Decisions: Practical Advice from 23 Men and Women Who Shaped the World

By Robert Dilenschneider

Citadel Press     2020

224 pages     Self-Help

The Shortlist

Tomorrow, New Year’s Day, my husband and I are going to have a meeting to make some decisions about our lives, our careers, and our futures. First, you must know, we are 80 and 76 years old, and we have made many momentous decisions in our lives, both individually and as a couple. Many of these decisions have been about how we are going to live our lives. Some of the decisions have been good; some have been not so good. The decisions we are going to make tomorrow hopefully will have an impact on what is going to happen next.

Then, into my life came the book Decisions by Dilenschneider, a different type of self help book. In this book of short essays, Dilenschneider presents decisions made by 23 people—all people with recognizable names and recognizable life stories. From Harry Truman to Malala, each of those 23 people made decisions that shaped the course of the world’s history.

Dilenschneider tells the story of the decisions made, and then summarizes each story with a list of assertions that can be gleaned from the person’s story. For example, Harry Truman had to make the decision to use the Atomic Bomb. Dilenschneider suggests that one of the lessons we can take away from that fateful decision is to have the courage to make big decisions, and the conviction to carry them through. On the other hand, we should try to get as many of the facts at hand as possible. Don’t take shots in the dark.

One of the major strengths of the book is the variety of stories that are told and the variety of life lessons to be gleaned from the stories. Interestingly, many of the stories conclude that a person needs to be prepared to take full responsibility for his/her decisions and their outcomes. From Abraham Lincoln to Mohammed Ali, taking responsibility is a great lesson to be learned.

This is a valuable book. I think that it needs to be handed to people at important points in their lives. I will hand my copy on to a daughter who works as a career coach. I think she will find it useful in her work.

Robert Dilenschneider has had a storied career. His company is called the Dilenschneider Group, Inc. Decisions is the latest in a series of career-building books.

Trace of Evil

By Alice Blanchard

Minotaur Books     2019

384 pages           Police Procedural

Trace of Evil is the first of a new series by the established author, Alice Blanchard. Natalie Lockhart is a detective in the small upper-New York town of Burning Lake. This is her hometown; she knows everyone and everyone knows her. She is actually living in the home where she was raised, and her sister and niece live in the neighborhood. Natalie has followed her father’s career path as a detective,  and his advice is always in her head—a nice touch, by the way.

Burning Lake has a violent history, beginning with the execution of three women for witchcraft  centuries ago. Teenagers in the community flirt with witchcraft, and it all seems quite innocent until a beloved high school teacher—and a lifelong friend of Natalie—is found murdered, and a voodoo doll is found buried in her garden.

One of Natalie’s assignment as a detective is to investigate the disappearance of nine transients over several years. Nine corpses of crows have just been found at the sites where the missing persons were last seen, and Natalie is convinced that the death of her other sister might be connected with the entire mystery. Is the high school teacher’s death somehow connected as well?

There is a lot of set-up involved in the novel, including a childhood trauma that continues to haunt Natalie. There are a lot of characters, a lot of crimes being investigated, a lot of past and present movement to wade through. I felt that the story lagged for the first half, in part because of the set-up. Finally, it picks up for a momentous, heart pounding finish.

Natalie is an appealing character. She is very empathetic as she becomes totally engulfed in the case. First and foremost, she is trying to solve her friend’s death, but at the same time, she is consumed with solving the other crimes. As a result, she almost loses touch with reality, but another detective on the case, an old friend and potential lover, keeps pulling her back. She worries constantly about her niece, Ellie, who seems to have gotten herself involved with a coven of teenaged witches who seem to know something about the teacher’s death and the voodoo doll. Blanchard describes Natalie thus: “In this cynical modern day and age, there was something almost subversive about Natalie’s desire to be good in a bad world, to hunt down the bad guys and expose their deeds to the light of day.”

I was particularly impressed with Blanchard’s description of the village of Burning Lake and its heritage. It reminded me of Louise Penny’s Three Pines, Quebec. I think that the village and the characters Blanchard has created will continue to draw readers to Natalie’s cases. On the other hand, I wasn’t particularly impressed with Blanchard’s cliff-hangers. Sometimes they felt really contrived and obvious. Other descriptions were tedious to say the least. For example, “They spilled out of the gym like a basketful of apples” or “’Could be,’ she said, thick braids of discomfort knitting into her muscles.”

