Book Log 2022 #63: Code Talker by Joseph Bruchac

This book tells the story of a Navajo teen, Ned Begay, who serves in World War II as a code talker, who used their indigenous language as a basis for communication (either through a code developed from the language, or in the language itself). The book covers his training and eventually deployment, depicting his wartime experience as well as the difficulties a young Navajo would have in a largely white military.

I didn't particularly care for this while I was reading it, but I did not know that the book is aimed at a YA audience, so I'm pretty sure my expectations were off.

 Book Log 2022 #62: La Place de la Concorde Suisse by John McPhee

Included here for completeness, as I originally logged this in 2015. I've probably read this three or four times, and always find it fascinating.

 Book Log 2022 #61: Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi

After her generation-spanning debut Homegoing, Gyasi focuses in on the current immigrant experience in this follow-up. Gifty is the daughter of Ghanian immigrants, a PhD student at Stanford driven to neuroscience by a family tragedy. That tragedy puts further strain on a difficult relationship between Gifty and her mother, who suffers from depression and has attempted suicide.

Not that it was easier during Gifty's childhood in Alabama. Her mother worked long hours for low pay, having to pick up the slack after Gifty's father moves back to Ghana. Her brother, once seen as the gifted child, slides into a troubled adolescence as Gifty becomes a standout student. That gets her out of Alabama and to Stanford, but doesn't remove a feeling that she doesn't fit in.

As different as this book is from Homegoing, it's equally moving in its depiction of the difficulties of family, immigration (forced or otherwise), and personal trauma.

 Book Log 2022 #60: Taste: My Life Through Food by Stanley Tucci

Tucci's career has a theme of food running through it - from the film Big Night to writing two cookbooks to his CNN show Searching for Italy - so a food-themed memoir wasn't a huge surprise. I should also should not have been as surprised as I was at how much I liked the book. Tucci clearly has a knack for storytelling and a passion for telling stories involving food.

It helped that I didn't know that much about Tucci's personal history, so there was additional emotional impact from learning about things for the first time.  And while I haven't tried any of them, there are also recipes for many of the dishes mentioned (not all Italian - there's a recipe for his English wife's roasted potatoes). So not only is the book a feast for the reader, but it can be an actual feast if you're culinarily inclined. 

 Book Log 2022 #59: St. Mark's is Dead by Ada Calhoun

St. Mark's Place is a stretch of 8th Street in New York City's East Village, and has long been home to people on the fringe. This book goes all the way back - the first section lists a timeline of 10,000 BC to 1904 - to look at who lived there and how the neighborhood's continued changes over time belied the common refrain that the change meant that St. Mark's was dead.

Calhoun grew up in the neighborhood in the 1970s, and the people and places of her time on St. Mark's makes up the bulk of the book. She has clear affection for the neighborhood, warts and all, and does an excellent job of describing the vibrancy created by the cast of characters who lived, worked, and played there.  I'm not usually that interested in New York stories (having spent my entire life in the shadow of Boston), but I was drawn in from the start. It's a highly colorful and entertaining history and social commentary, which laments what's been lost but celebrates how the street rolled with the changes.

I picked up the book for a reading challenge (a book with your name in the title), and wasn't expecting to like it as much as I did.

 Book Log 2022 #58: A Song for the Dark Times by Ian Rankin

When his daughter Samantha calls to say that her husband has been missing for a couple of days, John Rebus sets out for their remote village so he can do what he does best: be a pain in the ass until he can figure out who done it. Which is exactly what he does, while tying in the history of a local World War 2 internment camp and a newly-founded commune whose leader caused a bit of a row between Sammy and her husband.

Back in Edinburgh, Siobhan Clarke and Malcolm Fox investigate the murder of a Saudi student, who traveled in a group of rich young jet-setters. Their taste for high-end clubbing and property development pulls in a disgraced politician and old friend "Big Ger" Cafferty. As so often happens, the two cases are connected, though (spoiler alert) not as closely as in past novels.

