Isola by Allegra Goodman

Isola by Allegra Goodman is a captivating novel that begins in 1531 with twelve-year-old Marguerite, whose mother died during Marguerite's both, and father at war when she three. Her guardian was her father's cousin, Roberval, and Marguerite lived with her nurse Damienne, and friend Claire, with Claire's mother her teacher. 

Roberval was a sea-faring man, who would go on voyages at the king's behest. He began to take Marguerite's family money, first renting out the property where she lived, forcing her to stay in guest bedrooms, When Marguerite was seventeen, he decreed that she and Damienne would join his voyage across the Atlantic to the new world. Roberval considered himself a man of God, and gave Marguerite psalms to study and would test her piety while treating her poorly as a source of amusement. 

While on the ship, Marguerite developed a relationship with Roberval's secretary, Auguste, who had been instructed to stay away from her. To punish them, Roberval had the two, along with Damienne, abandoned with meager supplies and weapons on an island off the far north coast of North America. 

 Left to fend for themselves, the three hunted for birds, scavenged eggs, and fished. By September, the leaves had changed color and it turned cold, so they lived in a cavern for the winter. Auguste died while Marguerite pregnant, and she killed a polar bear that had scavenged his body. The baby was born in the spring, and died of malnourishment. In summer, Marguerite and Damienne saw Roberval's ships and signaled, but the ships continued on, leaving the two banished. Damienne in autumn accidentally cut herself and died of infection. Marguerite later killed a second polar bear, cutting off and keeping its claw. 

As her supplies dwindled further, Marguerite saw two open boats anchored, and men that came ashore. She convinced them to let her come onboard for the voyage back to France. The other of the two boats was lost at sea, and Marguerite after her arrival found that Roberval had sold her estate. She reconnected with Claire and Claire's mother, and met the Queen, who gave money for she, Claire, and Claire's mother to start a school for girls. Roberval attempted to get at some of these funds, and was rebuffed by Marguerite. While it would have been nice if the revenge on Roberval were more pronounced, it's a good book, a page turner.

Run for the Hills by Kevin Wilson

Run for the Hills by Kevin Wilson is a fun novel by the author of the excellent Nothing to See Here. His latest work of fiction starts with a farmer in Tennessee, Mad Hill, having a visitor arrive, Rube Hill, a writer from Boston. Rube who he says that he believes Mad is his half-sister, with their father having abandoned each of them with no future contact, and subsequently starting new families. 

The two embark on a cross-country road trip in Rube's rented PT Cruiser to find and talk with their father, and pick up along the way two additional half-siblings who their dad also left, college basketball star Pep and fifth-grader Tom. The story features an entertaining romp from the farm in Tennessee to Oklahoma, Pep's NCAA tournament game in Austin, Salt Lake City, and finally Woodside, California. The four half-siblings meet their now seventy-year-old father and his newest child, two-year-old Rooster. 

The relationship between Mad, Rube, Pep, and Tom grows each step of the way across the country, with them protecting each other and there for one another. Tom is described as having gone from feeling like he all alone, orphaned by his father, to having three siblings with him, and then a fourth in young Rooster. 

It's not obvious in the beginning of the book that it's going to be about the connections made, but that gradually takes shape and is revealed through the story told well by Wilson.

Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reed

Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reed is a compelling novel set both in space and on earth. It jumps back and forth in time, both when astronaut candidates are training, and when several are on the space shuttle.

The book begins in 1984 with main character Joan Goodwin of NASA in Houston as the CAPCOM, the one person communicating with astronauts on a 1984 mission. She's in contact with Vanessa Ford on the shuttle, who needs to try to get back home after two died and two were critically injured, with the shuttle saved by the actions of Lydia Danes before she went unconscious. Mention is made of the loop, where people outside of NASA can listen to the live audio from mission control, with that audio then reported around the world in an emergency situation. 

Goodwin was an astronomer and it's solid writing on how she connects with Danes. Ford is the other main character, with her coming to NASA wanting to pilot the shuttle, but not a military pilot so there as an aeronautical engineer. 

The women were part of NASA's first training group with females, and much of the book is set earlier in time, with them as astronaut candidates. The relationship between Goodwin and Ford in detailed, and there's a lot about Goodwin's sister Barbara and young niece Frances. The part where Goodwin professes to Frances how she will always be there for her is beautiful, and the ending similarly lovely. Also, blurbs are provided by the writers Kristin Hannah and Andy Weir, and Jenkins Reed makes mention of how helpful to the writing of the book was Paul Dye, former NASA flight director and author of Shuttle, Houston.

Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson

Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson is a solid work of nonfiction, with abundance defined as us having enough of what we need to create lives better than what we had. The book notes transportation, health, housing, and energy as building blocks of the future, and that we must build and invent more of what we need. 

