The Gift of Fear: And other survival signals that protect us from violence - Gavin De Becker

 Let me save you some time. This book can be summed up into the following sentence: Listen to your intuition!  One could certainly delve further into this sentiment by including: Worrying means you're not actually in danger, and therefore you shouldn't waste your time on it. 

That being said, I'd still strongly recommend this book for people who are in dangerous situations, the types people don't want to admit to, with abusive family members/spouse/S.O.  So many women are murdered by the men in their lives, and it's like 90% preventable because the signs were there all along.  Those are the people that really truly need to read this book. I hope it can shake them out of their stupor. 

The Days of Abandonment - Elena Ferrante

 This was a lame story.  I guess I'm glad I got to the end because the conclusion was satisfying, but it was a slog to get there.  Don't read this book and you won't have to slog through it. Let me just go ahead and tell you about it.  Man leaves woman for hot young thing when she turns of age (probable statutory rape occurring beforehand), woman becomes mentally unhinged and obsessive, man claims to be a great guy and still wants the kids in his life, renege on the kids because hot young thing doesn't want to mother them, man starts looking worse for wear while woman gets her act together and moves on. There! That's the whole story. Now, read something better with your time!

If Walls could Talk: An Intimate History of the Home - Lucy Worsley

 A fun book and recommended for anyone who enjoys history or wonders about how everyday things got to be the way they are! This book was super fascinating and a lot of fun.  I was, of course, particularly interested in the kitchen section because it involved a lot of food culture.  I'm not sure if this is a book for every one, but is absolutely a book for the history buff and the curious-about-life crowd!  

An example to illustrate my point: In medieval times, there were 2 meals per day, not 3. The first was in late morning, beginning around 10, and the second was in the early evening, beginning around 4 or 5.  This was because people had to actually cook the first meal, and it was eaten as soon as it was fully prepared, so 10am. Many people, particularly the ones writing and written about (i.e. rich) lived in large houses/castles, and were feeding all the people/staff required to make those places function.  Large-scale food production wasn't something one quickly whipped together in the morning.  While eating these meals, the napkin was thrown over the shoulder because there were no silverware and all food was eaten with the hands, meaning the napkin would need to be out and easily accessible with messy fingers. 

The Mediterranean Diet - Marissa Cloutier & Eve Adamson

 If I ever need to go on a diet, this is the one I'm picking.  Honestly, it mostly is what I eat now.  It is all the same boring wisdom we've known all along and keep hoping to find a magical answer against.  There is no magical answer.  The way to maintain a healthy weight will never change: exercise regularly, eat less sugar, eat less meat, eat healthy fats, eat whole grains and vegetables, avoid processed "foods" (cause let's be real, so much of what you can buy at the grocery store isn't actually food, it's food-like products). I'm not sure you'd need to read the book to learn any of those things, but the book has lots of citations of studies that back up the ideas.  So if you need some motivation, this books is good for that.  It also has lots of recipes and a few meal plans to get you started that seem very nice. 

How Civil Wars Start (and how to stop them) - Barbra F. Walters

 This book is both terrifying and fascinating! I highly recommend it to everyone, everywhere, at any time! The author only uses examples from the last few decades and then applies it to current events in the US.  It is amazing to watch this unfold, even though I'd rather not watch my country lower its own democracy rating.  I wish the crazies who support the people dragging us towards anocracy would read this. . . but I imagine few of them read, and certainly could never move beyond their identity politics. 

I would encourage you to read it yourself, but to summarize: the author really brings home the point of how dangerous Trump and his supporters and sycophants are to our government and way of life.  We all know that right-wing terrorism is on the rise here (ref: NC power station attack earlier this month). But the author does a beautiful job of explaining why and how they are doing it, and then, of course, everyone else's natural reaction to it and how that will exacerbate the issue.  The only thing that seems, to me, like it could throw events off course is Covid's continued destruction of largely un-vaccinated people, which are the same people who are mostly likely to spread the propaganda and lies that keep the easily-led from understanding the real world.  If the people who can't critically think about what they read on the internet, which overlaps a lot with people who aren't vaccinated, were fewer in number, would less misinformation spread as frequently and as far? 

