Margaret Mitchell, though they went through a few different authors to get it written.  I'm glad I picked it up.  

The story parallels that of the original, but it is told from Rhett's point of view.  It begins with his early life in the South and carries through to beyond the Civil War.  The slow unfolding to reveal familiar characters and weave their lives into Rhett's was delicious.  For fans, I would recommend.

Published: 2007   Read: August 2020  Genre: Fiction 

Daughters of Erietown - Connie Schultz

This was a gentle, reminiscence of the 50's and 60's on the housewives, mothers and daughters who lived, married, loved and raised children in those times.  I loved the characters and the focus on the thoughts and feelings of the women in a small town, middle America time.  I don't like stories that pivot on events that change the course of a person's life that could have been prevented; especially when the event continues to derail lives.  One of the characters says near the end of the story:

"You know what they don't tell you about these big, bad things that happen in your life?  They're like tornadoes that pick you up in one place and drop you off somewhere else.  And there's no turning back, no undoing it.  You aren't who you used to be because the most important people in your life are not who you thought they were.  And they can't help you figure out who you're going to be." 

The philosophy of Ellie, the 50's mother in the story is clear when her daughter asked why she put up with her husband's philandering:

"We want to think there are rules in life.  That as long as we follow them, everything will be all right.  And then God blows up your plans.  Blows them to smithereens.  And you're left picking up the pieces and putting your life back together as best as you can, because it's not about you.  It's about your children, and the life you've built, and not giving everyone a reason to see you as damaged goods for the rest of your life." 

And in the end, with a healthy dose of schmaltz:

"If there's one thing you've taught me, it's that resentment will eat you alive while the people who hurt you do just fine."

A good summer read. 

Published: 2020   Read: August 2020  Genre: Fiction

Pure Land - Annette McGivney

Sub-title: A true story of three lives, three cultures, and the search for heaven on earth

A friend recommended this to me and I was intrigued because it was written by a professor at NAU and it was about a murder that occurred in the Grand Canyon the year I took a river rafting tour there.

The author is the Southwestern editor for Backpacker magazine.  In 2006 when a young Japanese woman was murdered at Havasupai Falls she investigated and discovered the woman's story and that of her killer, a Havasupai young man.  Their three lives are intertwined by their shared childhood experiences despite growing up in very different cultures.  

"...children living in abusive or neglectful homes come up with a survival strategy that allows them to feel loved and cared for by the parent--or at the very least to feel that they are not going to be annihilated by the parent.  But what is actually parenting the child is the survival strategy. I [the author] was parented b dissociation.  Tomomi was parented by isolation.  Randy was parented by violence.  The survival strategies that raised us became our oeprating systems for functioning in the world--not only as children, but as adults."

[Adult Children of Alcoholics program]..expanded to heal the disease of family dysfunction.  The term "adult child," according to the official program literature, refers to someone who "meet the demands of adult life with survival techniques learned as children." 

It was a powerful read that illuminated the impact of a hurtful childhood.   

Published:  2017  Read: August 2020  Genre: History

The Future Is Faster Than You Think - Peter H Diamandis, Steve Kotler

Sub-title: How Converging Technologies Are Transforming Business, Industries, and Our Lives (Exponential Technology Series)

This was a fascinating book, full of optimistic (mostly) predictions for the future based on new technologies coming together to accomplish amazing changes.  The authors have written two previous books Abundance  and BOLD as a series on new technologies.  There are lots of new to me concepts in this book that opened my eyes to the possibilities for the future.  One disappointment is that there are few women innovators mentioned in the book.

While the power of technology is intoxicating it also can be incredibly destructive which the authors brush off.  Changing the systems and cultures that utilize the technologies is a huge leap.

Quotes

[Quantum computing] is already available to the masses.  Rigetti Computing www.rigetti.com

[Virtual Reality] sensory trickery that VR experts term "presence"...when VR's done correctly, for reasons that are neurobiological, we can't tell we're in the Matrix...the brain believes the illusion.

[3-D printing] ...machine prints a four-hundred to eight-hundred square foot home in 48 hours at the cost of $6,000 to $10,000. 

[Blockchain] is a distributed, mutable, permissible, and transparent digital ledger.

[Perovskite] light-sensitive crystal has the potential to get conversion efficienty of average solar panel up to 66% from 16.

[CRISPR-Cas9] gene-editing technique that allows ou to repair the DNA inside a cell; stem cell therapies replace that cell entirely.

The smartness economy in book The Inevitable by author and Wired cofounder Kevin Kelly says AI will replace the 1800 electricity revolution by adding a layer of smartness to any existing tool.

[Google Lens] general visual search engine

[Augmented Reality - AR] IKEA has an app to map your living room.

[Artifical Intelligence - AI] 2016 short film Sunspring created using AI and also Morgan by Twentieth Century Fox.

[Virtual Reality] - lets us crate distributed, customized, accelerated learning environments.  ...drive people into flow makes it even more potent.  Ready Player One by Ernest Cline describes world of VR. 

Published: 2020  Read: July 2020  Genre: Non-fiction, technology

The Splendid and the Vile - Erik Larson

Finally, a wonderful read for this hot summer!  One of my favorite authors, Larson is a master at weaving factual details into a coherent story line.  In this tome (585 pages, including the bibliography and notes) he tells of the day to day lives of Winston Churchill during the bombing of London in 1940 through 1941.  I learned so much more about the devastation of the German bombing runs, the courage and equanimity of the English people and the triumph of a leader for the times.  Uplifting, detailed and fascinating.

Published:  2020  Read: July 2020  Genre: History