Ami Maxine

First Friday Rec: Project Hail Mary

Title: Project Hail Mary
Author: Andy Weir
Genre: Science Fiction, Mystery, Thriller
Pages: 496
Publication Date: Oct 4, 2022
StoryGraph* Moods: <–Adventurous, Funny, Hopeful
How I Stumbled Upon This Book: I had read another book by this author, and when this came up as a read for a local SciFi/Fantasy book club read, I decided to join the club.
Other Books by this author: The Martian, Artemis
*StoryGraph also offers content warnings.

Description: You wake up and can’t remember your own name. Scary enough on it’s own, right? Now imagine you’ve just discovered you’re on a space craft lightyears from Earth and have no idea how you got there. Oh, and you’re two crew mates apparently died enroute while you were in a coma. This is the predicament Ryland Grace finds himself in at the start of the story.

Little by little, Ryland’s memories, and his name, come back to him – and he discovers he’s on a one-way trip through space in the hope of saving Earth from a dying a sun. No biggie, yeah? Except Ryland is a middle school science teacher – not an astronaut. And he’s far from home. And he has the weight of his planet and entire species on his shoulders. And he’s alone.

Or is he?

Why I recommend this book: Ok, first, the science – Weir is a master at breaking down super complex ideas in a way that (most) anyone can understand them (I say ‘most’ because maybe it would still be over the heads of some young readers). Helpful that his main character is a science teacher used to teaching kids, so it also doesn’t come off as condescending. If you are worried about the ‘science’ part of the science fiction genre, Weir’s books are a great entry.

Next, the sass and snark Weir is known for. The main character is easy to like and relate to, even though their circumstance is not anything I would ever have to experience. The humor in the snark made me laugh several times (even on the second read).

Last, even as someone who prefers character-driven narratives, the plot grabbed me from the first page and just propelled me forward to the end – and left me wanting more. (I always lament that the SciFi/Fantasy genre is so full of series – that sometimes, I just want a stand-alone novel. But then it’s so good, I want more! 🤣) Even on the second read, I remembered some of the issues that occur – but not necessarily the solutions, so I just kept going.

I first read this book a couple years ago when my local SciFi/Fantasy book club picked it to read (it was the reason I went the first time). At the time, I was one of two members besides the guy running it. Since then, it’s come up in a number of conversations, and then when they announced the movie would be coming out in early spring (and we have a number of new members who hadn’t read it), we decided to read it again. Now, I’m not great with audio books. Audio is my least favorite way to consume long-form prose. But – when we read it the first time, the club leader had listened to it, and spoke about how great it was. So – SPOILER (don’t read on if you are planning to read the book): One of the characters speaks in musical chords – and in the audio, you get to hear those, which was really cool. Plus, as much as the narrator’s voice lives well on the page, hearing it just adds another layer. If you, too, don’t do well with audiobooks, then I recommend reading along while listening. (Also, the book lived up to what I remembered of it – I loved it just as much this time around.)

Ryland: “I penetrated the outer cell membrane with a nanosyringe.”
Strat: “You poked it with a stick?”
Ryland: “No! Well. Yes. But it was a scientific poke with a very scientific stick.”

“When stupid ideas work, they become genius ideas.”
~ Andy Weir, Project Hail Mary

AFT: Meet Stanley

As I talked a bit about in my last All Falling Things post, when I first thought up this story, I intended/assumed it would be told entirely from Alice’s perspective. It was her story. But then almost right away, another character demanded a chance to use his voice too – and suddenly, my book had a dual narrator structure.

Discovering Stanley’s last name was actually the trigger that turned this story from an idea to words on the page – Hoppenworth. (I fully acknowledge that this is a name that appeared on a roster of mine one semester – I waited until the person was no longer a student before I started writing. Aside from borrowing their surname, Stanley has nothing to do with this individual.) Stanley is the white rabbit – in a hurry to get somewhere without an idea of to where it is he is trying to get.

