Book Log 2020 #46: The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman

An English-language daily newspaper in Rome is facing the same existential crisis plaguing print journalism the world over. Dwindling subscriber base, lower ad revenue, and the constant threat of having to close up shop. This novel tells the stories of the people who work for and read the paper, and how their personal and professional choices may impact the future of the publication they're all trying to save.

Rachman has a journalism background, so the details feel realistic. The book is more written like a series of stories than as an integrated novel, not sure if that was to mimic the serial/newspaper style but it may not work for everyone. I liked it overall, though I can't say it made a great impression on me. 

 Book Log 2020 #45: Football for a Buck by Jeff Pearlman

This book looks back at the history of the USFL, the renegade spring football league that sought to challenge the NFL for top talent and fan dollars. Built off of hundreds of interviews with people formerly involved in the league, it gives an entertaining look into what was an often chaotic and amaetur operation. It's not quite as good as Terry Pluto's oral history of the American Basketball Association, Loose Balls, but it does fill in some of the missing stories from The $1 League, which tells the USFL story from more of an executive/ownership perspective.

It's worth reading if you're interested in football history, and may be easier to find than The $1 League, which is out of print.

 Book Log 2020 #44: The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel

Mandel's novels center around people who are, one way or another, lost. In this case, we have a brother and sister who drift northwards and find work at a luxury hotel in British Columbia. Their lives take dramatic and opposite turns after an incident at the hotel, where the sister meets and becomes the partner of a billionaire, while the brother goes off into a less secure direction.

Or does he? As the events of the book unfold we see their fortunes change often (in some cases literally), and in one case tragically. For all the ups and downs, though, I never feel like either sibling is ever actually "found." They just temporarily inhabit states of being more or less lost.

I know that sounds bleak, but this is a really well-crafted and engaging book, depicting just how tenuous our hold on our present life can be. I think the book also says something about resilience, just maybe not the typical lesson that good things come to those who can weather adversity.

 Book Log 2020 #43: The Human Division by John Scalzi

The fifth novel in the Old Man's War series is actually a collection of stories orginally published electronically. They chronicle the aftermath of The Last Colony, with Earth learing everything that the Colonial Union hasn't told them and mulling becoming part of the Convlave, the alliance of planets that has been fighting the CU.  The crisis threatens both Earth and the future of all the colonzied worlds that the CU started.

My only issue with this book is that I keep getting confused between the novel and the various stories. I'll see references to a Human Division "series," think that there are more books coming, and relearn that "series" refers to the stories in this book. At some point I'll actually remember that.

 Book Log 2020 #42: Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch

Peter Grant is a constable with the Metropolitan police in London whose prospects are looking like he'll spend more time in the office than in the field. All of this changes, however, when in the course of an investigation he winds up interviewing a ghost. Turns out Peter has some magical abilities that he was unaware of, which completely changes the arc of his career.

Peter gets assigned to Thomas Nightingale, who is both a police officer (deputy chief inspector) and the last sanctioned wizard in England. Nightingale investigates crimes and other incidents with a magical component, and for the first time in roughly 70 years has an assistant to train and assist with investigations.

On top of his policing duties, and learning how to use magic, Peter also gets involved with a running feud between the gods and goddesses of the waterways in and around London (which is why the original title of this book, which also gives the series its name, is Rivers of London).

I'm not normally into fantasy, but I really enjoyed this book.  The fantastical and criminal elements of the story balanced well, and there's a fair bit of humor to boot. Looking forward to reading on in the series.

 Book Log 2020 #41: The Hermit of Eyton Forest by Ellis Peters

A young student at the Shrewsbury abbey school inherits his father's estate and title, as he has died of wounds suffered in the ongoing civil war. While his lands will be held in trust by the local sherrif until he's of age, the boy's grandmother looks to pull him out of school and marry him to a neighbor's daughter in order to expand their holdings. 

In the middle of this, a hermit and his helper arrive, and the grandmother give them use of a hermitage on the estate. This kicks off a series of events - murder among them, of course - that ties everything together in the usual style of a Brother Cadfael mystery.

Enjoyable as usual, though I am beginning to think about how close I am to the end of the series.

