Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury ****

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is a classic dystopian novel about a society that has banned all books. Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to locate books and burn them, the buildings that contain them, and the people that own them. Much of the book extolls the benefits of reading, especially classics, to develop critical thought about philosophy and freedom.

Guy, like many dystopian protagonists, is naïve and lost. Everyone he meets ends up confusing him. His fire chief tries to talk him through his crisis of confidence. A girl, Clarisse, (“And as many times he came out of the house and Clarisse was there somewhere in the world”) first baffled him, and when she inexplicably disappeared, he became depressed and disillusioned. Faber was a professor who told Guy about alternative and how to escape which Guy attempted. Through it all Guy is always a lost child, maybe representing everyone in this dystopia.

This futurist fiction foresees location tracking of cell phones and the fear that robots will come alive. Most interestingly he traces universal censorship (“Burn all, burn every thing. Fire is bright and fire is clean”) to ‘political correctness.’ 

“You must understand that our civilization is so vast that we can’t have our minorities upset and stirred… Colored people don’t like Little Black Sambo. Burn it. White people don’t feel good about Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Burn it.”

This book has the idea that books could be save by individuals memorizing them, reminiscent of pre-literate India. “And this other fellow is Charles Darwin, and this one is Schopenhauer…”

Few women in this book. 

This is a classic about freedom and censorship. Everyone should read it once… or more.

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Still Life by Louise Penny *****

Still Life by Louise Penny is the first Chief Inspector Gamache novel. Armand Gamache works for Sûreté du Québec. A hunting arrow killed Miss Jane Neal, aged 76, early Thanksgiving morning. Traditionally murderers are identified with motive, means and opportunity. Gamache is faced with a surfeit of imperfect suspects. As Jane was well loved in the small town of Three Pines, motive was the main challenge. Much of the novel concerned difficult family relationships and communication difficulties.

Suspects are drawn from two groups. The first is teenage boys. Jane identifies three teenage boys who throw duck manure at Olivier and Gabri, a gay couple who own a local restaurant. These boys also have a history of bullying and fighting with their parents.

The second group is inheritors. Shortly before Jane met his untimely death, another lady died in hospice. Both women left sizeable estates. In both situations, intergenerational problems suggested motives.

Jane had a secret. She never let anyone into her house past the kitchen and mudroom. She was an artist, but never let anyone see her work. Shortly before her death, she entered a painting into a local art competition. Everyone suspects the painting is important, but none can figure out why.

Three Pines is an escape from the big city, Montreal. Ruth Zardo, a famous poet, under another name, is hiding out as an angry old lady. Myrna Landers, the sole black person, owns the bookstore but was a therapist until she tired of patients who had no desire to change.

Diversion is provided by the frustratingly arrogant and incompetent Yvette Nichol, a novice agent, who somehow manages to contribute to the final solution.

If you like your mysteries cozy with interesting characters and relationships, this is a series for you.

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Good Friday on the Rez by David Hugh Bunnell ****

This is my second book this year about the plight of the Lakota Sioux. The first was fiction One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus. Good Friday on the Rez by David Hugh Bunnell is non-fiction. Both are difficult to read.

Bunnell’s story is a combination of memoir, travelogue, and history. Bunnell, not native America, lived near the reservation growing up and returned later to teach high school at a reservation school. The narrative arc is years later when visiting his family. He drives to the reservation to visit an old friend and observes how the reservation has changed and stayed the same. The bars are a constant, but the schools are better.

His recollections are intertwined with history. Most of the history is bad: massacres, boarding schools (“Kill the Indians, Save the Man), broken treaties, land grabs, racism, and abuse. In 1972, a couple of drunk white guys murdered Raymond Yellow Thunder for no reason. This is history, but Bunnell was there. His recollections are vivid and disturbing.

If you are interested in the plight of the Native Americans in and around the Dakotas, most recently in the news protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline, this book gives the story with the extra impact of someone who was there.

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Into the Fire by Elizabeth Moon *****

Science Fiction is our view into the future. Into the Fire by Elizabeth Moon delivers an exciting story along with this future view. Ky Vatta has returned home with evidence of a vast conspiracy that threatens her family business Vatta Enterprises (her cousin Stella is CEO) and her home Slotter Key (her great-aunt Grace is Rector of Defense). Even with control of all these resources, the conspirators seem to have the upper hand.

The conspirators have managed to keep the planet Miksland secret for centuries. When Ky Vatta accidentally discovered this, a massive cover-up began. Her crew was quarantined with a cover story of a dangerous contagion and plans for the crew to disappear. Plans were also enacted to discredit and/or destroy Ky Vatta’s family and friends. Their goal is to overthrow the government.

For those interested in political intrigue, immigration is used to remove Ky Vatta through an unexpected application of recent legislation. However, the action is not confined to lawyers and politicians, there is plenty of real action with small skirmishes to air battles to full-scale attacks with ships, artillery, and thousands of combatants.

In addition to a fast-paced story, there are many moments of brilliance. Vatta Transport (think Fedex or UPS) resources are employed in creative ways. When the conspirators attempt to hide their movements by turning off their locators, Vatta Transport tracked them by searching for the few vehicles without locators.  When Ky’s plan requires hidden movements, they take the opposite approach. They deploy many vehicles, all tracked as normal. It is impossible for their opponents to discover which vehicles are important.

