The Year 2021 in Books

Continuing with our year in review, Matt Lynn Digital invites you to look back at the last year in reviews of books, movies, music and television. We look at these with individual categories, one per day through Friday. Today we share book reviews offered by Matt Lynn Digital in 2021.

(The 2020 Pulitzer Prize winner for Fiction winner, The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead, tops our list of 27 books reviewed in 2021 when it comes to our assessment of quality).

Colson Whitehead‘s book 2019 novel The Nickel Boys received the highest rating of all books that we read and rated in 2021, having received 4.25-stars on a scale of one-to-five. The book is historical fiction based on uncovered horrors of the Dozier School for Boys, addressing specific race-based systemic inequities in the 20th century.

(Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony and Cass R. Sunstein wrote Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment).

Two other books received a similar 4.25-stars in 2021. The nonfiction book Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment by Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony and Cass R. Sunstein discusses sources of inaccuracy, bias and noise in the world of judgment. The counterterrorism book The Last Man by Vince Flynn establishes further narrative possibilities for the Mitch Rapp character following the death of character creator and author Vince Flynn.

(Matt Lynn Digital rated fifteen (15) books at 4-stars. Matthew McConaughey and his memoir Greenlights leads the memoirs with this rating).

Matthew McConaughey wrote the book Greenlights. The memoir looked through his past with recollections captured in journals, snippets of poetry, and having lived his life where and how he has. The positives and difficulties were positive and inspirational. I enjoyed this. Another pair of books that captured my interest included No Time Like the Future: An Optimist Considers Mortality by Michael J. Fox and All In: An Autobiography by Billie Jean King with Johnette Howard and Maryanne Vollers.

(Another book receiving 4-stars was The Great Glorious Goddamn of it All by Josh Ritter).

The Great Glorious Goddamn of it All by Josh Ritter is a coming-of-age novel of a young boy’s experience during the last days of the lumberjacks looking back as an elderly man at his life, specifically that period as a young man following his father’s death. The Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction in 2019, The Overstory by Richard Powers, reflects a direct push against the notion of the work of lumberjacks and other efforts against nature in an impassioned work advocating environmentalism. The Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction in 2018, Less by Andrew Sean Greer, aims to see the world through the lens of awkward romantic entanglements filled with humorous situations, unexpected consolation and discovery, and, ultimately, a better sense of the experience of love for the older gay man aiming to make his way in the world.

(The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman begins another trio of three books earning 4-stars by Matt Lynn Digital).

 The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman begins with an emotionally heart wrenching decision around kids from the beginning of the story that throws much of the lives of the central characters into chaos. The moral struggles blur lines of love and loyalty to shocking degrees that lead to deeply resonant places. The dark corners of motivation in All Things Cease to Appear by Elizabeth Brundage, with the underlying motivation for the relevant action within the book operating from a completely different emotional and broken place. The notion of brokenness melts into class and racially based ugliness with The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe.

(The Joseph Conrad book Heart of Darkness pairs two books that ask the reader to consider motivation and belief within the book’s characters).

The Joseph Conrad book Heart of Darkness indirectly speaks of imperialism and racism. Diverse audiences debate whether the message Joseph Conrad aimed to offer was indeed itself racist; the question of moral superiority is raised through the eyes of Charles Marlow and his obsessive, perhaps mentally ill view of the arguably successful ivory trader Mr. Kurtz. The Survivor by Kyle Mills places the notion of country, loyalty and motivation based in part on notions of tribal instinct to the test. The questions are couched differently between Mills as inherited from Vince Flynn and Conrad, yet the questions do address questions of values and value in a specific view of life.

(Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson is one of a pair of relatively contemporary political books looking at the sociology of race in the United States that Matt Lynn Digital has rated as 4-stars).

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson makes an affirmative case for systems of caste existing on skin color in the United States. Equivalents are reviewed against the caste systems of India and Nazi Germany. The book Race Matters by Cornel West takes critical looks at eight essay length racial subjects that seemingly aim to promote thinking on race beyond the superficial; this aim is one that I see West sharing with Wilkerson.

(Wes Moore and Erica L. Green wrote Five Days: The Fiery Reckoning of an American City, which is one of two books about social unrest in the streets of America that Matt Lynn Digital gave 4-stars in 2021).

The book Five Days: The Fiery Reckoning of an American City was written by anti-poverty activist Wes Moore and education policy, civil rights and education equity reporter Erica L. Green. The book looks into the perspectives of eight participants in community uprisings in Baltimore, Maryland following Freddie Gray‘s death while in police custody. The David Zucchino book Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. Zucchino‘s book looked into Wilmington, North Carolina race riot of 1898 that included racial intimidation and violence to literally replace the democratically elected government of that community.

(The Cider House Rules by John Irving is one of eight books to receive 3.75-stars on a scale of 1-to-5).

