The Overstory

The book is a collection of 8 separate stories tied together like branches on a tree. Each of the characters are connected to trees in some fashion and five of them ultimately participate in acts of eco-terrorism. Doug-fir, Mulberry, Watchman, Maple, and Maidenhair take their passion for saving the forests to the extreme and end up paying dearly. In addition, a troubled couple find comfort and peace in their overgrown property, a highly successful paraplegic programmer designs an alternate computer game to try to stop mankind form environmental suicide, and a botanist writer finds an audience to listen to the trees.
At the same time, the book is about the trees and looking at the world from their perspective. Powers teaches us about Chestnuts, Aspens, Oaks, Redwoods, Firs, Mulberries, Maples, Ginkgoes, and so many more that humans often fail to observe. "You can't see what you don't understand. But what you think you already understand, you'll fail to notice." He tells us that 1.5 billion years ago we evolved separately from trees but still retain 25% of their genes. Nonetheless in a fraction of the last second of the world's evolutionary clock we have destroyed nearly 80% of the world's forests.
It is a sobering story that makes you think about your place in the world.

Washington Black

Stanley's book is an adventure story about an emancipated slave growing up in the 1830's. He is born a slave on a plantation in Barbados, balloons and sails to adventures in the Arctic, makes a life and avoids a bounty hunter in Nova Scotia, moves to London with a marine biologist and his daughter, and reunites with his mentor in the African desert. Characters include Wash, his mother Big Kit, his mentor Titch, plantation slave owner Erasmus, their cousin Philip, marine biologist Goff, and his companion daughter Tanna. There are issues of slavery, dependency, independence, pride, and the mental baggage from discrimination and abuse. I am not sure what I take away from the book and the ending..."What is the truth of any life, Titch?..."You cannot know the true nature of another's suffering." Nonetheless, in following the fanciful life of a disfigured ex-slave, the reader gets a picture of the racial prejudice that persists to this day from the many years of slavery.

Ordinary Grace

Krueger's novel is a coming of age story revolving around five deaths in a small Minnesota town in the summer of 1961. The story is told by 13 year old Frank as he describes the effect of the deaths on his family and the community. The author develops the characters of his brother Jake, father Nathan and mother Ruth, his father's friend Gus, sister Arial, Emil and Lise, Karl Brant, Warren Redstone, and more. There is mystery and intrigue in a who done it story in which Frank states, "there is no such thing as a true event?" The book explores the role of religion in families and communities, as well as the way we recognize death. "The dead are never far from us. They're in our hearts and on our minds and in the end all that separates us from them is a single breath, one final puff of air."
Overall it is a very good read that I recommend.

Permanent Record

Ed Snowden's book is an interesting read and thought provoking. He is on the one hand a disturbed and selfish individual, but also a young man of principals. His computer skills enable him to perform programming tasks with ease and utilize tools to avoid detection. His life navigates the evolution of computing from a Commodore 64, to mainframes, to PC's, to cloud computing. His security skills allow him to read, write, execute, encrypt, and hide. His security clearance working with the NSA and CIA provides him access to the inner workings of the intelligence community, ultimately leading to his decision to become a whistleblower on the practice of mass surveillance.
The book is good at giving insight to the intelligence community, the "deep state", Wikileaks, metadata, cloud computing, and the potential threats of mass surveillance. I am not sure I share Ed's level of paranoia, however he does raise my level of concern that we are being watched.

