The Thirty Years' War, C.V. Wedgwood

It feels silly to say that a book about the 30 Years War was a bit confusing and the endless list of battles was pointless; that is the essence of the 30 Years War and why it's so difficult to understand or teach. This book does a great job when it settles down to talk about social history, the impact of the battles the economics of the battles, or the people involved in the battles. I got a lot of great information about Richelieu and Gustavus Adolphus and I can finally remember which one was Frederick and which two were Ferdinand. But my eyes did glaze over at some of the endless chapters about battles that went nowhere and accomplished nothing.

Grade: B
#42 in 2017

Story Genius: How to Use Brain Science to Go Beyond Outlining and Write a Riveting Novel (Before You Waste Three Years Writing 327 Pages That Go Nowhere), Lisa Cron

I think that ridiculous title is pretty indicative of how I felt about this book. There is good, solid advice in here, and a lot of the writing advice is very helpful. I've been plotting out a novel (because I can't watch the news or I'll lose my mind) and this was a good way to organize it and think about it. But the tone of the book was nails on a chalkboard for me. Other people may enjoy it. It's certainly upbeat and supportive. But it also felt like a manic pixie dream girl was trying to explain to me how how dreams are made, and I didn't find a lot of the sample writing sections very helpful. I didn't need most of the beginning to tell me that human brains like stories or why. I ended up skimming a lot of the end, rolling my eyes and sighing loudly.

Grade: usefulness is a B, tone is a D, let's even it out at a C
#40 in 2017

Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World through Islamic Eyes, Tamim Ansary

This book is PHENOMENAL. Read it RIGHT NOW.

I would HIGHLY recommend it to anyone, especially if you've got any interest in current events (or history), but even if that's not normally your thing. The writing is exceptionally clear, and it covers topics you may have heard here and there, but puts them into context and makes sense of huge swaths of history normally dismissed in a sentence or two in Western history books. It also does a wonderful and even-handed job of explaining how the modern middle east came to be the way it is, and how the current world climate of distrust between the West and Muslim countries came to be the way it is. I got this copy from the library but have already purchased a paperback copy because I'll need to read it again and use it for reference. I have also already used it in all the world history classes I teach.

Grade: A
#24 in 2017

Song of Spider-Man: The Inside Story of the Most Controversial Musical in Broadway History, Glen Berger

There is a lot of good juicy gossip and interesting stories here. But the writing is frenetic, for lack of a better word. Lots of shouting, lots of italics, eight ellipses in just the short first chapter... It's overwhelming. It reads like Glen Berger wrote this book while on a Red Bull bender, desperate to tell you everything that happened. Nearly every chapter ends with a foreboding "We thought it was going well... Little did we know!!!!" that would be better used sparingly. But while that can all be sort of irritating, it's compulsively readable.

I spend all day telling students to think about bias in documents; intended audience, purpose, and point of view. This book goes out of its way to be grovelingly apologetic about how badly everything was screwed up in Spider-Man. Everything that goes wrong is because of Julie Taymor, because no one could listen, because the author was craven! was an idiot! was too stupid to see!!! It all gets to be a lot after a while. I would have liked him to stand behind the thing he spent years and years writing, instead of constantly trying to paint himself as an apologetic idiot, and Julie Taymor as a genius-monster. It's just so much editorializing that it left me wondering... but what would Julie say about all this?

Grade: B
#13 in 2017

The Midnight Assassin: Panic, Scandal, and the Hunt for America's First Serial Killer, Skip Hollandsworth

This book is fine, but it reads like it wants badly to be The Devil in the White City. It's never gripping enough, the murders are never horrifying enough, and the fact that no one was ever caught or even really suspected leads the author to speculate wildly with no conclusions. The writing is a little bit weak. The sheriff realizes his deputy is "about as deep as one of those tacks on the board," -- no, he didn't. It's not as bad as the thing I hate most in historical non-fiction; made up conversations between characters. But man, it's not great, either. The author wants so badly for this to be fascinating and keeps dragging Jack the Ripper into the story for comparison (he was only a couple of years later) but frankly, I wasn't convinced by the evidence presented that the "Midnight Assassin" killings were all done by the same person, let alone by a serial killer, and certainly not by Jack the Ripper. Just go read The Devil in the White City (and then try to sleep, ever again). Grade: C #3 in 2017

