Nonfiction | Striving for Success in China's Factories

With only two (!!) categories remaining on my seemingly never-ending quest to finish the Read Harder Challenge I began in 2015, I was finally able to pull a title off my existing to-read list for the "book that takes place in Asia." Leslie T. Chang's Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China is a nonfiction exposé on the life of China's numerous (130 million, to be exact) migrant workers. The story is neither thrilling nor uncommon; instead, Chang chronicles the everyday existence of these millions of people that live a life entirely unrelatable to our Western ideals.

Set primarily in the industrial town of Dongguan, Factory Girls tells a common story - that of millions of girls who leave their rural towns for a life and job in the city. As the older generation stays planted in these small, rural towns, continuing a familial tradition of agriculture, the younger generation's future has changed due to China's modern industrialization. Children, particularly the girls, leave for the factories, becoming their families' primary breadwinners. With their migration comes a new sense of freedom and opportunity in a society where education is valued but legitimacy is not (necessarily), where success depends on street smarts, and where, it seems, anything is possible if you work hard enough and smart enough for it.

Chang is a former Wall Street Journal correspondent of Chinese descent. Unfamiliar with, and a bit wary of, her own ancestry, she explores this facet of modern Chinese society from a voyeuristic perspective through select women she follows over the course of three years. She chronicles their move from job to job, always on the lookout for something better, with little loyalty or regard to particular employers; she observes friendships and relationships that seem superficial at best, entirely artificial at worst. It's a world where better jobs often come after lying on your resume, where pyramid schemes and scams run rampant to prey on hopeful ambition, and where relationships can disappear entirely with the simple loss of a cell phone.

The strength of this book lies in Chang's straightforward way of reporting the story. It's not a dastardly tale of sweatshop work. The impression I get, in fact, is that the sweatshop horrors is the stereotype of yesteryear. Though the work is certainly more monotonous and demanding of time (6-day work weeks, for example) than we are used to, the conditions, based on Chang's telling, don't seem harsh or cruel. In this sense, it's not a story of drama and hardship; it's the story of how these migrant women are constantly working for betterment. There is no passive acceptance of life; these women strive to educate themselves for better jobs and new opportunities.

A factory run by TAL Group that makes US-brand apparel for such companies as
J. Crew and Hugo Boss; Photo via New York Times

Interspersed with the present-lives of Chang's migrant subjects is Chang's own family history as migrants to the U.S. after China's Cultural Revolution. Despite providing some context of 20th-century Chinese history, particularly in relation to Communism, this part of the narrative seemed superfluous to me; the intrigue really lies in the everyday lives of these women who have such different lifestyles and values. I am more curious about the future of these women, living in a city populated by people under 30. Do they eventually return to their rural towns? Or do they continue to live in these industrial cities, creating a new tier of the labor force, the "self-made women?" Perhaps China's industrial society still continues to evolve.

What's most remarkable about this story, as a Western reader, is our very real and legitimate connection to it. This is not a lifestyle or job contained within China's borders; rather, it's entirely a product of worldwide, and particularly U.S., demand for cheaply manufactured consumer products. These factories, and therefore these women and their choices and their lives, can attribute their very existence to our want of new iPhones. Or Nikes. Or 50" TVs. And how utterly distressing and perplexing is this?

Nonfiction | A Secret Town, A Secret Mission

For my most recent book club meeting, I got to delve into some nonfiction for the first time in a while! The book was Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II by Denise Kiernan. This one has some local appeal; Oak Ridge, located just north of Knoxville, is a familiar locale to Tennesseans and, in the decades since WWII, has earned some tourist notoriety for its one-time secret status. Plus, the book group I joined skews older, so many of our readers had personal memories attached to this story, as well.

Imagine this scenario: You're living in 1943 in a nation embroiled in war, which permeates every piece of daily life. You've just finished high school or college, and with your brothers overseas fighting for your country, you have few options but to stay close to home and get a job. Then, you get this job offer with a description that could not be more vague. It seems too good to be true—the pay is outstanding and it's supposed to help win the war. Once you've secured the job, you follow the mysterious instructions you were given to take a specific train to a location you've never heard of. And once you arrive to this strange community called Oak Ridge, you settle into a new life, making new friends and doing your best every day at the job you were given. You're not really sure what's going on at Oak Ridge, but it's run by the military and therefore secretive and therefore must be helping the war cause.

This was the reality for the many women Kiernan profiles in this book. The story of Oak Ridge is a fascinating—and multi-faceted—one. This complex created by the US military, originally designed to house 17,000 workers, ultimately became home to over 62,000 individuals. These people all came to Oak Ridge for a job. From them grew friendships, relationships, a town, a community. These people became experts at their job, whatever they were, but only a fraction of 1% of Oak Ridge's residents actually knew their ultimate purpose. It was masked in secrecy, and there were constant reminders that "loose lips sink ships."

It wouldn't be until August 6, 1945, that they would figure out they had spent the last two years building the world's first deployed atomic bomb.

Perhaps now you understand why I said this story is a "multi-faceted" one. Kiernan opted to tell a particular piece of the Oak Ridge story, to view it from one perspective—that of the women whose lives were changed by this incredible reality. In this, I think Kiernan did an excellent job. She uses a handful of women to recollect the Oak Ridge experience; the reader gets to know these women as individuals—their backstories, their motivations, their fears. Through them, we understand how thousands of people united behind a common cause, despite their knowing little about it in the first place!

This is where it gets tricky for me. Naturally, my 2016 perspective is vastly different than the 1943 one of these women. And when viewed through the modern lens to which I am accustomed, this story of Oak Ridge is terrifying!

Kiernan tells this nice, patriotic, feminist story of women doing important work, but can you imagine if we heard this story in present-day terms from some country across the globe?? "Thousands Build Nuclear Weapon in Secrecy!" "Community Brain-Washed Into Building Atomic Bomb!" I understand that times were different. The war was so all-encompassing that "helping to win the war" was justifiable enough reasoning; there was little to question. Further, the mentality was different than it is today—less thirst and desire for constant information, less skepticism, fewer questions. Plus, the mere existence of these opportunities for the women of 1943, when their norms and expectations were so vastly different than today, probably fostered more excitement than suspicion.

And we haven't even touched on the debate surrounding the moral implications of dropping the atomic bomb. That's a whole other part of the story!

For what it is, I think Kiernan's book is an excellent piece of story-telling. She humanizes a piece of history while using plenty of research to create context for the reader. And she is not (and should not be) obligated to, nor responsible for, telling the whole story of Oak Ridge. But having never deeply encountered this particular piece of history myself, it opened up a can of worms


Extra: It's worth noting that our book club discussion was a pretty engaging one. Reactions and opinions seemed to run the gamut. Some women felt the same as me and had many more questions about this whole scenario; others just accepted it for what it was without much questioning. I think it's so interesting, and fosters such great discussion, because the themes go beyond this one historical scenario; it brings into question bigger ideas such as trust and fear, patriotism, society and individualism. A great one for discussion!

Reading Roundup: History Lesson

Ingrid Betancourt's The Blue Line is a story that oozes history—that deep-set kind, full of action, consequence, and complexity kind. It'a unavoidable, you realize, when you take a look at the author's biography; Betancourt is a Colombian politician and activist, kidnapped and held hostage for six years by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). It is clear that she has drawn on her own experiences for The Blue Line, to tell the story of a passionate young woman named Julia, embroiled in the political chaos of a 1970s Argentina.

As an impressionable teenager, finding and defining her sexual and social identities, Julia falls for a revolutionary, Theo, who pulls her down a path of political idealism that becomes increasingly dangerous as the country's military dictatorship gains power. Julia and Theo's lives lose stability as trust becomes an uncertainty and safety is not guaranteed.