 Book Log 2020 #40: The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell

I had a much harder time getting into this look at the Puritans and how their religious outlook and experiences in the New World shapes the present US than Assassination Vacation, which was a problem given that I didn't feel like I fully connected with that book, either.  On some level it may just be that I don't connect with Vowell's writing style.

But in this case, I think the wordy shipmates can take part of the blame, too. These early Americans wrote at length and with a density of prose that is often mind-numbing. It's not hard to see how that might make a modern review of these writings similarly affected.

I do find myself in a bit of a bind, in that there was a lot I liked about the book - I do think Vowell is funny, and I appreciate how her personal visits to colonial sites provide context and contrast - but I don't know if I can recommend it. The best I can say is maybe read Assassination Vacation or one of her essay collections first and see if you want to continue on to this and other books she's written.

 Book Log 2020 #39: Rocket Men by Robert Kurson

This book tells the forgotten story of Apollo 8, the first mission in that program to reach the moon. The decision to do so was unexpected for NASA, but as the end of the 1960s loomed fears rose that the US would not land a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Or worse, that the Soviets would get there first.

This is very engaging telling of how NASA and the mission astronauts - including well-known figures like Frank Borman and Fred Lovell - accellerated the timeline for this first mission to the moon, giving themselves only four months to prepare. 

As this was the first manned mission to the moon, it was also the first time a live crew could test the procedures that would be used by future crews to make the trip and land on the moon. The book does a great job of detailing the dangers involved without being too sensational.

For anyone who is following our (eventual) return to the moon, this is a great reminder of what it actually takes to get there.

 Book Log 2020 #38: Diary of a Dead Man on Leave by David Downing

In 1938, a man claiming to have just returned from Argentina settles into a German boarding house. Fifty years later, the son of the woman who ran the house finds the man's diary, which reveals that the man had never been to Argentina, but was a Soviet agent sent to Germany in an attempt to revive the Communist party that had been ruthlessly suppressed by the Nazis.

The book unfolds as the man tries to reconnect with the people he knew in the German railroad industry and gague if they are willing to rejoin the struggle or not. We also see the man grow closer to the boarding house owner and her son, providing a personal counterpoint to his secret mission.

I enjoyed Downing's series set in and around Berlin during World War II (each book named for a different train station), and liked this one as well. 

 Book Log 2020 #37: Under Occupation by Alan Furst

This newest entry in the Night Soldiers series sees a noveliist who drifts into the French resistance when a man dying from Gestapo gunshots gives him a blueprint that is apparently worth killing over. The novelist becomes increasingly involved in resistance activities, eventually traveling into Germany to find the people who can best explain the drawing he was given.

As much as I've liked the books in this series, it's time for Furst to shake up the formula a bit, as this book feels like it's covering ground we've already covered. Maybe move out of France (I don't think any of the books in the series are set in the Low Countries), or drop the romantic angle, which doesn't always work well. I'll read whatever comes next, and will hope to be surprised.

 Book Log 2020 #36: SS-GB by Len Deighton

I've read a lot of alternate histories, but somehow never got around to this one from the 1970s. In it, the Germans launch a successful invasion of Great Britain at the start of World War II, prior to the US entry into the war. While there is still a nominal government, the country is run by the Nazis.

The main character is a British police detective who, while working for the Metropolitan Police, answers to a German superior. He is assigned a murder case, but has questions when the condition of the body doesn't quite align with the available evidence. His investigation winds up involving higher ups in the German administration, the British resistance, and weapons research that could change the shape of the war - and the future.

I did like this book quite a bit, and found it to be one of the better entries in the alt-history genre of Germany winning World War II (though I think technically in this book the war may still be on). It's also another data point for my Swastika Theory, where the size of the swastika on the cover is inverse to the quality of the writing. The original cover (and several reprints) have no swastika at all, while it tends to be smaller on most of the covers that do have one.

 Book Log 2020 #33: An Elegant Defense by Matt Richtel

Was it a little on the nose to pick up a book about the human immune system in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic? Maybe.  But it's also understandable that one might want to learn more about this system at the very time it was being so thoroughly bested.

In any case, the book looks at the immune system, and the ways modern medicine is manipulating it to fight and cure disease, through the cases of four people with different illnesses. Richtel writes for the New York Times on a variety of topics, and that experience comes through in how well he's able to explain the complexities of human immunity and immune response so that they're understandable to the layperson.

