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The Devil in the White City

by Erik Larson, 2003

Heard this book mentioned by Karen, our Old Town Library Book Club leader. True story about the building of the World’s Columbian Exposition, a world’s fair, in Chicago in 1893, and a psychopathic serial killer, H. H. Holmes. The fair is completed against all odds: Architects not completing their designs on time; Extreme cold, snow, wind, rain; Labor unrest; Deaths and illness, etc. The fair opens and is awe-inspiring. It included the first Ferris Wheel, designed by George W. G. Ferris in an attempt to “out-Eiffel” the Eiffel Tower of the Paris World’s Fair. His design was approved, finally, after his third submission of the idea: “…this wheel would carry thirty-six cars, each about the size of a Pullman, each holding sixty people and equipped with its own lunch counter, and how when filled to capacity the wheel would propel 2,160 people at a time three hundred feet into the sky over Jackson Park, a bit higher than the crown of the now six-year-old statue of Liberty.” Miraculously, it was built and it worked and was safe and withstood extremely high winds. The entire fair was built in an amazingly short period of time. The main architect and leader, Daniel Hudson Burnham, should be given most of the credit. He was the one who led the charge and coordinated all of the thousands of details to pull off the building of this amazing world’s fair. The story of how he accomplished this is expertly told by Erik Larson.

At the same time, an extremely evil man, Herman Webster Mudgett, begins his grisly murders. He charms young women into trusting him, falling in love with him, and then they disappear. He is a doctor by training and goes by the name of H. H. Holmes. He builds an ugly hotel near the World’s Fair, full of gas pipes, a vault, and strange rooms. He only allows single women to stay there. Many disappear without a trace. No investigations are ever conducted. He lies convincingly about everything. He never paid the workers who built the hotel. He just fired them and hired new ones, so no one ever got the full drift of what he was doing. It isn’t until Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance Company investigates the suspicious death of a policy holder, along with the talented detective-work of Frank Geyer, that this monster is finally brought to justice and executed in May of 1896. They don’t know how many people he murdered; it could number in the hundreds. When they investigated the cellar of the hotel in Chicago, they found:

…a vat of acid with eight ribs and part of a skull settled at the bottom; mounds of quicklime; a large kiln; a dissection table stained with what seemed to be blood. They found surgical tools and charred high-heeled shoes.

And more bones:

Eighteen ribs from the torso of a child.

Several vertebrae.

A bone from a foot.

One shoulder blade.

One hip socket.

Articles of clothing emerged from walls and from pits of ash and quicklime, including a girl’s dress and bloodstained overalls. Human hair clotted a stovepipe. The searchers unearthed two buried vaults full of quicklime and human remains.

When he is hung and then buried, they filled his coffin with cement and then inserted his coffin in a double grave filled with cement. His disorder is called antisocial personality disorder.

Very interesting book about urban life in the late 1800s. Loved the details about the building of the fair. Loved the architects and their personal stories. The murderer’s story was shocking; that someone so evil could exist and could get away with murder for so long.

Long Bright River

by Liz Moore, 2020

Page-turner! So readable! Enthralling characters: 2 sisters; one a cop with a 4-year old son, the other a heroin addict. Set in Philadelphia. The sisters’ mother was a heroin addict, too, and died of an overdose. The mystery: Who is murdering young heroin addicts? Micky (the cop sister) hasn’t seen Kacey (the heroin addict) in a month and is deathly afraid she is a victim of murder.

There are four male cops that add to the mystery. One is a former boyfriend and the father of Micky’s 4-year old son (by her sister, Kacey!) One is Micky’s former partner, Truman, who seems like a truly good guy, but is he? (Yes, it turns out, he is, thank God!) One is a sergeant and you just don’t know if he’s good or bad. The last one, and the one who ends up the murderer, is a rookie cop who was Micky’s partner for a very short time.

The characters, the setting, the mystery, the writing – all very good. Not too dark as it could have been. Ends very hopeful, too. Also provides what I hope is true info about babies born addicted–that they are not permanently damaged, but they have a rough start, for sure.