In a lot of ways, my two narrators are quite similar. Stanley, too, escaped a home (in his case, New York City) and a life (lived under his father’s shadow) he didn’t want. Stanley has spent most of his life knowing what he wanted but feeling like he was not allowed to pursue it. His father had different plans for his son, and he held the purse strings.

When a friend from law school offers him a job in Chicago, Stanley jumps at the chance to finally shake off expectations and find his own path. He buys a trendy loft and dates a string of beautiful women. He has, he thinks, a good time.

Five years later, on the precipice of making partner at his firm, he realizes he’s still living the life his father wanted for him – not the one he had come all this way to explore.

A chance encounter on the sidewalk has the potential to send his life off course in the most exhilarating way. If only he lets it.

Third? Friday Recommendation

Title: The Library Book
Author: Susan Orlean
Genre: nonfiction, history, true crime
Pages: 336
Publication Date: 16 Oct 2018
StoryGraph* Moods: informative, reflective, inspiring
How I Stumbled Upon This Book: Susan Orlean was a keynote at the book and author festival
Other Books by this author: Joyride, On Animals, Rin Tin Tin, My Kind of Place: Travel Stories from a Woman Who’s Been Everywhere, The Orchid Thief, Saturday Night, The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup: My Encounter with Extraordinary People,
*StoryGraph also offers content warnings.

Normally, I do recommendations on the first Friday of the month, but I also schedule ahead because my life as a teacher means certain times of the year, I’m buried under a pile of student writing that I need to review and remark on, and the last thing I have time for is sleep, let alone writing. (Ok, that might be a slight exaggeration. But only slight.)

I read a book recently that has been sitting on my shelf since April 2019, though it had been published six months prior to that. I’ve been wanting to read it ever since, but life got in the way. So when the opportunity presented itself (I was tasked the title for one of my book clubs), I settled in – both prepared and not quite prepared enough for the content within its pages.

I first learned of Orlean when I was tasked with reading her book The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup in grad school – it’s a collection journalistic “profiles of eccentric and fascinating individuals.” I remember enjoying it, so when her name appeared on the roster for my city’s book and author festival UntitledTown (a clever spin on Green Bay’s nickname of Title Town due to the football team housed here), I was excited to hear her speak.

The book Orlean was coming to promote was The Library Book, a nonfiction book about libraries in general but about the burning of the Los Angeles Central Library specifically. (She arrived at the venue via Green Bay fire truck, lights swirling.)

I’ve been fairly clear on this here blog about my life-long love of libraries. I’ve been a patron since I was a child. First, the large library of the city where I was born (including their bookmobile that visited the other end of my block). Next, the tiny one-room library of the tiny town we moved to when I was ten. Currently, I have cards at three different libraries – the one at the college where I work, my county library system, and the local university. In my eyes, libraries are priceless and should be protected at all costs.

Same with the people who work there. If you are a librarian, chances are that I’ll want to be friends with you. The librarians I’ve encountered thus far in my life have all been wonderful people. The reference librarian at my work is a literal magician – I have asked for some pretty specific resources over the years, and she’s never let me down. It is my personal goal to stump her before she retires, which is actually a goal I hope I fail. (She also helped me in creating my nerdiest poem title ever, the Library of Congress call numbers for a metaphorical book contained within the poem. Later, she helped me piece together the LOC numbers for my first two books and was present when I was given the privilege of shelving my own book onto the library’s shelf – a childhood dream come true.)

Because of my experience with libraries and librarians (and any books about them), it’s probably surprising that I’d not yet read this book nearly seven years after I slipped it (signed!) onto my shelf. But sometimes, books wait until we are ready or we need them most.

I have to be honest and say that the charged existence we are living right now, especially when it comes to things like history and books and, yes, libraries, this one hit hard. I have to imagine it would have always tug at my heartstrings, but there were moments I was drawn to literal tears. Yes, the fire at that Central Library (and the others mentioned in the book) was heartbreaking. But the moments that got me were the ones that came after, in the stories of the people trying to preserve, evolved, and protect the libraries.

