February History Cat: 1800-Modern Day

Modern History 1800-Today.

The time period in years is short, but in events is heavy! If I had to choose, I would say the 1800’s were dominated by the Industrial Revolution and Napoleon, the 1900’s by the two world wars, and a multitude of genocides and mass killings. Some dates are subjective, but all care has been taken to list the most commonly accepted, at least in my academic world.
The books to fulfill this era of history can be either fiction or non-fiction. The ones I have listed were recommended to me by colleagues or I have read myself. Below is a timeline of some of the events of this time period. I hope I do not step on anybody’s toes, but I’m sure there will be overlaps with other categories; my apologies in advance.


Scene from "Great Expecations" from Brittanica.com

Timeline Part I
1760-1840 Industrial Revolution
Almost any book by Charles Dickens
Shirley by Charlotte Bronte

1801 Thomas Jefferson becomes US president. Fathers a child (children) with slave Sally Hemmings
The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family by Annette Gordon Reed

1802 Beethoven first performs “The Moonlight Sonata”
Beethoven and His Nine Symphonies by George Grove
Beethoven as I knew Him by Anton Schindler

1803 The U.S. Purchases 193,000 acres for about 4 cents per acre. Jefferson sends the Corps of Discovery westward, to explore.
Lewis and Clark by George Sullivan
The Journals of Lewis and Clark by Lewis Meriweather
and George Clark
The Captain’s Dog My Journey with Lewis and Clark by
Roland Smith
The Suppressed History of America: The Murder of Meriwether Lewis and the Mysterious Discoveries of the Lewis and Clark Expedition by Paul Schrag

1804-Napoleon makes himself emperor of France
The Three Fishers John Buchan
Mary Ann by Daphne du Maurier

1810: The cry of “Dolores” begins the Mexican War for Independence
Mexican Independence Day and Cinco de Mayo by
Diane MacMillan
Father Hidalgo and Mexican Independence by Shaba
Rajamanar

1812: War between the U.S. and Great Britain due to British impressment of American seamen. British burn Washington DC, but are eventually driven from the continent

1812: The French Invasion of Russia turns the tide in the Napoleonic Wars

1812

1813: Jane Austen publishes Pride and Prejudice

1814: Napoleon abdicates and is exiled to Elba
The Invisible Emperor: Napoleon on Elba from Exile to
Escape by Mark Braude
Twlight of Empire: Two Accounts of Napoleon’s Journeys
to Elba and St. Helena
Napoleon’s Buttons: How 17 Molecules Changed History
by Penny Le Coutuer
The Count of Monte CristoAlexandre Dumas

1815 Napoleon returns and is finally defeated in the Battle of Waterloo
An Infamous Army: A Novel of Wellington, Waterloo,
Love and War by Georgette Heyer

1817-1818 First Cholera Pandemic in Southeast Asia

1818 Mary Shelly publishes Frankenstein

1820-Discovery of Antarctica
Endurance: Shackelton’s Incredible Voyage Alfred Lansing
Chasing the Light by Jesse Blackadder (fictional retelling of the first woman to set foot on Antarctica)


1821 Napoleon dies in exile on St. Helena
Napoleon's Poisoned Chalice : The Emperor and His Doctors on St. Helena by Howard Martin
Napoleon’s Last Island by Thomas Keaneally

1827-Death of Beethoven

1829-Erie Canal is opened

1829-Second Cholera Pandemic-Europe/Americas/Canada

1829-Nat Turner launches one day bloody slave revolt in Virginia; he is executed

1830-Last known Barbary pirates defeated

1836-Texans are defeated by General Santa Anna at the Alamo

1837-Charles Dickens publishes Oliver Twist

1837-Queen Victoria ascends the English throne

1838-Cherokees are forcibly removed from Florida to Oklahoma in the Trail of Tears

1845-1840-Great Potato Famine in Ireland

1847 Charlotte Bronte published Jane Eyre

1847-Emily Bronte publishes Wuthering Heights

1850 Harriet Tubman first woman to run an underground railroad unit
Harriet, The Moses of Her People: A Biography of
Harriet Tubman by Sarah Bradford (This author was a white female, most unlikely for this subject at this time. She personally interviewed Tubman)

