Book Haul: September 2020

 

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Welcome to Stacking the Shelves and Mailbox Monday, where I get to show off the books I’ve gotten recently. I’ve already read a few of them, so *pats self on back.* I’ll give mini reviews of the ones I’ve read.

 

September 2020 Book Haul

 

 

The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen

 

Adult Short Story Collection

 

From a young Vietnamese refugee who suffers profound culture shock when he comes to live with two gay men in San Francisco, to a woman whose husband is suffering from dementia and starts to confuse her for a former lover, to a girl living in Ho Chi Minh City whose older half-sister comes back from America having seemingly accomplished everything she never will, the stories are a captivating testament to the dreams and hardships of immigration.

My tiny review: The stories in this collection are set in the 1970s and feature characters who are Vietnam War refugees. The characters and writing are great. Overall, the book is powerful and realistic. Like most short story collections, this one is a mixed bag. Some of the stories are entertaining, and some of the plots didn’t come together for me.

 

 

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Darius The Great Is Not Okay by Adib Khorram

 

Young Adult Contemporary Fiction

 

Darius Kellner speaks better Klingon than Farsi, and he knows more about Hobbit social cues than Persian ones. He's about to take his first-ever trip to Iran, and it's pretty overwhelming—especially when he's also dealing with clinical depression, a disapproving dad, and a chronically anemic social life. In Iran, he gets to know his ailing but still formidable grandfather, his loving grandmother, and the rest of his mom's family for the first time. And he meets Sohrab, the boy next door who changes everything.

Sohrab makes sure people speak English so Darius can understand what's going on. He gets Darius an Iranian National Football Team jersey that makes him feel like a True Persian for the first time. And he understands that sometimes, best friends don't have to talk. Darius has never had a true friend before, but now he's spending his days with Sohrab playing soccer, eating rosewater ice cream, and sitting together for hours in their special place, a rooftop overlooking the Yazdi skyline.

Sohrab calls him Darioush—the original Persian version of his name—and Darius has never felt more like himself than he does now that he's Darioush to Sohrab. When it's time to go home to America, he'll have to find a way to be Darioush on his own.

My tiny review: It’s so good! I wish it had been around when I was a teenager. The main character, Darius, is a chubby, pimply loner with depression. That was me as a teen! I didn’t know I was main-character-worthy. Anyway, Darius travels to Iran to meet his grandparents for the first time ever. While he’s there, he makes friends, discovers a talent for soccer, and reevaluates his relationship with his parents. There’s no romance. I loved it. It’s sweet, quiet, and nerdy. Please pick it up if you like contemporary YA.

 

 

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Wakenhyrst by Michelle Paver

 

Adult Historical Horror

 

In Edwardian Suffolk, a manor house stands alone in a lost corner of the Fens: a glinting wilderness of water whose whispering reeds guard ancient secrets. Maud is a lonely child growing up without a mother, ruled by her repressive father.

When he finds a painted medieval devil in a graveyard, unhallowed forces are awakened.

Maud's battle has begun. She must survive a world haunted by witchcraft, the age-old legends of her beloved fen—and the even more nightmarish demons of her father's past.

 

Why I’m excited to read it: I was searching for spooky books to read in October, and this one jumped out at me. It sounds perfect! Goodreads calls it “a darkly gothic thriller about murderous obsession and one girl's longing to fly free.” If a book contains a haunted manor house in the wilderness, I want to read it.

 

 

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Talking To Strangers: What We Should Know About The People We Don’t Know by Malcolm Gladwell

 

Psychology Nonfiction

 

How did Fidel Castro fool the CIA for a generation? Why did Neville Chamberlain think he could trust Adolf Hitler? Why are campus sexual assaults on the rise? Do television sitcoms teach us something about the way we relate to each other that isn't true?

Something is very wrong, Gladwell argues, with the tools and strategies we use to make sense of people we don't know. And because we don't know how to talk to strangers, we are inviting conflict and misunderstanding in ways that have a profound effect on our lives and our world.

 

Why I’m excited to read it: This sounds like a book the world could use right now. I think we’re very good at shouting our opinions on Twitter, but we’re not very good at having in-person conversations. I hope I’ll learn something from this book.

 

 

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The 57 Bus: A True Story Of Two Teenagers And The Crime That Changed Their Lives by Dashka Slater

 

True Crime Nonfiction

 

If it weren't for the 57 bus, Sasha and Richard never would have met. Both were high school students from Oakland, California, one of the most diverse cities in the country, but they inhabited different worlds. Sasha, a white teen, lived in the middle-class foothills and attended a small private school. Richard, a black teen, lived in the crime-plagued flatlands and attended a large public one. Each day, their paths overlapped for a mere eight minutes. But one afternoon on the bus ride home from school, a single reckless act left Sasha severely burned, and Richard charged with two hate crimes and facing life imprisonment. The case garnered international attention, thrusting both teenagers into the spotlight.

 

Why I’m excited to read it: It gets phenomenal reviews from book critics and from random Goodreads users. Almost all of my Goodreads friends have rated it 4 or 5 stars. It has been nominated for a ton of awards. I like true crime and books about young people, so I’m interested to see what the hype is about.

