Becoming
Michelle Obama, 2018
Crown Publishing
448 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781524763138
Summary
An intimate, powerful, and inspiring memoir by the former First Lady of the United States
In a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era.
As First Lady of the United States of America—the first African American to serve in that role—she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history, while also establishing herself as a powerful advocate for women and girls in the U.S. and around the world.
She dramatically changed the ways that families pursue healthier and more active lives, while standing with her husband as he led America through some of its most harrowing moments. Along the way, she showed us a few dance moves, crushed Carpool Karaoke, and raised two down-to-earth daughters under an unforgiving media glare.
In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her—from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the world’s most famous address.
With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it—in her own words and on her own terms.
Warm, wise, and revelatory, Becoming is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations—and whose story inspires us to do the same. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—January 17, 1964
• Where—Chicago, Illinois, USA
• Education—B.A., Princeton University; J.D., Harvard University
• Currently—lives in Chicago, Illinois
Michelle Robinson Obama served as First Lady of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School, Mrs. Obama started her career as an attorney at the Chicago law firm Sidley & Austin, where she met her future husband, Barack Obama.
She later worked in the Chicago mayor’s office, at the University of Chicago, and at the University of Chicago Medical Center. Mrs. Obama also founded the Chicago chapter of Public Allies, an organization that prepares young people for careers in public service.
The Obamas currently live in Washington, DC, and have two daughters, Malia and Sasha. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Becoming divulges some details that the Obamas haven't discussed publicly before.… But it's the moments when [Michelle] Obama tries to make sense of what she's seeing now, in the country, that are among the most moving—if only because she's so clearly struggling to reconcile the cleareyed realism of her upbringing, brought about by necessity, with the glamorous, previously unthinkable life she has today.… For all the attempts by conservatives a decade ago to paint her as a radical, Obama seems to be a measured, methodical centrist at heart. But hers isn't a wan faith in expanding the pie and crossing the aisle. Her pragmatism is tougher than that, even if it will come across as especially frustrating to those who believe that centrism and civility are no longer enough. As she writes in Becoming, she long ago learned to recognize the "universal challenge of squaring who you are with where you come from and where you want to go."
Jennifer Szalai - New York Times
Becoming serenely balances gravity and grace, uplift and anecdote, though its high-mindedness does permit a few low blows at Barack Obama’s villainous successor. A single sentence catches the blend of conscientious bass and giggly treble that makes Michelle simultaneously admirable and adorable.… Becoming is frequently funny, sometimes indignant or enraged, and when Michelle describes her father’s early death from multiple sclerosis it turns rawly emotional.
Guardian (UK)
More like a novel than a political memoir, the First Lady’s book reveals its author as utterly, viscerally human.… [It is] beautiful and extraordinary.
Vanity Fair
The former first lady looks back on an unlikely rise to the top while navigating issues of race and gender in this warmhearted memoir.… There are no dramatic revelations and not much overt politics here, but fans of the Obamas will find an interesting, inspiring saga of quiet social revolutions.
Publishers Weekly
From the former First Lady, here's a memoir starting with her childhood on Chicago's South Side and leading to her life at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, where she raised her children gracefully while representing the United States to the world.
Library Journal
Discussion Questions
1. Mrs. Obama begins her book with a story about making cheese toast on a quiet night at home, a few months after leaving the White House. Why do you think she chose this story to begin her memoir?
2. Mrs. Robinson is the opposite of a helicopter parent. She was tough and had very high expectations for her children, and she also expected them to figure some things out on their own and learn from their missteps and the process of making choices. She gave her children agency at a very young age. How did that shape Mrs. Obama? What is the balance between discipline and trust?
3. In Becoming, we get to know the constellation of Mrs. Obama’s extended family through her eyes. Her grandfather, Southside filled his house with music and makeshift speakers and merriment. Years later, Mrs. Obama would fill the White House with music and culture through live performances and several programs aimed at children. How do those kinds of early memories leave an imprint on us as we grow older? What were the sights and smells that you remember from visiting grandparents or other elders, and how have they left a mark on you?
4. In discussing her neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago, Mrs. Obama writes, "Failure is a feeling long before it becomes an actual result. It’s vulnerability that breeds with self-doubt and then is escalated, often deliberately, by fear." How did this insight shape Mrs. Obama’s work and mission as First Lady? What can we all do—as individuals, parents, and community members—to help break this cycle?"
