// Elayna Trucker, Your May in Books: Fabulous fiction, notable nonfiction! - Napa Valley Register Skip to main content

Elayna Trucker, Your May in Books: Fabulous fiction, notable nonfiction! - Napa Valley Register

Elayna Trucker, Your May in Books: Fabulous fiction, notable nonfiction! - Napa Valley Register

Elayna Trucker, Your May in Books: Fabulous fiction, notable nonfiction! - Napa Valley Register

Posted: 28 Apr 2021 09:51 AM PDT

May brings us sunshine, flowers, and some really great new books! These forthcoming novels and nonfiction books are just the tips of the iceberg; be sure to visit your local bookstore to see what's new each week!

Claire Fuller

My bookshop is all abuzz with Claire Fuller's newest novel, "Unsettled Ground" (May 18). Fuller is a staff favorite; her quietly menacing novels are oddly enthralling, and not overburdened with plot. This fourth novel, like her others, features an absent mother and the damage both her parenting choices and her death have caused.

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Jeanie and Julius are 51-year-old twins who still live with their mother in a crumbling cabin on a corner of a much greater estate where they grow vegetables to feed themselves and sell in town. When their mother suddenly dies, they are left with an astonishing number of debts to repay and more than a few mysteries about their mother and the life she led them in.

Readers who have read Fuller's previous novels will find much to enjoy here, with the added bonus of an actual happy ending, not something Fuller has provided in the past. The best part? Claire Fuller will be joining Napa Bookmine for a virtual event all the way from the UK on Saturday, May 22! Visit napabookmine.com for details.

Edward Rutherfurd

I don't think Edward Rutherfurd could write a short book if he tried; his latest, "China" (May 11), is nearly 800 pages. Rutherfurd directs his incredible attention to detail to the history of China through the Opium Wars, the Cultural Revolution, and into the present.

Fans of his work and of wide-sweeping generational sagas will not be disappointed by this story of the entwined fates of Chinese, American and British families. Those interested in the history of this fascinating, complicated nation will certainly find much to chew on here, while readers more taken with Rutherfurd's trademark romances and adventures will enjoy a treat as well.

Andy Weir

Science fiction fans will rejoice at a new novel from Andy Weir, author of "The Martian."

"Project Hail Mary" (May 4) features another scrappy hero, an astronaut with severe amnesia who wakes up to find himself the last living crew member on a spaceship millions of miles from Earth. As his memory returns, he comes to realize the great importance of his mission and understand that his failure would mean the end of humanity. Like "The Martian," this novel is filled with real science heavily researched and will keep you in suspense until the end. It's already been optioned for film, with Ryan Gosling set to star!

Daniel James Brown

Readers who prefer nonfiction will be thrilled with Daniel James Brown's newest, "Facing the Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes in World War II" (May 11).

The popular author of "The Boys in the Boat" is back with a deeply researched look at the sacrifices made and hardships faced by Japanese immigrants and their American-born children when Americans went to war.

John Green

The book focuses on four Japanese-American families whose sons volunteered for the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and fought in Europe, only to find their homes ransacked by the FBI after Pearl Harbor and their families thrown into internment camps. Brown weaves the story of these men and their families into the fabric of an American history defined by protest, resistance, and sacrifice.

John Green is known mainly as the author of tear-jerking teen novels such as "The Fault in Our Stars" and "Looking for Alaska," but he also hosts the incredibly popular, wide-ranging podcast called "The Anthropocene Reviewed."

Daniel Kahneman

In a new book of the same name (May 18), Green adapts his podcast to the written word in the form of essays "on a human-centered planet." The essays feature topics such as Super Mario Kart, cholera, and the QWERTY keyboard, using each topic as an invitation to discuss broader themes of philosophy, science, and humor. This book features both adapted podcasts and new material. Green is a consummate storyteller; each snippet is bound to delight and enthrall.

Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking Fast and Slow" was a blockbuster hit when it was released nearly 10 years ago, and still sells. For his latest book, the Nobel Prize-winning economist teams up with professor of strategic thinking and decision processes Olivier Sibony and popular political commentator and academic Cass R. Sunstein to look at why we make bad judgments and how this cognitive bias affects our lives.

"Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment" (May 18), seeks to explain why two people faced with the exact same situation will make different decisions. "Noise," in this context, refers to variability in judgments that should be the same but are not due to bias, and it creates problems for all of us in so many aspects of our lives. The research then points the way towards solutions in reducing noise and therefore bias, leading us all to better decision-making. Fans of Malcolm Gladwell and Michael Lewis will definitely want to pick this book.

Books everyone should read are classics for a reason. Check out the books you should definitely have read by now as picked by our books editor.

Elayna Trucker is buyer at Napa Bookmine. Contact her at elayna@napabookmine.com.

Odia and English author Manoj Das dies at 87; PM Modi mourns - The Indian Express

Posted: 27 Apr 2021 11:54 PM PDT

Manoj Das, an eminent Indian author who wrote in Odia and English, passed away at the age of 87 on Tuesday, April 27, 2021.

On his demise, Prime Minister Narendra Modi took to social media to speak about his contributions. "Shri Manoj Das distinguished himself as a noted educationist, popular columnist and prolific writer. He made rich contributions to English and Odia literature. He was a leading exponent of Sri Aurobindo's philosophy. Pained by his demise. Condolences to his family. Om Shanti," he tweeted.

President Ram Nath Kovind also expressed condolences. "The passing of Manoj Das is a huge loss to the world of Odia & English writing. His towering stature as a fiction writer, his simplicity & spirituality gave him a unique identity. A Padma Bhushan, he was given many prestigious awards. My condolences to his family and admirers," he wrote.

Born on February 27, 1934, Das started writing quite early in his life. His first book of poetry Satavdira Artanada, in Odia, was published when he was in high school, after which he also launched a literary magazine and a collection of short stories. He continued writing during his college years and published a novel Jeebanara Swada, a collection of short stories Vishakanyar Kahani, and a collection of poems Padadhawani.

His quest for mysticism motivated him to become an inmate of Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Puducherry. Since 1963, he had been a professor of English literature and philosophy there.

Das was awarded Padma Shri in 2001 and Padma Bhushan in 2020 for his contributions in the field of literature and education. He received the first Sri Aurobindo Puraskar for his research on the lesser-known facts of India's freedom struggle led by Aurobindo. He was also honoured with the Sahitya Akademi Award fellowship.

‘82 ORHS grad captures struggle of history’s ‘marginalized people’ - Oak Ridger

Posted: 27 Apr 2021 04:16 PM PDT

D. Ray Smith and Benita Albert/Historically Speaking  |  Oakridger

Benita Albert brings us the story of an amazing historian, Laura Edwards. She is much more than that, but I admire her ability to focus on the history often missed in the standard history documents. Laura is unique in her dedication to the lesser known history of the people who were not in the mainsteam of history yet were even more important than much of what is thought of as primary history. Enjoy learning about this amazingly well educated and highly productive graduate of Oak Ridge Schools. 

***

Laura F. Edwards, a 1982 Oak Ridge High School (ORHS) alumna, is a noted historian, educator, and author with acclaimed work in the history of gender, sexuality, and feminist studies. Her extensive writings document the struggle for rights for "marginalized people" in 19th Century America. Those people of "marginalized status" included enslaved people, free people of color, and women.

I was lucky to make contact with this extraordinarily busy woman, one who is preparing to transition from her position as the Peabody Family Professor of History and Gender, Sexist and Feminist Studies at Duke University to assume the position of The Class of 1921 Bicentennial Professor in the History of American Law and Liberty at Princeton University.

Social activist and famed author Alice Walker once said, "No one is your friend who demands your silence or denies your right to grow." Edwards would certainly qualify as Alice's "friend" as she uses her scholarly efforts to unveil practices and policies of the past which discouraged and/or disallowed human rights in America. She gives a voice to the "marginalized" and in so doing has advanced the understanding of the evolution of law and of cultural norms. She wrote, "History is not something we can leave behind or repeat. It's part of us, whether we like it or not. So, it's best to know what it is. In fact, we have to, if we want to know ourselves, see where we are, and try to figure out what to do about it."

As Laura prepares to move, she is also in the midst of publishing two new books. She just had her engagingly titled paper, "James and His Striped Velvet Pantaloons: Textiles, Commerce, and Law in the New Republic," released in the Journal of American History, September 2020. In spite of her busy schedule, Laura graciously agreed to grant me an interview and to allow me to tell her inspiring story.