I'm keen to see where we go politically in the next few years.  I wish I knew now, so I could prepare.  I am of 2 minds about it: one part wants us to continue to cast off the nationalistic psychosis that seems to have gripped a lot of republicans, but the other part wants the idiots to win a little bit and give them what they deserve, what they voted for, like the anti-choice people who suddenly can't get abortions for their "special" case. 

The Buddha in the Attic - Julie Otsuka

 Was not impressed with this book!  The author clearly wanted to write all the stories and coudln't decide which was best so she did, in fact, write all the stories at once, and I guess it gives you a good overview of the Japanese women who immigrated to the US to marry in the first 2 decades of the 20th century, but the way it was written made it impossible to grow attached to anything or anyone.  She would have done better to write 5 shorter stories following women with a variety of luck in their immigration gamble. Even if she rotated between them so that the timepoints line up, that would have been better.  I think the is a serious case of ATBGE.

Skin Game - Jim Butcher (The Dresden Files, Bk. #14)

 This one was real good.  Lots of fun! 

Fever Season: the Story of a Terrifying Epidemic and the People who Saved a City - Jeanette Keith

 This had the potential to be a great story.  The author dropped the ball.  There are so many people involved, that it's hard to keep track of them across the several months of this epidemic.  I think the whole book would have been easier to follow if it started with an overview or timeline of events and then each chapter focused on one individual or group/organization.  There is an amazing story to be told in the lives of Kezia DePelchin, J. M. Keating, and especially Bob Church!  Any of those could be a rich story.  I'd love to see them on the screen even!

But this book simply isn't well organized and doesn't do their stories justice.  

Negroland : A Memoir - Margo Jefferson

 I gotta say, I feel like there was a lot in this book that I missed, not because the subject was about people far darker than me, but because I wasn't alive in the 50s and 60s so most of the pop culture references were people I'd never heard of and didn't know what they looked like or did.  There was a lot of the expected little black girls in upper society were held to higher standards and expectations than white children and were expected to be "ambassadors" for their race.  There was the expected anxiety about lower class black people and perfection.  There was, of course, so much culture around hair and what you did to it.  But the author waxed lovingly about these ground-breaking, beautiful brown and black Hollywood women that I just didn't know.  They all seemed to have had a very strong influence on her and others of her time.  I looked a few up, but I don't know them so it didn't seem important to me and the author failed to help me understand. 

I was moderately disappointed in this book except for the brief family history, which took place between about 1850-1930.  It seemed like there was a vastly more interesting story there, particularly with the author's grandmother, but otherwise I wouldn't recommend this book.  

Devil Said Bang - Richard Kadrey (Sandman Slim Series, Bk. 4)

 The more of these I read, the more I like them.  This book has the MC's human and angel sides separated from each other and I liked the character much more when he wasn't maliciously working against his best interest because he was too stubborn to listen to the wiser voice inside his head.  Both Hell and the wider picture become much more flushed out in this book and I'm looking forward to reading the next installment!

My Sister, the Serial Killer - Oyinkan Braithwaite

 I thought this was a pretty good book. The author does a great job in keeping the pace, jumping between dates for the "memory scenes", and making the MC feel real.  That last one was the best.  The MC keeps helping her sister cover up her crimes, even though she hates it and wants out.  Any outside advise would obviously be: simply stop and leave her to clean up her own messes.  But the author does a great and honest job of showing the MC's motivation even in the event of her crush being on the chopping block. This is an intense, wild ride and I would recommend it for any of my crime story loving friends. 

The Secret Life of the Mind: How your Brain Thinks, Feels, and Decides - Mariano Sigman

 This is a super fascinating book covering a wide range of brain-related phenomena that I’d not learned of before. If you want to know all the details, read the book, but I will leave you with an example: Every time you move your eyes, your brain shuts off.  Just try it. Look at something to your right and then look at something to your left.  You can see in your peripheral but the details of your eyes tracking across everything in the middle aren't there.  It will annoy you forever now. You're welcome.

What the Bible says about Birth Control, Infertility, Reproductive Technology and Adoption - Wayne Grudem

 Despite the low page count, this book was difficult to get through because so much of it was just disgusting, going so far as to be technically inaccurate. I must say I'm not surprised given how much the people who have no sound reason for their opinions desperately need justifications for their harmful beliefs.  Apparently, the "life begins at conception" crowd doesn't know what a pregnancy is.  Again, I'm not surprised.  A pregnancy doesn't begin until the egg implants in the uterine lining and begins drawing nutrients from the female's body.  This makes Plan B perfectly legal and not an abortion, yet this author, so poor in his logic, claims that Plan B ends a pregnancy even going so far as to "cite" a "doctor".  Given the lack of basic understanding surrounding reproduction, either this quote is made up, the doctor is made up, or some medical person is incredibly dangerous and shouldn't be practicing medicine.  

