Embers

Embers by Sándor Márai

Embers was written in Hungary in 1942 but this English translation was published 59 years later in 2001. The original Hungarian title is A gyertyák csonkig égnek, which means "Candles burn until the end". It tells the story, mostly through his own words, of one day in the life of a 75 year old Hungarian nobleman referred to as the General. His world has shrunk to a single room in an old castle at the foot of the Carpathian Mountains where he lives with his 91 year old nanny as his main contact.
This confined existence is broken after many years when he learns that his closest friend since he was ten years old has come to the village to see him after 41 years away. The General has the servants prepare a dinner at the table where they sat at their last meal before their separation. The two talk through the night as the candles burn down to the end and the fire in the fireplace is reduced to embers. They discuss about what happened on that day long ago to cause their break, what happens to feelings over time, and how things look different in old age.
A masterful novel and a great translation by Carol Brown Janeway.

Nothing: A Very Short Introduction

Nothing: A Very Short Introduction by Frank Close

Frank Close is an Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford who has been awarded the Institute of Physics' 1996 Kelvin Medal and Prize for "for outstanding contributions to the public understanding of physics". Nothing is just one of many books he has written that explains complex topics in particle physics to the average layperson. So he is highly qualified to write an introduction to Nothing.
Nothing doesn't seem much to write about, so one might not expect a short introduction to Nothing to be 145 pages and requiring a decent knowledge of modern particle physics. Fortunately Dr. Close has been able to do this without one formula or mathematical expression.
He takes the reader on a history of the concept of Nothingness, starting with the idea of a Vacuum and then starts looking deeper and deeper into particle physics, finally ending up with the statement that Everything comes from Nothing.
I still don't understand what Nothing is but I have a deeper appreciation and realize that there is Much Ado About Nothing, as Shakespeare once said.

The Memoirs of Dolly Morton

The Memoirs of Dolly Morton by Jean de Villiot (pseudonym)

The Memoirs of Dolly Morton is English language flagellation erotica originally published in Paris in 1899. It is subtitled The Story of a Woman's Part in the Struggle to Free the Slaves, an Account of the Whippings, and Violences that Preceded the Civil War in America, with Curious Anthropological Observations on the Radical Diversities in the Conformation of the Female Bottom and the Way Different Women Endure Chastisement. It's author was probably Hugues Rebell, a French author of flagellation literature who wrote erotica under the pseudonym "Jean de Villiot". The book contains a Preface by the publisher Charles Carrington that provides details on the Underground Railroad and the flight of escaped slaves from their captivity.
In the book which is set in the late 1850s Dolly Morton accompanies a Quakeress Abolitionist who rents a house in Virginia to establish a station on the Underground Railroad, the clandestine route that runaway slaves of the American South used to escape to the Free States of the North or Canada. Little do they know that their landlord is Mr. Randolph, the owner of the largest plantation in the area. When Randolph meets Dolly out walking, he is taken with her beauty and attempts to have his way with her. She fights off his advances, so he tells her he knows of their illegal efforts. He offers to look the other way regarding the Quakeress's work if Dolly will be his live-in mistress, and again she says no. He leaves saying that she will regret refusing his offer.
Several weeks later a mob of 15 men come to close the Underground Railroad Station and to punish the two women. They are stripped, raped, and whipped, then left to ride a split rail with the threat that worse will happen if they don't leave the state of Virginia. After the mob leaves Randolph shows up offering to free Dolly of the painful rail if she will become his mistress and submit to his advances.
In excruciating pain, Dolly submits to his demands and he takes her home to his plantation house which is staffed by lovely mulatto, quadroon and octoroon female slaves, all of whom have been used sexually by Randolph. Randolph maintains order by whipping or paddling his slaves if they do not perform as required. While Dolly is treated with fine dresses and a lovely bedroom, she is not given any opportunity to escape her confinement and Randoph's frequent "pokings".
This book is an example of late 19th century erotica that portrays a licentious plantation owner and the sexual freedom he might take with the enslaved women under his control. Being told with the voice of a white woman witness, it does get to express some of the injustice of slavery while still satisfying the interests ot readers of flagellation/spanking literature.

Out of the Shadows: Six Visionary Victorian Women in Search of a Public Voice

Out of the Shadows: Six Visionary Victorian Women in Search of a Public Voice by Emily Midorikawa

