Book Talk – May 12th, 2024

Great group for the May Book Lovers SIG.  Michael rejoined us after a several months’ absence, Nathan joined us for the first time since his school Christmas break and Sally joined us for the first time in I can’t remember how long.  Regulars Christina, Peggy, and Beth rounded out the group.  So much fun catching up with everyone.  Linda was treated to a special Mother’s Day by her daughter, so couldn’t join us, but she did share the list of books she’s been reading.

In all, 65 books were read/discussed/reviewed.  The full list can be found here:

https://mamensa.org/category/book-lovers-sig-book-talks/

Book Lovers SIG always meets the second Sunday of each month; in this case June 9.  We continue to meet online using Zoom; that seems to be the easiest way to meet for the few remaining locals.

Folks generally start checking in around 2 pm for a bit of socialization.  Book discussions begin around 2:30 pm, more or less, or when Peggy says, “OK, Let’s talk about books!”.

To join us on Zoom, simply click on the link shown below:

https://tinyurl.com/BookLoversSIG

You can also open your Zoom app and use these parameters:

Meeting ID: 946 0436 4344
Passcode: 844358

Remember, Book Lovers SIG is yet another way for Mensa members who do not live in large metropolitan areas or who can’t make it to local events to get more out of their membership.  We don’t assign books; we just talk about what we’ve been reading lately.  Even if you haven’t had time to read this month, join us anyway.  Maybe you’re interested.  Happens to me all the time!

*****

Beth

Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett.  Emily and Weldon continue in their quest to find the door to Weldon’s Faery Kingdom, making friends and discovering enemies along the way.  Part quest, part love story, a fun romp in the Alps and Irish Faery.

The Grace of Wild Things by Heather Fawcett.  An orphan girl adopts a witch to learn magic.  Things do not go as planned, but they do go on.  A story of working with the hand you were dealt, and making it serve your purposes.  It doesn’t turn out how you would think.  Not everyone is redeemed, but some people are.

Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen.  This book has a lot of commentary that got me thinking I should audit a high school history class to find out what is really being taught.  This looks at a few areas of American history that are quite whitewashed in the general history (Columbus, Plymouth, Native American History, Slavery, the federal government, and Vietnam).  It discusses some of the reasons that history books are so bland.  The thesis is that we have a myth of America the infallible, and our history must be presented so that all the mistakes are ignored.  One example is that “chaos breaks out, unrest breaks out” without specifying why.  Usually because someone behaved badly, and people got mad and pushed back.  Compare this to the historical literature which is about exposing all the warts.

Palestine 1936 by Oren Kessler.  This is a look at the beginnings of the establishment of the State of Israel in Palestine, that !!! was already full of people.  A step by step of who did what and the subsequent reaction.  A few hot heads, a few overreaching politicians, and handful of bad leaders, and voila: the Middle East mess.  This was very enlightening and changed how I think about the current war.

Can We Talk About Israel? by Daniel Sokatch.   This book by an American Jew who fell in love with Israel and spent a lot of time there.  This looks at the history starting with Zionism in the 19th century and goes through to recent history.  There seems to be something that lets the extremists rise to the top and then refuse to compromise.  Another good overview with details of how one decision leads to the next and it only takes one or more obstinate leaders to derail progress.

Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford.  In an alternative history, the smallpox that came from Africa with slaves was only 1% lethal instead of 30% lethal, and so most of the Native populations survived.  Some of the Jesuits that came with the Spaniards were not so thorough in eliminating the Native religions, and a hybrid Christian/Native religion developed in Cahokia (St. Louis).  Fast forward to the 1920s, this is a look at the power play between the East Coast Protestants, the Midwest Catholic Natives, the Jim Crow South, and the Russians(!) in the Northwest/Alaska.  Lots of culture clash and culturally lost people.  Very interesting alternative history if just one little thing (smallpox) was different.  I didn’t figure this mystery out (it starts with a ritualized murder), because the different cultures were the dominant story.

Code Girls by Liza Mundy.  This is the story of the women who ran and worked in the code breaking sections of the Navy and the Army during WWII.  Their accomplishments were extraordinary, starting from almost zero, and devising tools to decrypt and encrypt codes.  This is set against the background of the sexism and racism, and other assorted xenophobia, along with the lack of world knowledge and awareness of the general population, before, during and after the war.

Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis.  The Time Travel Net is in full swing, until it stops working.  This is the story of multiple historians who travel back to various events during WWII to do research on various aspects of the war: interviewing the small boat captains of the Dunkirk evacuation, life in London during the Blitz, ambulance drivers during the V-1 and V-2 rocket attacks, Bletchley Park, child evacuees.  To do this, they get in character, get their period clothes, money, ration books, ID papers, language and accent implants, information on where and when the bombs landed, etc. etc.  The book opens with utter chaos in the transfer lab: there is a problem, but no one knows what it is, and no one is sharing, and everyone wants to go where they want to go when they want to go, and the answer is “The schedule has been changed”.  This can be read as a comedy, because people keep missing each other, and then the drops stop working and it is a huge mess, but no one has time to stop and figure out more than one or two steps ahead.  On the other hand, this has a lot of graphic details of the destruction and lives lost, and just getting through the day (and night) with little food, no lights, nightly bombings, and change that makes our society look like it is standing still.  It was engrossing, I read all 1250 pages in 3 days, although at times I just wanted her to get to the punch line.  The takeaway is that the world is complex, and the outcome rests on a knife’s edge, and that while one person’s actions don’t determine the final outcome, there are crucial points where one person does make a difference.  Like the boy throwing starfish back into the ocean: he can’t save all the beached starfish, but he can save some of them, and to the starfish that is saved, it makes all the difference in the world.

The School Between Winter and Fairyland by Heather Fawcett.  Wizard School, and a Beastkeeper.  Told from the perspective of a lowly beastkeeper searching for her lost twin, whom everyone else thinks is dead.  Enter the 12-year-old wizard hero.  He is supposed to kill the dragon monster, before winter, but he’s terrified of dragons and faints at the sight of them.  No one is who they seem to be, and the solution comes with unexpected costs.  Interesting but definitely young adult, with all the adults being virtually worthless and blind to reality and their “obligation” to impose consequences on children.

Peggy

Tombland, A Shardlake Novel by C.J. Sansom.  Sansom died recently so this is the 7th and final book in the mystery series. Matthew Shardlake, a lawyer with a hunchback, starts out as a reformer in the early Henry VIII era, but he becomes more disillusioned over time. In Tombland, Edward is the new king and Shardlake is working for Princess Elizabeth.  The economic collapse and peasant revolts get Shardlake and his associates trapped on the peasant side of a real-life rebellion.  I’d call this a historical novel with a mystery attached.

The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd. A story about the wife of Jesus, and it’s not Mary Magdalene! Ana grows up in Sepphoris (a major city a few miles from Nazareth) and is an educated, willful teenager who gets crosswise with Herod Agrippa. (See the Mona Lisa of Galilee.) After her marriage to Jesus ends, she winds up with the Therapeutae, Jewish ascetics living in Egypt.  Some of the history is real, other parts are wildly imaginative.

The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. The first steampunk novel (1990) in which Charles Babbage perfects his Analytical Engine and the computer age arrives a century ahead of time. It’s 1855, Lord Byron is the Prime Minister, and the race is on to find a box of punched Engine cards of unknown origin. Ada Lovelace, the Prime Minister’s daughter, is still a gambling addict. Found this through a Rest of History podcast observing the 200th anniversary of Lord Byron’s death.

The Accidental President by A.J. Baime.  The first 4 months of Harry Truman’s presidency, from FDR’s death to the dropping of the atomic bombs.  Timely given the discussions about our capability to charge ex-Presidents with crimes(?) committed in office.

The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World by Virginia Postrel.  Fabric’s contribution to engineering/manufacturing, to chemistry/dyes, to double-entry bookkeeping and letters of credit.  A Viking sail took longer to create than a Viking ship!  Found this through a recent Lawfare Chatter podcast where Postrel was interviewed by David Priess.

Linda

Code Girls by Liza Mundy.  NOT the female code breakers at Bletchley Park in England, rather the thousands of them in the U.S. doing equally valuable work (maybe more so).  5*

Ladder of Years by Anne Tyler.  Typical Anne Tyler — a woman becomes unconnected to her life.   4*

All About Me by Mel Brooks.  Typical show-biz autobiography. 3*

Can’t We Talk about Something More Pleasant by Roz Chast.  Graphic book about dealing with aging and dying parents.  3*

The Spy Coast by Tess Gerritsen.  A reclusive former spy becomes involved in a local mystery.  4*

The Magician’s Assistant by Ann Patchett.  A widow discovers her husband’s hidden family and finds a new family for herself.  4*

Being Henry by Henry Winkler.  Another typical show-biz autobiography.  3*

The Exiles by Christina Baker Kline.  About immigrants to Tasmania in the 19th century (fiction).  4*

Nathan

Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov.
The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susanna Clarke.
Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer.
The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis.
Don Quixote
The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder by David Grann.
And a long-term project: The Matter with Things by Dr. Iain McGilchrist.