The author doesn't think anyone should be childfree by choice.  (Does it count if you give it up for adoption and never care for your own child?) And this is the point I disagree with most.  Having children should be a venture you are 110% in on.  People who don't want to be parents should NEVER be parents.  I will NOT put children into homes that don't want them.  This is evil to its core.  By spouting this, the author shows he does not care for the well-being of children at all. He, and anyone else who believes forcing children on a person, is actively wishing danger on babies.

I was slightly relieved to read that at least the author wasn't a "god will provide" type.  I believe they make me the most angry.  We don't tell people to buy a house they can't afford, get a pet they can't properly care for, enter a relationship when they aren't in the correct state of mind.  Yet for some insane reason, some people think you should just have kids willy-nilly and cite the "god will provide" bs.  This is 100% shrugging off your responsibility.  It's not anyone else's job, and demanding or expecting your god to care for your children when you won't take the responsibility to do it yourself is beyond entitled.  

Why We Swim - Bonnie Tsui

 I'm not totally sure what I was expecting out of this book, but it wasn't very captivating for me.  I don't know if it was to induce people who don't know how to swim to try or written as a mutual love letter to other pool swimmers.  It didn't speak to me much except for when the author was in tropical waters.  I don't believe I would recommend this book to anyone, sadly.

Cold Days - Jim Butcher (The Dresden Files, Bk. 14)

 So we are back with the living post-child-discovery and while it comes up because it was the reason the MC is in his current bind, I'm glad it's not overtly running the narrative.  We've got your standard hanging-on-by-the-seat-of-your-pants stuff, it's all great.  This was a good one.

The Crystal City - Orson Scott Card (The Tales of Alvin Maker, Bk. 6)

 Totally thought this was the final book in the series. Turns out, it's just not finished yet. Card has been going in so many directions I really hope he come back to this series soon.  I'd love to see it keep going.  It is really a fun ride.  

The NFT Handbook - Matt Fortnow & QuHarrison Terry

 Glad I read this but definitely not "investing" in NFTs! This is NOT an investment, this is a speculation or even "day" trading.  But there is no long term "growth" anticipated out of this system.  Let's be real here: NFT's are virtual beanie babies.  So NFTs as far as making money goes are nothing more than a fad, however they are great as a means of digital media like books or songs/albums and as a safe way to create a sweepstakes/promotion/celebrity fundraiser.  There are absolutely many useful ways to use NFTs for limited release digital media and as a novel way to help people reach their fan on a personal level, but as a collectable, I'm very skeptical.  Of course, the book must act like that's the primary use because if no one's buying, no one can sell, but the prices to "register" on the block chain are so high right now, I have a hard time justifying it for the average crafter/struggling artist/newbie.  Once the prices go down, eh, maybe.  

The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man - John Perkins

 This is an intense, and largely sad, book.  I wish I didn't have to say this, but every American and wannabe American should read this.  It's the kind of stuff you know is happening, but this book goes into specific details.  It is disgusting, infuriating and tragic, disappointing and has the begrudging ring of truth to it.  I knew Regan, Nixon, and Bush 2 were horrible men, but I didn't know that term also applied to Bush 1.  I know better now. The United States in in such a desperate need of an honorable leader right now. I haven't seen one in my lifetime. 

The author details the meddling, murder and financial enslavement he personally performed for the US government and then when his conscious finally caught up with him, the same acts done to his personal project trying to undo any of the damage he caused.  He watched his friends get murdered because they were honorable leaders who put the needs of their people first.  That's why this book is so frustrating because evil wins, and not in the deserving way.  

I believe every American should read this because demanding better of those we elect is the only solution.   We must demand that companies are held accountable for the utter destruction they cause at home and abroad and we certainly can't do that while the people in charge are all getting kickbacks from them.  Our whole system needs a few key safety measures implemented (computer-generated voting districts to end gerrymandering, publicly funded elections to end "favors" and lobbying, ranked choice voting).  That's the only way we stop being responsible for murdering so many thousands of people around the world. 

