Posted December 22, 2025
Roth, Veronica, Insurgent: Volume 2 of Divergent Series, (novel, dystopia)
The story continues after a civil war has begun in Chicago, which is deteriorating and is the only place left on earth where the human race is huddled. They are divided into five groups (Amity—where everyone wants love and peace, Candor—where everyone tells the truth, Erudite—where everyone seeks knowledge and lives rationally, Abnegation—where everyone is selfless, and Dauntless—where everyone is brave and risk taking. Then there are those who don’t fit one of the five tribes—the factionless.
The leaders of Abnegation have been entrusted with knowledge from the past that they have hidden from the rest. It is in a video tape—apparently left in the cloud. They have started a genocide against the Abnegation faction in order to retrieve it. But since they are not good with weapons, they have discovered ways of implanting chemicals and transmitters inside the bodies of others—which allow them to take over their minds. They “brain-wire” half the Dauntless faction in order to wipe out Abnegation.
The hero of the novel, Tris, cannot be brain-wired—for she is Divergent—in other words, she has elements of several factions in her personality. She doesn’t fit just one group. Her boyfriend, Four (or Tobias) is also Divergent, as are several others who emerge in the story.
They sneak into Erudite headquarters in order to capture the control mechanisms—and are, of course, caught. They barely escape with their lives.
In order to NOT spoil the plot, they eventually get their hands on the video from the past—which changes their whole understanding of the world “out there” and the world order. As they play the video for everyone to see, the whole picture of reality changes—and we are set up for novel three in the series.
Posted December 16, 2025
Sonderman, Joe and Cheryl Eichar Jett, Route 66 in Illinois, (Images of America book, Arcadia Press) (Local history, Illinois, Route 66, extensive photography) Rating 5/5
Arcadia Press has published over 2500 books in its “Images of America” series, focusing on local history by local historians and featuring an abundance of stories and photographs.
As we enter the centennial year of Route 66, it is a good time to celebrate with anecdotes, factoids, and photographs. This book traces Route 66 from its starting point in Chicago, through Joliet, Pontiac, Lincoln, Springfield, Edwardsville—to the crossing of the Mississippi into Missouri.
It is a memorial to the many businesses that sprang up along 66 in order to serve travelers, from restaurants to gas stations to motels to tourist sites. Many of the building are still standing after all these years, and some of them are still in the same business. The route and the book’s photos also show an array of beautiful architecture along the way.
Route 66 in Illinois gave rise to Dairy Queen, the horseshoe lunch plate, and Steak and Shake. The Berghoff and Mitchell’s restaurants in Chicago are still in operation. The Whoopee Ride is no longer in existence, but for 25 cents you could drive your car on a roller coaster ride outside Chicago. There are sites along the way that connect with Al Capone and his friends. The famous prison in Joliet is along the route.
Esso gas stations were among the few that allowed Black patrons and are listed in the Green Book, published until 1964 to let Black travelers know where it was safe to stop. Dwight features a Frank Lloyd Wright bank and a Henry Ives Cobb train depot, as well as the curious Keely Institute for recovering addicts. There is a photo of a Meramec Cavern barn—cavern owner Lester Dill advertised his Missouri tourist attraction along the highways by offering to paint barns for free if the farmer would allow him to paint his advertisement on one side.
A 1920s post card displays a map showing the 5 paved highways in the state of Illinois: Route 2 running from Rockford to Cairo, Route 4 running from Chicago to St. Louis, Route 9 running east and west through Bloomington, and Route 39 running southeast from Bloomington through Urbana. All roads led through Bloomington in the 1920s.
Along the way one would pass by the State Farm office, Funks Grove syrup, the Dixie truck stop, the Atlanta grain elevator, the state fairgrounds and capitol building, site of the Virdin massacre, Carlinville’s scandalous “Million Dollar Courthouse,” St. Paul’s Lutheran Church outside of Hamel, Illinois, and the Chain of Rocks Bridge.
Ready for a road trip?
Posted December 15, 2025
Solle, Dorothee, Creative Disobedience (theology, Christian life, ethics) rating 5/5
Dorothee Solle (1929-2003) was a theologian who taught in both Germany and the United States. 19 of her 34 books have been translated into English. In Creative Disobedience she critiques her own upbringing, having been taught to be loyal to Hitler, to a patriarchal culture, and to a rigid and nationalist church.
Her thesis is that obedience should not be viewed from an authoritarian model but from a model that is multi-dimensioned, that contains checks and balances. Obedience is a matter of 1) the individual making a free decision based on 2) the will of God 3) as revealed in any given, specific situation. There can be no “obedience” without freewill. And there can be no loyalty to God without understanding the specific context in which one has an opportunity to act.
Solle introduces the concept of “phantasy” as essential for Christian life and ethics. Phantasy employs imagination to understand God’s will for a better world, no matter how disobedient that better world might be in the eyes of a government, an institutional church, or a societal norm. Or one’s own timidity and self-less-ness.
This is a very thick book, hard to wrestle through—but extremely worth it. I read it for the first time more than 30 years ago, and it has influenced my life ever since. Having just read it, I find new hope and energy for myself. The book itself is an example of phantasy that inspires others toward a more just and liberating world.
Turner, Bernard C., A New View of Bronzeville, (history, Chicago, Bronzeville, tour guide) rated 5/5
Bronzeville is a neighborhood in Chicago that has been the center of African-American life and culture in the city for more than a century. It is located just to the south of Soldier Field and the McCormick place, and is usually denigrated by the press and national politicians. It is usually avoided by tourists. It’s danger is vastly exaggerated by people who know virtually nothing about it. Turner’s book is a big step in turning our fear into curiosity.
There are problems in and around Bronzeville, to be sure. But those problems have mostly been caused by Chicago’s decade’s long segregation. Nearly 500,000 Black people, restricted by illegal real estate covenants, were crammed into a small section of Chicago—7 miles by ½ mile. It is the densest part of the city by far, giving rise to problems with economic opportunity, inequality, tax base, education, poverty, and crime—as would occur with any race of people saddled under such circumstances.
And yet, as Turner points out, the human spirit rose up in Bronzeville with creativity, intelligence, community, neighborliness, pride, faith, and ingenuity to give the world its gifts. Bronzeville attracted and gave us such people as Nat King Cole, Lena Horner, Ray Nance, Oscar Brown, Louis Armstrong, Earl Hines, Katryn Dunham, Richard Wright, Frank Yerby, Margaret Walker, Willard Motely, John Johnson, Gwendolyn Brooks, Elizabeth Catlett, Margaret Burroughs, William Carter, and Archibald Motley. It gave Chicago business leaders, talented politicians, entrepreneurs, educators, lawyers, and skilled workers.
Turner’s book gives a valuable checklist of things to see and experience in Bronzeville: churches, historic businesses, art works, homes of important people, museums, etc.
Turner doesn’t sugarcoat the odds that Black folks in Chicago had to fight against. But his book is educational, inspirational, and hopeful.
Posted December 12, 2025
Backman, Fredrik, My Friends, (novel) rating 10 (out of 5)
Let me start with the effect this novel had on me. It made me think of my own very best friends, how we have grown together, how hard we have been on each other, and how we have believed in one another to the point that we’ve each been pushed into journeys we would never have taken otherwise. At least that’s the effect my best friends have had on me. I am not qualified to say what I have meant to them.
This is one of those novels that can make you sad when you finish—as in sad to leave behind its fictional characters—for they become our friends in the course of the story. The author has described them so that they become profoundly real to us. Even though they are fictional, made up, they are fabricated from real people—including parts of our own selves.
The novel also made me appreciate what it means to be a misfit in the eyes of the world—and how glorious it is when misfits find “one of their own.” In the novel, somce of the best moments occur when one of the friends would contact another and say, “I’ve just met someone. You need to meet her too. She’s one of us.”
The story weaves between two time periods, roughly 15-20 years apart. The earlier period includes a small collection of friends that are all misfits—but they find each other. These 14-year-olds have already experienced too much rejection, violence, poverty, and neglect in this world. But when they discover each other, the novel sweeps us along in their adventures—including their love, their bad decisions, fabricated habits of friendship, arguments, and even death.
The protagonist of the book is Louisa, a bright and skittish 18 year old, who has just escaped from a foster care system that had often left her beaten and abused. At the start of the novel, she is homeless, and her only friend in the world—also an orphan—has just died of a drug overdose. Louisa is an artist, but she can’t see how that is of any value to anyone else. Louisa has a knack for making poor decisions. Her most valued assets are that she can run fast (as in running away from people) and her skills in breaking and entering. She quickly meets Ted, a survivor from that earlier group of 14 year olds (mentioned in the past paragraph) and now a “responsible” adult. While both of them have been abandoned throughout their lives, they are each incapable of abandoning someone else. And so they are stuck with each other, to the reader’s wicked delight.
The relationship between Louisa and Ted features sparking dialogue, suspense, thrilling twists of plot, and observations about life that are worth highlighting.
Throughout the book we meet characters are full of wit. Their humor sneaks up on yo page after page. You begin to hope one of them will discover you and report to the others, “I found someone—one of us.”
Along the way we meet Ali, Joar, Ted, Kim Kim, Christopher, Fish, Louisa, various parents and teachers, police officers, and strangers on trains.
This book is fundamentally about friendship and art. It is about art can be fundamental in making us who we are—art in all its forms: drama, writing, drawing, painting, music, dance, etc. Backman leads us into the mystical powers of the arts, suggesting that the arts are spiritually inspired, pathways to being friends with God—although this is definitely not a religious book!
The novel did this for me: renew my appreciation of art in its many forms and remind me of the value of my friendships. It also made me laugh and cry.
Finally, I rarely note this about a book: it is worth reading several times.
Hartstone, Joey, The Local: A Legal Thriller (novel) rating 5/5
Hartstone has given us a legal thriller along the lines of a John Grisham book, except much better than Grisham of recent years. James Euchre is a small town lawyer, intimidated by his famous father/lawyer, who does his best to stay in his comfort zone. He practices patent law—not a subject fit for a legal thriller.
But against his wishes, one of his patent law clients is arrested for murder, and James gets stuck defending him. The victim of the murder: a federal judge.
Hartstone gives his main character an opportunity for growth and insights into his inner character and his resistance to growth. The dialogue throughout makes the characters interesting and credible. And the plot twists make for a fun roller coaster ride for the reader.
Baum, L. Frank, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, (classical novel, 1900 edition)
I have been familiar with the movie since my childhood, but this is the first time I’ve read the novel, written in 1900. It has a number of significant differences. The scarecrow, tin man, and lion all go on to rule in different kingdoms. The story of the flying monkeys is expanded. The creation of the tin man is explained. The writing is wittier than the movie script. And the characters (lion, scarecrow, and tin man) all exhibit their desires attributes (courage, intelligence, and heart) repeatedly before the wizard “awards” them.
There seems to be nothing suggestively political in this novel–even though some scholars have speculated that Baum was writing an analogy about the populist politics of of his time. Baum himself states in his introduction that this is simply a modern fair tale, minus things from the old stories that scared children.
Wingate, Lisa, The Last Father Daughter Dance: A Short Story, (novella) rating 2/5
This is a short story that reads more like a proposal for a Hallmark Christmas movie. “Coach” needs a heart transplant, and his famous daughter comes home from the big city, where she is a celebrity, to care for him. The heart transplant is postponed, however, because “Coach” didn’t follow the rules required of those needing a transplant–he disqualified himself from being a credible success by not following the rules. Yet–he was a great coach–who always expected his players to improve themselves for big challenges. A bit of a problem–right away with the premise of the book and one of its main characters.
The famous daughter is engaged to another celebrity (Hallmark movie here) who is not nearly as good for her as the hometown boy that celebrity girl reacquaints herself with when she goes “home.”
At the end (spoiler alert) the father, who wanted to live long enough to dance with his daughter at her wedding, sets up a fake wedding in which she will be wed to “hometown boy.”
The plot is thin, the characters predictable, and there is no growth for any of the characters. Needs more work.
Posted November 23, 2025
Pochoda, Ivy, Eerie Basin, (novella, horror) rating 1/5
This short horror novella features Erin (a bartender), Jimmy (landlord), a Jenglot (a mythological creature in Indonesian folklore), a bar (Lily’s), and Red Hook, (a run down New York City neighborhood, described by Look magazine in the 1990s as one of the worst neighborhoods in the United States, the “crack capital,” sometimes known as the worst in the country.)
