2021 Another Year of Solitude - Reading Summary

Books have always been an escape, a solace, companions to me.  I needed all of those this year.  I read 53 books either partially or completely, about my usual annual number, mostly reading at night before going to sleep.

I had 21 fiction reads, leaning toward life lessons.  I read  many more non-fiction books, with quite a few about people (9) and many in the sciences (12) .  Here's 2021's top picks.  (click on title for full review of each):

1) The Midnight Library - Matt Haig
2) The Codebreaker - Walter Isaacson
3) The End of Men - Christina Sweeney Baird
4) Anxious People - Fredrik Backman
5) Blockchain Revolution - Don Tapscott

I've already gotten 2 books from my TBR list to begin reading for 2022!  If you have any favorites from 2021 let me know.

The Genetic Lottery - Kathryn Paige Harden

Subtitle: Why DNA Matters for Social Equality

This is a very dense, detailed, well-documented treatise advocating for the analysis of DNA's impact on social and behavioral issues to improve social equality.  I think I understand and grasp some of it but much was difficult to unpack without a background in scientific research.  Her argument is that scientific evidence, namely polygenetic indexes and twin studies show that certain traits are inherited, such as education and income achievement, though they are both heavily influenced as well by environmental factors.  Given this fact, she advocates for equalizing the disparities this causes by providing social programs that acknowledge the differences due to both genetic and environmental factors.

It's a touchy subject because it's been hijacked by eugenic proponents to claim nothing can be done about social inequity if it is affected by genetics.  I was not convinced of her arguments.

Quotes and Notes:

Ploygenic indices are the human version of estimated breeding values in agriculture.

All of your genome, then, can be considered a form of luck in your life.

In 2013 journal Science published results....and found three genetic variants that were associated with educational attainment...rs9320913, rs11584700, rs4851266

...I have students practice talking about psychology studies using the following language: 'This study was about Construct X, as measured by Y.'.

..sometime between 500 and 200 BC, as the Sumerian were developing a written alphabet and Egypt's first dynasty was being established, you reach an even more remarkable point - everyone  alive then, if they left any descendants at all, was a common ancestor of everyone alive now.  If we trace our family trees back far enough, they all become one and the same.

There are on average, 33 of these recombinations events that occur every time a genome is transmitted to the next generation.  So, the 22 chromosomes that you inherited [from your father]can be broken down into 22 + 33 = 55 different chunks, each of which can be traced back to on of your two paternal grandparents.

...the U.S. Census, which began in 1790, did not allow people to pick more than one race until 2000.

Why are inequalities that are related to your genes more acceptable than inequalities rooted in the social circumstances of your birth?  After all, as I've argued...both are accidents of birth, forms of luck over which a person has no control.

[sign] Fair Isn't everybody getting the same thing, Fair is everybody getting what they need in order to be successful. 

[picture] Equality (3 people standing next to fence on same height box but people are different heights and only those tall enough can see over fence) vs. Equity (same 3 people where shorter ones stand on boxes to be the same height as tallest an all can see over the fence).

...one lesson is that figuring out which specific environments make a difference, for whom, at what point in the life span, is a harder problem than it might appear at first, because most of those environments are braided together with genetic differences between people.

[Ben Domingue, social scientist] 'genetics are a useful mechanism for understanding why people from relatively similar backgrounds end up different...but genetics is a poor tool for understanding why people from manifestly different starting points don't end up the same.'

The biggest contribution of genetics...is a set of tools to do basic research by measuring and statistically controlling for a variable - DNA

inherently valuable vs socially valued - used in describing whether a gene is good or bad based on perspective

,,,use in military of people with ASDs (autism spectrum disorders) who have heightened attention to visual detail and pattern can be put to use scanning satellite images.

I hope to start the conversation about...anti-eugenicist.  5 principles: 1) stop wasting time, money, talent and tools that could be used to improve people's lives, 2) use genetic info to improve opportunity, not classify people 3) use genetic information for equity, not exclusion 4) don't mistake being lucky for being good and 5) consider what you would do if you didn't know who you would be.

Published: 2021  Read: December 2021  Genre: Sociology 

Brooklyn - Colm Tobin

 A young Irish woman immigrates to America for a better life and evolves as a person as she struggles to understand her new environment and yearns for home.  I was intrigued and frustrated by this story at the same time.  Eilis is thoughtful and ponders her actions and those of others and too often choses non-action, non-response.  A coming of age in America story that eventually fell flat for me.

Published: 2009  Read: December 2021  Genre: Fiction

The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World - Laura Imai Messina

 I loved this story, though it was sad, it shows the evolution of grief from different perspectives and the ultimate ability of people to go on.  Yui, a young mother, loses her small daughter and mother during a tsunami.  She travels to the site to a phone booth where those who have lost someone talk to their relatives on the "wind phone" - unconnected but voices are carried on the wind.  She meets Takeshi who has lost his wife to illness and his daughter to silence.  They heal themselves and each other sharing their grief.  A touching, yet uplifting read.

Quotes:

p 36 - "Time may pass, but the memory of the people we've loved doesn't grow old."

p 65 - "There must be an expiration date on the soul like there is on the body."

p 75 - "Yui knew that the strongest kind of love is the kind that is taken for granted."

p 106 - "A famous citation from the American psychotherapist Virginia Satir (1916-1988) reads: 'We need four hugs a day for survival.  We need eight hugs a day for maintenance. And we need twelve hugs a day for growth."

p 111 - ...the things you end up missing most about somebody when they're gone are their flaws: the most ridiculous annoying things."

p 158 - "Anyone who has experience great grief wonders at some point which is more difficult, learning or unlearning ...now she was sure it was the second."

p 223 - "As Yui opened the door onto the dense silence of her house, she concluded that memories were like objects...sooner or later, they always floated back to the surface."

p 260 [Yui on the radio] "You speak to people, but you don't know who's listening to you.  But you come into their home and make them happy anyway. 'I don't know about happy, but they certainly feel like they have some company.' 'Isn't that the same thing?'"

p 364 - "Ultimately, that was what he wished for everyone who came there--that each person would find a place where they could tend to their pain and heal their wounds.  That place would be different for each one of them."

Published: 2021  Read: December 2021  Genre: Fiction

Maiden Voyages - Sian Evans

 Sub-title: Magnificent ocean liners and the women who traveled and worked aboard them

I'd found out about this book while listening to a genealogy zoom discussion.  The author's great-uncle was a ship's captain and her research into his life led to the book.  I have to admit, I only read about a third.  Evans goes into great detail to document the lives and history of the times of the great ocean liners and that detail became tedious.  Unlike some authors who can make history riveting ( Erik Larson comes to mind), she does a poor job of making a story out of the facts.  I found it to be a litany of "so and so" did "such and such on this date" over and over again.  A disappointment and I chose not to finish it.

Published: 2020  Read: December 2021  Genre: History

Kitchens of the Great Midwest - J. Ryan Stradal

This was a different style of telling the story of a person's life; Eva, a young woman with a once in a lifetime palette, is revealed through her relationships throughout her life, from her father Lars in her childhood, through her adopted parents, her cousin Braque, her mother Cindy and others.  It's a bit disorienting as each chapter introduces another character and the transitions are abrupt.  The theme is food and its importance in linking people through life.  A quirky read.

