Fiction Review: The Illustrated Man

At the end of January, I decided to read another book on my over-crowded TBR bookcase and get a good start on my 2022 Back to the Classics Challenge, since I didn't do so well last year! I picked up The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury, a book my husband gave me for my birthday last year. Ray and I go way back. When I was a teenager, I read every single book of his on the shelves of my public library! That was a long time ago, so in recent years, I have been rediscovering why I loved his books so much (see my review of The Martian Chronicles from 2018). This loosely-linked collection of short stories did not disappoint; it was engrossing, clever, and thought-provoking.

The illustrated man of the title is described in the prologue and forms the basis for the rest of the collection. He's a large man covered with tattoos that come to life at night. Each one tells a story with sound and moving pictures, like a tiny movie playing on his skin. The illustrated man is traveling in rural Wisconsin and meets up with another man on the road. The two decide to camp together for the night, and the other man stays awake all night, enthralled, watching the illustrated man's tattoos tell their stories. The rest of the book is those stories, each entirely unique. They are all science fiction stories, though as is typical with Bradbury, they are mostly about human nature. Many of them take place in the future, in space, and/or on other planets. In The Other Foot, a community of Black humans is living peacefully on Mars when a rocket arrives that disrupts their quiet society. As with many Bradbury stories, the twist here is incredibly clever and filled with irony. The Long Rain features a military group from Earth that has a very difficult time adjusting to life on Venus. In The Rocket Man, a typical family on Earth struggles with the father's job as an astronaut, which takes him away for long periods of time, as he struggles to adjust to normal life when he is at home on leave. Missionaries from Earth meet a whole new life form on Mars (familiar if you read The Martian Chronicles) in The Fire Balloons that resists their efforts to introduce Christianity and maybe teaches the priests something. The Last Night of the World presents a very simple concept with mind-boggling implications that will leave you thinking. My favorite story was The Exiles, which is so clever that to describe it would ruin the fun of the surprise but that has an important message.

Those are just a few brief examples of the 18 stories in this collection, but every single one is imaginative, twisty, and thoughtful. This book was published in 1948, and it is mind-boggling to realize that he wrote most of these stories in the 40's (and perhaps earlier) because their ingenious meanings are still so very relevant today. While a lot of science fiction from back then seems dated now (like the "instant messaging" using pneumatic tubes in homes in one story here!), Bradbury writes about racism, classism, the way people treat others, the dangers of censorship, and more in ways that are just as applicable and important today. Perhaps that's a bit depressing that we haven't progressed more as a human race, but Bradbury has so much fun in each of these stories that we go along for the ride and then have the pleasure of recognizing a truism hidden inside the entertainment. I thoroughly enjoyed every one of these stories that left me thinking, and I look forward to my next foray into Bradbury's backlist.

281 pages, Simon & Schuster

Tantor Audio

This book fit in the following Reading Challenges:

Mount TBR Challenge

Back to the Classics Challenge 2022 - Short Story Collection

I in the 2022 Alphabet Soup Challenge

Diversity Challenge

Travel the World in Books Challenge - Do Mars and Venus count??

 

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here and/or download it from Audible. The sample features an introduction by Ray Bradbury (that was not included in my paperback copy), explaining why and how he wrote some of these intriguing stories.

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

 
  

Or you can order The Illustrated Man from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

 

It's Monday 2/7! What Are You Reading?

Hosted by The Book Date

Our older son is home visiting! We haven't really spent much time with him since Thanksgiving. Our car that he drives broke down on his way home for Thanksgiving and had to be left at a random (sketchy-looking) garage off the NJ Turnpike where it was towed. He and my husband finally picked it up on Saturday; the engine had been replaced (yeah, the entire engine!). They barely got home before it lost power steering. Apparently, the mechanics didn't reconnect it properly, so all the fluid leaked out. Oh, and while it was up there for two months in that sketchy garage, rats got into it and chewed a big hole in the backseat and the trunk! Little too much excitement with the car this weekend. So, my husband set rat traps (ew) and they're taking the car back into a shop today for repairs and a thorough check ... but a local repair shop that we trust!

A photo of the four of us Thanksgiving weekend

On the bright side, we get a little more time with our son! We had a nice steak dinner with the whole family here last night, we've been catching up on our favorite TV shows that we watch with him (he lived with us for a long time), and it's very nice to just have some downtime together when it's not a big holiday.

