~a column by GCNO publisher Victoria Riley
Sharing my reading list has become a tradition at the end of each year. I almost always have two books on my end table, one fiction and the other nonfiction. I used to think I read nonfiction to learn new things, but I’ve realized I learn as much from reading well-written fiction. Well-developed characters and settings teach more than I would have guessed a few years ago.
I read 15 fiction and 20 nonfiction books in 2023. Some were challenging for me. Wolf Hall has a huge cast of characters and I didn’t know much of the history it covers. Ruth Bader Ginsburg: A life includes a lot of detailed information about various cases she argued or heard, making it a challenge for readers without a lot of legal background.
The Giver and A Long Walk to Water are teen readers I picked up while substitute teaching at the middle school. They’re both great books.
I haven’t named favorite books previously, but this year I’m naming This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger as the fiction book I most enjoyed. The story line was engaging and so were the characters in a rich but understated way.
Many of the nonfiction books I read were memoirs. My favorite was ‘Tis, by Frank McCourt. ‘Tis is a prequel to McCourt’s better known Angela’s Ashes. McCourt’s style puts pathos and laughter on the same page. As I noted in my reading list, it kept me up past bedtime many nights.
BOOKS READ 2023
FICTION
Wolf Hall,Hilary Mantel. The thoroughly-researched story of Thomas Cromwell, from his boyhood in Putney as the abused son of a drunken blacksmith to his position as the most trusted advisor to King Henry VIII. Cromwell stops at nothing in his calculated rise to power, using Henry’s determination to have his marriage to Katherine of Aragon annulled by Pope Clementine so he can marry Anne Boleyn as a tool in that quest. The story ends with the execution of Thomas More, one of Cromwell’s competitors for the king’s ear, in 1535. (Cromwell was himself beheaded in 1540 on charges of treason, heresy, corruption, and plotting to marry Henry’s daughter, Princess Mary.) This is a challenging read but it provides a good look at early 16th Century England and the pull between the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches. (2009)
The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto, Mitch Albom. Francisco Presto is a Spanish orphan who is mentored by a Classical guitarist and hits the stage in the States as an Elvis Presley-ish rock ‘n’ roll star. The story is told by Music, one of the talents which encircle newborns, as he waits for Frankie’s funeral (after his mysterious death) to finish, and includes ‘interviews’ with the famous people who worked with Frankie through the years. This is a great read, particularly for someone with a music background who will understand Music’s references. (2015)
Lila, Marilynne Robinson. A book dedicated to Iowa and set in Gilead, IA, a small fictional town northwest of Des Moines, the story is of Lila Dahl, who was snatched/rescued as a sickly infant and raised by Doll, who lived on the run, particularly from Lila’s family. Lila grows up homeless as she and Doll shadow a family of itinerant workers. After Doll murders the man who Lila later suspects was her birth father, Lila wanders until she gets to Gilead. She’s living in a shack when she meets Rev John Ames, a widower who is much older than she. Lila warily becomes friends with the preacher, then marries him and bears a son. Lila wrestles with trust as she and her husband explore the basic question we all have: Why do things happen the way they do? The writing is sometimes dark, but always descriptive and thought-provoking. (2014)
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers. Four very different people – 14-year-old Mick, who longs to learn about music but ends up leaving school to work to contribute to her family’s income; Jake Blount, a middle-aged alcoholic who wants to see a workers’ revolution; new widower café owner Biff Brannon; and elderly Black Dr Copeland, who wants to see Blacks improve their lot through education – all come to know deaf-mute John Singer as their dearest friend and confidante. Singer, however, is even lonelier than they. Set in a Southern mill town in the late 1930s, racism, which grants the poorest White people privileges even the best educated Black people don’t have, plays an equal role in the story to the longing for understanding and communion with another person. Plot and action are secondary in the book, making it a rather laborious but worthwhile read. (1940)
The Black Swan of Paris, Karen Robards. Famous singer and performer Genevieve Dumont has a special place in the hearts of the Nazis in Occupied France, and a special role in the French Resistance. The plot is primary, making it a fun read. Beware, though, it devolves into a romance (still with some plot) toward the end of the book. Genevieve and her manager Max Bonet, who is an agent in British Special Operations, start to resemble Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler. 2020.
