Rated The Fever 6/10
A good airplane read - a vivid, pulpy, paranoid story about a high school seething with teenage tensions and the mysterious medical phenomenon that makes it explode. Slight but very well-done.
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Rated The Teacher Wars: A History of America's Most Embattled Profession 8/10
Fair-minded, wonky, well-done book that looks at the history of schoolteaching and the struggle to make it work. Illuminating/depressing in how many the controversies and arguments are the same as they were a century ago; offers a strong defense of the role of teachers, and the organizations that represent them, even as it identifies new models and advances that can improve schools. Modest in scale and in the prescriptions Goldstein recommends, but really well-researched, with great portraits of historical figures both major and obscure.
Rated Outline 8/10
Remarkably little happens; it’s brief and there’s no real plot or conflict. A writer travels to Greece and listens to the stories of people around her as they work through ideas and memories. Still, it’s very compelling - beautiful writing, the well-spoken characters eliciting insights and aphorisms about life from their own experiences for the benefit of the listening narrator. Mostly what it captures is the writers’-eye view of the world and the weird loneliness of traveling by yourself, not feeling quite like you exist beyond your observations of what’s going on around you. Quite lovely and enjoyable once you get past looking for what it’s “about.”
Rated The Girl on the Train 6/10
A soapy, clever mystery that's a little too much of a bummer to be as fun as it should be, but it's well-plotted, especially toward the end.
Rated Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era 10/10
Masterful. At 800+ dense pages, one of those books that feels like an accomplishment to have read. Really told me a lot I didn't know about the Civil War.
Really fantastic - highly recommend to anyone who works in politics, community outreach, etc etc. In-depth look at the nuts and bolts of the civil rights movement in the Delta region of Mississippi, particularly the local people who worked with SNCC. Thought-provoking and well-reported.
Rated Dead Is Better 4/10
A modestly clever mystery novel, the gimmick of which is that it's narrated by a ghost who's accompanied by a ghost dog. It should have just leaned into how slight it is, and been more fun, rather than having aspirations of depth. It's weirdly structured, too, and sort of fell off at the end, in ways that make it obvious that it's setting up to be a series, which I'm not inclined to pursue further.
Rated Go-Go Live: The Musical Life and Death of a Chocolate City 8/10
Great book on DC's native-born party music; mixes sociology, personal essay, journalistic reporting to explain how go-go binds together Washington's black culture. Especially worth reading if, like me, you're a white person who moved to DC in the past decade - it's so easy to think of DC as just one thing when there's a whole other city happening.
Rated Six Four 8/10
A sharp and weird police procedural - extremely Japanese, in its focus on customs of deference, loyalty, hierarchy and what you are and aren't supposed to express. Well-constructed but kind of slow going.
Rated The Essex Serpent 8/10
Delightful. A big sprawly Victorian-era story, focused on a wealthy widow and a minister who strike up an intense, unlikely friendship, but reaching out to encompass their families and communities - Perry does a really impressive job of shifting from perspective to perspective and taking every character's view seriously. Not a lot happens but it's a good ride anyway watching these characters interact and seeing how their idiosyncrasies interweave. Reminiscent of [b:The Luminaries|17333230|The Luminaries|Eleanor Catton|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1410524246s/17333230.jpg|24064531] in its scope, but more reader-friendly and engaging even though there's less plot.
Rated What You Are Getting Wrong about Appalachia 8/10
Very thoughtful and compelling. Designed primarily as a corrective to books like [b:Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis|27161156|Hillbilly Elegy A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis|J.D. Vance|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1463569814s/27161156.jpg|47200486] and the coverage of Appalachia around the 2016 election, but worth reading on its own: a study of how Appalachia has been willfully misunderstood by people looking to extract either coal or political advantage from it, and the historic streak of radical politics that still exists, running counter to Appalachia's conservative electoral shift. Well worth reading and quick.
Rated The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration 10/10
Truly fantastic book about the black families who moved out of the South and into northern and western cities in the middle of the 20th century. It took up a decade and a half of the author's life and it shows: it's incredibly well-researched and well-written. The book is a mix of intimate stories and sweeping sociological analysis, focusing on the lives of three people who moved to New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. One of the best works of American history I've read.
Rated The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks 8/10
Very well-done investigation into the life and family of Henrietta Lacks, a woman who died of cervical cancer and whose cells have outlived her by decades as they've been cultivated for medical research. It's about science, race, ethics and medical history, as well as about the process of trying to track down and gain access to Henrietta's family.
Rated The Year of Magical Thinking 10/10
Lovely and painful. A minutely-observed study of grief that Didion wrote after her husband suffered a fatal heart attack and her daughter a severe illness. Brief, but it's not that fast a read, both because it's a little tough emotionally and because her writing is so sharp and good that I often found myself turning back to see how she phrased things a second time. Highly recommended even though it's sad; I think it will stick with me.
Rated Marlena 8/10
A dark and moody story of the teenage friendship between two young women and the weight that the loss of one friend casts over the rest of the other friend's life. Reminiscent of [b:The Girls|26893819|The Girls|Emma Cline|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1492065338s/26893819.jpg|42856015] and [b:Eileen|23453099|Eileen|Ottessa Moshfegh|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1479545528s/23453099.jpg|43014905] in tone and structure; like those books, this one is presented as retrospective, and like them it concerns drugs, violence, depression, the families we're stuck with and the families we create, and the incredible intensity of the attachments young women make with one another. Mild spoiler: it sets up as though there's a ~twist~, a mystery or puzzle that gets solved, but really doesn't play out that way (not a bad thing, just don't expect [b:Gone Girl|19288043|Gone Girl|Gillian Flynn|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1397056917s/19288043.jpg|13306276] or whatever).
Reviewed Pretotype It: Make sure you are building The Right It before you build It right
<a href="https://smus.com/books/the-right-it-audio">Full review on smus.com</a>
Rated The Sport of Kings 6/10
A story about horse racing, racial conflict and family histories in Kentucky. Beautiful writing, a downer, compelling at times but drags a bit at others - I am real torn between giving this one a 3 or a 4, because it's very ambitious and almost pulls it off.
Wants to read Pretty Monsters: Stories
Rated A Field Guide to Awkward Silences 6/10
Has its moments, but kind of disappointing because I really like her Post columns. As a book, it aims by turns to be charming and clever and poignant and wise but it doesn't quite hit as high as it aims.
Wants to read An American Marriage
Rated Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth 8/10
I really enjoyed this and got a lot from it, even as I found it a little glib and over-certain. Based on the scanty evidence in the Gospels and the somewhat more robust political and cultural historical record of Roman-occupied Palestine, Aslan sketches out a plausible scenario of who the historical Jesus might have been. He does it with somewhat more definitiveness than he could actually have, though to his credit he lays out that this is just a theory based on what little evidence he has. It's very challenging to the perspective a lot of people - including but not limited to me! - might have on Jesus, and very arguable, but also lively and well-thought-out. I am pretty familiar with both the Gospels and Roman history and it gave me an interesting new lens on both of these (actually found myself consulting a Bible as I read, because Aslan relies on it pretty heavily!). <br/><br/>Recommended with a grain of salt, but more for the faux-authoritativeness than the bad reasons that most Americans would be skeptical about a biography of Jesus written by a secular Muslim.