Spare, by Prince Harry

 

I didn't expect to like this book as much as I did. It's been thoroughly reviewed and rated on sites like Amazon and Goodreads, with a 4.5 rating on Amazon (based on more than $100K ratings) and a 3.8 rating on Goodreads (based on nearly a half million ratings). Everyone seems to have an opinion on the royal family, so I'm not going to rehash all of that. What I will say is that I enjoyed reading Prince Harry's viewpoint about his childhood, adult life and career, and decision to walk away from his role as a working royal. Many of the negative reviews complained that he was whiney; however, I didn't find that to be the case, or at least I wasn't bothered by the times he noted an unfairness or being treated poorly. What I did particularly like was his account of his military service, which I found fascinating. And I loved the writing, which is largely due to the ghost writing of J.R. Moehringer. The writing is elegant in places, and very readable; I found myself flying through this book in just a few days. I really enjoy memoirs, and this one is definitely worth a try.

Joe country, by Mick Herron

 

The sixth book in Mick Herron's Slow Horses series opens with two of the Slough House agents killed, although they aren't named. The story quickly goes back to the beginning of this book's action in which Min Harper's ex wife contacts Louisa Guy for help finding her missing son. Louisa calls in MI5's former head of security, Emma Flyte, for help and begins tracking the teenager. In the meantime, River Cartwright's father Frank Harkness turns up at River's grandfather's funeral, and Jackson Lamb assigns the team to investigate how he got into the UK and what he's doing. Of course, both investigations are related, and it's only belatedly that they come together to find the boy.

This book continues the riveting plotting, character development, and dialog of its earlier entries. It's fascinating to identify whom Herron is basing some of the characters on, including Boris Johnson and a member of the royal family code-named "Number 7" and his bad behavior; this is a major plot point given that the boy that has gone missing witnessed some of this bad behavior and was attempting to blackmail the criminals. I found myself unable to put this book down.

Lessons from the edge: a memoir, by Marie Yovanovitch

 

This is a fascinating memoir by Marie Yovanovitch, a career diplomat who served in many roles throughout the former Soviet Union and who ended her career as the ambassador to Ukraine before she was unceremoniously removed from her position because she was opposing the first Trump administrations' corrupt practices. Post college graduation, Yovanovitch did a three month intensive language program in Moscow, but then settled briefly into a job in advertising before she realized her true calling as a foreign service officer. After completing the foreign service training program, her first posting took her to Somalia, followed by stints in the UK, Russia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, and Armenia, broken up by occasional appointments back in the U.S. In 2016, she took the opportunity to return to Ukraine as ambassador. She enthusiastically took on her role, including encouraging the Ukraine leadership to tackle the corrupt practices that had taken root in the country after its independence in 1991. Over time she began to learn of efforts by people in Trump's orbit to discredit her and have her removed from her position. These efforts were tied up with Trump's attempts to coerce Ukrainian President Zelensky to implicate presidential candidate Biden in corruption scandals as a way to influence the 2020 U.S. presidential election, which Zelensky famously resisted. Once Yovanovitch returned to the U.S., she was subpoenaed by the House of Representatives impeachment investigation, testifying behind closed doors, and then again during the actual impeachment hearing, along with several other U.S. diplomats who worked with her on Ukraine issues. 

While Yovanovitch's last years in Ukraine were perhaps the most dramatic and consequential of her career, her accounts of serving in other former Soviet republics and Somalia are equally fascinating. These are the places that don't make the news as often, but their histories and strides towards (or away from) democracy are important to document. U.S. diplomats all over the world are working closely with their peers in other countries to develop relationships, improve economies, share best practices, and support the rights of women and other marginalized groups. It was fascinating and humbling to read about how influential the U.S. has been in the world, in both large and small ways, and sad to think about how that influence is being eroded by the current administration. This book was published in 2022, before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia and before Trump was returned to office. I can only imagine the horror Yovanovitch must feel about both of these developments. 