How High We Go in the Dark, Sequoia Nagamatsu. The 2023 All Iowa Reads selection. The story begins with a potent virus released by the melting permafrost in Siberia in 2030 causing a world-wide plague, and then wanders through various settings and centuries, from pre-history to space travel in the far future as Earth residents look for a new habitable planet. The story seems to be a call to action against global climate change. I haven’t read much in the genre and I struggled trying to link all the various story lines, only to finally decide climate and the plague were the only common elements. (2022)
The Giver, Lois Lowry. Written for middle schoolers, The Giver is often used in language arts classes. Jonas is growing up in a future society in which all controversy and challenges have been engineered out of existence for a placid culture of Sameness. After his 11th year he and all other Twelves are appointed to the role they will fill for the remainder of their lives. Jonas, alone, is singled out to be The Receiver, to have all memories of true pleasure and true pain transferred to him by The Giver. He alone will carry those memories in order than one person can advise the Committee of Elders on matters previous generations had experienced, including war, famine, pain and love. This is a fabulous, thought-provoking read for teens and adults, too. (1993)
The Last Bookshop in London, Madeline Martin. Grace Bennett and her best friend Vivienne arrive in London in August 1939, looking for a more vibrant life than what they had in rural England. Viv quickly secures a sales job at Harrod’s while Grace, who has never read a book for pleasure, ends up working in Primrose Hill Books, a dusty, disorganized back street bookstore. The story is predictable, as Grace single-handedly turns the bookstore into a thriving business while falling in love with books and the handsome George at the same time. Grace volunteers as an Air Raid Warden and reads books aloud in the subway tubes during the London Blitz, making uncounted friends and indirectly building business for the book store. All the ‘fashionable’ bookstores near the Thames are destroyed during the Blitz, leaving Primrose Hill Books the only bookstore in London. A chocolate covered raisins sort of read, with a bit of information about the London Blitz coated with romance. (2021)
Thunder Bay, William Kent Krueger. The seventh in Krueger’s Cork O’Connor mystery series. I read it shortly before Krueger spoke in Grand Junction. An entertaining mystery that works based on its plot without using sex scenes to keep the reader turning pages. I enjoyed it and will likely read other books in the series. (2007)
Deacon King Kong, James McBride. A very involved story at the center of which is aging alcoholic Deacon Cuffy Lambkin, aka Sportcoat, who shoots in daylight with many witnesses Deems Clemens, who has a corner on the heroin trade in the Causeway public housing projects in South Brooklyn. Sportcoat’s friends and fellow members of Five Ends Baptist Church try to protect him from Deems’ bosses. That’s the center of the story. The heart of the story is how discrimination, organized crime, and a genuine longing for neighborhood intersect in the tumultuous late 1960s. A large cast of characters and a story that loops and crosses itself over and over makes this a rather challenging read, but worth it. McBride is a master teller of life stories. (2020)
This Tender Land, William Kent Krueger. The story is told by Odie, who with his older brother Albert, a mute Native American Mose, and young Emmy, escape from an abusive residential school in Minnesota in 1932 with plans to travel by canoe to the Mississippi River and then to St Louis in search of Odie’s and Albert’s aunt. The tale includes colorful characters and adventure, and gives the reader many chances to consider love, trust, faith, and hope. Krueger is a masterful storyteller. I highly recommend the book. (2019)
Libertie, Kaitlyn Greenidge. Libertie, a free-born Black girl in Reconstruction-era Brooklyn, has been raised by her light-skinned mother to follow in her steps as a physician. She learns that being free means more than not being a slave, but that it means being able to set her own goals. The lesson is amplified when she marries a Haitian who promises her equality when she follows him to Haiti, but learns subservience is as much a matter of gender as of race. (2021)
Hello Beautiful, Ann Napolitano. Written as homage to Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, the story tells of the Padavano sisters – their growing up years in a working-class suburb of Chicago, the life experiences that bound them tightly to each other, and the chasm that develops when the mental breakdown of the eldest sister’s husband leads him to the second sister. The story spans 58 years and includes three generations. A bit unbelievable, but a compelling read. (2023)
A Long Walk to Water, Linda Sue Park. A teen reader based on the story of Salva Dut, founder of Water for South Sudan. Dut was among the millions of Sudanese displaced during the second Sudanese civil war which started in 1983. He was one of he Lost Boys who walked through southern Sudan, Ethiopia and Kenya in search of safe haven. He was relocated as a refugee in Rochester, NY, in 1996, attended college and became an organizer/activist for safe water for the Sudanese. (2010)
Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson. Orphans Ruth and her older sister Lucille, are raised by their eccentric and formerly homeless aunt Sylvie in the small Far West town of Fingerbone, with the topography of the town playing a part in the story. Ruth is content with Sylvie’s loner ways, while Lucille longs to be more like her classmates growing up in more typical families. The story tells of the competing needs for family vs stability. The book is challenging to read but the last 50 pages or so makes it worth the effort. (1980)
NON-FICTION