I did like this book, and appreciated the different way in which he was brought into an investigation (he couldn't dig into cold cases forever). The ending of the book suggests a significant change for at least one of the characters mentioned above - though we won't know what it is (or even if it is) until the next book.

 Book Log 2022 #57: 1989 by Val McDirmid

Allie Burns, the protagonist of 1979, is still working in journalism, no longer as an investigative reporter  but as an editor for a thinly-veiled version of Robert Maxwell. Still, her instincts for a story lead her to look into why so many AIDS patients from Scotland are winding up in Manchester (where she now lives with her partner), a question that ultimately leads her to Berlin, where she's also doing some digging around for her boss, who has a sense of the coming post-Soviet era and wants to get in on the ground floor. And along the way she also covers the Hillsborough stadium collapse, providing an eyewitness account of the chaos surrounding that disaster.

Reviews for the book were mixed, mostly complaining about the pacing and lack of tension compared to the first book. I don't recall it being that slow. It could be that the book tries to cover too much ground, though it would be hard to write a book set in 1989 and not talk about the AIDS epidemic or Hillsborough. Maybe trying to shoehorn the Maxwell story into this was one story too many?

I like the book fine, and am interested in continuing on (it's apparently planned as a five book series). 

 Book Log 2022 #56: Caddyshack: The Making of a Hollywood Cinderella Story by Chris Nashawaty

On one hand, this book is a film history, as it details what went on behind the scenes of filming Caddyshack, from the excesses of its stars to the all the ways it could have been a much different film (such as having Mickey Rourke play Danny Noonan, or keeping the original script's stronger focus on class issues).

On the other hand, it's a film criticism, as it discusses Caddyshack's place among period films, comedies in particular. There are the obvious comparisons to films like The Blues Brothers and Animal House, but also distinctions with more mainstream comedies (such as Any Which Way But Loose, where Clint Eastwood costars with an orangutan).

In both senses the book is largely successful, giving great detail as to how the film got made while also discussing how it's place in film contributed to not being an instant success at the box office. The book also spends a fair amount of time on the film's writer, Douglas Kenney, whose gift for comedy was often countered by episodes of depression. 

 Book Log 2022 #54: The Gilded Page by Mary Wellesley

This book examines the history of medieval manuscripts, from the people that created them, the subjects they covered, and the various ways they've survived into the present day. Wellesley goes into detail on specific manuscripts, detailing their history and what's unique about their subject matter and construction, while also taking a broader look at the contexts within which manuscripts were created.

It's there that I think the book lags a bit, as Wellesley spends a fair amount of time examining things through a feminist lens, not always with success. Part of me thinks this may have been better served with a separate book about the role of women in the production and ownership of manuscripts, but I also see where covering the topic in a more general work has merit.

Either way, if this is a subject that interests you it's probably worth checking this out. 

 Book Log 2022 #53: Slow Horses by Mick Herron

I first became aware of this series through the acclaimed series on Apple TV. I wanted to watch it, but didn't want to start until I'd started the books.

Set in the world of British intelligence, the term "slow horses" is given to those MI5 agents assigned to Slough House after committing some sort of grave offense in the line of duty. In the case of River Cartwright, it was training exercise that went very wrong in public. For others it's their personal habits, or just being up against the wrong person at the wrong time. Regardless of the reason, they're shunted off and given busywork in the hopes that the ongoing tedium will lead them to quit.

This tedium is interrupted when, in the course of investigating a fringe right-wing journalist, the agents get drawn into the kidnapping of a Pakistani student by a white nationalist group. As they get more involved, we learn more about why the agents have been sent to Slough House, and how there may be more to the kidnapping than first thought.

There's a fair bit of lore to go along with the main case, from River's relationship with his grandfather (himself a retired intelligence agent), the political machinations of MI5's leaders, and the mysterious death of a senior intelligence agent with connections to at least two of the slow horses. 

I really enjoyed the book, which uses liberal doses of humor to balance the more violent aspects of intelligence work. Looking forward to both the other books and the TV series.

