Hindsight is a wonderful thing. If we could look ahead 15 years to view the results of our actions, we could avoid so many disastrous events. Monday morning quarterbacking would not exist if we could only make judgments based on foreknowledge. Those were my first thoughts as I began this book. If only we had seen the very height of the stock market foretelling the eventual crash of ’29, the success of Hitler against all odds in the 30’s because the timing was right, because people were being played like pawns and falling for his grandiose speeches, grabbing at any pipe dream that might make their lives easier, seeking solutions outside themselves, the dangers of eugenics. If only we had seen the duplicity of the Japanese government as it engaged in peace talks and plotted our destruction, seen also the beginning of the seeds of socialism which would eventually lead to the debacle we are experiencing today, led there by the glib tongue of another possible narcissist and politician who was worshiped as a savior, then later proven to have clay feet. We had warning signs. We didn’t heed them then,
This book is about a tragedy that befell our heroes in the events surrounding World War II. It is about, in particular, one such hero and survivor …Louis Zamperini. Born in 1917, with an indomitable spirit which showed itself when he was just a toddler, his headstrong and incorrible behavior led him onward. Committing various illegal acts , he raced through life, flying in the face of rules and defying regulations until one day, after many failed trials and errors, with the help of his brother Pete, he awoke to the joy of running and racing competitively, eventually competing in the Olympics in Germany with Jesse Owens. It must have been that wild spirit refusing to cave and never say uncle, that probably gave him the courage and fortitude to survive.

Once, the Bergamots were the darlings of the Manhattan jet set. Transplanted there by virtue of a job offer, Richard Bergamot could not refuse, they packed up and left their happy, small town, suburban lifestyle for the fast pace of the city and a future of financial triumphs. Richard loved his new job. Liz loved her new found lifestyle of the “rich and famous”. She gave up her ambitions in favor of her husband’s achievements. Both have Ph.D’s. Both appear to be interested first, in the world of Botox and vacations, rather than their children. They live in Charles Murray’s bubble world of the established, mixing primarily with their own kind and moving in their own circle of comfort and prosperity.
Regarding the move, there is no evidence that the needs, or effect of the move on the children, were given much consideration. This move would provide them all with many creature comforts and advantages which would make the move worthwhile. The subtle side effects of this move on their behavior, after being uprooted and placed in a cauldron of anonymity, so different from the warmth and community of their old neighborhood is largely ignored. Everyone is too busy enjoying the lifestyle. Then suddenly, in the midst of all this affluence, their son makes a tragic error of judgment.
This is not a wonderful piece of literature but this book will give rise to many discussions on cyber-bullying, arrogance, the internet, political correctness, diversity, “blending” of cultures, class advantages or disadvantages, the lack of rules and proper discipline in modern homes, the effects of neglect and lack of parental involvement, the dangers wrought by too much money and the dangers wrought by the lack of it.
I think this book is more important as a tool for discussion than for scholarship. If it leads to meaningful conversation and solutions to the failures of our current society, current parenting issues and juvenile behavior or lack thereof, it will be very worthwhile.

A thirteen year old boy is faced with a tremendous burden when his mom is raped and brutally beaten. Forced to grow up, he is not satisfied with the existing justice system, and he wants revenge. He is really not mature enough to understand the consequences of actions and he reacts mostly with emotion to all stimuli. He simply understands that his mom cannot recover with the monster still at lodge, so he launches his own private investigation into the crime.
A member of the Ojibwe tribe, Joe soon learns from his father, a judge, how the justice system works when there is a dispute over jurisdiction between the Federal Government and an American Indian Tribe, regarding on whose territory the crime took place. There are many intertwining themes around the main one of the rape. Punishment, or the lack thereof, for many infractions, is investigated. Throughout, we are voyeurs into the lives of young teenage boys as their hormones awaken and new thoughts and desires stir within them, which are very often inappropriate. The contrast between the rape of Joe’s mother and the love between Joe’s friend Cappy and Zelia, however ill-advised, is stark. One is an act of anger and revulsion and the other, an act of gentleness and devotion. Perhaps another theme is about the wounds we all suffer, great and small, and how we learn to cope with them and go on. Some wounds are physical and some emotional, but they are all painful and difficult to conquer. The second in a planned series of three, the book can stand alone, even though the main characters from the first, do reappear.
The book is written in an easy conversational style, very matter of fact, even when horrible things are being discussed. There is no real tension created, rather it is just a story being narrated and we witness it each day. Yet, despite the lack of fanfare and flourish, the message is immeasurable.
We learn that at 13, although Joe is too young to handle the weight on his shoulders, he proceeds to tackle a very adult problem. Along the way his decisions are sometimes unwise and foolhardy and the people he turns to less than perfect.
Occasionally, a Native American Indian word or term was used, with no real explanation, and sometimes I was not able to get the gist of it from the surrounding sentences. Nevertheless, the book is very enlightening when it comes to issues on the reservation.
The reader is forced to consider many questions. Are the Indians being treated fairly? Isn’t a crime, simply a crime, regardless of where it occurred? Should the heritage of the criminal and/or victim be of any consequence? One would think not, but the whole story almost silently and subtly screams about and revolves around, the issue of jurisdiction. There is the ever present fear that the criminal will go free to continue a life of crime, and justice will not be served.
Based on true life experiences, the book is nevertheless made up out of whole cloth, according to the author. The underlying current, concerning the unfair treatment of the Native American Indian is very well handled, gently, so as not to make anyone unduly angry, but also wisely, and thoroughly, in order to educate and explain the circumstances governing the two worlds. Joe’s Mooshum reveals bits and pieces of Indian lore in his dreams and while it is the stuff of fantasy, it opens a window onto the culture of the North Dakota tribe.
I wondered why the Indians seemed largely stereotyped as a group of drinkers, sex crazed, largely unemployed, even crude, foolish and dishonest, who were still being preyed upon by unscrupulous white men. Surely, this was not the author’s intent, and perhaps in the next book, Joe’s life as an adult will be expanded upon and a different, broader view of Indian accomplishments will be discovered.
As a point of interest, the theme of this book is currently (in the year 2013) being discussed by Congress as they consider a law, the Violence Against Women Act, which contains a provision about the jurisdiction of those crimes on Indian land.

Located on Janus Rock, off the coast of Australia, there is a place with neither a future nor a past; it is a lighthouse situated between two oceans; its sole purpose is to provide safety for the maritime world. At this lighthouse, lives the keeper, Tom Sherbourne, a man preferring solitude, mentally scarred by war, and his wife, Isabel (Izzy Bella), a bit younger, who loves to play at life and wants only to share in his, on this remote piece of lonely land. There, one day, they will make a momentous decision that will alter the lives of many.
This is such a tender story of devotion and loyalty, of the consequences of decisions once made that cannot be retracted, of mistakes that cannot be erased. Beautifully written, the reader is on the island with the lighthouse, on the rocky shore and the beachfront, climbing up and trudging down the slopes and stairs, experiencing both the magic and desperate moments of Isabel and Tom Sherbourne’s lives. Sadness is often their companion as Isabel cannot hold a child, although she is frequently pregnant. Then, suddenly, one day, they are both startled to hear the sound of a child crying. They discover a small boat has washed up on their shore. Hidden beneath a shawl is an infant, but quite visible, is a man who is no longer present in this world.
Just having borne a stillborn child, Izzy is bereft and prevails upon her husband, begging him not to report this discovery too soon, as he is legally bound to do. Her whole demeanor changes with the presence of the child. Think about it, she advises, for the safety of the child. He is swayed by her desperation and relents for a night, and then another and then another. Thus begins a tale of heartbreak with dreadful consequences.
Tormented by what they have done, Tom deliberates his choices to put things right again. Is it even possible? Is there another mother out there pining for her child and her husband or did she drown when they sailed away in the small boat? Would the child’s ultimate fate truly have been an orphanage as Izzy insisted? Did this surprise gift of happiness for one woman, bring destruction and chaos to another’s life? Tom is tormented by these thoughts. What have they done? How can they make it right? Is Tom doing the right thing giving Izzy her way in this, or is he being weak? Is he simply overwhelmingly devoted and blinded by love? Is the mother’s loss of her husband and child, as great as, or greater than, their loss of their unborn children? Both of them, Isabel and Tom, have suffered so much loss within their own families.
When Lucy is christened, they discover that a monument to an infant and father, who went missing in a boat two years prior, had recently been erected. When, Bluey, one of the more simple-minded men, who delivers supplies to the lighthouse where they live, tells his mom that he thinks the missing baby might be living at Janus Light, because of a distinctive rattle he once noticed there, his mother is overcome with greed and marches straight to the police station without thinking of anything but the reward. Each of the people involved had their own secrets, each told their own lies or kept silent, some to protect, some to harm others, but none but one or two aimed to get at the truth and heal the pain. Evil does not often live in the one you most suspect, but rather in the one that quietly plans the mischief. Does the reason for doing something wrong, perhaps out of love or hate, change the painful outcome or even possibly make it legitimate?
The writing style is very inviting and the characters are drawn carefully, with great detail, slowly, though, so they fully develop over time. The reader gets to know the two main characters very well and participates in their special story of love and loss. How will this disastrous dilemma end? You will have to read it to find out. This is a heartbreaking tale, worth every page of the read. It will be hard to put it down and harder still to continue to read it. The subject matter will reach into your core and the sharpness of the pain each character feels, will be your own. For a first novel, this has truly succeeded.

It is 1922, Cora Carlisle, happily married in Wichita, but facing an empty nest, decides to be a chaperone for 15 year old Louise Brooks on her trip to New York City, where she will study with a renowned dance teacher for the summer. Cora’s husband, Alan, prefers that she doesn’t go; but he gives his consent. Louise Brooks is hoping to be invited to join the dance company so she may continue to train for a professional life.
The book begins during the time of prohibition, of racial prejudice and inequality, of homophobia, and of rigid rules governing women’s behavior. Their dress is prim, they don’t smoke in public, they rarely work and if financially able, they entertain themselves doing charity work, needlework, raising a family and maintaining their homes.
Louise is the daughter of a not very maternal mother, who would have preferred no children and would like to live vicariously through her daughter, and a father who often mocks her achievements. Although she is young, intelligent and an accomplished dancer, she is also willful, defiant, disobedient and promiscuous.
Cora was an orphan. She was brought up by nuns for the first few years of her life under strict and rigid guidance. When she is taken from the orphanage and sent to Ohio by the Children’s Aid Society, she begins a new life, with a loving family. When a dreadful accident takes her new parents from her, she is once again set adrift, but by now, she is a teenager and capable of being on her own. A lawyer comes to her aid, pro bono, when her ability to inherit is questioned by the other children from her adoptive father’s former marriage. Alan Carlisle not only helps her get what is rightfully hers, but he marries her, as well. His family embraces her despite her uncertain past and heritage, but requests that it be kept secret. Cora soon learns that her relationship with her husband will be a challenging one.
On the train trip to New York, chaperoning Louise, Cora is immediately put to the test. Louise disobeys her and sneaks off. Cora tries to be amenable, not judgmental, but her patience is often tried on this trip and on their brief stay in New York. Louise likes to push the envelope and her lack of prudence will often do her in and have a negative effect on her future life.
When she gets to New York, in addition to chaperoning Louise, Cora wants to try and find her roots. She knows nothing of her family. When she visits the orphanage where she spent her early years, The Home for Friendless Girls, to try and find out information about her background, she meets the German handyman, Joseph. Because of circumstances beyond his control, Joseph finds himself penniless, and he and his daughter now live in the same orphanage, where he works in exchange for his and her room and board.
While in New York, Cora learns far more from Louise’s willfulness than Louise learns from Cora’s rigid rules. Louise’s openness exposes Cora’s mind to a different world, including the freedom of the city and a more independent lifestyle. Although she is shocked by Louise’s behavior, she is also thrilled by the new things she is discovering.
When Louise is accepted by the studio and leaves to study dance more seriously, Cora returns home to Wichita. She brings with her, two guests, Joseph and his daughter Greta. He is supposedly her long, lost widower brother and her young niece.
The nine plus decades we travel with Cora are filled with enlightenment and change. Her children grow up, another war occurs, love blossoms in the strangest of places, racial equality improves, homophobia is no longer acceptable, prohibition ends, birth control becomes common place and strict rules of morality are reversed.
The novel, based on the very real life of the beautiful Mary Louise Brooks, an accomplished dancer and movie star, almost feels like a coming of age story for Cora, the very sheltered adult, not Louise, who has been exposed to far too much abuse and far too little attention and guidance, as she takes pleasure in moving beyond accepted limits. Perhaps it is also the coming of age story of a town, a country and a people, learning how to be more humane; perhaps it is even the coming of age story of the world, as it opens up and begins to accept more equality for all.

This novel is a trip down memory lane for anyone of a certain age. Two wars are being fought at the same time; one is in Europe and the Pacific where World War II is raging and the other is in the Jewish neighborhood of Weequahic, in Newark, New Jersey, where a polio epidemic is raging. Neither war will end well. Is the story ultimately about how we face a crisis and go forward into our future? Is it about control, who does and who does not have it in the face of tragedy? Is it about unfounded, unrealistic guilt and shame? Is it about the Jewish experience or the experience of everyman?
Two characters, the narrator and the protagonist, each were afflicted with polio and its after effects, but both face their futures in different ways. One character takes control of his life and masters it; one relinquishes control, wallows in self recrimination, railing at G-d about the life he has been given, somehow always feeling like he has missed out and always wanting more. He is too short, his eyesight is too poor, his background is wanting, and when he was rejected from the armed forces, branded 4F, he was devastated. He is not easily satisfied, and in fact, always finds the negative and disappointment in a given situation, rather than the silver lining.
During the summer of 1944, Eugene Cantor is the Director of Playgrounds; he loves his job. He is a Physical Education teacher and he really enjoys being with the children. He wants to mentor them, to help them become strong and principled. He is in love with a teacher from a wonderful family and life is going well for him, even though he feels a bit like he is always behind the eight ball, a bit short changed in the game of life.
He was raised by his grandparents; his mother died in childbirth and his father was a thief. He carried the shame of his crime within himself. Did he also carry the guilt for the death of his mother? His grandfather always emphasized hard work, strength of character and always doing the right thing. Although devoted to them both, his grandfather became his role model. Perhaps he also instilled that feeling of guilt within him, that he carried his entire life. Growing up, he always missed the atmosphere of what he considered a normal family, one with both parents offering encouragement and love. Even though he acknowledged the great love his grandparents shared with him, he hungered for what he did not have. This becomes a pattern for him. He always sees the dark side. Does he transfer that feeling of guilt onto every other aspect of his life, always making his burden a bit heavier?
The story proceeds along innocently enough, at first, but the pace picks up as you realize the fear the community is living with on a daily basis because of the war and the polio epidemic. Who will get a telegram about their son, whose child will come down with polio? No one knows, and furthermore, no one has any control over either which makes them even more impotent and afraid. There was a good deal of irrational fear as they waited for the next shoe to drop, the next victim to fall, always anticipating the next tragedy.
The book is narrated by Arnold Mesnikoff who is more than a decade younger than Eugene. He plays in the playground’s baseball games which Eugene (Bucky Cantor) organizes during that fateful summer of 1944. At the end of the book, the effect of those early dual wars is illuminated by the chance meeting of the two men, about three decades later. Each of them reacted to the events of that summer in their own unique way. The different roads they chose determined the lives they led and the obstacles they faced. Each had to face a challenge. Would they meet it with courage and strength or surrender to a different destiny?
Although the book is about a small Jewish enclave in New Jersey, anyone growing up in that time can't help but feel nostalgic. Although it was more than a decade later, I remember the same atmosphere: the air raid drills, air raid siren tests, polio scares, anti-Semitism, rivalry between Jews and Italians. Who doesn't recall the stoops in front of their attached homes, each with a narrow driveway separating them from their nearest neighbor and a postage stamp piece of property with a tree in front, newly planted? It could be a number of other Jewish communities in any urban center, not necessarily Newark. Roth has captured the true spirit and persona of the Jewish families of that time, their expectations, their hopes and their pressures. The relationship between parent and child, adult and minor was one of authority vs. powerlessness. Improper behavior, disobedience, weakness, was cause for guilt and shame, not only heaped upon the wayward one but also upon the entire family.
So many in that era lived in just such a house, in just such a neighborhood, hung laundry from the window, attaching it with clothespins to a line attached to a tree, some distance away, which was on a pulley system. (Who doesn’t remember the times the clothes that fell had to be retrieved by running down flights of stairs and then rewashing them by hand?). We hung out at the corner candy store, had ice cream sundaes with abandon, never thinking about calories. Who doesn't remember the shoemaker or the "druggist" who had as much respect as the doctor and whose advice you often sought first, before even calling a doctor? Times may have been different, even more dangerous, with the cold war and diseases with no vaccines, but the people seemed more connected, happier to communicate with each other then. Perhaps it was the invention of Air Conditioners or television that forced people inside and away from the communal gatherings in the street, in order to escape the heat or to simply socialize. Soon windows were closed, doors were shut, people sat alone in their homes, more isolated, entertained by a box with pictures and sound, and they no longer participated with each other to the same extent. They escaped from the real world into a world of fantasy. Perhaps that escape is necessary in the real world, in order to survive and not let life get you down. Is it the ability to find a silver lining inside of every cloud or the doom and gloom, sky is falling attitude that should prevail?
Mr. Roth captures the prevailing atmosphere of the times, the terrible fear of the disease for which their was no treatment or cure, not even a known cause that could be blamed, though they tried to find one; the Italians, the Board of Health, and even Mr. Cantor, the Playground Director was accused. He accurately describes the over-anxious Jewish mothers, their over arching need to protect and provide for their families, the culture of learning, the desire for education that is ever-present in the Jewish neighborhoods along with the ever-present shadow always lurking, of anti-Semitism. It was a time for Jews to gather their courage, stand tall and squash their image of meekness; they must face their difficulties, their trials with courage and fortitude, and this means Polio, as well. Ignorance was the main problem. No one knew how to stop the disease just as no one knew how to end the war quickly. There were so many deaths, untimely and unnecessary. Was anyone at fault? Should anyone feel guilty? Should someone be punished? Was everyone blameless? Who or what was the real enemy? Why did some fare better than others? Why did some handle their burdens more satisfactorily?
In the end, doesn’t this story have a larger meaning? Couldn’t the community be anywhere and the people be of any race or religion? Wouldn’t any neighborhood have reacted in similar fashion? Or, wouldn’t they? This brief book will make you wonder about all these questions, but it will not give you the answers. Those you must find for yourself.
Because of all the questions the book raises, it is a great book for discussion.

Antonio Mendez originally planned to be an artist. He put his skill to work at the CIA where he became Chief of Disguise, worldwide, at the age of 33, and shortly after, he was promoted to Chief of Authentication. He used his skills to exfiltrate compromised agents, informers and operatives. He created scenarios, new identities and documents, for people in desperate need of rescue. He was good at what he did. He was good at most everything he tried. He built a home, created paintings, and was a family man, while at the same time he was an excellent undercover agent within the system.
When the American Embassy in Teheran was overrun by militant students and hostages were taken, six employees were able to sneak out and get away before they could be captured. They wandered around seeking refuge and finally were given safe harbor by the Canadians. After being hidden for three months in the Ambassador’s home, time was running out. News of their escape was out and it was only a matter of time until it would be made public, possibly making their capture imminent, the treatment of the other hostages worse and creating an international incident for Canada.
Mendez was in charge of the mission to rescue the Americans. They needed a cover story in order to be able to fly out of Iran without being recognized and detained. He originated the idea of making the movie, Argo, in Iran, in order to smuggle them out. Credible personas and plausible disguises had to be invented for all of them. He had to change mild mannered diplomats into flashy Hollywood personalities and himself into a Hollywood producer.
When Mendez arrived in Iran to meet them, he had no idea if he could pull it off. He had no idea if they would be able to accomplish all they had to in order to escape, but he laid out the plan and helped to train them in their new incarnations as brash, outgoing Hollywood personalities. They had to look and carry themselves differently, and they had to really become that person in only a matter of hours, playing the part realistically in order to pass the checkpoints and be able to board the plane that would take them to freedom and safety.
After the rescue, Mendez was promoted to full colonel and over the years, he received many additional honors, even though they were not made public because operations of the CIA are clandestine and kept secret. There are many unsung heroes working there. Until the 50th anniversary of the CIA, when it became public, no one really knew the truth about what took place or who was really responsible for the success of the operation to free the Americans in hiding. It was not easy to come up with a plan that would work, but ultimately, Mendez did and he pulled it off..
The book is really exciting. Mendez has smuggled out other operatives and defectors, and he describes several of these missions. They were dangerous and harrowing. When he left his family for a mission, it was a wrenching moment. He never knew if he would return safely. Mendez, a mild mannered and rather ordinary looking man, was a courageous and dedicated secret agent, not in the manner of James Bond, but in the manner of an operative who had to fade into the crowd so as not to be noticed, an operative dedicated and loyal to his country. Mendez was a highly successful secret agent.

I think it took a genius to write this book and make it readable, likeable and fun. It could easily have been a book tossed into the dustbin. The story mocks every convention of modern society in tongue-in-cheek ways with hilarious plays on words even with the names of characters and places, some almost unintelligible in the audio addition because they are so foreign sounding.
The book is unusual in that it is not addressing the reader at large, but is supposed to be a private conversation between Peter (Petrus), the narrator, and the reader, you, and it feels that way, as well. You are engaged in a private conversation, almost outside the boundaries of the book.
The Fino children, Hans, Tilte, Peter (in order of their age), and Basker III (the dog), all reside on the island called Fino, in Denmark. The children are pranksters who have mastered the art of deception. They come from a strange background of characters, a hump-backed great-grandmother and parents who could easily be considered good-natured charlatans, who have been leaders in their Church. Their Father is the “miracle-making” pastor who leads services in which there are magical occurences and mother plays the organ and is a craftswoman, as well. She is multi-talented. All residents have many jobs since they live in a very small town, and she is no exception. Their jobs are often contradictory in nature, making the reader chuckle under their breath, as the thief may be the one in charge of the alarm systems and the person of religion may be dispensing advice on debauchery.
The head of the school is Alexander Beastly Flounderblood, aptly named, as is Leonora Ticklepalate who in Tibetan nun’s habit, lives the life of a monk while giving telephone advice about various sexual exploits. Basker III is the third in a line of hounds named after the supernatural hound in the book, The Hound of the Baskervilles. Tilte is the 16 year old sister of Petrus and Hans, whose spiritual nature and cleverness can have a mesmerizing effect on everyone, in essence tilting the world her way. She discovered that there is a door that exists within everyone that leads to freedom.
There are so many characters and their names are double entendres that also indicate their background. The reader will simply smile as Polly Pigonia comes to life on the page. She had a pig farm which she has turned into an ashram. Finn Flatfoot is the local policeman, Svend Sewerman was a builder of sewers, Pallas Athene is a goddess who runs a brothel. Is Peter the rock and is Hans a metaphor for Jesus, with Pallas Athene, his Mary Magdalene? Within the witty dialogue and the use of sleight of hand in this fantasy, there is also a serious message hidden, and it is apparent at the end, more than anywhere else, in Peter’s final words.
Peter wants to tell you, the reader, about the door to the room. “The self is a room inside the prison”. He wants to show you how to escape the prison which is our self. Within us there are rooms of joy and sorry, pain and pleasure. If we move outside the room, through the door, and we don’t think, we can let go of our baggage and become free. Within each of us is also an elephant which can be a dream, a burden an unfulfilled hope, both good and bad. Sometimes we have to let go of that elephant as well. Peter can see the elephant within. Does the reader also see the elephants people carry with them? When we stop thinking and walk through that door, is that the meaning of life or the end of it? What is the true escape?
This is not a book for everyone. Reading this is a trip into a world of madness, nonsense, mystery, romance, subterfuge, silliness, crime, religion, right and wrong, terrorism and bravery, and they are all mocked by the author. The book arouses so many conflicting thoughts in the reader, but the book is never overbearing. It turns all trials into triumphs, all tragedies into happy endings. The reader will wonder if it is not, perhaps, really about the meaning of life, on its serious level, even as it mocks all of society’s conventions, all of the religions, all of the mores, all of the people in power. One has to take the time to ferret out the true meaning of the tale and of each word, sentence and name, in order to discover the inner message of the author and not just be influenced by the lightness of the plot through the use of trompe l’oeill. There is much more to the story than meets the eye. Is everyone flawed, in a prison of their own making, or has the world created the prison for them?

After listening to the audio version of the book, I wondered, is it an exposé, Erik’s memoir, an essay on marriage and parental responsibility, a treatise on love with an expiration date, or simply a straight forward confession of willful, deceitful behavior, given only because he was caught? Is the love of a wife or a child so great that logical, rational thought becomes all but impossible when the relationship with them is threatened?
Did Eric want to be discovered, to repent for his life of lies, a life based totally on deceit? Is this why he pushed the envelope, knowing his actions would probably also bring about the discovery of his real identity and his disgrace? Did he risk all because of his devotion to his daughter or because of his memories of a similar event? I could not decide if he was malicious or simply misguided, naïve or cunning, creative or destructive. For sure, his actions put him on a downward spiral of his own making.
When the story begins, we find Eric Kennedy reading a lengthy statement that he has written to his wife in an attempt to explain his behavior and to influence her to forgive him. He finally tells the truth, in the hope that it will alter his future, and mitigate the charges against him and his eventual sentence. Privy to his innermost thoughts and the reasons for his many irrational actions, the reader learns of the trials of his childhood, and begins to comprehend his loneliness and sense of loss when his wife separates from him, thereby removing his daughter from his life on a daily basis, as well. Eric still loves them both, dearly, has difficulty getting beyond the moment and recovering from the loss. He is in denial, ever hopeful that life will return to normal, but what is normal or real for Eric Kennedy?
Eric Kennedy, AKA Erik Schroder, has reinvented himself in order to more perfectly fit in with a teenager’s life in America. At age 5, holding his father’s hand, he crossed the East German border and began a new life. He never saw his mother again. Soon, he moved to America where life was different but never easy, for an outsider. Poor and insecure, bullied by thugs, he grew more and more unhappy. When he learned of a posh boy’s camp in New Hampshire, he yearned for that life; and so, at age 14, Eric ceases to be a German immigrant and becomes a full-fledged American by becoming a character he makes up totally out of his imagination. Applying to become a camper there, using a fictitious name, he is surprised to actually not only get accepted but to also receive a full scholarship. His new persona is confident and from a more fortunate background than his own. He is no longer a foreigner in a foreign land, impoverished and alone, with only his father, a cold, distant, self-protecting man, for company. As Eric Kennedy, he is often mistaken for a relative of the Kennedys of Hyannis, rather than his real identity, which is a non-citizen lost in a sea of loneliness.
Eric keeps up this fraudulent personality, distancing himself from his father and creating a wonderful background, complete with a childhood in a marvelous, affluent community on Cape Cod, very near the Kennedy Compound. He forges documents, attends University and eventually marries and has a child. He is not very ambitious; he is grateful for what he has but doesn’t seem to want much more. As a stay at home parent, his judgment when it comes to child rearing often seems flawed. When cracks begin to form in the relationship between him and his wife, Laura, he is not quick to notice, and when finally, she wants a separation, visitation rights with his daughter take on a life of their own, especially as they are being curtailed, more and more, as time goes by, because Laura continues to find his behavior aberrational and seeks to cut his visitation rights and privileges to protect Meadow, their child. Devastated, Erik/Eric, makes even more foolish decisions than he has in the past, takes greater chances, even though he knows he is heading into the maelstrom; he is soon on the run.
The story feels like it is about the deconstruction of a human being who has constructed himself out of whole cloth to begin with and doesn’t seem to be realistically aware of the dangers facing him if he is found out. After awhile, It seemed as if Eric wasn’t sure where the old Erik began and the new Eric ended. Was his foolish attempt, as a teenager, to recreate his life and create a fantasy, really worth it? It was always fraught with the danger of discovery. It forced him to cut his ties with his father, the only person who loved him in America. How does that effect him? Did it make sense to push the envelope with Meadow, as he did, knowing it would lead to his detection as a fraud? Can he justify his actions and be saved? Can the reader find any redeeming qualities in Eric? Is he misguided or unstable?
He absconds with his daughter when she is only one year older than he was when his father absconded with him, albeit under different circumstances, which he never really wanted to uncover. Is his loss of his country and his mother what propels him to re-enact almost the very same scene with his daughter? Has he been harboring the pain of that loss and the bitterness of that separation all these years? Is it déjà vu that has caused him to snap? Has it poisoned his mind so much that he cannot determine right from wrong any longer and just wants to preserve his relationships regardless of the cost? Will he languish in prison or find some other form of justice to repent? The end of the confession will leave the reader wondering because final judgment has not yet been rendered.

Michael Lewis has the gift of gab! His book on the financial crisis (the economic debacle that hit the United States and Europe, that almost brought the whole world down and of which we are not yet out of the woods), is so easy to read and so filled with wit that one forgets the horrific images of the failure that the book is describing; he makes plain what was the complete amorality or stupidity of the bankers, the investment brokers and the clients that they serviced, as they all marched toward the fantasyland that they created in which anyone could have whatever they wanted and suffer no consequences for their actions.
Contrary to that belief, when it came to fruition, the penalties for their irresponsible, unethical behavior were enormous, but often they hit those least guilty of offense. Those who were able, simply faded into the ether avoiding all the obligations they incurred, returned to their country of origin, went underground someplace and left others who behaved more responsibly, to pay their debts. They simply refused to be responsible for the errors of their ways and that applies to the originators of the schemes and those that took advantage of them.
The debacle continues because once started a culture of takers is not easily dissuaded from taking more, even when the consequences are dire; rather than blaming themselves, they blame others; rather than taking responsibility, they pass it on to other’s shoulders, others who should not be picking up their freight. Unions bled the public with their demands, and once achieved, the culture perpetuated even more abuses as various unions competed for benefits.
When Lewis describes, Iceland, Italy, and California (a state that has taken on the qualities of a country, in its failings), and the PIGS, the countries most involved in the scandals; Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain and then puts Germany in as the lynchpin, the only country still with a stockpile of actual gold (it is the country that basically will bail out Europe, alone, if willing), he does it with such simplicity and humor, the reader will gasp and have to suspend disbelief at his revelations. Californians still want more of the same, a nanny state, benefits without cost, Greece and the Greeks refuse to abide by the rules imposed, refusing to pay their taxes, so the resolution of the crisis is still up in the air, and on ad infinitum. Although they do not want to adjust their lives or work to pay for their mistakes, the Greeks fully expect the Germans to do it for them because they are frugal and orderly; however, in their own country, they too aided in the execution of the financial debacle by investing in other countries that were running amok. Everyone involved wanted to make a quick buck off the back of some rube!
At the core of many of the financial failures are US bankers, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Bros, Citibank. They brought down the financial world with the schemes they all learned to create in the hallowed halls of Yale, Harvard, etc., in the most esteemed educational institutions of the world, because they learned that greed rules!
Lewis describes a world of finance in which the players make a mockery of reality. The disaster was a monumental Ponzi scheme that even when recognized was allowed to proliferate and continue until it brought down the economies of major countries. He does it with such a light hand using layman’s terms so that the reader will want to laugh at his presentation; they might also want to cry at the truth of all his pen has put to paper. Can we all be such fools and are we all blinded so by greed that we will believe anything told by even the most inexperienced charlatans, simply because of the chance to get rich? Almost half way through the book Lewis uses this quote by Isocrates:
“Democracy destroys itself because it abuses its right to freedom and equality. Because it teaches its citizens to consider audacity as a right, lawlessness as a freedom, abrasive speech as equality, and anarchy as progress.”
In the end, will chaos be the result if the environment ceases to self-regulate causing the situation to spin further out of control?
Lewis adequately describes the inability to place blame on the shoulders of those who engineered this crisis. Stupid people blame those who outsmarted them, the mortgage brokers are blamed by the mortgagees. None of them read the fine print or felt responsible for their own choices, none felt the need to pay back or borrow only what they could afford or grant loans only to those qualified. Who is to blame, the fool who was taken in or the person who took them in, perhaps without malice, but who underestimated how low a human could go to get something they didn’t deserve and then actually complain when they were asked to repay their debt? They all pretended to be victims, not the perpetrators of the crime. Governments, in collusion with the financial industry and simple human beings, all played dumb and looked for scapegoats rather than look to themselves for their own practice of madness. The one truth is that there were no innocents. Everyone who took part was guilty in one form or another but most people who are paying for their poor judgment are not the guilty ones, they are the ones who could not be heard when they rang the alarm bells. In this Ponzi scheme, like Madoff’s, the get rich-schemers of all stripes and in all countries, only succeeded because governments and the people allowed them to succeed. If common sense and cooler heads prevailed, it could have been avoided. It was a failure of government, regulators, and human beings, en masse. They had short term vision and short term goals. In the long term, they failed.
Michael Lewis has succinctly described and analyzed the personality and culture of the parties involved in this enormous financial scandal, fraught with fraud and immorality and he has done it in a highly readable fashion! In short, he sums it up with amusing anecdotes of “people taking what they could, because they could, without regard for social consequences”. Eventually, it is hoped that the situation will have to correct itself through attrition.

“Maine”, by J.Courtney Sullivan, is largely the story of Alice Kelleher, a very direct, headstrong and outspoken matriarch, and three generations of her family who seem to become weaker with each successive generation. She is a devoted Catholic, driven by an almost religious fanaticism to do her duty and perform some act of kindness before she dies, in order to make up for her sins and ensure that she is not consigned to Hell. She is known for her sharpness of tongue, coldness, drinking and sudden mood swings. Her husband is a gentler man who restrains her and keeps her centered and in check. The characters in this family are examined with illuminating detail, and their life experiences are explored. Their differing and misguided perceptions of life’s events, that they all seemed to experience and interpret differently, are exposed and dissected. Their secrets are bared, and when exposed, they cause ripples throughout the extended clan.
The audio was done well, with an expressive reader who enlightened the listener in her telling of a tale that illustrates family dysfunction and flawed judgment in all of the characters as they interacted with each other and the world. The story is told in the voices of three generations of the women of the family: Alice, Kathleen, Ann Marie and Maggie. Each chapter dwelt on one character at a time, rotating from one to another throughout the book, as the events which determined the paths they chose to take in life were uncovered.
Although, at first, the picture might seem to be of a perfect extended, multigenerational family, living a nirvana-like existence, enjoying summers in their beachfront cottage in a small, insular community which was once an artist’s colony in Cape Neddick, Maine, the reader soon discovers that each of the characters brings with them a raft of troubles and predisposed conclusions, arising from their lifestyles and backgrounds, and the situation is not what it seems to be on the surface. When that surface is scratched, using the memories and experiences of each, the characters are exposed with all of their warts and foibles, as they developed into active members of this dysfunctional, family group dynamic.
This family harbors many secrets and, therefore, holds secret animosities toward each other which are most often based on misconceptions about events. This creates giant rifts between family members who hold grudges that continue with the passage of time, and continue to encourage vindictive behavior toward each other. In the end, some do metamorphose into better people; others remain their same intransigent, stubborn selves, continuing to exhibit discordant behavior wreaking havoc upon the peaceful coexistence of the family. Each of them lives in a fantasy world of their own creation.
All of the complications of life, in general, are examined: sibling rivalry, faith, religion, loss, illness, tragedy, love, homosexuality, criminality, neglect, alcoholism, relationships, marriage, motherhood, fatherhood, and parenting. This intergenerational saga explores a slew of raw emotions. The reader will, at some point, identify with many of the emotions that are exposed: nostalgia, sadness, joy, humor, disbelief, shock, anger, and even frustration, as they identify with many of the experiences and feelings of the characters. For instance, I was very familiar with the geographic areas the book describes, the towns and the atmosphere, and it aroused childhood memories of a simpler time and adult memories of a more complicated one. Because it covers three generations, there will be something for each reader to identify with, within a particular place or time period. The reader’s life and ordinary experiences will often come uncomfortably close to home to those of the novel’s characters. This book is an interesting read which will, in the end, leave the reader with a question about Alice’s ultimate choices and fate.

This is such a beautifully crafted and emotionally driven love story that when I reached the last ten pages, I had to briefly pause. I simply did not want it to end. I needed to mull over what I had already read and hope against hope that there would be a fairytale ending, but I knew however the author concluded this novel, it would be well done.
When it begins, we meet two of the world’s “beautiful” people, planning a future vacation together. She wants easy, lolling on the beach, he wants rough, hiking and parachuting. On that day, when he leaves to go his high powered job, where he is CEO, he checks his phone messages and finds many missed calls. Because it is raining, he decides to leave his motorcycle behind and runs out into the storm to find a cab, not an easy task on nasty day in London or any major city. As he walks/runs, he begins to retrieve his messages, and his phone rings. Somewhat distracted, stepping into the cab, tragedy strikes Will Traynor.
Now, fast forward, two years later; we meet Louisa. She has just been fired. Her family relies on her salary to survive. Her sister, Treena, is a single mom, living at home as does her ailing grandfather. Her dad expects to soon lose his own job. In what has been a largely futile job search, Louisa finally answers an ad for a caregiver. Although she has no previous experience that qualifies her for such a position, she surprises herself by getting the job and then wonders, what she has gotten herself into, since her charge, a still handsome man, is rude and angry, most of the time. Once a free living, adventurous man, he is now helpless, confined to bed or a wheelchair. He is now a quadriplegic with little use of anything but one hand, and that, only minimally. He cannot adjust to this new unhappy condition. Louisa is not sure she is up to this job, but she desperately needs the money so she remains and works even harder.
Let me warn you reader, keep tissues on hand. As she cares for this defenseless, ill-mannered man, she comes of age, rather late in life. This is a tragic, bittersweet tale of unrequited love, not because there is no love, but because the love cannot be fulfilled. Will Traynor has a secret which will ultimately change the course of Lou’s life and his. Realistically, in his former life, their love never would have been allowed to see the light of day. It was the disastrous accident that brought these two people, diametrically opposed to each other, into the same sphere of influence. Coming from two different worlds, one rich, the other barely eking out an existence, one ambitious and adventurous, the other far less driven, living in the shadow of a brilliant sister, and content with very little, having very little ambition, one disabled, resentful, wishing he could do the things he once did and one able-bodied who has no wishes to do much else with her life, one will wonder how on earth will these two will even be able to interact in the same space, peacefully? Could two so different human beings find any common ground to travel? Well, in six months time, against all odds, Louisa brings color and joy into Will’s world, and he teaches her to expand her horizons and reach her potential. She wants nothing more than to do that, together, with him.
The author has taken a very grim topic and with the artful use of humorous dialogue, has made a very difficult subject easier to read about. Having to depend on someone for every need, having pain almost all the time, being unable to sleep, haunted by memories of what you once were and never will be again, essentially a prisoner in your own body is devastating, and the reader will feel that character’s extreme distress and his wish to bring that suffering to an early end. The reader will feel her frustration as Louisa agonizes over which is more important, her obligation to her job or to her boyfriend.
Although there are times when serendipitous coincidences or uncharacteristic behavior seems contradictory, the books mainly succeeds in inspiring the reader to think about a truly controversial topic, euthanasia, and to explore the reasons it is sometimes considered and the ethics and morality of the choices made by those involved in these kind of life and death decisions. This is such a beautifully crafted and emotionally driven love story that when I reached the last ten pages, I had to briefly pause. I simply did not want it to end. I needed to mull over what I had already read and hope against hope that there would be a fairytale ending, but I knew however the author concluded this novel, it would be well done.
When it begins, we meet two of the world’s “beautiful” people, planning a future vacation together. She wants easy, lolling on the beach, he wants rough, hiking and parachuting. On that day, when he leaves to go his high powered job, where he is CEO, he checks his phone messages and finds many missed calls. Because it is raining, he decides to leave his motorcycle behind and runs out into the storm to find a cab, not an easy task on nasty day in London or any major city. As he walks/runs, he begins to retrieve his messages, and his phone rings. Somewhat distracted, stepping into the cab, tragedy strikes Will Traynor.
Now, fast forward, two years later; we meet Louisa. She has just been fired. Her family relies on her salary to survive. Her sister, Treena, is a single mom, living at home as does her ailing grandfather. Her dad expects to soon lose his own job. In what has been a largely futile job search, Louisa finally answers an ad for a caregiver. Although she has no previous experience that qualifies her for such a position, she surprises herself by getting the job and then wonders, what she has gotten herself into, since her charge, a still handsome man, is rude and angry, most of the time. Once a free living, adventurous man, he is now helpless, confined to bed or a wheelchair. He is now a quadriplegic with little use of anything but one hand, and that, only minimally. He cannot adjust to this new unhappy condition. Louisa is not sure she is up to this job, but she desperately needs the money so she remains and works even harder.
Let me warn you reader, keep tissues on hand. As she cares for this defenseless, ill-mannered man, she comes of age, rather late in life. This is a tragic, bittersweet tale of unrequited love, not because there is no love, but because the love cannot be fulfilled. Will Traynor has a secret which will ultimately change the course of Lou’s life and his. Realistically, in his former life, their love never would have been allowed to see the light of day. It was the disastrous accident that brought these two people, diametrically opposed to each other, into the same sphere of influence. Coming from two different worlds, one rich, the other barely eking out an existence, one ambitious and adventurous, the other far less driven, living in the shadow of a brilliant sister, and content with very little, having very little ambition, one disabled, resentful, wishing he could do the things he once did and one able-bodied who has no wishes to do much else with her life, one will wonder how on earth will these two will even be able to interact in the same space, peacefully? Could two so different human beings find any common ground to travel? Well, in six months time, against all odds, Louisa brings color and joy into Will’s world, and he teaches her to expand her horizons and reach her potential. She wants nothing more than to do that, together, with him.
The author has taken a very grim topic and with the artful use of humorous dialogue, has made a very difficult subject easier to read about. Having to depend on someone for every need, having pain almost all the time, being unable to sleep, haunted by memories of what you once were and never will be again, essentially a prisoner in your own body is devastating, and the reader will feel that character’s extreme distress and his wish to bring that suffering to an early end. The reader will feel her frustration as Louisa agonizes over which is more important, her obligation to her job or to her boyfriend.
Although there are times when serendipitous coincidences or uncharacteristic behavior seems contradictory, the books mainly succeeds in inspiring the reader to think about a truly controversial topic, euthanasia, and to explore the reasons it is sometimes considered and the ethics and morality of the choices made by those involved in these kind of life and death decisions. This is a beautiful love story; Will gives Louisa an new lease on life, even has he contemplates taking his own.

This very imaginative story takes its theme from a children’s Russian fable of the same name, written by Freya Littledale and Barbara Lavallee. The characters are clearly defined as trailblazers, fighting the harsh winters and wilderness of Alaska in the early part of the twentieth century. Developed well, you can sense the contrast in the characters: Esther is larger than life, sturdy and sure-footed, Mabel is frail and tentative, George, a long time dweller in this seeming wasteland, is a wonderful kind, giving man and neighbor, and Jack is sincere and overwhelmed with his effort to develop the land and make it thrive, in spite of his age and inexperience. Faina is depicted as faerie like, magical and young, when we first meet her. Garrett, the Benson’s son, is a boy of the wilderness; he loves it and prefers hunting and camping to farming. The characters are wholesome and thoughtful, helping each other in times of need, living off the environment that they are taming.
Childless and bereft, Mabel and Jack, a loving couple tired of being ridiculed and stared at, as if childlessness was an affliction, decide to move away from family and friends to Alaska, where they can begin their lives again, alone, living off the untamed land. It is a tender tale of deep love and loss, told beautifully with reality and fantasy mixing together with an easy grace.
Struggling to survive a task far greater than they imagined, they grow a little apart, become depressed and forlorn, giving up hope of succeeding in their fight to overcome the climate and the barrenness. Fearing that they will not be able to thrive on the farm they are trying to create, afraid they will have to return to civilization in shame, they drop their guard when the first snowstorm arrives, and like children, they build a snow child dressed in Mabel’s mittens and gloves. They carve features colored with berries, provide branches for arms, they dance around with glee, rekindle their love for each other and renew their hope and efforts to survive.
When a strange child suddenly appears soon afterwards, wearing the mittens and gloves of the collapsed snow child, Mabel and Jack are astonished. For many years, she arrives with the first snowfall and leaves in the spring when the weather warms, witnessed by no one else, not even neighbors George and Esther, who often visit and have helped them to survive the toughest moments of their homesteading. Faina brings joy and warmth back into their lives, albeit briefly. That joy is always followed by a season of sadness when she leaves once again.
Faina, changes and influences their lives and they influence hers. She seems magical, like a spirit, and often strange events occur when she is around. Is she real or a figment of their imagination, resulting from “cabin fever”. Will she always return?
This is a very tender magical novel about dreams and nightmares, belief and disbelief, life and death. Love has the power to deal with all of these scenarios, or does it perhaps create them? How the issue of the snow child resolves itself, is the crux of this lovely little fairy tale.

Although, at first, the book might appear to be a love story between an Armenian engineer, Armen, and an American woman, Elizabeth Endicott, of French and Armenian heritage, it is much more about the Armenian genocide of 1915. When Laura Petrosian who resides in Westchester, NY, discovers a picture of Elizabeth, her grandmother, in an old newspaper clipping, she begins research to find out more about her past. She knows little about the history of Armenia; her grandparents never spoke of their past, nor did her father enlighten her. The journey takes her to far away lands and the knowledge of a tragedy that moves her to tears.
The atrocities committed by the Turks led to the slaughter, torture and degradation of millions of Armenians. It was the intention of the Turks to wipe out the entire Armenian population. The Armenians were allied with Russia, and ironically, the Turks were allies of Germany in WWI. In WWII, the Germans would take such a policy of annihilation to an even more nightmarish conclusion, when it systematically tried to make Germany a perfect Aryan nation by murdering Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals, the mentally unstable, and others who didn’t fit the mold of the perfect Aryan, the perfect German.
As historic fiction, I found the book very interesting. I knew little about the genocide committed against the Armenians and the book was very enlightening on that score. The timeline traveled pretty much from 1915 to five or six decades later. The narrative alternated between Laura’s investigation and discoveries and Elizabeth’s experiences in Aleppo, Syria. Elizabeth’s story was far more interesting than Laura’s remarks, although this may have been due to the voice of Laura on the audio version I listened to, more than anything else. The voice of the characters with accents, other than American, held much more detail, passion and emotion and imparted far more information. Yet, if Laura did not put the story into words, there would be no book at all, so she was a necessary part of the plot.
The characters were very well described, and as a reader I empathized with their plight and suffered with them. I was horrified by much of what I learned about the Armenian genocide. The inhuman treatment that the women and children were subjected to defied my imagination, and the cold-blooded murder of the men was beyond my ability to comprehend, even though I am well aware of the events of the Holocaust. One would hope that this kind of tragic, savage behavior will not be repeated in history ever again. The attempt to willfully murder an entire population is a despicable act, not worthy of civilized human beings.
The author is of Armenian background, and much of the story is drawn from his Armenian history, although the characters and the story are totally fictional. The twists and turns of the story will defy your imagination and keep you engaged.

When I started this book, I was not sure I would like it. It seemed strange, a bit discombobulated, perhaps a bit disorganized. However, it turned out to be a really wonderful, delightful read. On a certain level, it is humorous, tender and tragic, all of at once. It is the story about all kinds of relationships, the story of a family that no longer communicates, that dances around each other as they search for meaning in their lives, in all the wrong places. The meaning of family is lost in the confusion. The characters are all flawed except for one, Bee Fox, the teenage daughter of Elgin and Bernadette.
Elgin is an upwardly mobile, well respected nerd, working for Microsoft, receiving international accolades for his accomplishments. Bernadette is an international, award winning, female architect in a male dominated occupation. They are surrounded by people who can only be described as “phony”, working to build up appearances, rather than honest relationships, working to create impressions rather than friendships, working to achieve success in the workplace, rather than in the home. They are in denial about their lack of ethics or compassion for others. They seem woefully unaware of the consequences of their behavior. (The realtor had to know full well what she was doing when she handled the secret deal for Bernadette’s neighbor. She did what any cutthroat realtor would do. She represented the seller, however, and what she did was the precipitous cause of long term emotional pain for Bernadette.)They were all following a recipe for failure for someone or other, if not themselves.
Bernadette’s downward spiral begins when she has a row with an influential neighbor. Angry, she sells her crowning achievement and is devastated when it is purchased by someone, secretly acting for her nasty neighbor, who then destroys the building and her architectural legacy. Because of this petty feud, without anyone’s notice, she begins to recede from the business and social world.
She and Elgin move to Seattle where she purchases an old girl’s school to renovate. When she has difficulty conceiving a child, she declines further. When finally, her daughter Bala Krishna (divine child), better known as Bee, is born with a birth defect, she vows never to create another masterpiece if she can be cured. When she survives, she becomes obsessed with her vow to G-d and refuses to do anything else creative in her life, but she doesn’t share her reasons why, with anyone. She allows the house to sink into a decaying state of disrepair. She becomes more antisocial, complains about everyone, ridiculing them, and doesn’t like being around people. She does no work, participates in rare projects at Bee’s school and becomes rather reclusive. Her repartees with people are sarcastic which does not help her “make friends or influence people”.
At the same time as she recedes from the world, she is a warm and compassionate mother and a faithful wife, although a poor homemaker. She does not cook, takeout is the order of the day, and she retreats to a trailer on the property, more often than not. Bee calls it her Petit Trianon. When I read about Bernadette’s habit of knitting away as her projects were created, I thought of Madame Defarge, although I would not characterize Bernadette as a villain, but rather an eccentric with an incredibly creative mind who seems terribly misunderstood in her current state.
As Bernadette flounders, Elgin’s career soars and he is rarely home. He is a workaholic for Microsoft. He pads around in his stocking feet, makes presentations that are lauded by scholars worldwide and in general, seems lost in himself, naïve and a bit eccentric too. When his new admin, Sue Lin (a kind of universal gal Friday for his department, in charge of making all things run smoothly), a Galer private school “gnat”, an enemy of Bernadette’s, becomes involved in his private life, he also becomes tempted by the apple in Eve’s garden. Sue Lin is a good friend of Audrey, the Fox’s jealous neighbor, and the two of them tear Bernadette apart, daily, always looking for fodder for their nasty tongues and minds. Sue Lin has eyes for Elgin.
Bee, is exceptionally bright, mature and well adjusted. She respects her father, loves her mother and excuses all of their foibles good-naturedly. She is happily making plans to go to boarding school, eagerly looking forward to it, actually, and just wants them to take one family trip, to Antarctica before she leaves. Her mom finds it hard to make plans which involve “people” participation, but she and Elgin reluctantly agree.
Bernadette immediately uses her “personal secretary”, Manjula, a woman working in a call center in India, to take care of all of her purchases and appointments, unbeknownst to Elgin, who thinks she has come back to life, organizing and arranging the trip.
Soon everyone learns that it was a very poor idea indeed, to use Manjula, since she gave her all of their personal information, and although she seemed to make everything happen with ease and aplomb, the FBI informs the family that Manjula is involved in a criminal ring, stealing identities. Manjula was a well kept secret, but now, because Elgin has also taken his admin, the “gnat”, better known as parent, into his confidence, she gossips and instigates with her friend Audrey, Bernadettes jealous neighbor, attempting to develop a closer relationship with Elgin for herself.
Worried about Bernadette and the way she has declined, allowing their home to decay and not having normal social relationships, his concern increases when he finds out about Manjula, then about the terrible mudslide which was really Audrey’s fault, since she was the neighbor who insisted the blackberry vines holding the Fox’s hill together be removed for the school publicity brunch which was meant to attract upper class “Mercedes parents”, changing their image from second class “Subaru parents”, then about the accident in which she was falsely accused of running over Audrey’s foot, then her secret email to her friend Paul and her musings when she was depressed, thinking of ending it all, but not meaning it, he rushes to judgment and calls in a doctor to have her committed and convinces him to take her immediately to a hospital where she can be treated. The doctor, overly impressed with his own idea of himself, insists on an interview first but then intercedes when he finds out the FBI is involved in an investigation concerning them. Circumstantial evidence is making Bernadette seem a danger to herself and others, something she surely is not. Personalities, arrogance and self righteousness were the order of the day. Somehow, defying all odds, Bernadette escapes and disappears. Bee is devastated. Then, while at school, she receives an anonymous letter, everything that has happened, and she writes a book, discovered by her roommate (Bee is not doing that well socially, either), who immediately turns it over to the dean. She is dismissed from Choate, and in her anger, she devises a plan to search for her mom.
On every page, the reader will laugh at the caricature of real life that the author paints. The women are gossipy and petty, the men work-driven and possessed with the search for acclaim, all are in self-denial wanting the wrong things out of life, deceiving themselves and overlooking the important things they are giving up or losing. All of them are a bit larger than life in all of their reactions, and as the author draws them so cleverly, we might even laugh at ourselves, witnessing some of the silly little flaws in her characters, looming larger than life in ours.
Over reactions were the order of the day. Well drawn characters symbolizing the modern ills of society were not always likeable but always enjoyable to watch, as they performed, and yes, perform is really the active word here because they were all acting in one capacity or another, playing the role they thought appropriate, the role that society seemed to want of them. The only truly real character was Bee! She was herself always, honest, forgiving, filled with the joie de vivre, eager and bright, courageous in her convictions, experiencing love and sharing it with others.
That is what really makes this book remarkable. All of the events and characters are too frighteningly close to reality! They are all supersmart: over-achievers, social climbers, immature victims of themselves and their own behavior. Yet, they are too close to real life characters, showing little compassion for others in their climb up the ladder, engaging in petty rumors and gossip without regard to the pain and/or shame they inspire, turning a blind eye to the needs of anyone but themselves.
In the end, however, they all have aha moments of their selfish ways, and they repent or show remorse accordingly. However, this may be the weakest part of the story, or the fairytale version, since it all falls into place too neatly, becoming a bit tedious. It is as if the chess pieces were moved by someone else, and so, even the ending is an exaggeration, a caricature of reality.
The characters are charming, even with their fatal flaws, because eventually they realize how “evil” they have been. Infidelity is excused and forgiven, malicious behavior is explained away, erratic episodes are accepted and everyone is one big happy family again. It is a bit Pollyanna, but it is a pleasure to read. Bee, the divine child, lives up to her name!

The Burgess Boys are both lawyers but in very different fields of law. Jim, the older brother, by four years, is famous, extremely arrogant and rude. Bob is an unknown, quiet and unassuming divorced man. Jim represents the rich and famous and Bob represents those in need. They are opposite sides of the coin, politically, financially and socially. Susan is Jim’s twin sister and her tongue is as sharp as Jim’s. She is divorced, still living in small town Maine, while the boys have moved on and are living in Manhattan. Helen, Jim’s wife is suffering from “empty nest” syndrome. She is independently wealthy and rather shallow.
This is a story that examines family dynamics. Even a gentle elderly lady that lives with Susan is haunted by a past in which she questions her own parenting skills and loyalties, as will each of the other characters, in turn. A Somali family will question American values and want to return to Nairobi, even though it, as well as Mogadishu does not welcome them, even though they have come to America to find a better, more just way of life.
Zachary is Susan’s only child. He is a strange and lonely, introverted teen, who has not seen his father, who lives in Sweden, in several years. He suddenly finds himself in deep trouble in his quiet, home town of Shirley Falls, Maine. He has committed a terrible act of injustice against the Somalis of the town. Walking by their mosque, with a defrosting, bloody pig’s head, he drops it and it rolls inside, contaminating the premises and frightening the worshipers. One child even faints from the shock. The Somalis believe they are under attack. Coming from their background, their fears are warranted.
Susan tells her famous lawyer brother, Jim, what has happened. So far, the person who committed this shameful act is unknown. He tells her that Zack must turn himself into the authorities. The ensuing investigation involves Bob and Jim and takes on a life of its own, with the Attorney General and other attorneys grandstanding for their own political and career advancement, with the Somali community up in arms and filled with fear, with the prejudices of the town abruptly coming to the surface, with pride taking over in the making of decisions instead of common sense. In the effort to make an example of Zack, the fact that he is a child, perhaps with no malicious intent, is totally disregarded and forgotten. Vengeance becomes the motive of the civil trial rather than serving the cause of justice.
This is a story about truly unhappy, unfulfilled people, shaped by tragedy. Every character in this novel is needy, has something in their past that haunts them. Hidden fears and family secrets are revealed, in both cultures, the Somali and the American; preconceptions are exposed and bias is examined, although not thoroughly enough. Did Zack commit a hate crime or a stupid childish prank? Was it even on purpose? Was it his intent to hurt these people by contaminating their mosque with the blood of a pig, an animal forbidden to them? Did these people do anything to invite such behavior, and if they did, would that justify such a hateful act? Was Zack a bad seed? The author portrays those that are successful as selfish and greedy, unfeeling, unable to be pleased, snobbish, haughty and affected, without proper respect for the law. She portrays those that are in need as more worthy, kinder, more forgiving and accepting, with better values. They have unfulfilled dreams and hopes which society largely prevents them from realizing. They are law abiding and peace-loving.
This is the story of a family and a community trying not to come apart, trying to contain the drama, sometimes unsuccessfully, sometimes willfully overreacting. Was the event the catalyst to the subsequent traumas? Would they have happened without the commission of the misdemeanor? The characters question their own past, their decisions and their motives. The reader will wonder if the way we treat someone is what shapes them or if the person is shaped in the womb? The Burgess children were certainly shaped by their upbringing. Do we make “haters” of people, or are they simply people filled with angst, people with the capacity to hate, to express anger? Is an act of injustice simply that, or are their nuances? Does our justice system guarantee a proper defense to someone even if they are guilty or is that just a nice concept in theory?
I think the author missed the opportunity to really develop a dialog about the Somali community, dispel stereotypes and enlighten the reader, but instead chose to make a political point, going so far as to make negative comments about a book written by a woman from Somalia in which she criticizes the lifestyle she endured. Although it was not mentioned by name, the book implied seemed to me to be “Infidel”, written by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, which has been described as a brave effort, but the feeling I got from the author was that she feels it was meant to unfairly foment prejudice against the Somalis and present a one-sided view. I wondered if the author was actually using her own book to advance her personal, one-sided political view, without even considering both sides fairly or equally.
Liberals are presented as kind, caring, and righteous, while those on the right are presented as angry, mean, bigoted troublemakers, with destructive intentions. This book’s message will surely please the Progressives and perhaps upset the Conservatives. In the end, the person who becomes Zack’s advocate will surprise the reader, but it will fit with the more liberal viewpoint and approach of the author.

I loved the book and I highly recommend it with the caveat that it is very difficult to read unemotionally. It is a subject all of us know about and all of us fear. We identify negatively with the plight of the main character since none of us want to go down her path. We find that we want to distance ourselves from it in the book and in our real day to day life. Like Alice, most of us would rather have a disease like Cancer which we can fight and which engenders support and encouragement than have Alzheimer’s which makes outcasts of us and engenders avoidance since it makes people uncomfortable to be around someone who is in a perpetual in and out state of confusion which continues to grow worse until all normal functioning ceases and the victim dies in a fetal position. Few people know where to look or how to respond to people with this disease. Although some medications slow the progress, there is no real treatment, no hope of a cure. Victims are isolated and lonely and cannot recreate their former existence nor create a new one.
The story’s narrator is Alice, ironically, a bright, successful Harvard professor of linguistics, who began to experience moments when her memory seemed to fail her as she misplaced things or became confused by ordinary tasks she used to do by rote or lost her command of language as words which always seemed to be on the tip of her tongue were never remembered and speeches she had given before suddenly had missing parts. As these moments became more frequent, she wonders if her problems stem from menopause, aging or something worse like a brain tumor. After extensive testing, it is determined that she has a genetic strain of Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease which she can pass on to her descendants and they, in turn, can pass on to theirs. The question of whether or not to be tested is foremost in her children’s minds. Should they or shouldn’t they? What is to be gained or lost with the knowledge? Is it better or worse to know?
Coming to terms with the diagnosis of a disease which causes its victims to descend into a world of insanity, coupled with the isolation of rejection, was not easy. Alice rises to the task, well determined to live out her lucid days to the fullest. When, finally, she must retire from her job, the people around her, colleagues, family, students all react to her illness with shock and denial. While some automatically ignore her after they learn of her illness, some offer kindness and support. Most people treat Alzheimer’s victims as if they are not present, ignoring them and talking around them which Alice finds disheartening since she once had such a position of respect and was always included in conversations; her input was always sought after and valued. As she descends further into this world of madness, she is spared the humiliation of her behavior because she no longer cares about the reactions of others to her bizarre episodes of forgetfulness.
Alice continues to walk the thin line between being normal and being in the world of her memory loss and hallucinations. She has no idea when she will descend into the insane world of her imagination and lose all connection to reality or if the dementia will lift and allow her some brief period of remission. Sometimes she is fooled into thinking that she is okay, quite normal, actually, but then she relapses and knows she must face her decline. She has no one to turn to for advice. Although there are organizations for the caregivers whose burden is enormous and many are simply not up to the task, none exist for the victims. Alice organizes one herself, while she still has the mental capacity to create it and participate. This allows these victims to share their loneliness and suffering in a friendly environment.
Alice visits a nursing home to check out the Alzheimer’s unit. She finds there are far more women than men in the unit. (This fact made me wonder whether more women are diagnosed with it or do men find it too hard to care for their wives while women remain loyal and devoted to their husbands, keeping them at home. Could it also be that the wives outlive the men and have no one to care for them?) At the end of the tour, Alice decides this is not a place for her and vows to end it all before she reaches that level of mindlessness, if she can only recognize the time when it occurs.
Through Alice we discover that many of us are running so fast to achieve that we often don’t take the time to enjoy the simple things in life like ice cream cones and laughter. As the disease slows her down she begins to notice the small things that make her happy and hopes to live long enough to see her children achieve what makes them happy.
The contrast between Alice’s memory lapses and her husband John’s, highlights the difference between the normal memory loss of aging and the loss of purpose and direction produced by the dementia of Alzheimers. We experience the indignities of the disease as it is experienced by this bright and dignified character and begin to understand the needs of the victims as well as the caregivers.

This is a compelling story about a group of teens who meet at a camp for artsy kids, kids who are not into sports, kids who are more interested in creative endeavors, kids who are just beginning to find themselves, kids who may never realize who they are or what they want to do, kids who make irreversible mistakes. They are all coming of age. It is a summer of discovery for all of them which continues through the following decades that they remain in touch.
It begins in the summer of 1974. Julie’s father has just passed away, at the untimely age of 42. When she receives a scholarship to attend the camp, Spirit in the Woods, her mom decides it would be good for her to go. While there, she flourishes. When some teens get together in a camp tepee and decide to form a group that will continue to be best friends forever, into the future, she is flattered to be invited to attend; Ash and Goodman, (sister and brother), Jonah, Kathy, Ethan (an animation genius) and Julie, the newbie, round out the circle of six. When they call her Jules, she adopts the name ever after. She does comedy routines at camp and comes out of her shell. She and Ash remain best friends into adulthood and all of them remain friends, throughout the years, periodically getting together again. For the most part, they support each other and are positive influences in each other’s lives.
The story follows these characters from the summer of Nixon’s resignation to the ten year anniversary of 9/11, when they are in their fifties. Each of their lives plays out in a different direction. They remain friends all through the ensuing years, some becoming more successful than others. Each finds their own way. Two of them marry, one is gay, one accuses another of rape, one marries someone outside the circle (Dan), and one runs off and assumes another identity in order to escape the errors of his ways. All of them are fully formed, and we live with them, their failures, successes, mistakes and conflicts as they age and face the exigencies of life.
There is some crude language and also there are unnecessary sex scenes which add nothing to the story’s development. From my perspective, relevant and important subjects, like intermarriage, motherhood, parental death, divorce, separation, the Aids epidemic, premarital sex, drug use, and even autism, are only casually referenced and not fully explored, while, at the same time, largely irrelevant, liberal political views run rampant, throughout the text, at every opportunity. Wealth and the evil it spawns, coupled with its alter ego, privation, a problem apparently caused by the rich, in the author’s view, are mentioned as well. (The expression of the author’s personal political views seems to be a very common theme running through the novels today. Authors seem to want to express their personal views and not so subtly plant references to them.)The story is sometimes repetitious as it is retold from different character’s points of view as events play out.
These are not perfect characters; they have flawed families and imperfect lives, with all of the sundry normal problems and not so normal ones in evidence. They have emotional trauma, mental and physical issues and even legal problems to deal with at various points of the narrative. All of the themes are knitted together in the end when the story comes full circle. There are villains and heroes.
In the end, it is about life changes and changing needs as we age. It is about money and the lack of it, what money can buy and what money can destroy. It is about beauty and the lack of it. It is about the relevancy and irrelevancy of issues that sometimes seem so important at one stage of life and so trivial at another. Still, sometimes it takes almost a lifetime to work out the effects of some events in our lives, in order to move forward and live again. Life isn’t fair and it isn’t a fairy tale. It is not for sissies.
Absent the political bias which flies off the pages expressing the author’s dislike of conservative politics, it is a really “interesting” study of a group of teens as they grow and mature, learn how to make choices, some good and some bad, and come to realize that being “interesting” is in the eye of the beholder and its importance depends on circumstances and moments in time. There are many poignant moments, and moments of truth, witnessed by the reader for each of the characters. In the end, most of the characters are altruistic and soon discover that money does not always lift up the rich, but often corrupts them. It is a person’s behavior, hopes and dreams that define them, not their money or position or their popularity and beauty.

This book is the second in a series. The first was Firefly Lane. The book stands on its own and does not need to be read as a sequel. It is about self discovery, reconciliation and redemption.
It covers many major issues: alcoholism, drug addiction, cutting, attempted suicide, troubled and deviant teens, runaways, Cancer, love and loss, mental illness, sexual abuse, racial and religious bias, interracial relationships, and even domestic abuse. Perhaps it was trying to be too many things at once, but it is largely successful in its presentation. Fans of Kristin Hannah will be enchanted with this novel.
The story surrounds the loss of Katie Ryan, a victim of Cancer, and her death’s devastating effect on family and friends. Tully and Kate are best friends, forever. However, they had a terrible falling out, two years before Kate’s illness began, and until Kate expresses a need for her, in her final days, they are estranged. Kate’s husband, Johnny, against his own best judgment, asks Tully to come back into their lives to comfort Kate, at which point she gives up her own life, with dramatic and drastic consequences, to offer herself to her friend.
Kate and Johnny are the parents of Luke and Wills, twins, and Marah a high school teenager. The twins deal manageably well with the death of their mom, but Marah and Tully, truly falter. Johnny feels helpless and behaves thoughtlessly and irresponsibly on too many occasions, considering only his own feelings and no one else’s in his effort to restore normalcy to their lives. He is the adult in the room but he is acting like a spoiled child. For Marah, this might be a forgivable behavior, but, for Johnny, it is reprehensible and has grave results.
Although the book centers around Kate’s death, it is really about Marah and Tully and their individual reactions to grief. Tully is a famous talk show host. She has a damaged life; she is largely ignorant about her past, she is “motherless” in all ways that count, and she descends into her own private Hell after her friend’s death. Her mother’s scars, truly scar her as well. Marah, on another plane, descends as well. She no longer feels that anyone understands her, is filled with misunderstood anger which causes her to withdraw and become sullen. How all of these interacting characters work out their lives, for good and bad, well meaning or not, is the central theme of this novel.
For the first almost 300 pages, the book felt very pedestrian and hackneyed. The characters seemed overblown in their development, almost like caricatures of themselves. Marah, as a Goth, is not very believable although her grief and confusion certainly is understandable. She is selfish and immature, which may be normal, but a perfectly healthy teen, would not, it seems to me, turn so grievously into something else because of the death of a parent, especially when there is a support system around, even if this support system is damaged as well. Surely her grandparents were the most stable influence and could have had more of an effect in real life. Too many of the characters sought to comfort themselves at the expense of others.
In the last ¼ of the book (about 100 pages), the author’s purpose became clearer, and she redeemed herself. The pages turned themselves and I read on until I finished it, without putting it down. The beginning of the book, which seemed hackneyed, now seemed more plausible. Although, I sensed how it would conclude, I still, wanted to learn the details. The novel covers the behavior of the characters and the atmosphere that existed over three generations, from the mid 60’s to 2010. It perfectly captures the 60’s, the flower child generation, the formica tables and the tract houses, the hoods in black leather jackets with slick backed hair, in the style of the sitcom Happy Days. It also captured the puritanical views. It succeeded in capturing the atmosphere of the young teens born to that generation, growing up with their Valley Girl personas in a world with loosened moral standards and greater, often abused, sexual freedoms. Then it encompasses the troubled worldview of the kids growing up today, in a world with technology and personal freedom, heretofore, unknown. It covers the essential, perhaps over “liberalization” of America, in school, at home, in the workplace, and the world.
For me, the book took too long to come together. At times it seemed pedestrian and cloying, demanding sympathy from the reader. Perhaps the author was setting it up carefully for readers who had not read Firefly Lane. Although the characters were fully developed, the plot was fairly obvious, and the narrative was repetitious, at times, because the story was told from the vantage point of several of the characters: Johnny, Marah and Paxton, Tully, Dorothy (Tully’s mom, known also as Cloud), Margie and Gus, (Kate’s parents).
Because of the way the book is written, though, it should cross all age lines in its appeal. It will touch grandparents, parents, and their children, as it concerns the three generations. It is a novel about self image, self destruction and its alternate, salvation. It is about wounded people and how they destroy or heal themselves and find their way home again. There are moments of recognition when scenes remind the reader of Oprah, Bob Woodruff, Fonzi, and the movie, Beaches.

