The BEST BOOKS I READ THIS YEAR – PART II

By Ruth A. Sheets

I love to read as you might know.  I read in a lot of genre because most subjects have at least something to ponder.  This is part II of my list of books I really enjoyed.  I didn’t have a specific set of criteria to follow, but included books I just loved reading.  Here goes!!

1. I Survived Capitalism And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt, Everything I Wish I Never Had to Learn About Money by Madeline Pendleton (The author had trouble finding a permanent job after college, so eventually started her own company locating, repurposing clothing, and original designs.  Until she took the issue of money seriously, she was barely surviving.  She changed her business model and everyone who worked with her received the same salary and perks.  By last year, all her 8 or so employees had cars that were not breaking down all the time and could buy a home if they chose and the company is still doing well.  Very inspiring and made me wonder why that is not the standard small business model, maybe even large business model.) 

2. Goldenrod, Poems by Maggie Smith (I loved these poems about life, family, nature, and more.  My favorites were “Animals” (response to harms done to immigrants to this country), “In the Grand Scheme of ?Things” (the way things don’t work as we expect when we think we are in control), and “If I Could Set This To Music” (imagining if there were music to recognize the world’s events that could let someone we love hear who we are).  Beautiful and approachable!    

3. Because I Could Not Stop for Death by Amanda Flower (In this first mystery in a series, Emily Dickenson and her “maid” Willa solve a murder at the time of the Underground Railroad and the rise of pre-Civil War tensions.)

4. The Russian Job, The Forgotten Story of How America Saved the Soviet Union From Ruin by Douglas Smith (From 1921-1923, Herbert Hoover and a lot of Americans went to Russia to bring food aid for a starving nation, saving millions of lives.  It is forgotten in Russia and here too.)  

5. How to Win Friends and Influence Fungi, Collected Works of Science, Tech, Engineering, and Math for Nerd Night ed. By Chris Balakrishnan & Matt Wasowski (This was a fun collection of interesting quirky stories about the work of people in science etc. for the “Nerd Night” programs around the world.  They included all kinds of topics from human physiology to animal habits, to mortuary science, and other worlds.)

6. Our Hidden Conversations, What Americans Really Think About Race and Identity by Michele Norris (This was a collection of 6-word stories from the Racecard Project.  Thousands of people submitted their “stories” and some commented on them.  These pieces and the author’s commentary were fascinating and everyone should read them.)

7. The Golden Girls, A Cultural History by Bernadette Giacomazzo (“The Golden Girls” was an icon of TV about 4 older women living their lives together and separately, proving over and over how great and resourceful women over 60 are.)  -   

8. White Rural Rage, The Threat to American Democracy by Tom Schaller & Paul Waldman (This is an important book, although disturbing that explains white rural rage, and some of the white rage in general.  Politicians have seen the despair and maintain it to keep the scared, angry people  under their control by making loud promises, then never keeping them because it might make the people content and more self-reliant.  It is criminal and our DOJ should be acting in at least the worst cases, but doesn’t.)

9. A Sin By Any Other Name, A Reckoning with the South’s Past and Future by Robert W. Lee IV, (A descendant of Robert E. Lee tries to deal with the challenges of being white in a racist society.  He is an ordained Methodist minister who has been speaking for a reconciliation which he believes white America must initiate and push for since it is whites who created and continue to create the problems caused by racism.)

10. Planet Palm, How Palm Oil Ended Up in Everything and Endangered the World by Jocelyn C. Zuckerman (I knew palm oil was problematic, but didn’t know the treachery, deceit, and virtual enslavement that accompanies its production.  It is now being obtained all over the tropical and semi tropical world from Honduras to Malaysia.)

11. This Promise of Change, One Girl’s Story in the Fight for School Equality by Joann Alice Boyce & Debbie Levy (Joann Allen was one of the teens who integrated the Clinton, TN high School in 1956.  The town was coming to accept their presence in the school until whites from outside the area  stirred up the anger and hatred that made it unsafe for the Black students to be in the school.  Of the 12 who started the year, only 6 finished that year in the school and only 2 graduated from Clinton HS.  The author’s family moved to CA where she graduated from high school and college.  Gr.5-8 and older – everyone should read this one)

12. An Unfinished Love Story, A Personal History of the 1960s by Doris Kearns Goodwin (This was a fascinating book of two people who lived the 1960s:  Dick Goodwin, speech-writer for JFK and LBJ and campaign worker for Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy and Doris Kearns Goodwin who was a student, then teacher at Harvard as well as a fellow in LBJ’s White House and worked on his biography at his ranch after he left office.  They met and married in the 1970s, raised a family, and continued to work for a better more fair society.)   

13. Girls On The Line by Amie K. Runyan (In this novel, Ruby signs up to serve in Europe as a switchboard operator the last year of WWI.  She was from a Main Line family, engaged to a man who was socially “right” for her.  She finds true love while on duty.)

14. In the Shadow of Liberty, The Invisible History of Immigrant Detention in the United States by Ana Raquel Minian (For well over a century people coming to the US have been detained in prisons, jails, and other facilities, treated horribly, and most of the time, released into this country.  The claim is that the bad treatment is a deterrent; it isn’t when conditions in the countries the people left were far worse than those horrific situations immigrants encounter here.  We can and must do better!)   

