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The Unwinding of the Miracle

by Julie Yip-Williams, 2019

Brutally honest book written by young wife and mother, Julie Yip-Williams, who was born blind in Vietnam, almost euthanized at the age of 2 months, escaped Vietnam with her family on a boat at age 3 or 4, ends up a Harvard-educated lawyer, world-traveler, married with 2 daughters, and diagnosed with Stage IV Colon Cancer at age 37. She decided to write her story mostly for her two young daughters so they could know her and remember her after she is gone. She fought the cancer for 5 years, trying just about everything, but she died in March of 2018. Her husband, Josh Williams, wrote the Epilogue.

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The Emerald Mile

by Kevin Fedarko, 2013

Excellent, fast-paced, non-fiction book about running the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, especially focused on the 1983 run by a wooden dory named The Emerald Mile, which broke the speed record, manned by three men: Kenton Grua, Steve Reynolds, and Rudi Petschek. They ran the river when it was at almost its highest stage ever due to massive run-off from the mountains of the West during 1983, so massive the Glen Canyon Dam was almost overflowing and they had to add special plywood boards to the top and release water through the spillways with such force that they were damaged and needed millions of dollars and months of repairs after the run-off finally ended.

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Lights Out

by Ted Koppel (Edward J. Koppel), 2015

A well-written and easy-to-read warning about our vulnerability and lack of preparedness for a cyber-attack on our electrical grid. My three main take-aways are 1. The Mormons are the pros in disaster-preparedness; 2. The Red Cross is more concerned with appearances and fund-raising and uses disasters to further both; and 3. There are mini nuclear reactors that don’t require much lead time or regulation and could power whole military bases, so why not small towns, or parts of big cities. Some passages from the book:

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The Leavers

by Lisa Ko, 2017

Good book about Chinese mother (Polly Guo) and son (Deming Guo) separated when Deming was 11 years old. He thinks his Mama abandoned him. He is adopted by a white couple in upstate New York but never feels comfortable there and his heart aches for his Mama. Finally, at the age of 20, he finds out what happened to her and begins the road back to himself.

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Paul Simon, the life

by Robert Hilburn, 2018

Scanned this book quickly after getting through the first 100 pages but then getting bogged down. Learned enough: Born in 1941, grandparents immigrated from Lithuania and Ukraine, long before the Holocaust, which would have killed them since they were Jewish. His father was a musician, stand-up bass. He was born in New Jersey but moved to Queens as a toddler. He loved baseball and was good at it but was so short, he had to give it up (I think he topped out at 5 feet 1 inch). The first hit he wrote was “Hey, Schoolgirl.” He sang it with his friend Artie (Art Garfunkel) at age 16 in 1956 and it was on American Bandstand in 1957.

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Milkman

by Anna Burns, 2018

Fantastic book! So original! Never read anything like this! LOVED it! Learned what Ireland in the 1970s was like – brought home the problems. Written from the perspective of an 18 year old Irish girl, Middle Sister. We never learn her first name. She has a wonderful relationship with maybe-boyfriend but everything goes sour when Milkman begins to stalk her. He’s a renouncer, a paramilitary activist, and he has his sights set on her. It ruins her life for 2 months. The community believes she is in love with him and has become a groupie. Rumors fly and she is afraid of him popping up so she stops seeing maybe-boyfriend, she stops reading-while-walking, she stops jogging, even with her third brother-in-law.

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Washington Black

by Esi Edugyan, 2018

Fascinating book about a little boy, George Washington Black (Wash), who is a slave on the Faith Plantation in Barbados. He works alongside a big black woman, Big Kit. She takes care of him and he gets to sleep with her at night and work alongside her during the day. One day, Big Kit and Wash are asked to serve at the master’s table. From that day forward, Wash becomes the evil master’s brother’s assistant in order to help him fly his Cloud-cutter. The master is evil but his brother is not but Wash does not know it.

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The Joy of Less

A Minimalist Guide to Declutter, Organize, and Simplify

by Francine Jay, Miss Minimalist, 2010

Easy, fast read about getting rid of S***, and living a more meaningful life. This was 4 years before Marie Kondo’s, ‘Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.’ Francine advises a room-by-room de-cluttering effort rather than Marie Kondo’s de-clutter by type effort, but both advocate removing everything from a room (Francine) or gathering everything of one type in one place (Marie) and then sorting into Trash, Treasure, or Transfer (Francine Jay); or keeping if it sparks joy, getting rid of it if it doesn’t (Marie Kondo).

