Tyler Kieft

Disappearances is simultaneously more impressive and less impressive than I would have expected, for being Howard Frank Mosher's first book. I've read Mosher before, but not since high school, and at the time he was my favorite “Vermont” writer. (Vermont is where I grew up).

It is well-written, I'd say, if you look at each chapter/vignette separately. But once you stack all these vignettes together, they get very tiring. The book sometimes felt like a collection of unrelated stories, entertaining but tedious to read, each adding very little to overall plot or characterization. However, zooming out one more level, the overall arc of the story was magnificent. The last 10 pages alone, which tied together the rest of the story, bumped my rating from a 3 or 3.5 stars to a solid four stars. I just wish there had been slightly fewer tall tales, and slightly more of the meaningful ending material, spread out over a greater length of the story.

The unforgettable thing about this book are all of the wacky characters. They're entertaining, all of them have hilarious, wildly exaggerated misadventures, but they were rarely funny in a way that made me laugh out loud, and sometimes I felt like the unbelievability of the stories kept me from connecting with the characters on a deeper level.

One of the most masterfully presented characters in this story is the villain, Carcajou. Although he appears in only a few scenes, he is a consistent presence throughout the story, the constant worry on the minds of (narrator) Wild Bill and his father. He is literally “unkillable”, returning to terrorize Wild Bill after many wounds that should have been mortal. It took me until the very end of the story to realize that Carcajou was a metaphor. Another reviewer suggested that Carcajou is “conscience”, but I think that he represents the background level of fear/terror/vulnerability that all humans, on some level, share. This fear materializes as one becomes an adult, marking the end of the childhood feeling of immortality. Wild Bill talks a lot about the ‘wonder and terror' of the world; Carcajou, with his scary, animal features is the personification of both. This is all experienced over a three day trip that marks Wild Bill's coming of age and full knowledge of the secrets of his family.

The title, at first mysterious, ends up being the central mystery of the story. Many characters mysteriously disappear, including all of the Bonhomme family, going back to Wild Bill's great great great-grandfather René. Someone smarter than me probably has a better interpretation, but I read this as a very literal reference to both familial pride and the inescapability of family bonds. There was something very haunting and beautiful about the way all the Bonhomme disappearances were described.

Worth mentioning again: I loved the end of this book, for what it made me realize about the whole book. The father-son relationship depicted in these pages is movingly written, the importance of it crystallizing only at the very end. “I could only stand at the window and stare out at Uncle Henry and Rat and the hay with the indefinable oppression of the heart that I would wake with and live with and go to sleep with for the next year”.

I've been reading this book off and on for 2 years, and I finally was able to finish it during quarantine. This is the most ambitious history book I've ever read - close to 500 pages about nothing more than the colonial period, the vast majority pre-Revolutionary war. To give you an idea of the density of this book - the conditions that led to the American Revolution were covered in about 5-10 pages. Not that that war was the main focus of the book, but still!

I don't think I've read enough history to fairly evaluate this. On the one hand it was exceedingly dryly written. There are no heroes or villains to latch onto here - simply a dispassionate survey of events. This was apparently intentional - the “Penguin History of the United States” was meant to be a synthesis across multiple disciplines. Still, even though it was dry, there was so much great information here, tying together so many disparate events.

Instead of chronological, the book is structured in three major eras: “Encounters”, “Colonies” and “Empires”. Within those eras, we get narratives by region, with a focus on all the Americas, not just your typical “thirteen colonies”.

I loved how this book both helped me trace current topics in American Politics (the racism and inequality were there from the very beginning!) but also corrected a lot of the conventional wisdom around the colonial period. Balancing the narrative across the major European powers (not just Britain, but France, Spain, the Netherlands, and even Russia) and the various spheres (eastern seaboard, West Indies, Mexico, Florida, the Southwest, California, Hawaii, and even Alaska).