15. Roll for Initiative by Jaime formato (a new middle schooler loves “Dungeons and Dragons” and accidentally starts a D&D group in her apartment complex’s laundry room with 3 friends.  Through the process, she learns to trust herself and depend on her friends as they come to depend on her.  Gr.4 and up and anyone who likes D&D and other role-playing games)

16. 1177 BC, the Year Civilization Collapsed Revised and Updated by Eric H. Cline (This was a fascinating book about the rise and fall of the civilizations around the Mediterranean from about 1500 to 1200 BCE and the ideas that surround what might have caused their collapse within a short period of time.  All the cultures were thriving and had trade among each other, but it looks like a combination of factors occurring over a short period may have led to the end of the Bronze Age:  severe drought, earthquakes, crop failures, invasions, internal turmoil, and other as yet unknown factors.)

17. Relinquish, the Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood by Gretchen Sisson (This book looked at the impact of adoption on the birth mother and the pressures those girls and women have on them to relinquish their child to someone else, often tricked into signing papers that would keep them from contact with their child and the adoptive family.)

18. How To Say Babylon, A Memoir by Safiya Sinclair (The author is a poet who grew up in Jamaica with an extremely strict, often violent father who was Rastafarian.  She faced a lot of prejudice and roadblocks but won scholarships and ultimately came to America to study, teach, and write poetry.)

19. Knife, Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie (Rushdie was nearly murdered by a religious fanatic at a writers’ conference.  He recounts his thinking and experiences after the crime, his hospital stay and rehab and his learning to live with the physical and emotional changes that resulted.)

20. The Hard Road Out, One Woman’s Escape from North Korea by Jihun Park & Seh-lynn Chai (Jihun Park was a daughter of a party member in Korea.  She had a pretty typical childhood in North Korea until the famine of 1990s broke up her family.  She was sold in China and sent back to Korea.  She escaped again to China and found a man who loved her and helped her get away to the UK.  She went through enormous suffering in the process.

21. The 6, The Untold Story of America’s First Woman Astronauts by Loren Drush (If you like reading history and biography, you’ll like this one.  The lives of the 6 women are described as they fit into the development of NASA and its programs beyond landing a person on the moon.  One of the 6 died in the Challenger in 1986.)

22. Say More, Lessons from Work, The White House, and The World by Jen Psaki (This was one of the best books I’ve read all year.  Psaki talks about how to effectively communicate on a large and small scale while describing her many life decisions, successes and her flubs.  High School and older readers)

23. The Edge of Anarchy, The Railroad Barrens, The gilded Age, and the Greatest Labor Uprising in America by Jack Kelly (I only knew in general about this uprising in 1894 beginning with the Pullman Company, but this book made me proud of the people who tried to stand up against big business.  They did lose the fight then, but they laid the groundwork for future labor efforts.)

24. The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende (Alma, a Jewish refugee from fascist Europe arrives in San Franscisco where she forms strong bonds with the children on her uncle’s estate, forming a love-bond with the gardener’s son and her cousin.  From her old age, the story of their love unfolds.)

25. The Playbook, A Story of Theatre, Democracy, and The Making of a Culture War by James Shapiro (This seemed like just an interesting piece of history, but as I read, I learned a couple of scared white congressmen set us on the road we are now on, attacking Communists and anyone who wanted to include Black Americans, women, and topics  those guys don’t like in the life of the nation.  It follows the Federal Theatre Project, part of the New Deal’s WPA and their production of over 1,000 plays that didn’t match their personal views.  They heard about the plays, didn’t see or read them, but condemned them, leading to the establishment of the House Unamerican Activities Committee (HUAC) which led to the McCarthy hearings and the nonsense now going on in the Republican-led House.) 

26. Shelterwood, A Novel by Lisa Wingate (Olive narrates a time in 1909 when children escaped into the woods to survive the men holding them to get the oil money their families had made.  In 1990, Val, a park ranger wants to figure out what happened to three children whose remains were found in a cave.  A whole mystery arises that she and the grown children help solve.(

27. They Came for the Schools, one Town’s Fight Over Race and Identity  and the New War for America’s Classrooms by Mike Hixenbaugh (This is a powerful book about how easy it is for right-wing Christian-nationalists to bring in a series of lies about public education  and how they can take over school boards and deny the racism, misogyny, xenophobia, and homo/transphobia among white students in the districts as they attempt to deny history, even sometimes, the very existence of people other than those who are white and male.)

28. The Deadline, Essays by Jill LePore (This collection covers the author’s career in magazine writing including pop culture, politics, the judiciary, and so much more.  She presents an historical perspective for each topic.  The essays are sorted by general topic.  I enjoyed the political ones most.)

29. The Bodies Keep Coming, Dispatches from a Black Trauma Surgeon on Racism, Violence, and How We heal by Brian H. Williams  (This is a powerful book about what it is like trying to save the lives of the many Black men and others who come into the ER with bullet wounds and other trauma and the toll it takes on the staff, families, and communities.  Dr. Williams is working hard to make changes that will enable more of the victims to live.)

30. Super Foods, Silkworms, and Spandex, Science and Pseudoscience in Everyday Life by Joe Schwarcz (When the book ended, my immediate comment was, “that was fun.”  This book covered a wide range of stories about common items and practices:  a brief history and the science or no science attached to each.)

