Review: The Spirit of '76: From Politics to Technology, the Year America Went Rock & Roll

The Spirit of '76: From Politics to Technology, the Year America Went Rock & Roll by David Browne
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A very short look at the year 1976. It was the year of Rocky Balboa, the election of Jimmy Carter, the beginning of Apple Computer, and the year that Saturday Night Live went from a late-night lampoon show to an award-winning icon of late-night television. The author finely weaves all of these iconic moments in history into a nice overview of the mid-70s.

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Review: Black Pearls: Blues Queens of the 1920s

Black Pearls: Blues Queens of the 1920s by Daphne Duval Harrison
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Black Pearls cover the blues scene of the 1920s and specifically follows the careers of notables Sippie Wallace, Victoria Spivey, Edith Wilson, and Alberta Hunter. Each woman had her own style from the strong seductive voice of Sippie Wallace who was known as the "Texas Nightingale" to the high pitched moans and groans of Victoria "Vickie" Spivey. The author does a fine job of analyzing these careers and each woman's specific songs and style. An interesting read for the music lover of blues.

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Review: The Pirate

The Pirate by Harold Schechter
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a short story about the true-crime of Albert Hicks, a man who boarded a sloop in 1860 off the coast of New York and killed the captain and two mates before robbing them and sneaking via a lifeboat in the early morning. The story follows the gruesome discovery of the ship, the capturing and trial of Hicks and the outcome of his sentencing. Schechter is well known for his true crime stories.

This is a quick read and is great to read as a "Kindle in Motion" that should be read via the Kindle app on an iPad or Kindle Fire to check out the fun moving graphics.

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Review: Humanity: How Jimmy Carter Lost an Election and Transformed the Post-Presidency

Humanity: How Jimmy Carter Lost an Election and Transformed the Post-Presidency by Jordan Michael Smith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a great little book about Jimmy Carter's post-Presidency. Carter was one of the least favorite President's in our nation and yet during his post-Presidency he is much beloved. This book covers Carter's time from his landslide loss for a second-term through 2015. Carter certainly had issues as President. He left office basically destitute financially. While other past-Presidents of his era concentrated on making money by writing books and speaking across the nation, Carter concentrated on human rights, Habitat for Humanity, and working internationally toward peace. Smith does a very good job showing how the man went from being almost hated to being a Nobel Prize-winning humanitarian and beloved by Americans.

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Review: President Hanks

President Hanks by Jim Cullen
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A quick read about the career of Tom Hanks. The author tried to compare Hanks to Abraham Lincoln (who was a distant relative from Lincoln's mother's line) which I didn't think went over very well; however, it was a nice review of Hanks' movie career, including how he got started and how some films became iconic while others were panned.

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Review: We Should All Be Feminists

We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a short book of a TEDx talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on the subject of feminism. Adichie tackles the stereotype of a feminist from the 2nd wave era of the 60s and 70s and colors a modern picture of women and men who recognize that gender roles have changed. Although the gender gap has shrunk over the years, there is still a large disparity. Women are still often overlooked as inferior to their male counterparts. A feminist is not an angry, anti-male woman, but any person who recognizes that there should be equal rights for all people regardless of gender.

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Review: Counterfeit Justice: The Judicial Odyssey of Texas Freedwoman Azeline Hearne

Counterfeit Justice: The Judicial Odyssey of Texas Freedwoman Azeline Hearne by Dale Baum
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a very thorough look at the life of Azeline Hearne. Hearne was a freedwoman in Texas who, during the Reconstruction era endured years of lawsuits contesting the will and estate of her former slave owner, Samuel Hearne. Sam Hearne was not only Azeline's owner but her lover as well. They cohabitated during a time when miscegenation was highly frowned upon. They had several children but only one son lived to adulthood. Sam left his estate to his son Dock Hearne with the stipulation that he would support and care for his mother, Azeline, and should Dock precede Azeline in death, the estate would then be left to her.

That is indeed what happened as Dock died in his 30s from smallpox. In the years following the deaths of both men, Azeline was sued by Hearne's extended family and multiple men who all had designs on the Hearne estate, a prosperous cotton plantation in the Brazos River Valley of Texas. These suits were appealed all the way to the Texas Supreme Court. At one time, there were three suits pending with the higher court. The suits would sometimes end in Azeline's favor often being overturned against her. Her final effort was to sue her own lawyer who failed to make sure she was cared for and who also failed to file proper tax documents throughout the years.

Azeline's story is a sad one but one that shows the gumption that she had to persevere for what was intended to be hers and for the human rights of freedwomen in the Reconstruction era.

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Review: The Seneca Falls Convention: Working to Expand Women's Rights

The Seneca Falls Convention: Working to Expand Women's Rights by Deborah Kent
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a quick read on the background of the Seneca Falls Convention, the meeting that started the suffrage movement in the United States. This book is listed as more of a young adult's book, but I think it is perfect for the adult that knows little of the convention. This is a well written and concise book and one I'll use for reference.

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Review: Christmas with the Queen

Christmas with the Queen by Brian Hoey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a very short read that details the holiday traditions of Queen Elizabeth and the Royal Family. Written in 2014, the author covers the details of holiday preparations that start as early as Easter time to prepare for Christmas at Buckingham Palace and more specifically Sandringham, where the Queen spends time from early December until early February. There are many celebrations with family, friends, and staff and the Queen makes sure everyone has a good time and is recognized through gifts and time off.