Quotes and Notes

p 30 - He was already thinking about the good and the bad and the deep human necessity of it all, and how anybody ever got anything done without family and how someone could give that up in the amount of time it takes to seal an envelope with the same saliva once used to seal a marriage.

Recipes - for peanut butter bars and french onion soup

 Published:  2015  Read: December 2021  Genre: Fiction

Invisible Women - Caroline Criado Perez

 Sub-title: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men

This is an important book to read to understand how the rise in the use of data has perpetuated bias toward women resulting in the loss of their potential contribution in a multitude of fields.  The author points out the well-reported lack of diversity in medical studies and goes on to address bias introduced via data to other areas of life as well.  She points out how the lack of consideration of women's needs and perspectives skews the  development of everything from phones to automated decision-making to healthcare.  

She points out in the Afterword that there are 3 themes that define women's relationship with the world:

1) the invisibility of the female body; forgetting to accommodate it in design in all fields

2) the visibility of the female body leading to male sexual violence against women and how it is measured and accounted for in design, resulting in limiting women's liberty.

3) Unpaid care work; pointing out that women are doing far and away more than our fair share of this work.  It naturalizes sex and gender discrimination to assume this is the female role.

Quotes and Notes

p 30 - Women do 75% of the world's unpaid care work and this affects their travel needs.  ..."trip-chaining', a travel pattern of several small interconnected trips that has been observed in women around the world."

p 118 - [regarding absorption of chemicals studies not taking into account] endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs)  harmful even at very low concentrations and they are found in a wide range of plastics, cosmetics and cleaners.

p 157 - There is plenty of data showing that women have, on average, smaller hands than men and yet we continue to design equipment around the average male hand as if one-size-fit-men is the same as one-size-fits-all.

p 167 - [discussion of AI systems] used to screen resumes] Has the algorithm been trained to account for socialized gender differences in tone an facial expression?"

p 175 - [women entrepreneurs in tech world, example of pelvic floor trainer] In a field where women are at a disadvantage specifically because the are women (and therefore can't hope to fit a stereotypically male 'pattern'), data will be particularly crucial for female entrepreneurs.  And yet it's the female entrepreneurs who are less likely to have it, because they are more likely to be trying to make products for women.  For whom we lack data." 

p 180 - Across professional computing as a whole in the US, 26% of jobs are held by women compared to the 57% of jobs women hold across the entire US workforce - "sea of dudes" problem.

p 223 - Understanding Girls with ADHD states that women are underdiagnosed because of early clinical studies being done on hyperactive young white boys.

p 247 - ..."the best job-creation programme could simply be the introduction of universal childcare in every country in the world."

Published: 2019  Read: December 2021  Genre: Science

Anxious People - Fredrik Backman

I'd watched the movie of this author's first book, A Man Called Ove and remember enjoying it, even with sub-titles.  This second novel was recommended by one of my book clubs.  

I was intrigued, laughing out loud, and crying while reading this book.  A cast of quirky characters embroiled in a hostage situation created by a bumbling bank robber are interviewed by the police that rescue them and the story unravels from their shared experience.  And, it is like unraveling, loose, seemingly unrelated threads come together marvelously.  Backman is a master storyteller.  His characters are real genuine people.  This one is my favorite for 2022.  I imagined it as a play, which would be delicious!

Quotes:

"And that's the weirdest thing about being someone's parent...that you are loved in spite of everything that your are...Perhaps there's a biological reason for that, that up to a certain age a child loves you unconditionally and hopelessly for one single reason: you're theirs.  Which is a pretty smart move on biology's part, you have to give it that."

"Do you know how many men like you every single woman on the planet meets every day, who think that every thought that pops into your tiny little male brains is a lovely present you can give us?"

"We weren't allowed to argue just for the sake of winning.  Because sooner or later, that would end  up with one of us winning.  And no marriage can survive that.  Did it work??' Julia asked. 'I don't know," Estelle admitted. 'We never got past the first flush of infatuation."

"[My Dad] He says you end up marrying the one you don't understand.  Then you spend the rest of your life trying."

"...your children aren't your children, they're the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself." [Kahlil Gibran]

Published: 2020  Read: November 2021  Genre: Fiction 

The Survivors - Alex Shulman

Three brothers who have led separate adult lives return to a family cottage on a lake to scatter their mother's ashes.  Benjamin, the middle child and the one who kept the peace in their childhood reveals their past as they journey to the site.  The story is told out of sequence, both for the past and the present.  The reader knows there is a secret to be revealed but it takes forever to get there.  I don't know if this book suffered from the translation (it was originally written in Swedish) or if the dreamy, reflective, foreboding style just didn't work for me.  I found the jacket synopsis misleading and the ending left me scratching my head to convince myself that it made sense.  The writing is rich with atmosphere and paints vivid images of the boys' memories and their present lives, which kept me reading but never coalesced into a coherent story.  

Published:  2021  Read: November 2021  Genre: Fiction

The Psychopath - Mary Turner Thompson

 Sub-title: A True Story

Mary Thompson tells her story of having been married to a con artist, manipulator and psychopath - a man with no empathy for anyone including himself.  She shares her reclaiming her life and regaining her self-esteem, explores the reasons she was susceptible to his charm and champions herself and others who have the courage to speak out after experiencing toxic people.  She previously wrote the story of finding out her husband was already married and had many women he had taken advantage of, fathering more than a dozen children and continuing to prey on trusting women in her first book, Bigamist.  

This was a disturbing book to read.  The first questions that comes to mind is "why didn't she figure it out sooner", as a way I think to feel that we would never have been in her situation.  Yet after reading her straightforward account and her honest assessment I think everyone can imagine a time when they too may have been vulnerable to this kind of deception.  

Quotes

"I could only respect the men who disrespected me, because at least they knew who I really was and what I deserved"

"...hating someone else is like taking poison and expecting them to die."

"Remember that 'No' is a complete sentence and doesn't need any clarification."

Four 'control dramas' -- interrogator,  intimidator, aloof, and the poor me."

"People should be able to relax and say what they think, and at the same time feel their partner supports and loves them. If that is not happening then it might not be the right relationship. "

Published: 2021 Read: November 2021 Genre: Memoir

Antiquities - Cynthia Ozick

 

A strange little book.  An elderly man is a surviving trustee of an English boys boarding school, living in the converted school with a handful of other trustees.  He is writing his memoir, reflecting on his time as a boy at the school and his life now.  The jacket said it reflects "on shifting perspectives on the past".  Having lived through WWII, the man recalls a Jewish boy who attended the school who told a fantastical story and would not accept his gift of antiques from Egypt.

I have to stop picking up books at the library on impulse!  It was fun to read but weird.  The title is a play on the antiques the man inherited from his father, supposed ancient artifacts from Egypt and the effect of time on his memory.  

Published: 2021  Read: November 2021  Genre: Fiction

As Husbands Go - Susan Isaacs

 

This was a fun read! A seemingly shallow, status obsessed 30 something woman, is the Mom of triplets, 3 four-year old boys, and married to a plastic surgeon.  She came from humbler beginnings and despises her parents and is looked down on by her in-laws.  When her husband doesn't show up her life is turned upside down.  Turns out he was found murdered in a prostitute's apartment.  It's a simple mystery story but its the way it is told that was engaging.  She's snarky, witty, and over-the-top absorbed with the high society life, name-dropping brands and designers.   Along the way, she struggles to find the truth of her husband's murder.  I'd read another book by this author.