When I turned the last page I had to stop and think, what is this book really about? I decided it was about three things: freedom, justice, and immigration. It is about the freedom to move about, the freedom to make one’s own decisions, the freedom to live wherever one wants, the freedom to have ideas and speak one’s mind, the freedom to cross all kinds of borders. It is about right and wrong, fear and courage, comprehension and misapprehension, deception and clarity, lying and telling the truth and how all of these basic ideas affect the idea of justice and injustice in a free society in which immigrants and citizens live side by side.|
The Torres-Thompson family lives in an upscale neighborhood with all the amenities of people with money. At one time they had several people working for them full time, but because of a shift in their financial status, Scott and Maureen have had to economize. When the story begins, Araceli, the Mexican housekeeper, is lamenting the absence of her fellow employees. They have succumbed to the consequences of the belt tightening. All of the work, child care included, now falls upon Araceli’s shoulders without so much as an offer of additional pay because, essentially, Araceli is invisible to them except in the performance of her duties and is taken completely for granted. They take no interest in her life. She is there to serve their needs and none of hers are considered or recognized. She, however, silently seems to judge them in their lifestyles in her thoughts and comments to herself. There is resentment on both sides. Often the author makes her behavior and values seem superior to theirs, which defies the reality of her situation since she is employed by them, and in all ways, except her thoughts, she is the underling.
Maureen Thompson does not seem to understand the gravity of their situation and still spends money extravagantly. Scott Torres begins to lose his self confidence and worries about how he will be able to continue to provide for his family. Both seem immature and irresponsible. After a particularly aggressive argument, Scott loses his temper and does something out of character; Maureen leaves with her youngest child, Samantha, and does not return for four days. She believes she is leaving her two sons, Keenan and Brandon, in her husband’s care. However, he leaves earlier than she does and neither has any idea that both boys have been left alone, in the care of Araceli, who is not a nanny and has no desire to take on that responsibility. It has been foisted upon her, unwillingly, without her knowledge. Through a series of missteps, both Maureen and Scott have drawn false conclusions, and have abandoned their children.
When Araceli finds out that she is the only one home with the boys, she tries to call their parents, but neither answers their phone. She does the best she can for the first couple of days, but after that, not knowing where the parents have gone or for how long they will be away, and not wanting to have the children placed in foster care, and not wanting to arouse immigration about her illegal status, she decides not to call the police, but instead, sets out with the boys to try and find their grandfather from the only address she has for him, written on the back of a boyhood photo taken many years ago. Not assimilated in America, she is naïve and makes many foolish decisions based on false assumptions. The self-serving Torres-Thompsons make just as many, and they are acquainted with their environment. The ramifications of their incredibly irresponsible behavior, is the basis for this story, and it often plays out in a tortuous fashion.
All of the injustices perpetrated upon the main characters by political spotlight seekers, crazed fanatics on both the left and the right, media moguls looking for a scoop, merge together to produce a horror story of injustice for all. Are there no groups that follow common sense, rather than their own cause, without jumping to false conclusions which support their anger or sense of injustice regardless of its right or wrongness? When truth no longer is of the highest value, when it is the underling to self serving “on the fringe” individuals, how can you have anything but chaos? When people are afraid, they won’t come out of their box to defend the defenseless, but they will watch as they are abused by those stronger, those less ruled by ethical or moral judgments, watch as those governed by their own perceived need for success, regardless of whether or not justice is served, try to take over and wield power through the manipulation of facts. Often, it was the innocent thoughts of the children that rose above the fray and enlightened the reader to the stereotypical beliefs and biases which seemed to shape the characters, rather than the adult conclusions and behavior. Perception was often lacking and honest appraisals of the situation were instead colored by personal grudges and backgrounds.
In the end, I was disappointed. Stupidity continued to reign throughout. Only the scene changed. Nothing was learned, the comedy of errors and circus atmosphere continued. I found the use of foreign phrases distracting and often confusing. I wondered if the author was trying to show the futility of the situation by giving the main characters the name Torres-Thompson instead of Thompson-Torres, since Torres is the husband’s last name. Was it a subtle reminder that to be Mexican in America was a negative image even as he portrayed the Mexican as having the better moral sense, the upper hand and the last laugh? Could there actually ever be such a series of misunderstandings and false conclusions leading to such disastrous consequences?
This is not a quick read. It raises so many questions about civil rights, bias and prejudice, illegal aliens, unreal expectations of immigrants, the rights of workers, the abuse of the poor by the rich which leads to the abuse of their employees, the efficacy of our justice system and child welfare programs. This book has a social message, which seems to follow more liberal ideas. In some ways, the characters are caricatures of real people, stereotypes of the worst kind of adult and parent, irresponsible and immature, selfish, stupid, greedy and egotistic, who run from responsibility and each other to prove they were right when right and wrong had nothing to do with their problems. They were childish, expressing hostility instead of behaving rationally. The book made me angry for four reasons, one because it is overdone in its portrayal of selfish, ignorant Causcasians, and two because it is overdone in its portrayal of the Mexican émigré as the only deserving character, and three because it is decidedly left leaning and four, because the characters are totally hateful. It is only in the end that some of the characters seem to realize the folly of their ways and recognize the injustices they have enabled. The story seemed a bit lopsided.
The author presents his own bias by assuming that those on the left are pretty much only guilty of over-reactions in their need to defend the defenseless, and perhaps guilty of political greed and fifteen minutes of fame, while those on the right are guilty of far more serious behaviors of arrogance, anger, hatefulness and financial greed at the expense of those who are far less fortunate, without regard to consequences which are often deadly. It is not that simple, nor is it accurate.
The book reminds me somewhat of the movie Babel, in which another Mexican maid is unjustly accused of kidnapping the children in her care when the parents are unable to return in time for her to attend her own son’s wedding, forcing her to take those children with her to Mexico for the event.
Two opposite conclusions can be drawn from this book: 1) to Americans, Mexicans are objects to be used, not minds to be explored (the Mexicans think they are better than the Americans think they are); 2) to the Mexicans, the Americans or America is an object to be used, not explored. Two sides of the same coin perhaps coexist and serve no positive purpose at the present time.

Fraught with emotion, this is an achingly heartbreaking tale of war. Devastatingly honest and brutal in its images, it is hard to read without discomfort. It propels one to second guess their own thoughts about war and the reasons for the unnecessary sacrifice of life.
It feels like a series of random thoughts coming from Private John Bartle, with each series separated by approximately one year of time. The story moves back and forth, past to present, from 2004 to 2005, as, through his thoughts, we try to understand his confusion about who he is and why he still remains. Is he a hero or a coward? The absence of war is now an empty void within him that he cannot fill or explain nor can he stop reaching for his missing rifle. He is no longer defined by his past, his childhood or his youth, but now, he is defined by his brief, unbearable experience in Iraq.
In 2003, John Bartle and Daniel Murphy enlisted; in 2004, they went through basic training together and became friends; in 2005, Bartle is discharged and returns home to Virginia. John Murphy, 18, and Daniel Bartle, 21, served together in Iraq. This is their brief story. When one day, Bartle carelessly promised Murphy’s mother that he will protect him, the forward momentum of his life is changed forever. It was an unrealistic pledge that would not be easy to keep. In the end, his effort to protect Murphy’s mother, rather than her son, had drastic consequences.
Their superior officer, Sgt. Sterling, 24, perhaps the quintessential soldier, was demanding and brutal in his expectations of obedience and respect. They loved and hated him, at the same time. He was responsible for keeping them alive and his methods were often cruel but expedient. They were children, in a sense, playing a game of life and death for which they were poorly equipped, but then, who is equipped to commit murder with impunity, especially when punishment eventually lies in wait, in the prison of one’s mind or the prison of one’s peers who judge the crimes without the necessary wisdom to comprehend the reasons behind their commission, but rather with the need to simply hold someone, anyone, accountable, to make someone pay in order to justify the injustices they allowed and even requested be committed.
The book thoughtfully explores the choices we make, good and bad, those necessary and those perhaps not so much. It shows the effect of those choices on those who made them; it also shows the effect on those who had to follow the choices that were made by others, those who had no input, but were, nevertheless, expected to follow, and in so doing, were irrevocably changed.
Choices that were ultimately made for kind reasons were judged just as wrong as those made for cruel ones. Of their own volition, the young men and women chose to go into battle, but they had no idea what they would encounter in that foreign country thousands of miles from home, in more ways than mere distance. Some of the decisions they chose were made because they were driven by the horror of the atrocities they witnessed, by the sheer enormity of them. The magnitude of the death and destruction exhausted and wasted them. The nightmare of war, the madness of it, infected their minds in the daylight of their waking moments.
However, their choices determined their futures. Then too, their superior’s choices, also determined their futures. Ultimately, one is left to wonder if the means ever really justifies the end. Did Murphy find freedom? Did Bartle escape the prison of his mind? Both boys were lost to their families whether or not they returned home.
As the thoughts of the soldiers take life on the pages, the reader will find it hard to read on without respite. Only imagine for a moment, the soldier who cannot take respite when he is in the middle of the fray, and then imagine how their lives are forever altered by their experiences and how an unwitting public welcomes them back as heroes ignoring their scars of battle.

"New York" is a well researched, wonderful inter-generational saga that spans several centuries, from the mid 1600’s until 2011. It traces the generations of several families through feast and famine, prosperity and poverty, hope and despair. Many of the characters develop and reconnect seamlessly and realistically, as time goes by.
The amazing history of New York is told wondrously in this novel, while adhering to the facts perfectly, albeit using a mixture of real and fictional characters. Several families meet again and again, generation after generation, notably the Masters and O’Donnells, the Kellers and the Carusos, even though their relationship and past connections to each other often remains unknown to all, but the reader.
Occasionally, the author creates an “aha” moment for the reader, when he introduces a little known fact and it becomes a painless, teaching moment, like how a street or a river got a name, or who founded a certain part of New York, or who saved the city from a stock market crash. The author’s subtle presentation of facts, important incidents and details, is never burdensome or tedious. The weaving together of both real characters (Tammany, J. P. Morgan, Roosevelt, Koch, Lincoln, Washington, Franklin, Douglas, Kennedy, King, to name just a few that appear throughout the narrative), and fictional characters is never contrived. It isn’t like the history books that can bore you to death with facts, and yet, it is filled with all of the necessary accurate information to create a clear picture of New York’s evolution and rise to the megalopolis it is today.
New York’s foundation is illuminated with such clarity and portrayed with such vigor, that the narrative simply flies by with lively images of life there. The Indians, the privateers, the Dutch, the English, the Irish, the financiers, the soldiers, the gangs, all play a role in the account and all fit in seamlessly, so the reader really understands how New York and its environs came to be and comes to understand all of the people who populated the area in the beginning- from the mid 1600’s onward- and the kind of courage needed to survive as New York City and America grew.
The reader of this audio is one of the best. He does a fabulous job as he is able to throw his voice into each character with authentic accents and precise emotion to fit the moment. He relates the brutality and difficult history of so many things like slavery, the Revolution, the Civil war, the suffrage movement, prohibition, the Civil Rights movement, the Depression, the rise and fall of the stock market, the rise of terrorism with the World Trade Center bombing and its eventual collapse, all with perfect and appropriate inflection, feeling and accent.
I highly recommend this book to anyone wishing to painlessly learn the history of New York and even the United States, since New York was such a major part of its development, while having the added pleasure of reading a wonderful piece of historic fiction that will be memorable and not easily forgotten.

I listened to the audio version of this book and found it extremely moving and engaging. There were several readers playing the part of individual characters. All were excellent.
The book takes place in two parallel time zones of war, one beginning in 1912 and the other in 1940. It is told through a series of letters between the characters.
In 1912, the poetess Elspeth Dunn, lives on the Isle of Skye, in Scotland. Once, she had secretly dreamed of being a geologist, but her fear of water has kept her trapped on the island. When she gets her first fan letter from a reader named David Graham who lives in Urbana, Illinois, whose secret dream is to be a ballet dancer, her life takes a turn in a completely different direction. She calls him Davey and he decides to call her Sue, in the frequent, but secret, touching correspondence that develops over the years.
Elspeth’s husband, Ian, a fisherman, had grown very distant and eventually left her to join the fight in Europe, during WWI. Her confused loneliness is abated, not by the rare correspondence from Ian, but by the letters that often arrive from Davey. After some time, Davey also joins the fight in Europe. He will drive an ambulance. She has a divided allegiance, but she misses them both.
Ian was best friends with Elspeth’s brother, Finlay, and when he discovers her secret letter writing and her secret feelings toward Davey, he is enraged because she has been betraying his friend, Ian, who is now MIA and presumed dead. The family is torn apart when Finlay packs up and leaves home. Will the problems ever be solved and families reunited or will many more cans of worms be opened? Will anything move Elspeth to conquer her fear of water to leave the island?
Now move to 1940, Margaret Dunn is meeting and writing to Paul. They believe they are in love. It is again a time of war and he, too, joins up to fight. Her mother warns her to be careful about love in wartime, because it is a time when hearts often make rash decisions. Margaret is confused by her mother’s odd behavior, especially in the coming days, after her mother's secret cache of letters addressed to Sue, is accidentally discovered in their home. Sue is a person unknown to Margaret. Shortly afterward, her mom disappears, and Margaret sets out to solve the mystery.
Switching back to the 1912 era, the reader discovers that by a trick of fate, Davy and Ian wind up in the same prison camp and the story begins to twist and turn as more and more letters are revealed and more secrets disclosed.
Through the correspondence and interviews with people in 1940, who knew Margaret’s mother, the story is told and it is told with a good deal of humor in the back and forth letters, but the background love story is one of longing and tenderness, as well as secrets and deceptions. The eloquent correspondence of both couples exposes the actions of the characters that have changed their lives indelibly and have been carried with heavy hearts for decades.

As I read this book I was reminded of the Victorian novels I read as a young girl, in which the heroine always faced the most awful circumstances but was rescued by a hero at various turns in her life, each one with a secret that tormented him or her and caused the story to twist and turn until it resolved itself in some way, at the end, with consequences that could not be avoided or altered.

This book is a saga, well worth the read. I listened to an audio version and the reader did a spectacular job speaking in many voices and never confusing any of the characters. Her expression was spot-on. It was almost like watching a show playing out in my mind.

The well developed characters are gentler and wiser than those far more educated and worldly, and they will endear themselves to you. Those that do not are typical of the cruel monsters we often encounter in life and ascribe their tormented souls to their environment or their experience, but whatever the reason, they are the dregs of the universe.

The opening horror-filled scene is quickly moved into the background as the story begins on a beautiful plantation in the 1700's, a time when slavery was accepted and people were property.

A young child, Lavinia, is brought home to a plantation by the master of the property, the Captain, and she is placed in the Kitchen House to work alongside the slaves, although she is Caucasian. Her brother has been sold, her parents are dead, and she is alone in the world.

Blacks who are enslaved and without free papers are doomed to a life of unbearable bondage, poor housing, insufficient food, overwork and constant fear of being beaten, used or sold and separated from those they loved. In spite of their hardships, they forge a community and care for each other, taking pleasure in life’s simple joys. They embrace Lavinia, regardless of her color, and nurse her back to health.

This is Lavinia's story. She grows up "colorblind" and is not aware of her different station in life or of the fact that she will be free some day, and she loves her home and her family, Mama Mae, Papa George, Uncle Jacob, Belle, the twins, and all the family that surrounds her. She wants to remain with them forever. Her days are work filled and pleasant, once she grows used to her surroundings and responsibilities. She thrives and is actually happy, working and enjoying the friendship of other children her age. As young as she is, she cares for those younger and learns to love.

This is the story of her plight, which although in sharp contrast with the plight of slaves, is almost as dreadful, even though it will only be for a finite term of which she is unaware. They are all owned. It is the story of her innocence, her ignorance and naïveté which leads to dramatic events, some happy and some tragic.

The secrets and mysteries of life on the plantation move the tale in numerous twists and turns. Knowing the truth would have made circumstances turn out in a happier fashion, but these were times when many things were not discussed openly, and women had limited power and freedom. Women belonged to their husbands as much as slaves belonged to their masters, albeit they lived in better circumstances.

The author has done a commendable job capturing the idea of what it meant to be a "slave" and a "master" from both perspectives, as well as how enslaved a wife was, even though she was "free". The author has captured the mood of the times, the hardships, total helplessness and hopelessness and the need for utter obedience and humility in order to survive the most distasteful circumstances and in order to put up with the most cruel and despicable people. The lives of slaves were incidental, unimportant to the masters, simply property. There was no justice, no recourse and utterly no regard for their needs or their humanity. They were unable to fight back and had to witness and bear the most awful punishments and deprivations, sometimes just at the whim of the master.

Through Lavinia's eyes, we experience the life of a slave and a free woman in the same body. The lesson we learn from Lavinia is that one's color does not make a difference. Like "The Boy In The Striped Pajamas", when stripped to our souls we are the same, only some of us are cruel and some of us are kind and it is not our color or religion that determines that, but the sickness in one's mind.(less)

This is the story of someone who believes she is not worthy of notice. She believes herself to be part of a class of people who don’t deserve to dream, people who are not memorable, but instead, believe themselves to be unsuccessful, mediocre and invisible in the eyes of the world. This is the story of Nora Eldridge, a single woman, spinsterish, who no longer thinks about a future that includes a happy home, a future that is hopeful and prosperous. She resigns herself to the fact that she is nothing, if not ordinary.
When the Shahids, a Lebanese family, move to town from Paris, temporarily, and their child enters the school system, becoming Nora’s student, she is completely enthralled with them. Reza is 8-years-old. His mother Sirena is a successful artist and his father, Skandar, a very attractive man, is a professor and a lecturer. Nora is a frustrated artist who has never followed her dreams, and she “adopts” this family. Nora begins to live vicariously through her new found friends’ lives and then becomes intimately involved with them. With Sirena, she rents a studio and returns to her creative side, once again making model rooms of famous historic personages, and together, they work on Serina’s latest project, “Wonderland”. One night, believing she is alone in the studio, Nora takes some pretty risqué photos of herself, in conjunction with the room she is building. She is imagining a life for the character who lives in the room she is creating, and she abandons herself to the experience, snapping “out of character” photos of herself, in order to record it.
When Sirena and her family return to Paris, Nora feels the loss deeply. After many years, she visits them there and discovers she was betrayed by Sirena and perhaps, even Skandar. She understands this, at first, as the way “the woman upstairs” is treated, as a non-entity, as someone unnoticed, and therefore, not someone who is thought about in terms of feelings or consequences. She is simply there for their amusement and is unimportant. It is at this point in her life that her anger becomes fierce and palpable, but this anger, rather than creating a sense of depression and helplessness, makes her realize that she no longer needs to be afraid to live, that indeed, she must conquer her fears and forge ahead. She had entertained fantasies about her friend and her friend’s husband and dreamed that their son was hers, as well. She had believed that they embraced her as family, but she had over-reacted, and she had over identified with the Shahids, as she had with others. She had been living vicariously in her imaginings, through the lives of others, rather than her own.
Nora believed we were all lost in a world that wasn’t real, a world of appearances, and she didn’t entertain the idea of hope for a better day, a more fulfilling time in her life, rather she mocked those who told her otherwise, until she was betrayed so completely that her anger finally woke her up and gave her the courage to face life and live. This is a story about a woman who needed to come face to face with the charades that people play and with their disloyalty and phoniness, in order to find the truth and reality in her own life.
The book illuminates how we see each other, each with a different lens. What we see with our eye and feel with our minds and hearts is completely skewed by our personal life experiences and our environment. We all bring a different viewpoint and a different evaluation of situations to the table, based on our pasts. Probably, no two observations or reactions to the same experience or incident will be exactly the same.
This was not my kind of book. There were sexual overtones of deviance that seemed contrived and irrelevant and I did not really identify or become invested in any of the character’s lives. However, the writer has a way with words and that is praiseworthy.

When the reader of this audio uttered the last word, I breathed a sigh of relief. I listened from beginning to end, but it was a chore. There were just too many characters, too many different scenarios that seemed to jump around without any rhyme or reason, too many conflicting ideas and themes coming at me, so that I just could not keep track of it all and enjoy the story. Perhaps, if it were not an audio book, I could have looked back more easily, but even with listening to sections, over and over, it just did not come together.
The narrator is the son of Horace Burr. He is telling the story of a curse that befell the Reverend Winslow Slade’s family from approximately 1905-1906. He has discovered this story by cracking the code of the chronicles written by Adelaide Burr, who was brutally murdered by her husband, Horace.
Many famous people are mentioned in the narrative: Woodrow Wilson, Grover Cleveland, Jack London, Upton Sinclair, Carnegie, Clements, and so many more. I was constantly wondering which part of this story was fact and which was fiction. Which character traits attributed to these people were real and which were fantasy.
The story begins in Princeton, New Jersey, in the early 1900’s, with the revelation to Woodrow Wilson by his mentor, Yeager, of the lynching of an innocent man and his sister. Yeager wants Wilson to do something about it, but Wilson, like most of those in power, turns a blind eye to the events because of the negative effect his attention to it, would have on his future as President of Princeton University. He is currently engaged in a power struggle with Andrew West, for control of the institution.
As the story continues, that thread seems to disappear without being fully developed except to indicate the hypocrisy of the times, and instead we are introduced to the presence of a possible demon, in Princeton, who is responsible for murder and mayhem as he assumes many incarnations. After several horrific incidents, it is assumed that there is a curse on the area. It seems to begin on the day of the Reverend Slade’s granddaughter’s wedding. Immediately after she is betrothed, she disappears with what is presumed to be a demon. The story concludes with the experiences of the Reverend’s grandson Todd which further reinforces the notion of a curse, perhaps upon that family.
The book left me wondering, was Oates mocking religion and G-d? Was this a satire? Was she declaring that G-d wanted the Reverend to successfully cause chaos in the world? Was G-d punishing innocent people for Slade’s wrongdoing? What kind of a G-d would that be? I found some of the dialog sardonic and sarcastic leaving me constantly wondering what the author was really trying to tell the reader. Did some statements act as double entendres meant to make me think more intensely? The history and time line seemed accurate, but did these characters really do the things she attributed to them or were the experiences exaggerated. Was she deriding the history?
There were gruesome details throughout the tale with evil spirits and creatures capable of extreme cruelty. There were hallucinatory moments and scenes in which the characters minds and actions were taken over by malevolent beings. Some of the characters heard voices and suffered madness.
The tale made me wonder if Grover Cleveland possessed such an uneven temperament. Was Woodrow Wilson’s health so precarious? Was Upton Sinclair such a bigot? I could not tell from the narrative what was true and what was fairy tale. Were the traits of these famous personages simply exaggerated to make a point? Was this an excessive use of poetic license?
The author mocks the puritanical views of the times by using the term “unspeakable” to refer to certain events, thereby keeping the reader in the dark because since the events are “unspeakable”, they can’t be revealed. It is an interesting device but it only confused me further. Were there really demons taking possession of some of these characters or were they victims of some kind of mass hysteria? Were there archangels? It was hard to tell who was good and who was evil. Many good characters became evil. Once again, I felt the double meaning was everywhere. It was as if all that we see is never really all that we see!
Using this novel, Oates did expose the cruelty of the times, the religious and racial prejudices of the people, the bigotry and inequality that existed, the duplicity of the socialist movement, the hypocrisy of the church, and the rigid rules governing those admitted to the hallowed halls of prestigious schools. All this, she did, while weaving a Gothic mystery, complete with the often, prevailing misogynistic and superstitious ideas of the times.
Without the gifted prose of this author, the novel would have had no redeeming features for me. In spite of the fact that much of the story went over my head, there were far more times when the use of language and sentence structure was spellbinding and held me fast. I could visualize the characters and the scenes, even when I could not fathom the reason for them.

There have been few times when I turned the last page of a book and sighed with relief, but this was one of them, although I listened to the audio so it was the final word I heard that gave me such pause. My husband had been reading the print book and found it very slow, so we decided to listen to the audio version together. Although the reader was good, there was little he could do with such a drily written tome. It was well researched and there were abundant facts, too many at times, and that made the book tedious when it could have been alive if it was less bogged down with what felt like little known, unnecessary details that seemed included only to fill pages and pages as if there were a predetermined amount the author wished to write. At times it was so boring it was more like a sleeping pill! It was repetitive, and included too many incidental pieces of information like the coupling of his coming across a suicide victim (with a graphic description), with the purchase of a sheepdog. The relevance escaped me. Every famous personage of Jefferson’s time, that he knew or that knew of him, was mentioned in the book. Oftentimes the facts did not concern Jefferson, but them, instead. There was gossip, but not of the captivating kind. It was a potpourri of white noise, in some cases, just facts that could have been left out without altering the book’s value. I did not feel that Jefferson, the man, was developed that fully, but rather the facts about the people around him were stressed.
So, if I had to rate the book, I would give it 4 stars for research, 3 stars for the reader and 2 stars for the book itself, which simply failed to ignite my interest. Whole sections of the book slipped by without me being aware of the message as the reader devolved into a monotone because there was no way to inspire the narrative with any expression. Often the book went off on a tangent and explored issues that distracted me. Jefferson was one of the Founding Fathers, he helped draft the Constitution, authored the Bill of Rights, signed the Declaration of Independence, was Secretary of state, vice president, and finally, a two term President of the United States. The man was definitely a lover of politics, a believer in state’s rights and the voice of the people. His image should have jumped off the pages with passion. A brilliant man of many talents, he was interested in horticulture, music, farming, hunting, science, libraries, and politics. He loved America and wanted to see it thrive. He wanted to see the people happy and less divisive and he worked toward that goal his entire career, however, he was arrogant and was not easily persuaded to change his mind once set on a course of action.
He was a womanizer as a young man but when he finally married, at age 28, he was devoted to his wife and never married again after her death, honoring her wish that her children never have a step parent who cares nothing for them. Bereft, he takes his oldest child, Patsy, and travels to France where he becomes enamored with the country. Although he never married again, he was not celibate. He carried on a long term affair with Sally Hemmings, which began when she was just a young teenage slave of mixed race, who bore several of his children. Jefferson did not believe that slavery was moral, but nevertheless, he kept up the practice.
He never openly admitted his affair, Sally Hemmings, but modern science has proven that the DNA of her offspring are his. I am not sure the world would look kindly on that behavior, or that relationship, today. Perhaps a real student of history, rather than an ordinary reader, would be more suited to this book, since they would be interested in every detail, rather than the overview I desired. Jefferson may have died, but the legacy of his efforts will live on forever, since they formed the foundation of the country.

It is just after WWI, when Captain John Emmett returns home to his family, and finds he cannot adjust to his life. The tragedy of events that he witnessed, during the war, have severely damaged his psyche. After an assault arrest, he is sent to a nursing home where it is hoped he will get well.

Laurence Bartram, himself just returned from the war, discovering that his wife and child have died during his absence, is also lost in his own thoughts and private world. He and John were schoolmates once, years ago, and have lost touch. When he receives a letter from Mary Emmett, John’s sister, he is surprised. She wants him to investigate the circumstances surrounding her brother’s death so that she can understand what he did and why. He was the only friend, ever brought home by John, and so she reaches out to him. She and Laurence had met when they were younger and had emotionally connected, but the war intervened and the moment was lost.

During the war, a tragic event took place that sets a mysterious chain of events in motion. Looking for information about John’s suicide, leads Laurence on a labyrinthine journey, that with its myriad twists and turns will excite and hold the reader’s attention. Conspiracy theories abound and will have the reader guessing in one direction or another, usually, the wrong one, lol.

This mystery is loosely based on a real wartime event. The ending is quite surprising. As secrets unfold, you will ask yourself how far will a father go to avenge a son’s death? Is behavior during wartime acceptable even if it is unjust? Is unrequited love worth pursuing? Are the emotional consequences of wartime actions properly addressed, even today?

The reader is really good but this book would be better in print so the reader could look back to recall the importance and identity of the many characters in the narrative. That said, I simply listened to this book straight through, it was that engaging. I could not stop until the end.

When I first began to listen to this book, I was disappointed and gave up. Thankfully, I tried again a short time later because this author read her own book, and she does the most amazing job with the different voices and varied expressions of the characters. It is not even necessary to know the name of the character because the voice she uses is so recognizable. Often, Japanese quotes are read and translated. There is no problem with those moments; rather they take on a special beauty of their own. When she speaks with the voice of Nao’s great -grandmother, a Buddhist nun, it is mesmerizing, and the reader will be transported to her Buddhist temple and feel the serenity she imparts with her gentle words and manner of speaking as she reaches out to the reader and preaches simple ideals about how to live spiritually well, without over emphasizing religion itself. Nao’s voice, on the other hand, is typical of a hyperactive, confused teen, while Ruth’s is the voice of an older, more mature person. I think listening to this book would be my preferred choice because the printed word could not convey, adequately, all that the author was able to convey with her voice.
At times, the story seemed gruesome and yet this brilliant author used words so masterfully, that even gross situations were tolerable and often described with some humor to lower the temperature of the heinous behavior portrayed. Even when Nao’s morality is compromised, it is dealt with, with a light hand, so although the reader might be enraged to discover the depths to which she had to descend in order to survive, the way Nao describes the experience, softens it. Reduced to its simplest terms, the story is about a troubled teenager and a troubled novelist who is trying to locate her. How they interact over time and through it , is the way secrets are revealed.
When Nao’s father lost his job in America, they were forced to move back to Japan where Nao, as an outsider, is bullied and abused by her classmates. Living in Tokyo with her disappointed mother and depressed, suicidal father, it is no wonder that she has a dysfunctional attitude, as well as negative thoughts about herself. Her often bizarre reactions and behavior are direct results of her lack of respect from others and her own lack of self esteem. The description of her school and home environment is spot-on and totally without guile.
Ruth is of Japanese heritage. She lives in Canada, on a remote island with her husband Oliver. She is supposed to be writing a novel about her mom who suffered from Alzheimer’s and recently died. She has hit a writer’s block of sorts. While walking on the beach, she comes upon a plastic bag and brings it home to throw it out. Soon, however, she discovers the bag conceals some letters, a watch and a diary. She sets out to try and discover who wrote the diary from the clues within its pages.
Nao’s name, pronounced now, is important to the title for Nao thinks and writes about time and its meaning with regard to several characters that are explored. With words that would fly from the page if I was reading, rather than listening, the author discusses the most complex ideas in simple terms to make the message clear. The importance and meaning of life and death is explored. Loyalty and duty to one’s own conscience is investigated. Justice, shame, guilt and the consequences of certain behaviors are studied. The brutality of Nao’s classmates is peeled back like the skin of an onion and the reader will feel her humiliation and her pain. At the same time, they will feel the shame of her kamikaze great uncle. Often, also, there is humor when you would least expect it, to make the subject matter, which is sometimes shocking, more palatable.
Nao’s relationship with her “104” year old great grandmother is beautiful; it is loving, kind-hearted and compassionate. It is she who helps Nao understand life and how to deal with it.. The reader is immersed in the life of Nao and, at the same time, in the life of Ruth, across time. I don’t think Ruth is as well developed but she serves the purpose of bringing out Nao’s story exceptionally well.
The reader will be forced to ponder whether or not magic exists, whether or not the future can change the past, whether or not there are spirits, as legends and myths suggest. It was so beautifully written, that even at times when it might seem a bit confusing because of the interjection of fantasy, it was a joy to read (actually, listen to) with its philosophy of peace and geniality, with its presumption of innocence rather than guilt whenever possible and prominently presenting the idea of giving one the benefit of the doubt. In the end, the reader will wonder, did Ruth change the course of history, did Nao survive the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, did Nao reach into the future to help Ruth, as well, to find a true purpose for her own life? Was magic afoot? Using metaphors and allusions, the author has created a beautiful story that will stay with the reader long after the last page is turned.

I have both the print copy and audio copy of this book, but I decided to listen to the audio book because it makes use of idle time while I am doing something else that doesn’t require much thought, like laundry. The title did not make me want to read the book. I wasn’t interested in learning about flowers. However, my daughter suggested it, and in reading it, I discovered that it was about the relationship of flowers to people, flowers to romance, flowers to serenity, flowers to love, and the effect of these flowers on people’s lives. It was about what a flower symbolizes and how it can bring about harmony and serenity to people, and I discovered it was a really good book.
Victoria Jones is the main character. She was abandoned and brought up in various foster homes and girl’s homes where she was abused and unloved. A life of meanness and unhappiness followed her, until she was placed in Elizabeth’s home. However, lonely, with no social skills and an inability to trust the system, even at the tender of age of nine or ten, she is disappointed by the way life has treated her, she is overcome with her own frustration and anger, and she always sabotages whatever good fortune comes her way, making foolish, dangerous decisions which throw her life into more and more turmoil and chaos with unhappy consequences. She rejects the world and largely remains uncommunicative and a troublemaker, until she turns 18 years old and is released from the last group home in which she resided.
Her life had spiraled downward for a long time, but when finally she is of age, and can strike out on her own, she begins to have a modicum of success. Still, in spite of her good fortune, she is not comfortable with her success or herself. She has little confidence and believes she is undeserving of respect or admiration. She is unable to accept true feelings of love and rejects them rudely.
The narrative of the book flows very smoothly and never gets tedious. It will engage the reader, and it will be hard not to read it straight through to discover Victoria Jones’ eventual fate. As I listened, I thought, this is kind of a fairy tale. There are many evil people and many innocent victims, but in the end, it all works out and no one really pays for the error of their ways. The victims overcome their hardships and their problems and find happiness, regardless of their sins. All is always somehow forgiven by very kind and understanding, compassionate people. It was utopian, in its way.
Yet, it is also a very painful book to listen to, or read, because the main character is, in fact, an abandoned and mistreated child, forgotten by society and treated fairly coldly by her social worker. She does not develop any self confidence or self-respect because of constant ridicule of one kind or another. Her unhappiness grows with her abuse and she soon believes she is unworthy to be loved or even to know how to love in return. I found her to be weak and mean, at times, completely at a loss when it came to appropriate behavior. She was never given the proper social or psychological attention that she needed, and her social worker seemed more concerned with her own successful conclusion of the case than she was with the fate and treatment of Victoria, the child.
I thought Victoria was sad, lonely and angry. These emotions made her manipulative and often cruel and just as abusive as some were to her. She lied to everyone, she betrayed everyone she came in contact with, and still, she was forgiven by all of these people. I, on the other hand, found it hard to feel to sorry for her or to forgive her for her behavior or her irresponsibility, because her self-pity consumed her, above all else, and she didn’t seem to appreciate all the luck that came her way, so she never seemed to grow into a more mature adult. She didn’t trust anyone even though there was evidence that, after awhile, she should and could trust certain people. She tossed all people into the same bucket and ran from all accountability.
When I finished the book, I knew it was a good read. The use of flowers to determine people’s behavior and futures was very clever and the story was made more meaningful because of the history behind each of the blooms. Still, I didn’t like Victoria any better when it ended. Somehow, she manages to survive on her own, with no money, no wherewithal, in the street or because of the kindness of others, and still, she continues to feel sorry for herself and is unrepentant for too long. As an 18 year old, she was able to start a business from nothing, earn the trust of others, though she trusted no one, get paid under the table, which I think is totally dishonest, and have a child out of wedlock which she discards, and yet, is forgiven and not brought to justice by anyone. I think, in the end, this book sets a poor example for the behavior of young adults, even if the story is entertaining.
(As an aside, not all foster parents are cruel or abusive. I was one, and my husband and I were very involved with our foster child’s care and education, treating her with respect and affection. She shared a room with our daughter and was treated as one of the family.)

The book concentrates on a case about reparations for the ancestors of slaves. This is an investigation into the lost hopes and dreams of nameless thousands of people and the consideration of whether or not they are entitled to any kind of recognition, monetary or otherwise. On the surface, it would seem that the company sponsoring this law suit is interested in getting money from the families who wronged the slaves, and who prospered from their efforts, in order to better the situation of the black population today, descendants of slaves, by memorializing them, enhancing their opportunities, and thereby, improving their economic future. In the end, the reader will wonder what truly motivated the firm seeking the law suit, personal greed or altruism.
Two stories lives side by side in this book, separated by more than a century, connected by two important themes, one is freedom and the other is justice. All of the characters are seeking freedom, in some way, although some efforts are more intense, are about life and death, and some perhaps are about saving one’s soul or self in the search for truth and introspection. The search for justice in life and in death, in personal and public life, in the legal and criminal world, is evident throughout. When secrets are revealed, the way is opened for life-changing events. The two themes, one of greed and the need for personal gain over all else, and the other, its counterpart, compassion and the care and consideration of others, constantly oppose each other as the book moves on. The reader will witness the pain caused by the one and the salvation caused by the other. The book will quietly expose the subtle current day racism that still exists in both the white and the black community.
In 1852, Josephine Bell was a young teenage slave on the Bell tobacco farm, a decaying homestead. Beset by bad luck, the farm is descending into a state of neglect and less productivity, and the slaves are being sold off. Josephine, most likely of mixed race, lives in the main house as “the house girl”, and therefore has a bit better life than most of the dwindling number of slaves on the property, but she is still owned and is a prisoner there because of a depraved society, driven by greed. She was a proud young girl who had dreams of freedom and on more than one occasion tried to escape. The first time, she was defeated in her attempt, though she reached safety. She was in an advanced state of pregnancy and was forced to return and deliver a child that very same night. She was told the child did not survive. She was only 14 years of age and she still continued to dream of escape.
We learn of Josephine’s story through Carolina Sparrow, the daughter of a famous artist. She is a litigator assigned by her law firm to find a living plaintiff that can be traced back to a slave that has been wronged. While pursuing the investigation, she discovers a link between the slave-owning family of the prominent artist, Lu Anne Bell, and their slave Josephine, who was their house girl and who was also an artist, sometimes permitted to paint by her seriously ill mistress, but more often asked to complete her mistress’s paintings or correct and improve them. Whose paintings are they, the slave’s or her mistress’s? The reader is privy to correspondence between two sisters in a family that operates an “underground railroad”, and these letters were a highlight of the book. In Dorothea’s letters to her sister, we learn first hand about the danger her family faced in the endeavor to help the slaves and the surprising betrayals that follow their efforts. We witness the danger and fear of the escaping slaves, the trauma and the tragedies as well as the successes. It would be a cold person who remains unaffected by the plight of these persecuted people.
One half of the tale is the tenderly told story (although a repugnant part of our history), of the plight of the slave, Josephine Bell and others who suffered the same fate and harm as she did, captured and enslaved, often raped, beaten, murdered, separated from their families, treated as sub-humans, and the other is the hardscrabble story of upward mobility in the form of lawyer Carolina Sparrow, her fellow workers, her law firm, and their clients, the corporations that line their pockets. Although Lina is an important part of the story, for me, Josephine’s story overshadowed hers.
During her investigation, Lina’s artist father conveniently remembers a case in the art world, he recently read about, which might help her, and conveniently there is a showing of the work of the artist in question and a controversy developing about the slave who might actually deserve credit for the paintings. In the course of the investigation, she also meets people who know, or know of, her father and they, too, are willing to help her. Then she happens on a possible relative of a slave, by chance, and she is attracted to him. He is Jasper Battle, a man of mixed race, heavily tattooed, a musician who seems unfocused, and without a future at first glance, but she learns there is another deeper side of him to which she is drawn. Then there is the “piece de resistance”, the story about her mother. For me, all of these serendipitous moments were contrived and a bit too coincidental to be credible. Also, I found some of the parts about Lina to be tedious, especially when she read off names and sometimes when she ruminated about her research. Then, there is probably a hidden political message in this book, complete with a mention of Cheney and Iraq, but it is not heavy handed and is not distracting from the overall message.
It is a very sad story about a very shameful time of our history. It is another in the genre so popular today that tries to illuminate the plight of the slave and the continuing struggle for civil rights. All readers will be forced to look inside themselves and wonder how slavery could ever have existed, how one human being could treat another so brutally and cruelly simply because it was lucrative to do so. How could there have been no moral conscience to stop this, how could it have taken so long to end the practice of owning a human being and treating “it” as less than human?
With its minor shortcomings, it is, nevertheless, a well told story, and it is a really good read which will open the mind of the reader and make the reader think about how it might be possible to right the wrongs of yesterday which are still quietly in existence today, and stop the forward momentum of the greed which has captured the mind of the country.

From the first word heard on this audio, I was a prisoner. I think the story held me more rapt than the reader; it moved along quickly, and totally consumed me. I never turned it off, until the end. It is about unlikely heroes, who rose above their own expectations, and it is about traitors, by design, as well as those who became quasi-traitors, those tortured into confessions to avoid more pain. It is about the German effort to seek out and find the hidden Jews in order to steal their wealth.
It is about the Holocaust, in that it takes place during the year 1942, in Paris, France. Without dwelling on the concentration camps, it painted an accurate picture of the brutality that was commonplace during the German occupation, and it was sometimes really hard to take it all in. Belfoure truly creates the fear and tension of the moment, and the reader will feel it, as well, experiencing and understanding the reactions of each of the characters, the “good, the bad and the evil”, when faced with terrifying prospects.
The extraordinary strength and courage of some and the mindboggling weakness and sadism of others, join together on the page to expose the heroism and self-sacrifice of one group, as it lays bare the incomparable cruelty of the other. It is a book about people placed in an untenable situation by circumstances beyond their control, and the madness that infects those who are mainly concerned with their own self-preservation. It is about the difficult choices of the citizens; how could they resist and survive, did they have to acquiesce in order not to be tortured and killed, were they brave or cowards, could they have behaved otherwise? It is about the decisions made by those in the resistance to save some, while sacrificing others for the greater good of their cause, juxtaposed against the choices of those in the Gestapo who didn’t care about saving anyone but themselves, who murdered indiscriminately, for Hitler. It is about how these warring factions coexisted under the most extreme conditions in Paris, during the German Occupation.
A question arises throughout the book that is insoluble even today. How do educated, sophisticated, family men, and even otherwise moral men, commit such sins against humanity. How is such behavior justified in the mind of a person with any common sense? Was the depravity of the German behavior simply the madness of some, or were the far reaching effects more a symbol of a world gone mad, an entire world with a diseased mind? I asked myself again and again, could this happen once more? Could someone’s unhappiness and greed, envy and hate, become so strong again that the reasonable answer to their pain becomes the extinction of an entire group of people, becomes the panacea for all their troubles?
Fear is a motivating factor that changes us all. How would we have behaved? We all probably hope that we would have been strong and would have behaved better than the collaborators, better than those who turned their backs on, and a blind eye to, the suffering of others, even as their neighbors and friends disappeared. Schadenfreude was the word of those times; many relished in the pain of the “others”.
Lucien, an architect, was raised to be anti-Semitic by a hateful parent. His life was steadily going downhill under the German occupation, but then he met the very wealthy Monsieur Manet, who offered him a job. He is hired to build hiding places, in various places, in order to save the Jews. At the same time, he is also hired to build factories that produce weapons for the German war effort. Manet believes this is the only way to maintain ownership of his factories and help the Jews to escape. Lucien does not see himself as a collaborator. Is he a collaborator, is Manet?
Pierre is a twelve year old child who is the lone survivor of the round up of his parents, siblings and the people who sheltered him; he grows up quickly and becomes a man in a surprising way. Is he a murderer or a hero?
Adele is a wily, hateful kind of person who easily fraternizes with the enemy for her own benefit. Does she have any redeeming qualities? Her associate, Bette, surprises herself with her maternal instinct, and she changes, as events force her to make uncomfortable decisions.
Herzog, befriends Lucien. He had wanted to become an architect like Lucien, but his father prevented it. He discovers another side of himself, as he witnesses barbarism for the sake of barbarism alone, barbarism simply because these acts of atrocity could be committed by those who actually enjoyed inflicting the pain, and there was no one to stop them, barbarism that destroyed simply for the sake of the destruction itself. Yet, even this lone “quasi-good German” soldier justifies his own cruel behavior by declaring himself a loyal German to the Fatherland.
All of the characters are so real that as they experience life, the reader will experience it along with them. The author has done a wonderful job of capturing the essence of the time period, the naïveté of some of the people, Jews and gentiles alike, the senselessness of the savage behavior, as people used each other and betrayed each other, the fear that everyone had for their own personal safety, the constant state of panic that reigned under Hitler’s rule as he and his minions preyed on the weaknesses of the people, and he also illuminated the courage that people found within themselves against all odds. The book is about compassionate, self-sacrificing, righteous people, and their converse, the vulgar, immoral, self-serving, sinful people who supported The Third Reich.

From the moment, in 1492, when Rodrigo Borgia becomes Pope Alexander VI, after the death of Innocent the VIII, intrigue and his personal quest for power begins. The corruption and greed of the church, its members and followers, is exposed and explored to create a perfectly interesting story about what can only be called the reign of the Borgias. They exploited every opportunity to advance their own position, behaving immorally, even as they prayed and worshipped G-d, behaving as if they were spiritual and honorable, without acknowledging their own duplicity and shameless behavior. They legitimized deceitfulness.
Alexander had several illegitimate children; his favorites among them were Juan, Cesare and Lucrezia. Strong-willed and determined, he took a young cousin, Guila, as his mistress, keeping her from her own husband’s bed. He was a man seemingly without scruples, willing to use the power of the church for his own personal gain and advancement, a man of deep passions who took whatever life offered without regard for rules and regulations, since such was the power of the Pope; he could rearrange the rules and regulations to suit himself. Using manipulation, threats, bribes and if all else failed, an army of men who would fight until the death, for his family and the church, he set about to conquer territory and kingdoms. There was no end to the brutality or unprovoked hostility if it would further the Borgia realm. The influential Borgia name was feared, and that fear manipulated men and enabled conquests.
Of the two brothers, Cesare was the more militaristic, and when his foppish brother, Juan, was murdered, suspicions about his killer were varied, some even falling on the shoulders of Cesare himself. Lucrezia was very close to Cesare but this did not prevent him from using her for his family’s political advantage, or from lying and exaggerating in order to destroy her first and second marriages so that an even better one could be arranged for the empire’s success. He was a man without scruples, driven by ambition, loved by his sister, trusted by his father, but dreaded by everyone else. Having his father’s ear was a great advantage to him, as his sharp tongue and manipulative wit were always plotting some strategy to move the family into greater prominence, in order to guarantee his own position of power, well into the future. Through marriages, alliances were made and alliances were broken with France, Italy and Spain to further the Papal territory. It was a pretty much accepted fact that everyone engaged in treachery.
At the end of the 15th century, in Italy, vengeance, was a powerful tool, and all slights, great and small, real or invented, were punished viciously. Murder and torture were audaciously committed. Children were tools for future coalitions and conquests. There seemed to be no crime that was not worth committing in order to advance the cause of the Borgias.
Sarah Dunant has imagined a very well-written tale, in this piece of historic fiction, which will hold your interest as you discover that Lucrezia Borgia, who was painted historically as a villain because she was so complicit in the corruption in which her family engaged, may have merely been used as a pawn in the game of power that her family played, a game in which she herself was powerless to do otherwise.

Killing Jesus is read very well by the author. He speaks clearly and obviously has a scholarly understanding of the information he is presenting to the reader. However, the book is based a great deal on assumptions, and perhaps presumptions, of a time when there are no living witnesses available to contest any of the statements made and a time in which several versions of events have been previously published and explored. Some of the information could be considered more questionable than others, and some of it depends largely on a belief in Jesus that is based on pure faith. For believers, this book will be an amazing read. For doubters, and perhaps, non Christians, it may be a bit disappointing, because while the church has worked hard at excusing the Jews for the death of Christ, O’Reilly squarely places the blame back on their shoulders, even as he mentions that it was really Pontius Pilate who was the only one with the authority to pass the sentence. He also portrays the Pharisees as greedy moneylenders, flaunting their wealth in the way they comport themselves, and as adversaries and betrayers of Jesus.
The book begins with the story of Herod, the King of the Jews. He has learned of a rumor that tells of a new messiah to be born, who is destined to be the new King of the Jews. The prophecy states that the child will come from the line of David and will be born to a Jew, in the town of Bethlehem, in Judea. His mother will be a virgin and several magi, who are astronomers, will follow a new star to his location. All of this occurs. This new messiah is a threat to his own power, so he orders all babies under the age of two, in Judea, to be murdered. Joseph, Mary and Jesus escape, however.

The book then goes on to outline the history of the time, from Herod to Caesar to Octavian, and on and on until Antipas, a high priest, who is the ruler of Galilee, and the son of Herod. Tiberius is the Emperor of Rome, and Pontius Pilate is the Roman governor. The story also covers the lineage of Mary and Joseph and follows the struggles of the Jews as they try to practice their way of life under the rule of the Roman Empire. The Pharisees, devout teachers, and the Sadducees who are more liberal, confer to make the decisions, and the Sanhedrin, the justices, rule on them. The Jews in the temple are moneychangers, and believers in animal sacrifice. Both practices are unacceptable to Jesus and he overturns their tables in the Temple on more than one occasion, angry that the Temple has become a marketplace rather than a holy place.

John the Baptist is a Jew who predicts the coming of Christ the Messiah, as prophesied, and brings the people to the fold with baptism, which comes from the Jewish ritual bath, the Mikvah. He preaches that those who are not baptized will burn, which means the Jews who do not follow his teaching are condemned. He preaches about a more peaceful, ethical and appropriate behavior of man toward man. John also preaches that the end is near and baptism is necessary to cleanse one’s soul and pass into heaven. It is a powerful message about the possibility of being forgiven for one’s sins, merely by dunking into the water and being blessed. When John sees Jesus, he becomes calm as he claims that the lamb of G- d is approaching. Apparently, G-d told John a dove would come from heaven and land on the son of G-d\\\'s shoulder, and that was what he was witnessing. Jesus gets baptized by John and then goes into the desert to be cleansed and to make himself pure for Passover.

Meanwhile, when Antipas, a Jew, the man who currently believes himself to be the King of the Jews, marries his brother\\\'s wife, which is against Jewish law, John makes his anger about it known and is soon arrested, chained and thrown into a dungeon where he remains until his death.

As Jesus passes his 30th birthday, he is supposedly unaware of his fate, but when he is 36, at The Last Supper, he is prophesying his demise to all who will listen. Few disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane pay him heed; they are preoccupied with their earthly concerns, all except Judas who will betray him for 30 pieces of silver. Jesus knows he is going to be betrayed and he knows where his death will take place. Jesus of Nazareth, a teacher who lives simply, in desert surroundings, subsisting on locusts and honey, rather than living in the state of luxury like the Pharisees, will be condemned. The Emperor, Tiberius, is a cruel, perverse and barbaric man. He murders children with abandon, after they entertain him sexually. In order to prevent rumors from springing up about him, the witnesses must be destroyed. His own background of abuse, sadness and loss, have destroyed his humanity. He rules his regime with brutality and Jesus will suffer an excruciating death.

Jesus chose twelve disciples to follow him. One is the Pharisee, Simon, whom he calls Peter, who becomes his rock, and another is called Judas, from Iscariot, who becomes his betrayer. Except for Judas, the treasurer, whom he also calls his friend, they are all from Galilee. Jesus is a marked man. The Pharisees refuse to believe in his miracles. He is a threat to their power and privileged class. His coming has been predicted in the scriptures, exactly as it is occurring. Jesus rides a donkey down the Mount of Olives into Jerusalem to be crowned King of the Jews. Caiaphas and Pilate know he is coming with hundreds of thousands of followers. They want to avoid the controversy to follow but appear unwilling or helpless to take the steps to do so and lay the responsibility upon the shoulders of the Jews who, to be truthful, seem to want it that way, if the book is accurate.

Parts of Killing Jesus, requires a giant leap of blind faith since little can be truly historically proven or verified. There are parts of the book that are written in such a way that I feel they might encourage the anti-Semitism we have struggled to diminish. He writes that Passover was about money and yet, I never learned that about Passover and I am a Jew. To me Passover is about the miracle of the unleavened bread. He denigrates the Pharisees without explaining they were merely living in the manner of the way of life then. He calls them self-serving rather than men of G-d, teachers or devout believers. One might say that Christmas is only about money, and the Church is self-serving if held to the same standards, but he doesn’t mention that, to soften the blow against Jews. According to O’Reilly, basically, Jesus exposed the debauchery of the high ranking Jews of that time. He is a direct contrast to their unethical, selfishness. He dresses simply and they dress flamboyantly. He preaches poverty and they live by the coin.

The Sanhedrin judges were against Jesus. He threatened their very way of life and existence. He committed Heresy, whether or not they trapped him into it is a question that cannot be proven. However, if someone was going after the Pope in the same way that Jesus went after the so-called “King of the Jews”, what would the expected reaction be then? Does anyone see a comparison in the way the Pope robes himself, except perhaps for the present one who has taken a vow of poverty very seriously and seems to deeply embody the teachings of Christ to love thy neighbor and turn the other cheek, etc.? While the Pharisees and Sadducees came to judge Jesus, so too, was he judging them.

When given the choice, by Caiaphas and Pilate, to pardon one of the criminals from death, the Jews did not choose Jesus. They thought he was a threat to them. Does that excuse what they did? It was a different time, but today, choices are made like that all the time in the Middle East. Jesus’ death was abominable, but it was the brutal, barbaric practice of the times. The Romans enjoyed the blood baths; they were simply the entertainment of the day. In hindsight, it would have been great if none of that took place. But, if it was written that it had to take place that way, according to the scriptures, then G-d was moving them like pawns. Jesus knew he would be in the Garden of Gethsemane, he knew about Judas, and he knew who would sit on his left and right, so, could the results have been any different? If you are a believer, I think not. Like Caesar, who was warned of his impending death, Jesus knew of his. I was left with this question after reading about the awful events leading to the death of The Christ. Are we powerless to change what has been written? Was it written or was that part of history a product of self-determination?
Since some of the dialogue and description of events felt like a stretch, and no one was there to overhear or record what took place, in many cases, blind faith is something the reader will have to accept when they read this book.

This is a very easy book to listen to, and the reader will easily be placed under its spell. When compared to “Gone Girl”, however, one could say that The Silent Wife is also about dysfunctional characters who seem to have no guilty conscience about the things they do, but the characters in this book are a bit less objectionable or diabolical, rather their efforts at evil are more straight forward and obvious.
Jodi and Todd meet after a fender bender. He is engaged in an angry outburst and she silently lets him rage. It was her fault, after all; she was distracted. After a few days, she receives a call from him. He asks her out on a date, and the rest is history; they click and proceed to happily live together for the better part of 20 years. Todd believes that Jodi has invigorated his life and given him a raison d’etre! He had been down in the dumps, his career was faltering, and he thought she would be his lucky charm, more or less. Their lives settled into a stable and routine existence which she recognized was missing the passion they once shared, but it still seemed agreeable to both of them.
Both Todd Gilbert and Jodi Brett live in a world of unreality that they have created. They walk around each other believing if it is not acknowledged, it didn’t happen. That is how Jodi’s family existed. Her mom ignored her dad’s infidelity, even though it was widely known in the small-town community, because breaking up the family would have hurt the children. Todd’s family was dysfunctional, too. His dad drank too much and was physically abusive to his mother. Todd longed for the dynamic of a strong family and the image of happiness and togetherness, the sharing of pleasantries and experiences. Jodi was determined never to marry because then infidelity would not be in question, but in that belief, she was sadly mistaken.
Jodi suspects that Todd cheats on her, but she feels that exposing that truth to the light of day will change their relationship, irreparably, while ignoring it will allow them both to go on as usual. She takes the path of least resistance to maintain the status quo. Todd believes that Jodi knows, but is a really understanding wife who understands he has needs he must fulfill. Todd is a restless soul and believes that whatever he does is justified for one reason or another. They have worked out this arrangement in which they do not speak of things that trouble them because that would give those things a life of their own and cause fractures in their relationship. Rather, they move on as if nothing untoward ever happens, that is, until Todd grows restless again, becoming depressed and unable to find satisfaction from his life. When, he meets Natasha, whom he believes can reinvigorate his desire and inspire him to achieve greatness, he strays beyond the pale.
Jodi, on the other hand, is not restless. She seems like a homebody who enjoys cooking, caring for her husband’s needs and working as a psychoanalyst from her home office. There are hidden secrets from her early life that even she is unaware of, until forced to remember and face them. She is very good at compartmentalizing her thoughts and memories, and while she is basically calm and considerate, she also finds herself able to do things that are reprehensible without feeling any real responsibility or remorse.
When Todd, who has been distant and perfunctory in his behavior, of late, announces his decision to leave her and marry another woman with whom he has been having an affair and who is pregnant with his child, she is completely blindsided. She is sure he will come to his senses and return to her, even after he begins living with his lover, who is the daughter of his best friend, Dean Kovacs. His cold and calculating treatment of her, his disingenuous excuses, under the guise of kindness and/or overwhelming outside pressures, take her completely by surprise, so sure was she that she could trust him and believe in his willingness to still protect and care for her.
Although it was an easy book to listen to, there were few characters that endeared themselves to me. Rather they made me angry that they had such a lack of concern for those they hurt. The lawyer is the stereotype of the cold-hearted lawyer; he is also the stereotype of the angry ex-husband who feels abused and overwhelmed with his responsibility to the family he may have betrayed or that betrayed him. There are friends who use Jodi to advance their own agendas. There are workplace acquaintances who pretend to offer help while really only considering their own needs. One character, Stephanie, Todd’s secretary, seems to be the rare character without rancor or bitterness and seems to possess humanity, rather than malice.
The ending has an almost obvious twist, but it is nevertheless handled very well, although I was disappointed with the number of hanging, unsolved, unknowns. There is no real justice, even at the end of the book, but rather there is an atmosphere of acceptable injustice.

From the moment, in 1492, when Rodrigo Borgia becomes Pope Alexander VI, after the death of Innocent the VIII, intrigue and his personal quest for power begins. The corruption and greed of the church, its members and followers, is exposed and explored to create a perfectly interesting story about what can only be called the reign of the Borgias. They exploited every opportunity to advance their own position, behaving immorally, even as they prayed and worshipped G-d, behaving as if they were spiritual and honorable, without acknowledging their own duplicity and shameless behavior. They legitimized deceitfulness.
Alexander had several illegitimate children; his favorites among them were Juan, Cesare and Lucrezia. Strong-willed and determined, he took a young cousin, Guila, as his mistress, keeping her from her own husband’s bed. He was a man seemingly without scruples, willing to use the power of the church for his own personal gain and advancement, a man of deep passions who took whatever life offered without regard for rules and regulations, since such was the power of the Pope; he could rearrange the rules and regulations to suit himself. Using manipulation, threats, bribes and if all else failed, an army of men who would fight until the death, for his family and the church, he set about to conquer territory and kingdoms. There was no end to the brutality or unprovoked hostility if it would further the Borgia realm. The influential Borgia name was feared, and that fear manipulated men and enabled conquests.
Of the two brothers, Cesare was the more militaristic, and when his foppish brother, Juan, was murdered, suspicions about his killer were varied, some even falling on the shoulders of Cesare himself. Lucrezia was very close to Cesare but this did not prevent him from using her for his family’s political advantage, or from lying and exaggerating in order to destroy her first and second marriages so that an even better one could be arranged for the empire’s success. He was a man without scruples, driven by ambition, loved by his sister, trusted by his father, but dreaded by everyone else. Having his father’s ear was a great advantage to him, as his sharp tongue and manipulative wit were always plotting some strategy to move the family into greater prominence, in order to guarantee his own position of power, well into the future. Through marriages, alliances were made and alliances were broken with France, Italy and Spain to further the Papal territory. It was a pretty much accepted fact that everyone engaged in treachery.
At the end of the 15th century, in Italy, vengeance, was a powerful tool, and all slights, great and small, real or invented, were punished viciously. Murder and torture were audaciously committed. Children were tools for future coalitions and conquests. There seemed to be no crime that was not worth committing in order to advance the cause of the Borgias.
Sarah Dunant has imagined a very well-written tale, in this piece of historic fiction, which will hold your interest as you discover that Lucrezia Borgia, who was painted historically as a villain because she was so complicit in the corruption in which her family engaged, may have merely been used as a pawn in the game of power that her family played, a game in which she herself was powerless to do otherwise.

This is a masterful, wonderfully researched presentation of the initial battles of WWII. Precisely described, in plain language, it brings the war and its character to the readers, depositing them right onto the battlefield, enabling them to hear the sound of the fighting, the cries of the wounded, and forces them to smell the stench of war.
In 1939, WWII was overtaking Europe. After the invasion of Pearl Harbor, in December of 1941, America entered the war. The plan was to concentrate in North Africa, conducting Operation Torch. Hoping to help Churchill, they believed that North Africa was the least dangerous place to begin, considering the green, mostly untrained, American forces. North Africa was, basically, their training ground for the next phase in Europe. At first, tremendous losses were incurred because of their inexperience, inferior equipment and weaponry, more suited to WWI. Moreover, poor communication, a lack of coordination and inconsistent training, coupled together with the incompetence of an untrained military, peopled with commanders who were unprepared for war, led to early failures. In 1942, the Battle of Midway was their first success. Sadly, there were many failures to follow, as well, as their inexperience on the battlefield was revealed and tested again and again. From 1942-43, World War II raged on unabated in North Africa, until finally in May of 1943, it belonged to the Allies, and finally, the Axis knew the ignominy of defeat.
In this, Book 1, of The Liberation Trilogy, we are introduced to General Eisenhower, Rear Admiral Hewitt, General Patton, General Bradley, and General Clark, among many, many others, from the Allied and enemy Axis armed forces, as they begin to plan and mount attacks in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. Throughout, the commanders competed with and criticized each other, as politics, not common sense or military strategy, often ruled the day, leading to incomprehensible tragedies and casualties that could probably have been avoided.
The German weaponry was far superior, the German communication was more advanced, the soldiers were better equipped, better trained and more seasoned, they had been fighting since 1939, and as a result, they were, initially, handily defeating their American and British counterparts. Learning from their failures, however, the Allies improved, ultimately winning North Africa from the Axis powers, but it was a hard won fight and even Eisenhower wondered if he would be replaced because of the numerous defeats. The first month of the war was devastating for the Americans. Lives were sacrificed as reconnaissance failed, as the soldiers fears overcame their common sense and they ran away, showing a lack of courage, often when they were actually winning, but the lack of clear information left them thinking they were in retreat. In the fog of war, cruelty was contagious and the troops on both sides committed atrocities, some of which went unpunished. Ultimately, though, the American\'s secret weapon was their determination; they improved, they gained experience and they simply never gave up, as the author said, they withdrew when necessary, but never retreated, and more often than not, they fought harder, repeatedly, in the face of great danger. General Eisenhower was often faced with doubt, thinking he was not seasoned enough for this battlefield, until many months of casualties and defeats passed and his methods proved successful.
The author describes the taking of every hill, every battle, in precise detail, often using appropriate humorous quotes and anecdotes to soften the effect of the tragic consequences of war. He even made some of the failures seem laughable, despite the resultant loss of life and appalling injuries.There are moments of nostalgia like when the author refers to the Ronson lighter, a thing of the American past. There were moments of tenderness, as well as rancor, when the author describes some of the reactions of the men in the field, the remarks of the commanding officers and their descriptions of each other or the enemy. The North African training ground was a killing field, but it led, finally, to victory, and North Africa was theirs, in May of 1943.
The generals were bull-headed, they worried about their wounded pride when their efforts failed, the field of war forced them to sacrifice a generation of men, deliberately, to make small gains and only a hardened man, of a certain stripe, could issue such orders and command men to their death. Patton was one such man. However, after reading the book, I was struck even more with the futility of war, and it was hard to take after awhile. These pompous generals often gave orders to go into harm’s way, criticizing men for being insubordinate or lacking courage, while they, themselves, sat in safe houses and ate like royalty, remaining unscathed as they called these men weak, even when they returned maimed and gravely wounded.
I listened to an audio of the book, but I think a written version would have been far better, especially one with a map so the battlefield could be illustrated and followed more carefully. I was unfamiliar with many of the locations that were written about and would have, if it was a book, simply gotten up and looked them up. With an audio, you are not always in a convenient place, and by the time you are, you forget the unfamiliar name you want to research.
In the end, the final impression, for me, was one which defined these men, who were sometimes maligned as cowards, as heroes who fought with courage and valor and saved us all from a heinous outcome in which we could have been the vanquished, had they failed. The generals suffered wounds to their pride while the fighting men suffered emotional and physical injury beyond repair. The battle to take North Africa was equal parts bravery, fear and arrogance and hubris, from those commanded and those who did the commanding.
The second and third in the series await me!

Although the author writes in a clear and direct style, making it an easy read, although she captured the flavor of the culture, customs, lifestyle and form of expression used by the characters from a small village in India, she failed to capture me. I struggled with the book. It took the better part of 100 pages before I felt I was engaged enough to want to continue reading it.
The book is basically about two brothers whose lives take divergent paths, and like the two ponds in the lowland near their home that sometimes flooded to become one body of water, as children, they were like a single creature. However, they were closer as boys than as adults, and as they matured, when their politics and philosophy of life differed, they grew apart, like the two ponds after the rains subsided. Although they continued to love each other, they remained mostly distant for the rest of their lives.
Udayan, 15 months younger, was generally the one who made the decisions, and Subhash was the one who paid for his folly because he was older. Also, Udayan was more likely to take risks and defy the rules and authority. Both boys, however, were dutiful sons, respectful to their parents, honoring their obligations to them. The first part of the book covers the lives of these brothers, from the time Subhash is 13 and Udayan about 11, until 1970 when Subhash is about 27 and abruptly learns that Udayan has married. Then it continues for seven additional parts, moving from character to character, from place to place and time to time, until the present.
India’s political problems were exposed through the actions of Udayan, a Naxalite; he is a Communist and a follower of Mao. Subhash, the more grounded brother, respected authority, kept his own silent council, not making waves, and although he was often tempted to behave recklessly by his brother, he remained politically unaffiliated. He was often overshadowed by Udayan, who was favored by his mother, but remarkably, he never resented this, rather, he just seemed to wonder about it and accept it, as he accepted most things. He quietly acquiesced to whatever came his way.
Both Udayan and Subhash were at the same level in college, attending at the same time, having started their early schooling together for the sake of convenience. Udayan’s active rebellion evolved during that time, the turbulent sixties, and the politics divided the two brothers who had previously been like two halves of a whole. In 1967, in the area of Darjeeling, when the peasants began an insurgence which spread to the students, Subhash, who had generally followed his younger brother’s guidance, altered his course. Since he did not agree with the current student complaints, he did not join his brother in his desire to overthrow the government. Subhash disagreed with Udayan’s more radical political beliefs. Udayan believed in Mao\'s Communism and not in America’s Democracy. He saw America and the current government of India as enemies, as oppressive, holding down the people and forcing them to live in poverty. Udayan disliked America and Subhash wanted to continue his studies there. Udayan wanted to stay in India and fight the system that he believed was repressive, and he wanted Subhash to remain also. As their relationship became more strained, Udayan became more drawn to his secret sweetheart, Gauri. His parents had not chosen her for him, as was the custom, but Udayan had no trouble defying customs. Some time after Subhash left for America, Udayan married her and took her home. As usual, his parents accepted his transgression.
The practice of subtly manipulating others to do his bidding continued to be a trait of Udayan’s as he grew older. He even engaged in that behavior with his own wife, compromising her safety without her knowledge when he involved her in dangerous politics without her being fully aware of what she was doing. Still, one might question the believability of her naïveté. Gauri was self-educated, as well as well-schooled, and while it was true that the rebellion Udayan was engaged in was a peasant rebellion, one that Gauri did not personally witness, she was surely aware of the student activities at her school that pertained to the politics of the day. Gauri, although in some ways naïve, was a very intelligent woman. She was very watchful and observant of the world around her. This, in fact, was what she missed most when she moved to Udayan’s home after their marriage; she missed the ability to watch the people and the city move around her. From her in-law’s home, all she could see was the surrounding landscape, the place called the lowland, which was to become not only the beginning of her husband’s life’s experiences, but also the end of theirs.
The way the passage of time was treated, by jumping from the experiences of one character’s life to another’s, was a little unsettling in this narrative. It seemed, almost suddenly, that several years passed by, without the reader’s knowledge, because a child suddenly appeared on the horizon, or there was a death in the family, or a child was now accompanying her father on a trip back to India or there was suddenly the appearance of a heretofore unknown grandchild, and a girlfriend, etc. This jumping from subject to subject, from one time and place, to another time and place, had a tendency of forcing me to stop and think to myself: wait, where am I now? Who is this speaking? How much time has gone by? Where is this character now, and what has happened to put him/her in this place, this new state or country? It disrupted the narrative for me.

As the book meandered back and forth between the characters, as one or another theme was developed, time continued to pass, and we followed their career paths and personal paths until the present time. The characters never fully developed or matured, never grew or changed. They remained the same as they were when we first met them, weak if weak, headstrong if headstrong, selfish if selfish. None ever truly altered their style or personality. Subhash was always the weaker link to Udayan’s strong one. Gauri, Udayan’s wife, had always been single-minded and independent in her own way. She remained that way; self-interest consumed her. When Gauri’s child was born, she too had many defiant personality traits; she represented a combination of her parents’ ways. Not one character ever fully considered the consequences of their actions, and others often suffered as a result of their poor choices.
The storyline did not always make sense to me. Why would Subhash accept punishment for his brother’s errors? Why would Gauri subjugate herself to her mother-in-law’s rule, when both she and Udayan really didn’t believe in that custom? Why would Udayan be the favored son, rather than the needier one, when he was the one who caused the most trouble? Why would Subhash always be blamed for his brother’s transgressions? Why was he so non-confrontational that he never stood up for himself? A too simple explanation is that he was the older brother, and there was nothing to be gained from speaking out. It was true that Subhash could not rein in Udayan’s wildness: Subhash was too timid, but he did know enough not to involve himself in Udayan’s lifestyle, as he grew older, even if he had to move to another country to do this, even if he had to increase the distance between them. To become somewhat independent, Subhash truly had to leave. The two ponds, separating the land, were like the two brothers who ultimately became separated.
Udayan’s behavior was reprehensible and so was Gauri’s. Innocent people were hurt by his fervor as a revolutionary, and she can only be described as an unfit mother. Subhash’s behavior was weak and too self-sacrificing. Their lives never fully developed because they were trapped in their own bodies and minds. Although the character’s justified their behavior to themselves, the reader will be left wondering, were any of their actions really justified, especially when they often had devastating effects on others? Was there any possibility of reclaiming their own lives or do they continue to remain adrift, wanderers in a strange land? Will they always be separate from, rather than belonging to, the people and places around them? Will they remain outsiders?
Throughout the book, the reader will wonder, will they ever reconnect? Would things have been different if they had been able to adapt and react more appropriately to the situations that confronted them? Eventually, the ponds are reclaimed by the land and developed by investors. How the brother’s lives develop, as well, and how separation effects each of the characters, are major themes.