5. Mrs. Obama writes about the early influences of her mother, Marion Robinson, and her TV role model Mary Tyler Moore. One was a single, professional living on her own in the big city. One was a wise and supportive stay-at-home mother, who later went to work to help pay for her children’s education. Where do you see the influences of both of these women in Mrs. Obama’s life?
6. Early in her senior year at Whitney Young High School, Mrs. Obama went for an obligatory first appointment with the school college counselor. Mrs. Obama was treasurer of the senior class. She had earned a spot in the National Honor Society. She was on track to graduate in the top 10 percent of her class and she was interested in joining her older brother, Craig, at Princeton University. The guidance counselor said to her, "I’m not sure that you’re Princeton material." How did Mrs. Obama handle hearing that statement? How does one avoid having one’s dreams dislodged by someone else’s lower expectations?
7. In high school Mrs. Obama said she felt like she was representing her neighborhood. At Princeton, faced with questions of whether she was the product of Affirmative Action programs, she felt like she was representing her race. Was that more than a feeling? Was she actually representing her communities in those settings? Have you had moments in life where you feel as though you are representing one of your communities?
8. In her early life Mrs. Obama writes about being a "box checker," but as she gets older she learns how to "swerve" to adjust to life’s circumstances. What does it mean to swerve and how do we develop that skill in life?
9. In Becoming, Mrs. Obama describes a number of women who have served as mentors for her at different times in her life, including Czerny Brasuell, Valerie Jarrett, and Susan Sher. What do these women have in common? What lessons did Mrs. Obama learn from them about finding a fulfilling career as a parent? Who are your mentors and how do you cultivate those relationships?
10. In Chapter 15, Mrs. Obama explains why she chose to support her husband’s run for the presidency despite her misgivings about politics. What made her change her mind? Would you have made the same choice? How do you balance the competing worlds of family life and work in your life?
11. As Mrs. Obama notes, First Lady is a role without a job description. How did Mrs. Obama choose to approach the role? If you were in charge of writing the job description for the First Lady, what would you include and exclude?
12. In Becoming, Mrs. Obama writes candidly about detractors who tried to invalidate her standing or her work. "I was female, black, and strong, which to certain people, maintaining a certain mind-set, translated only to ‘angry.’ It was another damaging cliche, one that’s been forever used to sweep minority women to the perimeter of every room, an unconscious signal not to listen to what we’ve got to say." What is the root of that "angry black woman" cliche? How and why does it do damage?
13. Throughout her life, Michelle Obama has been a meticulous planner. It is evident in her approach to her studies in high school and at Princeton. It is evident in the way she transitioned through jobs as a professional. And it is evident in the way she approached her role as First Lady. Where did that come from? How did Fraser Robinson’s approach to life impact his daughter? Are you a planner or more spontaneous? How does it impact those around you and your life?
14. In the epilogue, Mrs. Obama writes, "I’ve never been a fan of politics, and my experience over the last ten years has done little to change that." Did you find her statement surprising? Do you think politics is an effective way to make social change?
15. Why do you think Michelle Obama chose to name her memoir "Becoming"? What does the idea of "becoming" mean to you?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
Them: Why We Hate Each Other—and How to Heal
Ben Sasse, 2018
St. Martin's Press
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250193681
Summary
An intimate and urgent assessment of the existential crisis facing our nation.
Something is wrong.
We all know it.
American life expectancy is declining for a third straight year. Birth rates are dropping. Nearly half of us think the other political party isn’t just wrong; they’re evil. We’re the richest country in history, but we’ve never been more pessimistic.
What’s causing the despair?
In Them, bestselling author and U.S. senator Ben Sasse argues that, contrary to conventional wisdom, our crisis isn’t really about politics. It’s that we’re so lonely we can’t see straight—and it bubbles out as anger.
Local communities are collapsing. Across the nation, little leagues are disappearing, Rotary clubs are dwindling, and in all likelihood, we don’t know the neighbor two doors down. Work isn’t what we’d hoped: less certainty, few lifelong coworkers, shallow purpose. Stable families and enduring friendships—life’s fundamental pillars—are in statistical freefall.
As traditional tribes of place evaporate, we rally against common enemies so we can feel part of a team. No institutions command widespread public trust, enabling foreign intelligence agencies to use technology to pick the scabs on our toxic divisions.
We’re in danger of half of us believing different facts than the other half, and the digital revolution throws gas on the fire.
