What I've Just Read

Montana 1948 by Larry Watson. A short novel about a family caught in a moral dilemma. Which is more important, family loyalty or doing the right thing? The first would be easy. The second is hard and life-changing for everyone involved. Well written. Spare. Reminded me of Annie Proulx whose work I love. A good book. Not a great book, but a good book. I read this for my new book club.

The Minutemen and Their World by Robert A. Gross. Winner of the Bancroft Prize in 1977 (google it). Read at Mount Holyoke right before a visit to Concord. Using the research methods of social history, Gross writes an engaging and illuminating story of the lives of ordinary Concordians before, during and immediately after the "shot heard 'round the world" at the North Bridge (the first Patriot shots in the Revolutionary War). Gave me a whole new perspective on a lot of contemporary social and political issues. My favorite Concordian was Rev. William Emerson who is the grandfather of Ralph Waldo Emerson, which leads us into the great literary history of Concord: Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne and the Alcotts. I loved this book. No soap opera is as good as real life.

Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America by Ellen Chesler. An exhaustive and exhausting bio read on the 50th anniversary of The Pill. Not always an easy read unless you really want tons of detail, but certainly illuminates the life and personality of Sanger. I now very much admire Margaret for her tireless and politically savey fight for the most basic of human rights, the right to control one's own reproductive life. We all owe her a lot.