My most interesting 2024 reads.
Non-fiction
Virginia’s
Lost Appalachian Trail,
Mills Kelly (2023)
Mills
Kelly recounts the major relocation of the Appalachian Trail in
southwest Virginia in the early 1950s and retraces the remnants and
memories in the abandoned Trail corridor. Kelly’s narrative
follows the original route and documents the people and decisions
that established that route in the AT’s early years. Original
correspondence, journals, local memories of the trail’s initial
years and the hiker accounts add a depth to the description that
demonstrates the trail’s attractions and how people saw and
understood the trail. In Kelly’s words, the abandoned trail
remains alive, even if largely forgotten by the larger trail
community whose AT experience now lies miles to the north and many
years past the days when the AT crossed what remains a wild and
unique part of Virginia.
Silent
Cavalry: How Union Soldiers from Alabama Helped Sherman Burn Atlanta
and Then Got Written Our of History,
Howell Raines (2023)
Howell
Raines traces his family history back to northern Alabama during the
Civil War and anti-secessionist sentiment in that region in those
years. In the process he discovers a largely unknown US cavalry unit
composed of Alabama Unionists who accompanied William Sherman on his
capture of Atlanta and subsequent March to the Sea. He also
documents the 1st
Alabama Cavalry, USA contributions to those operations and the
complete lack of any record of their service among Alabama’s
official records. Following up on that omission, Raines shows how
official Alabama and Confederate apologists in academia conspired to
erase that history by creating the myth of the Lost Cause that
exonerated enslavers from their crime and changed the way America
came to assess the Civil War, a distortion that has only recently
come under rigorous scrutiny.
Democracy
Awakening: Notes on the State of America,
Heather
Cox Richardson
(2023)
History
professor Richardson examines America’s present in terms of its
past, laying out the contradictions built in to the nation’s
social, economic and political system and the always present
aspirations of those originally excluded from the system’s
opportunities. Her analysis is a hopeful one, demonstrating that
America has always been a work in progress and has weathered threats
to its democracy in the past. Today’s inequality and dominance by
an entrenched minority is little different from the slavocracy that
controlled the federal government in support of the
South’s
“peculiar institution” leading up to the Civil War or the
monopoly
economy of the late 19th
/early 20th
century that preceded the Great Depression. In both instances the
majority of Americans overcame that dominance. Same same with the
excluded. Step by step, they demanded and worked for inclusion. In
the end they rejected the argument that allowing more to participate
in government that levied taxes to provide public benefits was
socialism. Although Cox is hopeful, she cautions that fulfilling
that hope required vigilance and determination.
Walk,
Ride, Paddle: A Life Outdoors,
Tim Kaine (2024)
Following
his 2016 defeat for Vice-President, two years into the Donald Trump
administration and turning 60 Virginia Senator Tim Kaine needed some
“away time” for his soul. His solution was a multi-year Virginia
outdoor triathlon consisting of hiking all 559 Appalachian Trail
miles through the state, cycling the over 300 Virginia miles of the
Blue Ridge Parkway and Skyline Drive, and canoeing the length of the
James River from its source in Virginia’s western mountains to the
Chesapeake bay. He did each leg in succeeding years, 2019 through
2021. He did all this during breaks in Senate sessions. The hike
and canoe sections of his odyssey were the most interesting sections.
Each took about 40 days to complete and provided ample opportunity
for Kaine to marvel at the opportunity to be out in nature,
experience nature in its many incarnations and reflect on his life,
career and good fortune in his family and friends. In contrast, his
bicycle trip lasted only eight days and required far less logistical
planning (since he hired a guide/outfitter to support that effort).
And although the hike and canoe trip were sandwiched between Senate
sessions, Kaine’s account has all the character of a long-distance
trip. Kaine’s frustrations, anxieties and weariness on the trail
are very familiar to this AT thru-hiker. So are the moments of
wonder and sheer joy of immersing oneself in nature.
Whiskey
Tender,
Deborah Jackson Taffa (2024)
A
gritty memoir of a childhood navigating among the many challenges of
growing up as a mixed-race member of a tribe with limited cultural
history in a family where the parents are strongly focused on the
children developing the knowledge and skills to function in the
dominant white society. An added challenge is the family’s
relocation to Farmington, NM adjacent to the Navajo Nation with its
very strong cultural and traditional values. Deborah is a smart kid
but, along with the normal childhood uncertainties, she often feels
alienated from the many surrounding and often conflicting, influences
in her life: parents, tribal identification, discrimination, and the
sense that she is never good enough. Her alienation becomes
especially acute as she seeks to understand and embrace her Native
American roots, especially against her parents’ resistance.
