What are you reading now?: May 17, 2025.

The new thread; have at it. More commentary tomorrow.

Back from vacation (and no longer trying to function with a clunky interface). Wrapped up The Puritans: A Transatlantic History, close to finishing The First Day of the Blitz, next up will be The Kaiser's Cruisers.

As of today (May 21), the batting order is Patton's Eyes in the Sky (there is an unintentional theme this month of coffee-table military history) and The Sunforge.

enjoying this eBook via Libby ~

Not in My Book: A Novel
by Katie Holt

I'm still reading The Sea of Lost Girls by Carol Goodman, perfect for this time of year.

I finally finished Tony Judt's incredible Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945. I'll have a review up soon. I've now started The Sleep of the Just a novel by Algerian author Mouloud Mammeri first published in 1956 and published in the U.S. (translated from the original French) in 1958.

I am starting to read Subterranean by James Rollins

The Matter of the Secret Bride by Darcie Wilde
Latest and 8th installment in "A Useful Woman Mystery" series. It was originally the "Rosalind Thorne Mystery" series.

Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith
Deborah Heiligman
4/5 stars
This is the true story of Charles and Emma Darwin. Darwin, who believed in evolution, which was a very big controversial issue in 1859. This is a young adult novel but I thoroughly enjoyed the book. Biography

I've finished Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 by Tony Judt. The book is an astonishingly comprehensive and extremely well-written history of 60 years of European history, from 1945 through 2005, when the book was published. I was turned on to this book by a friend who is a history professor at Colgate University. Judt was a very well known historian and essayist (well known to everyone interested in history but me, evidently) who died a very difficult death in 2010 from ALS. The book opens with a comprehensive and fascinating exploration of the ways in which Europe had become a total shambles by World War Two's close. He looks into both the Western Europeans' decisions that led to the relatively quick rebuilding of what became West Germany's economy and also the rearming of the country, over the strong objections of some of the allies. Rather than just treating the countries that would become the Soviet Bloc as, well, a block, Judt examines the conditions and events of each of them separately, and frequently returns to the area to report on the various countries' attempts to loosen the restrictive nature of their Communist governments. He also describes in detail the complicated political economic considerations of the Western countries--looking at them one country at a time--that eventually coalesced into NATO, the European Common Market, the European Court of Human Rights and finally, the European Union. At any rate, Judt shined his light on what seems like more or less every historical moment in every country in Europe across those 60 years. Since he left off in 2005, we can see the ways in which his examinations turned out to be right and sometimes missed the mark. For example, in 2005 he didn't expect Putin to be able to gather the economic or political strength to allow him to pose a threat to the peace of Europe. Of course I touched only on a slim minimum of the events and individuals Judt describes here. This is an extremely readable history that I recommend highly. If its length is daunting, it is easily broken up, as Judt organized the book into four separate sections, and I read these one at a time with another book in between each.

My somewhat longer review is up on my 50-Book Challenge thread.

Every Day Is a Gift: A Memoir
by Tammy Duckworth
5/5 stars
Great autobiography of Tammy Duckworth in which she includes her family life, her life in the military, her role in government and her devastating loss of her legs. Biography

Woman of Light – Kali Fajardo-Anstine
3***

From the book jacket: A dazzling epic of betrayal, love, and fate that spans five generations of an indigenous Chicano family in the American West. Luz “Little Light” Lopez, a tea leaf reader and laundress, is left to fend for herself after her older brother, Diego, a snake charmer and factory worker, is run out of town by a violent white mob. As Luz navigates 1930s Denver, she begins to have visions that transport her to her Indigenous homeland I the nearby Lost Territory.

My reactions
Too, too much going on here. The constant back and forth across generations and locations was exhausting and at times confusing. I would get invested in Pidre’s story (for example), only to jump forward several generations to learn about Diego and Luz, then I’d be back learning about Maria Josie, then farther back to Desiderya’s travails, then forward again the Luz.

In many respects it reminded me of an oral history, the kinds of family lore passed down from generation to generation on warm summer nights sitting in the dark on a porch, the way my grandparents, aunts and uncles used to regale us kids with stories of our ancestors.

There were times when her writing really spoke to me and some of her images (especially when in the Lost Territory) reminded me of the landscape of my youth on the Texas/Mexico border.

The new thread is up over here.