Amidst the growing chaos in Julia's life, she continues to live with a strange gift inherited from her grandmother—visions of the future, seen through the eyes of others. Accustomed to these apparitions, Julia has spent much of her young life fearing what she will see, beholden to the responsibility of intervening to prevent whatever horrific event she witnesses.

If this book were just all one part or the other, all politics or magical realism, it wouldn't have the appeal that it does; it would be too bogged down by its genre, producing a one-track story, narrow in its scope of storytelling. Instead, Betancourt has crafted an awesomely outlandish premise that creatively adds a different kind of excitement to the story of a dark moment in history. Though inextricably linked to its time and place, The Blue Line goes beyond historical narrative to illustrate an individual experience beyond the pages of history books.

I didn't actually realize that Lily Koppel's The Astronaut Wives Club was nonfiction until I started reading it. Using a vintage photo as cover art falls in line with the branding of a certain style of women's fiction—à la Rebecca Wells, Lorna Landvik, Laurie Graham. So needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered this was in fact nonfiction about actual astronauts' wives during the the sixties.

Koppel has pulled together stories of the women who experienced the space race alongside their husbands in their journeys to the moon. It was a very much male-centric environment; the men were the heroes, risking their lives in a quest for glory, as their wives supported them at home. LIFE magazine was paying the families for exclusive photos and stories, chronicling the space race from the homefront, but the pressure to appear as your quintessential American family put more pressure on the women than the men. It was the 1960s after all, an era when women remained in the domestic background and outspoken feminism was frowned upon.

As a feminist women in 2016, it's quite infuriating to read about such a lifestyle and environment. Women in that era seem homogeneously lumped together as one, perpetuating this image of the perfect wife with little individuality allowed to shine through. Meanwhile, the husbands get the notoriety and recognition, not to mention the extramarital company of the "Cape Cookies" to quell their loneliness during the weeks spent at NASA's Florida base, away from their Houston homes and wives. It seems that every piece of pop culture that takes place during this era (ie: Mad Men) is filled with cheating, drinking men and submissive women, and, having not lived during the era myself, I'm beginning to believe more and more that theme is actually a realistic representation!

While Koppel tries to tell the story that existed behind the photoshoots staged for the American public, I thought that, ultimately, the story didn't delve deep enough. I don't feel as though I learned much about the women as actual people with thoughts and feelings, which should've been the purpose of this book. They still sort of seem like that homogeneous group, and whether it's because it's hard to shake the image or they actually were the subservient, voiceless wives of the era, I didn't gain any newfound respect for them.

Reading Notes: Gotham, Part 1

I am fairly certain I mentioned by goal of reading Gotham months ago. I even started reading it months ago. And at one point in 2016, I know had the goal of finishing the entire 1236 page book by the end of the 2015-2016 school year.

Well, now I'm three weeks into the 2016-2017 school year, and I'm still on page 75. Back during our January snow days, I breezed through Part One of the book—"Lenape Country and New Amsterdam to 1664"—and I made notes and tagged pages and then I never got around to writing about them and my continuation of reading has just been held up ever since. I've been breezing through a lot of random books lately, though, and decided that now, with my newfound motivation to read and write, is the time to move along actually get started.

New York City is one of my favorite topics to study. For one, its centuries of transformation are amplified, more magnificently illustrated, because of its small geographic size. Tracking development as it spreads—the buildings as they rise and fall—appears grand and drastic when the area feels so contained and so easy to observe. Secondly, and related to that point, I am a witness of the city's history. I walked its streets and inhabited its buildings for a decade. I know how the traffic flows and how cultures and communities occupy neighborhoods. Knowing what came before is what inspires history nerds like me to keep reading and keep searching for clues from another time.

"The city's well-merited reputation as a perpetual work-in-progress helps explain why Washington Irving's day New Yorkers were famous for being uninterested in their own past. 'New York is notoriously the largest and least loved of any of our great cities,' wrote Harper's Monthly in 1856. 'Why should it be loved as a city? It is never the same city for a dozen years together. A man born in New York forty years ago finds nothing, absolutely nothing, of the New York he knew.'"

Because there is so much historical fact in this book that is impossible to record and remember, I think I'll focus my reading and summarizing on the state of things at any given moment in the city's history. Who was in charge? How did people live? What were the talking points, the stressors, the norms? New York is a dynamic city that changes with its population; the people are key to understanding the city's history.

Nonfiction | To Be a Kid in the '90s

"From the perspective of an adult, everything's a blip that'll be forgotten tomorrow. But to a kid, everything is so big, and we wanted to fill these stories with big energy."

It is no secret that I am more nostalgic than most; I relish in reminiscences on youth. I'm sure there's some psychological evidence that credits the way our adolescent brains develop, but I've always had this strong belief that the details of our lives during those times stick around in memory longer—deeper—than most.

For a kid growing up in the 1990s—a particular group on the cusp of both Generations X and Y, belonging fully to neither—there is nothing that defines our childhood quite like America Online and Nickelodeon. We were enticed by the possibility of immediate world wide connectivity AND the chance to scale the Aggro Crag in all its multi-colored, glitter-spewing glory. Maybe it's a moment in history no more unique than any other generation's adolescent years [though this article refutes that idea, and I most definitely agree!] but 1990s Nickelodeon embodied an independent, outspoken, quirky celebration of childhood that was unique, magical, and incredibly rare—one that I am very grateful to have experienced.

Mathew Klickstein must be a child of the '90s, to share this recognition of such a special moment in pop culture history. I can only imagine that Slimed!: An Oral History of Nickelodeon's Golden Age is his own passion project, intended for all the other nostalgic Nick devotees.

INTERRUPTION...

Well, further research indicates he's brought upon himself quite a lot of controversy by making very asinine statements (a summary) regarding women and minorities, so maybe we'll just ignore the author and talk about Nick Nostalgia from here on out...

AND WE'RE BACK.

Klickstein structures Slimed! in the same fashion as the exposition on the movie Clueless I recently read—it's a history culled from interviews with key players, an "oral history" loosely organized around theme or topic with no guiding narrative voice. Focusing mostly on early Nickelodeon shows (You Can't Do That on Television, Clarissa Explains it All, Hey Dude, Salute Your Shorts, Double Dare, Rugrats, Doug, and Ren & Stimpy), Slimed! shares the stories that inspired the shows and got them on air. We hear anecdotes and explanations from network heads, show creators, producers, actors, and crew revealing all the roadblocks and backstage drama (or lack thereof) along the way. Mostly, we learn about the mindset, the creativity, and the decisions that created an identity and defined Nickelodeon as this network we (okay, some of us) remember so distinctly twenty years later.

"It was the first time I realized there was a Nickelodeon generation of kids coming of age that were going to bring to whatever they were doing professionally a sense of humor or a look at the world that was shaped in part by Nick."

I've always thought the story of classic Nickelodeon to be a fascinating one. Its history is so vague, so empty, so devoid of a comprehensive archive that plagues all parts of the entertainment industry these days! I remember in late high school (in the early 2000s), it seemed that these shows and this era had all but disappeared; they never re-ran on the network, and you couldn't find anything about them online except note of their one-time existence. With the maturing of my age group, though, and the eventual collective demand for Nickelodeon nostalgia, that has begun to change.