There’s a path forward—but reversing our decline requires something radical: a rediscovery of real places and human-to-human relationships. Even as technology nudges us to become rootless, Sasse shows how only a recovery of rootedness can heal our lonely souls.
America wants you to be happy, but more urgently, America needs you to love your neighbor and connect with your community. Fixing what's wrong with the country depends on it. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—February 22, 1972
• Where—Plainview, Nebraska, USA
• Education—B.A., Harvard University; M.A., St. John's College; M.A., M.Phil, Ph.D., Yale University
• Currently—lives in Washington, D.C., and Fremont, Nebraskas
U.S. Senator Ben Sasse is a fifth-generation Nebraskan. The son of a football and wrestling coach, he attended public school in Fremont, Nebraska., and spent his summers working soybean and corn fields.
He was recruited to wrestle at Harvard before attending Oxford and later earning a Ph.D. in American history from Yale. Prior to the Senate, Sasse spent five years as president of Midland University back in his hometown.
As perhaps the only commuting family in the U.S. Senate, Ben and his wife, Melissa, live in Nebraska but are homeschooling their three children as they commute weekly back and forth to Washington, DC. (From the publisher.)
For a more in depth bio, visit the Senator's website.
Book Reviews
Sasse emphasizes the importance of civil debate …and laments the extreme partisanship that characterizes public life in the Trump era. But "the dysfunction in D.C.," he says, stems from something "deeper than economics," and "deeper and more meaningful" than politics. "What’s wrong …is loneliness." … [A] little cloying …but what's curious …is not so much the careful avoidance of politics—politicians are really good at this—but Sasse’s repeated assertions that political solutions are meaningless.
Jennifer Szalai - New York Times
If Sen. Ben Sasse is right—he has not recently been wrong about anything important— the nation’s most-discussed political problem is entangled with the least-understood public health problem. The political problem is furious partisanship. The public health problem is loneliness. Sasse’s new book argues that Americans are richer, more informed and “connected” than ever—and unhappier, more isolated and less fulfilled.
George Will - Washington Post
Mr. Sasse’s experience as a senator in a time of hyperpartisanship gives his analysis a special poignancy… [his] remedies are wise and well-expressed… his prose has a distinctively cheerful warmth throughout. Perhaps at last we have a politician capable of writing a good book rather than having a dull one written for him.
Wall Street Journal
Sasse is highly attuned to the cultural sources of our current discontents and dysfunctions.… Them is not so much a lament for a bygone era as an attempt to diagnose and repair what has led us to this moment of spittle-flecked rage …a step toward healing a hurting nation.
National Review
Sasse is an excellent writer, unpretentious, thoughtful, and at times, quite funny …even if you disagree with some or all of what Sasse writes, it's an interesting book and his arguments are worth reading—as are his warnings about what our country might become.
NPR
An eloquent appeal for healing …what makes Them worth the read is Sasse's amalgam of realistic alarm and warning.
Guardian (UK)
Mr. Sasse’s strongly written analysis of our current existential unease should hit a national nerve.
Washington Times
The solutions [Sasse] proposes …are overwhelmingly social and personal, rather than political. Sasse’s philosophical musings are unlikely to convert many skeptics.
Publishers Weekly
Sasse presents a compelling, well-supported look at why… in our constantly expanding, internet-driven world, so many people feel lonely.… [W]hether readers agree… Them is a crucial contribution to a more open and productive social dialogue.
Booklist
The future of the republic depends on humility, empathy, and respect for pluralism.… Sasse offers a… recommendation for healing: identifying and nurturing common bonds. A sensible and thoughtful yet hardly groundbreaking political analysis.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers Talking Points to help start a discussion for THEM by Ben Sasse … then take off on your own:
1. Does it feel to you that America is coming apart—that we need a re-set? Considering the book's title, do we "hate each other"?
2. Do you agree with the premise of Ben Sasse's book: that the root of our country's divisiveness goes deeper than economics and deeper than the dysfunction in Washington—that our troubles stem from loneliness and a lack of connectedness to our local communities? Other writers, including Robert Putnam in his well-known 2000 book, Bowling Alone, have made similar observations. What do you think? Is loneliness at the heart of American anger and angst?
3. In the section called "Civics 101," Sasse writes, "Citizens in a republic must cultivate humility. It’s the only way to preserve sufficient space for true community and for meaningful, beautiful human relationships." First, define what Sasse means by humility and why it's important. In what …and where …and in whom …do we witness a lack of humility? How do we recover our individual and collective humility?
