Happy New Year to all. After the holiday publishing doldrums, the pace is again picking up with new book releases. I apologize for not having a new review this week, but here’s the list of my nonfiction picks for the week. For next week, the buzz is about Spare, by the Duke of Sussex Prince Harry. Personally, I have zero interest in the British royalty, though any issues of racism that come up in the book could be interesting.
- Code Name Blue Wren: The True Story of America's Most Dangerous Female Spy--And the Sister She Betrayed, by Jim Popkin. The incredible true story of Ana Montes, the most damaging female spy in US history, drawing upon never-before-seen material and to be published upon her release from prison. For nearly 17 years, Montes succeeded in two high-stress jobs. By day, she was one of the government's top Cuba experts, a buttoned-down GS-14 with shockingly easy access to classified documents. By night, she was on the clock for Fidel Castro, listening to coded messages over shortwave radio, passing US secrets to handlers in local restaurants, and slipping into Havana wearing a wig. Montes didn't just deceive her country. Her betrayal was intensely personal. Her mercurial father was a former US Army Colonel. Her brother and sister-in-law were FBI Special Agents. And her only sister, Lucy, also worked her entire career for the Bureau. After more than two decades in federal prison, Montes will be freed in January 2023.
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Courage Under Fire: Under Siege and Outnumbered 58 to 1 on January 6, by Steven A. Sund. United States Capitol Police Chief Steven A. Sund's gripping personal account that takes readers inside the events leading up to January 6, and provides a detailed and harrowing minute-by-minute account of the attack on the US Capitol, which was valiantly defended in hand-to-hand combat by the US Capitol Police officers who found themselves outnumbered fifty-eight to one. Courage under Fire draws upon audio recordings, key documents, and government records as it traces Sund's extraordinary journey from his command post on January 6 to his explosive behind-closed-doors testimony before the January 6 committee. Few people realize just how close we came to seeing the Vice President, the Speaker of the House, and countless members of Congress beaten, maimed, or killed.
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Myth America: Historians Take On the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past, edited by Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer. The United States is in the grip of a crisis of bad history. Distortions of the past promoted in the conservative media have led large numbers of Americans to believe in fictions over facts, making constructive dialogue impossible and imperiling our democracy. An all-star team of historians push back against this misinformation. The contributors debunk narratives that portray the New Deal and Great Society as failures, immigrants as hostile invaders, and feminists as anti-family warriors—among numerous other partisan lies.
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Pharaohs of the Sun: The Rise and Fall of Tutankhamun's Dynasty, by Guy de la Bédoyère. For more than two centuries, Egypt was ruled by the most powerful, successful, and richest dynasty of kings in its long end epic history. They included the female king Hatshepsut, the warrior kings Thutmose III and Amenhotep II, the religious radical Akhenaten and his queen, Nefertiti, and most famously of all—for the wealth found in his tomb—the short-lived boy king, Tutankhamun. The power and riches of the Pharaohs of the 18th Dynasty came at enormous cost to Egypt's enemies—and to most of its people. This was an age of ruthless absolutism, exploitation, extravagance, brutality, and oppression in a culture where not only did Egypt plunder its neighbors, but Egyptian kings (and their people) robbed one another.
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Justice for Animals: Our Collective Responsibility, by Martha C. Nussbaum. From dolphins to crows, elephants to octopuses, Nussbaum examines the entire animal kingdom, showcasing the lives of animals with wonder, awe, and compassion to understand how we can create a world in which human beings are truly friends of animals, not exploiters or users. All animals should have a shot at flourishing in their own way. Humans have a collective duty to face and solve animal harm. An urgent call to action and a manual for change, Nussbaum’s groundbreaking theory directs politics and law to help us meet our ethical responsibilities as no book has done before.
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The Wandering Mind: What Medieval Monks Tell Us About Distraction, by Jamie Kreiner. Although we think of early monks as master concentrators, a life of mindfulness did not, in fact, come to them easily. As historian Jamie Kreiner demonstrates in The Wandering Mind, their attempts to stretch the mind out to God—to continuously contemplate the divine order and its ethical requirements—were all-consuming, and their battles against distraction were never-ending. Delving into the experiences of early Christian monks living in the Middle East, around the Mediterranean, and throughout Europe from 300 to 900 CE, Kreiner shows that these men and women were obsessed with distraction in ways that seem remarkably modern. At the same time, she suggests that our own obsession is remarkably medieval. Ancient Greek and Roman intellectuals had sometimes complained about distraction, but it was early Christian monks who waged an all-out war against it. The stakes could not have been higher: they saw distraction as a matter of life and death. Even though the world today is vastly different from the world of the early Middle Ages, we can still learn something about our own distractedness by looking closely at monks’ strenuous efforts to concentrate.
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High: A Journey Across the Himalaya, Through Pakistan, India, Bhutan, Nepal, and China, by Erika Fatland. Given my own journeys in India, Nepal and Tibet, books like this always interest me. The author, a Norwegian woman, invites us into close encounters with the many peoples of the region, and at the same time takes us on a dizzying journey at altitude through incredible landscapes and dramatic, unknown world histories - all the way to the most volatile human conflicts of our times.
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The Discovery of Pasta: A History in Ten Dishes, by Luca Cesari. What is Italy without pasta? Come to think of it, where would the rest of us be without this staple of global cuisine? The wheat-based dough first appeared in the Mediterranean in ancient times. Yet despite these remote beginnings, pasta wasn’t wedded to sauce until the nineteenth century. Once a special treat, it has been served everywhere from peasant homes to rustic taverns to royal tables, and its surprising past holds a mirror up to the changing fortunes of its makers. Full of mouthwatering recipes and outlandish anecdotes—from (literal) off-the-wall 1880s cooking techniques to spaghetti conveyer belts in 1940 and the international amatriciana scandal in 2021—Luca Cesari embarks on a tantalizing and edifying journey through time to detangle the heritage of this culinary classic.
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Have You Eaten Yet: Stories from Chinese Restaurants Around the World, by Cheuk Kwan. Author and filmmaker Cheuk Kwan, a self-described “card-carrying member of the Chinese diaspora,” weaves a global narrative by linking the myriad personal stories of chefs, entrepreneurs, laborers and dreamers who populate Chinese kitchens worldwide. Behind these kitchen doors lies an intriguing paradox which characterizes many of these communities: how Chinese immigrants have resisted—or have often been prevented from—complete assimilation into the social fabric of their new homes. In both instances, the engine of their economic survival—the Chinese restaurant and its food—has become seamlessly woven into towns and cities all around the world.
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Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life, by Dacher Keltner. Awe is mysterious. How do we begin to quantify the goose bumps we feel when we see the Grand Canyon, or the utter amazement when we watch a child walk for the first time? How do you put into words the collective effervescence of standing in a crowd and singing in unison, or the wonder you feel while gazing at centuries-old works of art? Up until fifteen years ago, there was no science of awe, the feeling we experience when we encounter vast mysteries that transcend our understanding of the world. Scientists were studying emotions like fear and disgust, emotions that seemed essential to human survival. Revolutionary thinking, though, has brought into focus how, through the span of evolution, we’ve met our most basic needs socially. We’ve survived thanks to our capacities to cooperate, form communities, and create culture that strengthens our sense of shared identity—actions that are sparked and spurred by awe.