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This is both a work of speculative fiction, and a meditation on memory, personal and national. The premise starts out small: a Viennese psychiatrist and possible time-traveler who goes by the name of Gaustine develops a type of therapy for patients suffering from Alzheimer's, consisting of a room furnished precisely as a flat from the years of their youth: 1968, or 1947, or 1985. The idea is that familiar sights, sounds and smells from their past will help the patients feel comfortable and start interacting with loved ones again. The years, and the rooms, keep multiplying, filling up whole floors, then whole buildings, then whole clinics. Gaustine enlists the author to help him compose accurate histories/backstories for these throwback rooms, and this gives rise to this whole Tim O'Brien kind of meta: Gaustine is a real character within the story. I just made him up within the story and he doesn't exist at all. Back and forth. Personally, I would rather the author just commit. Anyway. The treatment becomes a runaway hit, the experiment is tried on a larger and larger scale, and eventually the member nations of the EU end up holding national referenda on which decade they want to collectively return to. We see how the run-up to the referendum pays out in the author's native Bulgaria, and then... well, what else? History repeats itself. Best thing I have read in quite a while.

I note that there are no reader reviews for this book, and I thought there might be some interest in the subject now, so here goes. I give this 5 stars on the assumption that the reader is looking for a serious, comprehensive history of Ukraine. This is basically the textbook for that 300-level course in Ukrainian history that you never even noticed in the course catalog as an undergrad, but suddenly wish you had taken. And yes, though it is actually well-written, well-researched, and extremely authoritative, it does in fact read like a college textbook. (And it probably is). I don't shy away from that; I'm just saying, this is not really what you call a "popular" history. It's not anybody's idea of a beach read. But there IS a good story here - the story of a people whose national identity has been defined and sharpened mainly by those who have tried to destroy it, and a conflict that has finally settled the location of the Eastern border of Europe, not at the Ural Mountains, but at the Russian-Ukrainian border.

There is an upside-down bird on the cover, and yes, he's supposed to be that way. Because he's an idiot. While I am by no means a "birder" who knows stuff about birds, and how and where to find them, and who maintains a catalog of all the birds he's ever seen, because, *weird*, I do own multiple bird books, and I do consult them after seeing some goofy-ass bird I have never seen before, maybe a pileated woodpecker loudly whacking the living crap out of a rotted tree trunk, or a great horned owl the size of a small toddler who now haunts my nightmares. I just want to know what they are, okay? I am NOT a "birder" or whatever. All that aside, this is now officially my favorite guidebook. Mr. Kracht, (who is apparently still working through some lingering resentment at the entire avian world after being assigned to find and write about a golden-crowned kinglet in fourth grade, never finding the actual bird, and then having the little creep hop across his path on a walk thirty years later), is not a birder or even a bird-watcher: he is a "professional bird critic." This is a surprisingly-informative guide to the most common North American bird species, and why each of them suck.

Because of what is going on in Ukraine right now, I decided to read this one again. There is a lot of journalism about Russia that is honestly not very good, because most Western reporters don't bother to get out of Moscow. As Ms. Garrels correctly points out, "Moscow is not Russia." So she picked Chelyabinsk at random by throwing a sharpened pencil at a map, and started going there, making contacts, and developing long friendships with actual Russians, back in 2012. Similarly, I was sent somewhat involuntarily by my employers to Vladivostok, Petropavlovsk, and other points East, in the 1990s, because that's where the ships are. I feel like we hung out with some of the same people. We actually share the same least-favorite Russian food (Salo. It's disgusting). This book will explain in a short 255 pages, why Putin has such deep support in the Russian heartland, and why this is not likely to change. It was finished in early 2016 and not meant to be a foreshadowing of the invasion of Ukraine, but it certainly feels like just that.

As the title suggests, reading "The Storyteller" is like hanging with Dave over a few beers on a warm summer evening, listening to him tell stories. I call it a "book" and hesitate to call it an autobiography or even a memoir. I wouldn't say he is holding back, but he's definitely not telling his whole life story. For instance, he barely mentions his first marriage. What was her name even? No idea. Not really much about his second and current marriage either, though it's obviously gone a lot better, and he's probably a finalist for Best Dad in the Universe. Nope - he's not baring his soul here; no discussion of inner demons. Probably because, as far as I can tell, there are no demons. The same positive outlook on life that comes through in Grohl's music has helped him get through a sometimes brutal existence as a touring musician in a not-so-famous punk-rock band, without the need to self-medicate through heroin or cocaine or both, that is so common among his peers. Coors Light and Tequila shots do NOT count, Dave. Are you sure you're even a rock star? But the main difference, I think, is that Grohl has an amazing mother who loved the hell out of him and has supported him unconditionally in all things. If anybody is cast as the hero of this story, it's her.