I've been trying to catch up here on the blog and with my YouTube videos. I uploaded two new videos last week:

• 2021 Reading Wrap-Up: Best Books of the Year!
• Friday Reads 2-4-22  - a brief update of what I was reading last week.

And, here's what we've all been reading this week:

I decided to mostly devote my February reading to Black History Month, with a focus on Black authors and characters. My first pick is Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead, a novel my husband gave me for Christmas that I've been dying to read! It's excellent so far, set in the early 1960's about a man named Ray Carney, who is torn between the legitimate furniture business he started and his wife and children and the pull of earning extra money through criminal activities, like other members of his family. It's great so far!

 

I'm also reading (in between the cracks in my time!) a middle-grade graphic novel, Marshmallow and Jordan by Alina Chau. Jordan is a middle-school girl in Indonesia who was a star basketball player until an accident left her confined to a wheelchair. She finds an injured baby elephant that she names Marshmallow (her mom's a vet who tends to the injury) and begins to find a new purpose on the water polo team, though she has a lot of challenges ahead. I'm loving the positive portrait of a disabled girl who is dealing with both struggles due to her disability and ordinary middle school stuff, and the setting is beautifully depicted.

 

I listened to a short audio last week, Kent State by Deborah Wiles, a YA book. I loved Wiles' middle-grade novel, Revolution, set during the summer of 1964, about voting rights. This time, she is writing about the tragic killing of four Kent State students by National Guardsmen on May 4, 1970. This is a stunning, powerful book, and the audio is especially moving and well-done. It is performed by multiple narrators, each representing first-person views of the events surrounding that day: students at Kent State who knew the ones who died, townspeople who were scared by the students' protests, a National Guardsman who was there, and a Black student from nearby Ohio State. Each presents a different perspective on what happened and how people felt, all relayed as real people, remembering and discussing. So, so powerful--should be a must-listen for all students (and adults!).

 

Now, I have moved onto another audio that fits perfectly for Black History Month, Black Boy by Richard Wright, a memoir first published in 1945. The author talks about his childhood in rural Mississippi in the Jim Crow South, about poverty, hunger, racism, abuse, and fear. The audio is excellent, and hearing the author's words from a first-person perspective is especially evocative and powerful.

 

My husband, Ken, finished reading Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson, book one of The Malazan Book of the Fallen series, a fantasy novel recommended by our son. This is a long, dense book that took a long time to read. He said it was really complicated and hard to follow at first, but he ended up enjoying it. 

 

After that complex read, Ken is thoroughly enjoying some entertaining escapism with his favorite series, Jack Reacher, and reading the latest book (#26), Better Off Dead by Lee Child and Andrew Child, Lee's younger brother. I gave this to him for Christmas (every year!), and he's been looking forward to it. He and I just started watching the new Reacher show on Amazon Prime, and we are both (one fan of the books and one who's never read them) enjoying it so far.

 

Our son, 27, is reading Chronicles of the Black Company by Glen Cook, book one in the series of the same name. He says it's a series he's been wanting to read for years, and he spotted it in our local second-hand bookstore last year.

 

Last week's blog posts:

Fiction Review: The Sentence By Louise Erdrich - outstanding, especially on audio!

Nonfiction Review: Bottles of Lies by Katherine Eban - stunning investigation of fraud in the generic drug industry

Fiction Review: Happiness by Aminatta Forna - warm, quiet novel about two different people whose lives intersect

What Are You Reading Monday is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date, so head over and check out her blog and join the Monday fun! You can also participate in a kid/teen/YA version hosted by Unleashing Readers.

You can follow me on Twitter at @SueBookByBook or on Facebook on my blog's page.  

What are you and your family reading this week?

 

Fiction Review: Happiness

According to my very long list of books I want to read on an Excel spreadsheet, I first heard about Happiness by Aminatta Forna at Booktopia, an annual, very unique book event held in Vermont each May where authors and readers hang out together and talk books all weekend. I'm guessing this book was a recommendation from one of the booksellers at Northshire Books, the fabulous bookstore that hosts the event, and as usual, it was an excellent suggestion. I loved this novel about two very different people whose lives intersect one winter in London. It was perfect comfort reading while I had COVID in January.