Christina

Nightwatching by Tracy Sierra — The blurb makes it sound like a rip-off of Panic Room, but it’s a very different take on the home invasion trope. Go in cold if you can, because your reaction to the themes is part of the point of the book. Read for Literally Dead Book Club.

In Five Years by Rebecca Serle — This is NOT a rom-com. I would argue that it isn’t even a romance, and it’s certainly not a comedy. It’s contemporary fiction that hinges on an unexplained bit of time travel, and it works a lot better than you might expect. Read for High Tea Book Club.

Accused by M.N. Jolley — First book in the Kansas City Warlock Weekly series, and it’s a paranormal murder mystery. Our sleuth is Levi, who is not a licensed magic user himself but puts out a newspaper for the local magical community. He gets a confusing tip and realizes too late that the tipster is in grave danger. He rushes to find her and she’s already dead, and now Levi is the prime suspect. Good low-key autism rep and cool worldbuilding. Nice cinematic use of flashbacks. Read for the Autism Acceptance Readathon.

Autism in Heels: The Untold Story of a Female Life on the Spectrum by Jennifer O’Toole — I got a lot of validation out of this, and there are some chapters I would recommend to specific people or groups of people. But I get why a lot of people bounce off this quickly. She does a lot of bragging about herself, and there are certain things she seems to have decided apply to all autistics. It just doesn’t make for a reading experience that holds together well. Read for People April and the Autism Acceptance Readathon.

Welcome to Dead House by R.L. Stine — The first Goosebumps book. A brother and sister new to a spooky town discover a sinister plot centered around their new house. Read for Old School April Nostalgia-thon.

Murder Road by Simone St. James — A thriller novel riffing on the ghostly hitchhiker legend. Interesting premise, lots of great characters and fun stuff, but if you stop and think about it, it feels like a pretty good third draft that was rushed to publication. I’d love to see it turned into a campy TV series. Read for two different horror/thriller book clubs.

I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death by Maggie O’Farrell — A memoir told through 17 tales of the author and her “brushes with death”. Some of these brushes were disappointingly distanced from herself, but some of them were brutal and dire. Content warning for childbirth body horror, miscarriages, and incompetent medical personnel. Her writing style was consistently engaging, and I have bumped Hamnet up on my reading list. Read for People April.

Toys Go Out: Being the Adventures of a Knowledgeable Stingray, a Toughy Little Buffalo, and Someone Called Plastic by Emily Jenkins — A fun little collection of six related tales of a girl’s toys interacting with each other and our world. Very reminiscent of Toy Story but didn’t feel like a rip-off. Read for Old School April.

The Six Deaths of the Saint by Alix E. Harrow — Short fantasy story about a saint serving a god. Confusing use of perspective but worth working out if you like this flavor of fantasy. Read for the Kindle Challenge.

Beetle Blast by Ali Sparkes — Middle grade story of two brothers who keep getting turned into various animals by their creepy mad scientist neighbor. This is the sixth book in the series, and they get turned into beetles. This is very much aimed at 12-year-olds who love childish jokes, so I did not have a good time despite the spy intrigues. Read for the Alphabet Soup mini challenge to read a book with a creepy-crawly in the title.

The Masque of the Red Death: Fine Art Edition by Edgar Allan Poe, illustrated by Steven Archer — Not a graphic novel adaptation, despite what Goodreads would have you believe. It’s a full story with super creepy illustrations. Read along to the Stefan Rudnicki narration for a next-level horror experience.

The Maid by Nita Prose — I have mixed feelings about this. The neurodivergent rep was not wrong, exactly, but the context was so strange and pulled me out of the story. I also had to suspend belief a lot for most of the characters being unbelievably and inconsistently stupid as well as lots of bad police procedure. Read for my local mystery book club.

Tiger Chair by Max Brooks — A short story about a future world war in which China invades the West Coast of the USA and encounters the horrors of Americans fighting back. It’s framed unrealistically as an infodump in a single letter to a childhood friend back home. Read for the Kindle Challenge.

