I fell behind my reading mark a little this year, on track to reading 35-40 books by the end of the year. Now, it's time to look back on my favorite reads of the year. As it turns out, my favorites all reflect a unique way of looking at things. Here they are, in no particular order.
Americanon: An Unexpected U.S. History In Thirteen Bestselling Books by Jess McHugh examines 13 bestselling American nonfiction books and their history and legacy. The books include the Old Farmer's Almanac, Noah Webster's Dictionary and Spellers, Emily Post's Etiquette, How to Win Friends and Influence People, The McGuffey Readers, Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography, Betty Crocker's Picture Cookbook, and Everything You Always Wanted Know About Sex. They each had a major impact on American culture when they were first published, and many are still printed, updated, and selling copies today. Each one has sold more copies over the years than the best selling novels in American history. (And many of them pass through multiple hands, especially Webster's and McGuffey's schoolbooks, exponentially increasing their reach and readership.) McHugh calls them "how-to" books because they were all designed to solve a problem or problems that the authors saw in their America, and each one had a very definite agenda, to improve American society. She has created a list of books that are truly part of the American canon, books that reflected and molded an American identity, still impacting us today.
In Travels With George, author Nathaniel Philbrick and his wife follow in the footsteps of George Washington's travels through the original 13 states during his presidency. Washington wanted to visit each state in order to thank the people for their support and to personally see and hear the sights and sounds of the brand new country over which he presided. Philbrick includes a lot of history, and it's fun to read the stories of Washington's visits and to see how they are remembered and commemorated today. Along the way, Philbrick meets interesting historic interpreters, archivists, and local historians and reflects on the evolution of the legacy of Washington.
Since moving to Florida in 2020, I've made it a point to read books about Florida history and to experience the history of my new home. Journalist Craig Pittman, a rarity - a native Floridian, has made a career writing about Florida people and Florida issues. This year, he published a collection of his past stories and essays about "Florida Men, Florida Women, and Other Wildlife" in his book The State You're In. There are 51 stories of people (and animals) who have made Florida what it is. There are criminals, victims, writers, environmentalists, developers - people of all walks of life. Pittman's style is unique, insightful, and witty, always a pleasure to read, but always informative and educational.
Speaking of unique, The Course of History: Ten Meals That Changed the World is a totally new and unique way of looking at history, especially for someone like me who loves history and food. The authors look at 10 major events in history, including the Camp David Accords, Nixon's trip to China, the Tehran Conference of the Big Three, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and the Congress of Vienna, but they look at each event through the prism of a meal connected with each event. Each event is discussed in detail and put into the context of world history, but they also go into great detail about the big meal served during the event, describing its significance, even including the menu and the recipes. It's great fun, and I learned a lot of history too. And it reminds me of a culminating assignment I often assigned in American and European history; students were required to create a dinner party of historical figures, designing the venue, décor, and menu and explaining what happened and why they invited each guest. (Look for a future Histocrats classroom blog on that assignment.)
We Had a Little Real Estate Problem by Kliph Nesteroff may be my favorite read of the year. The cover calls it the "story of Native Americans & comedy," but it is so much more. It's a book about Native American History in general and about the common misconception that Native Americans are always humorless and solemn. That misconception comes from more than a century of perpetuated stereotypes and racism in pop culture. Nesteroff tells the story of contemporary Native American actors, stand up comedians, and sketch comedians as well as legendary past performers like Will Rogers who worked, and are working, to not only build a career in entertainment, but also to shatter those misconceptions and stereotypes. Nesteroff is a great historian of comedy, having previously written The Comedians, a thorough history of 20th century comedy. This is a must read book if you enjoy Native American history and/or the history of comedy/entertainment.
Partisans are defined as members of irregular military forces that form in opposition to an occupying power. They usually function behind enemy lines and use guerilla tactics to antagonize the occupying army by disrupting supply lines and communications. World War II saw the rise of partisan units across Europe as the German blitzkrieg rolled across Europe. Often supplied, trained, and, in some cases, led by the Allied regular military forces, these partisan groups inflicted great damage to the German war machine and provided much information to the Allies. They also served as protectors and providers for many civilians, including Jews and other minority groups targeted for extermination. In the latter years of WWII, some partisans turned their efforts to fighting the Soviets as the Red Army "liberated" and then oppressed territories in Eastern Europe.
