Review: Self-Portrait in Black and White: Unlearning Race

Self-Portrait in Black and White: Unlearning Race by Thomas Chatterton Williams
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Thomas Chatterton Williams’ memoir is a deeply personal exploration of the evolution of his thinking about race and identity. The candor and honesty with which he engages these often divisive and controversial issues is refreshing. And, maybe more importantly, enlightening. I am not sure I quite fully agree with or even wholly understand some of what Williams is arguing. But he asks and attempts to answer for himself important questions about his own identity and what that suggests about the issues of race and identity more generally. Though the cases are somewhat different, these questions are quite relevant for my own questions about my Jewish identity.

The basic idea I take him to be arguing for is that we need to transcend race. He is, as I understand him, arguing that we need to find a way to celebrate or just acknowledge the connections we each individually have with our family, culture, and history (and the diversity these all contain). But, he argues, race is an artificial construct that adds little, if anything, to this. He’s not striving for a muting out of differences, but a recognition that the categories of race just don’t capture what is important about each person. But we have come all too often to treat these categories as totalizing; we reify them in ways that have caused so much harm and damage – for everyone.

Williams uses his own family to illustrate and motivate this mediation. He comes from a mixed family: his mother from European ancestry and his father with African ancestry by way of slavery. Williams married a French woman with whom he has had two children—both of whom by his account are blonde, blued-eye Parisians. This straddling of so many different concurrent identities is part of what makes Williams well-situated to ask these questions: it both gives him the space to ask them and the motivation to do so.

In the end, agree with his view about race and identity or not, Williams’ poignant engagement with these issues is definitely worth one’s time.


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Review: Apocalypse Never: How the Left's New Lies About Climate Change Hurt People and Nature

Apocalypse Never: How the Left's New Lies About Climate Change Hurt People and Nature by Michael Shellenberger
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book is an eye-opening book. Shellenberger takes on several sacred cows of contemporary environmentalism with detailed and persuasive arguments.

Shellenberger is not rejecting environmentalism. He is not denying climate change or other serious environmental problems. Not by a long shot. By all accounts he is a deeply committed environmentalist who wants to save the planet and cares intensely for animal and human life and its continued existence and flourishing.

What his goal is, and I think he largely succeeds, is to argue for these four main points.

1. Apocalyptic or alarmist accounts of environmentalism are not based on the best available science. It is more like religion than science. The end of the world is not nigh. Things have, on the whole, actually gotten better, not worse.

2. The people involved in the environmental alarmist movement are either severely hypocritical or corrupt, and frequently both.

3. There are mitigating strategies for most of the pressing environmental problems, but all of these are fundamentally based on economic growth, poverty reduction, and the policies that encourage and allow these.

4. The only way forward is to produce and use more energy (not less) and the only way to do that without causing more pollution and other environmental problems is nuclear power. Fears of nuclear power are largely unfounded, based on misconceptions and ignorance about how it works (and often those ideas are spread by those funded by producers of natural gas: see #2)

I am for the most part persuaded by Shellenberger’s arguments. He brings forward the evidence and discusses the counterevidence and counterarguments. He strikes me as honestly trying to evaluate and interpret the available evidence. That doesn’t mean he’s always going to get it right, but he is sincerely presenting how he has come to think the way he has. He explains his own mistakes and errors and what he learned that led him to correct those.

One doesn’t have to agree with all his arguments to see that this book is important for two main reasons (beyond the particular claims of its content): (1) we must challenge and criticize any and all views, no matter how “settled”. This is how we discover new truth, correct falsehoods and errors, and, just as importantly, come to better understand the grounds for these settled truth. So even when we are firmly convinced of the truth, we need to challenge it to understand it. (2) We must not mistake consensus and narrative for truth, knowledge, or understanding. The consensus might be true, the narrative might capture and express knowledge, but we have to do the work to discover that: we can’t just take it for granted. And we can’t assume we understand what the consensus seems to hold without really looking at it, challenging it, digesting it. This books helps us do that about environmentalism, and so if taken seriously, should help us better understand how to continue to make the world a better place for all us.



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Review: Caliban's War

Caliban's War by James S.A. Corey
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A terrific follow up to Leviathan WakesLeviathan's Wake. It has a different feel, I think mainly because the central characters and setting are already established. This allows the authors to focus on some of the new characters, as well develop the established ones more. The pacing here felt different as well; the first book took time setting things up and slowly pulling things together to its climax. This book jumps right in. I love the story telling; the different point of views for each chapter (like George RR Martin does in fire and ice) creates a more dynamic story and allows us to get to know each main character a little better. We see the character's own view, and then how other's see them. It also allows us to see the same situation from somewhat different vantage points, giving the reader of a more expansive sense of the world.

I'm definitely ready to dive right into to book 3.

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Review: Doctor Aphra

Doctor Aphra by Sarah Kuhn
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Doctor Aphra is a great character; one of my favorite in Star Wars (sort of a darker timeline female Han Solo). This is a dramatic adaption of her first appearances in the Star Wars comics. If you've read the Vader and mainline Star Wars series, you'll be familiar with all the events here. It's told here as a recording Aphra is making. So it's all from her point of view, with more of her inner thoughts about her motivations, plans, and how the events unfold. Even though I knew the story, there were some aspects that get better developed or explored in the audio. I don't think you need to have read the comics to follow along, though I could see how some of the context, characters, and settings might be confusing if you don't know the fuller picture that is presented in the comics. In any case, if you are a Star Wars fan you should be reading the comics anyway! Either way, I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this and I think you will too.



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Review: How Innovation Works: And Why It Flourishes in Freedom

How Innovation Works: And Why It Flourishes in Freedom by Matt Ridley
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Innovation is necessary for living flourishing lives and innovation requires freedom to flourish. This is the overall theme of Ridley's latest book. Ridley goes through the history of many essential innovations in energy production, medicine, transportation, food, communication, and more. He distinguishes between innovation and invention: arguing that often the innovations are more important than the invention. The innovations are often what makes a barely workable prototype into a practical and effective tool for our lives. Another important aspect of innovation he explores through out the book is the idea that innovators are more often than not people outside of the status quo: they are not the respected scientists of the day, but tinkerers looking for a way to do something a little better, a littler quicker, and little more effectively. Often innovations predate the developed scientific understanding of the innovation itself and help lead the scientists and theoreticians towards that understanding. This is part of why innovation is so unpredictable: we are often not paying attention to the area from which the innovation will come.