The unaffordability and shortage of housing in America is described as perpetuated by a Not in My Backyard approach from people who already own homes, making it difficult to build affordable new housing. Particularly in California, projects are difficult to complete, as they're often hobbled by special interest groups. Rules and regulations, many of them environmental, from the 1970s have prevented urban-density and green-energy projects that would help alleviate problems today. 

Conservatives don't recognize when government is needed, as government must fund risky technologies whose payoff is social rather than purely economic, and liberals focus too much on protecting and preserving rather than building. 

Chapters from the book include:

Chapter one: Grow - Homelessness is a housing problem, and Lawn-Sign Liberalism is characterized by believing that all lives matter, but not wanting affordable housing around you. 

Chapter two: Build - Lawsuits are an overused took that prevents growth, and what starts as well-intentioned can become a roadblock to good. 

Chapter three: Govern - Rules and regulations, even when created for good reasons, make things difficult.

Chapter four: Invent - We need government to fund invention, with the COVID vaccine a perfect example.

Chapter five: Deploy - It's the delivery mechanisms that matter.

Conclusion - Abundance is liberalism, but it's a liberalism that builds.

Fever Beach by Carl Hiaasen

Fever Beach by Carl Hiaasen is another fun and entertaining novel by the author, whose books include Razor Girl, Squeeze, Me, Skink: No Surrender, Bad Monkey, Star Island, Nature Girl, Skinny Dip, Basket Case, Sick Puppy, Lucky You, Native Tongue, and Stormy Weather.

Unsavory and inept characters in Fever Beach include Dale Figgo, a dumb as a fencepost white supremacist leader of his group Strokers for Liberty, Claude and Electra Mink, the elderly right-wing politician funding racists who run a corrupt foundation whose benefactors include the Wee Hammers, a housing scam with the construction provided by children, and politician Clure Boyette, a cheating on his wife womanizer in office because of his father.

The likable and on the side of good characters in the book are Viva Morales, an employee of the Minks and renter of Dale's in the house owned by his mother, Galaxy, the 25-, but purported to be 17,-year-old escort that has dirt on Boyette, and Twilly Spree, the prone to dramatic acts of violence environmentalist who gets involved with Morales and sets his sights on taking down Figgo and his efforts.

My Friends by Fredrik Backman

My Friends by Fredrik Backman is a lovely novel that features the characters of Joar, Ali, Ted, KimKim (the artist), and Louisa. Also important to the story are Christian (a twenty year old budding artist and school janitor) and his mom (an art teacher at a university).

The book begins with a meeting between the artist as an adult in the final days of his life and Louisa as a just turned eighteen year old orphan who has recently lost her best friend. It then turns into a journey by Ted and Louisa, with Ted telling the story of the childhood friendship shared twenty-five years prior by Joar, Ali, Ted and the artist.

A central part of the story is a famous painting done by the artist (known as C. Jat, the initials of Christian and his friends), with The One of the Sea his first work when he fourteen years old and including his three friends as tiny figures in the painting. Backman writes very well about connections and My Friends covers friendship, finding your people ("one of us"), and life coming full circle. The four were damaged souls from difficult homes who found each other. They grow to share a language with each other, including "Here!" "Tomorrow!" and "I love you and I believe in you."

Joar was focused on the artist becoming a successful painter so he could escape their town and his difficult life. The start of the artist's painting career was also triggered by meeting Christian, who said to paint like the birds sing and the best art is painting not what you see, but what you feel. Later, the artist would describe his work as painting the way his friends laughed. When the four friends were young, they broke into a museum and hung The One of the Sea on the wall, which brought Christian's mother into their lives, and would become circled back on at the end. One thing about the the book is it feels at times to be going a direction, then surprises you.

The Emerald Mile by Kevin Fedarko

The Emerald Mile by Kevin Fedarko is a really good book subtitled The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon. Fedarko details both a 1983 wooden dory trip 277 miles down the Colorado River, one intended by Kenton Grua and two others to set the mark for fastest float through the Canyon, and the potentially cataclysmic events at the dam upstream that made the speed run possible. 

Huge El Niño rains in 1983 causing the water level at Lake Powell, held back from the Colorado River by the Glen Canyon Dam, to rise to within feet of its top. Lake Powell holds some nine billion gallons of water and the dam supplies power for many parts of the west. The book also details the harnessing of water for electricity, citing that dams covered almost every major river except the Yellowstone, including twenty-nine on the Mississippi, thirty-six on the Columbia, and forty-two on the Tennessee. 

The Glen Canyon Dam was built with spillway tunnels on either side, but it was discovered that cavitation had occurred in the tunnels, with repeatedly high water pressure straining the concrete, causing water to go into the bedrock. Rocks and dirt then further damaged the tunnels and were tossed into the river. 

