A Brief History of How the Industrial Revolution Changed the World

Well, at least there wasn't any false advertising. A Brief History of How the Industrial Revolution Changed the World was brief. It was also shallow, focusing on the industry and not on its effects. Neither enlightening nor entertainingly written, it's a book destined for the donation box.

Republic of Lies: American Conspiracy Theorists and Their Surprising Rise to Power

I've been an urban legend enthusiast since I bought a book called Rumor as a fifteenth birthday present to myself.  A few years later, I discovered alt.folklore.urban, where we'd collect and debunk various legends or cite Jan Harold Brunvand's books on the topics. Back then, we talked about things like whether it's illegal to drive while barefoot (at the time, it was in two states - like many legend, there's a grain of truth to that one) or whether acid washed jeans fall apart in the dryer because they can't get all the acid out after the dying process (thanks to my lab partner, I could tell everyone what happens if you wash a pair of jeans with a few drops of HCl dried into the thighs). In the last days of Usnet, the myths were changing to black helicopters and new world orders, but they were still mostly for fun.

25 years later, urban legends, which have always had a nasty thread, have devolved into toxic hoaxes.  Aided by US and foreign political operatives who have an interest in chaos and the amorphous nature of the internet, they've become a way of accusing political opponents of heinous crimes and recruiting for hate groups.

Anna Merlan began exploring these groups when she reported on the Conspira-Sea, a cruise for UFO researchers and other conspiracy theorists. When the 2016 Presidential campaign became rife with rumors (none of which stand up to the slightest bit of analysis and some of which can be traced back, as Brunvand did in his books, to earlier rumors and legends). Ranging from the relatively harmless world of UFO investigators through Pizzagate and into the sordid world of white supremacists, she not only describes what these groups do but also how they appeal to others. It's simple, really, as it's always been. We're psychologically programmed to see patterns, and it's more comforting to think that there's a reason for everything - even something horrible - than to think it just happened. Seeing an attack as a "false flag" with "crisis actors" gives those who see the "truth" a perverse sense of superiority. They're not torturing the parents of children who were murdered in their first grade classrooms, but fighters for the truth. The internet makes it easier for these groups to find each other, but Merlan shows how it didn't create them.

Merlan also shows a deft touch in her exposing and debunking of these toxic tales. We can't leave these groups and stories completely in the dark because then they have a chance to expand, but we have to be careful not to help them spread. Merlan uses a clinical tone to explain how these hoaxes developed, puts them in a cultural context, and all along repeats that they are not true, and that they're harmful. Republic of Lies is what we need right now - a book that exposes and calmly debunks the toxic tales that are undermining our society.

And This Is Laura

I donated almost all my children's books to The Book Corner when I graduated from college. I just didn't have the room, and I wasn't going to read them again.  A few years later, I regretted donating a few, and fondly remembered several others, some of which I began to take out of the library.

And This Is Laura was one I had the nagging desire to re-read, and the realization that she has a lot in common with Ron Weasley finally pushed me to download a copy. Laura Hoffman is a normal 12-year-old - too normal, in fact, for her family.  Her mother Maggie was a Hollywood contract player in the 1950s and twenty years later writes westerns and gothic romances (two of each annually) for a Harlequin-like syndicate. Her father Basil is a scientific genius who has his own lab and an unlimited budget at Bell Labs or a similar place. Her older brother Doug is a pianist, composer, and champion debater while her older sister Jill is the captain of the bowling team and perpetual star of school plays. Even her little brother Dennis stands out, although his memorization and recitation of commercials strikes me as more annoying than commendable. Still, with a family like that, who's going to notice a 12-year-old popular, nearly straight-A student with excellent people skills and a creative streak?

Laura doesn't think she has a chance. As much as she loves her family, she feels like a hanger-on and perpetually overshadowed. Laura expects to be completely overshadowed by Jill's reputation when she joins the junior high drama club, but while she's not (yet?) as good as her sister, she's better than she thinks. More importantly, she meets her new and almost instant best friend Beth. Beth's a flautist and possibly as talented an actress as Jill, so when she visits the Hoffmans for the first time, she fits in, perhaps even better than Laura does.

During Beth's first dinner at the Hoffman's, Laura gets her first vision. Her father will solve the problem he's stuck on at work once the man with the white shirt stops by his lab. When Dr. Hoffman does hit on a solution after a visit from a white-shirted colleague, Laura doesn't think much of it, but Beth does (Laura sees her starring in the next school play). Beth also tells Jamie (a classmate who probably became an agent) and soon Laura is doing readings for most of the school. Most of them are the sort you'd expect from that age group - making the basketball team, being asked to a dance - but after seeing both her little brother's disappearance and the apparent death of her classmate Steve in short order, she's relieved when a classmate's policeman father tells her she has to close her business. It's just as well, because she's got a part in the play and is understudying Beth who's the second lead. With lines to learn and absolutely no confidence in her ability, she just doesn't have the time. And as long as Steve is alive and Beth isn't the star, Dennis will be safe.

But then Steve's family is in a car accident - Laura didn't see his funeral but his being carried on a stretcher - and his sister is too badly injured to keep her role in the play so Beth is now the star. While panicking over her unwarranted certainty that she'll ruin the play, she has another vision about Dennis's disappearance. Rather than worry her parents, she tells Jill and the two of them promise to keep an eye on him. And it works, through play practice and a successful performance in which Laura shows a flair for comedy, at least until one afternoon when Maggie Hoffman loses track of time while wrestling with a plot point.

Once Dennis is missing, Laura admits to the visions, and when her the officer sent to the Hoffman house turns out to be Laura's friend's father, she tries to visualize where her brother is. Once again, Laura is right - he's at the mall, dozing in front of a TV display, and for once, she feels special. When she tearfully admits this to her parents, they're confused.  A tween wouldn't realize this, but parents love their kids because they're them, not because they're talented or special. And maybe Laura's problem is that she's too good at too many things - a top student who is a good actress and has a knack with people, she's top-five at everything when everyone else is #1 at one or two things but middle of the pack in everything else. She is special, but tweens just don't have the perspective to see themselves as they are.

Since I have more perspective at fifty than I did at twelve, I also see more in And This Is Laura than I did when I first read it. I saw how Beth and Laura became almost instant friends and felt it more nostalgically now than when I was at an age where such things happened naturally. I also saw Laura's talents where she couldn't, and how her talented family put in more effort than she thought (both parents wrestle with work problems, and both Jill and Doug are almost always practicing). I also noticed the almost jealousy Laura felt towards Beth (her parents are lawyers and she only has one younger brother so the house is quiet and cleaned by a housekeeper) and Beth felt towards Laura (who comes from a big family with a comfortable, slightly chaotic house). Both come from loving families and love their families, but they both feel the other has the better deal. My memory was of an entertaining book about a psychic girl who gets a part in the school play, but And This Is Laura is considerably deeper.