Alhoa from Hell - Richard Kadrey (Sandman Slim Series, Bk. 3)

 Fun!  The more I read this series, the more I like it.  It's still not a wide appealing book, but my previous recommendations stand of if you like Hellblazer or Supernatural, you'll probably go for this!

Don't Die Broke - Margaret A. Malaspina

 This book wasn't as useful now as I'd thought it would be.  It focuses on the steps to take when transitioning into retirement, which isn't too terribly useful to me at this point.  The book was written about 20 years ago ( I would guess) and I believe much of it is outdated in terms of times and numbers and amounts. (Not that I was going to remember any of those specific details anyway.) However, the one big take-home idea throughout the whole book that did and will stick with me is to keep your options open.  Many of the decisions made at the beginning cannot be changed later, so throughly review all your options, possibly even with a lawyer or professional, before ever doing anything.

Cryptocurrency: Trading and Trading Strategies - Michael Scott

 Nice overview.  Crap details.  Not a how-to book, more of a primer. 

It Came from Something Awful: How a Toxic Troll Army Accidentally Memed Donald Trump into Office - Dale Beran

 Wooooo, doggie! This one's a doozy! The books title is accurate, it did come from something awful, figuratively and literally as this is the name of an early shit-post site.  This is a phenomenal overview of the worst the internet has to offer, at least on whole-sale markets (it's not the most deranged stuff out there but it's the worst a normal person would encounter).  I cannot recommend this book enough for everyone except the tech literate people who were involved in this from the beginning.  I'm of the age that I heard about or saw a lot of this happen, but I didn't quite know how they all strung together.  This book connects the dots for you and the picture it draws is both amazing and frightening.

I'll use one example to illustrate:  Pizza Gate.  I'm sure most everyone has heard of it but . . . WHY??! How did this become a thing? Why are the easily influenced convinced there are democrats sexually abusing and/or eating children in the basement of a pizza parlor?! Where did this insane idea come from and why does anyone think it's real? This book spends a good time on the details and you should read it for them, but it boils down to crass people on the internet getting around auto-flagging of banned topics, like child porn, by abbreviating it to CP. Then making unappealing jokes about other things that could have the same abbreviation, like cheese pizza.  Hillary Clinton's hacked/leaked emails discuss ordering cheese pizza (literal pizza) and the scuzzy internet trolls joke about her ordering CP.  Some sad sap that doesn't understand trolling, sarcasm, or shit posting sees the reference and believes this is a legitimate conspiracy instead of (mostly) horrible people making a really untasteful joke.  Sad Sap spreads the word and suddenly a whole cohort of people who grew up without the critical judgement skills necessary to evaluate the legitimacy of what they read on the internet are frothing at the mouth to stop the sexual assault of hundreds or thousand of children in the non-existent basement of a pizza restaurant.   (The peak irony is that many of these people are the same ones who monetarily support the Catholic church, which DOES have a history of sexually assaulting children.)  Spoiler alert: someone actually stormed this restaurant loaded down with a lot of firepower to "save the children" only to discover there is no basement/backroom.

And this situation happens over and over again, until we get to the point of actually influencing elections! Fascinating. Sad. Bizarre. Fluid.  This book really should be read by everyone for basic on education on the sociology of internet culture.

Ghost Story - Jim Butcher (The Dresden Files, Bk. 13)

 Getting kinda extra dark and broody.... guess that makes sense when the MC is dead and only has thoughts/regrets to mull over.  I was absoluely a fan of this book as it details the fall out of all the crazy shit from the last book in ways that weren't even mentioned then (cause Dresden didn't exaclty have a chance to consider anything as it was all too fast paced).  I really appreciated the slow down here and the reason to stop and consider because, well, ghost.

Kill The Dead - Richard Kadrey (Sandman Slim Series, Bk. 2)

 I like this series. It doesn't make me unable to put the book down like Outlander or Stephen King, but it is a fun tale with lots of potential.  I'm loving the Constantine vibe it gives off without all the bogging down in guilt and weird 80's crap.  I would absolute recommend this to anyone who enjoys Constantine as there are a lot of similarties in both theme and famous christian relgion based characters. 

