The 911 That Never Should Have Been

The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright
New York : Vintage Books, 2007.
540 p. : ill., maps ; 21 cm.

I've read a lot about the Middle East, and about 9/11, but The Looming Tower is one of the best books to pull all the narrative threads together into an informative, compelling and stunning read.

There were several things I learned that surprised me.  I didn't realize how central the Egyptian fundamentalist-jihad movement was to al-Qaeda.  I had no idea that Bin Laden's time in Sudan was marked by his arriving a multimillionaire and leaving virtually broke.  I didn't know that when he left Sudan for Afghanistan, he had no idea who the Taliban were and they were cautious about him, too.  Probably the most painful revelations of the book are the several times that the CIA refused to share information with the FBI which almost surely would have lead to the uncovering and thwarting of the 9/11 plot.  There is more to discover in Wright's definitive history.

I would definitely recommend this book to a student with a keen interest in the background of 9/11 or to a student working on a research project about 9/11.  It is a fine book, one which won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction.      

Big Ideas, Little Book

Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli
New York, N.Y. : Riverhead Books, 2016.
86 p. : ill. ; 20 cm.

Seven Brief Lessons is one of those lovely little science books that is at once accessible to the lay reader, but also introduces concepts and ideas that leave you more curious (and perplexed even) than when you started.  How confused or satisfied you are after finishing the book will somewhat depend on your knowledge of, and familiarity with scientific concepts.  But even a science novice can come away with a lot to ponder after reading this book.

Rovelli wants to touch on some of the most astounding and important concepts in physics that have developed in the last 115 years.  He starts out with Einstein by mentioning his "Special Theory of Relativity" which dealt with the fluid nature of time, and then proceeds to expound on what he considers one of science's preeminent masterpieces, Einstein's "General Theory of Relativity."  It is this theory that establishes space as a field that is shaped by gravity.

Rovelli continues on in his lessons to discuss quanta, the nature of the cosmos, the search for a unifying theory that will connect the macro understanding of gravity and space to the nearly incomprehensible phenomena of quantum physics at the subatomic level.  His book spirals off into ruminations on heat, time, and the "granular" nature of space itself.

He brings his book to a close with a meditation on the human condition and its place fully within the matrix of nature.

Less a book of answers - or even a summary of where physics stands - this book is more of a jumping off point for pondering the wondrous and nearly unbelievable nature of what humans know and still don't know about the universe we find ourselves in.

Money and Revenge

The Making of Donald Trump by David Cay Johnston
Brooklyn : Melville House, [2016]
xvi, 263 p. ; 24 cm.

I'm a pretty cynical person by nature, but this book is a very depressing summary of the life of Donald Trump, who is now President Donald Trump.  David Cay Johnston is an investigative reporter who has been covering Trump since the late 1980s.

Probably what makes this book so stunning, is the unrelenting negatives that make up Trump's life.  A reader hoping to find something redeeming in the actions of Donald Trump will come away with nothing.  Instead what emerges is a person who is incredibly talented at skirting the edges of legality to make himself famous and - whether or not as wealthy as he claims - a conduit for the transactions of vast sums of loans, credits and money.

Sadly, what emerges is the portrait of a man who celebrates revenge and greed, and treats women as objects.

Johnston released his book in August of 2016, probably hoping that it would dissuade voters from supporting Trump.  That, obviously, was not the case.

If a student is interested in a well researched, well documented accounting of the life of Donald Trump, this is a book to recommend.  As for President Trump, we will have to wait several years at least, for a book that will provide an assessment of the life of President Trump and what the results of that will be.

March Hits a Wall

March: Book one by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and [illustrated by] Nate Powell
Marietta, GA : Top Shelf Productions, [2013]
121 p. : chiefly ill. ; 24 cm.

I had not planned on reading March just yet, but then current events caught up with history in the strangest of ways, and I knew I had to read it.