The Road Home, Eliza Thomas. Well into her 40s, Thomas realized she hadn’t made a home for herself anywhere. She moves from Boston to an old 416 square-foot Boy Scout cabin in rural Vermont, one without running water or heat. In the book, Thomas tells of finding contentment and a sense of “home” as she and her partner work on the cabin. She also tells of her fear and ambivalence in deciding to adopt a child. The writing is descriptive, smart, humorous, and wise. If books were food, this would be moist, homemade shortbread cookie. (1997)
The Twilight World, Werner Herzog. This book is difficult to label as fiction or non-fiction. Herzog tells the true story of Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese soldier who, using guerilla warfare, ‘defended’ an island in the Philippines for 30 years after the Japanese surrender in 1944. The story-telling has an eerie quality making the book title totally descriptive, as Onoda lived in the twilight of the jungle and in a hazy twilight of certainty Japan was still at war. “Is it possible that I am dreaming this war? Could it be that I’m wounded in some hospital and will finally come out of a coma years later, and someone will tell me it was all a dream? Is the jungle, the rain – everything here – a dream?” Onoda wonders, giving the reader permission to wonder the same. (2021)
The Dressmaker of Khair Khana, Gayle Tzemach Lemmon. The book examines the life of Afghan women under Taliban rule beginning in 1996. Central in the investigation is Kamila Sadiqi, who as a young woman built an “undergound” tailoring and dressmaking business to provide income for her own family and other families in her Kabul neighborhood. After the Taliban is removed from Afghanistan Sadiqi worked for international organizations teaching women entrepreneurship. This is a very dry telling of a story Hollywood could turn into a good movie. (2011)
The Saboteur, Paul Kix. A good companion to The Black Swan of Paris, this book tells the story of Robert de La Rochefoucauld, a French aristocrat who was a key commando in the French Resistance during World War Two. La Rochefoucauld was captured twice by the Nazis and twice escaped just prior to being executed. His story is one of single-minded courage and commitment to France. The story also builds a detailed picture of the French Resistance as an integral part of the eventual Allied victory over Nazi Germany, and it provides some insight into the reticence of some combat veterans feel toward telling their personal stories of war. (2017)
Riding the Bus with My Sister, Rachel Simon. Beth Simon, a mentally retarded adult is able to live on her own with agency support, spends her days riding city busses around the mid-size city where she lives. Her sister Rachel, who is just 11 months older and a writer and college professor, admits to herself she is emotionally isolated. She offers to spend a year riding buses with Beth as a way to get to know her better. The story tells of lessons learned from bus drivers who have become a family for Beth, coming to terms with traumatic childhood events, and finally finding love where she had turned her back before. (2002)
Why I Run: 35 progressive candidates who are changing politics, Kate Childs Graham. Essays written by each candidate explaining their motivation for running for offices ranging from local school boards to city councils to state legislatures, governor and Congress. Some won, some didn’t, but most shared lessons learned from their campaign experiences. (2019)
America’s Women: 400 years of dolls, drudges, helpmates and heroines, Gail Collins. Starting with the first English-speaking woman to travel to the New World in the 1587, Collins describes how women’s lives were altered not only by “big picture” events, but also by medical advances, rules of hygiene, social theories about sex and courtship, and ever-changing attitudes toward education, work and politics. In her introduction, Collins writes, “The history of American women is about the fight for freedom, but it’s less a war against oppressive men than a struggle to straighten out the perpetually mixed message about women’s roles that was accepted by almost everybody of both genders.” [I read the book over several months, setting it aside to read something else, and then returning to it.] (2003)
Becoming Nicole: The Transformation of an American Family, Amy Ellis Nutt. The story of Nicole Maines, born as Wyatt, the identical twin of Jonas, and parents Kelly and Wayne Maines, from the first indications that Wyatt saw himself as female, through years of wondering and then transitioning as Nicole. The book discusses thoroughly the difference between gender and sexual identity, as well as following the challenges all four of the Maines family face to keep Nicole safe with the potential to be happy. A very informative, important book to read. (2015)
Prairie Grass Roots: An Iowa Small Town in the Early Twentieth Century, Thomas J. Morain. Jefferson native and historian Morain uses Jefferson as a case study of the ways small Midwest towns changed between the start of the 20th century and the early 1930s, focusing on the impact of social change on the community, gender roles, the impact of the automobile and electricity, morality, World War One, and the postwar farm depression. He draws heavily from the archives of the Jefferson Bee and from oral histories collected from senior Jefferson residents in 1979. (1988)
Ruth Bader Ginsburg: A life, Jane Sherron De Hart. A comprehensive biography that explores the central experiences that shaped Justice Ginburg’s passion for justice, her advocacy for gender equality, and her desire to make a more perfect Union. The author spent 15 years writing the book, which includes detailed discussion of several of the cases Ginburg argued before the Supreme Court prior to serving on the U.S. Court of Appeals and then the Supreme Court, and the basis for her opinions in the more notable Supreme Court cases she heard. At 534 pages of text, reading the book is more project than pleasure. Even in paperback, it weighs more than three pounds. (2018)