Here are some things I want to remember about what I learned - Inequality was highest in the plantation economies of the south and the West Indies. Planters built up large estates, which were staffed at first with indentured servants from the mother country, later slave labor from Africa. - Because the climate of the Northeast did not support a “cash crop” for export, societies there developed in a much more equal way. Land ownership was evenly distributed and crops were mostly raised for subsistence. - Religious freedom was only one factor of many that led people to cross the ocean; economic prospects were just as if not more important. - Europeans did venture into the interior of the African continent to find and capture slaves. The African slave trade was enabled by Africans who captured slaves and brought them to the coast to sell to Europeans. - The wars of the colonial period were fought mainly over the balance of power in Europe. Britain was on a fairly equal footing with Spain and France, until during the 1700's they developed a huge advantage on the ocean - due to their expertise in shipping (which was spurred by the Navigation Acts). This allowed Britain to become the dominant force in the region. - The colonists were very happy being British until very late in the game. The British way overspent on a couple of wars, most notably the French and Indian war (Seven Years' War), which was waged largely in America, and wanted to tax the colonists to help them pay for it. In addition, they worried that the colonists were becoming too outspoken and independent (the planter elite, who already had local power). - The Indians were a pretty savvy bunch. They played the British and French against each other, and generally figured out how to maintain and advance their own interests. However, they were undone by, it seems, not recognizing until too late the end game of the colonists (which was to cover the entire continent, like a virus). - The West Indies were highly valued due to their economic primacy. However, the fact that they were islands, with no ability to create more land, and plantation economies, meant they were unable to be a dynamic society, and so people were drawn more to the mainland, where there was more economic mobility. - The European elite did not at all value the Indians' way of life and culture - which was not inferior, simply different. In many ways, it was actually better. There are many stories of captured Indians trying to flee European society at all costs, while Europeans captured by the Indians often didn't want to return to European society.

I'm looking forward to reading more history. Funny enough, the Penguin Series was never completed - only books 1, 3, 5 were ever published - 2 and 4 are missing. So I'm going to read 1776 next, as a way of filling the gap (sorta).

So proud to have made it through book 2 of this epic, and now I can definitively say that I want to keep going until the end. Proust has such broad insights into universal, yet mostly unarticulated aspects of the human condition – as in Swann's way, so many small things he wrote about triggered my own memories of past relationships.

Perhaps the theme I identified with the most is Marcel's “search for truth/ beauty” - the reason he goes to see La Berma, the cathedral at Balbec, etc. and is always disappointed once he gets there. It seems that nothing ever lives up to the way someone else describes it. Yet even after seeing it and being disappointed, if someone explains what he was supposed to have experienced, he is able to reappraise and reappreciate what he saw. I've felt this way many, many times in my life and I often wonder how many of my pastimes - travel, arts, entertainment - can be attributed to searching for pure truth?

Hopefully I'll remember what happened here when I go on to read [b:The Guermantes Way 18798 The Guermantes Way (In Search of Lost Time, #3) Marcel Proust https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1386923257s/18798.jpg 40790576]. There are two parts here: At Mme Swann's, and Place-Names: The Place. I want to make some notes here to refresh my memory once the time comes.

The novel starts with a dinner w/ the Marquis de Norpois, and the visit to see La Berma, afterward spending the majority of the time describing the narrator falling into and out of love (childishly, naively) with Gilberte. He chooses to access her through her parents, who he idolizes, each in different ways, which brings about the downfall of the relationship. Much of this part is lived in Marcel's head, over-analyzing and creating stories of what she must be thinking about him, etc.

He then scoots off to Balbec for the summer, where we get more description of travel's effect on the mind, develops relationships with Mme de Villeparisis and Robert de Saint Loup, and then ignores them once he has met the “little gang” of girls (via the painter Elstir's introduction). He understands much more about love at this point, how to show interest by feigning disinterest, rather than going straight at it.

Important new characters: Elstir (the painter), the gay M de Charlus (well, he was in Swann's Way but just briefly), Albertine, Mme de Villeparisis (a member of the Guermantes clan), and the charming, lovable Robert de Saint Loup.

Four stars because it just didn't feel quite as tight and memorable as Swann's Way. Onward!