Nancy Wake, by Peter Fitzsimons, is the biography of a New Zealand woman who became a major leader of partisan forces of the French Underground, or the Maquis. This book was the first time I had ever heard of her, even though her story was very well known in New Zealand and Australia, inspiring several books, movies, and television shows. As a girl, she moved to Australia. Even as a girl, she was always looking for excitement and action, and the prescribed roles of girls and women at the time chafed her. In her late teens, she decided to go where the action was, Paris. She worked as member of the press briefly and then met and married a wealthy French businessman, but upper class socialite was not a big enough role for her. When France surrendered, she began working as a courier for various guerilla groups. Soon, she found herself involved in assisting downed pilots and other Allied prisoners in their escapes to neutral Spain. She eventually became known to the Germans as 'the white mouse," and when the Germans got to close to capturing her, she escaped to Spain and then to England where she joined the Special Operations Executive, where she was trained in every aspect of partisan guerilla warfare. She and her team were dropped into France, and she became the leader of a large partisan force. Her exploits and her character became legendary, and Fitzsimons relies on a lot of interviews with her. (She also wrote her own autobiography, called The White Mouse.) Basically, she was a major badass throughout her life. Upon returning to Australia, she dabbled in politics, remarried (her French husband was tortured and executed by the Gestapo), and wrote of her experiences. In her 80s, she moved to a London hotel, which never accepted payment for her stay, and she could be found practically every morning in the bar, telling war stories. She moved to an old soldiers' home in 2003, where she died in 2011, at age 98. It's a great story if you are a WWII or espionage buff.
Into the Forest was just published in September by Rebecca Frankel. It is the gripping story of the Jewish residents, a couple of families in particular, of a Polish village who are forced to flee into the forest for survival as the German murder squads roll through their area. There, they join forces with partisans. Like most Holocaust books, it's a brutal read, and the author pulls no punches when it comes to describing what they had to do to survive, but it is also a powerful story of survival.
Defiance is the story of four brothers, the Bielski brothers, who established a large partisan force in Belarus during World War II. They were responsible for saving at least 1,200 Jews, creating a community nicknamed the "Jerusalem of the woods." Their story was adapted into a 2008 film called Defiance, starring Daniel Craig.
Good history teaching is not just the teaching of names, facts, and dates - the whos, whats, wheres, and whens. Good history teaching is all about teaching the whys, prodding students to make connections and to build understandings of why the whos, whats, whens, and wheres occurred. It's also a matter of teaching the things that make history a social science. Yes, who, whats, whens, and wheres, are often concrete and immutable - incapable of being changed - just like scientific observations and facts are unchanging. Sodium and chlorine will combine to make salt, for example, never sugar. However, history will always be about the interpretation - the whys - and these interpretations are forever evolving, changing, and, sometimes, being manipulated to fit a certain agenda. That's why good history teaching should also incorporate historiography, the study of writing history. As students study primary documents and secondary interpretations, they should be taught not only to discern the whos, whats, whens, and wheres, but also to dig deeper into the whys, the biases and prejudices of the participants and/or the interpreter, the factors leading up to an event, the results of an event, and the all-important context. That's a major reason why I loved teaching Advanced Placement history courses, because they are designed to promote that kind of teaching and learning.
I've read a few good books lately that go beyond the historic events and challenge the way that the story, whatever it is, has been presented over the decades and centuries. They raise excellent questions about how and why history is written, and what consumers of history should be aware of.
The Five: We all know the story of Jack the Ripper, right? In the late 1800s, a still-unknown madman killed five prostitutes in the Whitechapel district of London's East End, perhaps catching or luring his victims as they walked the streets. Right? All wrong according to Hallie Rubenhold. In The Five, Rubenhold reveals the lives of the Ripper's victims before they became part of crime lore and perhaps the greatest unsolved mystery of all time. As it turns out, according to Rubenhold, none of the five victims were actively working as prostitutes at the time of their murder, although two had been in their past. In fact, the five women had, at least at some point in their lives, been lower middle class or upper lower class, economically speaking. More than one had at least one relatively stable marriage for at least a short time. They also had more education and were more literate than most women of their class and place. They had other commonalities as well. Before they were victims of the Ripper, they were victims of their society, treated as second-class citizens or even as property, and they were physically and emotionally abused, spent parts of their lives homeless or in poorhouses, and fell victim to crime, conmen, and alcohol. Oh, and what about the "catching or luring" part? Turns out that medical evidence indicates that the victims were most likely asleep when killed.