I like the way she writes dialogue: there are no quotation marks:

–All right, Truman, I say. All right, you’re smarter than I am. I get it.

Then Truman turns serious.

–Have you reported her missing yet? says Truman.

–No, I say.

–Why not?

from page 128

The Warmth of Other Suns

by Isabel Wilkerson, 2010

Fantastic book! Heard about it from Karen, the leader of the Old Town Library Book Club, during our discussion of American Prison. It’s long (550 pages) but gripping and eye-opening. We learn about ‘America’s great migration’ through the true stories of 3 black people who left (really, escaped) the South (Ida Mae from Mississipi in the 1930s, George from Florida in the 1940s, and Robert from Louisiana in the 1950s) and made it to Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles respectively. Their reasons for leaving the South were mainly to get away from the oppressive Jim Crow laws and the threat of death, brutality, oppression everywhere they turned. She describes the injustices they went through and it paints a despicable picture of the American South. From 1870 to 1970 they re-enslaved the African-American and the violence and evil they perpetrated against them is deplorable. God have mercy on us and forgive us.

Unfortunately, what they found after they managed to get out of the South was not much better – although they could sit anywhere and there were no blatant segregation laws, they were kept at the very bottom by discrimination in employment, housing, education, etc. It wasn’t until President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964 that things slowly began to change. We’re still needing to change, though, as seen lately by what happened to George Floyd. What a terrible thing we’ve wrought with our evilness.

This book is so well-written, it reads like a novel, as she takes you along with Ida Mae, George, and Bob and tells their life stories. Loved this book!

(more…) “The Warmth of Other Suns”

Golf’s Sacred Journey

Seven Days at the Links of Utopia

by David L. Cook, PhD, 2006

Adam recommended the movie, “Links of Utopia,” as being very, very good. I ordered it via Prospector at the Library but didn’t pick it up before they closed for Covid-19. Then, when they reopened the Library, again I didn’t pick it up in time and they returned it to the other library from which it came – no more “Prospector” items due to the virus. So, I got the book instead and read it. It is set in the Hill Country of Texas and is based on a real place called Utopia where there is a little golf course. A down and out young golfer ends up there and encounters Johnny, the owner of the golf course. Johnny says he can change his life in 7 days. He does. The young man goes from being depressed, anxious, miserable, overwrought, stressed to calm, peaceful, giving, loving, powerful. All through coming to Christ and realizing how much he is loved – he has the security and significance he needs and is freed to live in the peace and strength that comes from knowing that.

I would really like to see the movie. The way he described the town of Utopia, the Hill Country of Texas, and “the cypress-lined Sabinal River” sound beautiful. Maybe someday Wayne and I can take a road trip there.

(more…) “Golf’s Sacred Journey”

Becoming

by Michelle Obama, 2018

Wonderful book by and about Michelle Obama, her growing up years in the South Side of Chicago, her college years at Princeton and Harvard Law School, her meeting and falling in love with Barack Obama when he was a summer intern at the law firm where she worked, her marriage to him in October of 1992, their difficulty conceiving and finally having 2 precious girls via IVF (Malia in 1998 and Sasha in 2001), Barack’s desire to run for Illinois State Senate, then U.S. Senate, then President – she never wanted him to have a life in politics but he wanted to change the world and did; then their 8 years in the White House, and lastly, the traumatic and painful 2016 election and turning over the White House to Donald Trump. A very personal and intimate journey into the life of an extraordinary woman. Thank you, Michelle Obama, for writing this book.

(more…) “Becoming”

The Story of More

by Hope Jahren, 2020

Book about climate change by the author of Lab Girl. Excellent! No BS, just the facts, but she’s funny and honest, and ‘hope’-ful. Love this scientist-author. She’s a gift. Her thesis is that the developed countries use more than they need of everything, resulting in carbon dioxide output that is causing most of the problem. If we’d stop using so much of everything, and wasting so much of it, we’d find our world in a lot better shape, and we’d be happier, too.

