Last blog post

It’s been fun reviewing books and posting my reviews since 2012, but it’s time for a change. From now on I am posting my reviews on GoodReads. Check out my profile here: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/159826667-denise-brush.

Thanks for following me and inspiring me to keep posting book reviews for 11 years!

The Authenticity Project

The Authenticity Project: A Novel by Clare Pooley (Viking, 2020)

This novel has been on lots of best books lists lately so I put it on hold at the library. It’s basically another book about young adults living in present day London looking for romantic partners, but with the addition of an elderly man who is the reason the young adults meet. He leaves a notebook (labelled The Authenticity Project, although he turns out to be lying) in a bookstore which gets passed on to various people. I watched a movie with a similar (but not identical) plot on Netflix earlier this year.

There are a ton of British cultural references (and frankly ordinary nouns too) most of which I didn’t get. For example I had to Google what the “Eurostar” is – apparently a train you can take from London to Paris, presumably through the Channel Tunnel though their website didn’t say so. Overall it was a good story but I was rather disappointed in the way it ended. I would have resolved each of the characters’ stories differently. Oh well, it’s Pooley’s novel. It was nice that she thanked everyone on the book production team by name in the Acknowledgements at the end.

The Engineer’s Wife

The Engineer’s Wife by Tracey Enerson Wood (Sourcebooks, 2020)

This historical novel is based on the life of Emily Roebling, the wife of bridge engineer Washington Roebling. Washington designed the Brooklyn Bridge but was injured early in the building process and became homebound. Emily Roebling supervised the construction process which lasted from 1869 to 1883. At first her role was to carry messages from her husband to the site but starting fairly early on she had to make many key decisions on her own. While some aspects of the plot are imagined, the project was covered extensively in the press at the time so most of the basic details are accurate. It is an fascinating glimpse into what is involved in building a bridge, and a well-written story. Emily Roebling’s contributions are apparently acknowledged on a plaque on the bridge itself, despite her having operated well outside the bounds of convention for late 19th century American women.

The Seed Detective

The Seed Detective: Uncovering the secret histories of remarkable vegetables by Adam Alexander (Chelsea Green, 2022)

This book by British documentary film-maker and lifelong gardener Adam Alexander is fascinating reading if you are into growing your own food and food sustainability issues. It’s all about the history of some of the most commonly consumed vegetables – their origin as cultivated crops, their evolution, and how important it is for humanity to save a diverse collection of seeds for the future. While not a scientist himself, Alexander did consult with plant scientists about the genetics aspects of this topic. He also visited small farms all over the world (Europe, Asia, Central and South America, Africa, and North America) to track down the history of cultivation of different varieties of beans, peas, carrots, squash, lettuce, kale, etc. Alexander usually remembers to provide alternative names and measurement systems for (U.S.) Americans, but sometimes he forgets. Some line drawings would have been very useful to illustrate each of the vegetables he talks about.

Liberate Hawai’i

Liberate Hawai’i: Renouncing and Defying the Continuing Fraudulent U.S. Claim to the Sovereignty of Hawai’i by Jon D. Olsen (Goose River Press, 2014)

I only learned about this book because it was written by a friend of a friend, but it is available to buy in paperback on Amazon. This is a short but scholarly historical work that relies on contemporary legal documents that have become available in the last 40 years. While Olsen is not of native Hawaiian ancestry, he lived in Hawai’i for decades and sympathizes passionately with their independence movement. He makes a strong argument that Hawai’i was once an independent nation that was occupied and conquered by the United States during the height of its empire-building period (the 1890s). Olsen highlights the similarity between the history of Hawai’i and that of Lithuania – a country which was forced to be part of the Soviet Union during the USSR’s 69 year duration and became an independent nation once again in the 1990s. He believes that the time will come when Hawai’i too will be a sovereign nation.

Read my related earlier review: https://denisereviewsbooks.wordpress.com/2019/05/20/how-to-hide-an-empire/.