Slimed! is by no means a comprehensive history. In fact, it is frustratingly bereft of basic history on the network, its early years, and the people involved with it. (Seriously, when/where/why did it even start?) There is still a lot of the story I want to hear, and, considering this is pretty much the first volume to even broach the topic, a basic history would've added a great deal of important context to the story (and been greatly appreciated so I didn't have to Google search it for hours). However, I do think it's a story that's just beginning to be told, one that developed so organically that there may not be some definitive history there just waiting to be written down and shared.

The story of Nickelodeon's "Golden Age" is kind of a heart-warming one. It's a story of creative people who ended up together to make something new, something authentic, that defied commercial norms and truly captured—in the most refreshingly simplistic way—the offbeat whimsy and excitement of childhood.

Nonfiction | Buggin', Wiggin', and Keepin' it Real

Back when we lived in New York, I hated Spring. HATED it! March was always the absolute WORST. As other, more southern parts of the country were quickly thawing, New York felt stuck in some never-ending purgatory of 50-degrees and a looming potential for one last snow storm.

As the weather started to warm up in April, though, I always got a great amount of joy from walking to my local Greenpoint branch of the Brooklyn Public Library and browsing the shelves for my next reads. It hearkened back to my high school days at the library, when I'd read whatever looked enticing (so yes, a lot of judging by the cover!). It's an entirely different approach to reading than selecting titles from my "to-read" queue to check them off the list; instead of planned, it's an opportunity to embrace the unexpected—and perhaps stumble upon a fortuitous discovery.

The temperatures have already begun to climb here in Nashville, inspiring these Springtime visits to my new neighborhood library. It was under this influence that I found on the "new" shelf Jen Chaney's As If: The Oral History of Clueless as Told By Amy Heckerling and the Cast and Crew and brought it home (and chose it as the "microhistory" for my never-ending Read Harder Challenge!).

Clueless is one of those rare, few movies that occupies a spot in both my AND Colin's top 10 list. We're always in the mood to watch it, and its quotes are a frequent part of our lexicon. Not only is it a witty, creative, self-aware teen film, it was also totally monumental in bringing back the "teen movie" to us, the kids of the 90s. Eighties kids had John Hughes to define their era; and though I was a tad young when Clueless was released in 1996 (a mere preteen at 11, to be exact), one can't deny its influence in ushering in my generation's teen movie glory days. Clueless paved the way for a resurgence in teen movies that brought dozens, from 1998's Can't Hardly Wait all the way to 2004's Mean Girls. (Any issue of the now-defunct Teen People Magazine was substantiated proof of the importance and infiltration of teen movies at the turn of the millennium.)

Chaney's history of Clueless is not your typical author-narrated history. Instead, she compiles soundbites from hundreds of interviews with Clueless's pertinent players to tell the story through the eyes of the people that experienced it firsthand. Not only do we hear from the obvious sources (writers, directors, actors), Chaney includes anecdotes from crew members, studio employees, extras, musicians, critics, professors—anyone who could share a small piece of the Clueless story.

It would be easy for this book to simply be a helter-skelter work of chaos—an onslaught of stories that serve only as reminiscence. Chaney succeeds, though, in establishing a structure, and thus significance, to this history by organizing it into chronological, themed chapters and sections. "When Emma Met Cher: Clueless and the Spirit of Jane Austen" discusses the inspiration behind the story, especially its literary roots. "The Language of Clueless" investigates the research behind its unique dialogue—much of the reason for its lasting status as an era-defining piece of pop culture. Other chapters cover the search for a cast, location scouting, wardrobe curation, music compilation, premier and press, critical response, merchandising, and ultimately, most significantly, the magnificent impact of Clueless—on its cast, its filmmakers, and on the audience that flocked to theaters to see it.

As If! is an entertaining read for fans of Clueless, but it's also a well-curated reflection on a piece of pop culture that had a significant impact on the world in which my Oregon Trail Generation grew up and consumed culture.

Nonfiction | How to Be Happy, in 22 Easy Steps!

The Read Harder Challenge lists a "self-improvement" book as one of its categories. Erm, self-help? Not really my cup of tea. Self-reflection is great and all, but I'm certain there are more theories on how to live than there are people who are living. When it comes to advice, everyone's got an opinion. How can one generic way of living work for everyone when we are all so uniquely individual?

I understand that is probably not the point of self-help books. I understand the advice shared by all these "expert" authors is adaptable and may not be 100% applicable to every life. But, I still just try and figure things out for myself and base my life's direction on experience or the experiences of my nearest and dearest. I thought the quest for a book to fit this category would be difficult, but I was pleasantly surprised in stumbling upon Linda Leaming's A Field Guide to Happiness: What I Learned in Bhutan about Living, Loving, and Waking Up.

Happiness is probably the number one thing I strive for—the attribute at the top of my "values" list. The same apparently goes for Linda Leaming. She pared down her cluttered, stressful, American life and embraced a rugged, simplistic one up in the Himalayas. In Bhutan, there is less stuff, fewer stressors, and a general positive vibe; it is the place, after all, that puts a higher premium on its Gross National Happiness than its Gross National Product.

Leaming shares with the reader 22 short snippets of advice—the answers she has found through her experiences in Bhutan that will, if followed, leave us healthy, relaxed, and appreciative. Ultimately, these things are necessary for happiness! Simple formula, yes? 

The author's list spawns from experience and is shared through anecdotes. The inefficiency (by American standards) of bank transactions forced the author to "Calm Down;" "Kindness Will Save Us" and our patience when dealing with customer service during infuriating situations; additional contributions from strangers in a store after purchasing a homeless man clothing proves that "Generosity is Contagious." 

The good thing about Leaming's advice is that it's not so much a specific way of doing things; each chapter highlights a small shift in thinking that Leaming believes will balance one's mental state and lead to a happier state of being. It's clear her experiences in Bhutan were real eye openers. To be out of one's comfort zone and away from the usual way of doing things—whether it be in a new office environment or overseas in an entirely different culture—is to experience life with fresh eyes; it often takes such a jolt to recognize those norms we take for granted. While Leaming's advice is based on the lifestyle differences she noticed living in Bhutan, ones deeply tied to the country's Buddhist mindset, they are universal. Once recognized, you can take them anywhere.

I have to say, I really enjoyed this jaunt into the "self-help" realm. I've found myself referring to the counsel Leaming preaches, not only in my own musings but in real-life situations that have arisen. I imagine a cynic could read this as an ostentatious statement on how we're all "doing it wrong" over here in Western culture, but that angle is one of arrogance (Chapter 21: "Check Your Ego"). The whole point of this book is that we can learn from each other, our neighbors near and far. And if we remove ourselves, however temporarily, from our normal way of thinking, we may discover something new that can change us for the better.

Other than the small pieces of advice I briefly mentioned above, I decided to jot down my biggest takeaways, because great power lies in awareness. (And maybe if they're summarized, they'll be easier to remember.)

Kari's Abbreviated Guide to Happiness:

1. Think about the unthinkable; embrace your fears and move beyond them.
2. Never stop; let it flow.
3. Embrace equanimity; move to the middle path.
4. Wake up; see things as they really are.

Reading Roundup: Nonfiction Picks

In an effort to get through my lengthy backlog of books to share, here are a few varied nonfiction selections I've read as of late...(Sidenote: I started a draft of this post over a month ago. Whoops?)

Beginning with a memoir, Girl Walks Into a Bar... by former-SNL funny-woman Rachel Dratch answers the question she presumes has been on everyone's mind, which is, "Where has Rachel Dratch been since SNL?" To sum it up for you, she had a baby. It was unplanned. But it is great.