Jean is an American wildlife biologist who is living in London while studying urban foxes (a real-life issue there). She is divorced (in large part due to her devotion to her work) and has a teenage son back home in Massachusetts. She loves her job and her sideline designing rooftop/patio gardens for city residents, but she leads a fairly lonely, isolated life. She has a whole cadre of local people--doorman, cab drivers, street cleaners, security guards, and more--helping her to monitor foxes and reporting back to her when and where they see them. Attila is a a psychiatrist from Ghana who specializes in PTSD. His job normally takes him to the worst places/times, to war-torn countries where he counsels and helps both soldiers and civilians who have witnessed or been a part of horrifying events. But he is in London to give a keynote speech and also for a personal mission. Jean and Attila literally bump into each other one night on the Waterloo Bridge, and after that, they cross paths several more times. While in London, Attila's "niece," Ama, gets swept up in an immigration crackdown (even though she is there legally), and her son, Tano, goes missing. Attila begins to search for Tano while Ama is in the hospital, and Jean offers to help, along with her diverse group of "fox spotters." Jean and Attila get to know each other, and their friendship deepens, as each deals with his or her own issues and grief.

This is a warm, quiet novel that is also very thoughtful. Both Jean and Attila, very different people leading different lives, are struggling with a wide variety of issues in their own lives. Both are very lonely and are drawn to each other almost immediately. The novel addresses such diverse issues as war, dementia, immigration, divorce, and grief, but always with a gentle touch. I learned a lot about wolves, foxes, and PTSD. But the focus here is on the characters. As I read, I became deeply invested in both Jean and Attila and came to care about them. Forna's writing is beautiful, and this quiet novel set in winter was the perfect distraction and comfort while I was sick. I would definitely like to read more from Aminatta Forna (she has written three other novels and a memoir).

312 pages, Grove Press

Recorded Books

This book fit in the following Reading Challenges:

 Mount TBR Challenge - I finally read a book from my shelves!

H in Alphabet Soup

Diversity Reading Challenge

Ghana and UK in Travel the World in Books Challenge

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here, an excerpt from a historical episode in 1834 at the start of the book, and/or download it from Audible.

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

  
  

Or you can order Happiness from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

Nonfiction Review: Bottle of Lies

Forget Stephen King. In Bottle of Lies: The Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom, author and investigative journalist Katherine Eban writes about real-life horror scarier than any of King's novels! As sometimes happens, my book group chose this book that I wasn't interested in reading, and as almost always happens, I ended up being glad I'd read it! This engrossing, terrifying nonfiction book opens the door to the generic drug industry's dirty secrets.

Eban begins by taking an up-close look at one of the worst actors in the generic drug industry, Ranbaxy, an Indian company that is, thankfully, no longer in business. She details how the family-run company started and zeroes in on the personal and professional lives of some of the key players. This company was crooked in horrifying, shocking ways, from the top down. Top management willfully and knowingly manufactured medicines with no quality control, completely making up the data to get their drugs approved by the FDA and providing fraudulent data during their rare FDA inspections. One reason she spends so much time focusing on Ranbaxy is because what they did is not unusual in the generic drug industry. Many other companies, especially in India and China, commit similar frauds--making up their data to get approved, hiding test data that shows contaminants or lesser effectiveness, getting their active ingredients from shady companies not in their official records, and more--and they continue to do so. One of the main characters in the book is Dinesh Thakur, an Indian scientist who became an American citizen and worked at Bristol-Myers Squibb in New Jersey, where he witnessed what highly-regulated, conscientious pharmaceutical research and manufacturing looks like. A friend of his, also from India, convinced him to transfer to Ranbaxy, where he and his new wife could be near their families in India and be part of the up-and-coming Indian pharmaceutical industry. Thakur was a good man with a strong moral character, and he could not be a part of what he eventually realized was going on at Ranbaxy. So, he became a whistleblower, which in India often gets you killed, and finally found someone at the FDA who would listen to him. Stunningly, despite all the hard evidence Thakur provided, it took the FDA ten years to finally make Ranbaxy pay--and even then, it was far less consequences than they deserved. From there, the author moves onto other examples and other companies, as well as American doctors and patients discovering their generic drugs didn't work as well as the brand name drugs, though again, no one would listen to them at first. She delves into the inner workings of the FDA and why politics often guides their decisions on approving drugs. Unfortunately, the book does not end on a hopeful note--many of the issues described are still going on.