Zealot

"The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth" by Reza Aslan
Who was Jesus of Nazareth and when did he become Jesus Christ the son of God?
When was he born? When did he start preaching? When did he die? When was it first told he was resurrected? What was the Jewish Temple-state centered in Jerusalem and what happened in 70 AD? Who was King David and the Kingdom of God? What are the Laws of Moses, the Sanhedrin, and the Roman occupation of Palestine? What is the difference between crucifixion and stoning? Who was John the Baptist? Who were the 12 disciples? Were they poor and illiterate and who wrote the New Testament? Did Jesus have a younger brother James and what about the Virgin Mary? Who was James, Paul/Saul, Peter? What happened to the disciples? How did Christianity survive the Roman occupation? What is a Gentile, Philistine, Hellenist, Hebrews? Where is the Diaspora, what are epistles, gospels, letters, the Q?
Aslan answers these questions and many more while addressing the big question, was Jesus just a man, the messiah, or the son of God? The author is an Iranian that accepted Jesus Christ when he was 16 at Summer camp. He went on the extensive religious studies and concludes at the end of the book the "Jesus of Nazareth - Jesus the man - is every bit as compelling, charismatic, and praiseworthy as Jesus the Christ. He is worth believing in." He gives respect and praise to James the Just for his devout faith and dedication to serving the poor. He was critical of Paul/Saul/disciple 13 for his self-serving promotion.
I don't know about you guys, but I feel that I leaned a lot more than I thought I knew from Bible class.

Dr Jones comments... I enjoyed “Zealot,” and it reminded me of facts I learned back at Princeton Seminary.  At the time, it caused me to question a lot of things about the Christian mythology. Apparently, at the Jesus period, anyone of importance, such as a Persian prince, or a messiah, was said to be born of a virgin. Hence, the Gospel writers needed to honor Jesus the Christ accordingly.  (Too bad, Mary!)

If you liked Zealot, be sure to read Aslan's book "God - A Human History."
Aslan is able to explain complex religious beliefs in a way that is easy to follow and understand. "God" starts with ancient humans with their painted caves and multiple gods related to their hunter-gatherer natural world. He moves on the the humanized gods starting approximately 3,000 years ago including the pantheon of Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and Babylonian gods. He describes the evolution of the Jewish top god El to the one god Yahweh, the existence of two gods (good/evil) of the Zoroastrians, and the trinity (father/son/holy spirit) of Christianity. Then he takes the reader to the non-human form of the one god Allah in Islam to ultimately (in his belief) to the Sufi concept that god is in everything.
I found the book fairly easy to follow, both historically and logically. The book reminded me of Bryson's book "A Short History of Nearly Everything"...everything religious that is.  The book "God" ends with the following: "Believe in God or not. Define God how you will. Either way, take a lesson from our mythological ancestors Adam and Eve and eat from the fruit. You need not fear God. You are God."

Where the Crawdads Sing

"Painfully beautiful...At once a murder mystery, a coming-of-age narrative, and a celebration of nature." New York Times Book Review
Delia Owen's first novel is a captivating page-turner. Yes, she does get into the biology of the marsh/swamp, but that is what makes the story more fascinating. The two timeline stories, the detailed nature descriptions, the poetry, the survival instinct, and the mystery make for an enjoyable read.
I do not want to give away any of the plot so I will leave it at that...I highly recommend this book!

What would the Great Economists do?

This book was like reading a master's thesis, very informative but kind of a slog.
The author picked 12 famous economists, 13 including Samuelson, and provided a summary of their beliefs, a recap of their lives, and how they might see today's economic situation. She started with the founder of economic studies in Adam Smith, the economic applications to foreign trade by David Ricardo, the option of socialism and communism from Karl Marx, the quantified studies and dangers of inequality by Alfred Marshall, the dangers of protectionism from Irving Fisher, the argument for government spending and fiscal manipulation in John Maynard Keynes, the study of innovation and obsolescence with Joseph Schumpeter, business cycle theory from Fredrich Hayek, imperfect competition with Joan Robinson, Libertarian limited government from Milton Friedman, and economic disparity and stagnation from Douglas North and Robert Solow. The epilogue chapter pulls in the comprehensive approach of Paul Samuelson and states how each would deal with today's challenges of Trumpism and Brexit.
The book does give the reader a sense of the complex nature of the study of economics. Although it can involve detailed analysis and models, economics has proven to be an inexact science due to irrational behavior caused by social, psychological, and political factors. We tend to look at factors such as the unemployment rate rather than the number underemployed or the true number of employable workers. Little attention has been given to the fact that that average wages for the working classes in the US and the UK have not increased in 40 years despite the overall growth in the economies. Inequality continues to be a major concern that none of the experts seem to have an answer for. ICT has not lead to much of an increase in worker productivity and there is a deep concern for stagnation in developed countries.
Recent US and UK policies sound a lot like the "secular stagnation" that happened leading up to the great depression consisting of closing frontiers and immigration. A healthy economy needs rule of law, strong institutions, fair and open trade, and strong social norms. Hopefully recent governmental policies are not leading us too much afield.