The Victorian City: Everyday Life in Dickens' London, Judith Flanders

This makes me want to reread Dickens, which is HIGH PRAISE because I hated Dickens in high school (except A Tale of Two Cities. I looooved me some Sidney Carton). But this book is FASCINATING. There are chapters on everything, from how sewer systems worked before the Great Stink, to what street sellers shouted as they sold stuff, to what prostitutes wore (fun fact: we're not sure!). This is a fun book, and there's a lot of great stuff here to excitedly tell people as you're reading.

For example, I just turned to my roommate and said, "So it turns out no one was sure who were the prostitutes and who weren't in London; all the records are from men who were like THERE ARE SO MANY PROSTITUTES ON THE STREETS," by which they mostly meant women who were out in public or maybe looked at them in what they considered a friendly way. It's hilariously ridiculous. Also, because the prostitutes allegedly dressed so brightly, they were known as "gay women," and the streets were just FILLED with gay women. I'll be honest -- that sounds great.

On the other hand, huge amounts of the chapters are just listing things; 74 kinds of street sellers, 93 things for sale for breakfast, the cost of 112 different rolls. I'm kidding, but not really. It gets exhausting, which is why it took me so long to get through the whole book.

Grade: B
#94 in 2016

Book Recommendations: Non Fiction and History

I've been asked a few times for my best history/non-fiction book recs, so here are some I have loved. Nearly all of these are written for a popular history audience, not a specialist, so they're plotted or paced almost like novels. These are books that will make you turn to whoever is sitting next to you and go, "Oh my god, did you know--" until they give up and leave the room. 

I'll also label them "long" or "short" for how long it'll take you to read them. ...keep in mind that I read a lot, and all the time, so my "short" might not be yours.

If you're looking for something exciting action adventure-y:
A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal
This cold war spy book reads like a novel -- and it should, since Graham Greene is one of the men involved. Once you get into this one you won't be able to put it down. (medium)

Warriors of God: Richard the Lionheart and Saladin in the Third Crusade
This is about the crusades, and it's a little bit drier, but it's awesome. It's either what Kingdom of Heaven was based on, or they're both using the same primary sources, the difference being that Orlando Bloom's character should have been an old grizzled dude. I've used this book (excerpts) in class with 9th graders, and they loved it. Los of set up, lots of "oh my god, WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT??" Also: some great gossip about Richard the Lionheart. (longish)

Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World
This! Is! So! Exciting!! Genghis Khan's actual life feels like you're watching an awesome, epic movie about a badass warrior with surprisingly enlightened views. Compulsively readable. The sequel has been in my to-read list for... literal years. (shortish)


Something kind of creepy or mysterious:
The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic -- and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World
Such a cool book. Did you know that germs travel through contaminated water? Well, people sure didn't before - not kidding -- John Snow proved that they did through tireless work. Cholera was wiping out whole neighborhoods, and no one else connected it to the water supply. Sounds kind of boring, but how he put it together is a page-turning read. (Shortish)

The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime
A nice case-by-case history of murder in Victorian England, how it was discussed at the time, and how the Victorians were obsessed with death. If you like true-crime TV or watching Criminal Minds, you'll love this. (Medium)

The Dead Duke, His Secret Wife, and the Missing Corpse: An Extraordinary Edwardian Case of Deception and Intrigue
This book is BANANAS. I'm not going to tell you anything here except the title. Look at that title! Read this book! (shortish)

Something packed full of information that will honestly just blow your mind:

Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth
As a Jewish atheist, I can whole-heartedly recommend this book whether you're a practicing Christian or have no particular feelings about God. This is an incredibly well-researched biography of Jesus the man, placing him in the right time and place, and explaining the social, political, and economic issues of his day and how we see those things reflected in the Bible. Does it sound dry? It's fascinating. (medium)

