Volume 1, Issue 2
So it’s month 2 and we are still doing it! Minor accomplishment, we think. We will keep this preamble short so you can dive into the reviews. If you read this newsletter and you say:
- ‘I’m actually going to pick one of these up this week’
- ‘I now have one for my reading list’
- ‘I’ve read one of these and I completely agree (disagree)’
…then we’ve set out to do what we wanted to do. Please respond directly to this email with feedback (what do you think of the ratings?) and send this along to friends and family who you think may enjoy the content (subscribe here!). Check out Instagram too, we post additional book reviews here throughout the month.
MAX’S NON-FICTION PICK
The Gist: The rare bravery and conviction of the joint protagonists, Theodore Roosevelt & Colonel Rondon, is a story that should be told and heard. You’ll walk away with an appreciation of Amazonia, human sacrifice, and the delicate balance of forging human and societal progress and preserving indigenous cultures. Their adventure would be considered harrowing by today’s standards. Rewind to 1914, and imagine tumbling down an unexplored Amazon tributary with heavy dugout canoes, limited supplies, wild animals and indigenous tribes surrounding you, and the constant threat of disease, and you’ve got yourself a recipe for the ultimate adventure story.
Roosevelt, reeling after his final bow (losing his re-election campaign) from public life, decided to embark on an adventure that indulged his hobby as a naturalist and gave him yet another chance to test new boundaries. This journey quickly morphed into a pioneering discovery of one of the most dangerous and unknown rivers on Earth, the River of Doubt. Mallard weaves a few important narratives that go beyond tribulations of charting an unknown river. The incredibly principled leaders, Roosevelt and Colonel Rondon, make this a more exceptional story that goes far beyond the perilous journey. Their respect for natives, their upstanding moral fabric, the deference they showed for others and their unwavering toughness are powerful narratives that make this book that much more compelling. The first hand accounts were copious and thorough, providing unique insights into the minds of the struggling crew and the daily trade offs they confronted. Mallard closed with an effective portrayal of just how much this journey shaped the survivors’ remaining years.
Highly Recommend: 4.2/5
JOHN’S FICTION PICK
The Virgin Suicides
Author: Jeffrey Eugenides
243 Pages
The Gist: Set in a quaint, tree-lined Detroit suburb in the mid 70s, The Virgin Suicides tells the story of five beautiful and mysterious sisters, the Lisbon sisters (aged 13 to 17), who all commit suicide, one after one, in the same year. I know that sounds like a really heavy logline (also realizing this is my second book rec about suicide, pure coincidence), but this book isn’t all doom and gloom. It’s a mystery story. A quirky investigation of the girls’ too-short lives, written from the perspective of a group of boys (now men) who grew up around the Lisbon sisters and were fascinated by them. In their attempt to piece together what exactly happened to the sisters, we meet a whole cast of eccentric, opinionated townsfolk who knew the sisters when they were young, and now, decades later, reflect on their deaths as adults. Written by Pulitzer winner Jeffrey Eugenides, the writing is nothing short of fantastic. The characters are larger than life. And while the whole thing gushes with 70’s nostalgia, it’s a pretty timeless book about suburban middle-American life. At 243 pages, it’s bite-sized too.
Highly Recommend: 4.4/5
MAX’S OTHER NON-FICTION PICK
The Gist: Red Notice is written by Bill Browder, who also happens to be one the two main focal points in the book. He takes us through his life’s trajectory up to the time as a hedge fund manager. He dealt strictly with Russian privatization and undervalued public companies. The second focal point is of a morally astute champion of the law, Sergei Magnitsky, who fights Putin’s government on misappropriation of taxes. Magnitsky, who was hired by Browder, was eventually imprisoned for his discovery of the tax fraud (and his willingness to speak out) and he withered away to his death in a Russian prison cell. The book provides a unique inside look and detailed account of the oft-spoken corruption and violence of Russian politics. The end result is a somewhat positive post-mortem vindication for Sergei Magnitsky (… and a pulsing story of business and politics, which often blend into one). The story provides moments to contemplate the questions: when do you allow wrong to overpower right in preservation of safety? And if you don’t, how far are you willing to go?
