Little Women by Louisa May Alcott *****

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott recounts the story of the four March sisters (Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy -16, 15, 13, 12). The main character is Jo. This is a book of 19^th-century gender stereotypes. Jo frequently says things like, “I don’t mean to plague you, and will bear it like a man.” Jo is strong, willful, independent, and a reader. I imagine that many young girls identified with Jo.

Despite, Jo’s resistance, the book is traditional and supportive of 19^th-century values. All the girls sew, cook, clean, and play music. Jo lives in a gendered ocean and cannot see the water even as she asserts her independence. A delightful book of an idyllic time that might never have existed. A fun read in a Norman Rockwell way.

This book was an instant success. Louise May Alcott was a 19^th-century J.K. Rowling. The author was one of the richest women in America. “The diaries of late-nineteenth-century young women are riddled with references to it. Girls and young women, including students at Vassar, started Alcott or Little Women clubs and took on the identities of the March sisters.” This is like people today adopting membership in the houses of Hogwarts.

Jo sold her hair for $25 long before Delia sold hers for $20 in O. Henry’s Gift of the Magi.

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Dead Dead Girls by Nekesa Afia ****

When Louise Lloyd was 16, she was kidnapped. Unfortunately, the police cared little about what happened to young women in Harlem in 1916. Fortunately for Louise and the other imprisoned girls, Louise fought back. “She lifts the pen and buries its razor-sharp tip into his shoulder. She grabs the gun from his holster and aims it at him, then unties the other girls, the idea of freedom giving them the strength they need to get out.”

In Dead DeadGirls by Nekesa Afia, Louise is 26 and once again the reluctant Hero of Harlem. Little has changed and when a serial killer targets girls in Harlem, Louise is drafted to stop him. After several plot twists, she gets her man. A surprisingly upbeat story considering prohibition and the racism of the period.

Louise had a mean right hook and was not afraid to use it. When she attacked a cop who is abusing a showgirl, Detective Theodore Gilbert drafted her into the investigation of the serial killer. There were places she could go where he could not. He gave her the rules: “The first? Always trust your gut. The second? Assume nothing. The third? Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three is a pattern.”

In addition to racism, the book also explores the homophobia of the period.

Louise fought back against her situation. “She was so tired of him thinking he knew better than her because he had been gifted with a penis. … because he was white.” She never gave up.

“[AUTHOR’S] HISTORICAL NOTE While it is true that the 1920s were an era of social change in the Western world, with the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Amendments [prohibition and women’s suffrage] to the Constitution of the United States of America, that change was for white women. The New Negro Movement was started in direct opposition to these inequalities, as a refusal to submit to laws outlined in the Jim Crow era, laws that were active until 1965.”

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Other Minds: The Octopus, … by Peter Godfrey-Smith ***

Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and theDeep Origins of Consciousness by Peter Godfrey-Smith opens with the tantalizing “[Octopuses] are an independent experiment in the evolution of large brains and complex behavior. … This is probably the closest we will ever come to meeting an intelligent alien.” If you are interested in the evolution of intelligence and consciousness, this book is for you. Be warned that the reading is slow and often challenging.

Brains and nerves, in their most primitive forms, have two functions. One is signaling like “one if by land, two if by sea” in the Paul Revere example. The second is coordinating like the coxswain keeping time for the crew of a rowing team. These functions are fundamentally different and both necessary. Signaling connects the organism to the outside world. Coordinating is an internal function.

How did death at old age evolve? Imagine a lethal mutation that only acts after fertility stops. Evolution would not select against this mutation. As such mutations build up, death after fertility becomes more common. This would be even quicker if the mutation was beneficial during fertility. This explains why people die in old age.

Octopuses die after a single fertility cycle. Their life is risky. They have no natural defenses. They put everything into a single fertility cycle since it makes no sense to save something for an unlikely second cycle.

This book has a lot of careful logic in response to subtle questions about evolution.

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Billy Summers by Stephen King *****

Billy Summers by Stephen King belongs to the “jinxed one last job” genre. Billy Summers is a hired killer. After this final job with a big payoff, he intends to retire. As might be expected, nothing goes as planned. Billy Summers pretends to be a writer as a cover for this final job. He writes a memoir of his time in Iraq and considers whether he is a good person. The story includes a gang rape, presented as the horrific act that it is. Stephen King is an extraordinary writer, and this is an excellent book.

Much of the book deals with Billy Summers’ introspection on his life, his choices, and the path that led to his role as an assassin. He assumes several identities. Billy Summers was a sniper in Fallujah and is a hired killer in the present. David Lockridge is the writer and good neighbor incidentally waiting for Billy Summers’ target to arrive. Dalton Smith is the safe identity for him to use in retirement. Billy Summers projects a dim-witted persona, while the other two are closer to his actual intelligence.

He has a complex code of ethics that makes it difficult to decide on a path following his last job. As a hired killer, he only accepts assignments that target bad people. He strongly wanted to think of himself as a good person. This drove him to rescue and avenge the woman who was gang raped. His thoughts about her experience present a strong condemnation of the men who attacked her.

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