I am probably being picky. These were small annoyances in an otherwise absorbing mystery. I was surprised at the ending—or endings—because several crimes were solved. I look forward to the next chapter of the series.

There is a good review in Kirkus, where they call Trace of Evil “a fast-paced, intricate, and atmospheric mystery that introduces a plucky, engaging detective.”

Alice Blanchard website.

This Tender Land

By William Kent Krueger

Atria Books     2019

450 pages     Historical Fiction

I knew when I began reading This Tender Land, that my list of best books of the year was not yet complete. Not only my list--but my heart as well--because this book filled my heart with remarkably appealing characters and a sterling plot. The book is part Huckleberry Finn and part The Odyssey, but it takes place in my home territory of Minnesota in the 1930s.

Odie, the narrator, prefaces the novel by saying that all his life he has been a storyteller, and he has this particular story to tell from the summer of 1932. He says, “The tale I’m going to tell is of a summer long ago. Of killing and kidnapping and children pursued by demons of a thousand names. There will be courage in this story and cowardice. There will be love and betrayal. And, of course, there will be hope. In the end, isn’t that what every good story is about.”

And what a story it is! Odie and his brother, Albert, are orphans who have been brought to the Lincoln residential school in Fremont County, Minnesota. They are the only white children there because the school is filled with Native American children who have been removed from their homes and brought to the school. No one knew what to do with Odie and Albert when their bootlegger father, their last surviving  parent, was murdered, so they were dumped at the Lincoln school on the Gilead River. The directors of the school are evil people, but as with the rest of the story, there are people there who are kind, people who are protective, and people who are supportive. And as bad as things get—and believe me they get bad—there is always hope.

Odie, Albert, and their mute Native American friend, Moses, are always plotting an escape. The boys are hoping to get to relatives in St. Louis, but when their favorite teacher Mrs. Frost dies in a tornado, the three rescue her little girl Emmy, take the family’s canoe and escape down the Gilead River heading for the Mississippi and St. Louis. Because the boys have Emmy with them, and because they left a dead body in their wake, they are hunted by the police and by the administrators of the school. Consequently, they are always running and hiding.

Sometimes the number of challenges these voyageurs face is completely daunting, and a bit overwhelming for the reader. But somehow, the reader has endless faith in these children and their courage, determination, grit and smarts. When the circumstances seem insurmountable, they somehow find their way, occasionally having to outwit those who would do them harm. More importantly, they find themselves in the presence of those who offer them love, food, care, and hope.

The Depression is never far from the details of the story. There are shanty towns, depressed farms, tent meetings, and run-down neighborhoods. Yet, like much of what we know about life during the Depression, there was always goodness and hope. That is a theme that Krueger emphasizes again and again, from the old German who helps the children escape from the Lincoln school, to Sister Eve the Evangelist, who renews their spirits and sets them on a new path. Odie muses, “With every turn of the river since I’d left Lincoln School, the world had become broader, its mysteries more complex, its possibilities infinite.”

Krueger is a tremendous storyteller, and a master of plot. The story line seldom if ever lags, and the reader keeps turning pages. Sometimes I was so scared for the children, I couldn’t put the book down, while at other times, I was close to tears as they are helped along the way. When they finally are able to settle down, I breathed a sigh of relief, and closed the book for the final time—exhausted and exhilarated at the same moment. The reviewer in the New York Journal of Books says, “This Tender Land (is) a book you won’t own. It will own you. Long, sprawling, and utterly captivating, readers will eat up every delicious word of it.”

William Kent Krueger is most known for his Cork O’Connor Minnesota mysteries as well as the award-winning stand-alone novel, Ordinary Grace. At the end of the book, Krueger talks about his process in writing This Tender Land, particularly the research he did on schools for Native American children. He also talked about canoeing and kayaking on the rivers that are featured in the book. I found his reflections on the book’s construction to be fascinating.

This is a wonderful reading adventure. I heartily recommend it. William Kent Krueger’s website.