4. Sasse says that public servants "simply need to allow the space for communities of different belief and custom to flourish." What communities is he referring to? How do we ensure that different communities will indeed thrive—what steps need to be taken? What happens if those on the outside come to resent those on the inside of the communities? What protections can be offered?
5. Of our self-contained bubbles, Sasse writes that today what matters—more than actual content—is who does the reporting. "It isn’t just that living in ideological bubbles makes it harder to criticize one’s own side," Sasse writes. "It’s also that it actually becomes harder to believe credible charges against one’s own tribe." Is Sasse correct in pointing out that the messenger is more important than the message? Do you find yourself caught up in a bias bubble? Are you part of a "tribe" of like-minded thinkers? Is there a way to escape our biases, to move beyond them?
6. Sasse points to the fact that "America is being split into the "haves" and the "have-nots" and that the gap between them is growing. He admits that "it's increasingly difficult to move up" the economic ladder—"a stark departure" from the expectations of the past several generations. How important do you feel the income gap is? What solutions would go a long way toward closing the income gap?
7. Talk about the other societal ills Sasse identifies—opioid use, lower birth rate, pregnancy decoupled from marriage…. What are some others? Does Sasse's depiction of a country-in-trouble" ring true to you? Is he overly pessimistic? Is he realistic?
8. Consider Ben Sasse's background. How did it prepare him for a life in Washington and as a spokesman for the nation?
9. What do you know about Ben Sasse and his time as a U.S. Senator? As a Republican from Kansas, where do his allegiances (and votes) lie?
10. Ultimately, after reading Them, does Ben Sasse correctly diagnose the problems of this country, and does he offer us a viable solution or solutions?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
These Truths: A History of the United States
Jill Lepore, 2018
W.W. Norton
900 pp. (seriously)
ISBN-13: 9780393635249
Summary
In the most ambitious one-volume American history in decades, award-winning historian and New Yorker writer Jill Lepore offers a magisterial account of the origins and rise of a divided nation, an urgently needed reckoning with the beauty and tragedy of American history.
Written in elegiac prose, Lepore’s groundbreaking investigation places truth itself—a devotion to facts, proof, and evidence—at the center of the nation’s history.
The American experiment rests on three ideas—"these truths," Jefferson called them—political equality, natural rights, and the sovereignty of the people.
And it rests, too, on a fearless dedication to inquiry, Lepore argues, because self-government depends on it. But has the nation, and democracy itself, delivered on that promise?
These Truths tells this uniquely American story, beginning in 1492, asking whether the course of events over more than five centuries has proven the nation’s truths, or belied them.
To answer that question, Lepore traces the intertwined histories of American politics, law, journalism, and technology, from the colonial town meeting to the nineteenth-century party machine, from talk radio to twenty-first-century Internet polls, from Magna Carta to the Patriot Act, from the printing press to Facebook News.
Along the way, Lepore’s sovereign chronicle is filled with arresting sketches of both well-known and lesser-known Americans, from a parade of presidents and a rogues’ gallery of political mischief makers to the intrepid leaders of protest movements, including Frederick Douglass, the famed abolitionist orator; William Jennings Bryan, the three-time presidential candidate and ultimately tragic populist; Pauli Murray, the visionary civil rights strategist; and Phyllis Schlafly, the uncredited architect of modern conservatism.
Americans are descended from slaves and slave owners, from conquerors and the conquered, from immigrants and from people who have fought to end immigration.
"A nation born in contradiction will fight forever over the meaning of its history," Lepore writes, but engaging in that struggle by studying the past is part of the work of citizenship. "The past is an inheritance, a gift and a burden," These Truths observes. "It can’t be shirked. There’s nothing for it but to get to know it." (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—August 27, 1966
• Where—Worcester, Massachusetts, USA
• Education—B.A., Tufts University; M.A., University of Michigan; Ph.D., Yale University
• Awards—Bancroft Prize (more below)
• Currently—lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Jill Lepore is an American historian. She is the David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History at Harvard University and author of These Truths: A History of the United States (2018). She is also a staff writer at The New Yorker, where she has contributed since 2005. She writes about American history, law, literature, and politics.
Early life
Lepore was born and grew up in West Boylston, a small town outside Worcester, Massachusetts, the daughter of a junior high school principal and an art teacher. Lepore had no early desire to become a historian, but claims to have wanted to be a writer from the age of six. She entered college with a Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) scholarship, starting as a math major. Eventually she left ROTC and changed her major to English.