I will certainly keep reading, though I must confess: at this point I've not fallen madly in love with the MC as I have in Hellblazer. I think because Stark's wallowing in alcohol and cigarettes isn't fully warranted.  Midway through this book his human half sort of dies off, and frankly, I liked the character more then, which I'm not sure if that was the author's intention.  However, at the end he is restored, so we'll see if the third book continues the loathsome charactersitics or if the change left a more permanent alteration to the character.  Also, killing off the mortal half of a mortal-immortal hybrid is an excellent idea and I may consider pulling that into something I do later (no clue where yet, it's just in my pile of fun ideas).  

The Truth About Money: Everything you need to know about money - Ric Edelman

 The author has some very good points, but they are old news.  (this is not a new book so I guess that's not surprising)  It was a lot of "save your money" and "pay the highest interest first/snowball" kinda ideas.  So that won't help most people as we all know those things (even if you can't make them work).  But I'd say this book really shines in the "how to avoid taxes" overview and particularly in estate taxes/death taxes.  No one in my family has yet ever really needed that before and the amount is so high now, I can't imagine we ever will, but if something amazing happens, I at least know there are options and I can go to a professional to make sure it's properly set up!

The Makers Of Scotland: Picts, Romans, Gaels and Vikings - Tim Clarkson

 This was a super facinating book that I would recommend to no one. I have always wondered what exactly was happening in Scotland between the romans and King James.  I thought we simply didn't have any idea of what happened, and that's sort of true in that there are very few written accounts, even fewer reliably truthful accounts, but there is some scattered information that's difficult to piece together, which is why you don't see books on this topic often.  Also, it's rather boring as we only have this guy killed that guy and presumably that guy's son too because the next king on the list is that guy's brother instead of son.  It's a chronology; there's no story to be had.  Though with the popularity of vikings, I do expect to see some movies or series loosely based on the info we do have coming out in the future.  

I'll sum up the key points: The romans f-ed up a whole lot and shouldn't have even wasted their time there.  The gaels were from Ireland and culturally ate the picts.  We don't have any info on the religion before Christianity showed up because it was the Christian monks doing all the recording.  There were a ton of tiny kingdoms, not even that really, fiefdoms.  100 extra men in a battle could mean the difference between winning a losing.  All the "kings" were warrior kings and basically just a bunch of bruts that died in battle fighting each other. It was all very rugged and barely civilized at all. 

Overall, it was interesting to know, but rather forgetable and very boring.  

Who Cooked the Last Supper?: The Women's History of the World - Rosalind Miles

 This book was difficult for me to get through.  Not because it was boring or poorly written, quite the opposite.  It was difficult because it was so compelling and fascinating and sad and frustrating.  I often had to stop just so I could process.  That being said, I RECOMMEND THIS BOOK TO EVERYONE.  I don't know how else I can stress that enough. I recommend this to everyone over the age of about 13/14, men, women, old, young, every shade and color and back ground, every religion.  There is so much here I can't even begin to offer a "best of" or "let me save you the time", so I'll briefly mention a few key points.  It's even hard to write this review. You just need to read all of it! 

Women are the most shit on group of all time.  No other group has been so widely systematically murdered, insulted, and disenfranchized anywhere else in history. This was not always the case, despite what you may have heard.  All the oldest gods are robustly female. It isn't until about the rise of agriculture that men seem to have stolen and then eradicated the female god.  This book moves chronologically across the ages and spans the earth documenting the attempted destruction of women.  If males could reproduce without females, I firmly believe we would not exist today.  

Living today, it is easy to think things were always as bad as they were in recent history, but this book lays out the argument that the industrial revolution really cemented the lowest point for women.  Being a wage slave was bad for everyone, but particualarly those the society deemed expendable: women and children.  Prior to this, women ran the farm while her husband did specialized work or at worst they worked the farm side-by-side.  Women have almost always been the driving powerhouse of commerce and markets as both sellers and buyers.  But this we stripped from them when they were corralled into factories.  There were no extra eggs to trade at the market anymore and the work often left them maimed and ill, unable to run a side gig.  ( a lot of this is documented incrediblly well in Upton Sinclair's The Jungle which I have on this list too)

