The Fury by Alex Michaelides

THE FURY by Alex Michaelides (The Silent Patient) is a locked room mystery of sorts. Seven people are trapped on an island by a storm: former movie star Lana; her son, Leo; her current husband, Jason; her friends, actress Kate and playwright Elliott; plus, housekeeper Agathi and groundskeeper, Nikos. Elliot acts as a rather unreliable narrator and describes events on the Greek island as well as using flashbacks to provide background on the characters’ inter-relationships. There is a murder and readers may struggle to solve it, especially since about halfway through Elliott muses, “I'm aware of the conventions of this genre. I know what's meant to happen next. I know what you're expecting. A murder investigation, a dénouement, a twist." Readers may find multiple dénouements and certainly will deal with “several dark turns.” The story slows too much until about eighty percent of the way through when the action picks up again and jealousy, anger, and revenge all have an impact. THE FURY received a starred review from Library Journal and if readers wade through the slower sections they will likely concur that “the tension, unrequited feelings, lies and resentment, friendship and jealousy that permeate this suspenseful page-turner” kept them guessing.

Dangerous Charisma by Jerrold Post

DANGEROUS CHARISMA by Jerrold Post is about “The Political Psychology of Donald Trump and His Followers.” We have heard SO much about that in the past few weeks as the 2024 election cycle ramps up. It is extremely disconcerting. Post, who served multiple decades with the CIA and was the founding director of the Center for the Analysis of Personality and Political Behavior, divided his text into three sections: the Charismatic Leader, the Political Psychology of Trump’s Followers, and Trump’s Impact. In a chapter titled “The Quintessential Narcissist,” Post noted traits like inability to empathize with others, no constraint of conscience, paranoid orientation, unconstrained aggression, underlying insecurity, and extreme sensitivity to slight; he included numerous and varied examples relating to Trump. In a later section Post noted, “there is a quality of mutual intoxication for both sides, whereby Trump reassures his followers who in turn reassure him of his self-worth.” Another chapter, called “Permission to Hate,” chronicles how Trump’s “derogatory language has the power to inspire hate crimes” and “using hateful rhetoric toward already discriminated against groups helps make a climate where hate is more acceptable.” Numerous statistics support these assertions. This text was published in 2019 so that was prior to January 6, 2021. Post did not see that day (he died in late 2020), but in this book he acknowledged the possibility of Trump not accepting the election results. Post’s wife says, “He felt … that psychiatrists have a duty to warn.” Unfortunately, we see much of what Post predicted coming to the forefront of American politics again. Kirkus summed up DANGEROUS CHARISMA well: “A damning study of Trump’s mind that goes a long way toward explaining some damnably odd behavior.” More recently, The Washington Post published an article titled “Science is revealing why American politics are so intensely polarized” which, like Jerrold Post, turns to political psychology for explanations. It discusses tribalism and “othering, aversion, and moralization” to activate emotional responses.

The Violence Inside Us by Chris Murphy

The Justice Department analysis of the police response to the school shooting at Robb elementary School in Uvalde, Texas was released today (1/18/24) and it prompted me to post a review for THE VIOLENCE INSIDE US by Chris Murphy. The Senator for Connecticut subtitles his work “A Brief History of an Ongoing American Tragedy,” provides compelling statistics, and explores questions about why here is so much gun violence in America. Murphy reinforces readers’ interest through the stories he relays: a violent death on the streets for a young man trying to start his own business and the shootings at Sandy Hook elementary school. He looks deeply at his own journey around this topic as well as exploring questions about why humans, and especially Americans, hurt each other, plus, “how to demand common sense changes in our law that will reduce episodes of life altering violence.” Originally published in September, 2020, THE VIOLENCE INSIDE US received a starred review from Booklist (“emotionally passionate, and bracingly realistic”).

Our Hidden Conversations by Michele Norris

OUR HIDDEN CONVERSATIONS by Michele Norris, an award-winning journalist, offers an excellent and fascinating look at “What Americans Really Think About Race and Identity.” As described in this Washington Post article, she began The Race Card Project several years ago, using postcards to collect people’s 6 word comments on race. Her book is filled with those statements, often with accompanying stories, background context, and photos; at one point, she refers to it as a scrapbook. Some content will seem familiar, perhaps, and other chapters will surprise, maybe even shock, readers. As Norris writes, “the people who spend time with The Race Card Project might not find common ground, but they are exposed to new ideas and worlds beyond their realms.” Due to the uniqueness of each contributor's experience and the willingness to show vulnerability, OUR HIDDEN CONVERSATIONS is inspiring, honest, and thought-provoking. One of the most haunting comments: “after all, if you've paid any attention to how minorities have been treated in this country over centuries, you might reasonably be concerned about becoming one.” OUR HIDDEN CONVERSATIONS received a starred review from Booklist (“an eye-opening read and …. wide-angle look at others' thoughts on race”). Highly recommended.

Norris points out that she is compiling a piece of the American story that we normally don’t get to hear; in addition to her amazing book, you can hear and see more on NPR’s special series site from roughly ten years ago. And, for those intrigued by Norris’ postcard project, Six Word Memoirs have been with us from Not Quite What I was Planning (2008) to I Can't Keep My Own Secrets (from teens in 2009) to A Terrible, Horrible, No Good Year (filled with pandemic reflections in 2021). Concise yet clever opportunities for reflection.  

