I doubt there is a greater perspective on Slavery than the July 4th, Oration by Frederick Douglass, delivered before an audience in Rochester, New York. Applewood Books of Carlisle, New York published the complete text, WHAT TO THE SLAVE IS THE FOURTH OF JULY? It is available of Amazon for $9.99. It is worthy of all American households.
When i flipped the first pages of Gabrielle Zevin’s novel TOMORROW TOMORROW TOMORROW I hesitated. Why would I be interested in a young group of MIT stereotypes creating video games? The answer came quickly. The novel is MUCH MUCH MORE! Life is complicated and even more so among a group of brilliant young high achievers. There are love stories among the code writers and keyboard clicks that follow convoluted paths of happiness and sadness. My guess is that like me, you will be quickly drawn in by Zevin’s characters.
Put TOMORROW TOMORROW TOMORROW on your list. You won’t be disappointed.
HOW THE WORD IS PASSED. It is all in the telling and by whom. The Lost Cause myths remain. According to his travels and the first hand experiences author Clint Smith uncovers misinformation and obfuscation in the re-telling of the history of slavery in America. Deliberate distortion remains throughout the nation including at some of the most prominent historical sites but there is some good news in the efforts of a few to set the record straight.
Smith’s book is all about RECKONING and the nations failure to digest the accurate history of slavery. Smith visits the Whitney Plantation, Blandford Cemetery and the Angola Prison in Louisiana. His interviews include Galveston Island, Texas where Juneteenth was born, New York City and Goree island in Africa home to The House of Slaves and the infamous The Door of No Return.
Among the most potent of revelations in the book is Smith’s interviews and observations at Jefferson’s Monticello. He lays bare any illusions or myths about Jefferson’s deep and vile relationship with slavery. He exposes the hypocrisy of Jefferson’s life in facts and figures.
I urge those who wish to see the urgency of America reckoning with its history of slavery and who feel the need to undo the harm in perpetrating the Lost Cause to not miss a page of HOW THE WORD IS PASSED. You may also wish to search Ibram Kendi here in Gordons Good Reads.
The book title says it all! Maggie Haberman’s CONFIDENCE MAN THE MAKING OF DONALD TRUMP AND THE BREAKING OF AMERICA is another outstanding example of excellent journalism from this Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times journalist.
CONFIDENCE MAN is exactly what one would expect from Haberman, thorough unbiased reporting. Very little drama, all facts. Another piece of scholarly reporting. She tells the story better than anyone so I will not make an attempt to do so.
The title THIS IS HAPPINESS speaks for itself. The title of Niall Williams‘ book aptly describes a wonderful GOOD READ.
The author transports the reader to the smallest of villages in Ireland and quickly the characters and imagery flow from the pages to create a page turning narrative. A tentative seventeen year old studying for the priesthood returns home and circumstances there cause great reflection. Add to the story the coming of electricity to this forgotten outpost bringing with it a search for a long lost love and a cross generational endearing friendship.
Clear the decks for this great novel. It will indeed bring happiness.
This is a list of books you may find of great interest during Black History Month. You can check them out on this site at gordonsgoodreads.com
BELOVED, TONI MORRISON
THE LOVE LETTERS OF W.E.B. DUBOIS
BLACK RADICAL/WILLIAM MONROE TROTTER
STAMPED FROM THE BEGINNING/IBRAM KENDI
BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME/ TA-NEHSI COATS
THE 1619 PROJECT
THE SOULS OF BLACK FOLKS, W.E.B. DUBOIS
FREDERICK DOUGLAS, PROFIT OF FREEDOM
A fabulous scholarly work by Pulitzer Prize Author Stacy Schiff. At last Samuel Adams is catapulted into his proper and deserved Revolutionary Role! Step aside Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, John Hancock and Paul Revere and make way for the the person who with brilliance of action and pen united the Colonies and made them ready for the Declaration of Independence.