Lepore earned her B.A. in English from Tufts University in 1987, an M.A. in American Culture from the University of Michigan in 1990, and a Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale University in 1995, where she specialized in the history of early America.[4]
Career
Lepore taught at the University of California-San Diego from 1995 to 1996 and at Boston University from 1996 before starting her Ph.D. at Harvard in 2003. She now teaches American political history, focusing on missing evidence in historical records and articles.
Lepore has defined history as "the art of making an argument about the past by telling a story accountable to evidence." To that end, she gathers historical evidence that allows scholars to study and analyze political processes and behaviors.
Non-academic writings
Her essays and reviews have also appeared in the New York Times, Times Literary Supplement, Th Journal of American History, Foreign Affairs, Yale Law Journal, American Scholar, and American Quarterly.
Three of her books derive from her New Yorker essays: The Mansion of Happiness: A History of Life and Death (2012), a finalist for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction; The Story of America: Essays on Origins (2012), shortlisted for the PEN Literary Award for the Art of the Essay; and The Whites of Their Eyes: The Tea Party's Revolution and the Battle for American History (2010). The Secret History of Wonder Woman (2014) is a winner of the 2015 American History Book Prize.
Awards and honors
1999 Bancroft Prize for The Name of War
1999 Ralph Waldo Emerson Award of the Phi Beta Kappa Society for The Name of War
1999 Berkshire Prize for The Name of War
2006 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award (nonfiction) for New York Burning
2006 Pulitzer Prize for History finalist for New York Burning
2012 Sarah Josepha Hale Award
2013 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay runner-up
2013 National Book Award for Nonfiction finalist for Book of Ages
2013 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction finalist for The Mansion of Happiness
2014 Elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
2014 Mark Lynton History Prize for Book of Ages
2015 American History Book Prize for The Secret History of Wonder Woman
2016 John P. McGovern Award, Cosmos Club Foundation
(Author bio adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 1/4/2019.)
Book Reviews
[Lepore's] one-volume history is elegant, readable, sobering…The size of the project is liberating and constraining at once. A book like this is both very long and very short…Keeping everything contained between two covers risks compressing the historical sprawl into one of those dense slabs more suitable for gift-giving than reading—the print equivalent of a holiday fruitcake. But in Lepore's hands, the history gets some room to breathe. She begins in 1492, with Columbus's arrival, wending her way through the next five centuries…leavening some of the essential textbook material with stories that are lesser known…Which isn't to say These Truths is an update of A People's History of the United States, Howard Zinn's radically revisionist book from 1980. Yes, Lepore pays heed to Frederick Douglass and Cesar Chavez and the African-American lawyer and civil rights activist Pauli Murray, among others. But her book is less about a struggle between heroes and villains than it is about the country's often tortured approach to political equality and natural rights—truths that were supposed to be self-evident but have been treated as if they were anything but.
Jennifer Szalai - New York Times
It isn't until you start reading it that you realize how much we need a book like this one at this particular moment. These Truths…tries to take in almost everything, an impossible task, but I'd be hard-pressed to think [Lepore] could have crammed more into these 932 highly readable pages. It covers the history of political thought, the fabric of American social life over the centuries, classic "great man" accounts of contingencies, surprises, decisions, ironies and character, and the vivid experiences of those previously marginalized: women, African-Americans, Native Americans, homosexuals. It encompasses interesting takes on democracy and technology, shifts in demographics, revolutions in economics and the very nature of modernity. It's a big sweeping book, a way for us to take stock at this point in the journey, to look back, to remind us who we are and to point to where we're headed…There wasn't a moment when I struggled to keep reading…We need this book. Its reach is long, its narrative fresh and the arc of its account sobering to say the least.
Andrew Sullivan - New York Times Book Review
Gutsy, lyrical, and expressive…[These Truths] is a perceptive and necessary contribution to understanding the American condition of late.…It captures the fullness of the past, where hope rises out of despair, renewal out of destruction, and forward momentum out of setbacks.
Jack E. Davis - Chicago Tribune
ill Lepore is an extraordinarily gifted writer, and These Truths is nothing short of a masterpiece of American history. By engaging with our country's painful past (and present) in an intellectually honest way, she has created a book that truly does encapsulate the American story in all its pain and all its triumph.
Michael Schaub - NPR
In her epic new work, Jill Lepore helps us learn from whence we came.