Though there is a feminist undertone to the book, it is never explicit and never discussed. However, the book includes a great description of mansplaining.

“Seagle leaned back in his seat with the air of someone who had just said the obvious to a roomful of idiots and expected admiring applause.”

This is an expensive book. Even though it’s over 450 pages, it doesn’t last long and might also cost you sleep. The women are in charge and take charge, but they are not typical macho characters simply with women’s names, nor are they stereotypical women just dressed in uniforms. The characters are complex, complete, and the future.

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Knit to Kill - Anne Canadeo

The idyllic cover of Knit to Kill by Anne Canadeo lets you know this is a cozy mystery. Do not expect any sex or violence, but there is a truly evil villain. He doesn’t put our group of knitting ladies in jeopardy because he is dead before these ladies on holiday get involved.

How evil was our corpse, Julian Morton? We meet him at a poker game where he is accused of cheating after he gloats about his winnings. However, this bout of bad manners is overshadowed by the incidents later revealed. In high school, he pushed a rival into a rally bonfire causing lifetime scars. Later in his career, he steals a valuable invention from a junior employee. He divorces his first wife, leaving her destitute. He refuses any support to their son. When she becomes critically ill, he refuses to help with the medical expenses. His second wife also receives nothing from him, even though she is still in their unhappy marriage. If that is not enough, he poisons his next-door neighbor’s dog.

As might be expected, the narrative progresses as the police follow various leads, some they uncover themselves, and others found by five girlfriends on a last-weekend-before-the-wedding fling. The book has its share of cooking, knitting, spa-going, and wedding planning, but the main event is tracking down the murderer and clearing friends with obvious motives to push the despicable Julian Morton off the cliff on the shore of Maine.

If you are an Agatha Christie fan, you will enjoy considering all the suspects. Julian Morton is evil enough that any one of them had ample motive. About halfway through I was expecting a Murder on the Orient Express ending but was not disappointed with the actual conclusion.

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Type R by Ama Marston ***

Type R by Ama Marston and her mother is a repackaging of the advice to repackage failures as successes. When one door closes, another opens. Advice and anecdotes are collected from the last fifty years and applied to individuals, families, and businesses.

One of my favorite results from psychological research in the 1960s was about locus of control. People with an internal locus of control felt empowered and in control of their destiny. These people tended to be happier and more resilient when things went wrong. Alternately, people with an external locus of control felt trapped and frustrated. The people tended to be unhappy and easily discouraged. Over my life, I’ve found this to be a helpful concept and have always strived to live with an internal locus of control and help others around me to do the same.

The authors also report more recent, but related, research on the stories we tell ourselves. Like locus of control, research on the stories we tell ourselves finds similar results. If we tell ourselves positive stories, we tend to do better than those whose internal dialogue is negative. Type R behavior includes both an internal locus of control and telling ourselves positive stories.

I found much of the advice, and many of the anecdotes, familiar from similar books. As with all advice, I found some to be pat and simplistic. They presented an “E test,” where people are asked to draw an E on their forehead. The tester then makes a conclusion on whether the E looks right from an external observer, or from the point of view of the test subject viewing the E from inside their head.

I believe this test has more to do with the test subject’s spatial intelligence, something measured by IQ tests as spatial awareness or spatial aptitude, then whether the subject is self-centered or empathetic.

If you’ve never read a self-help or popular management book, this one is a good survey of the genre. Much familiar and proven advice is repackaged into their authors’ Type R (Transformative Resilience) model. A friend of mine observed that such books are repetitive and most of the wisdom can be gotten from the blurb. This one is no exception.

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Are We Screwed? By Geoff Dembicki ****

Stephen Harper, Fort McMurray, Athabasca tar sands, … Are We Screwed? By Geoff Dembicki is a Canadian book about climate change and millennials. While the book centers on Canadian politics and pipelines, it also includes chapters on climate change, Bernie Sanders, Silicon Valley, and Washington lobbyists. The sole optimistic message is that millennials might save the planet.

Since I am not a Canadian, I found much of the book eye-opening. (According to the author:) I had no idea Stephen Harper (the PM prior to the current Justin Trudeau) was so like Donald Trump. However, I now understand the US Democratic strategy in 2016. Trudeau defeated Stephen Harper in a negative campaign. The Democrats used the same approach in 2016. It did not work in 2016.

The author takes a chapter to skewer the sharing economy (Uber, Lyft, AirBnB, Facebook) to point out that these are not organizations to share and help people help each other. Rather they are unregulated capitalist organizations only interested in making money for the companies and investors.

Overall, a very discouraging book.

Interestingly, after an entire book dedicated to changing a system that is rigged for the fossil fuel industry, the book ends with a call to action to use public transit and reusable bags…actions (diversions?) that do not change the system that has been shown to be destroying the planet.

If you understand the threat of climate change, this book will terrify you by showing how the system is rigged in favor of short-term profits for the fossil fuel industry. It also offers some hope that the millennials might make a difference, but the possibly too late for much of the world.

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