Terrific book - 4.5 stars, rounded up. This wasn't at all what I was expecting - I guess I was extrapolating solely based on the title. Instead of a political history of the American Revolution, this was a military history, solely covering the year 1776 (surprise, surprise). Which is kind of an interesting take on things - the peace treaty ending the war wasn't signed until 1783, so there was a lot that was left out. But focusing on 1776 only allowed for a very interesting story - the genesis of the Continental army, with the climax being Washington's incredible crossing of the Delaware, to capture Hessian troops at Trenton, NJ. Along the way, we cover in-depth the Siege of Boston, the Battle of Long Island and the rebel retreat through Manhattan (York Island), the British capture of Forts Washington and Lee, and the long rebel retreat through New Jersey, to Pennsylvania.

The incredible thing about this book is the absolutely exhaustive research that went into it - there is a quote almost on every page, not only from officers and generals, but ordinary farmers and townspeople who joined up and wrote diaries of their experiences after the war was over. No less than 70 of these diaries are listed in the bibliography, along with countless books and other sources.

Although the main character is George Washington, we hear plenty about Charles Lee, Henry Knox, Nathanael Greene, and on the British side, the Howe brothers, and Charles Cornwallis. They are painted as humans, not as legends - both the Americans and the British officers made plenty of mistakes. George Washington, especially, although lionized for his stature, his presence on the battlefield, turns out to be a fairly indecisive commander during some of these key moments.

It's amazing to me how much luck and chance played into the outcome. Especially the weather - McCullough does an amazing job showing how a change in the wind, or the presence of a storm, or fog, drastically changed military outcomes. I've never read a battle history before, and I suspect I enjoyed this one so much because McCullough makes it so accessible to laypeople (and also due to most of the book taking place in good ol' NYC).

Another thing that stood out to me was the “gentlemanly” nature of the combat - few died, due to the slow, inaccurate weaponry, and there were rules of engagement that seem “quaint” by today's standard.

The book gives new appreciation for how unlikely the outcome of the American Revolution was - while also demonstrating that perhaps it wasn't so far-fetched after all. McCullough does a fantastic job showing how unprepared the American “rebels” were compared to the professional armies of the British and the Hessians. Low paid, un-uniformed, poorly supplied, sick due to poor hygiene, and undisciplined, the army was at constant risk of collapse from within. Yet Washington managed to make miracles with what he had. The Americans were fighting for their dearly-held values, they were more familiar with the terrain, and they were willing to push the limits of 18th century war-making, whereas the professional British officer class sometimes valued personal luxuries which led them not to press their advantage too hard.

Although it was a bit dry at times, I ended up loving 1776. Once I got into it, I read most of it over three consecutive days, wanting to find out what happened. It makes me want to read more history and visit some of these sites!

There are two parts to this book - the specific journey the main character, Nora, goes on, in order to learn more about herself and her life, and the more general themes that we can all take away. This is the reason, I think, why I found it harder to develop an emotional connection to this book than I had initially imagined I would, given its subject. As someone who's always wished to live a thousand different lives, to have all those different experiences, I was very interested in reading this book.

I didn't at all relate to Nora and her story - I think because she approaches her life so helplessly, without agency. She feels like a victim, rather than someone who is taking charge of her life. And so the parts about Nora's exploring different possible lives, while interesting to read, didn't really strike a deeper chord within me. And without that, the overall lessons kind of fell flat as well.

The prose was no help here, hardly ever transcending pedestrian, everyday speech. No thought-provoking quips or beautiful meditations here.

The one idea I did find interesting, is that - you don't need to read every book, or watch every movie, or live every life, to access the full range of human emotions, in short, to live. This is a comforting thought, a new thought for me, but one that rings true.

This felt surprisingly dated, the prose reminded me more of H.G. Wells than modern science fiction / horror. A lot of actual “science” which is kind of laughable given how much more we know nowadays. Also, the “maleness” of the narrative and attitude towards women is concerning by 2021 standards.

I'm not quite sure why this is a “classic” if you will. Especially when looked at next to a book like “The Road”, which I read earlier this year. Reading “I Am Legend” has made me appreciate that book even more.

Still, there's something here, and I suspect if I had read this in 1954 I'd have been more impressed. The book moves along quickly, it's interesting how Robert studies and reacts to his environment. The slightly nonlinear way the story is told builds suspense and empathy. The scene where he meets the dog is emotional and gripping, even though told with fairly spare prose.