In fact, Orlean talks about the over TWO THOUSAND volunteers who came to the Central Library to help in the days after the fire. There were hundreds of thousands of books that had to be removed from the decimated stacks – some were dry and smoky, others were damp (and immediately frozen before mold could corrupt the pages). These volunteers spent long days standing in line and handing these books from one to the other, packing them up for the trucks that would take them to their storage (local fishing operations cleared spaces in their freezers to house the wet ones, with no idea how long they may have to take up residence). So many people who understood the importance of books and libraries. It warms the heart, even in the face of tragedy. (Well, it warmed this heart. And these tear ducts.)

Orlean also discusses the many other things that libraries do. The LA Central Library created a first-of-its-kind Career Online High School (the first accredited library-based high school program in the U.S.), where community members could take any of the nine hundred COHS online classes for free and graduate with a diploma, rather than a high school equivalency certificate. They created a resource center for the unhoused population to learn about and access resources. They preserve (and digitize) our history. The provide computers and internet to those that may not otherwise have access (even today where it is assumed that all people do). They has literacy centers that help English language learners navigate a world speaking a language they may not fully understand. And, yeah, they have books, too.

It’s not always apparent to a lot of folks the positives that libraries bring when they exist within communities (though, “On average, a new public library results in increases to student reading achievement that are 29% of the size of those associated with the opening of a new elementary school building, at 15% of the cost of the new school“), but the impacts when one closes are. These things can include everything from a drop in the values of surrounding homes to access to internet (“One in five Americans use public libraries for Internet access“) to access to a ‘third space’ that doesn’t cost money (like cafes and bars do) to a decline in both reading and math scores.

Libraries are more than just shelves filled with books, and Orlean’s book, through the examination of this specific library and community (as well as touching on many others), helps to paint the picture of their importance. Now, more than ever, we need our libraries.

“Books are the culture DNA, the code for who, as a society, we are, and what we know. All the wonders and failures, all the champions and villains, all the legends and ideas and revelations of a culture last forever in its books. Destroying those books is a way of saying that the culture itself no longer exists; its history has disappeared; the continuity between its past and its future is ruptured. Taking books away from a culture is to take away its shared memory. It’s like taking away the ability to remember your dreams. Destroying a culture’s books is sentencing it to something worse than death: It is sentencing it to seem as if it never lived.”

“In Senegal, the polite expression for saying someone died is to say his or her library has burned. When I first heard this phrase, I didn’t understand it, but over time I came to realize it was perfect. Our minds and souls contain volumes inscribed by our experiences and emotions; each individual’s consciousness is a collection of memories we’ve cataloged and stored inside us, a private library of a life lived. It is something that no one else can entirely share, one that burns down and disappears when we die. But if you can take something from that internal collection and share it – with one person or with the larger world, on the page or in a story recited – it takes on a life of its own.”

~ Susan Orlean, The Library Book

Off Menu

I’ve been consuming a lot of British content lately. (I have to say – they do game shows much better than we do…) Through this, I have stumbled across some fun podcast formats (as though I need more podcasts in my life…I can barely keep up with the ones I already regularly listen to). But there’s something about the format of learning about someone’s life through a very specific lens that I find rather enjoyable. (If you have read past blogs of mine, you likely already know this – I’m quite fond of Brett Goldstein’s Films to Be Buried With, which uses the lens of films to learn about people.)

While listening to these sorts of podcasts, it’s hard not to think of what my own answers might be, so I thought I’d do this exercise out loud again. In this case, it’s Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster (both British comedians). In the show, one of the hosts (Acaster) takes on the role of a genie waiter who can produce any food or drink for their guest. First question? Still or sparking water. Next? Poppadmons or bread? They move through course by course, sharing stories (and laughs) along the way.