The novella reminded me why I don’t like most short stories all that much: an intolerable setting, shallow glimpses into the characters, creation of a serious problem that draw you in, no plot, no grace. Just a short period of abusing the reader’s sensibilities.
Posted November 21, 2025
Gervais, Simon, and Ryan Steck, The Second Son, 1st in the Chase Burke Series (novel, thriller) rating 2/5
Blood and spilled guts, broken bones, bombs, machine guns, car crashes, helicopters shot out of the sky by surface to air missiles, mothers who coldly kill their sons, corrupt cops, secret Iranian influence, airplanes crashing into mountain sides, assassins, mob hits, torched vans….
Chase Burke is a sommelier who just so happens to always be in the wrong place at the wrong time–and he also just so happens to have secret training in military ops from a past life.
There would be romance in the book if Chase could have just a five minute break from all the shooting.
This thriller has tons of suspense. It is a respite from thinking and credibility–that will do the reader no harm–unlike the respite from thinking and credibility going on in the news today. A break from the real world, but too shallow to be worth 345 pages. Cut out half the book and I’d raise the rating to a 3. I don’t plan to read any other books in the series.
Roth, Veronica, Divergent, (novel, first in the Divergent Series, dystopia, young adult) rating 5/5
I’m not a big fan of dystopian novels or movies. In the past, when I felt the world was getting better, there seemed no need of them—they were simply downers, leaving me feeling unnecessarily depressed. But in the current dystopias of Washington D.C., Beijing, Moscow, etc., I believe I don’t have the luxury of closing my eyes to the work of artists giving us insight into the dynamics of dystopia. To constantly fix one’s eyes on the current government in Washington D.C., for instance, is as painful and blinding as trying to look at the actual sun. Yet, it is necessary for us to live with what is happening, understand it, fortify ourselves to survive it, and find allies who are working for a better world. To that end, I appreciated Veronica Roth’s Divergent, the first book in a series by that name. Although purporting to be a young adult book, it belongs to everyone.
The setting is Chicago, in a future time when the world as we know it is in physical and cultural ruin. The population in the city has been divided into five classes: Amity, Erudite, Abnegation, Candor, and Dauntless. At the age of 16, everyone must take a test that will determine which of those five factions best fits that individual’s inclinations. At some crisis point in history, authorities decided that all human troubles started because people were not segregated into their “qualities” to be surrounded by those like themselves—who would deepen and perfect those qualities. At the age of 16, each person was allowed to choose which faction they wanted—whether it was the result of the testing they took, the comfort of their parent’s faction, or some other faction they might have fancied. After choosing their faction, they then had to go through orientation, hazing, and training for that faction. If they failed, they were prohibited from ever being part of any faction: becoming factionless and being forced to do all the menial work in the world, without power, without status, without freedom, without prosperity.
The theory is that Dauntless brought courage into the world, Amity preserved love and peace, Abnegation preserved selflessness, Erudite developed knowledge, Dauntless maintained courage, and Cander protected truth. But the plan didn’t achieve utopia because each quality bore the seeds of its own corruption. The Erudite faction becomes arrogant and authoritarian and manipulative of others. The Dauntless become aggressive and violent. Amity deteriorates into fear and control and puts loyalty ahead of compassion. Candor loses any care for the consequences resulting in what they say, and their comments destroy civility and relationships. Abnegation has no sense of wider purpose, therefore no direction or leadership.
At the start of the novel, the world is already plunged into a dystopia that is on the verge of destroying everyone and everything—except for the elitist Erudite faction. But the novel only alludes to the big picture. In the novel, history is unfolding in the life of 16 year-old Tris, who is secretly divergent. In other words, she doesn’t fit neatly into any faction. She is especially strong in her abnegation, dauntless, and erudite qualities. But she is warned to never tell anyone she is divergent. And so she chooses dauntless—and tries to maintain the secret about her divergence.
We see her go through the initiation training and rituals for the dauntless faction. She quickly discovers up both enemies and friends. But are they really what they seem to be?
Throughout the novel, we see her change because of the challenges of her Dauntless training. She gains skills. She enters a period of intense self-discovery. She finds her “calling” as the societal crisis comes to a boiling point.
This is a good novel to make you think—and to talk about with others. And it gives you a chance to step into another world and look directly at it as a way of finding space and shelter while trying to think through the things that are happening in our own.
Posted November 16, 2025
Winik, Jay, The Lost Peace: 1861 (history, pre-Civil War) rating: 4 of 5
This is not an exhaustive history of the pre-Civil War period (in the vein of David Potter’s The Impending Crisis) but it is a window into some of the key personalities and events dominating the frantic attempts to avoid war in 1860-61. Lincoln is portrayed as naïve—thinking that the south was not all that serious about secession. The Republicans are divided in how much of a hard line they should take against the secessionists. The unionists in the south are overwhelmed by the refusal of Republicans to coalesce around a compromise offer. And those trying to work out a compromise, such as John J. Crittendon. Crittendon’s compromise would have enshrined slavery forever in the south states and forbid its ever being abolished by constitutional amendment. It would also have prohibited slavery in the north. In other words, it would have set the calendar back several decades—ignoring the moral development that had taken place in the country, the economic importance of slavery to the south, and the growing influence of the territories—where slavery would have been prohibited. A well written book—but narrow in its scope and not always thorough in its analysis.
Blaydes, Sara, The Restoration Garden (novel) rating 5
This is a well written story about Julia and her orphaned nephew (around 5 years old) who go England to restore the historic gardens at Havenworth Manor, just outside Cambridge. While there, she must deal with the eccentric owner, Margaret, who is in her 90s. Margaret has let the gardens grow over with brambles and weeds for many decades, but suddenly, before she dies, she is determined to restore them to their past glory—for reasons that she will not tell Julia.
Julia has her own dark secrets, involving guilt over her sister, now dead (the reason Julia is raising her nephew.)
As Julia begins work on the restoration, she searches the old mansion for clues about what the gardens once looked like. That’s when she comes across a florilegium, a sketchbook of flowers done years earlier by Irene Clark, the older half-sister of Margaret. When she inquires about Irene, the family is silent. Evidently Irene was a Nazi traitor during World War II, stealing military secrets and absconding to Germany with them.
The point of view changes throughout the novel, from chapter to chapter, between Julia and Irene. While the writer allows Irene to tell her story, with flashbacks to 1940, Julia plays detective and is able to restore more than just the Havenworth gardens. She is able to reconstruct Irene’s story as well.
The novel has good suspense, fast action, romance, betrayal, and character development. A good read.
Evans, Virginia, The Correspondent, (novel, in letters and emails) rated 10 out of 5
Sybil Von Antwerp is a 73-year old cranky old lady, rather reclusive, unpleasantly opinionated, estranged from her daughter, and coldly formal to her kindly neighbor. Before retirement she was a lawyer. She is also divorced. But there is more to her than this caricature.
Sybil writes letters to people, nearly every day. She writes to her children, her childhood friend, and her neighbor. She writes to famous authors, to the dean of the English Department at the University of Maryland—where she audits classes, and anonymous people in corporations. She is pen pals with a teenage boy, a tycoon in Texas who is trying to date her, and an unknown thug from her past who is trying to intimidate her.
In the course of all the correspondence, the caricature—which Sybil herself has bought into—gives way to a complex person who needs to come clean, to forgive others and herself, and to find a sort of resurrection in her old age.
I listened to the book’s Audible presentation and found it exceptionally well performed.
McConaghy, Charlotte, Wild Dark Shore, (novel, dystopian, climate change) rating 5/5
The Salt family (father Dom, older teenagers Raff and Fen, and child Orly) are the last inhabitants of Shearwater, an island off Antarctica, set aside for research and preservation of seeds. The earth is experiencing the final stages of climate change: rising seas, raging fires, and fierce storms. Their island and all its seeds will soon be drowned in the rising sea. One day a woman washes to shore (Rowan) barely surviving. They nurse her back to health and discover that she is there looking for her husband, who once worked on the island. The Salt family knows the answers she is seeking, but they cannot bring themselves to answer her questions.
The novel has suspense, development of characters, and interesting plot twists. What makes it exceptional, however, is the human spirit which refuses to be extinguished in the most impossible of circumstances. It focuses on the question: why be ethical when it won’t make any difference anyway in a few weeks.
Sittenfeld, Curtis, Rodham, (historical fiction, Hillary Clinton) rated 2/5
The author imagines what would have happened to Hillary if she had refused Bill Clinton’s marriage proposal and lived her own life as a single woman. In this novel, she does meet Bill and date him. But in the end, she decides against marrying him and forges ahead with her own career. It is not an impossible scenario. The novel also imagines what would have happened to Bill, without Hillary. The novel also imagines what would have happened to Donald Trump in this alternative world.
While it is fun to imagine “what if” scenarios, this novel gets a little bit “liberal preachy” and dumbs down a variety of complicated domestic political issues. It also gives us WAY too many details about what Bill and Hillary’s extra-marital sex life consisted of. I found large sections of it crude, voyeuristic, and over-simplistic.
Fodor, Fodor’s Montreal and Quebec City, (travel guide) 2/5
We used this guide on a fall 2025 trip to Montreal and Quebec City—our first visit. It was a free download with Kindle Unlimited and worth a try. We found the list of “major” things to see somewhat helpful. The “walks” suggested for both cities were duds. The sections on places to eat were not for anyone who was trying to keep meals reasonable. We got more help from Yelp on that account. The maps were marginally helpful—we used the ones from the visitors’ centers more. It was disappointing, and not worth the money one would ordinarily pay for the book. But—for a free book—it was okay.
Abriel, Anita, The Philadelphia Heiress, (novel) rating 2/5
A young woman from an extremely wealthy Philadelphia family must save the family fortunes from disaster (due to her father being blackmailed by because of an affair) by quickly marrying someone who is both rich and in good societal standing. There are long descriptions of opulence, a tone deafness to how most of the world lives, and incredulity in the plot. While the protagonist sort of makes peace with the imperfections of those around her, her personality is wearisome. She likes horses though.
Kennedy, Kostya, The Ride: Paul Revere and the Night that Saved America, (biography, history), rated 3/5
The book doesn’t match its title. It is about Paul Revere, giving us more information than most of us have ever heard. It is interesting. As a history, it begins by assuming the critical importance of Revere’s ride to warn the minutemen that the British were on the march toward Lexington and Concord. The ride was indeed dramatic and its importance well established. But there were other riders as well that night. To suggest that Revere “saved America” seems a clear over-interpretation of his ride. The book needed a better structural editor in order to rearrange its chapters into a sequence that made more sense.
Harper, Steve, Stepping Aside, Moving Ahead: Spiritual and Practical Wisdom for Clergy Retirement, (self-help, piety) rating 3/5
As a pastor who has now been retired for 5+ years, and someone who was preparing a talk to retired clergy—about continuing our call in retirement—I eagerly purchased and read this book. It was not what I was hoping. The spiritual advice was pedantic, unoriginal, and narrow—coming out of a conservative works-righteousness tradition. The practical advice was mostly financial—which would be more helpful to those in their 40s and 50s. The book was written by a retired professor rather than a pastor, which put the author outside the retirement experience of most pastors.
Having stated these criticisms, there were paragraphs that set me to thinking and were a catalyst to some ideas I was able to use in my presentation. Retirement is a time when we are more liberated to differentiate who we are professionally and who we are personally. It is an opportunity to become both more human and more Christlike than we feel while we are leading a congregation. There is an intriguing correlation Harper mentions between being retired and becoming a monk.
It is clear that both the research and the available literature on retired clergy has a long way to go.
Posted September 17, 2025
Kline, Christina Baker and Anne Burt, Please Don’t Lie (novel, psychological horror thriller) rating—1
This is a highly forgettable psychological horror story. Prepare for almost all the characters you meet in the novel to get themselves killed. There is no shortage of suspense and violence. There is also no shortage of stupidity in the characters, evidently a staple of the horror genre.
In Please Don’t Lie, the dialogue is inane and the people who survive come out of their ordeals none the wiser. Of the three who make it to the end of the novel, one goes to prison and two become airheads. The end of the novel goes off in a whole new “happy ever after” whimsy and the reader is treated to some superficial self-help nuggets, a whole different kind of horror.
Lloyd, Ellery, Bad Date: A Short Story (fiction, short story, *warning: unpleasant people) rating—3
Fay is a gorgeous and famous actress and has been in the public eye since her childhood. She still has lots of crazy fans, has run out of money and is no longer in demand as an actress. Poppy is her harassed assistant, protector, and accomplice. Oliver is a weirdo who shows up in the story—seemingly out of nowhere. Fay’s son is named Wolf, but not nearly as bright as a real wolf. But he does have prey.
