AJ Dunn Reads

  Alphabetical Diaries By Sheila Heti   4 stars.

  Nonfiction By Julie Myerson   5 stars!

  Masters of the Air By Donald L. Miller   4 stars.

  Sociopath: A Memoir By Patric Gagne, Ph.D.   4 stars.

  The Boys in the Boat By Daniel James Brown   4 stars.

  I'm Glad My Mom Died By Jennette McCurdy   3.5 stars.

Into the Wild By Jon Krakauer 3.5 stars.

  Braiding Sweetgrass By Robin Wall Kimmerer 4 stars.

  Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures By Merlin Sheldrake   4 stars.

  The Science of Evil:  On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty By Simon Baron-Cohen 4 stars.

  The Things They Carried By Tim O'Brien   This book was excellent, the writing superb and affecting. On the surface, and at the beginning, the story tells us about the physical things the grunts in Vietnam carried, their weapons, ammunition, supplies, and personal items. Then the story delves into the deeper emotional things they carried. Tim O'Brien recounts his experiences with the members of his platoon and specific stories that circle back and fold into one another. His own story about the man he killed are constant refrains woven into the narrative of the other stories. The different personalities of the young men in the platoon are extremely interesting. Some seem to enjoy the war, while others are horrified by what they see and do. Some can't handle the way it has changed them when it's over. The stories themselves are engrossing, but it's the writing that elevates them. This is the only book I've read by O'Brien, but I find his style to be moving an...

  The Diary of a Young Girl By Anne Frank   This was my first time reading Anne Frank's diary. I don't know what I expected, but Anne was far more intelligent, witty, and observant than I ever would have expected a thirteen year old to be. Her observations and descriptions of herself, her surroundings, the war, and the people in the annex were incredibly astute, often gut-wrenching, and always honest. Her self-awareness and self-consciousness were amazing for someone her age. The Diary follows Anne from her birthday on June 12, 1942 when she received her diary as a birthday present from her father through to her time in the annex with her parents. her sister Margot, the Van Pels family, and Albert Dussel up until they were all discovered by the gestapo. Anne recounts the difficulties of living in secret for such a long period of time (2 years) with people in such close quarters. She also tells us about their helpers, heroic non-Jews who helped to keep them hidden and to provi...

  Wild Swans By Jung Chang Wild Swans recounts the histories of Jung Chang, her mother, and her grandmother in China and their harrowing lives under communism, the Cultural Revolution, and the rise and fall of Mao Zedong. It is sweeping in scope with difficult and often brutal descriptions of what the three women, their family, friend, and neighbors had to endure for decades. I have to admit the writing style was not my favorite, though I found the history interesting. There was a lot of telling, and hopping from place to place and event to event in jarring ways. Though there was some good and often beautiful descriptions, they were interwoven in contexts that often felt displaced. I didn't get on with it. Perhaps a different style would have made it more compelling for me because the torment and struggle Wild Swans recounts should by definition have interested me and kept me glued to the page. But I had a hard time wanting to pick it up. I can only give it 3 stars, unfortunately...

  Things Are Against Us (Advance Reader Copy) by Lucy Ellman I hated this book. Which is very sad, because I loved Ducks, Newburyport and hoped this would be not exactly the same, but similar in tone. Things Are Against Us , set to be published at the end of September, 2021, is a collection of essays Ellman wrote during the Trump presidency up through the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Her theme throughout this book is mostly railing against the patriarchy. And I appreciate that sentiment. However, she just took it way off the rails, for me. For one thing, I completely disagree with anyone from any sex engaging in a hate-fest against any other sex, and Ellman just goes all in on her hatred for men in this book. She overgeneralizes men like crazy. Pitting women against men is no way to achieve equality or equity. It is the exact way to get more men to hate women. Who wants to help anyone else who openly hates on them? Not me, and I'm nonbinary. Attacking any sex just leads to ...

  Danse Macabre by Stephen King According to Stephen King, in order for horror to actually be horrifying it needs to touch us in some way, and it does so by finding the vulnerable points within us and applying pressure there. These points are psychological, such as mortality. King also states that horror's aim is to reduce us to the child state, to make us feel as vulnerable as we did when we were children, when we took everything at face value and believed everything we were told or were presented with. He goes on to say that horror helps us to deal with our real life terrors, and that it also reaffirms life. When we are scared we know we are alive. But also being afraid helps us to examine what is important to us in life. In Danse Macabre , King traces horror through the mediums of radio, TV, film, and novels around the mid-twentieth century. It examines the cultural causes for the popularity of various horror elements, styles, and themes. King discusses how radio and novels are ...