So, where did the prostitutes story come from? It came from the police and the press who found it much easier and "sexier" to tell that story; it didn't cause panic among "respectable folks, and it sold papers. The investigators went in with the mindset that all women who were poor, alcoholic, and living on the streets were prostitutes. In coroner's inquests and hearings, witnesses who knew the women steadfastly declared that they were not prostitutes, but the officials purposely ignored their testimony to make their conclusions fit the narrative. And, over a century later, those myths continued to be passed down, unchallenged.
The Bounty: Another story we are all familiar with is the Mutiny on the Bounty, the subject of several movies and even lampooned by Bugs Bunny and the Simpsons. Evil, tyrannical ship's captain (actual title was Lieutenant, not captain, but he was the ship's master) William Bligh pushes his crew to the extremes with his unending cruelty and erratic behavior. Finally fed up, master's mate Fletcher Christian leads a mutiny, and Bligh is forced off the ship onto a lifeboat, and the men stay in Polynesia, living idyllic lives. Again, author Caroline Alexander challenges our perceptions. She makes an exhaustive review of primary sources, reports, journals, and court proceedings to paint a different picture. According to Alexander, Bligh is not nearly as cruel as he has been portrayed, and Christian is not as heroic as he has been portrayed. The mutineers also found that their lives weren't going to be as idyllic as they dreamed. Why have we been deceived for centuries? Alexander shows that the story handed down to us was concocted by two rich and powerful English families in order to cover up the truth, forever tarnishing Bligh's legacy and reputation forever.
Murder at the Mission: Murder at the Mission is the story of Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, among the first white Americans who settled in Oregon with the intent of Christianizing the Indians of the Northwest. Their efforts ended in disaster as both were killed, along with eleven others, and five Cayuse Indians were hanged for the murders. However, their fellow missionary, Henry Spalding, knew that the real story could not be told, or else the missionary efforts of his organization would come to an end, and white settlement in the Oregon territory would come to a halt. Instead, Spalding made up his mind to make martyrs of the Whitmans and to demonize the Indians. It worked. Even late into the 20th century, the Whitmans were lionized and honored as Oregon's heroic and flawless "founders."
Imperfect Union: Imperfect Union is the story of one the first great celebrity couples in American history, John and Jessie Fremont. John became famous as an explorer, nicknamed "the Pathfinder," and a hero of the Mexican War. He later became the first Republican presidential candidate, in 1856, just a couple of years after the party was founded. While John was traversing the west, his wife Jessie was at home, serving as his own personal agent, promoter, and spin doctor. She co-wrote his autobiographies and journals of his explorations. She wrote letters to the editor and articles about her husband's exploits that were published in newspapers and magazines across the country. She kept her eyes on all the press written about John and immediately went into action if came across any negativity. She very purposely and methodically made her husband, with all of his faults and failures, into a great American hero.
The Name of War: The Name of War was written by Jill Lepore, who is becoming one of my favorite historians, a few years ago, and it is a history of King Philip's war in 1675-1676 New England. In proportion to population, King Philip's War was the bloodiest war in American history. It also marked the last real organized Indian resistance in New England, destroying tribe and forcing others to move westward. Both sides committed horrible atrocities, killing women and children, torturing captives, and mutilating the dead. Lepore tells the story of the war in brutal detail, but she also explains how the war was an important in crafting a new American identity.
Taken from the Amazon.com book description: "The war's brutality compelled the colonists to defend themselves against accusations that they had become savages. But Jill Lepore makes clear that it was after the war - and because of it - that the boundaries between cultures, hitherto blurred, turned into rigid ones. King Philip's War became one of the most written-about wars in our history, and Lepore argues that the words strengthened and hardened feelings that, in turn, strengthened and hardened the enmity between Indians and Anglos. She shows how, as late as the 19th century, memories of the war were instrumental in justifying Indian removals - and how in our own century that same war has inspired Indian attempts to preserve "Indianness" as fiercely as the early settlers once struggled to preserve their Englishness."
I am always on the lookout for books about Florida and its history in order to learn more about my new home state. Here are my reviews of the three latest reads.