The plot is clever and moves quickly. As a short story, it is satisfying. As anything longer, it would become wearisome.
While I have standards for critiquing novels, biographies, history, and most other non-fiction, I haven’t decided yet what elements make for a good short story. Bad Date seems to be an okay story about a really bad date.
Westad, Odd Arne, The Cold War: A World History (history, world, 20th century) Rating—5
This is a general survey of the Cold War, emerging as WWII drew to a close and disappearing suddenly in the early 1990s. Westad does a nice job of setting the table, giving the reader a helpful background in the emergence of the Soviet Union and that country’s break with the other allies as WWII drew to a close.
This book gives a broad history of the Cold War, devoting in depth chapters to Viet Nam, Angola, Nicaragua, China and Taiwan, North and South Korea, East and West Germany, and the countries of the Warsaw Pact and NATO. It also includes inside stories about Stalin, Kruchchev, Brezhnev, Gorbachev, and Yeltsin. The cold war approaches of presidents Truman through George H.W. Bush are also studied. As a reader in my seventies, the book covers familiar names and events—putting them in context. My mind often filed all that stuff away willy nilly. It is good to put my memories of old current events in better order. The book also does a good job of covering the end of the cold war—and deepening the reader’s understanding of why we have some of the mess in the world we have today. It is scholarly, even-handed, readable, and thought-provoking.
Rundberg, Johan, translated by Eva Apelqvist, Biggest Fake in the Universe (young adult novel) Rating—5 stars
Mo is mild mannered 13-year old, a fan of science and chess, a nuisance to his older sister, content to hang out with guys like himself—not the sports jocks. And then he has a chance encounter with 13-year old Bea—which makes his body buzz and twist and leaves him dizzy and confused. He can’t stop thinking about her. And of course, he is in love.
The only thing Mo knows about Bea is that she loves skateboarding—and is very good at it. And so he buys himself a skateboard, which delights his parents who are glad to see him get interested in sports. He takes a few skateboarding lessons from a friend, and heads out to the skateboard world to try and cross paths with Bea. She notices him, they become friends, and Mo manages to fake his way on the skateboard enough to make Bea think he loves the sport as much as she does.
Then one day, Mo accidently performs a skateboard trick that no one in Sweden has ever pulled off before. Someone happened to capture it on their phone, and suddenly Mo is a national hero, asked to appear on national TV and perform new tricks. Bea is more in attracted to him than ever. The TV network builds one of the most dangerous, difficult skateboard walls in the world in order for Mo to show his stuff. He will probably kill himself if he launches off it. How to keep the girl AND keep on living till his next birthday?
An easy, pleasant read. The characters grow and we find ourselves rooting for Mo. And Bea is more delightful than the reader first assumes.
Abbott, Karen, Sin in the Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle for America’s Soul, (history, culture, Chicago, political graft, women’s studies) Rating—3
The title makes a grandiose promise that the book doesn’t deliver. Abbott was aiming for a non-fiction book that would tell the narrative of how Chicago’s brothels, prostitutes, madams, corrupt politicians, human trafficking, churches, reformers, newspapers—and the FBI all came together in one fascinating story taking place between 1900 and 1912. She didn’t pull it off.
Give the book credit though for a collection of fascinating details. Among the 1000 plus brothels in Chicago at that time, the Everleigh Club was elite. While brothels featuring women of color were located in bug and disease infested, run down buildings, charging 25 cents a trick, the Everleigh Club charged its customers $50 just to get inside. Once inside, one could hear Vanderpool Vanderpool, a wavy haired pianist banging away on a gold gilded piano. For an additional $50, one could also feast at the Pullman Buffet, a mahogany replica of a Pullman Train car, laden with fruit, pheasant, squab, turkey, duck, goose, lobster, oysters, stuffed cucumber salad, pear salad, candied carrots, parmesan potatoes, au gratin cauliflower, crab, caviar, bacon, scrambled eggs, sweet potatoes, and Welch rarebit. The brothel had a library filled with classics and poetry, and expensive art work and statuary filled the house. The women were paid between $100 and $400 a week—unheard of at that time. Clients included politicians, industrialists, foreign dignitaries, gangsters, and sports heroes.
While the book is full of titillating details, almost all the characters are mere caricatures, leaving the reader needing to know more. The conflicts between the brothels and those reformers and preachers who wanted them closed are written up piecemeal rather than clearly and concisely. Topics such as “white slavery” and “the Mann Act” were addressed repeatedly, but were mere hearsay in the book—rather than critically explored.
There were approximately 1000 brothels in downtown Chicago at any one time during this decade. More than 5,000 women employed in brothels annually “serviced” 5 million men. (from the relatively accurate 1911 Vice Commission report, “The Social Evil in Chicago.”) The same commission discovered that he average weekly wage for a woman working in Chicago was less than $6 per week—a wage that was 40% below what a person needed for independent living in Chicago in those years. Brothels meanwhile were averaging $25 per week per woman. Abbott does not explore this situation to the same degree that she explored the menu on the Pullman Buffet.
Even though brothels were against the law, owners bribed politicians and police officers to leave them alone. Between 1900 and 1910, it is estimated that $15 million in bribes were paid by brothels. That would be more than $500 million in today’s money. One can’t tell in reading Abbott’s book whether politicians and police officers were the good guys or the bad guys.
Throughout the book, Abbott raises the issue of “white slavery.” But she doesn’t handle it well. The fact is, many of the “reformers” who tried to rid Chicago of its brothels mixed their religious scruples with anti-Semitism, racism, misogyny, and anti-immigrant bigotry. They appealed to the moral element of the human mind by manipulating the lure of prejudice and hatred. Many religious reformers claimed that 180 white girls per day were kidnapped or lured, drugged, raped, and imprisoned in brothels to work—and usually dead within 5 years. There is no record, however, of 66,000 girls per year disappearing in the country. Jews and Blacks were supposedly involved in the kidnapping and raping. Some said that this “white slavery” was morally worse than the “black slavery” that led to the Civil War. Anecdotes abounded. Conspiracy theories abounded—warning of secret societies organized to attack and enslave white women in sexual servitude. And while it is certain that young women were lured and kidnapped and drugged, the statistical exaggerations of the reformers made the issue all the more difficult to address. Abbott glosses over both the misogyny and the racism, avoiding a critical eye, and tries to keep the reader focused on more prurient details. The author’s refusal to show any empathy or anger toward anyone in the book comes across less as “objective” and more as coy.
This is a serious subject that continually rears its ugly head, especially today as groups like the “Proud Boys” promote male violence and dominance freely on the internet and even on billboards in rural America. (See Capital News Illinois, August 19, 2025, where a billboard near a high school reads: Proud Boys, Faith, Family, Freedom, Brotherhood—Join Now.) Along with a proliferation of online pornography, we continue to create our own crises when it comes to a generation of men who are unable to connect sex with genuine and mutual relationship. Books like this don’t help. While the author came up with lots of data for this book, and gets the reader to thinking, it lacks organization, theme, and voice that are necessary for handling such an important subject with maturity.
Cunningham, Avery, The Mayor of Maxwell Street, (novel, Chicago, race, early 20th century) rating—2
The novel begins with a light-skinned black man from the Jim Crow south who must flee the south because he rejected the flirtations and invitations of a reckless white girl in town. It suddenly shifts to Nelly, who is black, and the daughter of a wealthy horse breeder. She is in Chicago both for her brother’s funeral and for her “coming out” in the Cotillion, where her parents hope to marry her off to a wealthy and influential young man in Black Society. Nelly’s aspirations, however, are to be a journalist.
While in Chicago, she runs across a number of characters, both related to the Cotillion and to the story she has begged to write—about an anonymous man who pulls all the strings in Chicago’s underworld. He is at the heart of graft, murder, political corruption, and Chicago business affairs.
The story has an interesting premise. As an historical novel, it gives some credible insights into early 20th century Chicago. At first, the characters are vivid and well described. The action is suspenseful. But then the action gets ridiculous and the characters stay in the same box where we found them. Nobody changes. They just get mad, lucky, killed, or moved out of the story.
The novel ends in confusion. I listened to it on Audible, and I do not need to post a spoiler alert, as I have little idea how the plot turns out. The only thing I know is that I was getting tired of the characters and felt no grief at bidding them goodbye.
Posted July 6, 2025
Johnston, Anna, The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife, (novel, assisted living, mistaken identity) Rating-5
This is a fun novel featuring a gentle, 80 year old, homeless protagonist who gets twisted up in a case of mistaken identity. He looks exactly like a resident in a nearby home for those with dementia. The caretakers of that facility spot our hero in a local park, capture him, and put him back where he supposedly belongs. Fred is happy to have a place to live, along with solid meals each day, but everyone calls him “Bernard,” and he has to assume all the liabilities that Bernard left in his life.
The novel will let you know early on what happened to the real Barnard.
Meanwhile, Fred has suddenly not only acquired a new name and a roof over his head–he has also acquired Bernard’s frisky lady-friend, an estranged daughter, an ugly past, and a lawyer.
Other than a few too many adult diaper accidents (the author really didn’t need to keep repeating those), this is a heart-warming yarn that will introduce you to a delightful character.
The story’s primary weakness is the woodenness of the other characters who appear in the book. But Frederick Fife makes it worth the read.
Posted June 22, 2025)
Berg, Scott W., The Burning of the World: The Great Chicago Fire and the War for a City’s Soul, (history, Chicago, The Great Fire of 1871, politics, demographics) Rating—5
The book delivers what the title promises: a graphic account of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871—and the struggle afterward to rebuild the city. The book has two major topics. The first is a story of a fire. The second is the story of the political struggle to determine the city’s future after the fire.
First—the fire itself. The book asserts—as do all honest historians—that the fire did NOT start because a cow kicked over a lantern while being milked by a stupid, ugly, old woman—Mrs. O’Leary. Kate O’Leary was a young Irish immigrant, hard-working, smart, pleasant, mother of several children, who was in bed when the first started—5 hours after she had finished milking the cows that helped provide a living for her family. The fire did start in her barn—but probably because of men in the neighborhood smoking in there. Kate’s life and livelihood were destroyed—not by the fire—but by the story that spread. When 100,000 people are left homeless, when 30,000 buildings explode or are burned, and when hundreds of people die—some people’s minds cannot handle that the cause was a stupid as a couple kids smoking. And so a villain is fabricated. Berg tells that story.
Berg also tells the story of how it had not rained in Chicago for over three months—between July 4 and October 8. Everything was bone dry. Most of structures in the city of 300,000 were made of wood—and in the immigrant sections of the city—abutting each other with no space between. The city was filled with lumber yards, grain elevators, and plants where oil was refined for heating and lighting. He tells the story of heavy winds the night of the fire. And he tells how the “fire spotters” got the location wrong and sent an already exhausted fire department to the wrong address.
Berg tells how heat effects both buildings and the air currents around them. Buildings blow apart, sending flaming boards 500 feet high. The wind catches them and the fire jumps the south branch of the Chicago River, then the main branch. Burning embers land on “fireproof”’ buildings, melt the roofs and fall inside. The buildings explode outward—stone, brick, and all.
It is said that 300 people died in the fire. But that is probably as much of a lie as the story of Mrs. O’Leary’s cow. The city tried to underplay the death count—to keep people from getting depressed. Bodies were burned beyond recognition. 50,000 people fled the week afterward—with no sure accounting of who died. Truth was hard to discover; numbers and fake news easy to fabricate.
There are many books that give an account of the Great Fire. Berg’s is worthy of the best.
The second part of Berg’s story is the political tussle that followed the fire. Joseph Medill, editor of the Chicago Tribune, was elected mayor right afterward. He was more a writer, lecturer, and theorist than a political operative. Before his two-year term was over, he would quit the city, turn things over to an interim mayor, and flee to Europe.
As the rebuilding began—the very next day—the question was whether it would be rebuilt to the advantage of those who owned everything and had massive wealth—or to the advantage of the working class people—mostly living week to week, mostly immigrants. The political fight that ensued re-shaped Chicago politics in ways that are relevant to today.
Had the “lions” of Chicago society and politics had their way—the working classes would have been squeezed out of the city, economically and socially by laws and new fire codes. But the masses that labored to rebuild the city also found their voice in Chicago politics. And to this day, we see the struggles between people of money and people of the laboring classes.