1852-1854 3rd Cholera Pandemic-most deadly Europe/America

1861-1865 U.S. Civil War
John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery,
Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights David S.
Reynolds

1865-Abraham Lincoln assassinated
Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever

1867-America buys Alaska from the Russians

1868-1869 Louisa May Alcott publishes Little Women (2 volumes)

1876 George Custer and his troops killed by Crazy Horse and the Sioux

1876-Telephone invented

1876-Great famine in Southern India kills 5 million

1889- Van Gogh paints “Starry Night”

1890 Wounded Knee Massacre in South Dakota
Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee

1891 Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite premiers in St Petersburg
1896 Klondike Gold Rush in Canada
1898 HG Wells published War of the Worlds
1898 Marie and Pierre Curie discover (isolate) radium
1899 Spanish American War featuring Teddy Roosevelt and Spanish General Weyler (The Butcher)
1899-1900 Indian Famine kills over 1 million people



Father Hidalgo statue/Mexican Independence from wikipedia commons

P.S. I hope the touchstones start working!

Timeline Part II

1912-The Titanic Sinks

1914-1919- WWI
All Quiet on the Western Front
A Farewell to Arms
Birdsong
The Legend of Edith Cavell: Heroic Nurse in Heroic
Verse by Ranjit Jhuboo
Where Poppies Grow: A World War I Companion

There are also a great group of poets known as the "Trench Poets: Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, John McCrae, amongst others

1915-The Luisitania sinks
Dead Wake: The Sinking of the Lusitania by Erik Larson

1915-1921 Armenian Genocide (concurrently Greek Anatolian and Assyrians Christians)
They Can Live in the Desert but Nowhere Else: A History of the Armenian Genocide by Ronald Suny
The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response by Peter Balakian

1917-1923 Russian Revolution
1918-1920 The Spanish Flu Epidemic
1920-Women gain the right to vote in the U.S.
1928-1939 Great Depression
1931 Jane Addams wins Nobel Peace Prize

1932-1933 Holodomor (death by hunger). The Ukraine and 15 other countries have designated this a genocide against the Ukrainians by Joseph Stalin.
Red Famine: Stalin’s War on the Ukraine by Anne Applebaum
Execution by Hunger, The Hidden Holocaust by Miron Dolor
Sweet Snow: A Novel of the Ukranian Famine by Alexander Motyl
1936 Olympics
The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics
by Daniel James Brown

1937 The Nanking Massacre (The Rape of Nanking) was a genocide perpetrated upon the Chinese by the Japanese.
The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang

1933-1945 Holocaust
Leap into Darkness: Seven Years on the Run in Wartime Europe by Leo Bretholz
Dancing with the Enemy: My Family's Holocaust Secret by Paul Glaser
The Tattooist of Auschwitz A Novel
Bonhoffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy
The Reader by Schlenk
Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland by Christopher Browning

1939-1945 WWII
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption
Nagasaki Journey: The Photographs of Yosuke Yamahata August 10, 1945
The Red Rooster by Michael Wallace
Hitler's Last Days: The Death of the Nazi Regime and the World's Most Notorious Dictator by Bill O’Reilly
All the Light We Can Not See Anthony Doerr
Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies by Ben McIntyre
Last Train to Istanbul: A Novel (Pre WWII Turkey, Occupied France)
Beneath a Scarlet Sky: A Novel
The Year of Counting Souls
Lost in Shangri-La (Enhanced Edition): A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II
White Rose, Black Forest, Eoin Dempsey
In Farleigh Field, A Novel

1945 over 12 million displaced ethnic Germans expelled from Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia that had to make their own way home. About 2 million sent to forced labor camps, and about 450,000 deaths.