 Book Log 2022 #52: Free: A Child and a Country at the End of History by Lea Ypi

Lea Ypi grew up in Albania in the 1990s, during the period after the death of communist dictator Enver Hoxha and the country's transition into an unstable multiparty democracy. In this memoir, she recounts the time from a personal perspective, documenting the social changes while highlighting how it impacted her schooling, friendships, and relations with her family.

It's the interactions with her family that are the most striking. Ypi learns that a former politician she'd been taught to hate in school was actually her great-grandfather, who was prime minister for a time during the country's monarchy. She also learns that her family was (or is?) Muslim. As the political climate changes in Albania, Ypi sees her parents become leading figures in the opposition, which brings its own set of challenges.

While there is plenty of reflection on the broader picture of Albania's transition to a liberal democracy (which dovetails nicely with Ypi's career as a professor of political theory and philosophy), it's the personal recollections that really make this book stand out.

 Book Log 2022 #51: The September Society by Charles Finch

Gentleman detective Charles Lenox is back on the case, this time looking into the disappearance of an Oxford student. An alumnus of Oxford himself, Lenox is happy to revisit his old stomping grounds, but less happy when the case evolves from missing persons to murder.

His investigation leads to the secret society of the title, which appears to have ties to soldiers who've served in India. While he works to uncover what role the society may have had in the student's death, Lenox looks to keep moving out of the friend zone with neighbor Lady Jane Grey. He also takes on an apprentice, another gentleman with an interest in detection, though one of of more profligate habits.

While I wouldn't call this a cozy mystery, the setting among England's Victorian elite does take the edge off a bit. It's hard to feel like Lenox or his colleagues are going to come to harm. But it's still an engaging mystery, and a successful follow-up to the debut novel of the series.

Book Log 2022 #50: Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach

I'm a little surprised that this is the first Mary Roach book I've read. Roach has written a number of highly accessible books about the intersection of science and human civilization, typically focused on a specific aspect (such as Bonk, about human sexuality, and Stiff, about the disposition of human bodies after death). These should all appeal to me, and on the face of it I do find all of them interesting.

I expect our family vacation, where we drove across much of the country visiting national parks, drew me to this book about the ways humans and animals interact. This includes examinations into animal behavior, people who manage interactions between people and specific animals (such as elephants), and how the encroachment into animal habitats by the built environment makes these interactions more frequent (and more dangerous).

For the most part I enjoyed this very much, but got a little bored with it by the end. Not sure if I'd hit my limit of stories about man versus animal or if the later parts of the book were just less interesting. I did find it entertaining enough that I'll read another of her books. Eventually.

 Book Log 2022 #49: A Death in Vienna by Daniel Silva

The past crashes into the present in this installment of the Gabriel Allon series, when Gabriel is sent to Vienna to investigate the bombing of a Holocaust research office. A local Holocaust survivor tells Gabriel to look into a person, and is killed soon afterwards. The person he mentioned to Gabriel appears to be a former Nazi who was deeply involved in a project to erase evidence of the Holocaust. 

While Gabriel travels the world to confirm that this man is indeed the Nazi fugitive, he also has to keep dodging an assassin hired to kill him. He also has to determine how his mother may have known the fugitive, as someone who looks very much like him appears in a painting she did of the Death Marches, forced evacuations where Holocaust victims had to walk to other camps to avoid the oncoming Allies.

It's another solid outing the series, strengthened by getting a deeper look into Allon's family and their past.

 Book Log 2022 #48: The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections by Eva Jurczyk

Liesl Weiss works behind the scenes in the rare book department of a large university's library. She's put front and center when her boss has a stroke and she has to run the department, which would be fine except she makes a discovery pretty early on that would cause scandal and potentially see someone go to jail.

Liesl has to balance what's best for the department with what will keep the donors giving money to the school, all while trying to solve the mystery she's uncovered (as well as a second mystery that is coincidental to be unrelated).

As someone who's made a career in higher education - including a stint in a school library - the subject matter was very appealing. The author, herself a librarian, brings a lot of that experience to bear, and there was a lot of familiarity to the college politics and the personalities involved. I liked the book well enough but had a non-specific feeling of it not being 100 percent what it could be. I don't have a good explanation of where that feeling came from, honestly. It's definitely worth giving a try if you like campus novels.