This book was so disturbing and shocking to me. First, I rely on about 15 different generic medications to help manage my chronic illness. When I finished this book, my husband and I both raced to our laptops to try to figure out where our meds are manufactured (not an easy thing to find out) and whether any of the sketchier companies in the book were involved. Also, I used to do audits similar to those that the FDA inspectors do, though not in the pharmaceutical business. I worked in Quality Management Systems (QMS), and the FDA's Good Manufacturing Practices (which many of these companies are making a joke of) are a type of QMS. The thought of a company I was auditing just completely making up their data and records is unthinkable. It is certainly a fascinating book, but in a "can't look away from the car crash" kind of way. I kept interrupting my husband's reading to tell him horrifying facts. As much as the information terrified me, I had no trouble at all reading the whole book (and fairly quickly). The book is very well-written. because the author focuses on the people involved and tells an immersive, engrossing story that sometimes reads like a legal thriller. Unfortunately, this is a thriller where most of the bad guys got away with their crimes. I will never look at a bottle of generic medication the same again. 

461 pages (though the text ends on page 410; the rest is reference material), Ecco

Reading Challenges:

B in the Alphabet Soup Challenge

Nonfiction Reader Challenge (2 in January - a record for me!) - fit into the category of popular science

Diversity Challenge

India in the Travel the World in Books Challenge

Maryland for the Literary Escapes Challenge

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here, narrated by the author, and/or download it from Audible.

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

   

 

Or you can order Bottle of Lies from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

Fiction Review: The Sentence

If you've ever visited my blog before or watched any of my videos on YouTube, you know that I am a big Louise Erdrich fan! I've reviewed several of her books here before, including LaRose, a moving novel about family and community; Future Home of the Living God, a slightly different novel than most of hers, set in an apocalyptic future; and just last year, The Night Watchman, historical fiction that won the Pulitzer Prize. All of her novels feature Native American characters, Louise herself narrates her own audios (which are outstanding--I listened to all of these on audio), and all of them are warm, funny, powerful, and moving. I wanted to start my reading year off strong, so I chose her latest novel, The Sentence, for my first audiobook of 2022, and I absolutely loved it! It might just be my favorite Louise Erdrich novel ... so far.

Tookie spent many years in prison. The novel begins with the convoluted--and hilarious--story of how she ended up there, and in her 30's, her free life came to an abrupt end, and she was incarcerated. She survived by reading "with murderous attention" everything she could get her hands on, including the dictionary her old high school English teacher sent her. When she got out, she married a man who'd loved her since they were young and found a job in a bookstore, Birch Bark Books, in her hometown of Minneapolis. Birch Bark Books is a real bookstore in Minneapolis, owned by the author, Louise Erdrich! So, Louise appears in the novel as herself, though she is a minor character. On All Souls Day, one of the bookstore's regular customers, Flora, dies, and she begins to haunt the bookstore in death, much as she did during her life. At first, only Tookie can see/sense the ghostly presence, which is quite a burden for her. Then, it is suddenly March 2020 ... and you know what comes next! Tookie and her family and the bookstore employees all have to deal with the pandemic, and then, being in Minneapolis, with the horrifying events in May when George Floyd was murdered by a police officer. As we in the real world know, there are no easy answers to either crisis, but by the end of the novel, Tookie is feeling more at peace.

I feel like I must include a brief excerpt, because Louise Erdrich has such a unique, warm literary voice that is especially wonderful on audio. Here, Tookie describes herself at the beginning of the book:

"I was at a perilous age when I committed my crime. Although in my thirties, I still clung to a teenager's physical pursuits and mental habits. It was 2005, but 1999 was how I partied, drinking and drugging like I was seventeen, although my liver kept trying to tell me it was an outraged decade older. For many reasons, I didn't know who I was yet. Now that I have a better idea, I will tell you this: I am an ugly woman. Not the kind of ugly that guys write or make movies about, where suddenly I have a blast of blinding instructional beauty. I am not about teachable moments. Nor am I beautiful on the inside. I enjoy lying, for instance, and am good at selling people useless things at prices they can't afford. Of course, now that I am rehabilitated, I only sell words. Collections of words between cardboard covers."