The Haircut Who Would Be King

By Robert Trebor

Palindrome Press     2019

179 pages     Satire

It was a bizarre scenario yesterday—juxtaposing an occasional glance at the impeachment debates with reading the book The Haircut Who Would Be King by Robert Trebor. A bit surreal to say the least!

Trebor, an actor whose face I knew from television and the movies, has laced together the relationship between Putin and Trump into a giggly-style farce that is really spot on. Here is the summary of the plot—if you can call it a plot.

“A farcical sendup of Donald Trump’s rise to power and volatile partnership with Vladimir Putin...As a young boy, Donald Rump was less than precocious—a miserable student, prone to implacable tantrums, whose emotional intelligence ceased maturing at the age of 9. But the region of the brain responsible for egomaniacal self-assessment was prodigiously large. After some success and plenty more failure in real estate, he turns his attentions to reality TV and hosts a show called “Paycheck,” each episode of which concludes with Rump singing “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina.” Meanwhile, Vladimir Poutine was raised by KGB agents during the early years of Khrushchev’s reign. Poutine, a latent homosexual who immerses himself in the self-consciously manly world of “physical culture,” reads magazines about bodybuilding. Crushed by the demise of the Soviet Union, he copes in the most peculiar way: “he would slip into a silver lamé gown, pop on a curly wig and perform Marlene Dietrich classics at a local drag bar.” Rump decides he’d like to try his hand at politics and recruits shock jock Alex Clamz from the popular but frothing radio show, “Disinfowarz.” He runs for president opposite Mallory Claxton, a sensible woman with a sterling career in public service. Despite a bizarre campaign and a trail of seedy scandals, Rump wins with clandestine help from Poutine. And then, the fun really begins.”

Rump’s election motto was “Make America Grate Again,” and believe me, my  teeth are “grating” today. Trebor’s antics are too close to the truth to be believed, and I gasped a couple of times as I read this paragraph following the news about Trump’s letter to Nancy Pelosi.

“Rump’s medical problem involves his digestive tract being wired backwards, so that everything flows in reverse. And that’s why he talks out of his butt, and nothing but crap comes out of his mouth!”

Read The Haircut Who Would Be King at your own risk. I found it a very funny and cringe-worthy satire. So did the Kirkus reviewer who says, “Debut author Trebor displays a sharp attunement to the politically absurd and a talent for making the already peculiar into the raucously silly. The first rule of parody is that it must be genuinely funny, and the author accomplishes that repeatedly.” 

The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West

By David McCullough

Simon & Schuster     2019

332 pages      History

Darn it! Reviewing McCullough’s most recent book, The Pioneers, is not going to be as easy a task as I assumed at the outset. My husband and I enjoyed so much reading it aloud to each other, discussing what we were learning, and plotting a visit to Marietta Ohio and surroundings, the setting for most of the book. Then I started reading reviews of the book and discovered that many reviewers were quite critical of the ways in which McCullough ignored Native American atrocities, land fraud, and racial problems in the Ohio Territory.

However, McCullough’s sub title is “The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West,” and to that end, McCullough’s book achieves its goals. Because indeed, he emphasizes that American ideal, as expressed through the life histories of the Rev. Manasseh Cutler and his son, Ephram Cutler, who played lead roles in the Ohio Company and the settling of the Ohio Territory. Others who carried that ideal were General Rufus Putnam, Joseph Barker, and Samuel Hildreth. Each of these men, their wives, and their families set out to make new lives for themselves—for a variety of reasons. McCullough plumbed these men’s diaries and letters for the information he shared throughout the book, and emphasized how important the river was to the settlers and how little by little the communities were settled and industry and businesses came to the area. These were the men who had the ideals McCullough explored, including their desire to have a public university, to educate all the children, and to have a slave-free state. 

The first settlers were Revolutionary War veterans who leveraged pay that Congress owed them to purchase 1.5 million acres which became Marietta and the rest of the Ohio territory. Critics say that McCullough did not explore in depth the settler’s relationship with the native peoples as well as the way the settlers decimated the forests they cleared for their farmland, their forts, and their homes. 

