Hamnet

Hamnet imagines a story of Shakespeare’s wife — their courtship, marriage, and death of their son from the plague. I couldn’t put this down: it was beautiful, engaging, and compelling. It’s a great novel in its own right, but even more so knowing just a bit about Shakespeare’s work. It made me want to read the sonnets and plays again.

Two Locked Rooms: The Guest List and The Hunting Party

I’ve long loved mysteries, and I have a particular soft spot for “locked room” mysteries. (Perhaps it’s because that feeling of being trapped resonates right now mid-pandemic??) While Agatha Christie is the master of this sub-genre, I’ve quite enjoyed two books by Lucy Foley: The Guest List and The Hunting Party.

These are both delightfully drawn, with beautiful people having a brilliant party… that goes wrong. There are enough clues to follow along, but not so obvious that there’s no fun. These were highly entertaining.

The Genius of Birds

I’ve been paying much more attention to birds this year. This is both because I am trying hard to slow down and pay attention to what’s around, but also because spending a few months of uninterrupted time in the Methow Valley this spring gave us a front-row seat to the life cycle of dozens of birds I hadn’t much noticed before. (This was mostly great, except for the northern flickers attacking the metal roof every day at 6am.)

I’m also quite scared of birds, so this paying attention was also an act of trying to understand and respect birds in a different way. The Genius of Birds was a helpful introduction to some pretty amazing facts about how bird species have evolved, funciton, and thrive. It’s accesible but sometimes a bit intense, so if you have a real interest in birds, it’s for you.

The Vanishing Half

I finished The Vanishing Half by Britt Bennett a few days ago, but I find myself continuing to think about the novel — the characters, the themes, how I feel about choices each character made. This novel was both gripping and unsettling, which is high praise from me. It’s about passing as someone else – in different ways, for different reasons, and at different costs. Set in the 1960s and 1980s, there remain striking parallels to today.

I could not put this down. I recommend you buy this and read immediately.  (I purchased it this summer, as part of the #BlackPublishingPower effort. Why I waited this long to read it… I have no idea. Don’t make the same mistake!)

Why We Sleep

I learned a lot from Why We Sleep, by Matthew Walker, and it was compelling enough to change some of my behaviors. (e.g., I spent a week giving myself a full eight hours in bed, taking advantage of the additional early AM flexibility afforded me during WFH times.) Walker makes the complex concepts easy to digest, and the reading was enjoyable. Portions were redundant, especially when describing the setup of every single study, but those were easily skimmable. Worth a read.

The Splendid and the Vile

I felt compelled to keep coming back to The Splendid and the Vile, by Erik Larson, detailing the work of a strong, compelling, and effective leader during a crisis. We’re living in a void now, and this book filled it for me. (Or highlighted it even further)

I’m a fan of Churchill, and this is not my first biography. But what made this compelling was Larsen’s focus on multiple dimensions and voices over a set period of time. It provided a much richer and multidimensional, more human picture of Churchill at this time than I got from other reading. Learning more about the cast of characters also gave a great sense for what it must have been like to be in Churchill’s orbit during this crisis.

I listened to the audio book; John Lee was a great narrator.

By and about the ladies

One downside of this long slog of reading presidential biographies is that I am over-indexing on books about white men written by white men. (Except, so far, for Lynne Cheney.  Yes, that Lynne Cheney.)

So I’m always keeping an eye out for great books to even out the mix.  This was a great list.  And many thanks to my book club for introducing me to 52weeks52books52women.  And for our last two book club selections – Manhattan Beach and Little Fires Everywhere.  Both were compelling reads – I couldn’t put them down. And both left me thinking long after I did finally put them down.  Highly recommend.

JQA

I’m now into the presidents we didn’t learn much about in high school history classes.  John Quincy Adams was the sixth president. He was also Secretary of State; Ambassador to France, England, and Russia; and a US Representative. I had not previously understood that Adams’ accomplishments in those other roles were much more significant than those of his presidency.