Dratch's memoir was probably published in the same vein as recent comedic releases by Tina Fey and Chelsea Handler. However, it completely lacked the universal comedic appeal that the two mentioned authors bring to their essay collections, which, though often containing personal anecdotes, tell them in a way that is just generally entertaining to read. This book did include some interesting tidbits and background info about her life and entry into show-business, but mostly it was a personal update that felt more worthy of a blog post. I enjoy Dratch immensely, but I just don't think she had enough to say to warrant a 240-page book.


I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley is another book that had been on my to-read shelf since about 2009 but that I quickly realized is not the type of book I dig. Essays like these feel little more than extended versions of social media posts or emails to friends, and I constantly wonder how and why some editor deemed them worthy of an entire book that should be shared to the masses. It seems such a formulaic trend at this point—write about your quirky upbringing, or your weird transition to college, or random drug experimentation, or the terrible jobs you held. Do that all with a comedic flair and VOILA, book deal. I don't have a thing against memoirs, but I have a thing against the ones that don't share a unique or interesting life experience. And that's how I felt with this one. Some parts of her writing made me chuckle, but overall I just didn't really care about Crosley's unexceptional experiences.

Maybe I'm being too harsh, because I did really like a similar style book by Jane Borden a couple years back. Maybe that's what these editors count on—one random person somewhere in the world that is going to totally connect with a book and say, "OMG, YES," on every other page. For this book, I wasn't that person. But I guess who cares—to hell with all I've already said! Write on, Sloane Crosley! Write on!


Now, talking about life experiences... Rick Antonson' Route 66 Still Kicks: Driving America's Main Street is one I need to have—and until then will have to settle for just reading about! What happens is these two guys, Rick and Peter, decide to have the quintessential American roadtrip by following Route 66 from Chicago to LA. No interstates allowed; they have to follow the original route—in its entirety—as best they can. And they learn that task is much easier said than done.

The original Route 66 is tricky to follow. Stretches have been re-named, re-routed, abandoned. Guides and maps have evolved over the decades in such a manner to make it incredibly difficult to figure out what's new, what's old, and what's original. Rick and Peter have an entertaining dynamic—one is go-with-the-flow, one is a planner. Their own interactions are about as entertaining as their ones with the many varied people they meet along the way. What I really enjoyed about this book was the huge amount of history and culture included in the narrative. Rick's personal account is peppered with stories of local legend and famous figures that contribute to the route's lore in American culture. I read this as an eBook and marked several pages with interesting tidbits and beautifully-phrased, poignant passages. Unfortunately, my library copy expired before I exported my notes (my own fault), so I can't share any with you now...but trust they are there; it's your turn to find them!

Book Tour: Liar, Temptress, Solider, Spy

When TLC Book Tours approached me late this summer with some fall book suggestions, I was immediately drawn to Karen Abbott's new hefty piece of nonfiction called Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy. Though the catchy title is at first an obvious play on the already-well-known Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, I was happy to discover that it's also a completely relevant and accurate description of the four women she introduces in her 500+ pages.

Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy shares the stories of four women who refused to sit on the sidelines of the Civil War. On the Southern side, we have Belle Boyd who embroils herself in the rebel cause as a spy after shooting a Union soldier in her own home, and we meet Rose O'Neal Greenhow, the temptress of the set, who draws elicit information from her affairs with powerful Union men. Fighting for the North, we have Emma Edmonds who has disguised herself as a man named Frank Thompson and enlisted in the army, and then there's Elizabeth Van Lew—every bit Emma's opposite—who uses her wealthy Richmond upbringing to gain access to Confederate secrets that will help the abolitionist cause.

It's thrilling to read such detailed accounts of an event and era that is usually so simplified and abbreviated in our minds, a consequence of the 150 years that have passed, causing summation to replace specifics. Abbott tells the story of these women in such a vivid way that feels more like a fictional narrative than historical fact. The author states in the beginning that none of the dialogue is fabricated; any quotes can be found in the historical record—journals, letters, documents, and such. Abbott's use of them really adds a lot to the story, creating excitement and tension rather than presenting dry fact.

The book is divided into five parts, each covering a year of the war from 1861-1865. We follow the journey of each of these women, from their initial agitation through the development of the pivotal role they eventually play. It's interesting to see each of their perspectives and personal motivations. I found myself sympathizing with our Union heroines, and I was left wondering if that was a sentiment subtly weaved into Abbott's words or if it's just a consequence of their position on the meritorious side of history. At no point does the narrative feel particularly partisan; the focus is on the women themselves and the risks they took, not whether they were "right" or "wrong" in taking them. I was most surprised—though I shouldn't have been—at the horrors of war that existed on BOTH sides. War never seems an inculpable conflict.

Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy is a deceptively fast read that by no means feels bogged down with detail. It's an entertaining look at overlooked figures in history that feels more much like storytelling than 500 pages of nonfiction.

This post is a stop on the TLC Book Tour of Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy! You can visit the tour page to learn more about the book, its author, and find a list of the other tour stops. If you're intrigued, be sure to check out all the other blogger opinions, continuing through October 2nd!

Reading Notes: The Evolution of God, Part 4

Ok, it's a little bit pathetic that it's taken me so long to get through this book and finish up the posts on it. It took me literally all summer—I checked it out from the library over Memorial Day weekend, and I returned it on July 30th, the day before I started back to work for the new school year. However, that's not indicative of my feelings for it; I was fascinated, but my priorities shifted over the summer and this book ended up taking a back seat.

The fifth and final section of The Evolution of God is ambiguously titled "God Goes Global (Or Doesn't)." And though its purpose must be a sort of concluding summation and application of the ideas he's presented in the previous four sections...to be honest, it was definitely the most confusing section of all. There was some game theory thrown in and a lot of repetitions about non-zero-sum. But mostly, I think the point Wright is trying to get across is that though religions may differ in belief, they all have the same foundation. They are all born from the same human needs, and their histories are all colorful, sometimes contradictory, and always a product of their times.

Wright contends that "...religions that reach great stature have a tendency to rewrite their history in the process. They cast themselves as distinctive from the get-go, rather than growing organically out of their milieu. They find an epoch-marking figure—a Moses, a Jesus, a Muhammad—and turn him into an epoch-making figure. They depict his message as contrasting sharply with a backdrop that, in fact, his message was infused with." In short, they all find themselves unique when, in fact, their existence largely depends on all that came before. And certain aspects of human nature make us inclined to find answers in religion--thus, for the religions to develop in the first place.

• Everyone seeks salvation on a personal level simply by driving human needs: good health and good spirit.
• Either we understand motivations because we relate to them, or we don't relate to them and find them illegitimate. (We like what we know and understand; we fear or dislike what we don't.)
• And people want to control their environment. Minds are open to explanations that give them such control.

Mostly, though, during this final section, Wright goes heavy on the connection between religion and social behavior...and how, really, we should all just get along, because we're all from the same stock. It's kind of the same argument he had for religions being similar; people are similar and have the same universal needs and struggles.

"To say that other people are people, too, may sound like an unremarkable insight. But it is one that is often ignored, and one that is in some sense unnatural. After all, any organism created by natural selection is, by default, under the illusion that it is special...Obviously, we can't all be right in any objective sense. The truth must be otherwise. The extension of moral imagination brings us closer to that truth."

If he ever makes an argument for the existence of God, it's here. To Wright, the Abrahamic scriptures show that there is a moral truth that's imposed on us; and cultural evolution has shown us that it makes sense to progress morally or else there are consequences. For the author, this is evidence in favor of the god hypothesis. Basically, religion can essentially be the belief in an unseen order: [it] "consists of the belief that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto" (William James). Wright is always vague on his own beliefs. They may not include a literal world-ruling, omniscient figure; but he seems to believe in a sense of order that exists in the world, and if you, personally, want to credit this order to a higher power God figure, then by all means you can.


