Tag: nonfiction

Book Review | The Art Thief by Michael Finkel

Posted July 11, 2025 by Haze in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

The Art Thief by Michael Finkel

One of the most remarkable true-crime narratives of the twenty-first the story of the world’s most prolific art thief, Stéphane Breitwieser.

In this spellbinding portrait of obsession and flawed genius, the best-selling author of The Stranger in the Woods brings us into Breitwieser’s strange world—unlike most thieves, he never stole for money, keeping all his treasures in a single room where he could admire them.

For centuries, works of art have been stolen in countless ways from all over the world, but no one has been quite as successful at it as the master thief Stéphane Breitwieser. Carrying out more than two hundred heists over nearly eight years—in museums and cathedrals all over Europe—Breitwieser, along with his girlfriend who worked as his lookout, stole more than three hundred objects, until it all fell apart in spectacular fashion.

In The Art Thief, Michael Finkel brings us into Breitwieser’s strange and fascinating world. Unlike most thieves, Breitwieser never stole for money. Instead, he displayed all his treasures in a pair of secret rooms where he could admire them to his heart’s content. Possessed of a remarkable athleticism and an innate ability to circumvent practically any security system, Breitwieser managed to pull off a breathtaking number of audacious thefts. Yet these strange talents bred a growing disregard for risk and an addict’s need to score, leading Breitwieser to ignore his girlfriend’s pleas to stop—until one final act of hubris brought everything crashing down.

This is a riveting story of art, crime, love, and an insatiable hunger to possess beauty at any cost.

For the Reading Challenge(s):
2025 52 Book Club Reading Challenge (Prompt #5: Plot includes a heist)

The Reason

It was a buddy read and I was really intrigued!

The Quotes

“It isn’t action, he suspects, that usually lands a thief in prison. It’s hesitation.”

“Art is the result of facing almost no survival pressure at all. It’s the product of leisure time. Our big brains, the most complex instruments known in the universe, have been released from the vigilance of evading predators and seeking sustenance, permitting our imagination to gambol and explore, to dream while awake, to share visions of God. Art signals our freedom. It exists because we’ve won the evolutionary war.”

“In the eyes of the law, how a thief steals is more significant than what’s taken: robbing a candy bar with a gun is worse than carrying off a Cranach painting unarmed.”

“Knowing when not to take an item, however deflating, is mandatory for a thief expecting career longevity.”

My Thoughts

I’m not an art afficionado, but I do appreciate art very much and hold them very much sacred. Not just the famous works, but also the ones regular unskilled people like me do at home, and while regular people art isn’t very valuable, I still feel the pain when I hear of any art getting lost, stolen, or destroyed, because it’s not about the monetary value, but the emotional value of the art.

I have no inkling of the monetary value of most famous artworks but I’m sure their emotional value is priceless because of what they mean to so many people. Reading this book really helps me to appreciate the kind of passion that people can feel about art.

Breitwieser’s story was interesting to read about. He was such an intriguing person to read about; his upbringing, his obsession with artworks, his thought processes, his approach system to acquiring art… Seeing his relationship dynamics with his girlfriend and his mother was really interesting too. My emotions through the progression of this book was all over the place because the story was told so well!

The ending left me so angry at Breitwieser and so sad about the art, but I cannot deny that this was a great book, told so well by the author, and well worth reading.

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

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Book Review | When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

Posted July 10, 2025 by Haze in Book Reviews / 1 Comment

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation from a naïve medical student “possessed,” as he wrote, “by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life” into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical place for human identity, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality.

What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when the future, no longer a ladder toward your goals in life, flattens out into a perpetual present? What does it mean to have a child, to nurture a new life as another fades away? These are some of the questions Kalanithi wrestles with in this profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir.

For the Reading Challenge(s):
2025 52 Book Club Reading Challenge (Prompt #39: Has an epigraph)

The Reason

I’ve heard good things about this book and it was a buddy read.

The Quotes

“You can’t ever reach perfection, but you can believe in an asymptote toward which you are ceaselessly striving.”

