The rigorous yet still enticing American Scary invites readers to peer into the horror show of American history through the lens of literature and film.
The rigorous yet still enticing American Scary invites readers to peer into the horror show of American history through the lens of literature and film.
In the personable Bodega Bakes, pastry chef Paola Velez presents just that: sweets that can be made solely from the ingredients found at a corner store.
In the personable Bodega Bakes, pastry chef Paola Velez presents just that: sweets that can be made solely from the ingredients found at a corner store.
he political face of Europe changed more between 1989 and 1999 than in any other decade since the period between 1939 and 1949. With the end of the Cold War and the fall of Communism, new opportunities arose in Europe for freedom and democracy. But these were often accompanied by difficult economic challenges and sensitive political problems such as what role the former Communist leaders should play. In the former Yugoslavia there was the ultimate nightmare of war, ethnic cleansing, and thousands of refugees. How can we in the West understand what has happened in that part of the world? For many of us, the most authoritative and readable guide has been Timothy Garton Ash. For the last 20 years his incisive reporting and insightful analysis in The New York Review of Books and such books as The Uses of Adversity and The Magic Lantern have illuminated complex issues and introduced us to a broad range of diverse personalities. Ash is both an Oxford historian and a sharp-eyed journalist with a passion for accuracy. His magnificent new collection, History of the Present, offers an abundance of riches. There are reflective analytical pieces that help the reader understand events in historical perspective. He notes, for example, that if a diplomatic observer had gone to sleep after the Congress of Berlin in 1878 and awoke now, there would be a few surprises, but much would be familiar. “In the so-called Contact Group, he would see representatives of the same powers France, Britain, Germany, and Russia pursuing their national interests through their national diplomats and national armies. . . .” He continues, “It begins to look almost as if the whole twentieth-century European story of postimperial federations and communist multinational states was merely an interruption of a longer, underlying process of separating and molding peoples into nation-states.” Other pieces offer the immediacy of encounters with individuals whose lives have been transformed by events. One particularly memorable person is Ash’s friend Helena Luczywo in Warsaw. When he first met her in 1980 she was deeply involved in preparing a samizdat (underground) magazine allied with Solidarity and the workers’ revolution. “Today she is the key figure behind the most successful newspaper in the whole of postcommunist Europe,” the author writes. Why did she initially get involved as a political activist in the 1970s? “Oh, I don’t know. Just a sense of decency,” she told Ash.
In 1992, Ash visited former East German Communist Party leader Erich Honecker in prison. Honecker relates that he had often spoken on the phone with West German chancellors Helmut Schmidt and Helmut Kohl. “A quarter century of divided Germany’s tragic, complex history,” Ash writes, “is, it seems to me, concentrated in this one pathetic moment: the defiant, mortally sick old man in his prison pajamas, the dog-eared card with the direct number to Chancellor Kohl.” Ash, who describes himself as “an agnostic liberal,” has lavish praise for Pope John Paul II, whom he describes as “simply the greatest world leader of our times.” None of the other credible candidates for this designation Gorbachev, Kohl, Vaclav Havel, Lech Walesa, Margaret Thatcher matches the pope’s “unique combination of concentrated strength, intellectual consistency, human warmth, and simple goodness.” By emphasizing the inalienable rights of each human being, the pope has supported the cause of those without economic, political, or cultural power.
Anyone who wants to better understand the last decade in Central Europe will benefit from reading this stimulating and perceptive book.
Roger Bishop is a regular contributor to BookPage.
he political face of Europe changed more between 1989 and 1999 than in any other decade since the period between 1939 and 1949. With the end of the Cold War and the fall of Communism, new opportunities arose in Europe for freedom and democracy. But these were often accompanied by difficult economic challenges and sensitive […]
History fans have big treats in store this year, including groundbreaking books on American history and baseball, plus visual extravaganzas devoted to legendary women and design innovations. There are even lessons in how to survive a sea monster attack—because you just never know.
Relics
Relics: A History of the World Told in 133 Objects is my idea of the perfect coffee-table gift book. Billed as “four billion years in the palm of your hand,” it’s small enough not to be cumbersome, weighty enough to be substantial and full of colorful photos and intriguing text. Open it to any random page and get lost in the images of tiny relics and their histories, ranging from a 4.5-billion-year-old asteroid fragment to a tiny piece of Winston Churchill’s faux leopard-skin hand muff. (Poor circulation in his later years caused Churchill’s hands to get cold.) The book is part of the Mini Museum project, intended to share a collection of hand-held bits of wonders from around the world—a whole exhibition, Polly Pocket-style.