Despite the long career in public service, the more interesting part of this biography was the documentation of Adams’ private life. He suffered from depression through much of his adult life. His insecurities and doubts are well-documented in his extensive diaries. He knew he was journaling for posterity, so the level of candor was striking. But somehow the interior monologue was not widely known at the time. It of course makes me wonder if a similarly challenging private struggle could still be hidden today.

Incidentally, one of the hardest parts about this little hobby is finding and choosing the specific biography to read. After the last few presidents, were there were not many options to choose from, I’m looking forward to Jackson because he’s at least got a Pulitzer Prize-winning option…

The Last Founding Fathers

Madison: This was a fun one to read. I admit I was wildly ignorant of Madison, knowing only that he was one of the authors of the Constitution. I appreciated Cheney’s note that while many know Madison as a sickly President (myself included), he was the only sitting President to face a wartime attack.

Given that I waited six months to record my notes about this one… this is all I’ve got.

Monroe: This presidential biography project of mine has turned into a much longer endeavor than I had initially supposed.  More of a lifelong hobby than a project.  Given my current (slow) pace, I’m only capable of reading one biography per president. This necessarily conflates my understanding and appreciation of any given president with his biographer.  That hasn’t felt too problematic… until now.  Choosing a biography of Monroe was difficult.  There is an academic biography and a popular biography. Reading the Kindle sample of the popular biography convinced me that this one was not for me — it was flippant and uncritical from the get-go.  The academic version, which was the very opposite in tone, was also interminably slow reading.  After making it through a page or two per day, I gave up and went back to the popular version.  It was as expected from the sample… though at least I finished it.

My comments are much stronger about the author than about the subject. Unger writes in such a way as to lose much credibility with this reader. His opinions run rampant throughout the book and are generally unsubstantiated (“the incompetent Madison was left to totter in his rickety presidential chair…,” “President Monroe’s self-serving, politically ambitious successors undermined then national unity he created…”).

It is clear that Monroe is a crucial figure in US history, one I never learned much about as a student. He fought in the revolutionary war, was a diplomat to France and England, and the last founding father to sit as president. He negotiated the Louisiana Purchase, which alone would make him worth studying.

It’s unclear whether Monroe was not aware or reflective enough about the issues of slavery, or whether that is true of the author instead. This biographer notes at several points the existence of Monroe’s slaves, as well as Monroe’s concerns about slave rebellions. However, I wanted a more critical examination of Monroe’s personal and financial relationship with slavery.

I was also disappointed that Monroe’s credit for  the ‘era of good feelings,’ which included the Missouri Compromise, went unquestioned. Unger said Monroe’s successors squandered the peace Monroe had established, but I would argue that in fact Monroe kicked this can down the road to his successors to deal with.

John Adams

So far, John Adams is my favorite president.

I know, I’m only just now starting on number three, but still.

Adams was stubborn, obstinate, and blunt. So he wasn’t the most popular of the founding fathers. But he was wildly intelligent, diligent and had strong integrity. His thinking and perseverance were instrumental in the success of the US but he was not always well-liked. (For example, you might recall from high school history classes that he defended the British soldiers accused in the Boston Massacre because he believed everyone deserved a fair trial.)

Adams’ writings were extensive, especially his letters with his wife Abigail. She is a star of this book and I think it would be hard not to like her. His accounts of life in the European courts are fascinating and her accounts of hardships in MA during the war are inspiring.

Whether my interest in this is due to Adams himself or the skill of McCullough as a biographer, I’m not sure… but I would highly recommend this one. (The HBO miniseries is based on this book and is excellent.  I’d recommend both, actually.)

One thing that has been unexpected about these biographies, but quite interesting, is the extent to which each man shows up in the others’ bios. What I learned about Adams in his biography was consistent with how he was portrayed in Washington’s. Jefferson is prominent in both predecessors’ stories, but he doesn’t come across like a stand-up guy. We’ll see what his biographer says….