 The Cider House Rules by John Irving uses historical fiction along with the notion of orphanages, abortion and the personal lives of people behaving poorly to see people as they are, arguably as broken people sometimes doing things against decent standards. A portion of the book is tedious before becoming more interpersonally engaging. Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel by Anthony Doerr uses parallel narratives bound together in a unique manner to cope with realities that tie to common narratives across distinct circumstances of tragedy, grief and loss. A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles approaches the depths of human feeling, diminishing distinctions of social class and the aftermath of the Russian Revolution with his book. The notion of punishment is captivity through confinement in a hotel in Moscow, Russia where, in confinement, the central character faces moral ambiguity in family life.

(Ill Will by Dan Chaon enters a psychological mystery territory with this work of fiction that earned 3.75-stars).

Ill Will by Dan Chaon connects parts of people’s past and present in showing tricky ways that the mind works to protect itself in the moment. The story takes some dark turns through external manipulations, leading to exceptionally scaring outcomes in the present. Pursuit of Honor by Vince Flynn is the third Mitch Rapp book to land in our review this year. The counterterrorism sensibility coupled with the meddling congress angles remain as strong as ever. Like with Ill Will, I found Pursuit of Honor entertaining.

(Thunderstruck by Erik Larson brings the string of fiction books reviewed in 2021 by Matt Lynn Digital to a close).

Thunderstruck by Erik Larson earned 3.75-stars for the narrative nonfiction telling of the creation of wireless communication across water coupled with the international capture of a murderer through the use of that technology.  The Unwinding of the Miracle: A Memoir of Life, Death, and Everything That Comes After by Julie Yip-Williams uses narrative nonfiction to share herself with her children and husband beyond her 2018 death from colon cancer. Henry Adams uses a story telling approach more in the memoir camp with The Education of Henry Adams: An Autobiography. Adams is the grandson and great grandson of former United States presidents who used his unique perspective as an American historian, diplomat, and posthumously awarded the 1919 Pulitzer Prize winner for biography with this book to offer something engaging.

(George Vecsey wrote Stan Musial: An American Life, a biography awarded 3.5-stars by Matt Lynn Digital).

Stan Musial: An American Life by George Vecsey earned 3.5-stars on a scale of 1-to-5. The biography tells an interesting base narrative of the man without firsthand interviews with the man. That the story included a bit of a heavy regional slant could have worked better for me, though the information in telling me about the man was helpful.

Matt Lynn Digital appreciates your continued interest in the content we offer. Should you have albums that you’d like us to review, or similar work to that mentioned above, please be sure to let us know.

Matt – Thursday, December 30, 2021

Henry Adams and the book ‘The Education of Henry Adams: An Autobiography’

It was many years ago, upon graduating from undergraduate school with a degree in language and an appreciation for history that I came to the book The Education of Henry Adams: An Autobiography. Henry Adams, the grandson and great grandson of former United States presidents John Quincy Adams and John Adams, was an American historian, diplomat, and posthumously awarded the 1919 Pulitzer Prize for biography for the book we are looking at today.

(Henry Adams, working at a desk, wrote the Pulitzer Prize winning book The Education of Henry James: An Autobiography).

Henry Adams lived from 1838 to 1918. The Education of Henry James: An Autobiography serves at one level as the autobiography of a man from Boston, Massachusetts looking back on his life and the coming changes for society due to the Industrial Revolution for a man who grew up and lived in a much different world. Adams uses his notion of education as received through parts of Europe, America and experience to draw a picture for what the coming age might mean for those looking to make their way in the world.

(From left, US presidents John Adams and John Quicy Adams, the great grandfather and grandfather of Pulitzer Prize winner Henry Adams).

The Education of Henry James: An Autobiography is not so much an autobiography in the traditional sense. The reader is not given a recounting of the deeds and accomplishments of a either of Adams‘ presidential ancestors, nor of the Henry Adams book History of the United States during the administrations of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. The book instead looks into technological, social, political, and intellectual changes that Henry Adams was able to observe and discuss. The notion of these being stated in terms of the education of a man, himself, served as a literary device for humor at the author’s own expense.

(Henry Adams wrote the Pulitzer Prize winning book The Education of Henry James: An Autobiography).

The timeframe that Henry James reviews in The Education of Henry James: An Autobiography is from his service in the United Kingdom during the American Civil War through World War One. That a degree of familiarity with the notion of wireless communication, as we recently mentioned with our review of Erik Larson‘s Thunderstruck, was an unanticipated yet happy discovery.

(Henry Adams wrote the self-effacing book The Education of Henry James: An Autobiography).

That The Education of Henry James: An Autobiography offers humorous self-criticism helps what I dealt with in needing to educate myself on some of the historical figures referenced throughout the text. An audience 100-years ago, or one more versed in the people of history through the historic period, would fair better than I did. I rate The Education of Henry James: An Autobiography by Henry James at 3.75-stars on a scale of one-to-five.

Matt – Wednesday, June 30, 2021