“Human knowledge is never contained in one person. It grows from the relationships we create between each other and the world, and still it is never complete.”

“There is a moment, a cusp, when the sum of gathered experience is worn down by the details of living. We are never so wise as when we live in this moment.”

“I can’t go on. I’ll go on.”

My Thoughts

I thought I could finish this book quickly because it’s not very long, but it felt so heavy that I had a hard time continuing after finishing Part 1. Especially with the way the parts were labeled, knowing that Part 2 we’d be going into his illness. I’ve read several end-of-life memoirs, and honestly this one somehow felt the saddest.

Maybe because it happened so quickly for him, maybe because he was so young… With a lot of the other books, there was more reflection on the good times, good memories, things they learned and achieved, lessons/last words they want to share with others… With this one, Paul seemed to focus more on what he didn’t do, what he wouldn’t ever get to do. I’m not criticizing his thought processes; I think it’s real, it makes sense, and in a way, I like that he’s not romanticizing dying young like he’s some kind of noble, brave, person. It’s unfair, and he never got to do a lot of things that he wanted to do, and there’s nothing romantic about that. Still, it was difficult to read and hit very close to home for me.

I like the book, I like what he had to say, but I also hated reading it because it forced me to look at death and dying in the face, and I would much rather pretend it’s some far away concept that only happens when people live to 100 years old and/or some made-up thing that only happens in books and movies.

I’m also somewhat getting an existential crisis from reading this; what’s important to me? have I achieved what I want to achieve in life? am I living life the way I want to? if I only had a few years to live, what should I be doing? what do I want to be doing? I have so much compassion for Paul and his family, and I love that even in the midst of his own illness, he’s thinking of his wife and child, what she’s going through dealing with his illness, wanting her to remarry. I am feeling so many feelings right now…

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

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Book Review | Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

Posted July 9, 2025 by Haze in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

The New York Times bestseller from the Grammy-nominated indie rockstar Japanese Breakfast, an unflinching, deeply moving memoir about growing up mixed-race, Korean food, losing her Korean mother, and forging her own identity in the wake of her loss.

In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humour and heart, she tells of growing up the only Asian-American kid at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother’s particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother’s tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food. As she grew up, moving to the east coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, performing gigs with her fledgling band – and meeting the man who would become her husband – her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live.

It was her mother’s diagnosis of terminal pancreatic cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her.

Vivacious, lyrical and honest, Michelle Zauner’s voice is as radiantly alive on the page as it is onstage. Rich with intimate anecdotes that will resonate widely, Crying in H Mart is a book to cherish, share, and reread.

For the Reading Challenge(s):
2025 52 Book Club Reading Challenge (Prompt #TBD)

The Reason

This book was highly recommended by one of my friends who’s also a fan of the author’s music.

The Quotes

“It felt like the world had divided into two different types of people, those who had felt pain and those who had yet to.”

“There was no one in the world that was ever as critical or could make me feel as hideous as my mother, but there was no one, not even Peter, who ever made me feel as beautiful.”

“Some of the earliest memories I can recall are of my mother instructing me to always “save ten percent of yourself.” What she meant was that, no matter how much you thought you loved someone, or thought they loved you, you never gave all of yourself. Save 10 percent, always, so there was something to fall back on. “Even from Daddy, I save,” she would add.”

“Now that she was gone, I began to study her like a stranger, rooting around her belongings in an attempt to rediscover her, trying to bring her back to life in any way that I could. In my grief I was desperate to construe the slightest thing as a sign.”

The Narrator(s)

The author herself. It was great!

My Thoughts

This book was easy to read in terms of writing, but very hard to read emotionally for me. I have a lot of negative feelings and memories coming up while reading this book, and I’m struggling between having both compassionate feelings and mean feelings towards Michelle.

I relate so much to a lot of her feelings and experiences with her parents but I feel like I have a completely opposite realization about those experiences than she does; she seems to make excuses for them, and blames herself for not being a better daughter, thinking herself the problem, and for me, I know now that my parents are the problem. I do have compassion for my parents and realize they might have been doing what they believed was best because of the whole cycle of normalized abusive Asian parenting, but that doesn’t make it right regardless.