The State You're in: Florida Men, Women, and Other Wildlife is the latest book by native Floridian and journalist, Craig Pittman, the author of Cat Tale and Oh, Florida! ,among others. Pittman has collected fifty-one of the articles he's written over his thirty year career writing for the Tampa Bay Times and other publications. He is particularly interested in Florida's history and environmental issues, but he has a knack for finding the absurd, the unusual, and the humorous in Florida and turning it into witty, interesting insights into the culture of his home state. He covers a wide range of topics, from professional mermaids to python and bear hunts to the Florida scams of "Colonel" Tom Parker, Elvis Presley's infamous manager. There are heroes and villains in the stories and lots of people, who may seem ordinary on the surface but are extraordinary underneath. Not all of his stories are for laughs, his stories about crime and criminals are as equally moving as his lighter stories are funny. But wait, there's more: one of my favorite pieces is one of the shortest, Pittman's musing on the deep, dark secret hidden by Mike and Carol Brady on The Brady Bunch. (No, not that one) Pittman's wit and wordplay stand out, and he is a gifted observer of the human condition. The book is a quick read, and you'll be entertained and intrigued on every page. (Read Craig's 7 Questions with us here https://chattingwiththehistocrats.blogspot.com/2021/05/7-questions-with-florida-author-craig.html )
The Seminole Wars: America's Longest Indian Conflict by John and Mary Lou Missall is the book I've been looking for since moving to Florida. It's a relatively brief, but thorough, history of the three Seminole Wars fought between 1817 and 1858. A lot of Americans don't realize that the Seminole Wars had a huge impact on America's history in the 19th century. Because of time and curriculum constraints, I never really spent much time on the Seminole Wars when I taught, and that's a shame. The whole American story unfolded in the Florida territory, then state. White pioneer settlers moved into dangerous, often inhospitable territory, displacing and threatening that territories native inhabitants. Florida also was a hotspot for the debate over slaver because, for decades, enslaved African-Americans fled south from Georgia and the Carolinas into Florida, well before the more famous Underground Railroad took escaped slaves north. The U.S. army fought three wars with the Seminoles, both to protect the white pioneers and to retrieve the runaway slaves and return the "property" to their masters. Not only were the Seminole Wars the longest Indian conflict in U.S. history, but they also represented America's first defeat; the Seminoles never signed an official peace treaty with the government. The government simply gave up, making the Seminole the only "unconquered" Indian tribe. The Missalls' book is a thorough and quite readable history of the not only the wars, but also the bigger picture - that is, how the wars reflected and affected the country's issues and struggles as a whole. The Missals have also written several historical fiction novels, set during the wars, that I am tempted to read.
Florida by Lauren Groff has been out for a couple of years, and it garnered a lot of attention, including becoming a National Book Award Finalist, and I'd picked it up a few times before finally reading it. A couple of caveats before I continue: I mostly read nonfiction (history) and a little historical fiction; and I rarely read short stories. Since high school, in fact, I have probably only read a handful of short story collections. Florida is a collection of stories about Florida, even though they are not all set in Florida. And I just couldn't like it, even though I finished it. I enjoyed Groff's writing style, full of vivid imagery, but that wasn't enough. I found the characters whiny, uninteresting, and unlikable. Worse , the stories have no point. They just peter out, with no climax, no conflict, no resolution. I'm wondering if that's just part of modern fiction. Any one of the dozens of short stories I read in high school literature classes is leagues better than these. I can't understand the lavish praise heaped on this book, and I can't recommend it.
You know you're a reader if you read books about books, but, surprisingly, there doesn't seem to be a subgenre name for this sub- or sub-subgenre, at least that I could find. Does bibliophilia work? I don't know, but there are a lot of books that fit.
The most recent book that fits here is Americanon, by Jess McHugh, published in June 2021. In Americanon, McHugh looks at thirteen nonfiction books that had huge impacts on America and Americans. These books sold hundreds of thousands, even millions of copies, and many of them are still published in updated versions decades or centuries after their first publication. With each book, she goes into detail about their origin, their authors and their impact. She includes books like The Old Farmers Almanac, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, McGuffey's Readers, Noah Webster's Dictionary and spellers, How to Win Friends and Influence People, and Emily Post's Etiquette. These books all are self-help books, meant to make better Americans of their readers. In fact, they are very nationalistic. For example, Webster's Dictionary and spellers and McGuffey's Readers were created in order to standardize the language and education of Americans of different regions with different cultural backgrounds, creating a new American culture and imparting moral lessons along the way. These books had a massive impact on America; updated versions are still published. In fact, I was surprised to learn that some homeschoolers still use McGuffey's Readers. I learned a lot from this book, and it was very entertaining.