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Review: A Christmas Memory, including One Christmas and The Thanksgiving Visitor

A Christmas Memory, including One Christmas and The Thanksgiving Visitor by Truman Capote
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is a set of three short stories by Truman Capote set during the holiday season. The stories include A Christmas Memory, One Christmas, and The Thanksgiving Visitor. They follow a young boy named Buddy and his relationship with cousin Miss Sook. These stories are somewhat autobiographical in nature and show the innocence of a young boy in the rural depression-era south. Buddy recalls fruitcake making time, a trip to visit his dad for Christmas, and a particular Thanksgiving day when their family had a visitor who needed some special understanding and forgiveness. These are great stories that can be read over and over during the holidays.

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Review: The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure

The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure by Jonathan Haidt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is an important read in today's society. This book is a look at the iGen generation that seems to be obsessed with technology and social media. The authors look at how ready access to news and social media affects attitudes and higher education. iGen students seem to be obsessed with protecting themselves against any other opinion than their own. They are less open to expanding their worldview and listening to opposing views to gain a broader understanding of today's society. This has led to students feeling "unsafe" when dealing with someone who does not share their views. Are they truly physically unsafe or are they just unable to process opposing views? Instead of engaging in open, civil debate or listening to gain understanding, students are sheltered and professors and administrators kowtow to students, offering special "safe spaces," firing faculty who simply exercise their first amendment right, or even canceling guest speakers whose views are not shared with the majority of students. In essence, the authors suggest that we are coddling America's youth and young adults, sheltering them to the point that they are unable to process opinions and ideas that they do not identify with.

The authors spend a lot of time discussing how technology and social media have affected current attitudes and lifestyles. Where once young kids would go out and play in the neighborhood, without constant adult supervision, they are today being watched by helicopter parents, suggesting that kids are being overprotected. Are we coddling the younger generations to the point that they are unable to psychologically handle uncomfortable positions? It is certainly worth thinking about and this book will open that discussion to consider if we are doing a disservice to our youth.

I think this is a must-read for parents, teachers, and faculty of higher education. These are the children that will one day rule our nation. How will they handle our future?

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Review: Sala's Gift: My Mother's Holocaust Story

Sala's Gift: My Mother's Holocaust Story by Ann Kirschner
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What a wonderful yet heartbreaking story. This is the biography of Sala Garncarz, a young Jewish woman from the Silesia region of Poland in the 1940s. The story is told by Sala's daughter who often asked her mother what her experience was like in Poland during World War II. Sala would refuse to discuss this time until she was much older and she knew that if she was going to tell her story to her family, it should be sooner than later.

The story is told through a series of letters that Sala wrote and received during the war, as well as through diary entries she made and kept. Sala was the youngest of the large Garncarz family. As the war began in Europe, each Jewish family in Sala's small town had to send a family member to work for "six weeks" in a Nazi-run labor camp. The dreaded letter came to the Garncarz family requiring Sala's sister Raizel to report for work. The only way out would be to pay up or bribe the officers, but the Garncarzs did not have the money. Raizel was the more frail and frantic daughter and Sala was a young, bright, and vivacious teen who stepped up to take Raizel's place. After all, it was only to be for six weeks. It was one of many lies the Nazis told. On the appointed day, Sala gathered her diary and a few postcards and was accompanied to the train station with her mother and some of her siblings. There she met Ala, a young woman who promised Sala's mother that she would look after the young girl as if she were her own.

What follows is the details of Sala's life in a series of labor camps. Many people know about the concentration camps, but few books have been written about the labor camps. These were the factories that the Nazis needed running to help provide provisions for the war. Most of the people in these labor camps fared far better than those sent to the death camps. Mail and parcels were mostly allowed in and out of the labor camps but were not to be kept. Sala risked her life to keep these letters hidden through several transfers and inspections. Over 300 letters survived. It is through this correspondence that we see into another aspect of Nazi rule and the atrocities that Jewish people faced during the war. This story is at times heartbreaking but it also shows the courage that many had to keep going in light of what was happening around them.

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Review: The Feminine Mystique

The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Feminine Mystique is the classic book that sparked a national discussion on women's roles and "the problem that has no name" in the 1960s. It became the bible for the second-wave of feminism. It was written in a post-war era when women were sent back home from the factories to concentrate on family and home and to be the dutiful wife in a paternalistic society. Women were expected to go to college to find a husband, not an education. Women who wanted a career were considered to have emotional issues. Mainstream society thought they were broken and that a good husband and children would fix their problems. Friedan calls out this way of thinking and challenges readers to consider that women, like men, may need more than home life.

It is now over fifty years since this book has been written. Women now regularly manage homes and careers. The idea of a family unit of a mother, father, and children are less the norm as we see more single-parent and same-sex parent families. It does not mean they are less a family, it just shatters the traditional roles that were the norm in a post-war era. Although the text was written for an audience in a much different time, the themes are still important in today's society. Women still have not seen an Equal Rights Amendment. We have the vote, but we are far from equal in the eyes of the law. We are still fighting an uphill battle. We still have not seen a woman in the executive office of the nation but the time is coming and I hope it is coming soon. This book is still worth the read to hopefully continue the conversation of equality and to continue chipping away at the glass ceiling.

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