PLEASE NOTE: Michele Norris will be speaking on January 19 at 11:30 Central time on Washington Post Live. More details are available at this link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2024/01/19/michele-norris-our-hidden-conversations-about-race-identity/

Added: Here is an interview with her from PBSNewsHour

  

Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands

EMILY WILDE'S MAP OF THE OTHERLANDS by Heather Fawcett (Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries) is a much acclaimed addition to this series about a young women, Emily Wilde, who studies fairies (dryadology) and falls in love with a Fairy King, Wendell Bambleby. This time they leave Cambridge for the Austrian Alps along with faithful Shadow (a grim disguised as a dog), Ariadne (Emily’s niece, an earnest, but inexperienced dryadologist), and Farris Rose (their department head). Numerous adventures, fateful poisonings, and often scary encounters with various fairies and beasts ensue. Fawcett does an excellent job of world building – some other minor characters from her first book reappear here as well as new scholars who lead Emily to the nexus, a door to Wendell’s kingdom, called Silva Lupi. Once again, Emily’s single-minded focus on the Fairie realm proves both dangerous and beneficial; she is a strong protagonist yet has opportunity to exhibit growth and change. The LibraryReads Top Pick selection for January, EMILY WILDE'S MAP OF THE OTHERLANDS also received a starred review from Booklist (“utterly enchanting”). Definitely recommended.

Economics and history ... describing America...

I was reflecting on today’s Iowa caucuses and the current economy after reading an excellent Guest Opinion and analysis in The New York Times. That led me to comment on these texts:

THE PHOENIX ECONOMY by Felix Salmon was published in May 2023. Salmon, the chief financial correspondent at Axios, describes “Work, Life, and Money in the New Not Normal.” He spends a great deal of time noting the far-reaching impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic and argues, for example that “Covid broke time,” impacting our regular habits (daily commute, annual family visits, shopping trips) in a disconcerting manner. The economic impacts, of course, were far-ranging, too, (e.g., a deep but short recession in 2020; use of Zoom and Slack; investment timeframe). Salmon writes in an engaging manner and his commentary, especially on how investment strategies and styles differ by generation (building on Kevin Roose’s concept of from ladders to trampolines) is informative and though-provoking. As we all acclimate to a post-Covid environment, this text offers a terrific (if triggering) retrospective. THE PHOENIX ECONOMY is the Winner of the 2023 SABEW (an association of business journalists) Best in Business Book Award for Investing and Personal Finance. This text was also profiled and summarized by The Next Big Idea Club.

THE VELVET ROPE ECONOMY by Nelson D. Schwartz was originally published in March 2020, and therefore probably did not get as much attention as it would have had at other times. Schwartz, a business reporter at The New York Times with close to two decades of experience, discusses “How Inequality Became Big Business,” a topic which certainly features in analyses of voting patterns and reactions to candidates. In fact, Schwartz concludes the text by writing “it's up to all of us -- including those well ensconced inside the velvet rope -- to create a less segmented society, where Americans from different walks of life actually meet one another and find common ground.” His chapters look at experiences inside (envy, exclusivity, ease, access, and security) and outside (exclusion, division, and isolation) by sharing numerous examples across industries. Perhaps one of the most vivid is the literal separation at sporting venues like the new Yankee Stadium which limits access and getting autographs to certain ticket holders. While looking at product differentiation and capacity constraints, Schwartz points to travel, healthcare, and education, saying, “as the public sector is replaced by private services aimed at the elite, the very foundation of the republic is eroded.” THE VELVET ROPE ECONOMY is well-researched, and notes represent roughly ten percent of the text. Schwartz’s examples tend to be domestic ones, but internationally, as was stated more recently on The Conversation web site: “Globally, inequality is so extreme that the world’s 10 richest men possess more wealth than the 3.1 billion poorest people, Oxfam has calculated.” Think about it.

Published in 2020, PROMISED LAND by David Stebenne chronicles “How the Rise of the Middle Class Transformed America, 1929-1968.” Stebenne, a lawyer and Associate Professor of History at The Ohio State University, documents change across those four decades through an historical lens so as to tell “the story of how and why that transformation [to a predominately middle-class nation] came about, what life was like during the heyday of the middle class, and why, beginning in the later 1960s, that process slowed down and eventually stopped.” He discusses a “state of mind” and how the middle class “prized a sense of belonging, taking pride in their families, neighborhoods, communities, and country” which echoes the work of other scholars such as Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone, Our Children or, perhaps, even Upswing. In addition to economic characteristics, Stebenne points to demographic (race and gender), geographic, and cultural (increase in driving, radio, television, etc.) factors in a readily accessible way. Of help to interested researchers (especially AP US students), roughly twenty percent of PROMISED LAND is devoted to notes and bibliographic references.

Cold Victory by Karl Marlantes

COLD VICTORY by Karl Marlantes (Matterhorn) begins in 1946 Helsinki where American Arnie Koski and his wife, Louise, have just been assigned to a US military-diplomatic (read: intelligence gathering) post. They meet Russian Mikhail and his wife, Natalya Bobrova, at a social gathering and the men realize they know each other from the European battlefield. Some friendly joshing turns into a decision to race each other on skis over five hundred kilometers and much of the book deals with that harrowing experience. In the meantime, the two wives, using their ability to communicate in French, develop a close friendship and work together to benefit a Finnish orphanage. Both strong women are tested in the post WWII environment. Of course, there is a pervasive sinister element due to the seemingly constant surveillance by the Soviet secret police. Lives are jeopardized in this well-written, action-packed adventure story.