Mango, Mambo, and Murder by Raquel V. Reyes — A cozy mystery featuring a Cuban American woman moving back to her white husband’s home town, a gated country-club community in Miami. Country club ladies who have bought into a diet tea scheme start dropping dead and our sleuth has to find the real killer when her best friend is arrested for murder. It’s not without its problems, but the recipes look good. Read for the Alphabet Soup mini challenge to read a book with fruit in the title.

Sally

Future Girl or The Words in My Hands by Asphixia, 2021

This is a wonderfully immersive YA fiction about a deaf teen that is in the format of a journal that includes illustrations and text. It is in the process of being adapted into a film. The opportunity it provides for you to place yourself in the shoes of a teen isolated by her difference yet still striving to find her place in society is priceless. It is also a near future science fiction book in that Australia has shifted politically and economically (shades of spiraling into dystopia), yet in a manner that is subtle such that you could see it happening in the not-too-distant future.

Living with Intensity by Susan Daniels and Michael Piechowski, 2008

Dense, almost textbook like, but very well written treatment of overexcitabilities that frequently accompany giftedness set in the context of Dabrowski’s psychological framework, focused on developmental potential and multi-levelness. The latter is not specific to giftedness. Dr. Piechowski, who worked directly with Dabrowski, is also from Poland originally. Wrapping my head around the concepts of Positive Disintegration and its relationship to various neuro-diversities is my latest hobby. Overexcitabilities are innate tendencies to respond in an intensified manner to stimuli and there are multiple types each described in detail: psychomotor, sensual, intellectual, imaginational, and emotional. Living with Intensity has a very insightful section on practical applications for parents, teachers and counselors that provides new ways to recognize and manage overexcitabilities in children and teens. More of Dabrowski’s theory here:  https://dabrowskicenter.org.  Also, here is an additional excellent review:  https://intergifted.com/living-with-intensity/.

Math Games with Bad Drawings by Ben Orlin, 2022

In short – fun! A whimsical, well researched collection of games which are grouped by their underlying math concepts and can largely be done with a pencil and piece of paper. The history, context and explanation of the underlying math concepts are humorously conveyed in text and “Bad” drawings by the author. You can dip into the book anywhere and find something fun to learn and do. Orlin, known for his other two books, Math with Bad Drawings and Change is the Only Constant, if truly gifted in his skill to explain math concepts and make them fun.

I also promised a list of some other books from my reading in the learning space:

Refuse to Choose! By Barbara Sher, 2006

Presents the concept of a scanner, “people whose unique type of mind does not zero in on a single interest but rather scans the horizon, eager to explore everything they see.” Quite interesting premise and an interesting read so far.

The 5 Levels of Giftedness: School Issues and Educational Options by Deborah Ruf, 2022

The original title, Losing Our Minds: Gifted Children Left Behind is more revealing than the final title. A very interesting book that looks at giftedness much more holistically than simply IQ score or other academic ability tests, what most school districts use that have the classification, and as something more than a single bucket. Per Ruf, the difference between a highly-profoundly gifted person and a moderately gifted person is greater than between a moderately gifted and non-gifted person. She has followed up with these gifted and highly gifted children throughout their lives (has another book about them as adults) and here presents insights gained from this along with her classification scheme. Her book includes rough estimates of behaviors and compares them at different ages for the different levels of giftedness.

Editor’s note: Dr. Deborah Ruf is a featured speaker of the Mensa Foundation Colloquium 2024 being held in Kansas City, MO in July. Learn more about this year’s Colloquium and Dr. Ruf’s research with giftedness here: https://www.mensafoundation.org/what-we-do/education-and-outreach/colloquium/

Some good productivity related books as well:

Slow Productivity by Cal Newport, 2024

Perhaps you’ve heard of this author’s book Deep Work. If not, start here instead, as he unlike many authors in the self-help and business book space references his prior key nuggets of wisdom from his prior books and improves upon them here. What I appreciate is the deep research and connection to seemingly unrelated concepts that Cal weaves together to come to his conclusions regarding the issues we face in this space and how to go about things in a completely different manner.