I don't think I'd have a reason to read this again.

I'm not a huge fan of Stephen King's writing I guess...so mediocre. And I didn't like the style of the book, with all the constant random thoughts, although I appreciate what he was trying to do. Still, the concept is ambitious, even if it wasn't handled super skillfully. And there are some great lines in here. But the movie was far better.

I did not expect to like this book QUITE this much. Although very firmly a Victorian novel, with all the morals, customs, religiosity, language, and tone that comes along with that, it reads shockingly modern and progressive. Don't get me wrong - I love the overwrought descriptions and emotions, sometimes bordering on ridiculousness, that come with the genre, I was just surprised that we could also have something that felt so fresh.

I loved Jane's character - you're never really quite sure what she is going to do or how she is going to show up in a scene - whether she will be meek and humble, or fiery and sarcastic. And the plot was quite a ride! At the end, I found myself tearing up at Charlotte Brontë's description of love....she really was quite a talented writer. I also feel like this book spoke to me with where I'm at in my life right now. For much of the novel, Jane doesn't really know what she wants - torn between many possible outcomes, just trying to live according to her morals and make herself useful. The novel really makes us care for these characters, flawed as they all are.

I was shocked at how much I disliked this. I wasn't able to get into it at all. The whole book felt flat and, worse, depressing. The writing was very awkward and just didn't work for me. The “edginess” in terms of talking repeatedly about sex was cringey. The characters never came alive in my mind; although their responses to each other in conversation were minutely detailed (facial expressions, thoughts) I could never really nail down anyone's personality, they all just seemed offended and pissed off at each other routinely. Lots of angst and animosity here. I didn't find the world very interesting either, maybe because lots of jargon turns me off. And ugh, the second person present tense!

I was reading this at the same time as the second book of The Kingkiller Chronicle, which is lusciously written, lyrical and beautiful, and that probably had something to do with how much I was able to enjoy this novel.

If I could have rated this book 3.5 stars I would have. I certainly learned a lot from it, and it gave me many interesting questions and unsolved problems to ponder, but I felt like the book was too long, got a little slow at the end, and was written to too-wide of an audience. I would have appreciated reading something a little bit shorter and denser. Also felt like the author (a former evangelical turned agnostic), while trying really hard to remain unbiased, was ever so slightly snarky in his tone when he talked about Christian beliefs.

The most interesting parts were about Jesus' life and what early Christians wrote about him in the immediate aftermath of his death. Less interesting were the parts that delved deeper into theology, especially theological debates that happened centuries later. That stuff all started to blend together after a while, and he really didn't do a great job of differentiating it. Or maybe I was just bored at that point.

I did finish this book even more interested about what historians know about Jesus' life (vs. what the bible says about it) so I'll probably do some more reading here.

I can't believe I finished this. Around page 200 or so I thought I was going to quit. But after that I got into it and it was rolling along for a while. Finished the last 60% or so in 5 days. Tough book. Lots to think about here. Didn't especially love it. But I can kinda see why it's such a masterpiece, the more factual descriptions of whaling were so well presented! Sometimes they got a bit much though, I was always glad to return to the narrative section.

I found myself thinking about my own mortality, my own smallness, a lot while reading this book. Not while reading it, but going to bed at night and such. At first I thought it was unconnected with the book, but then I realized it wasn't: this book made me feel a deep sense of existential foreboding, dread, and mortality. One that won't go away for a while. And I suppose any book that can do that is quite an achievement.

I can't believe so much of the book was about the search for Moby Dick, only a small portion at the end devoted to what happened when Ahab found him. Very different than I thought it was going to go.

Conquered the white whale!

Pretty good book. Entertaining for sure. Much better writing than Ready Player One, not that it's amazing writing but it met the acceptability bar for sure.

I got bored twice during the book. The first time was near the beginning, when I thought the whole book was going to be his journal. Thank god for the narration switch to Earth and NASA HQ. The second time was similar, when Mark was finishing making his rover modifications before the journey to the Ares 4 MAV. I got sick of the detailed science stuff at that point.

I was expecting to get annoyed by the narrator after a while, but I never did. Great job making him wryly funny but not crossing the line.