 

 

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Bomb: The Race To Build—And Steal—The World’s Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin

 

History Nonfiction

 

In December of 1938, a chemist in a German laboratory made a shocking discovery: When placed next to radioactive material, a Uranium atom split in two. That simple discovery launched a scientific race that spanned 3 continents. In Great Britain and the United States, Soviet spies worked their way into the scientific community; in Norway, a commando force slipped behind enemy lines to attack German heavy-water manufacturing; and deep in the desert, one brilliant group of scientists was hidden away at a remote site at Los Alamos. This is the story of the plotting, the risk-taking, the deceit, and genius that created the world's most formidable weapon. This is the story of the atomic bomb.

 

Why I’m excited to read it: I may have squealed out loud when I found a cheap scratch-and-dent copy of this book online. I’ve wanted to read it for years! Now I finally have it in my over-washed little hands! Steve Sheinkin’s book about the Vietnam War is one of my all-time-favorites. His nonfiction books are the opposite of dry. They’re fast-paced, thoughtful, and lively. It’s like reading a brilliantly researched thriller. I never thought I’d say this, but I’m stoked to learn about atomic bombs.

 

 

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The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest To Transform The Grisly World Of Victorian Medicine by Lindsey Fitzharris

 

History Nonfiction

 

In The Butchering Art, the historian Lindsey Fitzharris reveals the shocking world of nineteenth-century surgery on the eve of profound transformation. She conjures up early operating theaters—no place for the squeamish—and surgeons, working before anesthesia, who were lauded for their speed and brute strength. These medical pioneers knew that the aftermath of surgery was often more dangerous than their patients' afflictions, and they were baffled by the persistent infections that kept mortality rates stubbornly high. At a time when surgery couldn't have been more hazardous, an unlikely figure stepped forward: a young, melancholy Quaker surgeon named Joseph Lister, who would solve the deadly riddle and change the course of history.

Fitzharris dramatically recounts Lister's discoveries in gripping detail, culminating in his audacious claim that germs were the source of all infection—and could be countered by antiseptics. Focusing on the tumultuous period from 1850 to 1875, she introduces us to Lister and his contemporaries—some of them brilliant, some outright criminal—and takes us through the grimy medical schools and dreary hospitals where they learned their art, the deadhouses where they studied anatomy, and the graveyards they occasionally ransacked for cadavers.

 

Why I’m excited to read it: This book should be a good addition to my weird collection of medical nonfiction. (How did I acquire so many books about plagues and Victorian surgeries?) I’m endlessly fascinated by the history of medicine because it’s full of geniuses, criminals, and experiments-gone-wrong. Goodreads calls this book “eerie and illuminating.” I hope so.

 

 

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Never Split The Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Chris Voss

 

Psychology Nonfiction

 

After a stint policing the rough streets of Kansas City, Missouri, Chris Voss joined the FBI, where his career as a hostage negotiator brought him face-to-face with a range of criminals, including bank robbers and terrorists. Reaching the pinnacle of his profession, he became the FBI’s lead international kidnapping negotiator. Never Split the Difference takes you inside the world of high-stakes negotiations and into Voss’s head, revealing the skills that helped him and his colleagues to succeed where it mattered most: saving lives. In this practical guide, he shares the nine effective principles—counter-intuitive tactics and strategies—you too can use to become more persuasive in both your professional and personal life.

 

Why I’m excited to read it: While wallowing in boredom during virus lockdown, I found an interview with the author. He seems like a confident dude who knows a lot about how people think. I’ll probably never have to negotiate with a terrorist, but I’m curious about how it’s done.

 

 

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A People’s History Of The United States by Howard Zinn

 

History Nonfiction

 

Library Journal calls Howard Zinn’s iconic A People's History of the United States “a brilliant and moving history of the American people from the point of view of those . . . whose plight has been largely omitted from most histories.” Packed with vivid details and telling quotations, Zinn’s award-winning classic continues to revolutionize the way American history is taught and remembered.

 

Why I’m excited to read it: One of my goals is to read more nonfiction. (That’s why you’ve seen so much of it in this post.) I’ve been looking at lists of classic nonfiction, and I keep stumbling across this book. If people have been recommending (and criticizing) it since before I was born, I might as well see what the hubbub is about.

 

 

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Why I’m No Longer Talking To White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge

 

Sociology Nonfiction

 

In 2014, award-winning journalist Reni Eddo-Lodge wrote about her frustration with the way that discussions of race and racism in Britain were being led by those who weren't affected by it. She posted a piece on her blog, entitled: 'Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race' that led to this book.

Exploring issues from eradicated black history to the political purpose of white dominance, whitewashed feminism to the inextricable link between class and race, Reni Eddo-Lodge offers a timely and essential new framework for how to see, acknowledge and counter racism. It is a searing, illuminating, absolutely necessary exploration of what it is to be a person of color in Britain today.

 

Why I’m excited to read it: I’ve read a few books about race, but all of them were US-focused. This one is UK-focused. I’m interested to see a conversation about race from a different perspective.

 

 

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Have you read any of these? What did you think?