One of central features of innovation, argues Ridley, is trial and error experimentation. The innovators need the freedom to think outside of the box, to try and to experiment. And to try again and again after they fail. This is why freedom is so important to innovation. Where freedom is curtailed, this experimentation is curtailed as well. If people are afraid to fail, then they won't innovate.

He discusses various kinds of impediments to this freedom to try: often from governments of course, but from other sources as well. In this vein he looks at intellectual property (copyrights and patents) as one such impediment. I am not convinced he makes the case here for their abolition, but I am persuaded that the ways in which we grant and deal with IP needs reform.

Overall, it's a fascinating look at the history of innovation and innovators.



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Review: Cracks in the Ivory Tower: The Moral Mess of Higher Education

Cracks in the Ivory Tower: The Moral Mess of Higher Education by Jason Brennan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Jason Brennan and Philip Magness present a clear and very readable critique of higher education. Having followed their work online for a while, there wasn’t a lot new to me. However, these are important criticisms with which many may not be familiar (or they are not familiar with the research that backs up the criticisms). The main lesson of the book is that the main problems of academia are not caused by bad people but by out of whack incentives for faculty, administrators, and students. The problems they focus on are: universities make lots of claims about supposed benefits that they don’t actually deliver on; student evaluations are an invalid and harmful way of evaluating teaching effectiveness; grades and GPAs are too inconsistent to be meaningful; general education requirements don’t work and are just ways for departments to get students (and money); and universities produce too many PhDs and do so primarily for their (and the professors) own standing and reputation; and lastly, students learn very little but cheat a lot. For each of these, there are incentives for otherwise well-meaning individuals to act in ways that make higher education worse.

None of this is good. As an academic, I have direct experience with pretty much each of these and their criticisms certainly fit with that experience. Unfortunately, the authors don’t have solutions: they end by saying that the only way to fix higher education is to change the incentives, but no one (including themselves) have the incentive to make the changes. (Maybe COVID will disrupt higher education enough to change some of those – so long as I don’t lose my job!)

I think Bryan Caplan’s critique of education { The Case Against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money} is a better overall book about the problems of education; but Brennan and Magness do look more closely at factors that Caplan doesn’t take on. So these go well together.


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Review: The Order

The Order by Daniel Silva
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Gabriel is back, this time helping his friends at the Vatican again. Although some might say it was too Dan Brown-esque, Silva is telling a different kind of story, and Allon is digging into the Vatican's secrets for different reasons than Langdon. Like many of Silva's novels, he finds a way to balance the improbability of the plot elements with great characters. The dialogue is great, and the book crackles; I really enjoyed it.

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Review: Shadow Woman

Shadow Woman by Thomas Perry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A slow start, but picks up in the last half. There were a few things in the beginning that I didn't like regarding Jane and Carey's relationship: aspects of it that seemed out of character for Jane. It makes sense for the plot, but just didn't seem consistent. Once that wasn't the focus, the story got more focused.

Jane is a terrific character and seeing what and how she does what she does is very interesting. Things get a bit unsettled for her and her 'client' and this presents new challenges to Jane that ultimately make the book a good thrill.

There was not as very little Native American mythology or history and that is one of things I enjoyed about the first two books. I will read the fourth book to see what Jane does next, but I was a bit disappointed with number three.



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Review: The Rise of Athens: The Story of the World's Greatest Civilization

The Rise of Athens: The Story of the World's Greatest Civilization by Anthony Everitt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A sweeping history of Athens. I enjoyed it, though it was not as good as I was expecting. Everitt's book on Cicero was amazing, so I was expecting something on par. In part this may be the nature of the subject: it is too epic and sweeping, and Everitt was trying to cover too much in too little space. Another weakness was that the focus of the narrative was too often on battles and military campaigns. No doubt these are essential to understanding the rise of Athens: you cannot (and should not) separate the history of Athens from its battles with Sparta and Persia. But it seemed to take up too much of the space, pushing other elements to the side.

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Review: F. A. Hayek and the Epistemology of Politics: The Curious Task of Economics

F. A. Hayek and the Epistemology of Politics: The Curious Task of Economics by Scott Scheall
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

An important work of scholarship on Hayek and his ideas. The depth of research into Hayek's ideas on psychology, epistemology, and economics, as well as the history of Austrian economics more broadly, is evident through out this readable and approachable work. Scheall pulls these ideas together to formulate a novel approach to understanding and developing political thought, one that focuses on political epistemology and the limits of what any one, especially policymakers, can know. This is not just a book for Hayek scholars though, I highly recommend for anyone interested in economics, political philosophy, or policy.

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Review: Thrawn: Treason

Thrawn: Treason by Timothy Zahn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I thought this third book in the new Thrawn trilogy was much better than the second entry in this series. The story is tighter and better plotted. I enjoyed it; it was a fun read.

Where the book was weakest was in character development. There is little we learn about Thrawn and some of the other returning characters. They are who they are and do not develop beyond that. There are several new characters -- but not a lot is done with them. We do, though, learn more about the Chiss and the Chiss navigators. There is still a lot of untapped potential here that I hope Zahn explores in future books.

Thrawn is a great character -- one of the best in the Star Wars universe. Though he orchestrates a lot of it, he was not as directly involved as one would expect in a lot of the action of the story.

Even with these criticisms, it was fun and engaging read. One most fans of Thrawn and Star Wars will enjoy.



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Review: The Concrete Blonde

The Concrete Blonde by Michael Connelly
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A fantastic balance of courtroom drama and detective thriller. Connelly's plotting is masterful.

It was a bit strange to read this after not having read a Bosch novel in a while but recently watching season 1 on Amazon. Titus Welliver just is Bosch now. Interestingly, there are a lot of elements and characters from this book that worked their way into the first season of Bosch -- though their roles in the plot and their outcomes are quite different.

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Review: The Age of Pericles

The Age of Pericles by Jeremy McInerney
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A wonderful sweep through the history of ancient Athens. McInerney is a great lecturer, a pleasure to listen to. He covers the political and economic history of Athens, and also its cultural innovations and importance from drama to philosophy. The title might throw some people: it's much less about Pericles than it is about the Athens into which Pericles lived. (Hence The Age of ...)

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Review: The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Haidt is a wonderfully clear and effective writer. He is able to condense scientific and technical ideas and evidence and make them accessible and understandable. Part of his appeal is, I think, that he comes across as intellectually honest and diligent.

This book put Haidt on the public intellectual map—or at least it seemed that way to me. I recall the book creating quite a stir when it came out in 2012. Reading it now in 2020, many of the ideas already strike me as quite familiar. This is a huge complement to Haidt: what seemed at first novel is now commonplace. After almost a decade of this kind of social psychological thinking (not just Haidt, but others such as Daniel Kahneman) working its way into the discourse, it doesn’t quite come across as ground-breaking any more.

