Title: On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
Author: Timothy Snyder
Genre: Nonfiction; History; Politics
Goodreads Rating: 4.44/ 5 stars
Pages: 128 ( Paperback )
Publisher: Tim Duggan Books
Published: March 28, 2017
Summary: An historian of fascism offers a guide for surviving and resisting America’s turn towards authoritarianism.
On November 9th, millions of Americans woke up to the impossible: the election of Donald Trump as president. Against all predictions, one of the most-disliked presidential candidates in history had swept the electoral college, elevating a man with open contempt for democratic norms and institutions to the height of power.
Timothy Snyder is one of the most celebrated historians of the Holocaust. In his books Bloodlands and Black Earth, he has carefully dissected the events and values that enabled the rise of Hitler and Stalin and the execution of their catastrophic policies. With Twenty Lessons, Snyder draws from the darkest hours of the twentieth century to provide hope for the twenty-first. As he writes, “Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism and communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience.”
Twenty Lessons is a call to arms and a guide to resistance, with invaluable ideas for how we can preserve our freedoms in the uncertain years to come.
Corruption has and always will be a part of human civilization, however the "new" corruption that has been brought to light and is now brewing in Washington D.C. cannot go unchecked. I'm incredibly interested to see what Snyder's thoughts and recommendations are for this current political climate, and how to not stand by idly and allow the "unthinkable" to happen.
Title: The Godfather
Author: Mario Puzo
Series: Mario Puzo's Mafia
Genre: Mystery; Crime; Thriller; Historical Fiction; Classics; Drama
Goodreads Rating: 4.36/ 5 stars
Pages: 433 ( Paperback )
Publisher: Berkley Books
Published: 2002 ( Original Publication: 1969)
Summary: The Godfather—the epic tale of crime and betrayal that became a global phenomenon.
Almost fifty years ago, a classic was born. A searing portrayal of the Mafia underworld, The Godfather introduced readers to the first family of American crime fiction, the Corleones, and their powerful legacy of tradition, blood, and honor. The seduction of power, the pitfalls of greed, and the allegiance to family—these are the themes that have resonated with millions of readers around the world and made The Godfather the definitive novel of the violent subculture that, steeped in intrigue and controversy, remains indelibly etched in our collective consciousness.
Puzo's The Godfather has been on my TBR (To Be Read) list for years now, so I'm happy to finally have it on my shelves.
Title: Three Sisters, Three Queens
Author: Philippa Gregory
Series: The Plantagenet and Tudor Novels #8
Genre: Historical Fiction; Fiction; Tudor Period
Goodreads Rating: 3.74/ 5 stars
Pages: 592 ( Paperback )
Publisher: Touchstone Books
Published: February 21, 2017 (Original Publication: August 9, 2016)
Summary: From #1 New York Times bestselling author Philippa Gregory, the little-known story of three Tudor women who are united in sisterhood and yet compelled to be rivals when they fulfill their destinies as queens.
As sisters they share an everlasting bond; as queens they can break each other’s hearts…
When Katherine of Aragon is brought to the Tudor court as a young bride, the oldest princess, Margaret, takes her measure. With one look, each knows the other for a rival, an ally, a pawn, destined—with Margaret’s younger sister Mary—to a unique sisterhood. The three sisters will become the queens of England, Scotland, and France.
United by family loyalties and affections, the three queens find themselves set against each other. Katherine commands an army against Margaret and kills her husband James IV of Scotland. But Margaret’s boy becomes heir to the Tudor throne when Katherine loses her son.
Mary steals the widowed Margaret’s proposed husband, but when Mary is widowed it is her secret marriage for love that is the envy of the others. As they experience betrayals, dangers, loss, and passion, the three sisters find that the only constant in their perilous lives is their special bond, more powerful than any man, even a king.
I'm finding it more and more difficult to not pick up Gregory's books. She's far too engaging to say "no" to.
Title: All the Light We Cannot See
Author: Anthony Doerr
Genre: Historical Fiction; Fiction; War; WWII
Goodreads Rating: 4.31/ 5 stars
Pages: 530 ( Paperback )
Publisher: Scribner Books
Published: November 4, 2014 (Original Publication: May 6, 2014)
Summary: Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.
In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge.
All the Light We Cannot See has been on my TBR list for a while, but I wanted to wait until the book was available in paperback format; because I like to keep up with the primarily paperback aesthetic of my shelves.
