Monday, October 28, 2019

October 2019 Books

I loved this book, which was the October pick for our book club. While my fellow club members felt that it dragged on a bit at the end, I would have been happy to keep reading. The author's writing style is clear and fresh. I liked how she told the story from both her own and her boyfriend's viewpoints, and she went back and forth between her childhood in Nigeria, her time in college, and the present. I am looking forward to reading her other novel, Half of a Yellow Sun.















 This was an excellent book to read following How Democracies Die, which I read last month. This one was more challenging for me, as it incorporated a fair amount of political philosophy, which slowed me down a bit. However, it's a very engaging and incisive look at how totalitarian movements have grown in the past, and how fascism is alive and well in Russia and other countries. The author makes a convincing case of how Vladimir Putin, inspired by the political philosophy of Ivan Ilyin, is trying to export fascism to Europe and the United States. I recommend this to anyone concerned about the state of the country today.












After the sobering book mentioned above, this collection of comics by Mark Tatulli provides a dose of relief. The main character in this comic is Lio, and his exploits and imagination are unrivaled.