That said, it is still an important book. It examines important questions about how our moral ideas and foundations are formed and how that affects how we think about all kinds of things in our world: but most importantly religion and politics. As contentious as these issues might have been back in 2012, they only seem to have gotten worse. And even though there is in his arguments much I am not ultimately persuaded by, the perspective he offers can still help each of us better understand each other.

If there is a core theme to take away from the book: it is that most people are not evil or out to destroy everything you hold sacred; so try to understand where they are coming from and why. You might find that although you still disagree with them, you can understand why they think the way they do (as well as better understand why you think the way you do). This opens the door to the possibility of communication and less divisiveness.


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Review: Storm of Locusts

Storm of Locusts by Rebecca Roanhorse
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I love what Roanhorse does with the characters: the five-fingers and gods. But especially the gods! The world she has created is fascinating--I wouldn't want to live there, but I enjoy reading about it. She creates great tension, a little horror, and well-placed humor. I like the first book a little better--it was a bit more focused. We get several new characters here and since we go outside of the Dinetah this time, we see more and learn more about what else is going on. So that spreads the story out a bit. (I would still love a map.) But these additions are still on the whole improvements; there is just more to track. Looking forward to the next book in the series!

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Review: The First Rule

The First Rule by Robert Crais
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Well-plotted and kept you on your toes. I love how Crais explores Pike's personality and character by bringing him into the foreground. I like Cole and the early novels a lot, but through Pike, Crais seems to be finding more of his own voice in the genre.

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Review: Ahsoka

Ahsoka by E.K. Johnston
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When I first started watching Clone Wars, Ahsoka was whiny and annoying. Now she is easily one of my favorite Star Wars characters. Her arcs in Clone Wars ( especially in the final season) are some of the best in Star Wars. So it is a tall order to follow, but Johnston's book does not disappoint. It adds to and reinforces the character we know, while showing her growth and adaption to life in the new Empire. It also provides a great bridge from Clone Wars to Rebels.

That it is a YA novel doesn't really show except in a few places where more 'adult' elements might have been explored. It's not at all juvenile or simplistic.

There are a few minor differences between the last few episodes of the Clone Wars and this, but nothing serious. Plus, if abide by Obi-Wan's maxim regarding Star Wars: it is always 'from a certain point of view'.


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Review: Why Not Socialism?

Why Not Socialism? by G.A. Cohen
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

It's shocking that any thinker takes this famous book at all seriously. While I didn't expect to agree with Cohen or find his arguments ultimately persuasive, I did expect at least to find an argument. But this is how I would summarize the book: "Let’s assume markets produce unjust results. Let’s assume socialist equality is ideal. Therefore, socialism--even though I admit it is not feasible. " The camping trip thought experiment is utterly unconvincing and not realistic. It baldy confuses cooperation with collectively. His extension of this to his claims about socialism is a spectacular non-sequitur.

Cohen may deserve his philosophical reputation for his other work, but this book is just embarrassing.

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Review: Talking God

Talking God by Tony Hillerman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Chee and Leaphorn are each working on their own mystery that ultimately ties together into one. It takes a while for these two threads to become one, but it's worth it. I like the way Chee and Leaphorn work together. It plays against expectations a bit: Chee is younger, but he's not a protege or sidekick to Leaphorn. They are characters different, with different ways of going about solving their cases. But they respect each other and work well together.

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Review: Leviathan Wakes

Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Expanse had been recommended to me several times, from several different people. I'm glad I finally listened! This is great sci-fi, but with elements of horror and noir. It has touches of 2001 and elements reminiscent of Asimov. It's not hard sci-fi in so far as there isn't a lot of technical nit and gritty (though there is some); but it does work at being seeming plausible and accurately extrapolated.

The world-building of humanity spread across the solar system, and in particular the asteroid belt, is very cool. The plot itself is intriguing and nicely integrated across the 500+ pages. The two main characters are really interesting-and make for great foils. The authors do a great job of pitting two 'good guys' against each other as the main conflict. This is not a manichean story/dark vs light story-- though there definitely are good guys and bad guys here; it's that the main conflict that pushes the story forward is between two protagonists and their conflicting visions of how to act.

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Review: Sporting Gender: The History, Science, and Stories of Transgender and Intersex Athletes

Sporting Gender: The History, Science, and Stories of Transgender and Intersex Athletes by Joanna Harper
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

One of the most contentious issues in sport is that of transgender and intersex athletes. It is an extraordinarily complex and fraught mix that often seems like it pits two important values against each other: opportunity and fairness. Sport should be open to all those who wish to complete and to compete at the highest levels they can. Sport, at its best, also seeks to create fair and meaningful competitions. So, on one hand, sport should be open to all athletes able to complete: it would be wrong to limit the opportunities of transgender and intersex athletes. But, on the other hand, there is a concern that if those opportunities aren’t limited in some way, specifically that if trans and intersex women compete without limitations against cisgender women, it could undermine the fairness of such competitions.

I don’t think there is a straightforward or obvious answer on these issues: and there are good, reasonable arguments (and many bad arguments too) for many different positions on all the various aspects of these issues. That said, my default position is towards the liberty of athletes to compete in the sport of their choice. I don’t mean to say that is the answer: but only that it is my starting point. It is the presumptive position that I think any argument to limit this liberty and opportunity needs to overcome.

Joanna Harper’s Sporting Gender is a good starting point for looking at many of the issues and arguments that might defeat or sustain this presumption. Harper’s book, as the subtitle indicates, takes you through the history, science, and stories of transgender and intersex athletes.
Starting in the early part of the twentieth century, she presents many stories of the individual trans and intersex women and their struggles to compete in sport. Many of these stories are tragic; too often rooted in ignorance and prejudice. For those that think these issues start and end with Castor Semenya, this history is essential.

Harper also discusses the science of sex and its impact on exercise and athletics. She details the many different ways that one might not fit neatly into either of the more familiar categories of male and female. Biological sex is nowhere near as simple as one might assume. (Not to even get into issues of gender.) There is some technical stuff to wade through, but the general gist should be digestible by those without much science background. This is summary, though; there are better places to look for more detailed discussions of the science (much of which can be found in the book’s endnotes).

Another important element of the book is Harper’s discussion of some of the legal cases that punctuate the history of trans and intersex athletes. The details and decisions of these cases are historically important and they had direct influence on the current regulations and guidelines of the major sport organizations like the IOC and IAAF.