Wide as the Waters: The Story of the English Bible and the Revolution it Inspired
For a long time it was illegal to translate the Bible into English, and people were killed for attempting it. Then King James approved it, and we got the King James version. You won't believe how many every day and common expressions come from this ranslation, or how profound its impact was on history. (Medium)

Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World
Okay. This is a dense, dense book. I've read it twice, but I'll probably read it again and go, "Wait, what?" a few more times. If you like military history, or American history (not my favorite) then this book is amazing. But keep in mind, I brought Postwar with me to the beach in Hawaii one vacation. It's all the decisions that were made after World War I -- and I do mean all -- and how they happened. The personalities involved, the negotiations, the back stabbing and double dealing. It's very readable, but also very long. Personally, I love how it's broken down by continent, so you see how WWI affected Europe, Asia, and other places. (Long. The Longest.)

She-Wolves: The Women who ruled England before Elizabeth
FASCINATING. There were so many women who NEARLY got to be the Queen of England before Elizabeth. They ruled through their sons, their husbands, their claims on the throne that were almost but somehow not quite legitemate enough. This book makes medieval military history feel fresh and exciting, like you're watching a war movie, and its thesis -- that these bad ass women deserve more attention -- is thoroughly persuasive. (Medium)

Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar

I've read a ton of Roman history, and this is by far the clearest and most readable. Amazingly clear, exciting, well-explained history of the Caesars, and all the unbelievably crazy shit they got up to -- even the "good" ones. Reads like a novel, un-put-down-able. (Medium)

BONUS: Science books!
What if? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions 

This is hilarious and fascinating and wonderful. It's by the guy who writes XKCD. Just awesome. 

A Short History of Nearly Everything
Have you read this? Go read this! Especially the part about the Yellowstone volcano. It will scare you so fucking much. It ranges from hilarious to amazing to fascinating to shocking science explanations. Bryson is always wonderfully readable. I love this book. (Medium)

T-Rex and the Crater of Doom
How do we know that the dinosaurs were killed by a meteor? Well, the author of this book is the guy who proved it. Short, fascinating, and with a first chapter that will knock your socks off (and wipe life off the planet. (Short)

Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void, Mary Roach

I liked this book a lot. Super interesting history of NASA stuff, super interesting anecdotes about astronauts and how gross, boring, and insane their job actually is. There is some stuff about weightless sex and designing space toilets that was both hilarious and horrible, and will stick with me for a long, long time. It's hard to find an excuse to bring it up in a conversation, but I have been trying. I found the tone here a little less wry than in Gulp, and the footnotes less intrusively cutesy. Great, great book; I would recommend it to my students or my friends who just want some interesting and weird science writing.

Oh, and it reminded me how much I like the romance novel series set at not-really-NASA in the 60s. Check them out!

Grade: A
#79 in 2016

Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal, Mary Roach

I love humorous science writing. This isn't quite on par, with, for example, Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams, but it's super interesting and enjoyable. Even the gross parts -- and this book, which is all about food, where it comes from, how it gets into you, how it comes out of you, people who have died from interesting and strange food-related problems... It was weird to read the chapter about saliva while I was eating lunch, for example. But interesting! Definitely a book where you want to tell people all the interesting things you read. The book was sliiiightly more sassily commenting on the science and scientists than I wanted it to be -- I genuinely think anything can be cool and interesting, and I didn't need the slight ironic detachment, I guess?

The footnotes, while usually funny or interesting, are a little awkward on a kindle, jumping back and forth. It's a dumb little complaint, but it made the book about 3% more irritating than it should have been. Oh well.

Grade: B
#77 in 2016

Buffering: Unshared Tales of a Life Fully Loaded, Hannah Hart

Boy, I love Hannah Hart. There was a point when, after a few hours of watching her videos, I realized I was talking about her like she was my latest crush. Then I realized that she was my latest crush, and needed a minute while the whole world realigned itself a little. Anyway, I loved her goofy, very sweet cookbook so I pre-ordered her autobiography.