Young and old will be enticed by the variety of natural, historical and cultural tidbits, including a specimen of petrified lightning from the Sahara, a piece of a Martian meteorite, coal from the Titanic and a morsel of Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s wedding cake. Enjoy at your leisure, with no museum crowds invading your space.
★ Original Sisters
Award-winning artist Anita Kunz certainly made the most of her COVID-19 lockdown: She began researching and painting portraits of more than 150 extraordinary women from ancient times to the present, many whose stories have been lost to history or whose glory has been stolen by men. The result, Original Sisters: Portraits of Tenacity and Courage, brings these heroines to life in wonderfully bold portraits, each accompanied by a paragraphsummarizing her notable life. These portraits are so vivid that readers will feel as though they are meeting these women face-to-face—and believe me, you will feel their power.
You’ll recognize many women’s names, like Temple Grandin, Nina Simone and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but others may be new, such as Amanirenas, the partially blind African warrior queen who defeated Augustus Caesar. Patricia Bath, the first Black female ophthalmologist, invented a medical device to remove cataracts. Mabel Ping-Hua Lee was a Chinese American suffragist who led a parade on horseback in New York City to advocate for voting rights. A wonderful gift for friends, family or yourself, Original Sisters is an inspiring springboard for further study of these noteworthy souls.
★ The 1619 Project
For any lover of American history or letters, The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story is a visionary work that casts a sweeping, introspective gaze over what many have aptly termed the country’s original sin: the moment in 1619, one year before the Mayflower arrived, when a ship docked at the colony of Virginia to deliver 20 to 30 enslaved people from Africa. While many books have addressed enslavement and its repercussions, few, if any, have done so in such an imaginative, all-encompassing way, incorporating history, journalism, fiction, poetry and photography to show the cataclysmic repercussions of that pivotal moment.
A superb expansion of the New York Times Magazine’s “1619 Project” issue, this book contains 18 essays as well as 36 poems and stories that examine how slavery and its legacy of racial injustice have shaped the U.S. over the last 400 years. Each piece was curated by MacArthur “genius grant” winner Nikole Hannah-Jones, who pitched the original “1619 Project” to the Times and won the Pulitzer Prize for her contribution to it. The book’s many talented contributors include Ibram X. Kendi, Terry McMillan, Khalil Gibran Muhammad, ZZ Packer, Darryl Pinckney, Claudia Rankine, Jason Reynolds, Bryan Stevenson and Jesmyn Ward. Seven essays are new, and existing essays have been substantially revised and expanded to include additional details. Black-and-white portraits have also been added—both historical and present-day images—as another way of allowing readers to look history in the eye.
A new concluding essay from Hannah-Jones explores economic justice, and her wonderful preface is a special standout. It’s a powerful, personal essay in which she notes that she is “the daughter and granddaughter of people born onto a repurposed slave-labor camp in the deepest South, people who could not have imagined their progeny would one day rise to a position to bring forth such a project.”
The sheer breadth of this book is refreshing and illuminating, challenging each and every reader to confront America’s past, present and future.
As Hannah-Jones writes in The 1619 Project, “Slavery was mentioned briefly in the chapter on this nation’s most deadly war, and then Black people disappeared again for a full century, until magically reappearing as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., gave a speech about a dream.” What happened in between? Make Good the Promises: Reclaiming Reconstruction and Its Legacies, edited by Kinshasha Holman Conwill and Paul Gardullo, attempts to fill in those gaps, leading readers through Black history from 1865 to today.
Presented by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, the book has a beautifully rendered and highly accessible narrative that’s also methodically organized, with helpful timelines, colorful illustrations and photographs. The book does a particularly good job of laying out the long view of events and their consequences while shining a light on more recent incidents, such as #SayHerName, George Floyd’s murder and the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Make Good the Promises is a distressing yet essential, enlightening read.
How to Slay a Dragon
Medieval historian Cait Stevenson admits that she has sometimes “trampled over scholarly conventions in ways that will leave other medievalists curled up in agony.” But armed with her passion for the Middle Ages, she has carved out a unique niche for herself, straddling the worlds of scholarly and popular history. Her fervor is contagious in How to Slay a Dragon: A Fantasy Hero’s Guide to the Real Middle Ages.