Published: 2010   Read: November 2021  Genre: Fiction Mystery

Nudge - Richard H Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein

 Sub-title: The Final Edition

I struggle getting through this book that became a bestseller when first published (2009).  It explains the how manipulating human tendencies can nudge them in a desired direction.  Something I first heard about back in the 70's in my college marketing class.  

Heralded as a "new and important" concept, its written by an economist and behavioral scientist who first outlines the psychological weaknesses and biases all humans have and then explains how they can be used to help them make better choices.  The new version acknowledges that nudges can unfortunately be used for nudging people in negative ways as well.  

I read it as a mea culpa for the unintended consequences of how his technique has been exploited. I didn't finish it.

I'm going back to fiction.

Published: 2021  Read: November  2021  Genre: Non-fiction

The End of Men - Christina Sweeney-Baird

Written in 2018 and finalized in 2019 this story imagines a future where a virus only affects males - and is 90% fatal, leaving the world with only 10% of the males due to an X-chromosome mutation.  Told in first-person by a slate of female characters from different walks of life; a doctor, a scientist, politician, teacher, anthropologist. They have different reactions and experiences to the extreme loss of males; their husbands, sons, brothers, co-workers, friends.  The profound grief is explored with each character and then...the adjustments they make as individuals and as a society that changes so drastically.  Feminism and males as a minority is explored.  Re-populating the human race made me wonder what it would be like if only 10% of the males in the world were eventually the ancestors of all the subsequent generations.  The world eventually goes on. 

I thought there were so many other perspectives the author could have detailed and was disappointed there wasn't more depth to the story.  Many of the changes were to me "oh, yes, that would change." Not enough pilots or surgeons or engineers or mechanics.  I suspect the book was pushed to release when the coronavirus became a reality.  Despite those shortcomings, it would a rich source of discussion.  

Quotes

"Gynarchy is the word we use for the takeover by women of the world, depriving men from taking their rightful places in society."

"I stand in the hallway breathing heavily for a a few seconds before breaking into a smile.  I have never felt so powerful.  This must be what men used to feel like.  My mere physical presence is enough to terrify someone into running.  No wonder they used to get drunk on it."

Published: 2021  Read: October 2021  Genre: Fiction 

Kiss Myself Goodbye - Ferdinand Mount

Sub-title: The Many Lives of Aunt Munca

My love of genealogy is really a love for a good story.  Family lends itself to telling stories and genealogy helps reveal those that might have been lost had I not sought them out.  In this story about his aunt, the author uses his considerable writing and research skills to charmingly peel back the curtain on the life of his flamboyant, daring, larger than life aunt.  

Munca was the name she insisted he call her, rather than Aunt something.  After Munca died, a cousin had encouraged him to search for the real story of his aunt's life.  What a life it was! What fascinated me was how he used the same records that we would collect as genealogist to track her path through the world.  He wove her residence, marriage, divorce and other finds into his quest to unravel the truth of the stories she had told him.  Mount was the editor of the Times Literary Supplement so he knows how to engage a reader.  

Another appeal of the book is that the writer is English - through and through.  He writes for those who known England and it was a challenge to immerse myself in the language, locations and lifestyle of the upper class British elite of the time. I chuckled at the term "Paternal Discrepancy" that genealogist term a non-parental event or NPE, which the author claims may account for no less than 3.7% of all births.

 A great read highly recommended, genealogist or not!

Quotes

"How fragile it all is, how brief anyone's hold on property, or money, or life itself."

"What you don't know can sting the heart worse than the worst thing you do know.  And go on stinging, because while knowledge brings some sort of ending, not knowing never ends."

"How seductive it is, this idea that you do not need parents to make you happy, or to make the best of yourself.  On the contrary, to be a heroine, it is better to be free of these nagging, fretting figures in charge of you, and to forge on through life unencumbered.  Far from orphanhood/adoption being any sort of handicap, it's actually a launch-pad."

Published: 2020  Read: October 2021  Genre: Biography

Infinite Country : A Novel - Patricia Engel

 A family facing poverty, hopelessness and danger in their home in Columbia immigrate to the U.S. in secret.  A child is born in the U.S., the father is deported during a round-up and the eldest daughter returns to Columbia to help him care for her grandmother. They spend years trying to stay a family.  

The story is told over time from the lives of those in Columbia and the U.S.  The struggles they bear felt very real and gave me a different perspective on those wanting a better life.  Good read.

Published: 2021  Read: October 2021  Genre: Fiction

Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore - Matthew Sullivan

 I ordered this for a new book club I'm in and it's a good starter!  A young woman who suffered a traumatic experience as a child ignores her past and immerses herself in her job at a library modeled after the Tattered Cover Bookstore in Denver, Colorado.  A cast of quirky characters help her solve the mysterious suicide of one of the stores patrons while revealing a link to her past.  Fun read.

Published:  2017  Read: October 2021  Genre: Mystery

Fuzz - Mary Roach

 Sub-title: What Happens When Nature Breaks the Law

I have really enjoyed Mary's previous books Gulp (about digestive tract) and Stiff (2008, about cadavers).  This one addresses ways humans deal with animals and plants that clash with us when we or they cross each other's paths.  She covers efforts like sterilizing monkeys in India, the military's attempts to eradicate gulls on Marshall Island (the gulls won) and efforts to control elephants, leopards and even trees.  A fun read from an author who delivers well-researched details with a sense of humor.

Notes:

Xcluder Rodent and Pest Defense makes "cut-and-stuff" stainless steel fiber products to block rodents.

term: kronism: the eating of one's offspring

Published: 2021  Read: October 2021  Genre: Non-fiction, Science

Kindred - Octavia E Butler

 I'd found out about this book when I read it was a classic of African American fiction that illuminated the horrors of slavery and the impact of racism.  The author uses time travel to have her main character, Dana, pulled back into 1815 to protect the son of a white slaveowner who will become her great-great-grandfather.  The tie in with genealogy (sort of) was intriguing and I checked it out.  The book is a great read, so much so I finished it in one day (about 6 hours!).  

Dana finds herself blacking out in the present day (1970s) and waking up in the South in 1815, prior to the Civil War and in the heart of slavery.  As a black woman she has to struggle to survive and when fearing for her life, is propelled back to the present.  The story explores the experience of living during slavery and the grinding into submission and acceptance of its victims.   An insightful and moving work.

Published: 1977 Read: October 2021  Genre: Fiction, science fiction

Preventable - Andy Slavitt

 Sub-title: The inside story of how leadership failures, politics, and selfishness doomed the U.S. coronavirus response

I've avoided reading books from policy makers and government participants as it can be just too much and particularly too one-sided, not to mention not always very well written or edit.  This book does a good job of sharing an insider's view of the response in the US to the covid-19 pandemic up through March 2021.  I think it would be worth re-reading a few years from now too.  The author, Andy Slavitt, worked in the Obama administration on the ACA launch, was a former acting administrator of CMS and with the Biden administration on the response to the pandemic.  He started a twitter feed at the beginning of the pandemic and launched a podcast, "In the Bubble" where he interviews those responsible for aspects of the U.S. response.