Browder’s story feels quite personal and in many ways this exposé seemed as much for him as it was for the reader. The eye-opening discoveries of endemic corruption in Russian government and business makes for a compelling story of vacillating success and near-failures, but the story was also very wrapped up in Browder’s personal ego rather than being a rigorous historical account of events. It many ways his story overshadows the Magnitsky account, which is why this book feels self-serving. But if it’s read from the perspective of a thriller and a jaw-dropping account of corruption, then I get why it is a best-seller and a popular read — but I’m on the fence.
Up to you: 3.3/5
JOHN’S OTHER FICTION PICK
The Gist: In a month of traveling and flying, I devoured a few fun and fast airplane reads: The Woman in the Window, The Woman in Cabin 10, and Derailed. Of the three (and I liked each one a lot), Derailed was the clear favorite.
The short of it: well-to-do advertising director and loyal family man, Charles Schine, misses his usual 8:43am train into NYC — a slight hiccup that dramatically changes his life forever. On the 9:05am train, he meets the beautiful, inquisitive, charming, and also-married, Lucinda. Charles and Lucinda strike up an enjoyable conversation. The conversation leads to a lunch date, which leads to drinks, which leads to far too many drinks, which leads to a trip to a sleazy motel that violently and horrifically derails (am I right?) the course of their lives. Without giving away the whole book,this is the story of an ordinary guy who betrays his family for a taste of temptation — then finds himself in the fight of his life. This is not the stuff of high literature. In fact, it’s the perfect airplane novel. Gripping, shocking, and a lot of fun. It’s also one of the most ferociously fast books I can remember reading in the last year. Takes less than a day to fly through this one.
Recommend (for flights and long train rides): 4.0/5
BOOK JAM
(WHERE WE GO TOE-TO-TOE ON A BOOK)
Max’s Take
The Gist: Hmmmmm. So. I like love-stories. Might even love them. I have a soft spot for them (The End of the Affair, being one of them — although a bit of a tragic one…). The History of Love has the hallmarks for a solid literary plot. Intertwines two primary storylines. One story is of an aging man who is in his sunsetting years, described in somber detail, and about his yearning for his first love. He is a writer, he escaped Poland during the Nazi occupation, and he is in an internal fight to reclaim important people, and things, that haunt his past. The other story is of a young girl who finds a book whose character is her namesake, Alma, and that her mother is translating for a client.
The book employs unique writing styles and prose to reflect the two protagonists’ age. There is an inevitable collision of fates for the two characters that manifests in the final moments of the novel. I have to say — the writing does bring you in, it is deeply descriptive and emotional. However, this one fell short of the mark for me. The story is convoluted, with many subplots to keep up with, and the fact that the writing style adjusts every chapter, back and forth, I never felt I found a rhythm when I picked it back up. I think it comes down to if you enjoy Krauss’ writing style — and I know John did, so I’ll let him tell you why you should pick it up.
Coin toss: 3.2/5
John’s Take
The Gist: There’s no easy way to lay out this plot. It’s a complicated one that’s told from four different perspectives, three generations of characters, and two major timelines (Nazi Poland and present-day NYC). That’s a lot of P.O.V for a relatively short book. But the plot isn’t what I like most about The History of Love. And it won’t do the book justice for me to try to summarize it. What I loved is the writing and the feeling this book leaves with you. You can think about this book as a puzzle of rich short stories, written from different perspectives, not necessarily in order, spanning the course of 70 years. Some chapters are just a couple pages, while others are a full twenty pages. It’s a hodgepodge of wonderful stories.
As the title suggests, the main theme of the book is love — having it, losing it, and finding it again in unexpected places. If you love the below passage (from one of the early chapters), I think you’ll enjoy this book in full:
“Once upon a time, there was a boy. He lived in a village that no longer exists, in a house that no longer exists, on the edge of a field that no longer exists, where everything was discovered, and everything was possible. A stick could be a sword, a pebble could be a diamond, a tree, a castle. Once upon a time, there was a boy who lived in a house across the field, from a girl who no longer exists. They made up a thousand games. She was queen and he was king. In the autumn light her hair shone like a crown. They collected the world in small handfuls, and when the sky grew dark, they parted with leaves in their hair.
Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.”
Recommend: 4.2 / 5