I asked Laura to go back to her Oak Ridge roots and recall the influences that shaped her eventual career. Her journey was not linear, but her choices speak to the independent, curious, and innovative educator and writer that she has become. This Part One article will focus on her Oak Ridge story while a later, Part Two, installment will feature her academic and professional career.

Laura's maternal grandparents, George and Josephine Rennich, arrived in Oak Ridge in 1953 when George began work in chemical engineering at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). George was in the military when he was pulled from an Army line during World War II to work on the Manhattan Project, because it was learned that he had pre-war experience working with uranium for a company named Vitro in New York. Josephine, a former teacher, was a busy mother to their five young children. Their oldest child, Sandra, was 10 when they arrived in Oak Ridge, and she would graduate from ORHS in 1961.

Sandra married Robert Edwards in the early 1960s while he was employed at ORNL. The young couple moved for Robert's work to Phoenix, Ariz., to outside Washington, D.C., and to Connecticut before returning to Oak Ridge in 1975. Their only child, Laura, entered the fifth grade at Linden Elementary School. Robert worked as an electrical engineer and later moved into computer science. Sandra began work as a technical writer during Laura's teenage years. Laura wrote that her mother was active in local community organizations, including Save our Cumberland Mountains and the League of Women Voters. Her parents are now retired and still live in Oak Ridge.

Laura has special memories of her Robertsville Junior High language arts teacher, Judy Kidd. She wrote, "I had always wanted to be a writer, and I loved all the books and activities in her class. Until this class, reading had been about the technical aspects of the actual reading; it was about basic literacy. Mrs. Kidd's class was the first time we talked about the structure of the books we were reading: about characters, plot, imagery, symbolism, narrative, etc. … It was eye opening for me."

Of ORHS, Laura recalled, "I loved Carol Yoakley's AP (Advanced Placement) English course, which I took in my senior year. The focus there was composition, with weekly short essays and a longer 20-25 page term paper at the end of the course. It was a classic composition course, of the kind that college freshmen routinely take. The short, five-paragraph papers were all based in classic short stories selected to highlight elements of writing. Basically, it dealt with all the issues I had been introduced to in Mrs. Kidd's course and that I found so fascinating. I loved analyzing the short stories and writing these papers." 

"I also loved the final assignment because it was so challenging. Twenty pages seemed really long at the time — and it was, given that I had never written anything that long. Trying to figure out a thesis that would be 'big' enough interesting and original enough — to develop … was hard, but fun. I recall sitting amidst notes, writing and revising late into the night, trying to get the ideas out of my head and on to the paper in the right order." 

Little did Laura yet know that this would become a major stepping stone to her career, which now includes numerous scholarly publications and books.

Her passion for writing was further defined in ORHS history coursework her senior year. She fondly wrote of her ORHS AP European History teacher, John Shedd: "He was introduced to us as a Ph.D. candidate from the University of Tennessee, and I was thrilled to think that we would have someone with that training. It seemed enticingly close to where I wanted to go (history courses at the college level) and what I wanted a be (a historian)." 

"He knew the material beyond the text, and he made it come alive. Looking back, I realize that he taught the course more like a college class than a high school class — which was why I loved it. … He integrated primary documents and other materials with the assigned text, and he asked us to use the background from the text to analyze what we were seeing in the primary materials. Basically, he was asking us to be historians, and he introduced us to the way the discipline worked. I still rely on concepts and ideas I learned in that class."

For the second semester of her senior year, Laura reported, "I talked Mr. Shedd into doing an independent study with me on modern European intellectual history. We went though the key thinkers in the cannon as well as key schools of thought which involved not just political thinkers, but also music, art, and architecture. I recall the Existentialists with particular clarity. The transition from Classical to Romantic actually figures into lectures I do in my legal history course, as does the transition to Modernism. ... Mr. Shedd saved me, by grounding me and making the future I hoped to inhabit seem possible. I will always be thankful for that."

In sixth grade, Laura began playing the oboe, and as she put it, "That became my passion." She took private lessons on both the oboe and piano, and in her ninth-grade year, she applied for admission to the selective Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan. She was accepted and attended for her sophomore and junior years. After much reflection, she reached a decision: "I was just good. I wasn't great, and I knew I would never be, because I didn't love it enough. But I loved history, and I knew that's what I wanted to do."  

Returning to ORHS for her senior year, Laura did continue playing the oboe both in the ORHS Orchestra and the Oak Ridge Symphony, as well as occasional gigs, including work as a substitute in the production of "The Mikado" for the 1982 World's Fair. 