While I did like the book, immunology is a field that's evolving quickly (probably even moreso with the pandemic), so I wonder how long the book will be accurate. 

 Book Log 2020 #35: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

This book, Alexie's first young adult novel, is semi-autobiographical (Alexie once said it was "78 percent true"), following a Native American teen living on a Spokane reservation who decides to leave the reservation school and attend the all white high school in the nearest town. 

The book examines the expected challenges - the difficult life on the reservation and the challenges that come up when interacting with the non-reservation world - and some that are less expected, such as the physical manifestations of being born with hydroencepaly.  There's a lot of humor in the book, which is needed to balance the difficult depictions of alcoholism and poverty.

I liked the book, but wonder how I would have felt about it if I'd read it as a young adult. I'd like to think I was aware of the challenges faced by Native Americans today, but I'm sure I would have been surprised by at least some of what's depicted. 

Not surprisingly, a book that frankly depicts issues like alcoholism, racism, etc. get challenged quite a bit by people who don't think it's appropriate for young adults. I will say I'd feel comfortable with both of my kids (a teen and a tween) reading this, as I don't think any of the content was included to be sensational or salacious. There's also the matter of multiple allegations of sexual harrassment against Alexie, which sparked a semi-apology and a backlash among literary groups. I learned about these allegations while reading the book, and decided to finish it, but haven't chosen to read anything else by him. You can decide if that makes me a tool of cancel culture or not.

 Book Log 2020 #34: The Things We Cannot Say by Kelly Rimmer

One of the problems with keeping up with the Book Log in the way I have over the last few years - significant negelct leading to posts written years after I actually read the book - is that I don't have the memory to point out specific positive or negative issues. I have general feelings about the books, and do my best to shape those into something worthwhile.

You probably noticed. Assuming anyone is actually still reading this.

In some cases, even the general feelings aren't that strong. Such is the case with this book. When this happens, I do more reading of reviews to spark memory, but it didn't really help. One review I read mentioned how the reviewer thought she'd already read this book based on the title and cover, which do have that generic historical novel feel. 

I may be having a similar experience, as the plot elements I thought were in this book haven't shown up in the synopses or reviews that I've read. It could just be that these elements don't get mentioned as they're not pertinent to an overall review. Or they could be from a different book that also has dual timelines set during World War 2 and the present day.

Anyway, a lot of people seemed to like this book. It's Goodreads rating is just over 4.5, and I gave it a 4, so it must have worked for me on some level. Much of the book is set in Poland (both during the war and in present day), which isn't a common setting for war-related novels, so I may have given it a bonus for that. If you read this, leave a comment and let me know what I missed.

 Book Log 2020 #32: The Second Sleep by Robert Harris

In the year 1468 a young priest arrives at an English village to preside over the funeral of his predecesor and take his place as the village cleric. As he settles into life in the village he suspects that there was more to the other priest's death than meets the eye, and develops similar thoughts about the other villagers and the village itself. 

This is a bit of a departure for Harris, most of whose works are set in the recent past (with the occasional dip into ancient Rome), but he doesn't suffer for it. He also does a great job of taking the reader on the same journey of discovery as the main character.

Recommended, as is pretty much everything else Harris has written.

 Book Log 2020 #31: American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson

An FBI intelligence officer finds herself at loose ends. She's stuck doing paperwork, never getting to join an actual intelligence operation. Being young, Black, and female all count against her with the old, white, and male FBI hierarchy.

Until she gets an offer from the CIA to join the team plotting to overthrow Thomas Sankara, the communist president of Burkina Faso. While she joins the team, she's conflicted in doing so. She's assumes she was asked to join the team based only on being a Black woman, and as someone sympathetic to Sankara's views she's not sure taking him out is the right thing to do. She's also trying to process the death of her sister, and the role her new CIA boss may have had in it.

The book is framed as a letter from the main character to her sons, explaining why their lives have taken particular turns. Doing so requires detours into the 1960s and the 1980s, which help to flesh out the relationship between the main character and her sister and fully detail the plot against Sankara.

