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