31. Taming the Street, The Old Guard, The New Deal, and FDR’s Fight to Regulate American Capitalism by Diana B. Henriques (This was a fascinating book about the preliminary actions that led to The Great Depression and the various things FDR did to change Wall Street to keep such an event from happening in the future.  Unfortunately, there were many forces that got in the way.  It was great to read an economics history book by a woman.)   

32. Exotic Tales, A Veterinarian’s Journey by Steven B. Metz DVM (This was a collection of stories of a vet’s adventures with humans and animals, pets and wildlife.  This is a fun book if you love animals, have pets, or both, or if you just like a good story.  My favorite was the story of a 5-foot boa hiding in a guitar.)

33. On Call, A Doctor’s Journey in Public Service by Anthony Fauci (This was the story of an incredible life of service including:  school, college, medical school, residency, and choice to go into public service through the National Institutes of health, heading the Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases for decades.  He helped the country deal with HIV.AIDS, Evola, COVID, and so much more.  Well-worth reading this memoir!)

34. Baking Yester Year, The Best Recipes from the 1900s to the 1980s by B. Dylan Hollis (This was a fun romp through the kinds of recipes people liked during most of the 20^th Century.  I ended up selecting 29 recipes I want to copy and try.)

35. Find me the Votes, A Hard-Charging Prosecutor, a Rogue President, and the Plot to Steal An American Electiion by Michael Isikoff & Daniel Klaidman (These authors present a play by play account of the shenanigans that went on in Georgia after the 2020 electiion.  Fulton Co. Prosecutor Fanny Willis was charged with getting to the bottom of what happened.  The case continues in 2024.)

36. Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books, A Novel by  Kirsten Miller (Lula fills her little free library with books she claims shaped her life.  They were all conservative, white books, so a girl in town put banned books inside the covers and hid the other books.  People began to read the banned books and appreciate them as their town began to change for the better. 

37. 100 Places to See After You Die, A Travel Guide to the Afterlife by Ken Jennings (This was a fun romp through various cultures’, religious, authors’, and film and TV artists’ ideas of what the afterlife is like, what one would encounter on arriving there, and some of the characters that inhabit those locations.  Highly recommended) 

38. The Power of Fun, How to Feel Alive Again by Catherine Price (I loved this collection of ideas for making life more fun, getting people to enjoy fun activities with us, and keeping track of what is fun for us, or what could be fun.  I also heard her presentation of this material live.)  

39. Keeping the Faith, God, Democracy, and the Trial That Riveted A Nation by Brenda Wineapple (This was a very interesting book about the Scopes “Monkey trial.”  The author presented the thinking that led to Tennessee making a law forbidding evolution being taught in schools.  John Scopes, a young temp. biology teacher agreed to be the defendant.  The fanaticism of the prosecution was amazing, including the KKK and preachers hanging out while the trial was going on.  The conclusion was already known at the beginning because the judge was also a religious fanatic, although it seems he did a bit of thinking about “free speech” and the 1^st amendment, but not much. 

40. True Gretch, What I’ve Learned About Life, Leadership, And Everything in Between by Gretchen Whitmer (This was a fun romp through Gov. Whitmer’s life, the interesting people she’s met and the more interesting things she has done.  Everyone should read this one.)

41. Lovely One, A Memoir by Ketanji Brown Jackson (I found this story not only compelling as an American success, but it was fun and interesting to read.  It has a bit of everything one would want in a memoir:  honesty, family, friendships, struggle, determination, a dream, and a seriously strong positive code of ethics/moral compass.)

42. What’s Next, A Backstage Pass to the West Wing, Its Cast and Crew, and Its Enduring Legacy of Service by Melissa Fitzgerald & Mary McCormack (Wow!  I loved this one probably because I loved “The West Wing.”  It was a great show and this book  looks at the various actors and their characters, what they were like on the show and the cast when not on camera.  What an amazing group of people.  I have attended several fund-raisers where they did “table reads” of parts of relevant episodes.  I would do it again in a minute!)

43. The Art of Power, My Story As America’s First Woman Speaker of the House by Nancy Pelosi (I loved this book about some of the activities of Pelosi as Speaker and the background to those actions.  The section on the lead-up to involvement in the Iraq War and January 6^th were particularly important.)

44. Connie, A Memoir by Connie Chung (This pioneering reporter had an amazing career despite the forces that tried to stop or slow her down, men and an occasional woman trying to get where she was.)

 

There are actually about another 10 books I could have included, but I am already stretching what is reasonable for a friend to read.  So, there you have it, my top 84 books out of the 380 I read this year, 44 right here.  Enjoy!  Happy New Year!

BOOKS OF THE YEAR PART II

Read and Selected by Ruth A. Sheets

Here is the second installment of my excellent books of the year collection.  I hope you like some of these too.

1. The Naked Don’t Fear the Water, An Underground Journey with Afghanistan Refugees by Matthieu Aikins (Matt left Afghanistan with his Afghan interpreter who wanted a life in Europe.  They used smugglers and scary strategies to get first to Turkey, then to Greece, then beyond.  They survived when many didn’t.  )

 2. Go Back to Where You Came From and Other Helpful Recommendations on How to Become American by Wajahat Ali (The writer describes growing up in CA and the biases against himself and his family even though he was born in America.  The book is funny, sad, and a peek into the lives of an immigrant family that has been here 50 years.) 

