2020 Book Brag

 

Books I read in 2020.  All are recommended, unless otherwise noted.

STEM Stuff

Sarah Stewart Johnson, The Sirens of Mars: Searching For Life on Another World (2020).  Dr. Johnson, an assistant professor of Planetary Science at Georgetown, interleaves the history of our search for life on Mars with her personal story, pencil portraits of key figures from ancient times to present day, and philosophical musings about the meaning of the search for extraterrestrial life.  Good (sometime gripping) accounts of early space program missions.  This beautifully written text is the best book I’ve read in a long while.

Willy Ley, Mariner IV to Mars (1966).  Johnson’s book caused me to reread this.  Of interest primarily to remind us how little we knew about Mars only 55 years ago, and how much we wanted to find some evidence of life there.

Alan Lightman, Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine (2018).  In this literate and charming text, physicist and humanist Alan Lightman writes of his (and our) desire for something more than the material universe, even though there is no evidence for it that he can accept.

Roger D. Launius, Apollo’s Legacy (2019).  Noted space historian examines the continuing political and cultural impact of Project Apollo.

Robert W. Farquhar, Fifty Years on the Space Frontier: Halo Orbits, Comets, Asteroids, and More (2011).  Memoir of mission designer and project manager who worked on multiple deep space probes to small bodies.  Focus is primarily on the engineering aspects of the missions. Informative and well-written, but primarily of interest to space technology buffs.

Richard Jurek, The Ultimate Engineer: The Remarkable Life of NASA’s Visionary Leader George M. Low (2019).  When Kennedy asked for a dramatic space first, NASA drew on a moon-landing plan Low drafted.  After the Apollo 1 Fire, Low got the program back on track.  In the Nixon administration, Low kept Nixon from cutting NASA’s budget even more than he did and helped get the shuttle program approved.  Despite all this, Low is mostly unknown to the general public.  Well researched and thorough, but Jurek is not a storyteller.  Probably of interest only to space program nuts like me.

History and Politics

Colin Woodard, American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America (2011) and American Character: A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good (2016).  Woodard advances the theory that the three North American Federations, Canada, the USA, and Mexico, comprise 11 cultural units, or nations.  In American Nations he traces the founding and growth of the nations, their impact on US and Canadian politics, and speculates on the possible futures of the federations.  In American Character, Woodard analyzes the conflict between libertarianism and the common good as a conflict between the nations within the US, and suggests a way to restore the liberal consensus.

Colin Woodard, The Lobster Coast: Rebels, Rusticators, and the Struggle for a Forgotten Frontier (2004).  Maine native and long-time newspaper correspondent writes the history and current conditions of Maine.  Originally a colony of a colony, Maine boomed in the 19^th century, and then saw its primary industries: lumber, fishing, and ice, collapse in the 20^th.  The only lifeline was a seemingly inexhaustible lobster fishery.  Once desperately poor and rural, Maine now finds itself struggling with cultural change as wealthy people from away gradually take over its coast, complaining about the noise of lobster boats as they do.  As of this writing (2020), the boundary between the old Maine and the new is clearly marked by the appearance of Trump signs outside the major cities and tourist areas.

Heather Cox Richardson, How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America (2020).  Argues that an alliance between the West and the South promoted individualism and eventually took over our politics.  Draws a line from the race-based oligarchy of the Confederacy, through the Western mining and business oligarchy, to today’s Movement Conservatism.  Explores many of the same themes as Woodard’s American Character, but with more academic rigor.

Heather Cox Richardson, West from Appomattox: The Reconstruction of America After the Civil War (2007).  “[E]xplains why today’s political map looks like a map of the 1860s.  It argues that in the years between 1865 and 1901, a new definition of what it meant to be an American developed from a heated debate over the proper relationship of the government to its citizens.”  The synthesis that ultimately arose combined ideas from all sections: The North contributed the idea of equality of opportunity, the South the idea that not all could rise (which found new life in Social Darwinism), and the West the idea of individualism (and its corollary that poverty was a moral failing).  Richardson’s books tend to overwhelm the reader with detail.  I enjoyed West from Appomattox more than her How the South Won the Civil War because Richardson weaves in the stories of individuals.