Despite all of the challenges, the author manages to graduate from
high school which largely ends the narrative. A brief epilogue
describes a career that begins working as a maid in Yellowstone
National Park and continues through to a writing and academic success
while becoming fully aware of and comfortable in her Native
traditions as well as white society.
Klan
War: Ulysses S. Grant and the Battle to Save Reconstruction,
Fergus M. Bordewich (2023)
Although
the South lost the Civil War, ex-Confederates were not willing to
accept the new reality of newly freed slaves taking their place as
full citizens. Form 1865 to 1869 hey had a sympathetic president in
Andrew Johnson whose administration sparred with Radical Republicans
in Congress over the terms of Reconstruction did little to protect
Black Americans eager to pursue their rights, often at great personal
risk. Any Black who sought to participate in civil life or even
private economic endeavors, along with their white supporters were
often subject to violence by vigilante groups largely organized under
the banner of the Ku Klux Klan and similar white supremacist groups
Following the election of 1868, the Grant administration was more
willing to challenge the Klan its allies using a variety of laws that
expanded federal authority to prosecute the perpetrators when state
and local authorities (many of whom participated in the violence).
The result was an effective reduction of the violence. In the end,
however, the effort was undermined by national indifference to the
plight of the former enslaved persons and white supremacy became the
norm in the South following the end of Reconstruction in 1877.
Trail
of the Lost: The Relentless Search to Bring Home the Missing Hikers
of the Pacific Crest Trail,
Andrea Lankford (2023)
Former National Park Service ranger describes effort she and other
volunteers made over several years trying to figure out what happened
to three PCT thru-hikers who went missing in 2015-17. The narrative
provides a lot of background on search and rescue operations and the
emotional ties among the searchers and victims’ families. Also
included are the experiences of the on-line communities that are
helpful in finding volunteers and soliciting information but also
attract trolls and other unhelpful individuals. Most difficult is
knowing when and how to accept that missing persons, like the
subjects of Lankford’s efforts, will likely never never be found.
A very sobering book.
The
Great River: The Making and Unmaking of the Mississippi,
Boyce Upholt (2024)
Boyce
Upholt documents and explains the history of North America’s
largest river from pre-history to the present with a clear
understanding of humans have lived with and tried to manage the
Mississippi for their own purposes. Lots of hydrology and
engineering is involved but throughout, Upholt is aware that economic
and social goals are not always compatible with a river that moves
according to its own imperatives and climatic conditions that affect
its behavior. Upholt also brings a many local voices to the
discussion, clearly illustrating the conflicts among human interests
that must also contend with the natural forces inherent in a river
that drains much of a continent. Despite the complexity of the
forces and tasks involved in attempting to control such a fundamental
force of nature, The
Great River
is easily readable and, in many respects, a metaphor for mankind’s
relation to our home planet.
The
Stalin Affair: The Impossible Alliance That Won the War,
Giles Milton (2002)
Based
on extensive primary and secondary sources The
Stalin Affair
offers a detailed and fascinating look into the diplomacy, both
official and personal, that allowed the United States and Britain to
successfully co-operate with Josef Stalin’s Russia after that
nation was invaded by Nazi Germany. Much of the narrative centers on
US diplomat Averell Harriman, his daughter Kathy, and British
diplomat Archie Clark Kerr. Winston Churchill and Stalin also figure
prominently since they had more opportunity to meet personally,
Franklin Roosevelt is more removed but his influence is always
present. The most revealing aspect is the extent to which Harriman
and Kerr forged a deep personal relationship with Stalin that not
only convinced him of his allies’ trustworthiness but also revealed
his far less familiar charming side, an engaging, well-informed
individual. Also interesting are the descriptions of the public
events, gala dinners in wartime Moscow that somehow seem unreal.
Giles Milton presents this all in an easily readable narrative.
Holding
the Line: Women and the Great Arizona Copper Strike of 1982,
Barbara Kingsolver (1989)
Before
she became a best-selling novelist Barbara Kingsolver was a freelance
journalist assigned to cover a strike in the small Arizona mining
towns of Clifton, Morenci and Ajo. The strike against Phelps Dodge,
a pillar of the state’s economy, began in 1983 and lasted 18 months
during a difficult times nationwide for organized labor. When the
striking miners were barred by injunction from picketing, their wives
came out in their place. Kingsolver got to know the women and the
changes that overtook them as they took on new responsibilities
during the strike. She learned about life in a company town and the
cultural traditions that sustained workers and their families. She
watched with the women as the governor sent in National Guard and
state police to protect the “replacement workers” and authorities
harassed the women with bogus claims of violence and trumped up
charges. The writing is lively—much of it in the women’s own
words—highlighting the their strength and resilience while
providing lots of local detail and enough economics and labor history
to help the reader understand the strike’s importance.