Berg’s book is an important contribution to both the story of the fire—and the story of how people struggle against one another to shape the direction of the city.
Gradel, Thomas J. and Simpson, Dick, Corrupt Illinois: Patronage, Cronyism, and Criminality (politics, Illinois, history) Rating: 4
This is an important book, timely, and titillating. It is also hastily written and somewhat disorganized. And it lacks the thoughtful analysis the writers promise. And it is dated. (Illinois politicians manage to render historical works on this subject almost immediately outdated.)
Four Illinois governors (in my lifetime) have gone to prison. It was all about money for each of them. Other issues throughout the state’s history have been about political machines, sex scandals, drugs and drunk driving, government coverup of police brutality, and election stealing. But money is king when it comes to Illinois corruption.
Corrupt Illinois has chapters on stolen elections, aldermanic corruption in Chicago, suburban scandals, police abuse, judicial corruption, and congressional crooks. The book is sometimes repetitive. It quotes a couple scholars who have “theories” about what makes Illinois so corrupt, but those arguments seem thin and incomprehensive.
As one reads through this book—it begins to feel like reading a phone book: page after page of names and briefly noted crimes. It gets fatiguing.
The authors rightly note that while stories of corrupt politicians are entertaining, the corruption itself is costly: financially (to the tax payers) and spiritually (good people want nothing to do with politics and governing.) The Trump administration (2025) is blatantly involved in pay-to-play schemes and bribery (Qatar offering the president an airplane.) The fact is, Americans are increasingly tolerant of corruption. This book, with all its flaws is a wake up alarm.
For a more up to date account of Illinois corruption, check out the 2024 Chicago Tribune series of articles: https://www.chicagotribune.com/tag/corruption/
Henry, Emily, Funny Story, (novel, romance) rated—4
I couldn’t decide whether to give this a 3 or 4 rating. But after rooting for the “good guys” all the way through the book, I decided to be on their side and give the more pleasant rating. Daphne is the protagonist. Peter (bad) is her fiancé. He dumps her on the evening of their engagement party—giving her one week to move out of his house. Jerk. Daphne is a children’s librarian (bad BAD Peter) and has nowhere to go. She transplanted herself to this Michigan vacation village in order to be with Peter. Fortunately Miles has a spare room for her to rent. The reason Miles has a spare room is because it is his fiancé Peter ran off with. (Bad, bad BAD Peter.) Fortunately for Daphne, Miles is a hunk—even though his beard looks grizzled enough for a family of cockroaches to live there. And Miles is kind. There is some psychotherapy performed on Daphne—throughout the course of the novel. Credible and interesting. And there are a couple steamy sex scenes—that aren’t well written. But sex scenes are never easy to write. The author should have just left most of the details for the reader to imagine.
But all in all, it was a pleasant read. Miles and Daphne are likeable—nice to spend some book-time with. And they have some interesting friends and relatives—who might have made for a more interesting book. But I enjoyed it. So—a 4 rating.Jones, Dan, Magna Carta: Birth of Liberty, (history of Magna Carta, King Edward I, impact of Magna Carta) rating—5
Nearly all my life I’ve been told of the Magna Carta’s importance—and even seen a copy of it. Yet, I couldn’t tell you much about it: only stuff like—Middle Ages, England, human rights, etc. Teachers and politicians have called it the foundational document of democracy. I know now that none of them were any more familiar with its content and history than I was. Jones fills in the gap for us—a huge disillusionment. At its time—Magna Carta was a totally meaningless document. King John was under siege by the nobles of his kingdom in the spring of 1215—and he signed the document as a way of deceiving them. He had no intention of keeping it. Within hours of signing the Magna Carta, John wrote to Pope Innocent and asked him to rescind it—which the pope did. The pope declared that the Magna Carta was “shameful and demeaning” and “illegal and unjust” and then he excommunicated the rich barons that forced King John to sign it. In other words, the Magna Carta was null and void minutes after it was signed. What’s the big deal then? How did the Magna Carta go from being a fraud perpetrated by King John to a sacred document for democracy? Jones’s book is stronger on the history of the Plantagenet kings than on the subsequent resurrection of the Magna Carta. The book gives us a well-developed character sketch of King John, a history of his cruelty and abuse of power, and a detailed account of his running feud with the rich barons of his kingdom. It also gives us a thorough review of the contents of the Magna Carta and the historical context of its articles. In short—the Magna Carta has its roots in a tax rebellion. The barons thought their taxes were too high. King John taxed everything—mostly to pay for foreign wars that he kept losing. He taxed widows who wished to remarry. He taxed sons who wished to inherit their father’s property. In addition to his greed, King John also arrested and executed people at will. The Magna Carta spelled out the complaints against the King and demanded that he live under the law instead of above it. While the Magna Carta itself was useless, the ideas that 1) a King should earn the consent of the governed, 2) that those taxed should have a say in taxation, and 3) that the King should follow the laws—those ideals were resurrected as Parliament itself emerged in the decades after John’s death. While ineffective, the Magna Carta is the oldest document in English history to articulate checks and balances on kings. It would later be used to justify checks and balances on kings and presidents. I’m glad I read the book—for some reason I got the feeling at the end that the issues of checks and balances are just as relevant—and fragile—as they were in 1215.
Joseph, Peniel E., The Sword and the Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. (history, civil rights, biography) Rating: 5
This book is part of a continuing battle against “dumbing down history.” Conventional wisdom, especially among us white folks, is: King/good, Malcolm/bad. Many historians like to focus on the tension and conflict between the two men.
But Joseph sketches out a growing synthesis between the two men, who came from dramatically different backgrounds. King was nurtured in the African/American church. Malcolm was a Muslim through conversion. Both spent time in prison—King as a celebrity, Malcolm as a common criminal. In both cases, race was the tipping point that led to their arrests.
King supported WWII, with its violent efforts to defeat Hitler—but did not support using any violence to liberate Blacks in the United States. Malcolm found that logically inconsistent. King could schmooze with people in power—Malcolm thought such activities a waste of time and energy. King began with his non-violent advocacy for civil rights. Malcolm believed that the primary issue was “human rights,” the dignity and freedom of the individual. He was skeptical about how much voting rights would actually make a difference for the Black person. In time, Malcolm began to develop more political sophistication—and expanded his alliances. In time, King began to see poverty and war as fundamental areas needing change. The two men were far more complex and nuanced than popular history sees them.
This book is an important correction to the assumptions we have long made about both King and Malcolm. It is important reading for those who want to understand today’s struggle for civil rights, human rights, peace, and human dignity—issues that are just as “iffy” and relevant today as they were when King and Malcolm were alive.
Pierce, Yolanda, In My Grandmother’s House: Black Women, Faith, and the Stories We Inherit, (memoir, spirituality, Christianity, inspiration) Rating: 10
My motive for picking up this book was a quest for mentors: writers whose thinking and life experiences could both guide and inspire me. In this search, I have benefited from plenty of white guys: Parker Palmer, Dietrick Bonhoeffer, Hermann Hesse, William C. Martin, etc. (My reviews of their books appear on this website.) But as I age, I feel the need to expand my repertoire of teachers. What could Black men and women teach me? White women? Latin Americans? Asians? Women in Hitler’s Germany? Nuns? Mystics? LGBTQ+ persons? Non-Christians?
I’ve been more intentional about selecting the authors who feed my soul—trying to discover something about them before committing myself to the books they’ve written. And so I came across Yolanda Pierce: the first female dean of Howard University’s School of Divinity. She was also the director at the Smithsonian’s Museum of African American History—working on their presentation of African American Religious Life.
In My Grandmother’s House includes twelve brief essays that include memories of Pierce’s grandmother, the older women in her grandmother’s Pentecostal Church, the traditions of her childhood church and family, and her growing awareness of the meaning of those customs. Interspersed with the Grandmother stories are illustrations of the stresses, opportunities, and injustices that Pierce has experienced in her adult life.
In this superbly written book, Pierce’s reflections and gleaned wisdom are folded gently and poignantly into the narrative. The result—for me—is a book that feels inclusive (I too have many formative “grandmother” experiences) and awakening (Pierce’s experience of others is often quite different from my own.)
I wish the writer lived next door—and I had the chance to benefit regularly from her grace, integrity, and honesty.
Staub, Wendy Corsi, The Fourth Girl, (novel, mystery) rating: 2
Four teenage girls are tight-knit. They plan to be best friends for life. But life interfered. They go their separate ways—hurt, angry, and fed up with the others. And then 25 years later, there is an invitation to a reunion.
This novel is all plot and no story. In other words, the characters start out shallow and remain so for the entirety of the novel. Dialogue is cliché. And none of the characters elicits much of a “give a damn” from the reader. Of course we care—we are value human life, we are good people, we want the characters to succeed. But the writer of this novel makes that aspiration harder for us.
Not only are the characters shallow, they are unrealistic. The author takes real-life issues (such as child-abuse and drug addiction) and puts them in artificial characters.
As for the plot, it is hard to follow. The author jumps back and forth over a 25-year span and moves from one character view-point to another. The reader is trying to juggle information and factoids—some of which are irrelevant to the plot. Characters are manufactured in order to add suspense to the reader—but do little other than to clutter the plot.
If you want a good novel—pass this one up.
Whipple, Chris, The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency (history, presidents, politics) rating: 10
Sometimes we need to step back from the exhausting news of the day and get a broader perspective on history and politics. We can’t avoid the news—but we can continually put it in context.
This book was written at the beginning of the first Trump administration, right after John Kelly became White House chief of staff. The author was hopeful that Kelly could make a difference. We know in retrospect how that worked out.
Whipple’s book focuses on the presidencies of Nixon through Obama. He makes a compelling argument for an effect White House Chief of Staff—and the dangers to a presidency that lacks one. Ford and Carter both tried to replace the chief with a “spokes on the wheel” approach—in which they planned to be both president AND chief of staff. Both quickly encountered the unworkability of that approach. While Ford quickly settled on one of the most effective chiefs of staff—Cheney—it took Carter till near the end of his presidency to get the right man in the position—Jack Watson. Jim Baker (Reagan) is seen as the most effective practitioner of the role—although he hated the job.
The role was virtually invented by H.R. Haldeman, who was effective in ways history usually doesn’t notice. His shortcomings, on the other hand, are well documented.
Whipple’s book covers the strengths and weaknesses of each Chief of Staff—and includes anecdotes about the work of each one. Every one of them had to deal with presidential egos and quirks. In some cases, such as Al Haig and John Sununu, the ego of the chief caused considerable trouble. Some (such as Chaney and Donald Rumsfeld) did well as a chief of staff, but changed later in life and didn’t always serve so effectively in subsequent roles. Some, such as Hamilton Jorden, were totally unfit for the role.
While delving deep into political history, this book is amazingly free of partisan shading. The author presents one of the fairest assessments of recent presidents and the people around them that can be found.
As we move into Trump 2, it is worth noting that we now have the first woman serving as chief of staff, Susan Wiles. She has been effective in ways none of the chiefs were in Trump 1. I hope that someday we get her behind the scenes story. It should be a thriller.
ALL BOOKS READ, RATED, AND REVIEWED IN 2025
The following list of books are those I completed in 2025, along with reviews on them. I have rated the books 1-5 (five being the best) and 10 (the very best, ones I highly recommend.) The first section lists all books, alphabetized according to author, then rated. The book reviews are in the sections that follow, starting with 10s, then 5, 4s, etc. Check out my reviews from prior reviews by using the following links: 2021, 2022-4, 2024.