A Prairie Populist: The Memoirs of Luna Kellie (c. 1925, published 1992).  Edited by Jane Taylor Nelsen, Foreword by Albert E. Stone.  One of Richardson’s sources for West from Appomattox.  An account of a life in Nebraska from 1876 to about 1901.  It includes a short foreword by Albert E. Stone that provides a little context and an excellent afterword by Nelsen that provides much more context, as well as an analysis of Kellie’s memoir.  Kellie herself is a natural storyteller; you can really hear her voice in her personal memoir.  Of particular interest to those of us who grew up on the great plains.

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous People’s History of the United States (2014).  All the sickening details of how we committed genocide on the Native Americans, by a long-time activist.  Of interest to me: how the American system of counter-insurgency warfare was perfected in the 18^th and 19^th centuries on the Native Americans.  Ends on a somewhat upbeat note as it recounts recent court victories and looks to a future where natives will get land as well as money in restitution.

Rachel Maddow, Blowout: Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth (2019).  Examines the oil industry’s ability to get its own way, even if that means overriding the democratic will of the people.  The result is often to the benefit of dictatorships and the detriment of the environment.  A worthy successor to Ida Tarbell’s muckraking investigations of Standard Oil.

William Taubman, Khruschchev: The Man and His Era (2003).  Comprehensive biography of the bete noir of my youth.  Khrushchev was complex man who did much good and much evil.  Genuinely interested in peace, he sincerely wanted to improve the lot of the common people.  Most surprising thing I learned: he drastically cut the Soviet military budget. (The cuts were reversed by Brezhnev, along with many of K’s reforms.)  Khrushchev had good ideas but his own impulsiveness, insecurity over his lack of education and culture, and his commitment to Marxism limited him.  Makes extensive use of sources that came available with the fall of the USSR, as well as many personal interviews.  It’s too bad Taubman isn’t a better story teller; it took forever for me to wade through it.

Aleksandr Fursenko & Timothy Naftali, One Hell of a Gamble: Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy, 1958-1964 (1997).  The climax of this book is an hour-by-hour recounting of the Cuban Missile Crisis.  It starts with the rise of Castro, who came to power on New Year’s Day, 1959, and ends with the assassination of Kennedy and Khrushchev’s removal from office.  Covers the American obsession with getting rid of Castro, Castro’s halting movement toward publicly embracing Marxism, and the Soviet Union’s initial reluctance to support him.  Then Khrushchev, impetuously, decided to go all in supporting Castro, leading to the world’s closest brush with nuclear war.  Makes use of American sources, Soviet sources that became available after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and interviews with surviving participants.

Molly Ball, Pelosi (2020).  A generally sympathetic portrait by Time Magazine’s senior political reporter.  Ball argues that Pelosi has been underappreciated through most of her long career.  The chattering classes focused on her “unlikability” and somehow missed how very effective she has been in House leadership.

Theodore H. White, Fire in the Ashes: Europe in Mid-Century (1953).  After Henry Luce fired him from Time Magazine and before The Making of the President 1960, Teddy White worked as an independent journalist in Europe.  This is a perceptive status report on Western Europe’s efforts to rebuild after World War II.

David Halberstam, The Powers That Be (1979).  Magisterial and eminently readable history of four news organizations (Time, Incorporated, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and CBS) written at the height of the power of the printed press and network television.  Based on hundreds of interviews and source texts and the product of five years of labor.  In four parts which can be loosely described as: early history of the organizations; the changing media landscape of the ‘50s and how well they stood up to McCarthyism (or abetted it); the ‘60s and how they reported Viet Nam; and Watergate.  Halberstam is a great story teller who brings the people alive and a wonderful stylist.