(more…) “The Story of More”

Nine Coaches Waiting

by Mary Stewart, 1958

Wonderful book! Suspense, mystery, interesting characters and setting. Loved it! Set in the forest of France near Geneva, Switzerland, and involving a very wealthy family, the Valmy’s, and their beautiful chateau. A young English girl comes to live there and be the governess of 9 year-old Philippe, the rightful heir to the estate. But soon after her arrival, accidents start to happen that threaten the life of Philippe: a shot in the woods that barely misses him, a loose post on the balcony where he could have fallen to his death. She ends up rescuing Philippe. They escape in the middle of the night and flee through the forest, a mountain hut, a cave, a secluded meadow, and finally the boathouse of a villa in the town of Thonon. All turns out right in the end: The bad guy (Philippe’s crippled uncle Leon who wanted Chateau Valmy for his own) shoots himself; Linda (the governess) gets to marry Raoul, with whom she has fallen head over heels in love; and Raoul ends up being a good guy, not a bad guy. Fun, fun book full of descriptions of beautiful countryside, charming villages, beautiful gardens and villas and chateaus, and sumptuous food and interiors, along with a very suspenseful story. A great escape! Thank you, Mary Stewart!

American Prison

by Shane Bauer, 2018

This was one of the books for our Old Town Library Book Club. We are going to discuss it tonight via Zoom. Shane Bauer is a reporter for Mother Jones and goes undercover as a guard in a for-profit prison in Louisiana for 4 months in 2014. The company that runs the prison, Correction Corporation of America (CCA) is in the prison business to make money so they only pay their guards $9 an hour to start – this was in 2014. There were some guards that had been there for decades and still only made $9 an hour. They were also always short-staffed so any rehabilitation programs, medical programs, counseling programs were cut completely or virtually non-existent.

I did not like reading this book – this prison was a very dark place. It is filled with drugs, sex, anger, violence, racism, injustice. He recounts many of the conversations word-for-word because he hid a recording device and a camera on himself each day. So, every other chapter is a blow-by-blow of conversations and activities in the prison between himself and inmates, guards, etc. and they make for disgusting reading, especially the sexually threatening conversations.

Every other chapter goes into the history of prisons and they have always been horrible places in America – mainly a way to keep slavery going and get free, mainly black labor, to pick cotton, farm, build roads and railroads. The working conditions were even worse than slavery, if that is possible. Many black men were arrested on trumped up charges just to get them into prison and put them to work. Another example among so many of the horrible injustices brought on by racism and greed in this country.

I hope no one I love is ever in prison. I hope no one I love ever has to work in a prison. My sister worked in our local jail. I now see how awful that must have been. They are the dark, violent places where the ugly side of humanity is front and center.

I believe he wrote this book to close down the for-profit prisons but when Trump was elected, Trump gave them new life. I am not sure what the answer is. I don’t know if public prisons are any better. But I think there must be more done to educate and rehabilitate inmates, giving them job skills and hope for a better life. One of the most depressing parts of this book is about one of the inmates, “Corner Store,” who is released after 20 years. After a year out, he is arrested and sent back to prison for sexually propositioning a 10-year old girl. Just depressing and hopeless. Larry and Dan brought Community Bible Study into the Sterling Prison, or they did until COVID-19. They talked with us once and they shared only good things. They shared how a few of the prisoners started a church and lead the Bible studies and inmates learn how to control their anger. They did share how hard it was for inmates to find quiet time in which to do their lessons. I wonder what Larry and Dan would say after reading this book.

The Tracker

by Tom Brown, Jr. as told to William Jon Watkins, 1978

Adam’s book about Tom Brown, Jr. and how he became the tracker he is. He grew up near the Pine Barrens in New Jersey. He was taught how to track by his best friend’s grandfather, Stalking Wolf. From the age of 6 to 18, he and Rick learn just about everything there is to learn about survival, camping, and stalking and tracking.