Much of the latter half of the book focuses on two recent important Court of Arbitration cases involving intersex athletes (Chand and Semenya). Harper was involved in both cases as an expert witness. While I appreciated the inside look into these cases, this is where the book was at its weakest. I wasn’t all that interested in Harper’s evaluation of the various lawyers involved and whether their closing remarks were powerful or not. There was a lot of that sort of thing in these sections and that took away from the more important issue of rehearsing the arguments presented.
Harper is a trans woman and a runner, and she uses her own experiences to help frame parts of the book. This is both a blessing and a curse. It helps to contextualize and humanize much of the more abstract history and science. But it also means that the book is part memoir and so there are various tangents about her own life that were not part of my reasons for reading this book.

Harper’s ultimately position is that elite competitive sports needs to find the right balance of rules and methods to maximize “the possibility that all women can enjoy equitable and meaningful sport” (247). Furthermore, that there are good reasons to keep separating athletes in to male and female divisions and that the use of testosterone levels is the best current method to make this distinction (247). Though she does provide reasons for why this is her position, the book is not really set up to be a clear and cogent argument to support these claims. Its focus is more on presenting the history (both personal and legal) and the science. And on that front, I’d recommend it for those interested in this issue.

I don’t think the book deals enough with the philosophical and ethical aspects of trans and intersex athletes. What makes for fair and meaningful competition? Why are male/female divisions important? If there is a performance advantages by being trans or intersex, why should that matter and how is it different from other kinds of (non-doping) performance advantages? Harper broaches these questions to a degree, but she is not a philosopher and so the discussion is, in my view, too superficial and limited. There is also almost no engagement with the sport philosophy literature that discusses these issues. I still would recommend the book for the history and science angle, but it is not going to answer the meatier questions of philosophy or ethics.



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Review: The Infidel and the Professor: David Hume, Adam Smith, and the Friendship That Shaped Modern Thought

The Infidel and the Professor: David Hume, Adam Smith, and the Friendship That Shaped Modern Thought by Dennis C. Rasmussen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

An important work to help understand the relationship and mutual influence of Smith and Hume. Rasmussen explains how the men met, how their relationship developed over the years, and how they influenced each other. It dispels many of myths and half-truths on all these fronts. Rasmussen does such a great job, that by the end, as he discusses Hume's death, you really feel Smith's loss. The depth and poignancy of their friendship shines through.

The reader, Keith Sellon-Wright, was excellent.

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Review: Star Wars Lost Stars, Vol. 1 (manga) (Star Wars Lost Stars

Star Wars Lost Stars, Vol. 1 (manga) (Star Wars Lost Stars by Claudia Gray
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

(covering all three volumes)

This is an enjoyable secondary Star Wars story. It doesn't expand on the universe or introduce anything new, but gives us a look into the how the rise and fall the Empire affected the lives and relationships of the main characters: Thane and Ciena. The story does a good job of integrating with the mainline Star Wars story without stepping on it.

I haven't read the Gray's original novel on which the manga is based, so I can't speak to the adaption, but the art in the manga captures the cinematic elements of Star Wars in away that helps bring the story to life. As young adult graphic novel, it has some juvenile aspects but not too many. I definitely enjoyed it (I devoured them in two days).


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Review: Death Without Company

Death Without Company by Craig Johnson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Johnson has created such an interesting and compelling cast of characters. Though they play on various character types, none of them feel stereotypical. I am not entirely sure about the supernatural elements, but they are not central and they add a bit of spice. I enjoy the the descriptions of the Wyoming landscape and environment. I also think Johnson does a good job of realistically integrating indigenous people and cultures. The mystery is fine, but seems a bit secondary to the interplay of the characters.

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Review: Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration

Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration by Bryan Caplan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

An excellent presentation of the economic and moral arguments for open borders. Zach Weinersmith's (of SMBC comics) wonderful art makes the arguments more interesting and more approachable. Caplan doesn't just give his argument. He takes seriously the most influential arguments against open borders. He gives his reasons for rejecting these arguments, but never merely dismisses them.

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Review: Dark Disciple

Dark Disciple by Christie Golden
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Ventress is one of Star Wars best anti-hero characters. Her arc in the Clone Wars was a great part of a great series. Dark Disciple continues and close that arc. Her growth and redemption was well done. But even more interesting was Vos's descent to the dark side and his ultimate redemption. The fall to the dark side can sometimes be construed in simplistic terms: the character just wants power or is crudely selfish. But Vos's descent -- not unlike Anakin's -- is fueled by love and commitment. This is far more interesting and allows the reader to explore the relationship between light and dark.

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Review: Titanshade

Titanshade by Dan Stout
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

So many sci-fi/fantasy books run through the same cliches, but Titanshade is a delightfully original novel. It's also a great mash-up of genres: part noir, part detective, part fantasy, part sci-fi. The characters and settings are well drawn and engaging. I recommend it.

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Review: Master and Apprentice

Master and Apprentice by Claudia Gray
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was an enjoyable look at the early relationship of Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan. It was not as good Claudia Gray's Star Wars: Bloodline, but I still enjoyed it. The story itself raises interesting questions about the role of the Jedi in the Republic and the Galaxy--both what it was pre-Civil War and and what it ought to have been. Rael is an interesting character that is explored a bit more. The vague, background references to Dooku added a bit of intrigue. Reading this so soon after listening to Dooku: Jedi Lost both helped and hurt. It helped because it gave me some background to the connections between Qui-Gon, Rael, and Dooku. Hurt in the minor sense that there were ways in which the stories were not always seemingly in line. I wouldn't say conflicted or inconsistent, but I felt like that the authors maybe have had different visions of Dooku post Jedi/pre-sith lord. I liked some of the quirky supporting cast as well. And the way the story unfolds was well done.


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Review: Dooku: Jedi Lost

Dooku: Jedi Lost by Cavan Scott
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

An entertaining exploration of Dooku's fall from grace. In the prequels and Clone Wars, Dooku is a pompous villain with no regard for anything but his power. In Jedi Lost, we see that he was not always that way and makes the character all the more tragic in his downfall. Told in flashback from Ventress's reading of Dooku's journals, there is an element of how much of the story is true--though in keeping with Star Wars, it is true 'from a certain point of view.'

The fact that this was an audio performance, with different voice-actors and sound effects, adds to the overall experience. (Though there are a few voices hear and there that are hard to decipher clearly.)

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Review: Resistance Reborn

Resistance Reborn by Rebecca Roanhorse
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Enjoyed this immensely. A good lead up to Episode 9.