At the end of this book I sighed with relief. I was glad the tension was over, The story, however, is unbelievably magnetic. You can’t let it go once you begin, even as it gets more and more intense. The reader will wonder if they are reading a script in which the actors don’t realize they are participating. The reader will wonder about what in the story is fact and what is fiction. Will all of the varied characters be credibly connected in the end? Is black magic afoot, or is there a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of the mysterious happenings?
A former journalist, Scott McGrath, disgraced after making very negative, unproven comments about a powerful film producer, Stanislas Cordova, becomes embroiled in an investigation of that same producer’s daughter’s very untimely death. Did Ashley, an amazing pianist, commit suicide or was she murdered? What would possess her to do such a thing? Was her father involved? Befriending two young adults, Nora, an unemployed 19-year-old aspiring actress, and Hopper, a sometimes drug dealer, a few years older, who knew Ashley in his past, he sets off in search of answers, and perhaps to clear his name from the stigma of what he believes was his unjust fall from grace. The quest becomes more and more dangerous with increasingly diabolical twists and turns to confound the reader further. Will all the dots be connected in the end or will the investigative journalist, his sidekicks and the reader be left hanging?
All of the people who become involved with Cordova, the film producer of dark films, “night films”, eventually disappear from the public eye, going on to different careers or life paths or disappearing altogether, under strange circumstances. Is he inspiring them to be all that they can, “to dare” or are they running from the experiences shared with him, on the set, as the film was produced? Tragedy often followed those involved with him. The story takes on a very mysterious tone complete with an excursion into voodoo and the black arts, complete with spells and curses.
Believe it or not, this brilliantly developed mystery is told with a bit of humorous dialogue. The spine-chilling turns maudlin and even sympathetic. The horrifying sometimes becomes trite with Scott’s witty comments. In the end, though, Scott will even question his own sanity. The clues the reader is privy to will show him often being led on a wild goose chase for some time, and then, in very dangerous directions he seems painfully to ignore or be unaware of. Were these characters, unknowingly, characters in a film, was everything they saw simply a prop for the scene being prepared for shooting? Was an alternate reality being created?
Although I listened to the book on a long drive down the eastern seaboard, with an excellent reader, reading a hard copy is probably a better experience because of the pdf files created to make the book’s plot more real. A background of the characters in Cordova’s films, complete with photos, drawings and “actual” records, coupled with quotes from the producer, were created for the novel and appear throughout, lending the story within the story credibility.
I was a little disappointed with the hanging ending. I would have liked to know how Scott McGrath’s life was resolved. Did he return, disappear? Did he find peace and the answers he sought? Was Theo Cordova involved in his sister’s disappearance? In order to move Scott in a particular direction, were all of the characters simply being manipulated by someone outside the scene, someone who moved the characters from position to position? Was what appears to be Scott’s deliberate manipulation simply revenge for his previous insulting remarks about Cordova? Was the anger still smoldering in the man described as evil? Was Cordova’s long time right hand girl, Inez Gallo, really able to manipulate everyone in all situations? Is it believable, in the end that they anticipated all of his movements? Did his notes really give away all the information needed to follow his tracks? All these questions still remained a mystery on the final page! The reader has to solve the case!

Fans of Mitch Albom's books will not be disappointed. They are always easy to read, always emotional tug of wars, always a bit spiritual in the requirement of a certain amount of faith to believe in things larger than life, always contain uplifting, inspiring messages, and this one is no exception. From the get-go, the story is a positive influence on the reader. It offers hope of things to come, removes the aura of despair that hangs over those grieving a loss by giving them a lifeline, no matter how fragile, no matter how steeped in fantasy, and it offers a measure of optimism for the future. His stories offer alternatives to our humdrum lives, offer reasons to go on, unafraid.
In the town of Coldwater, Michigan, something strange had happened. Several people were the recipients of odd phone calls. When they said hello, the person on the other end should not have been there because they were deceased! Each of the dead callers imparted an inspiring message, they were happy, they were safe, they said stop worrying, don’t cry, they were in heaven!
One person, who suddenly received these miraculous calls from over the divide, between life and death, decided to go public in her church. During the service, she interrupted the pastor and blurted out her miraculous experience. An investigative reporter was sent to the small town of Coldwater, to find out the truth. Eventually, many networks became interested in the story as it spread worldwide.
Several people who got the calls remained silent, questioning their own sanity or questioning the caller's reasons for tormenting them, or considering it a prankster's cruel joke, a cruel crank call. On the other hand, many people were inspired, they became more faithful, returned to their places of worship, were more hopeful about a hereafter, now that they believed in heaven as the reward. People were reconnecting spiritually, returning to the fold, some after a lapse of years.
The town grew with gawkers, protestors as well as supporters and reporters. There were those, like the mayor, who wanted to use the furor for the advantage of business in town, and there were some who wanted to use it for their own personal gain or advancement. Some of the residents of Coldwater were even beginning to resent the attention given to the ones who got the calls. Some wanted to know how they could get those special phones that connected to heaven. They camped out on the driveway of the woman who went public and tried to buy the exact phone she had so they would get calls too. It became a feeding frenzy. The townspeople and the outsiders who flooded the town, all wanted to be able to connect with loved ones who had died. Religious leaders also vied for position. They wanted to record and acknowledge whose congregant was contacted first. Many religious denominations were involved. Between the naysayers and the yeasayer’s, the atmosphere became charged and hostile, at times. The simple truth of the message, about heaven being there for all, was in danger of getting lost with the almost universal,frantic need to speak to their deceased loved ones, too.
The author used the invention of the telephone as a backdrop. It made this miraculous event possible. Edison speculated that there might be a machine someday which would communicate with the dead, and it seemed to be coming true. Did it matter whether or not this was real or a hoax, in the end, when the reaction was so positive for the believers? Was it really important to discover the truth? You must read it to find out.

This is much more than a memoir. It is a little over simplified, but in this brief little book lives an excellent summary of the history of Afghanistan with regard to women, Jews, Communists, the Taliban and other terrorists, in a patriarchal society of omniscient men, and it takes us right up to the present day. Phyllis Chesler even offers a concise background of the terrorism that exists in the United States and abroad, without extraneous words or unnecessary tangents.
She describes Afghanistan as a country that is beautiful, with a rich history, but one that treats its women like virtual captives within their homes or their burqas. The men have all the power and the women are often abusive to each other for that’s the only power they can wield. It is a land in which the true believers are sure that the infidels poison the atmosphere and must be rooted out. It is a place in which the Muslims now believe that the West is dangerous, evil and corrupt. It must be destroyed to make way for the coming of the Caliphate!
It is 1961, and Phyllis Chesler, a beautiful, young college student, and a Jewess, falls in love with Abdul Kareem, a handsome Afghani Muslim studying in the United States. He is debonair and far more sophisticated than she is, and he sweeps her off her feet. They marry quietly. Naively, without any knowledge of the background of the country he is taking her to (Afghanistan), she abandons her family to travel with him to the land of his birth to make what she believes will be their temporary home. When she meets his family, she learns that her father-in-law has three wives and 21 children.
Soon, she realizes the true meaning of the purdah. The home is large, but she is isolated, although she is living in the harem. She barely sees her husband, is unable to speak the language, unable to tolerate the food and unable to freely move about. She has no passport because it was taken at the airport and never returned. The American Embassy refuses to help her. (She later learns that according to the rules of the country, she has automatically lost her American citizenship by marrying an Afghan man and returning there with him.) She is a virtual prisoner in a gilded cage. She cannot leave the compound without permission, and must always be chaperoned. She has no money. The other women in the harem do not understand her discomfort, having never known freedom, but they try and placate her. They are all kind except for her mother-in-law, the first wife, who is the mother of Abdul Kareem. She is cruel to the servants and often to Phyllis. In the few months that she is there, her husband grows distant and anxious, she is always hungry and becomes very ill. Her experiences there and her eventual escape read like a novel.
In truth, her husband is also in a prison of sorts, since he must prove himself now that he has returned. He must gain the approval of his family for bringing in an outsider and he must prove that he truly wants to get back into the fold, not only to the family, but to the government for which he hopes to work.
When Phyllis finally returns home, a shadow of her former self, she recovers and completes her schooling. She trains as a psychoanalyst and works to improve women’s rights. She is frustrated with the feminists who believe that helping these foreign abused women, who have no rights, who are threatened with honor killings, would be tantamount to racism since there are abused women in this country too. They draw no distinction between the living conditions of the women in western countries to those in living in eastern countries.
At home, she discovers that there is a direct connection to the disappearance of the Jews in Afghanistan, with her husband’s family. At the end of the 1920’s, King Nadir Shah, no longer wanted Jews or Hindus involved in commerce, and he took over the banking industry forcing them out. He only wanted Afghan Muslim Nationals to be involved in the success of the country. Abdul Kareem’s family has made their fortune in the banking industry.
Over the years, Phyllis develops a more grounded view than she had as a young bride. She believes that it is impossible to save everyone, but we can save one at a time. Misogyny is indigenous to the Afghan men. It does not come from the influence of the outside western world. No one can force change upon them, least of all those they believe are infidels. She believes that the Afghans and the hidden women have to want it to change, and their culture has to change; the men have to change. She believes there is a real danger afoot because the jihadists believe in the Caliphate and will stop at nothing to achieve it.
Chesler has presented a version of the history of Afghanistan which will enrich the reader without tedium. He story is concise and easy to read. The pages will fly by. In addition to describing her own devastating experiences, she also describes a friendship between herself and her ex-husband that has lasted for 50 years. She was never truly able to marry the idea that the two cultures could live together; there were always lines that could not be crossed, even when he was forced to flee to America, permanently, when the Communists took over. Yet, she has always remained his first wife, to him.

Although this appears to be a political and social commentary on the views of liberals vs. conservatives, left vs. right, no matter what your political predilection, your heart will be touched by the plight of society’s victims that are brought to life on these pages. They are lost souls who finally may find themselves after surviving the quicksand that is their daily life. Seeing them unfairly harassed by the world, the reader will wonder why they aren’t given second chances more readily, why they are condemned so quickly, why compassion is so rare, except among the victims themselves. Is this pure fantasy or a true picture of society, some time in the future, or even now? Or is it an exaggeration of the ills of society that we are often blind to and, therefore, do not see unless thrust into our consciousness. This is an allegory about the life of the downtrodden in a world that is largely stacked against them, against their efforts, against the possibility of them ever achieving success and getting out from under the burdens of their life. Each of the characters just seems to be trying to find some personal space, some peace and some happiness, trying to survive in a place that seems unable to welcome them into it without extreme prejudice. It is a world depicted as unfair, unjust, bigoted and discriminatory in all things that can affect these characters: the economy, housing, family life, health care, job opportunities, education and compensation.
The story centers on Leroy Kervin, an Iraq war veteran who sustained a traumatic brain injury during combat. He was in the National Guard. He joined for the security, not to fight in a foreign war. His injury keeps him in a muddled state of mind which he finds unbearable. When one night he wakes up clear-headed, he wants to preserve that magical moment, and so he chooses to commit suicide to prevent himself from falling back to sleep and reawakening into the same stupor he has been living through over the last several years. He wants to die with a lucid state of mind, however, he survives his poorly planned attempt. He is found, severely wounded, by Freddie, the night watchman, who visits him in the hospital as often as he can, keeping vigil by his bedside, bringing an occasional gift. Leroy’s hospital nurse, Pauline, although not perfect, could serve as a compassionate example for everyone. She cares little about herself, but rather more about her patients and her father, who is mentally ill, making personal sacrifices to help them.
The story revolves around these three, Leroy, Freddie and Pauline, as they live their lives in the days following Leroy’s attempt to end his life, as they are faced with one dilemma after another but, somehow, manage to muddle through, sometimes even coming out the other end in a better state than they were previously.
The political message is obvious; it is left of left. These characters are victims of society’s wrath. They find themselves in sorry circumstances through no fault of their own, and they are battered by those in society who recognize their weakness, take advantage of it and exploit them. They must come to terms with their shortcomings and reverse the negative effects on their existence. They are the working poor who never seem to get ahead, but they always seem to maintain an optimistic air of hope for survival and improved circumstances. Society and the rich are the evildoers in the book, taking advantage of the oppressed and the browbeaten, demoralizing them further as they exploit them in an effort to break them.
There are those vicims who feel forced to break the rules and wind up paying for their transgressions, which only pushes them further down into the heap of humanity they are trying to escape. The characters are all portrayed pretty much as victims of society’s mercilessness, only doing what they have to in order to get by with a decent living, rather than eke out a starvation existence. The reader will have to decide whether or not this book is based on reality in totality, or if it is just a slice of humanity and not a true example of what exists for the majority of people. Still, the suffering is tangible, clearly evident in their lives, no matter how they try to change their ways. They are often repentant but helpless to really reform.
Leroy’s dreams, or rather nightmares, as he lies in the hospital, are bleak. They depict a world in which the weak are pursued by “the free”, those that are stronger. The weak are supposed to be those that live off the system without putting anything into it, the takers, the lazy, and the cowards. The strong are the military, the bible thumpers, those who don’t practice what they preach, the financially successful and the independent, the very same groups that actually have been taking advantage of society’s weak, society’s victims marked for elimination. There is irony here. In Leroy’s dream, he and Jeanette are living from hand to mouth, on a broken down boat, and yet, she has a job working in a hotel where rich people stay, and he is working on a construction site where a rich person is essentially building a mansion. The imagery is fraught with pain and contrast.
If you believe the message in the book, it is life that makes these people weak, that creates these poor souls described as sponges, these leeches, these freeloaders, or “greenloaders” as they are called in the book. All citizens have been forced to take a “test” which will determine whether or not they are productive citizens or parasites. If they are non-productive they will develop a mark that spreads on the body until it is covered. When the mark is discovered, those with it are tracked and captured, sometimes brutally murdered or tortured. It is the epitome of brutality and injustice, but no one cares, they are afraid to intervene for they might become suspect and suffer the same dire fate.
The characters are behind the eight ball, life has cheated them even if and when their pain is self inflicted. They are still unfairly wounded; life for them is lopsided, not dependent on effort, but rather on circumstance. While they are depicted as lazy, these “tired, huddled, masses” are often working harder than those who employ them, yet the employer often reaps the rewards of the employee’s efforts, while they unfairly compensate them for their work. The “victims” make foolish choices, joining the military after listening to the officers who then help them enlist, the very same officers who often remain out of harm’s way. It is because of the efforts of the foot soldiers that the others who resent them and use them, have the freedoms they enjoy. These demoralized and oppressed victims are unable to advance because they are always in the maelstrom of their own failure.
The story is about the degradation of the weak by the strong and the almost superhuman effort needed to overcome all that is against them, and yet they have undying hope and optimism. All of the characters have euphoric moments contrasted by moments of despondency when they are overwhelmed by life, and all of their burdens and responsibilities. Even in their darkest moments, though, they retain their hopefulness and retain their humanity, often thinking of others even when it is at a disadvantage to themselves. In the end, each character attains a modicum of success in that their dreams are partially fulfilled, their prayers are somewhat answered. Is that really enough?
The book presents a very progressive view about war, poverty, health care, heterosexuality, education, the military, and every aspect of life that can be illustrated to show the left’s advantage, to show how those on the right are responsible for all evils that befall those that are exploited. Hard working people are sucked into the morass caused by those self-righteous people who want to root out the takers from society so they can better enjoy the life from which they shut out those that are considered less substantial. They prey upon those weaker, sending innocents to die, forcing them to compromise themselves to make ends meet. The theme is definitely one for bleeding hearts, but no matter who you are, you can’t help but be moved by the plight of these characters. Often through no fault of their own, they suffer simply because of the ordinary exigencies of life or because of a bad choice they cannot get out from under.
Jeanette was Leroy’s real-life girlfriend. In his dreams the soldiers are after them as are other vigilante groups, belonging to “The Free”. They try to escape to Canada (shades of Viet Nam protestors), but even there, they find no sanctuary, even there they are hunted and murdered, tortured and reviled, even their pets and children which is the epitome of malice and cruelty.
I was disappointed with the ending. I wasn’t sure what would happen to Freddie. Would he make it? Would he provide a decent home for his daughters who were being abandoned by their mother? Would Jeanette find another life? Would Pauline ever be able to commit to a happy relationship? Wouldl she be able to help her deadbeat dad? Perhaps all their dreams would be fulfilled once they were “free”. Maybe there is hope in the book because they all move on, and even as they remained the same, they let go of their pasts and their burdens, and they coped better with their lives. Were they then, truly “the free”?
The author was able to get into each character’s head, presenting them realistically, each with his/her own distinct personality. The suffering just kept suffering and yet they bore up and moved on, they keep on trying to succeed, even though they seemed to be running in place.
For me, it wasn’t a hopeful statement on life. Yet, these characters were so appreciative of small gains that they ended up happier and more content than when they started out. I suppose that is where the message grows positive, rather than negative. Even though the book presents characters in a pitiful state of affairs, dealing with tragedy and stress, they end up smiling and, perhaps, you the reader will also end up smiling, with your own sadness lifted.

Ari Shavit has carefully researched, and thoroughly laid out, the path of the Jews over the last troubled century. He includes all relevant information, including the settlements, peace negotiations and assassinations. He outlines the guilt Israelis must bear for the situation in which they find themselves, and he explains why, what they did, though perhaps excessively brutal, at times, was absolutely necessary for the survival of Israel. In this book, Ari is bearing witness; Ari is expressing his fear for the safety and very existence of his beloved country.
The occupation has done irreparable harm to Israel, the influx of immigrants steeped in Orthodoxy has hurt the economy, and the Oslo Accords sold Israel out, giving the Arabs the upper hand, recognizing them even as they refused to recognize Israel. The problem of the occupation remained on the table, unsolved, and the Arabs refused to give up the right of return, which would effectively destroy Israel as a Jewish state. The simple, stark sentences describing the terror attacks, force the reader to witness the fear felt by all Israelis, children and adults alike. Without that, the reader could not understand what motivates them or how they manage to survive in such a climate of unrest. The stories of success cataloged within the pages of the book show the strength, courage and perseverance of the Jews who settled in Israel. They were determined to snatch success from the jaws of defeat and they did.
When the winds of Antisemitism grew in Europe with Hitler's rise to power, and war loomed on the forefront, the Arabs sided with Hitler. By 1938, the number murdered on both sides of the divide in Israel, increased, with more dead on the Arab side. However, while fringe groups were killing Arabs and were condemned by the Zionists and the Jewish community, the Arab national leadership and public supported the murder of the Jews. In 1942, with war raging in Europe, with Jews being exterminated by the millions, the Jews in Israel transformed themselves into a defensive people, fighting back to save those that survived and to show the world they would no longer give up without a struggle. Driven to be violent by the violence around them, they became a force to be reckoned with, and they paid a great price for that stature. Do modern- day Jews understand that Israel is what holds them together, is what provides the fabric of their future existence?
When Israel was being challenged, the Jews refused to lay down and die again, refused to be conquered once more. It was kill or be killed, and so they killed. It was a hard choice, but fighting back was the realistic choice, possibly their only choice. Yes, morally, some of it was reprehensible. The choice was to expel the Arabs to save the Jews or acquiesce and watch the end of Judaism, for there was no place else in the world for Jews to feel totally free and safe, other than Israel, their own land. Zionism needed to save itself. Jews did not want to go back to the old ways, to wandering, to waiting for the messiah, they wanted to hold onto the road they had, and instead, pave the way for his arrival.
In their effort to become superior, they grew arrogant. The moral fiber of the country changed. Constant fighting demoralized the population. The young now want pleasure first and are no longer nationalistic first. They want to be happy. Drugs and sex preoccupy them. The moral turpitude that pervades many western countries has traveled there. The percentage of people working grows smaller and the percentage of people receiving benefits grows larger. Education standards and accomplishments are declining. In an effort to halt this downward spiral, they have tightened their belts, but still, the workforce has to increase so that there are more hands feeding the pot than feeding from it. Israel cannot sustain this environment and continue as a viable country. They need to encourage and restore a deep love for their country, at home and in countries abroad. They need to encourage the indigent to work, the ultra Orthodox and Arabs to contribute, because right now, there are too few people contributing, and the system cannot sustain that kind of financial inequity. They need to restore and maintain a moral climate in which sex, drugs and entertainment are not the mainstay of the young. They need to restore the love of country that once drove them all to succeed beyond all expectations.
This is a painful book to read. It is difficult to acknowledge the wrong done by the Jews, and at the same time, it is important to understand why. In the end, it does not matter who fired the first shot across the bow, what matters is the end result, and Israel’s future was, and still is, at stake. With honesty and clarity, Ari Shavit explains Israel’s raison d’etre and his hopes for its future.

This is a very long, sometimes tedious book, with excessive detail and description. However, in outlining the life of Woodrow Wilson from early childhood until his death, it is a monumental achievement. Unlike many biographies today which often go off into uncharted territory about people surrounding the person being featured, this book is truly about Wilson. It is a definitive biography of a man who was often misunderstood, whose legacies were only truly recognized in the aftermath of his Presidency. Occasionally, the author’s terminology seemed out of place, as with his use of terms like war on terror, the 99% vs the 1%, and the glass ceiling. There were no such terms during the time frame in which he writes and may have been used to point to a particular political persuasion. Finally, because the narrative was a bit too long, it was sometimes repetitive. Often, I wished I was a historian so that I would have had a better grasp of the enormous amount of information presented. Perhaps an audio was not the best venue for this book, since it was not easy for me to refer back to passages and research those I needed to learn more about.
When Thomas Woodrow Wilson was 17, he believed he had not accomplished enough with his life. What a contrast with the youth of today who often balk at becoming independent as soon as they are able. Wilson was successful at almost anything he tried. He was a scholar, educator, orator, musician, singer, athlete, leader, and debater. He needed no teleprompter and was a wonderful extemporaneous speaker. His health, however, was always very fragile and he required frequent vacations and periods of relaxation, using the game of golf, in later life, as a tool to enhance his mental state.
He was the quintessential liberal, interested in equal opportunity for all, making sure all religions were treated fairly, although his beliefs were peppered with a bit of hypocrisy since he believed that equality for the races was too divisive a problem to solve. Although he campaigned for social justice, he did not always practice what he preached. He did not allow blacks entry into Princeton, during his tenure there, and accepted few Jews or Catholics. He believed blacks were inferior and a woman’s place was in the home. He allowed the passage of Jim Crow laws. He segregated the army and federal government offices. Yes, he was interested in equal opportunity, but not when it came to ethnicity. He was against suffrage for women until very near the end of his second term as President. He was an academician and a scholar, more than a political scientist, and he governed with a stubbornness and arrogance that allowed very little compromise. He rarely forgave indiscretions against him, and more likely, he would hold an unending, lifelong grudge against the offender.
Wilson was well read and wrote beautifully with a prose that was often richly emotional and poetic in style. He was a pacifist, against cronyism and patronage, and adamantly antiwar. He appointed the first Jew to the Supreme Court, Louis Brandeis, established daylight savings time, was the first President to have an audience with the Pope, heralded in the vote for women and people of color near the end of his second term, (although poll taxes and other obstacles were placed in their way), reformed the workplace for woman and children, regulated work hours, established the Selective Service Act, during WWI, creating a national draft, allowed the limitation of free speech during wartime with the passage of the Sedition Act and Espionage act, allowed Daniel Guggenheim to fix prices through regulations so that war production efforts would be more successful, created The 14 Points which led to the League of Nations which was his ultimate achievement for the world, but not for the US, since Congress refused to ratify the treaty of Versailles, or to join the League. It was a terrible defeat for him at home. Among his many other accomplishments are reformation of the railroad system, the banking system, with the creation of the Federal Reserve, and breaking up the machine, the system of bosses that used to run elections.
When his first wife, Ellen, died of Bright’s Disease, he was bereft and often absent from the role he was elected to uphold. When courting his second wife, Edith Gault, his mind was not on the Presidency. He was distracted far more than he should have been and governed in absentia. He presided over a very divided country and an angry opposition party, similar to the situation today. He did not pretend to even want to do anything but his progressive agenda, and he believed he was always right. Edith was strong, deeply loyal and committed to him in every way, going so far as to cover up his illness during the last year of his Presidency, assuming responsibilities she had no right to assume and was incapable of making the proper decisions, leading to confusion and chaos in many parts of the government. Ellen, his first wife was a gentler woman who softened him, but Edith, was often harder than he was and blindly defended him, even when the country’s security and destiny were at stake. Probably, in matters he believed in, she would have been unable to change his mind anyway, and more often than not, she worshiped him and agreed with him unconditionally, when confronted or to save his face.
At the peace talks, at the end of WWI, the war to end all wars, it became clear that Wilson had suffered a health crisis. He did not always appear as mentally competent as he should have been. He ultimately conceded certain points that were not advantageous to the future of the world, but insured his League of Nations instead. According to historians, it was perhaps the extreme punishment meted out to Germany that ushered in the era that eventually led to World War II. The treaty hobbled Germany so severely; there could never be a recovery. The country could not sustain itself.
A little more than a year from the end of his second term, Wilson suffered from a debilitating stroke. The administration drifted with no master at the helm, other than his wife, Mrs. Edith Wilson, who was often vindictive and controlling, grasping far too much governmental power. Wilson’s debilitated condition was kept secret from all, even Vice President Marshall. Other than two or three people, Dr. Grayson, his physician, Ike Hoover, a gatekeeper, and Edith, his wife, the country remained in the dark regarding his condition. Edith became a shadow president, as a totally opaque rather than transparent government, operated in secrecy. She was not equipped to handle the responsibilities she took on when she decided to protect Wilson above the needs of the country, and as a result, the government faltered due to a lack of information, and Wilson’s reputation suffered greatly. Laws were later passed to prevent such a situation from ever occurring again, although, it has been said that Nancy Reagan was the shadow president protecting her husband, Ronald Reagan, as he lost his grasp on things because of Alzheimer’s disease, at the end of his Presidency.
Athough he would have liked to, Woodrow was unable to run for a third term. He was no longer held in high esteem by many and his health, though he tried to ignore it, had failed as did his mental state. In addition to the stroke, his eyesight had failed, and he felt helpless and useless. He was ill during much of his presidency, but the extreme nature of his illnesses had never been divulged by those surrounding him, rather he was protected completely. In the world of today, Wilson would never be electable because he would have been deemed unfit to carry out the responsibility of the office. He suffered strokes and GI ailments which often incapacitated him. He had a nervous disposition, was very emotional and often cried. He became depressed when he wasn’t received positively or when facing personal trauma and required a good deal of medical attention and stroking. His physical and mental state were entirely hidden from the public by an adoring, loyal following.
At the conclusion of the book, it is hard not to draw a comparison between Wilson and the current President , Barack Obama. Both came from the academic world, were largely unprepared for the job, had little management experience, although Wilson ran Princeton well, reforming its curriculum and raising its stature, both were briefly in elected office before running for President, Wilson as NJ Governor and Obama as Illinois Senator, and both were stubborn and a bit arrogant, believing they knew what was good for the people, more than the people knew what was good for them. Both were quick to judge and slow to forgive infractions, or admit mistakes, or correct them. Both endangered America’s leadership position in the world because they believed they had the only right way and pursued it unflinchingly.

While Wilson might be called a racist for his beliefs, Obama has fomented a racial divide in the country which it was hoped he would eradicate with his ascension to the Oval Office. It would seem that Obama has taken a page from Wilson’s playbook and is attempting to do what Wilson could not, which is to destroy the Republican Party and all opposition to his policies. Both Wilson and Obama had toothy smiles and large ears, both were very eloquent and charismatic, rising from obscurity in the world of academia to the highest office in the land, without proper background or experience. Both largely ignored any opinion that was not their own. Wilson will always be remembered for his efforts to create The League of Nations which he failed to convince his own country to join and Obama will be remembered for the Affordable Care Act which failed to get a majority of public support and caused tremendous hostility and gridlock in the government. Both faced a divisive Congress ruled by the opposite party which prevented them from actually doing as they pleased. Obama consorted with the very kind of bosses in Chicago that Wilson abhorred and both bent the rules when it suited their purposes. They were willing to rescind and reverse former statements to fit the moment. Both were able to make promises and feel no remorse at breaking them, using those promises to achieve their goals. They justified their behavior because they believed the means justified the end result. Both were solitary persons, preferring their own company and that of a select few. Wilson was more humble and tried to embrace everyone, although unevenly, while Obama did not often cross the aisle to engage any outsiders, and both proclaimed they would listen to everyone and all ideas, but when it came right down to it, they believed they were right, even when others differed with them, and they marched to the beat of their own drummer, for better or worse.
In conclusion, this book will not only enlighten the reader about Woodrow Wilson, but it will also illuminate the current state, more clearly, of our political condition.

I wanted to like this book. I wanted to believe it. The author seems so sincere. Who would not like to think that there is something beautiful beyond death, that there is nothing to fear, that we can do no wrong and we will be unconditionally loved? Yet, my determination was severely tested by the author’s presentation. When Eben Alexander describes his (NDE) Near Death Experience, in 2008, brought on when he descended into a coma from a rare form of an e-Coli Virus,from which there was little hope of his recovery, he fills his tale with a rather large view of himself. He often apologizes for this, but kind of arrogance is, nevertheless, ever present. I felt as if he believed someone had elected him to the top post, to sit at the right hand of G-d. His explanations were often too technical or needed to be accepted based on his word or blind faith. Because he is a man of science, he came with good credentials, but the book left me wanting more. I needed some substance and the book felt thin in that department. If people coming out of comas go into psychotic states, hallucinating, why is it not possible for them to go into a psychotic state and also hallucinate entering into it? If scientifically it is impossible when the Neo Cortex is compromised completely, perhaps the science is wrong. Surely we know little enough about the brain and how it works to simply believe that what he experienced was real and not a dream state of some kind. He had been unhappy in prior years. His family life and professional life had suffered. He was adopted and was unsuccessfully searching for his roots, until a recent contact with a sister proved somewhat fruitful, and he learned of other siblings. He learned that his parents had married and he had a sister who had died. Perhaps his NDE was merely wish fulfillment, on his end.

When describing his NDE , he speaks of the Realm of The Earthworm’s-Eye View, a place of misery, The Gateway, a place of celestial beauty, where he met the beautiful girl on the butterfly’s wing, and The Core, where he felt communion with a greater being, where he felt close to the Creator, to Om, to G-d, to Jesus. Although he justifies the validity of his experience with claims that these are concepts that are new to him, it seemed doubtful to me, a non-Christian, so how could it not be so to him, even if he was not a religious Christian at that time? Are those concepts not universally reminiscent of Heaven, Hell, Purgatory and/or Limbo?

Eben realized, as an adoptee, that he had always somehow felt abandoned, unloved and when he thought about his NDE, he wondered why he was the only documented case of a person who had an NDE that had not been aware of who he was, during the experience, and the only one who had not met anyone who had died during his life who would lead him through and comfort him, as others had. Why had his father not come to comfort him, to tell him everything was all right; he had not been able to please him and he wanted his forgiveness. These thoughts reinforced his feelings of abandonment. He began to question the legitimacy of his own experience.

When he was still a doubter, in 2008, shortly after his recovery, he went to church and was asked to light an advent candle. Walking up, the music and scenes and sights before him seemed more beautiful than they had in the past, and he was overwhelmed. Since his illness, it would seem that this environment had more meaning for him, and he was brought to tears. The experience evoked memories of his NDE. Eben began to realize that we are so much more than our physical bodies. Still unsure of himself, there was one final act that convinced him he should spread the word about his experience in order to enlighten the world. As a scientist, he believed his word would be more credible than the word of others who had had similar experiences. So when he received a picture of a deceased sister, sent to him by his biological sister he realized she looked oddly familiar. Soon he realized, the last piece of the puzzle had fallen into place. He had met someone he knew. The girl on the butterfly wing in her angelic form was, he believed, his dead sister. He had been reading a book by Elizabeth Kubler Ross in which a young girl relates a NDE to her dad and explains that she met her brother, but she had no brother…her father confessed that a few months before she was born, her brother had died. This revelation about his own dead sibling, gave him renewed hope and faith in his own NDE.

Eben believes that consciousness resides some place other than the brain. Paraphrasing, he says, “we live in the dimension of the familiar, but the grander universe is here, now, with us, in a different frequency.” He believes you don’t have to die to access this frequency, “to access the truths behind the veil”, you just have to learn how, but don’t try to hard, for that will defeat you. Meditation is a useful tool. To understand the grander universe, you have to be part of it, become one with it.”

Eben himself admits that his experiences are very hard to describe and it is evident in his writing which is unclear, at times. I found that there was too much information, too technical at times, but there were not enough facts to make it credible. He says his experience in the Core was greater than his ability to understand it, to put into words, that he was able to absorb knowledge at a faster rate, immediately understand things that would take months, even years in ordinary time. In this place, time didn’t matter. So, although he couldn’t explain it, are we to accept his explanation and beliefs on blind faith? Why was he chosen to pass on this message? I thought the connections he made could be coincidence rather than providential. He had been scientific in his thinking, but now he was more spiritual.

Eben wrote that the Creator allows evil to exist because we have free will, but who is the Creator? He says we are all part of the divine, part of G-d, who is all loving and forgiving. He says the divine is always with us, and our job is to grow toward the divine. If we are all part of this G-d, this OM, then who is it or what is it? I have trouble with blind faith. The book feels too Christian in its concepts to be universally accepted. I believe Eben is being a bit presumptuous when he assumes we can all achieve this divine state. Can Jews or Muslims, or Budhists or Hindus achieve this state without disavowing their own faiths?

After his experience, he founded ETERNA, a non-profit organization to serve the greater good, to advance research into spiritually transformative experiences. The organization offers comfort and spiritual guidance to those going through difficult times with illness, etc. (Eben believes that you have to earn your entry into the higher planes of the realm he visited. Perhaps, he wants to earn his own by being G-dlike, good and compassionate.)

There simply was no PROOF OF HEAVEN, for me. The pieces fell into place, all too conveniently. However, I encourage other readers to draw their own conclusions. Your own background may alter your view and you may find greater inner peace than I did, when you read about what happened to him from the onset of his illness to the time of his recovery and then also learn a bit about his past. As a physician, he also has checkered history which warrants investigation. Perhaps this is all about Alexander’s need for love, compassion and forgiveness. He believes, from his NDE, he learned that everyone is loved, they have nothing to fear, and they can do no wrong. That is the strongest message he received. That is also his strongest need, so perhaps it was his own wish fulfillment during his coma, rather than an ”other worldly” experience. At the end of the day, though, do we all have to be Christians to have this experience, to attain this afterlife?

I have told little about his experiences, so the reader may draw their own conclusions as they read the book.

The title of the book is appropriate, for the hive mentality is evident on each page. The queen prevents chaos and brings about order. The need to be part of her group, to follow her lead, is everywhere. All drones are not alike, but apparently, all queens are, although their methods may differ. They are strong and call the shots.
This book is about the dynamic of the community mentality, the need to worship and conform to the leader’s control. The group gathers round the most popular individual until she wears her welcome out. Then they choose another “queen’ and happily become her prey, her victims, and her followers. How long she will last, no one really knows. There is peer pressure in this “hive”; it could alternately be called a “mob”, for their mentality is surely mindless, at times, and that is fundamentally what makes this group cohesive! Their need to belong is huge. Their need to feel good at the expense of another is obvious. Schadenfreude is big!
When the book begins, it is the first day of school for the children who attend the St. Ambrose School. The mothers are gathering and chatting, coming together after the hiatus of summer vacation. They play catch up and meet to chitchat and plan fundraisers to support the needs of the school. The parent's association is like a shark tank with catty women trying to take control and others trying to one-up each other.
There is so much humor written into the dialogue, maybe not the laugh out loud kind, but definitely the I have to chuckle at this kind or the nod of the head kind, like I remember someone like this or I knew someone who went through that. It is written about young women with kids in grade school, and yet, I think to fully appreciate this novel, it needs to be read by a more mature adult who has actually lived the experiences already, who has memories of the breakups of friend’s marriages, of friends who were less than stellar housekeepers, of friends who were always competing, of friends who were bullies and had to have their way, of friends everyone flocked to for no apparent reason other than they seemed to be part of “the beautiful people” crowd, whatever that is, of friends who without warning could snub you and force you out of the group because they had the special magnetism that everyone was attracted to, of friends too weak to defend you, of friends who suffered untimely deaths, in other words, the person who can look back without feeling threatened by the less than stellar behavior of the character’s in the story.
I think younger readers might possibly resent looking into the mirror, and unexpectedly, witness themselves staring back, because this is definitely a commentary on modern, me-generation women, perhaps spoiled, definitely gossipy. It is almost a caricature of judgmental mothers, mothers whose children can do nothing wrong, mother’s whose children are miniatures of themselves which can be good or bad, depending on the dominant trait of the parent’s personality. Definitely, this book is about a culture of competitive women who are still in the mode of “sorority girl”, deciding who fits in and who doesn’t, who gets in and who doesn’t. It is about the “mean girl” child who grew up into nothing more than a “mean girl” adult. Even the nicest characters subtly descend into the abyss of resentment and experience the need to control, at some point.
Each of the women featured has a different personality and each is really developed in the novel. One could be called “earth mother”, another all around helper, another “miss perfect”, another miss “know-it-all, and another could be designated as the resident bully. There are the insecure, the confident, the talented, the simply normal with no great gift or talent, the dweller in dream world, the jealous, the immature, and those who need to be accepted, who never feel adequately rewarded or noticed. There are the users, the manipulators, the phonies and frauds, the low key and the high falutin’, the insecure and the arrogant. The mothers of the children attending St. Ambrose are constantly vying for position while disavowing the need to be included in the hierarchy of their social scene. Condemning the group dynamic, they are eager to be included in it.
Each is needy in some way, but somehow, they all do get along, eventually, even though they plot and plan underhanded things to undermine each other. They never seem to be aware of their own meanness. Everyone is fair game. There appears to be little acceptance of anyone’s faults and even less real, heartfelt compassion. They all simply seem to go through the motions in their “groupthink” environment. Nothing is ever taken too seriously and every event is a stepping stone to another. It may not be easy to like some of the characters, but in the end, I think the reader will come to understand what rules govern them and will grow with them as they learn to cope with life’s adversities.
The dynamic of female friends, the dynamic of the clique and the bully who rules it, the rebellion of some members as they become aware of how they are being manipulated to do everything she gets credit for, and the individual ways they thwart her are what the readers will deal with as they read, as they decide for themselves, who is nice and who isn’t, essentially identifying with these judgmental women by forming their own judgments too!
In looking at the ratings of other reviews, it is obvious that this book has a love-hate relationship with the readers. I was one who loved it. It is a light, fun read that exposes the current state of humanity! These adult women could not figure out whether or not they were children like their offspring, or grown-ups like their parents! They were someplace in between, until they “found” themselves.

This Town begins with Tim Russert's funeral in 2008, continues with Mike Wallace’s and pretty much ends at the time of Daniel Inouye’s, in December of 2012. One month later, Barack Obama ascends to the throne again. Sandwiched between these funerals, which attract anyone who is anyone, across party lines, is an expose of Washington DC politics. The shameful behavior of politicians, journalists, lobbyists and hangers-on is humorously exploited on the pages of this book, by a very apt author who knows from whence he speaks since he, too, is actively involved in the process.
Liebovich exposes the hypocrisy in the White House today and compares it to the hypocrisy of White Houses in days gone by. He does not hold back and after reading this, the reader may never trust a politician again, if he even does now. He shines a light on DC politics, and in particular on the Obama White House, since this is the time frame of the book. He interprets the mindset of this administration about the dissemination of information, the enactment of policies and about the use of sound bites. They know that the public has a short attention span; they know that the public is largely acting from ignorance; they know that whatever crisis erupts will have a short shelf life; they play that knowledge to their advantage with a complicit liberal media. There seems to be a distinct lack of concern for honor or accomplishment, but rather there is a deep concern for their own personal power, success and financial gain. Self aggrandizement, greed and pandering are the watchwords of the masses who work for, or are attached in some way to, the government in Washington DC.
Although it is a bipartisan representation of the facts, the Democrats seem to come off a bit worse since they are the ones in power during the time of the book’s focus. Liebovich describes how Tim Russert’s funeral degenerated into a circus as the “clowns” worked the room for their own benefit, even as they expressed their sympathies to those in mourning. He renders a picture of these sycophants as they buzz like bees around the “in” people in their environment, those people who can advance their own personal cause, rather than the government’s, rather than the people’s. For those who propelled Obama to fame and fortune, to prominence and the highest office in the land, he ascribes a private persona that is different from their public one. He describes an atmosphere that smells of Chicago politics with the dishonest representation of themselves, their policies and core beliefs. The people who inhabit the halls of this and other administrations flock like bees to honey when it will serve their own needs.
He carefully paints a picture of the elites prostituting themselves, attending functions and parties that will advance their own causes. They can all be bought for a price. It is a sad picture. They smile when they want to cry, they apologize when they really want to say what is on their minds, they lie when they have to and explain later. DC should be called “pander city”, for pandering is the skill in which the “club” members are most adept. It seems to me to be a “freak show”, a bunch of “dysfunctionals” parading around in the clothing of intelligent, concerned experts when no such persons really exists. It is all an act perpetrated by trained “phonies”! The author traces the beginnings of the degradation of Washington to the Clinton years, not because of Monica Lewinsky, but because of the atmosphere he created when he honored money and entertainment in the White House, rather than scientific accomplishment, heroism and intelligence.
This is really a rather tongue in cheek, scathing review of Washington cronyism, nepotism, power plays and influence. It is about the incestuous behavior of the “wannabes” as they snooker up to those who have the influence to change their lives. Forget hope and change for us, it is about hope and change for themselves, first and foremost. The book is about how Washingtonian bigwigs parley their experiences and contacts into big money when they leave the administration. It is about journalists jockeying for position, looking for that sound bite that will propel them into the future, regardless of its veracity, because more important is its “shock and awe” appeal. Who are these people if we remove their masks? They surely are not the faces they show us. There is a “group-think” mentality that prevails. The need is to be invited to the right places, meet the right people, latch onto an opinion that will sell. Forget disseminating news, that is no longer important. Gossip is golden, as exhibited by the popularity of DC’s Playbook, the online tip sheet of Who's Who in the arena. Like Palm Beach's Shiny Sheet, their must read print paper, you must see your name and photo in Playbook’s cyberspace, to guarantee that you are still alive and well.
Washington’s elite are mostly of one mind, liberal. They no longer present the news, but rather they give opinions. The people in the “club” are important, have their own agendas, and have discovered that the people who are not in the club, want to identify with those in it by reading their sound bites, learning their popular acronyms and quoting their talking points. Those in the club can’t be bothered to take the time to educate the people and the people can’t take the time to educate themselves; “they have places to go and people to meet”. They are too important to think of anything but themselves. Because of this lack of concern, the public, in particular the voter, is truly ignorant about the issues and only knows what the “powers that be” wish them to know. The bullies are in complete control. Regardless of the facts or lack of, that are presented, the crowd has to be fed, and the food has to be digestible by those in power and those in the media who may use half truths to persuade you of their honor and purpose. They fawn, they fabricate, they facilitate the rise to power of themselves and other “unworthies” who are deemed worthy only by virtue of the information they impart! The mob is in control;
Obama professed to be above it all, but that was nothing more than duplicity on his part and the part of his handlers. It is apparently no different for any politician. They say and do what they must to further their own cause, to get elected, and then they do as they darn well please, offering one excuse or another to a blind public. Obama has brought this duplicity to an art form for he and his team made the most grandiose promises which they quickly forgot once he entered the Oval Office, in favor of pursuing their own self-serving agendas. For Obama and his ilk, the behavior is particularly egregious because they were going to change Washington so it would no longer be a place of incestuous bargaining, of prostituting oneself for agreements, but they, instead, enhanced the corrupt environment by creating one that is even more secret, more out of control, more unrepresentative of the people’s wishes, unrepresentative of those that pay the freight, that is.
This book will not endear the readers to those who live or work in “This Town”, rather it will disgust them; yet they will put the same people in power, time and again, regardless of their broken promises, regardless of their methods, because they are motivated by the same greed that drives the elites, they are motivated by their own needs, not the greater needs of the country. They are fed half-truths and they make half-witted decisions based on that misinformation, believing false promises and outright lies.

A prolific writer, her fans will love this latest work. Her style of writing uses no contrivances to make her point. The plots are simple, but they take the imagination places that one does not see coming, that one does not expect. Oates des not exaggerate ideas to grab your interest, she merely weaves a tale that, while plausible, is also almost unbearable, bordering on revolting and reprehensible sometimes, and yet, she makes it possible to read the stories without getting up and tossing the book in disgust.
The four novellas are related in a spare prose that leaves nothing to the imagination and yet takes creativity to its limits with each story getting more and more grotesque and bizarre, yet each one is, sadly, in the realm of possibility. Simply using her gift, her ability to mold language into the shape she desires, she has constructed four short works about dysfunctional relationships and dysfunctional people, who are sometimes products of their environments, their relationships and even sometimes, simply products of their own evil nature. It is about the inability of people to either communicate accurately or to comprehend what someone is really communicating to them. They put a spin on things that puts them in the best light, rather than the harsh light of reality. They live in a world of ambiguity, fantasy, rather than clarity. Are they sane or insane? Are they simply unhappy, lost souls, who are products of their environments, innocent, in the end, of all wrongdoing and inappropriate thought? Are things what they actually seem to be? Can the characters trust what they see, or more accurately, what they think they see and surmise about each other? Is what appears to be the truth actually the truth or just perception?
Oates spotlights the inability of people to deal directly with issues, the tendency to run from the truth and try to hide from it or hide it from the outside world. The stories are all about relationships and they question which of the partners is the more “broken” in each of the relationships. Sometimes, both are broken beyond repair. Sometimes it is difficult to tell who has lost touch and who is living in reality. However, all of the stories are about diabolical desires for someone’s deep discomfort or ultimate demise. In all of the stories, the need to have authority is key, the men believe themselves to be the stronger, the more righteous, and the one that should be in charge, with or without fact-based reasons. This latest book gets its title from the first of its four novellas, actually, the one that is least horrific. With each novella, the malevolence grows.
In “Evil Eye”, it is easy to conceive of the relationship between Marianna and her three decades younger husband, Austin. She is an insecure young woman, saddened and deeply troubled by the loss of her parents and is having difficulty coping. He is a man, well-known, worldly and very capable in public life, who needs to be adored, and she fits the bill. He seems to be very authoritarian. Unfortunately, as their relationship grows, so does her discomfort with him. The tale leaves the reader with the distinct question in their mind about who is losing their sanity, Marianna or her husband? Whose imagination and personality is running wild and out of hand? Is the husband the great manipulator she believes or is her mind perceiving things that are pure fantasy?
“So Near, Anytime, Always”, begins with another seemingly innocent and insecure young, woman. Lizbeth meets Desmond at the public library. He is handsome, well dressed and seems older and wiser than she. She has never had a relationship or a boyfriend, and she is so flattered when he waits outside the library for her that she pursues a friendship with him, which as it develops, veers into dangerous territory that she feels she cannot admit to herself or her family. Des appears to be from an upper class family of good background, but is kind of secretive and controlling. What does he really feel for her, she wonders, as he begins to appear more and more in the shadows, even as she wants to distance herself from him? What kind of person is he, really? Will she escape from his hold on her or will he stay with her in her memory, forever altering the way she lives her life?
“The Execution” is about a terribly maladjusted young adult, emotionally and mentally disturbed his whole life, coddled by a too liberal system that tries to understand and explain away the behavior rather than comprehend the nature of the mental illness, rather than facing it, instead running away, hiding from it until the world runs headlong into a possibly preventable tragic event which exhibits the results of their stupidity, when he goes mad and commits a heinous crime! This story is really about madness, about viewing the world through a false lens and interpreting events incorrectly because of an inability to process information properly. It too, is about the madness in men, their frailty and foolishness, their need for control, their need to be right, an inability to see their own faults and wrong doing. It is also about the unrealistic, weak behavior of some women, who show no common sense, who keep secrets when they should share their lives openly in order to protect someone undeserved and be maternal in the face of danger, and instead, in trying to avoid the consequences of disclosure, they later suffer them. I was left wondering if Bart Hansen was stuck in an Oedipal conflict, competing with his father for authority and control, and losing in that effort, also losing his hold on reality?
In the fourth and final novella, “The Flatbed” we meet a young woman, Cielle, (Cecilia) imagining someone referred to as “G”, chained to a flatbed truck, on his way to the slaughterhouse. She wonders if the man knows that he is destined to die? She is in a relationship with a man who is her superior (as in all the other novellas, the woman is weaker), though not her boss, referred to as “N”. They work together. She thinks she loves this man, years older than she, and he loves her. She, however, is frigid and trembles, shivers, shakes and cannot consummate the act of lovemaking or even tolerate an internal exam. He, in his love and devotion to her insists that she tells him her secret, what is terrifying her, what is holding her back from being in a normal relationship? He is kind to her, tries to be patient and understanding, but he says he must know her secret, but can she tell? She has never told anyone that something shameful happened to her as a child, something that she is so ashamed of it prevents her from being in a healthy relationship or even to have a complete physical exam with a doctor. In the end, Cecelia and “N”, now have a different secret that they can never tell.
Evil Eye, Joyce Carol Oates
A prolific writer, her fans will love this latest work. Her style of writing uses no contrivances to make her point. The plots are simple, but they take the imagination places that one does not see coming, that one does not expect. Oates des not exaggerate ideas to grab your interest, she merely weaves a tale that, while plausible, is also almost unbearable, bordering on revolting and reprehensible sometimes, and yet, she makes it possible to read the stories without getting up and tossing the book in disgust.
The four novellas are related in a spare prose that leaves nothing to the imagination and yet takes creativity to its limits with each story getting more and more grotesque and bizarre, yet each one is, sadly, in the realm of possibility. Simply using her gift, her ability to mold language into the shape she desires, she has constructed four short works about dysfunctional relationships and dysfunctional people, who are sometimes products of their environments, their relationships and even sometimes, simply products of their own evil nature. It is about the inability of people to either communicate accurately or to comprehend what someone is really communicating to them. They put a spin on things that puts them in the best light, rather than the harsh light of reality. They live in a world of ambiguity, fantasy, rather than clarity. Are they sane or insane? Are they simply unhappy, lost souls, who are products of their environments, innocent, in the end, of all wrongdoing and inappropriate thought? Are things what they actually seem to be? Can the characters trust what they see, or more accurately, what they think they see and surmise about each other? Is what appears to be the truth actually the truth or just perception?
Oates spotlights the inability of people to deal directly with issues, the tendency to run from the truth and try to hide from it or hide it from the outside world. The stories are all about relationships and they question which of the partners is the more “broken” in each of the relationships. Sometimes, both are broken beyond repair. Sometimes it is difficult to tell who has lost touch and who is living in reality. However, all of the stories are about diabolical desires for someone’s deep discomfort or ultimate demise. In all of the stories, the need to have authority is key, the men believe themselves to be the stronger, the more righteous, and the one that should be in charge, with or without fact-based reasons. This latest book gets its title from the first of its four novellas, actually, the one that is least horrific. With each novella, the malevolence grows.
In “Evil Eye”, it is easy to conceive of the relationship between Marianna and her three decades younger husband, Austin. She is an insecure young woman, saddened and deeply troubled by the loss of her parents and is having difficulty coping. He is a man, well-known, worldly and very capable in public life, who needs to be adored, and she fits the bill. He seems to be very authoritarian. Unfortunately, as their relationship grows, so does her discomfort with him. The tale leaves the reader with the distinct question in their mind about who is losing their sanity, Marianna or her husband? Whose imagination and personality is running wild and out of hand? Is the husband the great manipulator she believes or is her mind perceiving things that are pure fantasy?
“So Near, Anytime, Always”, begins with another seemingly innocent and insecure young, woman. Lizbeth meets Desmond at the public library. He is handsome, well dressed and seems older and wiser than she. She has never had a relationship or a boyfriend, and she is so flattered when he waits outside the library for her that she pursues a friendship with him, which as it develops, veers into dangerous territory that she feels she cannot admit to herself or her family. Des appears to be from an upper class family of good background, but is kind of secretive and controlling. What does he really feel for her, she wonders, as he begins to appear more and more in the shadows, even as she wants to distance herself from him? What kind of person is he, really? Will she escape from his hold on her or will he stay with her in her memory, forever altering the way she lives her life?
“The Execution” is about a terribly maladjusted young adult, emotionally and mentally disturbed his whole life, coddled by a too liberal system that tries to understand and explain away the behavior rather than comprehend the nature of the mental illness, rather than facing it, instead running away, hiding from it until the world runs headlong into a possibly preventable tragic event which exhibits the results of their stupidity, when he goes mad and commits a heinous crime! This story is really about madness, about viewing the world through a false lens and interpreting events incorrectly because of an inability to process information properly. It too, is about the madness in men, their frailty and foolishness, their need for control, their need to be right, an inability to see their own faults and wrong doing. It is also about the unrealistic, weak behavior of some women, who show no common sense, who keep secrets when they should share their lives openly in order to protect someone undeserved and be maternal in the face of danger, and instead, in trying to avoid the consequences of disclosure, they later suffer them. I was left wondering if Bart Hansen was stuck in an Oedipal conflict, competing with his father for authority and control, and losing in that effort, also losing his hold on reality?
In the fourth and final novella, “The Flatbed” we meet a young woman, Cielle, (Cecilia) imagining someone referred to as “G”, chained to a flatbed truck, on his way to the slaughterhouse. She wonders if the man knows that he is destined to die? She is in a relationship with a man who is her superior (as in all the other novellas, the woman is weaker), though not her boss, referred to as “N”. They work together. She thinks she loves this man, years older than she, and he loves her. She, however, is frigid and trembles, shivers, shakes and cannot consummate the act of lovemaking or even tolerate an internal exam. He, in his love and devotion to her insists that she tells him her secret, what is terrifying her, what is holding her back from being in a normal relationship? He is kind to her, tries to be patient and understanding, but he says he must know her secret, but can she tell? She has never told anyone that something shameful happened to her as a child, something that she is so ashamed of it prevents her from being in a healthy relationship or even to have a complete physical exam with a doctor. In the end, Cecelia and “N”, now have a different secret that they can never tell.
This author is a genius at creating mystery and suspense in somewhat “unbelievable” narratives, that incredibly, become believable narratives. The prose is simple, readable and magnetic. It almost forcibly grips and captures the reader's complete attention and imagination.
In the end, all of the stories are about destructive behavior, violent behavior or thoughts, violence which, although it begins in fantasy, often becomes reality, violence that if the symptoms of these dysfunctional people were recognized and dealt with more realistically, in a more grounded, sensible way, treating them rather than excusing them, might never have occurred and the characters might just have gone on to lead happy, successful and fruitful lives.

The book is an interesting story about Nina (Nikolina) Kindahle, and her family’s struggle to survive in Latvia, as the country went through the many incarnations forced upon it by the tragic events of the twentieth century. It is written by a woman who shares her married name, a woman whose novel was informed by the information provided to her by Andris Abolins, the son of Nina and Ernests Abolins and by the memories of other relatives who knew Nina.
Although it is described as a novel, it feels more like the memoir of this real woman, who lived through a terrible time of struggle, for freedom and independence, in the country she called home. It is a country that is torn apart by war, a country that falls victim to the capricious nature of politics, a country that becomes a pawn in a terrible chess game in which the Latvians are always in the position of checkmate and are left to suffer while the world turns a blind eye to the havoc they are causing for these innocent people. It is the story of a woman who is forced to leave Latvia, a dangerous endeavor, in order to survive. She lives out her life in the country she adopts, or we might say, that adopted her, Sweden. A story within a story, it tells the tale of a country’s struggle for autonomy coupled with its people’s struggle for survival amidst the winds of war and political games.
As well as being a memorable novel about Nina, it is a story that needs to be told about Latvia’s moment in history’s narrative. It is a history that cries out to be explored since I am sure, like me, there are many out there who are completely unaware of the suffering and abuse visited upon that country and its inhabitants as it became the object of desire for both Russia and Germany and a victim of the politics of the times.
Nina valiantly attempts to survive even as everyone she loves succumbs to the forces of life and evil that surround her. The book is a testimony to her strength of character and courage in the face of trauma and heartbreak, none of which are under her control. As we learn of Nina’s life, the history and background of Latvia is detailed well in the book, and it is a compelling narration which brings the country to life. It is a story about upheaval and migration, and its effect on family, a story that is about the tragedy that is caused by conflicts and war, politics and the desire for power.
I felt as if it had an identity crisis, not knowing whether it wanted to be fact or fiction, memoir or novel, exposé of the times or a fantasy created around it. The accurate telling of the history and politics of the time was compelling but the personal story often got bogged down with language that felt far too poetic and flowery with allusions to images that were excessive. It just seemed too philosophical and too wordy, at times, which distracted me rather than engaged me.
The introduction was a little confusing and unclear. I did not feel that the character development had enough depth, at first. Some of the names were inconsistent, and therefore, there were times when I was not sure of which character I was reading about or why they were in the narrative. As they came and went, I was often unsure of not only who they were but also of their purpose in the story.
I thought the title was poignant and perfectly chosen for it is the story of what took place between the moments before and after; it is about the time we occupy, the time in which we live. It was a moving story about love and devotion, endurance and perseverance, nationalism and honor, politics and war, courage and commitment, but sometimes it was lost in the morass of excessive description. The editor should have edited out the unnecessary flights of fancy, when it was overly emotive and also should have corrected many of the grammatical errors I detected.
It was a difficult book to get into and it didn’t call me back to it, when I put it down. Still, I was glad I soldiered on and finished it because the story was one that needed to be told. I had to read the entire book to feel its impact, so that when I turned the final page, I indeed thought, this was really a good book, but if I didn’t force myself to continue to read it, I would not have known that. One has to hope that other readers don’t give up before they finish.

The novel begins in Transylvania, as we are introduced to Zalman Stern, a rigidly religious, Satmar Hasidic Jew. He is a follower of this sect which bridges no compromises in the practice of religion. He is well known as a devout scholar. The book then continues on to tell the story of Josef Lichtenstein, a small boy who witnesses the murder of his family. Both Josef and Zalman are connected, for both are miraculously spared from death on the same day, in 1939, as others are wantonly murdered. Josef is instrumental in the rescue of Mila Heller which is another connection to Zalman Stern since both children eventually wind up under his tutelage. Both Mila and Josef, have been orphaned by the tragedy of events leading up to and including, World War II.
Josef spies Mila and her family hiding near where he lives, with his second mother, Florina. He sees Mila’s mother gunned down by Nazis, as she runs to her “Rebbe”, who is sitting in an open “special” cattle car for prominent people who are being rescued from the Germans (although this fact is not known to her). The “Rebbe has all the answers and is sought out to solve all problems. When the “Rebbe” told every Jew under his jurisdiction that they must not leave their land, they must tear up their papers to Palestine, they must not be Zionists, they obeyed him. He said the religion forbade them from leaving their homes and land and forbade them to fight against their enemies. It was G-d’s job to do that. Then he saved himself, explaining his rescue with a story about having a dream that it was G-d’s will that he be saved and sent to America. That story didn’t sit well with me. It actually filled me with disgust as his followers believed and justified the hypocrisy of his behavior. He had condemned them to death, knowing what awaited them, but spared himself. I had to remind myself that this was a novel.
Josef protected Mila by forcing her to remain with him and to keep silent so that she was not shot like her mother, or caught as her father soon was. He was later tortured and murdered. More mature than their young years, the children, Josef and Mila, find her father and bury him. Mila was told by her father that she should seek out Zalman Stern in the event of an emergency and Josef does what he can to help her find him. Josef introduces himself to Mila, as Anghel. Florina, who had formerly worked for Josef’s parents, was busy robbing their apartment after their brutal murders by Jew haters, when she found Josef hiding under a table in the apartment. Florina did not like Jews, they were non-believers, but she loved Josef. (Oddly, this is just one of the strange parallels in the book, since the belief mirrors that of the Satmar Hasids who believe non-believers should be ostracized, avoided, and perhaps, punished.)
Florina takes Josef with her and tells him never to reveal that he is a Jew. She has him baptized, gives him the name Anghel and raises him as a Christian for the next 7 years. When Zalman Stern learns from Mila, that the child he occasionally sees watching him on the road is Jewish, he makes several attempts to rescue him, and when the war is over, after many years of unsuccessful effort, he finally does. Josef/Anghel, is now 12 years old. He is brought back into the fold, lives with Zalman and is eventually sent to America to study further and also to remove him from the pull of Florina. A good Jewish male studies relentlessly. A good Jewish female supports him and is a good wife and mother.
With the rise of Communism, it becomes more difficult to practice Judaism in Rumania. Zalman decides to move his remaining family to Paris, where he takes a position as Cantor. He is a strict observer and religious observance there disappoints him. His disposition changes and he becomes more intolerant, more anxious. His eldest daughter, Atara, wants an education, and when he refuses and threatens to lock her up until he marries her off, she runs away, abandoning her religious life because of his intransigence and its limitations on her freedom and independence. She is mourned by Zalman, as if she had died. Meanwhile, Mila, who has been raised by Zalman and his wife Hannah, since the death of her parents, remains home and grows more devout. Eventually, she is betrothed to Josef, and she moves to America to join him. She has fulfilled her dreams.
When Mila does not conceive a child, the community begins to whisper about her. Years pass. A husband is allowed to divorce a barren wife after a certain amount of time. She resorts to an odd interpretation of the religious doctrines, and finds a way to become pregnant. Unfortunately, it is at that time that Josef also circumnavigates Jewish law and finds out he is sterile. When Mila gives birth to a child, the marriage is irreparably damaged. Although Josef loves the child, he suffers emotionally and mentally, punishing himself, ever after, causing his body to deteriorate physically. The novel explores the effect of fanatic religious observance on the people, and life itself, in these communities. Will tragedy continue to follow them? Will it be G-d’s will to punish them for their sins? Can they find loopholes in commentaries to justify what each has done? Are the personal tragedies, as well as the larger ones, including the Holocaust, as the Hasids believed, the result of disappointing their G-d, of not being a “good enough practicing Jew”, of somehow disappointing their G-d, thereby preventing the Messiah from coming to save them?
This is a book that tells a story steeped in the customs and culture of a devout and fanatic Jewish sect. It will raise questions and concerns in the minds of all readers about the rights of women and about the approach of these believers to those who do not believe. It felt like I was reading about a sect that had a deep, abiding love and belief in the word of their G-d, but overhanging it all were the constant threats of impending punishment and doom, banishment from the community, if they were not blindly obedient. Rigid demands for fanatic observance is the same in other religions, as well, but does that justify the intolerance?
This was a difficult novel for me to review and a difficult book to rate. It moved me fiercely, emotionally, in many conflicting directions as I read it. It left me with many unanswered questions. It presented a picture of Hasidic Judaism that opened my eyes to both their love of the religion and the rigidity of it. It pulled me in polar opposite directions as I read it, first respecting the observance, than disrespecting the intolerance of the observers. I wondered how such strict adherence to rules, especially by the women, who had few rights, was possible, and then I thought, it is possible because every instance in their lives is governed by a rule, questions about the rules are answered unequivocally by the Rabbi, and their education is completely controlled and limited. They are only permitted to read certain books and most have no idea or desire for an independent life in the outside world because it simply does not exist for them. They are forbidden to mix with non-believers and they are brought up to believe that transgressions will be severely punished by G-d or the community. The Rabbi always has the last world on all behavior. I was forced to realize that most fanatic religions are like this, and I shuddered because that is the reason there is such disharmony in the world. There is no room for compromise.

Throughout the story, my opinion of several characters wavered back and forth between positive and negative emotions. Often, the characters seemed so manipulative, so immature, so cruel and mindless, that it seemed there was no room for kindness or compassion on the pages, and I wondered where the story would lead. I immediately disliked the main character who seemed like “a bad seed” when she was a child. However, first impressions are often incomplete, and when I closed the book, I suddenly smiled and chuckled with surprise, because the information revealed at the end is unexpected, and the hard tone of the story softens. The author hints at family secrets, but I never guessed what they were until the book uncovered them.
This is an interesting and well told tale that takes place in a small village in France, during World War II. Although the German occupation and a particular German soldier play a major role, the actual war itself is really part of the background, and it is more about the relationships of the characters to each other and the circumstances they share that affect them, each in their own way. The characters personalities are really exposed and the details of their interactions are examined carefully. Some of the characters will not be agreeable to the reader, but that is because the author does a really good job of defining their flaws.
When Mirabelle Dartigen dies, she leaves the abandoned family farm, in the village of Les Laveuses, to her son Cassis. He has no interest in it, and since he needs the money from its sale to pay his debts, he sells it to his sister, Boise (Framboise). The only other sibling, Reine, is in an institution, and is incompetent. Boise wishes to return to and restore the family farm, although more than half a century has passed since she was last there at the age of 9. She must return under an assumed name to avoid any connection to a scandal that involved her mother, during the war, which ultimately forced them to abandon the farm. She had memories of looking for “Old Mother”, a giant pike, that lived in the Loire. It had eluded all the other villagers. The legend said that if you caught her she would grant you your wish. This wishing moment had a tremendous effect on the future of the family.
Mirabelle had been a hard, bitter woman. She was a controlling, demanding, undemonstrative and unemotional single parent (her husband was killed in the war fighting the Germans). Subject to fits of anger and severe migraine headaches, often brought about by the scent of an orange, she had a sharp and biting tongue, and was often rude and capable of violence. There are similarities between Boise and Mirabelle. Both like to cook, both are stubborn and both have fierce tempers when pushed.
Boise, her brother Cassis, and sister Reine-Claude, walked on thin ice around their mother, not wanting to set her off. Theirs was a lonely existence. They had one friend to speak of, Paul Hourias, a seemingly dull witted boy about the same age as Reine. Their isolation made them devious and they even tormented each other, simply for its entertainment value. Eventually, they befriend or are befriended by a German soldier, Tomas Liebnitz, who is a self-serving young man, who uses the Dartigen family to feather his own nest while he enchants the children. The reader will be hard put to think of these children, or much that is related to this family, for that matter, as nice. They all seem to be scheming and self-serving without regard to the consequences.
Mirabelle left Boise an album filled with recipes and a coded kind of diary interspersed within the pages. It reveals the secrets of her life, and as the message is deciphered and Boise’s memories are examined, the story and its mystery begins to unfold. When she is finally settled and is running a wonderful little French Café in her home, using her mother’s mouth-watering recipes, she rekindles a friendship with her childhood friend, Paul. When, out of the blue, Cassis and his wife Laure come to call on her, pretending to be concerned about her, but really angling to get the family recipes, the anger she harbors toward her brother since childhood, explodes again.
Although it would be easy to chalk up the actions of all of these characters to immaturity, a lack of sophistication or a lack of intelligence, that excuse would simply be too easy and too convenient. The feelings Boise had toward the German soldier did not seem age appropriate. Her brother and sister seemed too naïve to not suspect that their behavior was very dangerous. Their innocence seemed too contrived. The cause and effect of their anger toward their mother seemed outsized and inappropriate, at times, since she wasn’t really intentionally cruel to them, she often tried to please them with special treats, but she was subject to seizure like headaches which brought on angry tirades and violent reactions and a need for medication which continued to grow and consume her.
The author will keep the reader guessing right up to the end of the story when all the missing pieces fall into place. Each of the characters, major and minor, have their own personalities, and they come alive for the reader. At time, Boise seems alternately malevolent, immature, but then, later in life, she is somehow more tender and soft, unlike her bitter and hard parent. It is a fast, engaging book that will please many readers.

The reader on this audio was quite good, but I was really glad when this book ended. Perhaps I had read the first two books in this series too long ago, and the brief review in the first few pages was simply not detailed enough for me. While I will admit the story is unbelievably creative, I will also admit that for most of the book I was lost. I simply did not have the frame of reference I needed from the first two books, and like “Humpty Dumpty”, I could not put the story back together again.

I did find it to be a thought provoking story of a world in chaos, a story that raises the specter of a future in which we are destroyed by avarice and an endless craving for more and more power without regard to consequences. In this world, all that remains of civilization are small groups of humans, several species of animal and bio-engineered creatures. There are Crakers, G-d’s Gardeners, Maddaddamites, Pleeblands, Mo’Hairs, Snakewomen, Painballers, Pigoons, and Wolvogs, It is a time in which only the fittest will survive. The tools necessary to continue the life that once was, are absent, the resources to rebuild are missing and the technology is no longer known.

Crake wanted to end the chaos that existed in the world in which man worshipped at the Church of PetrOleum. He created a virus which he unleashed upon the world to rid it of all life. He created artificially intelligent beings called Crakers. They were gentle, loving, peaceful, kind and considerate. They would survive his plague to populate the earth, existing on leaves and vegetation only, living only for a predetermined, limited number of years. Unsophisticated, uneducated, unashamed, non-violent, unable to cause harm, they walked around unclothed, naked as the day they were created. They wore one skin while humans wore two (clothes)! They had enormous sex organs and seemed to exist only for their personal pleasure and to procreate. Unfortunately, not only these gentle people survived so violence was once again unleashed upon the land.

The story is told as one of the main characters, Toby, hands down the history of the past, by writing her boyfriend Zeb’s story and telling it to the crakers. His stories, which she relates with humor, are not always totally honest, but they are always told in a kind way that will not upset those she is addressing, the Crakers. Blackbeard, a Craker, inherits the job from her, and he continues to hand down the story, verbally, to the descendants and survivors, after Toby is gone. He tells Toby’s story. She taught him to write so he also makes a written copy for a more permanent record.

As with most books, of late, this one has a strong political message. Man is suffering the consequences of his abuse of the environment, his greed and his excessive wantonness. Humans have destroyed their world and now humans must try and restore it. The world is still a dangerous place. It is a situation in which survival of the fittest will be the order of the day. There may not be a time or a place for true justice for a long time. Expedience may have to be the rule of the day until a better situation is in place. Are those they fear dangerous, or are they dangerous merely because of their experiences? Can they be rehabilitated? Is it even feasible to do so with the conditions that exist? Is it safe to allow violence to remain? Do they have the wherewithal to maintain security if they try to rehabilitate some? These are problems that the fledgling society has to solve, in addition to providing food, health care, shelter, education, and most important, their ability to survive. The message in the book tends to be one of political correctness, subt;ly and obviously, pointing out how we, in the present, may cause our own demise in the future.

However, the book also contains an inordinate amount of brutality and vulgarity and, for me, an excessive concentration on weird sex. Perhaps it was the author’s intent to highlight these behaviors in order to exaggerate the environment that led to the chaos and to show why Crake chose to loose the plague upon the world. Perhaps it is the tool she used to illuminate the problems the world is actually experiencing today and to foreshadow the tragic end we may also bring down upon ourselves. Has the author offered us a parody of our own existence and our own world? Experiments with dangerous germs can fall into the wrong hands. Climate abuse may cause aberrations in the weather and the resultant floods and “unnatural” natural events may wreak havoc. Greed creates a “caste” system. Science creates ever more dangerous weapons and tools of war. In the end, Atwood shows us that the world, as we know it, has come to an end, and a new world has begun again. During this time, three women give birth to babies that are hybrids, for they are half-Craker. Perhaps the new civilization will be a combination of human and Craker traits and will, therefore, be a kinder and gentler race of people with the intelligence to advance and survive in a more congenial and peaceful world. Are we headed into the world of Oryx and Crake? It is a frightening thought.

The year is 1924. Willow Frost, aka Liu Song is a single mother living in Seattle, trying to make ends meet. When her mother died, Liu lived with her stepfather who impregnated her, but she never told him about the pregnancy. She left him and raised the child, William Eng, in secret. Meanwhile, she now has a boyfriend, Colin Kwan, and both of them are aspiring actors. Colin knew his way around, and he helped her get bit parts and showed her the ropes, hoping they would be discovered. William is crazy about Colin, and he is crazy about William. Suddenly, though, Colin’s father is taken ill. When he is summoned back to China, to take over the family business, she discovers he is also betrothed to another woman, in China. It is an arranged marriage made years ago. He promises to write and to return.