Oprah Magazine
"An old-fashioned civics book," Harvard historian and New Yorker contributor Jill Lepore calls it, a glint in her eye. This fat, ludicrously ambitious one-volume history is a lot more than that. In its spirit of inquiry, in its eager iconoclasms, These Truths enacts the founding ideals of the country it describes.
Huffington Post
The principles of the Declaration of Independence get betrayed, fought over, and sometimes fulfilled in this probing political history.… [Lepore] unifies a complex and conflicted history into [an]…engrossing narrative with insights that resonate for modern readers.
Publishers Weekly
[As] Harvard historian …Lepore notes, "A nation born in contradiction, liberty in a land of slavery, sovereignty in a land of conquest, will fight, forever, over the meaning of its history." [Lepore] finds meaning in the contradictions.
Library Journal
(Starred Review) An ambitious and provocative attempt to interpret American history as an effort to fulfill and maintain certain fundamental principles…. Lepore is a historian with wide popular appeal, [who poses] questions about who we are as a nation.
Booklist
(Starred Review) [A] mammoth, wonderfully readable history of the United States from Columbus to Trump…. A splendid rendering—filled with triumph, tragedy, and hope—that will please Lepore's readers immensely and win her many new ones.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers Talking Points to help start a discussion for THESE TRUTHS … then take off on your own:
1. In a New York Times review, Jill Lepore said she wanted to write this lengthy volume of U.S. history because "it hasn't been attempted in a long time, and it's important, and it seemed worth a try." Do you think it's important, and if so why? What light does today's political climate shed on this book's importance or relevance?
2. The thrust of much of the book is about the country's struggle with political equality and natural rights. What are "natural rights." And why has the struggle been so long and so hard-fought?
3. Talk about the way in which women and people of color were excluded from the Constitution. How did the founders' own lives reflect the jarring discrepancies between their exalted language in favor of rights-for-all but ultimately settling for rights-for-some?
4. Talk about the various politicians/statesmen Lepore includes in her telling. On whom in particular does she turn a sharp eye (and pen)? Whom does she admire?
5. In what way has Jill Lepore's book enlightened you? Even if you're a history buff and fairly well versed in the discipline, was there something in particular that surprised you in her volume? What areas of history have you already been familiar with … and has These Truths added to your understanding or altered it?
6. When it comes to contemporary politics, what does Lepore have to say about both conservatives and liberals? What is her beef with the rise of technology and Silicon Valley?
7. What do you think of the book's final metaphor: the U.S. as a troubled, weakened ship on a "doom-black sea"?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World
Mark Miodownik, 2014
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780544236042
Summary
Why is glass see-through? What makes elastic stretchy? Why does a paperclip bend? Why does any material look and behave the way it does?
With clarity and humor, world-leading materials scientist Mark Miodownik answers all the questions you’ve ever had about your pens, spoons, and razor blades, while also introducing a whole world full of materials you’ve never even heard of: the diamond five times the size of Earth; concrete cloth that can be molded into any shape; and graphene, the thinnest, strongest, stiffest material in existence—only a single atom thick.
Stuff Matters tells enthralling stories that explain the science and history of materials. From the teacup to the jet engine, the silicon chip to the paper clip, the plastic in our appliances to the elastic in our underpants, Miodownik reveals the miracles of engineering that permeate our lives. As engaging as it is incisive, Stuff Matters will make you see the materials that surround you with new eyes. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—April 25, 1969
• Where—N/A
• Education—B.A., Ph. D., Oxford University
•• Currently—lives in London, England
Professor Mark Andrew Miodownik is a British materials scientist, engineer, broadcaster and writer at University College London. Previously, he was the head of the Materials Research Group at King's College London, and a co-founder of Materials Library. He recently appeared in The Times' (UK) inaugural list of the 100 most influential scientists in the UK. His book, Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World, appeared in 2014.
Miodownik attended Emanuel School and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in metallurgy from St Catherine's College at the University of Oxford in 1992, and a D.Phil in turbine jet engine alloys from Oxford in 1996, specifically oxide dispersion strengthened (ODS) alloys. He says that his interest in materials came from an incident when he was stabbed in the back with a razor, on his way to school. Realising that a small piece of steel had done him so much harm started his interest in materials.
Research
Miodownik's scientific research is primarily in Materials Science, Metallurgy and Biomechanics. He has also been key to the development of the concept of Sensoaesthetics, which is the "application of scientific methodology to the aesthetic, sensual and emotional side" of materials.