My mean feelings towards Michelle is because her thought processes with excusing her parents and blaming herself, reminds me of me when I was younger and doing the same thing, and I’m so angry at myself for not wising up sooner because it messed me up so much, and yet I feel compassion too because it was hard to go through that too. Obviously, I need therapy!

All the family trauma aside, I did really enjoy reading the book. I love the talk about food and culture, and learning to make comfort cultural food. I’ve also recently been looking into making kimchi myself and I’m excited to try it out. I love that maangchi was featured, I’ve definitely watched her videos before but I’m going to pay more attention now. I love that Peter was so loving and supportive towards Michelle and I thought their “proposal” was both hilarious and romantic, even while the circumstances were sad. I haven’t actually listened to a lot of her music except for Be Sweet, but I’m curious and I’ll check out more of her music.

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

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Book Review | Every Tool’s A Hammer by Adam Savage

Posted June 7, 2025 by Haze in Book Reviews / 1 Comment

Every Tool’s A Hammer by Adam Savage

In this New York Times bestselling “imperative how-to for creativity” (Nick Offerman), Adam Savage—star of Discovery Channel’s Mythbusters—shares his golden rules of creativity, from finding inspiration to following through and successfully making your idea a reality.

Every Tool’s a Hammer is a chronicle of my life as a maker. It’s an exploration of making, but it’s also a permission slip of sorts from me to you. Permission to grab hold of the things you’re interested in, that fascinate you, and to dive deeper into them to see where they lead you.

Through stories from forty-plus years of making and molding, building and break­ing, along with the lessons I learned along the way, this book is meant to be a toolbox of problem solving, complete with a shop’s worth of notes on the tools, techniques, and materials that I use most often. Things like: In Every Tool There Is a Hammer—don’t wait until everything is perfect to begin a project, and if you don’t have the exact right tool for a task, just use whatever’s handy; Increase Your Loose Tolerance—making is messy and filled with screwups, but that’s okay, as creativity is a path with twists and turns and not a straight line to be found; Use More Cooling Fluid—it prolongs the life of blades and bits, and it prevents tool failure, but beyond that it’s a reminder to slow down and reduce the fric­tion in your work and relationships; Screw Before You Glue—mechanical fasteners allow you to change and modify a project while glue is forever but sometimes you just need the right glue, so I dig into which ones will do the job with the least harm and best effects.

This toolbox also includes lessons from many other incredible makers and creators, including: Jamie Hyneman, Nick Offerman, Pixar director Andrew Stanton, Oscar-winner Guillermo del Toro, artist Tom Sachs, and chef Traci Des Jardins. And if everything goes well, we will hopefully save you a few mistakes (and maybe fingers) as well as help you turn your curiosities into creations.

I hope this book serves as “creative rocket fuel” (Ed Helms) to build, make, invent, explore, and—most of all—enjoy the thrills of being a creator.

For the Reading Challenge(s):
2025 52 Book Club Reading Challenge (Prompt #44: A celebrity on the cover)

The Reason

I did not grow up watching Mythbusters. I only started watching the show a few months ago, and I am in newly in love with the whole cast!

The Quotes

“It doesn’t matter if you’re a model maker, a potter, a dancer, a programmer, a writer, a political activist, a teacher, a musician, a milliner, whatever. It’s all the same. Making is making, and none of it is failure.”

“When we say we need to teach kids how to “fail,” we aren’t really telling the full truth. What we mean when we say that is simply that creation is iteration and that we need to give ourselves the room to try things that might not work in the pursuit of something that will.”

“This is one of the main reasons I believe that adolescence can be so fraught for so many. Just as we start to catch the barest glimpses of our true selves and begin to understand what it is about the world that fascinates and intrigues us, we often run right into people who aren’t ready to be encouraging and can be downright hostile to someone being “different.”

“This is exactly the trap you don’t want to fall into when it comes to deadlines: you don’t want to cast them as the villain. What you want to do is embrace them, because at a certain point more time does not equal better output.”

The Narrator(s)

The author himself! I love listening to him narrate and talk about his life.

