2016 Reading #48 to 50
Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
It's hard not to read this through the filter of Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton, but Chernow's biography is plenty lively on its own. If anything, Alexander Hamilton looms even larger than life in this book, which covers all the other big things he did that wouldn't fit on a Broadway stage.
Chernow also draws a sharp portrait of early American politics, which were just as nasty as they are in 2016. What I find most fascinating is how everyone used pseudonyms to snipe at each other through the newspapers -- it turns out Internet trolling is centuries older than the Internet itself.
Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters
This noirish novel about a black soulcatcher hunting fugitive slaves in an alternate America is one of those big idea stories that could have been horribly trite, horribly shallow, or just horrible. Much like Philip Dick did with The Man In the High Castle, though, Winters balances a nasty world with a complicated and usually sympathetic character.
The pacing isn't perfect and the story feels a little rushed at the end, but I like how Winters has thought his world through. He extrapolates the social structures, the economy, and international relationships of a pariah nation, then shows how it works out in the details of everyday life. Through the eyes of "Victor", we see the open wounds that slavery leaves even in a supposedly free society. It's powerful stuff, and close enough to real life to make you squirm a little as you read.
Mah-jongg: From Shanghai to Miami Beach by Anita Luu
A slight volume covering the history, basic rules, and social practices of Mah-jongg. Nothing deep here, but the pictures of old sets are lovely and it provided some useful background for some research I've been doing.