Science outreach
Miodownik is widely known for his broadcasting and outreach work. In 2001 he gave a series of talks at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) on aesthetics in the arts and sciences. In 2003 he co-founded the Materials Library, a website for people working in materials science, with a grant from NESTA.
In 2005 he organised two talks at Tate Modern on the influence of new materials on the arts. In 2006 he and two other scientists produced AfterImage, an installation that explores light and colour perception, which was exhibited at the Hayward Gallery. In 2007 the Materials Library made a podcast "What can the matter be?" hosted by the Tate. He appeared on Jim Al-Khalili's "The Life Scientific" in March 2014.
He was one of the judges of the 2008 Art Fund Prize. He often gives talks at the Cheltenham Science Festival, of which he is a member of the advisory group. In 2010 he placed 89 in a Times list of the 100 most influential people in science and delivered that year's Royal Institution Christmas Lectures. The three-part series, "Size Matters," looked at how size influences everything, including the shape of the universe, and aired on BBC Four in late December 2010.
Miodownik has done work with the Tate Modern, the Hayward Gallery, and the Wellcome Collection. He has close ties to the Royal Institution of Great Britain and presented a Friday Evening Discourse in February 2013 entitled "Strange Material." His television appearances include Wonderstuff on BBC Two in August 2011, The How it Works series on BBC Four in 2012 and The Genius of Invention on BBC Two in early 2013. He also appeared as a regular guest on Dara O'Briain's Science Clubon BBC Two in late 2012. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 6/9/2014.)
Book Reviews
Materials, Miodownik concludes, are so much more than "blobs of differently colored matter." They are wonders—"self-healing concrete," a jelly that catches stars. I now know to read up on concrete, a previously unthinkable activity, and I'll never think of Tutankhamen without remembering that he was found wearing a scarab with a piece of natural glass 26 million years old that was probably forged by a meteor that struck the white sands of the Libyan desert. It's possible this science and these stories have been told elsewhere, but like the best chocolatiers, Miodownik gets the blend right
Rose George - New York Times Book Review
Superb storytelling...fascinating...a delightful book on a subject that is relatively rarely written about.
Popular Science
[A] wonderful account of the materials that have made the modern world…Miodownik writes well enough to make even concrete sparkle.
Financial Times
A deftly written, immensely enjoyable little book.
Observer (UK)
[Miodownik] makes even the most everyday seem thrilling.
Sunday Times (UK)
Enthralling...a mission to re-acquaint us with the wonders of the fabric that sustains our lives.
Guardian
(Starred review.) [H]umor helps highlight such facts as we are one of the first generations to not taste our cutlery, due to the properties of stainless steel, or that “the biggest diamond yet discovered... is orbiting a pulsar star”.... Miodownik’s infectious curiosity and explanatory gifts will inspire readers to take a closer look at the materials around them.
Publishers Weekly
University professor Miodownik accomplishes a bit of a miracle here by making a discussion of materials science not only accessible but witty as well.... At a time when science is maligned, first-rate storyteller Miodownik entertains and educates with pop-culture references [and] scholarly asides.... A delight for the curious reader. —Colleen Mondor
Booklist
A compact, intense guided tour through a handful of physical materials...revealing what makes them profoundly affect our lives.... The author writes with enthusiasm, empathy and gratitude [and] helps us understand the complexity of inner structures. Puts the wonder and strangeness back into all the truly magical stuff that comprises our everyday reality.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)
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The Romanov Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra
Helen Rappaport, 2014
St. Martin's Press
512 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250020208
Summary
They were the Princess Dianas of their day—perhaps the most photographed and talked about young royals of the early twentieth century. The four captivating Russian Grand Duchesses—Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia Romanov—were much admired for their happy dispositions, their looks, the clothes they wore and their privileged lifestyle.
Over the years, the story of the four Romanov sisters and their tragic end in a basement at Ekaterinburg in 1918 has clouded our view of them, leading to a mass of sentimental and idealized hagiography. With this treasure trove of diaries and letters from the grand duchesses to their friends and family, we learn that they were intelligent, sensitive and perceptive witnesses to the dark turmoil within their immediate family and the ominous approach of the Russian Revolution, the nightmare that would sweep their world away, and them along with it.