Reading the book made me aware of how different an education is provided in advanced (he went to Wharton and Harvard) institutions.  Implicit in his analysis is the strategic, global, problem-solving approaches I've read and studied but never was particularly good at myself - I was the worker bee who executed the strategies and reported on the results.  

The book is, of course, focused mostly on the faults of the administration though it does try to point out the bigger issues in America as a whole.  The suggested remedies are documented as an appendix that is specific yet not necessarily actionable or time-bound.  Interesting read.

Quotes:

"We were like people who had never seen fire before and who wouldn't believe it was dangerous without sticking our hands in the flames first."

"History would judge us on two things....how many people did we lose? and what did I do to help during the difficult times?"

"Save the next life."

"There are a set of personality traits required to face a crisis - separate yourself from the problem, continually weight choices based on current information; focus on the bad news and look skeptically at good news; empathy for people who aren't right in front of you; a willingness to make tough decisions that forgo short-term gains in favor of solutions that work; the ability to communicated that brings people together."

"We were novices who considered ourselves experts.  This is part and parcel of the feeling of American exceptionalism.  Th US doesn't have the humility to follow.  We think we must always lead.  We keep telling ourselves we're the best even when evidence suggests we are not.  Our mentality suggest we would rather risk being last than come in second or third."

"We don't need to solve all of society's ills to respond better to a pandemic, but we will have to do more than invest in a better first line of defense--we will need to break our pattern of indifference."

Published: 2021  Read: October 2021  Genre: Non-fiction, history

On the Move - A Life - Oliver Sacks

 I've read lot of Oliver Sacks writings and enjoyed them and I looked forward to reading his auto-biography that was published posthumously.  I had a completely different impression of him from his non-fiction writing and it didn't fit the description of his personal life.  It was a good read and made me sad that we lost his talent.

Quote:

"..During prohibition, a very strong extraction of Jamaica ginger or "jake" was freely available as a "nerve tonic" but was used as a substitute for alcohol. It was doctored with TOCP which turned out to be a nerve poison which gave people the "jake walk" and eventually led to death."

"..Bates's Naturalist on the River Amazons, [a 19th century book, Henry Walter Bates]

Published: 2015  Read: October 2021  Genre: Auto-biography

Genesis - Edward O Wilson

 Sub-title: The Deep Origins of Socities

Wilson is another of my favorite authors, albeit on the non-fiction, science side.  I first met him when reading his book, The Ants (1994) and have enjoyed many of his titles since.  He weaves science and philosophy and a passion for the planet into instructive, lyrical, thought-provoking tales. Now in his 90's, he still provides meaningful, intelligent discussion on man and nature.  

p.s. He even wrote a book with a Bossert! (William H.)

Quotes:

"...concept of evolution of flexibility of genes....and the idea of group selection, in which advanced social evolution is driven by the hereditary traits of entire colonies, as opposed to individuals within colonies..."

"eusocial groups, defined as the high level of cooperation and division of labor in which some specialists reproduced less than others..  In other words, eusocial species are those practicing altruism."

"...the rule for the two levels of selection as follows: within groups, selfish individuals win against altruists, but groups of altruists beat groups of selfish individuals."

Published: 2019  Read: September 2021  Genre: Science, Philosophy 

A Long Petal of the Sea - Isabel Allende

 I've been a fan of Allende for years having read In the Midst of Winter and eight or nine other of her books.  This is the story of the impact of the Spanish Civil War on a group of people that escaped Franco and traveled to Chile for a new life.  The historical background captured my attention and the way the new immigrants rebuilt their lives through the subsequent uprising in Chile.  Allende weaves in historical characters, one of which was her uncle, one time President of Chile.  A wonderful story.

I also enjoyed the interview with her at the end of the book.  She begins a new book each January and works at it with strict discipline until that year's book is finished.  Persistence rewarded.

Published: 2020  Read: September 2021 Genre: Historical Fiction

Tiny Tales - Alexander McCall Smith

 I picked this up inside at the library, now that it is open again!  The author is well-known for his No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency fiction series.  This book read like exercises in writing, little practice stories.  It was a quick, quiry bunch of cute stories.  

Quotes:

"...he felt that ultimately life was not entirely governed by the head and its doubts; there was the heart to consider, and the heart was not best by the same doubts."

"[he] thought about it...the work that kindness did in this world.  Everything was stacked against it, he thought, but it continued.  It never stopped.  It was there.  Always. In spite of everything." 

" She had looked at the gate and the buildings beyond.  Everything had that familiar, sparse look of army bass anywhere in the world.  Neatness. Order. Toughness. She hated all of it--it was so alien.  Men created such emotional deserts when they were left to their own devices." 

Published:  2020  Read: September 2021  Genre: Short Story

The Paradox of Choice - Barry Schwartz

 My niece shared this with me and while dated, it presents some thoughtful ideas on the over abundance of choices in our modern lives and the impact it has.  I marked several passages and was convinced of his case within the first 50 or so pages after which it got very repetitive.  In writing up my review I discovered I'd already read the book in 2010 (sigh).  

Quotes:

"a majority of people want more control over the details of their lives, but a majority of people also want to simplify their lives.  There you have it--the paradox of our times."

"...we evaluate positive experiences on the basis of how good they feel at their best, and how good they feel at the end."

"...we all hate to lose...loss aversion."

"Once something is given to you, it's yours.  Once it become part of your endowment, even after a very few minutes, giving it up will entail a loss [endowment effect]."

"[On Regret]...we don't close the psychological door on the decisions we've made, and as time passes, what we've failed to do looms larger and larger."

"...to give away or throw away something would force you to acknowledge a loss [sunk costs]…being sensitive to sunk costs is a mistake.  That's over."

"...[we] get used to --adapted to-- each of our sources of pleasure, and they stop being sources of pleasure.  Because of adaptation, enthusiasm about positive experience don't sustain themselves."

Published: 2004  Read: July-August 2021  Genre: Non-fiction, philosophy

Going Solo - Eric Klinenberg

 Sub-title: The extraordinary rise and surprising appeal of living alone

I started reading this sometime back in 2020 and struggled to get through it but finally finished in August 2021.  The author did field research on people living alone in developed countries and interprets the results for their impact on future housing, urban living, and society as a whole.  

Quotes:

"In 1917...the writer Anna Alice Chapin identified a building nearby as "the first all-bachelor apartment house erected in town.  It is appropriately called 'the Benedick' [from Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing], after a certain young man who scoffed at matrimony."

"The big thing that changes with age in terms of living alone is that the word 'dying' and 'alone' start to become associated with each other...nobody worries about dying married."

"...a deputy investigator for the Los Angeles County Public Administrator...is one of a hundred full-time employees at the county public administrator's office, which investigates cases in which someone dies and no one claims the body or the estate.  She is sort of like a detective for people who die alone.  Her job is to comb through the remains of their lives, searching for next of kin.  Emily and her colleagues get about 3,000 cases like this each year."

"Pearl is a prototype for a robotic personal assistant, with origins in a collaborative research and design experiment...at Carnegie Mellon and Stanford universities."

Published: 2010  Read: August 2021  Genre: Non-fiction, sociology

The Painted Drum - Louise Erdrich

 I had put off reading this for quite a while because I hadn't cared very much for one of her previous books, The Master Butcher's Singing Club, that I had read back in 2003.  

