Cluster Critiques

Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson

If Leonardo da Vinci had been a baby-boomer, he would have been picked “most popular,” “most handsome,” and “best dressed” in high school, then showed up at his 25^thclass reunion dressed in a purple suit with his young, beautiful, blond wife named James. 

Leonardo’s long-time apprentice and boyfriend’s name was actually Giacomo, which roughly translates from Italian as James, but that doesn't really matter. What is important about Leonardo de Vince (the man, not the book) is that he was uncompromising, and he bridged art and science, much like another Italian polymath with whom I'm infatuated, Galileo Galilei, who brilliantly, and at great risk, managed to span science and religion. 

What is important, about Leonardo de Vinci (the book) is that Walter Isaacson, a lauded documentarian of hyper-visionary super men like Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein and Steve Jobs, twines vague marginalia, scattered references and exquisite drawings into a page-flipping story about an irresistibly cool guy.

For example,  Leonardo was worshipped as an artist, but he rarely if ever completed a commissioned piece of art. He worked on the Mona Lisa for 16 years and never considered it finished. Also, he was a master at drawing and painting the human anatomy because he dissected humans (sometimes even when they still alive) to study muscles, inside out and moving. And despite all this, he somehow managed to live a relatively luxurious, unimpeded lifestyle, whiling away his hours (even years) simply observing and wondering about things like the flow of water and clouds. 

I had to tamp down my jealousy of de Vinci’s capacity to live life on his own terms, but it didn’t diminish my enjoyment of this book. Even my hubby, who tilts more towards Stephen King and Michael Connelly, loved Leonardo de Vinci, and I believe you will too.

The Moleskin Mystery by Anonymous (Turk Pipkin)

 

A writer, an actor, a juggler and a philanthropist walk into a bar. His name is Turk Pipkin.

It seems talented people possess or have a special capacity to build multiple talents and skills, while the rest of us struggle to simply survive. Turk Pipkin the not so anonymous author of The Moleskin Mystery is one of those people, but this isn’t about Turk, so I’ll move on.

The story begins when a guy walks into a New Orleans bar the time of day when only a few lost souls and vampires perch. As he climbs onto a bar stool, so obviously weighed down by some melancholia yet undisclosed, he is beckoned by a mysterious pocket-size, mole-skin-covered journal sitting in front of him on the bar. As if by destiny, he picks up the journal and begins adding his chapters of lost love and self-discovery. 

What starts out as obtuse yet clever Kerouac/Burroughs-ish navel-gazing soon takes shape as a nourishing story set in romantic, steamy New Orleans. What’s the mystery? The characters are. The finder of the journal is a mystery. Who is he? Where’d he come from? His love interest, Emilia, is a mystery. Who is she really? What happens to her? And what about Marvin, the oracular seer who speaks in riddles and seems to live in the bar where "nobody knows your name"? 

Of course good writing is important, but for me, enjoyable literature is even more so about complex characters I can have feelings for – love hate, sympathy, empathy, curiosity, whatever. Otherwise they are just an irritating distraction. In Moleskin, it isn't the quantity of what Pipkin tells us about the characters - that's the mystery element of his book. It is the quality of what he tells us that makes The Moleskin Mystery part fairy-tale, part fable, and 100% charming.

Red Notice: A True Story by Bill Browder

Eventually tiring of college binge-drinking and womanizing, the rebellious main character of Red Notice decides to drive a stake into the heart of his communist-leaning family tree by getting an MBA from Stanford and becoming a ruthless capitalist, in Russia, which had only recently realigned from a communist dictatorship to a capitalist order!  Ha! That’ll show ‘em! 

With a keen eye for opportunity, a mathematician’s mind and more than a little luck, our protagonist quickly rises to the top of the financial world in a sequence of Russian investment scenarios so exciting and intriguing, and which afforded him a lifestyle so enviable, I couldn’t wait to get to the next chapter!  But the powerful Russian oligarchy - the Mafioso-like families who took over most of the businesses previously run by the Russian state -  didn’t like the idea of someone other than them, especially an American, making millions of dollars off the growing pains of their country’s privatization transition.

Being the rebel he is, however, instead of taking the hint that he’s not wanted in Russia, our American rebel sticks out his chin, eventually losing everything when he denied reentry into Russia and his assets are seized, his lawyer is taken prisoner, tortured and killed in a new Russian Gulag, all his Russian allies end up similarly suspiciously dead, and his and his family’s lives are threatened. But our rebel doesn’t give in, he continues his fight in America, and although it takes years and a relentless campaign, he ends up convincing US Congress to pass a law imposing sanctions against Russia.

Did you happen to notice the "A True Story" in the book title? Yep, author Bill Browder is the rebel and protagonist of this book.

Red Notice had me from beginning to end, but for reasons I probably don’t want to acknowledge, when Bill Browder went from brilliantly conniving to capitalize on investment opportunities in Russia, to avenging his lawyers murder, his story started to feel more along the line of his rebellion against his family (I’ll show you) than about altruism. Although some will disagree, I was never convinced that he cared about the people who died trying to defend him. It just felt like revenge, and that made the final 1/3 of the book seem less authentic.  