 Book Log 2022 #47: Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe

This book, expanded from the New Yorker article "The Family that Built an Empire of Pain," tells the story of the Sackler family, whose fortune and later downfall came via their company Purdue Pharma and the drug oxycodone, which fueled the opioid epidemic. The book shows in great detail how the family continued to market the drug even when it was clear it was being prescribed in a way to invite abuse, and the ways in which they tried to avoid liability. It also follows the people who saw the problem and their fight to bring the family, and the company, to justice.

This is a tremendous book, long but well worth the investment of time. The focus on the family is especially helpful, as it puts names and faces to actors who, in the vast majority of coverage, got to hide behind the family and company names. While the subjects are different, I think of this book as a companion piece to Bad Blood in how both displayed how greed and ego can be used to dupe the public and, if unchecked, can cause great harm.

 Book Log 2022 #46: Stolen Souls by Stuart Neville

Jack Lennon is looking forward to a quiet Christmas with his daughter, while trying to overcome his grief and guilt at the events of Collusion. That doesn't come to pass, as violence ramps up with one of the local gangs, related to the killing of one of their own by a woman who was trafficked into Northern Ireland for prostitution. Her escape has its own repercussions, as her supposed savior isn't what he appears to be.

I liked this book more than the first two in the series. It's the first book not to be focused on the Troubles and related issues, which allows the plot to develop outside of the boundaries of that conflict. I feel like the writing style changed a bit as well.  I'm more likely to continue with the series now, though still not fully drawn in.

 Book Log 2022 #45: The Old Ways by Robert Macfarlane

In this book - the third in a loose trilogy looking at how man shapes the natural world - Macfarlane travels ancient paths (mostly on land, but also at sea) to understand what they meant to the people that shaped them and what they mean to us today. He pulls in a variety of natural, geographic, and literary references to put these trails into context, with the help of traveling partners and strangers he meets along the way.

I liked the book, I feel like it's a spiritual cousin to John McPhee's nature writing. The styles aren't the same, but there's some communion between their work as far as trying to come to a deeper understanding of natural history and the natural world within a current context. I found some of the travels more interesting than others, but felt positive about the whole.

 Book Log 2022 #44: Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

A girl grows up alone in the marshes of North Carolina, learning how to fend for herself while becoming familiar with the rhythms of life in the wild. Shunned by townsfolk and bullied out of school after one day, she lives alone but eventually falls into the orbits of two local boys, one a friend of her brother, the other the high school's star quarterback. A love triangle ensues, until one of the boys turns up dead - with the girl as the main (and only) suspect.

I liked this more than expected, at least up until the end, which felt a little forced and not particularly surprising. There's an additional twist at the end unrelated to the murder which is a little more surprising, though it didn't really change my overall opinion of the book. 

 Book Log 2022 #43: The Search for Delicious by Natalie Babbitt

I wound up reading this to fulfill the reading challenge of a book mentioned in another book, though at this point I couldn't tell you what the other book was.  I wound up choosing it based on having played the villain in a grade school play adapted from the book. It was the apex of my theatrical career, as I had the most lines, got to wear a purple velour cape as part of my costume, had a song, and (spoiler alert) a death scene. 

Oh, right, the book. The prime minister of a kingdom is trying to write a dictionary, and gets stuck when trying to define 'delicious.' The king and queen object to his definition ("Delicious is fried fish"), so the prime minister sends his stepson out to ask everyone in the kingdom how they'd define the word. 

At some point there's an uprising in the kingdom, with the villain taking control of the water supply (though in my memory of the play, the villain acts to get his own definition of delicious - the taste of walnuts - chosen for the dictionary). Various mystical creatures are involved in the story and its resolution.

It was fun to read the book and compare it to my memories of the play (which are likely not as accurate as I'd like them to be). This was an early work for Babbitt, who may be best remembered for Tuck Everlasting, which I remember as being hugely popular at the time we did the play.