An author who could turn the phone book into compelling drama, meets one of the most deplorable, evil, disgraceful chapters in American history - the mass incarceration of innocent American citizens in what the perpetrators of the crime themselves referred to as "concentration camps." This was done without any process of law whatsoever, motivated not by facts or evidence, but only by racial hatred. But it is also the story of how those incarcerated Japanese-Americans showed their true worth, even in the face of cruelty and prejudice, and how many of their sons not only actually volunteered to fight for the country that imprisoned their families: the unit they formed, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, went on to become the most effective fighting force in US military history. The Germans were terrified of the Nisei soldiers, and for good reason. Retreat and failure were not concepts these guys entertained, or even understood. And it is the story of how Americans slowly came to understand that the people they had incarcerated, like their sons in uniform, were every bit as American as any other citizen. A quintessentially American story, told by a true master.

There are a few things about Snyder's arguments that slightly annoyed me. He tends to overreach at times, making inferential leaps or advancing arguments that reflect a heavily pro-Ukrainian bias (not that I can really blame him for that). This is annoying to me because I like rigorous logic and solid premises, but more so because, unfortunately, I think Snyder's ultimate conclusions are absolutely correct. People need to hear Snyder's message, and these little instances of argumentative overstretch detract from its impact. It would have helped his analysis to understand how average Russians view Ukraine, and, in turn, why they have supported Putin in general, and his low-intensity invasion of Ukraine in particular. But I'm guessing that a Yale history professor doesn't hang with a lot of average Russians (or average anyone, for that matter). Putin's popularity within Russia, and the reasons for it, are vital to understanding his psychological-warfare campaign against the West, and his efforts to undermine and eventually destroy our confidence in democratic institutions. Putin is not going anywhere, and his efforts to undermine our democratic institutions, aided and abetted by his collaborators inside American politics, are just getting started.

Unless you are offended by bad language, wildly-inappropriate conversation topics, taxidermied roadkill, and embarrassing situations - in which case (1) don't read this book, and (2) who ARE you even? - you will laugh. Snort-laughing, quiet wheeze-laughing, cry-laughing... but then also cry-crying maybe, putting the book down and murmuring, "holy crap!", or even resolving to get on a plane to Texas, right now, because the author clearly needs a hug. Maybe all on the same page. Jenny Lawson is America's funniest living writer. Full Stop. Fight me. But she also writes about her constant and life-threatening struggles with severe depression and anxiety, debilitating RA, (her antibodies are Samuel L. Jackson and he is trying to kill her joints because they are actually snakes on a plane), and (perhaps most deadly of all) her health insurance company. She gives a first-person account of the transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) treatment she underwent. A couple of the chapters are written as she is in the middle of a serious depressive episode. You see firsthand how she gets through it. You want to give her a hug, and maybe a puppy. But she will be OK. If you are even the least bit effed up yourself, (and I am far beyond that threshhhold), you could learn something from Ms. Lawson about accepting and even celebrating your stupid, defective, screwed-up self.

If you care or think at all about the conundrum that is policing in America, you should read this book. Rosa Brooks is a Georgetown Law professor, former government official, writer and activist who decided that the only way she could get at the truth of these issues was to go through the training, put on a uniform and a badge and a Glock 17 and a Taser and a CS canister and a body cam and a flack jacket... and do the job, on the night shift in DC's most dangerous precinct. At a minimum, you will get some perspective on what faces these officers, how they are constrained, the shortcomings in their training, and also the tendency of more experienced officers to do the right thing whenever they are allowed to. As a public intellectual, of course Brooks also treats these issues from a public policy perspective, and points the way towards some solutions. (Hint: a lot of the real problems have their roots several levels above these officers' pay grade). But the real value of this book is the perspective of the people actually doing the job.