To make ends meet, when she can’t get acting jobs, Liu takes a job singing in a piano store. The economy is failing. When social service comes to interview her, and reveals that in the case of a single mother, if there is a husband he may legally claim custody of the child, Willow begs the woman not to reveal her child to Leo Eng, owner of the Jefferson Laundry, explaining he was her stepfather. The woman is a cold-hearted caricature of someone who should not be in the field of social service. She is judgmental, beset with prejudices and lacking in compassion, the very antithesis of the kind of person who would enhance the profession.
When Liu loses her job because of the depression, she becomes destitute and is forced to go to Leo Eng, who had previously threatened to take William from her. To keep her child, she agrees to work for him. She becomes his escort and accompanies him and accommodates him in business arrangements, in many ways. She would do anything for William. Soon, though, she discovers she is pregnant again. Before she begins to show, Colin returns and asks her to marry him, but he already has one wife in China. That very night, she suffers a miscarriage and passes out in the bathtub. William, who is just six years old, discovers her. She is taken to a hospital where the doctor refuses to treat her and sends her to a sanitarium. There, she is visited by the social worker again. She gives her a choice to give the child to her stepfather or an orphanage. She must give William up forever or she will not be released. Rather than see him with her stepfather, she gives him up to the orphanage.
Time passes and it is now 1934. William is 12 years old. In the orphanage, all the boys have a communal birthday, and on that day, they are allowed to speak about their family, and if there is a letter, one is chosen for them. Correspondence is not otherwise shared, since most of the children have been given up permanently, and the nuns do not believe they should have any contact with their families. On that day, they also go to see a movie and get special treats. While watching the movie, William recognizes the voice of an actress in the film. It is his mother. He had not realized she was still alive. Sunny, Williams very close friend, encourages William to find his mother. William also has a very dear friend, Charlotte, who is blind and who wants to run away with him. As those events play out, Sister Briganti decides to give William a letter from his mother. She also gives him money for transportation. His mother will meet him at the Bush Hotel, where they used to live.

Willow takes him to one of her films, explains all of the things that have happened to her that led her to give him up, and then she disappears, before the film ends. He returns to the orphanage and buries the newspaper article about his mother and a picture of his mother, at a close friend’s gravesite.

There is a pattern of injustice that runs through this story which, in hindsight, is difficult to justify in any way. The themes of hardship, poverty and despair during the time of the great depression, did not feel as well developed, but will touch the reader’s hearts. At the end, the author revealed that the book was based a bit on his own background, his family’s experiences and the experiences of the orphans during The Great Depression. The story is, therefore, enlightening, in many ways, in spite of the fact that I didn’t feel as engaged as I would have liked. I think the characters could have been more fully developed, since I did not feel the expected emotional attachment to them. I felt, rather, as if I was always skimming the surface of the story and not completely immersed in it. The tragic and traumatic events seemed to occur kind of matter-of-factly, and so I felt no connecting thread. I do believe, though, that the author exposed the biased atmosphere that existed in this country, and on the other side of the coin, he revealed an atmosphere in which there was a refusal to give up the hope of having one’s dreams come true. Also, the reader did an admirable job.

I really wanted to enjoy this book. I was hoping to eagerly await the reading of the third and final one of the series, but instead, I was hugely disappointed. The plot never thickened. The story slipped into fantasy when each family seemed to experience the same circumstances and follow the same life path, over and over. While well written historically, with minute details of events of consequence, the overly descriptive sexual scenes added absolutely nothing to the narrative except unnecessary length. With such a rich history to explore, the author should not have resorted to the use of such devices to maintain interest. Rather than achieve that goal, it distracted the reader from the importance of the historic thread of events. It was just too easy to predict the lifestyle and events which would befall each of the book's participants depriving the reader of any mystery, whatsoever.
Following on the heels of “Fall Of Giants”, this second installment of The Century Trilogy, picks up where the first left off. Hitler is rising to power and life in Europe is marching lockstep toward Fascism with communism and Stalin's totalitarian government close behind. It covers war torn Europe until shortly after Russia’s acquisition of the atom bomb and the beginning of the Cold War. Aside from containing the faults of the first, being a little too long and having too many characters to follow along comfortably, this was also too contrived and contained little of the positive qualities of the first which was an interesting and engaging story. Although the history was interesting and was well researched and developed, even when, at times, there was a passing of many years which seemed to slide by unnoticed, the story itself was completely unsurprising and the characters were too artificial, placed in circumstances that defied reality.
Perhaps, to move the story along and connect the same five families from the first book: the Williams, the Fitzherberts, the Dewars, and the two Peshkov families, the author simply used too many convenient coincidences and so was unable to maintain a sense of reality for this reader. Each of the families experienced an unwanted pregnancy, either from rape or lust or simply poor judgment, followed by the birth of an illegitimate child who was either brought up in secret or well loved. Brutality, injustice, and loss afflicted them all. At the same time, concurrently, the older generation each had an offspring that ascended into the hierarchy of the government and became influential. Each served their country either as a volunteer or in the armed forces. Although many of the political systems were at odds with each other, i.e, Socialism, Capitalism, Communism and Fascism, the particular goals of the characters, no matter which country they represented, were the same; love of their country and nationalism were at the forefront. Each believed they were helping to create a better world, although some were terribly misguided in their efforts and purpose.
The development of the characters could have been more detailed and diverse, so that each family’s life that was explored was unique, rather than almost a carbon copy of another’s. They came from different countries; all of the young men were in the service of their country, regardless of their political preference; they were capable of being compromised, they were sometimes naïve, and yes, they all seemed to feel it was okay to make a woman pregnant and ignore her plight as if they were not involved; yet each family's story could have easily been substituted for the other's, without skipping a beat, just by changing the names and locations, so similar were the paths each traveled. How could each of the families, the English, Welsh, German, American and Russian, all suffer the same exigencies of life, without the story descending into something rather arduous to read because of its redundancy?
The history being covered was so rich with information that I was struck by the inclusion of trivial subject matter and superfluous family themes. It was simply too repetitive, too trite and each outcome, each action of a character was simply too foreseeable. There was hardly anything left to the imagination. As you turned each page you almost always knew what to expect and what would happen. The characters were related in so many contrived ways: Although he didn’t know it for most of his life, Welshman Lloyd Williams was half brother to Englishman Boy Fitzherbert. Lloyd became second husband to American Daisy Peshkov. Boy was her first husband. Lloyd's mother, once a housemaid, was made pregnant by Earl Fitzherbert, Boy’s father. She was disowned by her family, bore the child and moved to London where she married Bernie Williams, a Jew and a Socialist. She is now a member of Parliament. Both her brother Billy and son Lloyd, enter government service as does Woody Dewar, son of a Senator, Gus Dewar who also met the Russian Peshkov's brothers, Lev and Grigori, when they were young boys in Russia. The Earl’s wife, Bea, and her brother, were responsible for the execution of their parents.
Lloyd Williams did undercover work rescuing those trapped behind enemy lines, and also ran successfully for Parliament like his mother Ethel. Maude Fitzherbert, sister of the Earl, secretly marries German, Walter von Ulrich, with Ethel Williams, Lloyd’s mom, as witness. She like Ethel was disowned. She moves to Germany where she has two children, Erik and Carla. Erik is first a Nazi and then a Communist. Maude and her daughter Carla, disillusioned by Nazism, steal secrets from a German officer to sabotage Hitler’s rise and conquests. Ada, the von Ulrich’s maid, and Carla’s friend Frieda, both had a relative who was murdered by the Germans for being mentally deficient. Carla marries Frieda’s brother Werner Franck. He was in the underground working to overthrow Hitler. Although she is very young, she adopts a Jewish child, Rebecca, whom she "miraculously” rescues from a German camp along with Hannelore, the wife of a Jewish doctor, Issac Rothmann, whom she had befriended and for whom she secretly worked and brought stolen supplies, after he was prohibited from practicing medicine any longer. Daisy Peshkov is also related to the Communist Russian Peshkov family. Her half brother, Greg, the illegitimate son of Lev and Marga, is a capitalist. He knows Lloyd, her husband. They met during the war. Lloyd and the Earl were in the same regiment in the service. Her mother, Olga, also, was pregnant before she married Lev who was her chauffeur. Her Russian cousin Vladimir, (Volodya Peshkov), illegitimate son of Lev, works undercover as a spy for Russia. Greg was involved with the group who developed the atom bomb. Volodya’s wife, Zoya, is a scientist who worked on the Russian bomb. Volodya's sister is married to a brutal member of the secret police, who arrests Zoya, Volodya’s wife, to force Volodya to turn a scientist who worked on The Manhattan Project into a spy, in order to steal the secret of the bomb from America.
Carla has an illegitimate child resulting from being raped by Russian soldiers when they conquered Germany. Boy would have had illegitimate children like his father, but he was infertile from the mumps. Ethel Williams had the illegitimate child of Earl Fitzherbert. Grigori Peshkov takes care of his brother Lev’s illegitimate child, and he raises Volodya as his own, marrying his brother’s pregnant girlfriend Katrina, when Lev runs away to America to escape a murder charge. Daisy was conceived before marriage and would have been illegitimate had her mother not married Lev, who had been her chauffeur. Daisy’s brother has a secret illegitimate son, Georgy, with Jacky Jakes, (her stage name), a young black teen, hired by his father to destroy Dave Rouzrokh, a man he competes with, by creating a sex scandal, falsely accusing him of her rape; Woody falls in love with that man’s daughter, Joanne. She is killed during the attack on Pearl Harbor. Woody Dewar’s brother Chuck is gay and his sweetheart is Eddie. Chuck is killed during the war. Boy is killed in the fighting in Russia. Every social issue raises its head in this book with every social disgrace sharing the page with honorable behavior. With all of this confusing, highly coincidental information, is it any wonder the story became tedious?
On the positive side, “Winter of the World” certainly shed light on the system of espionage and the acts of betrayal by citizens of a country, often considered treason or allegiance, depending on which way the war went and who was to be the victor or the vanquished. The study of the character and courage of those who sought to defeat Hitler and even Stalin, often at great peril to themselves, was an emotional journey for the reader. Often, hero or villain was determined simply by circumstance of time and place. A man sharing secrets with Russia, to prevent America from becoming dominant, thought he was being patriotic, thought he was saving the world from further death and destruction. Yet he was betraying America and was a traitor. The man betraying his country, Germany, so Russia could defeat Hitler, became a heroic figure, although he, too, was betraying his own country and committing treason. The problem with the book was that these moments of true bravery or cowardice were surrounded by circumstances that required the reader to suspend disbelief in order to feel genuine sympathy and/or respect for the character’s behavior in such a situation. The events were simply not always credible in the way they played out, and often they were too easy to anticipate in advance. The characters were naïve, and although, at times, for obvious reasons, as in Russia, where the citizens were kept ignorant, often they were simply too immature or headstrong and behaved in a ridiculous manner. Perhaps the frenzy that possessed Boy Fitzherbert and Daisy Peshkov was typical, but their presentation was simply not authentic.
In the next book, for sure, each of these characters or their progeny will return to end the trilogy, and each will probably suffer the same fates as their counterparts, over and over again. I was surprised that the author did not mention Israel, although he was discussing the important events of the century. It was completely omitted in the second book, although it goes to the end of 1949. Israel was created in 1948 with war immediately following, which is consistent with the themes in the book. Perhaps it will be a new thread that is picked up in the third and final piece of the trilogy.

The reader of this book did a commendable job. The story, narrated by Nora, is about her life and her death. It begins with the friendship of two young, naive girls, Nora and Grace, who are bound together on a path of self-destruction, making bad choices, harboring foolish guilt, bearing misguided shame and clueless about the ways of the real world. The results are devastating. Perhaps, in the end, the reader might think there is hope for one of the characters, but basically, these are unhappy people looking for love and acceptance wherever they can find it, and then they discover themselves to be unhappy with what they find.

When Nora was 12 years old, the winds of war were blowing and her mother sent her to live in the countryside to protect her. It was believed that London was going to be bombarded soon with dreadful consequences. The River’s family had volunteered to take an evacuee, and young Grace Rivers chose Nora out of the crowd of children. Mr. Rivers was the rector of a church and spent most of his time there or writing sermons. Mrs. Rivers loved to garden and play the piano. The two rarely came together to interact.

Nora is amazed with their home and the garden with its profusion and scent of flowers, notably the roses. Flowers were extravagant and were never part of her life before. Nora was not from an affluent home. Grace had been away at school, but now she had to remain at home and the two were homeschooled by Reverend Rivers. Grace hated school and Nora loved it, drinking in all the learning she could, educating herself about things she had never known and learning to speak properly. She loved her “new home”. Grace and Nora became like sisters to each other, but to Nora, the relationship was deeper. She realized she loved Grace as other women loved men. She knew it was against her religion and Nora fought her feelings, but as time went by, she began to accept it, but kept her feelings secret for fear of losing Grace.

When the attacks on London proved to be less than expected and children were returned to their homes, Nora chose to stay with the Rivers family, rejecting her own mother. It was three long years before her mom was able to visit, and by that time, their relationship had changed. Nora had moved on, speaking differently and behaving differently, and her mom had stayed the same. She was ashamed of her, her poverty and her backwardness. She forgot all about the deep love her mother had for her. Later on, when her mom was killed in a bombing raid, she also finds out that the Reverend Rivers is harboring very improper feelings toward her, and also, she discovers that she is a replacement child for a child they have lost, Grace’s twin. She is ashamed of the Reverend’s behavior toward her, and she is filled with remorse about her feelings toward her mom. She decides to run away. When Grace discovers her plan and threatens to expose it, she allows her to go with her to London. The escape is haphazard and not thought out well. It is from that point that the plot becomes a bit unbelievable. I know the times were different, I know children were more mature at a younger age, but these girls were unusually naïve, perhaps it was the effect of being raised in a church environment for Grace, but what was Nora’s excuse? She was raised in an urban area where life was “mean”. Was she so blinded by her love for Grace that she couldn’t think straight? Her character is developed as a bright young girl yet she becomes a befuddled fool at times, acting only in anger. Since the exact age of Grace and Nora is not always clear at any of these moments of trauma, I am uncertain as to whether or not the behavior is appropriate.

Once in London, the girls are caught unawares. They are on the street with nowhere to go and are woefully unprepared for the state of the damaged city, the rationing and the decadence, but mostly, of their own fears. When they are befriended by a strange man, Nora’s better judgment pulls the more eager Grace away from him. When, in anger, she leaves her behind, running helter-skelter through the streets, they somehow find each other and oddly enough, they also find the man again, Bernard, and he offers them a place to stay. It is at this point that the reader will probably have to suspend disbelief, because otherwise the story might not be credible. Grace is overwhelmed and flattered by Bernard’s attention and wants to go to his apartment, but Nora does not trust his motives. However, they do accept his offer, for what other choice did they have?

Before long, Nora is jealous of Bernard’s attention to Grace and of Grace’s feelings toward him. When she investigates the boxes in the apartment they are supposedly watching for Bernard, she discovers that he is dealing in contraband, ration books, sugar, irons, and other things in short supply. She warns Grace about him, but Grace thinks Nora is merely jealous because he chose her first. Soon Grace finds herself in a compromised state and discovers Bernard is married with children. Not wanting to jeopardize her relationship with him, she doesn’t reveal she is pregnant, and instead, with Nora’s help, an illegal abortion is arranged for her. The story descends rapidly from this point into one of self-destruction for both girls.

Eventually, though, Nora moves on with her life and marries George, a man who is wheelchair bound. He owns a bookstore, and he mentors her so that she can run it on her own one day. When she is older, ill and no longer able to handle the work, she sells it to Steven, who becomes one of her only friends. She is carrying a terrible secret and the guilt and the shame has made her fearful of all close relationships. However, one day, as she sits looking out of her window, she spies a young girl just staring into space. She sees her often and realizes that the girl is pregnant and probably alone. She is drawn to her and contrary to all she has done in the past, she ventures out and takes it upon herself to try and engage her in conversation. The girl rejects her, and Nora recognizes that her reactions are very much like her own. When, suddenly, she no longer appears, Nora goes to find her. Entering her apartment, she finds her in the throes of labor. Nora has read many medical books because she herself is ill. She helps deliver the child. Then, in her loneliness, she uncharacteristically invites her to live with her. Rose is astonished and afraid but eventually is convinced since, like the Grace and Nora of long ago, she really has no other choice. She asks Nora to name the baby and she does. She names the baby Grace after the Grace she never stopped loving. As Nora cares for Rose, so does Rose, with the help of David, a nurse, care for Nora in her final days

The story is a study in contrasts. Nora’s mother smelled of cleansers and Grace’s mother of perfume. Grace’s mother lived in opulent surroundings while Nora’s mom was uncomfortable in such opulence and was impoverished. Nora was well loved, her mom was attentive, while Grace’s parents hardly noticed her and sent her to boarding school. Nora’s mom was single and Grace’s parents might as well have been, since they hardly interacted. Nora’s mom sent her away to protect her while Rose’s mom sent her away because she was ashamed of her and wanted her to have an abortion. Grace couldn’t go home because her mom would never understand that she wanted an abortion, while Rose refused to have one. With Rose, Grace was providing a better home, as Grace’s family did for her. Nora seems unaware that Rose’s life is now, somewhat, mimicking hers. Grace’s family provided Nora with a better home and a chance to improve. Nora then provided Rose with a better home and a chance to improve and provide opportunity for her daughter Grace. Grace’s twin sister dies in the presence of Grace and Grace dies in the presence of her symbolic sister, Nora. Both were not really the cause, but both seemed complicit. Nora was jealous of Bernard, and later, she is jealous of the nurse who cares for her when he is attentive to Rose. The themes consistently circle each other.

The themes of secrets, along with unrequited live, unfulfilled expectations, and the quest for forgiveness, run throughout the novel. Bernard had secrets, Grace had secrets, the Rivers had secrets and Nora had secrets. The imagery, of the name Rose and the name Grace, recurs throughout the book. While Rose was Nora’s salvation and roses were happy memories for her, the rose itself, for Rose, was an unhappy reminder of her mother’s rejection. More contrasts continue to occur. Nora was treated terribly in the medical facility when she went to find out what was wrong with her, but now that she was dying, the doctor who came was kind and the system helped her with her pain and suffering. Nora believed that her pain was retribution for her sins, rather than being forgiven for them by divine grace. Finally, Nora begins to see that she is creating Rose in her own unhappy image, and confession becomes a theme. She decides to tell Rose all about her secrets before she dies, much as she would have told a priest. In the end, she extracts a promise from Rose, which is probably the only hopeful, possibly uplifting moment of the book!

The definitions of grace are varied. It can mean elegance of movement or as I read in one definition, the “unmerited favor of God, as manifested in the salvation of sinners and the bestowal of blessings”. It can mean to “do honor or credit to (someone or something) by one's presence".

A rose can mean many things as well. It can mean virtue, love and beauty. It also has religious meanings and there are religious themes of sin and forgiveness throughout the book.

When the story ended, many parts remained either undeveloped or unresolved. For instance, did Mr. or Mrs. Rivers attempt to find the girls after they ran away? What happened after Nora left Bernard’s apartment? Why was no connection made of Nora’s part in Grace’s abortion and Grace’s birth? These are just some of the questions the reader will ponder when they turn the last page.

In the introduction to the audio, the author reveals that some of the book has been redacted by the CIA. He doesn’t believe there is any reason for this, the CIA has no jurisdiction once the FBI has approved it, which they did, but still, they have made requested changes. He does not believe there are any secrets revealed in the book, but allowed the redacting so the book could be published on time. He has vowed to fight back and restore the book to its original state.

Born in Beirut, Lebanon, he was proud to be an American. Because he was brought up in a war torn country, he appreciated his life in America. When he interviewed for the job with the FBI, it was in response to a dare, but once he passed the interviews and exams, he decided he really did want to join. It excited him to be able to work to protect America. Admirably, he wanted to give something back to the country that had given him so much. Fluent in Arabic, he is perfect for the job. He began working there in 1998. His Middle Eastern background, and his assertiveness, helped him rise through the ranks and move ahead within the departments he was involved.

Soufan’s command of the Arabic language and his familiarity and understanding of the Koran was sometimes better than that of the prisoners he questioned. He believed that knowledge was key in questioning anyone, and he was often able to persuade those captured to confess when he was able to prove their beliefs, especially relating to Islam and the Koran, were inaccurate. He outsmarted many with his expertise. He did not believe in enhanced interrogation techniques or rendition, and according to his perception of events, he illustrates its failures. Many of his statements of fact seemed, indeed, however, to be a matter of opinion since there two distinctly diverse opinions exist about many of the events he describes.

Soufan provides information on several investigations, among which are the Kohl, 9/11, and Abu Ghraib and Bin Laden. He informs the reader about the background of many members of Al Quaeda, revealing their personalities and how they got to their positions and involvement in the organization, migrating over from the Mujahedeen. He also describes the personalities of the people he worked with in the FBI. Sometimes it felt to me like they had a good old boy group mentality; they “protected the herd”.

When describing his many investigations, he reveals the lack of cooperation existing in the government organizations with oversight. The CIA would not share information with the FBI, the ambassador to Yemen, Bodine, inhibited the investigation, being more concerned with protecting the Yemeni opinion and reaction to the United States, than with helping to capture terrorists and bringing those involved in the Kohl attack to justice.

The disorganization and lack of cooperation among the higher-ups in the CIA, the State Department, the FBI, and also the roadblocks set up by the ambassador to Yemen disrupted the investigations, and it is implied, perhaps led to the bombing of the World Trade Center. Had the information been shared, they might have been able to connect the dots and the outcome might have been different, not only for that attack, but for others as well. They were aware of many of the planners who implemented the process and also of many of those involved in the actual deeds. Had politics not played such a large role in many of the investigations, some alleged and/or suspected terrorist attacks might have been avoided.

There is a lot of information provided that I was not aware of and some that I cannot be certain was true. I wondered if some viewpoints and/or opinions given as facts, depended on political proclivities. It certainly sounded, at times, like the White House was at fault for many of the delays in the investigation and that may have led to unnecessary deaths. However, the author seems to lean left and does not seem to judge the left and right equally with regard to terrorism and its tactics. Also, for the most part, he blames everyone for all the failures except for the FBI, the agency for which he worked.

The book, as an audio, seemed too long and too detailed. The myriad names were confusing. The redacted and blank parts were enormously distracting and tedious, and quite frankly, annoying. Listening to words that literally said, blank said blank to blank, was meaningless. It could have been a really good book, but instead, it became mediocre. Perhaps they shouldn’t have rushed to publication, perhaps they should republish when they can get rid of the blank told this and the blank said this in blank location and provide the reader with real facts instead of blank ones.

My granddaughter asked me to read this and discuss it with her. She loved it. It is a supernatural YA novel, containing some violence and some tenderness. It is very imaginative and creative with unexpected twists and turns. There are subtleties that might not be obvious to some young readers. The Hollowgasts are the enemy of the “Peculiars”. This is a term similar in pronunciation (especially in the audio book), to another word about a true horror story. The term Hollowgasts sounds ominously like the term Holocaust, which was taking place at the time Jacob Portman’s grandfather, Abe, was in the Home For Peculiar Children on Cairnholm Isle, a fictional island in Wales. One word described an enemy trying to get rid of all Peculiars and the other an enemy trying to rid the world of Jews. The comparison of the two words could lead to an educational discussion. Both words are about evil. Another discussion point could be that in life, as on Cairnholm, people are often judged or misjudged, perhaps unfairly, by the things they do and the way they look

In the audio, an absolutely fantastic reader, with a voice full of the excitement, emotion and fear experienced by Jacob, will lead you on Jacob’s journey. In the hard copy, unusual vivid pictures accompany the narrative, which truly enhance the tale. So suspend disbelief, and enjoy this sometimes brutal, but also compassionate fairytale. It is about Jacob’s love for his grandfather which leads him to fulfill Abe’s dying wish, even at great peril to himself.

Jacob was born in and lived in Florida. His grandfather, Abraham Portman, had been born in Poland. Although Abe kept his distance from others, those two had a strong bond. Jacob’s grandfather used to tell him amazing stories, accompanied by old photos to back up the odd details about a group of unusual orphans. During WWII, Abe was one of them. When Jacob told his grandfather that he no longer believed in his “fairy” stories, that he had grown out of the fables he had told him, his grandfather stopped telling them. He was unable to understand why his grandfather had told him the stories as if they were true, when they were obviously not! His father told him that they weren’t lies but exaggerations of his grandfather’s horrible life as a child. Yet his grandfather’s memories of his childhood were happy ones. Jacob had been told that at the age of 12, because of WWII, his parents had sent Abe, a Jew, to England, in order to protect him from the horrors of the war, but was that the end of Abe and Jacob’s story or just the beginning?

One day, Jacob received a call from his grandfather who was desperately looking for a key to his stockpile of weapons. He believed he was being chased by monsters who were his enemies. The key had been hidden from him because he was beginning to show signs of dementia. Jacob, and his best friend Ricky, went to check on his grandfather. When found, he was severely wounded. Abe’s last words, whispered to Jacob, told him to “go to the island, here it is not safe. Find the bird in the loop on the other side of the old man’s grave, September 3, 1940…”. The message is cryptic and Jacob is confused. In the distance, his flashlight shone on something in the woods that was “a face transplanted from the nightmares of his childhood”. However, no one believed his story about Abe and what he saw, not even his best friend.

At his surpise 16th birthday, his aunt brought him a gift. It was one of his grandfather’s books which had an inscription to Jacob. Within it was a letter addressed to his granddad from Alma Peregrine, the headmistress of the orphanage on the island of Cairnholm, Wales, where his grandfather had lived. Inspired by the letter and his grandfather’s whispered message as he lay dying, he convinced his family to let him go to Cairnholm to learn more about Abe’s life. His father, an ornithologist, goes with him to investigate the birds on the island for a book he is writing. The island is remote and has few creature comforts, but for the first time, Jacob has a dreamless night of sleep, free of nightmares.

From here, the story takes off into a realm of the imagination. On his first exploration of the island, he finds the orphanage completely abandoned and damaged beyond repair. He begins to investigate the background of the home and he goes to the museum curator to find out more about it. He learns his granddad was the only survivor of a bombing that destroyed it. Then one night, a “peregrine” falcon flies into his bedroom, and he decides to return to the dilapidated home to investigate it again. On his way to the orphan’s home, it begins to rain, and symbolically, he remembers that his mom used to call the rain, “orphan’s tears”.

Once there, he hears the voice of a girl, and he discovers she has peculiar talents. She is one of the Peculiars his grandfather had told him about. Thus begins Jacob’s fantastic journey to discover the secrets of his grandfather’s message and life. He learns about strange and dangerous creatures called Wights and Hollowgasts. They are the enemies of the Peculiars. He discovers a world, inside the “loop” where the Peculiars can live safely, as long as they relive the same day, 09/03/40, over and over again. No one ages there; time stops. Jacob finds he can enter that time and experience what his grandfather did in the world of the Peculiars and Ymbrynes. They each have unique special powers. When the Peculiars have to escape the island, and begin again, in search of another loop, within which they can live safely, time begins to move forward. They leave the island on their journey of discovery, on 09/04/40. It is no longer 09/03/40. As he discovers the truth about his grandfather and his life, he will have to decide where his own life will lead him, from here on in.

An interesting comparison of the characters Jacob and Abe, is that Jacob leaves his home to explore Cairnholm Isle, at about the same age his grandfather leaves his home in Cairnholm to fight in WWII. In a sense, it is a coming of age novel for both young men. They discovered their true purpose in life at about the same chronological age, in two different periods of time. While this book has been viewed as a crossover by many, I think it is more geared to YA than Adult. There are some sophisticated themes, but the writing felt too simplistic to crossover completely. There is a sequel to this book and it promises to be equally as exciting. I know my granddaughter is holding her breath for it!

This author used words exceedingly well to subtly encourage the reader to think of comparisons to other events, real and imaginary. For example:

Hollowgast=empty, A Hollow is a fallen spirit that is born from a regular spirit (plus) that has lingered in the living world after death too long, also means to frighten.

Holocaust=The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime. Many others were murdered as well.

Cairnholm=island memorial

Wight is a creature, a human being, in some definitions, one raised from the dead. In recent books, it has been used to define the undead. In the book, the wights lure the victims to the hollowgasts. One hollowgast is compared to the real Jeffrey Dahmer, the serial killer.

Ymbryne= Ymbryne:- According to author, a lapse in time. In Shelfari, the definition is an Anglo-Saxon compound word “ymb”, meaning time, and “ryne”, meaning a course or circuit.

This sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes uplifting tale of tragedy and triumph, mistakes and redemption, is narrated by Theo Decker. It begins with a glowing description of his mother, Audrey Decker, an art historian. Both are on their way to a conference to discuss Theo’s recent suspension from school. He breaks rules with abandon, even though he knows the consequences for him and his mom could be dire. The book could be described as a memoir of Theo’s life, if Theo was real, and indeed, Theo does become real with the expert pen of the author. This book lends itself to the audio version since the reader was accomplished at using accents and tones of voice which perfectly fit each character. The author’s characters are very authentic, more so because of the talented reader, and are beautifully drawn by their dialogue and descriptions. Some books follow a single thread to their conclusion, but this one, follows many and requires the reader’s complete attention. It is an experience that is well worth the effort.
The book takes the reader on a tour of the international art world, its dealers and its thieves, exposing its dangers as well as its beauty. It illuminates the human frailties flawed human beings are heir to and does it remarkably well. The paintings, often described, offer a primer on art for the reader. The author examines the shallowness of the wealthy, the corruption of the dishonest and the foolishness of the irresponsible and immature with a clarity that brings it home. The descriptions put the reader in whatever place Theo finds himself and then witnesses his reality in which right and wrong take on different meanings depending on the circumstances. Although very long, and sometimes overly tedious with details, it is an absolutely marvelous book to read and ponder afterwards. What is happiness? How is it attained? How will we know when we achieve it? Is it the same for everyone? Is every good deed punished in the end?
Theo and his mother are waylaid on their way to the school conference because of a sudden storm. They race into the museum to wait for the rain to stop and Audrey Decker shows her son Theo her favorite painting, “The Goldfinch\". It is a “350-year-old, 13-by-9-inch painting by the artist, Carel Fabritius”. Studying the painting, near them, is an elderly man who is accompanied by a young girl (Pippa), who catches Theo’s eye. Because he is entranced by her, he does not go with his mom when she leaves to view the rest of the exhibition and to make a purchase in the shop for him. Instead, they make arrangements to meet up in a short time. Their plans are thwarted, when without warning an explosion rocks the building. Theo, confused and alone, stumbles upon, and comforts, the elderly man he had just seen. When the man tells him to take the painting, Theo, who is in a dazed state, simply follows his command and removes \"The Goldfinch\" from its frame, taking it with him when he leaves.
Thus begins Theo’s story, from the time of the attack that changed his life, to the time he finally comes of age, albeit as an adult, and understands the errors of his ways and the meaning of his life. The little bird, the goldfinch, was shackled in the painting, doomed to be attached to its perch forever. In many ways, for years, Theo’s life was irrevocably tied and attached to the fate of the painting he removed on that tragic day, the day he experienced the terrible loss of the mother he adored. All of his future actions were influenced by that trauma. The ensuing havoc and horror of the destruction and death were described in graphic and realistic detail. The author captured the violence of the explosion, the confusion of the aftermath and the consequences of its effects, perfectly, with drama and considerable tension.
As the survivor, 13 year-old Theo blames himself for his mother’s death. After all, they would not have been in the museum were it not for his problems at school. Terrified of being in a foster home, shunted from one place to another, he reaches out to a school friend, Andy Barbur, and the social worker arranges for the Barbur family to care for him temporarily.
The injured old man, who told him to take the painting, also gave him his ring and asked him to bring it to a place called Blackwell and Hobart. When he returns it, he meets the old man\'s business partner, Hobie, and also the girl he was attracted to in the museum, the elderly man’s companion, convalescing there from her injuries. He visits with Pippa awhile, becoming more and more attracted to her. Hobie was so touched by the return of his dear friend Woody’s ring that he told Theo he would always be there for him if he needed help.
Eventually, the father who had abandoned him and his mom, turns up and takes him to live in Las Vegas. He has ulterior motives for taking him back into his custody, but Theo is unaware of them until he is asked to lie to the trustee, asking him to give his father a large amount of cash from his mother’s legacy. His father is still a gambler and a drinker and he is in deep debt. While living in Nevada, Theo meets Boris, a rather questionable character who offers him friendship. Boris has some strange ideas about life concerning what is allowed and what is forbidden. Already on a path of dubious ethical behavior, he is led down a steeper path by Boris, who broadens his debauchery with drugs, alcohol, cutting school and petty theft.
With the sudden death of his father, Theo decides to run away to NYC, not wanting to be caught up, once again, in the morass of social services for the social workers are surely coming. Boris does not want to go with him, so he runs off alone, without thinking, and with no other place to go, winds up back at Blackwell and Hobart. There he re-encounters Pippa, and although unattainable, he remains smitten by her for years. Hobie takes him in and is happy to offer any assistance he can. He offers him a far better atmosphere of moral behavior, honor and loyalty than he had ever experienced before. As the years pass, he becomes his apprentice and then his partner. The business thrives. Unfortunately, Theo’s wayward ways follow him and he often confuses what is right from wrong in an attempt to solve his problems. He excuses his acts of betrayal by his need to make things right. For him, the means justify the ends, even when they push the envelope beyond its legal limit.
In the meantime, still in possession of the painting, he hides it in a storage facility and pretty much puts it out of his mind. Although he wants to return it, He doesn’t know how to proceed. He fears retribution and prison for taking it, in the first place, and is unable to decide what to do with it. Eventually, the decision will be taken out of his hands. From the time of his mother’s , until the time he comes to understand how and why he has floundered about, Theo and the painting are inextricably bound together. He is on a roller-coaster of confusion and uncertainty, often obsessively seeking what he can’t have and finding little satisfaction in what he attains. We bear witness to his world full of death and sadness, destruction and disappointment, unrequited love and unattainable desires.
Dostoevsky’s “The Idiot” is mentioned in the book, and like Prince Myshkin, Theo’s development is altered by the trauma of events in his life, and he too, is immature, eventually abandoning his good intentions for foolish ones because he is unable to make mature moral judgments. How will life work out for Theo?

Dr. Moreno has designed a diet for all occasions and all people. He has addressed every contingency such as culture, holidays, family, age, gender and health. He wants to persuade the reader to have a healthier lifestyle, to choose healthier food options and to exercise to increase metabolism and weight loss, encouraging the beneficial effects to overall health. He offers the dieter advice on minerals and supplements required by the body for optimal health. He emphasizes the use of lean protein, low sugar fruits, healthy vegetables and whole grains. Skipping meals is not an option; eating every three hours is the regimen. There are three meals and two snacks a day, in addition to 64 ounces of water which does not include coffee, tea or sugar free drinks. He strongly advises the dieter to drink green tea which burns fat, and he even allows coffee which he says speeds up the metabolism. He strongly recommends whey powder, probiotics, green tea powder, and sufficient fiber in the diet. If desired, he even has an optional transitional day fast consisting of liquids he suggests and even offers recipes for his smoothies. He attempts to give the dieter the confidence to succeed.
His diet is based on the number 17. There are 17 minute exercises tips, 17 ways to burn calories, 17 ways to condition the body and 17 day diet cycles labeled accelerate, activate, achieve and arrive. With each cycle, additional foods are added and additional skills are learned, such as portion control and exercise methods.
Dr. Moreno gives advice on how to avoid stress and stresses exercise as a benefit to health, weight loss and well being. He offers advice on how to reduce the troublesome spots of your body that weight loss often does not address. He offers advice on supplements to aid weight loss and spot reduction. He treats the whole body and mind in this book and encourages weight loss with his upbeat, yet realistic, attitude about a subject that is often an uphill battle for many who need to drop some pounds. When one patient lost her walking partner and slipped back into an unhealthy state, he became her walking partner. He is an active partner in the effort of his patients to lose weight.
At the end of the book there are questions from real people about specific issues they have to deal with and he responds. Some questions will be exactly what the reader needs to know.
Menus are offered for people in different cultures, with different health needs and with different likes and dislikes. There are suggestions for dining out so failure is never an option. He advises on dealing with family and holidays so they don’t sabotage your efforts.
At the end of the first three cycles, the final cycle allows weekend cheating, in moderation. That seems like a wonderful reward and an inspiration to keep the healthy lifestyle, long term. If the dieter can manage this diet, it appears to be oriented toward success. It encourages good habits, self control and healthy food choices. Sugar and fat are eliminated, healthy carbohydrates are added. In the end, he attempts to teach the dieter how to maintain the desired weight by maintaining the diet for life with occasional days when cheating is allowed.
The diet book went a bit over the top for me when it was suggested that marriage prospects and finances would also improve with this 17 day diet. There are many diets out there that are similar, but this is designed for quick weight loss and long term maintenance.

This is the true story of Dalia, a Bulgarian Jew, and Bashir, a Palestinian Arab. Both were uprooted from their homes for different, but related reasons; one was uprooted because of the Holocaust in Europe and the other because of the founding of the state of Israel which resulted from the heinous acts committed against Jews during the Holocaust. It must be mentioned here that the Arabs of Palestine supported Hitler and his Holocaust. They had a common enemy: Jews and Great Britain.
Both people claimed the same land, Israel, only known by that name since 1948, when it was given to the Jews by a United Nations declaration. However, since the ownership of that land is now and has always been disputed, war is never-ending and fear is a constant companion for all sides considered.
Dalia and Bashir meet in 1967, when Bashir knocks on the door of her home only months after the Arab defeat in the 6-day war, just one of a series of violent acts toward the newly formed country since its inception. He asks to see the place he used to call his home, and she graciously grants that wish to him and his two friends who illegally traveled into Israel from their place of exile in the Arab territory. Over the ensuing years, they both become what I shall call frenemies, since they are both driven by different motives and goals, but both also inspiring a feeling of friendship for each other and a concern for each other’s plight. Their needs and solutions pit them squarely in a fight against each other on the playing field that is Israel.
Dalia seeks a solution that will require sacrifice by all parties involved, because she believes it could bring peace to the Middle East. Bashir seeks a solution in which Jews are driven out of their country and sent back to the place they came from. He will not tolerate any compromise regarding the land or the Jews who recently emigrated to his country.
Through their friendship, Dalia learns how her family acquired their home and how Bashir unfairly lost his when Israel commandeered it and forced the community he lived in to flee. She is sympathetic, but realizes that there is nothing she can do about it. She cannot return the home to him, she cannot even sell it to him. It is a brutal mark on Israel’s history, but the Arabs wanted to drive them out, and the newly formed Israel saw no other way to guarantee its survival other than to kill or be killed. Israelis chose survival as cruel as its implementation required.
Bashir, unwilling to compromise in any way, wants only to regain the self respect his family lost which requires them to be able to return to their home, no strings attached. In conjunction, he wants the Jews to return to their homes, not understanding that they often had no home to return to because of the Holocaust. They were not wanted anywhere. Bashir, like the Israelis, believed that any means would justify the end of achieving the right of return. Although he has never admitted it, he was arrested many times for participating in acts of violence and terrorism in Israel. Unlike Dalia, who, to be fair, does have the upper hand as an Israeli, he does not want to work through peaceful means.
The book dwells largely on the different paths each of them follow to find a solution. Dalia eventually creates a school for Arab children in their mutual former home, and Bashir becomes an Arab Freedom Fighter, involved with many violent groups and spending many years of his life in Israeli prisons for the cause of a one-state solution to the Middle East controversy..
Dalia finds it hard to understand how someone she cares about, and supposedly someone who cares about her, can want the annihilation of her people. Yet Israel is also carrying out deeds of brutality, torture and murder, as they invade lands preemptively to protect their territory and their settlers. She finds it hard to justify or understand either behavior.
While Dalia is shown in a sympathetic light, and Bashir is depicted as someone who is the product of years of Israeli abuse, there is little true causation presented that connects the deeds of each enemy toward each other. Therefore, The brutality of Israeli actions often appear to be occurring in a vacuum rather than in reaction to Arab provocation. Israel would probably not exist today had they not taken swift action against their enemies, even preemptively. Did the means justify the ends? Since the Arabs were intransigent and would not accept Israel’s right to exist, after the state was created, I, personally, believe they did.
Dalia appears to be naïve and more than just a little idealistic. Bashir is grounded in his belief that he has the right to return to his family’s land. He beieves in achieving this goal by any means possible. His children are taught that Israel is the cause of all their problems, rather than their refusal to accept Israel’s right to exist. They do not own their responsibility for some of the brutality inflicted upon their people, and they feel no guilt for causing so many unnecessary deaths No matter how hard she tries, Dalia cannot crack his stubborn façade. She believes that in friendship, if they both give up something, if they sacrifice equally, they can compromise and live together, and that this can be applied to the greater land around them, encompassing Arabs and Israelis. She, however, does understand that the right of return would negate Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.
The book’s message is over simplified. Bashir really cares more for his Palestine than he does for Dalia. His connection to terrorist behavior could as easily kill her as well as other innocent and unknown Israelis or innocent Palestinians who lives in Israel. To him, Jews are interlopers who have no right to be there and must be driven out by any means. It is a view similar to the Israeli Jew about the Arabs, sadly.
The author often referred to Bashir’s belief about a resolution guaranteeing the right of return, but this resolution does not actually exist, and the author does not clarify this point, but rather allows the reader to believe what Bashir believes. It is the interpretation of that resolution by Bashir which is incorrect and the author should present it that way. http://www.mythsandfacts.org/conflict/10/resolution-194.pdf
The groups that Bashir supports do not recognize Israel’s history or its right to exist in what they believe is only “their land”. When Jordan controlled the holy sites, Jews and Christians were forbidden access to certain places, even though the UN resolution required it. When Israel controlled them, Jerusalem was unified and religious sites were open to all.
http://www.yale.edu/accords/jerusalem.html
Throughout the Jewish history, they have been attacked just because they were Jews and were different. After a long history of exile and abuse, the Israelis are a bit paranoid, and with good reason. They are a tiny country in the midst of a huge Arab population that will not recognize their right to exist. There is not one Arab country truly willing to give Palestinian refugees sanctuary in their country, on a long term basis, with equal rights and freedoms, yet that is what the Arabs demand from the Jews they attacked the moment the state of Israel was declared.
Many Jews, like me, always believed that all reactions or hostilities, engaged in by Israel, were provoked. In reality, not all were, I learned. I discovered I know a lot about the Holocaust, but not as much about the birth and development of Israel. However, I do know that Israel reacted in its defense, to protect the country from annihilation by an enemy that did not recognize its right to exist, that thought they could wipe the people and the country from the map with impunity and suffer no consequences. When they were forced to pay for their violence, they rebelled and questioned why they were being treated so cruelly when they only, rightfully, wanted their land back.
The problem is this; it was no longer their land. Intransigence will prevent any peace. Both sides have to move to a middle ground, but Israel has no choice, if it wishes to maintain its Jewish identity, but to behave they way it did and will have to continue to do so. Those that do not understand this will wish to doom Israel to extinction. They may even hope for it, as their ultimate goal.
In the Middle East, as in other developed nations, assassinations have become more and more prevalent, as has terrorism. It is necessary to fight hard and early to survive. If two friends could not come to a single cohesive conclusion about how they could live together in peace, how can two separate peoples who desire the same country to call their own, find a pathway to peace?
Dalia could not understand how Bashir could plot to murder Israelis when she could become his victim, and yet, Bashir has become a victim of Israel’s prison system, perhaps not always fairly treated. Because time has passed since the book was published, the fluid situation in Israel has changed and it is now even more threatened by newly formed terrorist groups, by other Arab nations who have experienced the Arab Spring and by an Iran that will possibly soon acquire nuclear weapons. Who knows if there is even a plausible way out? I certainly don’t. However, the truth must be written, not for bleeding hearts, but for the real world with beating hearts for one man’s poison will become another man’s meat on another day.

This is the harrowing account of a free black man who was kidnapped. His free papers were stolen, he was viciously beaten into submission and then transported to plantations in the south as a slave. His whereabouts were unknown to any and all who could free him. The idea that any man, of any color, or any background, could be captured and penned, treated like no more than a brute animal, should have been, then and surely now, nothing short of anathema to any breathing human being. Ignorance could not be a legitimate excuse, anymore than it could have been during the Holocaust. Myself, I am at a loss to understand why an economy driven by slaves would be exalted, why greed would be elevated to heights higher than human dignity.
Man’s inhumanity to man, man’s ability to turn a blind eye to human suffering for monetary gain, will render the reader speechless and horrified. As a Jew whose history is steeped in slavery, I felt personally affected by his plight and angered to the point of distraction, because there is absolutely nothing anyone can do today to reverse the effects of the terrible injustice imposed upon people, simply because of their color. They were kept illiterate, forbidden to improve their station in life, beaten violently for the slightest infractions, by people who would not have wanted such a life for themselves or anyone they associated with, and yet, they turned a blind eye to accumulate the all-mighty dollar. Those who hated, taught their offspring to hate. Those who hated, hired overseers who hated. Those who hated often got away unscathed. Justice was usually not served for the black man. No matter how many times one reads about slavery, it is impossible to get used to the idea that human trafficking existed in this country with very little opposition, for many years, and today, still exists in other avenues of the culture.
The successful economy of the plantation depended upon slavery, but while the South flourished, the slaves did not. They worked until their deaths, without hope of freedom or any basic civil rights. In this book, there is a definitive description of the life of a slave, by a man who walked in those shoes. No man or woman could possibly begin to understand the horror of a slave’s existence, the helplessness, the shame, the humiliation, the human suffering, unless they walked in those shoes, themselves. The reader will come to understand, more fully, how cruel and barbaric the practice was and will understand why it has been so hard, for those enslaved and their descendants, to achieve success, even today.
Families were torn asunder, children were separated from mothers, husbands from wives, friends from friends, and then subjected to abuse, beatings, rape, overwork, starvation, unlivable living conditions, and brutal masters, until they were completely subdued and weakened, unable to defend themselves, unable to change their circumstances, unable to do anything but acquiesce or die.
From Solomon’s descriptions of the despicable treatment of the slaves, as if they were less than human, lower than animals in bondage, made to respond like automatons, the reader will come to understand how strong these people had to be, mentally and physically, in order to withstand so much cruelty and exploitation, in order not to succumb. One will wonder why they would even want to live under such conditions, yet they found a way to find enjoyment and pleasure in the few moments they could share together, on holidays, in evenings, in moments when they were alone. They managed to create communities for themselves, even under such horrendous circumstances. Solomon makes it a point of saying that not all masters were cruel. He often found goodness in unexpected places. He, himself, was sometimes forced to be cruel to his friends and fellow slaves, forced to lose his own humanity by joining forces with the masters in order to avoid his own abuse and beatings. His plight, during his years as a slave, when he was required to whip fellow slaves, reminded me of that of the Kapos, during the Holocaust. Kapos were prisoners who meted out the justice and punishment upon other prisoners, for their Nazi captors. Were they co-conspirators or simply saving their own skins? It is an ethical conundrum.
Perhaps not all masters were the same, but all owned their slaves and valued them more for their purchase or resale price and their productivity, rather than for their lives. Some slaves, realizing they would never be free, tried to escape. When caught, the punishment was inhuman. They were whipped beyond comprehension or murdered. Although many tried hard to please their masters, they were often caught between the petty jealousies of the master and the mistress, neither willing to understand that a slave had no choice but to do what they were told, that they had no free will. There was no safety for them. There were no defenders of their plight.
Simply reading about the beatings, often beyond human endurance, made my skin crawl, made me want to find those barbaric, immoral, insensitive savages who treated other human beings so maliciously, though they are long gone. These poor victims had no recourse whatsoever. The mercilessness of the owners and the overseers leaves the reader aghast and hoping there is an afterlife where these people do get their just desserts. They were totally selfish and cold-blooded, pitiless and callous. There are simply no adequate words to describe that blight upon our history.
The years of beatings and abuse never broke Solomon’s spirit; he saw good qualities in almost everyone he met and always maintained a positive attitude, hoping to be free again.
In this memoir, he presents a clear, concise description of slavery from a slave’s vantage point. His daily life was one of monotonous, unending labor and fear. Solomon was luckier than most. He played the violin and could entertain plantation owners, occasionally escaping the toil of his fellow slaves. He was clever and could build and repair most things, unlike the vast majority of slaves who were kept totally imprisoned by their forced life of ignorance. He was therefore, more valued. He knew of the outside world, while they knew of no other than the world of master and slave. He lived to go from his capture and captivity to freedom and his wife and family. He lived to try and see the worst of these slave traders cringe in fear, but not, unfortunately, brought to justice. Even though he was a free man in the eyes of the law, in the eyes of the world, he was still subservient, still second class. Once free, I read that he lectured on his experiences and also worked on behalf of the cause to abolish slavery and to aid other slaves seeking freedom through the Underground Railroad.
The descriptions of the cultivation and picking of the cotton and the process of planting and cutting of the sugar cane, as well as the explanation of how some of the crude equipment worked, was sometimes tedious, and that was the only drawback I could find in this beautifully written memoir, read by Louis Gossett Jr.

The book has been billed as the sequel to Pride and Prejudice, and so the saga of the Bennett family continues. However, the novel, Longbourn, really can stand on its own. It is a story that takes place during the Victorian Age, an era in which the divide between the servant and the master was unbridgeable. The lives of those who lived above stairs and those who lived below were immutably joined, and yet they were completely disconnected from each other’s. While the servants were expected to identify with the lives of their employers, for whom they worked only while they remained in their good graces, those upstairs were not in the least bit interested in the lives of those who dwelled beneath. In so far as their lives were concerned, past or future, other than the present time in which they served their employer’s needs, they did not exist. Servants were moved about like property, which is what they were, for the most part, because although not slaves, they had their particular place in the world, and it was lowly, without prospect of change. If not in the good graces of their employers, females, especially, were lost when discharged, demoted to the state of street beggar or streetwalker. Mrs. Hill’s comment, “that all the servant can do is work”, sums up their lives completely. They were forced to stand by and watch as those upstairs lived the high life, they were forced to show their devotion and appreciation for the little they received, and they were expected to subsume their own desires and dreams and assume those of their employer’s.
Back at Longbourn, the Bennets are still in residence calling the shots, the war is raging and the daughters’ marriage prospects are being worried over, in order to secure their futures. There is no male heir, or is there? As they are being married off, some family secrets are revealed as well as some family humiliations. Romances abound, upstairs and down. Ancestry, hitherto unknown, is exposed. Mrs. Hill, head housekeeper, had a more interesting life than the one, I had imagined. Sarah, a teenaged housemaid, matures and comes into her own, as an individual, finding love in unexpected places. Risks are taken and mistakes are made, above and below the stairs, but those downstairs pay the greater penalties for the same sins.
Although the world of upstairs and downstairs is like separate planets, the residents of Longbourn all had their dreams. The ladies upstairs, teenagers really, are tempted with beautiful clothes and dreams of romance, as are the young girls downstairs. Below stairs, they also toy with those same dreams, even as they are worked to the bone, with practically no hope of any prince carrying them off into the night. The downstairs is viewed as “less than” which although accepted, is very unfair. However, it is the way it was, and there was nothing to be done about it.
The class system was, and still is, a system of inequality. Yet, the servants thought of themselves as professionals, albeit trapped in their lives; they were grateful for the roof over their heads, the food in their bellies and the clothes on their backs. They wanted to be held in the good graces of their employers, behaving as confidents, dressers, maids, hairdressers, seamstresses, or, more or less, completing any odd duty they might be called upon to perform. The arrogant behavior of the upper classes, while sometimes respectful, was always condescending and sometimes demeaning and abominable. They did not view the servants as having the same basic needs as other human beings, such as themselves. They held all the power and had all the respect. The arrogance of the privileged classes over those who were in servitude was really highlighted for the reader. The tale also illustrated the horrors a soldier faced, the madness of war, the guilt and the shame for the senseless murders and atrocities committed, the hunger, the compromises of morality, the abuses of those in charge and the reactions of those threatened. It is also a tender love story between Sarah and James, particularly apt in this Valentine’s season, in which I listened to this book.
The story of Longbourn ends with almost all of the loose ends tied up neatly. Although there were times when the narrative was confusing to me, as the story went back and forth from place to place and time to time, as the author defined the characters, all of their lives eventually intertwined with clarity. The reader of the book was expressive, but sometimes her accent made some words unclear. Some of the characters seemed to be assuming important roles, but then faded away without much explanation. While I do not think this book will ever attain the status of Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice”, it was certainly an entertaining read.
Some discussion questions occurred to me as I finished. Did Mr. Bingley, the footman, ever set off on his own? Did James and Sarah’s life improve?? What became of Mr. and Mrs. Hill? Were marriages of convenience fulfilling? Does he ever inherit anything? Is there a future sequel and will the young 12-year-old housemaid, Polly, be its subject and/or the child of Sarah and James? Will James’s ancestry be further explored?

The book begins with high school junior, Park Sheridan, lamenting about a girl. Where is she? Will she come back? It ends in the same way, but with the caveat about a postcard containing three words. What are those words? This is Eleanor and Park’s story. The narrative switches back and forth from Park to Eleanor. All of the characters are easily visualized by the reader.
The time is 1986, a less sophisticated time, in Omaha, Nebraska. Life moves more slowly there. There are no cell phones in every hand, no computers on every desk; it is simpler and less complicated than the current 2014. The infractions of students do not involve guns or social media or sexting, like they do today. The internet was an unknown entity. Bullying was just as overt, but not as dangerous or deadly.
Park and Eleanor Douglas meet on the school bus when she climbs on for the first time. When the ungainly Eleanor attempts to find a seat, the students make rowdy, cruel remarks. No one wants her to sit next to them. She was new, and she was weird looking; her shabby clothes were an odd mismatched mixture. She was big, encased in a man’s shirt, wearing several necklaces, and an assortment of scarves wrapped around her wrist, and her unusually bright red hair made her stand out in a crowd. No one knows who she really is, no one knows about her background, her poverty, her reasons for looking the way she does, no one seems to care. They were all just interested in tormenting “the new girl”, bestowing unflattering epithets upon her.
When Park Sheridan first sees her, he cringes. He tries to ignore her, but the taunts of the other students and the bus driver yelling at her to find a seat, move him. Sick of how the kids are acting, he signals her to sit. She does, but reacts coldly, ungraciously. Eleanor doesn’t want to seem weak or vulnerable; she doesn’t want to be pitied by this “cool” boy who is sitting next to her, and he doesn’t want people to think they are together, so day after day, they ignore each other. Yet they share classes together, and he begins to notice her more and more. She is different from the other kids. She doesn’t seem to care about what others think about her. She thinks for herself.
Little by little, Park realizes that on their bus ride to school, Eleanor is reading the comic books over his shoulder. After awhile, he begins bringing in comic books for her to borrow, and then a headset and tapes of his favorite music. He just leaves them on the seat for her and she takes them and returns them the next day. As time goes by, they begin to talk. They laugh together. He begins to appreciate her uniqueness, rather than being ashamed of it. She begins to feel lighter, happier, because someone likes her. Slowly, she lets him learn more and more about her. He hadn’t realized how poor she was, that she had no comic books, no headset, no small luxuries at all.
Not many people live like Eleanor, and she is ashamed of her life, frightened of her stepfather and embarrassed by her looks. Gradually, as she and Park develop a friendship and grow closer, she defies her mother and sneaks out to see him at his house, She pretends to be with a girlfriend. Her mom and stepdad would never have allowed her to be with a boy. Her mom made mistakes when she was young, and she didn’t want Eleanor to repeat them.
Eleanor loves Park’s home life. It is so normal. He has loving parents, parents who are devoted to each other and to him. He is an only child. She eats dinner there often. After an initial crisis, in which Park’s Korean mom exhibits some blatant racism, announcing that she doesn’t’ want that “crazy white girl” in her house, Park’s home becomes her sanctuary, as his mom repents and welcomes her. Her other siblings know about her “boyfriend” from other kids in school. Jealous of her freedom and the little gifts she has been getting, they insist on sharing them in exchange for their silence. Eleanor realizes that she will eventually be caught and all hell will break loose when that happens.
Eleanor’s home life leaves a lot to be desired. She has been hurt deeply by her mom. She went along with her stepfather, Richie, allowing him to throw her out of the house for a year, and Eleanor has only just been allowed to return. She has little in the way of creature comforts or basic necessities. She has very few clothes, no toothbrush, no telephone. She lives in a tiny house with no privacy. The bathroom has no door, so she has to wash up before her stepfather comes home. It is often hard to maintain proper hygiene. Her mom puts vanilla behind her ears; it is cheaper than perfume and smells good. All five children sleep in one room, without enough beds, so several sleep on the floor. If one wets the bed, it is as if they all do! Once she had a happy home, a home where freshly baked cookies were waiting for her when she arrived home from school, a time when her beautiful mom was cheerful, but now she has to cope, not only with the bullying at school, but with a drained mom who also lives in fear of her stepfather, who is physically and verbally abusive.
At school, the students call her names like “big red’ or “raghead”. Eleanor discovers that someone is leaving foul-mouthed notes in her locker and writing obscene notes on her books. She scribbles them out to hide them from Park. She suspects that Tina, Park’s old girlfriend, is doing it because she is jealous. She tolerates all of this in silence. Finally, Park, unable to stand the way she is being taunted, defends her in a terrible fist fight with Steven, Tina's current boyfriend. He is a big bully, in stature and behavior. Park gets suspended. His dad, however, is proud of him for standing up for what he believed in, for protecting Eleanor.
One night, when Eleanor returns home, she finds her brothers and sister asleep in a room that has been ransacked. She knows she has been discovered. There is broken glass on her bed, her tapes are unraveled, her private box, which holds her few treasures, is upended and empty. There is a filthy message written across the top of it in a hand she recognizes from the notes she has gotten in school. Tina is not her enemy. She realizes how really dangerous Richie can be. Her only recourse is to leave.
She tells Park that she has to run away and explains why. She is going to her uncle’s house in Minnesota. Park offers to drive her there, and with his dad’s consent, they take off. Eleanor isn’t even sure her uncle and aunt will believe her, will take her in, but she makes Park leave before she knows the outcome of her visit. Park returns home and for the next year, she neither writes nor calls. He pines for her while Eleanor tries to put him out of her mind, believing they have no future together. They are young and from different worlds. Although her life has improved significantly at her uncle’s home where she has creature comforts, goes to summer camp and becomes a more normal young lady, the reader is left wondering, will “Romeo and Juliet’s” love survive this ordeal? Will they reunite?
This book is a primer for responsible behavior. It teaches tolerance of those who are different and compassion for those who are suffering, especially due to circumstances beyond their control. If we only concentrate on the surface of things, we only learn part of the picture. An insecure child reading this book might gain the courage to fight the fears that torment, that interfere with a healthy interaction with others, with a healthy self-image. Being different can be a positive thing, can draw people to you; stressing your creativity and individuality can make being different a gift, rather than a burden. Reading this book, bullies might see themselves in the nasty kids on the bus and at school. Perhaps looking in that mirror they will understand how cruel and mean they have been and might change their ways. One thing is certain, this book will open a door to many conversations on proper behavior and on the rewards gained from a generosity of spirit, mind and purpose. One main character is an outcast the other is the “cool” kid in school. When their love blossoms, there is a powerful lesson to be learned. The outside of a person does not tell the whole story; it is the inside that is the measure of the man.
Note: Eleanor and Park is a YA novel that I was drawn to by the cover. It shows two heads connected by dual headsets. My husband and I, married for almost half a century, walk everyday, connected by a splitter which allows our headsets to listen to books as we take our constitutional. While some make fun of us, saying I have him attached by a leash, I say we are attached by our heartstrings. When Park first saw Eleanor, he thought she was asking for the taunts, because of how she looked, how she acted, how she dressed. He was a cool guy; he wondered, is everyone laughing at them? Should he pull away from her? He overcame those feelings because he had a kind heart and spirit, he was a good kid. He could see beyond his own ego, beyond the bullying around him into his own heart and into the heart of the girl sitting next to him. I think Eleanor and Park are also attached by their heartstrings. We all need to look deeper than the outside surface of things!

This unusual book tells the story of World War II, from the perspective of a German hero, Franz Stigler, a boy who once wanted to become a priest but whose love of flying led him, instead, to become a fighter pilot, a flying ace, whose act of mercy saved the life of an American soldier. He never joined the Nazi party nor did members of his family. His brother was a suspected member of the underground. While I always knew that not all Germans were supporters of Hitler or members of the National Socialist Party, I had rarely given them the benefit of the doubt, excusing their behavior because they had no other choice. Reading this book, I realized that many Germans may have had no other choice but to obey Hitler’s edicts. To do otherwise and defy Hitler would probably have led to their own death in the same brutal way as Hitler’s other victims died, in the Concentration Camps that Hitler called work camps, retraining facilities, exemplary examples of the way a prison should treat its prisoners, but in fact they were little more than torture chambers. Still, with so vast a number of people disappearing, it still defies my imagination to believe that many Germans were unaware of something awfully wrong going on in their country. To be sure, there were noble resistance groups, and they sacrificed their own lives, hoping to save the lives of others who were being persecuted, trying to take a stand against evil and not supporting the Nazi effort simply because they were ordered to or had to or felt nationalism for their country. To me, not supporting Hitler’s policies, but supporting the war by lending an effort to fight or by turning a blind eye to the plight of his victims, was meaningless. It simply meant that if Hitler succeeded, whether or not one agreed with him, their compliance would have guaranteed his remaining in power and his hateful policies against certain people would have continued as would his heinous violence and genocide.
Reading about the bravery of the German soldiers, reading about their fears and their concerns, their losses and their suffering humanized this enemy of the past, to a far greater degree than any other recounting of the history had done for me before, but it remained hard for me to find it in my heart to empathize with those who attacked innocent people for the sake of their Fatherland, regardless of whether or not they supported the Nazis and Hitler. As I read of the plight of these people who were suffering from a lack of supplies and food, who were living in bombed out buildings, I felt little sympathy. Their plight was a result of their duly elected leader’s behavior. While others were being piled onto cattle cars and sent to their death, marched to gas chambers, humiliated by their nakedness, taunted, starved, beaten, and enslaved, terrified of what awaited them, helpless in the face of their enemies, for little more than their beliefs, not their actions, these same Germans were turning a blind eye, saving their own skins from the person they, themselves, put in power. Hitler’s reign of terror brought Germany down and the Germans were complicit, even if it was just in their silence.
Putting politics aside, the book is marvelous in what it does. It conflicts the reader often, since the traumatic events Stigler encountered as he fought for his country, watching his friends die, being shot down, losing members of his family, may cause the reader to hope this noble pilot survives, often forgetting he was the enemy of America and the Allies; he was a German pilot fighting to exalt his Fatherland, and so, while the reader may pull back a bit and rethink what he/she knows and what he/she has learned in the past., the reality of the Holocaust will often stop the reader from becoming too sympathetic to the German’s eventual suffering. They reaped what they sowed. If, perhaps, forgiveness is not possible, a greater understanding is probably more achievable. The book absolutely presents a more human side of the war from the German viewpoint; it does humanize the soldier there, exposing him to be the same as soldiers everywhere, dedicated to their fellow countrymen, dedicated to their country, loyal to their cause, but also simply frightened young men obeying orders.
As I read (I actually listened to an audio version), I tried to be more tolerant and to glimpse behind the scenes of war, to the character of the soldiers and to the landscape of their backgrounds. Some of them, soldiers and officers, were fine men, noble men of purpose who respected the rule of war and did not support Hitler’s Nazi hatred. The soldiers in the German armed forces were trained to follow orders, even when they disagreed, as they area in all countries armed forces. At one point in the narrative, the author seems to be telling the reader that the German soldier actually behaved more ethically on the field of battle, not shooting down the paratroopers as they escaped from their wrecked and burning planes, even as the Americans did that to prevent their enemy from returning to fight them another day, and actually, isn’t that what this books is really about, the life that the German soldier saved the day he did not shoot down his enemy, the kill that would have earned him his Knight’s Cross, the day he realized they were all soldiers following orders and they all deserved to live, the day he did not shoot the pilot and crew in the severely damaged plane, but saluted them and let them return to England! He could have been court-martialed. There were several instances of that kind of bravery mentioned in the book which will give the reader pause. The day that Stigler let the American survive to fight another day was never publicized by the pilot or the crew he saved. It was forbidden to speak about it for fear it would damage the morale of the pilots who might think their German counterparts would spare them. In the end, America admitted they had made a mistake in hiding this act of German bravery and the men who made it back to safety were awarded medals, sometimes posthumously, many decades later. In the mid 80’s, a series of reunions took place and as the American pilot began having nightmares of that fateful day during the war, he began to search for the German pilot. He placed ads in the serviceman’s newsletters and since both were searching for each other, and both read the same newsletter, fate brought them together so they could finally meet.
The book made it seem as if the military was a separate part of this fight, separated from the SS and Hitler’s demons. It made the German officers, who commanded the fighter pilots, out to be gentlemen who insisted that their soldiers engage in fair play towards enemy soldiers so that they would be treated as well, if they were shot down or captured. When one officer found more than 130 prisoners of war in Buchenwald, he immediately arranged for their freedom and they do owe their lives to him for they were scheduled for extermination, only a few days later. In fairness, some Germans did what they could in their own heroic way, even as they continued to fight Hitler’s war. Here-to-fore, I would not have believed that such civilized behavior would be possible from a German soldier in Hitler’s military. Hitler’s brutality knew no bounds, and I would have assumed the soldiers would follow in his footsteps. Instead, another view is presented on these pages, and if the reader can find it in his mind and heart to absorb this story and believe it, it might help to revise their overall opinion of the Germans, during that time. The soldiers felt the same camaraderie as ours did. They were nationalistic, and as they were engaged in fighting, they only heard the propaganda put out by the government, as the citizens did. To think other than that which they were force fed, was subversion, treason and it was punishable by death. There was little opportunity to fight back, because they had allowed Hitler to usurp too much power, slowly, using thugs and madmen in his effort to expand the size and scope of Germany’s influence. They loved their homeland even if they did not love Hitler. Let’s hope that no other country makes that mistake again.

“Roses” is the story of three families and their offspring, over several generations. The lives of the Tolivers, the DuMonts and the Warwicks, are intertwined for years. Even with hard times, two World Wars and a depression, they remained devoted and loyal friends. The Tolivers owned one of the largest cotton plantations; the Warwicks were successful in timber, and the DuMonts owned fashionable clothing establishments. The families had come to America (Texas), from Europe, to make their fortunes, and indeed they did.
Miles Toliver, Percy DuMont and Ollie Warwick were like brothers. Miles had a sister Mary, and both of his friends, Ollie and Percy were smitten with her. She was headstrong, independent and beautiful, and she was totally devoted to the land. Can anyone compete with the Toliver Plantation, Somerset, for her affections?
When her father died, Mary inherited the plantation to the chagrin of her brother and the humiliation of her mother. Her father believed that his wife, Darla, would sell the land and he knew that his son, Miles, had no interest in it. To preserve the plantation, he left it to the only one in the family who would work it and keep it for future generations. This action had life-changing consequences for the family, both destructive and instructive.
Mary worked the plantation, in spite of her family’s wishes that she sell it and divide the proceeds. She loved it too much, and she chose it above everything else, as her father did, when he left it to her, bypassing his wife, making her beholden to her child for her support. Mary knew how much her family was hurt by her father’s actions, but she chose to believe they would come to understand why her father did what he did and would forgive her when she made Somerset successful and paid off all of its debts.
Her brother, Miles, warned her about the Toliver curse. Childbearing was not their strength, and in each successive generation, only one child would ever survive to inherit the land. Mary refused to believe that there was a curse, and although Miles begged her to sell the land and do right by their mother, she loved the farm too much, and she could not do that, or rather, she would not. She had a choice and she made it, ignoring their shame and the anger of her family and judgment of the townspeople. She felt an obligation to fulfill her father’s wishes, to save Somerset and pay off its debts. Throughout her life, she would make prideful, compulsive decisions which would return to haunt her.
As the book developed, there were trials and tribulations, many family secrets were exposed and exacerbated by the often immature behavior of a character. Jumping to quick, emotional, conclusions, rather than well thought out, patient evaluation, often led to errors in judgment and unintended outcomes. There was a common theme of selfishness and excessive pride, recurring through the generations, so that impulsive actions were often followed by long lasting disappointment.
The Toliver women’s major shortcoming, was their excessive love of the land, compelling them to put it before meaningful human relationships. At the end of Mary’s life she regretted her youthful choices. In her will, she, like her father, unintentionally caused great pain with her final wishes. Would the curse be lifted? Would the painful choices help family issues to be finally resolved?
In the story, roses have special significance. A red rose was offered when someone needed to ask for forgiveness; if a white rose was returned, it meant their apology was accepted and they were forgiven; if a pink rose came back, forgiveness was being withheld. These flowers and colors have an important place in the story. There were several major female and male characters. They were well-developed and often infuriating in their behavioral choices, but their number often made it hard to keep them straight. I definitely needed a crib sheet with a family tree.
This is a family saga, complete with all the emotions a family experiences. There were ample examples of sadness, joy, romance, anger, love and hate, success and failure, resentment, pride, immaturity, and even brutal vengeance, but hopefully, in the end, there would be justice coupled with the disappointments. The story is about arrogance, secrets, betrayals and unrequited love. It is written well, although it is a little too long and wordy, sometimes complicated and sometimes hard to follow, requiring a bit of a look back to get the story straight.