I found myself daydreaming about space travel while reading. How amazing it would be to actually set foot on another planet. Not sheer terror to be abandoned there, but just excitement at exploration. I guess that's one sign the book succeeded.

Four stars because its all plot and science. Very little depth to the characters. Mark doesn't ever talk much about his loneliness even. It's just not that kind of novel. Still, there was so much imagination required to create this story, everything is meticulously realistic but futuristic at the same time, and that's how it really shines.

What an ending! A cliffhanger for the next installment, without being too dramatic or cheesy.

I liked this book more and more as it went on, but I still had trouble understanding why it got the praise that it did. The writing was so clinical and detached, I felt almost nothing while reading and I thought the translation was awkward and poor. Secondary and tertiary characters failed to become real to me, they were all just a procession of names, very few who retained any uniqueness to their personalities in my mind. The lack of large-scale structure to the book made it feel like it was just the same story over and over, conflict, then reuniting, and the different scenes all blended together.

I think I liked the last 100 pages or so because the plot (if you could call it that) became more linear, but also because it was so easy to identify the flawed adolescent reasoning behind many of Elena's bad decisions, whereas I found it tougher to understand and criticize the narrator's younger self, as it was more abstract to me.

I also wonder how much of this I didn't identify with because I'm a man? Wish I had gotten to go to the book club for this to hear everyone's thoughts :/

One of the best books I've ever read in my life. Reading this was transformational; I doubt I'll ever look at the world the same way ever again. I'm already feeling slightly less affinity for liberals and understanding traditional conservative thinking quite a bit more (i.e. I'm feeling less partisan). Thinking about today's political issues from the lens of moral matrices is a new, and rewarding experience. I would recommend this to anyone trying to make sense of today's America.

I can appreciate why this is a classic, but I really despised reading it. Not my style and not my humor, that's for sure. Feels like something that's been taken out of context in the present day. Repetitive, too many characters which all blend together, and often feeling like it was written by an amateur writer, with too many thesaurus-derived adjectives thrown in. However, at certain points, I enjoyed it, and even thought, wow, this is genius. 4 stars, but I hope I never have to read it again.

2016: The year of Hamilton. I am so glad I decided to read this book after seeing the musical in May - it deepened my appreciation for Hamilton and for the founding story of the United States. The success of the American project was never assured, and no book or history lesson ever made that clearer than this one did. This is an ambitious read - 731 pages of small, dense, type. It took me two and a half months to finish (although I read the bulk of it within the past half month). In a way I'm glad for this - I feel like the lessons and content will stick with me much longer because I have kept coming back to them.

Meticulously researched, the book is brimming with details about Hamilton's life, combined in a way which (according to the author) depicts Hamilton very differently than previous biographers have ever done. Hamilton's legacy was overlooked or minimized by many in the past, probably because he never attained the office of the President.

My favorite part of the book was immediate the post-revolution period, as the country tried to figure out what it wanted to be: a loose confederation of states, or a united nation. I hadn't realized that the Constitution came so long after the war ended, and was never assured. Hamilton's role in the political theorizing that led directly to our current governmental structure was massive. Not only a theorist, he also made more contributions than anyone else to the government's implementation - setting up many of our first national institutions and defining the frameworks in which the different branches of power could be articulated. I was fascinated learning about the political and economic underpinnings of our current nation. You can trace a direct path between Hamilton's national bank, markets, and financial culture in New York City to today's world.

The book differed from the show in one large way. The show's main villain was Aaron Burr, whereas the book spent much more time expounding on the feud between Hamilton and the Virginians - Jefferson and Madison. I suspect this was mostly due to wanting to present a compelling show, with a single arch-villian. But it would be interesting to read a biography of Burr as a follow up here.

Hamilton's downfall is tough to watch, as it was largely self-imposed and coincided with an intensely vitriolic period of American politics. To watch this great man sink so low, get caught up in the petty sniping and accusations of the day, ultimately going so far as to cause his death, is brutal. I was left with the impression that, despite having an extramarital affair, the real cause of his political downfall was his inability to be political - his uncompromising principles, his desire to protect his legacy at all costs, and his growing difficulty as he aged in reconciling what the people wanted with what he thought was best for them.