My Thoughts

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I picked up this book. I have been watching Mythbusters – I haven’t finished the whole series yet – and I know it’s no longer running but all of it is still new to me and I’m loving all that I’m learning from the amazing cast. When I found out Adam Savage wrote a book, of course I had to pick it up, I was getting close to finishing Mythbusters and I’m been slowing down so that I could savor the last of the episodes.

The book wasn’t so much about Adam’s life in general as much as it was about his creative process, and I was surprised how deep he got into the process. It made me have to stop a few times to take notes on the process; being organized, clearing space, making lists… It gave me a bit of anxiety, to be honest!

But the more I got into it, the more it sort of reassured me. I’ve always thought of myself as a little messy, and I sometimes have analysis paralysis, where it’s hard for me to get started on creating because of how messy everything is. Listening to Adam, it seems like he’s not naturally organized but has learned to be; by experience, through other people’s examples, because he had to for efficiency. That gives me hope because that means I can learn to be more organized too! In fact, I think I might be starting out more naturally organized than Adam, and if he can do it, so can I.

It was wonderful to listen to him talk about his experiences and his career, the people he worked with, the things he learned. I love especially how open and generous he is with everything he knows, and how he continues to share everything that he does even now. I wish I had watched Mythbusters when they aired, but I’m glad I’m watching it now.

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

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Book Review | All The Living and the Dead by Hayley Campbell

Posted April 7, 2025 by Haze in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

All The Living and the Dead by Hayley Campbell

A deeply compelling exploration of the death industry and the people—morticians, detectives, crime scene cleaners, embalmers, executioners—who work in it and what led them there.

We are surrounded by death. It is in our news, our nursery rhymes, our true-crime podcasts. Yet from a young age, we are told that death is something to be feared. How are we supposed to know what we’re so afraid of, when we are never given the chance to look?

Fueled by a childhood fascination with death, journalist Hayley Campbell searches for answers in the people who make a living by working with the dead. Along the way, she encounters mass fatality investigators, embalmers, and a former executioner who is responsible for ending sixty-two lives. She meets gravediggers who have already dug their own graves, visits a cryonics facility in Michigan, goes for late-night Chinese with a homicide detective, and questions a man whose job it is to make crime scenes disappear.

Through Campbell’s incisive and candid interviews with these people who see death every day, she Why would someone choose this kind of life? Does it change you as a person? And are we missing something vital by letting death remain hidden? A dazzling work of cultural criticism, All the Living and the Dead weaves together reportage with memoir, history, and philosophy, to offer readers a fascinating look into the psychology of Western death.

For the Reading Challenge(s):
2025 52 Book Club Reading Challenge (Prompt #TBD)

The Reason

It was the BOTM for my in-person bookclub, member’s choice.

The Narrator(s)

Hayley Campbell, the author herself. I really enjoyed the narration and listening to the book through her voice. It’s technically scientific nonfiction but I also think it’s a little bit of a memoir about her own journey researching the book, and I loved that she shared her personal experiences through the journey.

My Thoughts

Our in-person bookclub had a very deep and meaningful discussion about this book, our own thoughts on death and dying, and how we felt about the book and death. Personally, this book blew me away, I’ve always been morbidly curious about death and the business of death, but I didn’t expect the author to also delve into the emotional aspects of those who work in the business.

There are so many things we don’t think about until it affects us, but at the same time, this is one of those things that when it does affect us, we’re not necessarily in the right frame of mind to think about them. I love that Campbell have so much compassion and empathy for those who work with death and the dying, and I love that she puts a spotlight on the topics that we typically avoid.

One of the criticisms that came up as our bookclub was discussing the book was that Campbell inserted her own emotions and judgement a little to much while interviewing some of her subjects. I agree in that particular instance, but I also think that it was her way of trying to understand it. That doesn’t excuse it at all, because I personally feel that she did push a little too hard and I didn’t like that she did that. I did like that she got emotionally invested and personal in the book, but I think there should be a balance between being professional and letting her interviewees tell their story, and inserting her own emotions and judgement into their stories.

