Best Books from the Commute in 2018

I commute from Dusseldorf to Aachen about three times a week, which is a lot of time spent on a train. Many people are amazed by the length of my commute, but I look at it as a wonderful opportunity to gaze out the window, fall asleep and hope I don't get robbed, and mostly read. Since starting my Aachen gig in March, I've read a few good books that I wanted to share here. 

Berlin Noir Trilogy by Philip Kerr

Our anti-hero is Bernie Gunther is a Philip Marlowe-type detective whose moral code gets him into trouble on the streets of Berlin in Nazi Germany. Hooked yet?

These first three books of a fantastic series take Gunther from 1930s Berlin to the annexation of the Sudetenland to the reckoning in 1946. Along with the way, we meet a few historical figures. Gunther makes choices, some of them are tough in this time and place. As we read the final book of the trilogy, after Berlin is smashed and Germany is occupied, we meet supporting characters from the earlier books who are either facing, or fleeing from, the consequences of their own choices. Highly recommended.

Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis

The hilarious story of a disenchanted political strategist who agrees to help run a campaign for a candidate with no political ambition in an unwinnable riding before he quits from politics. The candidate has no hope of winning and no desire to win, so he says what he believes is right, even if it's unpopular.

The novel is now ten years old, which were different times in Canada, but it still feels relevant today. It's bitingly funny, yet optimistic, and satirical without being cynical. Beneath all the jokes, the book expresses a hope in the possibility that politicians can follow their principles not polling data, speak unpopular truths, and treat public service like it is actually public service.

Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain

Working at Philty McNasty's in Toronto, I met two cooks who read this book and quoted from it frequently. They wanted to be Bourdain and would've preferred making fancy charcuterie platters to simple chicken wings we were slinging. They also had no interest in kitchen cleanliness – which led to the bar getting shut down for a week over health violations.

It gave me an unjustified bad first impression of Bourdain, so I stayed away from his book for ten years. I regret it. Bourdain writes about the joys of sharing good simple food with friends or family or a perfect stranger – the opposite of what my snobbish co-workers gourmet ambitions. He celebrates the cast of characters you find slaving away in kitchens and the dangerous ballet they dance in a small space during a weekend dinner rush. I'm not formally trained or interested in a food business career, but this book spoke to me, bringing back all sorts of memories of the characters I worked with in kitchens while I saved for school.

After Bourdain died, I reread a few chapters, grateful that I got around to this book.

Nobody Looks That Young Here by Daniel Perry

A set of linked stories set in the countryside just outside of London. For those of who know the area, it will feel familiar to you. This is like Sunshine Sketches of Little Town, only it's a hundred years later and the train doesn't run through town anymore, the hotel is a ruin, the factory shut down, the newspaper folded, and all hope has moved somewhere else. It's about trying to escape the place you came from, but never quite escaping. It's not dark, but does it fell real. Full disclosure, the author is a very good friend of mine.

The Road to Unfreedom by Timothy Snyder

A detailed, readable deconstruction of Vladimir Putin's oligarchy in Russia, which in showing how it works, also shows that it can happen anywhere. Snyder writes that Russia's rulers have started a culture war to cling to power by leveraging national nostalgia, attacking internal dissent, demonstrating strength in risky foreign adventures, funding far-right political parties in the European Union, and using social media to spread conflicting disinformation that confuses and fosters cynicism.

All of these actions come from a place of weakness. Attacking the West and international institutions like the EU works for Putin because Russia isn't weak if everyone else is also weak. This gives Russians the impression that Russia is strong, which lends enough credibility to Putin that his hold on power is less tenuous.

It's chilling because the tactics Snyder writes about in Russia can be seen in varying degrees in Hungary, Germany, and the United States. Can it happen here? It's already happening.

Shortest History of Germany by James Hawes

I picked this book up hoping it would fill my historical blank spots on Germany between the Barbarian Migrations and the Reformation. I got so much more out of it. True to its title, it is a short history of Germany, but its main thesis is that the East-West divide between Germany goes back for far later than the Cold War, to the Romans. 

The Rhine and the Danube rivers – along with a line of forts between the two rivers – was the border between the Roman Empire and the barbarian hordes beyond. Every major city in West Germany, except for Hamburg, started within or in the shadow of Roman civilization. Charlemagne and his descendants ruled former Roman provinces, while pushing his realm's borders to the Elbe river. The pagan lands to the East beyond the Elbe were conquered/colonized/converted by the Teutonic Knights.

Hawes draws a line between two Germany's. In the west, there was Catholicism, democracy, capitalism, and Goethe. In the east, there was Protestantism, powerful aristocracy, militarism, and Bismarck.

This legacy carries on to this day, Hawes shows the rise of the far right Alternative for Germany party (AfD) in the former East German states has deeper historical roots: Prussian militarism and conservatism, which created the German Empire, which was reincarnated into Nazi Germany, and then the DDR.

That's the shortest summary of a refreshing book that, even though I didn't agree with all its conclusions, made me look at Germany differently.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

It seems that every post-apocalyptic movie or book these days is only about simple survival, which I get because staying alive is a primal story premise that sells. Station Eleven is different. 

The story follows several characters who survive a worldwide flu epidemic that kills billions and leaves humanity without electricity, refrigeration, and the internet. Most of the story follows a traveling band of musicians and actors 20 years after the epidemic as they travel the Great Lakes region, visiting isolated communities of survivors eking out a living. The roving entertainers, if they're not chased away by fanatics from a cult, are happily welcomed, like medieval traveling bards. They often get requests for the old classics, like classical music and Shakespeare. 

As one of the characters says, "Survival is insufficient."