Matthew Hart purports to answer all your questions about gold. Why does it have value? How is it mined? What is the historical significance of gold? Why should anyone own any? After dispensing with theft from contemporary South African mines and the history of gold rather briefly, the book devolves into two rather dense sections. First, is a jargon-rich explanation, best understood by fellow economists, for the gold standard that backed much of the world’s currencies until the 1970s. Second, is a tedious description of how a few ounces of gold are chemically extracted from tons of useless rock. Interspersed are some not very compelling travelogues to some of the world’s most interesting gold mines. Though it is presented only as a passing thought the inevitable conclusion is that gold’s value is currently no different than the value of a famous painting. It is worth only as much as someone who collects such things is willing to pay.
-
-
The Son by Philipp Meyer **** (of 4)
This history of Texas is told through the lives of four generations of the McCullough family. Eli, the patriarch, is captured by Comanches as an adolescent in the 1840s, and lives as an Indian for three years. Learning about Comanches as real people is as interesting as coming to understand, say, Kazahks, Bantus, or Serbs. These Comanches are conniving, jealous, courageous, jokesters trying to stave off white settlers with thoughtfulness, wisdom, and blunder. Eli’s son is neighbored by Mexicans, raises cattle, and begets generations who make it big in the Texas oil boom. To list the family tree, however, makes The Son feel like a tedious long biography. On the contrary, the stories of each generation are told concurrently with suspense and drama while the history of Texas bravado and hubris unfolds behind it. Bison are hunted to extinction, water is used to exhaustion, Mexicans are demolished and yet return, and the question of the McCullough’s self-selected prestige hangs in the balance. The audiobook performers are outstanding. -
The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown **** (of 4)
On the face of it an uplifting story of a group of eight hayseeds from Washington state who come together to become the world’s best rowing team. They stand for all that is good in America — hard work, optimism, rags-to-riches, democracy, talent, and above all a can-do attitude — when they compete for gold in Hitler’s 1936 Berlin Olympics. Brown’s writing is so evocative that you can feel the cold wind on Lake Washington during a late-fall practice, endure the doubt inside the mind of every student-rower anxious about paying for an upcoming semester during the height of the great depression, crane your neck watching a tight race, and in the end, when all goes right, fly on a boat with eight oarsmen working in perfect synchrony. You really do want these guys to beat the Nazis. -
All the Old Knives by Olen Steinhauer *** (of 4)
Henry and Celia were working for the CIA in Vienna when a hijacked plane landed and failure of international spy agencies to respond appropriately led to the death of everyone on board. Six years later the CIA is still trying to figure out what went wrong and Henry tracks down Celia before closing the books on the case. At the time of the hijacking Henry and Celia were lovers, spies, intelligence gatherers, in the midst of a frantic race to outsmart terrorists, and professional liars. Now, we watch as the two meet for dinner, both in search of a truth that has eluded them, and both playing all their spycraft skills at the table. -
Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson **** (of 4)
After a couple of decades of living in Britain, Bill Bryson decides to journey around the country one last time before moving with his family back to the U.S. He takes seven weeks to do a grand loop stopping in towns large and small to describe the British Isles of the early 90s with special attention to beer, architecture, and people, in that order. No doubt, the more you know of England the more you would appreciate his observations, but even without being able to fully appreciate the locales he was visiting, I was left with some rather wonderful impressions. Firstly, Bryson reminds one of the value of seeing the world at walking speed. That alone made me reevaluate the amount of daily energy I devote just to keeping up. Secondly, tied as I am to the natural world, I don’t pay nearly enough attention to the power of buildings as individuals or in their collective. Thirdly, this book is vintage early Bryson. He is so funny on so many occasions I laughed aloud as if I was the one who had consumed one too many brews. If you have a chance to listen to the audiobook. It’s a remarkable read aloud. -
Agent Zigzag by Ben McIntyre *** (of 4)
Prior to the outbreak of WWII, the British citizen Eddie Chapman spent his youth blowing safes and robbing banks. Passing in and out of jails, Chapman learned new techniques for thievery and when he wasn’t incarcerated, he fell in love, seriously in love, with a series of women. When war erupted, Chapman was languishing in a cell on the isle of Jersey which fell under Nazi occupation and after failing to escape a couple of times figured his best chance for freedom was to volunteer to become a Nazi spy, that is, a British citizen employed by the Nazis to spy on the British. A year or so later the Germans took him up on his offer, trained him, and air dropped him into Britain for the purpose of blowing up a British airplane factory. Chapman’s apparent success led him to become one of the most decorated Nazi spies in history, only soon after landing in England, he also because one of the most celebrated spies in the British secret service, where he acted as a double agent spying on the Nazis. Using newly released documents McIntyre uncovers a fascinating history of the spy war raging between Allied and Axis forces. -