This memoir concentrates on a piece of Kelly Corrigan’s life in which she seems to come of age. From her own description, she seems to have been a contrarian child, not eager to please her mother, far closer to, and more accepting of, her father. After graduation from college, she lived with her grandmother, saved her money and set off to travel with a friend. Unfortunately, she didn’t plan her trip well enough and soon ran out of money. She needed to work, but the only job that she could get that would pay her under the table was that of a nanny, and this was not how she saw herself.
Working for a widower, his motherless children, stepson and father-in-law, was an eye-opening experience for Kelly. She suddenly realized what a responsibility it was to be a parent, but mainly how hard it was to be a mother and how empty someone’s life could be without one. As she got to know the children and extended family, and began to interact more and more with them, she came to understand the enormity of the task. It was daunting, and she wondered if she was up to it. Suddenly, she began to appreciate all her mother had done for her and to understand why she did certain things that she once disagreed with vehemently.
Growing up, Kelly was closer to her father, and she did not particularly like her mother’s parenting skills. Her mother was a no-nonsense figure who made the rules and set the standards to be followed. Her father was the softie, the Yin to her mother’s Yang. Her mother told Kelly that her father was the glitter and she was the glue, and from that, the title was born. As Kelly began to mature into a responsible adult, she became more and more like her mother and understood the value of having both the glue and the glitter in one’s life.
Through several emotional events, Kelly seemed to work her way toward self-discovery and a greater understanding of her own life and superficial relationships. When she had to deal with life on a more serious note, when she had to operate on a more adult level, she realized how important her actions were because they had consequences which could sometimes be quite serious. She had really been immature and unaware of the intricacies of the workings of a home and a family. She took everything for granted and often made several foolish, thoughtless choices.
With this memoir, she introduced the reader to the true story of her relationship with her mom and she explored her newfound respect for her as she grew, married and had a family of her own. She discovered how much her mother meant to her, even though she was not affectionate, not demonstrative. She laid the foundation of Kelly’s parenting skills. Her mother was not a bubbly, carefree parent, although she was described that way by those with whom she worked. She had facets to her personality that Kelly never realized.
I didn’t find Kelly that likeable as a child or young adult. She seemed to want to push the envelope too much, to be defiant without giving a thought to the reactions her actions would generate. She shoplifted; she lied, often acted without thinking things through, made rash decisions, even while working as a nanny, while she was responsible for the care of minor children. She just seemed so spoiled and immature, at times, and completely self-absorbed. Most of her thoughts dwelled on anything in pants. She was always fantasizing about something sexual, and she drank too much even when it was inappropriate, forgetting that she should be on her toes since she had to care for two small children who depended on her.
I was surprised at her mother’s behavior as well. Although the dangers of smoking were well known as Kelly grew up, her mom smoked like a chimney in small, enclosed spaces, without regard for the danger she was posing to her family. They all seemed so wrapped up in themselves. I didn’t find her description of her mother’s antics to be that authentic for someone her mother’s age, but rather for someone a generation older. Women of her generation didn’t wear hair spray or sleep with satin pillows to protect their coiffure. Perhaps it would have been a more appropriate description of her grandmother.
To me this was a memoir about self discovery. As she matured and rediscovered her mother, she saw her mother in herself. She became more open to the different facets of her mother’s personality, more understanding about how her mother raised her. She seemed to have matured late and learned about true relationships and human emotions through trauma or necessity.
The memoir didn’t feel real for my world. I thought she simply took one major event and used it to jump off into a description about her learning experience about parenting and her relationship with her mom. Any event might do. It didn’t feel unique or creative. I could not identify with her or her experiences with her mom and hardly with how she felt about her children. My experience with my own daughter and her family does not parallel Kelly’s in the slightest. None of the people I know fit so neatly into any category. In the end, she discovers how much she truly cares for and emulates her mother, but I was surprised that she didn’t learn more from her experiences with the Tanner family. Rather than step into the shoes of her mother, she could have combined a bit of her father and her mother, the glitter and the glue, in the raising of her own children.

The book essentially begins in 1941. The Japanese have just bombed Pearl Harbor and a wave of nationalism sweeps the United States. In a place called Charlesport, South Carolina, like in other cities, large and small, families gather round their radios listening to the news. Eligible men and women begin to come to the defense of their country, enlisting in the armed forces.
Close friends and siblings, Juliette and Tucker Dufresne are in High School. She is shy, ashamed of a birthmark on her face. He is older, a high school senior and a football star. Tucker confides in his sister that he wishes to enlist and serve his country. This family is rather proud of his intentions, as others all over the country are proud of their sons and daughters, fathers and brothers, sisters and aunts. They have not yet witnessed the horrors to come and only experience the passion of their patriotism.

Jules and Tuck have a special secret code that they use when they need brotherly/sisterly aid or protection, like simply making up an excuse to their parents for the unexplained absence, of one of them, etc. The sibling in need sends a note saying they are with the fictional Mrs. Fan, as a signal.

When Tuck turns 18, and enlists. Jules writes everyday. Soon his letters home begin to dwindle. Finally, the family receives a letter stating that he is missing in action. They hold out hope that he will be found but are all too aware, by now, of the possibility that he will not return. Although Tuck had written Jules a letter a month before he went missing, it did not arrive until after they were notified. In his letter, he wrote that he was with Mrs. Fan, so she knew he needed help, but she had no idea how to find him, and wasn’t even sure if he was still alive.

When Jules graduated from nursing school in 1944, she was not yet 18, but because of the letter from her brother, she decided to alter her birth certificate and enlist. She wanted to try and find him; she hoped he was still alive. She went through the training and was shipped out to Europe. She requested the front so she could search for Tuck or at least find someone who knew what had happened to him. Young and immature, unprepared for what faced her, she was buoyed by her idealism.
This is a wonderful story about a brother and sister’s devotion, about family loyalty, about nationalism and also about the tribulations of war which makes all the glory pale in the face of its unexpected tragic consequences. War does not bring out the best in anyone. The author has captured, equally well, both the allure and the devastation of war. She has entered the minds of the injured soldier, the frightened in the foxholes who never envisioned what it meant to be shot at, to step on a mine, or to shoot the enemy. She shines a bright light on the bravery of the medical staff, selfless in their efforts to save their own. She has drawn a clear picture of the cruelty shown to soldiers who were “different”, in a time when homophobia was not a dirty word. She has really drawn a reasoned picture of the cruelty and futility of war coupled with its tragic, useless cost of life and limb.

I listened to this audio book using a new library app, called Hoopla. Unfortunately, there was no way to adjust the speed of the reader and that was often very distracting. It was the equivalent of watching water boil, and it took quite some time to get used to her pace.

Wow, once I started, I could not put it down. This book is excellent. I experienced Susannah’s confusion, fear, and incident by incident descent into the hell that followed the onset of her strange illness. A perfectly normal young woman, she is suddenly exhibiting some not so perfect behavior.
The idea that medicine is in its infancy, and that we are sometimes at the mercy of its incompetence, hits home. Susannah’s odd assortment of symptoms eluded all of the professionals she visited. They could not offer an accurate diagnosis. Doctors, family and friends were at a loss to explain the changes in her physical and emotional health, in her work habits and in her behavior, yet she needed their support. Luckily, she is here to tell the tale.
This book will surely raise many questions about the state of our health care system.

It is very frustrating to read about the incompetence, disorganization, and unnecessary death and suffering that was scapegoated upon the shoulders of those who gave the most and did the best they could under circumstances that were beyond their control when Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans, with a ferocity beyond anyone’s wildest expectations. Who are we to judge those who actually sacrificed themselves, during Katrina, because the rescue effort didn’t work out quite as well as we hoped or some didn’t survive that we thought should or would have. We were not in the shoes of these caregivers and rescuers. We can’t know what they were thinking or why they did whatever they did. We can’t know the pressure, the fear, the lack of ordinary necessities, the concerns for the suffering, the sounds of the gunshots that led the medical staff to make the decisions they made. What we can know is that many decisions leading to the loss of life were also made on the basis of cowardice, greed, and concerns about money, rather than on the efficacy of the plan in place.
At every turn, once the crisis was over, someone sought to blame someone else, whether it was the President, the Governor, the Mayor, the corporations, the nurses, the doctors, in essence, anything but themselves, anything but the looters, anything but those who turned a blind eye and sat in their ivory towers of safety, judging those who put their lives on the line for others, anything but those who chose, over the years, not to fix what was broken, not to insure the safety of the levies and the citizens, anything not to blame nature which was ultimately the sole cause of the tragedy. The situation in New Orleans was an accident waiting to happen, and it did.
During the storm, everything broke down. There was a complete lack of credible communication in an atmosphere of total disorganization. Rumors were the order of the day. They heard there was martial law, they heard there were snipers, they heard there was looting, they heard there would be no more rescues; they were told lies and contradictory information over and over. They lost hope. Equipment failed, the water supply dwindled and disappeared, the hygiene facilities were hopelessly lacking to serve the needs of all those in need and soon broke down, overflowed and stopped performing. Generators failed, power failed, there was no air conditioning, elevators stopped, life support machinery stopped working. Someone had to do perform the job of the machines for the many patients in need and this was exhausting work. The Memorial hospital staff was soon worn out, stretched to their limits. The Super Dome, where evacuees were sent, soon became overcrowded and dangerous. Fights broke out, looting was commonplace (and shame on those looters, on the lowlifes who took advantage of this tragedy to prey on the weak). The marauders inhibited the rescues. Some rescuers were coldhearted, randomly choosing those to be saved. It seems barbaric, in retrospect, but they were all overworked, fearful and unsure of how to exactly proceed. Efficient plans were not in place, and where they were, they were not always enforced.
Monday morning quarterbacks may decide what should or shouldn’t have been done, but they should have been there, if they wanted to pass judgment, so they could understand the decisions that were made. The witch hunt that followed the storm destroyed lives. In future emergencies, doctors and nurses, medical aides and law enforcement officers may think twice before they volunteer their services. Those that sat in judgment, those that pointed fingers were safe behind their walls and windows while the medical personnel who risked their lives to save strangers with the limited supplies that were available, were held up for extra scrutiny. Medical staff and patients alike, feared being abandoned by the system, and when fear makes the decision, it is not always the best, but it is often the most expedient.
Because communication had broken down, the staff had little accurate information and they could not reach their own families; they were terribly concerned for their own welfare, as well. Medications and necessary supplies were not delivered. When they reached out for help, they were often offered it only to find it was rescinded. Was their final solution euthanasia or compassionate medicine? Were they offering extreme comfort in extreme circumstances, or were they offering an end to the suffering, even going so far as speeding up death when a patient had no quality of life and was being tormented? If they were ordered to leave, could they simply abandon their patients or should they put them out of their misery when they were told there was no hope for their rescue. Was someone lying to them? Were they deluding themselves because of their exhaustion? The situation was alternately described as a war zone and as Dante’s Inferno, so who could blame those who eventually succumbed to the pressure.
In actuality, what the prosecutors wanted was to punish the medical staff for shortening the term of the palliative care already being administered to most of the patients who died. Palliative care does not improve the condition of the patient; it merely makes the patient comfortable. It does not extend life, it merely maintains it. We have come a long way in just a few short years since Katrina since what is the main platform of Obamacare, in order to curb costs, under the guise of making it easier for families to care for those “terminally” ill, as all old people are? It is long term palliative care, long term euthanasia. Expedience rules in extreme circumstances.
Pulitzer prize-winning author, Sheri Fink researched the history of the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain, as a prelude to the description of the tragedy of Katrina in New Orleans. Politics and the economy played a part in the ultimate tragedy. She revealed the lack of maintenance for the levies and the inadequate preparation for such a major weather event, although they had been warned over and over again of what might happen in the event of a catastrophic failure. Everyone was complicit in this massive, tragic failure, because everyone knew for years and years that the levies were weak, that they were not built to stand a catastrophic hurricane, and yet, money was never allocated, or if it was, it was never used for the repair and rebuilding of the inadequate structures, but rather diverted to other uses deemed more important or economically advisable
It turned out that the penny wise and dollar foolish attitude of the governing bodies making the decisions not to spend the money on shoring up the dams and levies, was a monumental error. Looters and darkness inhibited rescue attempts and sometimes canceled them. Those in greatest need were abandoned as triage took on a new meaning. Only the ambulatory and well would be evacuated first at Memorial. This was contradictory to all previous methods for usually the most ill and the most in need were treated first. Those with DNR’s were sacrificed even if they were not facing imminent death. There was only so much oxygen, so much medicine, so many nurses. In some cases family stayed and helped, but in the end, with martial law declared, they were forced to evacuate and leave loved ones,under armed guard. Care had to be rationed. Doctors and hospice nurses do kill people to ease their suffering and/or to ease their own. They did what was expedient. Is this what the staff did during Katrina? Is it excusable under the circumstances? Were all the victims at the end of their lives? Who has the right to decide the moment of death? The triage situation was brutal. The patients were numbered, color coded as to who was to be rescued first, who last, who not at all. Some helicopter pilots refused to take bedbound patients, some couldn’t fly at night. There were hundreds of people at the hospital. When they were rescued, they were often taken to places far afield, with no one knowing their whereabouts. It was Hell on Earth for those caught in this maelstrom.
In the end, it was also about money. Whose responsibility was it to remove the decaying bodies, who would pay the victim’s families, who would repair the homes, who would provide the resources to rebuild New Orleans, who would have the foresight to make sure that whatever repairs were made were not substandard but were superior so that this could never happen again. The names of the doctors brought up on charges are known, the names of the victims of possible euthanasia are surmised. The names of the lawyers and DA’s and Attorney Generals looking to foster their careers are all in the public record. Their names are unimportant. What is important is not pointing fingers at someone else, or seeking rewards from the devastation nature wrought. What is important is preventing nature and government and corporations and people themselves from allowing this to happen again, by avoiding the very responsibility that responsible citizens should have in maintaining their own safety and surroundings, by instead, taking on the mantle of accountability and not avoiding a personal duty to do the right thing, or vote for the people who will. George Herbert English said living well is the best revenge, that should be everyone’s motto, but not at the expense of someone else.
At the end of the book the author covered the reactions to the natural disaster in Haiti with their devastating earthquake which left thousands homeless and dead, and the devastating effects of hurricane Sandy on parts of New Jersey. The reader will decide if the response to those events shows that anything was learned from Katrina.
Written like a thriller, it is a riveting depiction of the storm and its aftermath. It is almost impossible to be prepared for all events, but, in this case, it would seem little effort was made, in advance. Even when the evacuation order was given, it was too late, it was not enforceable and it was inadequate. The people in charge were covering their derrieres and not doing what had to be done to guarantee safety.
Sheri Fink slowly develops the characters that were involved in this horrendous incident. She presents information both for and against their behavior in an unbiased, clearheaded manner. She exposes the shortcomings of the information system during the crisis. It was not dispensed in a timely fashion nor was it often correct. The doctors, nurses and patients were largely abandoned by all the services, the state, and by nature. The supplies needed were just unavailable, were in different locations or were simply in too short supply. The best laid plans of mice and men went asunder!

This is the story of a Pak Jun Do, who insists he is not an orphan, but was raised like one in an orphanage called Long Tomorrows. It was run by his father. After his mother’s disappearance, his father was very cruel to him, and he grew up believing that his father could only show his love for his mother by treating him with brutality. Perhaps the author wants to make the point that North Koreans have no separate identity other than the collective, for he gives Pak Jun Do a name without meaning. It is a name chosen for orphans from the names of government appointed martyrs; so essentially, they do not have an identity of their own. They know nothing of their own backgrounds.

Jun Do’s life passes through many incarnations from child to adult and the author takes us on the path that finally brings him to a position in the government. His life is one of duplicity. Like his name that has no meaning, his individual life is meaningless. Orphans are looked down upon by the rest of the North Korean Society and are given the lowliest of jobs, the most heinous of tasks to perform. From one moment to the next, none of the citizens can be sure that day will follow night, or that their lives will not be plucked from them. They are part of the collective being and it moves as one.

We learn that the author believes that North Koreans use convoluted reasoning to explain away their problems. The biggest example of this bizarre method of thinking is the belief in the idea that North Korea is “the most democratic nation in the world”, although they really have no way of knowing the meaning of a true democracy; another is the idea conveyed to the reader, that an example of freedom is actually not the ability to think for oneself but the elimination of the need to make one’s own decisions. Freedom for Jun Do and his fellow citizens is a life of being ordered around, told what to do, what to eat, where to work, how to live, when to sleep, how to love and how to die. They are told that there is health care for all, but there is no health care at all. They believe in the power of the “dear leader” whose only object in life is to give them all that they need. They don’t realize he takes as easily as he gives and what he gives is hardly worth the taking.

Jun Do accepts his father's rejection and ill treatment stoically and with the same twisted logic the North Koreans seem to be taught to use to explain away everything. For instance, when a parent retires, they are sent to a village where they are so happy they never write; they don’t ever again get in touch with their relatives. (It sounds kind of like our idea when a camper does not write home, but these campers are never seen or heard from again.) The citizens accept this reasoning, although they have never seen the island where they are sent to retire and live this happy life, and they have no proof of its existence. They are taught strict obedience on pain of punishment and banishment. What the loudspeakers announce is all they know and all they believe and trust. The Supreme Leader tells them this and the Supreme Leader is responsible for their well being in all his beneficence. He is always right.

When Jun Do is given to the military by his father, he moves quickly from orphan to soldier, to government worker, to kidnapper, to radio listener and transcriber on a fishing vessel, to prisoner, hero and enemy, and finally to a commander in Kim Jong Il’s government. How he gets to these places is the subject of this book and the journey is tortuous. Who is Jun Do? If the book contains any truth, he is a product of a totalitarian government ruled by a madman, a product of continual suffering, under the continuous control of a barbaric ruler. He is part of a country in which he has no individual identity he can claim as his own.

Concurrently, another story runs through the book. It is the winning story in a contest, supposedly created by a citizen who will be well rewarded for the effort. It is broadcast over the loudspeakers which disseminate propaganda all day long. It is told in short segments so the citizens eagerly look forward to the next edition of the story. It parallels the story of Jun Do from another vantage point, from the vantage point of the government of North Korea, of Kim Jong Il. It fills in the empty spaces and connects the dots for the reader. It is confusing, at times, but without it, the true impact of the story’s message would not be felt.

Life in North Korea, as described by Adam Johnson, who has only visited there briefly, is one of powerlessness, starvation, brutality and treachery. There is no rule of law except for that declared by the Supreme Leader, and that can change as the wind blows with whatever whim he may dream up next. The book is so well written, it is hard to leave it. If it only partly reveals true life in North Korea, it is still quite an expose. It may not be a non-fiction account of life in North Korea, but from what little we know of it, it pretty accurately represents the despotic regime and the tyrannical approach of the leader.

If there is even the slightest semblance of reality in the descriptions of the prisons there, they are horrific places. It is a country where torture is acceptable, propaganda is a given and truth has no bearing on reality. If the treatment of the citizens described in this book, has even a minimal amount of truth, it is a bleak window onto their horror screen of life. In North Korea, truth is simply what they are told is truth and it has no bearing or influence on the real world. A hero is a hero because they say he is. His story doesn't have to make sense. The hero depends on the man, not the tale, If the powers that be say he is a hero, the story is true and he becomes a hero. He can just as easily fall into ignominy as quickly. This is a story not only about the rise and fall of a citizen, it is about the suffering and deprivation of a whole society of people.

I found this to be a very sad story about a family falling apart because it was never bound too tightly, from the beginning. It seemed to be governed by anger and a lack of remorse for the perceived hurt they caused each other. They were cruel to each other, abusive emotionally and verbally, and on a rare occasion, physically. The book is very short, but it makes its point. The family seeks forgiveness from each other too late. Once the person dies, there is no way to find redemption. Sometimes, victory can be snatched from the jaws of defeat and a new life can be enjoyed. Sometimes, the time for opportunity passes. When is the right time to exit from a situation that is too painful to continue to live with? Is there a right time? Who decides which one is the victim and which the victimizer? Is the victim ever partially responsible for their failures because of their own behavior? Who deserves punishment? The book was depressing because, even in the end, there was little to inspire hope for a better outcome in the future.

The Middlesteins are an unhappy family filled with dysfunctional members. Each of them takes a long time to discover their own purpose in life; each searches for happiness and finds it elusive. Each seems bent on finding unhappiness instead, always getting angry about something. Did any of them ever really love each other, truly care for each other? The only one who seemed to really care about any of the family, even those she disliked, was the daughter in law, Rachelle, though her concern was colored with resentment, and she was very self righteous and self absorbed. The grandchildren seemed alternately selfish and compassionate, bright and foolish. The author examined many different types of relationships. She got into the heads of the characters, in terms of their basic, selfish needs, but they were never truly developed as full human beings with hearts.

At the age of 60, Richard Middlestein, leaves his overweight, very sick, 300 pound wife, Edie, after 40 years of her abusive tongue and their mutually abusive lifestyle. She won’t do anything to improve her own health, gaining pound after pound, eating constantly with abandon, although the doctors have warned her that she is killing herself. The children are angry that their father has left their sick mother, regardless of his reasons. Rachelle does not want him in her children’s lives because of his selfishness and son Benny meekly acquiesces to his stronger spouse. Daughter Robin is like her mother, sharp tongued. She uses it to berate her father and argues often with the cast of characters. She is discontented. She, too, looks for faults in everything and everyone, and if it wasn’t for her boyfriend Daniel, she would never learn to find any happiness. Benny, Rachelle’s husband is Richard and Edie’s only son. He wants to disappear and not face the situation of his parent’s misery. He just wants to be one of the “good old guys” when it comes to his father and he knows confronting his mother about her lifestyle is futile. Rachelle spends her time planning their social lives, their B’nai Mitzvah for their children, Emily and Josh, shopping and attending to her cosmetic needs. Edie, about three hundred pounds near the end of her life, eats all day, but she a devoted parent and daughter. She is educated, was employed, and was quite respected for her ability, but she is eventually fired because her size makes others uncomfortable, something she neither fights nor tries to change by dieting.

These are unhappy, failed people if judged by accomplishments in life and interactions with others. They and their friends, all of the characters, major and minor, seem shallow and self centered, catty and judgmental, often with misplaced loyalties.

At first I thought the book was a parody on Jewish families, on Jewish life and Jewish guilt, but then I realized it was broader, in concept. It was about all relationships, how some go sour, some thrive, some never should be, it was about lots of narcissistic, self-serving, characters who never seemed to grow out of their childhoods, whose tongues often wagged with negative comments and who never developed beyond the stage of their id, or of immediate gratification.

The reader of this Hachette audio was quite good with the exception of her mispronunciation of a Yiddish expression.

This book was read beautifully by Peter Francis James. If I could have, I would have given it ten stars. It should be required reading in schools across the country. I grew up, went to school, got degrees, but I was never taught about the injustice in the black community in such a detailed, well researched, honest and compassionate approach. It is inspiring and highly informative.
The background of Thurgood Marshall’s life is compelling. In his early days, his fights to end racial tensions and racial bias consumed him and were fraught with danger. A lawyer, he fought for the rights of the black man and woman with a straightforward no-nonsense dedication and fervor. He was married, but he and his wife remained childless. He worked too hard, played too much and often drank too much. He was not always true to his wife, but he always loved her, and they remained together until she died.
Thurgood Marshall spent his life fighting for the civil rights of blacks in all avenues of life. He fought for better educational opportunity and won the case in Brown v. Board of Education, granting the right to an equal education, in all schools, for all students, not separate but equal schools. He worked hard for the cause of desegregation and to right the wrongs of the justice system, but the ultimate goal of integration was a long and hard struggle. He fought to overturn the Jim Crow laws that divided the races. His life was often threatened as he fought the attempts of the KKK to defeat all of his efforts. He became the first black United States Supreme Court Justice.
Although the book provides the background of Justice Marshall and his decades long fight for equality, it dwells largely on the Groveland Boys Case which was a travesty of justice. It took decades to overturn the verdicts due to corruption and deception. Four black men were framed and beaten to coerce confessions, some were murdered in cold blood by law enforcement for the rape of a white woman, “a flower of the south”, a crime they did not commit, and for which they were falsely accused. They were mistreated by a crooked, twisted law enforcement body and a blind court controlled by racists, judges, sheriffs, the KKK, and politicians, all of whom were complicit in allowing this corrupt behavior to dominate their justice system. The true story of the supposed rape and the night of the alleged crime is revealed slowly. The research leaves no stone unturned. As years go by, as people are murdered and terrorized to prevent them from telling the truth, whites and blacks, the tension builds as if it were a novel. It is a story one would wish had been made up from whole cloth; it is such a mockery of justice and an example of outright evil.
The case is about two young black men who made the mistake of stopping to help a young white couple, stranded in a disabled vehicle, on a dark and lonely road which they just happened to pass by. It was to prove to be a terrible accident of fate. From that act of kindness a nightmare developed that extended for decades, ending in bloodshed and death. The true criminals and perjurers paraded around protected by the tactics of those who wore hoods. According to the book, even as late as 2005, there were possible repercussions from the Groveland Case, which occurred in Lake County, Florida. I live in Florida and I am ashamed, even though I was not a resident at the time this “so-called crime” took place. The complacency of everyone towards the plight of the falsely accused men, including the Governor, the courts and the media, was shameful, and the idea that it might still exist is appalling and inexcusable. Without the efforts of the NAACP and the Legal Defense Fund, and finally the media and a few good men, justice, however mediocre, might never have been served.
After reading this book, it is easy to understand why people of color do not trust law enforcement and react with such vehemence when they suspect foul play against their race. They have no historic context to believe anything else. It was so easy for them to be framed, murdered and disposed of as collateral damage to the cause of white supremacy. They had no recourse, no way to fight back, and it took decades to achieve anything to improve their situation. The wheels of justice moved in slow motion and often not at all. My view of the Civil Rights struggle was distorted by a lack of education and a lack of information. This book was an eye-opening, unpleasant and painful history lesson. My ignorance of the real experiences, horrors and helplessness of the blacks everywhere, apart and aside from the common knowledge of the tragedy of slavery, was woefully obvious and speaks to a need for a broader education on black history for elementary school children, with full disclosure.
The Southerners were adamant about separating the races. They didn’t see themselves as hypocrites, but rather as self-righteous keepers of the peace, their warped sense of ethics and their agrarian economy. Because of the atmosphere of fear in the South, even blacks shied away from supporting black causes and did not testify to save their brethren, but rather accepted money and bribes to lie. Their very lives, livelihoods, families and children were often threatened if they didn’t comply, and that went also for white people who went against the fray. Their homes were destroyed, businesses ruined, and their bodies were beaten and left for dead, if not actually dead! The book illustrates the decades of Thurgood Marshall’s dedication to the advancement of the cause of civil rights, so often at great risk to his own life.
This book reads like a thriller; it is a book which one would wish was fiction, rather than fact, so horrific are the details revealed, so monumental are the miscarriages of justice. It is no wonder that blacks carry around the baggage of fear and mistrust. They sure have good reason because the white population has set the precedent for them. The system was unequal and unfair. Black men were murdered for crimes they didn’t commit and white men, when caught and tried for crimes against blacks, were dismissed with a slap on their wrists from all white juries that perpetuated the prejudice, corruption and brutality. While black men were murdered for the “supposed” rape of a white woman, white men were excused for the rape of a black woman. The crimes were not considered equal in the eyes of the interpreters of the law.
I was sixteen when I was chased by a group of white youngsters because I was with a young black man. It was in Saratoga Springs, NY. In retrospect, I shouldn’t be so surprised by what I read, yet I was, because I thought what happened to me was an anomaly, not the norm.. Thinking about it now, we were really lucky that the four of us escaped bodily harm. I remember it well though. My black friends told us to separate from them because they wanted to protect us, and I, young and foolish, thought it was exciting and romantic. I never realized that this type of thing was a heinous threat that hung over them everyday. I was completely naïve.
Marshall’s name goes down in history right next to some of the most memorable legal cases fought before the Supreme Court. He worked tirelessly to achieve a legal system and educational system that was fair to all, regardless of color, and ultimately was successful, but there is still a tough road to hoe.

This is really an odd, but creative, little story. I would be lying if I said I understood all of it. This is the story of Henry Shackleford and how he came to be acquainted with John Brown, the abolitionist. It is narrated by Henry, who spent several years dressed as a female, with a different identity (Little Onion, AKA Henrietta, AKA Henry), in order to survive after his father died. Not quite a teenager, he saw him killed, in his own shop, before his very eyes. John Brown, present at the scene of the crime (portrayed as a bit addle-brained), thought he heard Henry’s father call him Henrietta before he died. He decided to rescue the “young miss”, convinced that he was liberating “her”, rather than kidnapping “her”; so he set off with “Henrietta” in tow. Henry willingly played the part of a girl in order to be cared for, since he was now an orphan. When Henry accidentally ate Brown’s good luck onion, by mistake, he christened him Little Onion, and the name stuck. Henry was now the good luck charm along with a bird feather (from a woodpecker, the good lord bird) and other assorted oddities.
I felt as if the story went on and on, repeating the same kinds of events in different places, even over using some phrases. They recurred, exactly, in different parts of the narrative. It was only the undercurrent of humor that kept me reading because it was just too long.
John Brown was dedicated to freeing the Negro, even against his will. Hea did it awkwardly and unsuccessfully, with many a hare-brained scheme, eventually bringing a great deal of death and destruction upon his friends and family. I wondered, was he mad? Did he hear voices? He thought he was the messenger of G-d, and therefore, was invincible.
Even as he was fighting slavery, his army, which was little more than an unprepared group of supporters, ill-trained and uneducated, was mocked by the author.
Famous names were tossed about like Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglas. The most amusing name of a character was Judge Fuggit. That name, surely a pun, had to be a difficult one to carry. The group of “merry men” was very small and ineffective on their own. They needed the support of the black community, but it was not forthcoming. He was trying hard to free them but they were trying hard to remain safe! He was fighting the war on his own, by and large. Brown’s ragtag army and his slapdash plans were doomed to failure and, indeed, they failed monumentally at Harper’s Ferry.
Brown often quoted random bible phrases. He forgave Onion and others, for whatever they did, interpreting everything as a sign for something else that would bring good-fortune, defying the reality all around him. To call him Pollyanna might be an understatement!
Although the book made John Brown out to be somewhat of a fool, who believed in violence, who had no real plan but flew by the seat of his pants, the fact that he was an abolitionist should have afforded him some honor. He had the right idea, but the wrong approach. Too many of the characters seemed like cartoon drawings of real people, with exaggerated faults, lending to my feeling that this was simply a parody of historic events. The audio book was read well. The speech patterns and accents of the individual characters seemed authentic and aroused the appropriate emotions.

This is a very powerful story about the quest of Holocaust survivor, Ben Solomon, to expose a Nazi Collaborator. When Ben was a 12-year-old in Poland, a local priest recommended that his down and out parishioner, Stanislaw Piatek, who had been abandoned by his wife, bring his son to the home of the Jews, Abraham and Leah Solomon. He said they were good people and would help him. Sure enough, they took the child, Otto Piatek, into their hearts and home, and they treated him as an equal and as a son. He was almost the same age as Ben and they became like siblings. This took place in 1933, and as more than a half-dozen years passed, Otto, embraced the Solomons. He supported them in their struggles when the National Socialists first came to power, even refusing to join the party or his parents, when they reunited and returned for him for the first time, now financially stable, some two years later; he continued to do so as time went by, although his mother pleaded with him tearfully again and again. He was not Jewish and she was able to help him get a good position within the party hierarchy. She could save him. For him, however, the Solomons were now his guardians and mentors. He rejected his parents completely.
Stanislaw and Ilse Piatek’s fortunes continued to improve within the Nazi party, and although Otto always declared his devotion to Leah and Abe and refused to leave them, eventually there came a day when his parents came to claim him and he acquiesced, convinced to do so by the Solomons who were concerned for his safety. He was able to remain in Zamo??, near their home, and he would be in a better position to help them, if need be, if he were not living with them. The Piatecs warned the Solomons to leave Zamo??; the situation was deteriorating for them, and they were in great peril. There was no place for them in Poland or anyplace else in the world of Hitler, but Abe Solomon was an important figure in town, and he wanted to be there to aid the rest of the citizens. The Solomons were motivated by altruism, unlike the Nazis who were motivated by hatred, their own inadequacy and madness. The Piateks were smug and completely arrogant. They supported Hitler and his policies completely. They were totally unappreciative of all the Solomons had done for their son. Rising stars within Hitler’s Germany, they were very impressed with their own power and position. Formerly powerless, unworthy nobodies were suddenly able to call the shots and they were corrupted by their egos and blinded by their incessant greed, as well as their own fears. As Hitler grew more and more successful, they knew full well the depths of his depravity, and although they were complicit in his efforts, they too could be faced with his wrath if they slipped up. Absolute obedience was demanded and received.
Actually, in the end, it was the Solomons who convinced Otto to move out, not only for his own safety, but also because he would be better positioned to help them if they should need help. In his safer position, he hid money and jewelry for several Jewish families, promising to return it to them when the war ended. However, as Otto rose through the ranks of the National Socialist Party, gaining favor and benefits, he began to change, and his loyalty to the Solomons diminished as his alliances with the Nazis grew. He became more concerned with preserving his own position than with the welfare and safety of the Solomons and their fellow Jews. He became a true Nazi and was utterly transformed from a caring young man into a monster responsible for great injustice and evil.
When the war finally ended, years later, Ben and Otto were no longer in touch. Ben had lost most of his family and was living in America where he had a relative who helped him to get a job. He began a new life. Decades later, when in his eighties, he saw a television program about a very wealthy, elderly philanthropist. Ben believed the man, Elliot Rosenzweig, was really Otto Piatek, the boy he grew up with, the man who had become a Nazi war criminal; he believed he was a man whose fortune came from that which he stole from the Jews and a man who was responsible for the torture and murder of countless others, including his father. This man, however, insists he is also a tattooed survivor who came to America penniless, a man who had accomplished the American dream. He amassed a vast fortune and gave huge amounts of money to worthy causes. Ben’s somewhat violent confrontation with this man is the beginning of a massive undertaking by his lawyer, Catherine, her friend Liam, and his friends to discover the true background of Rosenzweig and vindicate Ben’s seemingly irrational behavior. Ben is a spiritual man who sometimes talks with and receives inspiration and advice from his deceased wife Hannah. This causes raised eyebrows and questions about his emotional stability and state of mind. Has he made a false accusation and attacked an innocent man in this muddled condition?
The turn of events, the meticulous investigation and the exposure of the truth is so compelling that I could not put the book down. The culture of the Germans and the Poles is exposed as the history of Hitler’s slow and methodical power grab is explored. The characters were so well-developed that I felt I knew them and was drawn to tears in the end, so closely did I identify with Ben Solomon and his plight. The love stories buried within the tale were captivating. However, the corruption that seemed to exist within the legal system and the court system was disheartening. The level to which most people will descend was for lack of a better word, disappointing; perhaps horrifying would be more appropriate. Each character seemed to be driven by prejudice, self-interest and greed, and even when exposed, driven by the need to save themselves and not necessarily to do the right thing.
On another note, I found that the lawyer Catherine and her friend, Liam, were completely naïve as to the health and capabilities of a man in his 80’s. They dismissed his weakness to exhaustion and stress, not dealing with the reality of his age, as well. Also, they both seemed a bit too ignorant about the circumstances of World War II and the tragedy of the Holocaust. However, they seemed to be driven by compassion, above all else, to help Ben and continued to help him even when outclassed by the money and the power of his adversary. Although this story is fiction, it could easily have really happened which is a sad commentary on the world, even today. The book was excellent and the conclusion was very satisfying, but the story, overall, was not very uplifting, rather it was poignant.

How To Get Filthy Rich In Rising Asia, Mohsin Hamid
This book is written so well, but the audio reader doesn’t do it justice. Often, when the author reads his own book, I find that he doesn’t add the emotional texture that a professional reader usually does, which makes an audiobook a “theater of the mind” for me. Hamid’s voice droned on in a monotone, perhaps because he read it as the instructional book it was supposedly intended to be, rather than as the underlying love story between the two main characters, two individuals trying to rise to the top of the world in their own distinctive way. If the book had been longer, I might have given it up altogether. It was the beauty of the narrative which flowed smoothly and eloquently, that held my attention and kept me listening, and also, it was the intriguing dual narrative of a handbook and a life story.
The book is meant to advise its reader on how to make his fortune in Asia. It is the story of a poor young man and a “pretty young girl” with whom he has an on and off friendship/affair throughout his life. Both characters are well developed and the psychology of their behavior is subtly and richly explored. The characters have no names, and where they live is unidentifiable. They exist in their moment of time, each pursuing their dream, as the world moves on around them, and often, even without them, somewhere in Asia. The culture described in Asia is different than mine, and what is considered acceptable there, even though it is sometimes dishonorable behavior, would be completely unacceptable where I live.
The book begins with the view of a very sick young child, a young boy who dreams of being “filthy rich”. Born into poverty, he attains success and prospers over the years by being rather unscrupulous in his single-minded approach to getting rich. He does anything and everything necessary to achieve his purpose. Although he is not ethical in business (a fact the author makes known is a quality necessary for success), he is compassionate toward his family and supports the surviving members with his fortune, so he is not without virtuous qualities.
This is the story of his rise to the pinnacle of his career and then his ultimate fall from grace, betrayed by those he knows, those he has helped, and those who are jealous of him and want to climb to success on the back of his failure when he is at his most vulnerable and more in need of kindness than sabotage, but this is a practice considered normal in his world. This behavior is the nature of the beast in search of wealth and power. Everyone seems to wait for the opportunity to take from those above them, and it seems to be a conventional practice, not even condemned by those who are robbed, for after all, they view the thieves as those in need, they view the crime as one they themselves would commit in similar circumstances. It is an odd juxtaposition of immorality and morality, compassion and cruelty. It seems like the personification of schadenfreude, at its worst. The victim accepts his victimization by those who destroy him, as if it is their right, and they don’t look back! They enjoy the fruits of their contemptible behavior without shame or remorse. They consider it their reward for their years of loyal service to the person they defraud.
When this boy who has now become an old man, finds that his past behavior has caught up with him, he doesn’t seem to mind. Age and illness have mellowed him, as it has also mellowed “the pretty girl” he treasured his whole life, the “girl who rose to stardom and fame, but who still came in and out of his life over the years, cultivating a hunger within him that he could not dispossess. In the final part of the book, their love story comes to fruition in a close and warm friendship. They share an apartment and offer comfort to each other in their waning days. She precedes him in death and the conclusion is somewhat mystical and spiritual, as he finds true happiness with her in his imagination.
Is the effort to be rich above all else truly worth it, if, in fact, when you lose it all, it is really of little consequence? If you have become fragile and old and your needs have changed, are your riches any longer of much use, or is the friendship of someone you care about and who cares about you of greater importance? Should that not always be more essential to one’s life?

With current day news media outlets covering the positive and negative effects of social media, of sending private information and photographs out into cyberspace for all to see, where it becomes public, regardless of whether or not there are other innocent souls attached to the posts, without their knowledge or permission, where it remains in orbit indefinitely or forever, this book is very relevant. Perhaps the definition of privacy will have to change to accommodate all of the people who are now voyeurs, looking into other people’s lives, as it has surely been changed in this book. While the book is not as well written as I would have hoped, and it jumps from event to event without smooth segues, it is relevant because of the world we live in today and is a great selection for book discussions.
From the beginning, for me, the book presented a nightmare scenario of a future fast approaching. The book feels like a primer for creating a society in which all humans are completely connected in business, pleasure, private and public life. Secrets are non-existent. Sharing is everything. It is the key to a more perfect world, a world free of crime, abuse, disease, evil thoughts and improper and foolish behavior patterns which might lead to unhealthy lifestyles. All thoughts and actions, the whole of one’s life and history, no matter what it exposed, would be broadcast via cameras and audio feeds out to all connected to the program via bracelets that collect and dispense vital information. All this would be overseen by the largest company of its kind, “The Circle”, a company that collects and stores information.
The goal of having the whole country and then the world, connected by camera and audio feeds, so that everyone is exposed to everyone else, so that all information generated would be shared and stored forever, inerasable, supposedly would create a more perfect society with less disease, fewer lies, no secrets, almost non-existent crime, no duplicity, no need for strong government control, perhaps, actually, with no need for a government, since The Circle, that massive corporation, would control it all: voting registration, eating habits, sleep patterns, bodily functions, study habits, work habits, and every other phase of life. It would track all movements and correct those that were inconsistent with proper behavior and optimum health, with direct messages, sent via the bracelet, acting as a gentle reminder to prompt one to act and immediately correct their behavior. There would be millions, maybe billions of watchers at any given time that might hone in on you, and see you, so your behavior in all phases of your life would be under observance as if “Jiminy Cricket” was alight on your shoulder, keeping you in line. Yet, Jiminy Cricket seems like a rather benign figure, and I am not sure the main character, Mae, and her ilk are as non-threatening.
The ultimate company goal is being sold as unselfish, a goal that would be wonderful for humanity, the sharing of all information would educate all about things they might not otherwise experience, would expose evil, eliminate fear, would catch perpetrators more easily since eyes everywhere would be mobilized to track them, would improve life in general, everywhere.
In the end, the reader might wonder, though, was a utopia created or was its opposite, a dystopia, born from the ashes of “The Circle’s effort? Is it Nirvana or a living Hell that they wind up with? Ultimately, can you have freedom when choice is taken away from you and someone else makes all your decisions? It sure sounds like life would be easier, but would it be more enriched, stress-free, or would it be more intense with the responsibility of answering to nameless faces everywhere for your selections in life, for your ancestry, for your weight, for your education, for any choice you might make?
Mae, the main character was delighted to have landed a job working for this quintessential tech company, at a Disneyworld type campus in San Francisco. Every amenity an employee could wish for was available to her. Although she didn’t think she would get the job, they thought she was a perfect fit, and she rockets to the top of the food chain as a malleable blank page. She buys all their propaganda and is someone they can mold to fit their design and ultimate purpose. Mae is a bit off center. When someone crosses her, she is disloyal, doesn’t realize that she might be wrong, doesn’t accept blame or responsibility, but rather blames those around her for her disappointments with concocted excuses that might defy our common sense, but not hers. She doesn’t really see anyone else’s goals but hers as worthy, and as she outperforms others and comes up with strategic company ideas, she rises up the ladder. As her popularity grows, she becomes more and more drunk with her own power.
The sophisticated surveillance systems, already in place, make it very difficult for any company to compete with “The Circle”, and they are moving quickly to establish their vision, embracing everyone into their program and creating what they perceive to be a better world. The ramifications of “The Circle’s” program fail to concern Mae and most of the enrollees. Mae is too overcome with her sudden fame and success to care about anything else. The insecurities and emotional issues she harbors are carrying her forward and upward.
This program, if real, wouldn’t be the first time a flawed person would rise to the top and bring a world down to its knees. Mae has all the makings of that kind of a leader. As she pretends to be reaching out to others for their benefit, she is really only interested in increasing her own image, influence and control. For all intents and purposes, her world has become a “high tech zoo” with the humans gawking at each other instead of at the animals! They are all living vicariously.
In the end, though, it was hard to imagine a scenario where a 20 something, with little experience, could advance so far in a company run by the “three wise men”, but then, we have a youngish President who advanced to the top of the mountain without a shred of experience to prepare him for his job, and that is ultimately how Mae sees herself…as President. Mae envisions an environment which at first seems free and open, with opportunity everywhere for communicating, but which really risks becoming more and more controlled and monitored.
While some of the book’s concepts are outlandish, requiring the suspension of disbelief, some of it is frighteningly close to what is taking place in our lives, at the present time, with our cell phones that monitor our location, our government which traces our phone calls, our doctors who are now forced to put all our information into one massive “pot of information” online. Are we, perhaps, giving up our own privacy and freedom of choice for reasons other than national security, but rather for reasons of irrational narcissistic desires to be watched by others, to create a false sense of our own ability to influence others, of our own importance and power? Are we headed toward a world in “The Circle’s” image?

The story takes place over three and a half decades, beginning in 1803. At first the book seemed to be kind of the same old, same old theme, a combination of recent books, The Help, The Kitchen House and The House Girl. Two thirds to three quarters of the way through, it changed course and became a book that could stand on its own. It is historic fiction; the characters are true to themselves, those that are real, like the Grimkes and those like Handful(Hetty) and Mauma (Charlotte), who are made up out of whole cloth. Hetty represents an excellent example of the awful life a slave was forced to live, in a society driven by greed and callousness, a society that continued the practice of slavery until it was forced to stop, a society that required slaves to dream of sprouting wings in order to be free.
For her 11th birthday, Sarah Grimke’s mother presented her with a gift, her own personal slave, Hetty (Handful). Sarah does not want a slave; slavery disgusted her. She tried to write an order to free her but her parents refused to accept her decision. It was the way of life in Charleston, South Carolina, and Sarah must submit to the societal demands of the upper class. Hetty and Sarah were about the same age, they grew close, and their lives followed a parallel road, albeit in opposite directions most of the time. Their stories will pull on the reader’s emotions. The only true parallel between Sarah and her “lady’s maid”, Hetty, was that they both must be taught their “proper place” in society. Hetty, a slave, had only one job, to please her master. Her life was always at the mercy of others. Sarah, a free woman of Charleston society, had only one main job, to find a husband that was suitable and equal to or better than her own station in life. Both of the young girls wanted more freedom and more opportunity, but for one, it was out of the question.
While Sarah and her mother Mary seemed to feel hemmed in by their lack of freedom, they at least could move about at will and choose a good deal of the life they wanted. Hetty and her mother (Mauma), had freedom to move about only on the plantation and may leave and go to market, only if given a pass and permission. They were always subject to scrutiny, abuse and punishment with insufficient reason. Both the Grimkes and their fellow aristocratic families living in Charleston, had a form of freedom unknown to Mauma, Hetty and the slaves, yet they, too, felt imprisoned, in a sense, by the constraints placed on women in the society in which they lived, a society that viewed slaves as less than people and women as less than men.
When Sarah’s mother had another child, Sarah, robbed of her career opportunities by the protocols of her day, begged her mother to make her godmother to the child. She acquiesced and Nina became more like her daughter than her sister. As years passed, they became great friends, philosophically attuned to each other, and the two sisters became trailblazers for the cause of anti slavery and women’s rights. They were not fictional characters, although the narrative around them was constructed by the author. In real life, the sisters fought for equal rights and equality for all. Their story and their courage is to be greatly admired. They set the stage for the likes of Cady Stanton and future freedom fighters.
Sarah had an independent spirit, which her parents wished to break or control. Her father did not believe in women’s rights to education or professions. Her mother was often a cruel and harsh taskmaster, trying to show her how to be a “lady” in society, how to handle a household and how to discipline the slaves. Mary, Sarah’s mother, thought slavery was a bad situation, but one that was the way of life and must continue. She could be kind-hearted but was more often shown to be severe and pitiless in meting out her form of justice and punishment. Forgiveness was not one of her main attributes. She, like all women of that time, lacked the freedom to do as she wished in life, as far as voicing her opinions, obtaining an advanced education and/or entering a profession. Perhaps it was her own frustration which made her cruel. Her daughters eventually chose a far better way to vent their dissatisfaction with their lives and the lives of the oppressed.
It seemed shallow, at times, and incongruous, to compare the lifestyles of the two women, in opposite societies, as we observed the progress of their lives. Sarah, in all circumstances was always better off than Hetty, though each did eventually have to adjust to the confines of their station in life and the limits that “society” placed upon their actions. Sarah sometimes seemed naïve, even as an adult; she could, quite possibly, eventually have granted freedom to Hetty had she retained ownership of her, but she returned her to her mother whom she knew was cruel, a terrible taskmaster and a mean disciplinarian. So, despite all her protestations, I questioned her decision. Surely she understood the awful consequences that would follow it. While Sarah always nursed her emotions, Hetty always had to nurse her broken body, which was abused by slave masters and owners, and her mother would only make Hetty’s life more difficult.
I believe one of the author’s intentions might have been to show the tragedies and the weaknesses of the entire slave and free society from both perspectives.. What set this book apart from others like it was the nature of the sister’s involvement in the fight to end slavery. What makes it so compelling is the fact that their suffering, their sacrifices, their toils, and the fruits of their efforts really did set the stage for future, more well-known, abolitionists and feminists.

At first, I did not know what to make of this book. A 39-year-old man, Bartholomew Neil, is overly attached to his mother, and he is grieving after her death. An errant priest, Father McNamee, off his meds and suffering from bi-polar disease, believed G-d once spoke to him but since has ceased. He has defrocked himself, and moved in with Bartholomew. He tells him G-d will now speak through Bartholomew instead. He will tell them how to go forward in life. He recommends that he has grief counseling and Wendy, not bound too tightly either, enters the picture and tells him to create life goals. She is in a terrible abusive relationship and is unable to help herself, let alone anyone else. At the counseling session Bartholomew attends, at her recommendation, he meets another rather dysfunctional, simple-minded 39-year-old young man, Max, bereft over the loss of Alice, who turns out to be a cat. Max is coincidentally the brother of a girl Bartholomew has eyed and loved from afar, Elizabeth, the girlbrarian at his local library. Bartholomew wonders, is this synchronicity? Max speaks mostly in curse words and believes his sister was abducted by aliens. Elizabeth is very skittish and depressed since she and her brother are about to be evicted from there apartment. There isn’t a “normal” character among them!

Bartholomew’s only job, his whole life, was to care for his mother. He has no idea who supported them or how their bills got paid, they simply got paid. He believes his father was murdered. He is dysfunctional, his development seems arrested, he was bullied as a youngster, has never had a friend or female relationship, has an “angry man” (ulcer?) dwelling in his stomach. He yells at him and punches him, from the inside, when he is confused or unable to act. Bartholomew is an innocent; he thinks simplistically about all problems and sometimes, because he has no guile, he seems like the brightest bulb in this box of dim lights. He analyzes others and incidents with the most straightforward insights. He exhibits compassion and offers uncomplicated explanations about THE GOOD LUCK OF RIGHT NOW.

Bartholomew’s mother believed that in every event there was an opposite, so if you had misfortune, fortune would follow. When they were robbed and their home was trashed, she was grateful for, and enjoyed, the company and support of others. She thought that was THE GOOD LUCK OF RIGHT NOW. When his mother dies, he discovers a letter from Richard Gere, hidden in her drawer, and although it is not a personal letter, but one that is mass produced to raise money for Tibet, he imbues it with greater meaning. The book is infused with Budhist messages and philosophical phrases.

Bartholomew engages in a one-sided letter writing mission with Richard Gere, (alter ego, imaginary friend?) in which he seems to believe that they are friends, and Gere is his confidante offering needed advice and support. Either in his imagination or hallucination, Richard often appears to guide him.

Bartholomew wants to help others. Is this a weakness? Sometimes his optimism seemed ludicrous and at others, wondrous. One could say he enjoys taking in strays. At the end, I wasn’t so much surprised by what happened, but I felt I could sum the whole book up by saying “will the real Richard please stand up?” All in all, it is a rather sweet and tender story about a group of characters that feel unloved and unwanted, unnecessary and useless. Together, will they find happiness?

It does sound a little trite as I write the review, but the humor holds it together and the simplistic narrative doesn’t tax the brain. The conclusion is clear-cut, lemons turn into lemonade, Bartholomew is the quintessential caregiver and fairy tales come true. This odd bunch of misfits found each other and created a viable family which satisfies all their needs.

A. J. Fikry, owns and operates a charming bookstore, on Alice Island. It is the kind that rarely exists today, having given way to the monster-sized edifices that are home to booksellers today. Fikry is well read, the quintessential bookstore owner; he knows authors and book styles, can recommend books to his customers based on their likes and dislikes. He has his own particular fixed likes and dislikes, often quoting from books to make a point. His life is defined by and through books. He communicates through their words with messages that he passes on as wise tidbits of knowledge.
A. J. is still grieving over the loss of his wife, killed in an accident, and he resorts too often to liquor as a pain reliever. He is feisty and cantankerous and doesn’t seem the type to “make friends and influence people” very easily. As a matter of fact, when Amelia (Amy), appears in his store to present the winter book list of Knightly Publishers, he is rude and indifferent, even when he learns she is replacing the former salesperson who has died. That night, however, truly saddened by the death of that man, he binge drinks, and when he wakes up from his drunken stupor, he finds that his most valuable book, Tamerlane, a book that was to guarantee his secure retirement, has disappeared. Then he discovers a child that has been abandoned in his store. The mother is nowhere to be found. All that he finds is a note entrusting Maya to his care. Maya seems older and wiser than her years. Her influence on him is enormous.
The story that evolves, as he and the child bond and Amelia becomes more and more of a steady visitor, is very tender, somewhat romantic and also humorous, although it does seem to be hiding behind a mask that seems indifferent, simplistic and even mundane, at times. Emotions are quite matter-of-factly laid bare, leaving no doubt as to how the characters feel as they help to make each other more complete. It makes the story even more appealing and comfortable to read.
Human feelings and reactions are explored from the vantage point of adults and from the eye of a precocious, bright, rather well-adjusted child, who has been raised very well, rather unexpectedly, by this inexperienced, insecure man, lonely and somewhat lost without his wife who used to operate the Alice Island bookstore with him. The fictitious Alice Island is a rather appealing place, reminiscent of Nantucket or Martha’s Vineyard (for those who know of Cape Cod and the Islands), which can also be reached by traveling on a ferry that leaves from Hyannis, MA. Life is laid back and unhurried on both the real and the fictitious island.
This is a beautiful story about love, loss, relationships, friendships, and even bias is briefly and subtly explored. Race seems to be a tiny underlying subject, but I am not sure why, unless the lack of emphasis is to indicate and reinforce the idea that the race of a person is meaningless, as color has no bearing on any of the relationships, nor should it. The characters exist outside the barriers that are often presented when race becomes the focus rather than the abstract. They simply interact and exist in this imaginary storybook kind of a world, almost free from modern day contrivances.
The story is guided by quotes from books as A. J. leaves notes around for those he loves. It concentrates on the development of beautiful, sincere friendships and a natural love of parent and child coupled with a warm sense of devotion and loyalty. These traits assume far more importance than money, the loss of material things, the revelation of what could be life-changing secrets and even facing illness and death. Rather it dwells on the beauty within people, their ability to face their demons and their ability to forgive and forget. What seems like a simple story is really quite profound as secrets are revealed to the reader and mysteries are solved. Still, life is ultimately dealt with and the tale comes to a warm and satisfying conclusion.

When the story begins, two young men, Charlie and Dave, are involved in a murder. Charlie’s father works for the CIA and they enlist his help in a cover-up. As time passes, the two are very successful in a business partnership. Charlie has even higher ambitions and has engaged in even more unscrupulous behavior, over the years. When Dave learns of the conspiracy to keep all his wrongdoings secret, he decides to disengage from Charlie, but Charlie will not let him go. He was a witness to the murder, all those years ago, and he does not want to take the chance that he will talk to assuage his conscience. When his worst fears are realized and a manuscript surfaces exposing Charlie’s corruption and that of various government agencies, the conspiracy broadens. Charlie wants it stopped and he will stop at nothing to do just that.

The novel becomes a roller coaster ride of intrigue. This audiobook was perfect because it held my interest over a long distance, but boy it was hard to keep track of all the characters popping up. The tale kept switching back and forth from one to another in time and place, from Manhattan to London to Paris and other parts of the globe. The characters were not developed well enough to be that memorable, yet they were all integral parts of the plot. Each of the characters, especially the females, seemed to have a personal problem that made them a little dysfunctional and needy. The men were more or less portrayed as weak and mercenary. They were all motivated by the need to succeed and would do whatever was necessary to achieve that goal.

At times it was very hard to figure out who were the good guys and who were the villains. Danger lurked everywhere as various characters were stalked and eliminated. As one disappeared, another was introduced and I was often stumped as to the role the new character was playing; sometimes they seemed familiar, but at other times it took a while to place them back into the narrative. The switchbacks from character to character, forward and backward in time, from geographic locale to geographic locale, were just too confusing. Also, there was too much unnecessary gratuitous sexual innuendo which had no significant relevance and was distracting.

In conclusion, the reader seemed to read in one voice, not fully identifying with each character, but instead, seemed to simply be reading the book aloud. The book ended in such a way that I believe there will definitely be “The Accident”, part two, as there was no definite conclusion, and even though it was confusing, I would recommend it, especially for a long drive because it will definitely keep you awake!

This is a very heartbreaking story about helpless, hopeless people, not literate enough or free enough to change their circumstances. They pay for foolish decisions with their lives, often when they are innocent. Decades of war have marked Russian/Chechen history. Ethnic Chechens and Russians indiscriminately murder each other. Islamists force their will upon non-believers and enforce it among those who do believe. The situation is so dire that betrayal is commonplace. People are tortured, disappear and are never seen again. The cities are destroyed, rubble is everywhere, poverty reigns, disease spreads, the injured amass, medical facilities are nil, law enforcement is non-existent, and in general, chaos reigns.
When a neighbor, Akhmed, witnesses the kidnapping of a friend, Dokka, who has been betrayed by their mutual friend Ramzan, he knows his friend is about to disappear and never return. Taken to the landfill, he will be tortured and murdered for a real or imaginary crime. There is very little difference in the cause and effect. The result is the same, brutality and corruption even with circumstantial or false evidence. Dokka has a child, Havaa, and Akhmed rescues her and brings her to a doctor in the only, still operating, hospital, hoping she will take her in and help her. The doctor, Sonja, begrudgingly accepts Havaa into her care in exchange for Akhmed’s promise to work at the hospital. He too is a doctor, albeit one that graduated at the bottom of the class while she is exceptionally gifted. Sonja is an ethnic Russian and Akhmed is an ethnic Chechen. The one bright light in the book is that the two, from different warring worlds, are able to work together and establish a relationship.
The connections that knit all of the characters together will become clear as the book draws to a conclusion. Although the link is not known to the characters themselves, they are all united with a common thread through their memories and thoughts, their past and their present. In the end, the disparate parts will become part of a complete whole and even their futures will be intimated.
Sometimes the plot meanders and the timeline wanders back and forth in a confusing manner, but the history and the details about Chechnya are so thorough and so descriptive, that they make up for any shortcomings or confusion that the story might possess. This book is a revelation about intolerance, deprivation, jihad, dictators, foolish dreams, and unrealistic goals in a land without very much free choice, let alone freedom, a land with little respect for human life or its value.
In many cases, the uneducated are in charge, and the illiterate are making the rules. Their one skill appears to be cruelty and disloyalty. The barbarism on all sides in this fighting, this attempt even at ethnic cleansing, is horrific, as torture is the main event and those administering it are gleeful, almost joyful, at the prospect of hurting someone. Treachery is the standard of behavior. The series of coincidences throughout the novel, though perhaps not always plausible, serve to bind all of the characters stories together and illustrate the conditions that exist in that war torn part of the world. They point clearly to the lack of trust, morality and faith. They point clearly to a path of destruction. The only hope is escape. Who among them will be lucky enough to find their own freedom?

To better understand the message of the book, I looked up the definition of jihad and found several; they all had one term in common, struggle. Jihad is a striving toward belief and a striving toward a world governed by Islam.
According to http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/jihad, jihad means:
1: a holy war waged on behalf of Islam as a religious duty; also : a personal struggle in devotion to Islam especially involving spiritual discipline
2: a crusade for a principle or belief.
Another interpretation is that among Muslims, it is a war or struggle against unbelievers, while in Islam, it is the spiritual struggle within oneself against sin.
I thought it would be important to read the book with those ideas present in my mind.
When the book begins, Krista Bremer‘s life is going nowhere in particular. She loves surfing and is living with a boyfriend in California. Both have no real end-game in sight. She works for Planned Parenthood, advising pregnant woman of their options. After watching her friends move on with their lives, she decides to make a change and pursue her education further. She applies for her Master’s Degree and is accepted to a school in New England. She packs up and heads there exchanging surfing for jogging for her exercise and pleasure.
Occasionally, when she jogs, she notices a middle-aged man who runs at the same time as she does. Soon, they happen to meet in a store, and they make plans to jog together. He, Ismail, is a Libyan, working and living in America and is a practicing Muslim. She is in her twenties and practices a moderate form of Buddhism, often meditating. Their relationship evolves and when she finds herself in a compromising situation, they decide to marry.
Theirs is an unusual love affair, but it is deep and sincere. They work hard at finding common ground. Their backgrounds and cultures are diametrically opposed to each other. He comes from a third world country where creature comforts are hard to come by, while she is used to taking most creature comforts for granted. He is satisfied with very little and seems more interested in finding inner peace and serenity while she is often dissatisfied and tense, ill at ease and unsure of herself, even embarrassed by some of his behavior patterns.
Krista seems more interested in things of the material world, while Ismail seems more interested in things of the spiritual world. He is devoted to following the practices of Islam with prayer and observance, while she is devoted to the pursuit of happiness as in buying Christmas gifts and Valentine’s gifts which show her interest, concern and affection for those she cares about. Ismail is more understanding and patient with her regarding her form of worship than she is with his, and she is often petty and disappointed in him. She thinks of his G-d as more demanding, and hers as a more forgiving deity. Ismail makes few demands of her, and truthfully, he seemed like the ideal man, which made me wonder if anyone could be that perfect. He always supports her, always forgives her, and always offers compassion and concern.
As their relationship grows and deepens over the next dozen years, and as their family grows from one to two children, she finds more inner meaning in Islam than she ever expected to discover and watches her daughter soften to its demands, as well, actually expressing a desire to wear a headscarf. Krista sometimes seems to glorify Islam while denigrating herself and her own beliefs as inferior and less worthy. At times, I thought she was accepting and endorsing Islam, even as she found some fault with it. She seems to make a conscious effort to explain away the negative aspects she notices. She believes that Islam makes her more humble; she believes that the demands of the religion seem to make her less selfish.
When she and Ismail and their daughter return to Libya for a visit, her reaction seems too mild considering the lack of creature comforts available to her pregnant body. Her description of the bumpy roads and head scarves, forbidden coffee, and paucity of supplies, coupled with relatives eager to embrace her, is a humbling experience for the reader, as well. She was impressed with the family’s joy at seeing Ismail again and with the welcome they provided her. On the other hand, she was disturbed by the way his younger sister was treated and did not understand why a woman would want to be covered, but soon she discovers it offers her a sense of privacy and peace. Many of her descriptions of her husband and his family are a bit overly sentimental and positive, as if she is trying to justify his lifestyle over hers, and often her comments seem naïve and excessive.
As she searched within herself to gain a better understanding of the world around her and her place in it, she questioned the need for women to be subservient to men. She did not understand how Ismail could be oblivious to his youngest sister’s oppressive way of life. Yet, although, in Libya, the sound of the call to prayer wakes her in the mornings, when she returns home, she finds the prayer a comfort. Women could not be outdoors unaccompanied and she could not exercise, but she begins to place more emphasis on her experience there as one of personal growth, rather than one of personal sacrifice, which makes it enlightening for the reader. As she vacillates between her respect for her own culture and religion and her alternating growing respect and admiration for Ismail’s and for his family’s way of handling their lives with all its requirements and deprivations, she admires the way they handle their daily lives with such grace and marvels at the respect they hold for each other. While in Libya, she finds their style of dress liberating, not confining as one would expect. When she begins to wear a headscarf, she is comforted by it, feeling that it provides her a sense of privacy. In America, she was a woman who helped women choose to either have a child or an abortion, and suddenly, in Libya, she finds the harsh rules and requirements placed on women to be liberating, a position with which I was not sure I could agree.
In this honest expose of her love affair with Ismail, Krista describes many of the challenges she faced and continues to face, even now. As she becomes mesmerized by the melodies and presentation of the Muslim prayers, their plaintiveness and the earnestness with which they are recited, she grows closer to Ismail. As she becomes more and more enamored with Islam, she is more and more able to ignore the disrespect for women that it requires. I think Krista was a blank slate waiting to be written upon, making her more open to disparate views. She morphed into a different kind of adult than she was when she first cohabited with Ismail. Although she claims to draw peace from Muslim prayers, she admits that she has no clue about the meaning of the prayers. She does not speak Arabic. Therefore, in a way, at times I had to often suspend disbelief to go on reading, and if it wasn’t so beautifully written, with pitch perfect expression and cadence, I might not have finished it!
Problematically, I found that she seemed to infer or abstractly link the riots in Egypt and other parts of the Middle East, which occurred because of a video, to the murders of the four Americans in Benghazi. To connect the two events, however minimally, when Benghazi had been proven to be an act of terrorism, not the result of a crude, insulting video, implies a bias on her part that I found disingenuous. She made inferences about the practice of circumcision being heinous, actually citing a study to prove it, although it is a religious practice for Jews, their covenant with their G-d. Also, she makes a point of citing a particular close friend and devout Muslim who just happened to have converted from Judaism to Islam. I found the references to Judaism troublesome, but perhaps I am overly sensitive.
The audio is read well by the reader, with just the right amount of expression; the prose is excellent and I have to say the book is beautifully written and put together. However, I often wondered about the author’s descriptions of her personal feelings and the details of her personal growth with regard to Islam. They seemed a little exaggerated, more designed, perhaps, to impress the reader with her willingness to embrace Islam, rather than to present her own honest, legitimate response to her particular situation. I felt as if she colored her descriptions in order to put a more positive light on what it was like to be a Muslim.
All in all, I believe this book is an expression of Krista’s personal search for meaning in her own life and in the outside world. From the beginning, her writing style will captivate her readers as they take this journey with her, a journey that explores her personal struggle, possibly to live a more pious life, a life considered less sinful and more fulfilling.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has written quite a compelling book about his service to his country, his service to eight Presidents, in one capacity or another. His last position, as Secretary of Defense for both Presidents Bush and Obama is detailed thoroughly in this book.
For Secretary Gates, I got the distinct feeling that serving his country was not a job, but a calling. He identified strongly with the demands and suffering of the servicemen. He saw it as his duty to protect, respect and honor them. In this regard, he did not find both White Houses equal.
While he respected both administrations pretty equally, he found the Bush White House never mistrusted the military, and as a result, he often received rousing ovations. The Obama White House, on the other hand, was often suspicious of the military arm of the government and that was, and is, reflected in his reception by the men who serve this country and in his decision making. The men certainly respect the Commander and Chief and will follow his orders, whether or not they agree with them, but Obama’s administration often disregarded the advice of the high command and senior advisors. Many times, the Obama White House reacted to events politically, rather than with regard to what might bring about the best outcome.
Robert Gates describes the contentious mood surrounding the Bush White House when he began working for “W”. Democrats virulently opposed the administration and the atmosphere between himself and Congress was also adversarial. The Secretary’s job was not easy, as it was a daunting task to try to bring a war to a successful conclusion and the emotional drain on him was enervating. He was ultimately responsible for the lives of so many and the number of injuries and deaths was mounting. When politics played a part in the decisions made for our fighting men, it disgusted him. I got the distinct feeling that his relationship with President Bush was more open and honest than the one he had with President Obama, nevertheless, he believed that most of Obama’s decisions were correct, in the long run. Hillary Clinton supported most of his decisions as did Condi Rice, and he had a good working relationship with both women.
When he describes his dealings with Israel, he exhibits an intense dislike for Bibi Netanyahu. He preferred to work with Ehud Barak. I was a bit disappointed that he brought his dislike with him when he had to negotiate with the only democracy in the Middle East, our strong ally there, especially since his (Gates) approach to Iran was different from that of Netanyahu. He seemed to favor the needs of the Arab countries and dismiss the concerns of Israel, especially with regard to Saudi Arabia. Since they had never attacked Israel, he felt they posed no threat and that arming them would not harm Israel’s security. He viewed Barak as his friend and Netanyahu as an enemy, which is not a great attitude to take with you to diplomatic meetings. Obama also showed great disrespect for Netanyahu. While they understood that Israel resides within enemy territory, they didn’t fully seem to comprehend their issues and tended to minimize their concerns, while elaborating on those of the Arabs. I thought, in that case, there was a bit of tunnel vision, perhaps on all sides.
Gates never understood the magnitude of the leaks that came out of the Obama White House, which he often believed compromised our servicemen's safety. The administration reacted politically all the time, always in campaign mode, disregarding the potential danger of their remarks. They were hell-bent on taking all the credit for anything positive that happened while they blamed everyone else for the failures that occurred on their watch.
While Gates and Bush did not always agree, he found that George Bush took the advice of the advisers in the field, more often than not, because he was less concerned with the politics of winning than Obama’s administration was, and Obama’s advisers had very little military experience or managerial experience which also affected the decisions they made. The generals disagreed with Obama’s decisions, more often than not, and his ambassadors also hampered the efforts of the generals. There was an enormous amount of infighting between the military and the government officials and even among the members of their own staffs. Gates learned quickly that what Obama promised was not often what he did. He bowed to the lobbies that put pressure on his White House regardless of agreements he had made to do otherwise. He often broke promises and did not keep his word. Gates believed that he underestimated Karzai and Ambassador Eikenberry undermined America. We actively sought to unseat Karzai, and when he was not overthrown, we paid for our decisions with his continued mistrust of America. It was difficult to work with the inexperienced team of the Obama White House. He was also often disappointed in the way they portrayed George Bush. They were pretty unprofessional in that regard.
When Gates learned of the issues surrounding the poor treatment of the servicemen and women at the VA, predating this current scandal, he sought to fix it, but he was more concerned with the soldiers in the field who were returning with grievous injuries, rather than the treatment of soldiers who had served and were using the VA for injuries and illnesses unrelated to their military experience. Obama ignored the issue. Overall, the Obama team was inexperienced and unprepared for the monumental tasks facing them. The hierarchy was disregarded and often those with less power overruled those with greater seniority. This sometimes led to infighting and to inept decisions.
Although he managed very well during both administrations, he wanted very much to exit the White House. It was breaking him emotionally; writing letters of condolence, welcoming bodies back home, fighting with the administrations for better equipment to save lives, visiting the injured, some that could have been prevented with more modern and technologically advanced design, was wearing him down.
His feelings about Harry Reid, the Majority Leader of the Senate, were visceral. He believed his remarks were stupid, as when he announced that we lost the war, and that he served as a saboteur. He found Pelosi to be more interested in politics than in the success and outcome of the wars.
Secretary Gates believes that Obama’s style of micromanagement is detrimental but his thoughtfulness in making decisions was admirable. He and his staff often overstepped the boundaries, making announcements and decisions which were embarrassing to the generals. His courage in making the decision about the Bin Laden raid impressed Gates, but his need to take credit disturbed him, because it put many of those involved in potential danger. He often gave unauthorized commands, orders, because he and his staff were unaware of the rules of protocol. He was always acting for political gain, not the benefit of his country. Gates always supported President Obama, regardless of whether or not he agreed with his decision, even with regard to the schedule for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Decisions were often made based on the views of the junior advisers rather than more seasoned military personnel and political advisers, leading to unintended consequences, as with the Arab Spring in which the Muslim Brotherhood assumed command and Mubarak was abandoned. Still he expresses great respect and admiration for both President Obama and Hillary Clinton. Towards Vice President Biden, he does not mince words. He pretty much liked him, but he believed that every decision he made regarding foreign policy was incorrect and ill advised.
The book describes the transition from the Bush White House to the Obama White House and the enormous burden of responsibility that he bore upon his shoulders during his tenure. With regard to the national defense and security of the country, he was second to no one but the President. His descriptions of the injured and their courage when he visits hospitals, in particular the burn hospital, will tear at your heartstrings.
Because of the massive amount of detail in the book, it felt almost like a textbook about the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, in addition to the many other conflicts that arose during his tenure, like tsunamis, earthquakes, the incident in Benghazi, the WikiLeaks scandal and Julian Assange, and the continuing effort to improve relationships with our allies and our enemies which occupied most of his waking hours. Although his position was powerful, he was human and felt the pressure of the duty required of him.
My major criticism of the book is that it was almost too detailed, and possibly just a bit too much justification for his own behavior and actions, although he does also admit the mistakes he made.