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The Library Book

by Susan Orlean, 2018

What a fantastic writer Susan Orlean is! I haven’t read a book that flows this beautifully since Herman Wouk’s, The Caine Mutiny. She details the Los Angeles Public Library fire that happened on April 28, 1986. One of the first things she tells us is why we’ve never heard of this horrible fire that damaged or destroyed a million books and closed the library for 7 years–it’s because the Chernobyl nuclear disaster happened on the same day. Her writing style makes this a page-turner. She builds suspense gradually interspersing it with beautifully written information regarding her childhood, books, libraries, librarians, architecture, homelessness, technology, Los Angeles history, and on and on. Who would have thought a book about libraries could be so interesting and readable! Don’t stop writing, Susan Orlean!

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Driving Miss Norma

by Tim Bauerschmidt and Ramie Liddle, 2017

When Tim’s mother, aged 90, is diagnosed with uterine cancer, rather than undergo months of chemo, radiation, etc., they invite her to go on the road with them (Tim, his wife, Ramie, and their standard poodle, Ringo). She says to the doctor, “I’m ninety years old. I’m hitting the road.” What follows is the wonderful tale of the next 10 months of Norma’s life on the road with Tim, Ramie, and Ringo.

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Small Fry

A Memoir, by Lisa Brennan-Jobs, 2018

Memoir by the first-born daughter of Steve Jobs. He never married her mother. and he denied he was Lisa’s father even after a DNA test proved she was. What a mean, stingy man. How painful her childhood was, trying to earn her father’s love. He would not give her and her mother any kind of love and support and they lived so poorly while he was rich beyond belief. He would finally help them a little but only after forced to and when it was too late and the damage was done. He ate no dairy and nothing but carrots and orange juice and olive oil for most of his adult life, but he got cancer. He apologized to Lisa on his death bed, but still never told her he loved her. Lisa is an excellent writer – very engrossing read and takes you inside the lives of the rich and famous in Palo Alto. Sad lives.

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Gulp.

by Mary Roach, 2013

Funny book about all the sensationalist science on the alimentary canal, starting with taste (it’s almost all about our nose) down through all the digestive processes. She reports on a wine-tasting comparing six bottles hidden in brown paper bags. “‘At least one is under $10 and two are over $50…Over the past eighteen years, every time, the least expensive wine averages the highest ranking, and the most expensive two finish at the bottom.'”

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Pachinko

By Min Jin Lee, 2017

Ugh, glad this one’s over. It started out good, but about half-way through, it became trash, full of all kinds of sex for no good reason, and pointless interactions, except to reinforce how racist the Japanese were (are?) towards the Koreans. This was our 3rd title for the Old Town Library Book Club. Historical fiction from 1910s to 1980s about a Korean family who start out in Korea but move to Japan and generation after generation face the destructive prejudice of the Japanese, but they are stuck. They survive and become quite wealthy because of Pachinko – a vertical pinball machine that is played in parlors.

Transcription

by Kate Atkinson, 2018

Finished 12/26/18

Kept waiting to get into this book all the way through to the end. I was so excited about it because it is by the author of Life After Life and Started Early, Took My Dog. Story is about spies in WWII England. Juliet Armstrong is the main character. She transcribes the conversations of an undercover MI5 spy posing as a Nazi sympathizer. The story switches from the 1940s to the 1950s  when she is working for the BBC and also provides a safe house for an escaping communist scientist. She is being followed and threatened by someone and she tries to figure out who, but I never really understood who, what, where, when, and how. Disappointing book.

Shade, A Tale of Two Presidents

Shade, A Tale of Two Presidents, by Pete Souza, 2018

Scanned 12/9/18

Pete Souza was the White House photographer for Obama and Reagan. He contrasts his photos of Obama with tweets of Donald Trump and “throws shade” at Trump, which means “a subtle, sneering expression of contempt for or disgust with someone–sometimes verbal, and sometimes not.”

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The Wayfarer’s Handbook

A Field Guide for the Independent Traveler, by Evan S. Rice, 2017, scanned 12/8/18

Very interesting, packed little book full of all kinds of fun facts for travelers:

  • The difference between a hobo (traveling worker), a tramp (works only when they have to), and a bum (refuses all work)
  • Don’t worry so much
  • Don’t pack so much
  • Tipping
  • How to say no firmly but politely
  • The seven wonders of the world
  • Sunscreen
  • Water
  • What countries haven’t gone metric: US, Liberia, Myanmar
  • Cartography-I think the Robinson is the best
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Bridge of Clay

by Markus Zusak, 2018, finished 12/7/18

Good novel, set in Australia, about 5 brothers wracked by grief when their beloved mother, Penelope (Penny), dies of cancer, and their father (Michael) abandons them. Clay, the fourth of 5 boys, leaves home to help their father build a bridge, and ends up building a bridge for all of the boys back to their father.

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