12 Rules for Life

Wow...this is a different view on life.

The book can be summarized by the titles of the 12 chapters and rehashed in the final chapter. Clearly the author is very smart and very opinionated. He provided me with insight to many philosophers including Nietzsche, Jung, Descartes, Solzhenitsyn, and Dostoevsky. He explained bible stories including Adam and Eve, Cain and Able, the Old Testament vs. New Testament, and the meaning behind the Sermon on the Mount. He even gave good advice for relationships..."do you want to be right or do you want to have peace."
On the other hand, I take issue with many of his stated beliefs. For me he overstates the suffering of being, promotes male aggressive domination, sees Christianity as a necessary guiding light to understand good and evil, and has little trust in science and rational thought.
In reading the book I went from picturing our book club searching for meaning and truth, to thinking of the disenchanted white Americans that make up the Trump base.

The book was thought provoking, but I would not recommend it to many people, including my wife.

Frozen in Time

JTH's adventure book covered the stories of 4 downed lost planes in Greenland during WWII, the rescue efforts and survival stories, and the modern day expedition to try and retrieve the rescue plane and crew. The crashed planes included a C-53 transport where all crew was lost, a B-17 where the Canadian crew were able to walk to safety, and the B-17 PN9E that is focused on in the book. The crew of the PN9E survived over 4 months of extreme winter conditions due to heroic efforts from a supply plane, dog teams, the PBY Catalina team, and the crashed crashed Grumman Duck. The book goes back and forth between the survival story of the PN9E and the current day harried expedition to retrieve the Grumman Duck rescue plane and it's two occupants. It is interesting to learn about the hash conditions of Greenland as well as the great lengths mankind will extend to retrieve lost ones.

The Second Mountain

OK Stanley, I am confused...you chose a book written by a Jewish kid, that went to Christian schools and summer camps, became a secular Marxist in college, went to work for William F. Buckley upon graduation, is the "conservative" political perspective for Yale, the New York Times and PBS, divorces his converted Jewish wife, then marries a cute young thing and becomes a Evangelical Christian.
On top of that, he writes books on Sociology including "The Social Animal" and this one. I like and agree with much of the book, but he really looses me in the faith section. The book addresses occupation vs. vocation, contract vs. true marriage, logic vs. faith, and tribes vs. community. He describes himself as a "wondering Jew and a very confused Christian." His commitment to Christianity requires a "belief in the absurd" and he realizes that he can come across as a know-it-all.
The second mountain requires an unselfish commitment to community. He talks about the concept of weave and a commitment to serve others. He identifies with the Evangelical Christians and a humbling before God. At the same time he admits Evangelicals have in inferiority complex concerning intellect and a superiority concept concerning morals.
My take on the book is David Brooks is a complicated and somewhat confused guy. The second mountain is basically an altruistic commitment to serve ones community. To me a moral society is not dependent of blind faith.

The Third Hotel

Just finished David's book and I am not sure what happened...
Clara is a 37 year old Midwest elevator saleswomen taking a trip to Havana for a film festival featuring a Zombie horror movie. Her husband was a film professor that died a month before in an accident involving a late walk and a car. She goes ahead with the trip anyway, regularly seeing visions of her late husband and chasing them throughout Havana. The horror films help with the dislocation from reality. She becomes a guest/patient at a resort/asylum, gets in a train wreck, and somehow leaves Cuba for Florida.
Clara is a train wreck. She wanted to be married yet wanted to leave. She was an off-putting child that had regrets with her parents. She becomes a total mess with the death of her husband and a feeling of guilt.
The book is very difficult to follow. It is all over the place chronologically from zombies to fingernails.
Unusual book!

Dopesick

What is Dopesick?