The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny **** (of 4)
Sixteen monks live in an isolated Canadian monastery dedicated to Pure Gregorian Chant, God, and the obscure Saint Gilbert. Until there are fifteen monks because the Priar has his skull crushed. Inspector Gamache and his sidekick Jean-Guy Beauvoir are called to the northern waters and deep forests of Quebec to investigate their eighth mystery in this Louise Penny series. It is Penny’s best. Gamache and Beauvoir do waht they can to penetrate the silent, mysterious, centuries old abbey while the monks practice the same analysis on the inspectors of the Quebec Surete. The monks love chants, the chants mesmerize all who hear them, and questions arise: why are some men called to become solitary monks; others find solace in solving murderous crimes; a few succumb to their inner demons with murder; and some men turn away from music and can only find inner peace through drugs. This is a multi-layered novel that also performs what we so often want from a good mystery. Yes, we have suspense, but we also learn something. Here we are treated to the invention of music, the inner workings of a contemporary, if very remote monastery, and the simple beauty of Gregorian Chant. -
The Good Lord Bird by James McBride *** (of 4)
Of course I’ve heard of John Brown, the abolitionist, who tried to start an insurrection and free the slaves by himself. But, truth is, that is about all I knew of him until reading this fictionalized account of his life. The beautifully rendered narrator, who I suspect is the one truly fictional character in the book, is a young black boy nicknamed “The Onion.” Onion is freed from slavery by Brown in the 1850s and lives with John Brown’s army of abolitionist minded children, freed slaves, Indians, Jews, and spotty hangers-on. Only thing is John Brown mistakes Onion for a girl and thus Onion lives disguised as a girl for several years. It is not as strange as you think because survival for blacks under the dehumanizing burden of slavery required any possible ruse to avoid being worked to death (or worse) like a flea-infested mule. Onion portrays John Brown as a religious zealot of such ferocity as to be frighteningly fanatical. Yet, at the same time Brown was the one person in America to move beyond rhetoric regarding the savages of slavery to the very actions necessary required to undo the evil practice. While Brown’s attempts to overtake Osawatomie, Kansas and Harper’s Ferry, Virginia were folly, the Northern States were very soon to follow his example. -
The End of the Affair by Graham Greene ** (of 4)
Greene is supposed to be one of the great storytellers of our age, and this version read aloud by Colin Firth (pitter pat goes my heart) won two separate awards for audiobooks, but frankly, what a sleeper. Maurice Bendrix, just like the author, Graham Greene, has a torrid affair. In this version, she is disguised as Sarah Miles (though the book is dedicated to his real paramour), who is married to a British bore named Henry. The story reads like the Graham Greene’s fantasy. Anyway, back to the plot which plods along with great pain due to our protagonists insatiable jealousies. Then the book turns religious as most of the characters wrestle with their consciences, in great detail, over the existence of God. That might have been important in England in 1951 when second World War memories were still fresh and the book was recently published, but I can’t say it makes worthwhile reading today, unless you are a pro at mid-twentieth century Brit lit. -
11/22/63 by Stephen King *** (of 4)
The premise is a standard trope of science fiction: time travel. And each time the main character, Jake Epping, closes his eyes and taps with his toe in the back of a dark closet to find the rabbit hole that will transfer him from the year 2011 to 1963 you have to be much better than me at suspending disbelief and suppressing a giggle. Nevertheless, once you’ve cross the threshold, you will find yourself fully enveloped by Stephen King’s prodigious talents as a master story teller. Epping has the chance to go back in history and uses his opportunity to undo injustices he knows will be forthcoming. He saves a friend’s friend from a crippling hunting accident and protects a work colleague from a father so abusive that in the late 1950s the drunken father murders his wife and most of his children with a sledge hammer. Then Epping takes on Lee Harvey Oswald with the aim of preventing the assassination of JFK. The reader is asked to overlook the fact that Epping’s primary means of preventing bad stuff from happening is to murder criminals before they commit their acts. Hmmm. If you get that far, then you can wrestle with what additional impacts a change in the past will have on the future and whether it makes more sense to devote yourself to the woman you love or, because there really isn’t any other option in this book, protect President Kennedy and the future of the world.