In a tongue-in-cheek but firmly historical way, Stevenson addresses the stereotypical events that happen in popular media set in and inspired by the Middle Ages, like saving a princess, digging for treasure, slaying a dragon and defeating barbarian hordes. Her writing is informative yet humorous (there’s a chapter titled “How to Not Get Eaten”), so even if you’re not a gamer or “Game of Thrones” fan, you’ll find yourself riveted. In a section on bathing, she notes, “Twelfth-century abbess and prophet Hildegard of Bingen went so far as to suggest that natural hot springs were heated by the underground fires of purgatory, cleansing bathers’ souls as well as their bodies.” Stevenson may not be able to tell you where to find real dragons, but readers will have a blast getting ready for their quests.
★ The Baseball 100
Major League Baseball fans, you just won the lottery. In The Baseball 100, noted sports writer Joe Posnanski presents 880 pages of sheer baseball bliss, discussing the history of the game by examining the lives, obstacles and achievements of his nominations for the 100 greatest players of all time, including MLB stars and players from the Negro Leagues. It’s a true masterwork, and his writing is so good that it’s likely to engross even those who know nothing about the sport.
Avid baseball fans will easily become absorbed in these pages, and when they reemerge, they’ll be all too ready to debate Posnanski’s rankings. He’s prepared for this, writing, “I stand firmly behind them, and I expect you to come hard at me with vigorous disagreements. What fun would it be otherwise?” In fact, the author even teases, “I have a list of more than 100 players who could have made this list. I think I’ll save them in case the Baseball 100 ever needs a volume 2.” Perhaps he’d better start writing now.
Patented
At over 1,000 pages, Patented: 1,000 Design Patents is thicker than an old phone book but much more fun to thumb through. Architectural designer Thomas Rinaldi frequently found himself getting lost in “odd internet searches” of design patents, eventually realizing that he was uncovering “a design historian’s El Dorado, a proverbial rabbit hole of unfathomable depth.” He sifted through more than 750,000 patents issued from 1900 to the present to come up with this collection of visual treats.
The patents are presented chronologically, with line drawings and key information such as the date and designer’s name. It’s an interesting mix of many universally owned, everyday objects—ranging from teapots to barbecue grills, from salt and pepper shakers to the Fitbit—along with patents for much larger things, such as Pizza Huts and Boeing airplanes, unusual entries like the Mars Rover and famous designs like Eames chairs.
For some, this will become a trusted reference, but Patented will also appeal to historians, engineers and kids interested in how things used to look, plus anyone passionate about design, innovation and technology. One could even turn the pages and play a “name that item” game. Some are a cinch to guess, while others, like a 1930 “ozonizing apparatus,” will likely leave you stumped. Once you start browsing, however, you may find yourself hooked.
History fans have big treats in store this year, including groundbreaking gift books on American history and baseball, plus visual extravaganzas devoted to legendary women and design innovations.
In her autobiography, All In (18 hours), Billie Jean King tells of her triumphs and struggles both on and off the tennis court, from her hardscrabble childhood in Long Beach, California, to her present-day life in New York City.
Growing up in the 1960s, King’s inquisitive and rebellious spirit reflected the era, as she refused to wear white skirts as a young player. Later, she launched the Women’s Tennis Association and built a career with her husband and business partner. But years of keeping her sexual orientation a secret took a toll on King, physically and emotionally. Her book celebrates the honesty, hard work and love that bolstered her and encouraged her to fight for inclusion and equity.
In the energetic audio production, King brings her punchy, passionate personality to her percussive narration. Her voice is compassionate and down-to-earth as she relates her experiences of forging relationships with a colorful cast of characters who have joined her in her journey. In moments of pain and joy, King connects deeply with her audience through audible tears and laughter, culminating in an inspiring and cathartic listening experience.
In the energetic audiobook edition of her autobiography, Billie Jean King connects deeply with her audience through audible tears and laughter.
Although some may lament the decline of handwritten letters, many people are writing more than ever, whether it is e-mail, reports, newsletters, memoirs, or family histories. Writing programs continue to cite increases in enrollment. Patricia O’Conner, former editor at the New York Times Book Review and author of the successful writing book Woe is I, offers readers a new guide to writing entitled Words Fail Me. Designed to ensure that our words do justice to our ideas, O’Conner’s book provides practical advice on how to improve our everyday writing. Words Fail Me is divided into short chapters that offer witty and detailed solutions to a range of issues such as verbs that zing and the Ôit’ parade. O’Conner also tackles issues writing professors repeat every semester to their students: know your subject, know your audience, and know your position. No one, O’Conner reminds us, can avoid having to organize one’s writing. She also discusses the difficult subject of jargon, words that many feel they have to use in their company’s memo. (The comic strip Dilbert masters these.) She warns that jargon is often too complicated and sounds contrived. While the majority of the book focuses on writing style, O’Conner also confronts the one issue many fear: grammar. She explains grammar rules in a short, concise manner with humorous anecdotes, making even passages on prepositions enjoyable. And if readers should forget all of her advice, she provides a check list at the end of the book.