The other "books about books" titles that I list here are pretty self-explanatory, but I do want to talk about a couple of other titles. One is Books: A Memoir by Larry McMurtry. McMurtry was one of my favorite American novelists, known especially for westerns like Lonesome Dove, Streets of Laredo, and Comanche Moon, and he just passed away in March of 2021. Books is about his personal journey as a reader and then as a writer. He writes about growing up in his "bookless" hometown of Archer City, Texas, and his transition from cowboy to reader to writer to "bookman," eventually opening several bookstores specializing in rare and collectable books. It's a very entertaining read.
Finally, a great source of "books about books" is the Great Sources catalog. Simply search for "books," and you'll find numerous lectures about books that have had a great influence on world or American history. You can find courses on their website and on Audible.
While September 15 - October 15 is celebrated as "Hispanic Heritage Month," let's take a moment and look at some great books for those interested in the cultures found in the Latin America before Columbus claimed the Americas for Spain.
Jungle of Stone is the story of two intrepid adventurers in the 19th century, American diplomat John Lloyd Stephens and British artist Frederick Catherwood, who, in 1839, heard rumors of stone cities mired in the rainforests of Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico. They decided to explore the area themselves. Their expedition transformed the way the world saw history. Before, very few academics believed that any kind of true "civilization" existed in the Americas before Spanish arrival, that the indigenous populations were savage, universally lacking in intelligence and sophistication. When Stephens and Catherwood published their "discoveries," all that began to change. It became clear that Mayan cities had existed and developed at the same time as the ancient Greeks and Romans, that Mayans were, in fact, quite sophisticated, and that Mayan cities had declined well before Spanish arrival. William Carlsen's book recounts all the hardships that the two men had to endure in their quest and brings their contributions into the light.
The Lost City of Z is a real adventure story that rivals anything Hollywood could come up with; in fact, it was made into a Hollywood movie a few years ago. Grann tells the story of British adventurer, Percy Fawcett, and his visit for what he called the "City of Z." While Fawcett hoped and believed that "Z" could have been the inspiration for the legendary golden city of El Dorado that Spanish conquistadors sought in vain. However, when he set out on an expedition to discover "Z" in 1925, none of his colleagues believed that he would find anything; they were universally under the impression that there had never been a city or large population center in the Amazon jungle, that there was no way the Amazon Indians had the ability or resources to build a city. Fawcett, and his son, unfortunately disappeared without a trace. Several expeditions attempted to trace their footsteps over the next decade, but nothing was found to fully explain what happened.
Brazilian Adventure is one of the old books in my collection, published in 1933, and I picked it up somewhere years before Grann even started his research. It happens to be the story of one of those expeditions that went out in search of Fawcett. It's quite a read itself, in fact still in print and available on Amazon and in other places.
Maybe the most amazing part of the Fawcett - Z story is that 75 or so years later, archaeologists began using 21st century tools and technology to discover evidence that there were actually cities in the Amazon, and that the indigenous population of the region was, in fact, quite large in the past,
Douglas Preston, a journalist and best-selling author of fiction and nonfiction, had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in 2012to accompany an expedition into the jungles of Honduras in search of the ruins of a city called the White City or the Lost City of the Monkey God. His book is a stunning eyewitness accounts of one of the greatest archaeological discoveries made in the Americas, because the expedition did, n fact, discover the ruins of what was once a large city.
The Unconquered: In Search of the Amazon's Last Uncontacted Tribes tells the story of a Brazilian expedition that sets out to learn about the "Arrow People," an Amazonian tribe that had never had contact with the outside world. Yes, even in the 21st century, there are some uncontacted groups. Of course, as the outside world encroaches deeper and deeper into their world, these groups may be in danger of extinction, or at least exploitation. Wallace tells the story of the dangers facing the expedition, but he also reveals the real conflict within the ranks of the "experts": do they risk contact and the dangers that may bring to the Arrow People? It is an interesting read.
The Fifth Sun is very new book, published in 2020, and it brings a whole new perspective to the history of the Aztecs, one based solely on the texts written by the Aztecs themselves. I haven't read this yet, but it has gotten some very positive reviews and has found its way on my to-be-read list.