The Romanov Sisters sets out to capture the joy as well as the insecurities and poignancy of those young lives against the backdrop of the dying days of late Imperial Russia, World War I and the Russian Revolution. Helen Rappaport aims to present a new and challenging take on the story, drawing extensively on previously unseen or unpublished letters, diaries and archival sources, as well as private collections. It is a book that will surprise people, even aficionado. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1947
• Raised—North Kent, England, UK
• Education—Leeds University
• Awards—American Library Association Award (for reference)
• Currently—lives in Oxford, England
Helen F. Rappaport (nee Ware; born ) is a British historian, author, and former actress. As a historian, she specialises in the Victorian era and revolutionary Russia.
Rappaport was born in Bromley but grew up near the River Medway in North Kent. She attended Chatham Grammar School for Girls. Her older brother Mike Ware, born 1939, is a photographer, chemist, and writer. She has twin younger brothers, Peter (also a photographer) and Christopher, born in 1953.
She studied Russian at Leeds University where she was involved in the university theatre group and launched her acting career.
Acting
After acting with the Leeds University theatre group she appeared in several television series including Crown Court; Love Hurts; and The Bill. She later claimed to have spent "20 years in the doldrums as an out of work, broke and miserable actress."
Writing
In the early nineties she became a copy editor for academic publishers Blackwell and OUP and also contributed to historical and biographical reference works published by example Cassell and Readers Digest.
By 1998 she had became a full-time author, writing three books for US publisher ABC-CLIO including An Encyclopaedia of Women Social Reformers in 2001, with a foreword by Marian Wright Edelman. It won an award in 2002 from the American Library Association as an Outstanding Reference Source and according to The Times Higher Educational Supplement, "A splendid book, informative and wide-ranging."
• Mary Seacole
In 2003 Rappaport discovered and purchased an 1869 portrait of Jamaican nurse Mary Seacole by Albert Charles Challen. The picture now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery. Mary Seacole features in Rappaport's 2007 book No Place for Ladies: The Untold Story of Women in the Crimean War which was praised by Simon Sebag Montefiore as "Poignant and inspirational, well researched yet thoroughly readable"and also received positive reviews in The Times (London) and Guardian.
• The Last Days of the Romanovs
Her 2008 book Ekaterinburg: The Last Days of the Romanovs received numrous positive reviews in both the UK and US where it became a bestseller.
• Lenin
Conspirator: Lenin in Exile published in 2009 gained considerable publicity due to Rappaport's claim that Lenin died from syphilis and not a stroke.
• Victorian cosmetics industry
Her 2010 book, Beautiful For Ever describes the growth of the Victorian cosmetics industry and tells the story of Madame Rachel who found both fame and infamy peddling products which claimed almost magical powers of "restoration and preservation." According to the Daily Mail, 'Rappaport handles her scandalous Victorian melodrama with energy and aplomb, and produces a richly entertaining portrait of the seamy side of 19th century society."
• Death of Prince Albert
Magnificent Obsession was published on 3 November 2011, the 150th anniversary of its subject; the death of Prince Albert.
• Birth of Photography
Capturing the Light: The Birth of Photography, co-written with Roger Watson, tells the story of Henry Fox Talbot and Louis Daguerre. Both authors took part in an event during the Edinburgh Book Festival in 2013.
• Russian princess
The Romanov Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra came out in 2014, recounting the quiet, sheltered life of the four daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra, the Russian Tsar and his wife.
Translating
Rappaport is a fluent Russian speaker and is a translator of Russian plays, notably those of Anton Chekhov, working with Tom Stoppard, David Hare, David Lan and Nicholas Wright. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 6/09/2014.)
Book Reviews
Gloom and doom characterized their lives from the very start. The end was written into the beginning. By the final pages, the lack of nitty-gritty is only a relief. This book is Rappaport righting a wrong. History has turned the Romanov sisters into an indiscriminate fairy princess... Rappaport takes on the task of bringing the girls back to earth. She wants to return them their lives, which, though brief, went by slowly and painstakingly, day by uneventful day, page by agonizing page.
People
The public spoke of the sisters in a gentle, superficial manner, but Rappaport captures sections of letters and diary entries to showcase the sisters’ thoughtfulness and intelligence. Readers will be swept up in the author’s leisurely yet informative narrative as she sheds new light on the lives of the four daughters. B&w photo insert.
Publishers Weekly
Rappaport manages to maintain reader interest even as she ticks off the repetitious tale of their boring lives: long walks with their father, sewing, study, tennis and heavy doses of religion.... A gossipy, revealing story of the doomed Russian family's fairy tale life told by an expert in the field.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)
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