Among the interesting stories in the book is that of Harman and Margaret Blennerhassett. They were Irish aristocrats who came out to the territory because Harman was Margaret’s uncle, and their marriage had been frowned upon in polite society. Their palatial home on an island in the Ohio River is still open to the public. Aaron Burr, the notorious former Vice President came to visit them, and they joined him in some nefarious activities further West. President Thomas Jefferson finally interceded by sending a man named John Graham from Virginia to stop Burr from his conspiracies with the Blennerhassetts. This really caught my attention, because my sister had just discovered that we were related to the Virginia Grahams. Was this some great, great, great uncle of ours?

My husband and I really enjoyed this book. Something was constantly piquing our interest. We are planning a trip to meander down the Ohio River to Cincinnati, explore the Native American Mounds in Marietta, and take the ferry to Blennerhassett Island on the way to visit our family in West Virginia. Apparently, there is lots to see in do in Marietta as this article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette outlines.

The Washington Post concludes: "The Pioneers  presents American history as a grand civics lesson, in which the accomplishments of our principled forebears serve as inspirations. Rather than wrestle with the moral complexities of western settlement, McCullough simplifies that civics lesson into a tale of inexorable triumph.” That is what we will be exploring.

An interview with David McCullough on PBS.

The Caravan of Remembering: A Road Map for Experiencing the Awakening of your Life's Mission

By Daniel Goodenough

Heart’s Way Press     2016

282 pages     Fiction/Self-Help

The Shortlist

The Caravan of Remembering came across my desk recently, and I thought I would give it a nod, although I didn’t get it read. While  it is fictional, it also qualifies as a self-help book. David, a graphic designer in Chicago, has reached a low point in his life. However, everything changes when he is invited to come to the “caravan of remembering.” Through this caravan, David is able to move toward a new life’s mission and receives help in answering questions such as “Why am I here?” “What am I called to do?” and “Who am I called to be to fulfill that purpose?”

These are the questions that we are all called to answer at some time or other in our lives. Goodenough has woven these questions into a dreamlike and intriguing plot, destined to provide meaning for the reader—and allow readers to look again at their own destiny and their own purpose. There is a guide to each chapter at the end of the book. It looked to me that the questions and the quotes in the guide should be considered at the end of every chapter before the reader moves on.

My feeling is that the book would be valuable at any stage of life—and perhaps at more than one time in life. I can also see it being used for a book club or a counseling group. The author suggests, “Caravan is a place to be revisited as often as needed, with a process that is both a welcome mentor and companion on the journey.” I appreciated this comment as I look back on the number of times I have had to reset my life’s mission. My husband and I did a lot of refocusing after we read David Brook’s book, The Second Mountain earlier this year. The Caravan of Remembering serves somewhat the same purpose.

Here is Daniel Goodenough’s website.

Little Weirds

By Jenny Slate

Little, Brown     2019

224 pages     Essays/Humor

“I was born on the boundary line between cold and hot, at the intersection of the two elements that make a clap of thunder. I was born at the time of year when the sun wants to warm the earth but the winter has frozen it almost to the point of permanent frigidity.”

Welcome to Jenny Slate’s mind. The essays in her new book, Little Weirds vary in length from a paragraph or two to several pages long. Some are deeply personal and some are just—well—weird. She writes about her marriage ending while at the same time remembering her childhood; she celebrates her family and her friendships while deploring Donald Trump’s presidency. She is very hard on herself while at the same time looking forward to a future of self-acceptance and self-love.

The NPR reviewer was quite critical of Slate’s writing, wishing it were more like her stand-up musings. Since I knew nothing of her stand-up career, I had to watch a couple of YouTube videos to get a sense of how she is in person. Many of the videos were appearances on late night shows. Here is one visit to Seth Meyers. All of the topics appear to be deeply personal and off-the-cuff funny. Frankly, I think that she is a person that you would like to know.

I felt that the essays were very uneven and much more vague than her stand-up sets. Read it for yourself and form your own opinion. My advice, however, is to read it in little bursts. It is a bit much to read in one sitting.

Jenny Slate has a special on Netflix. It is called Stage Fright.  At least now I know who Jenny Slate is.