wahistorian's Reviews (506)

Tobey Pearl had applied incredibly thorough research skills to the extraordinary story of three white men tried for the murder of. Nipmuc man in Plymouth Colony in 1638. Her book conveys the social complexity of colonial American societies, in which whites, Native Americans, and Blacks came into daily contact with one another, trying to simultaneously to hold together their fragile societies *and* live up to their ideals. Often their principles and the reality of the hardscrabble colonial New England life conflicted and colonial leaders relied on the law and juries to shore up the social foundations. When Arthur Peach, an indentured man escaping servitude with three others, brutally murdered Penowanyanquis in the forest, the Nipmuc man miraculously survived long enough to identify his killers. Peach and his accomplices were quickly apprehended, all but one, and the case quickly proceeded to trial. Pearl recounts all the forces at play on this incident, vividly bringing to life the numerous English colonial leaders—Myles Standish, Roger Williams, and John Winslow included—as well as the rivalries and alliances among the Nipmuc, Wampanoag, Narragansett, and other First Peoples. The result is a rich and revealing story.

‘The Plague Court Murders’ is known as one of the most clever locked room murders, but that just wasn’t enough to keep me going. The characters were so ill-defined and we never even met some of them 1/3 of the way through the book, just heard them described by other characters. I couldn’t push through, even after the murder.

I listened to the audiobook because I’d heard that Boehner threw in some (four-letter) editorial comments that were not included in the book; for the most part, I wasn’t disappointed, even though Boehner and I would not agree on anything, except that Donald Trump is a reprehensible person. Boehner’s book is not a blow-by-blow of his career in Congress. Instead the book proceeds more thematically; in one chapter, he talks about how congressional trips broadened his horizons, for example (although not completely—Boehner’s domestic bus trips were “no girls allowed,” a quote). He does manage to preserve a bit of a sense of wonder at the trajectory of his life and his story is most approachable when he talks about his childhood in his grandfather’s and father’s working-class tavern. He says repeatedly that he is fundamentally the same person he started out and I believe he believes that. But his remarkable optimism about the future of the Republican Party demonstrates that he does have some grievous blind spots, about his and the party’s privilege and their ability to connect with people who aren’t rich, white, and male.

This book is a classic example of what I love about Agatha Christie: I usually can’t relate the twists and turns of the plot to save my life, but each world she creates is so dense with motives and current events and psychology and bits of herself, that you want to keep going. After her father’s death, Anne Beddingfeld is determined not to be an ordinary spinster and the adventure she desires almost immediately finds her. She is almost a witness to two murders and somehow she’s suddenly on a ship headed for South Africa, trying to solve a diamond theft and fend off numerous suitors, and landing in the middle of a revolution in Johannesburg. Anne is sui generis as a character, developing a fondness for bad guys but ending up with a good guy in the end. Her humanity is sometimes at odds with her spirit of adventure, but she’d rather let ten villains go than accidentally persecute someone unjustly. “I wish…that one could be sure that the right people were the ones to be killed,” she observes of the fighting in Johannesburg, but also of life more generally perhaps. “I mean the ones who wanted to fight—not just all the poor people who happen to live in the parts where the fighting is going on” (276).

This lovely book uses three generations of fictional women—garden designer Venetia Smith in 1907, land girl Beth Pedley in 1944, and garden restorer Emma Lovell in 2021—to describe the life of the landscape at Highbury House. This is more than a garden story, however; it is also a narrative about women’s aspirations and purpose, the strictures of social mores and class, and how the events of the wider world impinge upon people’s otherwise quiet lives, especially in wartime. The book had a bit too much romance in it for my taste, as each woman is happily paired off in the end against all odds. But it was fascinating to watch the garden cone together in 1907, to watch it be repurposed for the war effort in 1944, and then restored and modernized in the present-day. There is something beautiful and restorative about a landscape that endures and provides respite and hope for people over time.

This lyrical book traces the history of New England farming with a twist; her intimate knowledge of agriculture is based in the experiences of her immigrant family who came to farming in Massachusetts in the 1920s. Each chapter explores a different New England environment, from “Island” to “Wilderness” to “The New City,” always coming back to its relation to farming. “Cultivation is a possession,” she argues, “an allegiance intertwined with necessity,” and she doesn’t shy away from the fact that that need for ownership has resulted in abuse of nature and pain in the family (181). But her love for the land always shines through and makes this a moving and thought-provoking read.

What an eye-opening book! Kliph Nesteroff is described as having an encyclopedic knowledge of comedy and he puts it to good use cataloging every Native American comic who has worked in the U.S., whether stand-up or improv or sketch comedy. The book reveals the many hurdles that indigenous entertainers have had to navigate, from dealing with the legacy of genocide and abuse that has been perpetrated against them to coping with the usual challenges of comedy: unresponsive audiences, envy and jealousy among fellow comedians, even balancing family and work responsibilities with their passion for making people laugh. This book introduced me to so many funny people, but more importantly these comics are finding one another and their communities and that’s obviously a life-affirming thing.

Wow, this was my first Riley Sager thriller and I would definitely read more. The bad guy wasn’t necessarily a surprise to me, but the timing of the reveal *was* unexpected. A fun read: not too grisly and very suspenseful.

A great summer read; although the book is actually set in March and April, it concerns the restorative qualities of vacation, especially a busman’s holiday. Inspector Alan Grant’s nerves have got the better of him and he decides to take some time off to visit relatives in Scotland and do some fishing. But on the train north he briefly encounters a mystery that becomes the obsession of his break. This obsession helps him forget himself and he throws himself into experiences that he would have avoided in his daily routine: country dancing, touring an island in the Hebrides, and considering marriage and the country life. Grant does solve the mystery, but it seems almost incidental to his new self-awareness and calm. Tey is so skilled at drawing characters that it’s a delight to see them spring off the page, like real people with real concerns and emotions. (Grant’s relationship with his little Scots cousin Pat is just one example.) And this quality made the plot read more important than another Golden Age Murder mystery. Looking forward to more Tey.

I hardly know what to think about this miniature British version of ‘Crime and Punishment.’ It is no spoiler to write that Mr. Bowling kills, again and again, out of boredom or narcissism or annoyance at people who seem to have it better than him. They are all small, harmless people whom he barely knows—with the exception of the first—and the crimes are not even particularly clever so that he waits for the law to catch up with him. But London is preoccupied with the war and his victims *are* not important people. Henderson has built a world in this book, of thwarted ambition and helplessness and desperation and alcoholism and yet you cannot help turning the pages to see what will happen next. Thank goodness there were newspapers or Mr. Bowling could barely be sure he lived a life.