Memoir

Eileen Alexander, Love in the Blitz: The Long-Lost Letters of a Brilliant Young Woman to Her Beloved on the Front, edited by David McGowan (2020).  Eileen Alexander would spend much of the time between 1939 and 1947 separated from her beloved by World War II and its aftermath.  Eileen wrote him every day they were apart, hundreds of thousands of words.  Love in the Blitz comprises excerpts of those letters, along with some brief background material.  The letters sparkle with wit, insight, longing, and insecurity.

Erik Hazelhoff, Soldier of Orange (1971, second edition 2014).  Memoir of a Dutch war hero.  Hazelhoff was a law student when the Germans invaded in 1940.  After three failed escape attempts and a couple of years in the Resistance, he made it to England and spent a couple years inserting agents into Holland by boat.  When the Germans wised up to that, he joined the RAF, becoming a pathfinder pilot for night raids.  Along the way he developed a close relationship with the royal family in exile.  A story of wartime exploits, sometimes told with self-deprecating humor.  Nevertheless, it is clear the guy had nerves of steel.

Sally Ann Breen, My Story (2020).  Breen (1935-2018) has given us a collection of anecdotes from her life; I was particularly taken by her stories of a hardscrabble upbringing and early married life in Texas.  I’m sorry I moved to Portland too late to meet her.  Unusually well-written for an amateur memoir.  Will be of interest primarily to people who knew her.

Fiction

Danielle Evans, The Office of Historical Corrections (2020).  Most of the stories have black female protagonists who are navigating the complexities of race relations in the US.  All are filled with sharp observations, often couched in humor, and all propel the reader along.  My wife summed it up better than I could: “It gave some perspectives I wasn’t expecting. Kept wanting each short story to keep going. Her characters are mostly folks I would love to sit with and have coffee.”

Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron, c 1353, translated by John Payne, 1886.  A group of ten young adults retreats from the Black Death in Florence and consoles themselves by telling stories.  This, the first complete English translation, was rendered in Elizabethan English.  Payne said he did it to be more faithful to the text, but I think it was to keep all the naughty stories out of the hands of the hoi polloi.

Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year (1722).  Daniel Defoe’s flat, unemotional, descriptive prose drives home the horror of the 1665 Black Death epidemic in London.  I was struck by two things: nothing had been learned about how to deal with the plague in the three centuries after The Decameron; and the similarities in behavior between 1665 Londoners and 2020 Americans.

George Egerton (Mary Chavelita Dunne Bright), Keynotes (1893).  Short stories by an outspoken feminist, focusing on female protagonists searching for sexual freedom and fulfilment.  Notorious in its time; quite tame by today’s standards.

Washington Irving, Rip Van Winkle (1819).  The classic short story in which Rip sleeps through the American Revolution.  When he returns, he is mystified by the new republican habits of his home town.

Erica Swyler, The Book of Speculation (2015).  Simon Watson, whose late mother was a circus mermaid and whose sister has run off to join the circus, receives a mysterious, water-damaged book.  It is the logbook of the proprietor of a circus his ancestors worked for in the late 18^th century.  As he researches the book and his matrilineal line, he realizes that his family is cursed.  He struggles to break the curse before it takes his sister.  Good, but if you like circus books, Water for Elephants is better.  And if you like magic and circuses, nothing compares to The Night Circus.

Phillippa Gregory, The Red Queen (2010).  Historical novel of the life of Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII, up to the day he wins the Battle of Bosworth and becomes king.  Not nearly as much fun as The Other Boleyn Girl, perhaps because Beaufort is a fundamentally unlikeable character.  I finished it – I kept thinking it would get better – but wouldn’t recommend it.

Elizabeth Hill, When Kitty Came to Portland (1933).  Semi-autobiographical children’s book written by a woman born in Portland, Maine, in 1862.  Interesting chiefly for its descriptions of the Munjoy Hill neighborhood and the old port c 1870.  Its casual racism at least reminds us how far we’ve come.  Probably only of interest to local historians and to people who have recently moved here.