It is still a very good book and I learned so much. I loved it so much, I bought my own copy so that I can reread it over again. There really is a lot to be gained from reading this book, morbid as it is, and I would highly recommend it to anyone!

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

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Book Review | The Making of a Chef by Michael Ruhlman

Posted April 6, 2025 by Haze in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

The Making of a Chef by Michael Ruhlman

Now in paperback, the eye-opening book that was nominated for a 1998 James Beard Foundation award in the Writing on Food category.

In the winter of 1996, Michael Ruhlman donned hounds-tooth-check pants and a chef’s jacket and entered the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, to learn the art of cooking. His vivid and energetic record of that experience, The Making of a Chef, takes us to the heart of this food-knowledge mecca. Here we meet a coterie of talented chefs, an astonishing and driven breed. Ruhlman learns fundamental skills and information about the behavior of food that make cooking anything possible. Ultimately, he propels himself and his readers through a score of kitchens and classrooms, from Asian and American regional cuisines to lunch cookery and even table waiting, in search of the elusive, unnameable elements of great cooking.

For the Reading Challenge(s):
2025 52 Book Club Reading Challenge (Prompt #TBD)

The Reason

I am a foodie and I have a weird fascination for food writing. I also have a couple of books by Michael Ruhlman that I haven’t read yet. This book happened to be available from my library so I dove in!

The Narrator(s)

Jeff Riggenbach. It was great!

My Thoughts

I loved the writing and the storytelling. I got so immersed in the whole book as I was reading that it just transported me away from real life and into a culinary dream world. It made me think about food and cooking so much more deeply; my relationship with food, the way I approached cooking for myself and my family, the appreciation I have for food and food culture. I loved the way the author talks about food and cooking and his own appreciation for food and his experience of working in the kitchen.

It almost made me want to sign up for culinary classes but I know myself well enough to know that I wouldn’t do well as a professional cook. I love food, and I love cooking, but as Ruhlman’s teacher talks about in the book, I don’t think I have that drive to cook for others professionally and to always show up no matter the weather and the occasion (and unlike Ruhlman, I’m totally fine with that!).

I love Ruhlman’s candidness and the way he talks about his experience with such transparency. I love the way he is so passionate about food and cooking, and I love the way he really makes me feel like I’m right there. I want more of this and I hope to come back to this book again in the future.

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

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Book Review | In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

Posted February 28, 2025 by Haze in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues.

As Truman Capote reconstructs the murder and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers, he generates both mesmerizing suspense and astonishing empathy. In Cold Blood is a work that transcends its moment, yielding poignant insights into the nature of American violence.

For the Reading Challenge(s):
2025 52 Book Club Reading Challenge (Prompt #16: Author has won an Edgar award)
The Classics Club

The Reason

I’d heard a lot about it and been curious for a long time. There was a buddy read so I decided to join.

The Quotes

“Those fellows, they’re always crying over killers. Never a thought for the victims.”

“As long as you live, there’s always something waiting; and even if it’s bad, and you know it’s bad, what can you do? You can’t stop living.”

“I thought that Mr. Clutter was a very nice gentleman. I thought so right up to the moment that I cut his throat.”

“Nancy Clutter is always in a hurry, but she always has time. And that’s one definition of a lady.”

My Thoughts

It was difficult to get into in the beginning but it got better towards the end. This book is true crime, nonfiction, but there are some questions as to the veracity of Capote’s version of events. As for me, I’m not a fan of how much focus there is on Dick and Perry, the perpetrators, and how much effort was put into making them seem sympathetic and relatable.

I realize that this book was written a long time ago and there was probably a lot more fascination towards the criminals than the victims, but reading it now, I can help but notice how much focus there is on Dick’s and Perry’s backgrounds and stories and how little on the victims and the victims’ friends and family left behind. The two elder daughters of the Clutter family are most noticeably absent from the story.

The way the story was written also somewhat downplays the true villainy of the perps. I get the feeling that they were a lot worse than how they were portrayed. They had no remorse, didn’t feel sorry for what they did, only that they were caught. It’s very offputting. I’m still glad I read it and know a little more about this horrific incident.