An amazing book about an amazing man - the most prolific, intellectual founding father. It's so neat that this story is finally coming to light in a way that so many people can engage with it, deepening our appreciation for and understanding of our shared history.

This was an engrossing read, chock full of information about the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth and its historical context. I learned a ton from this book; I actually wish it had been longer and gone into more detail, which is a credit to Aslan's engaging writing style. There were definitely topics in the book that I wanted to know more about; I suppose I'll have to keep reading books about early church history to satiate that

Almost gave this five stars, but for one major shortcoming: the lack of inline discussion of alternative theories or points of view. Aslan wrote a compelling, literary narrative, about Jesus' life, which was quite easy to read. But for a topic which is based so much on speculation, assumption, and interpretation, I would have preferred to see more discussion about competing theories in the narrative, rather than in the footnotes. My issue was not that he didn't cite sources - he does, both historical and biblical - but that he presented the story as “this is the way it was” when there are major points that historians and scholars disagree on.

I was surprised that there were major differences between this book and Bart Ehrman's “How Jesus became God”. Ehrman's book was much more theology and far less historical information - I feel like I learned much more from Aslan. I was surprised that Ehrman never mentioned the major differences of opinion in the early church, between Paul, preaching to the Jewish Diaspora, and Peter, James, and John, leading Jesus' disciples in Jerusalem. Paul's doctrine of Christianity eventually won out after Jerusalem was wiped out by Titus in 70 C.E., but, as far as I remember, Ehrman does not discuss this at all. Ehrman's thesis is that it took ~3 centuries before the majority of Christians thought of Jesus as a pre-existent god, but Paul was preaching that Jesus was God starting just two decades after his death, in the middle of the 1st century. Maybe Ehrman just wanted to devote more space to all the competing theories? Or just pad his book? It was difficult to reconcile these two books. I guess this just underscores how much this entire field is based on limited evidence.

I also really appreciate how Aslan didn't attempt to explain away the resurrection as Ehrman did with his lame “visions of the recently departed” theory. He left it at “a lot of people believed very strongly that Jesus rose from the dead, and that's very interesting”.

These are the topics in the book that were most interesting to me: - The depiction of Galilee and Jerusalem around the turn of the millennium (the historical context which Jesus was born into) - Aslan's theory about the early life of Jesus - that he would have been engaged in rebuilding Sepphoris, a nearby city - Alternate interpretations for many commonly cited gospel verses based on the historical Jesus, including the Beatitudes and the parable of the Good Samaritan - A discussion of what Jesus meant by the terms “Kingdom of God” and “Son of Man”, (i.e. Who did Jesus think that he was?) - The battle between Paul and James/Peter/John for what would be preached about Christ after his death

What a strange little book. The whole time I was reading it, I couldn't help but feel that it was semi-rushed out to capitalize on the success of the Call Me By Your Name movie. I bet he had these vignettes floating around in his head for a while, and being able to write short stories that only thematically connected probably helped him get the thing done more quickly than if he had to write a full novel.

I liked it, but didn't love it. That Aciman technique of minutely dissecting every tiny shade of physical touch, facial expression, glance, word, tone, feels fresh and honest and beautiful when the book opens, but it started to grate on me and become annoying by the middle. For much of the book, the writing is sublime, but there are moments where he gets too abstract, or oppositely, too detailed, which pulls you out. He's at his best when the writing lands as he no doubt wants it to - universal, relatable, expressing meaning that you didn't even realize was contained in human interactions.

I wasn't quite sure what to do with the titles of each section of the book - although I will admit that the middle section, Cadenza, felt structured like a musical cadenza. Hitting various themes of Elio's life, climaxing to the final trill - then leaving off in the middle, not really an ending, letting you wonder what happened to Elio and Michel.

I rejected the ending - the idea that Elio and Oliver somehow end up happy together long in the future is both heartbreaking and wildly unrealistic. When I saw Aciman speak, he said he found it difficult to peer inside Oliver's head, it's a character he doesn't identify with - and this came across in the book. The Oliver section is the most opaque, it's difficult to really wrap yourself around that character.

I'm glad I read this, but I don't think it's a must-read by any means, like Call Me By Your Name.