But watch out – if the guest says the secret ingredient announced in the episode’s intro, they are ejected from the restaurant without their dinner. (I’ll note that Jason Mantzoukas’s secret ingredient was pimento, and he did indeed mention his B99 character Adrien Pimento and was not in fact ousted.)

Still or Sparking: I honestly don’t know if I’ve ever had sparkling water. I live (for the time being) in the U.S. We don’t usually get a choice when we first sit – it’s still water (usually from the tap). If you want sparkling or bottled still, you pay the price. So – still with plenty of ice, please (and you can leave out the lemon).

Poppadoms or bread: Again, poppadoms aren’t really a thing in the states (unless you seek out an Indian restaurant), though I would be curious to try them. (For those not familiar, they are thin, crispy crackers with origins in India – made from black gram, lentil, chickpea, or rice flour and seasoned with spices like cumin or pepper then deep fried or cooked with dry heat. I mean – sign me up.) But this is my dream meal – so I would have to say bread, specifically the bread that I had while I volunteered at the Jane Adeny Memorial School for Girls in Kenya. It is still to this day the best bread I have ever tasted – which seems impossible to replicate here. Something about it rising in the Kenyan sun does something magical to it. No butter needed. Just slice and eat.

Dream starter: I’m not one for starters. If I get a starter, I don’t have room for the main. But again, dream meal, so we’ll pretend there’s plenty of room in the stomach for all this. This would also be a stretch because I don’t eat meat – but I’d want my grandma Fran’s homemade biscuits and sausage gravy. When I say homemade, I mean that she made the biscuits from scratch, too. She was an incredible cook. And you never made the mistake of going to her house with a full stomach (well, you never made that mistake more than once). So if there was a way to eat them so that they tasted like hers but didn’t actually have any meat in them, that would be incredible.

Dream main course: In 2016, I got to participate in an exchange program through my college where i teach. I was paired with an instructor in China – I hosted here for two weeks in the fall, and then she hosted me for two weeks in the spring. The goal was to learn about each other’s education system and culture. One of the first nights there, I got to take part in making steamed dumplings – her mother was also there. She took care of making the filling (there were vegetarian options for me), and then she and my exchange partner taught me to fold them. (Thankfully, none of my broke while they cooked – so no matter how poor mine looked, they were still a ‘success’.) I take no ownership in how they tasted, but they were so flippin’ delicious – best I’ve ever had. Would love to have those again.

(I did purposely crop the image to remove their faces.)

Dream side: Also while I was in China, we had steamed lotus root with ginger, and I still think about that randomly. Not something I can find easily here (but I continue to look). Also, there was one meal that had mashed potatoes with a savory pickle relish, and I NEVER would have thought to pair those two things, but my goodness… (there really is very little you can do to a potato that I won’t like – aside from adding meat to it, of course).

Dream drink: For during dinner, just water. I don’t want anything messing with the flavors. To have with dessert, though, some whiskey. Or whisky, if you will. Because this is a dream meal, I’m going to say something I would never ever be able to actually try in real life – the 33-Year-Old Macallan Single Malt Scotch Whisky. (The bottle costs $13K.)

Dream dessert: There used to be a company called Dagoba – they made organic, fair trade chocolate (though they were acquired by Hershey from 2006-2021 and dropped their fair trade certification in 2012). I’m normally not a milk chocolate person (I like it dark), but they had a chai milk chocolate bar that was out of this world. They have since gone out of business, though, so you can’t get it anymore, but if the genie could whip up a pre-2006 Dagoba chai bar, that would be the perfect desert for me.

What would your dream meal look like?

First Friday Rec: Tailspin

Title: Tailspin
Author: John Armbruster
Genre: Nonfiction, Biography, History
Pages: 422
Publication Date: 30 Apr 2022
StoryGraph* Moods: Emotional, Challenging, Tense
How I Stumbled Upon This Book: book club
Other Books by this author:
*StoryGraph also offers content warnings.