Some of the things that stand out:

(more…) “The Tracker”

The Glass Palace

by Amitav Ghosh, 2000

Historical fiction about Burma and India in the late 1800s through mid-1900s. Learn about the royal family of Burma and their ousting by the British, learn about teak harvesting in Burma and rubber plantations in Malaysia. Learn about colonialism through the eyes of those colonized (Indians). Also learn that many Indians left India and its caste system and found much wealth and success in other countries such as Burma where they were free to be whatever their talent, ambition and hard work allowed. I liked this book. I liked how he described Burma pre-British. It sounded so beautiful. The Burmese royal family was sent into exile to Ratnagiri, India, and I like how he described that, too. I guess it has changed, though, because one of the characters in the book travels there later in the 1900s and it is no longer quite so beautiful.

(more…) “The Glass Palace”

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid

by Bill Bryson, 2006

What a hilarious book. I laughed out loud on almost every page. He was born in 1951 in Des Moines, Iowa, and this is a story about growing up there in the 1950s. I LOVED his description of his mom, her horrible cooking, her forgetfulness and spaciness. His dad was the best sports writer in the country, although because he refused to move the family to the east or west coasts, he never became famous. I loved his descriptions of his favorite restaurants, the grand movie theaters, the department stores, candy stores, toys, and his friends. He does not shy away from the ugliness of the 1950s and 1960s, however, and two of the chapters are serious and heartbreaking: Chapter 7, Boom!, in which he details the horrific things we did testing nuclear bombs, especially in the Marshall Islands on March 1, 1954, on the Bikini Atoll, “(a place so delightful that we named a lady’s swimsuit after it).” And our fear of communism and the ugliness that created. He ends that with the story of Guatemala in 1950. They’d finally elected a good man, Jacobo Arbenz, who was going to help the people but United Fruit, an American company who owned most of the farmland in Guatemala, got the American government to underwrite a coup and forced him to flee in 1954. Then the CIA gave the new dictator a list of 70,000 “teachers, doctors, government employees, union organizers, priests–who had supported the reforms in the belief that democracy in Guatemala was a good thing. Thousands of them were never seen again.” So heartbreaking the things we have done throughout history – the injustice, the greed, the pure evil we have done. This chapter was not very funny. You can tell he was and still is angry and disgusted over it.

Another chapter that wasn’t too funny was Chapter 13, The Pubic Years, in which he describes the racism of the 1950s and 1960s. He talks about incidents in Mississippi where white people killed black men for voting and for trying to go to college. And he tells the horrible story of what happened to Emmett Till, a 14 year old black child who was brutally beaten, shot, and dumped in the Tallahatchie River for whistling at a white woman. The men who did this were found not guilty by an all white jury. “The next year, knowing that they could never be retried, the two accused men happily admitted in an interview in Look magazine that they had indeed beaten and killed young Till.” I have so much respect for Mr. Bryson for including this darkness in this otherwise lighthearted and funny, funny book. He touches on the rise of greed, consumerism, and the destruction of the environment and beautiful old buildings. He does not shy away from the ugliness of the 1950s and 1960s. This book is a masterpiece. Thank you, Bill Bryson, for writing it. Thank you for all the laughs but also for not covering up or glossing over the ugliness. You are a genius!

The Yellow House

by Sarah M. Broom, 2019

Interesting and well-written memoir about growing up in New Orleans East, the youngest of 12 siblings. The home she grows up in, which she calls the Yellow House, was damaged by Hurricane Katrina and then demolished. She has had such an interesting life, growing up the youngest of 12. Her precious mother, Ivory Mae, is a rock. I loved her relationships with two of her brothers, Carl and Michael. She’s a genius, too. Her Mom saved her from a dead-end life when in high school, she went from being an honor student to a loser, her Mom pulled her out of that school and sent her to a private school that cost a lot of money but helped her become the talented young lady she is. She travels from New Orleans to New York City where she writes for Oprah. Hurricane Katrina happens while she is living in New York City. The destruction of her city, displacement of her family, and damage to her childhood home unmoors her. She moves to Burundi, an African country, to help fund-raise and write proposals “to support new radio programming that would advance human rights in Burundi.” After that, she moves back to New Orleans and works for Mayor Ray Nagin, writing speeches that he almost never uses. She only lasts 6 months. When she returns again to New Orleans, it is to live in a quaint apartment in the French Quarter and begin writing this book. I love her writing style, her mother, her brothers, her love of New Orleans, and her wanting to tell this story of the other side of New Orleans, of the people we never really get to see except in a disparaging light; to give these people a face and a name and help us to be more loving and understanding of the down-trodden in New Orleans.