I listened to this audio in one sitting, trying to understand it. It was short, just over three hours. I replayed several parts over and over, trying to understand the point. I fear I missed some of it.
A man is speaking to what appears to be a psychiatrist, but could just as easily have been an imaginary friend, an alter ego, a prison guard, a lawyer, or himself. He is pretending, at first, to be speaking about a friend, but the reader quickly learns that it is Andrew, indeed, who is narrating.
Andrew, presumably, is an expert on the brain. He is well educated with a diploma from an Ivy League school, probably Yale, if the person he alludes to at the end as his roommate, was really the President of the United States, none other than “W”. The reader will wonder if he is sane, perhaps schizophrenic, out of touch with reality, or simply telling a bizarre tale based in reality. Without intending to, Andrew seems to unwittingly leave death and destruction in his wake, and he has naively brought the hammer down upon his own head, if he is telling the truth.
His character Andrew, tells his tale piece-meal and at times it sounds like half-truths. He has visions, hears voices and believes they are real or symbols representing reality. He speaks to this same character over a period of years, sometimes in different places, not in person, but by phone.
When tragedy strikes his world, Andrew and his wife, Martha, split up. Eventually, he falls in love again with one of his students, Briony, and he enjoys a loving relationship. When tragedy once again strikes him, on what the reader will assume is 9/11 from hints given, he resorts to previous behavior and runs away from responsibility. However, Andrew always seems to be an accident waiting to happen. When he walks his dog, it is captured by a hawk, when he goes sledding and a car avoids hitting him, it kills the driver instead. Everyone he seems to interact with is dysfunctional in some way or in some way suffers from something extraordinary.
While the surface novel is simple: man suffers and man makes mistakes and man pays for his mistakes, real or imaginary, physically, psychologically, emotionally or mentally, there seems to be a more profound meaning. The reader simply has to discover it. Is Andrew often misjudged or is he living in an alternate universe? Did the stories he relates really take place or are they figments of his imagination? Where is Andrew in the end? Is he a prisoner? Is he a free man? Is he an enemy combatant?
Although he does not name President Bush and his staff by name, it is obvious that he is referring to Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, and he dislikes them, disrespects them, believes they are ill-prepared and inept at their jobs, and that they betray him, in the end, causing his imprisonment as if he had been nothing but a plaything. In fact, I thought the author’s portrayal was a bit insulting, and I don’t believe he would portray the current President in that same way, though he could well have, since the book was published in 2013, well into the current President’s service. An author who has a main character who is an academic, can safely be assumed to most likely be liberal in his beliefs, so once again, an author has taken the opportunity, or the liberty, to use his bully pulpit to put forth his own one-sided political views, which I believe unfairly and incorrectly influences the readers and forces them to swallow the author’s bias without presenting both sides of the issue.
Be that as it may, Doctorow reads his book quite well, with expression, but his voice is gravelly, not resonant, and that made him sound a little tired and not quite that into the reading of it. It was interesting to try and figure out what was happening between the characters and guess the purpose of the conversations between the patient/client/doctor/attorney.

Patrick Hedstrom and Erika Falck live with their daughter Maja in a quiet village in Sweden. The peaceful atmosphere of Fjallbacka is shattered one day when a murder victim is discovered by two young boys. Patrick works for the police department investigating the case, but he is on paternity leave. Coincidentally, Erika finds that she is acquainted with the victim, Erik Frankel, a quiet, retired history professor with a special interest in World War II. Erika had recently discovered some of her mother’s possessions and diaries and determined to unearth the secrets of her mother’s past, she brought the Nazi medal she found to Erik, hoping he could identify it. As she uncovers her mother’s previous life, and as the investigation unfolds, many secrets will be unearthed connecting the past to the present .
Part of the story takes place in 1943, at the time of World War II. Although Sweden is not occupied, German troops are in control in nearby Norway. Some brave men are engaged in an effort to smuggle people out of that country. Elof, Erika’s father, is one of those men. It is a terrible time, a time when madness reigns and men are sometimes driven mad by what they see and experience.
As the story unfolds, the reader learns that Erika’s mother was once a young and carefree girl, part of a close group of friends. There were five of them, four were childhood friends: Elsy Mostrom, Erika’s mom, Frans Ringholm, whose father is a hateful man, Erik Frankel who had an older brother Axel, a Nazi hunter, Elsy’s girlfriend Britta, a bit of a flirt, and Hans, a young man who came late to the group. Hans suddenly appeared as a stowaway on Elsy’s father’s boat, in 1944, and is subsequently sheltered by her family. He had escaped from Norway. Frans, Erik and Axel come from the better side of town and Elsy and Britta from the poorer side. All kinds of prejudice existed at the time, and their different social class makes their friendship unusual. How they all fit into the present day murder mystery that Patrick is quasi involved in investigating, and Erika becomes drawn into as she investigates her mom’s past, is neatly knitted into the story. Without Erika’s insight and Patrick’s expertise, the police force is portrayed as a bit inept, haphazardly handling the investigation. However, the characters all grow into their jobs and their lives, admirably, as time passes.
I enjoyed the writing style of this author and didn’t want the book to end too quickly. Although it is part of a series, it stands well on its own. Erika and Patrick are characters that endeared themselves to me. So many of the quirky characters were charming and the dialog between the characters felt so natural and real with their honest expression of feelings and the injection of humor into their conversations, that I felt like I was a fly on the wall, listening in and watching the scenes unfold in real time. Although there were many unlikely coincidences, they were handled deftly by the author, woven so smoothly into the tale, they just naturally seemed to fall into place. I enjoyed the way the plot twisted and turned and kept me guessing as the mystery unfolded. It was a pleasure watching the characters grow and behave as I would have expected normal people to in real life, not stilted in any way, like watching Martin, a detective, grow into his investigator’s job and gain confidence, and watching the Chief, Bertil Mellberg, as he becomes caregiver to a charming dog named Ernst and falls in love with a salsa dancer, and observing him as he softens into a more loveable character as time goes on, although watching Patrick engage in a friendly relationship with his ex-wife stretched my imagination a bit. I was engaged by all of the characters, complete with the dog, and although some were not very likeable, all were simply human beings behaving as humans do, subject to their follies and foibles, subject to the realities of life, to its unexpected fortunes and misfortunes, compassion and malevolence.
I did find it a little contrived throughout the book because practically every societal issue arose in one form or another. Every character had some kind of an issue from sexual to domestic abuse, infidelity to divorce, gender issues to prejudice encompassing sexual preference, class and ethnic purity, from immaturity to insecurity, and it covered family relationships and dysfunction in all its forms. Still, each incident felt that it was true to form in the way that it was exposed.
If you like a good murder mystery steeped in historic fiction and flavored with romance in its many forms, this book is surely for you. This author has a gift. She makes even the goriest of scenes easy to read because they play out with realistic description rather than sensational explanation meant simply to arouse the reader. There s a lightness, a friendliness, kind of a comfort zone feeling in her words and presentation. She is never crass.
And as a yummy aside, like Erika, I love chocolate caramels and I ate them right along with her! To chocolate covered caramels, long may they live!

I had not wanted to read this book, thinking it could not add to the narrative already out there about the scandal in the Church involving pedophile priests. Was I ever wrong! I was deeply affected by this novel. This is a magnificent exposé of that moment in time, of the condemned and the wrongly condemned, of the dogma and the crises affecting the churches, everywhere, because of the vows a priest must make. It is a book that shines a spotlight on the fact that although they are the conduit to G-d, they are also humans, humans subject to all the frailties and possible commissions of sin they are heir to, humans that G-d, in his infinite wisdom will forgive (if you believe), as G-d forgives the sinner.
I couldn’t stop listening to the audio; I was so taken by Father Art and the way in which he handled the abuse he faced, the anger exhibited toward him, the spewed vitriol. He contended with his sudden discharge from the only life he had known since boyhood, with such a quiet grace, with such a forgiving outlook and compassionate demeanor, always faithful to his beliefs. His behavior contrasted sharply with the harsh judgment passed upon him by the people who jumped to conclusions, friends and worshipers who condemned him and the entire Catholic Church, for the sins of a few, without even investigating the facts.
Were the accused priests guilty? Certainly many were, but the innocent were judged to be guilty right along with them, because suddenly, there was zero tolerance once the crime was publicized and knowledge of it became widespread; the issue went from being ignored, hidden in a closet for years, to appearing on the front page of all major and minor newspapers, and it became the main topic of discussion for all the talking heads on television and radio, as well.
As I read the book, I kept thinking, let he who is without sin throw the first stone! It was an appalling crime and it horrified everyone as it should have, but it should not have taken down the unblemished priest simply because an accusation was made. A mistake in judgment should not have, therefore, been compounded by a rush to judgment. Of course, ultimately, it was the cover-up by the church, adding to the crimes already committed, that led to the over-reactions. The world watched the confessions of troubled adults who were shaped by their haunted childhoods, haunted because they were corrupted by men of G-d. Was their mistreatment the precursor of their own abusive behavior toward others? How pervasive was this pedophilia issue? I was stunned by the betrayals of family members, their lack of trust because of the shame they faced, stunned by the judgments that were made condemning those accused as guilty when those that judged them were sometimes just as guilty of committing great sins. They seemed heartless, and blind to the truth, in their single-minded attempt to wipe out the scourge of the errant priest. Would the Church ever regain its power, its reputation? Would a priest ever again be respected by the parishioners in the same unquestioning manner?
The author has crafted a tale which neither forgives nor ignores the ignominy of the shamed priest, but she also paints a beautiful image of the humanity and benevolence of other priests, those priests who truly connected with their G-d and their calling. She also explored the challenges their vows forced them to face, as well as some of the reasons that a priest might choose that wayward path.
After reading this, the reader will wonder, were some priests wrongly accused in the mania and hysteria that erupted when the world learned of the conspiracy to conceal the wrongdoing of some men of the cloth? How widespread and pervasive was the crime? This is a story about the failure of the Church and some of its priests, certainly only a minority; it is a heartbreaking story of abuse, a tragic tale of dysfunction, injustice, lies and greed, but it is also a story of hope. There is a beauty and sincerity within the dedicated men of the cloth that shines through. Haigh brings a human touch to the scandal of the Catholic Church, a scandal that rocked the nation and forced formerly devout people to question their religion and their places of worship, their relatives and their friends. Liars and scammers, those who were seeking undeserved financial reward were bound to mix themselves into the fury for their own personal gain, regardless of the innocents they hurt in the process. The moral is this: all priests should not have to dwell under the same umbrella as those that violated the very code of decency demanded by their vows!

Having already read the first book in this series with my grandchild, I decided to read the second one so we could discuss it as well. This one is also an adventure story, a story about right and wrong, good and evil, but it develops further into a sweet romance, as well. Contained within the pages are graphic depictions of violence and death. Like the fairy tales of old, it teaches children and young adults how to cope with and outwit their fears through their imaginations, how to solve difficult moral and ethical problems with thoughtfulness that is coupled with intuition, and how to face their future with hope and courage. It teaches them about evil and injustice but also about goodness and honor.
The Peculiars are in grave danger when their Cairn Island home is destroyed. Their loop is closed, and they are no longer safe. They set out in search of another loop before they are all sealed shut. If they can’t find one, time will continue on for them, and they will age and grow old, some faster than others, depending on how long they have been alive. Time will catch up with them. Unfortunately, the Wights capture Miss Peregrine (her brother is their leader), and first the children have to find and rescue her. They cannot abandon her; she has done so much for all of them. Jacob wants to fulfill his grandfather’s last wish and he decides to stay and help. Also, he is becoming more and more attached to Emma, as his grandfather was, as well.
These Peculiars are very ingenious. Although they have not aged and have been reliving the same day, over and over again, they cannot really be considered simple “children”. They are more complicated than that. When they manage to rescue Miss Peregrine, who is a shape-shifter, they discover that she cannot change back into a human form, from her bird form, because she was poisoned. In addition, her wing was injured. The children set out to find another Ymbryne to cure her, for only an Ymbryne can return her to her human form. If they don’t change her soon, she will be doomed to remain a bird forever, losing all human instincts. They discover that all the Ymbrynes have been kidnapped by the Wights, all but one, Miss Wren, so they all go to London to try and find her.
Millard, a Peculiar, studies the book of tales about Peculiars, and he discovers that they provide clues to help them find the captured Ymbrynes, Miss Wren and a cure for Miss Peregrine. However, the task is difficult. The Peculiars find themselves in 1940, in Hitler’s world. Bombs are falling on London; there is destruction everywhere. The Wights are ruthless, the Hollowgasts are running rampant. They are killing all who get in their way, and they are still trying to capture the Peculiars, seeking their secret of staying young and alive. Their plight can only be described as frightful. The Hollows can become Wights, only by eating a Peculiar.
This adventure is many sided. The Peculiars are faced with the horrors of war, the cruelty of the enemy, the danger of bombs, the fear of death, the morality and ethics of certain decisions that have to be made for the sake of expedience, the mystery of odd animals with different qualities than any they have seen before like those in the Menagerie. One animal is a mixture of a donkey and a giraffe, there is a man/dog named Addison, a man thing called Grunt, there are Armageddon chickens; these were not ignorant animals, by any means. There is a lesson to be learned here; don’t judge a book by its cover.
In their travels, the children unexpectedly find other Peculiars with different skills. They find them in places like carnivals, gypsy camps, tunnels, and bombed out buildings. Their adventures move in so many different directions, the reader will be kept guessing, making this second book just as exciting as the first. As their search continues, and the dangers they face increase, each Peculiar discovers a hidden reserve of courage he/she didn’t realize they possessed. Each Peculiar has its own “peculiar” skill. One can send fire from her fingers, one can make ice, one can sense Hollows, one can interpret the future, one is a haven for bees, one can float, one can fold himself up, one has superhuman strength, one is invisible, one has kinetic powers and there are blind twins whose minds work together, and they refuse to be separated, and there are chickens that lay unusual eggs, etc. Traveling with them through time zones and tourist loops, the reader will find a new surprise offered by the author every few pages. Just when you think you feel silly, engaged with the characters as they follow a parrot hoping it will lead them to Miss Wren, you are reengaged by the charm of another “peculiar”, by the innocence exhibited and the kindness shared.
The book has many insights to teach on a moral and ethical level. Judging someone by their outside appearance can be foolhardy, making decisions without careful thought can lead to failure, sometimes there are things that are bigger than yourself, and sometimes you have to sacrifice for a cause, throwing caution to the wind after you consider the consequences. Just because people are related, it doesn’t mean they are the same or have the same values, just look at Miss Peregrine and her brother. There is death and devastation, terror and fear everywhere. They must make difficult decisions; they must decide if saving one person is worth the sacrifice of others. This scenario has just played out in the USA, with the release of Pvt. Bow Bergdahl in exchange for five terrorist masterminds. People are unsure if this exchange was fair or warranted.
The story is so imaginative that although it seems far-fetched at times, fans of the first book will surely love this second one and will eagerly await the next and the next and the next; this looks like a successful serialized novel! I feel sure there will be another book to continue the saga of these Peculiars and the love story developing between Emma and Jacob.
Although this novel can probably stand alone, I wouldn’t recommend it that way. I had to look back to my review of the first book, “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children”, in order to refresh my memory, and without it, I don’t think I would have either remembered or understood the plot as well. It can get complicated as it twists and turns in different directions. One drawback of the audio version of the book is the lack of interesting pictures that are included in the hard copy. However, on the positive side, the characters truly come alive in your mind with this excellent reader. The accents are authentic whether Scottish, British, Russian, or American. When a character speaks he/she is recognizable so the thread of the narrative is never broken and the reader is always engaged.

This is a well written, but heartbreaking story about two families, the Hartsoes and the Murchesons. Cicero Murcheson marries Susan Elizabeth Hartsoe and she bears 9 children. The tragedies that follow their lifeline are tenderly expressed by this author. The tale is told from the perspective of Mary Bet Hartsoe, the youngest and last surviving child of the family. She has witnessed the deaths of her grandparents, siblings and mother. She has had to deal with her brother’s deafness and had to watch her father’s descent into madness following his own father’s path. At the end of his life, her grandfather Hartsoe, was obsessed with creating a perpetual motion machine. This story is about superstition and, possibly, the perpetual motion of life, the forward marching of this family and others like it, that in spite of their inexorable, difficult journey toward heartache and loss, continue on, never quite giving up. The decisions Mary Bet was forced to make were heartfelt but difficult, yet make them she did. She was a strong and independent woman in a time period when women were docile and compliant. A forerunner to more vocal champions of women’s rights, she achieved a place of honor in a man’s world and, ultimately, discovered her own rightful place in the world.
The novel begins as the 19th century nears its end and continues until the end of World War I when Mary Bet’s life finally takes a different turn. Mary Bet was born in 1887 and she spent the next three decades seeking solutions to her questions and uncertainties and trying to discover her true purpose in life. Her quiet strength and determination, her kindness, her manners, her fears and her sorrows are all presented in detail, making her into a character we grow to know and identify with; we feel her burdens and share in her pain as she faces the sorrows rained down upon her family. We are privy to her doubts about herself and her faith in an ever present G-d, her fear of death and the devil, and on the other end of the spectrum, her ultimate optimism in the face of trauma. She rarely shows anger and most often exhibits common sense in her dealings with people. Throughout her life, Mary Bet is pretty even-tempered, kind and generous, but she has committed her own sins in the past which have continued to loom larger in her mind. She must come to terms with them. She wonders if her family could be cursed. The family’s genetic field is threaded with madness. Even Mary Bet sometimes feels that she is not quite tethered to the ground. She once had an imaginary friend. She believed the devil was coming for her. She witnessed her father’s bouts of madness when he talked to himself, admonished himself, tried to shoot himself.
She lives in a time when change is everywhere. There are horseless carriages, advances in civil rights, improvements for the rights of women. There is racial bias and religious prejudice which is just beginning to be addressed. So this story is about a time when not only Mary Bet searches for answers, but so does America. Should women and blacks have improved rights and benefits, the right to vote, own property; should the country go to war, conscript men, allow women to hold office, should companies discriminate, should Christians mix with Jews? It is a time when there area no miracle drugs and very few adequate treatments for disease and other afflictions.
The image of life in the heady days at the turn of the century is vivid. The reader is taken back into the past with Mary Bet. It is a world in which different classes, religions and race are stressed. Mixing is forbidden. Sometimes it feels like there is too much detail, but it is the minute explanations of everyday life that allow the reader to get to know the main character and live in that time with her, although some characters seem to come and go before they are fully developed.
The reader may wonder if Mary Bet’s insecurities and burdens were brought on by her own behavior, her own tentativeness and instability. However, she comes into her own, becoming the first woman to serve as interim sheriff in North Carolina. She manages the job well, solving crimes, reforming juveniles, and settling many petty disputes and economic issues that have remained unresolved for years.
Also, as I read, I sometimes wondered where this book was going. It seemed to march on without a goal, and yet, in the end, it was simply a very good story, a story told without the vitriol, crude language and concentration on sex that is so prevalent in many of the cruder novels of today. Mary Bet is a warm and endearing character, a bit afraid of G-d and the Devil. Religion and its dogma scare her. She has suffered so much loss that she may be afraid to love, afraid to lose again, afraid she could be cursed. This book is about her coming of age, her growing into herself and learning to deal with the contrasting aspects of life.
The title comes from a poem by George Herbert, Bittersweet.

The most interesting feature of the book is not the story but the history. The use of Orphan Trains for a period of 75 years, without true regard for the conditions into which these innocent children were placed, was heretofore unknown to me. Considering the sudden discovery of what we can only call “orphan planes” in our current society, moving and depositing homeless South American and Central American children, from state to state, into communities with no infrastructure for them, is heartless. However, the circumstances for these children are different from those orphaned children who found themselves in America, alone after some tragedy, with no home and no one to care for them. The children crawling over the border are illegally entering the country, inspired to do so by their parents who then, perhaps, hope to be allowed to join them. Should they be returned to their own homes, to their own countries? Who is responsible, the country that pushes them to America or America for not better protecting its borders? Who is going to support them? Aren’t they committing a crime, albeit at the behest of an adult who remains outside of our laws? Should we be asking for volunteers to take them in after more careful scrutiny than the days of the Orphan Trains? The book made me think on these questions.
The novel itself contains two parallel stories, one takes place early in the 20th century, from 1929-1943, and the other takes place in 2011. They eventually interconnect in a coherent manner, but there are times when the cohesive thread tears away a bit and the reader may feel confused. Two females who have had lives of deprivation and heartache somehow come together and find happiness. Molly, seventeen, is a teenage rebel. Her father has died, her mom is into drugs, and she has been in a number of foster homes, unable to find a suitable place for herself or to stop trying to get negative attention. She has striped hair, nose rings and many earrings. She describes herself as Goth. She commits a rather innocuous kind of a crime and is sentenced to community service. Her boyfriend seems to simply be the vehicle used to introduce her to Vivian, ninety-one, a woman who has survived and prospered in spite of her sad beginnings. Jack is not a very well developed character, nor is his mother, Terry, who convinces Vivian, at the behest of her son, to hire Molly to help her clean her attic in order to complete her community service.
The story is contrived, but very interesting. It grows into a bit of a fairytale since “all’s well that ends well”, seems to be the message of the novel. However, the intimation that foster parents are pretty much evil, taking in children only for the money, pretty much using them as workhorses, is untrue, although there are certainly rotten apples in every basket. I was a foster parent, and I did it for altruistic reasons, not financial concerns. I hope there are far more like I was than the ones described in the novel. I spent far more than I was allotted for the teenager I cared for, and I would have sent her to college, on my own dime, had she stayed. However, social services saw fit to return her to her home. Although she returned to me a short time later, asking to come back, she refused to go through the system again, so I could not take her back. Her father, an anti-Semite, believed that while I, a Jew, did not intend to steal his child, other Jews might do so. I had never heard of this fear before, but the memory of that incident brings me back to the storyline; I couldn’t help wondering if the Schatzman’s were German Jews, since the name could very well be of Jewish origin. Could the author have an unwarranted, negative hidden inference here?
I thought there was also an interesting message in the book regarding the care and treatment of the elderly. Vivian languished until Molly entered her life. Molly provided added meaning to her days, treated her as if she had ideas that mattered and gave more purpose to her life. Her housekeeper treated her like a frail person with limited capability. Molly treated her like a “woman of substance”. Molly began to look forward to spending her days together with Vivian and vice-versa. Everyone wants to be accepted as a valued human being.
Another theme was the negative misjudging of innocent victims of circumstance, never giving them the benefit of the doubt. I thought that our penal code could benefit from a bit more thoughtfulness, rather than the over-coddling or over-punishing of those in the over-burdened system. In our haste to judge others, we often misjudge them and, instead, experience the joy of schaedenfreude, a nasty, highly unnecessary pleasure, if there ever was one.
So, although I found the storyline rather conveniently arranged, I thought there were many underlying themes that were ripe for discussion. All in all, it was a very moving story about a time in our history when the Children’s Services, designed to protect children, tragically failed the most innocent who were in the worst of circumstances. Yet, the message of this book seems to be their fate might have been far worse had they been left on the streets. I contend that their fates would have been far better had the recipients of these children been screened and monitored. The idea that this story was based on a true historic episode is horrifying to me and should not be dismissed so easily. Perhaps, if we paid more attention to the abuses government and charitable agencies commit, we would accomplish more, in the end. Abuses still exist today.
The writing style seemed to be more fitting for a YA novel, than an adult novel, and perhaps it should be considered as a crossover. Young adults could learn a lot about what they have in their lives to appreciate if they take the time to stop and consider that the main objective of these children, in this novel, was simply to survive.

This book is definitely directed to Christians, but there is no reason why others should not read it. It is very informative and it is written in a clear-cut, simple way; in a straight forward manner, it describes the horrors of World War II, and it documents the terror that Corrie Ten Boom actually experienced. Although some of the information presented may seem exaggerated to some, I feel comfortable writing that the book seems based on facts. This is a story about courage in the face of despicable evil, a story about a family in Holland that was willing to put the needs of others above their own. This is a story about the Underground, a story about the Ten Booms who rescued Jews and hid them in their own home, selflessly.
Through the trauma and pain, they never doubted their purpose or their actions; they believed that what they were doing was right, and perhaps, it was G-d’s will. No matter what your belief in G-d is, you will find this story inspiring because it is about true kindness, true compassion, true sacrifice. Two of the sisters experienced Concentration Camp life together and that helped each in its own way; Betsie benefitted from Corrie’s love and care when she was ill; She ministered to others and always saw the silver lining, even in the worst of circumstances. She helped Corrie out of her bouts of anger and despair. Betsie, in the spirit of her religion, forgave the sinners and pitied them for their malevolence, prayed for them and hoped to help them too. She forgave their wickedness. If she was truly able to help others to survive the most awful conditions, let’s agree to accept that her gift came from somewhere.
This stirring story comes out of the blackest period of history. The ability to forgive those who have wronged you is surely not an easy thing to do, and yet, that is what Corrie does when she is finally free. She fulfills Betsie’s dream. She finds a beautiful home, like her sister imagined, where the rescued could be rehabilitated and introduced into society again.
Before the war, at home, in Haarlem, Corrie’s father took in homeless children and her sister Betsie, like her mother before her death, fed the hungry. The Second World War in Europe screamed from the radio, but the changes taking place hardly interrupted their lives until the night of the Prime Minister’s speech, the night that he promised the people there would be no war, and yet, it turned out to be the very night that the bombs began to fall. Holland was being attacked despite the promises that their neutrality would be respected. Very soon, the Queen left and they were occupied by the Germans. Life slowly began to change. The Ten Booms rose to the challenge they faced.
As a Jew, I truly appreciated the effort of these righteous Christians and the honesty with which their story is portrayed. Although it doesn’t mention much about the horrors the Jews were subjected to, it shines a light on the horrors that were visited upon the political prisoners who tried to help them, and their plight was, if not as bad and desperate, surely a close second after what I read. So many suffered the same terror, the same fear of arrest, the same humiliation and torture, the same starvation and deprivation as the Jews, though their numbers did not mount into the millions. Perhaps it was their belief in the power of miracles and their belief in Jesus that sustained them, whatever it was, it clearly worked. Many people who survived the war tell of miraculous occurrences that just seemed to occur, crediting these with saving their lives. There were many unsung heroes who risked their lives, ultimately sacrificing them, so that others might live and end the evil perpetrated by the National Socialists, the Nazis.
The Ten Boom family was humble and faithful. They started every day with a prayer session to which all were welcome. They had food at the ready for the needy and a bed for those who found themselves homeless. Their unmitigated courage and kindness should be recognized and honored. They truly lived righteously at a time when malevolence was everywhere, perhaps because they lived everyday righteously, even without the thought of impending doom hanging over their heads..
The belief in Christ is definitely a major theme in the book, but I didn’t find it offensive. I was reading about their experience and their beliefs. Their vivid descriptions of conditions seemed so precise that I could see the fleas and the lice crawling. If they wanted to find G-d’s hand, even in that filth, that was okay with me. The issues they faced were dealt with openly, as with the dialog about the physical appearance of some Jews, how they were described in some cases as too Semitic looking to easily hide. While this might seem a negative, stereotypical description of Jews, since only one was described as lovely and blonde and there was disbelief that she too was sacrificed, it seemed honest, it was the only time I sensed some possible prejudice.
The family was aware of the fact that people were disappearing at a time that most people turned a blind eye and they offered to help even when the clergy refused. Eventually, they were betrayed by a collaborator, yet Betsie, and eventually Corrie, forgave their enemies or at least tried to with the help of their G-d. No matter how many Holocaust books I read, I always learn something and I always am incredulous and brought to tears. So I respect whatever power worked for these righteous Gentiles. This is not a newly published work, but it will never be too late to read it and profit from their experience, from their courage and their example.

This audio book is read impeccably by the reader, Sam Devereaux. He sounded almost supernatural, at times. His voice was resonant and mellow. Reading in a dreamy, quiet, almost mournful, matter-of-fact tone (but there are lighter moments of jest also), he was able to convey the exact temperament of Richard Haddon and imprint his character upon the reader’s memory.
Richard, an artist, seems to be a man in the depths of despair. His wife, Anne-Laure, has discovered his infidelity and cannot forgive him. She has read the love letters revealing his unfaithfulness, and she can no longer trust him. She is angry, humiliated and ashamed. It is hard to know if Richard is really remorseful, or if he is merely desperate and lonely. We know he wants to be forgiven. They have a child, Camille, and he cannot bear the thought of losing that life he shared with them, yet, he betrayed them, and might have done worse had Lisa Bishop, his lover, not dumped him first. The story evolves as Richard tries to make amends for his stupidity, hoping to return to his former life.
I found three themes in the story. The first concerns a painting called, Blue Bear, a painting Richard made when his wife was pregnant. It symbolized the conflict of his fear and joy at the birth of his first child. It is a secret feeling they both shared and understood about the painting’s meaning. The second concerns his desire to make a strong political statement which he hopes will bring his wife back to their marriage bed. He hopes she will be proud of him and forgive him, hopes she will realize he was really a good person, and he loved her. He had just made a terrible mistake. The third is Richard’s film “Witness”, a kind of documentary in which he interviews his parents and their friends in an attempt to discover what keeps their love alive, what do they like and dislike about each other, and what is wrong with his own emotional needs and bonds. Through these introspective interviews and family conversations, secrets are revealed. The art project, which will make a political statement that will bring him notice and hopefully expiate his crime, encouraging his wife to forgive him, is the culmination of those three underlying issues the book explores.
Richard uses President Bush and his policies toward Iraq as the vehicle to fuel his need to create a performance art project which he calls War Wash. His art sponsor hates George Bush, so they are a perfect team. Once again, an author has taken the opportunity to use the bully pulpit to bash George Bush and the conservatives in order to promote a personal liberal bent. It is getting to be a pretty nasty habit. Why didn’t she instead create something about the bombing of the aspirin factory by Bill Clinton and the murder conspiracy surrounding Princess Diana? That could have been a large statement about women’s rights and the abuse they are made to suffer by men and would have fit into his transgression, his original sin, very neatly. Instead he used his dislike for Tony Blair as well, because he sided with America in the effort to find Weapons of Mass Destruction which were never found. In addition, the art exhibitor who sponsored his project just happened to be Middle Eastern, so the project took on more than a political tone, it also seemed a bit biased toward one culture.
I believe that while Richard’s behavior was totally selfish and self-serving, President Bush’s behavior was meant to be altruistic, to rid the world of a tyrant, to stop the genocide in Iraq. I do not believe that the President acted in his own self-interest as Richard and Azar, his art sponsor, may well have.
Richard was brought up in England, spent time in the United States, but was living in Paris now, and he was happy that his adopted country, France, remained out of the fray. His “living” creation featured Britain and America and symbolized the sins of both countries and also those of individuals, as well, who wanted to wash their failures and wrongdoings out of life. The public made donations to be used in the live creation of the project. The detritus of life, the failed dreams, the mistakes and the disappointments, were all tossed into, and featured in, the final creation which was then tossed and washed in a machine filled with gasoline, not water. The symbolism was huge and explosive. Richard, too, is hoping for a regime change so he can return home, to his former life, and he was willing to do something outside the box to regain his dignity and his life.
In an effort to be kind and not be enraged because I am once again being force fed political beliefs I may or may not agree with, in a book which is masquerading as a novel but may well be a political treatise, I decided that he used the project as a metaphor for the breakup of his marriage. Both the war and his affair were doomed to failure, he believed, both were futile attempts to attain personal gain, but in reality could only cause ultimate pain. He came to believe that his behavior and that of America and Britain, were acts of stupidity. Therefore, perhaps it was not as politically heavy-handed as I originally thought.
I think Richard believed that the war was completely unjust and damaging for the world, and what he did to his family was equally unjust and damaging to his private world. Both acts were enormously destructive to an established way of life. He declared war on his marriage and Bush declared war on Iraq. Both may or may not have been misguided attempts to gain recognition; your beliefs will, depend upon your own moral, ethical and political beliefs, as well as your own personal commission of sins.
The narrative is exquisitely lyrical at times, but sometimes that mood was broken by the insertion of some crude and ugly language that referenced sex, body parts and/or bodily functions. I am not sure what the author’s intention was at those times, but it made what would have been a beautifully written, more serious novel, more of a beach read. In addition, the ending was too predictable and too much like a fairy tale.

Bill Bryson’s book is expertly researched and very well written. It is an interesting exposé about the events of the summer of 1927 and its ultimate influence on America. Known for writing travel books, he has taken the reader on a trip down the decade of the 1920’s. He introduces the reader to anecdotal tales about Prohibition, anti-Semitism, racism, the coming Depression, the New Deal, and Hitler’s rise to power, to name just a few of the positive and negative events that he covers that would eventually bring change to America. The 1920’s were a decade of turmoil and a loosening of societal inhibitions. It was the era of the flapper. It was a decade that brought changes to the field of aviation, boxing, the banking industry, the workplace, the White House, and Broadway, plus other venues too numerous to mention. It was a decade which created radio’s NBC and CBS, Charles Ponzi’s infamous Ponzi scheme and Charles Lindbergh’s “Spirit of St. Louis”.
The author dwells a great deal on those who had a major influence on American life, both in fame and infamy, some who were well known and some lesser known, some who remain iconic figures today. He illuminates the ways in which many people became famous, often using their powerful influence to get around the law and profit illegally from deals giving them an unfair advantage. He writes about Charles Lindbergh’s and Henry Ford’s anti-Semitism and Ford’s many illegal business practices, he writes about the feud between Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth, the exceptionally, and perhaps unnaturally, close relationship that Charles Lindbergh and Lou Gehrig had with their mothers. He covers the career of Jack Dempsey, Calvin Coolidge, Jacob Ruppert who owned the Yankees, and Richard E. Byrd, an explorer and aviator, (though the veracity of some of his achievements has been questioned). He writes about Calvin Coolidge and Lindbergh’s lack of social skills, and Coolidge’s lack of involvement as President. He exhibited a kind of laziness. He didn’t step in when questions arose on the financial state of the Union. Coolidge over delegated, failed to heed Herbert Hoover’s warnings about the danger of the bubble in the stock market, and ultimately set the stage for the Great Depression. He describes the many moments of the decade and the many behavior patterns of its memorable men and women which ultimately influenced the summer of 1927.
He covers the trumped up trial of Sacco and Vanzetti, the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby by Bruno Hauptmann, the execution of Ruth Snyder at Sing Sing; they were all events which captured the nation’s attention. He explains how Mount Rushmore evolved, the rise and fall of Clara Bow, and Al Jolson’s rise to fame in the same talkies that took down Bow. He describes the theory of eugenics which took hold in that decade and led to discussions of race purification, which can only be described as Nazi like theories. He describes Bela Lugosi’s fame as Dracula, the way the show, “Showboat” changed theatre by integrating it, and he writes about the corruption of Chicago which may very well still exist today. It was the place that is rumored to have started the idea of “vote early, vote often”!
As he explores the summer of 1927 and the decade influencing it, he exposes its underbelly with some facts that many readers will not have known before. The summer seems to be the precursor of many of the major societal failures to come. It was the decade that was the catalyst for the Depression; there were secret meetings held by bankers, there was a President who made an unwise response to their demands, a President who failed to heed Herbert Hoover’s warnings about the effects of reducing interest rates on the economy. Had he reacted differently, perhaps history would have changed. Who knows? Bryson shares little known facts with the reader, like the fact that Henry Ford is mentioned in Mein Kampf because Hitler admired him or the idea that Lindbergh was a womanizer or that Babe Ruth abused liquor and was often in trouble.
Perhaps my biggest criticism of the book is that it contains too many facts, too many important figures, too much history, and simply too many details. It became too difficult to remember much of what was written. There was so much information presented that much of it was immediately lost to the reader because of its over abundance. I felt like I was being bombarded with information, and therefore, no matter how important it was, its abundance made it seem trivial. It seems like a book that will be ideal for use in a game of Trivial Pursuit, but not necessarily for a book discussion.

This is a remarkably well written book with a different approach to the Holocaust. Rather than one that depicts the plight of the Jews and the Concentration Camps, this one attempts to get behind the evil that man can create because of the inability to see clearly; it focuses on those who were not the original targets of Hitler and his henchmen. It closely follows the lives of two young children, Marie LeBlanc and Werner Pfennig, made enemies primarily because of the countries in which they were born, although Marie’s character might have made her a resistance fighter no matter where she lived. The author illustrates how the absence of light, the blindness that prevents sighted people from seeing the truth, can cause otherwise ordinary individuals to behave badly, to allow themselves to deny what they are actually seeing, in order to advance their own cause, regardless of the cost to others who are innocent, others who may or may not fit the Aryan mold of perfection visualized by Hitler. The story travels in time, primarily from 1934 when Werner is 12 (his sister Jutta is 7) and Marie is 8, to the end of WWII, ultimately taking us briefly into their futures, to tie up all the loose ends. It concentrates on the year 1944, setting the stage for the enlightenment of the reader. Werner wants to explore light that is essentially invisible to him, like electricity and UV rays, while Marie, for whom light is non-existent, tries to fathom an invisible world. Both children are in search of what cannot be seen. The connection, between Marie and Werner, that “comes to light” at the end of the book, profoundly effected how they both faced their futures.
Marie and her father live in Paris and she makes the most of her life, even though she lost her sight as a young child. Father and daughter are exceptionally close. Daniel worships Marie and Marie depends on her father completely. He is her mentor, her teacher, her protector. Marie is a cheerful, optimistic child. Daniel LeBlanc is the locksmith at the Museum of Natural History. He builds special storage places to store the valuable objects housed by the museum. He carves a miniature version of their neighborhood for Marie, and she studies it with her fingers. He walks her through the streets pointing out landmarks, sewers, doorways, etc. so she can discover where she is and comfortably move about. He builds puzzles for her to solve by planting surprises inside them to motivate her to overcome her blindness and decipher the world around her. When he can, he purchases Braille books for her to read. He takes her to work with him and she learns her way around the museum. When Hitler rises to power and the museum fears that their precious cargo will be stolen, they try to protect an especially precious gem by creating several counterfeit duplicates. It is a priceless diamond which is supposed to possess magical powers, the power to keep its owner alive while it brings misfortune to those around him. A German officer, incurably ill, becomes obsessed with obtaining it, and as the war rages on, he uses his search for the true gem as the catalyst for arrests and murders. The gem plays a major role in Marie’s life.
Werner lives in the Children’s House with his younger sister, Jutta. They are orphans under the care of Frau Elena, a gentle mother figure to several children there. Jutta watches as her well-loved brother is corrupted by the rewards offered by the Nazis. The special school he is offered a place in, is an escape from the mines, which is a dire future, and it makes him feel more worthy than he has ever before felt in his life. Although Marie is not sighted, she and Jutta see and understand far more than Werner does, and their characters are far more compassionate and less self centered. Jutta tries to encourage Werner not to be “blind” to the things occurring around him, not to give in to the cruelty of the Hitler Youth and the Nazis, as Marie later tries to encourage her uncle Etienne to rise to the task he is faced with, and not be blinded by his fear when his help is so badly needed to help prevent that same cruelty.
Werner is exceptionally bright. He loves to explore and find out how things work. He is curious about electricity and other things that you cannot see, but that you can create. He builds his own radio from scraps he figures out how to transmit radio waves. At the special school he “decides” to attend (who really had the choice to do anything under Hitler), he is basically taught how to hate and how to obey, along with the skills of a radioman. He helps to design ways to track down the illegal radios used by the underground resistance movement in their broadcasts and spy network.
As the characters are developed, we witness how they see what is in front of them, how they avoid seeing what is in front of them and how they create different versions of the reality in front of their very own eyes to suit their own needs and purposes. Some look away and get a perverted view, some stare into the lives of others and are themselves perverted. Does everyone have a price? Daniel watches as his daughter grows into a kind, resourceful young woman in spite of her handicap. She is well loved. In her mind’s eye, she lets in the truth while Werner shuts it out. Werner represents Marie’s enemy, the enemy of France and the world, and yet he is depicted with two sides of the same coin and seems a sympathetic figure; one is a young innocent victim of the times, and the other is as a guilty conspirator, aiding Hitler to advance himself. Werner tracks enemy radio signals and he discovers one that emanates from Marie’s home. How Werner reacts to Marie’s plight, to Marie as his enemy, is the life lesson of the book.
To me, Werner represented the waste of the minds of brilliant young men and women of all stripes, because as a population, they felt so downtrodden, so hopeless and helpless, so jealous and greedy, they simply chose to follow a madman to advance their own cause rather than see the light of what was happening around them. All light was absent! They blinded themselves to the horrors they were helping to create, to the murders and the torture of innocent victims. Yet the one that was truly blind, Marie, had more vision and could intuit what was happening around her, could sense the pain and the absence of those who were disappearing slowly. The population’s willful blindness was far more dangerous and debilitating than Marie’s medical blindness. Through the eyes of these children, we learn about true blindness. Marie would like to see what she cannot and Werner was closing his eyes to what he could see, directly in front of them.
Told in the voices of the young main characters, we watch as Werner is brainwashed along with many other young impressionable boys and girls, lured with promises of strength, success, nationalism, and ultimately, power. The Fuhrer demands absolute fealty, devotion, worship, and loyalty, on pain of death, torture, and imprisonment for themselves and/or their families. They wanted order and hope and he gave it to them as the ultimate father figure. Often, they were too frightened to fight back. Most were corrupted by Hitler’s polices and thugs when they were merely innocent, impressionable children, young enough to be shaped into the perfect Aryan, the concept Hitler promoted; yet some were basically evil in their nature, waiting for an opportunity to prey on others, others they believe had once preyed on them because they perceived them as weak and inferior. Thus the weak and inferior soon rose to the top. Hitler was worshiped as a G-d, a G-d who could grant an escape from the emptiness, oppression and waste of their lives, and in desperation, they did not think about the consequences of their actions, they thought only of personal rewards.
Because the timeline moves back and forth and the action takes place in different locales, it can get a little confusing to keep the story straight. The chapters are very short and this too, can be a bit off-putting since the narrative stops and starts very quickly, as it moves from place to place and character to character, forward and backwards in time. The reader will wonder who is better off, Marie who sees and understands more in her blindness or Werner, who chooses to not see or understand what is happening, or what he is doing, because in supporting the evil of Hitler, in his evil genius, he will be set free from a future in the mines, the same mines that took the life of his father. Hitler had cleverly figured out how to make the unimportant and undeserving, powerful believers in themselves, and Hitler actively encouraged them to blame others for their own shortcomings, to engage in violent, vengeful behavior toward those they felt had held them down, that were not pure Aryans. We can all thank the powers that be that he did not succeed. How blind and different the world would be if he was at the helm; it would be a very dark place, indeed if the light had not eventually shone through.

Marcus Goldman is a writer who studied under the tutelage of a world renowned, award-winning author, Harry Quebert. When he finds, after his huge first unexpected success, that at the age of 28 he can no longer seem to write and is faced with writer’s block, he is devastated. He suddenly remembers his old friend and mentor Harry Quebert, the man who made him believe in himself. He had pretty much abandoned him when he gained fame, but now, after a long absence in his life, he calls him and is graciously welcomed back and invited to stay at Harry’s bucolic home in New Hampshire until he regains his momentum.
The story travels in many directions. Marcus is given advice by Harry. He begins to box again with his old friend, teacher and surrogate father, as they used to do in his college days. Even so, he cannot relax and write. Ensconced in this perfect setting, there is still no inspiration. Badgered by his publisher with threats of a law suit, if he doesn’t produce a book by his deadline, he resigns himself to the fact that he is no longer a writer. While rudely and clandestinely searching through papers in Harry’s home, hoping to find the initial notes for his renowned book so he can understand how he should begin again, he finds out that, in 1975, at the age of 34, Harry had an illicit relationship with a fifteen year old girl, Nola Kellergan, for whom, when confronted, he professes a deep, and everlasting love and a plan to run away with her which was foiled when she was murdered. He has carried a torch for her ever since, and he confesses that the book he is remembered for, “The Origins of Evil”, was written for her. After this episode, Marcus returns home, to New York.
When Harry’s landscapers uncover human bones on his property, while planting Hydrangea bushes, he is arrested for Nola Kellergan’s murder. Marcus returns, stands by his side, giving up any effort to have any book ready for his publisher, although he is faced with legal action, and he begins an investigation to prove Harry’s innocence. This will lead, ultimately, to the book he needs to write, the book which will maintain his status as a sought after writer and which will reveal all the facts, some of which would have been better left hidden. The stigma of the relationship with an underage girl will stain Harry’s reputation irreparably, even if he is innocent.
Hypocrisy, secrecy, lies, deception, emotional conflict, warnings to leave, threats against his life, psychological twists and turns will face him as he conducts his inquiry. On almost every page, in an effort to get to the bottom of this mystery, the reader will be faced with intrigue. The ending will be a total surprise in its many facets and the reader will be caught in the grip of this engaging crime novel filled with advice for writers, advice for the lovelorn and the lonely, and an exploration of the “origin of evil” in all of its costumes, mental and physical. There is no end to the artifice and cover-ups of those involved in this double murder mystery. Nothing is as it seems.
The book works backwards as the chapters descend in order, instead of ascending as the do in a normal pattern because the book begins in 2008 and has to solve a crime committed 33 years before. As it works backward, the characters will be well developed and their behavior carefully examined. Sometimes minor characters will assume unexpected importance. There will be a bit of humor like those times when mothers try and organize the lives of their children, and there will be moments of shock and surprise. The psychology of behavior will be a key point in the discoveries made.
I wonder if anyone will guess the ending, but I truly doubt it, so please, do yourselves a favor, don’t cheat, don’t read the last pages first, sit back and relax and enjoy a page turner of a novel with many twists and turns that will take you on a thought-provoking trip as the murders are investigated. The reader will be left wondering about what man is capable of when fear is governing behavior, when terrible mistakes are made and accidents happen that cannot be reversed, when facts are misunderstood, and misdirected intentionally, They will discover that even those that are not truly evil can commit a crime of passion, that seemingly honest, moral people will allow innocent people to suffer for their sins, that hypocrisy rules over honor, and that conclusions are drawn from circumstantial evidence, jumped to without investigating all the facts once madness and mayhem enter the picture.
The drawback of the book is that although it is engaging, it is not entirely credible at times. When the book ends, the reader may sit back and ponder all of the twists and turns and wonder about the conspiracy that developed to protect those who were guilty. The reader will have to go back over the book, will have to recreate the scenes and revisit each character before it will all fall into place. Take this book on vacation, on an airplane, into the tub for a relaxing bath, but don’t take it too seriously!
Although not all critics liked this book, I found it a fast-paced thriller even if it isn’t literature! If you are looking for rocket science, don’t read it, if you are looking for a good mystery that will capture you from page one, even in its hokeyness, then enjoy the read.

When Riley McPherson’s father dies, she discovers many odd secrets about her family. She does not know which ones to believe. She once had a sister, Lisa, whose behavior seriously altered the outcome of her own life and the lives of everyone in her family. Lisa had been a child prodigy. Her instrument was the violin, and the violin was named Violet. Violet becomes a minor character in the tale as does a pendant made of white Jade.
As Riley attempts to settle her father’s affairs, she also discovers that her father had a very close woman friend, Jeannie, a woman who had once been her own mother’s dearest friend, a woman who was also well acquainted with her sister. She is disturbed to discover that Jeannie, and others, seem to have been closer to her father than she herself was.
Offhanded comments, made by some of the characters, make Riley realize that there are many mysterious elements in her life that she has to investigate. Up until this time, Riley’s life was mostly about her own needs. She behaved impetuously, without thinking things through. As many of the intimate details of her life are revealed, she is profoundly affected and she continues to make rash decisions as she explores her background.
Her brother Danny was hurt in the Iraq war and he suffers from PTSD. He is not very helpful in Riley’s search for answers to the mysteries in her life or in her effort to resolve her father’s estate. He lives in a world of his own, in a trailer, pretty much removed from most of society. He is totally into himself and his own needs, but he is computer savvy and can help her in her search for information, if only she can persuade him.
The book is largely about Riley and her search for facts about her sister. There were more than a dozen years between them so she knew very little about her. It took me about 50 pages to be drawn into the narrative, and although I was eventually engaged, I never found the story very credible. I was a bit put off when the story decided to include a lesbian relationship from out of nowhere. I don’t mind reading books about alternate lifestyles, but I resent being hijacked into reading one, since there was no mention of that in any of the reviews I read. I would like to have the choice of whether or not I want to read about that type of relationship. To the author’s credit, it was handled very well, very tastefully. It never went over the top with explicit description and was never cheapened, for effect, as it is in some novels.
The novel is a bit overly melodramatic at times, and the cast of characters seemed totally dysfunctional, self-serving and immature. If there weren’t so many of them, the story might not have seemed so improbable. They were all just so needy, it disgusted me. I wanted to shout at them to grow up and accept responsibility for their own behavior without condemning and blaming everyone else for what befell them. Their behavior was just too headstrong and thoughtless, at times, and the dialogue was often trite, almost infantile, talking down to the reader, in a way.
I enjoyed this book mostly for its mindlessness. It took me away from the everyday cares that often bog us down. The book is a no-brainer, perhaps a relaxing beach read, meant solely to entertain because the outcome of this mystery is very predictable. On the positive side, there were many twists and turns to hold the attention of the reader, and as a vacation read, it would be very entertaining.

On the surface, Laird Hunt has written a touching tale about a woman’s love for her husband and the sacrifice she made for him. She went off to fight in the Civil War, leaving him, the weaker one, behind. Since Constance was more masculine in her demeanor and Bartholomew was more feminine, they reversed roles, and he remained at home to tend the farm. Constance Thompson became Ash Thompson and broke her husband’s heart when she left as an entirely different person.

The “Ballad of Gallant Ash” could be an alternate title for this book. Constance needed to join the cause of the Union Army in order to protect her husband and challenge the pain she always carried within her heart and mind. Since her husband was not a tough enough person to go and would certainly meet his death, she donned the clothes of a man and left, hoping to return at the war’s end. Chasing her own fears in the process, she often wondered if fear would find her instead, as her mother had once predicted.

The beauty of the tale is that it is narrated by Constance/Ash, a tough Indiana farmer’s wife, in a voice that is genuine and authentic as a female, but her actions are also credible in the role of a male. Since she is comfortable in the outdoors and is a competent hunter, she is able to use her wiles and her expertise with a gun to protect herself. She is more capable than most of the new recruits, so she quickly makes herself a legend-like soldier, able to do most of what is required proficiently.

The tragedy of war, and what it extorts from enemy and ally alike, is so clearly drawn that when the final page is turned, the reader is almost more than a witness to the events; the reader is almost a participant. The descriptions of the battles are matter of fact, expressed in the simplest of terms, yet they put you in the thick and thin of the fray. Most of the emotion is removed, and only the clear and very concise telling of it remains, describing all of the causes and effects of particular moments in battle, each one almost more significant than the other, if that is possible.

Below the surface, it is a fast, but painful read as it feels like a confession, spoken in the most uncomplicated and honest terms. The sheer simplicity of the tale, in so few words, evokes all the pain of slavery, the agony of war, the depth of lost love and lost children, the enormous sacrifice required and the devotion and loyalty war sometimes inspires in spite of the betrayal it often witnesses. It is quite remarkable in its portrayal of the Civil War. The development of the main character is superb. As her persona changes, from male to female, and back again, she remains a true representation of the female/male soldier and that masquerade that existed during the war.

The tale truly acknowledges the ugliness, violence and hypocrisy of war and shows the soldiers displaying fear and mistrust, disloyalty and deceit, cruelty and shame. It also shows the devotion of those either left behind or actively fighting, to their loved ones and their country, even as it displays, loud and clear, the utter waste war leaves behind, the sheer madness and fear it produces, and the senselessness of the inflicted pain, injustice and retribution, which only lead to more heartache and tragedy in a never ending spiral.

In the language of the poor farmer, without much education, with its own ungrammatical charm, it felt as if Constance/Ash was speaking directly to me. At other times it felt almost like a personal diary, a simple relating of the facts of the day, as she wrote her letters, or spoke with others. As she documented the experiences she witnessed, even when filled with horror, they almost seemed mundane. It seemed as if Ash was becoming more and more inured to the brutality of the war but also completely imbued with its horror and a need for revenge. Her need to extract retribution for the injustices done to herself and her family were eventually her tragic undoing.

I had enjoyed the book “New York”, by this same author, and had hoped to enjoy this book as much, but I am sad to admit I was disappointed. Although it is fact filled, the tale woven by the author seemed a bit contrived, way too long and contained far too much extraneous detail. We learn about several families whose lives continue to intersect over more than 5 centuries, from the mid 1400’s to 1968. Often, because the story moves back and forth in time, sometimes without warning, it is hard to remember them all, and even sometimes, harder to place which character is being featured.
Essentially, for me, the tale introduced and largely followed these families: the Gascons, the Le Sourds, the Le Cynges and the Blanchards. The historic rise of Paris, from decadence to the modern cultural center it has become today, is told over more than 800 pages. I listened to the audio, and if truth be told, it is a perfect cure for insomnia. I fell asleep several times as I listened. It just got too tedious after awhile. It took fully one third of the book before all of the characters and their connection to each other became clear enough for me to completely follow the thread of the story. Perhaps it should have been a series of books, each featuring a century or so, rather than one book trying to cover it all. It often felt like a subject was incomplete, possibly needed more detail, while others rambled on excessively. Of course, I did have to keep reminding myself that it was not history, but rather historic fiction. I just felt that the tapestry of the narrative was not knitted together as coherently as it could have been.
However, all of the important moments of Paris history are covered, even though the fictional story sometimes overpowered the reality. We learn of the courtesans, the brothels, the monarchies, the influence of the church, the Protestant massacre, the storming of the Bastille, the construction of the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, the building of Notre Dame, Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley’s visit to Paris, Jean D’Arc, Richelieu, Robespierre, Monet and Chagall, Hugo and Zola, Hitler, Anti-Semitism, the Vel d’Hiv roundup, Viet Nam, Napoleon and Josephine, the aristocracy and the hoi polloi, the socialists and the communists, Hemingway, Ben Franklin, Lindbergh, Picasso, the Dreyfus affair, Luther Calvin, Rodin, Versailles, the Bois de Boulogne, The French Resistance, etc. I could go on and on. There were so many people and events covered, one can understand why the tale became overwhelming at times. Then, to make it more confusing, the author jumped from century to century, back and forth, without warning, as well. For me, the most interesting part of the book was the story elaborating the French resistance during WWII.
On the whole, I think the author simply tried to weave too many pieces of the city’s background together, without really developing all that many of them. Except for the building of the Eiffel Tower which introduced the reader to many of the characters, and the details surrounding the events leading up to and including both World Wars, the book sometimes felt sketchy. I felt almost as if the author had prepared a list of events he wished to include and then constructed a narrative around them, perhaps less concerned with the accurate history than the creation of the tale needed to introduce it.
The international scene emerged on the Paris stage and Paris grew into an international, cultural center for musicians, artists and writers. Anyone who was anyone wanted to be there, if not for the ambience, then for the decadence. For every loose women and unscrupulous man there was a brilliant author, artist, musician and thinker waiting in the wings. Innovation had its birthplace. Over the five centuries featured, culture, technology, politics, finance and industry, advanced at breakneck speed. Rodin’s “Thinker” embodied the mood in Paris.
It is said if we don’t learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it, and it would seem with current events today, in 2014, we have learned very little. There is still distrust and strife, hunger and poverty around the world, and warfare is everywhere one looks. Will there ever be peace?

Professor D. Olin Clements (What does the “D” stand for and what is the ultimate implication of the name?), born in Poland, but raised in America, is doing research for a monograph he is writing. He returns to Poland, a place he left as a child, and spends time at a retreat in a former concentration camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau. He is an outsider, attending with a group of people who have come from many countries, representing many religions, many opinions, many memories, a half century after the war’s end, to bear witness and honor the memory of the victims of the Holocaust.
Each attendee was affected by the war in different ways, and soon, as they interact and speak about their experiences disharmony develops, and they begin to snipe at, and taunt each other, slinging insults and even questioning the right of some to share their stories, questioning their reasons for attending the retreat, questioning their self-righteousness, even the genuineness of their shame and their guilt for having survived the war. Often it was because they participated, “only following orders”, or were more aggressive as prisoners, or ignored the plight of those who were made to suffer, those who were uprooted, robbed of everything they ever had, not only of their belongings and their heritage, but of every living soul ever known to them, as well. Did they deserve the right to even attend the retreat, holding services in the mess hall and the residences and on the platforms used by the SS? Were they trying to obtain forgiveness for themselves rather than honor the memory of those that they, in their silence and acquiescence, helped lead to the slaughter. Was the escapee justified when his escape resulted in reprisals that caused the death of other innocent victims? Was his life worth the death of so many others?
They performed their services to the memories of those who died, in the shadow of the place the barracks once stood, in the shadow of the crematoria where the ghosts of the victims may still loiter, in the shadow of the overcrowded platforms that echo with the sound of the barking dogs and the German soldiers screaming Raus, Raus at the teeming masses of prisoners as they worked to accomplish Hitler’s Final Solution.
The novel is extremely blunt and outspoken. The conversations and confessions of the attendees more clearly express the horror than a simple narrative would do. In Poland, even after the war, in the effort to make the country Judenrein, the Poles, who swore they knew nothing, murdered an additional 2000 returning Jews, so that today, there are far less still living there. From 4 million, of which 3 million were murdered, there are approximately 25,000 souls today. Could those who participated, in any way at all, ever be forgiven? Could future generations ever be forgiven? Should anyone ever forget the sadistic monsters that planned, participated in and rejoiced in the prospect of a country that was Judenrein? The age old question is also, should they be forgiven or forgotten at all?
The author does not attempt to reconcile or justify any part of the Holocaust, rather he seems to be exploring the possibility of understanding it, from the point of view of the witnesses,, via confession and absolution. The hard, sharp edges that surround the border of hate and distrust, fear and resentment, jealousy and greed, are exposed. Because the information is presented in an uninhibited, raw manner, making it hard to read and absorb, at times, the information that has been presented countless times before, seems almost new again.
Clements discovers secrets about his past as he interacts with the other members of the retreat. He is descended from the aristocracy and did not realize that he had more in common with others who bore witness than he could ever have imagined. Do his ancestors bear any guilt, and if they do, does he by proxy? Having recently read “The Storyteller”, by Jodi Picoult, which has at its heart, the same theme concerning the Holocaust, I thought that this story felt more authentic and genuine. Using the same kinds of characters as Picoult did, coming from all walks of life, the Rabbinate, the Church, the atheist, Mattheissen approaches it without the artifice of a sexually charged love story, although there is a theme of self-discovery with thoughts about a forbidden romance. Every aspect of emotion behind the genocide is exposed and worked through by the characters, brutally and vigorously, laying bare the wounds and scars remembered, and yet the novel is not very long.
The Shoah can never be justified or excused, it can only be memorialized in the hope that it will never recur. Anti-Semitism still exists. It exists between Jew and Jew, Christian and Jew, Muslim and Jew. It is perpetuated by hateful teaching in homes and in schools and in houses of worship. It is handed down like a legacy from family to family. I felt that the more explanations were offered, the more questions were raised. What do sanctuaries provide for the dead victims? What do memorial services offer to the survivors? The only service the retreat and study of the Holocaust seems to provide, is a possible road to some kind of acceptance of the fact that the horror occurred, that we have to move on, but that we cannot forget, that we must always actively try to prevent this abominable anomaly from ever occurring again, anywhere. Many others suffered besides Jews, the Holocaust does not belong to them, although they have claimed it, but it destroyed the bulk of Jews, fully half their numbers, so systematically, so heartlessly, so sadistically, that it is not easily explained, understood or excused, rather it defies any sane explanation. This is a hard book to absorb, but I found it worthwhile.

Some books are better in print and some in an audio version. This one is meant to be listened to, in order to get the full effect of the mesmerizing voice of The Son, Sonny Lofthus, whose priest-like aura encourages those who seek forgiveness to come to him for absolution, even in prison. He seems to have a special gift, a mystical power that motivates people to trust him and awakens sudden spiritual and G-dly feelings in those with whom he communicates, inspiring them to change their behavior and believe in themselves.
In prison, per his request, Sonny is kept in a constant drug-induced stupor by certain compromised law enforcement conspirators. He entered prison at age 18 and was now near 30. To obtain drugs, he freely confessed guilt to crimes he had not committed, sparing the guilty from judgment and punishment. Completely disillusioned and bereft after discovering the body of his father Ab Lofthus, both Sonny and his mother descended into a state of despair. The suicide note revealed that Ab had been a corrupt cop, and this was devastating news for Sonny who worshiped and wanted to be just like his father.
Early on in the book, the true story of Sonny’s father’s death is revealed, and it is the catalyst for Sonny’s monumental change of character. He licks his addiction and no longer wishes to remain in a stupor, doing the bidding of the bad guys, accepting whatever punishment is meted out, simply for a high. Now, suddenly, he wants a different escape, he wants out of the prison he has essentially made his home. Using deceit and manipulation, serenity and otherworldliness, Sonny manages to escape and set off on a path of what seems to be serial murder. He wants to avenge his father’s death and discover the true identity of the mole in the police force and, consequently, his dad’s murderers. Simon Kefas, a police officer whose career was stopped in its tracks because of his former gambling addiction, was once a good friend of Ab Lofthus. As the murder mystery unfolds at a fast pace, Simon chases Sonny down.
It is a mesmerizing, page turning tale which grabs you and won’t let go. In this audio, the reader, Gildart Jackson, is amazing, perfectly capturing the spiritual nature and demeanor of the boy, now grown into a man after spending the past 12 years in prison. The story is like a tree with many branches that is skillfully handled by Nesbo, always returning the reader to the main thread, before introducing another, so the story and the characters remain intact. I found that I did not want to turn the audio off, it was so engaging. The characters were very authentic. Some had secrets affecting how they lived their lives, and this only increased the tension and excitement of the story.
The ending was a total surprise with all loose ends tied up agreeably. We are left with a few philosophical questions to ponder. Are we capable of changing our behavior, or like the scorpion and the frog, are we merely victims of our own nature unable to change our responses? Is murder ever justified by extenuating circumstances? Is forgiveness a universal yearning, and can we all be forgiven no matter what our sins may be?

Ian McEwan’s brief, multi-layered novel about trial judge Fiona Maye, in the High Court of the Family Court Division in England, is based on very real case law; otherwise it is entirely fiction. More than Fiona’s story, this is a story about legal and medical ethics, domestic difficulties, parental responsibility, religious beliefs and how all of these interact to provoke our own eventual decisions. The ultimate effect of these often momentous verdicts, have enormous, sometimes unintended, costs. The book delves into the rights of children, families, religion, and the medical community. Whose welfare is paramount? What is best for the child? It is about the interpretation of the rule of law. It is about the responsibility of the judicial system and it is about relationships, decisions, secrets and lies of omission.
When does British law trump religious law? When does politics play a role in decisions? When does personal gain alter our judgment? What is in the best interest of children in divorce cases? Can a husband be prevented, effectively, from absconding with his children to a Muslim country because he believes their Islamic faith is being challenged by the Western world? Can a parent decide life or death for a child? Fiona Maye is called upon to rule upon those kinds of issues in her courtroom, and yet, she herself is childless. Can she really identify with the problems faced by families?
Fiona cannot escape the emotional effect that some decisions have had upon her personal life. She is 59 years old, and her husband Jack, is 60. He is a Professor of Ancient History. They have been happily, or perhaps, comfortably married for 30 years, and Fiona thought that they were immersed in, fully occupied by and satisfied with their careers. When Jack announces that he has reached a crossroads in his life and wishes to have an open marriage so he can begin an affair with his statistician, Melanie, a very youthful 28 years of age, he asks for her blessing. Jack feels their marriage has gone stale. She has become distant, withholding sex for about two months, and she refuses to tell him what is troubling her. He loves her and wants to have this last fling before he dies, without disturbing their present lifestyle. He wants everything to remain the same between them. He hopes she can accept this. She, however, stunned by his request, cannot and will not consent to travel down that road with him. Fiona is now forced to think about and judge her own behavior.
Fiona has had to make difficult life and death decisions. A recent decision concerned whether or not to separate Siamese twins. One twin, Matthew, was thriving, but the other, Mark, was pretty much a parasite and would not be able to survive on his own. If they remain attached, Mark would essentially murder Matthew, sapping his strength. The parents are devout Catholics and did not want them separated since they would have to choose to kill one to save the other. Mark would not survive the surgery. His body does not have the necessary organs. He shares Matthew’s life support. If they choose to do nothing, both of the boys will die. Her decision is the reason for her sudden coldness and withdrawal from him, but she refuses to tell him, even though it might have changed his mind.
Fiona was on call the night of Jack’s confession. A phone call interrupted their conversation. There was a case that urgently needed her immediate attention. A young man, Adam, was refusing blood transfusions to save his life. He was suffering from Leukemia. He was three months shy of his 18th birthday, and he was a Jehovah’s Witness. His parents refused the treatment for him, as well. Time was of the essence in his health care. Fiona speaks with the boy to find out if he is of sound mind and is making a fully informed decision to withhold lifesaving treatment. Although he is within his rights to make the decision because he has satisfied the provisions of the Gillick Act of 1985 she instead chose to use the 1989 Children’s Act which allowed that regardless of his age, even if over 16, and qualified to make the decision, his welfare is first and foremost. He was studying the violin, writing poetry and proceeding with hope. She had to consider whether or not to grant that hope, even though it went against the family and their religious concerns. When he goes into remission and survives, he seems to be happy and expresses gratitude for her decision, but his religious fervor has left him. He asks if he can come and live with her. He offers to work to earn his keep, but hopes to continue to enjoy their conversations that he enjoyed so much when his case was being considered and he was in treatment. He believes she understands him, but he also seems infatuated with her. She rebuffs him and sends him away after a brief kiss which lands on his lips when he turns his head. Was the kiss even an appropriate gesture? Her actions have unwanted, unintended consequences.
The book is presented in 5 parts. The prose is spare, and the style is a bit distant and appropriately clinical, as it would be in the atmosphere of a court room. The sentences are staccato-like, creating a tone of imminent deadlines with the necessity of quick thinking leading to clear, often controversial end results. The legal arguments are compelling and would pull the reader in even without a back story, like this one, which is really not the relevant issue of the novel, rather the examination of the judicial system with regard to religious issues and human frailties seem paramount.

The Pearl That Broke Its Shell, written by Nadia Hashimi, read by Gin Hammond, is the story of Afghanistan, its history and its people. This is a story about a country that has not advanced very much over the years, a country that has remained in the past, marched in place, continued to be ruled by superstition and fanatics, war lords, and sadistic men and women who are bitter about life or hungry for the power their behavior affords them.
This is a country in which women rarely see beyond the courtyard of the place they live, where women are taught to obey their husbands, above all else, for they are their saviors and their enemies wrapped into one package, for they can mete out punishment and reward, declare guilt or innocence, pronounce sentences or commute them. They are all powerful and the women are all helpless, without hope for change. Most of the women are not even aware of what change they might want, they are unaware of the world outside; they know only the boundaries of their home, their relatives and their superiors. For them, life in other places does not exist, they could not even dream about it, because they have been kept isolated and ignorant for fear of their corruption, or perhaps fear that if they knew they would somehow unite and rise up against the men who control all life in their country, some more extreme than others, but all bent on keeping women down for they are the temptresses that must be blamed for the basic urges of the men, sometimes uncontrollable, or perhaps uncontrollable because they have no need to control them. They are blameless in all things, in total control. Islam is a religion that smiles on men more broadly.
In Afghanistan, disability is looked down upon and the disabled are openly insulted. They are reduced to beggars; they bring the evil eye and are avoided. They are punished for afflictions that are no fault of their own and they should be cared for instead, pitied, perhaps, but not abused. They rarely are married off for they have little value, cannot attract a bride price. There is little loyalty. There is little trust. Everyone is a possible betrayer, everyone a possible Judas. Rahima’s aunt, unmarried because of a physical affliction, sustains her with her stories about the courage of her great grandmother, Shekiba, and her encouragement to keep educating herself as much as she can, for that will be her weapon, her salvation in the future.
In this story, the two women, great grandmother and great granddaughter, share common personality traits and experience, live in parallel worlds, and yet, in life, they are separated by 100 years. Nothing has really changed in their worlds. Then and now, the situation is the same because they are largely illiterate, sheltered and controlled, kept hidden inside their burkas, invisible, reduced to inconsequential shadows with no value. They are beaten, raped, sold into slavery, abused and despised, used in any way their husband and, to a large extent, his family, chooses. The birth of a woman is no cause for celebration, for in her future the slightest infraction, even innocent, can bring down the wrath of an angry G-d or master who follows his teachings.
The women, living in constant fear, betray each other to save themselves. Those that attain some stature, forget where they came from, forget that they too have been abused, perhaps sold into slavery, are also victims of an unjust system, and they become haughty and bossy, abusing their own power, as well, preying upon and punishing the women they are above with abandon. The strong always seem to brutalize the weak. It is a sign of their status to be able to do this. It is a sign of the honor that is due them. Mother-in-laws of daughters-in-laws wield great power in a Muslim family. The son takes their word over their wife’s, and, the first wife rules the second etc. The hierarchy is treacherous for the uninformed.
The system is based on illiteracy and hypocrisy, control and submission, but they know nothing else so it seems quite normal to the women. They recognize cruelty in others, toward them, but do not recognize it in their own behavior toward others. It is simply the accepted way of life for a female. Without any interference from or knowledge of the outside world, they are doomed to continue this brutal way of life that keeps them totally subservient to the dominant male .To survive, some girls are turned into sons, dressed as boys. Their hair is cut, they are taught to behave without the proper decorum a girl must always display. When a family has no sons, they often resort to this charade to help the family survive. Only males can work the fields, only males can freely move about, only males can do the shopping, women must be escorted by a male at all times, women must be covered, men are not. Men have freedom; they get to see more of the world. Those females who live like men, also have freedom. Rahima was once Rahim, according to the custom of bacha posh, one of the females who dresses as a male, the girl as a boy, afforded all the freedom of a boy, all the access to the outside world, even simply to play with others, until she was 12 when she made an innocent fatal error.
Guards of the harem were women who were also dressed as men, their hair was cut short and they were responsible for protecting the concubines. Shekiba, Rahima’s great grandmother was a guard. Both women, coincidentally played the role of a male at one time in their lives. Both were afforded advantages not afforded to women, at that time. They had more freedom to move about, but both were not males, and therefore, they were still subject to the abuse and inequity women faced, the unfair accusations and judgments heaped upon them. Both women were strong minded with a desire to learn and change their lives from one of captivity, having tasted more liberty, to one of greater freedom. Both struggled in their own way, against the unjust system.
At the age of 18, Shekiba lost her last living relative, her father, beside whom she worked the farm like a male child. Her family, learning of his death, came to claim the land that she as a woman had little claim to, and took her in, basically as a housemaid, informing her that it was impolitic for a woman to live alone, work unaccompanied, have that kind of access to the outside world. She was a corrupting influence behaving sinfully. Eventually, she was removed again, bartered away and began to work as a palace harem guard for the Shah. Shekiba never stopped dreaming of greater independence and was never a shrinking violet.
At age 13, Rahima was too old to continue to be a boy. Her father was in debt. He arranged marriages for Rahima and two of her older sisters. She was totally unprepared for what faced her in her new home, as a wife at such a tender age. Rahima, at 13, was expected to pleasure her husband. It was her duty to satisfy him and bear his children. By age 15, she had a son. The stories told to her by her aunt, about her great grandmother Shekiba, sustained Rahima and gave her courage. They were both basically sold into a life of slavery.
This is a heartbreaking story about women who are treated as property, who are used as vessels to bear children, as baby machines to bring power to the male and honor his manhood. They are always guarded and under the threat of committing some unknown infraction, of being innocent and yet judged guilty by jealous relatives or husbands, weak parents or siblings. So, in life, they hope to become the guards as they were once guarded, the overseers of the other women in the home, the bearer of a son who will elevate their position, the wife their husband relies upon above all others; they hope for a small position of authority. Generally, though, they exist principally to satisfy the sexual appetites of the men they belong to and to satisfy the needs of the women who are higher up in the hierarchy of the home. They eat last, only after all the men have finished and eat only if there is adequate food left for them. Often there may not be, for there needs are secondary at all times to those of the men, and even the women above them.
Although the images of life in Afghanistan, painted by this author, are brutal and often seem too horrible to contemplate, they are representative of the situation there, even today. Women are forbidden to have access to the outside world. They know nothing beyond the square inch of ground they occupy, at any given time. Since none of them are worldly, they have no way of discovering anything else, and when they are exposed to other ways of life, they often desire to escape, but if discovered, they are recaptured and brought back to face punishment, which is swift and severe, often extreme: amputation, whipping, disfiguring, mutilating, very painful punishments are administered which serve to keep them in line in the future, and for some crimes, they even face death by stoning. The author is of Afghan heritage, and although there are some images of happy home lives in which male and female live in harmony, it must have given her great pause to write about the abusive lives the women endure, even today. All they have to give them joy are their children.
Hope does spring eternal and the book ends with hope for the future, with foreign help from America, for one, incrementally, not by leaps and bounds, but there are people out there who are bringing the light to Afghanistan, hopefully before groups like the Taliban, return to power and reverse the little progress women have made. Pity the women, for they are a commodity, bought and sold; they have no voice, for if they do, it is quickly silenced. The men who are found wanting are also tortured and executed if they disobey the rules and do not go along with their current war lord, their current leader. Everyone must conform on pain of death. It is truly barbaric.
The book is easy to read, although the subject matter is hard to swallow, because it is an authentic representation of the way the Afghani women are treated, the way they must think and speak to each other, the way the system systematically weakens and holds them down, the way the past never moves forward for them into a better future. The audio reader performed exceptionally well so that each character was defined clearly and was recognizable. The tone for each was perfect for the personality of the character: there was the bitter and cruel mother-in-law, the mother in pain when her children were married off against her wishes, the mother in mourning for a dead child, the plaintive voice of the hopeless woman adulterer who put love before all else, who is doomed to death, the voice of the hopeless child pleading for a different future than her parents provide, the voices of authority, the voices of men, the voices of Shekiba and Rahima, who spoke less and less like victims as time passed.
After reading this, Afghanistan would not be on my bucket list of places I wanted to travel, even without the constant wars that go on between war lords, tribes, sects and countries that intervene or want to take control and nation build, because their ideology is despicable to me, and it won’t change for centuries since it has been in existence for centuries. One can only hope that more and more women will seek and be granted asylum, placed on a road leading to a better way of life. Even in Kabul, in the same country, life is better for the women, than in the villages, where they are detached from the world completely, always subject to exploitation. In Kabul there is, at least, the possibility of education, learning new skills like the computer and using the internet, watching the world go by on a television screen, looking away from the confines of the prison of radical Islam and its extreme faith.