1945-1989 The Cold War
A Gentleman in Moscow

1946 The first bikini is produced and worn in public
1959 Castro takes over in Cuba
1961 Bay of Pigs
1963 Cuban Missile Crisis

1963 The assassination of JFK
11/22/63 by Steven King
Killing Kennedy The End of Camelot Bill O’Reilly
Mrs. Kennedy and Me by Clint Hill

1972--Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crashes in the Andes with a Rugby Team Aboard. They are stranded for 72 days, resorted to cannibalism
Alive! The Story of the Andes Survivors by Piers Paul

1974-1991 Ethiopian Civil War (Also included the Ethopian Red Terror) After Haile Selassie’s deposition, the Marxist military junta sought to eradicate other political parties. Estimates of death range from 10,000-300,000.
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

1975-1979 Cambodian Genocide. Pol Pot, leader of the Khmer Rouge Communists, 1.5-2 million deaths
First They Killed My Father by Loung Ung

1976 First Apple Computer
1986 Challenger Explosion
1990-1994 Apartheid comes to an end

1992-1995 Bosnian Genocide Bosnian Serb forces, with the backing of the Serb-dominated Yugoslav army, perpetrated atrocious crimes against the Bosnian Muslims and Croatian civilians, resulting in the deaths of some 100,000 people
The Judgement of Richard Richter

The Darfur Genocide, 2000-ongoing Killing of ethnic Darfuri people which has occurred during the conflict in Western Sudan. It has become known as the first genocide of the 21st century. The genocide, is being carried out against the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa peoples. Estimated 3-5 million dead

2001 911 hijackings/attacks on the World Trade Towers and Pentagon

2002 Chechen rebels seize theatre in Moscow, 170 dead
57 Hours
2004 Facebook is founded by Mark Zuckerberg
2005 Hurricane Katrina kills 1036 in Gulf of Mexico
2005-2012 HIV/Aids peaks
2007 Disappearance of Madeleine McCann
2009-Barack Obama becomes U.S. first African-American president
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama
Becoming by Michelle Obama

2010-Earthquake in Haiti kills 230,000

2012 Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II

2014 The worst Ebola epidemic in recorded history occurs in West Africa, infecting nearly 30,000 people and resulting in the deaths of 11,000+.

2014 Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappears from radar while en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur on March 8. There were 239 people on board.

2018 The northern white rhinoceros becomes functionally extinct.

2019 Wildfires spike in Brazil, while Australia endures the most widespread brush fires in its history.

2019 Widespread cases of the measles and polio outbreak in Philippines after a 20 year eradication.

2019 The COVID-19 pandemic begins in Wuhan, China; the start of an ongoing global pandemic.


1st Apple computer, pic from Mercari

Don't forget the wiki: https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/2021_HistoryCAT

I have tons of books that fit this category in my TBR pile. I guess I'll see which ones make their way to the surface.

Thanks Tess. So many possibilities. It must have been hard to decide what to put in and leave out.

>5 pamelad: So true, I could have posted 100 pages!

Love the extremely thorough timelines, Tess!

The book I have in mind for this CAT is The Hollow of Fear by Sherry Thomas, a mystery novel set in the Victorian era. But I may end up reading several more books that qualify next month!

I want to read a 19th century classic for this category, probably Persuasion by Jane Austen because I want to do a reread of that one soon, so it would be a perfect fit.

I'm spoiled for choice on this! If my hold on The Splendid and the Vile comes in for February, I will count it for this challenge.

>9 rabbitprincess: Oh, I've heard that is a great one! It's on my wishlist!

Spoiled for choice here.

I'm going to read The Rape of Nanking. It was given to me by a fellow colleague in 2020 and I need and want to get to it.

I have several books on my February list that will fit here: The Gown by Jennifer Robson, Voss by Patrick White, and Below Stairs by Margaret Powell.

I think my most likely contenders for this section are going to be Vilette by Charlotte Bronte and Adam Bede by George Eliot

>14 Robertgreaves: I love both of those books, Robert!

I will have to read closer through your timelines! I'm possibly going to read a biography on Madame Tussaud for the GenreCAT. She was born in 1761 and died in 1850, so she overlaps, but I'm not sure I want to do that, since it's already such a wide range to choose from. I know I'll have plenty to choose from, just need to decide!

>14 Robertgreaves: >15 Tess_W: I haven‘t read Adam Bede so far, but I second Villette! I read it five years ago and still remember it so vividly.