Abriel, Anita, American Housewife (novel 5 stars);
Allen, Jonathan, and Parnes, Amie, Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House (journalistic summary of the 2024 presidential campaign, 2 stars);
C.D. Arnold, H.D. Higinbotham, official photographers, Official Views of the World’s Columbian Exposition—Issued by the Department of Photography (pictorial book, World’s Fair Chicago 1893) rated 3;
Backman, Fredrik, The Winners (novel, third of the Beartown Trilogy–rated 10);
Baier, Bret, Catherine Whitney, Three Days at the Brink: FDR’s Daring Gamble to Win WWII (celebrity history) rated 2;
Barrett, Bob, Inside the President’s Team: Family, Service, and the Gerald Ford Presidency (memoir, 2 stars)
Carter, Jimmy, Living Faith, (spiritual autobiography, presidents, history, rated 10);
Chervinsky, Lindsay M., Making the Presidency: John Adams and the Precedents that Forged the Republic, (history, presidency, biography, rated 10);
Coelho, Paulo, The Alchemist, (novel, myth, rated 5);
Cox, Christopher, Woodrow Wilson: The Light Withdrawn (presidential biography, history of Women’s Rights in the U.S., Jim Crow in the federal government–rated 5);
Denworth, Lydia, Friendship: The Evolution, Power, and Extraordinary Power of Life’s Fundamental Bond (psychology, relationships, biology, brain science, rated 4);
Dev, Sonali, There’s Something About Mira (novel, second generation American, India-rated 5);
Espach, Alison, The Wedding People (novel, 10 stars);
Gayle, Mike, The One Who Got Away, novel–romance, sort of, 4 stars);
Gradel, Thomas J. and Simpson, Dick, Corrupt Illinois: Patronage, Cronyism, and Criminality (politics, Illinois, history) Rating: 4;
Haig, Matt, The Life Impossible (novel 10 stars);
Joseph, Peniel E., The Sword and the Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. (history, civil rights, biography) Rating: 5;
Joyce, Rachel, Maureen (Harold Fry #2) (novel, rated 4);
Larson, Erik, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America, (history, Chicago, crime, World’s Fair) rated 5
Lauren, Christina, The Exception to the Rule (novel–rated 4);
Lim, Louisa, The People’s Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited, (journalistic investigation, China, modern, rated 4);
Moriarty, Liane, Here One Moment, (novel, rated 10)
Nicholls, David, You Are Here, (novel–rated 4);
Pierce, Yolanda, In My Grandmother’s House: Black Women, Faith, and the Stories We Inherit, (memoir, spirituality, Christianity, inspiration) Rating: 10;
Potter, David M., The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861 (history, U.S. pre-Civil War, politics–rated 10);
Staub, Wendy Corsi, The Fourth Girl, (novel, mystery) rating: 2;
Sue, Natalie, I Hope This Finds You Well (novel–rated 5);
Thomas, Evan, Road to Surrender: Three Men and the Countdown to the End of World War II (history, World War II, Japan-US surrender, 10 stars);
Whipple, Chris, The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency (history, presidents, politics) rating: 10;
Yates, Elizabeth, On That Night, (short story, Christmas Eve, rated 5);
REVIEWS OF 2025 BOOKS RATED 10
Backman, Fredrik, The Winners (novel, third of the Beartown Trilogy)
Spoiler Alert… Beartown is a rough, rough place. Located in the harsh north of Sweden, Beartown lies deep in a forest, experiences extreme cold and darkness in its long winters, and flirts with constant violence—from both nature and from the dark chambers of the human heart. The town of Hed is nearby. It has all the problems and struggles of Beartown, but the two communities are mortal enemies. And they have all the characteristics of many declining rural towns.
But—as Backman points out in his novel, human beings only have capacity for one enemy at a time. And so when windstorms destroy the entire area, or when the people in this remote area are threatened by condescending and elitest attitudes from elsewhere, they will enter a truce and work together. But before long, the hostility and violence between them rises again. Their mutual enmity is immortal.
But something else is everlasting as well: a need to belonging, a passion for justice, the embers of unconstrained compassion, the capacity to grow and mature. And so the Beartown Trilogy wiggles back and forth between these two contradictory aspects of human nature: love and hate.
Backman is a master story-teller. Love and hate are no mere theories in his books. His anecdotes and vignettes are visceral, skin-tingling, provocative. Only the most phlegmatic readers will fail to groan, cry, yearn, sigh, and laugh.
I got to the end of The Winners, relieved that I had made it through 670 pages, but lost and feeling homeless when I closed the book. Neither Beartown nor Hed are places many of us would choose to live. But once Backman introduces us to their characters and ushers us to a front row seat—so we can witness their stories and struggles, their intimate feelings and thoughts—we too are drawn to both love and hate the place.
Those of you who have already read the book are probably amazed that I have gotten this far into the review without mentioning hockey. Beartown and Hed are obsessed with hockey. They each have a team, and the rivalry is intense, usually insane. You could pull out a psychiatric manual during hockey season and jot down names from Beartown and Hed in the margins. I’m not a hockey fan myself, but I understand how something can evoke such intensity and emotion, the presence of violence, the lure of reward of skill and disciplined practice, endeavors that crush spirits as well as bodies. The people of Beartown and Hed live for hockey. The abnormal children there are the silent ones who want to do something else with their lives.
I’ve written reviews elsewhere on the first two books of the trilogy. In the first, Beartown, the Junior Beartown Hockey team is on the verge of winning a national championship. Just before the final game, however, their star player, Kevin, rapes Maya, who happens to be the daughter of the team’s general manager (Peter.) Peter is outraged, goes to the police, and benches Kevin. Without their best player, the team loses the game and the championship. The whole town turns on him and Maya. When the council is voting on whether to fire Peter, a young hockey player (Amat) steps forward and tells the truth, as he walked in on it happening. Only a few other hockey players protect Amat from being beat up by the town thugs. The criminal case is dropped against Kevin. And the books ends gracefully, but not satisfactorily.
This brings us to book two, Us Against You. The Beartown hockey club almost goes defunct after their star player (Kevin) moves to Hed and takes most of the team with him. Only Amat, Benji, and Bobo remain to play. A local, slimy politician gets involved to save the club: Richard Theo. He hires a woman to be the new coach (Elizabeth Zackell.) Her unconventional ways end up in the team being rebuilt and becoming a winner. One of the hockey players (Benji) is outed during the season, and violence surfaces again between the two towns and their fans. By the end of the novel, both Maya and Benji run away from Beartown to get away from the oppression and hatred. Each to a different place. Meanwhile, Amat becomes the new star and everyone predicts he will someday play in the NHL in America.
Book three, The Winners, is the longest and most poignant book in the series. It starts with a windstorm that destroys swaths of the forest and brings both towns together in rescue attempts. It includes another family that virtually no one in town notices. Ruth, a girl about Maya’s age, is also raped. But without money, support from influential people in the community, nor any social connections—the police do not believe her story and blame her instead of the boy. She runs away too, unnoticed by the community—only her brother cares. Ruth dies, under mysterious conditions, two years later. Her ashes are brought back to Beartown and buried. But no one attends the funeral except for the priest, her brother, and her mentally disturbed parents. The brother, Mateo, obtains a gun and is determined to get revenge for his sister. The suspense grows throughout the novel.
Benji and Maya have come back to Beartown because of another funeral, for Ramona, the brash owner of the Beartown Pub. We see lots of them in this novel and learn about their feelings and how they are learning (or not learning) to cope.
Again, the hockey rink is center stage in the novel. The windstorm has destroyed the ice rink in Hed, and so players from both teams have to practice in the Beartown rink. This brings out the rivalry and the hatred.
This novel also features a financial scandal that could send Peter (Maya’s father) to prison is printed in the local paper. More suspense.
There are delightful renewals of friendships that have broken or been strained. Benji, Maya, and Amat are changed by these friendship revivals. Others are included in their circles. A romance takes place between a girl from Hed and the assistant coach of the Beartown hockey team—akin to the consternation caused in Romeo and Juliet.
And a four year old girl, Alicia, from an abusive home, decides to play hockey as a way to escape her misery. The old bachelor (retired) hockey coach gives her food, teaches her how to play, and lets her practice in his yard—shooting pucks against his house. By the time she is seven (at the end of novel 3) everyone knows her and thinks she may make the national team.
The last 50 pages of the book brought tears to my eyes, over and over. There is violence, several shootings, extraordinary acts of bravery and sacrifice, and unexpected women who gather around and attempt to protect Alicia.
The Winners has too many losers in it. But it is a testament to the power of love—bringing grace and life to people in ways totally unexpected. No matter how much ignorance, prejudice, and violence run rampant in Beartown and Hed, love has the last word, even amidst the death and sadness. It is a true tale—truer in its own way than anything we will hear or read from today’s news.
Carter, Jimmy, Living Faith (spiritual autobiography, presidents, history)
When he was 70 years old, Jimmy Carter decided to put some of his Sunday School lessons in a book. He had been teaching Sunday School all his adult life, and in the last decades, he taught a Sunday School class every week—open to the public—in his little church in Plains, Georgia. The room would be packed, mostly with visitors who had travelled to Plains just to attend his class.
In working with his editors, his original plan morphed from being a book of lessons to being a book about his own life and faith. Most of the material in the book was extracted from those lessons, but the 200+ page volume reads like a story, not a lecture.
Carter lived a remarkable life: born in Jim Crow Georgia, the son of a conservative, generous farmer—and a liberal, unpredictable, generous mother—Carter went on to excel in the Navy, a political career, and a post-presidency mission to help the poorest people in the world.
He could be stubborn, self-righteous, and humorless. But he was also humble, gracious, strong, and talented. True—there is plenty to dislike and criticize if you look for it and cut corners. But the more the years pass by, the better we are able to see and appreciate a unique man—who indeed put God first in his life, and struggled all his decades to grow in love for his neighbor. Long considered a “failed” president by politicians of both parties, historians are now reassessing his presidency and coming to very different understandings. While long respected for his post-presidency, people are now gaining new appreciation for his presidential years as well.
This book is filled with stories of people who taught Carter and influenced him along the way. He remembers always being in church, always having religion be part of his life. But his faith in God and his understanding of Christianity grew as Carter experienced new places, people, and situations. Living Faith is the record of his growth in learning to imitate the life of Jesus with authenticity and transparency.
We often like to talk about public figures behind their backs, spouting our shallow political and religious opinions based on mere scraps of quotes and misquotes. Our own lives are richer, however, if we let these famous people speak for themselves. We may still come away with the same opinions as before. But in Jimmy Carter’s case, we are likely to be enriched and changed ourselves by his testimony.
Chervinsky, Lindsay M., Making the Presidency: John Adams and the Precedents that Forged the Republic, (history, presidency, biography)
After finishing this book, I was convinced that John Adams is as deserving a place on Mt. Rushmore as Washington or Jefferson. (Although maybe we shouldn’t have defaced land that didn’t belong to us with presidential mugs in the first place.) Maybe the best legacy to John Adams is that his faced doesn’t appear on land we stole from the Lakota tribe. Chervincky argues persuasively that Adams made decisions based on righteousness, not popularity or financial gain or political expediency. This is in contrast to both Washington and Jefferson who slipped easily into dishonesty and hypocrisy—in both their presidencies and post-presidencies—well documented in Making the Presidency.
One of the reasons Washington is considered so great is because of the precedents he set as president. And while he did indeed set many valuable and lasting traditions and customs—John Adams set even more—even though those have not been mentioned before this book. It is a ground-breaking book.
Adams was the first president to follow another president. He was the first to be defeated for re-election. He was the first to live in the White House. The first to face a full-blown party system in the country. The first to struggle with the power of propaganda in the political system.
This quote from the introduction got me hooked: “George Washington had served…for eight years…no one else (at that time) possessed his stature or enjoyed the same levels of public trust—and no one else ever would again. Adams was tasked with navigating the presidency without that prestige. He was guaranteed to fail in comparison with Washington. The challenge of the second president, therefore, called for someone to battle the growing partisan divisions without Washington’s presence to provide unity, to withstand cabinet schemes fomented by department secretaries to increase their authority at the expense of the president, and to combat European countries’ efforts to exploit the United States’s weakness… The office required a president willing to sacrifice his reputation and popularity on behalf of the nation. Whoever came next was going to mold the office for all chief executives to follow. John Adams was an experienced diplomat and thoughtful constitutional thinker. He was also irascible, stubborn, quixotic, and certain that he knew best most of the time. He proved to be the right man for the moment.
The book also makes clear that Abagail Adams was the right First Lady for the moment.
This book is the first thorough examination of Adams’s presidency. Other biographies and accounts focus on his whole life—but give short attention to Adams’s presidential years. This book fills a long-needed gap. It joins several other more recent books about John Adams that are helping us see that he was one of the most consequential leaders AND president’s in our country’s history, such as John McCullough’s John Adams and Nancy Isen berg and Andrew Burstein’s The Problem of Democracy: The Presidents Adams Confront the Cult of Personality.
Those of us who are troubled by the current trend in politics would do well to measure the amount of news in our reading diet and devote some of that time instead to John Adams. He is one of the lights from the past who could help us navigate our current troubles.
Espach, Alison, The Wedding People (novel, 10 stars)
This is a book to relish—for its wit, snappy dialogue, twists of plot, and evolution of characters (most of them.)
Phoebe, after a bad season in her life (broken marriage, stalled career, depression, death of her cat) decides to end it all. But she is such a loser that she can’t even pull that off.