Dave's book was an everything you could want to know about the current opioid epidemic and how we got here in America and especially in Appalachia. From smoking opium, to injecting morphine and later heroine, opioid usage did not take off in Appalachia until the introduction of prescription pain killers. Purdue industries promoted and distributed the pills OxyContin as a non-addictive pain killer for effective treatment of acute and chronic pain. The pills were wildly over prescribed and distributed through various pill mills resulting in massive abuse and addiction.

Dopesick is the pain and suffering resulting from trying to break the addition to opioids. The suffering is so bad that people will sacrifice everything to chase the next hit. The current policies focusing on punishment and imprisonment rather than treating it as an illness and health crisis has not worked. It is a tremendous problem that is killing many Americans. It will require years of long term drug maintenance programs and added healthcare. Maybe the Sackler family can foot some of the bill from their profits.

March book selection

My book selection for March is a murder mystery featuring Inspector Armand Gamache set in a small village in the Canadian province of Quebec. The author, Louis Penny, has written 15 books in the series and the first one was written in 2005 and titled Still Life. Liz has read all 15 and I am currently enjoying #4. There may be little to no discussion to follow, other than what is with the quirky characters in Three Pines and would we want to live there.

Hope you enjoy the escape...here are some key players:
Surete chief inspector Armond Gamache, wife Rene Marie
Artists Clara and Peter Morrow
Bistro and B&B gay hosts Gabri and Olivier
Crazy foul-mouthed poet Ruth Zardo
Book store psychologist Myrna
Assistant detective Jean Guy Beauvoir, trusted agent Isabelle Lacoste, and troubled agent Yvette Nichol

The Circuit

Just finished Bob's sports selection all about the 2017 professional tennis circuit. The book truly digs into the personalities and athletic specialties of many of the top 20 or so male players. Although 2017 ended with a sense of natural order of Nadal and Federer clearly establishing themselves as the number 1 and 2 players, you witness the fall of Murray and the struggles of Djokovic from injury, and simultaneously sense the rise of many young stars ready to move into the top positions. The book lets you experience the grind of the long season and the struggles to get to the top levels. It provides a window to the sheltered, privileged, yet tortured life of the typical tennis star and the often brooding and boorish behavior. The book is an everything you every wanted to know about men's tennis written by someone that loves the game...maybe TMI

21 Lessons for the 21st Century

At first I was skeptical of Paul's choice this month thinking that it was going to be another business book on how to succeed in the 21st Century. It turns out that Yuval Harari is a gay male historian living on an Israeli commune practicing extensive meditation. The 21 lessons are his deep thoughts organized in chapters from disillusionment to meditation.
Harari states that the only certainty in life is change and he fears that many people are in danger of becoming irrelevant. He describes religions and politics as collections of stories. Nations are built on these stories resulting in nationalism, communism, and liberalism. People adopt various levels of religious belief based on Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, or other stories. The author states that moral behavior does not depend on religion and only a secular society has the primary objectives of seeking truth, compassion, and freedom.
The author feels that people should be aware of the dangers of power, technology, and rituals in controlling our minds. He feels that though meditation we can better understand our own minds and have a better chance of finding truth.
Yes Paul, this book should make for an interesting conversation.

Exit West

Bill's selection of Exit West is a timely personalizing of the current immigration crisis. We all tend to forget that refugees from Syria and other war torn countries are very much like you and me. They are, more often than not, bright, skilled, and hard working young people that are able to contribute mightily if given the chance. Mostly they are good people that are subjected to tremendous hardship through no fault of their own. The author puts a face on these individuals and their secret doorways of escape.

Tailspin

The People and Forces Behind America's Fifty-Year Fall and Those Fighting to Reverse It
Steven Brill's book is a detailed explanation of everything that is screwed up in America and how we got here. He divides Americans into the protected and the unprotected. Although the country has prospered over the past 50 years, the profits and spoils have primarily gone to the protected class. He describes this group as the meritocracy (as opposed to the aristocracy) that has taken over with their talents and privilege. With advance training, this privileged group has used the "financialization" of the "casino economy" to accumulate vast wealth and control. Unions and workers have been greatly weakened and inequality has risen to new heights. Workers have been left behind by globalization and automation combined with inadequate retraining. Poverty levels continue to plague the country along with decreasing safety nets.
In the mean time, the protected class has built "moats" to safeguard their interests. Using techniques such as gerrymandering to suppress voters, Hastert Rule to block legislation, and the nuclear option to pass judges, congress has been able to serve their special interests. Money has become a major factor in all legislation, particularly with the recent passing of the Citizen's United case removing limits on corporate contributions.
The book describes a steady progression of enriching the protected meritocracy from the complaining Carter, the exploiting Reagan, the finessing Clinton, the shopping W, the hopeful Obama, leading to the irrational Trump. The Republicans have been a unifying force in leading the progression (ie Newt 90's) culminating in the total resistance of the Obama administration.
The book ends by calling for resistance from a coalition of the middle class and the poor to "storm the moats." Unfortunately, "Things may get worse before they get better."

