Erica Simmons
DNF. I got this book after hearing Deborah Spar's interview with Terry Gross, which had resonated with me. But the book itself (or, the parts of it that I read) felt very basic and repetitive, and I really did not need to read the author stress one more time how much she had not considered herself a feminist. The overall message is important, but Spar doesn't really break new ground.
Survival / adventure books aren't really my thing, or, at least, I enjoyed the movie quite a bit but didn't really get much more out of the book. But I guess I should give the book some credit for generating an entertaining movie. I listened to the audiobook of this, which was overall well narrated, although there were some awkwardly bad foreign accents.
Now that so many people are suddenly interested the white working class, J.D. Vance seems to have a knack for timing. But coming from rural Maine - another area of multigenerational rural poverty and little economic opportunity - I have always felt that our policy and discourse has let down, if not completely ignored, people from places like Appalachian Kentucky where Vance's family is from. Vance does an excellent job weaving sociological research in with his family's experiences, providing a touching portrait of a family struggling in the face of poverty, addiction, and trauma. This book expresses empathy for people facing so many structural barriers to their success, but it is also critical of the bitter defeatism and xenophobia that many in this setting have embraced.
I loved reading the Canterbury Tales in Middle English in high school, but we only read the Prologue and a few of the tales, given time constraints and the difficulty of the sort-of-different language. I decided to read Ackroyd's modern prose translation as a quicker, easier way to read the rest of the tales. I enjoyed diving back into Chaucer's sarcasm and social commentary (although I was put off by the heavy doses of misogyny and antisemitism in many of the tales). But I found the prose translation disappointing. Part of the joy of Chaucer is the language, and although this felt more casual and less stilted than a modern poetry translation it still match up to the charm of the original.
Since I started traveling to Alaska for work, a few people have recommended this book to me, and I'm so glad they did. John McPhee is an easy, beautiful writer. The portraits of the people, the places, and the conundrums of Alaska as it transitioned from wilderness / lawless frontier to become a part of the U.S. legal system is fascinating, depressing, inspiring all in one. McPhee helped me dream of other lives and other perspectives, and made me think of Alaska with even more awe and humility than before.
This book is a powerful critique and warning about the dangers of big data: how use of algorithms at a broad scale throughout or society to inform hiring decisions, financial offerings, policing, etc. can increase inequality and ruin the lives of vulnerable individuals. As big data becomes more ubiquitous, this book provides a compelling argument for creating accountability and applying analyses in a thoughtful way to harness their potential for good and challenge their threat to do harm.
Reading one of the wave of post-financial crisis books in 2106? Feels so 2010? This was one of the wave of audiobooks I downloaded with my Audible subscription back then, then forgot about until recently. But I'm glad I went back to it.
This book is a great dive into our long, complex political relationship with the financial industry, from Jefferson and Hamilton through the aftermath of the financial crisis in 2008. Johnson and Kwak analyze the history of financial crises, bank regulation and deregulation leading up to the 2008 financial crisis, and how we have mostly failed to make the structural changes necessary to prevent another crisis like this in the future. Along the way they point out how differently we handled our own financial crisis than the reforms western countries have forced on other emerging market countries in similar situations. This book is thought-provoking and depressing. Although our economy feels more secure than it did six years ago - and books like this may be less in vogue - 13 Bankers is a good reminder that if we want to prevent another crisis we need to enact real political change.
Depressing, but very well written, account of hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. Horne, who was the city editor for the Times-Picayune, writes with the knowledge and nuance of a local. He does an excellent job humanizing the many people whose lives the disaster overturned, and this book left me shocked at the failure of our response. I hope we don't let this happen again, but I fear we have not learned the lessons that we should have. Which is why this is an important read.
There were parts of Rio Bravo that were brilliant, especially near the end. But a lot of it was very confusing. Part of this was due to narrative choices to chop the story into flashes, which I can appreciate, and part may have been more clear if I were immersed in the rest of the Marvel Universe. Overall I have loved this series, but the first half of the finale felt a bit weak.
This is not your typical celebrity memoir. It is beautiful, sad, and ultimately hopeful, but not in a cloying or cliched way. I am lucky not to have experienced the family trauma Alan Cumming describes, but the way he tells his story gave me a new appreciation for what it means to grapple with such a complicated, traumatic history and to survive.
I listened to the audio book. Alan Cumming's narration is also very good.
Oh, star ratings are hard for me. Two stars seems overly harsh, but then I tend to rate everything I read as a 3 or 4. And as interesting as the subject matter for this book is, for me there was quite a bit missing. I wanted to read this book, because the most of the Plantagenet era was a blank spot for me. I read [b:Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Life 111220 Eleanor of Aquitaine A Life Alison Weir https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320538974s/111220.jpg 977136] years ago and remember being fascinated by the unraveling of Henry II's reign as his children dismantled his empire in their competition for its control. (Talk about shooting your own foot.) And I studied Henry VIII in high school. But all of the Henrys and Edwards and other folks in between? I was curious. And the stories of the Plantagenets in this book are fascinating - both the individual events, like the drowning of William Aetheling in a drunken shipwreck that set off a civil war, and the longer narrative of how constant conflict between the Plantagenet kings and the upper nobility of England led to the gradual, negotiated formation of the institutions that came to define the English royal government. But what was really missing was a greater sense of context, both within English society and within Europe. Other things that happened during this time period that were barely mentioned? How about two papal schisms? Or the formation of an English cultural identity and eventual adoption of English as a courtly language? Or what about the Little Ice Age? And throughout this book I kept wondering, how much did all of this intrigue actually affect the lives of everyone else? As captivating as the fights of kings and upper nobles may be, I would get frustrated whenever I tried to think about the larger context. Really, I guess I wish this book was more like [b:A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century 568236 A Distant Mirror The Calamitous 14th Century Barbara W. Tuchman https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1403200553s/568236.jpg 227267], which created such a rich portrait of European society during the 14th century. When this book's narrative overlapped with that time period, the shortcomings of [b:The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England 15811559 The Plantagenets The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England Dan Jones https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1366387829s/15811559.jpg 17229073] were particularly apparent.
I blame my book club for this one. I didn't love this book, but it was fun to listen to on my morning walk to work. (I listened to the audiobook.) Lena Dunham has a great ability to describe her experiences in a way that seem to provide more generalizable insights on what it's like to grow up as an awkward, anxious, and privileged young woman in our culture. The scope of her insights may be narrow, but it is nonetheless informative, and parts of the book made me chuckle or cringe as I remembered the similarly dumb ways that have I navigated similar social and professional pressures.
This was a fun read - much more entertaining that Vol. 2, which told a fairly repetitive story about Clint Barton's self-destructive tendencies. In Vol. 3, Kate Bishop, his protege (who constantly saves his ass), sets out on her own and gets into her own trouble. I enjoyed the homages to LA noir and plots revolving around the dark side of LA's cult of youth and beauty.
There were things I really enjoyed about the book. I liked Elna Baker's off-beat humor, and I identified with her struggles as a unique, independent, often-lonely young woman trying to find her place in life and relationships. But the relationships were too big a part of this book. It was exhausting reading story after story about her search for a boyfriend / husband. (I know that's partly because of the religion, but it still got old.)