The Best Book I Read This Month: The Year of Lear by James Shapiro

The best book I read this month was another work of history: The Year of Lear by James Shapiro. The book recounts events in Great Britain during the year that Shakespeare wrote King Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra, and like its predecessor (A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare), it was a fascinating read.

It took me nearly the whole month to read The Year of Lear, even though it has fewer than 300 pages. That’s because every chapter is chock full of interesting details, and I didn’t want to miss any of them.

Not much is known about Shakespeare’s life at this time, so much of the book describes what was going on around him and how those events appear to be reflected in the plays he wrote in 1606. Shapiro points out connections that I hadn’t seen before. For example, I know about the Gunpowder Plot (“Remember, remember, the 5th of November!”) and I know Shakespeare was alive at the time, but until this book, that connection wasn’t real to me. But it was real. In fact, some of Shakespeare’s family back in Stratford risked their lives in defying some of the anti-Catholic measures that followed the failed plot and assassination attempt. Whether Shakespeare himself did too remains unknown.

Macbeth is my favorite of Shakespeare’s plays, so of course I was most interested in the forces that shaped it. I already knew that Banquo was an homage to King James (who claimed to be Banquo’s descendant), but I was fascinated to learn about other influences, some of which shaped the weird sisters and others that shaped the dialogue. The whole idea of equivocation in the play comes from real-life political debate at the time.

I could go on and on, but if I did, you’d have no reason to read the book yourself—which you should, especially if you’re a fan of Shakespeare or any kind of Anglophile. And while you’re at it, pick up a copy of Shapiro’s “prequel”—A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare—too.

The Best Book I Read This Month: Pocahontas and the English Boys by Karen Ordahl Kupperman

The best book I read this month was Pocahontas and the English Boys by historian Karen Ordahl Kupperman.

In the book, Kupperman tells the story of the Jamestown colony, but it’s not the usual tale of survival against all odds. In fact, John Smith makes only a cameo appearance. That was one of the things I liked about it. I’ve had more than my fill of the “John Smith saves the day” narrative.

Instead, Kupperman focuses her story on those who were caught between the English and Indigenous cultures: Pocahontas and three young English men who were sent to live with local tribes. It was this cross-cultural focus that made this book stand out to me. I liked seeing Jamestown from the perspective of the Indigenous people it both displaced and depended on.

And while some history books can be dense and difficult, I found Kupperman’s style interesting and accessible. This book read as smoothly and as quickly as a novel. I devoured it in a couple of days.

In short, Kupperman’s Pocahontas and the English Boys is engaging brain food.

The Best Book I Read This Month: The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough

I’ve been on a nonfiction kick lately, so this month—like last month and the month before—the best book I read was a work about history: The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough. The book is short (for a history book), but it packs a solid punch.

McCullough’s book tells the story of Johnstown, a small town outside of Pittsburgh, and how it was wiped out by a catastrophic flood in 1889. (Don’t worry! Johnstown rebuilt—only to be hit by floods again in 1936 and 1977.) The first chapters meander a bit, as McCullough weaves the tale of the town, its people, and the dam that proved to be their archnemesis. But once McCullough gets to the day of the flood, the story gets much tighter and more powerful. The focus is on the people and towns affected by the flood—the destruction of property, the loss of lives, and tales of seemingly-random survival. It is a tense and emotional tale.

There’s a not-so-implicit statement, too, in this tale, about the ultra-rich and the ordinary joe. The people of Johnstown were, of course, the latter. The ultra-rich were those for whom the dam was built, including Andrew Carnegie—for their pleasure and their leisure. It is hard not to see parallels between the ultra-rich of this story and the billionaires of today and their relationships to the rest of us.

The Best Book I Read This Month: The Ravine by Wendy Lower

A bit late in posting, but the best book I read in March was the most disturbing book I’ve read in a long time: The Ravine by historian Wendy Lower.

As the book’s subtitle (A Family, A Photograph, A Holocaust Massacre Revealed) indicates, the book focuses on the murder of a one family during the Holocaust. But it is not the Holocaust of Western Europe, not the Holocaust of concentration camps. This book focuses on the Holocaust as it occurred in Eastern Europe, where it took on a very different character—graveside massacres instead of formal death camps. The most famous of these massacres occurred at Babi Yar in Ukraine. This book focuses on a smaller massacre, one that may have remained invisible to history were not for a single photograph.

The first ten pages of the book were brutal to read. The focus is entirely on the action in the photograph, which shows the murder of one Jewish Ukrainian family at a ravine and is described in unflinching detail. After that, the book’s focus expands to Lower’s efforts to identify the location, victims, and participants in this murder. Her work is as frustrating as it is rewarding, as she encounters obstacle after obstacle. Even at the end, there is no clean resolution for her or for the reader.

This is not a book that one reads for pleasure. It’s not a book to enjoy. But it is a book that is important and worthwhile. Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) occurs later this month. Reading this book would be a good way to spend that day.