Nevertheless, she tries. She spends the last of her funds on an $800 per night room at a luxury hotel in Rhode Island—where plans to do the deed—with a bottle of left-over cat pain killers—since her cat won’t be needing them anymore.
But when she checks into her room, there has been a mistake. The entire hotel has been booked by a wedding party. Somehow she got a room—the best one in the hotel. The bride, Lila, discovers this and confronts Phoebe, wanting her to turn over the room and leave. But Phoebe tells the bride she is there to commit suicide and will not leave—until they carry her out. This is the beginning of a strange, healthy, and life-changing confrontation for both women. And witty.
The book takes the subject of suicide seriously—but demythologizes it and refuses to let its exploration escape healthy defense mechanisms such as humor, courage, curiosity, and rational thought.
The novel mixes heavy sadness and depression with wit and creativity. Always helpful in these troublesome days.
Haig, Matt, The Life Impossible (novel 10 stars)
This is a weird book that I came to appreciate more and more as I read on. It is one of those rare books that is even worth rereading someday. The protagonist is Grace, a 72-year old English woman, living along after the death of her husband. The great tragedy of her life was the death of her 12-year old son in a bicycle accident—something that filled her with life-long guilt—even though nobody was actually to blame. That is the backstory.
Then, at the age of 72, something odd happens: Grace has been bequeathed a house in Spain, on the island of Ibiza. She barely knew the woman who willed it to her, Christine, a fellow teacher from many year earlier, whom Grace had befriended one lonely Christmas Day. Christina left England shortly after that, and Grace never heard from her again.
But adrift and depressed and without any future in England, Grace decides to go to Ibiza and see what has been left to her. What she finds disgusts her—and she is determined to head back to England as soon as possible. The house is deplorable. Christina’s daughter has been estranged from her. Christina’s island companion, Alberto, is repulsive—physically and socially. The residents on the island have mysterious and ominous things to say about Christine. And it seems that she was murdered. There is even an encounter with an obnoxious goat, Nostradamus.
But at age 72, Grace, recovering from painful leg surgery, isn’t able to move so quickly in order to get away. Also, her curiosity makes her linger. And she begins to notice strange things—good things. The most impossible thing of all is what Alberto calls, La Presencia. It is a light found in the waters around Ibiza, allegedly come to earth from the planet Salacia—come to save the earth from self-destruction, including environmental destruction. It is both a healing force and a portal to the Salacia.
The novel develops with good suspense and interesting characters. A character named Art Bertel was once saved from drowning by La Presencia. But he has taken its mysterious (impossible) powers and used them for dark purposes.
Grace, meanwhile, encounters La Presencia, and it bestow great powers on her as well. The book plunges toward an encounter between Grace and Art.
This is not a religious book, but it has deep spirituality and is a wonderful conversation starter. Its many nuggets of wisdom are worth jotting down in your journal and rereading.
Larson, Erik, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America, (history, Chicago, crime, World’s Fair) rated 5
This book is a classic on the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, otherwise known as the Columbian Exposition. That fair had multiple purposes: to celebrate the 400th year of Columbus arriving in the Americas (even though it was a year late), to demonstrate to the rest of the world that Chicago was a world class city, to give people a glimpse of what a city might look like if it was planned and developed according to values of order and beauty, to make money for Chicago, to prove that Chicago could put on a fair that exceeded the previous one in Paris, to showcase America’s inventiveness and growing power, to bring people together from around the world for education and unity….
The author does an excellent job of weaving two different narratives throughout the book: that of the fair and the logistical challenges it faced, and that of H.H. Holmes, a serial killer who set up a hotel not far from the fair, lured young women to its rooms, and murdered them. No one knows just how many he killed–it was at least 9 and perhaps in the dozens–if not a hundred or more. While writing about Holmes, Larson is mostly speculative–as no credible witnesses survived to know exactly what happened to the victims. While based on a true story, the narratives about Holmes and the women he lured (sometimes married) is plausible conjecture. But those narrative serve to remind the reader of the presence of evil–even amidst the glitter and glamour of culture’s grandest events.
More reliable is Larson’s account of the fair itself. His protagonist is Daniel H. Burnham, one of the world’s most famous architects. Larson tells how Burnham had to overcome almost insurmountable problems to get the fair built and operating. Winds blew apart the buildings, committees argued about plans, architects were uncooperative, city officials butted in and created conflict, fires, the death of Barnham’s business partner and creative muse, labor strikes, a national recession, quicksand underneath the fairground, pandemics, bankruptcy, and arrest.
The book’s title is a bit pretentious—the notion that this fair changed America. It was the first appearance of shredded wheat, juicy fruit gum, Aunt Jemima pancake mix, the Ferris Wheel, and Cream of Wheat. It also promoted the idea of city planning. And it was renowned for its World Parliaments that brought people of learning into one room—from all over the world. (Although Larson says nothing about the World Parliaments in this book.)
But the fair did validate and promote the “can do” attitude that has characterized the U.S. And it did encourage further industry and world cooperation by its celebration of those endeavors.
The book is a first rate read on Chicago in the late 1800s, and belongs in every library that offers a comprehensive history of the city—or of the late 19th century in America.
Moriarty, Liane, Here One Moment, (novel)
An elderly woman on an airplane flight gets up from her seat, walks down the aisle, points at each passenger in turn, and announces the age and cause of their deaths. Creepy. Insensitive. Sadistic. Nerve-racking and life-altering for many passengers.
We hate the old woman. We fear for the passengers she has ominously sentenced. We see their panic, their destructive defense mechanisms in the aftermath of the news.
And then we begin to learn about the old woman. The ups and downs of her own life. As the story of the plane’s passengers unfolds, we begin to see that becoming conscious of one’s own mortality is not always a bad thing—it might be life-saving.
Several mysteries are solved by the end of the book. Who will meet their announced end. How did the old woman get all that information? What triggered her to create such a disturbance that day? How did people adjust their lives to her announcements?
And most of all—how can we come to the point of caring for such a person who perpetrated such an uncaring act on so many people?
This is a great book. Mystery, suspense, psychological insight, vivid characters, grace in the midst of pain, insights into fortune telling and psychics….
Pierce, Yolanda, In My Grandmother’s House: Black Women, Faith, and the Stories We Inherit, (memoir, spirituality, Christianity, inspiration) Rating: 10
My motive for picking up this book was a quest for mentors: writers whose thinking and life experiences could both guide and inspire me. In this search, I have benefited from plenty of white guys: Parker Palmer, Dietrick Bonhoeffer, Hermann Hesse, William C. Martin, etc. (My reviews of their books appear on this website.) But as I age, I feel the need to expand my repertoire of teachers. What could Black men and women teach me? White women? Latin Americans? Asians? Women in Hitler’s Germany? Nuns? Mystics? LGBTQ+ persons? Non-Christians?
I’ve been more intentional about selecting the authors who feed my soul—trying to discover something about them before committing myself to the books they’ve written. And so I came across Yolanda Pierce: the first female dean of Howard University’s School of Divinity. She was also the director at the Smithsonian’s Museum of African American History—working on their presentation of African American Religious Life.
In My Grandmother’s House includes twelve brief essays that include memories of Pierce’s grandmother, the older women in her grandmother’s Pentecostal Church, the traditions of her childhood church and family, and her growing awareness of the meaning of those customs. Interspersed with the Grandmother stories are illustrations of the stresses, opportunities, and injustices that Pierce has experienced in her adult life.
In this superbly written book, Pierce’s reflections and gleaned wisdom are folded gently and poignantly into the narrative. The result—for me—is a book that feels inclusive (I too have many formative “grandmother” experiences) and awakening (Pierce’s experience of others is often quite different from my own.)
I wish the writer lived next door—and I had the chance to benefit regularly from her grace, integrity, and honesty.
Potter, David M., The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861 (history, U.S. pre-Civil War, politics)
In 1971, David Potter died of cancer at the age of 60, before his book was completed. A colleague at Stanford, Don Fehrenbacher, completed and edited The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861. The book was published and won a Pulitzer Prize in 1977. At the time, Steward was frequently called the greatest historian of his generation. It is easy to see why when one reads this book.
A thoroughly academic work, Potter nevertheless avoids the hubris, quarrelsomeness, and arcaneness so often found in the industry. Potter’s book is well researched with primary sources, creative, readable, probing, fair-minded, skeptical, non-judgmental, and perceptive. He carefully examines and dissects assumptions and well-established opinions about slavery and the Civil War and offers rational and insightful historical re-assessments.
Much has been written about what happened in the Civil War (1861-1865) and Reconstruction (1865 ff.) But historians must make inquiry as to why. And to explore the why means delving into the economics, religion, politics, technology, and personalities of the years preceding. Potter does this.
The characters that get the most attention are Stephen Douglas, James Buchanon, and Abraham Lincoln—and we learn things about them that are not always noticed. Chapters include John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry, the Kansas-Nebraska act and debacle, the Compromise of 1850, and the elections of 1848, 1852, 1856, and 1860. Slavery is examined, not from an emotional standpoint, but from a curiosity that leads to a better understanding of its power and impact in the U.S.
As many people try to identify historical correlations to our own decade, there is a reactionary stampede back to Hitler. A more fruitful and empowering enterprise would be a second look at the 1850s in the U.S. Potter’s book is the place to start.
Thomas, Evan, Road to Surrender: Three Men and the Countdown to the End of World War II (history, World War II, Japan-US surrender, 10 stars)
Evan Thomas has given us a well-researched, excellent history of two men (despite the subtitle) who were instrumental in ending World War II: Henry Stimson (U.S. Secretary of War) and Shigenori Togo (Japanese Foreign Minister.) The book revisits the long standing debate over the U.S. use of atomic weapons: whether dropping two atomic bombs was necessary in order to end the war. Using original and previously untapped resources—including Togo’s diaries and papers—Thomas gives us insight into the decision making occurring in both Washington and Tokyo in those final days of the war—leading up to Japan’s surrender. A second major controversy—still being debated by historians, is whether the Japanese Emperor should have been spared punishment. Thomas explores that issue as well.
His book shows how central Stimson’s role was to the execution of the war and the tenor of how the U.S. would handle to reconstruction afterward. A stern, patrician, and principled man—Stimson had no use for revenge or extended violence. He was deeply troubled by any harm done to civilians—including that done by atomic weapons. While Harry Truman made the final decisions regarding the dropping of the bombs and the terms of surrender, Stimson had been instrumental in setting up “the ending” before Truman even knew there was an atomic weapon.
While much has been written of Harry Truman’s role in the ending of the war with Japan—little has been noted about Stimson—a man much more in the middle of matters.
And virtually nothing has been know about the role of Shigenori Togo—Japan’s foreign minister. He fought to keep Japan from attacking the U.S. at Pearl Harbor, but stayed in the government even though he disapproved of the war—hoping to provide at least one reasonable voice during the war craze. As the war drew to an end, he was the sole voice for surrender in the Japanese War Council—up against several military men who believed that Japan should fight to the death—even if it meant the loss of 100 million Japanese. Thomas’s story gives us insight into how Togo worked to convince two other members of the War Council (making it a 3-3 tie for whether to surrender) and how he convinced Emperor Hirohito to make the final decision to request that the Japanese put down their arms and accept American terms of surrender.
I learned much from this book—about history, about politics, about making the best decision you can with the knowledge you have, and about two remarkable (if flawed) characters who in the end saved millions of lives. I give the book 10 stars.
Whipple, Chris, The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency (history, presidents, politics) rating: 10
Sometimes we need to step back from the exhausting news of the day and get a broader perspective on history and politics. We can’t avoid the news—but we can continually put it in context.
This book was written at the beginning of the first Trump administration, right after John Kelly became White House chief of staff. The author was hopeful that Kelly could make a difference. We know in retrospect how that worked out.
Whipple’s book focuses on the presidencies of Nixon through Obama. He makes a compelling argument for an effect White House Chief of Staff—and the dangers to a presidency that lacks one. Ford and Carter both tried to replace the chief with a “spokes on the wheel” approach—in which they planned to be both president AND chief of staff. Both quickly encountered the unworkability of that approach. While Ford quickly settled on one of the most effective chiefs of staff—Cheney—it took Carter till near the end of his presidency to get the right man in the position—Jack Watson. Jim Baker (Reagan) is seen as the most effective practitioner of the role—although he hated the job.
The role was virtually invented by H.R. Haldeman, who was effective in ways history usually doesn’t notice. His shortcomings, on the other hand, are well documented.
