Year in Books — 2019

Posted on January 19, 2020 by mikefeimster

I began the year in the middle of two books: Jefferson and the Rights of Man and The Philosophy Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained. The latter is a coffee table book about, as you might guess, Philosophy, with concise one to six page discussions about some of history’s Great Thinkers. In some cases the discussions were a little too concise, but it was something I could pick up and read a few pages now and then for a few months.

Jefferson and the Rights of Man is the second volume in Dumas Malone’s six volume biography of Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson and His Time[1]. This volume covered his time as the Ambassador to France and as Secretary of State during Washington’s first term. While I generally liked it, the author fawns a little too much over his subject.

While reading the Jefferson biography, I had the feeling that there was lot happening that I was missing. (I think this tight focus is one reason I don’t read a lot of biography.) As fate would have it, I came across Douglas Southall Freeman’s seven volume biography of George Washington at the bookstore[2]. In March, I read (Vol 1): Young Washington. This was incredibly detailed. In fact, I think it was 200 pages before Washington was born. Over the course of the year I would read 3 more volumes — (Vol 2): Young Washington, (Vol) 3: Planter and Patriot, and (Vol 4): Leader of the Revolution — which took me to Valley Forge.

As for other nonfiction works, I read Italian Fascism: It’s Origins and Development by Alexander J. De Grand[3].

Over the last 10 – 15 years I’ve been reading a lot of classics. And I’ve really enjoyed them, but lately I’ve resolved to read more current fiction. First up in 2019 was White Rose, Black Forest by Eoin Dempsey. This story takes place in southern Germany during World War II and involves a member of the German resistance. While fiction, it does make references to real life German resistance members. Part historical fiction, part literary thriller. Very enjoyable.

My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite had an intriguing title, a satirical premise, and very positive reviews. It was good, but I was expecting something more a long the lines of So I Married an Axe Murderer[4].

As we headed to Cancun for vacation I picked up a couple of new books to take with. The River, by Peter Heller is one I had on my To Read list. This story takes place in northern Canada and is about 2 friends canoeing and fly fishing[5]. Things go awry. Perfect vacation read. Recursion by Blake Crouch was a pleasant surprise. I had heard about it, but really wasn’t interested. However, I needed a second vacation book, so I took a chance. Kind of a sci-fi, mystery / thriller revolving around memory, time, and restarts, with some death and destruction thrown in for good measure. Nice quick, easy read.

John le Carré came out with a new book at the end of the year, Agent Running in the Field. I’m not sure I would have liked this when I was in my spy-novel period 20, 30 years ago, but I really enjoyed his takes on middle age and Brexit.

As for classics, I reread To Kill a Mockingbird early in the year. My son was reading it for school, so I told him I would read it along with him. It really is a brilliant novel. As is All Quiet on the Western Front. I don’t think I have ever read a novel that so thoroughly captures the horrors of war as Erich Maria Remarque’s. I’ve had Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist on my To Read list for a long time. I ended the summer with it, and was very disappointed. I stumbled across Elie Wiesel’s Night at my favorite bookstore. I read it in an afternoon. If this book doesn’t move you, you’re incapable of being moved. Finally, I finished up the year with Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Not as famous as 1984; just as good and important.

Looking ahead to another year of reading. I’ve started the next volume of the Washington biography, (Vol 5): Victory with the Help of France. Hopefully I can wrap up the set this year[6]. I’ve also got a handful of classics on the shelf and a list of new novels that I hope to find.

Footnotes

1. ^ I came across the complete set at Half-Price Books in 2018. I vaguely remember a college professor mentioning it was one of the best bios of Jefferson and the price was reasonable, so I bought the set.
2. ^ As a history geek and book nerd I couldn’t pass it up, though I did have to wait until I had a coupon.
3. ^ This was an old college book that I finally got around to finishing. I finished it. That’s all I have to say about it.
4. ^ The story takes place in contemporary, urban Nigeria. What was interesting to me was that, other than the names and a handful of cultural references, I often didn’t think about that at all.
5. ^ As a kid I used to love camping and canoeing; as an adult I was hoping the cool weather setting would counteract the mid-summer heat of Cancun.
6. ^ As of this writing, the siege of Yorktown has just begun!
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Literary Yak Shaving

Posted on April 22, 2013 by mikefeimster

I was listening to some new music on Spotify the other day when one of the songs (or it could have been an album title or band name; I don’t remember which; it wasn’t very memorable) mentioned a lighthouse.

Sometimes my mind makes strange connections. I remember a few years ago when elections were being held in Great Britain. Every time I heard the name Nick Clegg, the chorus to Pink Floyd’s “Corporal Clegg” would play in my head.

On this day, this completely unmemorable song (or album or band name) made me think about Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, a book I have never read. For that matter, I’ve never read anything else by her.

Naturally, for me anyway, I was compelled to look up the book to see what it was about. It might be something I was interested in. Turns out I wasn’t. It kind of fell into the category of not now, but it’s so well regarded, so maybe one day.

For some reason, it was another of her well-regarded novels that caught my eye: Mrs. Dalloway. I’m not sure why, but this novel seemed more intriguing and I thought I should definitely keep an eye out for it (I tend to prefer hard covers).

As I read on about Mrs. Dalloway, the Wikipedia article (don’t judge) stated:

Because of structural and stylistic similarities, Mrs. Dalloway is commonly thought to be a response to James Joyce’s Ulysses, a text that is often considered one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century (though Woolf herself, writing in 1928, apparently denied this).