The final chapter in this book is aptly titled "Well, Aren't We Special?" and I hope you can see how applicable that is to all the arguments Wright has raised in this book. Whether it's an entire religion, a population, or an individual, your way is always the right way; you're the chosen one; you are special. Back to that point of fearing or vilifying what we don't understand, this is just a part of human nature. But Wright finds proof of God in the fact that we can recognize and resist this innate fault to create a more harmonious existence. Evolution created beings so smart that they spawned another kind of evolution—cultural evolution—that forged a new connection between the growth of social organization and the progress toward moral truth. Basically, cause and effect guide us towards moral truth.

"As interdependence, and hence social structure, grew beyond the bounds of family—and then beyond the bounds of hunter-gatherer band, of chiefdom, of state—the way was paved by extensions of sympathy. This sympathy didn't have to involve its initial sponsor, love; you don't have to love someone to trade with them or even to consider them compatriots. But there has to be enough moral imagination, enough sympathetic consideration, to keep them out of the cognitive category of enemy; you have to consider them, in some sense, one of you."

You may be thinking that this book ended with a lot more philosophical ponderings than anticipated...and you're not alone. I feel somewhat like Wright just used a lot of history as a prelude to a big, theoretically-inspired hug; he's giving us a pep talk, not only on why it's beneficial for us all to just get along, but hey, it's going to be easy—because someone or something out there is making sure mankind makes the right choices, because it's our destiny. Well...thank god (or maybe God) for that.

Reading Notes: The Evolution of God, Part 3

So far in Robert Wright's The Evolution of God, we've covered the evolution of religion from polytheism to monotheism, the development of a dominant monotheistic religion called Judaism, and the emergence from that of another major religion called Christianity. In Section 4, Wright introduces another major world religion to the mix: Islam.

As you may remember, the author's focus in this book is on the three Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—and how they came to be as products of their places and times. Now, focusing on the birth of Islam, Wright begins detailing its evolution as a religion and its relationship with the already existing ones.

Wright's history of Islam goes like this (and I don't know enough to deem it factual or interpretive): Islam was born after Judaism and Christianity when a man named Muhammad claimed to be a prophet of God. God shared his word with Muhammad directly, and this is what's contained in the Koran. Being the literal "word of God," the Koran is a much more straightforward text than the Hebrew or Christian Bibles—less history, fewer stories. Muslims believe that the higher power (in this case, "Allah") existed before Islam became a religion, and he also evolved independently of other religions. And though Islam is not the same as Judaism and Christianity, Muhammad united them by deeming the Islamic God to be the same Abrahamic God shared by the other two religions, because he (Muhammad) placed himself on the same level as Moses—as one who has been contacted directly by God. This is the distinguishing point: Islam was its own movement; it didn't descend from the other religions. 

I think this is semi-accurate. Ignore the atheism website.

Muhammad is a fascinating figure, and this is ultimately what Wright tries to prove throughout this section. He was a prophet promoting an apocalyptic reversal of fortunes to amass followers, much like Jesus. And he was a politician, building an empire by making a "foreign" God local and eventually using force to demonstrate power. He preached tolerance to gain followers but once his Islamic State grew, his ties with Judaism and Christianity began to dwindle.

It seems here that Muhammad now wanted Christians and Jews to accept Islam and recognize their texts as precursors to the Koran. More problems arose with his desire for them to embrace a new religion that contradicted their own. [Islam recognizes Jesus as a person but not as the "Son" of God.] Basically, he was trying to become a leader, but others weren't accepting it. The way it played out next is sort of unclear. The big disagreement involves Jerusalem and who "took it back." Was it Muslims? Was it a Jewish-Muslim alliance? It's clear that Islam also had a break with Judaism but was that at this point or was it later added by authors of the Koran after Muhammad's time? This is where I'm hazy on religious history, and there are probably a ton of perspectives to read and consider. We're not going any further into that now.

What Wright does next is explore how Islam developed into what it is today—or, to be fair, how it is perceived in the Western world. Here he takes a scholarly, historical look at the concept of "jihad" and how it evolved into a controversial piece of modern world politics.

Apparently, "jihad" is mentioned only four times in the Koran and more times in the hadith (the oral tradition), and it refers to a constant struggle. There is, and always has been, a continuous argument about how exactly "jihad" is defined. Does it mean an internal, emotional struggle? A literal, external one? As with many religious concepts, it's up to interpretation, and one man named Sayyid Qutb decided in the mid-20th century that "jihad" should be an aggression in the name of Islam, not just a defense. This can be considered the birth of modern radical/extremist/fundamentalist/whatever-you-want-to-call-it Islam.

Wright argues that it's unlikely "jihad" was ever intended strictly as aggressive foreign policy. Violence against nonbelievers wouldn't always, historically, have benefited Islam—think about when Muhammad was trying to gain followers. But his point is that words are always interpreted to one's own benefit; you can always justify war in the name of religion. All religions have their moments of war and peace.

The author does quite a bit in the last chapter of this section to demonstrate how religions are adaptive; they may argue on a theological level, but globalization has and will continue to bring them to a peaceful coexistence based on social and economic benefit. Muhammad represents, as one man, all the highlights of Abrahamic history and religious evolution. Wright continues to argue that the Koran happens to be, theologically-speaking, the most modern text; it's evolutionary in nature, highlighting existing wonders of nature rather than miracles; these signs of nature are evidence in themselves of God's existence. If the world was created, by God, as a physical system with a purpose, then we naturally move towards "functional integration" (ie: working together and getting along), and human behavior is directly connected to both circumstance and moral consciousness. And Wright argues that the Koran, more than any other religious text, explicitly shares these ideas.

I mentioned this in my last post. Unbelievable!

I think Wright dedicates an entire section to Islam to demonstrate how connected these three religions really are, despite the assertions that each are independent of one another. I know there are years and years of further incident that drive the religions apart, but my takeaway from these sections is that these conflicts are cyclical, and Religions (with a capital R) do (or can) eventually find their way back to a cooperative, peaceful relationship with each other. Perhaps we'll find out if this is proving true in the 21st-century in the book's final section.

Nonfiction | The Road to Making It, After All

My favorite Nick At Nite shows from my youth (when Nick at Nite syndicated comedies that hadn't aired within the last decade):

I Love Lucy.
Laverne & Shirley.
Mary Tyler Moore.

There's a theme here, and it's groundbreaking. These were monumental women in comedy, the ones that could hold their own in an era when women in comedy were rather rare. Lucy paved the way back in the 1950s with her flawless comic timing and brilliant business acumen; but nothing symbolizes the rise of feminism in television quite like The Mary Tyler Moore Show—and this is the subject of Jennifer Keishin Armstrong's Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted: And All the Brilliant Minds Who Made The Mary Tyler Moore Show a Classic.

Several years ago, I wrote some in-depth posts on an amazing book called When Everything Changed that chronicled the feminist movement from the 1960s to the present, and The MTM Show was featured as the embodiment of feminism of the 1970s. In the decades prior, it was rare for a woman to have a career, and it was rare for her to be single—and happy—well into her thirties. And look at how television had portrayed women before Mary Richards! It was the Donna Reed generation where women stayed at home and supported their husbands, and they were usually just the straight man (er, woman) to a male lead.

By 1970, television was still mirroring a reality that was quickly disappearing. The MTM Show was the anecdote to the false reality of women and their world being portrayed on the small screen. Finally, here was someone the modern woman could relate to! But as Armstrong shares in her book, the road to success was often a difficult one.