Demon Copperhead

Demon Copperhead: A Novel by Barbara Kingsolver (HarperCollins, 2022)

I’m a big fan of Barbara Kingsolver’s books but this one is a lot to take in. The writing is great, the story is depressing as hell. Kingsolver has taken on the challenge of writing about the drug addiction crisis in Appalachia (in conjunction with their economic issues) from the point of view of a young man. After his single mother overdoses, he bounces between terrible foster homes until a brief interlude as a high school football star results in a knee injury that sends him down the same drug addiction route. Kingsolver does a good job of explaining the ways and whys of Appalachian life to outsiders, right down to why the men frequently go by weird nicknames such as Demon Copperhead. Even though it’s hard to read, this book is important for understanding the “opioid crisis” in the United States from a human perspective.

Lady Justice

Women, the law, and the battle to save America by Dahlia Lithwick (Penguin Press, 2022)

I picked this book up at the library after the author (a journalist specializing in legal isses) was interviewed about it on the Rachel Maddow Show. It was nice for me to be able to picture the author and her voice and mannerisms from television while reading this book. In each of the ten chapters Lithwick highlights the story of a woman lawyer whose work made a difference in achieving civil rights in the United States. Topics include voting rights, reproductive rights, immigrant rights, and others. The theme is unapologetically liberal and focused on the achievements of women in American law in the past fifty years. Lithwick espouses the philosophy that women (as a group) are better at certain things than men, which might be off-putting to some people. I suspect that people over 50, women especially, will relate to the book better than younger individuals.

Iona Iverson’s Rules for Commuting

Iona Iverson’s Rules for Commuting: A Novel by Clare Pooley (Viking, 2022)

This is a very upbeat novel considering the number of bad things that happen in it. It takes place in London, England in the present day (I assume) and the commuting of the title is all by train, which is possible in England. (I visited the UK in 2019 and avoiding ever having to drive by taking a LOT of train trips). The characters are all strangers to each other who met on their daily train commute to London and through various unusual situations become close friends. They are all hiding things (and/or having things hidden from them) but they become stronger and braver through their relationships. Also they break all the “rules for commuting” clearly listed on the back cover. But that’s OK, it turns out better that way. Definitely recommended to boost your mood (unless you hate trains).

Switchboard Soldiers

Switchboard Soldiers: A Novel of the Heroic Women who Served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps During World War I by Jennifer Chiaverini (William Morrow, 2022)

Jennifer Chiaverini is best known for her historical novels about women quilters. This novel, which also provides a glimpse into the influenza pandemic of that time, is more serious. The heroines of this novel, young women in their twenties, were North American telephone operators recruited to serve in France to operate critical communication lines in the first World War. They all needed to speak French fluently because they often needed to translate as well as transmit messages. Their jobs were a very challenging combination of customer service and physical demands – they actually had to move wires into and out of jacks to physically connect the calls. Hence the term “switchboard” – I didn’t realize telephones were this primitive a hundred years ago. Being a telephone operator was not an easy job back then.

The story is told through the lens of three women who served: Grace (who was real), and Marie and Valerie (who were composites). After testing and training stateside, they were sent to France. There they were exposed to air raids and enemy fire while connecting urgent messages from the battlefield to the supply lines and other sections of the Allied armies fighting Germany. Chiaverini really brings this time period to life and makes it clear how heroic these women were. In her telling the “switchboard soldiers” were admired and respected by their male colleagues so it is very disappointing to learn in the Author Notes that when the real women returned to the the United States they were denied veteran’s benefits.

Mika in Real Life

Mika in Real Life by Emiko Jean (Harper Collins, 2022)

This excellent and thought-provoking novel does what good novels always do: help you to understand the life experience of someone different from yourself. This novel’s protagonist Mika is a 35 year old Japanese-American woman living in Portland, Oregon who is found by the daughter she gave up for adoption at 19. She is happy to get to know her only biological child, but makes the mistake of lying about her actual life to try to pretend she is more successful than she is. Naturally this does not end well but there are good things that come out of the experience, like understanding her own mother better, finding a better job, and finally pursuing her artistic passion of painting.