​By the author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, this is a captivating read about Venice, particularly in the context of the fire that destroyed La Fenice Opera House in the late 1990s.  While to a large extent focused on who started the fire and why, this book branches out from the main storyline in interesting ways, painting a detailed portrait of a unique city. Filled with politics, culture, history, and, of course, an unsolved mystery, I loved not only the exquisite writing, but the interviews and depicts of people.  Instead of being a distraction, the side stories were just as interesting as the main fire plot.

Highly recommend.

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Written in 2015, I couldn't remember if I had read this years ago when it was released or if I had just heard about it and read excerpts, so I dug in and read it in its entirety and it holds up.  In fact, almost all of the main topics covered in this book about living beyond the gender binary and heteronormativity to which our systemic structures are beholden could have been written today.  These topics were not new in 2015, but this book was written at a time when the emerging, radical ideas from the era that preceded it had been academicalized and solidified with enduring language and a coherent world view that has stuck. 

This memoir is steeped in Queer theory and is well worth a read.

Recommend.

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Who needs an historicalized fictional novel when there are real life stories like this one?  This non-fiction book about the world's most prolific art thief, Stéphane Breitwieser, would not be believable if it were presented as a novel.

​At the end of the book, there is a short description of the research done to gather the facts for the story, but I left wanting more information about the author and how he managed to amass all of the details he included in the book because it is a fascinating read.  The thefts happened all of Europe, in plain sight of other visitors and guards, in all kinds of museums over the course of a few years in the late 1990's and early 2000's. 

I also left wishing there was more to say about the psychology of not only the main thief, but of his girlfriend and mother, both of whom had behaviors relating to the crimes that left me perplexed.  All told the art was likely worth more than a billion dollars and Breitwieser was an entirely self-taught art historian and aficionado.  The writing was solid enough, though it is definitely written as non-fiction, but the story itself is such that it carries the writing, which is almost certainly due to the research and interviews that went into the process. This even included the author being present when Breitwieser stole things.

Recommend.

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It will come as no surprise that this is not a light read, but this reflection on antisemitism is both interesting and informative. I particularly appreciated how it is gives context to some of the commentary that I commonly hear from Jewish friends and read by Jewish authors. One thing that stood out to me in particular is the way in which many  progressive Pro-Palestine movements' boycotts of Israeli companies is perceived as antisemitic even as many leaders of those boycotts reiterate that they distinguish between the State of Israel and Jewish people.  The explanation in this book is really compelling and also reminds us how close in time we are to the time before the Holocaust when Germans were encouraged not to buy from Jewish stores. Her writing is both so well researched and so emotionally compelling that I found myself leaving each section with more compassion for and understanding of why somethings are perceived as antisemitic even when non-Jews might resist that description. 

It took me a while to finish this book, so was reading it about six weeks ago when the lethal bombing attack at the protest in Boulder occurred and I was impressed by how it shifted how much it impacted how I thought about the aftermath of that incident.  The core idea in the book that hate crimes against Jews are only given attention to the extent that the narrative can be used for a purpose that distracts from the horror of antisemitic violence to the benefit of others played out in real time as I was watching.  Almost as soon as the news broke, the immigrant accused of the bombing was arrested and charged, but rather than using the moment to focus on hate crimes and violence, the federal government arrested and deported his  wife and children, bypassing due process, thus shifting the focus from his Jewish victims and instead to using the event for political gain just in exactly the manner the book describes.  You have to love when a book provides such relevant insight and analysis even it was published a few years ago.

Recommend.

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This is a quirky micro-history-science book about beavers that I did not anticipate I was going to like, but ended up being sneakily interesting and entertaining.  Who knew that a well-written book about a strangely unique creature could be just the right amount of not-political and not-depressing to make my list of recommendations?
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This was the perfect book to fall asleep listening to. It wasn't so much that it was boring, as that the cadence of the narration is very soothing.  The author employs a writing technique in which he makes long lists of things, often the latin names for plants or animals, that might interest the hardcore biologist and botanist enthusiasts, but I found lulled me to sleep, like a lullaby.  In fact, I would listen to the same chapter several nights in a row, having not made it to the end of even one chapter before I drifted off to sleep.  I would like to say that the book was light and pleasant, as he describes at length the natural spaces that he is so drawn to--and there is something compelling about how much he loves these spaces and wants to make sure they are preserved--and yet the racism of 1901 finds its way into a world it has no business being.  This is in addition to the complete exclusion of women from the narrative in any meaningful way.  All said, I just can't recommend it.

​Not recommended.