3. Making Numbers Count, The Art and Science of Communicating Numbers by Chip Heath & Karla Starr (A great book about the way we can simplify number examples to make them more comprehensible and able to change minds:  3 of 10 instead of 30%, 1 every ____ minutes, on the 1^st yardline of the football field instead of 1%, using terms and sizes people can relate to.)  

 4. The End of Bias, A Beginning by Jessica Nordell (Everyone has biases and they are started early.  However there are many strategies we can use as a people to make those biases less harmful and destructive.  The book includes police departments working to change their culture of violence and businesses working to become truly inclusive.)

 5. A Christmas Legacy by Anne Perry (I loved this book about the rich getting theirs.  Gracie goes to sub for a friend at a rich house where the servants are like family but there is something wrong.  The old woman being nearly starved to death is the owner of the house.

 6. Until Justice Be Done , America’s First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction by Kate Masur (So many Black Americans and their allies were working for their rights at this time, but being fought at every turn by white men who just couldn’t bear to imagine that Black people were equal to themselves.  A shameful history for this nation)

 7. The Best Strangers in the World, Stories From a Life Spent Listening by Ari Shapiro (This is a great memoir of a really good broadcaster, describing some of his background, his life of interviewing people, and his caring nature, as well as his other talents like singing with an indy band and cooking.)

 8. Myth America, Historians Take on the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past by Kevin Michael Kruse & Julian E. Zelizer (These were essays about various events that didn’t happen as people often think:  Black people rarely protested before the 1950s and 60s, there was no “southern strategy” by the Republicans, the “Great Society” changed nothing.  All lies but people still believe them.)

 9. The White Lady by Jacqueline Winspear (Eleanor White lived I Belgium during WWI when she and her older sister were recruited to work as spies for a WWII resistance group Because of her skills.  After the war, she tries to make a life for herself and gets connected with a crime family as she tries to save one of their former members.)

 10. A Redbird Christmas by Fannie Flagg (A man with serious lung disease goes south to possibly recover.  He falls in love with the tiny Alabama town and the people who come to love him too.  Sweet and funny)   

 11. The Common Good by Robert Reich (On this second reading of this book, I found it is still relevant and important.  It looks at our need to pay more attention to working for the common good.)

 12. Nine Black Robes, Inside the Supreme Court’s Drive to the Right and Its Historic Consequences by Joan Biskupic (An excellent retelling of the transformation of an already-failing SC into the right-wing anti-American bastion of male arrogance and desires its conservatives  have become, even the female conservative justice.)

 13. Poverty by America by Matthew Desmond (A quick summary of the ways we the people maintain poverty in this country by what we buy, who we allow in our neighborhoods, who banks lend to or don’t, the way we permit landlords to keep people living in squalor while charging outrageous rents, etc.  well-constructed)

 14. Science and the Skeptic, Discerning Fact from Fiction by Marc Zimer (It is a positive to be a skeptic if one is a scientist, but not so much when the information supporting a theory or finding is overwhelming.  Good overview with good talking points.)

 15. Above Ground by Clint Smith (beautiful poems about fatherhood and the world his son would inherit and how he feels about it.)

 16. Paved Paradise, How Parking Explains the World by Henry Grabar (I never drove, but found this book fascinating and fun in places to see what people will go through to get a parking space and how much land is taken up with such parking spaces.)

 17. Off With Her Head, 3,000 Years of Demonizing Women In Power by Eleanor Herman (I loved this book that took the various misogynistic tropes like ambition, appearance, female hormones, shrillness of her voice, neglect of family, being a bitch that are used to tell women that they have no right to positions of power.  It’s been going on for so long even a lot of women have bought the nonsense and will vote for anyone but a woman and men and women will malign through social media any woman in power.)

 18. Viral Justice, How We Grow the World We want by Ruha Benjamin (This was a really good book about the way we can look at issues like racism and connect with others to find ways to change things where we are.  Ruha uses her own personal journey to illustrate.  Very hopeful.)      

 19. When the Angels Left the Old Country by Sacha Land (This was a hilarious book about an angel and a demon that lived in early 20^th century Poland in a Jewish community who decided they should come to America to help protect the immigrants from their village while in America.  Lots of Jewish humor!

 20. The Teachers, A Year Inside America’s Most Vulnerable Important Profession by Alexandra Robbins (The book mostly follows 3 teachers and what it was like during 2021-2022 trying to recover from pandemic times with limited resources, sometimes support and appreciation, and interesting but challenging students.  The author mentions a variety of other teachers and their experiences as well.)  

 21. A Bit of Earth by Karuna Raizi (I loved this retelling of “The Secret Garden” as the story of an immigrant girl from South Asia coming to New York, trying to adjust and connect with the family who has taken her in and the community where they live. Gr.4-7 and anyone who loved “The Secret Garden”) 

 22. Weathering, The Extraordinary Stress of Ordinary Life in an Unjust Society by Arline T. Geronius (an excellent  but scary account of how just living in a society that does not value certain people can “weather” them causing them to get serious illnesses, to die young, and to live a whole lifetime with chronic illnesses.) 

 23. The Wax Pack, On the Road In Search of After Life by Brad Balukjian (The author ordered a pack of baseball cards from 1985 and set out in 2015 to find and interview all the guys on the 14 cards in the pack.  He reached most of them.  Gary Templeton and Don Cardin were the most interesting to me.)

