Review: Born a Crime

 Stories from a South-African childhood

by Trevor Noah

Very, very good memoir. He writes about his years of growing up in post-apartheid South Africa, with a history lesson or two thrown in.  It’s both funny and sad; at times sad and funny, at times sadly funny and sometimes just plain funny. His mother was a force of nature with a brain. She refused to be caught in the system of what black people could and could not do and somehow got away with some of the stunts she pulled—going to whites-only places, having an out-of-wedlock child with a white man, which was illegal, living in a white neighborhood.

But then she hooked up with a man who seemed okay for many years but ended up being an abuser and a hopeless businessman.  She refused to be subservient in many of the ways his family expected, and then she found out that he expected the subservience too. And eventually, the hitting began. But then she ended up sticking with him for way longer than she should have…and I can’t give away any more here.

Trevor Noah seemed to be an excessively smart kid who somehow managed to game the system and break out of poverty. Great reading.

 

 

Review: An Unfinished Love Story

An Unfinished Love Story:

A Personal History of the 1960s

By Doris Kearns Goodwin

Ms. Goodwin and her husband had a close association with the movers and shakers of the 1960s, and this is the recollection of that. It’s a supremely interesting book—it reads like a novel most of the time—but it’s real!  She has an amazing memory paired with a lifetime of written and recorded work to back it up, and the results are…well…amazing. I don’t know how else to say it.

Ms. Goodwin was a biographer for Lyndon Baines Johnson plus other people; she is also a historian, political commentator, and lots more. Richard Goodwin worked as speechwriter for Ted Kennedy, Lyndon Baines Johnson, Eugene McCarthy, and Robert Kennedy, and of course, lots of other stuff. This book is a personal, diary-like retelling of their two life stories during the sixties, but also the story of how she and he went about digging through his mementos and researching life material for his documentary.

I myself lived in that era, but I was mostly clueless of what all went on in politics those days. But after watching Ken Burn’s documentary on Vietnam and listening to this audiobook, I’m flabbergasted. One thing of note—learning about the stuff that went on  back then makes me a little more hopeful about our current situation. Chaos and disaster; treachery and dishonesty. But mixed with idealism and hope.

Review: What Sam Knew

What Sam Knew (Patricia Fisher Adventure Mysteries #1)

by Steve Higgs

I found this surprisingly entertaining. Highly improbable in plot and execution, but still entertaining. I'd liked Steve Higgs' British food caper series okay, and didn't realize this was the same author until near the end. And I like it much better than the other--will finish all these before I resume on them.

His characters are a blast--the detective herself, a fairly normal 40-something who finds herself in a position of having a place to live (rent-free), a household staff (paid for), and a garage full of expensive cars (also paid for). She's as gobsmacked by the good fortune as you or I would be. But she takes the free time and resources and opens a detective agency for herself.

Add on a butler who aspires to be John Steed and frequently dresses like him; a blonde bombshell fitness instructor and part-time assistant; and various other fun and unusual people. Great.