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Review: Bit by Bit: How Video Games Transformed Our World

Bit by Bit: How Video Games Transformed Our World by Andrew Ervin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The subtitle of the book: “how video games transformed our world” is probably a bit too ambitious and overstates what the book is really about. It is far more of a memoir of the author’s, Andrew Ervin, jaunt through the history of video games. I get the sense the point of the book changed over time: that at first Ervin was looking to write a history of the video game — and the book largely tracks that history. Ervin tracks down original versions of old games to play them. He talks with some of the original designers. But along the way, we get more and more of Ervin’s experiences—not just of the game but of his life story. Not a lot, mind you, it’s not an autobiography. But his life forms the context of much of the storytelling about video games, just like the way such narratives set the backstory for many video games.

The other layer is the cultural impact of video games. Ervin weaves in cultural, art, and literary criticism into the discussion of video games. These parts were uneven. Sometimes insightful, other times insipid, and occasionally pompous or overwrought.

The book is definitely at its strongest on the first two fronts: as a history and a memoir of a gamer. Ervin’s own experiences playing Minecraft or Adventure resonated more with me than discussions about Dadaism, Moby Dick, or militarism. Much of the history can be gathered elsewhere, but Ervin’s conversations with the creators and designers added a novel aspect to the standard histories. Lastly, some of the games Ervin plays and discusses are ones that are outside of the mainstream (or are at least ones I had never heard of). This broadens the subject to include different kinds of video games to show how varied and diverse the genre really is.

Overall, the book is interesting and worth a read if you are interested in gaming.

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Review: Iroquois Diplomacy on the Early American Frontier: The Penguin Library of American Indian History

Iroquois Diplomacy on the Early American Frontier: The Penguin Library of American Indian History by Timothy J. Shannon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An informative history of the Iroquois's complex relationships with the British(later Americans) and French in the 17th and 18th centuries. At times, I got bogged down in names, dates, and some of the finer details (a function, for me, of listening rather than reading) but the general account was worth it. Granted some of this is limited by the available sources, but I would have liked more about the Iroquois and their relationship to their indigenous neighbors. Most of this history is about the diplomacy with the European powers.

The history here is fascinating and nuanced. The author balances things well; and anyone coming in with a view that the Europeans were simply and only just imperialistic, racist land grabbers or that the Iroquois were innocent noble savages that were exploited will be disabused of these notions. The Europeans were often that but not only or always that. Along with the cynical treaties merely meant to push the Iroquois off their land, there were sincere efforts at relationship building that were successful and long-lasting. And the Iroquois were far from innocent dupes being played and exploited. They were quite astute and played the French and British off each to great effect. And the Iroquois were sometimes intentionally party to the exploitation of other native nations by the Europeans. History is always a lot more complicated and lot more interesting than what we learned in school.


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Review: Eight Million Ways to Die

Eight Million Ways to Die by John K. Snyder
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A classic detective noir retold in graphic novel form. I haven't read the original, but the graphic presentation was excellent. It helped to set the mood and setting; it captured the tension felt by Scudder and his relationship to alcohol. The story was well-plotted and interesting; though the resolution came rather quickly. I wish there were more graphic novel adaptations like this.

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Review: Robert B. Parker's Angel Eyes

Robert B. Parker's Angel Eyes by Ace Atkins
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I really do miss Robert Parker. Nevertheless, Atkins does a great job at capturing Parker's style, the feel of a Spenser novel, and the underlying morality of it. He even gets close to Spenser's wit--though it's not quite as snappy or droll as Parker's dialogue.

Atkins had some fun with this one. He always does some call-backs to earlier Parker novels, but this one had several laugh-out-loud references. One was a hilarious and not-so-subtle dig (maybe?) at the new Wahlberg Netflix series. Another was a completely out of the blue and unprecedented Joe Pike sighting. There was also another not-so-subtle dig at Robert Kraft (which as a Pats fan I found less amusing).

If you miss Spenser and want to spend time in that world, Atkins provides a reasonable simulacrum of it. There is always something a little off, but it is still a good read.

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Review: Ancient Civilizations of North America

Ancient Civilizations of North America by Edwin Barnhart
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Barnhart is a great lecturer; and I enjoyed listening to him. The history was very interesting, and I learned a lot. I liked the structure of the lecture of the series, as he moved through the different regions and their history.

I did tend to get lost and daydream as he got into the details of pottery shards, ancient middens, and other archaeological particulars.

As with many teaching company courses, the first half/third of the series was the best. (not sure why that is, but it is very common.) In this case, the latter half was dealing less and less with ancient civilizations and more with pre-contact cultures of the 13th and 14th centuries. Still important, interesting stuff, but not what I was expecting.

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Review: If All the Seas Were Ink: A Memoir

If All the Seas Were Ink: A Memoir by Ilana Kurshan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I’ve long had a fantasy of reading and studying the Talmud. I’m intrigued by the history of it; the philosophy and theology that it contains, its structure and methodology, and its centrality to Jewish thought. But it’s such a huge challenge. Never mind language, but the very structure and methodology that fascinates me is one of the significant hurdles to overcome. And then its sheer length. It’s long. Really long. It’s a serious commitment; one that would absorb almost all my time.

But then, in Ilana Kurshan’s memoir, If All The Seas Were Ink, I learned about Daf Yomi. A project by which one reads one page of Talmud every day, completing the whole Talmud in seven and half years. Still a long time and a commitment, but this made it seem more feasible. I started to look into a bit more after starting her book. A new cycle starts in January. Maybe I could do this.

But, by the end of Kurshan’s book, I’m over it (mostly). I realized through Kurshan’s discussion of her daily reading, ironically, that I don’t want to read the whole Talmud. I’m interested in reading parts and pieces, or reading about parts and pieces. But the whole thing? Every day for seven and half years? That’s a lot of discussion of religious minutiae that holds no interest to me.

The memoir itself is interesting. To be honest, I didn’t love it. There were some beautiful parts; some poignant moments, aspects that prompted self-reflection. But overall, I didn’t connect with Kurshan. I am not sure why: maybe her intensity, her idealistic romanticism, or something else. But whatever it was, she always felt somewhat distant to me—even as she shared intimate aspects of her life.

The book started strong. I was pulled in by the idea of using the reading of Talmud daily to give herself structure and direction as she rebuilt her life. But there were a few things as the book went on that helped to create some of that distance I mentioned above. One, there was a lot of coincidence between the daily study and things in her life. On one hand, that’s kind of the point of the book. Moreover, who doesn’t have that experience of reading about something and then seeing that something everywhere? But on the other hand, after a while, it felt a little inauthentic.

