January 28

Past Imperfect (2009)
By Julian Fellowes

Novelist (Belgravia) and screenplay writer ("Downton Abbey") Fellowes has moved to the present day in Past Imperfect.  The unnamed narrator is contacted by a dying friend, a man he hung out with in the late 1960s/early 70s.  Damian Baxter and he had done the season together, after the days when the queen hosted debutantes (>1958), so parents of young ladies, unwilling to leave the past behind, hosted their own parties in hopes of finding wealthy husbands for their daughters.  At Damian's request, the narrator had introduced his college buddy to his wealthy friends, and all the ladies were smitten with the handsome, ambitious Damian.  The older generation were not so willing to embrace this "nobody", however,  and the parents of one especially lovelorn woman went to great efforts to assure the middle-class Damian that he was unworthy of their titled daughters  As the reader might suspect, these has-been aristocrats were, for the most part, fading into obscurity while the ambitious Damian became wildly successful, amassing a fortune way beyond anything the others had inherited.

But now it is the early 21st century, and everyone is in their 50s.  Damian is dying and calls on the narrator to help with one last dying wish.  The two have not seen one another (nor most of the others from the "season" circle) in decades and Damian, who is single and childless, suspects he had fathered a child with one of the women who loved him when they were young adults.  He gives his old friend a list and asks him to discover the child, who will then stand to inherit Damian's fortune.  While the premise seems a bit sleazy the narrator spends a lot of text pondering on how the world was changing back then; "free love" was the new norm and the old rules and old order were changing.

While Fellowes' novel highlights one particular area of change (the fading British aristocracy), his novel is at its best when he ponders these changes, which mirror the aging process, resistance to - or embracing of - social change, and coping.  Just as "Downton Abbey" is all about the changes of the early 20th century - when the gilded age was dying - Past Imperfect is a good measuring stick with which to compare our own changing society, in which, according to a recent article, 26 billionaires control the same wealth as the 3.8 billion poorest people in the world.  While acknowledging that some billionaires (most notably Bill Gates) give away most of their fortunes to make the world more equitable, one still wonders how long the world can sustain this gross imbalance.

January 23

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)
By Bryan Stevenson

Bryan Stevenson was fresh out of Harvard Law School, following up work he'd done as a summer intern to defend death row inmates in Atlanta.  He discovers that more and more inmates have been wrongly convicted, based on fabricated "evidence" or have been tried as children for non-capital crimes, but face a life in prison without parole.  Most notable is Walter McMillan, convicted of killing a young white woman in an Alabama dry cleaning establishment.  McMillan's story is woven throughout this book; we learn that he was at a fish fry in his own front yard with a dozen witnesses at the time of the crime; we meet Ralph Myers, the state's solitary witness who testifies to an unbelievable story implicating Walter (on the orders of Alabama law officials who wanted closure to the crime), we meet another man who was forced to lie about seeing Walter's truck at the scene of the crime to shore up Myers' testimony.  We meet the judges who are complicit in Walter's wrongful conviction.  Finally, McMillan's plight catches the interest of Ed Bradley of "60 Minutes"; he interviews Walter, Myers, Judge Chapman, and Bryan Stevenson on a segment that raises considerable national interest.  Shortly afterwards, the judge agrees to examine evidence for a 2nd trial, and Walter is acquitted after 6 years in prison on a false charge.

Besides Walter, Stevenson writes of Joe, a mentally-challenged 13-year-old falsely charge of rape, who has been in prison, with no chance of parole, for 18 years by the time he meets Bryan.  He writes of a mother of six, falsely charged by a neighbor of killing her baby, who had actually died of natural causes.  Brian works to free all these individuals who are wrongly convicted.  As his caseload increases, he founds the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) in Montgomery, AL to raise support to defend the growing number of incarcerated individuals who have no legal representation.  (At the time of the book's publication, the EJI had a staff of ~40 lawyers.)

Most of Stevenson's clients are poor; many are black.  Almost all have been victims of police or prosecutorial misconduct, and many are incarcerated for crimes as minor as writing bad checks. As with Walter McMillan's case, Stevenson had to navigate through the maze of prejudice, injustice, inflexible sentencing laws, and the continued practice of incarcerating many juveniles, minorities, and mentally ill people in a frenzy of mass incarceration that thwarts justice and inhumanely punishes the poor and disadvantaged.  Our criminal justice system is sorely in need of reform, and advocates like Bryan Stevenson are its best hope.  

Following up, a brief interview with Bryan Stevenson appears in last Sunday's NY Times Magazine.