It was never said in the book that the dam at risk of failing, like in the Johnstown tragedy of 1889 where thousands died, but even lesser possibilities included things that could have been calamities, ranging from overtopping of the dam to the bedrock eroding so much that water from Lake Powell make its way around the dam. Engineers had plywood put up to raise the height of the dam by several feet while the spillway problem could be worked on, and released huge amounts of water into the Colorado River. 

This created the largest flow of water down the river in a generation, making conditions dangerous for rafters, and tantalizing for Grua and the two others on The Emerald Mile. The trip down the river is typically several weeks and they finished in just over thirty-six hours, breaking the prior speed record by more than ten hours.

Fedarko provides a detailed and interesting account of the float down the river, events at the dam, including the engineering experts who worked the crisis, and the Grand Canyon itself. He writes of how remarkable it is, and how river trips often feature side hikes, with guides talking about the geology of the Canyon. 

Framed by John Grisham and Jim McCloskey

Framed by John Grisham and Jim McCloskey is a solid nonfiction work with ten stories of wrongful arrest, conviction, and imprisonment, with five by each man. McCloskey works with Centurion Ministries, a group dedicated to exonerating innocent people wrongly convicted, and Grisham is on the board of directors of both Centurion and the Innocence Project. There are twenty-three defendants across the ten wrongful conviction stories, with four that were on death row, two who came within days of being executed, and one who was. 

Three of the stories to highlight are that of Todd Willingham, Joe Bryan, and the Norfolk Four. Willingham was put to death by the state of Texas for the house fire that took the lives of his three children, examined by David Grann for The New Yorker with the piece "Trial by Fire: Did Texas Execute an Innocent Man?" Joe Bryan was arrested for the murder of his wife Mickey in Clifton, Texas, where Joe was a principal, away at a conference at the time of the murder. The Norfolk Four features police concocting stories of what they believe happened, and then fitting evidence that fits their theories, ignoring evidence that disproves them. As new evidence would come to light disproving a police theory in the case, they would arrest another as an accomplice, and create a new theory. Then once that theory was disproved, they would arrest another purported co-conspirator and create a new made-up narrative. 

Police in these cases were often desperate to show their small towns that the killer not at large, and other examples of shoddy, malicious, or illegal police work included the following...

- Long interrogations and convincing people that maybe they did commit the crimes while sleepwalking. 

- Medical examiners who seem to specialize in autopsies that tell whatever story police want to be told.

- Jailhouse informants put in as cellmates for the purpose of them "hearing a confession."

- Hiding of evidence, that which was legally required to make available to the defense.

- Relying on shoddy work around areas like bloodstain analysis or fire investigation.

The stories of police misconduct in the ten stories are horrifying, and illustrate the importance of people asserting their Miranda rights so they not interviewed without a lawyer present. 

The Last Manager by John W. Miller

The Last Manager by John W. Miller is a solid book subtitled How Earl Weaver Tricked, Tormented, and Reinvented Baseball. Miller is a magazine and newspaper writer and provides an in-depth look at the Hall of Fame manager of the Baltimore Orioles from 1968 to 1982, averaging 97 wins a season. 

Weaver is often remembered for his theatrics, getting thrown out of ninety-six big league games, but also a brilliant baseball mind, espousing the importance of the first step left or right for infielder, and how that step should come before the ball hit. He was a Moneyball-style manager long before that came into vogue, preaching the importance of on-base percentage, defense, and not wasting outs, with many of these ideas memorialized in the The Oriole Way, a manual to how to play the game.

Looking at situational stats was another innovation of Weaver's, seeing how a batter did against a certain pitcher or vice versa. He championed the idea of using a radar gun to measure pitching, especially the difference between speeds of fastball vs. off-speed pitches. Also, before Cal Ripken Jr. played shortstop for Weaver, players at that position tended to be smaller and not expected to be huge run generators. 

Also covered by Miller is both how the MLB manager has changed through the years, going from being an omnipotent face of the organization to one who gets along with rather than leading by fear their much more highly-paid players. He notes how the ubiquity of baseball also changed with the advent of television. Before that, entertainment had to be gone to so attending minor league games was more popular than when people were able to stay at home and watch tv. The drop in leagues and teams during this time was precipitous. 

Miller provides a thorough biography of Weaver, from him growing up in St. Louis, through his never realized dreams of making it as a major league player, his managing career that started at thirty-seven years old, and death in 2013. He was also the only manager to hold a job both in the five years before free agency in 1976 and in the five years after. Along with Cal Ripken Jr., other famous players Weaver managed on the Orioles included Frank Robinson, Brooks Robinson, Boog Powell, and Jim Palmer. 

