Jan - March Book Reviews
Three months and almost 15 weeks into 2024, I have been trying to maintain a book-a-week pace of reading this year. I aim to combat the increasing gravitational pull toward only mindlessly scrolling through Insta reels or reading mostly short-form journalism. Anywho, for those interested, here is a rundown of what I have been reading thus far into the New Year. I have enjoyed all of the books, even the ones I have ranked 3 stars. Below that level, I just stopped reading the book. In total, I have 6 books ranked at 5 stars, must read; 4 books at 4 stars and 4 at 3 stars.
The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny & Murder
David Grann ***** (5 Stars)
Started the year with the newest work from a master of narrative-nonfiction, David Grann. He has already penned two outstanding works, Killers of the Flower Moon (now also a fantastic movie from Martin Scorsese) and The Lost City of Z.
Here, Grann delivers another nail-biting, page-turner of a tale about “shipwreck, survival, and savagery.” Grann is an extraordinarily captivating writer. Once the crew has set out to sea, it is nearly impossible to put the book down. What gives Grann’s works such power though is that he never allows the stories he tells to remain simple armchair thrillers. His ability to tell a good yarn is coupled with the keen eye of a historian looking for meaning beyond the immediate circumstances of the crew. Here, the ugly truths of imperialism and empire are revealed through the hardships of the very men tasked with doing the work of empire.
The Wim Hof Method: Activate Your Full Human Potential
Wim Hof *** (3 Stars)
The Iceman himself, Wim Hof, explores in length the power and potential of ice baths/cold plunges. The book makes some extraordinary, and in my estimation, dubious claims, about the ice bath and breathing techniques. I didn’t take a whole lot away from the book. However, since finishing it three months ago, I have ended every shower with 1-2 minutes of cold.
Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice
Bill Browder *** (3 Stars)
In case the world requires more evidence that Putin and his cronies are corrupt and murderous villains, Red Notice should do the trick. The book describes itself as a “financial caper, a crime thriller, and a political crusade.” It is certainly all those things, and the pages turn easily. However, reading about the fight for justice in the world of high finance left me a little underwhelmed.
Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World
Tom Holland ***** (5 Stars)
This book is quite simply a masterpiece in every sense. A magisterial work showcasing how Christianity has thoroughly and completely shaped the Western mind and imagination. The book is lengthy and exhaustive, which will intimidate some readers, but Holland resists the temptation to veer too far down any one historic rabbit trail. Careful and deliberate in his millennia-spanning sketch of church history, Holland demonstrates how utterly saturated the West is in Christian assumptions and values.
Lest this raise the suspicions of the skeptical, rest assured, the book is not triumphalist by any means. Holland himself came to the writing project agnostic in his thinking. What he found, and what he reveals, however, is that Christianity truly has transformed the world as we know it.
Every Man for Himself & God Against All: A Memoir
Werner Herzog *** (3 Stars)
In my estimation, Werner Herzog could comfortably fill the role of Dos Equis Most Interesting Man in the World. Imagine my delight when I stumbled upon his memoir. With a title like that, I had to give it a read. The childhood memories he relates read like fantasy, but most of the book is dedicated to his filmography. I was hoping for more of his philosophy of life and opinions on matters great and small. Unfortunately, I am not familiar enough with his films to have enjoyed the book to the fullest. For the Herzog enthusiast though, the book may well be worth your time.
The Air We Breathe: How We All Came to Believe in Freedom, Kindness, Progress, and Equality
Glen Scrivener **** (4 Stars)
This book is a sort of commentary, you could say, on Tom Holland’s Dominion. It makes exciting and bold assertions about Christianity’s influence, travelling further than the historian himself was willing to go. For that reason alone, I loved the book. It serves as a bridge between academic historians and laypersons, which served me well. However, I would encourage the reader to just go to the source itself, Dominion by Tom Holland.
The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God: Why New Atheism Grew Old and Secular Thinkers are Considering Christianity Again
Justin Brierly **** (4 Stars)
In the early 2000’s ‘New Atheism’ was all the rage. It hadn’t occurred to me until this work that those conversations have grown largely silent. This book explains why. Drawing from the same well as Scrivener and Holland, Brierley boldly asserts that Christianity is experiencing a renaissance of sorts. I thoroughly enjoyed the book but was left with a puzzling question. Brierly showcases numerous academics (many of them former atheists) who are now giving Christianity a second chance. I was surprised however by how many of them seemed to lean politically right. I was left wondering why that is and what it might mean for the future of faith.
No Surrender: My Thirty-Year War
Hiroo Onoda **** (4 Stars)
In the late-stage Pacific theatre of World War 2, Japanese Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda (along with a company of fellow soldiers) was left on the Philippine Island of Lubang with a simple instruction: never surrender until Japanese forces return. Outlasting the rest of the men (who either surrendered or were killed), for 29 years, Onoda would continue to fight a war that had long since passed. During those three decades, he was pursued first by American troops, Philippine police, hostile islanders, and multiple Japanese search parties, all the while adapting to and fighting with the elements of mountainous jungle terrain.
That real life is stranger than fiction has never been so demonstrable as here. The many hardships Onoda endured while remaining loyal, courageous, adaptable, and steadfast to his cause speaks to the tenacity and valour of the human spirit. And yet, his lonely battle was all for naught. Onoda wasted three decades of his life fighting an imaginary war with an imaginary foe. His cause and plight also serve as a sharp reminder of humanity’s propensity to remain entrenched in us vs them thinking, even when both sides have long since retired from the fight. The book is both a tragically inspiring and comically cautionary tale.