I think I'll read When Hitler stole Pink Rabbit which fits for this and GenreCAT.

I've picked out a few alternatives if not enough of Madame Tussaud's biography is in the 19th century.

Victoria's Daughters / Jerrold M. Packard
The Five / Hallie Rubenhold
The Colony / John Tayman

It didn't take me long to finish The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang because it was so spellbinding. It was one of those things that was horrific; but you can't turn away. This book was about the atrocities committed in Nanking (Beijing) by the Japanese. Although the atrocities committed are just as bad as those committed during the Jewish Holocaust, there is little writing about this event or little historical study. Besides documenting the atrocities, Chang did a good job of trying to make sense of the why the Japanese acted in such a morally bankrupt manner and why the rest of the world did little to see that responsible individuals were brought to justice.

>3 Tess_W: A Night to Remember about the Titanic sinking is superb!

The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom is very good as well, about hiding Jews from the Nazis.

Unbroken: is great, too.

For that matter, Seabiscuit: An American Legend is another really good read by Laura Hillenbrand.

My initial choice for this month is mid 1900s: Grey Seas Under by Farley Mowat.

>2 Tess_W: Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt is a five star read, about those left behind during the Civil War (1861-1865).

If I can bring myself to it, I'll read Last Witnesses by Svetlana Alexievich. Otherwise I'll count Voss. Another possibility is Anthony Beevor's Stalingrad.

I have completed my read of Below Stairs by Margaret Powell. This was a warm and chatty look at the life of a domestic servant in the 1920s.

I changed plans and will probably read Die Kameliendame (La Dame aux Camélias) by Alexandre Dumas for this CAT, to correspond with AlphaKIT.

For this CAT, I've read Figuring by Maria Popova, which is a look at the lives of several women who managed to live intellectual and artistic lives despite restrictions placed on their gender. Most lived in the mid-nineteenth century, with Rachel Carson as the one who lived a century later.

I finished Square Haunting a series of biographies of 5 women who all lived in the same square in Bloomsbury in the interwar years. Very interesting, even if I am ashamed to admit to only having read 2 of the 5.

I finished Balzac's The Magic Skin (1831), part of his The Human Comedy. While this is not historical fiction (or history), it does depict life in the early decades of the nineteenth century France.

I am counting the group read of Orley Farm for this. At 3 chapters a day, I’ll be reading it most of the month.

I've read Blood Runs Coal: The Yablonski Murders and the Battle for the United Mine Workers of America by Mark A. Bradley. This excellent book tells the history of the UMWA, especially under the autocratic control of Tony Boyle and the fight for the control of the union by its members led by Jock Yablonski, which resulted in the murder of Yablonski, his wife, and his 25-year-old daughter in the early morning of New Year's Eve in 1969. The 7 earlier murder attempts are described in addition to the murders and the successful trials and sentencing of all the people involved in the murders, including Tony Boyle himself who had ordered them. Boyle was more interested in living on a grand style and uniting with the mine owners than in the hazardous working conditions in the mines leading to the disabling and deaths of many miners -- either through black lung disease or mine accidents. Moreover, under Boyle's leadership the method of getting rid of people who criticized him was through death.

They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South by Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers mostly deals with 19th century although it does mention earlier cases. Still it's predominantly within the period so I'm counting it. I'm also reading Orley Farm mentioned in >29 cbl_tn: so I guess it fits also. I suspect there will be at least one or two other reads that will fit the category.

I'm reading Dust and Shadows by Lyndsay Faye. It's a Sherlock Holmes pastiche that deals with the Ripper murders. I'm going to follow that with The Five by Hallie Rubenhold which focuses on the five women killed by Jack the Ripper.

I read When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit which is Judith Kerr's story of her experience of her parents' decision to leave Germany in 1933.

I finished A Red Death by Walter Mosley, the 2nd Easy Rawlins mystery. Set in 1953, it features an agent of the FBI who is looking for dirt on a Jewish labor organizer who is suspected of being a Communist spy. Easy is black and in trouble with the IRS for tax evasion so the FBI agent offers a deal - help him spy on the labor organizer & he will set it up so Easy can pay his back taxes without going to jail.

Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places / Colin Dickey
3.5 stars

This isn’t just a book of ghost stories. The author digs deeper into the history of these haunted places and the some of people who supposedly haunt them. Not only that, he looks at supernatural history, in general. For instance, in the mid-19th century, Spiritualism became popular; current day, we see the fascination via ghost hunters and reality tv. Also current day (though he doesn’t go into detail on this, as it is in the epilogue), he talks a bit about technology – smart homes/devices, and social media.

Of course, there are plenty of ghost stories included, as well. Some of the places he looks at include homes, hotels (he stayed in one with a group of people where they all had infrared cameras), brothels, prisons, insane asylums, and more.

I found this quite interesting. There was a section on haunted towns/cities, as well, and I particularly liked the part on New Orleans, because I’ve been there. I had heard of some of the other stories/places he talked about.

I just completed The Gown by Jennifer Robson and I quite enjoyed this story. Set in 1947 it depicts the post-war conditions in Britain. Also as the main characters are embroiderers that work for Norman Hartwell, there is quite a lot of detail about Princess Elizabeth's wedding gown.

Two books for History Cat so far!

So Cold the River (by Michael Koryta; narrated by Robert Petkoff) This is a split timeline story primarily set in the twenty-first century, but with significant portions set in the Prohibition Era. A failed filmmaker makes his way to West Baden, IN where the combination of his psychic abilities and an infusion of Pluto water give him a terrifying connection to the 1920s and the town kingpin.

Ten Thousand Stitches (Regency Faerie Tales #2; by Olivia Atwater) This a charming novel set in Regency London. A scullery maid, Euphemia Reeves has fallen for the youngest son in the household in which she serves. Class distinctions, however thwart her dreams of a HEA with Benedict, so she turns to the fairy, Lord Blackthorn for help. The first novel in this series, Half a Soul takes a look at working house conditions while this one looks at the barely-better situation of being employed as help in a nobleman's house.

COMPLETED Farewell to the East End by Jennifer Worth, the last in her trilogy of memoirs of working as a midwife in London's East End in the 1950s, extended back in time with reminiscences from her older colleagues and some social history.

Particularly harrowing in present circumstances were the chapters on TB and what a terrible scourge that was.

But the overall messages were what a blight ignorance is and how it allows even the best of intentions to be misused for terrible wickedness but also the heroism of just ordinary perseverence and bravery in appalling circumstances.

Finished The Miller's Dance in the Poldark saga, by Winston Graham.
Napoleonic Wars and early steam engines are both themes in this novel, set in 1812-1813.

>40 nrmay: only three more to go!

>40 nrmay: That's my next one!

I'm reading The Middle Parts of Fortune by Frederic Manning, which is a fictionalised memoir of the writer's experience as a private soldier in the French trenches in 1916.

I have completed reading Voss by Patrick White and although I really disliked this book, I can see that it deserves all the praise it gets. Set in 1840s Australia, Voss is an explorer who heads an expedition to cross the continent from east to west.

I just finished The Duke Who Didn't by Courtney Milan, a delightful confection of a historical romance set in the 1890's.

The March HistoryCat is up and can be found here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/329754

I read The Second World War: Alone by Winston S. Churchill.

There has been so much information about the topic in the years since the second world war, and considering my age, I've read a fair amount, that there is little new to me. However, Churchill's writing is so engaging that I am enthralled by his detailed, unbiased account, which never slows or becomes boring. He was an outstanding writer. Mine was an audiobook with a first class reading by Christian Rodska.

This is the fourth of twelve books making up the complete work, originally published in six volumes.

I realized that my latest book fits this, although I didn't read it for that purpose! Race Against Time: A Reporter Reopens the Unsolved Murder Cases of the Civil Rights Era is investigative reporter Jerry Mitchell's memoir about his involvement with the reopening and prosecution of four Civil Rights cases from the 1960s. Thanks to his diligent reporting, these long-stalled cases resulted in justice for the victims and their families after decades of waiting. The four cases are the murder of Medgar Evers, the murder of Vernon Dahmer, Jr., the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing and the "Mississippi Burning" murders.