  24. Welcome to the Circus of Baseball, A Story of the Perfect Summer at the Perfect Ballpark at the Perfect Time by Ryan McGee (A fun book about a minor league intern and his adventures in Ashville, NC in 1994.)

 25. Accounting for Slavery, Masters and Management by Caitlin Rosenthal (When looking for accounts of how early American business records were kept, she is given a plantation account book from SC, the author realizes that slavery was not just something owners did out of habit, but for them was good business.  She cites records from account books and the information as well as what else was going on economically at the time. 

 26. One Fatal Flaw by ?Anne Perry (This is one of those writers that every book is a gem.  In this one, lawyer Daniel Pitt defends a woman in 2 arson/murder trials.

 27. The Librarian Spy, A Novel of WWII by Madeline Martin (Ava, a Library of Congress librarian is recruited to go to Lisbon to interpret French and German newspapers and letters.  In France, Helenne works on a printing press after her husband disappears.  She learns he was in the Resistance and she wants to help too.  The two women come together at a distance when Helenne tries to rescue a Jewish mother and son.  They finally meet after the war.) 

 28. Readme.text by Chelsea Manning (This is the memoir of a transwoman who did her best to do the male thing, even joining the military.  She released information about the ridiculous, harmful actions  in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, none that put people at risk, but the military went crazy in their treatment of her.)

 29. Finally Seen by Kelly Yang (Lena arrives in the US from China and finds that things are not as great as her parents wrote and told her they were.  She gradually learns English and to express herself, particularly through art and her courage.  Gr.4-7)

 30. The Four Seasons of Jackie Robinson by Kostya Kennedy (Jackie Robinson was a complex person who believed deeply in human rights for all and loved baseball and its challenges for a Black man in a white sport.  He was an advocate for both baseball and civil rights for most of his life.)

 31. On Democracy by E.B. White with John Meacham (This was a collection of essays and letters to the editor by White from 1928 to 1976.  They are remarkably relevant today.  It is almost as though he predicted a lot of what is going on now, people pushing to end democracy without realizing what it would mean for them.)

32. The Swamp Fox, How Francis Marion Saved the American Revolution by John Oller (Francis Marion was one of my heroes growing up.  This book let me know I was right to have him as a hero.  He and his men were all partisans surviving mostly on what they could steal from the British or what was donated by friends.  They harassed the British incessantly despite being betrayed several times by members of their crew and scared locals.)

 33. The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America by Thom Hartmann (In category by category, the author shows the ways presidents have appointed people to the Court who would ignore and twist the Constitution to fit their personal beliefs and do it with impunity.  He suggests some changes that could help fix this.) 

 34. Better Living Through Birding, Notes From a Black Man in the Natural World by Christian Cooper (The Black man who was threatened with the police when he demanded a woman put her dog on a leash as required in that part of Central Park presents a memoir of his life as a gay Black man who loves birding and nature in general.)

 35. Prequal, An American Fight Against Fascism by Rachel Maddow (As a follow-up to her podcast “Ultra,” the book looks at the many people involved in the Fascist movements in this country leading up to WWII.  There were many members of Congress involved, including several prominent senators.  There were also people who did their best to stop them and hold them accountable.)

 OK, there are a few more than last week’s collection, but I was so fortunate to have read so many excellent books this year.  There were a bunch more too that just missed the arbitrary cut-off.  I hope you pick a few to peruse and enjoy.     Have a spectacular Christmas/Kwanza/winter holiday.  Make the New Year remarkable and special for as many people as you can.

BOOKS OF THE YEAR PART I

Selected by Ruth A. Sheets

Last December, I decided to present a list of my favorite books of the year.  I am lucky that I have time to read a lot.  I’ve read around 350 books so far in a wide variety of genre.  Here are just a few that I have liked a lot.  I must say, though that if I don’t like a book after the 3^rd or 4^th chapter, I usually ditch it.  That means that the books I have included here I really liked and recommend to anyone who is into that genre.  They are in the order in which I read them.  Here goes!

1. The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen, Warfare, Constitutions, and the Making of the  Modern World by Linda Colley (Constitutions of various kinds were developed all over the world beginning around 1755 in Corsica, then Russia under Catherine, then the US.  Wars on land and sea often led to the spread of constitutional ideas and the “need” to write constitutions for government, often monarchies.)

     2.  America on Fire, The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Rebellion Since the 1960s by Elizabeth Hinton (Police have been unbelievably violent toward Black citizens always, but to an extreme extent since the 1960s.  Every American needs to read this book, especially the white folks.)

3. Hospital, Life, Death, and Money In A Small American Town by Brian Alexander (This was a distressing book describing the spiral down of a small-town hospital that was taken over by people who saw the bottom line as more important than the people who needed the services of the hospital.  The town, Bryan, OH from 2018-2020)

 

4. The East St. Louis Massacre, The Greatest Outrage of the Century, 1917 by Ida B. Wells-Barnett (Wells-Barnett arrived in East St. Louis the day after the most horrendous attack on a Black community that had occurred to date, on July 2, 1917.  She reported first-hand accounts of the events from those who managed to escape.  There was so much violence and cover-up estimates of the number of Black citizens who were killed range from 40 to 200 (similar to the range 4 years later at the Greenwood Massacre in Tulsa OK).  White citizens, many of them union members, murdered Black people in the streets and even the National Guard the IL governor called in either helped in the killing or prevented anyone from stopping it. 

