Book Review: Inequality by Design (OT) (planned obsolescence?)

Inequality by Design, by Ryan Mattson and Ben Johnson (Upriver Press. $24.95, 264pp PB, 2025)

Inequality by design, Planned obsolescence. But now, along with people's lives and occupations and Socio Economic Status (SES) and educational opportunities and tax brackets.

Authors Ryan Mattson and Ben Johnson have written a book that is spellbinding, a non-fiction book that reads like fiction, a book you simply cannot put down. Inequality by Design follows three highschool seniors from graduation to their lives ten years later and then twenty years later and . . . .Whatever happened to the promise at graduation that hard work will let you climb the ladder to success? Our highschool grads eventually learn that their success also depends on new laws passed by the government, which the average person has no inkling of nor time to pay attention to. All they know is that life is tough through no fault of their own. They are losing ground.

Although graphs are large enough to be read easily, the print accompanying them is readable only by squinting. The cover design shows something breaking, an up arrow and a down arrow, a mountain (?) and a body of water: I would suggest a design that is more obvious to the naive reader. Most importantly, I would put the subtitle on the cover (How a Rigged Economy Fractures America and What We Can Do About It).

The authors somehow make complex ideas understandable in conversational tones. I would take a class from these two in any subject. I would read any book they wrote.

Book Review: We the People (OT) (A Premonition)

We the People, A Premonition, by Russell Razzaque and T. MacGregor (Omni House Press, 2025, $9.99, 244pp PB)

Have you wondered what the future will bring, politically? Children do: they have illogical fears. I know I did- about nuclear war. Well, the future is now, or at least on its way and visible. This dystopian novel creates one such future.

The cover is magnetic - amid a destroyed New York City is featured Lady Liberty with injuries - this contradicts the title, We the People. The reader must read to find out why the contradiction. Or, reading the back cover, the reader is given a glimpse of the plot, setting and characters (and AI). It most likely will be a thriller but perhaps an unsettling thriller (and it's good to have both women and men protagonists).

We the People is a fast read and one that appeals to Hiispanic readers. The authors do a good job of inserting Spanish sentences whose meanings can be deduced in the following text.

The Table of Contents is interesting: chapter titles are One, Two, Three (with the final chapter being called "Now it's over to you!") and appear in Part One, Two or THREE [sic] as if the authors or publisher couldn't come up with better titles - but I like them!

*Lines are spaced rather far apart vertically and, unfortunately, too many errors are still present (the Mariel boat life took place in 1980 not 1982, e.g.) which include occasional uneven spacing between words. Where are the proofreaders when you need them?

Given all this, People is well written, well thought out and a different yet fascinating read for discussion.

Book Review: The Catalysts (OT) (the accelerating forces forging the new world financial order)

The Catalysts (The Accelerating Forces Forging the New World Financial Order), by Amanda Wick (Racket  Publishing, $34.95 PB, 2025, 417pp PB) 

The title, The Catalysts, and the front cover illustration led me to believe this book was about the environment. Great! But I was wrong: the subtitle contains the word, financial. Therefore, I put this book at the bottom of my list to read and review. When its turn came up I found out just how wrong I had been - early on. (P.S. Will the average reader know what a catalyst is, or just the chemistry majors?)

Author Amanda Wick opens her book with a zinger - the January 6 incident in Washington, DC. And she writes a non-fiction book that reads like fiction - fast and fascinating.

Subtitles in each chapter are extremely helpful as is the good-sized print which enables one to read in bed at night under less than ideal lighting circumstances.

An amazingly clear debut text with uncluttered drawings of graphs, key points at the ends of chapters (and it might be good to put them in the beginning of said chapters as well), headings and subheadings and subsubheadings emphasize important points for the reader. 

My final comment would be to write a companion book, shorter, and for the populace rather than for  public policymakers, regulators and concerned citizens.

Book Review: Through the Gates of Hell (OT), American Injustice at Guantanamo Bay

Through the Gates of Hell (OT), American Injustice at Guantanamo Bay, by Joshua Colangelo-Bryan (Humanitas Media, 2025, $27.00HB, 232pp HB)

As I've said before, a good book has a good story to tell and is well-written (also called magic since it is hard to define, but "I know it when I see it" [also said in the past of pornography]).

The reader knows a good book early on - by thumbing through it or by starting to read the first few paragraphs or words.

Many good books have been written by journalists or by former authors though not this book. Through the Gates of Hell is authored by a first-time author - an attorney to boot! Joshua Colangelo-Bryan must attempt to explain a lot of legal lingo in words the average person can understand - without being too boring. I believe he has done a quite good job.

Front cover designs are becoming more and more important in selling what is inside and becoming more fashionable to the book buyer (though not necessarily for the library patron. Hell's front cover, though perhaps I should refer to the book as Gates rather than Hell, depicts a wall topped by barbed wire, a universal photo.

Books have changed the world, from sparking an interest in a youngster so he or she goes into a specific occupation or causes someone to visit a certain foreign country. I am not sure Hell will do this but the author is a highly ethical person, even though an attorney, and that shows in the 'plot.'