Whipple’s book covers the strengths and weaknesses of each Chief of Staff—and includes anecdotes about the work of each one. Every one of them had to deal with presidential egos and quirks. In some cases, such as Al Haig and John Sununu, the ego of the chief caused considerable trouble. Some (such as Chaney and Donald Rumsfeld) did well as a chief of staff, but changed later in life and didn’t always serve so effectively in subsequent roles. Some, such as Hamilton Jorden, were totally unfit for the role.
While delving deep into political history, this book is amazingly free of partisan shading. The author presents one of the fairest assessments of recent presidents and the people around them that can be found.
As we move into Trump 2, it is worth noting that we now have the first woman serving as chief of staff, Susan Wiles. She has been effective in ways none of the chiefs were in Trump 1. I hope that someday we get her behind the scenes story. It should be a thriller.
BOOKS RATED 5
Abriel, Anita, American Housewife (novel 5 stars)
Maggie Lane is the star of the 1950s Maggie Lane Baking Show, and the protagonist of this novel. She is a simple person of almost no guile, who is trying to live her life in a world of deceit, greed, and cruelty. At first she accepts the conventional 1950s notion that a woman’s place is secondary to her husband’s.
Maggie began working for CBS radio after the World War II doing on-air readings, and the network decided to hire her to be the star of a daytime TV show for housewives sponsored by the “Deluxe Baking Company.” She knew nothing about baking, but learned quickly, became popular around the country, and often gave advice about marriage difficulties during her show. Even Elenor Roosevelt became one of her fans. But Maggie always remained her innocent self—never tainted by money, celebrity, or fame.
She did have difficulties, however. Her husband, a reporter during World War II, had PTSD. She knew he struggled, but could not get through to him in any honest way. She herself had been through an experience, before meeting her husband, that left her with moral guilt. Husband and wife struggled with their respective secrets that soon grew to cause marital problems. But Maggie could not get divorced or it would destroy her image and her career.
The characters are well developed. The novel also shines light on some of the struggles people had in the 1950s, a decade now distorted by nostalgia. We see the growing power of the corporate world, the linger damages of World War II, the attempt to keep women in their place, and the challenge real life poses to conventional morality.
A good read.
Coelho, Paulo, The Alchemist, (novel, myth)
This is a mystical story of a shepherd from Andalusia (Spain) who has a profound vision and yearning to go to Egypt, find a “treasure,” and fulfill his personal legend. Along the way, his good luck turns out to be bad for him, and his bad luck turns results in just the thing he needs in order to pursue his quest. We travel along with Santiago through the deserts of Spain, Morocco, and the wilderness between Morocco and Egypt. He meets a number of guides along the way who become his mentors. There is a unity among those guides—making us wonder if the same spiritual creatures takes the form of different people. As the book reaches its apex, Santiago finds himself battling a personified power of the desert itself.
The story includes suspense, interesting characters, wisdom—and good company as we travel along with Santiago.
Cox, Christopher, Woodrow Wilson: The Light Withdrawn (presidential biography, history of Women’s Rights in the U.S., Jim Crow in the federal government)
Good history constantly generates re-assessments of American presidents. Woodrow Wilson is now in the historian’s spotlight. And he doesn’t look very good. The previous spin on Wilson is that he was one of our most academic and brilliant presidents, a scholar, an international statesman, a courageous progressive, and a person of high morals and ethical standards. Historians in the past brushed only lightly on his racism, his obstinance in working with congress, and his role in designing the Versailles Treaty—which led to both worldwide depression and the rise of fascism in Germany.
Cox explores the academic accomplishments of Wilson, and discovers that as an academic, Wilson was a phony, with a suspicious Ph.D. and a drop-out from classes he was required to take. As an author, he wrote theoretically about government without doing primary research or compiling evidence. As a lawyer, his only case was one he worked on for his mother. As a husband, he carried on an affair for months. As a president of Princeton, he was ineffective and incapable of solid leadership. His governorship of New Jersey, he was elected in 1910, lasted only two years, most of it devoted to the presidential election of 1912. As a southerner, he brought Jim Crow into the federal government, where it has been largely lacking before.
But the most indicting thing in Cox’s book is the violent role Wilson took in trying to stop the Susan Anthony Amendment—giving women the right to vote. Our generation is very aware of the violence perpetrated on southern blacks in the 1950s and 60s. But violence was also perpetrated on women during Wilson’s administration when they were struggling to get the vote.
When women organized peaceful protests outside the White House, Wilson asserted control over District of Columbia officials and had them jailed. The women organized their silent protests—with signs and banners—along the White House fence, single file, on a 40 foot wide sidewalk. They were first attacked by soldiers, sailors, and marines—under Wilson’s control. They were arrested for blocking traffic. They were thrown in solitary confinement for these charges. Their leaders were brutally beaten and treated worse than death row prisoners when they were arrested.
This book is as much a revelation of the woman’s movement of the early 1900s as it is about Wilson.
The author clearly does not like Woodrow Wilson. This is not a comprehensive account of his presidency. That has been written elsewhere. It is a one-sided effort to bring Wilson’s shortcomings to light—long overdue.
An historical giant like Wilson is a challenge for historians. Even though we don’t want to judge him by our own times and standards, it is difficult for us to bracket our own values out. But still, in the case of Wilson, his racism, violence, academic dishonesty, sexism, extra-marital affair, ineptness with congress, and short-sightedness in the Versailles Treaty to end World War I—none of these things only became “wrong” in modern times. They were wrong then also. And for all the things that happened to advance the country during his presidency—he owns the failures as well.
This is not the final book on Woodrow Wilson. But it is a serious piece of history that needs to be incorporated into the ongoing quest to understand this important man better.
Dev, Sonali, There’s Something About Mira (novel, second generation American, India)
The protagonist is Mira, a 30-something American born woman of Indian immigrants. She is engaged to a charming surgeon, the pride of her parents. Her engagement to such a well-respected doctor is the only thing she has ever done that made her parents proud. Meanwhile, Mira’s twin brother Rumi, is living in New York and is totally estranged from their parents.
It seems, however, that the doctor-fiancé can never get away to do anything with Mira. And so she has to go to New York alone instead of enjoying a pre-honeymoon with him. While there, the plot really kicks in. She finds a piece of lost jewelry, tries to find the owner, and gets tangled up with a reporter from the New York Times–whom she despises.
She still hasn’t found the owner of the jewelry when it is time for her to go to India with her mother and future mother-in-law in order to get all the wedding outfits. While in India, the plot takes further unexpected turns.
What makes the novel good is that Mira becomes a different person in the end, wrestling with her past ghosts, and finding the person she IS rather than the person others want her to be. As a bonus, the plot is entertaining as well.
Joseph, Peniel E., The Sword and the Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. (history, civil rights, biography) Rating: 5
This book is part of a continuing battle against “dumbing down history.” Conventional wisdom, especially among us white folks, is: King/good, Malcolm/bad. Many historians like to focus on the tension and conflict between the two men.
But Joseph sketches out a growing synthesis between the two men, who came from dramatically different backgrounds. King was nurtured in the African/American church. Malcolm was a Muslim through conversion. Both spent time in prison—King as a celebrity, Malcolm as a common criminal. In both cases, race was the tipping point that led to their arrests.
King supported WWII, with its violent efforts to defeat Hitler—but did not support using any violence to liberate Blacks in the United States. Malcolm found that logically inconsistent. King could schmooze with people in power—Malcolm thought such activities a waste of time and energy. King began with his non-violent advocacy for civil rights. Malcolm believed that the primary issue was “human rights,” the dignity and freedom of the individual. He was skeptical about how much voting rights would actually make a difference for the Black person. In time, Malcolm began to develop more political sophistication—and expanded his alliances. In time, King began to see poverty and war as fundamental areas needing change. The two men were far more complex and nuanced than popular history sees them.
This book is an important correction to the assumptions we have long made about both King and Malcolm. It is important reading for those who want to understand today’s struggle for civil rights, human rights, peace, and human dignity—issues that are just as “iffy” and relevant today as they were when King and Malcolm were alive.
Sue, Natalie, I Hope This Finds You Well (novel)
Jolene hates her work—an administrative position with Supershops Inc. She is miserable. And she hates the people she works with. To relieve her hostility, she attaches vicious comments to her interoffice emails—except she makes them invisible by changing the font to white. One day, however, she forgets to make the font white, and her hostility is discovered. She has to take a class in proper conduct if she wants to keep her job. Meanwhile, she has convinced her mother that she has a wonderful job and is expecting a huge promotion any day. Just to keep her mother off her back.
The “what-if” that drives the plot happens when Jolene discovers that her work computer has inadvertently been set up to read every email and text in the whole company system. She suddenly becomes privy to all the personal emails, all the hidden personal problems of her coworkers, all the confidential information from her bosses and HR. This new knowledge will change her life. Will it be for the better? Or the worse?
The plot thickens when she discovers that one of her co-workers has told his parents that he is engaged to Jolene. In a comedy farce, her parents also come to believe this—and the plot thickens.
The HR guy, who is supposed to supervise Jolene, is misplaced. He belongs in another vocation. But he is stuck with Supershops, and Jolene is stuck with him. I enjoyed the book and gave it a 5.
Yates, Elizabeth, On That Night, (short story, Christmas Eve)
In this charming short story, people are headed to church on Christmas Eve for the annual worship service. The story focuses on several people who attend that night who are harboring secret pain and turmoil: a little girl who’s comfort toy has mysteriously disappeared, a young man—turned to crime—who has snuck back into town for a last visit with his mother—who has dementia, an exhausted mother—trying to raise children and hold down a job—with her ‘to do’ list for Christmas Eve not nearly completed, a young man who has just been fired from his job that day, a young woman whose husband had been recently killed in the Viet Nam War, and a dying old man who took care of the life-sized manger statues at the front of the church.
They all go to the front of the church, as is the custom in this place, to pause and meditate before the delicately carved manger scene. And they all hurry out of church afterward, into the cold and dark to take up their lives again.
But then the mysteries happen—one after the other.
Yates authors an exquisitely well written and tender story. There is a temptation to idolize Christmas Eve—as though it were magical and extra holy. And that is the main problem with this story. But Yates can be forgiven this bit of heresy when we look past it and give attention to the miracles and mysteries that happen in our own lives—365 days a year.
BOOKS RATED 4
Denworth, Lydia, Friendship: The Evolution, Power, and Extraordinary Power of Life’s Fundamental Bond (psychology, relationships, biology, brain science)
The book begins with observations of monkeys—and the friendships and relationships they forge. It takes a quick look at other species that have discernable social networks. From there, the book provides evidence that loneliness lowers the quality and length of human life.
The book acknowledges that not every friendship is healthy for you. Toxic friendships can diminish one’s life. The book also explores—inconclusively—the effect of social media on friendship.
If you want to get a sense of the science of the book, read the following quote: Puberty is a turning point for dealing with stress, and it comes with the bad news for parents: “Up to the age of ten, mothers calmed down the amygdala by engaging prefrontal circuitry in children’s brains that works to control stress. In adolescents, who were eleven to seventeen in this study, Mom’s presence no longer worked the same magic. The brain’s response to stress remained highly reactive. On the plus side for teenagers, the necessary brain circuitry for managing the stress—a network that connects the amygdala to the prefrontal cortex—is more fully developed, so they are on their way to mature responses.”
I’ve conduct workshops on friendship for churches and other groups, and found the book helpful to my overall knowledge. But it would not be the first book I would recommend on the subject to people.
Gayle, Mike, The One Who Got Away, novel–romance, sort of, 4 stars)
A pleasant short short–nice if you want a quick read–about a romance gone wrong. Spoiler alert. Reuben has finally met the one and only woman for him: Beth. But then stupidity–always crouching about in a good story–comes to full blossom. They’re both a kind of stupid–but Reuben more-so.
Our ideal couple breaks up, and a mere six months later, Reuben hears that Beth is getting married to someone else. He is in despair. His close friends plan to be with him the day of the wedding–to distract him from his sorrows.
The day has just begun, the friends have just started their distractions–when Beth calls Reuben–out of the blue–and pleads for him to come and get her and help her escape from the wedding.
Nice twists–all the way through. Not brilliant–but pleasant enough for me to give it a rating of 4.
Gradel, Thomas J. and Simpson, Dick, Corrupt Illinois: Patronage, Cronyism, and Criminality (politics, Illinois, history) Rating: 4
This is an important book, timely, and titillating. It is also hastily written and somewhat disorganized. And it lacks the thoughtful analysis the writers promise. And it is dated. (Illinois politicians manage to render historical works on this subject almost immediately outdated.)