 

5. Under the Skin, the Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and the Health of Our Nation by Linda Villarosa (An excellent description of what racism hath wrought on the society, often unnoticed by white medical personnel but destructive to Black lives and the lives of others of color.  Disturbing that medical folks could just ignore, dismiss, and poorly treat people who already face so much that harms their health.)

 

6. Starry Messenger, Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization By Neil DeGrasse Tyson (beautiful presentation of the value of science and how it helps us understand everything.)
7. The Ogress and the Orphans by Kelly Barnhill (An ogress has a house on the edge of what was once a beautiful town, but something has happened.  Despite her kindness to everyone, the mayor talks everyone into blaming her for their problems.  The mayor is actually a disguised dragon who is undermining the town’s happiness.  The orphans befriend the ogress and they try to help the people bring happiness back to their town despite those who would continue the hatred and negativity.  It is an allegory of today’s America. Gr.4 and up)

 

8. 999, The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz by Heather Dune Macadam (The girls and young women were taken from Slovakia.  They had no idea what would happen to them.  They were part of the work camps at Auschwitz.  Many died, many were tortured, and many took care of each other so they would survive.  Every person targeting people in this country to harm, like trans persons should read and consider this book, because cruelty was the point of everything the Germans did.)

 

9. Honey Bee, Poems and Short Prose by Naomi Shihab Nye (a beautiful collection with pieces for different ages, but all thought-provoking.  The last one about awaiting a delayed flight brought tears.) 

 

10. The Math of Life and Death, Seven Mathematical Principles that Shape Our Lives by Kit Yates (I am not a mathy person, but found this book compelling.  It looks at the ways math can help, hurt, and even kill us depending on how it is used and by whom.)

 

11. Torn Apart, How the Child-Welfare System Destroys Black Families and How Abolition Can Build a Safer World by Dorothy Roberts (an excellent account of the many ways  the child welfare folks stalk homes of Black families, take away the children for foster care with little or no reason while white families in the same situation are left alone.  Amazing and really upsetting!)  

 

12. No True Believers by Rabiah York Lumbard (Two Muslim high school seniors are seen as suspicious of having caused or at least helped with a terrorist attack.  They learn it was a disgruntled man and his son who belonged to a hate group trying to rid our country of Muslims.  They and friends help stop a more serious attack.)

 

13. Disfigured, On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space by Amanda Leduc (The author, a person with CP, describes the challenges of all the fairy tales that have “disabled” characters, have them as the villains.  People with disabilities can’t see themselves doing the things able-bodied persons do, so begin to see themselves as less than “normal” not just different.     

 

14. Lady Liberty, Women, The Law, and The Battle to Save America  by Dahlia Lithwick (Women have been working,                 almost underground to preserve our democracy:  defending women’s rights, defending immigrants falsely about to be deported, fighting for voting rights, a fair census, and more.)

 

15. The Destructionists, the 25 Year Crack-up of the Republican Party by Dana Milbank (Republicans use many strategies to undermine our democracy from Newt Gingrich to all the folks who helped Trump with his “Big Lie” and the insurrection of Jan. 6^th.  The lying never stops and Republicans at all levels are involved in it.)

 

16. The Woman They Could Not Silence, One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear by Kate Moore (Elizabeth Packard was declared insane by her minister husband who got doctors to certify it.  She was confined in an asylum for 3 years where she was abused, seduced by the director, but able to maintain her sanity despite the conditions.  She helped to change the climate of the institution and how residents were treated.  She should be remembered for her work for women’s rights.)     

 

17. On Critical Race Theory, Why It Matters, and Why You Should Care by Victor Ray (Looks at what CRT really is and how important it is for everyone to know.  Racism is systemic and must be addressed systemically.  It is essential we work to stop racism, but first, people need to know where it can be found every day, no matter who claims racism does not exist.)  

 

18. The Library Book by Susan Orlean (Begins with the day of the great fire at the LA library in 1986 when a half-million books were destroyed and another nearly 500,000 books severely damaged.  She came to the belief that it was impossible to determine who had started the fire if anyone had done it.  The library has been repaired and expanded since then.)

 

19. Stringing Rosaries, The History, The Unforgivable, and the Healing of Northern Plains American Indian Boarding School Survivors by Denise K. Lajimodiere (This is one of the most disturbing but necessary books I have read in a while.  Survivors tell of the brutality inflicted upon students at several of the boarding schools they were either forced to attend by the state, or attended because parents had no money for education.  Many died in the schools either by illness, loneliness, or suicide.  The brutality killed some too and there was no accountability for the perpetrators as far as the survivors knew.)

 

20. What the Fact, Finding the Truth in All the Noise by Seema Yasmin (An excellent book for people of any age about the way our brains deal with information, how we can be manipulated, and how we can realize it is OK to be wrong and to carefully listen to others.)

 

21. What the Ermin Saw, The Extraordinary Journey of Leonardo Da Vinci’s most Mysterious Portrait by Eden Collinsworth (I really liked this book about a painting that got to travel all over the world.  Leonardo worked on the painting 3 different times to get the portrait that hangs in a Krakow museum today.)    

 

22. Hold The Line, The Insurrection and One Cop’s Battle for America’s Soul by Michael Fanone & John Shiffman (This book about a police officer who went to the Capitol on Jan. 6^th to help the officers under attack and was attacked by the insurgents.  He had been an officer in DC for 22 years before that and got little to no support after the Jan. 6^th events from fellow officers who were still stuck on Trump.)