I am... not sure I can recommend this book. It's interesting and well-written, but it's the farthest thing from a light hearted, fun read.

A lot of the book is about Hannah's mother, who is schizophrenic, and was unable to really care for her daughters because of it. Hannah's younger sister was taken away by Child Protective Services. Hannah's father, who left and remarried, is a Jehova's Witness who disapproves of homosexuality. Hannah talks candidly about depression, self-harm, and growing up in a home that didn't have electricity or running water from time to time.

There are funny and charming stories here, and Hannah is almost always upbeat and positive about even the worst of her experiences. But I was so sad and upset reading about the things she has overcome that I wasn't sure I'd make it to the end of the book. I think what she really wanted to write was a book about our broken American mental health system, and her personal experiences trying to help her mother, and so the stories about YouTube and living in Japan are just sort of sprinkled on top.

Definitely check it out if you're interested, but don't mistake this for vacation reading or something fun to tell your friends about.

Grade: B
#74 in 2016

Party of One: A Memoir in 21 Songs, Dave Holmes

Go read this! It's hilarious and heart breaking, and you will want to read every part of it out loud to whoever is closest to you at the time. Dave manages to be very, very funny, while also reminding you of the crushing pain of being gay in the late 80s and early 90s, before being out and proud was really a thing for kids, especially at Catholic school. And he does it all to a mixtape of songs of the era that made me incredibly nostalgic. I'm a few years younger, but that just means I a) know all the songs and b) voted for him in Who Wants To Be A VJ on MTV, because TRL was requirement viewing for me after school, every single day, no matter how much I hated Korn and Limp Bizkit. My sister remembers my outrage during the trivia contest, shouting, "WHY AREN'T PEOPLE VOTING FOR THE SMART NERD WHO KNOWS STUFF???" when Jesse Camp inevitably won.

This book is a delight. You will feel all the feelings reading it, and you will want to tell these stories as if they were your own.

Grade: A
#73 in 2016

Kanye West Owes Me $300: & Other True Stories From A White Rapper Who Almost Made It Big, Jensen Karp

I ran into Jensen Karp because I listened to his Bachelor podcast (now defunct) although I guess I should have run into him 10 years ago when I was paying a lot of attention to Pete Wentz. (Let's be serious: I was/am always paying more attention to Patrick Stump.)

So this is the story all about how his life got flipped -- turned upside-down. Sorry. I'll stop. In college Karp used his obsession with rap and rap battles to become a famous rap-battler on local L.A. radio, which led to a music deal with Interscope, which was eventually shelved because Interscope also represented Eminem and seemed to feel they could only promote one white rapper.

The joy of the book is all the run-ins he had with famous people, and since we're about the same age, I loved all his stories. I want to hear about pre-fame Kanye, and Sisqo, and Fred Durst, and Mark McGrath, and the Justin-Britney dance-off, and Suge Knight. I was obsessed with a lot of the same pop-culture Karp was, only he met all these people and I was in college watching TRL.

The flip side is that Karp didn't deal well with losing out on fame; he was already depressed because of his parents' divorce and his father's cancer, and the end of the book is a little bit emotionally brutal. As a reader, it feels like he never totally believed his rap career was going to happen (the lyrics he includes are always jokey) and when it fizzled out he just collapsed. But I get it -- I've queried a novel, gotten great feedback and talked to editors and agents, and then had them say, "Oh, you know what, this just isn't... quite... Good luck in the future!" and then collapsed in on myself and wanted to go hide for months and/or years. I'm delicate, and it's hard. And I didn't even have a pen name that's an awkward sex act from urban dictionary.

I highly recommend this book if you want some great stories about the rap scene in the early 2000s, or if you want a rise-and-fall fame story that won't crush your soul forever (just make you a little sad). I just wish he'd explained how he met Pete Wentz.

Grade: B
#70 in 2016

A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal, Ben Macintyre

Then I took like, 2 weeks off from reading because I'm on vacation and it's the Olympics, whoops. Also, in my defense, this book is non-fiction, and it took me a while to get going with it.