There was an actual coup against Sankara, and a Burkinabe court recently found several people guilty of his assassination. As far as I can tell the trial didn't bring up CIA involvement, but given that organization's history of deposing leaders it didn't like, their involvement would not be surprising.

Whether or not the CIA did play a role in the coup, this book paints a realistic, energetic, and highly engaging picture of how they could have. But the strength of the book is in the  main character's personal relationships and actions, which make the story more relatable and memorable.

 Book Log 2020 #30: The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

Rachel Watson commutes to London every day, and in the morning her train slows down right at the point where she can spend a minute looking at her former home, now occupied by her ex-husband and his new wife. She also gets to see a couple who live a few doors down, who are usually eating breakfast on their deck. Rachel creates a bit of a back story for them, names them, and enjoys her daily ritual.

Until the day she sees something while passing that changes everything (as the dust jacket would say). Rachel wants to intervene, but she's hampered by being an alcoholic, to the point that she regularly calls her ex while drunk and then has no memory of doing so. Turns out she may do more than just drunk dial, and she rapidly gets entangled in a missing persons case involving her ex, his wife, and the other couple.

This book was quite a phenomenon, which makes some sense given the plot twists and Rachel's role as a highly unreliable narrator (two other characters also narrate, to certain degrees of reliability). I do agree with some of the reivews that found Rachel's actions to be excessively illogical, but having never been in her mental state it's hard for me to say how legitimate that criticism is. If nothing else it's a reasonably well written mass market psychological thriller that will provide enough distraction to keep you from snooping on people during your commute.

 Book Log 2020 #29: Redwall by Brian Jacques

This is the first in a series of books about the animals of Mossflower Wood, and specifically in this case the mice of Redwall Abbey. One of their novices, Matthias, dreams of adventure and matching the exploits of the legendary Martin the Warrior. And as luck would have it, he gets a chance to live out his dreams when a pack of rats, led by the one-eyed Cluny the Scourge, arrive to attack the abbey.

There is a distinct Lord of the Rings meets Watership Down meets The Wind in the Willows vibe, but the book doesn't suffer by any comparisons. It's an enjoyable tale set in a fully developed world. I was drawn in almost immediately, and fantasy is not a genre I tend towards. The series is aimed at young adults, but is compelling enough to keep adults interested.

One decision you should make before starting this is whether or not you want to read the series in publication order or timeline order. Redwall is actually the ninth(!) book in timeline order. As someone who likes to read series from start to finish, I'm having a hard time deciding how to attack the rest of the books (as evidenced by not having read another book in the series as of the time of this writing). 

 Book Log 2020 #28: Pietr the Latvian by Georges Simenon

This is the first novel featuring Inspector Maigret, a police detective in pre-WW2 Paris, in which he is tasked with bringing in the titular Latvian, a master criminal who is currently on a train due to arrive at the Gare du Nord. Maigret heads to the station with a squad of police in tow. Once there he thinks he sees his man... only to learn that there's been a murder on the train, and the victim also appears to be his man.  It later turns out that there are at least two other people connected to the two potential Pietrs who also fit the description. Maigret has his hands full trying to figure out which one of these men - if any - is the actual Pietr.

This should be the set up for an interesting case, but I found the book pretty dull. Maigret's method of detection is apparently to play a hunch and then futz around with his pipe while waiting to see if the hunch pays off.  Part of me thinks that can't be all there is to him - there are 75 Maigret novels, published in a number of languages and adapted for the big and small screens - but based on this outing I don't feel compelled to find out.

 Book Log 2020 #27: The Office: The Untold Story of the Greatest Sitcom of the 2000s: An Oral History by Andy Greene

(I usually skip subtitles, but felt compelled to include it here for the rare subsubtitle.)

I thought it might be too soon to have an oral history of the US version of The Office, but then I realized that two of the more popular television oral histories of recent years - Live From New York about Saturday Night Live and These Guys Have All the Fun about ESPN - were written while both subjects were ongoing.

So maybe it's the amount of time being covered? Both SNLand ESPN had been around for decades when their histories were written, while The Office ran for seven seasons.

Whatever the reason for my trepidation, I was able to shake it off and enjoy this book. There is something to be said about compiling an oral history while everyone you want to talk to is still around to be talked to. I wouldn't say there were any real suprises in the book, but there's plenty of added detail for fans.