 

23. A Knock At Midnight, A Story of Hope, Justice, and Freedom by Brittany K. Barnett (a young law student is captivated by the story of a woman given a life sentence for possessing a small amount of crack though there was no actual evidence and the people who accused her were long-time criminals who got much lighter sentences for ratting her out.  She left her corporate law job to work to free wrongly sentenced people.)

 

24. The Light We Carry, Overcoming in Uncertain Times by Michelle Obama (This is an excellent account of how a person’s life experiences shape who they are and that they can learn from them and continue growing through the hard times if we permit ourselves to deal with the uncertainties of life.)   

 

25. Dinners with Ruth, A Memoir on the Power of Friendships  by Nina Totenberg (The author talks about how friendships sustained her, particularly with Ruth Bader Ginsberg.  She had friendships with several SC justices which made her coverage of the Court more interesting and understandable.)

 

26. The Pregnancy Project, A Memoir by Gaby Rodriguez & Jenna Glatzer (Gabi is from a working-class family in small-town Washington State.  Her community expects little of her and since her mother got pregnant at 14, she is expected to also.  She fakes a pregnancy to find out what it is like for girls who become pregnant in her community in 2011.) 

 

27. Mouse, A Survivor’s Tale by Art Spiegelman (The father of the author told him the story of his time during WWII, in Polish ghettos, nearly a year in Auschwitz, and the post war struggles in refugee centers and searching for his wife who had also survived.  They came to America where they had a son who became an artist who wrote and illustrated the book from his father’s memories.)

 

28. Sir Callie and the Champions of Helston by Esme Symes-Smith (I was not sure whether I would like this one, but it turned out to be a fascinating fantasy about a non-binary 12-year old who wants to be a knight but has the magic only girls are supposed to have.  Everyone sees them as female except their dad and some friends.  Callie works to get everyone to see that people should be who they are.  Gr.5-8 and older)

 

29. The Final Gambit by Jennifer Lynne Barnes (This is the third book of the “inheritance Game.”  There were more puzzles and intrigues related to the Hawthorne family, people we didn’t know about previously.  The whole trilogy was Terrific!) 

 

30 Win Every Argument, The Art of Debating, Persuading, and Public Speaking by Mehdi Hasan (I loved this book full of tips and tricks for public speaking with a lot of actual examples.  I took notes.  

 

If you read any of these books, I would love to know what you thought of them.  Happy reading!!

GOVERNOR DeSANTIS, SCARED OF BLACK HISTORY?

By Ruth A. Sheets

Ron DeSantis, what’s with this waging a campaign in Florida to get rid of Black history classes in schools?  I understand you have no problem with Italian culture classes (perhaps to raise up your heritage and your right to whiteness), French and Japanese culture classes too (Japanese I suppose to prove you’re not racist), but not Black history which is the heritage of a large number of people living and working in your own state.  Well, Ron, I know just why you have a fear of white kids and adults learning about Black history and I will lay some of it out for you.  However it can be stated in one sentence that will need only a little clarification.  The cruelties done by white people in this country against Black Americans are horrific beyond comprehension and the ancestors of many of the white folks in good ole Florida participated as did the ancestors of white folks all over this nation.

“What are some of those horrific cruelties,” you ask. Well, this is a challenge because the cruelties were and are so many and RATHER widespread.  Do I mention the most heinous or the most common, physical or emotional or some of each?     

Governor DeSantis, I know you don’t want to know these things because you are scared of what such knowledge might do to you even though your family was only present for some of the cruelty even if they were not directly involved, something only you and they would know.  It’s too bad you can’t imagine what such awareness could do for you, a white Christian man.  Maybe it would help if you try for a fraction of a moment to imagine the following were happening to you or people you love.  OMG!  I just realized, conservative white people in power have a hard time with empathy, even in its most basic form.  Well then, pretend it is a movie and you are one of the Black actors and see what you think.  I probably need to begin with perhaps the most difficult first.   

Africans in the 17^th, 18^th, and 19^th centuries did not choose to come to America.  They did not even pay for steerage tickets as your immigrant ancestors and most Italian immigrants did.  They were captured and sold as commodities.  That word was SOLD.  Their treatment on shipboard was so horrendous, even your movie wouldn’t be able to show it believably.  Then they were auctioned off the way one might auction off a painting or piece of furniture, men, women, and children, the survivors of the voyage and later the children of those survivors.

Life for those enslaved people was not sweet and pastoral as you probably were told in school; it was beyond inhumane yet the owners claimed to be Christians, followers of a man who was not violent, hateful, or a user of fellow human beings.  How did they justify it, they claimed they were training savages, rescuing them from a terrible life in the jungles of Africa.  They lied to themselves, and kept it up for 250 years until a war finally ended it.

The war, however, didn’t end the suffering of those Africans who over time had become Americans by virtue of their being here and the 13^th and 14^th Amendments to our Constitution.  Southern white folks just couldn’t bear those “less-than-human” former enslaved persons being free, so worked their hardest to push as many as possible back into some form of slavery by trumped-up charges to prison:  farms, mines, road-building and more, where slave labor was and is still permitted.