The
Presidents and the People: Five Leaders Who Threatened Democracy and
the Citizens Who Fought to Defend It,
Corey Bretschneider (2024)
Ben
Franklin said “a republic, if you can keep it” and America’s
history demonstrates that keeping that republic is an ongoing task.
Corey
Bretschneider chronicles John Adams attempts to stifle free speech,
James Buchanan’s support for expanding slavery, Andrew Johnson’s
attempt to re-establish white supremacy after the Civil War, Woodrow
Wilson’s promotion of racial segregation and Richard Nixon’s
claim for presidential immunity above the law. In each instance
presidential assertions were challenged by an emerging opposition
that offered its own Constitutional arguments against those
presidents. Sometimes success was achieved quickly—think
Jefferson’s victory over Adams—but lasting success occurred only
after continuing effort to cement those gains. It’s that latter
effort that is essential and Bretschneider points out that that
follow up was sidetracked by Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon,
which left the door open for Donald Trump to lead his own assault on
American democracy.
A
Man of Two Faces,
Viet Thanh Nguyen (2023)
Viet
Thanh Nguyen’s memoir ranges from the highly personal experiences
of his refugee background and struggle to understand his place in his
adopted society and his Vietnamese heritage to America’s unspoken
history of genocide, colonialism and exploitation. He wrestles with
his family’s own history and how new life in the US
separates him from that history and his parents. He fully respects
their work ethic and the sacrifices they made for him while he
becomes more American, less Vietnamese and very different from his
parents. He casts a cold eye on what he calls AMERICATM
and
the impossibility of a non-white immigrant to fully participate in
that dream no matter how hard they try. Written with dramatic breaks
in the format that hurl the reader into the prose and with occasional
irony and humor, A
Man of Two Faces
is as much a critique of Nguyen ‘s adopted country and
colonialism/capitalism as the story of his life.
Fiction
The
Nickel Boys,
Colson Whitehead (2019)
In
early 1960s Florida Elwood Curtis is both inspired by the emerging
Civil Rights movement and on a trajectory to higher education when
when he is detained as a passenger in a stolen car while hitchhiking.
Sentenced to the Nickel Academy, a juvenile reformatory that is
largely an institution of abuse, neglect and, in Jim Crow Florida,
strictly segregated. Elwood soon experiences the horrors of a system
that considers him and those like him to be disposable. Colson
Whitehead vividly describes that system: its rules rituals, frequent
midnight beatings and occasional disappearances in a compelling
narrative that also illustrates consequences that linger long after
Nickel Boys leave the “Academy”.
The
Heaven and Earth Grocery Store,
James McBride (2024)
Pottstown,
Pennsylvania in the mid-1930s is experiencing changing demographics;
immigrants from eastern Europe and Blacks from the American South are
increasing their numbers. Although most of the newcomers are largely
confined to enclaves like Chicken Hill, older, longstanding residents
regard them as an unwelcome change to their community. Moshe and
Chona Ludlow straddle this divide ; he operates the town’s only
integrated dance hall and Chona manages their Heaven and Earth
Grocery Store in Chicken Hill where, unlike many of their their
fellow Jews, they continue to live above the grocery store rather
than move to nicer parts of town. Their continued presence in
Chicken Hill creates a natural link between Blacks and Jews that
offer mutual support against discrimination and the hostility of
longstanding residents. It’s an engaging story with twists and
turns and peopled by lively characters prone to human failings but
also determined to assert their person-hood in the face of hostility.
James,
Percival Everett (2024)
James
is a retell of Huckleberry
Finn
from a different point of view. In this telling the enslaved person,
Jim, is the protagonist and Huck is the companion. The story follows
much of the original narrative but Jim has agency. Like the
original, Jim is a runaway slave and Huck is escaping his abusive
father. Both characters are fully developed and exercise agency but
the action is driven by James’ efforts to escape bondage and find
the funds to buy his wife and daughter from slavery. The story is
engaging and makes for a compelling read.
Burma
Sahib,
Paul Theroux (2024)
Before
he was George Orwell, Eric Arthur Blair was a 19 year-old junior
officer serving in the British colonial police force in Burma.
Taking the position to please his father, a retired official of the
Raj (deputy opium sub agent or something like that), Blair is
uncertain about his new career and how he fits into it. His
uncertainties continue throughout the novel and are compounded by his
growing realization that the whole idea of “benevolent colonialism
“ is little more than a cover for white privilege and economic
exploitation. The author does not provide any detail on his sources
other than acknowledge excerpts from George Orwell’s Burmese
Days
but the story feels genuine and conveys Blair’s struggles with his
own insecurities, cultural clashes, a growing self-loathing before
finally escaping after five years to pursue his own path as a writer.
