Ghosts of Gold Mountain

Ghosts of Gold Mountain: the epic story of the Chinese who built the transcontinental railroad   by Gordon H. Chang,  312 pages

This is indeed an epic story of the Chinese who were primarily responsible for building the western and most challenging section of the U.S. transcontinental railroad which was completed about 150 years ago. Gordon Chang's story begins by describing the politics and life of the Guangdong province in southern China from which most of the railroad workers, young and male, were recruited and it ends with a description of Chinese women working in San Francisco brothels and Chinese people being driven from the western cities that they populated. Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR), financed by an act of congress, initially did not want to hire Chinese laborers but other workers deserted and the Chinese proved their skills, work ethic and willingness so they became the primary builders of the challenging western section of the railroad. 

The planned route required traversing steeper grades and than any other railroad previously built; it would involve more dynamite to blast tunnels through parts of the mountain, and great human risk to builders who packed and lit explosives and hammered chisels to cut beds into its cliffs. CPRR did not even keep a record of the names of its Chinese workers nor did they ever publicly acknowledge the death of a single railroad worker. But by drawing on reports of Chinese benevolent associations, newspapers, historical associations, reports of freight cars carrying remains from mass accidents, Chang fills in some silence from the railroad records and estimates that 1,200 of them died in the project. The railroad Chinese worked harder and faster than other crews but were paid less so, without a union, they organized a strike which approached parity in  wages along with recognition and  time to celebrate Chinese holidays. 

Railroad Chinese were not only killed by the engineering feat for which they worked, they were also killed by "the great purge" to rid the country of them: In October of 1871 a mob of 500 attacked the Chinese quarter in Los Angeles, burned buildings and lynched 18 Chinese in the streets: the largest lynching in American history. Twenty five people were indicted for murder but none were convicted. Five years later, the white citizens of Truckee, a town made possible by the railroad, formed a Caucasian League, burned the cabins of Chinese woodcutters and then shot them as they fled. Truckee citizens used violence, arson and intimidation to drive other Chinese citizens out until the town's 1900 census indicates that there were only two Chinese people left in town. Such were the bitter ironies of the Chinese workers who built the transcontinental railroad. Their men were recruited to build the wealth of those who planned it and then their women were enslaved to satisfy the lusts of men.

Meeting Rozzy Halfway

Meeting Rozzy Halfway by Caroline Leavitt   294 pages

I first learned about author Caroline Leavitt from an article in the January/February 2017 issue of Bookmarks magazine. Her novels sounded like books I would enjoy so I decided to give her a try.

This is her first novel, published in 1980. It deals with two sisters, Rozzy and Bess, who are as different as night and day. Rozzy is a dark beauty and the oldest by four years. Bess is fair. Despite their age difference, they are close and need each other as if they were identical twins.

By the time Rozzy is ten years old, she hears voices, has vivid fantasies moments of disorientation. She is diagnosed as psychotic, and that diagnosis dooms their family.

A compelling read, this is the struggle of sisters, trying to desperately trying to hang onto each other until a shattering conclusion takes readers on a gasping ride to the finish.

The story did start to drag near the end. It seemed like the same scene was replayed over and over, using different words. That’s why Meeting Rozzy Halfway receives 4 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

Anxious Age

An Anxious Age: The Post-Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of America by Joseph Bottum, 296 pages 

In Anxious Age, Bottum claims that the central socio-political event of the past century has been the self-destruction of the Mainline Protestant churches.  It is his assertion that as the process of disenchantment - the decline of belief in good and evil spirits populating or infesting the world - reached its peak in the early twentieth century, the American Protestant mainstream substituted for the old angels and demons new powers and principalities such as the "spirit of greed" or the "spirit of tolerance".  The exorcism of the evil spirits justifies the individual, turning him into one of the redeemed.  This new outlook has little role for Christ, however, encouraging the rise of the "spiritual, but not religious", emptying the oldline churches and creating a vacuum in our national culture where they used to stand.  Evangelicals being hopelessly divided, Catholicism has been made to try and fill that gap, but it is a poor fit.