And lastly, a good book is good all the way through. Hell is this, also. It is a piece of nonfiction that reads like fiction and brings in the rest of the world.

Through the Gates of Hell is a good book. It is about one of the detainees/prisoners at Gitmo (Guantanamo Bay, Cuba) and his American attorney and the hours they spent talking their case (Jaber's release, after 911), and their legal fight for Jaber's freedom due to perhaps mistaken identity.

A sobering, spellbinding, yet inspirational book. Can we really be the bad guys?

-----------------------------------

I have read a few authors that I really like, not only as an author but as a person. Josh is one such person due to his high ethics. At the least, I would like to meet him.

I might suggest that some sensitive readers skip much of the beginning material which depicts treatment of prisoners at Gitmo (Guantanamo). And it was hard for me to believe that much of that treatment was going on - not the Army I knew in the war against terrorism (but I did get an inkling of it when I was in Afghanistan).

Gates does get bogged down in much of the book and that makes it hard to read because we know how it ends, we merely have to read the entire book to find out under what circumstances and when it gets resolved. And some might wonder why the book is about one Bahraini man when there were six at Gitmo at the time.

Book Review: The Immigrant Next Door (OT)(Collected stories of the American experience)

The Immigrant Next Door (Collected stories of the American experience), by JamesKenyon (Meadowlark Press, 2024, 301pp, $25)

What an amazing title! And penned by a veterinarian to boot! Thirty-one stories of 31 immigrants to the  United States - when they came, why they came, and "the rest of the story."

Two chapters, two stories stand out: Elizabeth Drummond Hempfling who saw an ad in her native British newspaper in the late 60s for a nanny for 3-year-old twins in New Hampshire and Isabel Posso Diedrichs from Ecuador, who ended up in Montana (of all places) for college, pledging Kappa Alpha Theta.

The stories belong to the immigrants - people who come to the US, some with the intention of staying and some with not, but who manage to spend their life here anyway.

These stories are mini-biographies with the added bonus of supplying a considerable amount of information about the immigrant's home countries: from Myanmar to Bosnia to Ghana.

Not the first book from this author-veterinarian, The Immigrant Next Door has its hills and valleys of well-written paragraphs and sentences, as if some were carefully crafted, as if some were written by an experienced editor - most just telling a homey story.                                                                            

Suggestions

I was surprised at the dearth of stories from Asia or the Far East (China, Thailand, etc.); nonetheless, a good selection is to be had (read and remembered). You will have your favorites, along with their photos. And the story of how this book came to be is also memorable which may account for the selection of home countries. 

The United States is such a lucky country!

Book Review: The Wire-Walker (OT) (love, care, dreaming)

The Wire-Walker, by James Janko (Regal House Publishing, 2025, #20.95, 310pp PB)

The cover design with illustration, colors, and title is only slightly magnetic and I probably would not have purchased the book, The Wire-Walker. I might have thought it was about a circus, which, in a way, it is. But it is so much more than just a book about a circus. Although the title is 'appropo' I would suggest something more engaging to grab the reader's attention. However, the praise from other authors that is included made my decision for me, even though I knew next to nothing about this part of the world.  

Wire-Walker reads like a work of fiction, which is actually is, with lovely creative prose.

Our 16 year-old Palestinian protagonist lives in a refugee camp* and has learned to walk tightropes so she goes to the 'other' side (Israel) to improve her skills in the circus for kids, The Flying Kids, in which she is an 'aerialist' not a 'tightrope walker.'

One of the subplots will have you reading fast and faster to see what her twin brother finds and finds out. ----------------------------

*Balata has dwellings so crowded they remind me of one of the slums in the Far East with alleys so narrow that one can touch buildings on both sides at the same time and, when looking up,  can see only a sliver of sky and only at noon.

Book Review: Politics, Gangs and Vodou (OT)(Haiti's Struggle for Democracy and Human Rights)

Politics, Gangs and Vodou (Haiti's Struggle for Democracy and Human Rights) by Yvon Milien (Yvon Milien, 2025, $18.99, 268pp) 

Halfway through the introduction and after perusing the 'parts' like the Table of Contents, I realized the reader should read Politics, Gangs, and Vodou in chapter order, for it explains the history and culture, and delves into the future. Then, lo and behold, the next page in the introduction said the same thing but was more forgiving in that the second most valuable way to read the book is to just open it and start where your interests lie.

On second thought, there are 12 sections, each with chapters for a total of 30 chapters. The most memorable divisions in any object are a total of 3 but often goes up to 7 (unsuccessfully). Politics, with12 divisions, is unwieldly with sections that are hard to keep in mind and remember. Many times a book like this would include history, the current day, plans for the future, and maybe culture. However, with short chapters, Politics does a good job.

How can one describe how a nation came to be "born in chains, baptized in fire, and cast into the world alone, . . ."? Once the wealthiest (French) colony in the world due to its climate, soil and indigenous slaves, once Haiti won its freedom, the struggle began.

In order to understand Haiti, author Yvon Milien compares it to the US and compares authoritarianism to democracy, more than just elections, with civilian power and military rule.