A sacred and powerfully spiritual native american drum is found by an antique collector and the story tells of its impact on her life and of those who created it.  Again, not a great read for me.  I find her writing disjointed and unsatisfying.  

Quotes:

:For it seems to me that my sorrow is deep in my bones and I have to break everyone to let it out.:

"Life will break you.  Nobody can protect you from that, and being alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning.  You have to love.  You have to feel.  It is the reason your her on earth."

Published:   2019     Read: August 2021  Genre: Fiction

The Midnight Library - Matt Haig

 I think this might be my favorite read so far this year!  A 30 something woman welcomes death as a way out of what she perceives as a miserable life.  She finds herself in the midnight library - a purgatory where infinite rows of books representing all her possible lives allows her to chose the ones she regrets having missed.  As she re-lives her life with various different choices she gets to experience the "what-ifs" that plague the results of our actions.  

Quotes:

"There are more possible ways to play a game of chess than the amount of atoms in the observable universe.  So it gets very messy.  And there is no right way to play; there are many ways. In chess, as in life, possibility is the basis of everything.  Every hope, every dream, every regret, every moment of living."

"That, she supposed, was the basis of depression as well as the difference between fear and despair.  Fear was when you wandered into a cellar and worried that the door would close shut.  Despair was when the door closed and locked behind you."

"She realized that you could be as honest as possible in life but people only see the truth if it is close enough to their reality.  As Thoreau wrote 'It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see'."

Highly recommended unique way of exploring the "could have been" of life.

Published: 2020  Read: August 2021  Genre: Fiction, Philosophy

The Girl Who Smiled Beads - Clemantine Wamariya

 Sub-title: A Story of War and What Comes After

with: Elizabeth Weil

A very sad tale of a young Rwanda woman who at age 6 was caught up in the genocide.  She and her sister moved from one refugee camp to another over several years before getting asylum in the U.S. The author is a recognized speaker and activist who completed college at Yale and appears happy and successful.  The story reveals her true feelings of loss, anger, fear and distrust as a result of her journey.   A powerful read that left me wanting to know more.

Quote: "Taking care of loved ones in my world was not based on affection.  It was based on the fear of losing them."

Published: 2018  Read: August 2021  Genre: Memoir

Plunder - Menachem Kaiser

 Sub-title: A memoir of Family Property and Nazi Treasure

I'd heard of this book from the American Inspiration Author Series that is co-sponsored by the genealogy site, American Ancestors.  The lecture itself suffered from a poor interviewer who was more interested in learning how to write a book then discuss this book (sigh).

I really enjoyed the story when I got the book from the library.  The author's grandfather had attempted to claim his family apartment building in Poland that had been taken during the Holocaust.  Kaiser tells the trials and tribulations he encountered in picking up the trail.  He hires a slightly inadequate lawyer in Poland and travels to see the building.  He discovers one of his ancestors is a revered diarist of a group of explorers seeking Nazi treasure supposedly hidden in subterranean tunnels in Poland.

The story is so much more than seeking retribution.  It is about family stories, historical perspectives, preserving memories and much more.  

Quotes:

"I searched for other marriage notices...Hello, I said to their ghosts."

"The explorers would teach me this lesson a hundred times over: a motivated love can still be love." 

Recommended reading.

Published: 2021  Read: July 2021  Genre: Memoir

Deep Ancestry - Spencer Wells

 Sub-title: Inside the Genographic Project - The Landmark DNA Quest to Decipher Our Distant Past

Over the summer, the Southern Arizona Genealogical Society had a book sale at their site in Green Valley.  A friend and I took a day trip to explore their offerings and came home with many future reads, this title being one of them.

 The National Genographic Project was a research project initiated in 2005 to document the paths of human migration over time, using YDNA and mitochondrial DNA.  The project gathered DNA samples from many indigenous people around the world as well as offering DNA tests for sale to partially fund its efforts; some of you may have participated in the project.  The project was closed in 2020 and test results are no longer available to testers. 

 The focus of the research was to expand the data used to conduct anthropological investigations of human migration.  In the book, Wells describes the migration path of homo sapiens out of Africa and across the globe.  I was fascinated with how the YDNA and mtDNA haplogroups evolved over tens of thousands of years.  This book expanded my knowledge of haplogroup studies.  The last chapters takes the reader through the evolution of both lineages and makes a good resource for understanding the sometimes confusing jumble of haplogroup names.  

Quotes:

"In August of 2002 I had recently finished a film and a book, The Journey of Man."

"Members of the Q [haplogroup] lineage share the genetic marker M242 with the people living in Siberia...When they arrived in North America, they were the first humans ever to inhabit this continent."

"This disconnect between the individual event and the sum of many events is a result of a statistical property known as the law of large numbers.  The error introduced by using a small number of events is known as sampling error.  What does all of this have to do with genetic lineages?  The likelihood of passing on one's genes varies from person to person, but if we have a large number of people, then it tends to even out in such a way that the variation distinguishing the population is transmitted to the next generation in the same proportions seen today.  The change in frequency from generation to generation due to sampling error is known as genetic drift."

"..we still know very little about the underlying genetic changes that determine human appearance.  As these genetic markers are discovered...we should be able to test the theory that humans diverged in their surface features due to sexual selection.  Exploring this idea is one of the goals of the Genographic Project."

"...results were finally confirmed in a study published in 2000 that narrowed the estimated date [of mitochondrial Eve] to around 170,000 years, mitochondrial Eve was African."

"In a paper published in 2000...it showed our common Y-chr ancestor lived only 60,000 years ago.  [Because of] variance in reproductive success, is higher for men than women, which means that women have more equal opportunities to have children...tends to reduce the effective population size of the Y chr.  Over time, this meant that Y lineages were more likely to be lost than mtDNA lineages.  The result is that the deeper Y lineages were lost over the past 170,000 years, and the only ones left date to around 60,000 years ago.

Published: 2006  Read: July 2021  Genre: Science

Not My Father's Son - Alan Cumming

 Recommended by a fellow genealogist, this was a quick and heart-breaking read.  Alan is a well known and lauded actor.  His childhood was laced with violence from his father, a miserable, unhappy man who took his anger out on his children...or were they "his"?  

A DNA test seems to resolve the question though it raised further speculation in my mind.  I won't give away the story but recommend reading.  The book is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit.

Published: 2014  Read: 2021 Genre: Memoir

21 Lessons for the 21st Century - Yuval Noah Harari

 I looked forward to reading this book as I had read and enjoyed the author's other book Homo Deus that I read back in 2015.  Once again he poses challenging and thought-provoking ideas, this time around looking toward the future of humankind.  I marked quite a few passages. While raising the flags of warning for the future, his personal prescription of meditation as a means of dealing with it felt flat with me.  Still, I recommend reading for its wide range of observations.

"Big Data algorithms might create digital dictatorships in which all power is concentrated in the hands of a tiny elite while most people suffer not from exploitation but from something far worse--irrelevance."

[Regarding Artificial Intelligence or AI] "AI is now beginning to outperform humans in more and more of these [physical and cognitive] skills, including in the understanding of human emotions.  We don't know of any third field of activity--beyond the physical and the cognitive--where humans will always retain a secure edge."

