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Pit Book/Discussion Thread

KennyRogersRoast said:
As long as Townie keeps liking I’ll keep writing.

7. King Leopold’s Ghost. By Adam Hochschild.

I knew the Belgian Congo was a bad place. I may have read Heart of Darkness in high school. I did read it when I finished this book. I also remember Bourdain’s DRC episode. Still, I was ignorant of most of the details and could not have told you King Leopold II was behind the horrific cruelty. Now I can confidently say that he should be remembered as one of the worst people of the 19th century.

An estimated 10 million people died due to his exploitation. He made an untold fortune off of it. Of course it was not enough as he also stole from Belgium by taking loans he never intended to repay. He disowned his daughter. He marriage was a sham.

He was able to fool a lot of people for a while about his true character. He certainly had great public relations skills. There were some brave individuals who fought to expose the truth, often to their great peril. Having characters in the book worthy of admiration was nice balance of sorts. Of course I am sure there were many other acts of bravery and defiance lost to history.
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Added to my list.

Also, it’s YA, but phenomenal- first book of the year this year was Patron Saints of Nothing. It was an incredible book of identity and belonging set against Duterte’s War on Drugs. Finished it in 2 days.
 
6. The Glass Castle. By Jeannette Walls.

Goodreads said this was the most popular of the 54 books I read in 2022. I got it from the library and when my wife saw me reading it she said she got it as a gift from her sister. I just learned it is a movie as well when I googled to check my spelling of Jeannette. From looking at reviews of the movie it appears it was a poor representation of the book.

So it is popular. Of my top 10 this was the easiest read. A page turner. The story of her upbringing in a extremely dysfunctional family is wildly entertaining. I am pretty sure I read this one over a single weekend.
 
Graphic Novels:
Birds of Maine, Leaving Richards Valley, Adam Deforge- wonderful art on birds of maine (miroesque) and cool idea of uptopian bird society on moon, Leaving Richards Valley is a cool cult community value bent, about to pick up Ant Colony
Angloid, Alex Graham-her first gn based in Denver, excited to dive in as Dog Biscuits was awesome

Novel:
Bubblegum, Adam Levin-super dope start, premise is world without internet set in the mid 2000s
 
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5. Rising Out of Hatred. By Eli Saslow.

This one is about Derek Black, the son of a former KKK grand wizard and founder of the racist Stormfront website. As a young child Derek created a version of Stormfront for children. A little later he started hosting an Internet radio show and from there became a prominent speaker on the white nationalist circuit. David Duke was his godfather and mentor. Derek was considered the future leader of the movement. Then he goes to college. Most of his closest friends (and a girlfriend if I recall correctly) there are not white. He is seen as smart, funny, and kind. He is starting to doubt his beliefs as he leads this double life. Eventually someone at college discovers who he is and outs him on a student forum. Derek is in the Alps with David Duke at the time.

By the end of college Derek has completely abandoned his prior beliefs, feels responsibility for his role in the spread of those beliefs, and begins to work against the group he was supposed to lead. Turning his back on his family was not easy for him and they did not react well to his transformation. While it is a hopeful story of changing someone with deplorable views I wonder how common it is, at least to this extent. He faced a big backlash at school, obviously, with many wanting him expelled, but some of his friends did not shun him. The student body president reached out to him and engaged with him. From that connection he met a girl who, in spite of herself, ended up liking and then dating him. I think all this was a necessary part of the completion of his change and break from his family.

One part of the book I think about a lot is when Derek performs the song Adrian by Mason Jennings at a school talent show. When another student learns Jennings wrote that after reading Beloved and that it was about a lynching they thought Derek was trolling. No, he identified with the song because he thought he was being oppressed.
 
Just finished Black Sunday by Tola Ratimi Abraham. It was …. Fine. We’ll written but a little boring. Good look at the syncretism of Nigerian Pentecostalism and also patriarchy/misogyny within the culture, but plot wasn’t very compelling.

Also finishing up “The Year of the Great-Grandmother” by Madeleine L’Engle. It’s part of the crosswick journal series and centers around the summer her mother came to live with them as she experienced a rapid decline into dementia. As my mom was diagnosed with dementia this year, it’s resonating - mostly the first part where she unpacks her grief/guilt/etc. and struggles to define her new relationship with her mom who’s not her mom anymore. The second two parts are more straight memoir of her relationship with her mom - and has been less impactful for me, but still interesting.

Also on this theme, I read the Swimmers last year, and it was really powerful.
 
Just started the Wheel of Time series. Ready to see what all the excitement is about.
 
I got through 5 “Wheel of Time” books and heard that it hits a lull from around 6 to 9 (before Sanderson picked it up). It was far better in retrospect than it was while reading. As in, I found myself thinking about it more months after I was done than while I was reading them. I want to finish it, but 5,000 pages of “lull” was tough for me to get motivated for when the first 5 were not exactly page turners. It’s a TON of world building, so if that’s your jam you’re in for a treat. Think “Lord of the Rings”, but 10x longer.
 