Contemporary Native Americans seem to be having a moment right now. Oscar-winning New Zealand director, screenwriter, and comedian recently co-created a television series called "Reservation Dogs" that is getting rave reviews for its stereotype-breaking comedic take on the lives of four Native American teens. (It's a great show; catch it on Hulu.) There are a number of breakthrough novels by Native American authors that have appeared on best book lists recently, and Book Tok and #Bookstagram both offer Native American book dealers, reviewers, writers, and readers new venues for discussing Native American literature.
In the past, I've already blogged about a few authors who have written popular book series set, at least partially, near and on Indian reservations. While these authors are not Native American, their books reflect a real authenticity. Perhaps the best known series is the Leaphorn and Chee series, consisting of 25 novels so far, written by Tony Hillerman and his daughter Anne Hillerman, who took up the series when her father, Tony, died. In the series, Joe Leaphorn, Jim Chee, and Bernadette Manuelito are members of the Navajo Nation police force; the Navajo Nation is the largest land area retained by an indigenous nation in the US, encompassing portions of Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico. Each of the Leaphorn mysteries involve elements of Navajo culture and lots indigenous characters, and the detectives are usually forced to navigate in the indigenous and non-indigenous worlds in order to solve the mysteries. I've read all of the Leaphorn and Chee series, and I recommend them for both the mystery reader and for those who are looking to learn more about Navajo culture.
Another series which I've enjoyed and recommend is the Sheriff Walt Longmire series, by Craig Johnson, the source of the tv series "Longmire." Longmire is a sheriff in rural Wyoming in fictional Absaroka County, named after the real Absaroka (Also know as Apsaalooke or Crow) tribe and mountains. To date, there are 17 Longmire novels, and the sheriff often finds himself dealing with Native American characters and reservation affairs, but the reservation is the Cheyenne reservation, not the Absaroka, for whom the county is named. There are several recurring Native American characters throughout the series, but the sheriff's best friend and oft-times partner is Henry Standing Bear, who ahs been Sheriff Longmire's boon companion since high school football days and through their service in the Vietnam War. (By the way, I love the audiobook versions of the Longmire books because of the great narrator, George Guidall, but I have to admit that I'm not a huge fan of the tv adaptation.)
In the past few months, however, I have read the chance to read three very good books by Native American authors and reflective of contemporary reservation life. The first was Midnight Son by James Dommek Jr, Josephine Holtzman, and Isaac Kestenbaum. It is an Audible original and very much feels like a podcast, and it also stands out from the others because it is the true story of an Alaskan native man named Teddy Kyle Smith who was starting to get noticed as an actor in small independent films when he apparently went on a crime spree in the Alaskan wilderness. The story follows Dommek on his quest to find out about the real Smith and to try to understand what happened. It was a very interesting story, well told/narrated by Dommek himself, and it delves into Native Alaskan culture and folklore.
Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden, a member of the Lakota nation, and Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley, a member of the Ojibwe Nation, have a lot in common. They've both gotten great reviews and a lot of attention. Firekeeper's Daughter is set to become a Netflix series. They are both first novels for their authors. They both deal with major blights on Native American reservations: drugs, crime, hopelessness, despair, and exploitation. They also portray a broken reservation system, and the willful neglect of the Federal government and the Federal government's unwillingness to prosecute crime on reservations. And even though the Lakota and Ojibwe reservations are miles apart and homes to different nations, it was interesting to see similarities in slang words used on the reservations and other cultural elements.
Firekeeper's Daughter is actually a Young Adult novel, and it seems like the author threw in every popular element of young adult fiction: sex, drugs, alcohol, violence, sports, a strong determined teen girl who just doesn't fit in, teenage angst, clueless (or evil) adults, etc. Eighteen-year old Daunis Fontaine finds herself involved in a federal drug investigation on the Ojibwe reservation, and she becomes an undercover informant for the FBI, a decision which finds her dragged into a very dangerous operation.
Winter Counts is also about a teen ager, a boy this time, who finds himself in the center of a dangerous undercover federal investigation of a drug ring that has introduced heroin onto the Rosebud Lakota reservation, but he is not the main character. The main character is the boy's uncle, Virgil Wounded Horse. Wounded Horse is the local enforcer on the reservation. Because the enforcement of laws on reservations is, to put it mildly, haphazard or non existent, people hire Wounded Horse to exact revenge on people who have wronged them. This is apparently a real thing on reservations. Wounded Horse is dragged into the drug investigation when his nephew overdoses on heroin. Winter Counts is an interesting look into reservation life, and it feels like the author plans a Wounded Horse series of books.