Charlotte Pence is an English professor at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee.
Although some may lament the decline of handwritten letters, many people are writing more than ever, whether it is e-mail, reports, newsletters, memoirs, or family histories. Writing programs continue to cite increases in enrollment. Patricia O’Conner, former editor at the New York Times Book Review and author of the successful writing book Woe is I, […]
A Spanish queen. A Florentine printer. An English wool merchant. A disgruntled German monk. A Genoese explorer. According to Patrick Wyman, author and narrator of The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World (11.5 hours), these are among the actors who gave birth to the modern world. Wyman argues that from 1490 to 1530, a series of economic, religious and state-building revolutions transformed Europe from a backwater into the dominant global power. And like the song says, it was money—in the form of increasingly available credit—that made the world go round.
Creator of the podcast series Tides of History and Fall of Rome, Wyman is a skilled performer with obvious enthusiasm for his subject. His reading is also enhanced by the book’s structure: Each chapter focuses on a particular historical figure who in some way acted as a midwife to the new age, and Wyman’s narration emphasizes their humanity, warts and all. As a result, he makes this economic history of Europe an entertaining and informative audiobook.
Podcaster Patrick Wyman skillfully narrates his engaging economic history of Europe.
Challenged to find meaning in his own final years, the esteemed Jungian psychologist James Hillman discovers, creates, or imagines the reader will eventually choose one of these verbs a rational, confident acceptance of the degeneration of old age.
But The Force Of Character, as Hillman stresses almost sternly, is not about facing or understanding death. This is no guidebook to the afterlife, no sweet vision of eternity. Nor does he present cheery prescriptions for combating the aging process. He believes that it is undignified, if not downright bonkers, to invest valuable psychological resources in vainly trying to stop the body’s inevitable, potentially illuminating decline. Rather than imagine 90-year-olds leaping in aerobics classes, Hillman teaches them to learn from supposed infirmities. Does short-term memory fade like the dew? Then use long-term memory to perform the important psychological work of long-term life review. When the physical senses fail and Chateaubriand tastes like cardboard, let the mind’s eyes take over, sharpening perceptions of life’s subtler beauties. Can’t sleep? Let the long hours of the night become a rich resource for deepening wisdom.
Hillman’s theme may at first seem radically contrarian: Old age uses infirmities to present a panoply of opportunities for refining character. Diminished physical faculties coupled with the active intelligence of the soul allow us to recognize and fully become a unique self.
Drawing upon a wealth of references to classical mythology, the Bible, poetry, philosophy, and rock lyrics, The Force Of Character maintains that our century foolishly disdains the historic importance of character, which Hillman distinguishes from morality or genetic inheritance.
He believes that we deny the last years, so valuable for reviewing life and making amends, for cosmological speculation and the confabulation of memories into stories, for sensory enjoyment of the world’s images, and for connections with apparitions and ancestors. That quote is Hillman’s prescription for imaginative, consequential aging. To the reader frantically seeking guidelines for preserving youth or promises of bliss in the hereafter, such rewards may seem too abstract and conjectural.
Of course, that is Hillman’s point. To concentrate on character is to find sense and purpose in the changes that define the decades past age 60 or so. In that transcendent sense, as he writes, Character is a therapeutic idea and determines the fragile image we finally leave to the world.
Charles Flowers recently received a Washington Irving Award for his book, A Science Odyssey.
Challenged to find meaning in his own final years, the esteemed Jungian psychologist James Hillman discovers, creates, or imagines the reader will eventually choose one of these verbs a rational, confident acceptance of the degeneration of old age. But The Force Of Character, as Hillman stresses almost sternly, is not about facing or understanding death. […]
Maria Ressa’s book is a political history of the Philippines and an intimate memoir, but it’s also a warning to democracies everywhere: Authoritarianism is a threat to us all.
Fourteen-year-old Till was murdered in a nondescript barn in the Mississippi Delta. But few know the barn still stands today, or fully understand its history. Thompson believes we should.