Bottum's account of the current state of American religion is eminently readable and remarkably compelling.  In his description of how we arrived at this point as well as his description of the point at which we have arrived, he concentrates more on representative personalities than sociological statistics or extensive intellectual genealogies.  There is no doubt that he simplifies matters, but he does not oversimplify.

Richard John Neuhaus

Richard John Neuhaus: A Life in the Public Square by Randy Boyagoda, 399 pages

Boyagoda opens his book with two vignettes.  In 1960s New York, young men approach an altar and throw their draft cards into a bowl to be sent to the Pentagon while a Lutheran priest sings "America the Beautiful".  In 1990s Washington, at a Christian Coalition convention, a Catholic priest warns his audience to avoid confusing politics with the Gospel.  The two priests were both Richard John Neuhaus, and the continuity behind the change is as much the subject of this new biography as the changes themselves.

Throughout a long public career, Neuhaus marched with Martin Luther King Jr, was arrested at the 1968 Democratic National Convention for protesting against US involvement in Vietnam, advised Ronald Reagan and George W Bush, and was listed by Time magazine as one of the "25 Most Influential Evangelicals" despite not being an Evangelical.  For over four decades he was a persistent voice for the inclusion of religious values in the public square.

In Boyagoda's sympathetic but not fawning account, what was of first and final importance to Neuhaus throughout his eventful life was his vocation as a pastor of souls and evangelist of the Gospel, whether reminding leftist radicals of the virtue of patriotism or Christian conservatives that voting Republican does not wash away sins. 

American Made Why making things will return us to Greatness

American Made Why: Making Things will Return Us to Greatness / Dan Dimicco
246 Pages

This non-fiction book takes the premise that the reason the United States is not recovering from the last recession is that we no longer have a solid manufacturing based due to a mistaken attachment to the notion of free trade.  The author surmises that as long as the government doesn't respond to the unfair trade tactics practiced by China  and others our manufacturing companies will continue to try to move manufacturing overseas although it is not logical to do so in the long run.  An interesting book but also depressing since it states we need strong leadership to turn things around and there doesn't seem to be any leadership in the offing with our current government.

To Purge This Land with Blood

To Purge This Land with Blood: A Biography of John Brown by Stephen B Oates, 361 pages

"He said if a man stood between him and what he considered right, he would take his life as coolly as he would eat his breakfast."  So spoke Mahala Doyle about the man who ordered her husband and two sons hacked to death outside their Kansas cabin for the crime of supporting the anti-abolitionist Law and Order Party.  The man was John Brown, and he had come to Kansas to fight against slavery in the name of God and Justice.  A friend of Frederick Douglass, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry Thoreau, in 1859 Brown and a handful of supporters attacked the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia - the spark intended to ignite a slave revolt throughout the South.  Brown was captured, tried for treason and murder, convicted, and executed.

Was Brown a hero who fought, unsuccessfully but selflessly, for an end to centuries of slavery?  Or was he a madman, a religious fanatic, a bitter failure driven by hatred?  In Stephen Oates' telling, he was a little bit of both, and perhaps also something more.  On the morning of his execution, Brown prophesied that "the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with Blood."  His life and death continue to pose questions about when violence is a suitable response to injustice.

Rose Gold

Rose Gold: An Easy Rawlins Mystery by Walter Mosley   320 pages

L. A. private detective Easy Rawlins is back in his thirteenth adventure; the second after Mosley left readers believing Easy had perished after driving his car off a California cliff.  It’s only months after that near-death experience, and Easy is still recuperating.

Easy’s focus is no longer catching the bad guy but making a good life for his daughter, Feather, which includes getting her into a pricey private school. He needs money; not sure how he’s going to afford the tuition, but confident that he’ll find a way.