I'll be honest - I expected more of a "military history" here. After all, Col. Seidule teaches history at West Point. He teaches Civil War battles, leads his cadets on tours of the battlefields. When he wants to, he can boil the chaos of Gettysburg down to a one-page explanation of what happened that makes sense of everything (which he does here). So yeah, I was hoping for more of a puncturing of Lee's supposedly flawless generalship. What Seidule has given us, however, is so much more. I always assumed the "lost cause" myth - which is something many of us in the North grew up with as well - merely held that the South "should" have won the Civil War because it fought better, but was ultimately defeated by superior manpower and resources. But the myth goes much deeper than that, and it explains many things that Americans are debating right now: Confederate monuments, why they were built, why the violent resistance to their removal under the specious argument of "changing history," US Army installations in the South named after Confederate generals, etc. The truth is, the "lost cause" myth is not just a belief that the South fought a better war militarily - the "lost cause" maintains that the South was right, morally right, and the North wrong. Seidule, a Southerner born and bred, grew up with the myth, and I think he kind of feels lied to. No matter - he has the facts, and will set you straight.

Ms. Gessen should be required reading on the rise of Russian Fascism in the 21st Century. I have learned to trust her on this subject: "The Man Without a Face" at first seems like a violent journalistic assault on a man she clearly does not like, but as it turns out, she was not wrong. "The Future is History" is probably the definitive work on this subject. When it comes to her homeland, what has happened to it, and why, Ms. Gessen knows of what she speaks. But despite her erudition on the broader subject of authoritarianism and "mafia states," and her insistence on evidentiary support for her arguments, (which I appreciate), I feel like she is not on as sure a footing when writing about Trumpism. This is mainly because, although she does briefly hint at this, the conditions that made Trump possible did not just appear overnight; they were part of a long historical process going back to at least 1964 if not further. Perhaps because it is not her own history and she did not live it herself, Gessen does not seem as well-grounded in the history of American White Nationalism/Fascism as she is in Russian Nationalism/Fascism. To put it bluntly, we have come very far down this road, over many years. One election result does not necessarily present an opportunity to "reinvent" America moving forward, when half of us seem at least comfortable with - if not committed to - White Nationalism. We have met the enemy, and in this case, it is us.

A Promised Land is as well-written and introspective as one would have a right to expect from what is essentially a presidential memoir. If you're looking for something that explores his formative years and his struggle to find his identity and voice, then Dreams From My Father would be the place to start. This is, understandably, Obama's own contribution to the first draft of history. On the minus side, I would say Obama sometimes writes more like a lawyer than a pure writer, especially when dealing with complex subjects - sometimes it seems like too many words and too much background, and you wish he was better acquainted with the delete key. This book runs to 701 pages, and he's only half done! I also got the feeling in certain places that he was employing hindsight to construct a narrative that makes it look like he always knew what was coming, at least in terms of the social and political backlash his election caused. I was reminded of Grant's memoir: as punctiliously honest as he was in reexamining his life and career, Grant could never admit that he was taken completely by surprise on the first day at Shiloh (he was). But in both cases, the real story is in how they regrouped. On the plus side, this book has an introspective, literary quality that is usually missing in this genre. Even if you can't change the world as it is to the world as it should be, he asks, is it still worth it to try? His ultimate answer is yes - but it's never unequivocal.

An event known only as "the Blast" has utterly destroyed civilization; over the next 300 years, a small handful of survivors and their descendants rebuild a small Russian village that has somehow been thrown back, not to the 20th century or even the 19th... but the 16th. It is a village straight out of a Russian folk tale - with the same cast of characters, plus the more modern additions of a megalomaniacal dictator with literary pretensions, a dreaded secret police, grinding poverty and numbing cold, and villagers with a dizzying array of bizarre "consequences" - genetic mutations, presumably from the Blast. Benedikt makes for a somewhat reluctant protagonist: he has a good job as a scribe, enough food, enough heat. He nonetheless gets caught up in events, a la Winston Smith. But unlike Orwell's 1984, where the horrific nature of the totalitarian State is laid bare, in The Slynx the fault is not in Benedikt and his fellow villagers' stars: it is in themselves. The village's handful of old Soviet citizens who survived the Blast and are still alive - another mutation - annoy the younger villagers by lecturing them about self-sacrifice and public spirit. But the young people seem to prefer the State of Nature - perhaps a critique of postmodern Russia? Nobody learns, nobody grows. So it matters not at all who the new Murza is up at the Red Terem. Nothing will change. In that way, this charming, creepy, deeply human story is every bit as soul-crushing as 1984 was.