January 18

The Fifth Risk (2018)
By Michael Lewis

I discovered this title on the NY Times list of 100 Notable Books of 2018, with an intriguing short summary:

Lewis brings his breezy style to an examination of three government departments, Energy, Agriculture and Commerce, shining a light on the life-or-death work these agencies perform, and showing how the Trump administration is doing what it can to undermine them.

Of the many books I've read about the current administration, this one is the most frightening.  Lewis, expanding on several articles that originally appeared in Vanity Fair, highlights the workings of three cabinet departments: Energy, Agriculture and Commerce.  He opens the book with comments by Chris Christie, who was initially tasked with building the Trump transition team.  Unfortunately, he was ousted early on by Jared Kushner and Steve Bannon, who did not want to waste time or money on a transition process - until they learned candidates were required by federal law to produce organize a transition.  This book illustrates not only how miserably the inept and inexperienced campaign failed in their task of assigning new cabinet secretaries and filling the highest level positions, but also in what a frighteningly dangerous situation they have now placed our country.  As one reviewer (see BarringtonLibrary.org, catalog entry for The Fifth Risk) put it, "If nothing else scares you about the current administration, reading this book WILL do the job."

Lewis points out that ~70% of US government employees are employed in some form of national security.  The Dept of Energy's John MacWilliams cites five major risks to US security: a domestic accident with nuclear weapons,North Korea, Iran, and attack on the electrical grid, and the fifth risk: Failures in project management.

The DOE is currently headed by Rick Perry, who had famously suggested the department be abolished, although he now admits he hadn't actually known what the department did. (Does he know what it does now?)  Perry's predecessor as Energy Secretary was Ernie Moniz (PhD in theoretical physics from Stanford and former MIT faculty member), who helped negotiate the Iran nuclear deal.  In return for the US lifting sanctions, Iran had dismantled and removed their reactor (needed to produce plutonium) and was unable to produce uranium (no centrifuges); all of this is monitored by the DOE and had greatly reduced the chance of yet another Middle East war.  That is, until the current president, unable to understand the scientific reasoning about the unlikelihood of the Iranians obtaining a weapon, foolishly pulled the US out of the deal.

The Dept of Agriculture is headed by chicken magnate Sonny Perdue.  One of his first actions was to undo the dietary guidelines (whole grains, more fruits and vegetables, less sodium, no artificially sweetened milk, etc) introduced by the Obama administration.

Newly appointed Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross (the oldest first-time cabinet appointee in US history) had claimed to own a fortune of some $3.7B, creating some concern over his missing income taxes; lo and behold, he actually had a mere $700M but had wanted to qualify in the Forbes' 400 and lied about his wealth. (Imagine!)  Ross was surprised to learn that the Commerce Dept actually dealt more in issues of weather (NOAA falls under its umbrella) than in commerce.  Barry Myers was appointed to head up NOAA, but has thus far been unable to be confirmed due to his conflict of interest issues.  A lawyer whose family owns Accuweather, Myers would like to make the National Weather Service's data unavailable to the public, and instead only available through for-profit sites such as Accu-Weather (Sen Rick Santorum, of Myers's home state, had actually proposed such legislation, but it failed to pass).  Any references to climate change are, meanwhile, no longer available on government sites.

It's hard to do justice to Michael Lewis's important book.  It is very readable (I finished it in two sittings).  He cites just three departments.  If they are typical, each one does a range of critical research and work that most of us know very little about; it is crucial that Congress and we the people act soon to stop the destruction of so many essential part of our government.  What we don't know can kill us!

January 11

It Can't Happen Here (1935)
By Sinclair Lewis

Lewis's Babbitt was published about 15 years before It Can't Happen Here, and the earlier novel tells the story of a middle class American who is trying to move up the social ladder.  By 1935 Sinclair Lewis had become the first American to win the Nobel prize with his stories of America.  This later work was written in a 2-3 month time frame, and reading it made me feel like I was on a speeding train moving toward a cliff.

Lewis writes an alternative history in which a populist demagogue, "Buzz" Windrup, campaigns as the common man, assuring all Americans they will earn $5000/year ($90,000 in today's dollars) if they elect him.  Americans love Buzz and make up ditties to sing his praises. He becomes president in 1936, beating FDR in the Democratic primary and going on to defeat a more liberal Republican candidate.  Told from the perspective of a seasoned Vermont newspaper editor, Doremus Jessup is immediately suspicious of Buzz's claims, but is still stunned by the level of Buzz's repressive activities.  Once in the White House, Buzz starts a new kind of citizen militia, the Minute Men, or MM, who have powers to arrest anyone Buzz deems a threat, like journalists and college professors.  A few Americans escape to Europe or Canada, until the Minute Men close off the border, but most are still enthralled with Buzz, waiting for their income to increase.  The Jessups' incompetent hired man, Shad Ledue, is promoted to a high regional position and constantly intimidates the family who tried to help him.  Anyone who resists is sent to a concentration camp, and people are shot if they so much as raise an argument.  Doremus eventually joins an underground movement, working for the Republican candidate who lives in Canada.