Read it? Sure. It’s an intriguing glimpse into the mechanics of a country’s infrastructure transition from communist to capitalist Russia, and a glimpse into predatory capitalism that knows allegiance to no country. 

Best Books Read in 2017

Top Five in Fiction, Non-Fiction, and Biography

Best Fiction:

1. The Arrangement: A Novel by Sarah Dunn
2. The Dry: A Novel by Jane Harper
3. Close Range: Wyoming Stories by Annie Proulx
4. Red Sparrow by Jason Matthews
5. Bluebird Bluebird by Atica Locke

 

Best Non-Fiction

1. The Red Parts: Autobiography of a Trial by Maggie Nelson
2. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
3. American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road by Nick Bilton
4. Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J. D. Vance
5. Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann

Best Biography/Autobiography

1. In the Darkroom by Susan Faludi
2. Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen
3. Delbert McClinton One of the Fortunate Few by Diana Finlay Hendricks
4. Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah     
5. Last Girl Before Freeway: The Life, Loves, Losses, and Liberation of John Rivers by Leslie Bennetts

What I’m Reading:

Among Heroes by Brandon Tyler Webb and John David Mann

Artemis by Andy Weir     

     

Esther’s Follies: The Laughs, The Gossip and the Story Behind Texas’ Most Celebrated Comedy Troupe by Jesse Sublett

Best American Food Writing 2017

Leonardo da vinci by Walter Isaacson

Magpie Murders: A Novel by Anthony Horowitz    

 

Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan

The Moleskin Mystery by Anonymous (Turk Pipkin)

The Power by Naomi Alderman

Best American Science and Nature Writing 2017

Best American Sports Writing 2017 

The Tao of Willie by Willie Nelson with Turk Pipkin

Train to Crystal City, The: FCR’s Secret Prisoner Exchange Program and America’s Only Family Internment Camp During World War II by Jan Jarboe Russell

Best American Travel Writing 2017 

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

Best Books 2019

Of the 38 books I read in 2019, these stand out:

Best Fiction 2019

#1

Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen: A Novel by Sarah Bird

#2

The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner

#3

Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens

Best Non-Fiction 2019

 #1

Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson

#2

Red Notice: A True Story by Bill Browder

#3

Human Errors: A Panorama of Our Glitches, from Pointless Bones to Broken Genes by Nathan H. Lents

Cluster Critiques

 

All I Ever Wanted: A Rock ‘n’ Roll Memoir, by Kathy Valentine

Music has been a bright thread woven in and out of my life’s tapestry, but for guitar player, singer, song writer, band member of the Go-Go’s, and Rock and Roll Hall of Fam-er Kathy Valentine, it was all she ever wanted.  Valentine was raised in Austin by a mom of that generation who, in backlash to their parents 1950’s vice-grip morality, encouraged free-will in their children. Valentine's memoir, All I Ever Wanted, provides the resulting, mostly cringeworthy, yet interesting and well-written story of her unguided grope through a way-too brief childhood, and her adult grind from band to band, eventually finding her nirvana and fame writing songs and playing guitar - filling the spaces in between with drugs and alcohol. 

 

On the eve of adulthood Valentine joined the Go-Go's who became the first all-female band to play instruments themselves, write their own songs, and have a number one album, Beauty and the Beat which included "We Got the Beat" and "Our Lips Are Sealed." Unfortunately traveling the world as a celebrity and hanging out with the likes of the Rolling Stones, the Police, Rod Stewart, John Belushi and Rob Lowe magnified rather than fixed Valentine’s addictions. And then there was the devastating blow of the breakup of the Go-Go’s in 1985. Fortunately, grit honed on 30 years of survival steered Valentine back to her center – writing and playing music.

It stands to reason a person capable of codifying life to song stanzas could write a kick ass book – which is exactly what Valentine does in All I Ever Wanted. I look forward to what might spill out of her next.

 

Footnote: I recommend the audio book, as the music sound track is mesmerizing!

 

The Four Winds: A Novel, by Kristin Hannah

Elsa Wolcott, born in the panhandle of Texas on the 1920’s runway to the drought and great depression suffered heart-breaking discrimination and disdain by everyone in her life. Her parents and sisters didn’t like her because she was too thin, unattractive, “she’ll never get a husband,” and sickly. Then when she becomes pregnant by the first man to pay attention to her and must marry into his family, she is resented by her Italian husband and his parents because her pregnancy derailed her child's father's college plans, and also by his parents because she’s not-Italian. Then her eldest daughter grows to resent her when the dad abandons them. 

When the draught peaks and Elsa takes her teen daughter and young son to California to look for migrant labor, conditions become even worse. There’s more discrimination, this time from Californians resentful of the migration of so many drought-demolished farming families. “Get out of here you filthy Okie” was a common derogatory misnomer. The poverty they experienced was gut-wrenching. They lived in a horrific tent-city, surrounded by despair and starving families, walked miles each day to work for large farms that enslaved their workers by crediting against their wages for food from the company store, and by brutally breaking up efforts to unionize.

