In Pharaoh's Army: Memories of the Lost War by Tobias Wolff is certainly a worthy collection of non-fiction stories about the Vietnam War. Wolff captures the stupidity and waste of war – especially in the context of Vietnam, which as wars go, was worse than most. That said, some of the episodes he tells here feel “puffed up” to be humorous. These moments soil an otherwise powerful collection.
Has Archaeology Buried the Bible? is an excellent overview of biblical archeology, the historicity of the bible (or the lack), and what we can and cannot know about this subject, by William G. Dever. This is the same book as his other works on the topic, for a general audience. But if this is your first time on this topic, or if you have been away from it so sometime, this is a great book.
In War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning, author Chris Hedges explores the utter havoc war causes, but also the appeal of war (for young men seeking) to prove themselves. We often forget that the urge to fight a war is an attempt to find meaning. The simple necessity of staying alive and killing people is loaded with meaning. Despite the title, Hedges shows how the long-term effect of war leads to nothing but damage and loss in a micro and macro sense. War is based on lies and confusion. The only way to get human beings to voluntarily kill each other is through deception. Everyone involved in war eventually reaches this sobering conclusion.
How the Talmud Can Change Your Life: Surprisingly Modern Advice from a Very Old Book by Liel Leibovitz lives up to its title. The author contextualizes the Talmud in novel ways. The author starts each chapter with some modern story that seems not connected to Talmud. But it does,, every time, in many successful ways. If you want a book that makes Talmud relevant, here it is.
Despite its salacious title, While the City Slept: A Love Lost to Violence and a Young Man's Descent into Madness, is not salacious. Unlike most true crime, especially featuring a sexual crime against women, this book makes great efforts to humanize everyone – including the perpetrator. This book is about a terrible crime, but also about a system that is unable to treat the mentally ill. This book transcends its genre to become an important statement about the price we all pay for a broken healthcare system.
I was in my late teens and early 20s when the Soviet Union fell, and I was too distracted by my life to pay more than fleeting attention to the fall of both the Iron Curtain and the USSR. For me, The Future Is History How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia by Masha Gessen is a great way to fill in the gaps. In a certain sense, it should not surprise us that Russia would become totalitarian in the decades following the collapse of the USSR. What other kind of society and political system had Russians ever known?
But at the same time, it is profoundly disheartening to read Gessen’s book. How can a people turn their society, culture, and political system around? It almost seems impossible. Gessen’s book hammers on the inevitable: will Russians always live and be a party to their doom?
Jewish Bible Translations: Personalities, Passions, Politics, Progress by Leonard Greenspoon is an interesting exploration of the grand and minute history of Bible translations conducted by Jews from the Septuagint to the New JPS translation in the 1980s. Truthfully, unless you come to this book with a healthy interest in biblical tradition, this is not a good way to spend your time. But if you have such an appetite, Greenspoon will satisfy it with his expansive scholarship on remote corners of the Jewish linguistic world.