"This reliance on the heart [as a guide for action] might prove to be the Achilles' heel of liberal democracy.  For once somebody gains the technological ability to hack and manipulate the human heart, democratic politics will mutate into an emotional puppet show."

"If we want to prevent the concentration of all wealth and power in the hands of a small elite, the key is to regulate the ownership of data."

"The nationalist wave sweeping across the world cannot return the world to 1939 or 1914.  Technology has changed everything by creating a set of global existential threats that no nation can solve on its own.  A common enemy is the best catalyst for forging a common identity, and humankind now has at least three such enemies - nuclear war, climate change, and technological disruption."

"You cannot experience joy and harmony when you are boiling with anger or envy.  Long before you murder anyone, your anger has already killed your own peace of mind."

[The secular ethical code] which is in fact accepted by millions of Muslims, Christians, and Hindus as well as by atheists--enshrines the values of truth, compassion, equality, freedom, courage, and responsibility.  It forms the foundation of modern scientific and democratic institutions."

"We think we know a lot, even though individually we know very little, because we treat knowledge in the minds of others as if it were our own."

[Aldous Huxley's] genius consists in showing that you can control people far more securely thorough love and pleasure than through fear and violence."

"Many pedagogical experts argue that schools should switch to teaching 'the four Cs'-- critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity."

"In front of the amazed eyes of the assembled peasants the priest held high a piece of bread and exclaimed 'Hoc est corpus!'-- ' This is the body!'-- In the minds of the illiterate peasants, who did not speak Latin, 'Hoc est corpus!' got garbled into 'Hocus-pocus!'. Thus was born the powerful spell that can transform a frog into a prince and a pumpkin into a carriage."

"If by 'free will' you mean the freedom to do what you desire, then yes, humans have free will.  But if by 'free will' you mean the freedom to chose what to desire, then no, humans have no free will."

"When you are confronted by some great story and you wish to know whether it is real or imaginary, one of the key questions to ask is whether the central hero of the story can suffer."

Published: August 2018   Read: June 2021  Genre: History, Politics

American Baby - Gabrielle Glaser

 Sub-title: A Mother, A Child, and the Shadow History of Adoption

I read this book in one day, it was riveting, to say the least.  Framed by the story of one birth mother forced to give up her son at birth, it tells of the thousands of females in the 1950s, 60s and 70s who were shuttled off in shame to homes where they gave birth to their illegitimate children and were forced to give them up for adoption into a system riddled with greed, dishonesty and self-righteous patter.  For me it explained why there are so many people testing their DNA to find their birth parents or child.  

Quotes

"...music of which their parents disapproved: Elvis Presley, Chubby Checker...--music that Alan Freed, the DJ...had introduced as "rock 'n' roll" - African American slang for sex----"

"Viola Bernard, a Columbia University psychiatrist...and Peter Neubauer, a New York University psychiatrist who was a protege of Anna Freud's...study of nature over nurture...caused separation of twins and triplets at birth.  The records for the Bernard/Neubauer study are sealed until 2065..." 

"By adding birth and adoptive parents, plus siblings, half siblings, and eight grandparents, she said, adoptee-rights advocates estimated that approximately a third of American had a link to adoption in their direct immediate families."

Published: 2021  Read: June 2021  Genre: Non-fiction, genealogy 

Bossypants - Tina Fey

 Picked this up a a thrift store for $3.00 and it was enough of a read to cover the cost.  I hadn't known much about her career, being familiar only with her hosting duties at awards shows and her TV show.  I was impressed with her business sense and the viewpoint of someone the same generation as my son.

Quote:

"When did you first feel like a grown woman and not a girl?"  We wrote down our answers and shared them...but the answers had a very similar theme.  Almost everyone first realized they were becoming a grown woman when some dude did something nasty to them."

Published: 2011  Read: May 2021  Genre: Auto-biography 

Coming Apart - Daphne Rose Kingma

 Sub-title: How to Heal Your Broken Heart

Enough said.

Published: 2018  Read: May 2021  Genre: Self-Help

Where'd You Go, Bernadette? - Maria Semple

This was an entertaining read.  The story is told by a young woman through a series of letters and emails between her mother and the other characters in the story.  Her mother has disappeared and she's trying to find out why.   A quirky story that was made into a movie I don't think I'll watch.

"You need to be prepared for novel experiences because often they signal danger.  If you live in a jungle full of fragrant flowers, you have to stop being so overwhelmed by the lovely smell because otherwise your couldn't smell a predator.  That's why your brain is considered a discounting mechanism. It's literally a matter of survival."

"When your eyes are softly focused on the horizon for sustained periods, your brain release endorphins.  It's the same as a runner's high.  These days, we all spend our lives staring at screens twelve inches in front of us.  It's a nice change". 

Published: 2012  Read: May 2021  Genre: Fiction

The Codebreaker - Walter Isaacson

Sub-title: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race

This was a wonderful read for so many reasons. Isaacson introduces the story by explaining the three great revolutions experienced in modern times: the industrial, the information and now, the life sciences revolution.  He compares the growth of people being able to do digital coding by manipulating bits, the on/off switches of the information technology world, to the future growth of people who will do genetic coding by editing and manipulating our DNA.  The innovators in both are those who can not only read the code but write it.

 I'd heard the term "CRISPR" and knew it had to do with DNA but didn't understand what it was.  The author took us through the life of Jennifer Doudna, the Nobel Prize winning microbiologist whose curiosity led her from an early age to pursue RNA, the messenger part of our genetic makeup.  She won the Nobel Prize along with Emmanuelle Charpentier, for their research on how to alter our genes and how to "cut" DNA using  RNA to point to the edit point.  CRISPR -  Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats - that were discovered in the 1980s, provides this pointer to where the editing of  DNA is desired. Doudna and Charpentier showed how to use CRISPR as an editing tool. 

I was swept along in the story that wove the history of the discovery of DNA, the effort to map the human genome and the ability to edit genes with CRISPR into a coherent, understandable whole.  At the same time the author revealed the cooperation and competition among scientists and their human side as collaborators and competitors.

I was uplifted to read of their cooperation in finding ways to test for Covid-19 when it emerged in 2020 and of their dedication and single mindedness in pursuing solutions. Several chapters are devoted to explaining and exploring the ethical use of the CRISPR technology and how it might be regulated, providing thought-provoking discussion.

 I can't recommend this book enough.

Quotes:

"[from Emmanuelle Charpentier] I began to see myself as a scientist and not just as a student...I wanted to create knowledge, not just learn it."

"1998 conference at UCLA...focused on the ethics of making genetic edits that would be inherited.  These 'germline edits 'were fundamentally different, medically and morally, from somatic-cell edits that affect only certain cells in an individual patient.  The germline was a red line that scientists had been reluctant to cross."

"On most great moral issues, there are two competing perspectives.  One emphasizes individual rights, personal liberty, and deference to person choice [Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia].  The other are those that view justice and morality through the lens of what is best for the society and perhaps even the species [John Rawls's A Theory of Justice].

Notes:

"Count Me In" - public database with DNA shared by cancer patients.

1997 film Gattaca (the title is made up of the letter of the four DNA bases) told of the potential of genetic screening and selection.