To say this show was a hard sell to the television industry is an understatement. Starting at the very beginning, Armstrong chronicles the many successes, failures, and compromises of getting MTM on air. And once it's on, she covers just how it all came about, how all the pieces fell into place—the writers, the scripts, the actors. She delves into the stories behind monumental episodes, how the characters were created and fleshed out, and how groundbreaking it really was both on screen and behind the scenes. While The MTM Show was certainly trailblazing in its on-screen portrayal of women and their lives, it was also creating a breeding ground for women writers in an industry dominated by men. With all this in mind, then, it's no surprise that modern-day comic queen Tina Fey cites MTM as a big influence.

I really enjoyed Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted. It was an enjoyable history of the show that never got too bogged down in detail, nor did it drone on as many entertainment bios tend to do. Its focus was diverse, approaching the story from many angles to tell it in context. MTM was an important show in TV history, and you finish Armstrong's book with that understanding. In the case of most entertainment-focused nonfiction I think you need to have a foundation of interest in the book's specific subject—the figure or feature at hand. But in this case, I think an interest in pop culture or feminism or 20th-century history, or especially how they connect and reflect, is all you need.

Time to start the series from the beginning...again.

Reading Notes: The Evolution of God, Part 2

After a couple of weeks' break, I started back on Robert Wright's The Evolution of God, picking up where I left off. This time, though, I had a hardcover version on my hands instead of an eBook, and it made all the difference in the world. Remember how I said I was sort of lost in Section II? Well it's my own fault; I broke my own promise to myself—never read nonfiction in eBook format. After breezing through one chapter of Section III, I decided to go back and re-read those sections that had given me so much trouble before. And armed with printed pages, a pen, a notebook, and sticky notes, it made all the sense in the world.

Wright's biggest mission in Section II, "The Emergence of Abrahamic Monotheism," was to demonstrate just how and why the God familiar in today's religions emerged from the vengeful god(s) of polytheism. And while I hinted at this in my first post on this book, I really got it after re-reading these chapters; the dates and places and people were way less confusing the second time around!

To quickly summarize it in bullet points, here's what Wright says happened (or, if not happened, here are the factors that led to the present):

• National religion became part of national identity; King Josiah made Yahweh the "official" God of Israel, in turn centralizing power and centralizing worship.
• When Babylon conquered Israel, religion was a way to make sense of disaster. If Israel's God was defeated, it meant defeat for their national identity as well. Instead, massive destruction just meant God was more powerful than they believed, and everything that happened to Israel was just God's will.
• Now there was a new religious mission for trauma-suffering Israelites—non-believers were no longer enemies; they were potential converts. 
• Philo, a Jewish philosopher, is largely responsible for the moral development of God. He interpreted God as tolerant and, fluent in Greek, translated the Bible accordingly. Here, Wright illustrates just how important semantics have been in religious history; ambiguity, creative interpretation, and selective retention shape belief systems. 
• And further with Philo: his most important contribution is the invention of metaphor and allegory, which he often used to justify stories in the Bible that didn't fit his own idea of a loving, compassionate God. This reconciliation of Jewish and Greek thought is the basis for modern theology.
• And more with Philo: he came up with the idea of the "Logos"—the natural law for men and matter. These are the rules that govern the world, like the laws of physics or nature, created by God as a sort of plan for the world. Wright uses the analogy of the video game designer creating the world, the rules, and the players. Wisdom, then, is the way of understanding the logos.

When I mentioned in my last post that Wright is a refreshing, unargumentative voice on the subject of religion, that perspective is illustrated best by his discussion on the evolution of morality. In his words:

"If the human conception of god features moral growth, and if this reflects corresponding moral growth on the part of humanity itself, and if humanity's moral growth flows from basic dynamics underlying history, and if we conclude that this growth is therefore evidence of 'higher purpose,' does this amount to evidence of an actual god?"

I included this not-so-brief summary on a section I've already sort of written about because it's important to know where religion came from and what purpose it served as we begin Section III, "The Invention of Christianity."

Wright begins this chapter with an introduction to Jesus, though one that may be very foreign to today's Christians—what Wright labels "Historical Jesus." In comparing the Jesus from the four gospels of the New Testament, each written an increasing amount of time after Jesus' death, Wright contends that historical accuracy diminishes and the stories are embellished to make a point (whatever point it is the authors are trying to make). Jesus from Mark had only love for his Israelite neighbor, but by the time Luke was written, Jesus showed universal love for all. Here's where the Bible is its most interesting—its roles as a religious text and a historical record are conflicting!

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But this story of Jesus is just an example of the interpretations I mentioned above, and there was much more that led to the eventual rise of Christianity that also contributed to the present-day God. And this was done mostly by Paul. Paul, like Philo, believed in brotherly love while also believing Jesus died to atone for our sins. It was this idea of interethic tolerance that eventually spawned Christianity in a society that, Wright argues, already had the pieces in place.

The growth of the Roman Empire made interethnic tolerance more valuable in terms of economic transactions. Plus, the Empire already had social clubs and groups that played an important role in society—creating kinship and familial bonds in an increasingly populous world. Christianity offered unconditional love to its followers, and by Paul deeming there is "neither Jew nor Greek," he built a bridge to the Gentile world, abandoning strict Jewish custom and increasing the accessibility to God. Paul himself was ambitious, and tolerance was the key to gaining followers and expanding his empire. 

Though there were several version of early Christianity, Paul's version was the one that became mainstream, because it built off of Judaism rather than immediately renouncing it. Paul used Jewish beliefs as the foundation of his new religion, even recruiting from Jewish believers. It wasn't until Paul's followers needed to undermine Judaism as the heir to Hebrew tradition [to practice one's own religion in the Roman Empire, it must be demonstrated that the religion predates the Empire] that Christianity severed its ties with Judaism and really came into its own. Here the Christians claimed that the Jews had forsaken God by killing his son, and now the two diverged in opinion and belief. 

Wright's distinction between Historical Jesus and Biblical Jesus becomes clear in the section's last chapter, "How Jesus Became a Savior." In one sentence: New Testament authors believed Jesus to be the fulfillment of an Old Testament prophecy about the appearance from the skies of a "Son of Man." Wright continues on the theme of salvation to tie everything we've learned so far together: how the emergence of monotheism and the birth of Christianity have led to a moral God. To sum it up, because this has gotten REALLY long:

• This "Son of Man" offers an eternal heaven to good Christian souls; basically, a pleasant afterlife is a perk of Christianity, which gives it an edge on other religions.
• Paul decides to explicitly define sin to help people reach heaven. This definition helps people avoid certain behaviors, which causes a group cohesiveness. Suddenly, people are nicer to each other because they know that moral behavior leads to eternal happiness.

And here is the answer as to how religion became linked with morality: Wright argues that religions develop from their ability to meet basic human psychological needs, and at this particular moment in history, Christianity was able to do just that. It provided rules to live by; it answered questions about the unknown, particularly what happens after death; it gave ways to atone for the sin of mankind (because apparently at this time, mankind had very poor self-esteem); it was a social movement providing shared a forum for shared belief systems. And most importantly, it provided a way to save the individual soul. By linking salvation to social behavior, it provided individuals a sure-fire way to a blissful afterlife. 

I have seriously learned so so much from this book so far. I grew up as a reluctant churchgoer, but I realize my knowledge base is incredibly weak. I was astounded to learn that the four gospels of the New Testament have entirely conflicting information, but I was never taught that because we learned about stories in Sunday School, not history. I never even knew these were four perspectives on the same story! Wright is doing in this book exactly what I strive for in my own spiritual questioning—he is sharing context, showing how one thing came from another, explaining how things evolve based on many factors.