Two, she seemed to be running out of interesting things to say by the end. As her life gets back on track and things are going well, it’s just not as interesting from a story point of view. And at this point, it becomes a lot of being thankful for her blessings and tying this into her study of Talmud. On personal level, that’s great. But as reader, it doesn’t make for great reading.

I did appreciate reading Kurshan’s point of view. Though far more religious and traditional than I could or would ever be, she was not orthodox or dogmatic. She bristled at the sexism in the tradition. She had difficulty with traditional prayer. At the same time, I think some of her more overt religiousness contributed to my felt distance from her. I would have also liked more of daily Israeli life. And more than just Jerusalem. She seemed to live in a somewhat religious bubble in Jerusalem and I didn’t get a sense of the much broader picture of life in Israel.

The book is at its most interesting when Kurshan weaves together ideas from the Talmud and how it helped her to think about her life. While I complained above that there were a lot of coincidences between her life and study, it didn’t bother me when she used this to show how this affected her thoughts and actions. It was more the hokey way she sometimes used the coincidences to introduce or set up the chapter. That’s when it felt forced and inauthentic.

I’m glad to have read it. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t love it. It gave me some insight and inspired some reflection, but also left me with the feeling that something was missing or incomplete.


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Review: Loyalty

Loyalty by Ingrid Thoft
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

There is a lot to like here. The main character, Fina, is solid. She's not all the way hard-boiled or all that original; but she's tough, smart, and a wise-cracker. The setting is Boston--always a plus, though there wasn't that much Boston in it. It could have been Philly for all you knew. The story moves along and though not terribly original, it wasn't totally obvious.

The writing itself was not strong. Plenty of cliches and too much telling instead of showing. The secondary characters were also a bit 'standard-issue' and stereotypical of the genre.

Fina is strong enough that I'd be willing to give #2 a try; though in the summer. This is definitely more of a beach/summer read. It's fun, it moves and entertains, but not much more than that.

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Review: Thrawn: Alliances

Thrawn: Alliances by Timothy Zahn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An ambitious book with some great ideas that ultimately doesn’t come together as tightly as one would like. Still, I enjoyed it. Thrawn is a great character, one of my favorite Star Wars characters. The setting of the book both in the midst of the Clone Wars and also in the time period before the Battle of Yavin, and going back and forth between these throughout the book was a great choice on how to tell the story. The parallels between the interactions of Anakin and Thrawn and then Vader and Thrawn were fun to play with. And then also seeing Vader react to and struggle with the memories of his old self was a neat spin (Anytime we can get inside that helmet and see what Vader is thinking is fun).

But the plots in both story lines tended more towards the convoluted. This is in part because in order for Thrawn to do his thing, a lot of pieces need to be moving in the background and everyone else has to be seemingly unaware of these. But with two story lines and all that intrigue, it was just a bit too much. I was also a bit let down on how the stories ultimately came together.

Another weakness is that Vader and Thrawn’s interactions got a little tiresome and predictable. And man did I forget how whiny Anakin could be.

That said, the story adds interesting elements to the Star Wars universe: in particular some new aspects of the Force. And, did I mention Thrawn?


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Review: The New Trail of Tears: How Washington Is Destroying American Indians

The New Trail of Tears: How Washington Is Destroying American Indians by Naomi Schaefer Riley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a fascinating and disturbing book. Riley details the terrible ways in which the policies of the US and the Canada continue to screw over the indigenous peoples of North America. She focuses on property rights issues, education, child welfare, and criminal issues. Many of the current policies in place in these areas, often well-intentioned, have exacerbated previous injustices or created new ones. Too many of the anecdotes Riley reports are terrible and horrifying. Others are frustrating and maddening. This book will make you sad and angry.

Riley does discuss some proposals for possible solutions, but not in any detail (and its not always clear these proposals are much better). This is a weakness, but not a damning one. I took the point of the book as more diagnosis than treatment. Most people, like myself, are ignorant of most of these policies and laws that are doing real damage and injustice, and so this is more about shining sunlight on these.

(Note on the audio: this was mixed. The reader was good, but there were issues with sound quality. At times the voice sounded too mechanical or too flat. It seemed to be that the equalizer settings were changing throughout, creating varying quality.)


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Review: Trail of Lightning

Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Rebecca Roanhorse crafts a wonderfully imaginative and unique post-apocalyptic tale. The Navajo (Dine) creation stories (much like many other Mesoamerican/native American myths), our current world, the fifth, is the result of a cycle of creation and destruction. Roanhorse continues this cycle with destruction of the fifth world in the near future. Arising from the destroyed fifth world, the Sixth World makes real the gods and legends of the Dine. Roanhorse plays with these stories and legends in delightful and frightening ways.

The former Navajo Nation reservation survived the destruction of the fifth world and become a distinct political unit: Dinetah. We are not told much about the world outside of the Dinetah—there are mentions of the Exalted Mormon Kingdom in parts of what was Utah and Arizona. But that’s it. Nevertheless, there are some hints that in other parts of the world that have survived the old gods, the gods of indigenous people have also become real as well. Hopefully we learn a bit more in later Sixth World novels.

The lead character, Maggie Hoskie, is a bad-ass with some incredible clan powers (another feature of the sixth world) that allow her to hunt and kill the dangerous monsters of Dine legend that now terrorize her people. She connects up with Kai, a medicine man with his own incredible powers. Together they discover some disturbing facts about these monsters and where they are coming from. (No spoilers, nothing here that is not on the book jacket.)

I really enjoyed the novel. It does just enough world-building and background without detracting from the pace and action of the main story. The characters: from the humans to the gods are well developed and interesting. I love the way Roanhorse plays with the mythology. It gives the world she is creating a refreshing feel and provides a rich well on which to draw. There is more to this world to explore; more stories to tell.


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Review: Washington: A Life

Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A fantastic and thorough biography. Chernow gives the full picture of Washington-at least as full as one can get in a biography.

Chernow doesn't shy away from the warts, mistakes, and errors of Washington's life, but the core greatest of the man shines through. Washington's biggest mistake, like all to many of his contemporaries, was slavery. One can't help but wonder how history would have been different if Washington was able to overcome this. Of all the founders, he probably had the best chance of pushing for emancipation. Both because of his southern standing but also the widely recognized strength of his moral character, he might have been to pull together a coalition that could have brought an end to slavery. He seems like he got close to trying this at times, but the imagination was lacking or the pressing needs of the present blinded him. Washington clearly understand the contradictions of slavery with the founding principles in the Declaration and Constitution for which he was fighting as first a general and then a president. As well, he seemed to see the weakness of the economic argument for slavery: rather than enriching him and the other southerners, it was bankrupting many of them and more of a drain then an economic gain. And yet, for all his moral wisdom and tactical brilliance, he tragically couldn't imagine a way forward and out of slavery.