The Nineteenth Century was not a good time for outspoken women, but Emily Midorikawa finds, in the Spiritualist Movement of that period, a group of women who used the movement to gain a voice in a male-oriented society that was not interested in what women had to say.
She starts with Maggie, Kate and Leah, the three Fox sisters of upstate New York, who used "rappings" to convince people that they were communicating with the spirit world. Next she tells the story of Emma Hardinge Britten, a clairvoyant who was born in England, but who became one of the leading authors of the American Spiritualist Movement.
Victoria Woodhull and her sister Tennessee Claflin are the next women of the Spiritualist Movement that Midorikawa presents. Woodhull claimed to be advised by spirit guides throughout her life and became the president of the American Association of Spiritualists. Claflin was a healer, and together they started the first stock brokerage on Wall Street to be run by women. They also published a leading liberal newpapers the Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly when it was rare to have women in the press. Woodhull was for a while a leading spokesperson for women's suffrage, addressing a Congressional committee and being the first woman to run for president of the United Staes. Her views on Free Love and Euthenasia make her a difficult figure, both in her time and the present.
Midorikawa's last spiritualist is Georgina Weldon, a British singer who ran orphanages, and whose husband tried to get her involuntarily committed for her spiritualist beliefs. The book ends with a chapter on the waning of the Spiritualist Movement at the end of the 19th century.
Midorikawa's research separates the sensationalistic rumors from the knowable facts, and presents a well-balanced approach to the lives of these women to whom Spiritualism provided a way for them to make a name and space for themselves in a restrictive society.

Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration

Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration by Bryan Caplan and illustrated by Zach Weinersmith

Bryan Caplan is professor of economics at George Mason University, a research fellow at the Mercatus Center, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, and a self-described "economic libertarian". In Open Borders he presents the case for worldwide open borders. He argues that opening all borders would eliminate poverty and usher in a booming worldwide economy, greatly benefiting all humanity.
If you are concerned about the restrictive immigration policies of rich countries, this book will provide you with compelling arguments against them. If you are worried that open borders would bring ruin to first world countries, maybe this book will assuage your fears.
Both economic and moral arguments are brought forward to show how opening all borders would make this world a single prosperous place to live and eradicate poverty and the crime associated with it. Caplan spends a good portion of this book addressing the potential criticism to his theories, making it a well-balanced presentation of what some may consider a radical idea. Wonderfully illustrated by Zach Weinersmith, this book is accessible to people with little or no background in economic theory.

Carpathian Rhapsody

Carpathian Rhapsody (Hungarian: Karpatskaya Rapsodiya) by Bela Illes

This two volume English translation was published and printed in 1963 by Corvina Press in Hungary. The book was translated into English by Grace Blair Gardos, the American wife of Hungarian Emil Gardos. It contains the three part novel Karpatskaya Rapsodiya originally published in the Soviet Union in 1939. The novel takes place in those regions of Pre-World War I Hungary which now belong to Ukraine, Slovakia, and Rumania. While the novel uses the old Hungarian names for various places, I will use the currently used names in this review. 
It was written by Bela Illes, a Hungarian of Jewish descent who was born in what is now Košice, Slovakia in 1895. He was a left-wing writer and journalist who wrote this autobiographical novel between 1937 and 1939 while in exile in the Soviet Union.

Part One - New Wine - Vol I pp. 7 - 179 
In Part One of Carpathian Rhapsody we are introduced to young Géza Bálint, A Hungarian Jew who is the narrator of the book, as he describes his early life in the city of Berehove in what is now Zakarpattia Oblast (province) of western Ukraine near the border with Hungary. His father had vineyards and a winery and enjoyed his Hungarian wines. Berehove has long been the cultural centre of the Hungarian minority in Ukraine. While the Hungarians were the minority, the Jewish citizens sided with the Hungarians in opposition to the native Rusyns of the region, giving the Hungarians control over the political offcies of the city. The book describes a culture where Jews were below Hungarians, but that the local Rusyns had the least status in the community even though they were the largest group. When a beloved friend commits suicide a distraught Géza goes to live with his uncle and aunt in Svalyava for several years where he attends school and learns more about the class distinctions of the area and the "cultural superiority of the Hungarian race." This section ends when Géza's father goes bankrupt and has to sell his home and business in Berehove. The family moves to Budapest because his mother said everybody could make a living there. 

Part Two - Men Of The Forest Vol I p. 181 - Vol II p.82 
While in school in Budapest, with his parents trying to survive and his country Jewish background isolating him from the upper class Hungarian students, Géza starts to develop Socialist beliefs. After several years of struggle, a rich uncle finds Geza's father a job as a woodyard warehouseman in a small forest village which the author calls Peméte near Sighet, Romania. The lumberyard was culturally segregated with Hungarians running the business, and Jews as middle managers, while the majority Rusyn population got only the lowest paying and most menial work. The remoteness of the village made harvesting the lumber difficult work, and the lumberyard had difficulty making a profit. The workers put in long hours with hand saws and axes for very little money and could barely survive. At times the workers were visited by labor organizers who taught them how to stage slowdowns and demand higher wages. These meetings happened away from the eyes of the police and management, during the night, deep in the forest around campfires. Rusyn nationalists also visited these campfires to stir up the oppressed workers against the Hungarian and Jewish owners and management. The police and the government tried to suppress the leaders of the movements but with little success. All the while rumors of a coming war build. This section ends with the beginning of World War I. 

