'The End is Always Near' by Dan Carlin

The End is Always Near, Dan Carlin (3.0)

I am a fan of Dan Carlin’s podcasts and always appreciate his common-sense point of view. Here he reviews various stages in history to show how humans continually come close to the abyss, though as yet have not obliterated ourselves (yeah!?). I found the first half less interesting, maybe due to the known history and my ‘well, we made it through that one’ attitude. The second half, particularly as he discusses the atomic era, was appropriately scary and thought provoking. I had not realized the extent many in the government were pushing the use of the atomic bombs on the USSR (prior to them having the technology) to prevent the anticipated cold war. Carlin’s timing for this book is slightly off (published Oct 2019) as he talks about a possible global pandemic right before the actual pandemic. I read the paperback and would have appreciated an additional note putting that in perspective.

'Why Fish Don't Exist' by Lulu Miller

Why Fish Don’t Exist, Lulu Miller (4.0)

It took me a bit to get into this book, but once I did, I really enjoyed it. It is part history, part memoir, part biography and I think I was just confused at first. The author goes looking for a figure to write about and anchor her unraveling life. She picks David Starr Jordan, a taxonomist famous for finding and naming a large part of the fish population we recognize today and also an early President of Stanford University. I’m glad I was unfamiliar with Jordan as it felt I was learning about him along with Miller, which made many of her discoveries quite shocking. Jordan apparently has skeletons outside the closet (he was a strong supporter of eugenics) and inside (I’ll let you find out). While I normally don’t enjoy science mixed with memoir (Miller adds much about her life), once I surrendered to being an observer of her journey I appreciated the book more.

'All My Rage' by Sabaa Tahir

All My Rage, Sabaa Tahir (4.0)

I found this book quite thought provoking and moving. It is filled with many tragedies (the trigger warning at the beginning is not to be ignored). The story focusses on the lives of two Pakistani kids growing up in a small town near the Mojave dessert. One born there after his parents left Pakistan for a job in California and the other brought over by an uncle after an earthquake devastates her village and kills all her family. The best parts of the book focus on how they hold on to each other and their shared culture. There are many beautiful passages concerning language, food, prayers and family. My main issue with the book is the number and variety of the incidents. I do believe people have multiple issues and tragedies, but this was all over the board – alcoholism, child molestation, Islamophobia, drug abuse, domestic violence - no one is unscathed. Ultimately, even with the deluge of problems the characters face, the author instills some optimism, which I really appreciated as the reader.

'Arriving Today: From Factory to Front Door' by Christopher Mims

Arriving Today: From Factory to Front Door, Christopher Mims (4.0)

While much of this book was familiar to me, given my background in Supply Chain, I feel it’s important for consumers in the US to read this and understand the journey of your Prime 2-day deliveries. The author follows a USB drive manufactured in Viet Nam to a final destination somewhere in the US. While Amazon gets the product to the final customer in 2 days, the overall journey takes weeks. While I did get tired of the comparisons of shipping vessels to the Empire State building, the size and complexity of much of our logistics network are unknown to most. I particularly enjoyed the chapter discussing the details of the ships arriving into the Port of Long Beach and the harrowing job of the pilots who bring all the ships into their docks. Even given our advanced GPS and navigation, a person familiar with the port needs to ‘jump’ onto the ship to help steer it in safely. I was fortunate in one of my jobs to get a tour of the HQ of the Port of Long Beach and was so impressed with the automation. So many moving pieces to get the right truck bed off the ship and ready for the truck to pick up. Mims also paints a depressing picture of the dehumanizing Amazon has done in its warehouses. In many ways, the sooner they get to complete automation, the better. Sadly, it appears much of the negative impacts on its workers are driven not by the drive for lower costs/efficiencies but by the metric of 2-day shipping. Do we really need everything in 2 days? 

'We Are What We Eat' by Alice Waters

We Are What We Eat: A Slow Food Manifesto, Alice Waters (3.0)

Given my feelings about fast food, I was quite sure this book would appeal to me. Ms. Waters discusses the various reasons many people value fast food while elucidating the fallacies to those thoughts along with highlighting the benefits of ‘slow’ food. Many readers have pointed out that she is assuming everyone has access to local organic food and she does address this. I was less concerned with that but did feel the audience who would benefit from reading this are the least likely to. Not a lot of new info for those of us who avoid fast food, but I did enjoy a reminder of why eating seasonally is important and tasty! I immediately pulled up my winter Swiss chard recipe.  

'City of Thieves' by David Benioff

City of Thieves, David Benioff (4.0)

There are many historical fiction books that cover WWII (too many?) so it is hard to differentiate oneself and write an original story. Benioff pulls it off by taking (theoretically) his grandfather’s story and embellishing it. My only nit is that it was hard to believe that many things happened to one guy – the embellishment felt a tad overdone. It was easy to put that aside, given Benioff’s great storytelling. The story was riveting, and the characters deftly moved between tragedy and comedy. The main character, Lev Beniov, is a teenager in Leningrad surviving the weather, lack of food and continual Nazi bombing. He is eventually sent on a quest to find a dozen eggs. His perilous journey involves the usual sidekick, love interest and many challenges. I really appreciated how the author was able to accurately depict the horrors they faced and the absolute unforgiving environment they were in without losing the heart of the Russian people. The pace of the book is as frenetic as you’d expect. By the end, I really wanted to know his grandfather’s real story!

'The Alice Network' and 'While I Was Gone'

The Alice Network, Kate Quinn (4.0)

While I’m not normally a fan of historic fiction (it makes me question what I already know about that time in history), this is an engaging story made up around a real female spy in WWI. The author carefully outlines in the Afterword which elements were fiction and which characters were real, with the main characters being fiction. I liked how the author illustrated the basic issues women had being spies in that time – both their day to day situation and the overall cultural assumptions made by their male counterparts. She also highlights very real intelligence that came from the network of women spies around events in WWI. The interweaving stories of WWI and 1947 also helped to move the story along briskly. I intend to look into the other books Ms. Quinn has written based on extraordinary women participating in WWI and WWII.

While I Was Gone, Sue Miller (3.5)

I appreciated the beautiful writing in this book, though I found the main character to have a melancholy that seemed unwarranted. She has a wonderful husband (and seemingly very happy marriage), a satisfying career and 3 grown daughters. The idea that she has serious mid-life crisis/empty nest syndrome issues made me sad. Who can make it through their 50’s intact? The narrative moves forward based on someone from her past showing up. Nothing too secret, but apparently the effect on her was buried deeply and now must be addressed. Sadly, I found her husband too perfect, her potential affair unrealistic and left disappointed.