Description: Gene Moran, a World War II tail gunner (someone who sits at the rear of military aircraft responsible for defending against rear attacks) fell four miles without a parachute, survived, was captured by the Germans, spent eighteen months as a prisoner of war, and then was marched six hundred miles across central Europe. And until this book was published, his family didn’t know most of what he went through.

John Armbruster leans of Moran’s incredible fall and asks to meet with him, to interview him, and to write his story. As the story unfolds, Armbruster faces his own ordeal when his wife is diagnosed with brain cancer.

Why I recommend this book: I’ll admit that I wouldn’t have picked this book up on my own – I read it for book club, and I’m glad I was assigned the task. As someone who reads more than her share of World War II historical fiction, I’ve read very little nonfiction about this time (it’s easier to put some distance when the tag ‘fiction’ is involved). That all being said, I gobbled this up. Gene Moran’s story is one of resilience in the most extreme way. (While Armbruster’s own story, which he braids into the telling, is also interesting – I will admit I wished it had been written on its own. I kept reading quickly through those sections to get back to Moran’s.)

“If I don’t read it down here, I’ll read it up there.” ~ Gene Moran to John Armbruster, Tailspin

AFT: Meet Alice

It’s sort of strange to still call this my first book given that two others have since found their way out into the world, but this manuscript, titled All Falling Things, was indeed my first completed novel-length manuscript – my delayed debut if you will. Publishing, it turns out, can be quite the lengthy process with a lot of time spent waiting.

But – on a happy note, while I don’t have a publication date just yet, it seems we are a lot closer to getting one. Thus, I thought I would begin introducing my first book baby out to the world.

Starting with Alice.

When I first started thinking about this story, I intended for the entire novel to be from Alice’s perspective – an Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland story, but with Alice intentionally jumping down the rabbit hole and into the wonderland that is Chicago, IL, in an effort to find herself. Because of this, I’ve always thought of it as Alice’s story. Even still.

The idea came after I had gone through a particularly rough point in my life, a point that was filling up with regrets and what ifs. But then a conversation with a dear friend made me realize that without what led to that rough point, I’d never have met this person sitting before me, never have nurtured this friendship. And honestly, I’d do it all over again exactly the same to ensure this person was a part of my life. It got me thinking of all the possible threads in our lives – how if you pull one, even the tiny one, things can unravel so completely.

The characters in this novel all have connections to the original Wonderland. Some are in name only (small characters), but others include characteristics. It’s not something that most folks will probably even notice, but once you know, hopefully those things will become clear.

Alice, obviously the namesake of the original story, has a decent life – by most respects. She has a good job, a loving family, and a childhood-friend-turned-boyfriend who dotes on her. She’s practically living in a storybook. Except – it’s not the life she wants. She’s going through the motions, only she doesn’t realize that until said boyfriend drops to one knee in front of their family and friends.

Alice needs a new start, and she can’t get one surrounded by people who expect her to be who she has always been. Then one impulsive decision sends her two thousand miles from home, armed with nothing but a couple suitcases and a stubborn hope that life can be more than “fine.”

In Chicago/Wonderland, Alice has a chance to try new things and look for her own path. For me, it was a chance to explore that idea of pulling a thread or two – to explore how sometimes, people aren’t meant to come into our lives and stay there. Perhaps some are only there to teach us what it is want.

“Ask This Book”

I entered the world of publishing at a difficult time. More and more books were flooding the market, both traditionally published and self-published. It was difficult to get noticed – by agents (who get hundreds of submissions a month), by publishers, by readers.

And then it got so much worse: Generative AI was unleased.

In addition, it seems impossible to make ANY headway without @m@zon. As a self-professed lover of libraries and local book shops, I don’t buy from @m@zon, but I quickly learned, especially when it comes to ebooks, that it’s impossible to make sales without using their platform. Even better if you put your book into their ‘select’ program – then you get paid by the pages read (even if someone only reads a few pages…I mean, we’re talking pennies, but still). They have the market in their stronghold. And it’s frustrating to know what to do sometimes.

Well, they just made it real easy to walk away.