This story is woven around 3 characters, Charlotte Baird, an heiress and orphan aspiring to be a renowned photographer, Elizabeth, the Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary, and George “Bay” Middleton an accomplished rider. They are very real historic characters, but the story knitted around them is historic fiction.
Middleton was an excellent horseman in the service of the Queen. He was in charge of the horses for Earl Spencer, to whom he was indebted. Because he was neither titled nor rich, he was looked down upon and often ridiculed by those in the aristocracy, even as he socialized with them on occasion. He was dependent on the support of Earl Spencer, his sponsor, and was obliged to perform favors when asked.
The Empress was married to Emperor Franz Josef when she was very young. Although to the world it would seem like she had everything anyone could want, she was lonely and dissatisfied with her life and lack of privacy. She was rather haughty and extremely vain about her looks. She was royalty and expected to be treated as such. Her husband was preoccupied with the affairs of state, the very purpose for which he was raised, and she often felt neglected. On a visit to England to the estate of Earl Spencer, where she intended to participate in a legendary hunt, the Earl assigned her a pilot to ride along with her to insure her safety. Although she was quite an accomplished horsewoman, she was unfamiliar with the terrain. At first, both objected, but Bay Middleton was not in a position to refuse the request, and although the Empress had her own attendants, after meeting Bay Middleton, she soon grew fond of him and preferred his company.
Charlotte loved photography more than ball gowns which in an English lady of good breeding was an anomaly of the times. Bay found her fascinating; he insisted it was not because she was an heiress who would inherit a large fortune when she was 25 and could marry a man of her choice when she was 21. At the time, her brother was her overseer since she was only 20. Bay even proposed to Charlotte, offering to run away with her, but she turned him down, wanting to wait until she was of age. Before the Empress had even stepped foot in England, Elizabeth and Bay seemed smitten with each other.
Bay Middleton was known as a lady’s man, but he had taken such an interest in Charlotte Baird because she was feisty and a woman of independent thought. In stodgy England, where they were very class conscious, where public decorum must always be observed and manners must be impeccable, it was very unusual for a woman to be so outspoken. Soon, however, the larger than life personality of the Empress (in reality she was delicate and small), turned his head and mixed signals between all three of the characters caused a rift in the relationships. Bay was quite overcome by the beauty and position of the Empress. In addition, she did expect to be obeyed by all, including him. Yet, his love for Charlotte remained and would not die even as he transgressed with Elizabeth, and he still wished to marry her.
The love triangle is the basis of this “fairy tale” created by Goodwin. These very real historic figures were constantly surrounded by jealous suitors and sycophants who fawned over each of them at different times in the narrative and exemplified the class differences and arrogance that existed at that time. It was not easy to cross the line from the commoner into the world of the aristocracy. However, one misstep would cause the aristocracy to shun the aristocratic member who erred, and Charlotte was in real danger of misstepping as was the Empress herself! She had to be even more discreet.
I think of the book as a light and airy, pleasant read, it was interesting and not too taxing. The history in the novel was meager without rich detail, but there was enough to keep the reader interested and to inspire further research into the characters. The best part was the sardonic and sarcastic banter between the characters. Their dialogue seemed so authentic that the conversations often made me smile and at other times made me angry. The pomposity of some of the aristocracy was abominable, but the repartees made the uniqueness of the Victorian age, apparent. This book is simply a very good read. The pages will turn themselves. Actually, I listened to the audio and really enjoyed it. It was the theater of the mind as the reader assumed the personality and mood of each character with the proper tone and modulation.
I think it would be better to listen to this book than read the print version because the characters all seem to have distinctive personalities which the reader’s voice portrayed accurately. The formality of the English is presented clearly with the class differences and condescending behavior very apparent and so, too, was the stark contrast between the realms of England, with Queen Victoria, and Austria, with the Empress Elizabeth.

These stories are written in a different time frame, almost a century and a half ago, they are more literature than the made for TV tales turned out furiously on the computers of modern day authors, turned out with stories of violence and sex to attract an audience, rather than with interesting stories about life’s challenges. This collection of short stories was simply a pleasure to read. Each one, on its own, had a different theme about women. One story was about a misunderstood woman going mad after the birth of her child, when her hormones were batting each other around like baseballs.

Another was about a young woman wronged, who haunts the dreams of those living in the home she once lived in with her fatherless child. The next is about a pampered woman who finds her own strength and grows independent. Then there is the story of a bitter, over zealous aunt who makes a deceitful bargain with her great nephews, only to be chastised by the minister for her duplicity.

The selection of stories is wholesome. There is a mixture of the real with the mystic. There is no stupid sex or foul language. There is really no violence to speak of and there are happy endings, of a fairy tale nature, in some cases. They cover the gamut of women’s issues, career, emotion, freedom, purpose, love, marriage, divorce, devotion, loyalty, faithfulness, religion, responsibility, and even vengeance, but all of the stories are treated in such a way that they do not tax the reader, but rather they entertain perfectly with the style and the message.

This is not your typical mystery. The reader is pretty much aware of who the murderer is from the get-go. What the reader doesn’t know is why it happened and how the murderer’s obvious emotional illness escaped his wife. Was he a genius or a psychopath? Did she not follow her own advice and choose him the way she would have chosen a head of lettuce?
What do we know about the characters in this book? Grace Sachs is a therapist who specializes in marriage counseling. Her husband, Jonathan, is a devoted pediatric oncologist. She loves the life they have together and totally believes in the sacrifices his work requires him to make. They live in New York City with their only child, in the same apartment that she grew up in, and their son Henry, who is 12 years old, goes to the same tony private school that she attended as a child. Henry is very well behaved and very likeable; he plays the violin and might be a little bit of a geek. The family lives in its own bubble and is basically self sufficient, needing very little interaction with others; they are isolated from all but some immediate family members. There are secrets lurking here that will explode to the surface as the book reveals their story.
This book seems to be another in that popular genre of today, with characters stereotyped as spoiled rich women with children in an exclusive school. The woman are depicted as shallow and petty, blind to their own foibles, too vain and materialistic, too hedonistic, too quick to criticize and judge others and not themselves. They see themselves and the world through their own rose colored glasses and they are not particularly loyal to anyone. Most of the men are portrayed as governed, not by their brains but rather by their gender and sex.
Grace Sachs has recently written a book, bearing the same name as the title of this book, “You Should Have Known”, which details the reasons married couples should have realized they were making a mistake before taking that fateful step down the aisle. Almost immediately, she writes, one of the spouses reveals to the other exactly who they are and what they will be like, but for some reason, she believes they choose to misremember what happened in their initial meeting. They create a fairytale scene around it, only remembering hints about the problems to come, when a crisis erupts. She believes that women more than men, know when they marry, that the partner they have chosen is wrong for them, but they put on blinders. In her arrogance, has Grace’s own eyesight failed?
Grace is a member of the Fundraising Committee at Henry’s school. At the last meeting, before their major fundraising event takes place, she meets Malaga Alves, a new committee member. Her son, Miguel, attends the school as a scholarship student. In the days to come, Malaga will unexpectedly have a major impact on Grace’s life, turning it completely upside down and forcing her to face very difficult questions she may not be able to answer.
As a couple, seemingly by choice, Grace and Jonathan have few friends. They are preoccupied with their work and raising their son. They live together, but also separately in their own worlds, not interfering with each other’s domain, rarely questioning each other’s activities. When a crisis arises, Grace discovers that she has been irresponsible about the relationships in her own life, failing to see what she would have seen as a therapist dealing with strangers. When it counted most, she was distracted. Now that she was facing her own very traumatic situation, she seemed too weak to deal with it maturely. I found her reactions awkward and difficult to understand. Every time she was faced with a new problem, or with uncomfortable, previously unknown information, she got weak-kneed and threw up! It was not very professional behavior, and I kept thinking, perhaps she needed to hire her own therapist!
Even after her world explodes around her, and she becomes involved in a murder investigation, she doesn’t face things head on, but skirts around the issues, avoiding them. She takes to her bed like an ostrich with her head in the sand, pretending that all will be well. I found her behavior inappropriate and not very credible.
I found the first 100 pages slow to get into, but then the story picked up and held my interest. There are some issues that would lend themselves to group discussions, and for that reason, it is a good read for book clubs. The major hump to get over when reading the book is that a trained therapist never questioned or saw what was happening in front of her eyes for 18 years. She just seemed too naïve, considering her chosen profession, to have constantly made excuses for the odd circumstances of her life, without looking any further than the excuses provided by her husband. Was she really living in such a controlled environment, and was she really in such control of her own emotions that she never questioned any change in her friendships or lifestyles, other than to say, ho hum, oh well? Also, in the end, the author worked out her life a bit too comfortably. It was almost a fairy tale. Long lost relatives appeared and welcomed them into their lives after two decades. She has found a male companion and Henry finds his new school to be utopia for him. Henry is just too perfect, also. He is like the adult in the room, rather than Grace.
I found the conclusion of the book unsatisfying with questions that remained unanswered. Does Henry go on to have a successful life? How does Miguel fare with his father? Does Grace remarry? Is Jonathan caught and convicted? Does Elena ever get to meet Miguel, her half brother? Is the ending even plausible? I think the book could probably have been shorter, but it is a quick read and will hold your interest while on vacation or commuting to work. The book is a suspenseful mystery, but it won’t tax your brain trying to figure it out. The looming question at the end will be, is the plot credible?

This is really a heartbreaking, tender tale about a field-hand slave who was forced to tear her own infant son from her breast, handing him over to a wet nurse so she could be a wet nurse to the master’s child, a job considered somewhat of a “promotion” since she was brought inside the house to work, provided with better food and her own tiny room adjacent to the newborn’s more luxurious accommodation. The story is about the bond that develops between Miss Elizabeth (Lisbeth) and the slave, Mattie, which is an enduring attachment and relationship, and it is an exploration into the hard life of the slaves and their cold, cruel masters.
I really liked this story because it is just that, a story told gently in a very linear way, making it easy to follow. Even though it was simply told, it still managed to arouse the deepest of emotions in me, the reader, because of the subject matter. It is about a horrific time in America’s past, a time in which the injustices treated in the book most certainly were commonplace. As in Sue Monk’s “The Invention of Wings”, the main “white character” (but in this book’s case, it is a fictional young woman), grows up with conflicting emotions about the unjust world on her plantation, faces the shallowness and cruelty of her kind, the landowner who makes his fortune from the work of slaves, and eventually, she finds the courage to rise up against, and defy, those she loves most, but that is where the comparison between the two books ends,
Slave owners did not honor their agreements, rather they honored their greed. They could not be as wealthy and well thought of if they paid the slaves or set them free. The slaves were property which added to their wealth and stature in the community. The contracts granting the indentured servants and Africans their freedom were ignored when a new law was passed negating their former arrangements, even when only weeks away from the end of their term of enslavement. They were unjustly treated and brutally mishandled as chattels. They were powerless to object. Illiteracy and the fear of inhuman punishment were the strongest weapons of the slave owner and the cultivation of the slave’s innocent ignorance enabled them to keep them prisoners their whole lives and use them in any way they chose. If they had been able to read and understand the world around them, I wondered if they quite possibly would have organized and revolted instead of being kept down by a dominant white minority population of cruel taskmasters who treated them as less than human. It defies the imagination to think that this type of behavior, condemned in the Holocaust, was smiled upon in America during this time period. It is hard to imagine that even President Abraham Lincoln did not fight the war to free the slave, but rather to bring greater economic security to the country whose very existence was being threatened and torn apart by The Civil War. Justice was eventually served but at a tremendous cost.
Women were also kept largely ignorant about the ways of the world and were not permitted to discuss anything of import with male companions. They lived in a bubble which they believed would float on forever. While Lisbeth worried about gowns, though, Mattie worried about surviving. Severely whipped when her husband and son escaped from different plantations, without her knowledge, she felt beaten down and defeated until she discovered that she was, once again, pregnant with Emmanuel’s child. The child gave her hope and she lived for the day that might find them all together once again, when father and son would meet the daughter and sister they never knew. Her courage and stamina were remarkable. Time passes and as Lisbeth is planning her future life, learning comportment and conversational skills, naively often quite unaware of the disparity between the slaves and the owners, assuming that this was just the way it was and would always be in the world, so was Mattie patiently planning for her own future.
I found it hard to believe that Lisbeth could have been that naïve about the world around her. She knew injustice when she saw it, but stood by quietly. Apparently she had learned her lessons in obedience and behavior well. I also found it hard to believe that she could have kept her relationship with Mattie so secret for so long a time, especially when she, at a very tender young age, barely 10, started teaching Samuel, Mattie’s son, his letters, which he in turn taught to others without ever being discovered, although he had to sneak off to hide under a large tree with his mother and Lisbeth for two years. There were always watchful eyes of overseers to beware of, the gossip of slaves to fear , the wagging, teasing tongues of family members that could threaten her safety, and, most especially, even Mattie’s life. I kept wondering if she really could have gotten away with such deception. Children often unexpectedly blurt out information inadvertently, but Lisbeth was apparently mature beyond her years and growing more aware of the injustices she witnessed.
The story ended in fairytale fashion, athough no one reached nirvana. I didn’t feel as if it rang true in the conclusion which seemed contrived. However, the coming of age of Lisbeth and the strength of Mattie’s character carried the story to its end without disappointment. It is a sweet story in which some justice prevailed in an unjust society, and so, though simply written, it packed quite a punch. Something about this little book brought the horror of slavery right into the present day. It is Kathleen Grissom’s “The Kitchen House” in reverse and so much worse in the pain it exhibits, but so beautiful in the love that crossed color lines. The stoicism and bravery of the slave was remarkable. Like survivors of the Holocaust, there was a strong character and will to live, always hoping for salvation and a better day.
Still, one has to wonder how man finds it in himself to treat any human with such indignity and cruelty. But, then, I am brought up short when I think of terrorists, today, like the radical Islamic group called Isis, that preys on the innocent with vile, sadistic tactics.

If you think a non-fiction book about rowing, will be boring, think again. Written and read exceptionally well, this is a compelling true tale. The history of boat building, rowing and shells, heroism and hardship makes for a brilliant reading experience. The story is written with such depth and description that the words fly off the page. To say it is inspiring is to dwarf its full effect. The reader is superb, enveloping the listener in his resonant, expressive voice, always assuming the right accent and stress, so much so that at times the reader may picture a glint in his eye. It is never maudlin nor is it hyperbolic. It is about a different time, beginning about a century ago, a time when the young grew up early, of necessity, survived by their wits, rarely gave up without a fight, and expected nothing for free and nothing unearned. It is about courage and resourcefulness in the face of the greatest negative odds, it is about believing in something in an all consuming way.
This book should be read by a wide audience, young adult and adult alike. I believe even middle graders would benefit from it, if led by a dedicated teacher, interested in imparting a moral lesson to the class. This book is a lesson on the benefits of perseverance, the ability to accomplish results believed out of reach, the ability to push oneself beyond what was believed to be human endurance; it is awe-inspiring.
“The Boys in the Boat” encompasses the traumatic events that occurred in the 20th century, from WWI, to The Great Depression, and then, briefly, follows up on the lives of the “boys” who served their country and grew into men. It describes the dust bowls, FDR’s WPA and the building of the Grand Coulee Dam, Hitler’s advance on Europe and the tragedy of the Holocaust, but mostly, it is about events leading to the enormous Olympic victory achieved by the University of Washington’s, American rowing team, in 1936. Germany staged the event, magnificently, to convince the world that The Fatherland was on its way to being Utopia, rather than a country creating a nightmare for the rest of the unsuspecting, perhaps blind by choice, world that did not want to become involved with the problems of others, a world view that seems all too familiar today.
The reader will devour the information presented on the history of rowing and its famed shell builder, George Yeoman Pocock, on the coaches who battled each other for the winning titles, who strove for an Olympic presence, and on the eventual success of the tenacious team from Seattle. They will wax nostalgic and marvel at the mention of such famous heroes and accomplishments like those of Joe Lewis, Jesse Owens, the horses, War Admiral and Sea Biscuit, and the Titanic and the S.S. Manhattan. Sadness will engulf the reader when they revisit the madness of Hitler and his concentration camps, Kristallnacht and WWII.
Mostly, though, this is the story of courage and inner strength, both found in Joe Rantz, a young boy, tossed out into the world at age 10 by poverty and cruelty. He was unprepared, but also unwilling to give up, unwilling to fail at life. No matter how many times he was knocked down, he somehow pulled himself up to face another day, and it is through his life that we learn of the boys who sat in the boat built by George Pocock that would lead them all to victory and a permanent place in history’s hall of fame.
This book tells the story of a group of young men, called boys throughout the book, which gave them an identity that seemed vulnerable and yet brave throughout. Each one, in his own way, was a hero and role model that would be wise to imitate today. They were boys with all the foibles boys possess, with all the mischief and crudeness, but they were boys that were determined to succeed, against all odds, against their ancestry, against the class barriers that tried to prevent them from achieving their goals. They had character. You will feel their struggles, their pain, their joy, their anger and their compassion. You may not understand the behavior of some of the characters, but you will eventually understand Joe’s ability to turn every negative into a positive, to forgive all and master every obstacle in his way, without becoming obsessed with the idea of revenge, only with the idea of succeeding.
The descriptions of the races will make the readers hold their breath in anticipation of the results. The details will put the readers there, in that same spotlight that the boys bask within when they win or lose because the prose is flawless and the audio reader's tone is impeccable.
Although some of the subject matter was painful to revisit, the beauty of the narrative countered any discomfort and made it a phenomenal experience, even worthier of reading. The author’s knack for painting accurate pictures of the scenes described was captivating. This author has done a formidable job of presenting a non-fiction book that reads like a novel. It is exciting, touching, tender, romantic, heartwarming, inspiring, and, in short, it is brilliant.
The boys beat Hitler at his own game, even though he tried to rig the rules, changing them so that Germany might win the competition and the medal. The reader will be at the Olympics every step of the way and will feel the tension of the moment which will be almost unendurable. Having hindsight, knowing what will come in the following decade, will make the reader even more aware of the importance of their win. This book imparted that feeling and every bit of the history with accuracy, and without overdoing the emotion.
The anecdotal stories related in “The Boys in the Boat”, enhanced the reader’s understanding of the times and the pressures these boys faced, the understanding of their effort to succeed in the face of daunting obstacles. If I could, I would give this book 10 stars. It is so head and shoulders above much of the drivel that is being turned out today. In spite of a childhood rife with neglect, in spite of formidable impediments before them, Joe and these boys always rebounded, always showed courage in the face of whatever hurdle had to be overcome and had the amazing courage of their convictions to keep on going toward success.

I have enjoyed the author’s work in the past, but this book of short stories, not so much. The first three of the nine stories, Alphinland, Revenant and Dark Lady, were connected with common characters. All of the stories contained themes about lonely, unhappy people, perhaps misfits, who blamed others for the way their lives worked out. They were disappointed and wanted revenge on those who symbolized their pain, real or imaginary and relished the idea of schadenfreude. Madness ruled in one form or another in each of the stories, although most of the time, it was in a benign rather than a malignant form. There were supernatural and psychic elements in the stories, even a touch of the horror genre, but although they were creative and original in their ideas, they were not compelling enough to capture my full attention, and at one point, I almost entertained the idea of not finishing the book.
All of the stories had some interesting aspects, but the first seven of the nine stories did not fully engage my curiosity. I didn’t enjoy a lot of the crude allusions and they seemed to fall flat at the end. The last two however, Stone Mattress and Torching the Dusties, redeemed the book for me. They left me wondering about their themes and connected me to the characters more fully. That said, I did not like most of the characters in the book, with the exception of the elderly man and woman, Wilma and Tobias, in the last story, Torching the Dusties. They were sympathetic individuals.
In the end, I wondered if the book was not actually a sad commentary on the state of mankind and the human mind today and, ultimately, on the state of the world. We rush to conclusions, concentrate on political correctness and give little thought to the real issues confronting us, the issues that concern life and death, the issues that concern the value of life itself.

A friend told me that the best Civil War novel ever written was Killer Angels. After reading it, I totally agree. The novel is expertly read by Stephen Hoye. It is well written and informative without ever being tedious. The Civil War practically danced across the pages with a ferocity that captivated me. I could smell the smoke from explosions, feel the dust in the fields and see the bodies sacrificed and bloodied. The narrative is so brutally honest that it touches a nerve. Why was this war fought, to free slaves, to prop up and support the economy, to guarantee man’s rights according to the interpretation of the Constitution? If cooler heads prevailed, could there have been another way to solve the country’s problems? This book, which was written four decades ago, is still very relevant.
The Battle of Gettysburg was brutal over the course of four nightmarish days. The author captured the minds and hearts of his characters as he made them real and put the reader on the battlefield. The battlefield erupts as if the reader was in its midst. The soldiers and officers take on a life of their own. It is not fraught with filthy language or unnecessary sex; it is not fraught with silly dialogue. It is fraught with emotion and a reality you can almost reach out and touch.
I felt the pain in General Lee’s arm, the exhaustion of General Longstreet. My heart ached for Longstreet who had to follow orders even though he knew it would lead his men to death. He had to witness and accept the folly of foolish generals and politicians, like Stuart who failed to warn General Lee of the troop movements of the Union, who managed to miss this key battle and might have been the catalyst for their defeat. Then it ached alternately for the opposite side, the Union, for Chamberlain as he tried to protect his brother, fought a battle that he didn’t think he could win, took a hill and held it against all odds. I felt his courage as he yelled fix bayonets and charged the enemy on what he thought was a suicide mission, without ammunition, and yet winning that decisive battle, defeating an enemy greater in number by sheer force of will. Was it fate, destiny? I began to understand the weight of the burden the generals bore, the decisions that concerned life and death that had to be made, and the arrogance that was the catalyst for failure. In the end, though, it felt like luck prevailed for one side or another very capriciously.
The reader will witness the excitement of the soldiers who loved the violent action, the beauty of the exploding shells and the flight of the bullets whizzing by. The reader may wonder at their madness but will know and understand that they are loyal and devoted to their cause, no matter what side they are on, the Union or Confederacy. You can taste the frustration and fear of the generals as they contemplate decisions that will take men’s lives and then wonder at the coldness of their resolve afterwards, knowing that it was their only choice at the time, or so they thought.
I love this book because even though it is a fictional military novel, it is based on fact. It isn’t crude or so violent that it becomes unreadable, and it has only a rare moment of questionable language. These soldier's behavior seemed so civilized; the officers were thoughtful and well educated, and many were West Point trained, though perhaps inexperienced in battle, and ridiculed at times. While there was honor as well as stupid blind obedience, there was also loyalty and devotion to a cause. They had to trust one another to survive or fall, and most did both honorably.
The sad thing is that friend was forced to fight friend, becoming sudden enemies. Family members suddenly found themselves on opposite sides. In the end it epitomized the futility of war. There is so much loss and suffering to attain a goal. Hopefully, someday, we will find a better way to resolve conflict.

The Bone Clocks, David Mitchell
Written in six ascending time periods, 1984, 1991, 2004, 2015, 2035, 2043, the book covers the influential moments in the life of Holly Sykes as she intersects with various characters, some with apparent supernatural powers, some with the power of second sight, and some that are entirely ordinary.
In 1984, at age 15, Holly runs away after her mother strikes her in an argument over her relationship with Vin, an older young man of 24. When she arrives at his apartment, she discovers that he has betrayed her, but making it especially worse is that it is with the girl she thought of as her best friend. It is also on this same day that her exceptional 7 year old brother, Jacko, implores her to study a labyrinth he provides for her. Later that day, he disappears, never to be seen again.
In her youth, Holly used to hear the voices of what she called “radio people”, one of whom was Misss Constantin, who was part of a group called Anchorites. A Dr. Marinus, part of a group called Horologists, attempted a successful cure and she ceased hearing the voices for almost a decade. After her brother disappeared, they returned from time to time.
The Horologists and the Anchorites are at opposite ends of the spectrum and are in greater and greater conflict with each other as the book advances. Anchorites need to lure and sacrifice willing human subjects in order for them to live outside time and cease to age; they then sojourn in the body that they capture. Horologists return to life with their memories, in another body, after 49 days of death without harm to anyone. They do not know where or whom they will be, but they do know that they alternate from a male to a female body in each new life. They are atemporal, out of time. Normal humans are bone clocks since they live within a time frame.
Over a period of 6 decades, the book exposes the gradual decay of our way of life due to the world’s excessive use of natural resources, the total disregard for the environment, the uncontrolled spread of deadly diseases, conflicts and wars throughout the world, the failure of the net upon which we have become dependent, and the abuse of power by our leaders. Oddly enough, the book is prescient in that it mentions a deadly Ebola outbreak which spread beyond the borders of Africa. This has now occurred for the first time ever, in the United States, but had not occurred when the book was written.
The author’s mastery of language is displayed in his character development with one or another of them reappearing in each section, making his/her special mark, and in his descriptions of events, injecting humor where possible and tragedy at other times. In addition, there are times when the narrative takes on the appearance of the absurd, but the reader will work through that in this book that is simply difficult to put down once begun.
Holly begins as a rebellious teen, leaves school, holds various jobs, develops a disappointing relationship with Hugo Lamb, takes on a partner, Ed Brubeck, a war correspondent with whom she becomes the parent of a child, eventually following his suggestion to tell the world about her “radio people” and so becoming a famous author traveling around the world to promote her work. She finds herself in many unlikely situations, meeting and interacting with many unusual characters. Finally, entering her seventh decade, after many a trauma, after the world has descended into chaos, she becomes the guardian of her daughter Aoife’s child when she and her husband are killed in an airline accident. A year later she adopts another child who washes up upon the Irish shore after his escape boat is attacked and overturned.
Throughout her life, Holly was often plagued by psychic, extra intuitive episodes of clairvoyance for which she has no explanation at the time they occur, but they always play out, in fact, at some point in her life. Each section of the tale seems to have a language and personality of its own, but the six distinct periods of her life are knitted together effectively. The book moves along quickly, although it is quite lengthy, and sometimes transcends credibility. Still, I was compelled to keep on reading by this author who has an ingenious way with words.
In the end, in spite of all the destruction and all the catastrophes that have occurred and will continue to, the reader is left with a glimmer of hope that humanity will survive in Iceland, through the blending of cultures and values in a place that can tolerate such an endeavor, with a population that is willing to make the necessary sacrifices to succeed.
At the end of the book, Marinus is referred to as the youthful ancient Marinus which immediately brought to mind “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” in which human transgressions, deliverance and rescue are explored and which are also major themes in “The Bone Clocks”.

It took less than a day to listen to this well-written novel about a precocious, but badly behaved, fifth grader, Madeleine Altamori, who lives in Philadelphia on 9th Street with her father. She is trying to make the best of her shattered life. Her mother, with whom she had a strong bond, died of cancer about a year or so ago, and from that moment on, her father took to his bed and remained there. He ceased to run his business and depends on this almost 10 year old child for his well-being. She dotes on him and takes care of herself as best she can, but she is losing the battle as she watches her apartment and her life slowly decay around her. She was born with a voice that transcends the sound she emits, mesmerizes those who hear it and often causes unexpected reactions and behavior, suggesting the supernatural. She sang before she spoke a word.
Madeleine is disappointed and frustrated with the direction her life is taking and she exhibits her anger with abhorrent behavior. She uses foul language and shows little respect for her elders. She has no real friends, except for one who taught her every dirty word in her repertoire before she moved away. She depends mostly on the adults who seemed to have respected and loved her mother and who have taken over her care, especially Mrs. Santiago who feeds her at her Café and tries to help in her upbringing, guiding her day by day.
In school, Madeleine is bullied and she bullies others. Which came first, the chicken or the egg, is hard to discern from the book, but it is obvious that she has been picked on and the poverty that is engulfing her more and more as her father remains in bed, neglecting his business, does not enhance or enrich her life. She is terrified of the roaches that are increasingly active in her apartment, her clothes are becoming ragged and she suffers even further when she is humiliated at school when she is found to have head lice.
A shining light in her life is her teacher, Sarina Greene. She is kind to her and Madeleine is looking forward to the caramel apples she is making for the class, to celebrate Xmas, because Madeleine has never had one. Underlying the story of Madeleine is the story of Sarina’s own unhappy childhood and unhappy romantic life.
On the opposite end of the spectrum is Principal Randles, an unlikely source of unhappiness for Madeleine. She apparently has her reasons for disliking Madeleine that have little to do with Madeleine herself, one of them being her own troubled childhood memories.
When we meet Madeleine, she is practicing how to shimmy on the morning of Christmas eve, eve. When the story ends, the following day we find her in Café Santiago, confessing her sins to Mrs. Santiago who tells her if she cannot be honest, she doesn’t think their relationship will work out. She asks her to sing and then, Mrs. Santiago, who has always wanted to fly away and travel, gets her opportunity in a highly unusual way that very same morning. Listening to Madeleine sing gave people what they wanted, sometimes.
In the hours in between Madeleine’s shimmying and confessing, there is quite an assortment of events. She gets and loses an opportunity to sing in assembly at school, gets suspended for speaking disrespectfully to the principal, then gets expelled from school for punching a fellow student in the nose, loses Mrs. Santiago’s adorable dog Pedro who is apparently suffering from a broken heart, as do so many of the characters, steals a fruit and is rewarded with a Hoagie, and sneaks into a jazz club. The dog, Pedro, seems to be the catalyst that introduces some of the characters to move the story along, one of whom is Mr. Lorca, the owner of the jazz club, The Cat’s Pajamas, located in Fishtown, but there are others.
Madeleine’s voice is her one source of happiness, but she also has the recipe cards her mother left her which included advice about how to handle singing and life’s challenges. Throughout the book, there is a theme about intuitive moments in life, with a recurring statement concerning airplanes, which is “the way you know with your eyes closed that a plane is banking”. Does it foreshadow the idea that our lives can take flight and we can accomplish our goals if we try hard enough, that Madeleine’s life will get better along with many of the other characters, if they simply feel it or believe it? At the end of the book, the drummer Gus’s model plane finally soars into the air and signifies hope, to me, that all will be well, exactly as Sarina’s parents used to tell her, if only she could relax, stop worrying and believe.
Our emotions rise and fall as the book’s themes develop. We soar when Madeleine achieves success, deflate when she behaves rudely, sadden when she experiences the pain of loss and the bullying of others. From a fifth grader’s perspective, this book unfolds rapidly, unraveling the emotions of both adults and children, complete with the petty jealousies that plague us all. Bullying and the sense of entitlement held by those who are more fortunate, and even those who are less fortunate, is exposed in the behavior of both adults and children as they go about their daily lives as snobs or caregivers.
The dialogue and the thoughts of the characters are “tongue in cheek” and will often make the reader smile or lift their brows in wonder. In this short little novel, every sentence is pithy; and there is not one wasted word. The author has a unique way of expressing things as in describing the refilling of ketchup bottles as “the marriage of two bottles”. Every contrast is perfect, i.e., while Madeleine wears ripped stockings, Claire, another fifth grader has perfect braids and gets to sing at assembly in their school, St. Anthony of the Immaculate Heart, while Madeleine is forbidden because of an “unpleasant” circumstance. These two fifth graders live in opposite worlds.
The story really centers around the happenings in a jazz club, The Cat’s Pajamas” and the relationships between all of the characters seems to be revealed there. Dreams are realized there and destroyed there. The club has been cited for breaking regulations that have been overlooked for years by another police officer who recently retired. The new officer holds the owner accountable for the infractions. Lorca has disregarded the rules, allowed too many patrons, ignored fire laws and served the under-aged. He too, is a single parent of sorts, who has failed, and like Mark Altamori, Madeleine’s father, he has an extremely neglected, but talented child, a son out of wedlock, named Alexander, an expert guitar player.
There is a mixture of characters, kind and cruel, some with malicious intent like Principal Randles and others just doing their duty like Officer Len Thomas. There are many characters and each one serves to express a different kind of person, a different motive for behavior, a different walk of life. The nasty children, the rude adults, all interact and reinforce their own personalities, faults, defects and strengths, when contrasted.
2 A. M. At The Cat’s Pajamas is part love story, part coming of age story and part fairy tale. The real important values in life, like relationships, are stressed while the reliance on the material world is shown to be shallow. The possibility of flying and accomplishing your dreams is the thought that I found to be a happily surprising theme, at the end.

Orphaned girls, some as young as 11, who lived in the barracks at Theresienstadt and suffered the brutality of World War II, survived to find each other after the Iron Curtain was thrown open. They managed to hold yearly reunions, feeling the camaraderie of sisters whenever they got together. This is their story.
Fifteen female survivors of Room 28, tell the story of how their little community was created in this supposed, model prison camp. It became a “home” which enabled them to mature and make lasting friendships. Yes, conditions in Theresienstadt were better than in most concentration camps, but they were all prisoners, nevertheless, victims of barbarians, awaiting death in horrible ways. They did have the benefit of being allowed to keep their luggage and belongings, few as they were, but they all eventually became hardened to the deprivation and began to appreciate the simplest of things as they watched their numbers dwindle.
In the “home”, there was the usual rivalry of “siblings” living in close quarters, but it was quickly conquered as the situation inspired loyalty, and in most cases they swore allegiance to each other vowing never to do anything that would betray any of them. They witnessed horrific scenes, were always hungry, had no creature comforts, but it was better than the situation in the “death” camps. The numbers of children that were lost during this time is unimaginable. It is really hard to understand the inhumanity of these people who perpetrated this travesty of justice upon an innocent population.
The adults in Theresienstadt were determined to educate the young children and to give them as much of a normal life as they could, although it became more and more difficult. Counselors welcomed new inmates; classes were held, volunteers taught religious education; holidays were celebrated, and on some occasions, gifts were exchanged; food was shared and plays and operas were put on and performed by the children. The counselors seemed to be quasi-guardians for these orphans, some of whom came to this “model prison” alone, without friend or family member.
Although there were too many unrecognizable names to remember and too many excessive descriptions to keep track of, the amazing resilience and courage of all the “inmates” comes through in each of the stories relating their memories. The diaries and notebooks recovered provide an inside look into the horrors of that era and are invaluable. They tell of suicides, escape attempts, and the tragedy of watching loved ones murdered without being able to do anything. It speaks to the courage of those who joined their friends and family who were condemned, rather than go on with their lives without them. They speak of the tender awakening of the girls as some suddenly became aware of, and began to take an interest in, the opposite sex, even in such a place. The romances were often painful because the young lovers were quickly separated and never heard from again. Some took their own lives in the face of the hopelessness.
The children and adults in Theresienstadt were kept largely ignorant of the outside world. They had little idea of what was happening except for whispered rumors. They were all united in the hope that the Germans would be defeated so they could be free to pursue normal lives with dreams of homes, an education, good jobs and families of their own. Though they tried hard to keep up their spirits, they often wondered how such a thing could be happening to them; they could not understand what they had done to deserve such treatment. They didn’t understand how The Red Cross and other representatives turned a blind eye to what they would have seen if only they had looked closer when they came to inspect the camp.
As the war progressed, conditions worsened. It was harder to keep everything clean; bed bugs and fleas, lice and filth were often problems. These were children who were forced to deal with problems adults might find insurmountable, and yet, they rose to the task. There were constant transports and the fear of losing friends and family was always present. When friends and family were forced to board trains, they were never heard from again. They were shipped to places like Treblinka, Auschwitz, Bergen Belson and, ultimately, the gas showers and the crematoria. They were subjected to inhuman conditions, sadistic human beings, torture and cold blooded murder.
When the war finally ended, some survivors were then trapped behind the Iron Curtain, once again prisoners. Some survivors were mere shadows of their former selves, barely able to stand, their bodies broken and their minds lost. Few returned to normal life, few found survivors to reunite with, and few remained in, or were welcomed back to, their own home towns. It is really sad that the world and politics forced some of these miraculous survivors to go from one situation of captivity to another where their freedom was stolen once again.
Eventually, some survivors emigrated to Israel, some to America, some to other countries that welcomed them. They were resilient and strong after having survived the nightmare they were forced to live. Their stories tell of miraculous escapes from death, lucky moments of occasional kindness from a German or a soldier that kept them alive. These moments were all too rare. The victims were blamed for the way they were being treated, as if they had brought it on themselves with their “troubling” behavior. Their enemies were cruel and unforgiving and they robbed the world of some of the most talented and brilliant minds.
This book is a brief primer about the rise and fall of the Third Reich, the people who brought it about and the people who suffered through it. As the stories are told, the history is brought to life. It is a necessary read. The horror of the Holocaust must never be allowed to disappear from memory, even though years pass and those who experienced it die off. We must learn from the lessons of the past.
The children’s opera Brundibar, plays a large role in the book. It was written by Hans Krása who was also a prisoner in Theresienstadt. The opera performances and the plays, inspired the children and adults and gave them all a sense of hope and a few moments when they could forget their despair. Often, storylines held hidden messages for them, which were secret codes of defiance. The book is filled with quotes from operas and plays they performed and from entries in the diaries and notebooks that were preserved. They tell of forced marches, sometimes to nowhere and back, of never knowing from day to day if they would be called for a transport, of not knowing, but soon suspecting, what awaited those called away. Thousands were moved at once, packed like sardines without hygiene or food or fresh air or light. Thousands died from the deprivation and torture. They were starved and died in huge numbers without proper care or nutrition, without the medicine or comfort of loved ones around them.
Parents had abandoned their children in orphanages for Jewish children, assuming escape was too dangerous for them, assuming they would reunite with them, send for them, once they were safe. There were special laws for children for awhile, but then, the laws were changed and parents and children were cut off from each other without being able to reunite. In spite of the horrors and hardships, they dreamt of a future and prayed for the war’s end.
Because of the excessive detail as the story is told from more than a dozen points of view, it often became repetitive. However, it is a story that must be read so no one will forget the diabolical nature of the perpetrators, so no one forgets how cruelty can exist and grow if unchecked by good people everywhere, if greed and envy flourish rather than kindness and appreciation for the accomplishment of others.
The mixing of emotional anecdotal stories with historic facts sometimes became overwhelming. The book would be suitable for a classroom, for middle graders or high school students, too. With the guidance of a trained teacher, this could prove to be an invaluable teaching tool and learning experience.

“All I really need to know about paperweights”, I learned in Doris Robinson’s “Paperweights 101”, edited by her husband Harvey. Both are experts in the field, and the book is written for the beginner. I might be considered a prequel to a beginner when it comes to paperweights, but as I looked through the book, I realized that all I needed to discover to whet my interest was what was enclosed between the covers. The paperweight on the cover of the book is particularly lovely, and it invited me into the pages, warmly.
The photographs of the paperweights, throughout the book, are of a wide variety and their method of creation is carefully explained in a way to inspire interest. The instruction is not overwhelming in detail, but rather it is stimulating in its presentation. My personal favorite of those displayed was the unusual Millville pair of Lily inkwells.
The glossary at the end of the book was the perfect conclusion since it explained and tied up all of the loose ends I encountered in my humble beginning foray into the world of paperweights. Who knows, although a novice I may be, I may just be the next in line to have a beautiful collection, lovingly amassed, with care and precision, as I travel down the years inspired by the Robinsons.
So, “Here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson”!

The year is 1686. The story is about Petronella Oortman, an 18 year old young woman who has, within recent months, married a man of 39, Johannes Brandt, to help her family solve its many money problems. Although she wanted very much to be a dutiful wife, her husband was absent from the marriage much of the time, and there was little physical contact. Nella was a bit immature due to her tender age, but she was brave and self-confident enough to travel alone to her husband’s home. When she arrived, she was greeted by his sister, Marin, who seemed distant and rather cold and calculating.
Johannes was soft spoken, handsome and wealthy, but his lack of affection distresses Nella. She observes that he loves his two dogs to excess and wishes he would display the same affection toward her.
One day, to show his fondness for her, against his sister’s better financial judgment, Johannes presents Nella with a magnificent, extravagant miniature house. It is an exact replica of their home. (The author was inspired to write this story after observing a miniature house in the Rijksmuseum) Nella is disappointed with her gift, believing she is no longer a child and has no need for such a thing, but she soon becomes involved, and almost obsessed, with the furnishings and their possible meaning and intent. Miniature homes are a trend of the times for women. They are not permitted to do many things in society, and this is another mundane way to occupy their time. As time passes, Nella begins to believe that the unasked for miniatures that keep arriving, are warning of things to come, that the Miniaturist she hired to help her furnish the rooms is a prophet of some kind, sending her messages and warnings that she needs very much to decipher and interpret for the well being of the household.
Mr. and Mrs. Meermans, Agnes and Frans, are involved in a business transaction with Johannes, and they play a pivotal role in the tale, but they are never fully realized and remain almost minor characters, along with his nemesis who possesses a less than moral background and character and would do anything for a price. He is a rather disreputable creature whom Johannes “befriended” and employed to watch over his sugar loaves, among other things. Although these characters play a role that turns the tale, there is a feeling that they are just dropped into the dialogue, at particular times, and their important purpose feels almost revealed by accident. I would have liked to see them further developed.
Two other characters were in the employ of the household. They are the maid, Cornelia, and the manservant, Otto. Both fit into the plot with some degree of importance, as well, with Otto playing more of a crucial role. Neither of them has their backgrounds investigated fully, either.
The book is a grand effort at recreating a period of England’s history. The story takes place near the end of the 17th century, at a time when women had few rights and were allowed few responsibilities, when the church played a far too influential role in the lives of the citizens, when the bias and bigotry of the church prevailed, and the greed and envy of the people ruled.
The book examines the danger of keeping secrets and telling lies, of defying the standards of the day and living a clandestine, unacceptable lifestyle according to the acceptable mores of the day. It also examines the compassion, or lack thereof, shown when an individual’s motivation, correctly or incorrectly, is used for the fulfillment of one’s self serving needs. It is a tale of forbidden love, overlaid with mystical and magical inferences which never quite come to fruition, or at least not fully or satisfactorily enough for this reader. The characters remain on the surface, and I wondered if there was to be a sequel to explain the story going forward, since there were many unresolved issues for the surviving characters.
The book would be good for a discussion on the absence or presence of universal civil rights and free choice, on the freedom of religion for all, on the power of the church to inflict punishment and effect public opinion, but taken alone, it would be best suited for a pleasant read on the beach.

If you have never been embraced by a book, read this one. The beauty of its message will surround and comfort you. The writing style is simple and direct in the same way the main character, Lila, is simple and direct. Lila is largely uneducated, sheltered from, and unexposed to, life around her, but she is not ignorant. Although she is largely unaware of many things others find mundane, and in spite of her lack of worldliness, she has abundant common sense. Her view of life has been tarnished by her experiences, but it has not been tainted.
Lila’s early life was one of poverty, but she was happy sharing it with Doll, whom we shall call her unlikely guardian, for lack of a better description. Doll is devoted to Lila, showering her with affection she was unused to, and Lila, likewise, is devoted to Doll. In spite of what she was lacking in the way of creature comforts, Lila was happy with the routine and simplicity necessitated by their lifestyle and its daily requirements. She comes to realize that with Doll, she managed to survive when she otherwise might not have.
When, after many years, she finds herself alone, she drifts and has many unexpected negative and positive experiences. Regardless of what fate sends her way, Lila somehow always dusts herself off and muddles on finding joy in the simplest of things like a field of violets. She is lonely, but also appreciates her aloneness. She is subject to moods, but most often is kind rather than vengeful. She is ridiculed but she forgives her ridiculers, trying always to understand their motives on some level.
After years of wandering, Lila finds happiness and although this is written after Gilead, it feels as if it could also have been the prequel to it, since it is essentially Lila’s back story, her history. Her life with the Reverend John Ames is explored more fully until it returns to the place where it began, in Gilead, when she met and later married him, a man more than twice her age, at the time.
As Lila develops an interest in religion, she becomes more and more aware of the world around her and more engaged in it, involving herself with people and the church as she had never done before. She still prefers to be a solitary person, but she is more invested with living her life, not just existing within its walls. The book takes us up to the birth of her son, the son that Reverend Ames writes to in a journal in “Gilead”, so he will know him, because the Reverend knows that his advanced age will make it highly unlikely that he will be around to share his life for any great length of time. So in Gilead, the journal of stories was a legacy for the child, and in this book, I had the feeling Lila was “confessing” to him.
There is a sweet and tender innocence with which this story is written, and it will move even the hardest person to think about life, its virtues and its evils. Although it has been described as a Christian book, steeped with passages and messages from the Bible, and it is probably a tale about a person being drawn into religion, it is simply not offensive to someone who is not Christian. The message of kindness and forgiveness transcends differences, and the book should be a welcome read for people of all persuasions. Although spirituality invades her books in the series, her approach is so tender and encompassing that all readers will want to treat each page with reverence, regardless of religious affiliation. Her message transcends differences.
Having read and enjoyed, Robinson’s “Gilead”, several years ago, I had to go back and rediscover the book again to find the connections that became obvious once I did review it. In Lila, the author examines Lila’s life in the same deep way she had examined John’s in “Gilead”. Past and present thoughts often mingle in Lila’s mind, sometimes causing confusion, but this soon resolves itself. Also the book is written in one long stream of thoughts, and sometimes it is disconcerting because there is a constant, unrelenting storm of ideas. It is hard to know when it is appropriate to come up for air, however, since this is a book to be savored, read it slowly, devour and ponder its message, and take a breather when the moment simply feels right.

This is a clever and subtle message to parents and children about how much life they will miss out on if they keep their eyes on their devices and not on the world around them! Our technological devices sometimes block all of our other senses, and we are unaware of what we are missing! I loved the the book design and the brevity of it! It didn't need many pages to get the message across to the reader.
I also loved Applesauce!

This author has a gift which is displayed in her books. She cuts right into the heart of the reader, because of rich character development, and plots that progress with what seems to be a deliberate slowness, but they are never boring or tedious as they evolve with interesting twists and turns.
Jess Thomas is married to Marty, a ne’er do well, weak, manipulative man who preys on her compassionate personality. She is responsible, not only for their child, Costanza, a math prodigy who wears clothes handmade by her mom and is thus cornered and ridiculed by bullies, but she also cares for Marty’s child from a former marriage, Nicky, who came to live with her when he was 8 years old and Tanzie was 2. He is a bit of an “oddball” with dyed hair and mascara, dressing in his own fashion style, often calling undue attention to himself. He is a kind child, an independent thinker who marches to the beat of his own drummer, which leads to his attracting bullies, as well, who brazenly physically attack him. Almost a decade after Nicky came to live with his dad and stepmom, his father, Marty, moved out of their home and went to live with his mother, because he could not find work, function normally or emotionally cope with life. He simply ran away from responsibility.
In order to make ends meet, Jess works two jobs, but still barely ekes out a living. She works in a public house called Feathers, and she also works in a housecleaning business with her friend Nathalie. Together they work in a well-to-do community. One of their clients, Ed Nicholls, is a man who is going through some serious troubles of his own. The owner of a software company, he has made some irrational decisions which threaten his future and jeopardize his ability to continue to work. In a way, both he and Jess are suffering from similar problems; their work is the issue. One didn’t have enough to get by, and one didn’t appreciate what work did for him or any of the comforts it provided. Jess took nothing for granted, while he arrogantly expected to have it all.
Ed and Jess come from two different worlds, separated by class and income. Jess lives in a poor community. Her children are bullied because they are different, and the bullying is ignored because it is commonplace. The community is afraid of the bullies so they do not speak out until a tragedy occurs, forcing them to face their own silence and complicity in the events. Both Ed and Jess have made foolish choices out of desperation, Ed to rid himself of a woman who has become somewhat of a stalker, and Jess because she can get no help from her husband or his family to provide a better, safer life for her children. Still, they made imprudent decisions which carry serious consequences, and both risk being charged for criminal activities.
In an unlikely series of events, their worlds collide, and they become involved in each other’s lives as they pursue the common goal of helping Tanzie gain a place at St. Anne’s, a private school that is willing to provide her with a sizable scholarship, because she is so gifted in math. It is with this in mind that Jess decides that Tanzie should enter the Math Olympiad. Jess is hoping that if Tanzie wins, the prize money will be enough to enable her to see her way clear to send her to St. Anne’s. Unfortunately, when Tanzie sits for the exam, she also learns that bullies go to private schools and sit for scholarships too.
There is stupid sex and foul language which was completely unnecessary and crude. The book did not need that to keep the reader interested, and actually, it made the book seem less “important” and more like a beach read, without much of a message. Yet the interpersonal relationships, personal responsibility and moral values examined, as well as fidelity and honesty, were far more important themes than the use of that “f” word or the sexual innuendos. The story is all the more interesting because it is more than a romance, more than a lesson on integrity, and more than an investigation of wrongdoing in its many forms. Through each of the character’s perspectives, (making it hard, sometimes, to know who is actually the narrator), the reader gains insight into what drives them to behave the way they do, regardless of the possible outcomes. Someone once told me that when you are desperate, you are allowed to do whatever is necessary, but that is very poor reasoning. Jess and Ed have to learn that lesson on their own.
There were times when I absolutely disliked Jess because she made decisions that were irrational and not well thought out and often seemed ungrateful and rude. Ed inspired the same negative feelings, because he too was rude and very arrogant in his behavior toward those who had fewer advantages than he did. Both had unsuccessful relationships and were easily duped by others which actually influenced them to make unwise decisions.
My favorite character was Norman, a great big, slobbering and lumbering hunk of a dog, loyal and grateful for the life they provided him when they rescued him after Marty abandoned them. My next favorites were Nicky and Tanzie. Sometimes, these children and the dog were the adults in the room!

The book is an easy read, although the timeline and tale move back and forth when one or another character is highlighted and it sometimes caused confusion, but as the story continued, it soon became clearer. The important characters are Asa, Helen, John, Tabitha and Moll.
Asa seemed to be a bitter, unhappy man, suffering from the loss of his wife in childbirth, a wife whose value he didn’t realize until she was gone. Although, his wife was devout, he was not, until his daughter, Helen, was rescued after she was captured by the British. As a rule, he was very disciplined and rigid, but he adored Helen and doted on her, allowing her more privileges than most women of her day because there were no women in her life to really teach her, her proper place in the world. He considered himself to be a just slave holder who provided well for them. I thought Asa had a fatal flaw; he only realized the error of his ways after he made the errors, but he never learned from them.
Helen was a devoted daughter who looked after her father’s affairs and did not express a desire to marry, rejecting all suitors until John appeared on the scene. She had been completely devoted to the farm and her father, and her father had come to accept her wishes not to marry, and he actually believed this would be the best course of action for them. They would live together, and she would handle all of his needs while he traveled and did work for the government during the days of the Revolutionary War.
John is a man with no status, no fortune or family to speak of, but he adores Helen from the first moment he spies her. He keeps his feelings silent because he is rooming in a friend’s home and his friend is courting her according to the wishes of Helen’s father and her unwanted beau’s mother. John, a soldier, was previously a pirate. He was not exactly equal in station to Helen and had no way to truly provide for her. Still, love blossomed, and although Asa disapproved of the man who rescued his daughter, they found their own way to happiness.
Tabitha is a fun loving, happy child doomed to be motherless. Helen’s mother had died in childbirth, and her fate was the same. Tabitha became the shining light of her father’s eye, as Helen had been the raison d’etre for Asa. Tabitha contracted Yellow Fever and died at the age of 10. Asa, the grandfather and John, the father both suffered the same terrible losses, both eventually lost wife and child.
Moll was a slave given to Helen for Helen’s tenth birthday. Moll was eleven and not quite aware of her place as a slave, yet always aware that she was owned and not free. She wanted her freedom and that wish remained with her. Her relationship with the family, Helen, Asa and even John, was one that was not clearly defined as slave and master since there were times she was treated warmly and kindly, but in the end, they did with her as they pleased, never truly considering her feelings, only considering their own, thinking of her as a lesser being, never realizing that she hurt as they hurt. When she was forced to marry and had her own children, they never worried about separating her from her loved ones, although they never stopped mourning for those they lost. The relationships between John and Helen, Asa and his wife, and Moll and Moses had distinctive beginnings, and each was different in its nature. The degree of love and affection varied as did the loyalty. All three couples had children and were devoted to them, though in Moll’s case, not to all equally.
We are introduced to John and Tabitha, in 1793, in a town on the coast of North Carolina, a storm is raging, and a young child, Tabitha, is listening to a tale her father is telling her about her mother, a woman she never met. Her parents had run away together, against Helen’s father’s wishes and spent a year at sea. Asa did not want his daughter, Helen, to marry a man, John, beneath her status, a man with no family or fortune to speak of, or perhaps Asa did not want her to marry at all, so they eloped, but this is not the story John tells his daughter, instead he weaves truth and fantasy into other tales to entertain her.
John has a store in which he sold sundries like eggs, candy, yarn, ribbons and flour. During the day, Tabitha had great freedom, as Helen did as a child. She wandered the shoreline and collected mementos of land and sea, as her mother before her did. There are many parallel stories in this tale. Helen and Tabitha both lost their mothers in childbirth. Moll, John and Asa all lose a child in one way or another. Each perceives freedom differently, but each desires it. Although John and Asa are suffering from their own sorrows, they do not understand that Moll suffers as well. The sea figures in all of their lives. John believed nothing bad could happen on the sea, Asa believed it relaxed him in his old age, although previously he thought the land was a far better place to be, and Moll believed it was her ticket to freedom. John sees Helen in Tabitha as Asa sees both his wife and his daughter in her.
The dichotomy between the lives of the two children, Moll and Helen, is apparent to the reader, but not to Helen. She accepts that Moll should have less freedom and feels little guilt when she forces her to do things that are abhorrent to Moll. She believes it is simply the way it is and addresses Moll as if she can do the same things as Helen, even though her own behavior often prevents Moll from being as free. Their friendship is unusual, but not fully formed.
At the end, I thought the sea brought Helen and John together, even as it separated her from Asa, and I wondered if its course, perhaps, would provide a path for Moll to freedom, since she was separated from her best loved son Davey, but then I wondered if it would also be the watery grave for Asa, who was a sad, lonely old man at the end of his life, separated from all those he loved.

Jake Whitmore and his son Ryan are not very close. He has been a workaholic and has left most of the child-rearing and nurturing to his wife Pam. One night, Pam suggests that he pick Ryan up from his evening out at the movies so he can try to bond a little with him. On their way home, there is a tragic accident which leads to a series of events that upends all of their lives. Evidence is concealed, lies are told, and fear and tension build until they are all at each other’s throats as their future is threatened. One mistake leads to another, until the hole they dig for themselves becomes very deep.
As the story develops, it becomes more and more implausible. It is another in the genre of books about situations that test the limits of a parent’s love, the lengths to which the parent will go to protect the child and the effects of all this protective behavior on the family as their values and ethical beliefs are stretched very thin.
Jake seems like an immature and irresponsible parent. He makes one foolish choice after another. Pam seems preoccupied with herself and her own importance, and she enjoys her position as the most important parent. Ryan, at 16, is the nicest of the three characters, and he often seems like the adult in the room.
The plot is convoluted, and although it has moments when it will capture the interest of the reader, for the most part it feels too contrived. There were many twists and turns which led to a surprising, but again, far-fetched conclusion. Briefly, the dialogue was trite, often redundant and repetitive, and overall, I found the story disappointing.

This is not a book for everyone. It is a bit disjointed because it depicts the workings of the main character’s muddled mind. However, Bjorn’s thoughts are presented very logically, and even though they may seem to be irrational, the author presents them in such a clear way that we accept them, on some level, and begin to understand Bjorn, a troubled low level employee who believes he is brilliant and more deserving of success and recognition than any of those around him, even his superiors. He believes he is superior in all things, and with the presentation of his perspective, his personal philosophy is carefully laid out for the reader, as the days progress. I would describe him as an “outsider” who believes that he is an “insider”, as someone who believes that those truly inside are atypical and are outside his own sphere of reference. He has it “inside out”, although those who are truly on the inside are not very likeable. This troubled character has been beautifully drawn by the author, so that the reader is aware that the narrative represents the chaoitic nature of his mind. Although he carefully orders his lifestyle, he is betrayed by his disordered psyche. The irrational though lucid way in which he expresses himself, confuses those around him, and by the very nature of the audacity with which he presents his case each time the subject of his behavior is raised, we are compelled to try and understand him. When we first meet Bjorn, a man who has probably been demoted, but believes since the workplace he has been assigned to is larger than his former one, although his personal space is no longer private and his salary is lower, that he has been promoted in some way, we realize that we are dealing with someone who lives in a bit of an alternate universe. Yet, he expresses his theories in ways that justify them so we are sometimes mystified by his behavior and our own reactions to him.
Bjorn appears lonely, introverted, misunderstood and even arrogant, at times. Although he may often appear paranoid, he can appear very sane, as well. The manifestation of his flights of fancy, his sojourns in “the room” seem to be credible at first, until the reader becomes aware of the fact that “the room” exists in a part of his mind, a small space, like the space “the room” occupies, a place in his imagination. Although he measures the floor space to justify its existence and finds it coming up short, he creates a reasonable explanation for the missing part of the building on his floor. He decides that there is a conspiracy to keep the room secret from everyone, even the Director General.
Bjorn’s greatest asset is his mind, but it is also his greatest downfall. He is bright and clear-headed so that he is able to perform above the level of the other workers, bringing some fame to his department as their overall competence improves because of his output.
The Office workers may have tried to befriend him, at first, to figure out what he was doing that was making them so uncomfortable, to understand his behavior, but he rebuffed everyone. He is hostile and so he causes hostility in return. He negatively judges all around him and remains aloof and condescending in his attitude. The fellow workers begin to meet in secret to discuss his aberrant behavior and eventually pass judgment upon him. He in turn has been and continues to, pass judgment upon them. Each, in turn, makes unreasonable demands which can really not be met by Karl, the ultimate boss of their department. He follows procedure, and in the end, the take-down of Bjorn is not really a take-down, because Bjorn outsmarts them all, and possibly himself, in order to escape their ridicule and his own humiliation, by entering the world of “the room” and disappearing within its walls. The reader is left wondering if he has truly entered the world of his fantasy and will not return, waking from his trance, as he so often did, previously, or has he truly disappeared.
It has been described as the Kafkaesque journey of Bjorn, but I believe it was also a Kafkaesque journey for the other workers who found themselves confounded by his explanations, demands and accusations and also found that their boss was hamstrung by policy. They began to reduce their own confusion and discomfort, caused by Bjorn’s behavior, to petty demands. They wanted equal treatment although their behavior was normal and according to policy was thus not rewarded. Surely the scene was upside down, in the final analysis, because the zoo was being run by the animals, but it was hard to know recognize the actual animal in question in each episodic encounter.
Could someone so demented actually carve out a space, assert himself so well that he could assume power? The irrational mind is often successful at creating diabolical plans; a complete but over the top example is Adolph Hitler, a man able to bring the entire world to its knees in an effort to defeat his irrational ravings which were, at first, believed and followed by so many. On a small scale, although he attracted many enemies, Bjorn was able to attract some followers because of his accomplishments at work, regardless of his bizarre behavior.
The book has also been described as the representation of a man trying to fight corporate culture, trying to find a place for himself in a world out of his control, yet, I found a man so detached from reality that I believe he merely wanted to find a place in the world, period, a place where he was the be-all, end-all judge and jury of his life in its entirety. He was so regimented and so obsessive that he could not have functioned in many positions well unless he was able to divert his mind to another place where he ultimately found sanctuary.
The author has done an amazing job of getting into the mind of this character and painting a portrait of him so that I could picture him, the other workers and the workspace without much effort. I could enter “the room” with him and feel his frustration and his release as I could also feel the frustration of his fellow workers who were subjected to his anomalous behavior. This little book, both in size and length, stands out a bit larger than life and will make the reader both chuckle and wonder at the antics of the characters and then question their motives and sanity at the same time.
Bjorn prefers to live in a world I will call “the emperor’s new room”, because there, he is in charge, he is respected and he is not ridiculed or laughed at because he is different, rather he does the judging and the smirking. How did the author get so completely into this benign mind of madness into which he draws the reader step by careful step? It is a quick read, but not a beach read. It is a book that should excite discussion. The power of the mind is infinite.
Thought provoking and amusing don’t usually go together, but in this book the two are married comfortably. The author has perfectly captured the mind of a social misfit. The contradictions of his life and workplace are captured flawlessly. It was a pleasure to read so creative and original a book after reading so many that seemed like clones of the one before it.
***I won this book on Goodreads and truly enjoyed it. At last there is a book that was not simply murder, mayhem and sex. At last a thought provoking book that did not go on forever into the hundreds and hundreds of pages!

This harrowing story is read beautifully by David Atlas; his tone is a bit flat as he reads in a plaintive voice, a bit dreamily, which is in stark contrast to the story he tells as he speaks of the violent nightmare existence the POW’s of WWII were forced to endure. This is the story of Dorrigo Evans who was an Australian Prisoner of War, one of many, thousands of whom died building the Japanese Railroad lines in Siam, “the death railway”, also known as the Burma/Siam Railway (Thailand/Myanmar today). Dorrigo was the camp doctor, forced to make choices that were impossible to conceive of, demanded by a people bent on conquering the world under their flag of The Rising Sun. Born in Tasmania, he grew up to become a surgeon and a soldier. This is Dorrigo’s story from Tasmania to Siam, Burma, the POW camps, and eventually an elusive freedom, as he grew from a young man to the officer forced to make life and death decisions for others, under the most horrific conditions, to a man nearing the end of his life looking backward over his shoulder at the life he lived, the mistakes he made, the secrets and lies that changed his life and the lives of others.
Dorrigo Evans addresses his life with honesty. He speaks of his many forbidden love affairs, of his inability to be truly monogamous and believes that although he had engaged in sex with many women, he had never “slept” with any of them and had therefore, remained true to his wife, Ella. During the war, he met his one true love, Amy, who happened to also be the wife of his Uncle, a woman symbolized by a red camellia and an unforgettable, forbidden affair. Dorrigo questions the meaning of love and fidelity, war and peace. The memories of the war cling to Dorrigo Evans. One soldier who bleeds to death and another that is beaten to death haunt his nightmares. He remembers the violence, the humiliation and the shame.
Dorrigo is a hero of sorts, but he doesn’t believe he is, and he is tortured by his memories. As he looks back on his life, there are two distinct stories, one is about the Australian POW’s and the other about the Japanese guards. Thousands of POW’s suffered and died at the hands of the Japanese who did not obey the Geneva Conventions (the first of which was created in 1864), who overworked, starved and beat them without any of the normal constraints of human decency. His memories are painful, and he cannot free himself from the guilt he feels for the death of some of his fellow soldiers, for his inability to do more for them.
The author paints the horrors of war for the reader’s eye. The descriptions are so detailed and meticulous in their presentation that the viciousness of the enemy is perfectly captured along with the image of the helplessness of the prisoners, in the face of the barbaric treatment to which the Japanese subjected them, tormented them, in the name of their Emperor’s honor. It is a travesty to consider the abuse of prisoners as a matter of honor. As the story is told, the reader is forced to visualize and interpret the world in which the POW’s and the Japanese soldiers inhabited. In presenting both sides, the Australian soldiers who were POW’s and the Japanese Soldiers who were their captors, the author makes it hard to feel any sympathy for the Japanese. The hero and the enemy are clearly defined and there is no room for doubt as to which one behaved more honorably, even though there were moments of ignominious behavior on the part of both sides. The scales of detestable behavior weighed more heavily on the Japanese. Honor apparently meant and still means different things to different cultures.
Both Japanese barbarism and nationalism leapt off the page. They believed they were the strongest race and would win the war for their Emperor. There is no other choice because defeat was simply not an option for a Japanese soldier. Death was considered preferable and many chose to die rather than be captured during the war, and then again, at war’s end. It was considered an honor to die for the Emperor, and they actually believed that the prisoners should also consider it an honor to die for the Emperor, to suffer the travails of their captivity for the honor of serving him.
After the war, many returned damaged, changed, some were even ashamed of their behavior, but some Japanese remained proud of their hateful conduct, unable to recognize that it had been evil. Many of those who believed in the old ways, still believed their heinous actions were committed in the name of the their divine Emperor, and so they justified their cruelty and glorified it. Many got away with their war crimes, and it is really hard to fathom the reasons why they would not have been punished, why the countries involved wanted to simply forget the past and move forward, often without punishing those who were so barbaric and cruel.
The book parallels the lives of the Australian and Japanese soldiers, their personal beliefs in justice, honor, morality and ethics. They had contradictory feelings about the war and its execution. It illustrates the hypocrisy of some of the accommodations made to the war criminals while others even less guilty were punished more harshly and even put to death. The descriptions of the degradation of the prisoners by the Japanese are graphic and difficult to read as they conjure up images which will fill the reader with revulsion.
Contrasting images are juxtaposed to reinforce the meaning of the events being described. Colors are a major theme in the book. Red is of particular significance with certain scenes. The red of a flower is balanced against the red of blood, and the contrast is chilling. Yellow and gold take on different meanings when referring to the fat in a human body or the color of graceful fish. Water is used to express both the beauty of life and the horrors of death. He writes of the loyalty the soldiers felt toward each other and contrasts it with his own disloyal behavior toward his uncle as he engaged in the illicit love affair with his wife. Love is contrasted with hate, truth compared with lies and the ways in which lives are altered by them, loyalty with infidelity, honor with dishonor and the ways in which those same words are viewed by different cultures, life with death, dreams with nightmares. There is a quality to the narrative that makes the book easy to listen to, but the subject matter makes it very hard to take. In the fog of war, there are many horrific scenes, and all of the characters seemed to suffer from their war experiences in one way or another. Their lives, more often than not, ended in tragedy, and many times it was as if by simple chance.
The narrow road that the POW’s were forced to build, left death and destruction in its wake as did the war and the warmongers who waged it.