One of the hardest things to remember so far is that the society we're reading about in so much depth is actually only one very distinct part of the world. We're reading about Israel and, yes, the development of major world religions, but there are whole other cultures around the world developing their own theologies and religions. Wright did establish that this book focuses on only the three Abrahamic religions, and the next section will veer us away from the Jewish and Christian Middle East and into Islam.

Reading Notes: The Evolution of God, Part 1

Remember back years ago when I read Gail Collins' When Everything Changed, blogging throughout my reading experience instead of only at the end? That was one of the most satisfying books I've ever read, and it was mostly thanks to the way I read it. Usually, with fiction especially, I devour a book straight through to formulate an instinctual, overarching reaction and opinion. Then I may go back, analyze and criticize, and interact with the book more deeply. With When Everything Changed, I read slowly and deliberately. I made notes in the margins; I underlined facts to remember.

Before I started The Evolution of God by Robert Wright, I had intended to just read it straight through like any other book, discerned only as a break in all the fiction I've been reading lately. As I kept reading, though, I figured this would be the perfect book to start reading more closely—it's full of detail; it's well-organized with easy start and stop points; its sections are thematic. To me, it didn't feel like I'd do this book justice if I breezed through it and summarized at the end; and it's about time I had a more thorough reading project. [Plus, after finishing the first two sections, I couldn't read further without a break!]


Wright's purpose with The Evolution of God is to chronicle the development of modern day monotheism from prehistoric polytheism. To succinctly sum up all 500+ pages of this book, Wright's main argument is that the three Abrahamic religions—Christianity, Judaism, and Islam—are a product of social and economic advancement. Monotheism was not a revolutionary concept; rather, as humankind evolved—as communities formed and global interactions developed—its concept of religion followed suit in ways that would continue to be of benefit socially, economically, and theologically.

But before international politics influenced religion, scientific discovery played an even bigger part. Wright states that, "However diverse the forces that shape religion, its early impetus indeed seems to have come largely from people who, like us, were trying to make sense of the world." And before science provided the reason for weather patterns and human growth and development, people created gods to explain the unexplained.

So basically, somewhere along the way, these gods that controlled the weather evolved into modern-day religion. But...

1. When did gods become a God we worship? and
2. When did religion become about morality?

"Religion" was once something that was "so tightly interwoven into their [hunter-gatherer] everyday thought and action that they don't have a word for them." To answer my above questions, Wright brings in the factor of human interaction. The values taught by modern-day religion—love, honesty, generosity—weren't present in primitive religion, because there wasn't a larger society to be accountable to; when your only interactions are with family and close friends, these values are inherent. When populous settlements began to form, requiring interaction with each other, these values were needed for mutually beneficial co-existence. Because religions that "encouraged people to treat others considerately...made for a more orderly and productive city."

Sections I and II of this book (titled "The Birth and Growth of Gods" and "The Emergence of Abrahamic Monotheism," respectively) mostly discuss this evolution from many gods to one God, and the emergence of the God personality familiar today. According to Wright, this evolution didn't stop when god became God; his personality has evolved as well. Throughout history, gods have been angry and spiteful; gods have taken human form with human qualities; and God has appeared gracious and all-knowing. Wright tries to demonstrate how all these different forms of a "higher power" are a reflection of society's needs at a particular time. 

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It's refreshing to read a non-controversial, unassuming voice on an often debated topic. Wright writes without sarcasm or skepticism; his approach is more cultural and historical than theoretical or scientific. He writes seemingly without agenda other than to highlight the historical evidence offering an explanation of why things exist as they do. He considers the two most debated and most dominate positions regarding the purpose of modern religion: 1) to provide "reassurance and hope in the face of pain and uncertainty, overcoming our natural selfishness with communal cohesion," and 2) as "a tool of social control, wielded by the powerful for self-aggrandizement." In other words, he recognizes opposing views on this topic and addresses them both as valid.

I'll be honest...Wright sort of lost me in Section II. By this point, society has progressed into the great empires we know from history—Babylonia, Greece, Rome. Wright touches on the issue of religion breeding intolerance as societies competed with each other, which seems to be a point he will address more later on. But overall, this section features many names and places, and how all of these factors have shaped religion into what it is today; and he points to several passages in the Bible that indicate biblical evidence of thought patterns...

And this made me consider how fascinating the Bible is as a piece of literature, because it serves as both a platform for storytelling and a historical record. 

Mostly in this section, though, I felt like Wright was jumping ahead. The text identifies historical figures as Jewish or Christian, but he never touched on the point at which these religions separated from one another; we have the build up to monotheism from polytheism, but not the point at which different belief systems (different religions) emerged. I believe he will touch on these things in the coming sections, but it was confusing to read about particular people and stories from the texts of specific religions before we had reached that point.

I have now rambled for a very long time on these sections without much coherent conclusion or summary! I find Wright to be that kind of big-picture nonfiction author that helps you understand his main points, but I found Section II to be bogged down with too much historical detail. It was more confusing than enlightening. I hope Section III, "The Invention of Christianity," will bring it back down to a single track that's easier to follow. In the meantime, here's one of the most important takeaways from these sections that explains why I find religion to be so fascinating to question and explore:

"Whatever the truth about Yahweh's early history, there is one thing we can say with some confidence: the Bible's editors and translators have sometimes obscured it—perhaps deliberately, in an attempt to conceal evidence of early mainstream polytheism."

Because history is always open to interpretation, and stories always reflect their author's voice.

Nonfiction | Good Words and Broken Promises

"When people want to slaughter cattle they drive them along until they get them to a corral, and then they slaughter them. So it was with us."

—Standing Bear of the Poncas

Not so long ago, I embarked on a little personal reading project I called "Westward Ho!" to delve into certain historical topics I wanted to explore. [I thought it was not so long ago...and then I searched the blog archives and found it was actually two whole years ago! Whoops...where did 2013 go??] The most enlightening part of this project was the joint reading I did with Aarti of a book called Lions of the West. Our conversations inspired further exploration of some of the topics addressed in that book, and one of the books I put on my "to-read" list as a result was Dee Brown's acclaimed Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West.

This book wasn't exactly what I expected. Some nonfiction narrators (maybe most that I've read) keep their big-picture point at the forefront of their storytelling. Their chapters highlight specific pieces of evidence that support their main point, but the narrative always pulls it all together. That way, you don't get bogged down in details (a real buzz kill, especially if the subject is historical), and you can easily see how all the pieces fit together to tell the story.

Brown doesn't hold the reader's hand quite that much in Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. Instead of mixing detail with broad summary, Brown shares a lot of detail about the persisting incidents suffered by American Indians in the latter half of the 19th century—primetime of US westward expansion. It's one story after another about particular confrontations in particular places, featuring the stories of such individuals as Crazy Horse, Red Cloud, and Sitting Bull. I think his method must have been more of the shove-it-in-your-head-with-repetition variety.

The result of this method is that you, the reader, feel the never-ending hopelessness of defeat as the various tribes Brown highlights are demoralized, manipulated, and conquered by the US government. Though it isn't as easy to read as a more succinct narrative style, the point made is clear. White men were like a plague impossible to extinguish; it was an uphill battle and a losing one at that.

In using his many different examples, Brown is able to show just how uphill this battle was and how many different ways the American Indians tried to approach it. Some peacefully acquiesced to US demands; some went through legal channels to voice their rights; some resorted to warfare and destruction. As rules and regulations were imposed on the country's native inhabitants, the government disregarded its own rules and promises to them for its own gains.