In a press release early in Dec 2025, they announced the following: “We’re adding new AI-powered reading features that preserve the magic of reading on Kindle. Story So Far lets you catch up on the book you’re reading—but only up to where you’ve read without any spoilers. For our endlessly curious readers, Ask this Book will let you highlight any passage of text while reading a book and get spoiler-free answers to questions about things like a character’s motive or the significance of a scene.“

There is NO WAY to opt out. (They claim they made this not optional because they want the reading experience to be seamless. *eye roll*)

First, I don’t want my stories feeding their AI machine – even if it’s ‘inevitable’, I will hold off and fight against it for as long as I can.

The second point is regarding this line: “get spoiler-free answers questions about things like a character’s motive or the significance of a scene.”

In other words, they are going to create content based on my IP (there are literal laws against this, and watching them try and talk their way out of it is am impressive act of limbo). And there is a good chance, given what we’ve seen of generative AI so far, they will get it all wrong. This could alter the way in which a reader experiences a book.

I went in before the ‘deadline’ to unpublish my ebooks – only to learn that I can’t until the “select” 90 days expires (you have to enroll to the program for a minimum of 90 days at a time). The timing of their announcement feels sketchy. You can’t tell me that they didn’t know 90 days before the end of the year that this feature was coming. They waited, I would wager, until most folks were trapped. Some may have had the advantage of their 90 days ending before the launch. I did not.

These moves – very much including not giving writers the options to opt out – are unacceptable. But corporations like this will continue to do it – because even if they get sued and lose (The Authors Guild is indeed pushing back on this), the damage has already been done. Their machines have been fed.

I know I won’t have the choice when it comes to my traditionally published works, but for anything I put out myself, I won’t be using @m@zon directly. (Many platforms push to them, unfortunately.)

I say all this as a warning to anyone out there who might read this who is considering self-publishing. It is, of course, your choice if you opt to use @m@zon, and I don’t judge anyone for it. Just go in with eyes open.

Libraries: Saving Me Money Since the 1980s

The week of April 6 – 12, 2025, was Library Week here in the states (though, really, every week should be library week in my eyes). One of the librarians at my college library had reached out to me – they were working on a display and wanted to know if I would be interested in being included. Specifically, they were creating a display of how much money folks can save using the library – and she knows what a frequent flyer I am…not just at one library, but two.

She had sent me a link that would estimate the amount of money I save based on the number and type (paperback vs hardcover vs eBook) of books I read each month. Well, I’m a true nerd, and thanks to StoryGraph, I know what I had read so far this year – I could look them all up and give an accurate number. Well, as someone who likes to track things, I thought I’d continue and take a look at what an entire year of frequenting my libraries managed to save me.

My two libraries are my college’s library where I teach (including all the libraries it connects me with through iShare/InterLibrary Loan) and my county library where I live. Aside from one book I borrowed from a friend (because the hold list was too long at the library for me to get it in time for book club), everything I read I borrowed from the library (or already owned, which I, of course, didn’t include here).

As a kid, I loved buying books, reading them, and then displaying them on my shelf. These days, I’m a little more picky about what I buy only because if I bought every book I read, I’d have to give up eating one week a month (I’d also run out of wall space to build bookshelves…). That being said, if I really love a book, I will buy it.

So how much did my two libraries save me on my reading adventures?

TOTAL:

January: $71.94
February: $73.48
March: $46.99
April: $124.07
May: $78.99
June: $97.76
July: $27.99 👀 (I traveled a lot this month)
August: $100.23
September: $71.94
October: $116.94
November: $108.94
December: $105.93

2025 Total: $1025.20
Minus the books I ended up buying: $39.52*

Saved**: $985.68

To be fair, because they came from libraries, most of these were hardcover, and I prefer to buy paperback. But still. That’s a good chunk of change!

*I had to buy Demon Copperhead. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I also finally bought The Hail Mary Project when the SciFi/Fantasy club returned to it.

