Horsepower

Grand Theft Horse by G. Neri [illus. by Corban Wilkin]
New York : Tu Books, an imprint of Lee & Low Books Inc., [2018]
220 p. : chiefly ill. ; 22 cm.

This is a beautiful story of a courageous woman who is a gifted horse trainer and takes a stand against the abusive horse racing industry in California.  The core of the story is the sacrifices she makes and the injustices she endures to uphold her commitment to the decent treatment of a horse under her care.   

The book tells the story of her life, and of how she got entangled with an absolutely horrid lawyer who helped her buy a race horse with exceptional potential, but then wanted her to exploit it for short term profits.  When she defies him, he spends years and gobs of money trying to ruin her.

This graphic novel is really a deep delve into what does it mean to have a meaningful life.  It asks the reader to really consider what is success, what is valuable, what is right and wrong. 

I liked this book a lot, but found it a little hard to get into at first.  I worry that it's beginning might discourage young adult readers, but I will definitely recommend it to those who want something more from their graphic novel than just adventure.     

Talent and Ego

Drawing Blood by Molly Crabapple
New York, NY : Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, [2015]
338 p. : ill. (chiefly col.) ; 23 cm.

I added this book to our collection this year since it had received such glowing reviews.  Booklist in a starred review stated, "Jaw dropping, awe inspiring, and not afraid to shock....There's no one else like her; prepare to be blown away by both the words and pictures."

I was not so taken with this memoir.  Crabapple is a talented and hardworking artist, and she does have a lot of daring and moxie as she jumps into risky adventures of international travel and pushes and pushes to have her intense drawing-based artworks accepted in the competitive New York art world (and she works constantly at improving her drawing and painting skills). So far so good, but her tale is also one of a massive ego, and also one of ethical contradictions where she is both entranced with the debauched world of the super-rich, while at the same time disdainful of it.  It's interesting, but problematic.  

There is also her use of her conventional attractiveness to both support herself and gain access to the exclusive realms of the super rich.  She works as a nude model, works with strippers and burlesque performers - and writes about the interesting, hard, exploitative and dangerous work that entails, but also seems to accept and at times endorse the sexualization and commodification of women.  Again, it makes for interesting reading, but it is troubling in that it goes largely unchallenged.

So would I recommend this memoir?  Well, I'd definitely mention it to someone curious about contemporary bohemian life and about ways that people make it in the art world.  Did I find it inspiring or wonderful?  Not so much.

Which Way?

Looking Backward, 2000-1887 by Edward Bellamy
New York : Signet Classics, [2009]
xvii, 236 p. ; 18 cm.

I'm glad I finally got around to reading this 19th century Utopian novel. Looking Backward is really a wonderful artifact of 19th century Utopian hopes and philosophy.

I have to say that reading it now, was in some ways depressing - not because it naively overlooks the dangers of totalitarianism - as this old 1988 NYT review claims, but because of how little progress has been made toward eliminating the savage greed, violence, mercilessness and competition that undergird the market economy that Bellamy was critiquing and under which we still live in the 21st century.

The novel's weakest points are it's narrative dullness and drab characters.  In many ways the literary and narrative quality of the novel takes a back seat to the economic and humanistic philosophy of the novel. The plot is really a device to serve up Bellamy's Utopian thinking, but as Eliot Fintushel exclaims in the afterword, what a lovely Utopia it is that Bellamy has dreamed up.  It's hard not to enjoy shimmering dream that we get in Looking Backward.

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.      

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.

Not a Good Spiral

Spiral: trapped in the forever war by Mark Danner
New York : Simon & Schuster, 2016.
267 p. ; 24 cm.

Spiral may make you angry.  Spiral may make you sad.  Whatever your reaction, Spiral is a timely and urgent book that you should read.  Danner, a veteran reporter makes a very damning case that in the reaction to the devastating 9/11 terrorist attacks, the US government has embarked on an unending security/military mission that has increased the spread of global terrorism, has fostered a dangerous and antidemocratic culture of fear, and has perhaps forever destroyed significant parts of the Constitutional framework of US law (and wrecked the already weak framework of international laws of war and human rights that emerged out of the ruins of WWII).

