June 2023's Burgoine Reviews & Pearl Rule Reviews

Author 'Nathan Burgoine posted this simple, direct method of not getting paralyzed by the prospect of having to write reviews. The Three-Sentence Review is, as he notes, very helpful and also simple to achieve. I get completely unmanned at the idea of saying something trenchant about each book I read, when there often just isn't that much to say...now I can use this structure to say what I think is the most important idea I took away from the read and not try to dig for more.

Think about using it yourselves!

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Code Name: Lise: The True Story of the Woman Who Became WWII's Most Highly Decorated Spy by Larry Loftis

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: The true story of the woman who became WWII's most highly decorated spy

The year is 1942, and World War II is in full swing. Odette Sansom decides to follow in her war hero father’s footsteps by becoming an SOE agent to aid Britain and her beloved homeland, France. Five failed attempts and one plane crash later, she finally lands in occupied France to begin her mission. It is here that she meets her commanding officer Captain Peter Churchill.

As they successfully complete mission after mission, Peter and Odette fall in love. All the while, they are being hunted by the cunning German secret police sergeant, Hugo Bleicher, who finally succeeds in capturing them. They are sent to Paris’s Fresnes prison, and from there to concentration camps in Germany where they are starved, beaten, and tortured. But in the face of despair, they never give up hope, their love for each other, or the whereabouts of their colleagues.

In Code Name: Lise, Larry Loftis paints a portrait of true courage, patriotism, and love—of two incredibly heroic people who endured unimaginable horrors and degradations. He seamlessly weaves together the touching romance between Odette and Peter and the thrilling cat and mouse game between them and Sergeant Bleicher.

A LITTLE FREE LIBRARY FIND. IT'S GONE BACK THERE NOW.

My Review: I like spy stories because it never ceases to fascinate me why people who obviously think they're good, solid, honest people tell themselves it's okay to lie, cheat, and steal. "The end justifies the means" said Ovid 2,000+ years ago. A very consequentialist viewpoint that I worry about promoting, since it presupposes the agent knows what "good" really is and thus empowers lowlife scum to act in the bad ways they want to act to achieve something they think is "good." Well, anyway.

This woman's life is one that, absent documentation, I'd say was a myth. If someone wrote it exactly like this as fiction, I'd snort mightily and tell 'em to rein it in and make the story believable. The author's prose is adequate to the task at hand. The reason to read the book is the story not the storytelling. For spy-story lovers it's proof that truth is still weirder than fiction. For history readers, the same. For all its fascinating turns and proofs that women lie, cheat, and steal with the same verve as men do, it fails the Bechdel Test dismally, as Odette is motivated and manipulated by LUUUV for men. Don't think she's some fempower icon, y'all. Literally everything she does is for some man or another, living or dead. My rating is based on how much fun I had reading it not necessarily on its objective merits.

It's $13.99 on Kindle (cheaper as a tree book) can be yours at the non-affiliate link.

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The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music by Steve López

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: Now a major motion picture-"An intimate portrait of mental illness, of atrocious social neglect, and the struggle to resurrect a fallen prodigy." (Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down)

This is the true story of journalist Steve Lopez's discovery of Nathaniel Ayers, a former classical bass student at Julliard, playing his heart out on a two-string violin on Los Angeles' Skid Row. Deeply affected by the beauty of Ayers's music, Lopez took it upon himself to change the prodigy's life-only to find that their relationship has had a profound change on his own life.

FROM AN UNKNOWN SOURCE TO THE LITTLE FREE LIBRARY.

My Review: Having my heartstrings plucked plangently has never been my personal beau ideal for reading. Tolerable writing. The 2009 movie is actually more fun than the book because it's got Jamie Foxx in a rare dramatic turn. Robert Downey Jr. was okay as Steve Lopez. Nothing about the whole experience, film adaptation or tree book, was better than average. In the 1980s it would've been a Movie of the Week on CBS.

There's a $4.99 Kindle edition should you want to click on the non-affiliate link.

