The Mirror and the Light by Hillary Mantel is the final volume in a series of historical novels recounting the career of Henry VIII’s henchman and counselor Thomas Cromwell. I don’t think this book was quite as compelling or engaging as the first two, but having read them, I had to finish. Anyway, I’m glad I read them, but don’t think they will be revisited.
The Bridges at Toko-Ri by James Michener was an outstanding novella about men at war and what motivates “citizen soldiers”. For those of you who are unfamiliar, this is the story of a naval aviator from WWII who is recalled for Korea. The aviator has, since the end of WWII; graduated law school, married, and had a couple of kids. Now he finds himself rudely jerked back into the service. The book is excellent as is the movie which starred William Holden, Grace Kelly, and Mickey Rooney. I recommend both the book and the movie very highly.
Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America by Michael Eric Dyson is a powerful exercise in attempting to generate empathy from White Americans for the situation Black Americans find themselves in through no fault of their own. Dyson is a powerful writer and thinker and all Americans would benefit from reading this.
The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson is another little pop-history book that follows Larson’s previous pattern of taking some historical incident and overlaying some esoteric happenings that were coincident with the historical incident. This time it was the first year of Churchill’s premiership overlaid with the technical details of providing his security at his various residence, the love affairs of his daughter, and the unravelling of his son’s marriage. Like so many of Larson’ books this one was ok, but I didn’t really learn anything. I doubt if you will either.
The Council of Dads: My Daughters, My Illness, and the Men Who Could Be Me by Bruce Feiler was kind of a disappointment. I watched the recent NBC TV series, which was based on this book, and enjoyed it. When I learned the series was based on the book, I jumped on it. Eh. The book has very little in common with the TV show, the “council of dads” the author chooses to look after his kids should his cancer overcome him, weren’t as interesting or compelling as the ones imagined by the TV writers. Further, the author didn’t actually die from his cancer (which I’m very happy about!) so the “council of dads” was never actually established. The whole thing just sort of mis-fires.
The Singer’s Gun by Emily St. John Mandel was an excellent novel by someone who is rapidly becoming one of my favorite authors. In this case there’s a fellow who has been trying to marry his fiancé for several years, but she keep postponing the weddings at the last minute. They finally get married and take off on their honeymoon in Italy, where he decides to stay after sending his new bride home by herself. Additionally, the guy’s job has been kind of disappearing for the past couple of months. He’s still getting paid, but he has gradually been stripped of first his secretary, then his direct reports, finally his office, all the while being told that he’s being assigned a new position building a supervising an important new team, which never seems to materialize. The book slowly unveils just what the hell is happening in a most engaging and satisfying fashion. I enjoyed it a lot and highly recommend it.
Walden on Wheels: On the Open Road from Debt to Freedom By Ken Ilgunas is a weird memoir of a 20-something kid who graduated from college with a moderate, $32,000 student debt. The debt kind of freaked him out and he spent a few years working in Alaska and other places in jobs that provided room and board so he could dedicate virtually his entire income to paying off his student loans, which he very admirably did in about two and a half years. He then went on to Grad school at Duke, but was determined to get his grad degree without incurring any further debt. His primary method of achieving this was to avoid the high costs of room and board by purchasing and living in a van while subsisting primarily on ramen cooked over a camping stove in the back of the van. As might be expected in such a situation, the author has many moderately interesting stories from his life in the van, and at the end of the day he did get his grad degree with incurring any student debt, but by then, I didn’t care. Not recommended.
Willie & Joe: The WWII Years by Bill Mauldin is a massive (704 pages weighing over five pounds) collection of virtually all of Bill Mauldin’s legendary “Willie and Joe” cartoons from WWII. The collection benefits greatly from an introduction and nearly continuous annotation of the cartoons by Mauldin’s biographer, Todd DePastino. A couple of things struck me about the cartons. First, seeing unshaven, scruffy, dirty soldiers griping and bitching about the everyday vicissitudes of life in the infantry must have been nothing short of revolutionary for an audience whose primary exposure to the US Army was “Sad Sack” and wartime propaganda films. Second, Mauldin had a surprising percentage of really good cartoons among the hundreds that he drew throughout the war. They guy really had talent, both as an artist, and as a wry observer of the human condition as lived by the “dog-faced soldiers” at the Front. Anyway, I recommend this collection very highly.
With fourteen more books to go and only six weeks until the end of the year, I’m not sure I’m going to hit the 100 mark. Stay tuned and see where I wind up!
86 for the year
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