Part Three - Gergely Zsatkovics's Kingdom - Vol II pp. 83 - 284 
Wikipedia says that "Gregory Ignatius Zhatkovich was an American lawyer and political activist for Rusyns in the United States and Europe. He was the first governor of Carpathian Ruthenia, the Rusyn autonomous province of Czechoslovakia and the only American who was a governor of any territory that was or became part of the Soviet Union." 
This section of the book covers the very confusing years during and after World War I when what we know today as Zakarpattia Oblast, Ukraine was being separated from Hungary and ruled by an American lawyer from General Motors. 
Wikipedia describes this section as follows. "The highly partisan book presents Zhatkovich in a negative way, claiming that he was the dupe of American and French business and military interests, and that he had little control of or interest in the territory placed under his charge. The book also asserts that the imperial interests which placed Zhatkovich in charge were mainly interested in using the territory as a conduit for arms and ammunition to the anti-Soviet Polish forces fighting the Polish-Soviet War of 1920, then going on directly to the north, and that Zhatkovich had to resign after failing to stop local Communists from holding strikes as well as repeatedly sabotaging the railway line from Prague, through which the munitions were passing." 

I think this book would be of interest to Rusyn-American descendants of the people of Carpathian Ruthenia and it is sad that the book only went through one printing in Hungary. I could not find copies of the book for sale in the USA, and was only able to find a copy in a large university library. I can understand that with its strong Socialist leanings, it may not be of interest to everyone. 

Fante Bukowski Three: A Perfect Failure

Fante Bukowski Three: A Perfect Failure by Noah Van Sciver

Although this is the last book of a trilogy, I found that it reads well without any knowledge of the previous two works. The three have been collected into a single volume, The Complete Works of Fante Bukowski.

Fante Bukowski is the name Kelly Perkins has taken as a poet trying to make it in the art subculture of Columbus Ohio. His only friends are aspiring performance artist Norma Lee and a local prostitute. Seeming to fail at everything he tries to do, his life itself is his only success, captured by the genius of Noah Van Skiver in the pages of this book.

The Four Immigrants Manga : A Japanese Experience in San Francisco, 1904-1924

The Four Immigrants Manga: A Japanese Experience in San Francisco, 1904-1924 by Henry (Yoshitaka) Kiyama

Originally published in San Francisco in 1931 as a bi-lingual comic for Japanese-Americans, the 1931 edition of this book was discovered around 1980 by Kenneth L. Schodt in the card catalog of the East Asian branch of the University of California's library. It turned out to be a rare documentation of Japanese American immigrant history in San Francisco, as well as one of the first book-length graphic novels published in the US. Schodt translated the Japanese text for an English langauge audience, and published this English edition in 1999. Schodt also researched the author's life and work, and provides a 11 page biography of the author, 16 pages of notes and comments on the text of the graphic novel, as well as a 2 page bibliography for those wanting to do further research.

The book chronicles the experiences of four Japanese young men who arrive in San Francisco on a ship in 1904. One of them is an art student, the author Heny Kiyama. He begins drawing cartoons of their experiences that will eventually become this book. It is told as a series of 2 page, 12 panel episodes, each with it's own title, that relates the adventures of the four young men from their arrival until the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924. Also known as the Japanese Exclusion Act, it set quotas for immigration from other countries and prohibited any immigration from Japan. This increased tensions between Japan and the USA and made life for Japanese Americans much more difficult. At that point two of the four men decide to return to Japan, ending the story. Readers should be warned that, like many books published in the first half of the 20th Century, the depiction of ethnic groups in this book is offensive by modern standards.

Still this is an important historical document as well as a compelling story. Events covered include the Great San Francisco Earthquake, World War I, the Influenza pandemic of 1918. All of these are told from the point of view of young Japanese men seeking their fortune in a new land. They take what jobs they can, working as house boys and farm hands at first, then seeking ways to succeed.

Snowden by Ted Rall

Snowden by Ted Rall

Edward Snowden is an American whistleblower who copied and leaked highly classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2013 when he was a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) subcontractor. His disclosures revealed global surveillance programs run by the NSA with the cooperation of telecommunication companies and European governments, and prompted a cultural discussion about national security and individual privacy. Some consider him a traitor and others a hero. This 2015 graphic novel is his story.
Ted Rall is a political cartoonist who has published similarly formatted graphic novels on Donald J. Trump (2016) and Bernie Sanders (2020). He has been the winner of the RFK Journalism Award twice and a Pulitzer Prize finalist.
This book not only details the different aspects of the NSA's invasion of people's privacy, which is chilling in breadth and scope of what they are gathering, but he examines also, if so many people in the NSA, the CIA, and other security agencies knew how seriously the government was violating the Constitutional protections of privacy, why was Snowden the one person who decided to reveal this information to the world. In other words, who is Edward Snowden, and what makes him tick. While the book is an easy one-sitting read, there are 210 footnotes for readers who want to explore any of the points raised in greater detail.