But once I did, my god. someone recommended this to me as vacation reading and I strongly agree. If you like thrillers or spy movies you should take this book to a beach and read the whole thing in a couple of days, under an umbrella with a drink in hand. It's the true-life story of the Russia mole inside MI6 in the UK during WWII and the early Cold War, the man who was simultaneously reporting everything to the Kremlin and running the anti-Soviet counterspy division. The number of ways he was almost turned in, the way he totally duped people, the close calls -- all of these things would seem insane if this were a movie, but they all really happened.

Halfway through the book MI5 begin to suspect him, but that is only halfway through the book! Things continue to escalate in ways that should be outlandish, and are totally real. You will find yourself turning to whomever is sitting closest to you and shouting, "AND THEN, YOU WON'T BELIEVE THIS PART, AND THEN--"

If I had a criticism, I would have liked to have the parts about James Angleton and the CIA more fleshed out, but otherwise, this was a literal page turner. ...except I read it on a kindle, so I guess it was a literal virtual page turner.

Grade: A
#66 in 2016

How to Fight Presidents: Defending Yourself Against the Badasses Who Ran This Country, Daniel O'Brien

This is history by one of the main guys over at Cracked (go listen to the Cracked podcast, it's awesome). It's both well-researched and funny, and if it weren't quite so full of swear words I would give it to my students. Some of the jokes get a little repetitive, but I also laughed out loud at several of the chapters. Perfect vacation reading, if you happen to be a nerd (which I am, obviously).

Grade: A
#63 in 2016

The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime, Judith Flanders

This book was awesome. It covers all the different waves of crime in Victorian England, how they were covered by the media then, how they were popularized, how different types of crimes and criminals were seen (and glorified or turned into boogey men), and the impact on laws and the legal system. It's incredibly interesting, and the footnotes are hilarious. If the title makes this topic sound even vaguely interesting, you should pick this up. Loved it.

Grade: A
#62 in 2016

Popular Crime: Reflections on the Celebration of Violence, Bill James

I love true crime stuff, and I love baseball, so when I learned that Bill James (the guy who invented the theory behind moneyball) had written a true crime book I knew I was going to read it. And there are several sections where he attempts to say, "Okay, if it requires 100 points to convict someone, this evidence should be about 30 points, and this evidence should only be 5, and we shouldn't include this kind of evidence at all." It's hilariously Bill James-ian, trying to quantify the legal system in that way. Make stats! Find averages! Set up a system!

So about 2/3 of the book is about different crimes, from very early crimes in New York when the US was brand new, through to discussions of cases like the JonBenet Ramsey case and OJ Simpson. He does a great job of describing what happened without getting gory or too excited about the gross details. He attempts to explain why he thinks various people are innocent or guilty. (Lizzie Borden: not guilty. The guy who confessed to being the Boston Strangler: not guilty of most of it.) He also talks a lot about why "true crime" is considered so lurid and such a waste of our time, and so destructive to our morality. He argues in favor of true crime reporting, books, and even TV movies if they're well done. And at the end he has a list of 100 best true crime books. I'm going to check out a bunch.

The other 1/3 is, frankly, weird. Every few chapters James stops to tell us, the audience, why the Warren Court was way too liberal and destroyed American society's ability to keep criminals in jail. Or he argues that Miranda Rights and giving suspects access to legal libraries created our super-sized industrial jail complex. He says he's not liberal or conservative on the issue, and he has a long, long, long explanation at the end about all the ways he'd reform prisons to make them places that would create good citizens ready to go out into the world, rather than locking them up forever. But his ideas about how to fix prisons seem, honestly, bananas. (24 person prisons? Tiny prisons on one floor of an office complex?) These chapters were interesting, but not at all persuasive, and you could skip them without losing much. They felt a little -- sorry Bill James, I swear I still love you -- Old Man Yells At Clouds.

Anyway. Excellent true crime stuff. I had to check the closets and make sure no murderers were lurking in them, but the book also made me laugh out loud.