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Yeah I could write a lot on this. No spoilers here other than a quick comparison for book 1

The first half of book one is just The Fellowship of the Ring. There is every imaginable cliche in this series from a fantasy perspective. There are aspects of the series that drive me insane "braid tugging," all the name calling, that nobody can understand anybody of the opposite sex for the entire series. However, the world building is top notch. There's absolutely a lull in the series before Sanderson finishes (and it is absolutely worth finishing for the Sanderson wrap up) and it took me time to work through, but I'm glad I did and I think it's a worthwhile venture.

A lot of really good story telling here. I believe one of my favorite series.
 
4. The Future is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia. By Masha Gessen.

The title explains it. This was written by a long time Putin critic. I think it was the second longest book I read last year. Gessen covers recent Russian history while working in stories about individuals born on the eve of Gorbachev’s reforms, such as the daughter of Boris Nemstov. All these individuals went through a similar timeline, more or less, of being optimistic of a more liberal future with freedoms and autonomy, to disappointment, to the view that there is no future in Russia. Gessen places the blame on Putin and others in the ruling class, but also on the Russian citizenry.

One thing that made my jaw drop was the rising popularity of Stalin. I mean it is skyrocketing. His favorability numbers have more than doubled in the past decade and he leads Russian polls on the question of who is the greatest person in history. These numbers are not even close to results of polls from not too long ago. Many reasons why are set forth by Gessen, with state controlled media basically rewriting history a central theme.

Weaving in the individual stories kept me engaged in the book, as they were like characters in a novel. I think it helped my understanding of Russia and its motives on the global stage.
 
3. Deep Down Dark. By Hector Tobar.

It seems the more people are stripped to their essentials, or less, the more broadly I think about people, society, life, etc. This book is about Chilean miners who were trapped underground, alive, for a record amount of time. Way underground. Like 2,000 feet. For weeks it was unknown if they even survived the initial collapse. A lot of the books I read seem to center around people having complete disregard, or worse, for other humans. Here you have groups from all over the world coming together to try to rescue the miners.

The crisis is reconstructed using the memories of the miners, which naturally are not always consistent. The book also goes into details about life for the miners both before and after being trapped. It tells some stories of the families who spend the time camped around the collapsed mine during the rescue period. In other words, it is a lot more than recounting an accident. I could not put this book down.

Hey, another one I see that was made into a movie.
 
Cheap Land Colorado: Off-gridders Living at America's Edge

From Pulitzer Prize finalist and National Book Critics Circle Award–winning author of Newjack, a passage through an America lived wild and off the grid, where along with independence and stunning views come fierce winds, neighbors with criminal pasts, and minimal government and medical services.
 
That one sounds right up my alley. The San Luis Valley area around the Great Sand Dunes is gorgeous. At the top of my list of underrated national parks to spend a couple of days.
 
Wakeforest22890 said:
Yeah I could write a lot on this. No spoilers here other than a quick comparison for book 1

The first half of book one is just The Fellowship of the Ring. There is every imaginable cliche in this series from a fantasy perspective. There are aspects of the series that drive me insane "braid tugging," all the name calling, that nobody can understand anybody of the opposite sex for the entire series. However, the world building is top notch. There's absolutely a lull in the series before Sanderson finishes (and it is absolutely worth finishing for the Sanderson wrap up) and it took me time to work through, but I'm glad I did and I think it's a worthwhile venture.

A lot of really good story telling here. I believe one of my favorite series.
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I lost track of WOT around Book 4. Everything I read was solid to good at a minimum, but fantasy has grown up a lot since WOT started and I agree with a lot of the thoughts in this post. It feels a bit tedious with some of the characters and tropes.
 
About halfway through book numero uno - can confirm that it is LOTR regurgitated, and he writes as if he's never encountered actual romantic emotions for another person (from a male or female perspective).

I laughed at the terminology being so basic (trollocs, "The Dark One" = the main bad guy). He does paint a dope ass world though and it's easy enough to read.

Keeps my attention and will certainly finish this book. Time will tell if I keep on keeping on with the series, especially knowing there's a drop-off if I go the distance.
 
2. Prisoners of the Castle. By Ben Macintyre.

I have loved many Macintyre books. Not being a writer or literary critic (obviously), I am unable to say exactly why. He picks great material to work with, but also puts it together in a way that it never drags. There are moments of humor even in dire settings. In this case it is Colditz, a castle that has been turned into a WWII prison camp. It is the place where people who have tried to escape other prisons are sent. It is the place where prized captives are sent, such as Churchill’s nephew.

There are so many prisons escapes attempted, including some that were successful, that it seems like this must have been the main way to pass time. I marveled at the imagination and ingenuity of the prisoners. Macintyre has no problems with pointing out the worst of the captives, rather than making them one dimensional heroes. Likewise he brings humanity to some of the captors. All are complex actors in this book. A superb book. I am not even a WWII buff, but it pulled me in from the first page.
 
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