I hope that provides a small glimpse into what makes Erdrich's novels--and Tookie--so special. By Tookie's own admission, she is seriously flawed, but that is exactly why we come to love her. That passage also highlights the delightful sense of humor that is woven through every paragraph of this novel (and her others), even when dealing with serious topics. This gentle sense of humor and the flawed characters I came to care about add up to tremendous warmth. I was completely immersed in the story, with Tookie dealing with Flora's ghost, when the date, March 2020, took me by surprise. I hadn't really been paying attention to when the book was set. I have been fascinated by emerging fictional accounts of the pandemic because I know exactly what is coming and the characters don't. It creates a kind of tension in the narrative, as characters create makeshift masks and wonder how long things will remain like this. I also thought the author's handling of George Floyd was perfect; she shows how his death affected the whole community. I just loved Tookie and her friends and family, and I loved coming along with her on this journey of growing and evolving and finding peace.

400 pages, Harper

HarperAudio

My Challenges:

S in the Alphabet Soup Challenge

Diversity Challenge AND January's Mini Challenge: Culture/myths (Native American)

Minnesota in Literary Escapes Challenge

Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher in return for an honest review. My review is my own opinion and is not influenced by my relationship with the publisher or author.

 

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the wonderful audiobook here, from the start of the book before Tookie went to prison, and/or download it from Audible.

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

    
  

Or you can order The Sentence from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Hosted by The Book Date

I continue to improve after my bout with COVID at the start of January. My cough got a lot better last week, and though energy/stamina are not quite back to my normal baseline, I had a good week with no serious "crash" days. I still need more sleep than usual and struggle to get out of bed before 9 am (a battle I lost yesterday!), but I am beginning to get out into the world. I made quick stops at Kohl's and Michael's last week - major outings! I might even attempt the grocery store this week. I did get up on time this morning, so I could get to a doctor's appointment, and now I'm exhausted, so baby steps!

We had a snow day on Saturday! We only got 3-4 inches in northern Delaware, but that's a big deal here. The crazy thing is that the beaches, 2 hours south, and the Jersey Shore got clobbered by this storm--my friends at the beach got 14 inches! 

While my son and husband were shoveling our driveway, I accomplished something truly amazing. I cleared out a cupboard! Our house has gotten horribly cluttered this past year, with my health worse than usual, our son moving back home, and a lot of my father-in-law's stuff stored here, too. This was what we called the "craft cupboard," filled with art supplies, craft kits, and science kits left over from when our sons were young. They're in their mid-20's now, so this was long overdue. It's just the first step in a string of planned decluttering projects this year; I needed the space here so I could clear out other areas. I'm very proud of finally making a little progress, so I will share my Before and After pics!

Before

After

 

I posted my weekly Friday Reads update on my YouTube channel last week (and another video for the chronic illness side of my channel). Check this out if you want to hear more about the books I was reading last week:

Friday Reads 1-28-22

Here's what we've all been reading this past week:

After finishing that terrifying nonfiction book about generic drugs and the pharmaceutical industry (and my husband and I doing online searches to try to find out where our meds are made!), I needed a dose of fun fiction. I also wanted to get a head start on my 2022 Classics Challenge (I didn't hit my goal last year). So, I chose The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury. I'm a huge fan of his and read every one of his books in our public library when I was a teen! This is a loosely linked collection of short stories. Each one is a tattoo on the man of the title that comes to life at night and tells a story. As always, his stories are brilliant--so clever and thought-provoking! I've been loving this book and am almost finished now.

 

I also finished listening to Mercy Street by Jennifer Haigh on audio. Haigh is another favorite author, and this novel was excellent. It was about several different people who are each in some way connected to the women's clinic of the title in Boston. The author alternates between characters, whose paths cross in various ways, and you really get to know each of them intimately. If you haven't tried Haigh yet, I recommend this one (out tomorrow) and all of her backlist. To hear more about this novel and the Ray Bradbury book, check out my Friday Reads video.

 

My husband, Ken, is still reading Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson, book one of The Malazan Book of the Fallen series, a fantasy novel recommended by our son. This is a long, dense book, but he's been enjoying it and is near the end! (When I said last week that he only had 60 pages left, I misheard--it was 160 pages!)