Grade: B
#61 in 2016

The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets, Simon Singh

My favorite popular math writer is Simon Singh. He just makes it feel really understandable and accessible, even when he's writing a whole book on Fermat's Last Theorem. I took calculus in high school, and haven't thought much about math since then; I have only the vaguest idea what e or log mean anymore, I only vaguely ever understood limits and derivatives. But when I read his books I feel like I do, and that's awesome. He writes books that make me wish I'd taken math in college (and understood them).

This book doesn't have much math; he talks a lot about how smart all the Simpsons and Futurama writers are, how many math awards and papers they've published, and all the math jokes they've snuck into the shows. It's fun, it's a fast read, and there are math jokes scattered through it. I think this was a .99c kindle deal of the day a year ago, and I'm glad I bought it then.

Grade: B
#55 in 2016

Danubia: A Personal History of Habsburg Europe, Simon Winder

So on the one hand, I loved this book. The author is just plain old funny. He is wry and a often sarcastic, and there's a lot to mock about the poor Habsburgs, who had an empire but never really did much with it, and certainly weren't successful at much. In his introduction he promises to avoid talking about how one ethnic group is spicy, or another is cold, or another is always joyful and drinking, and I love that level of metacognition about history writing, especially when discussing Eastern Europe, where everyone is constantly trying to merge or differentiate themselves.

On the other hand, he constantly describes castles, or paintings, or suits of armor, or museum exhibits in a way that sounds hilarious, but I want to see it. There are almost no photographs, but the whole book is predicated on traveling from city to city and castle to castle. I spent a lot of time on my phone looking at google images, and it added a ton to the book. It needs both maps and photographs. Also, Winder talks about classical music as if we're all totally familiar with every Austrian (etc etc) composer. I like classical music, too, but it genuinely made me feel like he was condescending to me a little, and that made me like him less.

Grade: C
#54 in 2016

Ruthless: Scientology My Son David Miscavige, and Me, Ron Miscavige

I'm a little bit obsessed with Scientology.

If you know anything about Scientology (like if you've watched Going Clear, or read Going Clear) you can skip this book. Most of what Ron Miscavige says is just confirming stories other people told about Gold Base and his son David. If he didn't witness something personally, but it's a well-known rumor (like the infamous musical chairs interlude) he'll say, "I have no doubt that really happened, because I know my son." There's really no new information here about Scientology, and in fact, he doesn't really explain much about Scientology or its beliefs. For example, he throws out "I know this will anger many scientologists, but auditing is basically just talk-therapy as it has been practiced since the days of Freud," without really explaining any part of that sentence. I've read a thousand Scientology tell-all books, so I know that L. Ron Hubbard hated psychiatrists and Scientology treats considers them one of their top enemies. Without that context, though, I wonder how interesting this book is.

Honestly, Ron Miscavige seems more interested in telling us about his difficult first marriage and career as a musician, which takes up about half the book. Twenty-seven years in the Sea Org is boiled down to about 1/4 of the book, and the last part is about how terrible the policy of disconnection is, and what life has been like since he left Scientology. Interesting, but not the juicy memoir it could be.

If you want Scientology celebrity gossip and crazy stories, read Leah Remini's book, Troublemaker. If you want "holy shit, Scientology does WHAT?" stories, read Jenna Miscavige Hill's book, Beyond Belief. And if you're new to Scientology or want a well-researched overall story of Scientology, read Going Clear.

Grade: C
#42 in 2016

Wedlock The True Story of the Disastrous Marriage and Remarkable Divorce of Mary Eleanor Bowes, Countess of Strathmore, Wendy Moore

This is a weird one -- I loved this book, and also didn't finish it. The history is SO fascinating and juicy, and the plot has such twists and turns that I was on the edge of my seat. But there's a point about halfway through where the bad guy is winning, and some of the spousal abuse that happens is so incredibly terrible, and also historically accurate, that I just didn't want to pick it up again. Reading it felt like punishing myself. And it's history, so it really happened to someone, and it just made me sad.

Grade: DNF

2015