As you’ve probably guessed, I was off to read about Joyce’s masterpiece. I’ve always been aware of Ulysses, but I’ve never given it much thought, perhaps thinking it was too difficult to even consider. But I also thought that if I want to read Mrs. Dalloway, I should probably look into Ulysses first.

Reading on, I learned that Ulysses is the Latinized version of the Greek name Odysseus (I should have known this) and that there are many parallels between Joyce’s novel and Homer’s epic The Odyssey. Now I was definitely intrigued. It was time to add Ulysses to my mental list of future reads.

However, I haven’t read The Odyssey yet. In order to appreciate Ulysses, I’ll have to read The Odyssey before hand, right? And how will I be able to enjoy the second of Homer’s great epics, without having read the first?

So, now I wait for my copy of The Iliad to arrive in 3 to 6 days.

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Short Shrift

Posted on March 27, 2013 by mikefeimster

I’m currently reading a book called The Russian Revolution by William Henry Chamberlin. This book was originally published in 1935. One of the things I love about reading older works is coming across words I’ve never seen before or words with seemingly odd usages.

There are many such terms that I’ve stumbled across in this book, but one in particular was “short shrift.” This was my first encounter:

Except for the police, who were given short shrift when they were discovered hiding in garrets or firing from roofs on the crowds, the Revolution, although tumultuous, was, in the main, good-natured.

Later in the book, Chamberlin used the term again:

And a list of workers’ “excesses,” compiled by a newspaper, indicates that the engineer, like the army officer or the landlord, sometimes received short shrift from the mobs of enraged workers …

Chamberlin then goes to document cases in which factory engineers and managers were beaten, shot, or killed.

These usages were intriguing. I’ve always heard or used “short shrift ” in the sense of paying little attention or giving little credence to something; e.g., the Republicans gave President Obama’s ideas short shrift. One of the definitions Merriam-Webster provides bears that out:

little or no attention or consideration <gave the problem short shrift>

I don’t know about you, but if someone is firing a gun at me, I’m not going to pay them little attention. Nor do I think that beating or killing people lines up with that definition (though I guess an argument could be made if it was done indiscriminately).

It turns out that the above definition is actually the second definition. The first definition provided by Merriam-Webster is:

barely adequate time for confession before execution

The Online Etymology Dictionary states that “shrift” derives from the old English “scrift”:

confession to priest, followed by penance and absolution

It further adds:

Short shrift originally was the brief time for a condemned criminal to confess before execution (1590s); figurative extension to “little or no consideration” is first attested 1814.

Now those sentences make much more sense and the fate of the officers and engineers is crystal clear.

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Review – A Tale of Two Cities

Posted on March 23, 2013 by mikefeimster

I recently finished reading A Tale of Two Cities. This is the review I posted on Goodreads:

This book might deserve 5 stars for the opening and closing chapters — or even just the opening and closing sentences — alone. As it turns out, the rest of Dickens’ classic tale of the French Revolution is worthy as well.

A Tale of Two Cities revolves around Dr. Manette, newly released from the Bastille, his daughter Lucie, her husband Charles Darnay, and their circle of friends. The action moves between London and Paris, with a few sidetracks into the French countryside, during the lead up to the French Revolution and into the Reign of Terror.

Although I thought it bogged down a little in the middle, I was rewarded in the end. Magnificently plotted, the seemingly disjointed episodes in the second book all contribute to the climax and conclusion. Even the seemingly minor characters such as Mr. Cruncher and the mender of roads make important contributions that move the story along. The final third of the book reads like a thriller or adventure novel.

In addition to writing a phenomenal narrative, Dickens also paints a wonderful and terrifying picture of the French Revolution, from the atrocities of the Ancien Régime to the atrocities of La Guillotine. In the beginning, you feel for the peasants and commoners and loathe the nobility. The nobles’ sense of entitlement for themselves and contempt for the peasants, perfectly expressed in the character of Marquis Evrémonde, is appalling. As a father, I found his carriage ride from Paris to his estate particularly so.

But as the revolution moves from the overthrow of the monarchy to the Reign of Terror, the center of power shifts, and while you never quite feel sympathy for the nobles, you realize that the Republicans have taken things a little too far. The bloodlust of Madame Defarge shows you how dangerous the time had become.

Superb as both a story and record of the period, A Tale of Two Cities is the latest addition to my Favorites shelf.

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Writing for Fun Again.

Posted on March 15, 2013 by mikefeimster

I used to write for fun. In the mid-to-late 90’s, I wrote book reviews for a local weekly arts and entertainment rag. It was a blast. Read a book. Write a review. Do it again. I picked the books. Submitted whenever I wanted. If only I had gotten paid.

After a while, the hockey columnist — in those days, strangely, my very southern town had a very popular minor league hockey team — left to resume a career in sports management. I was tapped to write a weekly sports column.  This was less fun. Topics were limited. Deadlines were more regular. Although it was considered a column instead of a news article, the content still had to be timely. Eventually life got busy and I stopped.

In 2000, I took a job as a tech. writer. This was great. I loved technology. I loved writing. Perfect. It was an enjoyable job, but I would hardly call describing the ramifications of selecting or clearing a checkbox in a dialog box fun. Ten years on, I decided I liked the tech. part better than the writing part and moved into software development.

After a few years away, I’m ready to write again. About what, I don’t know. Now that my kids are a little older (youngest is almost 9) I’ve been reading a lot again. In fact, it was writing reviews on Goodreads that I rediscovered the joy of writing. And with the help of Pandora and Spotify, I’ve been exploring new and new-to-me music again. Those seem like good topics.

I’m sure other topics will present themselves as well. I hope some posts will be sublime. I’m sure some will be ridiculous. Whatever I write about, I’ll be writing for fun again.

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