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

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Book Review | How To Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis

Posted February 28, 2025 by Haze in Book Reviews / 1 Comment

How To Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis

How to Keep House While Drowning will introduce you to six life-changing principles that will revolutionize the way you approach home care—without endless to-do lists. Presented in 31 daily thoughts, this compassionate guide will help you begin to get free of the shame and anxiety you feel over home care.

Inside you will learn:
· How to shift your perspective of care tasks from moral to functional;
· How to stop negative self-talk and shame around care tasks;
· How to give yourself permission to rest, even when things aren’t finished;
· How to motivate yourself to care for your space.

For the Reading Challenge(s):
None

The Reason

I think it’s obvious why I read this. I’ve been complaining about feeling overwhelmed and disorganized lately and I thought this book might help.

The Quotes

“You do not have to earn the right to rest, connect, or recreate. Unlearn the idea that care tasks must be totally complete before you can sit down. Care tasks are a never-ending list, and if you wait until everything is done to rest, you will never rest.”

“No one ever shamed themselves into better mental health.”

“Forget about creating a routine. You have to focus on finding your rhythm.” With routines you are either on track or not. With rhythm you can skip a beat and still get back in the groove.”

“You don’t exist to serve your space; your space exists to serve you.”

The Narrator(s)

The author herself. It was good.

My Thoughts

This book is short and sweet. There were parts that didn’t resonate very much or that I felt didn’t apply to me, but there were also parts that were like a salve to my soul and I needed those parts very much. It doesn’t give instructions for how to keep house, which was what I was looking for at first. It focuses more on getting you to the mental and emotional space for taking care of yourself and your space, which I guess was what I ended up needing.

I needed the reminder that my space is meant to serve me, that I’m not required to be perfect, that some things are more important than others and it’s okay to drop the ball on the unimportant things to keep the important ones going. Listening to the audio made me feel like the author was a friend who had my back.

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

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Book Review | The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman

Posted February 2, 2025 by Haze in Book Reviews / 1 Comment

The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman

On the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of its first publication, here is the definitive edition of the book acclaimed as “the most affecting and successful narrative ever done about the Holocaust” (Wall Street Journal) and “the first masterpiece in comic book history” (The New Yorker).

The Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus tells the story of Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler’s Europe, and his son, a cartoonist coming to terms with his father’s story. Maus approaches the unspeakable through the diminutive. Its form, the cartoon (the Nazis are cats, the Jews mice), shocks us out of any lingering sense of familiarity and succeeds in “drawing us closer to the bleak heart of the Holocaust” (The New York Times).

Maus is a haunting tale within a tale. Vladek’s harrowing story of survival is woven into the author’s account of his tortured relationship with his aging father. Against the backdrop of guilt brought by survival, they stage a normal life of small arguments and unhappy visits. This astonishing retelling of our century’s grisliest news is a story of survival, not only of Vladek but of the children who survive even the survivors. Maus studies the bloody pawprints of history and tracks its meaning for all of us.

For the Reading Challenge(s):
2025 52 Book Club Reading Challenge (Prompt #26: More than a million copies sold)

The Reason

It’s been on my TBR a while, I’d heard so much about it and was curious.

My Thoughts

I didn’t expect it to be so because it’s a graphic novel of mice, but I feel like this is one of the most important books about WW2 that I’ve read. One, because it’s a true story from Art’s father who actually lived through it and not the many WW2 fiction that’s available, and two, because the MC, Vladek, isn’t the most likeable person.

There’s a reminder here that it really didn’t matter if you were a good or bad person, rich or poor, strong or weak, male or female, young or old… if you were a Jew, you could die at the whims of a Nazi, or you could be one of the “lucky” ones who survived. It chills me to think about it. As I’ve said, I really don’t like Vladek very much. He’s stingy, difficult, and a racist, and yet, I respect his survival instincts and his resourcefulness. I still don’t like him, but no matter what, no one deserves what the Nazis did to the Jews. I love that Art told his father’s story while also showing the process of being told the story; I think it brought a whole new element to the story to show that someone can go through something as vile as the Holocaust and yet still hold racist beliefs, and it also helps to show that Art doesn’t agree with his father’s beliefs.