Where we keep the light: stories from a life of service, by Josh Shapiro

I enjoyed this self-portrait by Josh Shapiro, the current governor of Pennsylvania and someone widely believed to be a potential contender for the presidency in 2028. The book opens with a chapter detailing the arson attack on the governor's residence in Harrisburg, then backtracks to look at his life from childhood through the present. Since the book is fairly short, only 260 pages, it doesn't delve too deeply into any aspect of his life, but it does focus on a few things that clearly mean a lot to him, including his faith, his integrity, and his commitment to public service. He touches on his work as a legislative aide, a corporate lawyer, a PA state representative, the Montgomery County commissioner, attorney general, and finally as governor. Some of the most interesting tales surround his role in holding the Catholic Church responsible for its decades of child sexual abuse, getting UPMC and Highmark to work together in western PA, pursuing Hawbaker for fraud and theft (of employee wages), and undergoing the vetting for the 2024 VP nomination. I enjoyed reading about how his wife has influenced many of his decisions by suggesting approaches that he would never have considered, many of them working out successfully. My only complaint about the book is that there were numerous typos and the book could have used a stronger hand editing sentence structure. HarperCollins should do better!
 

The road to the salt sea, by Samuel Kolawole

 

I found this a tough book to read because nothing ever goes right for the protagonist, Able God, or anyone else in the book, for that matter. But it's an important book because it shows us not only the root of the migrant problem in Africa but also the horrible plight of many of those migrants who are sold a dream to go to Europe but who often end up facing starvation, extortion, and slavery. Able God works in a high class hotel but can only afford a small, one-room apartment. He's depressed about his situation and is in the habit of using street drugs and alcohol to stave off his depression. When someone named Ben Ten comes along to recruit people to migrate to Italy, Able is initially skeptical of Ben Ten's promises. But when a situation gets out of control at work and Able kills a customer in self defense, Able flees and signs up with Ben Ten to migrate to Italy. This book details the migration north through Niger, across the Sahara, and into Libya where the migrants are forced into labor camps to supposedly pay off their expenses. Along the way, fellow migrants are left behind in the desert or shot when they try to flee. Able himself is tortured when he refuses to give his captors his parents' phone number (used to extort payment from them), but he eventually relents and gives it up. When Able escapes and finally makes his way to the sea where he can cross in a rickety rubber dinghy, the crossing is nearly as treacherous as crossing the Sahara was. And when he's picked up by the Italian Coast Guard, he's taken to a refugee camp in Malta rather than to Italy. While there, he manages to earn some cash from a man playing speed chess on the beach, offering an optimistic glance at what might help sustain him as he (hopefully) assimilates into European culture. As I said, this is an important book for its portrayal of the plight of the migrant. But I kept thinking about how Able might have done better if he'd stayed away from drugs and alcohol and put his self-help books and reading to better use. This was a straightforward narrative and is very accessible, although I found a number of places where it could have used some better editing (there are what in film I would call continuity errors, for example). But I would recommend the book to anyone who wants to understand the migrant issue better.

Dumb witness, by Agatha Christie

 

In this Hercule Poirot mystery from 1937, wealthy spinster Emily Arundell writes to Poirot with concerns that someone in her family is trying to kill her, but he doesn't get the letter until two months later. When investigating, he quickly comes to the conclusion that an attempt was made on her life that resulted in a fall down a staircase, although she dies a few weeks later of what appears to be natural causes. Lead suspects are her nieces and nephews, her companion, and her two servants. As Poirot investigates, he determines that when the first attempt to murder Emily failed, she was then murdered by poison. He is aided by his friend Captain Hastings who has recently returned from Argentina. 

While some of Christie's earlier books had pets in them, this is the first book in which Christie gives the dog an inner life and dialog. I didn't care for that very much, so hopefully she didn't continue that conceit. Christie also used a racist figure of speech ("N***** in the woodpile"), putting it into Poirot's mouth and naming an entire chapter after it. I had never heard it before and had to look it up on Wikipedia which explained the meaning and history of its use, which declined in the 20th century. I've noted the use of antisemitic language in earlier books along with other slurs, such as Dago or "an Apache attack,", but this appears to be her first slur against Blacks.