The Gap and the Gain as well as Who Not How by Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy, 2021 and 2020

The authors are both coaches, the former a very well-known executive business coach. After reading these, I have distilled and installed a couple of the suggested practices in my life which are helping me recover from a toxic funk, I have only recently emerged from. The practice of measuring and recognizing past success and acknowledging it consciously in the present as wins such that you can harness the momentum it provides, which is presented in the first book, is super powerful and actually quite simple. It is a shift from many high performers’ norm of being perpetually future focused and not understanding how far they have come. It made the issues with this latter mentality exceptionally concrete for me. The second book covers a core mind shift from our default of contemplating “how” we can overcome a given problem or complete a task ourselves to contemplating “who” might be able to help or do it instead of ourselves. Again, a seemingly simple concept, but elegantly presented with practical approaches. If you like audio books, spring for that format as it includes podcast style conversations between the two authors, between each chapter.  I actually got more from some of the conversations than I did from some of the chapters.

Brad

The War on Normal People: The Truth About America’s Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income Is Our Future by Andrew Yang.  I added this to my to-read list before the last presidential election and have just now gotten around to it.  (I have a very long list.)

All is Lost.  That seems to be the overarching theme in Yang’s book. AI will take all our jobs. Only entrepreneurs can save the day (Yang is an entrepreneur).   Some of his predictions are hilariously wrong. A few are remarkably accurate.  What doesn’t change throughout this book is that he is convinced he is right.   ***

The Detective by Roderick Thorp.  I can’t remember why this got put on my list, but I learned after the fact that this was published in 1966 and was later made into a movie starring Frank Sinatra.  Who knew?

I found the book ponderous.  More soap opera than detective story. Babble on.  More focus on the detective than on the actual detecting.  Lots and lots of descriptions of what he was thinking, what his wife was thinking, what the witnesses were thinking.  It just took forever to get to the end of the book, and even then, there wasn’t much of an ending.  Maybe just a product of its time.  Not recommended.  ***

Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention – and How to Think Deeply Again by Johann Hari.   The focus of the book discusses how the extensive use of smartphones by children has affected their ability to focus and concentrate.  Lots of good research, good information (particularly the chapter on ADHD), but I don’t care for the author’s writing style.  Over and over, he writes, “I traveled to such and such place to interview so and so, an expert in whatever.” In other words, he makes himself a focal point of the story. Gets in the way of the argument he is making.

Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Best Nonfiction (2022).  ****

MAS*H: A Novel About Three Army Doctors by Richard Hooker.  Completely stumbled across this by accident; didn’t even know the book existed.   Hooker, the pseudonym of Hiester Richard Hornberger Jr., was a surgeon who served in Korea during the war, so most of this was based on what he saw.  Not a great writer, but a great story.  It was fun to read about many of the characters we became familiar with, as well as what was left out of the movie and then later the television series.  ****

Us Against You by Fredrik Backman.  Backman also wrote A Man Called Ove, which is why I think this was on my list.  A story about hockey, but not really about hockey at all, but instead about people in small towns, their rivalries, their jobs, and their politicians.  Not only is Backman a good writer; he is a good storyteller.  Hard to put into words just how good this book is; the best I’ve read in quite some time. Now I need to go back and read the first book in the series; turns out this was the second book in the Beartown series.  Read this if you can.  Strong recommendation.  *****

Michael

Caste by Isabel Wilkerson.  Devastating study of class/caste differences in American society.

Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich.  Erdrich writes about her Chippewa heritage and native American history.  Short stories about related characters and family in this book.

The Night Watchman  by Louise Erdrich.  About her grandfather’s fight with the US Congress attempt to disappear many tribes.

The Sentence by Louise Erdrich.  About a book-loving wild child working in bookstore visited by a ghost.

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver.  David Copperfield updated to now.  Main plot and many characters lifted straight out of Dickens’s book.

Shriver by Chris Belden.   Read it; and can’t remember anything about it.

Liberation Day by George Saunders.  Short stories, the main one of which deals with clones/slaves as living art objects.

Cloud Coocoo Land by Anthony Doerr.  Disappointing follow-up to All the Light We Cannot See.  Two stories about a medieval siege of Constantinople and one post-apocalyptic sci-fi tale.

The Crucible by Arthur Miller.  Miller’s still very relevant play about witchcraft hysteria and ulterior motives.

Tomboy Bride by Harriet Fish Backus.  Fascinating description of family life in 19th century Colorado mining towns.

Seven Empty Houses by Samanta Schweblin.  Pulitzer Prize winning short stories about different houses.