Then, there’s the lynching that targeted any Black person who dared to challenge a white person, talk to a white woman, or expected the rights of citizenship which were guaranteed to them in the 14^th Amendment.  More than 3,500 murders have been documented mostly throughout the South, but even in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Illinois, states whose troops had fought to free the enslaved people.  Oh, by the way, neither Federal nor state governments intervened to stop the violence and white officials often participated.

Then there’s the massacres of Black people while their communities were destroyed by white people who were angry that Black people might have anything white people didn’t approve of them having:  Wilmington, NC, East St. Louis and Chicago, IL, Greenwood in Tulsa, OK, Rosewood in Florida your own state.  The ancestors of at least some of your current supporters participated in the violence.

Over the years, Black Americans have worked to claim their rights, but white people constantly stood and stand in the way.  African-Americans were/are forced to pay outrageous rents by landlords for shacks and slum housing; share-cropped where the white landowners regularly cheated them of their share of the earnings; were redlined into narrow, poor districts and were kept there by curfews and violence, often killed or injured if they happened to be caught in the white area of town.  They couldn’t try on clothing in stores but were welcome to buy the clothes.  They couldn’t eat at lunch counters and in most restaurants and had to pick up food in the back and take it out (maybe the model for the modern take-out restaurants).  You probably also know the inhumane bathroom, water fountain, and bus ridership rules all over the former Confederacy. 

If a factory was to be built, and it was guaranteed to pollute the air or water, it was built in the Black section of town, and still is and the workers were paid wages that barely supported them and their families.  Segregation was everywhere and even permitted by law by the Supreme Court in 1896.

Ever since 1870 when Black men got the right to vote through Amendment to the Constitution, white people have been working to keep them from voting:  poll taxes, fake literacy tests, gerrymandering, voting places too far for people to get to, ID requirements with unnecessary but costly IDs, voter roll purges, and a lot more.   

During the time of enslavement, police targeted Black people even in states where slavery had been illegal for decades claiming they could be runaway slaves.  The police in many places expanded that targeting and have harassed, brutalized, and murdered Black men at far higher rates than any other group and continue to do so while the police tell us how “I was scared for my life.”  Police are rarely held accountable even when their actions have been recorded.  Juries nearly always give the police who do the killing a free pass, well, unless the officers are themselves Black as in Memphis. 

Doctors, hospitals, and other medical entities treat Black people with far less respect than they do other patients:  they don’t prescribe appropriate medications in appropriate amounts; listen poorly to patients’ descriptions of their illness; do not respond as quickly when a Black patient calls for help while in the hospital; follow inaccurate protocols assuming Black people have thicker skin and feel pain less.  Black infant and maternal death rates are higher than for any other group and seem to be rising, particularly in red states, you know the ones like yours that want to force Black women to stay pregnant putting them at significant risk of death.    

This little bit of history I have presented here is a taste of what the African-American history class you want to ban would help students consider.  The fragile little white kids of Florida wouldn’t be forced to take it, so your hype about this is disingenuous, in fact, fodder to feed the part of your base you keep stoking to be hateful and fearful of people of color, in this case, Black Americans.  That is so un-Christian in case you don’t know it.  Lying about a course you have not studied or even read the syllabus for should be beneath a  leader, but lately, Republicans have scooped up some of the most hateful, fearful, human beings and put them on the stage to whip up more hate and fear to turn it into anger against the people you have decided you don’t like or have power you think is undeserved. 

The other side of the African-American history of this country includes the men who built the Capitol in Washington, DC and most likely in the other states too, laid a lot of the rail lines and roads, carved woodwork and built furniture, wrote and published poetry, taught in schools and colleges, painted and sculpted, sang, composed,  and performed incredible music, made fashionable gowns as well as everyday clothing from sheering the sheep to processing the cotton by hand, made delicious food from whatever ingredients they could grow or find.  In short, they were masters of nearly every craft and skill in our country throughout history.

Black Americans fought in our war for Independence in an integrated army and navy.  They also fought in all the rest of our many wars, usually in segregated units that did the construction, clean-up, burials, and cooking for the troops.  Or, they were sent into the thickest of the fighting.  Black troops won the highest honor bestowed by France for their bravery and persistence in saving the French people during WWI.  In our volunteer military forces, Black soldiers, sailors, Marines, and Coast Guards make up a higher proportion of the troops than their percentage in our society as a whole.  

Governor DeSantis, Black Americans do not deserve your scorn.  They don’t deserve your dismissal either.  African-Americans deserve respect and courses that deeply look at their history and contributions.  The action you and your Education official have taken is racist and very childish.  The adult thing to do now would be for you both to apologize to Black Floridians and approve the course, although I don’t see why you should have any say in which AP courses a district offers.  Is that just another of your invasions into areas you should not have entered, right along with your insults of the LGBTQ+ communities.  I am guessing you don’t care.  I can’t help but think you lost your humanity somewhere.  It would truly be a good idea for you to go looking for it.  The apology for your bad behavior related to the African-American History course and getting out of a decision about an AP class would be a good start.

Here are a few books that could help you learn about the immense strength and persistence of the African-American community.  I am sure if you had any Black assistants, they could recommend more.  Even if you were to read them, I doubt they would change your perception of Black Americans, but it might awaken a tiny spark in your conscience.

Under the Skin, the Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and the Health of Our Nation  by Linda Villarosa

At the Hands of Persons Unknown by Phillip Dray 

The East St. Louis Massacre, The Greatest Outrage of the Century, 1917  by Ida B. Wells-Barnett