Summer of 2019 Reads

The summer reading season isn’t over, but I want to share a few of the great books I’ve been reading during the warm months. I’m woefully behind reviewing them, but there are several here that I think you should check out.

In the non-fiction world, I kicked off the summer with Them: Why We Hate Each Other — And How to Heal by Ben Sasse. It’s short little read, relevant to the conversation on a lot of the divisions we see in our culture and in our politics, but not necessarily groundbreaking. If you’ve ever read Charles Murray, you’ll hear echoes of Bowling Alone or Coming Apart here. Definitely worth the read.

Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, 1945-1975 by Max Hastings

Because summer isn’t right without a few histories, I read Max Hastings’ Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, 1945-1975, and my heart aches even now remembering it (I finished it at the end of May). It’s broad in scope and appropriately named. I didn’t enjoy his history of WWI, but I fully recommend this. I also read War on the Waters: The Union and Confederate Navies, 1861-1865 by James McPherson. It was a bit more superficial than I was expecting, but still a thorough overview of the naval aspects of the American Civil War. Skipping ahead chronologically, I just finished A Higher Call: An Incredible True Story of Combat and Chivalry in the War-Torn Skies of World War II by Adam Makos. What he lacks in scholarship, he makes up with a beautiful and compelling story, as hope-inspiring as Hastings’ Vietnam history was disheartening.

Rounding out the historical, I recommend two books that seem to straddle the line between historical and polemical: If You Can Keep It: The Forgotten Promise of American Liberty by Eric Metaxas and Our Lost Declaration: America’s Fight Against Tyranny from King George to the Deep State by Mike Lee (turns out that I’ve read two books by sitting U.S. Senators this summer…huh). Both were surprise additions to my reading lists, the first because it was available on audio and I had to have to something to download before a road trip and the second because a friend in Senator Lee’s office sent me a copy. Neither disappointed, and I recommend both.

If you can keep it by Eric Metaxas

If You Can Keep It plays off of Benjamin Franklin’s quote of the same (“A republic, if you can keep it.”), and recounts events and themes that make America exceptional (spoiler alert: it’s not because American’s are special, but because America shows the world what can be when men are free). Liberty is fragile and the survival of American democracy is not inevitable. For it to succeed, he points to what many Founders implicitly and explicitly believed was necessary for America to last and to work, something he calls the ‘golden triangle’: 1) Freedom requires virtue; 2) virtue requires religious faith; 3) religious faith requires freedom.
Our Lost Declaration by Mike Lee

In Our Lost Declaration, Lee provides the reader with a series of events that tie to the text of the Declaration of Independence. I finished reading it just before the Independence Day holiday and was pleasantly surprised to find scenes of history with which I was not well familiar. He draws parallels between the tyrannies of the British and that of bureaucrats in Washington, and in his prose, I could hear echoes of Alexis de Tocqueville’s warnings that soft tyranny could arise when we become too wealthy and too complacent. If nothing else, Lee wants Americans to remember the design behind our country’s institutions, why we are free, and why we could lose that freedom.

The Wizard and the Prophet by Charles C. Mann

One last history I enjoyed: if you’ve read and enjoyed Charles C. Mann’s 1491 and 1493 (ostensibly, the first is about what Columbus found and the second is about what that discovery did to the rest of the world), you’ll want to pick up his latest, The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Ground-Breaking Scientists and Their Conflicting Visions of the Future of our Planet (if you HAVEN’T ready 1491 and 1493, go read them now). Through biographies of Norman Borlaug and William Vogt, Mann examines two diametrically opposed views on the environment, the future, and humanity’s resource challenges. It was fantastic and I will read it again.

And now for the fun stuff, because all history and no science fiction or fantasy makes Dan a dull boy.

Bird Box by Josh Malerman

When I saw that the Netflix film Bird Box was based on a book of the same name, I decided to read it first. Two thoughts: 1) Josh Malerman has a twisted imagination; 2) the book is more horror than sci-fi, and I found the resolution unsatisfying. I gave it 3 of 5 stars, and never ended up watching the movie.

More Walls Broken by Tim Powers

Tim Powers is one writer I respect for his ability to construct complex and out-of-the-box plots that delight and satisfy. To him, time travel isn’t a device he uses when he writes himself into a corner (I’m looking at you, Marvel), but it is the very point of his story. More Walls Broken is short, but fantastic, and I loved it. Alastair Reynolds is another master of the sci-fi genre that I love to read. His Permafrost is a novella with time travel element to it that I enjoyed and gave 4 of 5 stars.

Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard by Rick Riordan

En route to the northwest to visit my parents, Britt popped in the CD player the audio version of the first book in Rick Riordan’s Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard series. If you’ve never read Riordan before, the stories center around a boy or girl who happens to be the son/daughter of a Greek/Egyptian/Asgardian deity or, in other words, a demi-god. Oh, and the setting is the modern world, not Ancient Greece. The teenager, upon discovering his deific heritage, is sent on a quest, monsters, and titans to defeat, the world to save. It’s awesomely fun stuff and action-packed. Riordan does a great job of sticking close to the mythology but tying it to the real world. Our kids love it, and I usually have to limit their consumption and force them to read other books, or they’ll just read his books on repeat.

Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson

The big read (or listen, because this one was an audiobook) this summer was Brandon Sanderson’s Oathbringer, the third installment in his Stormlight Archive Series. I do not think it an understatement to suggest that Sanderson is thinking bigger than almost any working fantasy writer. While some may write only to entertain, and others to thrill or provide an escape, Sanderson is weaving a gigantic cosmology that encompasses several series, hundreds of viewpoints, thick layers of meaning, and separately developing character arcs that contain deeper levels of meaning that echo even Tolkein or Lewis in their cultural impact. Or one can just read for fun and become completely immersed in a world as fully developed and realized as any ever created in print.

Other reads this summer? Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption is a must-read about criminal justice and race, especially in the deep South. From Cold War to Hot Peace: The Inside Story of Russia and America is former Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul’s memoir and effort to tell his version of the history of US-Russian affairs.

The Earth is Weeping by Peter Cozzens

Since visiting Crazy Horse in South Dakota early this summer, I’ve been reading The Earth Is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West by Peter Cozzens. Well written, but a tragedy. The littles have had me reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince to them for several months now, and it has me constantly wondering why Harry took so long to try Felix Felicis to get Slughorn’s memory–I mean, that would have been the FIRST thing I tried, not the last. Anyway, we’re plodding on…

What have you read this summer?