September 15 to October 15 is National Hispanic Heritage Month. Why does it start in the middle of the month? September 15 was chosen because it is the anniversary of the declaration of independence of five Hispanic countries: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, who all declared independence in 1821. Hispanic heritage, of course goes back to the conquest of Latin America by the fortune- and glory- hunting Spanish conquistadors, who transformed Latin America and the world. One might even argue that the conquest of Latin America was the biggest transformation in world history. As a result of Spanish conquest, millions of people died and were enslaved - American and African, whole civilizations and cultures were destroyed, and the stolen riches made Spain a superpower, directly affecting the political and economic structures of Europe for centuries. They initiated the Columbian Exchange, which transformed the world biologically. And, over 500 years later, Latin American culture still reflects its Spanish conquest through language, religion, architecture, political structure, and arts.
Here are a few books I recommend.
In 1527, Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca joined an expedition led by Panfilo de Narvaez, with the mission to explore La Florida, the southeastern part of the U.S. today. The expedition consisted of 600 men in five ships at its start. Unfortunately, the expedition met with one disaster after another. Storms, shipwrecks, and Indian conflicts, had reduced the expedition to 15 men, including de Vaca, in November 1528, probably near modern-day Galveston Texas. These fifteen were captured and enslaved by various tribes over the next four years; eventually, only de Vaca, two other Spaniards, and an enslaved African survived. The four men made an escape and wandered for the next four years across the southwestern U.S., interacting with various tribes. De Vaca even developed a reputation as a trader and healer among the tribes they interacted with. Finally, they reached a Spanish settlement in northern Mexico and reached Mexico City in 1536. After returning home to Spain in 1537, de Vaca wrote about his experience. The result is A Land So Strange. It's a remarkable survival story.
Conquistador's Wake is about an archaeologist's search for the trail of another conquistador who explored Florida and the Southeast, Hernando de Soto. If you are interested in the work of archaeologists, this book is for you. Blanton's work on recently discovered Spanish sites in Georgia challenges previously held beliefs about De Soto and his route, and he makes a convincing case.
If you're looking for really good and respectable histories of the conquests of the Aztecs and the Incas specifically, these three recent books fit the bill. Conquest by Hugh Thomas and When Montezuma Met Cortes by Matthew Restall and Kim MacQuarrie's The Last Days of the Incas.
If you're looking for a classic, The Broken Spears is for you. Not only is it recognized as a classic about the conquest of the Aztecs, but it is also unique because it tells the story from the Aztec point of view, not just relying on Spanish accounts. As we all know, history has many sides, and the indigenous view of the the Spanish conquistadors was too long ignored.
Buddy Levy has written two books about conquistadors, Conquistadors and River of Darkness. Conquistador is about Hernan Cortes' conquest of the Aztecs. River of Darkness is the story of the search for El Dorado - the legendary city of gold. In 1541, Pizarro, conqueror of the Incas, and Francisco Orellana set off from Quito Ecuador to find the treasure. The two men decided to split their forces after facing setback after setback. Pizarro eventually returned to safety, but Orellana and his men face a much longer trek, eventually becoming the first known group to navigate the entire length of the Amazon River. It was also Orellana who named the river, inspired by clashes with Indians along their journey. Indian women fought alongside men, and Orellana likened them to the Amazon female warriors of Greek mythology. A word of caution: Levy's work has been called out for being inaccurate and too politically correct by some reviewers. They were not my favorite books, but I found them readable.
(Salvador Dali, The Discovery of America, one of my favorite Dali paintings)
I can count on one hand the number of books that I've read more than once; there are just too many new and different books out there to read. A book has to be extra special for me to even think about going back to it. On the other hand, I know some people who can read the same book many times. A while back (May 9, to be exact), I used Richard Adams' birthday with a picture of his first novel, Watership Down, for my Histocrats Book of the day post on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. (If you aren't aware, I post a historic event for each day with a pic and maybe a blurb about a book that relates to the event. Most of the books are books that I've read.) In my post, I said that Watership Down was one of my childhood favorites, and maybe it deserved a re-read forty or so years later. Well, I did, and what a great read it was!