The story open with Easy moving to a newer home, not terribly far from his current address. He may be moving, but Easy is an simple man to find. He is approached by undercover police officer Roger Fisk and three other unidentified, plainclothes officers to find Rosemary Gold, the daughter of a very wealthy and very private munitions manufacturer. Readers should keep in mind that the novel takes place in the 1960s, at the height of Vietnam. I immediately thought of Patty Hearst and her 1974 kidnapping by the Symbionese Liberation Army. And while Rose Gold’s action takes place long before that event, I can’t help but wonder if Mosely wasn’t influenced by it. The revolutionary group who supposedly kidnapped the young heiress calls itself Scorched Earth, which again reminded me of the SLA.

Easy is reluctant to take the case; after all he is a black man who would be nosing into a white man’s business. He quickly changes his mind when he is offered an eight thousand dollar down payment on services rendered. This could be ticket to Feather’s education.

Needless to say, Easy finds himself involved in more than a mere kidnapping plot. Several other law enforcement agencies are either trying to buy him and his service or buy him off. Sometimes he isn’t sure exactly who he is working for nor exactly why he is y to Rosemary Gold

Mosley’s sentences are as colorful as the decade the action occurs. There’s the hippie subculture, plenty of drugs, tough guys who are hell bent on making a name for themselves in the neighborhood, and a fascinating subplot surrounding the last of an American Indian tribe who could almost be as dangerous as Easy’s friend, Mouse. And to top it off, Easy is in the doghouse with his girlfriend, Bonnie.

I give Easy Rawlins’ latest adventure 5 out of 5 stars.

You Don’t Cry Out Loud: The Lily Isaacs Story

You Don’t Cry Out Loud: The Lily Isaacs Story by Lilly Isaacs   199 pages

I had never heard of this book or the singing group The Isaacs when I stumbled upon a friend reading this. Since I’m always looking for a great read, my friend let me borrow it.

The story begins with Lily as an adult, having to make difficult decisions about her aging parents. During the course of the story, readers learn about life as the child of Holocaust survivors; as a child with scoliosis; as a wife and mother; as a cancer survivor; as the matriarch of a beloved, multi-award winning music group; and a covert from Judaism to Christianity.

Any one of these stories would have made a great book.  But in this small story, we get Lily’s matter-of-fact retelling of her life’s adventures.

 

The writing is simple, clean, and honest.  It’s like she’s sitting on my sofa telling me her life story.

 Be sure to put this on your list of books to read; I give it five out of five stars.

The Mine

The Mine by John A Heldt
286 Pages

 Joel Smith is about to graduate from college and is on a road trip with his friend Adam, just a few days from graduation.  When a traffic jam causes him to make a detour, he stops at an abandoned mine and lets his curiosity take control.  He enters the mine and finds a strange glowing room.  When he emerges, his friend is gone and he soon discovers that he has traveled back in time to May 1941.

The book deals with Joel adjusting to this new era, with no hope of returning to his own time and how he debates using his knowledge of things to come to alter the lives of the friends he makes.

Set up as a Kindle series this first entry is middling and fails to develop or expand what could be a interesting premise.  For readers looking for good time travel books I wouldn't recommend this volume but instead direct them to Jack Finney's Time and Again, Connie WIllis Doomsday Book or Household Gods by Judith Tarr

The Remaining

The Remaining D.J. Molles
416 Pages


A virus called FURY has spread throughout the world turning it's victims into mindless animals, attacking uninfected humans.  The United States Army had a contingency plan where each of the lower 48 states has one person inserted into a bunker at the start of any crises to lead and restore civilization using a number of materials silos.  If "Zombies" weren't enough, the survivors also have to deal with militants intent on seizing control of what remains.

 
This is another book that started as an internet bestseller before being picked up by a major publishing house.  Since zombies are popular it fits right into that genre, I especially like how Amazon describes it as Survivor Horror.  It is sort of ironic that I am reading this series at the same time I'm reading a non-fiction book that lays out how to survive a catastrophe and restart civilization.