Although Hanna’s fans seem to enjoy reading about pitiful, victimized female characters living in horrible situations – and for sure Hanna has made a good living writing about them, I like my female characters with more grit and an occasional happy day. The writing is exceptional and the characters are vivid, I just couldn’t get past pitiful Elsa and the relentless sadness of this story.

 

Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art, by James Nestor

In Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art, author James Nestor explores the science of breathing.  I was fascinated by this book while  reading it, and for a couple of days after, but haven’t given it much thought since because, well, breathing is involuntary, and I have too many other more pressing things to think about. 

 

Nestor interviews practitioners of Pranayama, a breathing technique that can “supercharge” your body, Sudarshan Kriya, a “purifying” yoga breathing technique, and Tummo, breathing that, among other things, enables one to become so warm one can melt the snow around themselves. He also consults with archeologists who theorize that as generations of hunter-gatherers (meat-eaters) transitioned to agrarian diets (soft veggies) our jaws weakened and decreased in size causing us to be more prone to mouth breathing – which apparently is a very bad thing. Nestor participates in a really weird experiment to prove this point, breathing only through his mouth for 10 days, resulting in higher blood pressure, sleep apnea, loss of appetite, and a bad mood.

Also according to Nestor, and a lot of other sources, adjusting we way we breath can significantly increase athletic performance, keep us from snoring, and cure all sorts of maladies.  If you have the interest and headspace to change the way you breath, have a go at this book. 

The Code-Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race, by Walter Isaacson

Walter Isaacson, author of The Code-Breaker as well as several other  personal favorites of mine, Jobs, Leonardo da Vinci, Einstein, and The Innovators, can write no wrong, but I was attracted to Code-Breaker because it is focused on Isaacson’s first female subject, Jennifer Doudna, and on genetic editing, a topic that has intrigued me for a long time.

Doudna, an American, and Emmanuelle Charpentier, Frenchwoman, are two of seven women to win the Nobel Award in Chemistry in its 100-year history, and are credited with discovering the CRISPR-CAS9 genome editing tool, called “one of the most significant discoveries in the history of biology,” and critical to many medical opportunities (some very controversial), but most recently as relates to manipulating viruses, such as COVID-19.

 

Doudna, currently the Li Ka Shing Chancellor's Chair Professor in the Department of Chemistry and the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley, grew up in Hilo, Hawaii. She was encouraged by the intellectual pursuits of her academia parents, and when she was in the sixth grade her dad left a copy of James Watson's The Double Helix on her bed, setting her path into molecular biology. In 2016, she was runner up for Time Magazine’s Most Influential Person of the Year.

 

In reference to the “very controversial” comment above, much of this book is dedicated to the ethics of tinkering with genes, sometimes called “Controlled Evolution,” which opens the door to genetic enhancement, such as a higher IQ, athletic prowess, and even changing skin color, but which could also be used to edit out devastating inheritable diseases. What is OK or not when it comes to gene tampering? There’s even the concept that frailties/faults could be the creator of exceptional abilities. Isaacson poses this question. If Steve Jobs hadn’t been such an ass hole, would he have had the capacity to also change the world through technology?  

 

Another issue prevalent in this book is the espionage and competitiveness between biomedical engineers jockeying feverishly to be the first to discover and patent the next big biomedical widget.

 

If you love learning about the mechanics of scientific discovery, the heroinic work of Jennifer Doudna, and the evolution of the science that gave us the COVID-19 vaccine, you’ll love this book. I sure did.

 

Greenlights, by Matthew McConaughey

I’m one of the few who didn‘t much like this book. It felt like “the gospel according to Matthew,” and another way for him to say “look at me.” 

Maybe I should have read it instead of listening to the audible version, which as he read it sounded like he was acting, and therefore, to me felt unauthentic.

 

Don’t get me wrong, I respect McConaughey's  acting skills and he’s certainly eye candy (although unattractively skinny of late). My favorites of his movies are “A Time to Kill,” “Reign of Fire,” and “U-571.” 

 

McConaughey doesn’t need my approval, but for me, Greenlights was not all right, not all right, not all right.

 

The Glass Hotel: A Novel, by Emily St. John Mandel

Here’s a summary of The Glass Hotel because honestly, although Emily St. John Mandel writes beautifully (Station Eleven is particularly exquisite), I couldn’t make any sense of this book and had a hard time finishing it. Lots of people loved it, and maybe you will too.

 

Vincent is a bartender at the Hotel Caiette, a five-star lodging on the northernmost tip of Vancouver Island. On the night she meets Jonathan Alkaitis, a hooded figure scrawls a message on the lobby’s glass wall: Why don’t you swallow broken glass. High above Manhattan, a greater crime is committed: Alkaitis is running an international Ponzi scheme, moving imaginary sums of money through clients’ accounts. When the financial empire collapses, it obliterates countless fortunes and devastates lives. Vincent, who had been posing as Jonathan’s wife, walks away into the night. Years later, a victim of the fraud is hired to investigate a strange occurrence: a woman has seemingly vanished from the deck of a container ship between ports of call.