**This is just for books. I ended up borrowing a number of DVDs this year, too, which totaled another $753.31 in savings.

Books of 2025

I mentioned a couple years that I never do the ’52 books in a year’ challenge. I love reading, so I don’t set a number – I just read. It’s difficult sometimes to make reading books a priority when my job is to read stack after stack of student writing. Most of my books tend to be read over breaks (summer/winter). For fun, I started tracking a couple years ago – I read 42 books (or 12,886 pages) in 2023 and 44 (or 17,413 pages) in 2024.

This year, I read 51 books (or 15,277 pages). For the first time, I did indeed get pretty close to that one-book-a-week pace. And unlike past years, my books were more spread out – I usually get a bell curve with the highest point in the summer.

While I did read quite a few more books than last year, I actually read fewer pages – 2,136 fewer. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Due to a couple missed book club meetings (a couple canceled, a couple I couldn’t make – one I just couldn’t get my hands on the book in time), I was able to read more books for myself than I normally do.

One thing I really like about tracking apps is the ability to easily look back at what I read the previous year. My favorite from nonfiction (27/51) was The Sing Sing Files by Dan Slepian. This should be required reading – especially for anyone in public office. My favorite fiction (24/51) novels were Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver and rereading Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir (I listened to it this time, and the audio book was well done – which is saying something, because I don’t do well with audio books at all). The most surprising loved book was 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clark. I honestly went into it dreading having to read it – but I LOVED IT. Hoping to read the next in the series sometime soon.

What did your year of reading look like?

*If you’re on Goodre@ds but looking for a non-@m@zon alternative, check out StoryGraph. You can even transfer your Goodre@ds records over to StoryGraph – so no lost information and no wasted time trying to add every book you’ve ever read.

First Friday Rec: The Small and the Mighty

Title: The Small and the Mighty
Author: Sharon McMahon
Genre: nonfiction, history, informative
Pages: 320
Publication Date: Sep 24, 2024
StoryGraph* Moods: informative, inspiring, hopeful
How I Stumbled Upon This Book: Armchair Expert interview
Other Books by this author: no others at the time of writing this
*StoryGraph also offers content warnings.

Description: According to BookShop.Org, “You’ll meet a woman astride a white horse riding down Pennsylvania Ave, a young boy detained at a Japanese incarceration camp, a formerly enslaved woman on a mission to reunite with her daughter, a poet on a train, and a teacher who learns to work with her enemies. More than one thing is bombed, and multiple people surprisingly become rich. Some rich with money, and some wealthy with things that matter more. This is a book about what really made America – and Americans – great. McMahon’s cast of improbable champions will become familiar friends, lighting the path we journey in our quest to make the world more just, peaceful, good, and free.”

Why I recommend this book: For one, it’s written unlike a history textbook. So if you found those to be dense and boring, then you’ll appreciate the tone and understanding of audience that McMahon demonstrates (and, in places, a bit of humor).

At its core, each chapter is about the impact a single person can have, and at a time where things can feel unstoppable, it’s inspiring to know that one person’s life can go a long way to making the world a better place. I was particularly drawn to the chapters dealing with education, where folks began just trying to build a school in their community in an effort to educate their children – but then didn’t stop there. One such person went on to train other teachers. One went on to build other schools. One, after her school, her life’s work, went up in literal flames didn’t admit defeat – she kept going.

Some of the stories are a bit surprising, like that of a partner to Sears & Roebuck, whose name is not well known because it was Jewish – who worked the broken system to make a huge impact. (One may argue he could have worked to change the system instead of living in it; ok, yes, but – we need to read these stories in the context of their times, to remember what was at stake.)

“Both of these things are true at the same time. America has been just, and it has perpetuated injustice. We have been peaceful, and we have perpetrated acts of violence. We have been—and are—good. And we have done terrible things to people who didn’t deserve them. It has been the land of the free while simultaneously sanctioning oppression.”
~ Sharon McMahon, The Small and the Mighty