South Dakota Outlaws & Scofflaws

Last month I posted about the History & Heritage Book club that featured The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I hadn't had a chance to (re)read that one before the meeting, but I decided that I would read the next book and attend the February meeting. The book for February is South Dakota Outlaws & Scofflaws by John Andrews, Bernie Hunhoff, Roger Holtzman and Katie Hunhoff, published by South Dakota Magazine.  This is a slim book, only 140 pages long, and written in a very accessible style. This is not a heavy duty history tome and reads quite a bit like a series of magazine articles.

Since I am not a South Dakota native, many of these stories were completely new to me. The old west culture, cattle rustling, saloons and ranching are not things you hear about much in Alabama. Due to the HBO show Deadwood from a few years ago, I was familiar with a few of the characters- Al Swearengen, Seth Bullock, Calamity Jane, and Charlie Utter. While I expected that HBO took some liberties (duh) it was interesting to get an introduction to the true story for many of them.  The book also covers quite a few figures from East River (for those not in the know, South Dakota is divided neatly in half by the Missouri River; culture and geography is definitely different on either side.)

The book is very readable. The tone and writing level is that of a magazine, without a lot of heavy facts or footnotes.  This is a great introduction to this aspect of South Dakota history, but I don't feel like I've learned more than a passing bit about each entry. The easy readability is also the book's downfall, in that each chapter seems to exist independently of the rest of the book. For example, Al Swearengen is mentioned in more than one chapter, but each time is a written as a whole new introduction. This would work great in a series of magazine articles, or if I were picking and choosing chapters, but for reading it straight through it was a bit awkward.

I'm interested to see what the other book club members thought, and to see what other book suggestions they may have to follow up on some of the topics in Outlaws & Scofflaws. In particular, I found Jack Sully and Poker Alice  interesting, and will have to see if I can find other books about the two of them.

This book is not available on Amazon, and I had to add the entry on Goodreads myself, but if you're interested you can pick up a copy through the South Dakota Magazine website.
 

Triangle: The Fire that Changed America by David Von Drehle

On March 25, 1911 a fire broke out in a factory on the 8th floor of the Asch building in New York City. The 8th, 9th, and 10th floors of the building were occupied by the Triangle shirtwaist company and 146 workers died, most of them young women. This would be the worst workplace disaster in NYC until September 11th. Unsafe conditions, including a possibly (probably) locked door, literally tons of highly flammable materials, and rickety fire escapes contributed to the tragedy and the owners of the shirtwaist company were put on trial and found... not guilty.

The Triangle fire is something that I knew a tiny bit about- approximately that paragraph's worth- prior to reading von Drehle's book (Triangle: The Fire That Changed America). I had this vague idea that it was something that I was interested in, and an online friend of mine is fairly obsessed with it, so when I saw the book at the library I picked it up. This book was fascinating, completely enthralling and compelling. It opens up with several chapters about labor unions and strikes and I was pretty sure I wasn't going to enjoy it- while I was a history major, unions and the attached politics were never my thing. However, social history WAS and this book is chock full of social history.  The immigrant experience is fascinating and I'm sad to say that I've never really read up on it. I'm now inspired to find more non-fiction about just that portion of American history. (This is where you all speak up with your suggestions of other books I can read on immigrant life.)

The part about the fire is very well researched and makes a compelling case for the owners of the company being at fault. The trial is detailed as well, with the lawyer for the defense being the appropriately shady, but flashy, person. (Think Johnny Cochran .) The book goes on to make a case that despite the "innocence" of the owners, factory reforms started from that point until the entire experience of the working class changed, along with much of politics (at least in NYC.) There's a detailed political history lesson throughout the book, about Tammany Hall and buying votes and socialism and all that. I admit this isn't the part that interests me most, so I'm not sure if he really made his case or not, but I did learn a good deal about it. Even with this political turn, the book is really fascinating, and a great starting point for exploring more of our history. I'd highly recommend it to any history buff.

Next up on my non-fiction list this year is The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, which is also about immigration, in a way. What books do you recommend about the immigrant experience? What about poor working class life in a big city? Got any suggestions for life in turn of the century New York? 

U.S. Presidents Reading Project

The excitment of the recent election combined with my win of the books of election books from Hachette Books Group has me interested in learning more about politics and our country's history. I'm a history major, but I didn't really focus much on US history or politics Instead, I took a lot of classes about the South. I piddled around and did most of my electives outside of my history major. It's really time to rectify that, don't you think?

Lezlie, of Books 'N Border Collies, has started an open ended challenge to read a biography of each of the US Presidents called the U.S. Presidents Reading Project. While I think this is a bit ambitious (hello, have you SEEN my TBR??) I have decided to sign up and see how far I get before I lose steam. You're able to tailor this one to meet your interests, so one book about several presidents is ok. Or say, one book about Billy Graham and several presidents.

You might be thinking, this girl doesn't finish ANYTHING she starts (someone remind me to update that page later, ok?) And you'd be right! Luckily for me, this challenge doesn't have an end date so if I read one book a year... uh... 44 presidents plus 33 years already plus a new president every four years, unless they win a second term equals.. wait, I already read a book by President- Elect Barack Obama (wouldn't you think Google would have added that to spellcheck already?).. so that leaves how many?

Anywho, I'm gonna give it a shot. Head on over and check it out, you might want to sign up too!

TBR Day- Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan has been on everyone's blog in the last year or so. Most everyone loved it to death. I put it on my paperbackswap list and got it in the mail some time last year, but never got around to reading it. This January, I put it on my personal TBR challenge list (found here.) Last week when I was looking for a book for this challenge, I picked it up. I read about a third of it, and then decided to take a little break to have a baby. I took the book to the hospital and on my last day there mostly finished it. (I spent a lot of time hoping to sleep, but due to being in a "semi-private" room didn't really sleep. Or read. Or watch tv. Just laid there trying to ignore my roommate and her family.)

Snow Flower is about two women, Snow Flower and Lily, who are pledged together as laotong- a special type of friends. Lily is poor and uneducated, but has perfect feet. Snow Flower is from a wealthy family and is very proper and educated. Over the course of the book we see both women from about age 7 until their death(s). The girls get their feet bound, are matched and married, and become mothers themselves. The laotong friendship is supposed to benefit both girls. From the beginning it is obvious how this will benefit Lily. The connection with a wealthy influential family will give her some prestige and Snow Flower will teach Lily manners she wouldn't learn at home. It is not so clear how this helps Snow Flower. The girls marry off in very ritual ceremonies and then... wait, you don't want to know what happens, right?

This book was fascinating look at the history of the women in China. The rituals of footbinding and the marriage traditions are very interesting. The way the women lived was very eye-opening to me. Much of the book is about nu shu- a "secret" women's writing that Lily and Snow Flower used to communicate when they weren't together. Snow Flower and Lily use nu shu to write important events on the folds of a fan which travels between the girls as well. The books is written as a memoir written by Lily, looking back at the past.

The pages of the book just flew by. I expected it to be hard to get into the groove because of the time period, but there was never a moment of slowness. At the beginning, I was a bit annoyed at Lily's heavy foreshadowing of what would happen. By the end of the book it wasn't so noticable, and it started to feel like the way Lily was berating herself rather than foreshadowing. The trajectory of the girl's lives was perfect and dramatic. Details were revealed very slowly but when you did find some new detail it was both surprising and expected due to what Lily had already known. (Ok, that makes no sense, but trust me on it.) Overall, an excellent book, highly recommended.

This review is for avidbookreader's TBR challenge, and also fulfills a book on my own list. I have barely proofread it, as I have barely slept and find that prospect much more appealing. My apologies.