His book is not easy reading.  He presents the details of torture and lawlessness committed by US agents that were the hallmark of the Bush years - none of which were (as required by law) investigated, and some of which (e.g. mass surveillance and assassination) have been codified and expanded by the Obama administration.  He pointedly notes that Obama - by protecting the torturers of the Bush era from prosecution - has essentially made the strict US and international laws against torture all but meaningless, likely guaranteeing that torture will be committed by US operatives again in the future.  He also notes that the expansion of secretive war operations -whether by drones or special forces - has made US military actions free of any democratic oversight.

Danner also presents strong evidence to bear on the fact that not only has the mult-trillion dollar war on terror not ended global non-state terrorism, but has lead to a vast growth in the numbers and reach of global terrorism.

He ends his book with a few suggestions of how the "forever war" could be reigned in and perhaps ended.  They are steps that were unlikely when the book was published and that are clearly not going to happen for at least four more years based on the elections of November 2016.  It's  a heavy book, but well written and researched.  For anyone concerned about the future or interested in the recent past, it offers much to think about.

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
New York : New Press, 2010.
xi, 290 p. ; 24 cm.

This is a book I've been wanting to read since it first came out in 2010.  It received a lot of praise, and time has proven that the praise was not misplaced.

In the last couple of years - especially following the killings of Treyvon Martin and Michael Brown and the subsequent emergence of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement - the national debate on the injustices of law enforcement and the criminal justice system toward black people in the US has taken on a vibrant and expansive life.  Reading The New Jim Crow during the summer of 2016, I couldn't help but wonder how amazed Michelle Alexander must feel about events that have occurred in the ten years since she published the book.

Her book is a thorough, well researched, and toughly argued case against the US criminal justice system - especially the mass incarceration of African Americans since the ramping up of the War on Drugs.

What makes her book especially powerful - in addition to its research data and passion for justice - is that it shows how the new mass incarceration of black people is simply a continuation of the historic pattern of racism in the US adapting to new social changes and traditions in order to reestablish the oppression of African Americans: first slavery, then after the Civil War and reconstruction comes Jim Crow, and after the Civil Rights movement and legal gains, comes the War on Drugs and the lopsided application of it against people of color.

It's a powerful book and still very timely.  I'd recommend it to any student wanting to research or understand mass incarceration and institutional race

Are You a Citizen?

Citizen by Claudia Rankine
Minneapolis, Minn. : Graywolf Press, [2014]
169 p. : ill. (some col.) ; 21 cm.

I heard Claudia Rankine read some of her essay/poems on a Poetry Magazine podcast [and you can listen to these stunning works here ] , and knew I had to read her book.  Her book also made national and local (Central Illinois) headlines when a woman wisely chose to read the book instead continuing to listen to the offensive talk of Donald Trump at a rally in Springfield, IL. 

The book is a wonderful mix of poetic essays and meditations on the experience of being Black in the United States and being "other" in the world.  There are vignettes from her personal and professional life, explorations of the career of Serena Williams, and the experience of the French soccer star Zidane.  Some of the works in the book are described as scripts for "Situations" videos and can be viewed on her website.  

I love that the poems and essays are thoughtful, provocative and complex - but also very accessible.  They invite the reader in instead of pushing her away.

I'll keep this book in mind for any student curious about African American poetry or essays, particularly in this time of racial awareness and organizing as evidenced in the Black Lives Matter movement. And I'll definitely recommend it.

In Greed We Trust

Griftopia by Matt Taibbi
New York : Spiegel & Grau Trade Paperbacks, 2011.
299 p. ; 21 cm.

How can you not want to read a book by the author who described the sleazy investment bank, Goldman Sachs, as "a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money"? Taibbi writes with a lot of emotion (often peppering his prose with well-deserved name calling and occasional cuss words) but also with a quiver full of meticulously documented facts and knowledge.  He manages to make a raucous, fun read out of a subject that is both very complicated - can you say Collateralized Debt Options and Credit Default Swaps? - and very infuriating .  

After reading this book, you will never look at mortgages, investments, bailouts and Wall Street in the same light.  This is a book which will shake your faith in the fairness of the financial system in the US, but it will also make you smarter as you start to understand the outright fraud and criminality that lead to the great crash of 2008.  

And you might even find yourself laughing out loud as you read it.  So what are you waiting for?  Read it!