How Democracies Die

This 2018 book by Levitrsky and Ziblatt is a warning to Americans of what is currently happening to our "democracy" and where we may be headed. The book examines the fate of previous democracies on their path to authoritarian states from Europe in the 1930's, Latin America in the 1970's, and more recent authoritarian rulers. More often than not, "democratic breakdowns have been caused not by generals and soldiers but by elected governments themselves." The authors warn against the gradual breakdown of democratic norms and use the terms tolerance (acceptance) and forbearance (restraint) to describe how a democracy can be sustained. They describe authoritarian rule as rejecting the democratic rules, denying legitimacy of opponents, tolerating violence, and readiness to curtail civil liberties. The Republican party has made a pact with the devil by nominating a president that meets all four criteria. The authors point out that this erosion of democratic norms has been a gradual process that has accelerated since the late 90's. Republicans have been greatly influenced by big money groups, the Tea Party movement, focused media, and racial identity. The book ends with a chapter titled "Saving Democracy" and describes three possible futures for America. They have suggestions for both parties and provide hope that through elections and strengthening of the "guardrails" the democracy can be saved.

What does it take to have a successful Book Club?

A few weeks ago, PBS had a guy on the Newshour who stated 7 things he felt it took to make a successful male book club.

1. Pick a good name - He came up with "Literary Domination Society" to sound macho. We settled on no name.
2. Take turns picking the book - check
3. Pick new and interesting books - check...mostly
4. Everyone must read the books - check
5. Rate all the books - check...eventually
6. Keep records - check
7. Keep going - double check

We are about to complete our 20th year, even without a name. Way to go guys!

How to Change Your Mind

Eight months ago Dr. J had us read a difficult book called How Emotions are Made. This time we read an equally tough book on how to unmake the organized brain. The author teaches us everything we ever wanted to know about psychedelic drugs, provides a comprehensive history of their development, and takes us along for three trips on LSD, mushrooms, and smoking the toad. Pollan provides an argument in support of the benefits of psychedelics for providing end of life comfort, treating addictions, and dealing with depression and anxiety.  He also suggests that we may be once again moving towards accepting psychedelic drugs for recreation use and finding spirituality.
I enjoyed learning about familiar names of the psychedelic 60's from Abby Hoffman (discovered LSD) to Timothy Leary (Harvard professor and LSD for all). There was Ken Keasy, Marshall McLuhan, Cary Grant, Aldous Huxley, Allen Ginsberg, Eldrich Cleaver, Robert Kennedy, Ram Dash, and John Lennon. There was the interesting conservative character Al Hubbard providing support for the early development to the ultimate demise from the overreach of Timothy Leary. The book gave more meaning to the phases "far out", "acid test", "psychedelic", "peace and love", "be here now", and "tune in, turn on, drop out".
The author ends by praising the benefits of psychedelics for combating the over-active default mode network (DMN) brain. We live in a world with high depression, anxiety, OCD, and addiction, that can be treated by non-addictive drugs that increase entropy and thinking outside the box. He points out that many in Silicon Valley (ie. Jobs) have been taking micro doses to help their creative thinking. He argues that a pure psychedelic, taken in the proper amount, with a trained guide, can be a benefit to many people by quieting the ego and increasing ones spirituality.
The book left me thinking that I am not ready to book my trip, but I am more open to seeing the potential benefits. There will be tremendous resistance from the current social order, however who knows where it will eventually go?