A Seasonal Book
October Is Tough To Beat
Things Don’t Just Happen
There is an element of randomness in our lives at times. I think it is very important to come to terms with the uncertainties and just roll with the changes. A while ago I wrote about a random bit of road rage that I witnessed in a wintertime post. I don’t dwell on the chaotic elements of life we encounter and just ride the wave. If you are newish here and don’t know what a coal roller is, click through and jump down to the paragraph titled “And Now the Ugh”.
My History Book Club is the opposite of “things just happen”. There are lots of moving parts and when we examine them, things don’t just happen. I created a link on my homepage titled “BookClub”. It is a historical record of all the books we’ve been exploring since the end of 2011. If any of the books seem interesting, the tabs [byMeeting], [byTitle], and [byAuthor] offer links to GoodReads, Google Books, Amazon, and AbeBooks if you are interested in learning more or buying a copy. While he will be anonymous here, THANK YOU TO GD for organizing and managing the nomination process! It is a lot of work and seems a mostly thankless job.
What’s Ahead?
We have 37 nominations for our reading list for next year. I’m not sure the greater membership wants to read my recommendations but I nominated the following books. If you are interested in my taste in books, click the Learn More link in each case. As we learned in Hamilton, 525,800 minutes is what you get each year. Each of the books below is worth a bit of the pile. If you happen to be American or have an interest in American History, the 3rd book is likely the best explanation of the American experiment I have ever read.
How About October 2023?
Beyond the selection of books for the year, our wonderful volunteer GD also distributes the books for the year in multiple ways. Since we meet on the 2nd Tuesday of the month, we get a mixture of either four or five weeks to read our books. We load the longest books to take advantage of the extra week of reading time. Beyond that, wherever possible the books get distributed by theme. Since the prior Monday was Columbus Day (Indigenous People’s Day in Minnesota), this book was plugged into our October meeting.
The Meeting
The turnout was sixteen people for our meeting. About average or a little light I think. 5 of 16 did not finish the book so wouldn’t provide a complete evaluation. The burden would fall on the 11 of us. While our assessments of the book are just opinions, I am fascinated by the extremes. Two people voted the book 10/10 while we also had a 3 and a 5 mixed in! The book led to widely divergent opinions. I voted it a 7 so somewhere in between. The overall average rating was 7.1 of 10 which is quite low side for our reviews. I imagine if you select books that someone bothers to nominate (and hence loves) and are further filtered by the members’ voting, we self-select for above-average books. I think that is why our books typically are rated 8 and above.
The Good
I learned some new things in this book. The tragedy and perhaps genocide by some measures of Native Americans is a difficult and sometimes horrrifying story to hear. There were many facts I was exposed to in the book. I am always grateful when I broaden my perspective on a topic.
The Bad
The book reminded me of the expression “To a hammer the whole world looks like a nail”. While the author provided reasonable examples of the clash between European settlers and Native Americans, I was disappointed when she bent 500 years of history and reduced it all to colonialism for example. There was more than adequate content to avoid talking about the War in Vietnam. I am not an absolutist and I dread conversations, books, and opinion pieces that reduce to black and white. I just don’t believe it is a useful way to analyze.
Everyone who disagrees with you doesn’t hate America.
Every action of a school librarian is not “woke”
Every single policy intersection doesn’t mean someone is being racist
The world is not 6000 years old just because a wonderful guide to living might imply their written history seemed to coincide.
American policies across the years have been neither a consummate evil nor so perfect that we should ban the books that say otherwise.
The book failed for me because of its absolutist stances.
The Verdict
It would be a shame and frankly quite boring to be in a book club where others just read the favorites of someone like me or someone else. A comprehensive approach to selection means compromise for ALL OF US. The world would be a better place if more things worked that way. Some of the books I recommend are probably stinkers for the same reason it is likely the planet is closer to 4.5B years than to the 6000 year option. No one has cornered the market on the truth and ignoring those that claim otherwise is always a good plan.
The Poll & Music
Here’s a song that combines books, music, and love. What could be wrong with that?
37...So many books. The list of books I want to read is a book. I have actually bound it. But I am bound never to finish.
Great newsletter Mark! Thanks for putting Firehouse on my radar and TBR. I hadn't heard of that before. I've read several 9/11 books and want to read this one too. Going down the rabbit hole also put Halberstam's The Fifties book and several others on my TBR. Just what I needed, more books to read. :)