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Ordinary Equality: The Fearless Women and Queer People Who Shaped the U.S. Constitution and the Equal Rights Amendment by Kate Kelly and illustrated by Nicole LaRue

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: We are all living through modern constitutional history in the making, and Ordinary Equality helps teach about the past, present, and future of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) through the lives of the bold, fearless women and queer people who have helped shape the U.S. Constitution. Ordinary Equality digs into the fascinating and little-known history of the ERA and the lives of the incredible—and often overlooked—women and queer people who have helped shape the U.S. Constitution for more than 200 years.

Based on author Kate Kelly’s acclaimed podcast of the same name, Ordinary Equality recounts a story centuries in the making. From before the Constitution was even drafted to the modern day, she examines how and why constitutional equality for women and Americans of all marginalized genders has been systematically undermined for the past 100-plus years, and then calls us all to join the current movement to put it back on the table and get it across the finish line. Kate Kelly provides a much-needed fresh perspective on the ERA for feminists of all ages, and this engaging, illustrated look at history, law, and activism is sure to inspire many to continue the fight.

Individual chapters tell the stories of Molly Brant (Koñwatsi-tsiaiéñni / Degonwadonti), Abigail Adams, Phillis Wheatley, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Alice Paul, Mary Church Terrell, Pauli Murray, Martha Wright Griffiths, Patsy Takemoto Mink, Barbara Jordan, and Pat Spearman, and features other key players and concepts, including Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Title IX, Danica Roem, and many more.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Women of every age and station shouldn't need to fight for equality, it should be theirs by birthright. Sadly, that is not the case here in the US (or most other places in the world). These quick hits of informative prose illustrated quite appealingly with scenes or faces of the people profiled are a bit too short for me. I wasn't taken with the author's acid asides, either. This is a quibble, because I read the book straight (!) through and really should've browsed it bit by bit over days. Anyone needing to chuckle instead of scream at the state of our political landscape could use this as a tonic: It was ever thus, best to laugh then gird your loins for the next round.

There will always be a next round.

Gibbs Smith will vend you a paperback for $27.99 and, for an illustrated book, that's very reasonable.

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This space is dedicated to Nancy Pearl's Rule of 50, or "the Pearl Rule" as I've always called it. After realizing five times in December 2021 alone that I'd already Pearl-Ruled a book I picked up on a whim, I realized how close my Half-heimer's is getting to the full-on article. Hence my decision to track my Pearls!

As she says:

People frequently ask me how many pages they should give a book before they give up on it. In response to that question, I came up with my “rule of fifty,” which is based on the shortness of time and the immensity of the world of books. If you’re fifty years of age or younger, give a book fifty pages before you decide to commit to reading it or give it up. If you’re over fifty, which is when time gets even shorter, subtract your age from 100—the result is the number of pages you should read before making your decision to stay with it or quit.

So this space will be each month's listing of Pearl-Ruled books. Earlier Pearl-Rule posts will be linked below the current month's crop.

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THE LAST GAY MAN ON EARTH by Ype Driessen

Rating: 1* of five

The Publisher Says: Ype is a gay man living in Amsterdam with his boyfriend Nico. When asked by Nico to accompany him on a work trip to America, Ype must confront his deep fear of flying. While doing so, Ype finds he also has to come to terms with his social and sexual anxieties, his neurotic nature, and a serious case of imposter syndrome.

What follows is a moving and deeply personal story, filled with humor as well as drama—surprising, honest, and unforgettable. Ype embarks on an adventure that leads him to his ultimate fantasy: being the last person on earth. Encouraged by a sentient robot vacuum cleaner called Chupi, he finds out what it really means to be true to yourself.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. "THANK YOU."

My Review: DO NOT ATTEMPT TO READ THIS ON YOUR KINDLE DEVICE, OR FIRE TABLET. IT IS FORMATTED SO AS TO APPEAR UNCHANGEABLY SIDEWAYS ON EVERY DEVICE.
I suppose there's some piracy concern or something that makes this desirable. I do not care. If I have to work this hard, only to be unable to read the file provided for my review, my review is going to be: Do not bother.