My only gripe with the book is that it ends as Onoda surrenders on the island to Japanese superiors who are finally able to convince him that the war is over, and he must return home to Japan. The reader is left wondering how Onoda reintegrated into Japanese life and came to make sense of his solo thirty war during the last four decades of his life.
Humans: A Brief History of How We Fucked It All Up
Tom Phillips ***** (5 Stars)
I enjoy history. I also enjoy spectacular tales of failure. I also really like a good laugh. Now, to receive all three in one place? That would take a small miracle of writing. Yet here it is in Tom Phillip’s Humans. Phillips has a razor-sharp wit. He also happens to be a historian, so this book is a complete treat to read. Picture a history class where the teacher is a comedian tasked with roasting humanity. This book is laugh-out-loud funny at times and a healthy, albeit concerning reminder that humans are particularly adept at one thing in particular: messing things up. The book served as a chuckling reminder of why I am not a humanist.
The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession
Michael Finkel ***** (5 Stars)
Michael Finker gave us Stranger in the Woods, the story of Christopher Knight, the recluse who lived alone in the woods of Maine for 27 years. That book was so spellbinding, that Finkel earned himself a “must read any of his future books” credit. I am glad I did. This story is no less fun, bizarre or enchanting. The book captures everything I love about narrative non-fiction. Truth truly is stranger than fiction.
In this work, Finkel brings us the most unlikely story of Stephane Breitwieser. Stephane isn’t exactly the kind of man you would picture as the portrait of success. He is living off social assistance while his mother allows him, and his girlfriend Anne-Catherine Kleinklaus, to live rent-free in her attic. While the couple wears no obvious signs of success or social skill, their small attic apartment was decorated with 239 pieces of stolen art worth more than 2 billion dollars combined.
This Bonnie and Clyde couple are the world’s most consistent and successful art thieves in all of history. Between 1995 and 2001, they stole a piece of art on average, every 15 days. This book is a riot of a ride, chronicling their crime spree and eventual capture.
The World’s Largest Man: A Memoir
Harrison Scott Key ***** (5 Stars)
I first fell in love with Harrison Scott Key because of his How to Stay Married: The Most Insane Love Story Ever Told. The book had me in stitches . . . while also teaching me plenty about marriage. The World’s Largest Man is an earlier work of his, the book that would earn him the Thurber Prize for American Humor. What makes Key so enjoyable to me is how he explores the most important of relationships. In How To . . . it was the way he sardonically explored the pains and travails of infidelity while also tenderly speaking of the marriage journey. Here, he employs the same tricks, except the object of his focus is his father and subsequently, what it means to be a man and a father yourself.
Reading Harrison Scott Key reminds me so much of the joy and pure delight I experienced when I first discovered David Sedaris. Any author or book that can in equal parts make me laugh, while also reflecting meaningfully on the most important relationships in life, earns my highest praise.
Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches
John Hodgman *** (3 Stars)
I seem to be drawn to memoirs that explore “the comedic middle-age travails of white male fathers in their forties” as of late. I stumbled upon John Hodgman’s book (he of Mac vs PC and John Stewart fame) hoping to find more of what I found in Harrison Scott Key. The book certainly doesn’t deliver like Keys does, but enjoyable, nonetheless.
Wolfish: Wolf, Self, and the Stories We Tell About Fear
Erica Berry **** (4 Stars)
If one wanted to perfectly market a book to my reading sensibilities, it would be to combine a thrilling non-fiction tale from the wilderness, and couple that with an exploration of the human psyche. Bonus points if it also includes wolves. This book came to me checking all the boxes.
After reading Nate Blakeslee’s American Wolf I went all in on wolf literature. I devoured Rick McIntyre’s Yellowstone trilogy (Wolf 8, 21, and 302) and then entered the void of “lessons humans can learn from wolves” literature. It was a bit much in hindsight. But then Erica Barry arrived in front of me.
The work is an exploration of wolves, both real and symbolic. A portion of each chapter explores the true story of legendary wolf OR-7, a male wolf who travelled more than 1000 miles, becoming the first wolf to enter Western Oregon in more than sixty years, and the first wolf to enter California in more than ninety years. I would have read the book for OR-7’s story alone.
The real meat of the book though is found in Erica Barry confronting the symbolic wolves of the world for a woman coming of age. Leaving home for college and career, Barry is at her best when conveying her own stories of confronting fear.
In college, while walking home late from the library, she is surrounded by a group of men with hoodies covering their faces. Terrified, she wonders if assault comes next, but the men just laugh and walk away. Returning home from a bar, a man follows her and drunkenly wraps his arms around her. She is forced to ask a stranger for help and then runs as that man defends her with fisticuffs. At home, she is startled by a man with mental health issues banging on her door insisting he be allowed in. Once again, she must rely on the police to protect her. These and other stories like them vividly describe close encounters with “wolves.” They are stories that straddle the thin line between escaping a situation left physically unscathed, but impacted, nonetheless.
What I appreciated most about the work though was her insistence on acknowledging the very real danger of “wolves” while also refusing to “stay out of the woods.” In each chapter, Barry confronts her inherited beliefs about fear, gender, danger, femininity, violence and the female body. It is a book I hope both of my daughters and my son for that matter, will someday read.
King: A Life
Jonathan Eig ***** (5 Stars)
This is the first new major biography about MLK to be released in decades and the first biography of the man that includes recently declassified FBI files. What we find here is an almost uncomfortably intimate view of an incredibly complex man. The book is filled with surprises and revelations that reveal MLK to be a man who was both prophetically ahead of his time and martyred because of that. And yet also a man firmly rooted within his time. The book leaves the reader with a most pressing and troubling question. Can our heroes be both courageous and contemptible?