It’s a fascinating book that conveys both the brutality and
exploitation of British colonialism and a young man finding his way
through a difficult passage.
I
Cheerfully Refuse,
Lief Enger (2024)
Set
in a not entirely post-apocalyptic but definitely fractured not too
distant America, I
Cheerfully Refuse
is a story of desperate resistance to forces beyond individual
control. The story takes place along Lake Superior’s Minnesota and
Canadian shoreline and on the lake’s ocean-like waters. The main
character, Rainier (“Rainy” for short) and his wife Lark have
managed to carve out a tolerable life in a small community near
Duluth. He is a bass player in a local band and she operates a small
bookshop. A traveling stranger with a somewhat mysterious past and
even present rents a room from them and becomes part of their life
before abruptly disappearing. Not long after their life is
dramatically overturned..Lark is murdered and Rainy becomes a
fugitive on a sailboat seeking refuge on Lake Superior. The plot is
complex but convincingly plausible with a great deal of information
about sailing and the unique conditions of this inland ocean. Lots
of unusual odd and a few dangerous characters appear as Rainy looks
for refuge in a very ominous and uncertain time.
Devil
Makes Three,
Ben Fountain (2023)
Fiction.
Matt Amaker is just about to begin breaking even running a a scuba
diving business in newly democratic Haiti under the popularly elected
President Jean Bertrand Aristide. Alix Variel, a member of Haiti's
upper class, had convinced Matt that Haiti offered excellent dive
opportunities and an emerging market for a dive enterprise and after
considerable effort, Matt thinks that the business is likely to
succeed. That confidence is shattered when Aristide is overthrown
by a military coup. In short order, military forces seize the
business a and evict Matt who finds refuge with Alix’s family. At
the same time a US-led embargo shuts down Alix’s factory which
leads him and Matt to pursue an opportunity to salvage cannons from a
colonial-era wreck in partnership with US treasure-hunters. That
enterprise attracts the military’s attention and Matt and Alex are
detained, first in an absolute hell-hole and then followed by less
onerous conditions. The plot also includes a US embassy attache/CIA
agent who doesn’t quite go entirely native but does take a deep
dive into Haitian culture. Alix is released for medical reasons but
Matt’s detention continues as he becomes as reluctant dive
master/consultant to the ruling Army chief. It’s a great tale that
offers a compelling view of life in a country where the class and
economic divisions are extreme and the political environment is
unstable and deadly. Ben Fountain weaves together the international
intrigue, Haitian politics and culture and characters just trying to
survive it all.
North
Woods,
Daniel Mason (2023)
Two
lovers escape from Puritan restrictions into western Massachusetts
and build a rustic cabin. Years later French and Indian War veteran
Charles Osgood turns to horticulture in search of the perfect apple
which he discovers on that same plot of land, builds a house and
begins cultivating an orchard. Duty calls again in 1776 and Osgood
goes back to war and never returns. The property falls to his orphan
twin daughters who manage the orchard until a romantic tryst leads to
their death by murder and suicide. The property becomes the setting
for a progression of seekers, entrepreneurs and descendants, most of
whom fail at best or die at worst. The circumstances of their
various fates are never fully spelled out, leaving the reader to
conclude that the worst occurred. The occasional presence of some
predecessors’ spirits strongly suggests that the site has
otherworldly properties. The story is a litany of hopes and cruel
reality playing out over two centuries. None of the characters carry
through the entire saga but where they do appear they are fully
realized and believable, even when they return as fleeting
apparitions. A fascinating and interesting read .
Maude
Horton’s Glorious Revenge,
Lizzie Pook (2024)
Maude
Horton’s Glorious Revenge
begins and ends with a public hanging in mid-19th century London.
Immediately following the first, the reader finds Maude Horton
storming the British Admiralty demanding information about the death
of her sister Constance, who disguised herself as a young man to
serve as a cabin boy on the HMS
Makepeace
on a mission to locate the missing explorer, Sir John Frdanklin, lost
while seeking a Northwest Passage through the Arctic Ocean. Rebuffed
by the Admiralty, Maude continues her quest aided by Constance’s
diary provided by a disgruntled Admiralty subordinate. The plot moves
back and forth between diary entries describing Constance’s
experiences in the Arctic and the many ways she kept her sex hidden
from the Makepeace’s
crew. Back in Britain Maude’s quest leads her to a likely suspect
and a very neat climax punctuated by the final hanging. Along the
way the reader is treated to lively and well-researched accounts of
British naval operations in the Arctic, the grim realities of
Victorian London and a few other public hangings in addition to the the two that
bookend the story.
Labels: books
