Dark Money by Jane Mayer

July 17, 2018 by Christina

Nonfiction — Kindle edition. Anchor, 2016. 464 pgs. Library copy.  Subtitled “The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right”, Mayer expands on her 2010 article for The New Yorker on the Koch brothers’ “war against Obama” and follow how the Kochs and other billionaire families in the United States, including the family of the current Secretary of Education, have reshaped the political landscape of America through campaign financing. “Presidents might surround themselves with Secret Service agents […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Chunkster, Economics, Nonfiction, North America, United States • Tags: Jane Mayer

Talking to My Country by Stan Grant

July 15, 2018 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Scribe, 2016. 230 pgs. Purchased. Grant, an Australian television journalist for CNN and member of the Wiradjuri people, begins his memoir with three intriguing sentences: “These are the things I want to say to you. These things I have held inside or even worse run from. It is not easy, what I have to say, and it should not be easy.” These difficult things are centered around the historical and ongoing treatment of Aboriginal people in Australia. […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Nonfiction, Oceania, ReadDiverse • Tags: Stan Grant

The Sleepwalker by Chris Bohjalian

July 12, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — audiobook. Read by Cady McClain and Grace Experience. Random House Audio, 2017. 9 hours, 38 minutes. Library copy.  When Lianna Ahlberg awakens one morning at her parents’ home in Vermont and realizes her mother, Annalee, is missing, she immediately feels the worst because Annalee is a sleepwalker whose affliction causes her to wander out of the house and into dangerous situations. Once, Annalee sleepwalked right on to the ledge of the bridge over Gale River, requiring Lianna to pull […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Audiobook, Book Club, Crime, Fiction, New England, North America, United States • Tags: Cady McClain, Chris Bohjalian, Grace Experience

William — an Englishman by Cicely Hamilton

July 10, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — print. Persephone Books, 2014. Originally published 1919. 226 pgs. Purchased. In 1914, twenty-six year old William Tully, a Social Reformist living in England, marries Griselda the suffragette, and the two sojourn to Belgium for a month long honeymoon. Hoping to take a break from their political activism and enjoy their time together, William and Griselda instruct their friends and family not to write to them or send them English-language newspapers. Neither of them ever considered Europe would end […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Europe, Fiction, Persephone Books, United Kingdom • Tags: Cicely Hamilton

Under the Tripoli Sky by Kamal Ben Hameda

July 8, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — Kindle edition. Translated from the French by Adriana Hunter. Peirene Press, 2014. Originally published 2011. 128 pgs. Purchased.i In the 1960s, a young boy named Hadachinou moves between the public streets of Tripoli and the private spaces inhabited by his mother, her best friend, and other women of his acquaintance. His age and size means he isn’t viewed as a threat in Libya’s patriarchal society, allowing him to blend in and go unnoticed in female spaces. It also […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Africa, Feminism, Fiction, French, Peirene Press, ReadDiverse, Translated • Tags: Adriana Hunter, Kamal Ben Hameda

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

July 5, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — print. Candlewick Press, 2009. Originally published 2008. 479 pgs. Purchased. Soon after arriving on the New World, all the settlers were infected with the Noise germ, allowing them to hear everything each other thinks. As the last remaining boy in a town full of men, Todd Hewitt isn’t allowed to converse with those who have become men, and he longs for the day he can become a man and join the ranks of those living in Prentisstown. “Everything on […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Book Club, Chunkster, Dystopia, Science Fiction, Young Adult • Tags: Patrick Ness

The Silver Lady by James Facos

July 3, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — print. Pocket Books, 1973. Originally published 1972. 254 pgs. Borrowed from my dad. In March 1944, ten American men are assembled together at a military base in England to serve as the crew piloting The Silver Lady during aerial bombing runs over France and Germany. The men are led by Lieutenant William Starrett, whose belief in comradely and cohesion is tested by the presence of two gunners, Sgt. Mitch Hagen and Sgt. Tom Wyatt.  Neither man is willing to […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Europe, Fiction, United Kingdom • Tags: James Facos

What Happened by Hillary Rodham Clinton

July 1, 2018 by Christina

Nonfiction — Kindle edition. Simon & Schuster, 2017. 512 pgs. Library copy. Hillary Clinton received three million more votes than her opponent — a man who was vulgar, violent, and unqualified to be President of the United States — in the 2016 Presidential Election. Yet he won the 70,000 or so votes in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois needed to win the Electoral College, and Donald Trump became the 45th President of the United States. So what happened? At this point […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Chunkster, Feminism, Nonfiction, North America, United States • Tags: Hillary Rodham Clinton

Offshore by Madeline Gleeson

June 28, 2018 by Christina

Nonfiction – Kindle edition. NewSouth, 2016. 352 pgs. Purchased. Subtitled “Behind the Wire on Manus and Nauru”, Gleeson’s book examines Australia’s policy of offshore processing for migrants and asylum seekers. Since 2012, Australia has taken the policy that any person who arrives via boat seeking refugee in Australia will be denied the right to settle. The policy is meant to stop risky travel by boat through the Banda and Timor Seas as well as cut into the profits of smugglers […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Awards and Prizes, Nonfiction, Oceania, Stella Prize • Tags: Madeline Gleeson