The King's Speech / Mark Logue
3.5 stars

Mark Logue is the grandson of Lionel Logue, who left Australia with his wife to move to England in the early 20th century. This was after he’d started helping people with their public speaking. When he arrived in England, he continued his business there, and ended up with the future King of England as one of the people he was helping.

“Bertie” had a stutter and was terrified of public speaking (not so good when you are royalty!). Initially, he was not meant to become king, but when his older brother abdicated, Bertie (now King George VI) was next in line. Lionel was a lifeline for the king, as Lionel helped Bertie before every speech he had to make for a very long time. They became friends, as much as the king and a commoner could.

This was good. I have seen the movie, but I don’t think much time was spent on Lionel’s life. The book actually did spend more time on Lionel than the movie did. In addition to Bertie/King George’s life. Mark used many letters between the two men to write this biography.

There was a section in the middle, describing events during WWII that I lost a bit of interest in, but I quite enjoyed it before and after (and it wasn’t all the events of the war where I lost interest, so it may just have been that I was tired when I read that part!). We also get small glimpses into (now) Queen Elizabeth’s young life, as well. The book also follows both men to their deaths – though Logue was 15 years King George’s senior, Logue outlasted the king, but not by very long.

Finished The Middle Parts of Fortune by Frederic Manning, a fictionalised memoir of trench warfare in WWI. Although its main character was, like the author, was an educated man, he served in the ranks, and his loyalties lay with his fellow soldiers. Most WWI fiction and memoirs were written by officers, so Manning's book provides a different perspective.

I've picked up Deacon King Kong for this challenge, set in 1960s Brooklyn.

I finished The Hollow of Fear by Sherry Thomas, which is set in Victorian England. I'm really enjoying the Lady Sherlock series so far!

I'm picking up In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson, about modern Australia.

>53 pammab: It's an amusing read, but is an American humourist's superficial view of the Australia of 20 years ago.

The Good Girl (by Mary Kubica; narrated by Lindy Nettleton, Johnny Heller, Tom Taylorson and Andi Arndt) - This is a thriller told from multiple POVs set in the 21st century. A woman heads out to meet her erstwhile boyfriend at a nightclub; but ends up being kidnapped! Whenever I read old mysteries/thrillers or watch them on TV, I often catch myself thinking, "Well, why don't they just call out on their cell phone?"-- momentarily forgetting that this is something that wouldn't come into play until the 1990s and, smart phones not until 2003 or so. In The Good Girl, there is a smart phone; but also hyper-militarized police, a poetry slam and, some general time frames in the mother's life which places this squarely in the past decade; but interestingly, no music or newscasts/papers to place it more specifically than that.

I read Eat the Buddha: Life and Death in a Tibetan Town. I approached the book with trepidation, as I really did not know very much about Tibet, but found it informative and hard to put down. Demick is a fantastic storyteller, and effectively communicates how Tibetans may feel led to protest the weight of Chinese oppression, even to the point of self-immolization.

>56 HannahJo: going to take that as a BB!

Rani Laxmibai: Warrior-Queen of Jhansi by Pratibha Ranade was the biography of an upper-class, educated woman, from the Brahmin caste, who led her people in rebellion against the British East India Company in 1857. Rani, who was strong-willed, violated almost every rule for females in 19th century India. Rani was astute when dealing with others as well as clever and resourceful. She did not use her upper-class "rights" for her own personal gain, but for the betterment of her "people." She was killed by the British in battle in 1858. She left only an adopted son, who was not recognized by the British. 256 pages 3 1/2 stars CAT: Non-fiction

I was determined to read Die Kameliendame by Alexandre Dumas for this Cat, but I just don't feel like a classic novel right now. When thinking about this I noticed that I can easily count The Warden by Anthony Trollope for it! It deals with politics, the press and the church in Victorian times, so it's quite a good fit.