"To justify these breaches of the 'permanent Indian frontier,' the policy makers in Washington invented Manifest Destiny, a term which lifted land hunger to a lofty plane. The Europeans and their descendents were ordained by destiny to rule all of America. They were the dominant race and therefore responsible for the Indians—along with their lands, their forests, and their mineral wealth."

Not only did Manifest Destiny assert the God-given right of white men to take over the country, it also actually deemed it destiny of the Indians to give up their land. There's deceit and greed and manipulation. Settlers and soldiers exaggerated or blatantly lied about the "nuisance" and "violence" of Indians so the government would shoo them off the land, "for safety's sake."

The story is sad. It's really sad. It feels so incredibly hopeless. And it's really such a terrible part of this country's humanitarian history that sadly is too often brushed over as just a relic, an inevitable part of the past, when people are still today living and dealing with its repercussions.

Though I still don't think this book is the easiest or most interesting to read, stylistically speaking, its stories speak volumes, and I think it's one of the most important perspectives of history to hear and understand.

"Their musical names remained forever fixed on the American land, but their bones were forgotten in a thousand burned villages or lost in forests fast disappearing before the axes of twenty million invaders."

Nonfiction | Bad Girls Have More Fun

"Only good girls keep diaries. Bad girls don't have the time."

—Tallulah Bankhead

This is the last nonfiction book I read, and I read it before our two months of travels. (Somehow, nonfiction just doesn't sound so appealing to me as a vacation read; give me fluff or give me death!) My mom picked up Elizabeth Kerri Mahon's Scandalous Women: The Lives and Loves of History's Most Notorious Women from the library back in January, and it was a great easy piece of nonfiction. I read it in just a couple of days, because it's easy to digest with short, conclusive chapters.

Many of these scandalous women are ones about which you are probably familiar—Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, Anne Boleyn, Zelda Fitzgerald. But then there are many that are probably unfamiliar but were still newsmakers of their times for going against the grain of society—women like Eleanor of Aquitaine, wife of King Louis VII and also King Henry II, a woman that could easily keep up with the powerful men of her time in both politics and romantic philandering.

Other women we read about are "wayward wives," "scintillating seductresses," and "amorous artists," among others. Mahon writes this book as a collection of brief and accessible biographies; you're not getting the full story but just a quick summary that may pique your interest to read more. (And I did; Wikipedia was my friend while reading this book!)

If the above chapter heads are any indication, Mahon is a fan of cutesy language, which is sometimes pretty annoying. Starting a character biography with the phrase, "She was just a small-town girl, living in a small-town world..." to describe Joan of Arc's beginnings is a pretty lame literary technique—not to mention I hate that song. But these aren't things you can't get past, and it's still a fun and light piece of nonfiction that demonstrates history-makers are never the quiet ones.

Nonfiction | America by Highways and Byways

On the old highway maps of America, the main routes were red and the back roads blue. Now even the colors are changing. But in those brevities just before dawn and a little after dusk—times neither day nor night—the old roads return to the sky some of its color. Then, in truth, they carry a mysterious cast of blue, and it's that time when the pull of the blue highway is strongest, when the open road is a beckoning, a strangeness, a place where a man can lose himself.

There's something about road trips that holds a special place in the American psyche, that has inspired generations of folks to hit the open road and discover what makes this country tick—the forgotten towns and the people in them forgotten, too. One thing I took away from college in New York was the reminder that "there's a whole other country out there; you're living in a bubble, and there are as many ways to live as there are people." Road trips have always been about discovering those people and those ways of life, and probably discovering something about yourself along the way.

At least, that's the romanticized version you usually read about.

Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon takes us on a journey around America by the back roads. The author strays from the interstates and highways and circles the country via the back roads that wind through those small forgotten towns. Escaping, however impermanently, from the fizzling end of a relationship, he sets out in a makeshift fort of his own—a trusty old van equipped with sleeping and cooking utilities—to "discover America." Along the way, he meets an America that is "disappearing." [Though, seeing as how this book was published thirty years ago, it's probably already gone.]

This is about one person out to explore, without anything particular in mind. It's about the journey being more important than the destination. And it's a reminder that there's more out there than what you see every day.

One of the things I enjoyed the most was the author's style of writing. He shares his experiences with a frankness and honesty that conveys his own confusion or apathy or curiosity during his journey; he paints small scenes that capture a moment that can say so much without words. Mostly, though, he serves as kind of a straight-man riding through the country, letting the experiences bounce off him so that we can more clearly see them. As he rolls up in small towns and converses with strangers, we see little glimpses into these ways of life that are probably very different than our own.

I don't think any record of "travel writing" can truly convey the vastness and diversity of a place and/or its people, because travel writing is so inextricably linked to the writer, the one voicing the experiences. But it does introduce you to people you've never met, places you've never seen, and fuel that drive to hit the road and experience for yourself.

I wish there was a cross-country road trip memoir that is more current (and if there is one and I'm missing it, feel free to share). Society is a lot different now than it was in 1979 and I'd like to see if that small-town isolation still exists in our current technologically-driven and -connected world.

If you like this, A Walk Across America by Peter Jenkins is another travelogue from the same era with a similar feel. And that's one of my all-time favorites.

Nonfiction | Under a Watchful Regime

I recently realized that it's been a long time since I've read any nonfiction, despite having an abundance of nonfiction titles on my to-read list. I've been wanting to read Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea after seeing it featured on several bookstores' shelves and sporadically running across interesting articles and photo series depicting life in the insular North Korea. Demick tells the narrative of life as a North Korean through the eyes of six defectors, covering the county's history from its split with the rest of the peninsula to the present day.

One of the first things I realized from this book was that Demick's writing style was going to be very easy to understand. She opens with a history of the Korean War and how, essentially, North Korea is all our fault. It was Americans that chose the dividing line, causing ideologies to flock to each pole—communism in the North, capitalism in the South. Overall, Demick's quick overview gave me a better understanding of the Korean conflict than AP US History did back in high school.

The second thing I realized from this book was I never knew I could feel so hungry.

Much of the narrative covers the North Korean famine of the 1990s. She went into great anecdotal detail of how her subjects had to scavenge for food, creatively finding ways to fill their stomachs. And how sadly, most of them didn't even realize that this wasn't normal. They were part of such a cult of worship, utterly trusting in their government and beloved leaders, that it was never even a consideration to blame the government. Many pages are filled with the day-to-day struggles North Koreans had to endure as they fought to survive even as an incredibly repressive regime watched their every move.

What's so interesting is how long these rules of society remained, despite the desperation—rules against personal relationships, voiced opinions, and outlawed media; all things that are trivial when you're literally fighting for your life. It's as if the government expected people to just not notice the hunger and go one with their daily lives.

There was, of course, a breaking point for many, and this led citizens to begin escaping to neighboring China or South Korea. The stories of these journeys are perhaps the most interesting part of the novel, as you learn the risks, sacrifices, and hardships along the way. What's even more interesting, though, is that the number of defectors is still an incredibly small portion of the North Korean population. There's something that is keeping many citizens where they are, and it's fascinating—and frightening—to think about the strength of this mental influence.

I thought Demick's narrative style was a compelling, though terrifying, way to tell the story, because you are put in these particular shoes, following their footsteps. I was flabbergasted with the realization that I was alive during this. Not just alive because I was alive when the Berlin Wall fell. But alive as a conscious and aware individual that had the capacity to learn and understand such a situation. It seems so recent for such a terrible atrocity. This was an easy to follow, though sometimes difficult to read, solid piece of nonfiction that illuminates a mind-boggling reality.