Mom & Me & Mom, Maya Angelou. Angelou tells the story of her rocky but very loving and committed relationship with her mother Vivian. A thoughtful, very personal story of a life unlike most people’s, particularly mine. (2013)
A Thousand Naked Strangers: A paramedic’s wild ride to the edge and back, Kevin Hazzard. Prior to becoming a freelance journalist, Hazzard worked for 10 years as an EMT and then paramedic in Atlanta, GA. As he tells of his journey from fear to mastery, the cynical, almost crude voice in his writing diminishes any idea of emergency response as a noble calling, and makes it out to be a chaotic circus in life’s dark underbelly. The “edge” in the subtitle isn’t the edge between life and death of his patients, but the edge of his own burn-out. An OK book, but not what I expected. (2016)
Eleanor, David Michaelis. Eleanor Roosevelt remains one of America’s most influential and widely admired women in American history. Biographer Michaelis tells her complex story of supporting her husband’s political career, advocating for social and humanitarian causes, and eventually becoming in her own rite a world leader in developing the United Nations. He also deals with her complicated marriage and her extramarital partners, both female and male. With history, politics, and personal relationships, the book reads fairly easily, even at 536 pages. (2020)
Five Presidents: My extraordinary journey with Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford, Clint Hill with Lisa McCubben. As a special agent in the U.S. Secret Service, Hill served under five presidents. He shares his insider’s view of each, including the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Assigned to Mrs Kennedy’s protective detail, he was riding the running board of the car behind the presidential limousine that day in Dallas, TX. He writes frankly of the PTSD he and other agents struggled with after the assassination, of developing a friendship with President Johnson, and of the constant challenge of protecting persons who are drawn by their nature to engage with crowds. He also provides historical context for the policies of each president, with explanation of the roles of each president in the Viet Nam War and in the civil rights movement. An interesting read and a good historical review of the 1950s through 1975, the year in which Hill retired from the Secret Service at the age of 43. (2016)
Somebody’s Daughter: A memoir, Ashley C. Ford. Ford tells of growing up poor and Black in Fort Wayne, IN, while her father is in prison. Her story is one of searching for love and longing to “be more” than her mother, her aunts and her cousins, all of whom live within a few blocks. A good view of a life very different from my own. (2021)
Family Reunion: Essays on Iowa, Thomas J. Morian editor. A collection of 18 essays by Iowans published for Iowa’s sesquicentennial. Essays provide insight into the sociology and history of agriculture, politics, religion, and diversity in the state and foreshadowing of what the future might hold. An interesting read now, more than 25 years after the sesquicentennial, providing ideas of how we/Iowa have changed or haven’t changed. (1995)
‘Tis, Frank McCourt. McCourt shares the first 18 years of his life in his memoir Angela’s Ashes. ‘Tis begins where Ashes ended, at his emigration at the age of 18 from Ireland to New York in 1949. With candor and wit McCourt chronicles the disappointment of being almost as poor as a new arrival as he was in Ireland, of dealing with limited opportunities available to him because of his lack of education, and the subservient roles immigrants were put into. After serving in the US Army during the Korean conflict he was able to attend college (as a probationary student, as he had left school at age 14 to work), and ultimately became a teacher. The book is as funny as it is sad. Many nights I stayed up too late reading just one more page, one more page, one more page. (1999)
Finding Chika, Mitch Albom. Mitch Albom and his wife Janine had no children of their own, but when a girl in the orphanage in Haiti, of which Albom was director, was diagnosed with DPIG (an aggressive cancerous tumor on her brain stem), he brought her to their home in Detroit for medical treatment. Finding Chika is a memoir of the two years the three had together building a family and searching for a cure for the incurable cancer. (2019)
A Reporter’s Life, Walter Cronkite. The iconic news man writes of his career as a journalist, starting from his earliest job of delivering newspapers, to covering the Texas statehouse, to being an imbedded war reporter for United Press during World War II and later in Moscow, and ending with his better known work as anchor of the CBS Evening News. He shares stories of the amazing opportunities and adventures he had and the people he interviewed over the years. He includes his view of journalism and what he sees as the shortcomings of television news. Although he’s now better known for his television work, his heart and soul were in print journalism. (1996)
Quests, Coincidence, and Chaos: Autobiographical writings of Keyhoetay, Clair Tomlinson. Tomlinson, a 1959 Jefferson High School graduate, was serving in the Air Force in 1962, monitoring missile support systems in a Titan II ICBM when a human error led to an Emergency War Order, bringing the four-man missile crew dangerously close to firing the missile and starting a nuclear war. Tomlinson spent the next 60 years trying to warn the world of the dangers of nuclear armament through writing articles and a screenplay, and networking to have his work published or produced. He writes honestly of his disillusionment with life (as all life could vanish in 15 minutes of nuclear war), alcoholism, homelessness, his dream of fame, and his longing for his hometown. (2023)