Preprint servers such as Rxiv and bioRxiv, free and open publishing of scientific research papers.

Published: 2021   Read: May 2021   Genre: Science, Biography

The Boy, the mole, the fox and the Horse - Charles Mackesy

 I needed some thoughtful reflection and my sister recommended this book.  It's a gentle story of friendship and life, told through pen and ink drawings and the comments of the four characters written in cursive.  Every line could be pondered.  Good for the soul.

Published: 2019  Read: May 2021 Genre: Philosophy

White Fragility - Robin Diangelo

Sub-title: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism

In the current political and social environment, this book was recommended to me by a relative who had read it for a diversity program.  This was a difficult read as it provided a viewpoint I don't think I'd been exposed to in the past and challenged my thinking on the topic of race.  

The author explains the evolution of white privilege in our society and its consequences and why it is so difficult to see ourselves as racist as a result of being born and raised in it.  I have a long way to go.

Quotes:

"The idea of racial inferiority was created to justify unequal treatment; belief in racial inferiority is not what triggered unequal treatment...first, we exploited people for their resources, not according to how they looked."

"Narratives of racial exceptionality [example of Jackie Robinson first African American in major league baseball] obscure the reality on ongoing institutional white control while reinforcing the ideologies of individualism and meritocracy." 

[Color blind - insists they don't see race, Color celebrate - sees and embraces diversity] "All the statements [made by these groups of people] ultimately function in a similar way; they all exempt the person from any responsibility for or participation in the problem." 

[Difference between race prejudice /discrimination and racism] While everyone of every race holds prejudice and can discriminate against someone of another race, in the US and other white/settler nations, only white people are in the position to oppress people of color collectively and throughout the whole of society."

"Conceptualizing myself on an active continuum changes the question from whether I am or am not racist to a much more constructive question: Am I actively seeking to interrupt racism in this context?  And perhaps even more importantly, how do I know?" 

"White fragility is also evidenced in the need for so many white progressives to 'build trust' before they can explore racism..[they are saying].I need to trust that you won't think I am racist before I can work on my racism." 

"To let go of the messenger and focus on the message is an advanced skill...Part of processing of that feedback [on our racist behavior and thoughts] will be to separate it from its delivery and ascertain the central point and its contribution to my growth." 

Published:  2018  Read: April 2021  Genre: Sociology, Politics 

Rules for Visiting - Jessica Francis Kane

 The reviews on this one were good and I liked the concept - a woman reaches out to connect in person with her friends from the past in the age of instant communication.  It missed the mark.  The heroine, May, is strange; a detached, disconnected, landscape gardener.  The author interweaves descriptions of the personalities of various North American trees into the narrative to illustrate the choices of personalities we can adopt.  I think that what was she was trying to do.  The back story of May's life was so obscure that when it was revealed it was anticlimactic.  Some thoughtful observations kept me reading but in the end, the book fell flat

Quotes:

"Friends are God's apology for relations (Hugh Kingsmith)"

"...the Dunbar number--the maximum number of people with whom any individual can maintain stable relationships--and how, despite predictions, it hadn't gotten any bigger in the age of social media."

"A house is a physical thing that is build with wood and bricks, furnished with furniture and carpets, while a home takes time and is built with memories." 

"Perhaps a best friend is someone who...holds the story of your life in mind.  Sometimes in music a melodic line is so beautiful the notes feel inevitable; you can anticipate the next note through a long rest.  Maybe that is friendship.  A best friend holds your story in mind so notes don't have to be repeated." 

Published: 2019  Read: April 2020  Genre: Fiction 

 

A Well Behaved Woman - Therese Anne Fowler

 Sub-title: A novel of the Vanderbilt's

I read this for my church book club.  I enjoy reading about the lives of the rich and famous and the Vanderbilt family were one of the richest in the late 1800s when their patriarch, Cornelius "the Commodore" made his fortune in transportation, primarily railroads.  

This book is the story of Alva Smith, the wife of one of his grandsons, William Vanderbilt.  They married because she had old aristocratic lines from the South that extended to New York but her family money had run out.  Her husband and his family was nouveau riche and not accepted into New York society.  Alva bore three children; Consuelo, named after her best friend, William and Harold.  She ushered the Vanderbilt family into high society and divorced William when her best friend confessed to an affair with him of many years.  Alva then married Oscar Belmont and she later was involved in women's suffrage.

I found the story provided a different look at the "gilded age" and the time period.  

Published: 2018   Read: April 2021  Genre: historical fiction

The Vanishing Half - Brit Bennett

 Twin sisters choose different paths in life. Desiree and Stella are born into a "light-skinned" African American community.  Their father is lynched and murdered in front of them and when they reach adulthood, they strike out for New Orleans and a different life.  Stella discovers she can "pass" as white and deserts her sister to marry her boss at a marketing firm and lives with her blond, blue-eyed daughter in fear of being discovered.  Desiree marries an abusive man and leaves him to return to her hometown  where her very dark-skinned daughter faces prejudice.  This is a story of lives I've never thought about, much less experienced.  The story challenged my thinking about what stories I've read my whole life and the authors I've chosen and the perspectives I've been exposed to.  The writing is compelling.  It's a story like none I have ever read and yet like the best fiction I've read.  Highly recommended.

Quotes: 

"The hardest part about becoming someone else was deciding to.  The rest was only logistics."

"...her grandmother would not be sitting on the porch to greet them.  Her death hit in waves.  Not a flood, but water lapping at her ankles.  You could drown in two inches of water.  Maybe grief was the same." 

Published: 2020   Read: April 2021  Genre: Fiction

Blockchain Revolution - Don Tapscott

 Sub-title: : How the technology behind bitcoin is changing money, business, and the world

This was a challenging, frustrating and quixotic book about a new technology that is said to revolutionize the world.  If I took nothing else from it, I learned the vocabulary of this emerging game changer.  The authors tout the many marvels that can be achieved with this secure, distributed transaction driver, as I understood it.  They provide multiple chapters on its potential application in financial services, business organization, education, healthcare and government, glossing over the details while stimulating creative thought. They claim it is the Internet of the 21st century and beyond.  I'll be exploring other interpretations to grasp a better understanding of its functions.  

Published: 2016   Read: March 2021  Genre: Technology, Science

The Little Paris Bookshop - Nina George

 This was a delightful book, the kind where you savor every paragraph just for the beauty of the words.  It is the story of Perdu, a 50ish bookseller operating from a barge in the Seine River in Paris.  He offers books to patrons based on his perception of their emotional needs all the while ignoring his own pain at the loss of his great love, Manon.  She'd disappeared while he was sleeping, leaving a letter he has not opened in twenty years.  When he finally succumbs, it sets him on a journey into the life he's been missing.  I enjoyed reading it slowly so much that I didn't mark many passages.  It might require a second reading.

Quotes:

"What task do the departed want us to do? To carry them within us - that is our task.  We carry them all inside us, all our dead and shattered loves.  Only they make us whole.  If we begin to forget or cast aside those we've lost, then... then we are no longer present either."

 "Do we only decide in retrospect that we've been happy?  Don't we notice when we're happy, or do we realize only much later that we were?"

"Farewell to a long-expired life, in which one was nothing but a husk, rustled by the occasional sigh." 