March - a graphic novel - recounts the autobiography of the early years of civil rights icon and US Congressperson, John Lewis.  We see his boyhood years in Alabama in the 1950s and his growing awareness of the racist injustices that he wants to change.  By the end of this first book in the series (click links for more about book 2 and book 3), he is a key activist in the Civil Rights movement in Tennessee, has led lunch counter protests, desegregation marches, and met Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Turns out the Lewis' role in history is not over yet.  With the recent election of Donald Trump and his twitter attacks on John Lewis, the Lewis story and the struggle for racial justice are front and center once again.  The controversy has not hurt sales of the March.  Right after Trump's attacks on Lewis, sales of his book skyrocketed on Amazon.  Along with the many prizes that the books in the March series have won (including a National Book Award) the future of this book, at least, looks bright.      

Fists and Crosses

Saints by Gene Luen Yang
New York : First Second, 2013.
170 p. : chiefly col. ill. ; 21 cm.  

After reading Boxers, I had to read this companion to it - which tells the same story, but from the point of view of a young Chinese, Christian convert who find herself on the opposite side of the violent Boxer Rebellion as the hero of Boxers.

All that I wrote in my review of Boxers below, applies to this book as well.  It's a great read and has the same captivating mix of history, supernatural, familial and social conflict, etc.

I'd definitely recommend reading Boxers first, it sets the stage well and makes it satisfying when the narrative exactly overlaps in several key scenes.

A Righteous and Harmonious Fist Bump

Boxers by Gene Luen Yang
New York : First Second, 2013.  
328 p. : chiefly col. ill. ; 21 cm.

Yang's American Born Chinese continues to circulate well with readers at our high school, and I hope that Boxers will do the same. With both fiction and graphic novels, the challenge of having historical events as the subject is finding the heart and power of that event and translating it to the genre being used.  I think it is a difficult challenge for any author, but especially for author's of young adult readers - where the desire to get lost in a book is a powerful appeal for readers already surrounded by informational text.  But it can be done, and I think Boxers proves it!

One never forgets that the power of Yang's book is the story and the characters involved in it. There is romance, danger, humor, wistfulness, longing, justice and magic propelling the story forward.  The comic artwork is clear, powerful, and interesting to look at.  Not convinced?  Take a look at some sample pages provide by Macmillian Publishers.

I was struck, after reading Boxers, at how cleverly the story made me want to know more about the actual history - and - at how pathetically little I know of Chinese history.  I had heard of the Boxer Rebellion, but knew little about it.  Furthermore, in reading some of the history that preceded it, I came across references to the Taiping Rebellion - a 14 year civil war that killed an estimate 20 million people!   And this is history that I knew nothing about.

So do I recommend this book? Absolutely.  It is a wonderful work of literary and visual art, and for teachers who might want to include it in a history class, there is even an extensive online teacher's guide to accompany the book.

The Hunger Tests

The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau
Boston : Houghton Mifflin, [2013]
344 p. ; 22 cm.

Ok, so my title for this post is a little cheeky, but it is hard to read The Testing and not hear many echoes of The Hunger Games.  However, Charbonneau still manages to write a pretty exciting, lethally adventurous dystopian survival tale.  In this series the young people are elites chosen for the "honor" of the annual testing that will decide who continues on to their society's only university where they will be groomed to be the future leaders of the United Commonwealth.  Unfortunately for them, they have no idea just how final some of the testing will be, culminating in a grueling survival trek across hundreds of miles of apocalyptic-war ravaged territory starting at what was - before the catastrophic wars that nearly destroyed humanity - the city Chicago (echoes of Divergent).

I think what makes this novel work is that it is well paced and plotted, and the main character is an interesting, resourceful figure (and female hero).  Like The Hunger Games, the element of trust vs. mistrust between characters keeps things exciting.

I don't think I'll read the next two installments in the series,  but I did enjoy reading The Testing and would definitely recommend it to readers wanting to continue reading exciting dystopian fiction - especially fans of The Hunger Games.