But you may be saying to yourself, "Psh! What about like... Islam where women have been traded as a commodity and murdered at the discression of her family?  If women had always been so important, why did they come underfoot of such a repressive religion?" Fun fact: Women were the initial adopters and primary spreaders of both Christianity and Islam.  Why?  Well, male-centric gods had already been in these locations for a long time and particulary early Islam offered women more freedom than the local religions.  The founder of Islam even named his youngest wife to take his place upon his passing.  Guess who balked at that? In both religions, once they were established, women's rights were rapidly erroded and to call them out meant you weren't a true member of the religion along wiht all the standard dangers associated with that.  A Christian example would be how convienently we have no new testiment books of the female early saints (spoiler alert: they even had whole books) and how the most misogynistic of Paul's writings are believed to be forgeries because he worked with one of those sainted women.  

I just saw an article last night about 2 more female warrior burials being unearthed in Armenia.  The public acts surprised but the people who study this point out that it seems to be not uncommon.  Studies from the early 20th century assumed any warrior's burial was male and anytime they could tell remains were female chalked up the wounds to being attacked by a band of males.  But this whole idea of "women aren't fit for battle" really stems from the 19th century ideas of feminity, being delicate and fainting and all that silliness. So when looking at the ancient past, we are actively warping in through modern ideas (that frankly need to die).  I can think of several women off the top of my head the would prove this idea wrong: Catherine of Aragon (pregnant in battle nonetheless), Budicca, Aethelflaed of Mercia, women lead the storming of the bastille during the French revolution, a Madagascar queen who held a party with all her enemies and then just masscared them (a la Red Wedding style, possibly where Martin got the idea from?) and a middle eastern queen whose name escapes me that lost her husband, the King, to an invading force that I think also captured her son so she just walked in there and murdered them all.  As I finish one mention another comes to me and I could keep going for a while, but you get the idea.  

Ironically, the more women pushed for equal rights, the harder they got the door slammed in their collective faces, continually shoved further down until there was nothing left.  The tide began to turn with women being given the right to vote, largely in the early 20th century in advanced countries, but in the US, I would say it didn't really take effect until, in an effort to make it as unpalletable as possible, a southern congressman included women in the protected classes of people in the civil rights bill.  So in 1970, when that bill passed, women were given full rights only because some men thought it would be so outlandish that they could keep a bill protecting people with African heritage from passing.  1970.  That's only 15 years before I was born.

A High Low Tide: The Revival of a Southern Oyster - André Joseph Gallant

 I both enjoyed and hated this book. I loved the topic; I hated the writing style.  It was like the longest magazine article I've ever read.  I wanted to know more about the science, failures, numbers, endeavors and politics of the whole topic but instead the author focused on the people while dropping in a heavy dose of nature scenery word porn.  I don't think I'd recommend this book to anyone even though it is a good story. 

The Death Of Democracy: Hitler's Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic - Benjamin Carter Hett

 To tell you the truth, I've read a lot on nazi Germany but never understood how that psycho Hitler got in power.  Yea, he gave good speaches and ran in the right circles, but it always seemed like the majority of people in the government weren't keen on him, so how, exactly, did he take over everything? This book has a clear story of how that happened that I haven't seen so well laid out in any other book.  

The Weimar Republic had so much hope at its creation and it hurts to look back and see all the flaws that lead to its destruction. Its downfall was basically giving too much power to one man, Hindenburg.  The role of chancellor of Germany changed hands 23 times during the Weimar Republic.  No one served more than 2 years and some odd days. Sometimes guys were removed and reinstated a few months later. It was stupid and all because Hindenburg.  Though he never explicitly stated it, he seems to have wanted himself in the role essentially.  He wanted a puppet strong enough to keep the rest of the government in check.  But, of course, anyone smart enough to do that wouldn't follow Hindenburg blindly, which was what he wanted.  Every time a chancellor disagreed, Hindenburg would remove him, or make sure that party wasn't in a position to keep the chancellorship.  When Hitler was finally given the position, Hindenburg lamented that there were no other options, but in the (about) 2 years leading up to that unfortunate event, there were THREE guys all doing ok, or even good, jobs.  They just weren't doing exactly as Hindenburg wanted.  So he kept plotting and yanking them until only Hitler was left on the field.  Then the asshole promptly dies and Hitler is uncontested right at Germany's most volunerable moment with social anger running high, out of control inflation and nationwide shortages of everything.  Germans wanted someone to blame and Hitler pointed the finger.