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The title of this book was really misleading, although the photos on the cover might have given me a hint that it wasn't going to be a romance novel.  A memoir written by a well-known presidential historian, the center of the memoir is her husband, who was a speech writer for JFK, Lyndon B Johnson, and Bobby Kennedy.  The audio version includes audio clips from some of the speeches she talks about. Perhaps the title refers to the triumph of love over hate in the American political landscape or to the love that they had for the country, because romantic love was not at the center of the story, at least not until the very end when they are working together on this project.  I wish the book had told us more about their interpersonal dynamics, a 1960's power couple at a time when two careers and children was uncommon, probably especially so in the highly charged DC world.  I would have been really interested to have had that explored more.

As a history of the Democratic party, it was a detailed historians account--at times deeply interesting and at times fairly mundane and boring.  What I liked the most, though, was the reminder that this moment in time, when it feels like the country has reached the end of its capacity to endure the political divides that it is based on, is not unique.  It is not even the moment in time in which the demise of the country appears the most imminent.  Hearing the first hand account of the turmoil, of the violence, of the divisions in the country, especially during the five year span of time in which MLK and the Kennedy brothers were assassinated, provided some solace for me, knowing that the country has been here before and has returned from the brink of implosion many times, that it is still possible that it could right itself.  

I don't know that I have ever heard or read many of the speeches from that era, but they were not only actually inspiring, but still relevant.  It is hard to remember sometimes how far we have come and that this was accomplished not only with protests in the streets and with education in classrooms, but also with leaders in the system with a vision and willingness to show up to do the hard work of leadership.

The hesitation that I have in making a recommendation on this one is just that there really were sections that were dull, including a few that I fell asleep to multiple times before finally just skipping, something I rarely do.

Recommended, but a soft recommend.  

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I als odid not This is a reflective memoir by a long distance, thru-hiker, which in places is sort of a micro-history of trails across contexts.  This read like a book written by someone who has spent a lot of time walking by themselves reflecting on random things and then using those ideas as the springboard to explore tangentially related things which comes back to walking for long periods of time alone in order to think more about the topic they are obsessed with.  I mean, some of it was interesting for sure, but there was just a lot of ruminating and reflecting on wildlife, snails, ants, and humans over time and space to come back to the same concept of trails.  I found it pretty pedantic, going over the same points in different contexts ad nauseam. I did enjoy the chapter on Newfoundland, while really disliking the chapter on the deer hunt. I also did not love the reverence with which he talked about indigenous concepts.  It felt oddly detached and maybe performative.  Even after reflection, I can't really put my finger on why I didn't like how he wrote those parts.  Overall, it was a very masculine reflection on a life of leisure time and isolation that just did not resonate with me.

Not recommended.

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After watching the new Bob Dylan bio-pic (A Complete Unknown) a few weeks ago, I realized that I didn't know as much about Pete Seeger's experience with the House Un-American Activities Committee during the McCarthy Era, so I went looking for a biography that might provide a deep dive into this topic.  Alas, this was the only thing I could find on an available audio version.  It wasn't bad, it just wasn't as in depth as I would have liked.  I was hoping for something more like the recent CIA and FBI books I have read.  Seeger is such an inspiring example of lifelong activism and commitment to his values and I really wish there had been more that just a quick overview.
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Not not recommended.

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As a general rule, when reading a microhistory, I either really love it or really hate it, but in this case I came out of the book with mixed feelings.  Perhaps it was because a lot of this book is about art history and, not being very interested in that topic, I was often bored and found it difficult to even listen for the larger themes in those sections because they were so detailed about things I just don't care much about.  Yet, there were other parts that I did find really fascinating, including the history of BMI and the focus on weight as part of health having been started by the health insurance industry glomping onto bad data and then pushing this idea that to be thin was to be healthier than to be plump.  I also thought the shift in Christian thought towards austerity and self-denial went hand-in-hand with the idea that it was unChristian to be "fat" because it was associated with gluttony and indulgence was interesting.  Finally, while I had heard about the racist history of fat shaming, I was surprised that for quite a while, "doctors" and purported "scientists" had strong opinions that considered the Irish to be much closer "racially" to Black people than white people with respect to the heathenism they associated with larger bodies.  I was also not expecting the discussion about pastors pushing "diets" to lose weight and, in particular, how messaging from the Seventh Day Adventist church leaders played a roll in these cultural shifts.  I didn't know that the vegetarian, high water diet came from a religious judgment about weight rather than a place of health.  The book is full of side-facts and small details that I found interesting--like that Kellogg and Post cereals both came about as part of the movement that valued slim builds and saw vegetarian diets that included a lot of milk as the answer.  So, overall, lots of obscure and fascinating tidbits, but not enough to hold my attention for the whole book. I suspect people who are more versed in art history would like this a lot more than I did.

Not not recommended.

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