It still astounds me that Washington walks away from power. It's now part of the American Mythos but we all know that Washington could have been king, but retires instead. And really, he doesn't even seem tempted. That's all the more amazing. This moral fortitude and his shepherding of the US in its early years certainly makes him as one of history's greats.




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Review: Athenian Democracy: An Experiment for the Ages

Athenian Democracy: An Experiment for the Ages by Robert Garland
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I hate to admit it but I was a bit underwhelmed by this course. It's hard to put my finger on why. I certainly learned some things, but it wasn't the course I was expecting. I would have liked more in depth focus on the historical development and operations of the democracy. Garland obviously covers that, but I still walked away feeling like it wasn't enough of the focus. Though I appreciate the attempt to connect this to contemporary times, the manner that Garland did this sometimes was off-putting and distracting. As a philosopher, I was hoping for much more on the philosophical foundations of the democracy. Again, Garland covers that but not sufficiently.

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Review: An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic

An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic by Daniel Mendelsohn
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Part literary criticism, part biography, and part memoir, this book weaves together a touching and wonderful story. On the surface, it is a story of a father attending his son’s seminar on the Odyssey. Making use of the very ring structure that Mendelsohn is lecturing his students about, he presents his interpretation of the Odyssey and how to study it, explores his relationship with his father, and tells the story of his father’s life. This mirroring of the structure of Odyssey is tightly done: it is not forced. Mendelsohn doesn’t call attention to what he’s doing, but he’s not burying it either.

As college professor, I enjoyed the retelling of the classroom settings and the interactions of the students. As a lover of the classics, I appreciated the insight into the Odyssey. As a father and a son, I found the story deeply touching. My relationship with my father is not at all like his—but the deeper idea of coming to see your father as person and seeing him (or trying to at least) for real is true for all fathers and sons (and as Mendelsohn shows us, is part of the theme of the Odyssey).

Mendelson is courageously honest about the portrayal of himself. Although at times he comes off as a rather stereotypical haughty professor of classics, he doesn’t shy away from highlighting his own failures to connect to his father; the ways in which he missed opportunities to see his father. In this way, the book can be sad. And yet, for all these failures, there is a connection made; their relationship is transformed, and I think, father and son do come to know each other better.


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Review: The New Girl

The New Girl by Daniel Silva
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As with most spy thrillers, it is very hard to give a review without spoilers. I’ve tried to avoid any direct spoilers, but there are aspects that might be given away by what I say. So be warned.

The worst part about a Daniel Silva’s Gabriel Allon novel is that it comes to an end. The New Girl is just as fun, exciting, moving, and thought-provoking as the previous 18. It’s hard to top the early novels, but this is up there.

I do so wish Gabriel Allon (GA) was real. Maybe there are people like him and they are so good at what they do, we don’t hear about them and the problems they prevent. But it’s also a bit like hoping Batman was real. No one person is capable of this – and even if they were it is probably not a good idea to have them doing these things in the way they are done in the stories. It works in Batman and GA because we know, because they are the protagonists of the story, that they are good guys. In real life, without an omniscient narrator, we cannot know that.

The best part about The New Girl was the relationship that develops between GA and Khalid. They are, understandably, skeptical and weary of each other at first, but through the events of the story they seem to learn to trust each other and develop what seems like it could be a deep and long friendship – though the way the story unfolds that may not turn out to be the case.

At this point, 19 books in, we don’t get a lot of character development from the main cast. And there is very little of that. Keller, Mihkail, Seymour, Gabriel are who they are. So you need the new characters to drive that aspect. Silva always does a great job at this, both with new protagonists and the antagonists. Sarah’s story arc is interesting – not so much specifically for the plot of The New Girl, but across the several books she has been in. I think there are some exciting things Silva could (and will) do with this character in future novels (which is part of why she was in The New Girl – as set up for the future).

Silva also usually does a great job of humanizing his antagonists. They are rarely mindless fanatics: they have motivations that might have started out reasonable enough, but have gone deeply astray. Part of what he does well with this is that it is not a matter of some hackneyed, lazy moral grayness, where the good guys are a little bad, and the bad guys are a bit good. It’s more that Silva shows us these are human beings that have a complex history and that they have made (often bad) choices that have brought them to this point. We don’t sympathize with them, but we understand them. They are not merely monsters. However, some of the main antagonists in the New Girl come off a bit shallow. They are either just the tools of some mostly off-stage actor directing them (I’m trying not to spoil things) or they are motivated in fairly basic ways (sex and/or power). Nevertheless, I suppose there is some truth in that—but it does take away slightly from the drama.

There are several surprising elements to this story—I can’t discuss them without spoiling them, but I will say Silva allows the story to unfold without introducing any dues ex machinas. I sort of expected a few or at least Silva to pull back. So I’m glad he had the storytelling integrity to go forward with it.

There were several moments in the story related specifically to Israel that, although they are not essential to plot, I found quite moving; even got choked up a bit.

I enjoy how Silva weaves in current real world events – though I do have to be careful not to confuse Silva’s world for the real one!

I am not sure what I think of the ending. It’ll take some time to process it. Partly, I’m not sure what precisely happened. Time will tell.


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Review: Spies of No Country: Secret Lives at the Birth of Israel

Spies of No Country: Secret Lives at the Birth of Israel by Matti Friedman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

On the surface, this concise book is a thrilling untold history of Israel’s first spies. It is in some ways a tale out of a Daniel Silva Gabriel Allon novel. As the title tells us, these were spies of no country: they become spies and operated before the state came into existence. Friedman focuses primarily on four men of the Arab Section. They were recruited to be spies because they could pass as Arabs: they knew the language, the customs, the way of life, in a way only a local could.

And this gets to the second layer. These four men were born and raised in the Arab world: they were from Syria, Yemen, and Jerusalem. They were not from Warsaw or Minsk. The Mizrahi, Jews of the Islamic world, were largely invisible in the early days of Israel and in the founding stories of Israel. Friedman’s book is telling the story of these four to help us see the Mizrahi and their importance to Israel; then and today. The title is, I suspect, also part of this layer: the Israel that they become spies for didn’t fully see them. They believed in and spied for the Land of Israel: but the state of Israel came into existence when they were already operating in Beirut and Damascus. By the time they returned to Israel, it was already a very different from the place they left. In this sense too, maybe, they were spies of no country.

