The Pirates! in an adventure with communists, Gideon Defoe
Fun and silly pirate adventure. Just what I needed. Four stars

King George: what was his problem?: everything your schoolbooks didn’t tell you about the American Revolution, Steve Sheinkin (Y)
This was a review book, and I really loved it. Sheinkin used to write for textbook publishers and saved up all the juicy anecdotes he couldn’t put in the textbooks. I learned a lot and enjoyed the book. Five stars. I’m looking forward to his other book, on the Civil War.

Good as Lily, Derek Kirk Kim and Jesse Hamm
You know on Netflix, how there’s no star rating between “I Liked It” and “I Didn’t Like It”? I need that in-between rating for this graphic novel. A bit disappointing. Two stars.

It’s My F___ing Birthday, Merrill Markoe
Not as polished as her later novels (this is her first), but still funny and painful in that Markoe way that is so enjoyable. I really thought the title was It’s My Fucking Birthday, but the title page has F___ing.

A nuclear family vacation: travels in the world of atomic weaponry, Nathan Hodge and Sharon Weinberger
Not a kitchy trip into the forties and fifties, but a thoughtful and well-informed trip around the present-day nuclear weapon landscape. The married couple authors are both writers on defense issues and ask tough questions about the future of the nuclear arsenal. Really well done. Four stars.

Students on strike: Jim Crow, civil rights, Brown, and me: a memoir, John A. Stokes (Y)
Stokes writes about his early life and involvement in a student strike in Prince Edward County, VA to end, at first, the pitiful conditions at the county’s only high school for black students, then to end segregated schools. The strike ended up becoming one of the lawsuits that was combined into Brown vs. Board of Education. The racism they faced, before and after, was astounding. The peak, perhaps, coming after desegregation was ordered and the county closed all public schools, instead creating all-white private schools. Yow. Three stars.

Who hates whom: well-armed fanatics, intractable conflicts, and various things blowing up: a woefully incomplete guide, Bob Harris
I should have read it when it came out, but even though it’s a couple years old now, it gave me a good enough background on conflicts around the world that I could jump right in to articles on the latest updates. Excellent. Four stars.

Fugitives and Refugees: A Walk in Portland, Oregon, Chuck Palahniuk
A literary tour guide to Portland, interspersed with short snapshot stories of Palahniuk’s life in PDX. I think it was meant to shock and astound, but I’ve been to Portland, and that’s really what it’s like. Two stars.