Published: 2015   Read: March 2021  Genre: Fiction

Caste - Isabel Wilkerson

 Sub-title: The Origins of our Discontents

Eye-opening and challenging, this book makes me think differently and see the place I've lived differently.

Through keen observation and historical context, Wilkerson explains how the US was predicated on dividing people into separate and unequal groups, black and white.  It's a powerful story of the evolution of racism in America.  Tough to read.  This book provided me with a new perspective on race in America.  I hope to participate in a book group discussion.

Quotes:

Chap. 4 - "It's a measure of how long enslavement lasted in the United States that the year 2022 marks the first year that the United States will have been an independent nation for a long as slavery lasted on its soil.  No current-day adult will be alive in the year in which African-Americans as a group will have been free for as long as they had been enslaved.  That will not come until the year 2111."

Page 111 - The Supreme Court did not overturn these prohibitions [against intermarriage] until 1967...Alabama..did not throw out its law against intermarriage until the year 2000. Even then, 40 percent of the electorate in that referendum voted in favor of keeping the marriage ban on the books."

p. 183 - "Those in the dominant caste who found themselves lagging behind those seen as inherently inferior potentially faced an epic existential crisis.  To stand on the same rung as those perceived to be of a lower caste is seen as lowering one's status.:...  "The elevation of others amount to a demotion of oneself, thus equality feels like a demotion." [my emphasis]

p 387 - "Human beings across time and continents are more alike than they are different.  The central question about human behavior is not why do those people do this or act in that way, now or in ages past, but what is it that human beings do when faced with a given circumstance?" 

Published: 2020  Read: March 2021  Genre: History 

A couple of misses

 I started, but didn't finish, a couple of non-fiction books this month.

An Intimate History of Humanity by Theodore Zeldin (1994) had been on my TBR list for awhile and I'm not sure where I originally heard about it. The author is a well respected historian and thinker.  His intent is to tell the history of man as it affected by culture over time, using stories of individuals or a group. It was dated and didn't capture my attention and I returned it to the library after a couple of chapters.

Because Internet - Understanding the Rules of Language by Gretchen McCulloch (2019) was one I had gotten picked for me by the librarian.  McCulloch is a linguist who examined the impact of the internet on our communication styles.  She suggests that internet communications, i.e., Facebook, messaging, Instagram, etc. for the first time captures our unfiltered speech.  Previous to the internet, only live recordings of people speaking revealed idiosyncrasies of language.  Once that point was made, the book lagged and I decided to return it too.  

Tropical Nature - Adrian Forsyth and Ken Miyata

 Subtitle- Life and Death in the rain forests of Central and South America 

I've been working on a DNA case that is related to the author of this book so I read it to see if I could get any clues. What an odd twist to research!

On page 31 I found a reference to a Marston Bates author of The Forest and the Sea.  

On page 73 there was a reference to Calaway Dodson, an orchid biologist who was the director of the Marie Selby botanical garden, a place I've visited a couple of times.

On page 132 there was reference to Henry Bates a British naturalist of the 1800s.

Finally, chapter 12 discussed the Mount Auburn Cemetery as a birder's mecca,  a factoid I found unusual. 

The book itself was a engaging introduction to the forest but did'nt convince me to put it on my traveling list.

Published: 1984   Read: February 2021:    Genre: Science 

French Exit - Patrick Witt

 Subtitle: A tragedy of manners

What a strange, disturbing little book.   A scandalous, newly broke widow and her son leave New York for Paris to squander her remaining funds, escaping the dreariness of their lives.  Supposedly a comic satire; I found it depressing and too clever. Not recommended.

Quotes:

"What you want is to know someone's there; you also want them to leave you alone.  But, I was shocked because I suddenly understood that the heart takes care of itself.  We allow ourselves contentment; our heart brings us ease in its good time.  ...It hasn't been my experience."

"But he soon came to learn that books were not the solution in entirety.  They were about life;, but they were not life itself, and he closed them up and put them away."

Published: 2018  Read: January 2021  Genre: Fiction

The Accidental Adventurer - Barbara Washburn

Subtitle: Memoir of the First Woman to Climb Mt McKinley

Some people who achieve amazing feats are the most humble, down to earth people.  This was my takeaway after reading the story of a WWII housewife and mother who became the first woman to climb Mt McKinley (Denali) in Alaska because she knew "her husband wanted her to be with him".  The book is written plainly with little overstatement or waxing eloquence or boasting.  I wonder at her stamina and grit to survive multiple arduous climbs.  Her and her husband, Brad, spent years of exploring to produce their map of the Grand Canyon that was published in the July 1978 National Geographic magazine.  A quick read that left me wanting to know more about their adventures.

Published: 2001  Read: January 2021  Genre: Memoir

Ambulance Girl - Jane Stern

I'd listened to Jane and Michael Stern's food radio program, the Splendid Table, on NPR for many years.  I must have added her memoir to my TBR list at some point and was surprised to find that she had volunteered as an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) and wrote about it.  My image of her as a foodie clashed with her experiences as an EMT and opened my eyes to a extremely challenging job and the reasons someone might chose to do it.  I could see the growth in confidence and self-respect that Jane gained during her time as an EMT. 

Quotes:

p. 31 "EMT is the most stressful job of all...a list of the warning signs of stress, which included anxiety, guilt, indecisiveness, isolation, fear of separation and being ignored" [was shared during training as a warning].

p 129 "Fear is a hologram.  It seems filled with substance and when you go beyond it you realize it was just an illusion."

Published: 2003  Read: January 2021  Genre: Memoir 

Your DNA Guide the Book - Diahan Southard

Sub-title: Step by Step Plans to Connect you with your Family Using your DNA

Let me start by saying, I wish I had written this book! Diahan has taken her straightforward, friendly approach I've seen her utilize in her genealogy conference presentations and created a fantastic guide to all things related to DNA genealogy.  I thoroughly enjoyed that the book, while designed as a customize-able, step by step guide, is also a plain language resource for DNA  and genealogy information.  

The book has you define a DNA research goal and then guides you through a path to your goal, learning along the way.   The table of contents reads like a list of DNA research questions I've been asked many times. For an overview of the book, there is a flowchart or Map of the Plan for research on pages 19 and 20.  

This is not a straight, page turning read.  You chose the next topic based on your answers to questions about your goal.  I followed the approach for a couple of DNA cases I've worked on and was impressed on how it helped me zero in on what I had done and where I needed to go next.  

The book does not go into great detail on the science of DNA, or the evolution of genetic DNA testing but instead gives a practical, get results approach to working with your DNA matches to answer your puzzle.  I would recommend it be added to any genealogist's library.

Published: 2020  Read: January 2021  Genre: Non-fiction

Almost Famous Women - Megan Mayhew Bergman

This was a nice read to start off the New Year.  The author took the lives of women who were related to or close to truly famous people and imagined a short story about their lives.  Based on facts, she weaves revealing and touching bits about what it is like to be close to, but not sharing, fame. She features the lives of Edna St Vincent Millay's sister, Norma, Allegra, the daughter of Byron, Dolly Wilde, niece of Oscar and other lesser knowns.  It was a different and clever approach that required some research and imagination.  I thought the book crumbled at the end when she added a couple of seemingly unrelated tales.  

Published: 2015  Read: January 2021 Genre: Historical Fiction