For me, Michelle Obama’s memoir was a good mix of known and unknown: enough familiarity to resonate with my experiences, with enough differences to fascinate and educate me. I loved learning about her childhood, growing up aware of class differences but buttressed by a supportive family; I was in awe of her journey from Chicago’s South Side to the Ivy League and Biglaw; I sympathized with her struggles with work-life balance and search for career fulfillment, while keeping in mind what she owed to her roots and her family. I also loved seeing Barack through her eyes; her tolerance and affection was palpable through her voice in the audiobook. I could have used a little more of her perspective on the global events that happened during the Obama administration though; instead, she pointedly kept out of politics for the most part and concentrated the bulk of her narrative on her initiatives for child nutrition and her concerns about raising her daughters with as much normalcy as possible. The major awkwardness about this book is that although Michelle Obama is an impressive woman by any measure, at the end of the day she becomes defined by traditionally feminine roles: wife, and mother. She works with the title throughout the memoir, “becoming” first one thing and then another; as her husband retires from politics and her daughters grow into their own, she may find herself more free to transcend traditional roles.
Tag: genre-nonfiction
Why We Swim, by Bonnie Tsui
The author has loved swimming ever since childhood, and every chapter of this book at some point includes a breathless, besotted description of being in the water. If there is one weakness to this book it is Tsui’s basic assumption of water as a comfort element to all humans, ignoring people who might not feel immediately at home when immersed in a pool or an ocean. But I suppose the book isn’t called “why we don’t swim,” so fair enough. Tsui talks about swimming in history and in extreme elements, even trying some of the cold-water swims herself; she also profiles extreme swimmers and digs into the history of swimming for both exercise and competition. I was particularly fascinated by the people who kept alive the art of samurai swimming (in full armor!) as well as the story of the international swim club that met in Baghdad in the Green Zone. I’m not a swimmer but after reading the book, I’m considering visiting the local pool more often.
Dinners with Ruth, by Nina Totenberg
This memoir is subtitled “on the power of friendships” which clues you into the fact that it’s not all about dinners with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, though she does feature prominently through the narrative. I have always been a fan of Totenberg and her legal affairs briefings on NPR, and especially enjoyed learning how she got to that post and how she handled the position. Per the subtitle though, the book really is about friendships and the lifelong support they provide, both professionally and personally (sometimes sorely needed in the very. sexist environment of the time). One of Nina’s very greatest friends was the formidable RBG, whose quiet determination and unstinting generosity come to life in Nina’s words. The two women supported one another through the early parts of their careers, through the illnesses and deaths of their respective spouses, and always managed to maintain a professional distance between their work and personal lives. The memoir’s tone starts out dry and funny, and turns more poignant as events progress.
The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World, by Eric Weiner
Reporter Weiner (aptly pronounced “whiner”), having amassed a collection of self-help books in pursuit of his own happiness, decides to visit the happiest places of the world in order to see if he can find some clues for success. The resulting book is part travel memoir, part occasional forays into happiness research, and part observations and sweeping conclusions about entire cultures and societies. I found the book a little too glib and Weiner’s sense of humor was a bit grating; the characters he met were also sometimes presented as cultural stereotypes, which was off-putting. Nevertheless the writing style was smooth and easy and I made it through the book without too much trouble. I did like the detailed portraits painted of each country; as an NPR reporter, Weiner definitely knew how to create a vivid descriptive image.
The Devil in the White City, by Erik Larson
This book is subtitled “Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America.” There is plenty of the murder and madness, but the magic is more metaphorical and is mostly found in the dreams of aspirational architects and of Chicagoans looking towards the future. The book covers the frantic design and build of the 1893 World’s Expo in Chicago, driven by the architect Daniel Burnham, and intersperses the story of the serial killer H. H. Holmes and how he took advantage of the anything-goes environment in the city. It’s a weird combination but it works; the architect chapters are jammed full of quotes and detail whereas the murder chapters are obviously more speculative, but Larson’s writing style was so engaging that I couldn’t put down the book at any part. Fascinating reading, with lots of juicy historical tidbits.
For All the Tea in China: Espionage, Empire and the Secret Formula for the World’s Favourite Drink, by Sarah Rose
History, an absolutely fascinating look at the lengths the British went to in order to gain access to Chinese tea, and the ways in which tea made empire possible. The story is centered around Robert Fortune, a real life frontier botanist employed by the East India Company, who (despite internal wrangling within the Company as well as within the botanist world) ventured deep into the hinterlands of China and smuggled out tea plants and seeds to the rest of the world, breaking China’s monopoly. Rose also uses Britain’s tea trade as a jumping-off point to explore colonization, opium, and how tea made empire possible. My favorite quote: “What the world has sought when it sips a cup of tea is a mild effect, a high with neither lift nor letdown, a calming alertness, a drink of moods. What Fortune found in Wuyi Shan was Britain’s reigning temper: the thrill to conquer, but politely.”
Empire of Pain: the Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty, by Patrick Radden Keefe
This book follows three generations of the Sackler family as they make their fortune, spread their wealth around via conspicuous philanthropy, and then find themselves defending their name from the fallout of their actions. Keefe creates in-depth profiles of each of the Sacklers, using their own words as well as firsthand accounts from their friends, associates, and employees, to trace their evolution as people as well as pharmaceutical advertisers. The writing is compelling and increasingly enraging, especially as the account moves into the OxyContin years; with an avalanche of damning facts, the book lays bare the Sacklers’ singleminded pursuit of profit even as their culpability in the nation’s opioid crisis becomes impossible to ignore.
The Trials of Nina McCall, by Scott W. Stern
Nonfiction, a deeply detailed and infuriating delve into the American Plan, a little-known and widespread government program, which for decades empowered authorities to detain women on the flimsiest of premises, perform invasive procedures on them without consent, imprison them without trial or hope of appeal, and force them to undergo dangerous and ineffective treatments if (highly unreliable) tests found them to have venereal diseases. This program ensnared and abused tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands, of American women, including the titular Nina McCall; when the program finally faded, it was buried from history. The book was clearly well-researched and the subject is horrifying, but unfortunately the writing drowned the reader in mind-numbing detail; it if weren’t for the urgent subject matter (and the fact that I had a book club deadline), I likely would not have forced myself through to the end.
Birds, Beasts, and Relatives, by Gerald Durrell
Second in the Corfu trilogy, which explores Durrell’s idyllic childhood on the Greek island of Corfu. For those who loved the first book (and who wouldn’t?) it’s more of the same: more zany and semi-fictionalized family antics, and more hilarious and wonderful gushing over the animal life of the island. The portraits of islander culture are a little problematic from a PC point of view, but it’s of a piece with the time. The ending note is bittersweet, though, and hints at the eventual loss of paradise with the coming of war.
Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee, by Casey Cep
Began as a true-crime story of an Alabama minister suspected of causing multiple deaths for insurance payouts in the 1970s, and segued into Harper Lee, her investigation of this trial, and her fraught writing journey. I really enjoyed this book, which did a beautiful job of patiently sketching out the environment and ambience of the small-town South, as well as pulling together an incredibly sympathetic and emotional portrait of Lee.