She credits her Interlochen junior year and an AP U.S. History course for "hooking" her. She wrote, "I took every history course I could. Even got permission to take a course during one (of two) of my lunch periods." She credits two teachers, saying: "They opened up a new world to me, one where you could take evidence and then try to get into the past and understand how it worked. That leap — into strange worlds — was amazing. I realized that it was also about the present. In seeing what was different about the past, you could also see what you were taking for granted in the present. The past made you see everything around you differently."

She continued, "I just didn't know what being a historian meant: I knew what being a musician looked like because I had seen examples, but I didn't know what 'being a historian' was about. Basically, I did not know that there was a path through graduate school to an academic career at that point. I did know, however, that I needed to change course and acquire the academic background that would make it possible to apply to colleges and universities as a liberal arts major, not a music major." 

"That would be difficult given my transcript from Interlochen which was heavy on orchestra, private music lessons, and chamber music credits. So, I decided to return to ORHS where I could fill out the necessary credits to make it clear that I was shifting focus. Enter Mr. Shedd and Mrs. Yoakley who kept me going during my last, key year at ORHS. … Though it was hard to leave my friends at Interlochen to transfer back for my senior year at ORHS. … Their courses anchored me, and they kept me focused on the future."

Laura summarized her difficult decision and the result, writing: "My plan worked. Universities were confused that I was applying to their Colleges of Arts and Sciences, not their music programs, but I could explain, and I had the background to get in. I applied to the University of Chicago, Northwestern, and Earlham, and I got into all three. But, I ended up at Northwestern, where I majored in American Culture, under Carl Smith, one of the founders of the program and a key mentor to me."

Her future was taking shape, as she recalled when replying to my question: "As a teen what future did you see for yourself?" Laura answered, "When I discovered history as a junior in high school, I felt like I found the means to do what I always wanted to do, namely write. Before that, I always thought that being a writer meant writing fiction. But history courses made me realize that you could also write nonfiction, constructing compelling stories using evidence from the past. From age 16 on, this has been what I wanted to do: to write history. I didn't really know where it would take me. I knew it would be hard —that I probably wouldn't have the kind of comfortable life that people in other jobs had. But it didn't seem like much of a sacrifice, given how much I loved the work."

Now, almost four decades after her ORHS graduation, Laura is a widely published author, an honored educator, and a well-respected historian. Her recent story of James and his stolen, velvet pantaloons, referenced at the beginning of this article is a cleverly crafted and researched study of disenfranchisement and legal matters in 19th Century America. Read the following excerpts from her Journal of American History paper to feel the power of her writings:

"The striped velvet pantaloons of James, an enslaved man in the South Carolina upcountry, might not seem like an important legal artifact, but they are. After this distinctive garment was stolen from James's trunk in 1837, news of their disappearance spread. So, two months later, when they were spotted in the possession of another enslaved man, they were seized and returned to James. The matter, however, did not end there. 

"Instead, James's master initiated a theft case in the Court of Magistrates and Freeholders — the court charged with handling cases involving enslaved people and free people of color, not the court that would have handled the theft of a white person's property. The case then proceeded as the theft of James's property, even though his master was named as the complainant. That might seem a legal impossibility, because James was enslaved and without property rights, according to laws passed and upheld by the state of South Carolina. It made all the difference that the property in question was a pair of pants."

The narrative continues, also citing other cases regarding clothing/textile ownership as an anomaly to the very limited property rights of society's "marginalized." Laura posits: "Textiles mattered because economic options available to Americans without rights or resources were so few. … What most Americans owned in the first half of the nineteenth century, if they had anything of value at all, was textiles — wearing apparel and related accessories as well as linens and uncut cloth. … When draped in this form of property, all people of marginal status could assume distinct legal forms that were difficult to ignore: they could own this form of property; they could trade it; and they could go to court to demand recognition of their claims to it." 

Laura Edwards has a gift for making history come to life and for unearthing new scholarship on the everyday challenges faced by our forebears. Her heroes are not the ones I studied in U.S. History class, but they deserve the light of her revelations. I am reminded of and, therefore want to repeat, her sage advice, "History is not something we can leave behind or repeat. It's part of us whether we like it or not." 

***

Thank you Benita, this amazing story of Laura Edwards is to be continued.
-

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