I read Daughters of the Dream: Eight Girls from Richmond Who Grew Up in the Civil Rights Era by Tamara Lucas Copeland. This is an excellent memoir of 8 upper middle class black girls/women who grew up in Richmond, VA, the former capital of the Confederate States of America. It tells their stories in three sections: their school years when they were very close (1956-1968); their college and years establishing their careers and families when they had other close friends (1969-1994), and the years they got back together and renewed their friendships and closeness (1994-2018, the year the book was published). These girls grew up in very supportive, 2-parent families who valued education and tried to protect their daughters from the racial situation. The eight women were not as protective of their children, feeling they had been too protected growing up. They became "eight successful African American women. Seventy-five percent have a graduate degree ... Most of us ended up in a helping profession. ... We have a higher rate of divorce than the national average (62% vs. 50%). ... All except one of us still live within about 100 miles of Richmond, our home" (p. 219 for all quotes). Interwoven within the whole story is what was happening racially in the United States at the time described and their feeling or their parents feeling about the events.

I have finished The War in the Peninsula, a slim volume of letters written from Wellington's campaign in Spain by a young lieutenant, published by a great-great-nephew who also describes the engagements mentioned.

Like >51 jeanned:, I too read Deacon King Kong by James McBride. I loved the story, which is set in a New York City housing project in 1969 and looks at the interactions of the various communities living there.

I also finished The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay, set in South Africa during and after WWII.

I'm currently reading Being Chinese in Canada by William Ging Wee Dere. The author tells the story of his grandfather and father while also relaying the history of Chinese immigrants in Canada from the early 1900's to the present.

Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World / Laura Spinney
3 stars

The subtitle pretty much tells you what the book is about. I listened to the audio. The male British narrator is always a warning for me, and that warning “fit”. My mind wandered in and out, and it was interesting in parts. In addition to a broader outlook, the author looked at different countries around the world and how it affected those countries. I think I lost interest a bit more looking at the countries individually than looking at the pandemic in a broader sense. It sure was interesting to see the parallels to today – one of those parallels being the health measures that governments try to take with varying results of compliance.

I just read My One and Only Duke by Grace Burrowes, which is set in the early 1800s.

Buses Are a Comin': Memoir of a Freedom Rider / Charles Person
5 stars

In 1961, a small group of people, both black and white and of a variety of ages from the author at 18 years old up to a retired white couple, got on a variety of buses, planning to head from Washington, DC to New Orleans. The idea was to test what would happen when they sat at various places on the bus, front or back, regardless of their colour. They also (black and white), in some cases, sat together. Supreme Court Decisions in the 1940s (before Rosa Parks) and the 1950s said that anyone should be able to sit anywhere on interstate buses, and that anyone should be able to sit anywhere, use any washroom, order from any food place, etc. inside the depots.

Wow… what an amazing group of very brave people! Granted, some of them didn’t realize how bad it would get (including Charles, though he had grown up in Georgia… but Georgia wasn’t the worst), but this was the first group of “Freedom Riders” that set off a chain of others to continue when they were unable to finish their trips. It’s crazy to me how the KKK was still alive and well in the deep South, and even police were involved. Obviously, this book includes violence (though the Riders themselves had vowed to be nonviolent), and some awful subject matter. It was heart-wrenching at times.

The first chapter tells of the climax of the trip, but then backs up to tell us about Charles’ life growing up. In May 1961 for those two weeks that the first Freedom Ride was happening, he was at the tail end of his first year of college. He had previously been involved in some protests in Atlanta with other college students regarding the segregation of blacks and whites in restaurants and cafes. But this was something else. When I finished, I “had” to check a few videos on youtube.

This message was deleted voluntarily :-)

Belatedly decided to participate!

A couple of books I read in February would qualify, but I'm going to choose Inland by Tea Obreht. This is set in the mid-1800s in the Arizona Territory. Some of the characters are actually historical figures, and it features a little-known (to me) part of US history: an experiment by the US Army to use camels as pack animals in the Southwest.

>67 sturlington: Read Obrecht's The Tiger's Wife and liked it...so will put this one on my WL.

Quite belatedly finished In a Sunburned Country. It did get me from 0.5% to 5% background knowledge about Australia, but mostly I found I don't really like Bill Bryson.

I am also adding L'économie de la Révolution Française which turned out to be a very engrossing and fascinating read looking at the budgetary and grain crisis of the French Revolution.

ETA: Oops, wrong month, sorry!