The ending is a bit ambiguous, but Buzz is forced out, only to have the country taken over by his creepy assistant, who doesn't last long in the office.  Doremus continues working for the underground.  What surprised me was Lewis's prescience in foreseeing what would happen in Germany - true, this story takes place in the US, but it had all the trappings: the camps, the squelching of news, discrimination against Jews and African-Americans - of Nazi Germany.  Philip Roth's The Plot Against America uses a similar story line, and reads much more convincingly, but Roth has the advantage of the perspective of history.

January 6

Sea Prayer (2018)

By Khaled Hosseini

Oh, oh, oh...such a brief story, but so powerful in its impact.

A father holds his son as they await the arrival of a boat that will take them away.  He shares with his son the familiar sounds and sights from their home outside the city of Homs, things his son will be too young to remember: olive trees in the breeze, the bleating of goats, the clanging of his grandmother's cooking pots...  In the bustling old city "a mosque for us Muslims, a church for our Christian neighbors..."  But then... protests and siege, bombs, starvation, burials.  The father prays as they set out from the despair of their war-torn country, hoping for a better land ahead, and that the sea will keep them safe.

The author of the moving Kite Runner and One Thousand Splendid Suns has written this beautiful prayer.  Hosseini was inspired by the death of little Alan Kurdi, whose family was fleeing Syria and hoping to reach Europe.  Their inflatable boat had capsized off the coast of Turkey and the little boy's body washed up on a Mediterranean beach.  A Turkish journalist photographed the little boy, and the picture quickly made its way around the world, creating interest and compassion, at least for a time, for the plight of refugees, especially children.

This book is poignantly illustrated by Dan Williams: the Syrian fields, the bustling old city, the destruction, the despair, the love.  

January 2

The One-in-a-Million Boy (2016)
By Monica Wood

This sounds like a great book to start a new year, recommended by my sister.

10 Things about The One-in-a-Million Boy:

1. It's never too late to make a new friend.
2. Everyone has a story worth hearing.
3. No matter your age, you can achieve goals.
4. We all have something to give.  It may not be our dream, but it helps others.
5. Family is not defined merely by blood or marriage.
6. Commitment is not easy, but it will be satisfying.
7. Although fiction, you know people like the characters herein.
8. This book is well written and even better edited.  There was not a missing word, nor a spare one.
9. Thankfully, Monica Wood has other books to read.
10. Reading a book on Kindle is not that bad (this was my 1st).

An 11-year old is assigned to do yard work for a 104-year-old recluse in order to earn his Boy Scout badges.  He also interviews her for a class project about old people.  He is the first reliable boy to help her and she opens up to his questions about her life, a full century of experience  This quirky boy, a lister who loves world records, is determined to get the old gal into the Guinness book.

One Saturday, his father comes instead, not telling the old lady that his son died suddenly, only that he was there to fulfill his son's obligation.  Thus beings a sweet story about commitment, family, the elderly and grief.  Monica Wood has written a beautiful book with something for all readers.


Thanks to Jean Warneke for this guest review.

January 1, 2019: Happy New Year!

The year 2018 has ended, and a new year begins.  I had resolved to write and upload a new book review for each day of the year.  What did I learn?

1) It's hard to keep up! 😐

By October, I discovered I just did not have enough entries in my reading diary to continue recommending a book every single day.  It's not that I hadn't read well over 365 books; it's just that, for every 4 or 5 books I've read, there might be only one that stands out enough to highlight.

Additionally, following a return from a restful and wonderful vacation in France's Loire Valley in early October, I felt discouraged.  I returned to the US finding the political landscape as divisive and dangerous as ever.  I struggled with even picking up a book and reading.  A friend suggested Wendell Berry.  When I read the first story, which was about forgiveness and redemption, I felt hopeful (see entry for Nov 22) and started writing reviews again - not daily, but every day or two.  I'll continue to do so as I read new books that warrant notice.

2) I need to focus less on the things I can't control, and more on the Lord, who has all things in his control.

As we start 2019, I pray for justice and respect for all in our world.