Adams wrote Watership Down only after his daughters begged him to publish it. It all started with stories that he told his children about a warren of rabbits. After lots of rejections, he finally found a publisher, and it immediately became a phenomenon, selling over a million copies in a few years. And I decided to listen to the book myself, this time around. Audible has a great unabridged audio version, read by former Doctor Who, Peter Capaldi. Everything about it was perfect. Capaldi is a great narrator, and, obviously since the saga started as an oral story, hearing it told/read aloud was the way to go for me.
If you're not familiar with the plot, WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU? Kidding. Slightly. The action of the book takes place over the course of a summer in the English countryside. A rabbit gifted with clairvoyance sees a disastrous future for his warren. He convinces his brother and few other rabbits to leave and strike out for a new safer location. The book tells their story. As I read/listened, I was reminded of high school literature classes and the many epics that I learned about and read: Beowulf,Gilgamesh,Iliad, and Odyssey, for example, and more modern books that have been called American epic novels, like Moby Dick, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and other big sweeping series like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and A Song of Fire and Ice, for instance. Watership Down, I think, checks off the boxes of epic-ness. So, is Watership Down the epic novel of Generation X, those born roughly between 1965 and 1980?
OK, OK, I know that originally epic was only used to refer to long heroic poems, but the definition of epic has loosened up considerably over the years to include other genres, like novels and films, so I'm using the term a little loosely, but take away the poetry, and I think Watership still fits.
I don't know that there's a definitive list of characteristics of an epic, but there are a few lists out there that are similar.
1) Plot centers around a Hero of Unbelievable Stature. While Hazel might start out as a run of the mill, average rabbit, and he doesn't seem to have any extraordinary talents or strengths, he definitely grows into the role that he would never have imagined for himself, Chief Rabbit. By the end of the book, he is viewed as a founder by future generations.
2) Involves deeds of superhuman - superrabbit, in this case - strength and valor. Like I said in number one, Hazel is not super strong, or even fast, but he does have a strong intelligence and strong leadership qualities, and he unquestionably has a great deal of courage. Bigwig also demonstrates courage, power, and strength.
3) Vast Setting. Okay, maybe the rabbits don't travel into space or over huge deserts or mountain rages, but, for rabbits, a couple of dozen miles is a huge trek. They explore new landforms that they have never experienced before, and they interact with new rabbits and other animals with whom they have not had contact in their lives.
4) Involves supernatural and-or otherworldly forces. Fiver definitely is in touch with supernatural forces, with the ability to see visions of the future and to sense dangers. Hyzenthlay, a doe who joins the warren, also has the gift of future sight. Adams also creates an entire mythology for rabbits, and the book includes several stories told about the mischievous El-ahrairah, the trickster prince of the first rabbits and his companion Rabscuttle as they constantly outsmart Prince Rainbow the lord of the animals. There are also visits from the Black Rabbit of Inle, the grim reaper of sorts who accompanies rabbits in their deaths.
5) Sustained elevation of style. The language and style Adams uses are definitely elevated, perfect for oral storytelling, which makes perfect sense because the book's genesis was oral storytelling. Like Tolkien did for his characters, Adams also went to the trouble of creating a language for the rabbits, as well as names for all the characters. Among the rabbits, storytelling is an honored tradition, and storytellers are greatly admired and enjoy high status in the warren. Listening to Peter Capaldi read the book really took my enjoyment of the book to the next level. Even though it is not a poem, Watership Down is darn near as close to poetry as prose can get.
Watership Down is page after page of adventure, battles, and narrow escapes. It was published in 1972, and I was born in 1966. I can't remember when I read the book, but I reckon I was 10 or 12, and I remember loving it then. The first animated movie version came out in 1978; I'm pretty sure I saw it, but I'm not sure where -either in a theater or at my public library, as part of a summer film series. I do remember it being intense, and I can understand people now who can't believe it was shown to kids. Hey, children of the '60s and '70s were different creatures than later generations. As I'm looking at movie trailers and other videos on Youtube, I have to admit the movie adaptations (1978 and 2018 by the BBC - on Netflix) do seem even more brutal than the book. Maybe that's just because it's visual?
So what's the point of all this? Is Watership Down an epic? Do I want to talk about a great book of my childhood? Do I want to encourage people read it, and maybe (if you're up to it) watch one of the movies? Do I want to encourage people to re-read books they really love?