Unlikely Cast

Still from Aguirre the Wrath of God

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews
New York : Amulet Books, 2015.
295 p. ; 21 cm.

A creative, funny, sometimes vulgar, and ultimately meaningful book about a young man - Greg Gaines - who strives to stay unattached through high school, but ends up pressured by his mother into a relationship with a dying girl - and has to question just who he is and what life means to him.

Part of the wonderful catch to this book is that until he's pushed to be friends with Rachel, the dying girl, Greg has one other "friend" - fellow amateur filmmaker Earl.  Earl and Greg also love film, and the film that they both love best is Werner Herzog's classic, Aguirre the Wrath of God (and so the graphic above).

A lot of the power of this book - which became a bestseller and was well reviewed - owes to it's humor and cynical slant.  Greg is not about to try and learn any deep life lessons from his involvement with Rachel - but he does come to sort of like Rachel in a normal, low-key friendship way.  He also comes to understand that his privileged life is nothing like Earl's life with his intensely dysfunctional family.

There is a lot of bodily, vulgar boy humor in this novel, but that surely is part of what made it successful.  Finally, the movie version of the book did extremely well at Sundance and was bought by by Fox which can only increase the book's appeal.

Snow Days

Snow by Orhan Pamuk
New York : Everyman's Library, 2011, c2004.
xxvii, 460 p. ; 22 cm.

I've had my eye on this novel for a while, and figured summer was a good time to read it.  I was interested in reading some international literature (and so the Mahfouz book) and thought that Pamuk might serve as an interesting window into Turkish culture.

I was not disappointed.  This is a rich and vibrant book.  Though published originally in 2002, the novel is very contemporary and relevant today.  Though the narrative thread of the novel is an exiled poet returning to a small provincial town in search of his lost love - it is very much a story of politics and religion. There are subplots involving headscarves, Islamic fundamentalism, coups, and political violence.  Also it is a story of exile, nostalgia, desire, and betrayal.  Reading Pamuk's novel, I could see why he was a Nobel laureate in 2006.

Pamuk is a great story-teller and his novel is wonderfully descriptive and evocative, and also deeply humane.  With Turkey frequently in the news these days because of politics, religion and international events - this novel makes for a fine and timely read.

I would recommend it to a student wanting to read international literary works, but many students might find it a bit slow and not so relevant to their own lives.

Schooled in Prison

A Question of Freedom by R. Dwayne Betts
New York : Avery, 2010, c2009.
1st trade pbk. ed.
 240 p. ; 21 cm.   

There have been some really good books out lately about mass incarceration - such as The New Jim Crow and the comic book format, Race to Incarcerate.  A Question of Freedom is a great addition to the literature - and especially for high school age readers - in that it personalizes the story in a compelling and finely written memoir by a young man who was sentenced as an adult to 9 years in prison at the age of 16.

Yes, he committed a serious crime - using a gun to carjack a man in a mall parking lot.  And yet under the relatively new draconian laws now on the books in many states, he was sentenced a a sixteen year old to serve years in adult penitentiaries in the state of Virginia.

In prison Betts underwent a transformation from a basically good student who was morally adrift - to a thoughtful and powerful writer.  His writing conveys - without melodrama - the really twisted world of the US prison system where who you are as a human being is lost in a bizarre world of regulations, danger, and violence.  I was especially struck by how much time Betts spent in "the hole" - solitary confinement for minor rule infractions, and how he ended up in Virginia's infamous Red Onion "super max" prison, supposedly for the "worst of the worst" - even though he never did anything more violent than push a rookie guard's hands off of his genitals when that new guard was over zealous in doing a pat down search.

Again and again, Betts also reflects on the sad racial facts of the US prison system where the majority of prisoners are Black and Latino, and on the draconian "get tough" sentencing that locks people away for decades.  He himself could have been sentenced to life in prison!

I really like how Betts does not try to shock us with violent or terrifying episodes from prison, but instead conveys the soul killing world of prison - and the redemptive nature of the decent human beings who were kind or protective of him.

I would highly recommend this book for reading in classes.  It is ultimately a hopeful book.  The author has gone on to be a successful poet in addition to this fine non-fiction memoir.  I will be recommending it to any students looking for something about prisons, biographies, young writers, and mass incarceration.