(more…) “The Yellow House”

How to Do Nothing

by Jenny Odell, 2019

Too many big words and thoughts! This young lady is just too smart! She doesn’t appear to believe in God so all of her deep philosophizing is for naught because, “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.” Psalm 127:1

Without reading the book, Wayne predicted what it would be about, and it really would have made a lot more sense with this framework:

Thoughtful Resistance

-Saying “NO” to anger, fear, mindless drivel, and unreasoned consumption

-Saying “YES” to Philippians 4:8, “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.“

She’s writing about how to resist the “attention economy,” which is how social media giants like Facebook and Twitter have commandeered our attention and we’re missing the real world while we constantly check our phones for the latest media frenzy. As I write this, the latest media frenzy is the corona virus; we’ve moved on from politics (Trump and the Democrats and Super Tuesday). She loves birds and bird-watching and she recommends getting outside in parks and natural areas. Bird-watching does slow you down and you start to notice things you have never noticed before and the world does become much more interesting and beautiful. I like the stories she tells in between the philosophizing; describing art and artists, birds and bird-watching, parks and natural areas, and the history of communes (that all failed to find Utopia and instead became a living hell for their members).

Here are some examples of sentences that make no sense to me:

“In a time when meaningful action will require us to form new alliances and recognize differences at the same time, bioregionalism is also useful as a model of difference without boundary, a way of understanding place and identity that avoids essentialism and reification.”

And here’s another one:

“Basically, the space of appearance is an encounter small and concentrated enough that the plurality of its actors is un-collapsed.”

See what I mean?

There are some parts of the book that are understandable. Here is an example:

(more…) “How to Do Nothing”

The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America

Matt Kracht, 2019

This was supposed to be one of the funniest books of 2019, but it’s mainly an unfunny, potty-mouthed berating of birds. He likes to use the f-word, butt, dumb, gd, etc. I didn’t read it for that reason, just scanned a few. Here’s what he says about the wonderful chickadee that is starting to do it’s beautiful song and fills me with the hope of spring after this really, really long winter:

(more…) “The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America”

Cost

by Roxana Robinson, 2008

One of the most powerful books I’ve ever read. Excellent but harrowing. So painful and scary. If anyone is thinking about taking heroin, read this first. Through the character of 22 year-old Jack, you learn what it is like to be an addict. The dark, awful, soul-consuming world of a heroin addict – the cravings, the utter squalor of a life taken over by this drug, the horrible withdrawal symptoms that make it impossible to quit, how easily one becomes addicted. The story is about what a family goes through when one of its members is addicted to heroin. All of the characters are well drawn out and so real. Jack and Steven are brothers and Steven finds out Jack is addicted to heroin, tells his mother, Julia, who tells her ex-husband Wendell, and they put in motion the steps a family takes to try to end the addiction. From page one, you are living the nightmare with this precious family. The horrible things an addicted son can do and put you through: Just finding him in his dark, derelict, smelly apartment; discovering the lies he has told you time and again in order to get money; the withdrawal symptoms he goes through when he hasn’t had the drug for just a few hours; the harrowing, extreme steps he takes to try and get the drug (a boat ride and they run out of gas, have no oars, no light, no life-jackets, it’s dark and stormy and Jack is puking his guts and in agony and all he can think about is getting some heroin somehow, someway; Jack ripping out the IV in the hospital, stealing someone’s boots, walking out of the hospital in pain and agony, stealing a car, breaking into a drug store, going to jail; going through an intervention with his family and a drug counselor). Nothing works, Jack is kicked out of rehab for using, runs away from halfway houses, Julia and Wendell try to find Jack in his old Brooklyn neighborhood. The scene is so dark and hopeless – Jack sees them in their car in front of his dealer’s apartment. He needs heroin so bad and he is hiding from them, it’s cold and all he has on is a windbreaker because he sold his warm coat. He hates them and waits and waits for them to leave. Here is the scene:

(more…) “Cost”

Dopesick

Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America

by Beth Macy, 2018

Painful, scary book about the opioid epidemic, which started with the release of Oxycontin by Purdue Pharma in the mid 1990s. This was a drug so powerful and so over-prescribed by doctors in the Appalachian areas, that many were addicted and when Purdue Pharma finally, finally made it abuse resistant, the addicted turned to heroin, which was cheaper and more powerful. The damage was done and we’re still paying for it as families go through the living nightmare of caring for a heroin addict. She tells the history of opioids, Oxycontin, heroin, and tells real-life stories of doctors, policeman, dealers, and addicts. America, we have yet another nearly unsolvable problem created by our greed and inherent dissatisfaction. There is not an easy answer to the problem of addiction; we don’t even know what really works for opioid addiction. Scary, scary, scary.

(more…) “Dopesick”

Before We Were Yours

by Lisa Wingate, 2017

This book was the February selection for our Old Town Library Book Club. It’s historical fiction about the Tennessee Children’s Home Society, a real organization, and children stolen and taken to an orphanage in Memphis. The truth is that many children were stolen or taken away from their parents under duress and false pretenses and kept in abusive children’s homes until they were adopted at exorbitant costs or died from abuse or neglect. Georgia Tann, the real-life leader of homes in Memphis, got away with this type of abuse for decades (1920s-1950). This horrible chapter of our history is brought to life through the story of Rill, the oldest of 5 children kidnapped off of their shanty-boat by corrupt police after their mom and dad have to go to a hospital to save the mom’s life while trying to birth twins. I liked her descriptions of the South, the river, the shanty-boat, Edisto Island, the cottage in Georgia. She’s a good writer, but the love story between modern day Avery and Trent was formulaic. The harrowing events in the orphanage were painful. Praying for all the young children in this dark world who are stolen away from their parents and abused. O God, be with them, guard and protect them, be their light in this awful, evil, dark world. Thankful to people who work to save them.

Waste

by Kate O’Neill, 2019

Interesting, short (189 pages), academic book on garbage, particularly e-waste, food waste, and plastic. Main take-away is we are producing more and more waste and it will take all of us to manage it. For e-waste, that means changing the way things are produced so that they can be repaired (Right to Repair movement) as well as making them safe to recycle in order to reclaim their useful parts. For food waste, that means changing expiration dates to be uniform and meaningful, for one thing. For plastics, that means developing alternatives to single use plastic and government involvement in many things but for example, waste to energy (burning) and recycling. China stopped taking the world’s plastic, paper, and other scrap in August 2018 causing an immediate shock to the whole world. We’ve still not overcome it.

(more…) “Waste”

Lab Girl

by Hope Jahren, 2016

I loved this book! I love its author, Hope Jahren! It’s a memoir about how she became a scientist with her very own lab, and her deep, deep friendship with a guy named Bill, who has been with her since the beginning of her journey. It’s laugh-out-loud funny, informative, uplifting and endearing. Loved this book from start to finish! She and Bill can spend hours upon hours doing meticulous research in the most painstaking detail. One time, they spend a whole day collecting teeny tiny moss samples in Ireland in test tubes, recording all the exact details, double-checking everything, only to have the whole thing trashed at the airport because they didn’t have a permit. But they love the process and they are such a team. You think they should be married, but they are not. They are the deepest of friends, two halves to a whole, but never live together, never marry. She is an original and her story is so, so good–thank you for sharing it, Hope!

(more…) “Lab Girl”

The Overstory

by Richard Powers, 2018

I cannot believe this book won the Pulitzer Prize! I got so tired of it half-way through and am so glad I finally finished it and can return it to the library. It was 502 pages of new-age gobbledygook about trees and 5 humans that try to save them. I don’t disagree-trees are wonderful! But by the time I finished his book, I was really tired of them. I did not like any his characters and the story got so convoluted at the end that I am not sure what happened. Glad this one’s over.

(more…) “The Overstory”