Title: Housekeeping
Author: Marilynne Robinson
Genre: Fiction; Literature; Contemporary; Classics
Goodreads Rating: 3.82/ 5 stars
Pages: 219 ( Paperback )
Publisher: Picador
Published: November 1, 2004 (Original Publication: 1980)
Summary: A modern classic, Housekeeping is the story of Ruth and her younger sister, Lucille, who grow up haphazardly, first under the care of their competent grandmother, then of two comically bumbling great-aunts, and finally of Sylvie, their eccentric and remote aunt. The family house is in the small Far West town of Fingerbone set on a glacial lake, the same lake where their grandfather died in a spectacular train wreck, and their mother drove off a cliff to her death. It is a town "chastened by an outsized landscape and extravagant weather, and chastened again by an awareness that the whole of human history had occurred elsewhere." Ruth and Lucille's struggle toward adulthood beautifully illuminates the price of loss and survival, and the dangerous and deep undertow of transience.
Almost fifty years ago, a classic was born. A searing portrayal of the Mafia underworld, The Godfather introduced readers to the first family of American crime fiction, the Corleones, and their powerful legacy of tradition, blood, and honor. The seduction of power, the pitfalls of greed, and the allegiance to family—these are the themes that have resonated with millions of readers around the world and made The Godfather the definitive novel of the violent subculture that, steeped in intrigue and controversy, remains indelibly etched in our collective consciousness.
Puzo's The Godfather has been on my TBR (To Be Read) list for years now, so I'm happy to finally have it on my shelves.
Title: Three Sisters, Three Queens
Author: Philippa Gregory
Series: The Plantagenet and Tudor Novels #8
Genre: Historical Fiction; Fiction; Tudor Period
Goodreads Rating: 3.74/ 5 stars
Pages: 592 ( Paperback )
Publisher: Touchstone Books
Published: February 21, 2017 (Original Publication: August 9, 2016)
Summary: From #1 New York Times bestselling author Philippa Gregory, the little-known story of three Tudor women who are united in sisterhood and yet compelled to be rivals when they fulfill their destinies as queens.
As sisters they share an everlasting bond; as queens they can break each other’s hearts…
When Katherine of Aragon is brought to the Tudor court as a young bride, the oldest princess, Margaret, takes her measure. With one look, each knows the other for a rival, an ally, a pawn, destined—with Margaret’s younger sister Mary—to a unique sisterhood. The three sisters will become the queens of England, Scotland, and France.
United by family loyalties and affections, the three queens find themselves set against each other. Katherine commands an army against Margaret and kills her husband James IV of Scotland. But Margaret’s boy becomes heir to the Tudor throne when Katherine loses her son.
Mary steals the widowed Margaret’s proposed husband, but when Mary is widowed it is her secret marriage for love that is the envy of the others. As they experience betrayals, dangers, loss, and passion, the three sisters find that the only constant in their perilous lives is their special bond, more powerful than any man, even a king.
I'm finding it more and more difficult to not pick up Gregory's books. She's far too engaging to say "no" to.
Title: All the Light We Cannot See
Author: Anthony Doerr
Genre: Historical Fiction; Fiction; War; WWII
Goodreads Rating: 4.31/ 5 stars
Pages: 530 ( Paperback )
Publisher: Scribner Books
Published: November 4, 2014 (Original Publication: May 6, 2014)
Summary: Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.
In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge.
All the Light We Cannot See has been on my TBR list for a while, but I wanted to wait until the book was available in paperback format; because I like to keep up with the primarily paperback aesthetic of my shelves.
Title: Housekeeping
Author: Marilynne Robinson
Genre: Fiction; Literature; Contemporary; Classics
Goodreads Rating: 3.82/ 5 stars
Pages: 219 ( Paperback )
Publisher: Picador
Published: November 1, 2004 (Original Publication: 1980)
Summary: A modern classic, Housekeeping is the story of Ruth and her younger sister, Lucille, who grow up haphazardly, first under the care of their competent grandmother, then of two comically bumbling great-aunts, and finally of Sylvie, their eccentric and remote aunt. The family house is in the small Far West town of Fingerbone set on a glacial lake, the same lake where their grandfather died in a spectacular train wreck, and their mother drove off a cliff to her death. It is a town "chastened by an outsized landscape and extravagant weather, and chastened again by an awareness that the whole of human history had occurred elsewhere." Ruth and Lucille's struggle toward adulthood beautifully illuminates the price of loss and survival, and the dangerous and deep undertow of transience.
Robinson got me hooked on her writing when I read her novel, Gilead. Her writing acts as a wonderful compass to travel through life with.
Let me know if you spotted any favorites or any books that you've been looking forward to reading.
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