“Why would a people living in the finest climate under the mildest government blessed with land and religious liberty, protected by the greatest power on earth, viscously defy a parent state that had “nursed their tender years”? Samuel Adams blamed that “ancient republican spirit” which the first settlers had planted and which had flourished in the New England soil. ” Samuel Adams had at his disposal a single weapon: the word : liberty.”
When I finished reading The Revolutionary Samuel Adams Broadway’s Hamilton flashed in my mind. Lin Manuel Miranda might find an equal or better subject in Samuel Adams.
Jeffrey Frank takes a critical and objective look at the presidency of Harry Truman. By no means a love affair, the title, The Trials of Harry S. Truman, and subtitle, The Extraordinary Presidency of an Ordinary Man, 1945-1953, establish the tenor of the book.
Frank is quick to objectively microscope Truman proclamations and interpretations but always willing to credit the president with the most difficult decisions of his place and time. The Atomic Bomb, Potsdam, Stalin, the Marshall Plan, The Berlin Airlift, the desegregation of the U.S. Military and the Federal workforce , MacArthur, Korea, NATO, Strom Thurmond, the election of 1948. Frank condenses this broad landscape into a concisely focused 380 pages.
The author chose a direct quote from Truman’s last press conference which I think goes a long way to putting Harry S. Truman and his place in history into perspective:
It ended with the traditional ” Mr. President-thank you!” But this time it was followed by affectionate applause for this child of rural Missouri- this self educated striver, a man determined to overcome the prejudices, ethnic and religious, of that time and place-letting him know that he was, as Lippman put it, in his sentimental moment, someone who ” has the good nature of a good man.” In mid century America, it was hard to imagine a future when those qualities could be extinguished.
If you are a fan of presidential history, add THE TRIALS OF HARRY S. TRUMAN to your reading list.
I have read extensively regarding the development of the National Parks of America. I was captivated by the fireside Yosemite camping stories of John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt. A new book, OLMSTED AND YOSEMITE, authored by Rolf Diamant and Ethan Carr, casts a new light upon the incubation of what would become America’s National Parks. Step aside Muir and TR.
Enter Frederick Law Olmsted, the co-creator of New York City’s Central Park. Olmsted’s career began not as a landscape architect but as an educated engineer followed by an impressive resume as a journalist for the newspaper that became the New York Times. He traveled the antebellum south just prior to the outbreak of the Civil War and reported on the deplorable condition of slavery and the devastation of much of the agricultural land there by over planting. It was a social education for Olmsted that greatly impacted his future contributions to the American landscape.
Olmsted came away from his southern sojourn with a strong belief that his work on New York’s Central Park should become a mirror of inclusiveness and a demonstration of how a democracy could act to benefit all of its citizens. Olmsted believed that parks and open spaces available to everyone could become a uniting factor following the war. It was that philosophy that drew him to California and Yosemite and the creation in 1865 of the Preliminary Report upon the Yosemite and the Big Tree Grove . The complete report is appended in the book. Many believe that this work is the basis of what became America’s National Parks, and more importantly the future philosophy behind their design.
You will meet many important contributors to our national parks in this book. Enjoy.
OLMSTED AND YOSEMITE is an important look at why America’s National Parks are such a cherished part of the nation’s landscape.
Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She is the author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants and Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses.
Robin Kimmerer takes the reader on a journey into an America of what might have been in the present had not the culture of America’s Indigenous People been destroyed by “Manifest Destiny.” Immerse yourself in this beautifully crafted manuscript and learn of a lost culture of which the earth of the 21st Century screams for a return. It is a beautiful and even hopeful story of a generation of scientists, ecologists and sociologists that have not given up on the lost culture of those first inhabitants of our land. Native American history and culture are perfectly blended with an ecological lesson within these pages. Braiding Sweetgrass is worthy of its long standing among the New York Times Best Sellers.
Gordon's Good Reads 