In fact, one of the things I find most interesting is the relationship dynamics between Art and his father. He shows that Vladek is a difficult person to be around, to reason with, to change, and even from the beginning we see that he doesn’t spend a lot of time with his father and doesn’t want to spend a lot of time with him. It’s so relatable to both want to honor your father’s history and tell his story but not want to subject yourself to his idiosyncrasies.

I really respect the vulnerability and authenticity that Art puts into this story, and also the comic that he wrote about his mother that he included in the book. I don’t know if I could ever do that but I’m inspired by his demonstration.

In regards to the art, I think it was amazing – so detailed and very obviously thoughtful. One of the common questions asked is why use animals instead of humans to depict the characters, and I can’t say why for sure, but the deeper I got into the book, the more I wonder if using the mice to represent Jews is because of how resourceful mice are. People see mice as pests and often want to exterminate them, but they persist and they thrive despite hardships. They are incredibly smart, solving puzzles and looking for loopholes, they are survivors. I don’t know if this was Art’s intent, but it was my takeaway. This book has been on my radar for a long time, I’m so glad I finally read it!

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

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Book Review | Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann

Posted January 12, 2025 by Haze in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann

From the #1 New York Times best-selling author of The Lost City of Z, a twisting, haunting true-life murder mystery about one of the most monstrous crimes in American history

In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, the Osage rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe.

Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed off. The family of an Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, became a prime target. One of her relatives was shot. Another was poisoned. And it was just the beginning, as more and more Osage were dying under mysterious circumstances, and many of those who dared to investigate the killings were themselves murdered.

As the death toll rose, the newly created FBI took up the case, and the young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to try to unravel the mystery. White put together an undercover team, including a Native American agent who infiltrated the region, and together with the Osage began to expose one of the most chilling conspiracies in American history.

For the Reading Challenge(s):
2025 52 Book Club Reading Challenge (Prompt #12: Has a moon on the cover)

The Reason

I’ve been wanting to read this and it was available as a Skip the line loan for 7 days from Libby, so I jumped on it!

The Quotes

“History is a merciless judge. It lays bare our tragic blunders and foolish missteps and exposes our most intimate secrets, wielding the power of hindsight like an arrogant detective who seems to know the end of the mystery from the outset.”

“There was one question that the judge and the prosecutors and the defense never asked the jurors but that was central to the proceedings: Would a jury of twelve white men ever punish another white man for killing an American Indian?”

“There never has been a country on this earth that has fallen except when that point was reached…where the citizens would say, ‘We cannot get justice in our courts.’ ”

“Stores gone, post office gone, train gone, school gone, oil gone, boys and girls gone—only thing not gone is graveyard and it git bigger.”

The Narrator(s)

Will Patton, Ann Marie Lee, Danny Campbell. They were great, no complaints on the audio production. Will Patton is a familiar voice to me and it was good to hear it here.

My Thoughts

The horror that was done (and is still being done) to the Indigenous people of America has been talked about for a while now, but I know that a lot of it has been covered up and/or glossed over throughout history and it’s difficult to get a real sense of what actually happened and all the things that happened. This book was a brutal look into one of the things that happened.

I haven’t watched the movie but I am very interested to see how the story is being portrayed. It’s horrifying in and of itself, but more so now because the hate, corruption, and racism is still happening and may possibly be getting worse. It’s crazy to think that in these times, we have not learned or grown from the mistakes of the past. It’s crazy to think that we may even be regressing, and that what has happened before can still be happening.

Some of the crimes that have been committed against the Indigenous people were so blatant and yet, the perpetrators of the crimes are not scared or ashamed of being caught because they had the support of other hateful people. It’s so sad to me that we can look at another human being and think that they are beneath us and don’t deserve basic respect. I’m glad that I read this book and gained some perspective on human nature and the unforgivable things that have been done to Indigenous people, but it’s also a little scary and depressing to realize that it’s not completely behind us. I still think this is a very important book to read in order to open our eyes to the truth, and I would definitely recommend reading it.

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

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