 

Our son, 27, finished reading a gift from his girlfriend, The Rage of Dragons by Evan Winter, book one of The Burning series. He says it was great, and he will definitely read more of the series. Next, he read Realm Breaker by Victoria Aveyard, the start of a new series, and enjoyed that, too. 

Next, our son read a book I got him for his birthday last year, Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames. I heard about this one on Daniel Green's Top 10 Fantasy Series video - many of his top 10 are also my son's, so I knew he'd enjoy this one, which incorporates humor into sword-wielding fantasy. And now (he's had a lot of reading time lately), he's reading Chronicles of the Black Company by Glen Cook, book one in the series of the same name. He says it's a series he's been wanting to read for years, and he spotted it in our local second-hand bookstore last year!

Blog posts from last week - catching up!

Movie Monday: Parasite - this Oscar-winner was full of surprises and very entertaining.

2022 Reading Challenges - finally! Now, I'm ready to begin the new year. 

Nonfiction Review: Janesville by Amy Goldstein - an immersive, fascinating look at what happened to a town and its citizens when a huge GM plant closed.

What Are You Reading Monday is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date, so head over and check out her blog and join the Monday fun! You can also participate in a kid/teen/YA version hosted by Unleashing Readers.

You can follow me on Twitter at @SueBookByBook or on Facebook on my blog's page.  

What are you and your family reading this week?

 

Nonfiction Review: Janesville

Once again, I was proven wrong! As has happened so many times before, one of my book groups chose a book I was not interested in reading, but once I started it, I ended up really enjoying it. This time, the book was Janesville: An American Story by Amy Goldstein, a nonfiction account of a town in Wisconsin and what happened to it after a huge GM plant shut down.

Janesville was a vibrant, prosperous town in rural Wisconsin, with a GM plant at the center of its history and its present. GM started the plant in February 1923, and the assembly plant continued to run for over 80 years. It grew to occupy 4.8 million square feet and employed more than seven thousand people at its peak. And on December 23, 2008, the last vehicle rolled off its assembly line. The book goes back to review a bit of the history of the Janesville plant and the town, but most of it deals with what happened after the GM plant closed. The author tells this story through a number of local residents, mostly people who worked at the plant for years and suddenly found themselves unemployed but also some of the people who tried to help the out-of-work GMers. The people highlighted in these stories all took different paths. A few found other jobs, though over the years, GM had become an integral part of the economy and other companies that supplied goods or services to the plant went out of business or had to lay off workers when the plant closed. Some went to the local community college to take advantage of retraining incentives, offered through grants and other resources. Others couldn't take the sudden pay cut and agreed to a transfer to a different GM plant, which meant lonely weekdays and very long commutes every weekend to see their families. Many families found themselves on the receiving end of charity and food drives for the first time in their lives. The effects of the plant closing were far-reaching and long-lasting, and the author digs deep into the reasons why the town wasn't able to simply rebound after such a devastating change. She not only looks at economic factors but also political and societal factors and takes a sympathetic look at the real people caught in this no-win situation.

Despite my misgivings and expectation of a dry account, I was immediately pulled into this fascinating, heartbreaking story. The author did a tremendous amount of research and talked to not only the plant's workers but others in the community, including bankers, leaders of the local college, politicians, and more. She very effectively shows the complexity and intricacy of all of these people and systems in town and makes it clear that there are no easy answers. And by zeroing in on individual people and real families (not just employees but spouses and kids, too), she shares a deep sense of empathy and insight into their limited choices and the--often sad--outcomes. By the end of the book, five years after the plant closed, some people have rebounded or found new paths for themselves, but many have not. As the subtitle says, this is not just the story of a single, unique town, but an American story of similar towns and situations across the nation. The book is very well-written and immersive and led to some great discussions in our book group.

297 pages, Simon & Schuster

Reading Challenges: Janesville by Amy Goldstein counted for:

January's Monthly Motif (new-to-me author)

J in the Alphabet Soup Challenge

My first nonfiction book for the Nonfiction Reader Challenge, AND it fit into the category of Economics.

Diversity Challenge

Wisconsin in the Literary Escapes Challenge

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here and/or download it from Audible.

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

    

 

Or you can order Janesville from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.