Night of the Grizzlies by Jack Olsen

Night of the Grizzlies by Jack Olsen is a work of nonfiction that chronicles the separate fatal bear maulings of two nineteen-year-old women August 13, 1967 at Glacier National Park in Montana. There had been no fatal bear attacks in the 57 years of the park prior to that night, and the book came out of a 1968 Sports Illustrated story by Olsen. It's an account of the park, the maulings, likely why they happened, and what came after.  

Despite National Park Service regulations against feeding bears, park workers would leave out garbage so bears would come rummage through it, and tourists would watch from the Granite Park Chalet. Also, there were a number of bear incidents that summer, including cases of a bear acting abnormally and aggressively near Trout Lake, which should have had the Park Service on alert and taking action. 

Much of the book centers around the Chalet, where garbage was left out for bears to create a tourist attraction, and where one of the girls was killed in a campground a quarter mile away. Julie Helgeson of Albert Lea, MN, was mauled along with her friend, who suffered serious but not critical injuries. There was a doctor who was at the chalet that tried to save Julie, but she had lost too much blood by the time she was found. Twenty miles away at Trout Lake a different bear, likely the one who had been scaring campers and acting oddly, killed Michele Koons of San Diego.

A large portion of the book recounts the events of that night, and Olsen also covers the hunts for the bears that killed the two girls. The bear that was killed near Granite Park Chalet had an injured paw that would have caused constant pain, and circumstantial evidence showed it was the bear that had killed Julie Helgeson. The bear that was killed near Trout Lake was confirmed by physical evidence as the bear that killed Michele Koons.

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah is a compelling novel about Leni Allbright, her parents Cora and Ernt, and them living in Alaska.

The family in the the mid-1970s moved there from Seattle, onto a a piece of land that was gifted to Ernt by his platoonmate in Vietnam, where Ernt spent time in captivity and came back from with PTSD, a drinking problem, and short fuse to anger. 

Early teenager Leni, her mother that she had a close bond with, and her erratic at best father found themselves across Kachemak Bay from Homer, in the fictional town of Kaneq, woefully unequipped for the harsh winters. People in Kaneq, where less than thirty people lived year-round, included Marge, a former attorney in charge of the general store, Bo Harlan, whose deceased son gifted the land to Ernt, and Tom Walker, whose family including youngest son Matthew and wife Geneva. The teacher at Kaneq's school would come into town, noted as being right near Sadie Cove, from her home in Bear Cove, with both real places in Kachemak Bay.

It's a compelling book, one with maddening decisions made at times by Cora, but those decisions also heighten the drama. Each member of the family loved each other, but Cora's love for Ernt led her to her going along with his rash and often dangerous choices. His issues were compounded in winter, with the onset of harsh conditions and short days of sunlight. The title of the book came from a Robert Service poem and it's a bit melodramatic, but also a lovely book. The author acknowledgements in the back note that Hannah moved to Alaska with her when she was young. Her parents started the Great Alaska Adventure Lodge, where three generations of their family has now worked. 

The Boys of Riverside by Thomas Fuller

The Boys of Riverside by Thomas Fuller is a good work of nonfiction that centers on the high school football team at the California School for the Deaf in Riverside, CA. It's an interesting telling of the team, its 2022 season, and the deaf community as a whole. 

Fuller wrote a New York Times article on the team at the end of its 2021 season, and their story went viral, with players appearing on national television morning shows, and the team was at the coin toss of Super Bowl LVI February 2022 in Inglewood. 

The second half of the book is about the season that started in August 2022. The school had just over fifty boys in its high school academic programs, nearly half on the football team. They played eight-on-eight, rather than traditional eleven-on-eleven games. A handful of the games they play are against other deaf schools, like the California School for the Deaf in Fremont, but most are against other smaller schools, a mixture of private schools with high tuition and schools from remote areas. Fuller writes in the book about head coach Keith Adams and his two sons on the team, Trevin and Kaden, and how everyone being deaf created a brotherhood on the team. 

There's a lot about football, but equally if not more interesting is about the deaf community. By the late 1990s, just 20% of babies in the U.S. had their hearing checked, now more than 98% receive tests. This is crucial because of how important language development, either spoken or sign, is at a young age. 

Also fascinating was the writing about how in the past there had been edicts around the deaf community not signing, but rather they should read lips, with this mandate or stigma effectively taking away a language in American Sign Language for a population. As late as the 1960s, the school in Riverside would punish students for signing. The iPhone is noted in the book as having a huge impact in the deaf community, and covered is cochlear implants, enabling a degree of hearing in someone profoundly deaf. It's an interesting book, and noted in it is that the deaf university Gallaudet in Washington, D.C. is where the football huddle started.