Four Illinois governors (in my lifetime) have gone to prison. It was all about money for each of them. Other issues throughout the state’s history have been about political machines, sex scandals, drugs and drunk driving, government coverup of police brutality, and election stealing. But money is king when it comes to Illinois corruption.
Corrupt Illinois has chapters on stolen elections, aldermanic corruption in Chicago, suburban scandals, police abuse, judicial corruption, and congressional crooks. The book is sometimes repetitive. It quotes a couple scholars who have “theories” about what makes Illinois so corrupt, but those arguments seem thin and incomprehensive.
As one reads through this book—it begins to feel like reading a phone book: page after page of names and briefly noted crimes. It gets fatiguing.
The authors rightly note that while stories of corrupt politicians are entertaining, the corruption itself is costly: financially (to the tax payers) and spiritually (good people want nothing to do with politics and governing.) The Trump administration (2025) is blatantly involved in pay-to-play schemes and bribery (Qatar offering the president an airplane.) The fact is, Americans are increasingly tolerant of corruption. This book, with all its flaws is a wake up alarm.
For a more up to date account of Illinois corruption, check out the 2024 Chicago Tribune series of articles: https://www.chicagotribune.com/tag/corruption/
Joyce, Rachel, Maureen (Harold Fry #2) (novel)
This is the third novel of a trilogy that began with Maureen’s husband, Harold. In the first book, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Harold walks to the corner to mail a letter to his old friend, Queeny, who is dying several hundred miles north of Harold’s home. But instead of stopping at the mailbox, Harold just keeps walking—all the way to deliver the letter in person. Along the way, the attracts all sorts of people who see in him and his journey something they need in their own lives.
The second novel features Queeny as the protagonist. We hear a great deal about her life, her relationship with Harold, and her response to both Harold’s impending arrival and her impending death.
This third novel features Harold’s wife. Maureen has had a difficult life, the worst of it being the suicidal death of their son. In this novel, Harold is back at home, Queeny has died, and Maureen has decided she needs to make a pilgrimage of her own—by car—to where Queeny had established a quirky garden before she died. Maureen is quite quirky herself. She is both timid and judgmental of other people—and of the world around her. But on this journey—she moves far outside her comfort zone to confront her own ghosts and inner demons. In the end, she experiences redemption through grace—and Queeny’s garden.
I read anything by Rachel Joyce, one of my favorite authors. But this book was a little hard on me because I found myself impatient and frustrated with Maureen. But just as she learns a bit about improving herself in the story, so I learned to be a bit more patient with her. But not totally patient with her—so I gave the book a four instead of a five. (I rated the first two books in this series a 10.)
Lauren, Christina, The Exception to the Rule (novel)
This delightful and short novel is another romance entry. Of course, the characters are hot—which isn’t discovered until half way through. In the first half of the novel, the characters become known to us by their sensitivity and their wit. There is zest to their personalities that drives the novel forward. The ending of the book is driving solely by looks—superficial.
T and C (they do not know each other’s names—only by initial) first get to know one another by email. The guy mistakenly sends a school email to the girl—it was supposed to go to a teacher. But she answers him back anyway—since it is the only email she got on Valentine’s Day. And so the relationship starts. They agree that on each Valentine’s Day, they will write to each other. But the rules are: no sharing of names and no sharing of information about where they are going to college. They write for several years this way, and the story is excellent.
The title foreshadows the ending: exception to the rule.
Lim, Louisa, The People’s Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited, (journalistic investigation, China, modern)
In the late 1980s, China was trying to find its way and determine its rules in the post-Mao era. It had been ruled by Deng Xiaoping for a decade and was getting ready to hand leadership over to a new generation. Among the leading officials themselves there were several ideas and plans. As power struggles played out behind closed doors among those officials, the public also got involved, particularly students, scholars, and reformers. At a time when mass rallies were occurring in Soviet bloc countries for reform, organizers began to mobilize huge crowds in China as well. While the Soviet Union was disintegrating, Deng was determined to keep the same revolution from occurring in China—he believed the country wasn’t prepared for democracy.
Lim’s book mostly consists of interviews with people who were present from some of those massive rallies—particularly in Beijing and Chengdu. She also interviews parents and friends of those who were killed, exiled, or arrested in that time.
I have two primary thoughts about Lim’s well-researched work. First, we see once again a recurrence of Orwell’s novel, 1984: those in power rewrite history, fabricating it entirely or eradicating it entirely. In my opinion, nothing is more evil than dishonest history, or the silencing of genuine historical inquiry and record-keeping. No nation can be great for long, or achieve multi-dimensional greatness if it refuses to allow itself to be challenged by the historical record and continuing investigation, curiosity, and analysis.
My second thought: before we smugly pile on China for its enforced historical amnesia, we should take the log out of our own eye—whatever country we are from. In the United States today, historical amnesia is behind the criticism of critical race theory, white nationalism, the religious right, and the angry defense of continued honoring of Confederate war criminals. Historical amnesia is behind the January 6 pardons. No country, no set of political leaders are immune from promoting historical amnesia.
My only reason for giving the book a 4 instead of a 5 is due to the lack of interviews available to the author and the lack of other data to help the reader get perspective. I trust the author and the people she interviewed. But there needs to be other corroborating data—which is exactly what governments everywhere are good at erasing.
Nicholls, David, You Are Here, (novel)
Michael and Marnie, both lonely, both single, both abandoned by their first spouses—are too flawed and wounded to be together. But they are hot-looking. And so the author has made it sort of easy—and inevitable. Just once I’d like to read a romance about real life—where the characters have to also deal with “not-hot.”
The book is insightful and perceptive about such topics as PTSD, loneliness, aging, and courage.
But having said that, Michael and Marnie are set up due to the connivance of a mutual friend. They are due to go on a ten-day hike in Canada with a group of 8-10 individuals. But the friend didn’t connect Michael and Marnie. They each were assigned other potential mates. But Michael’s blind date didn’t show, and Marnie’s flew back home after the first day. One by one, the others in the party went home also. Michael and Marnie are left alone—and the wounds and hopes and desires are ripped open. While trying to hide from both their own selves—and each other, both are forced to examine what they have become and whether or not anything else is possible.
BOOKS RATED 3
Arnold, C.D., H.D. Higinbotham, official photographers, Official Views of the World’s Columbian Exposition—Issued by the Department of Photography (pictorial book, World’s Fair Chicago 1893) rated 3
The czar of the 1893 World’s Fair (the Columbian Exposition) decided to place strict controls over the photography that occurred on the fairgrounds. He didn’t want any adverse publicity that might keep crowds away. And there was reason to worry. The construction of the fair was running behind schedule, adversaries from New York were eager to ridicule Chicago’s effort to put on a World’s Fair, and accidents and weather left the fair’s structures vulnerable every day the fair was open.
Based on all those fears, photography was prohibited–unless you purchased a license to use your own camera–at a cost that was prohibitive to most fair goers. C.D. Arnold was given exclusive rights to be the fair’s official photographer. His photographs were used to make up post cards–and his photos were eventually published in “Official Views of the World’s Columbian Exposition.”
My friend Gayle Barnes shared her copy of this 1893 book with me. There are short phrases to describe each photograph, but no other text, other than a helpful index. As an historical artifact, the book is fascinating. I just wish there were more descriptions, maps, photos of fairgoers, and text to go along with it.
BOOKS RATED 2
Allen, Jonathan, and Parnes, Amie, Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House (journalistic summary of the 2024 presidential campaign, 2 stars);
This is one of the first allegedly “tell all” books about the 2024 election: the mental decline of Joe Biden, the behind the scenes effort to swing the nomination to Kamala Harris, and the ups and downs of the Trump campaign, including two assassination attempts on the former president.
The authors are journalists, and this book suffers from all the problems that every political journalist seems to have these days: an addiction to the sensational and a dearth of perceptive analysis. They seek to walk an apolitical line–but come across as pandering (to Trump) and gossipy about the Democrats.
I finished the book because I’m trying to (slowly) digest what happened (big picture-wise) in the election of 2024. But the only thing I really discovered was this: because the the book is chock full of quotes from various Democrats recalling conversations and inside meeting from the campaign–is that the Democrats used the “F-Bomb” in 2024 more times than any party in American history.
Baier, Bret, Catherine Whitney, Three Days at the Brink: FDR’s Daring Gamble to Win WWII (celebrity history) rated 2
Bret Baier is a smooth writer, and I found it easy listening as I heard him read “Three Days at the Brink” on Audible. As a TV “news” personality, he knows how to tell a story that captivates listeners (or readers.) As a celebrity, he has a popular following–and a motive to please his public–and is financial and political benefactors. His latest book takes as its subject–FDR, a fascinating historical figure. Thus, for the most part, I enjoyed the book.
But–Baier is neither an historian nor a journalist. He is a political participant with deeply held beliefs and a media platform (Fox News) that allows him to broadcast his commentaries. He claims at the outset of this book that he is not an historian. He tells historical anecdotes and puts them together in a cohesive narrative, but he does not make deep inquiry nor gather primary evidence. He does not question historical assumptions–but simply passes them on.
His agenda for this volume is simple enough–0n the surface: to tell the fascinating story of a conference held in Tehran in 1943 between Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin. Baier’s anecdotes are interesting–but already well known by historians and World War II buffs.
But even though the title of the book promises 400 pages about the Tehran Conference, the book goes off the rails from the very beginning, causing the reader to wonder what Baier’ agenda really is. There is a long biography of FDR–again made up of information that is already well known to historians and presidential history fans. Then there are long sections about Eisenhower and D-Day. Then there is a review of another conference between Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin–at Yalta. There are disapproving anecdotes about Stalin. Roosevelt’s death is covered in detail. The suicide of Hitler is reviewed, as were the atomic weapons dropped on Japan and the start of the Cold War. There is detailed information about Kim Jung Un and his hostility to the U.S.
Instead of giving us a thorough treatment of the Tehran Conference, Baier uses it as a trampoline to bounce into all sorts of disconnected anecdotes, international relationships, and comments about personalities of historical figures.
It is only in the final chapter that one realizes the hidden motive of the author–to promote Donald Trump as the wise and spiritual heir of Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and Reagan. Legitimate historians will one day take up the chore of comparing and contrasting the Trump foreign policy with that of other presidents. Put alongside te most savvy and strategic presidents, it seems more likely (from today’s perspective) that Trump will be seen more in contrast than comparison. Beware of celebrities producing history books–or political actors using selective history to promote their own side.
Barrett, Bob, Inside the President’s Team: Family, Service, and the Gerald Ford Presidency (memoir, 2 stars)
Bob Barrett was the military officer who carried the “nuclear football” for Richard Nixon (for a couple of days) and Gerald Ford (for his entire presidency.) It is an interesting, gossipy book, with not much substance and not particularly well written. While the book is full of anecdotes—a front row seat to history, it is not historical—in the sense that it does not try to explore the context of events, the connection of cause and effect, or a fuller understanding of individuals involved. Barrett idolizes the Fords, particularly Betty. On the other hand, he is spiteful to others (Nixon, Reagan, Carter, etc.) in a way that Ford was not.
The book is laced with Barrett’s attempting to let the reader know what a “bad boy” he himself is—in contrast to Ford. This includes multiple reminders to the readers that Barrett has been married five times. An interesting read, but not an informative or historical one.
Staub, Wendy Corsi, The Fourth Girl, (novel, mystery) rating: 2
Four teenage girls are tight-knit. They plan to be best friends for life. But life interfered. They go their separate ways—hurt, angry, and fed up with the others. And then 25 years later, there is an invitation to a reunion.
This novel is all plot and no story. In other words, the characters start out shallow and remain so for the entirety of the novel. Dialogue is cliché. And none of the characters elicits much of a “give a damn” from the reader. Of course we care—we are value human life, we are good people, we want the characters to succeed. But the writer of this novel makes that aspiration harder for us.
Not only are the characters shallow, they are unrealistic. The author takes real-life issues (such as child-abuse and drug addiction) and puts them in artificial characters.
As for the plot, it is hard to follow. The author jumps back and forth over a 25-year span and moves from one character view-point to another. The reader is trying to juggle information and factoids—some of which are irrelevant to the plot. Characters are manufactured in order to add suspense to the reader—but do little other than to clutter the plot.
If you want a good novel—pass this one up.
Repertoire 