White Trash by Nancy Isenberg

One more title to add to my never ending effort to understand how in the world the 2016 election happened.  This one is subtitled "The 400-year Untold History of Class in America".  This is not the history I studied - ever.  Clearly the publishers of my history text books stuck to identifying the "winners" and playing to America the Beautiful.  To quote the author, "If this book accomplishes anything it will be to have exposed a number of myths about the American dream, to have disabused readers of the notion that upward mobility is a function of the founders' ingenious plan or the Jacksonian democracy was liberating, or that the Confederacy was about states' rights rather than preserving class and racial distinctions."  I those 400 years there were so many voices that spoke up for change, urging people to pay attention to an unpleasant reality instead of a comforting myth - voices that never made it into the history books.  England used its colonies to empty its poor - even America.  We used Eugenics, Manifest Destiny and Social Darwinism to keep the classes alive.  We have to admit to the problem before we can fix it.  Now what?

Chicago by Brian Doyle

What a wonderful homage to a city and to those first delightful years of independence after college!  I think I found something to smile about on every page.  Doyle created this fictional memoir from short humorous vignettes he had sent to his brother to get him through an illness.  He obviously loved his time in Chicago and even if you have never been there, you can tell why.  If I were ever to write about a place that I loved, I would want readers to feel about that place like I felt about Chicago.  A real feel good read.  Not that my book group agreed.  They had a problem with Edward the intelligent talking dog.  Go figure.

The Day the World Came to Town by Jim Defede

The subtitle for this book is "9/11 Gander, Newfoundland". When the skies over the United States were closed following the attack on 9/11, planes on their way from Europe were forced to land in Canada. The town of Gander, population about 10,000, was called upon to play host to almost 7,000 rerouted airline passengers. The crews of the planes took up all the available hotel space and everyone else, without the luggage that was required to remain in the plane, found themselves in schools, churches, and civic buildings. When it became obvious that this was not a 12 hour delay, the community of Gander and the surrounding small towns swung into action. Food and clothing was delivered. Homes were open for showers and a few private moments away from the crowded shelters. Businesses supplied toys and other necessities for free. The best example of human caring responded to one of the worst examples of human tragedy. It is a welcome reminder of our capacity to do right in a world that seems to so often behave badly.