History and Historical Novels

Originally published in the Ketchikan Daily News, December 2017; written by Tammy Dinsmore

“The gods of the valley are not the gods of the hills, and you shall understand it.”—Ethan Allen, reply to the King's attorney-general, Jun. 1770. Vern Barclay’s mom has sent him a new Vermont flag that she has made by hand, with these words on it.

Vern is in hiding because he is wanted by the police for his unorthodox podcasts and radio broadcasts from an “undisclosed and double-secret location”, but mostly because his friend, Perry decided to hack into the wastewater program at the new Walmart opening and cause chaos and damage. He and his computer buddy, Perry Alterson highjack the airwaves of the Vermont Starbucks and tell customers they should be buying from the Vermonters who own coffee shops and not send their money to Seattle. His friend Sylvia and a couple others detour a Coors Light truck and they empty it out and send the driver on his way with some very fine craft brews made in Vermont. And Vern’s friend Perry breaks into the local school computer system and instead of the exam they were supposed to have, the students get Ethan Allen and Vermont history questions, and then they are dismissed from school for the day.

All of this happens in the beginning chapters of “Radio Free Vermont: A Fable of Resistance” by Bill McKibben. This is a fun novel about a group of folks who are trying to figure out how to get Vermont to secede from the union. What would it take? Can they do it?

In “The secret diary of Hendrik Groen, 83 1/4”, Hendrik is living in a retirement home in the Netherlands. He decides to shake things up a bit and start a diary and expose some of the goings-on happening at the home. “He may be old, but he’s not dead yet”, he says. This is a fun look at how he and some of his compatriots in the Not-Dead-Yet-Club are trying to make the best of things, getting themselves into trouble and having some fun outings and new learning experiences, from cooking classes to Tai Chi. The bureaucracy of the home is a hard one for Hendrik and he doesn’t like whiners! I am having a fun time listening to this book on audio, but we have it in print form also.

I think one of my favorite audiobooks of this year has to be “Norse Mythology” by Neil Gaiman. Mr Gaiman has reimagined and tells the Norse tales and brings to life the Gods, Odin and Thor, Frey and Freya and of course the mischievous Loki. There are stories that have elves, dwarfs and giants and tell of the nine worlds created by the Gods. We get to hear (or read) about the beginning of time and then the book ends with the story of Ragnarok. I particularly liked the story of how Thor came to acquire his hammer. The library has this in print form as well as the audiobook, but I especially liked it on audio.

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