Another layer of the book is the slipperiness and messiness of identity. This was a time of gigantic shifts and things got very messy, very quickly. The uneasy, yet relatively stable world in Europe was finally destroyed by WWII and now that was happening in the Middle East as new countries, including Israel, created themselves with new identities. This is given some measure of reality with the lives of these four spies. They were Jews born in the Arab world; they grew up speaking Arabic. As these shifts began, they left the Arab world to live among the Jewish, Hebrew speaking communities in what soon would be Israel. But then as spies, they are sent to live as Arabs among the Arabs. This is highlighted by this quote about the men as they were training to be spies: “But were they Arabs? They would have said no, and most Arabs would have said no. But they were native to the Arab world—as native as Arabs. If the key to belonging to the Arab nation was the Arabic language, as the Arab nationalists claimed, they were inside. So were they really ‘becoming like Arabs’? Or were they already Arabs? Were they pretending to be Arabs, or were they pretending to be people who weren’t Arabs pretending to be Arabs?” (58). It’s enough to give anyone an identity crisis!

Another layer is the ambiguity of founding stories and myths. This not unique to Israel. Americans face this too in trying somehow to make sense of the intellectual and practical achievements of liberty by men such as Jefferson and Washington with the horrors and evils of slavery in which they partook. Friedman’s book highlights the seeming paradox that Israel born out of the ideas in 19th century Europe is peopled by a population half of whom have grandparents from places like Iraq rather than Poland. Friedman’s spies come from and teach us something about this half of the population. Largely invisible for the first part half of Israel’s existence, they are becoming more and more a prominent part of the country’s culture and politics. Understanding the future of Israel means, in part, understanding this invisible past.

Friedman’s book is an opening, an invitation to this past.


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Review: College Teaching At Its Best

College Teaching At Its Best by Chris Palmer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

There are several useful and helpful tips in Palmer's book. But overall, I didn't get a lot out of it. I've been teaching for nearly twenty years, so maybe I'm not the target audience. Some of this quite basic. It does seem geared a bit more towards a new college teacher, and it that regard it could be a good resource. Even with that caveat, the advice is a bit limited. It struck me as much more applicable to one who is a teaching at a more competitive or elite school with classes of 25-30 relatively well-prepared students. There is a chapter on teaching large lecture classes and there is some helpful items here. But this brings me to my other concern: much of this is overly idealistic. The techniques and advice often require a lot of time, effort, and resources from the instructor to implement, manage, and maintain. (Here's a simple example: he suggests meeting with all your students within the first two weeks of the semester. But with several hundred students each semester that's not realistic.)

The problem is not the extra effort(this is our job after all); the problem is that it ignores the reality that many if not most teachers at the college level are teaching 3 to 4 sections of large classes with little TA help, so they are already stretched thin. And there is little external incentive from the administration to do these things--and in some cases, the implicit incentives are to do less, not more. Most university's give a lot of lip service to academic excellence but do little to actually support it (and some of the policies undermine it). The book doesn't seem to acknowledge this reality of teaching.

Another huge problem is that there is nothing in the book about online or even hybrid teaching. This gaping lack is egregious as most universities have more and more teaching online--where the challenges are different and much of the advice in this book is irrelevant.

On the plus side, the book is clear and concisely written. It is easy to read over a weekend, so if you are teacher and want to improve(or are new), I'd cautiously recommend it. Some of the tidbits might speak to you and help you out. I certainly picked up a few things that I'll add to my repertoire.

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Review: North of Boston

North of Boston by Elisabeth Elo
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I was perusing one of the local used book stores and saw this book. Being from the Boston area, I'm attracted to all things Boston, so I picked it up. The flap sounded interesting so I bought it. I'm so glad I did! I immediately got into the story and the main character, Pirio Kasparov. She is intelligent, a smart-ass, and has a solid moral base. She gets sucked into the mystery in a classic sort of way (the author has one of the characters quote Sam Spade's line about your partner getting killed and how you are supposed to do something. That might have been a little too on the nose, but I loved it). Pirio is not cut from a standard issue thriller/mystery female lead mold. There are classic elements, but Elo creates a unique and memorable character in Pirio.

Many of the other characters are interesting and well-drawn, if sometimes stereotypical. The plot is well done; there were elements laid down early on that you knew where going to play a role later but it wasn't obvious how it would play out. It's not perfect, and there are some obvious "twists" but overall still original and enjoyable.

I would definitely read more Pirio novels if Elo writes them and I hope she does. I recommend this to other fans of thrillers/mysteries.

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Review: Triumph: The Untold Story of Jesse Owens and Hitler's Olympics

Triumph: The Untold Story of Jesse Owens and Hitler's Olympics by Jeremy Schaap
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Although I enjoyed the book, it's a bit cursory. I would have liked more detail, more depth. Owens and his story are important and I wanted more: more about the man, more about his relationships, in particular with other runners.

It wasn't always clear what Schaap's goal was: was this a biography of Owens? A story just focused on the Owens at the Olympics? A story about the politics and nationalism that threatened to swallow the Olympics? It feels at times a little of all these, and not enough of any one of them.

I didn't like the way the book handled the footnotes, especially on kindle, it was very hard to see what the sources were for conversations and stories Schaap is relating. It wasn't obvious when Schaap was quoting a direct source for the dialogue or 'recreating' it. (This is part of the problem when a journalist writes history.)

Still, the writing is crisp and the narrative style is clear (part of the benefit of having a journalist write history!). If you know nothing of Jesse Owens and or the 36 Olympics, it's a good place to start. (Though I am not sure how much of this qualifies the eponymous "untold story").


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Review: How to Be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life

How to Be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life by Massimo Pigliucci
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Pigliucci does a good job summarizing and reviewing key ideas of Stoic thought. He focuses on his own experience applying the ideas to his life as a way of providing advice on applying it to one's own life. He uses a nice frame of talking with Epictetus as the central way of communicating the Stoic ideas. Their 'conversation' provides a way for Epictetus' text to speak to contemporary concerns.

Do not expect detailed philosophical analysis of the Stoic ideas. That's not Pigliucci's goal here; though I would have liked more of that. There is an appendix which discusses more of the historical connections.

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Review: Chasing Darkness

Chasing Darkness by Robert Crais
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Another good Cole story: lots of twists and turns. Some of them you will see coming, others you may not. Well-paced, good dialogue. Less humor than earlier Cole novels; but still has his characteristic wit.

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