The economy is in free fall. Lehman Bros. is no more. Private homes and commercial properties are going into foreclosure. Loan money has dried up. Jobs are scarce. A large law firm specializing in real estate deals is coming apart at the seams, tossing lawyers out without any preamble, without any severance, in order to try to save the firm’s partners and their remaining assets and to prevent their clients from fleeing. Lawyers, once on top of the world, albeit overworked with excessively long work hours, are being escorted out of their offices like criminals.
Samantha was one of those lawyers. A product of good schools, she was right on track for great success until the financial meltdown hit. Her law office offered her only one option. If she worked as an unpaid intern, volunteering for a year while on what they called a furlough, she could keep her health insurance and possibly get her old job back if things got better, at years end. However, even free internships were hard to come by since there were too many lawyers out there looking for a job, paid or unpaid. Her dad offered her a job, but his checkered past in the legal field turned her off, and she refused it. Her mother worked for the Federal Government in the Justice Department and like all Federal employees, her job was secure. The economy’s crisis did not affect her and her view of it was unrealistic.
After many unsuccessful attempts to secure an unpaid internship, she finally got a call to go for an interview in Brady, Virginia, near the Appalachia region, to work for the Mountain Legal Aid Clinic. A woman named Mattie Wyatt runs the office. On her way to this rural area of Vermont, she was pulled over by a cop, arrested for speeding and hauled off to jail. Before she gets to a cell, she is rescued by a lawyer, Donovan Gray, who just happens to be Mattie Wyatt’s nephew. He explains that Romey, the quasi cop, is mentally unstable, has no power to arrest her, and so she is free. She is astonished that he had not been arrested for kidnapping and impersonating an officer. Apparently he has friends in high places. His cousin is the sheriff. She is beginning to learn the lay of the land in small towns.
Coal and Crystal Methamphetamines apparently are the major businesses in the area. Donovan sues the coal companies, and his aunt rescues those in need of free legal services. While Donovan is sometimes reckless, his aunt Mattie is cautious and careful. Mattie offers Samantha the job, she takes it, and soon, she and Donovan develop a kind of friendship, although she does not want to be involved in his law firm and refuses to work for him on the side. He encourages her not to leave town, but to stick around, because it is really a nice place, and he knows she will love Mattie and like the work too. However, it will be quite a change from her Manhattan lifestyle.
The story feels a bit contrived. Samantha’s father and Donovan, coincidentally, both bend the rules of law as they fight big corporations. The big corporations, (airlines are Samantha’s father’s area of expertise and coal is Donovan’s), of course, are the evil doers. The coal industry is portrayed as scheming and manipulative as it willfully, knowingly hides the fact that the industry is endangering the environment and thus the lives of the miners simply because it is cheaper to hide their wrongdoing than own up to it. They consider human lives to be less worthwhile assets than their bankrolls and their reputation which they falsely uphold.
Samantha’s father, Marshall, went after the airline industry with their deep pockets, because of their unethical practices, but in the process, he got himself into deep trouble. Donovan has suffered personally because of the unscrupulous practices of the coal corporations and wants to bring them to justice, but he thinks nothing of being unscrupulous as well, in order to collect evidence. He, too, will get into deep trouble in the process. His brother, Jeff, works with him, as well as an assortment of other odd characters. Donovan is the good, “bad” guy, though, and the coal industry is the villain. Even Marshall’s criminal taint gets fainter when you realize he is performing a service, of sorts, to help those in need of legal advice and support they couldn’t otherwise afford. He helps raise capital to provide groups of lawyers to handle cases that would otherwise not be financially viable to represent. Miners get black lung disease and although they are entitled to benefits, the industry hires powerful and influential lawyers to appeal the decisions handed down when in the favor of the victims. He miners don’t have the wherewithal to fight back. They have no money and really can’t fight back without people like Marshall and Donovan and Donovan’s aunt Mattie to help them. The two sides of the law are contrasted in the book. Some lawyers represent the villains and some represent those injured by them. By the time some cases are solved, the victims are dead.
Progressives will really like this book because blame is squarely placed on big business and monster law firms with nothing to lose but money of which they have plenty. Environmentalists will hail the effort to stop the coal industry from polluting water and abandoning workers they have willfully harmed. Republicans are blamed for the laws that favor business and disfavor and abuse the little guy because the “republicans like coal” and big corporations. They are perceived as being in cahoots with the coal people; whether or not it is a partisan or bipartisan issue is immaterial. The FBI is portrayed as a bureau gone wild with no checks and balances unless they come from higher up, from someone in the government with influence. Corruption, in one form or another, seems to be an acceptable way of life, in most places.
The book is easy to read, great for a beach or day of mindlessness. It does not leave you on the edge of your seat, however, eager to keep reading. There is no real build up of tension. I did not find the characters to be very plausible. I felt no attachment to any of them. They behaved unrealistically and the dialogue was weak and shallow. There were no real relationships to become involved in, and the story seemed to skirt around the edges, never getting too deeply developed. Samantha was the most developed character and she seemed very superficial with values that I could not pin down. She seemed more interested in herself than anything else. Actually, most of the characters seemed driven only by personal needs. Donovan seemed headstrong and untethered to the real rules of engagement as he fought his legal battles. His brother Jeff seemed to be a loose cannon who worshiped Donovan and would do anything for him. Mattie, their aunt, was the most stable character as she seemed to have a genuine purpose in life. While Samantha and Donovan seemed to be driven by personal goals, Mattie seemed to be selfless, putting her own needs last. Donovan and Mattie seemed almost like polar opposites, one reckless, the other cautious, but both seemed driven by a desire for justice and a need to help the little guy who was powerless.
I am already awaiting the made for TV movie or serialized weekly episode, since the book leaves you hanging, wondering about the outcome of the cases that Samantha is working on, wondering if she will remain in Appalachia working to stop the coal industry from abusing the miners and their families, or if she will return to the world of mega corporations and law firms, wondering if she will have romance in her life and with whom, wondering if the thugs will fight back and put her in danger, wondering if she will pursue a career in trial law, handling domestic disputes, wills, and the detritus of everyday life.

The prologue draws the reader in immediately by perfectly capturing the atmosphere of the kabbalist and his entreaters. In a dry and dusty courtyard, a rebbe and his wife show kindness to those in need: damaged people, people who are disfigured, emotionally disturbed, poverty stricken, any and all who come to seek their advice and food. They serve the needs of these sad misfits with no place else to go to seek counsel or solace. Somehow, their wise and common sense advice, delivered in the simplest of terms, calms and aids these suffering people.
Enter Isaac, a religious Jew, recently bereaved because of the loss of his mother. He has sold his haberdashery store and traveled to Israel. Instead of returning to the United States, he decides to stay and become the apprentice to Rebbe Yehudah, a man who offered caring, common sense advice with such sincerity that his solicitors believed him and often went away happy with their problems on the way to being resolved. Isaac suffers from severe eczema, psoriasis and unbelievable insecurity. His lack of confidence is his worst enemy and the cause of many of his problems.
Now enter Moustafa, a Muslim, born with a severe deformity. His head is turned to the side so he can never look completely forward. He is ridiculed and ostracized because of his deformity. Uneducated and a bit simple, he is a janitor on the Temple of the Mount, a holy place for Muslims and Jews, but a place where Jews are forbidden to pray because of its sacredness, and because the Muslims also forbid it. He learned Hebrew and English because of the kindness of woman who took him to weekly services when he was young. He is not devout in his faith, mostly because he does not pray in the mosque with the other men. He makes them uncomfortable, and they fear he brings the evil eye wherever he goes.
Moustafa and Isaac met quite by chance. Isaac was walking in an Arab area near the Temple Mount, and Moustafa, wondering what he was doing there, asked him if he was afraid to be there. Isaac, eyeing Moustafa’s pronged rubbish tool, asked why he should be afraid. They enter into a conversation, and when Isaac found out what Moustafa did, he called him a kohain. Moustafa was mystified. What was a kohein? Moustafa became a bit obsessed with the idea that he had this special significance and “therein lies the rub” and on the other side of the coin, the beauty of this story which seemed very much like a parable to me.
We have two men from totally different worlds, a Muslim and a Jew, who both believed strongly in their own religions, and they became friends of sorts. Both were outcasts in their own way. Both came from a background in which one parent cold and rigid, even cruel, while the other was the counterpoint. Both are searching for solace and love, both find it hard to describe the things that they want and need to find the answer to their hopes and dreams. Both vacillate, even when they finally decide what it is they want to do. Both are innately kind. Both are surprised when others are kind to them. They find they have things in common, their work, their words, their needs and their friendship transcends the hatred that exists between their cultures and homelands.
Because Moustafa was so grateful for the gifts, chicken soup and kind words that Isaac had bestowed upon him, when he visited him in the courtyard, he wanted to present him with a gift as well. What would be appropriate for a poor Muslim janitor to give to a poor religious Jew? Moustafa cleans up the area on the Mount, and as he sifts through the dirt, he finds discarded objects which he believes have no value other than to show his gratitude for Isaac’s kindness; they are after all bits of detritus being crushed and thrown away as rubbish. So he passed some of these odd objects, broken bits of pottery and a clay pomegranate, to Isaac, as a token of his appreciation, and Isaac is overwhelmed by his childlike generosity.
The seemingly innocuous discovery and gift of the ancient pomegranate will bring danger to both of these innocent men and expose a hypocritical pattern of abuse that is taking place on the grounds of the Holy Mount. The Muslims on the Temple Mount have been deliberately destroying antiquities to rewrite history, to erase the record of those that came before them so they can claim to have been first, so that they can claim the land and its history. The Jews in charge know this but do not want it to be discovered since it will cause massive controversy and demonstrations that would be dangerous for all in the region.
The misunderstandings arising from this antiquities discovery will jeopardize the safety of both men. When it is resolved, the reader will be left with a difficult message to ponder. Who was right? Was it Sheikh Tawil who wanted to willfully destroy the artifacts, the Rebbe Yehudah who wanted the wanton destruction of history brought to light so the true heritage could be preserved, the blustering Commander Shani who as the Israeli Intelligence Officer, consumed by his ideology and politics just wanted to maintain secrecy to prevent violence, Isaac or Moustafa who only wanted to appreciate the objects he found?
The character development was textured with many emotions and images. Tamar came across as a flamboyant girl on a motor cycle, but also as someone more serious, possibly suited to Isaac, despite their age difference. Shaindel Bracha, the Rebbetzin, came across grandmotherly, but also all-knowing and a strong influence on the courtyard. Politics and fanatic leaders would seem to be the villains in this story, not religion. The book, on the surface is an allegory, but it also exploits the reader’s mind with subtle reminders of the Israeli conflict, subtle hints about the fractured societies trying to live together, subtle hints about how they survive, often owing to odd compromises with one group or another in order to keep the peace. If only both sides could see the other side’s needs more clearly, without prejudice, so much might be achieved, and yet, in conclusion, one is left to wonder if this is really a possibility since so much is still misunderstood, so many are still blind to anything but their own needs and never see the true nature or needs of another.
It feels like such a tender story. The Yiddish expressions, conversations between characters and simple sayings and comforting remarks are examples of the beauty of Israel and its oft unjustly ridiculed religious society which is pitted not only against the secular but also the conflicting religious points of view. I believe that even non-Jews could be warmed by the sentiments expressed by this storyteller, by the simplicity of the love, devotion and loyalty exhibited by these two so different men, both a bit Job-like. Both men grew larger in the end, but did they achieve their dream? The reader will be left wondering if Isaac betrayed his friend or performed a miracle for him. Is the spiritual message of the book only achieved if one is Pollyanna?

Treblinka Survivor: The Life and Death Of Hershl Sperling, Mark Smith
The book is repetitive at times, but it is well researched and shows the author’s deep attachment to the Sperling family. Although Mr. Smith’s conclusions are basically only suppositions because few facts are available, he does lead the reader on a logical and straightforward path as he presents a fount of historic information about the annihilation of the Polish Jews, and although he cannot walk in Hershl’s shoes in order to better understand Hershl’s destiny, the author attempts to follow the road he must have taken. This question haunts him in his exploration: Why would someone who worked so hard to survive throughout the war under the most horrific conditions, finally choose to take his own life? Hershl never found a way to adequately deal with or vent his own anger or work out his need for retribution for what Hitler put him through. Was suicide his ultimate expression of anger? The book then begs the question: Did Hitler actually win?
While the memory of the Holocaust continues for the few remaining survivors, the legacy of the Holocaust and keeping its memory alive, falls on the shoulders of their offspring, and it sometimes becomes too great a burden, even for them to bear. Few Jews escaped from either the experience or the memory of the Holocaust.
As I read the book, I was somewhat uncomfortable by what seemed to be the author’s over identification with Hershl’s experience. I began to feel as if it was his travelogue rather than a search for the reasons behind Hershl’s suicide. To me, that seemed to trivialize Herschl’s experience and glorify his own. Then I remonstrated because as a Jew, I thought I should try to absorb the message before I chose to criticize the writer’s style.
Many, including myself, have sometimes expressed the feeling that the topic of the Holocaust has been exhausted and we have read enough about it, but if we give in to our feelings of exhaustion on the subject, how can we expect others of different religions and different cultures to continue to educate themselves about it. Although sometimes I am tired of the subject, I do always discover some new horrifying fact, some new horrifying way Jews were humiliated and abused in every book I read. We, who are not mad, can never understand what was in the hearts and minds of those demented sadists who happily performed their vicious duty to Hitler’s cause, but if we choose to put it in the past and forget, will history repeat itself? With today’s current attacks on Jews it does no seem like such a far fetched idea any longer.
Perhaps these Holocaust books need to be read strictly for the information and historical content, exclusive of the emotional impact, to lessen our own personal exhaustion with the subject. There is always something else out there that we did not know about the genocide’s execution. The Jews in Germany and Poland, wherever, could not imagine what would take place and they let their guard down. Today there is a similar attitude of disbelief and they are often their own worst enemies by supporting causes that are not in their best interests and leaders that could not care less about their needs or standards. We have infantilized our children in this modern generation. They do not have to be responsible for themselves until they are well into their twenties, forget being 15 and separated from all those you love. One has to wonder if today’s young people could ever survive what Jews were subjected to, during WWII.

Karen Abbott has written a well researched narrative that tells the true story of four courageous women who wanted to serve their President and their country, although some of us may not support the President or side for which they fought. Perhaps the true origin of the Civil War lies in economic issues, but freedom for the slave was a huge part of the ultimate sacrifice and result, and it is the way it is remembered by most Americans.
During that time, women were not afforded the same opportunities they have today, could not participate in the war effort aside from knitting socks or raising money or entertaining the troops, feeding them and occasionally dancing with them. Four women defied protocol and found a way to support the cause they believed in, even when it was frowned upon. They could not enlist to serve their country; they could only listen carefully to the things they heard around them, using the information to try to accomplish success for the side they supported. After proving themselves, they were often then called upon to do more for their side, sometimes placing themselves in great danger. The women were forced to use guile and feminine wiles to accomplish their goals. One woman went so far as to assume a different sex to take on the role of a male soldier, appearing on the battlefield and fighting along with them, engaging the enemy and providing whatever aid she could and whatever duty her commanding officers demanded, as she fooled everyone around her who believed she was just a young man of slight build and carriage.
Two of the women supported the cause of the south and two supported the north. Two were on the side of Jefferson Davis and two on the side of Abraham Lincoln. They were the Presidents of their warring sides, the Confederacy vs. the Union. The Confederate supporters were Belle Boyd, the temptress and Rose O’Neal Greenow, the accomplished liar. The Union supporters were Emma Edmondson, alias Frank Thompson, the soldier, and Elizabeth Van Lew who organized a spy network and Underground Railroad of sorts, hiding some in a secret place in her home. She even engaged the services of her own paid servant, a freed slave, Mary Bowser, who was willing to help her and risked her own life along with Elizabeth.
If you don't allow politics to color your reading of the book, you will find it contains a good piece of history as well as creative storytelling. The women take shape on the page, coming across sharply as they pursue their own politics, in their own particular way. Each was motivated by different values and different backgrounds, each was young and perhaps naïve, but each was motivated by goals they believed were noble. Few suspected a woman of being involved in spying or soldiering so they often got away with their trickery longer than one would suspect, although one woman, impersonating a male soldier, showed her true identity when she became pregnant and delivered a child on the battlefield.

I listened to an audiobook and believe a print copy would be better since they stories switched back and forth from character to character and often the segue did not seem smooth. Also, sometimes the stories seemed repetitive as the same time frame existed for each of the characters as events were described. Although the reader was very good, it was sometimes hard to keep the several threads of the story straight.

The book brought the Civil War to life through the experiences of these women, and the author followed their lives until their deaths. It was really a good read and was very informative about an important piece of history. More women were involved than one would have expected and they showed bravery in the face of grave danger, often facing arrest and imprisonment, often being wounded in battle and even making the ultimate sacrifice, dying in the pursuit of their assignments.

I listened to this book on a long road trip. This tale of espionage was very fast moving, as well as being just long enough to engage me, the listener without exhausting me. The reader was good and it truly held my interest while keeping my eyes alert and on the road. While it was not rocket science, it did provide a history of parts of the Holocaust, never actually getting into the weeds, just imparting the information necessary for the story to take shape.
It basically begins with an explosion that takes the life of two young employees working for an office investigating Holocaust crimes and seriously injuring the elderly man who runs it. Apparently a Nazi murderer has been discovered in Vienna, living a very fruitful and successful life, gleaning much respect from those with whom he is in contact because of his position. This explosion starts a pattern of violence as this Nazi seeks to protect his hidden identity from discovery. Who was this Nazi murderer? Where did he do his dastardly deeds? Why is he going to such lengths, now, in his old age, to prevent his discovery?
These secrets are revealed in the book as the CIA and Israeli Spy network work to find out the secrets behind the bloodshed. It takes place in several countries, America, Israel, Austria, Italy and Argentina. As our heroes and villains move from place to place, the story gets more and more exciting, the secrets more and more perplexing. Underlying the political intrigue, there is also a tragic story of loss and a current story of love. This is book four in the Gabriel Allon series of which there are several.

If you like a good mystery, this is the book for you. This story will have you sitting on the edge of your seat, turning pages frantically until you get to the end. It was almost impossible to put down or to guess the outcome. The novel is written in the format of a journal or a diary, although the timeline is not a straight line. All of the main characters are introduced quickly into the narrative, and each slowly reveals personality traits.
When it begins, it is 2013, and Rachel Watson is riding on a train to London. She spies some clothes at the edge of the tracks and her mind begins to wander as she imagines whose they might be and how they might have gotten there. Rachel is unable to accept her divorce from her husband Tom, although a couple of years have passed. She has gained weight, drinks to excess and is obsessed with her ex-husband’s new life.
As she rides, she reminisces about her marriage. She was a different, happier person once, very different until she discovered Tom’s affair with Anna, until he left her. Anna became involved with Tom, even though she knew he was married. Tom and Anna have a young daughter and seem very happy. Rachel cannot accept this. From the train she can see her former home, but she avoids looking there, instead, she concentrates on a home a few doors away and watches a happy couple there that she has named Jess and Jason. In real life they are Scott and Megan Hipwell, but Rachel doesn’t know this. As she rides the train, daily, she looks for them and creates a fantasy about their lives. He is the perfect husband, idolizing Jess as he chats with her outside, and she is an adoring, loving wife. Megan Hipwell seems very happy when she is viewed from the train, but secretly her life is coming unglued.
Both Rachel and Megan have lost someone they love, both have trouble sleeping, both have lost their jobs. Megan had an art gallery that closed. Rachel lost her job because she drinks too much, becomes rude and argumentative and also blacks out and remembers little of what she does when she is drunk. Rachel is ashamed of her degenerate behavior, but Megan kind of likes to walk on the wild side, to live a bit dangerously, to test the water. Both of the women have secrets in their past or present lives, and both of the women want to travel, although one dreamt of traveling with her brother, and the other had dreamt of traveling with her husband to recapture their spark. Both want to improve the life they are living.
The lives of the three women intersect as we discover that Anna, Rachel and Megan are connected. Anna, who was “the other woman”, is afraid of Rachel and wants her to stop calling the house to harass them. Megan (Rachel’s Jess), briefly takes a job as Anna’s nanny. Rachel remains in love with Tom, and one night she returns to the neighborhood, gets drunk and blacks out. When she wakes up bruised and bleeding, sick to her stomach at home, she remembers little of how she spent the night or how she was injured. When she discovers that the woman Jess/Megan goes missing that same night, and does not return, she becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to her, of unlocking her lost memories.
One day, on the train, Rachel notices that someone has written on the side of a building, “Life is not a paragraph”. She responds to that statement with her own, “death is not a parenthesis”. That short thought bubble stayed with me throughout the book as the mystery evolved. Death is not a part of the whole. Death is not an interlude or an afterthought. Life has a beginning and an end, and death is the end result, the final outcome.
The lives of Megan and Rachel do not run concurrently. Megan’s begins a couple of years in the past, moving into the present, and eventually, each story line, Anna, Megan and Rachel’s meet, bringing the book to a satisfying, but surprising conclusion.

Let me begin by saying that I love novels that are written about basic human feelings, basic beautiful, “out of the-mainstream” characters, like those in The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Frye, Mrs. Ames, and A. J. Fikry. I loved all of the quirky characters in this book; each had his or her own peculiar trait which created the atmosphere within which a warm and caring community arose. There is no awful violence, brutal sex or very foul language; there is just the milk of human kindness hiding on every page you turn. Sit back and relax. You will smile as you read this, perhaps chuckle under your breath or laugh out loud, and sometimes, you may even shed a tear or two. The story is about an irascible, but sweet, curmudgeon of a man, a man who sees the world in his own way and believes it his duty to let everyone know it. He is rigid and shows very little outward emotion, but inside, there is a very soft heart. Every day, he mourns the loss of his wife Sonja. She has “chosen” to die before him which isn’t the way it was supposed to happen. He wanted to go first. He doesn’t really know how to live without her; She was everything to him. Enter a new neighbor, Parvenah, and a variety of other odd characters, and then add a woebegone, bedraggled cat to the mix, and watch as life takes on a new meaning for Ove. Slowly, this mix of unusual characters begin to enrich his life, even without his acknowledgment of their effort or little acts of kindness. At first, none of the characters have names, rather they have disparaging nicknames provided by Ove, but as they become identified with their true names, the story’s humanity, as well as Ove’s, is revealed. His forced retirement from his job because of his health before he was ready to stop working, coupled with the untimely loss of his wife, Sonja, has driven Ove to want to join her. At first, he seems obsessive/compulsive, inspecting the neighborhood, keeping everything just so, following rules to distraction, being essentially overcritical about everything and everyone, expecting perfection and perfect obedience to rules and regulations. Then, once you get to know Ove, you begin to understand who he is and begin to appreciate his behavior. If nothing else, the book is a testimony to the value of those individuals who seem different than the mainstream. They too have the ability to make enormous contributions to society. It is what people do, not what they talk about, that is the measure of the man, according to Ove. Ove has come up against the bureaucracy many times and he soon begins to feel hopeless and helpless to change things. The cold, unfeeling administrative “white shirts” defeat him at every turn. They make decisions based on regulations that don’t take the individual situation into consideration, that don’t deal with concerns, human need or emotion. Everything to them is black and white. Like Ove, they are following rules, but Ove makes and follows rules for the treatment of inanimate objects, and these “white shirts” make rules for the treatment of human beings, against their wishes. Ove goes to war with the council. Often \"the administrative rules are not made for the benefit of the person but for the benefit of the functionaries. So, although both Ove and “the white shirts” concern themselves with following rules, the process and outcome is completely different. While Ove wants his own authority to be respected, he often does not respect the authority of others in charge because they have a different purpose. The difference in the purpose of each is really what makes this such a beautiful story, if not a fairy tale. In this wonderful novel, everyone is eventually valued for who they are, the things they do, and not the things that are said about them. We discover that underneath Ove’s hard surface is a tenderness that pervades the entire story. He is a man who wants to do the right thing, regardless of the effort involved, regardless of how it interferes with his own needs. He has a “big heart” and always tries to do the right thing!

Emily Shepard is a troubled young girl who is forced to face enormous, catastrophic changes in her life. She lives in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. She is a bright teenager in her junior year at a good private school. She does not perform to her potential although she is quite capable; she is not interested in anything other than English and her favorite author, Emily Dickinson, her namesake, someone whose poetry she reveres. She often uses the lines from particular poems to guide her in her behavior and decisions.
When there is a horrific event at the Cape Abenaki Nuclear Power plant, resulting in a meltdown, Emily’s father is blamed since he was in charge. It was suspected that drunkenness was at the heart of the disaster requiring the evacuation of the area and the creation of containment zones. An enormous clean-up effort had to be launched in the vicinity of the plant and a large area surrounding it. Although her parents were both at the plant and have probably died, no sympathy is shown toward Emily, rather, fingers are pointed at her and there is a call to bring her in to testify as to the competence of her father. They need to blame someone for the death and destruction that was caused by the meltdown and the Shepards, known for their drinking, are it.
Emily is confused and probably in shock from the magnitude of her loss. She fears for the safety of her dog Maggie who was left behind. She is simply at loose ends with no idea of how to respond to what has happened. She is not able to return to her home, so desperate, she runs away to escape the harassment and barrage of accusations. She changes her name to Abby Bliss, once a close friend of Emily Dickinson and attempts to survive by her wits. This 16 year old becomes involved with many sordid characters in order to support herself. When she befriends nine-year old Cameron, also a runaway, but from an abusive foster home, he becomes her purpose in life; He becomes her family, and her efforts to protect him are fierce.
Although most of the rest of the world outside of the contaminated zone is not as much involved in the catastrophe at Cape Abenaki, Emily’s life is consumed by it. This is her story, and she tells it with both pathos and humor, but it is not always logical. It bounces back and forth, in time and place, as she reveals what she has done since the meltdown and divulges her plans to return home. Perhaps this bouncing was part of the author’s design; since she is so troubled maybe he meant to present her narrative that way.
Emily’s character possesses both the tenderness and the hardness necessary to do whatever she must to survive, but though she is supposedly a bright young girl, she reacts often with questionable judgment, more with her youth than her intellect. There are aspects of the story that stretch belief beyond its normal boundaries, and even the suspension of disbelief fails to justify the premise presented. Her lifestyle was sometimes amoral. She turned tricks, stole what she needed and was a cutter who harmed herself to feel good, a contradiction in terms, but a very real problem.
In the end, the book did not fulfill my expectations. It left unanswered questions, unresolved major controversial issues and really made no sweeping social statements, although the main idea of the book definitely presented the opportunity to do so.

This is the story of Laura Bridgman, born December 21, 1829, died May 24, 1889, from a Streptococcal infection. She had only one sense that she could use and that was touch. This disastrous loss of her senses was brought about by a bout of Scarlet Fever when she was just two years old. Up until that time, she was a happy, normal child with all her faculties. Without sight, hearing, speech, smell or taste, she was virtually imprisoned in her own body and completely dependent on others for her care and well-being.
The book takes up Laura’s life when she is the tender age of seven. In 1936, Dr. Samuel Howe takes her to his Perkins School for the Blind where she remained, except for brief visits home, for the rest of her life. The tale tracks her experiences, covering the history of the times through the Civil War, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the women’s suffrage movement. Although many of the characters are real, her Irish lover, Kate, was not. I am not quite sure why the author chose to make her a lesbian when there is no proof of that fact, and to my mind, it is more likely that she was only able to get affection from the girls around her because she rarely came into contact with members of the opposite sex, so what other choice would she have had. Since touch was her only sense, anyone who would have gratified her would have sufficed, I believe. In reality, it is not known if she ever had any kind of intimate relationship with anyone.
Laura believed she was like a daughter to Dr. Howe and she grew overly attached to him. He was involved with, and controlled every aspect of her life. He was a Phrenologist who was invested in the belief that the bumps on the head could indicate the character of a person. He made many important decisions based on the condition and shape of a person’s head, including Laura’s and his wife, Julia’s. He was also a Unitarian and believed that if he curtailed Laura’s interest in G-d until he deemed fit, she would come by it naturally.
She flourished intellectually, but emotionally she remained a bit undeveloped. He did not school her in subjects that would enable her to survive in the outside world as Helen Keller was eventually able to do, with her companion Anne Sullivan, always by her side. When he married Julia Ward, Laura become somewhat of a stepchild to him. She was no longer allowed to interact with him in the same way and was no longer allowed to live in the house with the family. If the book is accurate on this point, she was too much for Julia to deal with, and he acquiesced to her wishes.
Although Julia had promised to give up her writing when she married, she eventually resumed and became a well known poet who wrote the lyrics for “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”. She was also a suffragette fighting for women’s rights. This did not please Dr. Howe. He believed a woman’s place was in the home, and furthermore, he did not care for it when others became more well-known than he was, for he wanted the limelight for himself. He probably kept Laura on a tight leash for that very same reason, although he hauled her out like a curiosity to entertain those interested in his school. It was, however, due to him that she became very famous in her own right for her remarkable achievements. She was the first deaf and blind girl to be educated. For that accomplishment, she owes Dr. Howe a debt of gratitude as do many others who attended his school and who still attend its classes today. He was the father of the education of these challenged children. A blind Laura Doll was created in her image and honor. She was famous and the toy was, as well.
Laura Bridgman was not known to me before I read this book, although she was quite famous in her time. She was extremely intelligent but was kept in the shadows by Dr. Howe so that he could control her life. He did not believe in over stimulating her in any way, even when it came to her food, eliminating spices and sugar. Early in her school experience, along with her teacher, she had a companion, Sara White, with whom she was very close. Because she was not allowed a constant companion as she grew older, she was not able to do as much as the famed Helen Keller, of whom most of us have heard. Laura was overprotected when it came to the social world and her knowledge of what existed outside her community was limited. She traveled little and learned little of the workings of the world.
I did learn a lot about her from the book, but I also learned a lot that wasn’t about her, that was made up out of whole cloth. Laura was presented as a difficult, stubborn, young woman, overly attached to a difficult, opinionated Dr. Howe, who could be a rigid and challenging man. He treated women as property and believed women should obey their husbands. He was sometimes unkind to his wife and often cold to Laura. I wondered if this man, who did so much for these disabled children at his school, could have been quite as cold and often as cruel, as he was depicted by the author.
The world viewed people like Laura as developmentally arrested and enfeebled, yet she was neither, although there were times her moods were dark and she was despondent because of loneliness and rejection. She was a bright young woman who wanted the same things out of life as those with normal sight, hearing and speech. I think I would have liked the book better if it was shorter but stuck more to the facts rather than the fiction. However, the prose was a pleasure to read.

If you are an adult reading this review, go out and buy this for your child or grandchild, but read it yourself first. Brown Girl Dreaming is Jacqueline Woodson\'s memoir written for children in the middle grades, but it is appropriate for all ages, right up to the senior citizen. It is written in verse, and reveals her life as she moved from the South to New York in a single parent family, a problem that was rare when she was young, but one that would become prevalent in the black community, as well as the rest of the world, as decades passed. The book illustrated the path that led to progress and positive changes in the world of people of color and also indicated the failures and slow deterioration that developed in that society as well.
For me, this book was nostalgic, since a piece of it takes place in Brooklyn, and the author actually lived on Herzl Street, in Brooklyn, where my good friend Pearl lived when I was growing up, about a decade earlier. Many of her descriptions of games and neighborhoods were familiar to me and brought back so many happy memories. We shared a time, a place and a joy of living that is often absent in that neighborhood today. I was totally ignorant of the problems that existed, when I was young, and no young person today should grow up as ignorant of that struggle or of any other major struggle, for that matter, such as the Holocaust, as well.
Her lyrical presentation describes the history of the Civil Rights struggle in America succinctly and clearly. Middle grade children should have no problem understanding her underlying message of hope and also of despair. However, it would be better if the book was used as a teaching tool so that the political, social and moral conscience of the book could be further developed. The profound concepts, expressed so gently through Woodson’s memories, impart an understanding of the times that would be more accessible with the aid of an instructor. The poetry of her message will fill the reader with questions and also with wonder. In spite of so much hardship, there was optimism and hope that seems missing today. That is really the broader discussion that should arise for adults who read the book and the learning experience that a teacher could help the children obtain. How can the situation be improved? What are we doing wrong in society? What are the implications of history, then and now? Has any real progress been made? At some point do those persecuted assume they are now entitled to more than equal opportunity to make up for lost time and is it their due? Are these legitimate questions? They cannot be understood by a child without the help of an adult, and an adult should read it to become more aware and intimately involved with the problems clearly expressed in the book that are still being faced today.
The author and I had a lot in common, and yet we were worlds apart. We were brought up in the same area, perhaps a decade apart. We played together in the street, regardless of age or sex. We felt safe, except perhaps for the duck and cover of the Cold War air raid practice sirens. We experienced the same newsreels and world events. We both have a genetic gap in our front teeth. We both had someone in our lives who inspired us, who taught us right from wrong, good from bad behavior, honesty vs. dishonesty, proper language and appropriate dress, so that we presented a positive face to the world. So, we were not, and are still not, so different, after all. The answer to how to make those worlds come together again in a color blind way, may simply lie within the pages of this little, unassuming book. Anger, bias and hate is largely absent from it. In the hands of skilled teachers or open-minded readers, peace may finally be achievable for all people, no matter how different they are, if only they are willing to learn from mistakes and move on.
Of course, this may sound Pollyanna to many, and maybe it is even like wishful, unrealistic thinking, but it only takes one dedicated person to make a change, as Martin Luther King surely proved, as Ghandi surely proved. Evil exists only if we let it. This book gave me hope for the existence of its opposite. It reminded me of the idealism of my youth, a time when I believed the world could be a better place, although it was also a time when outside influences also often convinced me that it could not.
Perhaps we should all lose ourselves in hopefulness, rather than hopelessness. Jacqueline Woodson found her place in life, her gift to give to the world. Shout it from the rooftops that we are all family and provide the equality to all that has been guaranteed by law, but is still out of reach to so many because of ignorance and hate. Wipe out the ignorance and the hate will surely disappear as well. Believe in the ultimate goodness of people, rather than in judgment based on narrow-minded ideas about color, religion and station in life.

Anne Tyler has the uncanny ability of inviting the reader into her parlor and asking them to stay awhile. Her stories unfold so naturally and comfortably that the reader is almost a participant, a character in the tale, albeit an observing non-speaking one. She captures real life and its inner sanctum. All of her characters are unique in their own way and lovers of Anne Tyler’s particular style of storytelling will really like this book because they will see themselves or someone they know in each of the characters and they will smile at that recognition or realization, from page to page. From the mundane to the more moving and memorable moments of life, her storytelling gift, with all the little bits of information about life that are just dropped offhandedly in normal back and forth conversations, will open the reader’s eyes to their own life.
This book traces the multigenerational story of the Whitshank family, several generations of hard working people, three generations of fairly ordinary individuals with distinct personalities and dreams. Some were social climbers, some were content with whom they were, some were unable to find themselves, but each represents a real person you could pick out of a lineup of your own friends and family, maybe not completely in that shape or form, but certainly in its parts. The author describes the metamorphosis of each family member as he/she develops throughout the story. She deftly illustrates their feelings so that you experience their problems; some are ordinary, some extraordinary as time passes and each of them ages and matures. Almost all of life’s experiences are explored, but never with a heavy hand. Issues are discussed and presented as if they were just everyday occurrences happening in the lives of all people, and they probably are, when you come right down to thinking about it. That is really the biggest gift of the story; it is real life presented in a calm, palatable way even when the worst of life, with tragic consequences, is confronted. We witness the unfolding of ordinary day to day living as the characters handle what comes before them, some better than others, as is the case with all families. There is always one who steps forward to deal with the problems.
Quietly, she illustrates the nature of associations; some based on weakness, some on strengths, some on false narratives, some on kismet, but all have their own way of evolving, like it or not. Some characters mature later and some earlier, some come to terms with their lives in the by and by. Some need to have things clearly told to them and some need to have things intimated. Sometimes, white lies are necessary to preserve relationships and yet sometimes they explode them beyond repair. The biggest lesson she presents the reader with, and one that should be obvious to all, but isn’t always, is that conversation and communication are the key ingredients in family relationships, or perhaps all relationships. Secrets are damaging, even when revealed. Secrets prevent us from knowing, and sometimes, knowing is all we really want and need! If one party shuts off the conversation, there can be no resolution, there can only be a problem left hanging in the air to languish until the end of time. The problem will fester and grow and morph into a problem that never existed, but rather becomes one of the imagination.
All kinds of relationships are examined; those between parents and children, children and parents, grandkids and grandparents, friends and friends, neighbors and neighbors, in short all relationships anyone might have, and she has finely tuned each one to let the reader see how the characters interact, how they think, how they face their rivalries, and how they ultimately work out their differences, depending on their personalities and reactions to each other in each situation. It is like being provided with a window into our own lives, watching secrets and plans evolve into life-changing moments. We are given the opportunity to see how these characters work out their problems in the future, an opportunity we aren’t afforded in real life, in anything other than real time, but each reader will have an “aha” moment at some point in the story that they will be able to relate to their own lives.
The novel clearly points out how a family builds up, grows, and then deteriorates and reshapes itself, as the family moves on, ages and grows in different directions, especially when one or another sucks the air from the room, requiring too much attention, feeling too sorry for themselves, or feeling themselves too important or superior to the others. In short, it points out the way the characters grew, aged and declined and perhaps grew again. It points out the natural pattern of all life, with its losses, joys, troubles and fears. It points out that it is necessary for someone to be the peacemaker, as well. In the end, everyone seemed to find their rightful place in life, to find themselves in one way or another, and it would seem that the way things happened were they way things were meant to be. No one character was perfect, but they were all able to talk to each other, and that was the key to the way they were able to work out the family problems and their own. Blame was shared when necessary, but borne alone when only one was at fault. They were able to consider what the other person said, even when they didn’t agree with them. Even when there were rifts in relationships, they were forgivable, not unending.
Because this was an audio book, the personality of each character was more clearly defined by the tone of voice and expression given to the character by the reader. This made it easier to discern the nature of the beast and to identify with their personalities and their personal problems.

This is a poignant story about impossible, unspeakable loss, backward beliefs, misunderstandings, secrets, and shame for no good reason. I am not sure this book will attract a wide audience. The subject is “old hat” to some, too intense for others, but for those who lived during the era of the Aids Epidemic, those whose lives were touched by someone like Finn or Toby, a homosexual couple, this book will be very moving, meaningful and memorable.
Junie Elbus was a dreamer, a "romantic" as her Uncle Finn said. She was young; she wanted to live in medieval times, become a falconer, or a teacher. Her older sister, Greta, at sixteen was a senior in high school. She was more grounded. An achiever, she was bright as well as a talented performer. Both Elbus parents were Accountants who worked together in a business partnership. The book tells the story of this family, forced to face the revelation of homosexuality and the shame associated with Aids, the disease with no known cure or even treatment. It takes place in the 1980’s, when Aids was a fairly unknown and unforgiving disease. It was a death sentence. It was a time when Aids was also the hidden disease. When victims died, it was said they died from unconfirmed causes. The method of transmission was uncertain, creating fear and isolating those infected. The gay community was ostracized and ridiculed, making the situation much worse. The victims were pariahs; they suffered alone, for the most part, unless they were tended by those who were suffering along with them.
Fourteen year old June is the godchild of her Uncle Finn, whom she absolutely adores, but unknown to her, until his death, is his homosexuality. Her mom has hidden his partnership from her, and she has refused to acknowledge his partner in any way, either before his death or afterwards, forcing June to make decisions the adults refused to consider. Her coming of age was both tender and painful as she faced her uncle’s death, his formerly unknown partner Toby’s wish to develop a friendship with her, her older sister Greta’ coldness and jealousy, her parent’s work schedule, her mother’s fears and her own loneliness and neediness. Perception is a looming issue in this story; there is the perception of normal, of sexuality, lying, drinking, love, friendship, talent, capability, reality, danger and fantasy. Both parents want June to be more involved socially, more successful like her sister, whom they excessively praise and admire, even as she deteriorates before their eyes, although they are blind to her decline.
As I read the book, I wondered how many people reading it could truly identify with it, had actually lived through it with anyone, was familiar with Bellevue Hospital, with the lonely wraiths walking the halls dejectedly, because no one would touch them, no one was there to comfort them as they withered and wasted away. I can still see, in my mind’s eye, the robed, sad men slowly shambling down the hallways, sadness and pain written on their gaunt faces, alone, unwanted, spurned and humiliated. I remember the time clearly because I was touched by the tragedy, but still, I never rejected my gay friend, whose life must have been one of secret horror, since he could never truly be who he was, and even after being diagnosed, he could never admit that he was homosexual or bisexual, rather he said he had cancer, although he had Aids. It was just not discussed. I watched with anguish knowing this man so dear to me was doomed. I was grateful that he had a partner who would stand by him, with him, but sad when she refused to be tested or to take any type of preventive treatment, even after losing her own brother to the dreaded disease, as well.
I wondered how many reading the story would have been mature enough and brave enough to do the things that June did, to visit, drink from the washed glasses, touch the hands, kiss the cheeks, hug and offer solace to the sufferer. My heart breaks when I think of my friend’s unnecessary shame, for his unnecessary loneliness and for his misfortune to have gotten Aids before the drugs to help him were available. My heart aches because of the ignorance of the adults in the room, when the child had more compassion and willingness to learn and understand than all the learned people around her who instead of loving and helping the victim, were busy protecting themselves from the shame associated with the disease, for knowing someone with the disease brought on unrealistic fears and friends who rejected them. I am glad that Aids is no longer the dreaded disease it once was and sorry for its earliest of victims.

Jews and Muslims lived together in peace but perhaps not total harmony, since there were disagreements between them for which the Muslims always had the upper hand. They lived by their rules and owed their lives to their good graces. Orphaned Jewish children were taken into the Muslim community, by the Confiscator. Relatives had to prove they were financially able to care for the orphan, and most of the time they were too poor to satisfy the regulations. The cloud of confiscation hung over Adela Damari because her father, a fine shoemaker, was in very poor health. If her father died, she could be spirited away from her world, by the Confiscator, and forced to live and work in his.
We traveled with Adela from Quaraah to Aden and finally on to Palestine and then Israel, meeting members of her family along the way. When she was nine, and her cousin Asaf was only a year or so older, they were pledged to each other, to prevent her confiscation. Both of them seemed older than their young years. Hani, Adela’s friend and cousin, also appeared too wise for her age, and all three of them seemed too promiscuous for the times. Binyamin, another friend of Adela’s, seemed quieter and more reserved. Except for Adela’s mom, Sulamita, most of the women seemed relaxed and gay, more open minded, in some ways, even in their remarks. She on the other hand was strict and rigid, often cruel in her punishments. Adela, therefore, relied on several of her aunts for warmth and understanding. My favorite character was Binyamin who remained true to himself throughout and my least was Asaf who was more of a chameleon, fitting himself into the moment.
The Yemeni Jews seemed to live in the past, in a time warp, with their traditions, their religion and their superstitions. Many were illiterate. Girls, especially, received no education. Some Jews who succeeded were portrayed as ruthless and/or deceptive and devious. Others were depicted as kind, simple folk. The Muslims were portrayed largely as brutal and barbaric, killing and maiming simply for the sake of revenge, just and unjust. The Jews suffered many hardships but seemed to find joy in simple pleasures like Henna painting, cloth dyeing and preparing meals. The men, also, took pride in the work they performed to support their families. Eventually, though, world events forced many to leave their homes and travel to distant places.
Sometimes, the book seemed too simplistic and/or contrived. I found the scenes depicting little children consumed with ideas of sex, inappropriate and most unrealistic. Their world was a backward one, so I had trouble conceiving of their secret meetings or of their physical desire developing as it did. I also did not think it was necessary for the author to provide Sulamita with a lesbian experience in order to explain away her changes of mind. It seemed like the book was suddenly pandering to today’s liberal values by pointing out her unjust ostracism. As a witness to the experience, Aunt Rahel used the threat of exposure, in order to get her way.
Although I found it to be a slow read, at first, in the last 75 pages, the story suddenly came to life with the influence of The Holocaust and the British Partition of the Holy Land in 1947, which caused the Arabs to go on a rampage raining down destruction and death on Jews wherever they found them. As it moved forward in time, I grew more engaged with the story. I thought the story got bogged down in the trials and triumphs of day to day life, rather than in the big picture world, of Jewry, and so it became less of an historic narrative and more of a fairy tale. The introduction of a certain amount of mysticism or magic, trending into the supernatural, with prescient dreams and Henna designs that came to life, stretched my imagination a little, but it did add some charm to the story. This book relates how some survived. It is a story of violence and betrayal, loyalty and infidelity, all wrapped up in the pages of a love story.
Still, I learned many things from reading the book. I learned about the custom of henna painting, and that was really interesting. I was surprised to find so many parallels between the ways the Muslims and the Jews treated their women and the way in which both ethnic groups dressed. Both adhered to strict codes of attire. I noted that the male progeny seemed arrogant while the women were expected to be totally subservient and were not only purchased as chattel, they were treated as such. I also learned about the Confiscator who watched the community carefully to discover the next Jewish orphan in order to appropriate and immerse the child into the Muslim world. An exceptional lesson for me was learning about The Magic Carpet which was an effort to rescue the Yemeni Jews fleeing from the Arabs who were attacking them, robbing, beating and murdering them, for no reason other than they seemed to want to and that they were there. Previously, I had only known about the rescue of the Ethiopian Jews, who were also forced to flee their country.

When I first began to read Stephen King, I found his books to be excellent science fiction, “The Dead Zone”, “The Stand”, and the early books in “The Dark Tower” series, in particular. However, after awhile, for me, many of his books simply turned into sadistic tales of horror, and I stopped reading his novels. The raw pain that the author reveled in did not interest me. Because this was touted as a good detective novel, different than the genre he now ordinarily prefers, when a member in my book group recommended it, I decided to read it. I had recently read “11/22/63”, and I enjoyed it. In this book, however, I was very disappointed, although I will say that he still has an ample ability to create tension, even when the story is not very credible.
Yes, it is a detective novel. But the bigger yes is that it is also a sadistic and cruel story, not perhaps a full fledged horror story, but a story about horrible behavior, behavior that no one should even be thinking about or encouraging. The language and sex used to tell the story is low class and crude. So, beware if you pick up this book; it is not a simple detective novel, it is a hybrid, and I think it would have been better in a pure form of one or the other, detective mystery or horror novel.
At a job fair, the driver of a stolen Mercedes (the actual owner of the stolen car, Mrs. Olivia Trelawney, turns out to be not too tightly wound), deliberately plows into a crowd, over and over, brutally murdering some and injuring others. As the book continues, the murderer, now dubbed “Mr. Mercedes”, continues to taunt the owner of the stolen car. Not satisfied with simply having wantonly murdered his innocent victims, he also wants to manipulate his first victim, the owner of the car, into committing suicide. The public at large has blamed her for the murders because they believe she left her key in the car, absentmindedly, thereby enabling the murderer to steal it and commit his heinous act. She is, therefore, easy prey for him. After she does kill herself, her sister, Janelle Patterson, inherits her small fortune. She divorces her unpleasant husband and moves into Olivia’s condo where she pursues an investigation into her sister’s suicide. She does not believe her sister would have ended her life, unless manipulated and encouraged to do so, and she is determined to find out who encouraged her.
Meanwhile, the job fair murders have remained unsolved. After a year passes, the retired cop who handled the original investigation receives a letter from “Mr. Mercedes. In the letter, the murderer makes a joke of his awful crime, and taunting K. (Kermit) William Hodges, he encourages him to also end it all. He has been watching Hodges and knows that he has been contemplating suicide. However, instead of inspiring him to take his own life, the letter has the reverse effect; it inspires Hodges to go on living. Thus begins a deadly game of cat and mouse as Mrs. Trelawney’s sister, Janey, and Hodges team up to find the murderer.
Hodges is re-energized. He does not pass the letter on to his former partner in the police department, choosing instead to mull it over. He thinks, does he want to give this mass murderer the publicity he seems to be seeking, even though he avowed in his letter that he had no desire to murder anyone else or at least commit any more mass murders, or does he want to see how it would pan out if he handled it on his own, without informing anyone else. He could get into a lot of trouble for withholding evidence, but he decides to keep it secret, regardless of the consequences, which could and do turn deadly, while he allows his pride and his ego to interfere with his common sense.
Hodges and Mr. Mercedes, (Brady Hartfield), begin to play a deadly game which eventually enrages the “perk”. Brady is a cold-blooded murderer who blames every negative aspect of his life on someone else. His relationship with his mother is unhealthy, to say the least. There are some pretty nasty secrets in his past. He accepts no responsibility for his actions or their effects on others. Angry, he begins to busy himself by thinking up diabolical plans to hurt Hodges for insulting him. He is bent on revenge. He believes Hodges has only one close attachment and that is to a young, talented, very bright 17 year old African American, Jerome, who does chores for him. Brady is determined to try to hurt Hodges by hurting Jerome’s family. He plans to poison their beloved dog, but the plan goes awry, and Brady truly goes off the deep end, compounding one error after another. Hodges begins to actively search for Brady with the help of Janey, Jerome, and later on, Janey’s cousin Holly who lives on Lexapro in order to survive an overbearing mother and her own highly arrested emotional development. How successful they all are is up to the reader to determine. I found the brutal crimes in the novel, real or contemplated, difficult to read about. The ramblings of Mr. Mercedes were very disturbing. He enjoyed taunting people, enjoyed their suffering.
The plot becomes a bit convoluted, and as it develops it also becomes contrived with the actions and developments becoming far too coincidental. I thought the dialogue was hackneyed, overly filled with filthy language and gross sexual suggestion. The “Ret. Det.” as Mr. Mercedes calls Hodges, (Retired Detective), behaves unprofessionally and irresponsibly. The book certainly was not written to be an example of good behavior, although, in the end, there seems to be a message about how to treat one another, regardless of stature, sophistication or disability, regardless of whether someone is emotionally, physically or mentally challenged. There is a message about the dangers of prejudging someone or some situation. Keeping an open, compassionate mind is the better course to follow.
The conclusion seemed a bit too pat, as if the author wanted to apologize for his previous sadistic tale and give it some righteousness in the end, but he also set it up for his sequel. I am sure fans of Mr. King will eagerly await the sequel. Both Hodges and Mr. Mercedes eventually wreak havoc which must be resolved. Many of the characters were pretty loose cannons. Many seemed outright disturbed. The reader is left wondering if a severely injured and mentally disturbed Mr. Mercedes will awaken and go on to commit further atrocities or will he end up like his brother Frankie? They will also wonder how the lives of the ultimate heroes, Holly and Jerome, will develop.

Although the book is very readable, it was a little too simplistic, almost like a fairy tale. On the other hand, the tale did hold my interest most of the time. There are several characters, and the author’s descriptions enabled me to picture them well in my mind. One of the major characters, Maddie Pennypacker, the wife of Ellis Hyde, seemed very weak-minded and predictable, often allowing herself to be manipulated by others. She was almost too naive to be credible, making foolish decisions under the guise of protecting others. Her family background was not up to standard according to the Hyde family, and they did not approve of their son’s marriage to her. Although she was financially well off, due to her mother’s poor reputation her social standing received short shrift.
Ellis seemed like a ne’er do well whose only accomplishment was his station in life which was due to his fortunate upper class circumstances. He was spoiled miscreant who ordered people around, expecting to be served and kowtowed to, at all times. He was an unpleasant person much of the time. One night, in 1945, after he insulted his parents with some pretty rude and disrespectful comments, both he and Maddie were tossed out of their Philadelphia home: lock, stock and barrel. Both his parents were just as arrogant and haughty as he was, if not more so, for he learned how to behave at their knees. He looks down on others beneath his station, treating the “help” without any respect. To him, they were unworthy of his attention.
Ellis’s friend Hank, seemed like an untethered soul, lacking any kind of grounded principles. He tended to make light of everything, hoping to smooth over even the worst infractions of behavior that he witnessed. Together Hank and Ellis were irresponsible scoundrels who had no idea how to work for a living and believed it was beneath them to do any physical work anyway, even the simplest task of hanging up one’s clothes was to be handled by servants! Both men were ridiculed for not being in service fighting for their country. They were classified as 4F.
Desperate to find a way to reconcile with his family and guarantee his continued financial support, Ellis and his friend Hank Boyd concocted a scheme to go to Scotland to redeem Colonel Hyde’s reputation. Years before, the pompous Colonel had falsified pictures and made fictitious claims about sighting the Loch Ness monster. He was found out and eventually disgraced. He was persona non grata in the village of Drumnadrochit, Scotland, where the monster is supposed to reside. Together with Maddie, they made the trip across the ocean to Scotland in a foolhardy attempt to film the creature. It is wartime and the trip was unpleasant and dangerous. Up until Maddie witnessed the sight of the wounded and was attacked on the sea, she had considered herself above the fray. Soon, she began to look at life differently.
Once in Scotland, they found their lodgings disappointing. Their friend Freddie had made the arrangements for them. The Inn had no electricity, a shortage of food because of the war rationing and when Ellis was recognized as his father’s son, they were a bit unwelcome as well. The Inn was run by Angus Grant and his two helpers, Anna and Meg. Soon, Maddie discovered that she preferred their convivial company to that of Ellis and Hank. She also began to suspect that both men had lied about their draft status and questioned their personal relationship to each other. She began to feel like their foil. When Ellis noticed her change in attitude toward him, he warned Maddie not to fraternize with those beneath her position. It would give them the wrong idea. If she persisted in behaving improperly, he threatened her with medical confinement and an extreme treatment for the nervous condition with which she had once been diagnosed, although Ellis was the only one taking her pills. She rarely took medication, but went along with the charade to save face for the Hyde family.
Underlying the major idea of the book, which is the search for the monster, there are themes of class struggle, homosexuality, marital infidelity, grief, loss and substance abuse. In some way, the book felt like a Cinderella story, without the pressing financial issues. The unhappy girl finds someone even unhappier, a grieving prince of a man, and they live happily ever after making out better than all those who once ridiculed them. The moral of the story is that good will out. Happiness is possible for everyone when all the ends are tied up neatly.

Simon Winchester has elevated the language of science to the language of poetry. His eloquence will hold the attention of and also captivate the reader with his brilliant explanation of the formation of the earth, the ocean floor, the plates that shift and slide to wreak havoc or as he might say cause mischief in so many places. He describes such things as the molten lava “breathing” beneath our surface in such a way that you see the river of fire. He describes the movement of the faults so that you see them slipping and sliding under each other, layered irregularly atop each other, forming ridges like those in a carpet, as commonplace as a crease in a piece of fabric. He uses metaphors and similes to enlighten the reader and make the subject fluid rather than as arid as science can sometimes be for the layman.
When Winchester likens the movements of the plates to a freight train stuck on the tracks with only the center moving outward, the reader can surely see the force of that pressure as it moves the front of the cars forward, finally, in a burst, resulting in the return of that bulge to the center, although in the front there may be concomitant damage; and when he describes the ripple that erupts in a carpet, sometimes, after walking on it repeatedly, the reader will see that “pleat”, as he calls it, forming a mountain one day as it continues to rise. When he describes the splitting water mains and the rupturing gas lines, the reader can feel the disaster in San Francisco approaching, along with the heat, strong tremors and fear, as well as the astonishment and wonderment also felt by some victims. Winchester brought the dry science behind an earthquake and other natural disasters to life. I could visualize the earth forming, the continents moving and the oceans spreading as the earth moved beneath me. With a vocabulary that has become obsolete in the pens of most writers, as they concentrate on sound bites and acronyms, he has mastered the art of prose, making often unfathomable subject matter less bone-dry with his use of language.
Winchester speaks of Freud, Einstein, and Caruso in a casual manner as he creates the foundation for his story with vignettes that sometimes make the reader smile. He begins with the moon landing of Neil Armstong and tells the story of our magnificent planet. Viewing the earth from that bird’s eye view, he describes the inner core beneath the earth’s crust so well that you think you are listening to the secrets of a mystery novel that are slowly being fleshed out, when actually you are being presented with scientific facts. Traveling up and down the western coast of the United States, his explanations burst with information that are at once comprehensible rather than opaque. His research gleaned from journals, diaries and letters is impeccable and his knowledge coupled with his writing skill has made this a very enjoyable, informative read. I know that he placed me in San Francisco at the moment of the quake. I could almost feel the turmoil as the earth raged beneath its surface wreaking havoc above it.
Today, the technology has improved so much that analysis is done by machines more often then people, but the first hand accounts did not contain the coldness of the machine, and therefore the story was connected to emotion. I learned of the reputation San Francisco had when it was born, I could see the cavalier attitude that prevailed, the indifference to any impending disaster, although there had already been some in the previous century. He even draws a relationship between the rise of radical faiths like Islam and Pentacostal Evangelists during catastrophic times, equating the catastrophes to a sign of G-d’s displeasure and a need for doubling down on their dogma. His analysis of the behavior of the insurance companies during the disaster is still relevant today!
Although I cannot profess to have understood every word of this highly detailed and descriptive book, concentrating on the April, 17, 1906, San Francisco earthquake, I can say that I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this author read his own book with just the right tone and emotion to capture my ear completely. The book is both entertaining and informative.

This story takes place in Utah in a ward of the Mormon community. The Bishop’s wife is Linda Wallheim. Her husband Curt, the Bishop, is also an Accountant, full time, at his regular job. He is tired and overworked a good deal of the time but believes he has been called to this service. Assisting her husband, Linda counsels various troubled families. Once an atheist, she is now a true believer and is fully immersed in her role. She uncovers secrets and discovers that there are unsolved murders and unhappy marriages that she had never known about. She learns of physical, mental and sexual abuse that she hadn’t thought existed in her Mormon community. She provides whatever assistance she can to members who are suffering, and once drawn in, she tries to ferret out the hidden secrets to solve the developing mysteries.
Linda’s job was to be the listener, to enable the member to solve their own problems, not to solve it for them. Most of the time she offered kindness and compassion, and she didn’t judge them. She believed that was G-d’s work. She visited the sick and the troubled, but generally, she offered the same advice repetitively, always using the simple phrase “I’m sorry, what can I do to help?” to all she comforted, regardless of the differences in their problems. The striking thing about Linda Waldheim was that when she got overly involved, she almost always misjudged the circumstances and blamed the wrong people for their lack of judgment. She kept jumping to false conclusions without gathering all the facts. She even withheld evidence in police investigations and interfered in their progress as she drew all sorts of incorrect conclusions. She believed she was the only one who could solve their problems.
Linda seemed very naïve much of the time and at other times reminded me of Pollyanna. When she was confused or frustrated, she did marathon cooking and cleaning which eased her mind, but didn’t solve the problem. Too often, her own lack of judgment and common sense put her in danger or forced her to react inappropriately or to turn a blind eye to the transgressions she discovered. In spite of her meddling, she represented someone, who in her role as Bishop’s wife was kind and caring. The way the community came together to support each other, to share sorrow, loss, and joy was admirable. It was moving to read about how they tried, as a group, to ease each other’s pain and suffering.
The story seemed to concentrate on women who had been abused in one fashion or another and had suffered in silence. Many of the men were portrayed as villains who took advantage of their wives. They were arrogant and abusive. Too many of the situations created by the author seem contrived. In addition to infidelity, sexual abuse, physical abuse and spousal abuse, there was illness, misogyny, the whisper of homosexuality, and of course, murder. I don’t think any societal ill was neglected. The book offered a glimpse into the Mormon world, and much of it was negative. The place of the woman in that society left a lot to be desired. They were clearly secondary and inferior to men. The woman’s place was perceived to be in the home. She was to maintain it and care for her husband and family, providing meals, doing laundry and household chores. Her job was to satisfy her husband’s needs, her own were secondary. Surprisingly, most did not resent their second class roles, although some questioned it.
I felt that most of the characters were only developed on the surface, so identifying with any of their issues was problematic. There was so much moralizing and analyzing, it soon became tedious. It felt like there were two kinds of men, weak or abusive, and two kinds of women, naïve or abused; there was little or nothing representing the middle road.

I have listened to a couple of other Bill O’Reilly books. They were all read by him, and he did a pretty good job. However, this one disappointed me. He has a speech impediment which I never realized before, and it was distracting. Also, his pronunciation of some words was off as was his emphasis in some places. For this book, he should have had an outside reader.
The narrative’s timeline began at the end and then filled in the missing spaces, but often it was choppy and confusing because he bounced around from time frame to time frame, country to country and battle to battle. There were some interesting anecdotes that I had not heard before, but for the most part, it was information that was “old hat”. Eisenhower, Marshall, Montgomery, MacArthur, and Rommel were among those featured in the book along with Patton.
The title of the book “Killing Patton” did not fulfill its promise. It could easily have been called “Killing Hitler”, if you consider the amount of time spent on both men. It was a detailed investigation of several battles fought during the war, some with Patton at the head, and some with Patton’s absence. Patton had a somewhat tarnished reputation because of his violent treatment of soldiers who didn’t fit his ideal mold, who didn’t seem to be courageous or brave enough to meet his standards. He was a harsh and angry taskmaster, but those that believed in him respected him and loved him. He was brave and he was a patriot, dedicated to the war and his country. Although he remained married to a wife that adored him, he was not loyal. Apparently, neither was Eisenhower. He and Mamie were married for decades, but he, too, had a mistress.
History aficionados will have an easier time following the battles, geographic areas and timeline, but anyone who is not completely familiar with WWII and its various battlegrounds will have a harder time. Because Patton served during WWII there was a great deal of information provided about the battles fought and the tragedy of the Holocaust and its victims. Then the book covered the negotiations between the major powers, Roosevelt and Stalin, carving up Europe, Churchill being largely excluded, Truman rising to the Presidency and handling the helm well.
The best part of the book was the end, both the afterward and the summing up which provided the most important information about all of the people mentioned in the book. The attempts on Patton’s life, and the possibility that he was murdered, were explained more carefully, clearing up some of the confusion as a result of the disjointedness of the book, but no actual proof was offered to show if he was truly murdered, but the innuendo is there and points the reader in that direction. Using journals and letters and other written evidence, there are some conclusions drawn that are not totally credible.
In the end, the book seemed more about the battles, the other generals and the victims of the war, rather than Patton, alone. It was too light, too thin to truly engage my interest. It was enjoyable, but it was not very enlightening.

Driving up north from Florida, I listened to Clive Cussler’s latest book. As usual, it was a fast paced, exciting story designed to keep the reader involved even when the characters were in the most implausible situations. The back story begins at the turn of the 20th century, but most of the action takes place in 1905. The plot is centered around an unknown assassin suspected of killing off men standing in the way of Standard Oil’s rise to power.
John D. Rockefeller is the oil and railroad baron controlling the competition by using hardball methods. He does not have a stellar reputation and is feared and disliked by the small oil men who are hoping to build a pipe line to transfer their own product to market. His tactics interfere with and sharply curtail the success of their efforts, and they are bitter. When the competition begins dying mysteriously, Isaac Bell, a private detective of the Van Dorn Agency, becomes involved. He is looking for corporate misconduct on the part of Rockefeller and Standard Oil and a possible murder suspect!
Years earlier, two partners had basically been cheated out of their investments by Rockefeller’s heavy hand. One, Bill Matters, joined forces with J.D. Rockefeller and the other, Spike Hopewell, set off on his own absolutely resenting his partner as a traitor. Matters grew rich as he rose through Standard Oil’s rank, but secretly he plotted his revenge against the man who stole everything from him. He had two daughters. Both of the young women were independent; one, Edna, is a journalist and the other, Nellie, currently tools around in a hot air balloon as she supports the woman’s suffragist movement, but she had dabbled in many other things, including acting. Both young women were enamored with the Private Detective, and Bell is actually smitten by both of them, as well, unable to make a choice. He courted both as he searched for clues in the corporate maze, looking for proof that the recent deaths of several of the men opposing Rockefeller’s plans were not due to natural causes, accidents or suicide, but rather due to murder. He believed that there was an assassin in the wings. He was hoping to discover the underhanded tactics he suspected Rockefeller of using in order to stifle competition.
As the mystery unfolded, there was romance in the air as well as rising tension. There was also a humorous, light touch which made the book easy to read, however, for this reader, the plot sometimes veered into the realm of fantasy. When a hot air balloon goes wild and Bell climbs the ropes high above the earth to cut holes in the fabric and then survives the fall to earth miraculously, it stretched the imagination a bit too far. There were other moments like that, but since they were all woven into the story, holding the reader’s attention awaiting the final outcome, it seemed to work. It would seem that Bell, like a cat, had multiple lives and a great deal of convenient, lucky breaks.
The picture of J. D. Rockefeller was that of a strong man with a cold heart, a man who had a deep love for his business and a respect for industriousness, but a man who was without much of a sense of humor or empathy for others. The story detailed the rough environment in which the industry grew as well as the hardness and dedication of the men involved in order for them to even begin to succeed and compete with the heavy hand of J. D. Rockefeller. The competition was ruthless and the consequences were often callous and violent.
It was a good book to listen to for a road trip as it held my attention while it didn’t tax my brain. The author researched the history of the times well, knew about the industry and the murder weapons, and understood the mindset of both the prominent and the struggling oilmen. He provided detailed explanations of guns, hot air balloons, the women’s suffrage movement, and some world events, as he described the nature of the development of the oil industry and pipe lines worldwide. The book is the eighth in a series about Isaac Bell. There may be more to come.

After being mistreated and taunted by their fellow villagers, Axl and Beatrice, an elderly couple, decide to leave Brittany and set off on a journey to search for their son who has been gone for many years without a trace. They have no idea where he lives or what he looks like, but they are hoping, perhaps, to join him and be invited to stay. They worry about whether or not he will want them as a responsibility. They believe they have forgotten him and where he lives because of a strange mist of forgetfulness that has settled over their village. It has made them forget their past. The time is shortly after the reign of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Merlin has cast a spell on a dragon known as Querig. Its breath creates a mist that causes the loss of memory. The people are pagans with many superstitious beliefs. It is a time of ogres, dragons and knights.
The couple sets off, and after awhile they decide to stop in a town that Beatrice had traveled to before with the village women. There they witness a frightful sight. A man who had been fishing with his brother and nephew returns and tells a terrifying story about being set upon by ogres. They have killed his brother and carried off his nephew. By happenstance, a brave warrior, Master Wistan, on a mission for his king to slay the dragon, Querig, happens to be in the village just at that time. He sets off with two relatives to find the missing boy. When the boy, Edwin, is found, he has a wound on his body inflicted by the fiend that took him. The villagers are in a panic and want to kill the boy because having been bitten, they believe he is no longer safe to be around as he is infected with the fiend’s bad blood and soon will be bewitched.
When Wistan is asked to take the lad with him on his journey, in order to save him from the villagers who want to murder him, he asks the elderly couple to take the boy instead. He offers to travel with them part of the way to be their protector. In fact, he really has other plans and is deceiving them. Both the warrior and the boy are Saxons. Axl and Beatrice are Britons. In the past, the Saxons and the Britons have fought each other, but the mist of forgetfulness seems to have brought a kind of peace to their land.
Wistan has told the boy that he will train him to be a warrior if he goes with him. He recognized that the wound on Edwin is the bite of a dragon, not an ogre’s. He hopes that the spell that the bite casts upon Edwin, will lead him to dragon. He wants to use Edwin so he can slay the creature. Edwin deceives the warrior when he agrees to go with him because he is really searching for his mother, not the dragon. She was taken away during peacetime, by the Britons. The warrior’s mother had also been taken, but during wartime, and he wants vengeance. He asks the boy to promise never to forget his hatred for the Britons or his own desire for vengeance, if Wistan should not survive their journey. The boy agrees, although he does not understand why he should hate the Britons who have been kind to him.
As the four go on their way they meet up with an old Knight, Sir Gawain, who is still serving his King. He has remained loyal to Arthur. He tells them that he is supposed to slay the dragon, as well, but he has not done so yet, even though many years have gone by. However, he is also being deceptive. He has been protecting Querig all these years. Soon the five of them are united in the search for the dragon and/or the elderly couple’s son and the young boy’s mother.
As they travel further, they meet other interesting characters. The adventures are ever more haphazard, frightening and troublesome, but Axl and Beatrice meet all that confronts them with patience and kindness. They meet an elderly woman who has been abandoned by the boatman who ferried her husband off to an island where they were both to go together. He deceived her and said he could only take one at a time and he never returned for her. Beatrice becomes anxious. She does not want to be separated from Axl.
The more they travel on, the clearer some memories become. They begin to remember odd bits and pieces of their past. They wonder why they did not reach out to their son sooner. They wonder if they have hurt each other. They wonder, when their memories resurface when the dragon is slain, will they still love each other as much? Surely there are some bad memories too.
Edwin refers to Beatrice as Princess and she calls him husband. They are endearing terms when they use them and their love for each other is palpable. Much of the story is told through their conversations with each other or with the odd character they happen to chance upon. They often appear in a scene unexpectedly, but then as the tale unfolds, it reels backward and reveals the reason they are there.
After several misadventures, each revealing another human trait, all of their many secrets are exposed. Friends become enemies even though they still respect each other, even as they set upon each other, often with death being the only likely result. In this fable-like tale, the prose is lyrical and emotive; the messages are more profound than they first appear as the characters face danger, loss, disloyalty, disrespect, and sometimes death. As Axl and Beatrice speak endearingly to each other, some of their awakened memories may threaten their relationship. Will they be able to let go of petty disagreements and forgive each other, or will they simply continue to hold grudges once they are again aware of them as so often happens?
I felt as if there were two concurrent stories being told. One is the story of Axl, Beatrice and Edwin. This is a gentle story of love, trust, and compassion, as well as betrayal with the ability to forgive. The other story is that of Sir Gawain, Master Wistan and, again, Edwin. Theirs is a story of a life built on loyalty to a cause, even when they honor a cause that may no longer be just or necessary. It is about devotion to a cause and the inability to forgive transgressions, a behavior pattern which they, in turn, pass on to successive generations perpetuating vengeance and violence.
Edwin, the child, is the pawn, the catalyst for the resolution of their quests in both tales.
The author deftly exposes human nature with its weaknesses and strengths. As he examines the effects of memory loss, the frailties of the aged and the accompanying challenges they face, the danger of foolish pride and sometimes the rush to judgment, the reader is forced to examine their own behavior.
What is the buried giant in the story? The reader will discover the answer, in the end.
The audio narrator, David Horovitch, is excellent, reading with a dreamy quality that emphasizes the characters feelings and creates the atmosphere of fantasy. This is my first Ishiguro book, but it won’t be my last.

Calling this a tragic story is an understatement. What happened to Robert DeShaun Peace is inexcusable. Society failed him even though he was afforded advantages other victims of poverty are not, even though his intelligence was far and above the average student, because society dropped him into an ocean and demanded that he swim without the skills to survive in that milieu. Oh yes, on the surface, he was able to deceive those around him. Everyone thought he was doing well. He had it all under control at all times, but he couldn’t control his heritage, not without some serious help. Just paying for an education doesn’t solve the problem of how to put that education to good use. When you see a picture of Robert Peace, you see immediately that his ready smile and demeanor have the look of success. An excellent student, he was not only smart, he was handsome, he was athletic, he was charismatic, he was confident, and he was kind and compassionate. If anyone needed anything, he was ready to offer it up, sacrificing his own needs. He was devoted to his mother. He adored his father. But, he took on too much responsibility for others.
Robert Peace, “the professor”, had it all, but he didn’t have a support system that could keep him on the straight and narrow. Born to Jackie Peace and Skeet Douglas in 1980, he spent most of his life with absentee parents. His parents never married. His mom worked several jobs to make ends meet and provided for him as best she could, but as a result, she was often not at home. His dad dealt drugs and was eventually arrested for murder and sentenced to a long prison term. Although he protested his innocence until the end, and the possibility of his having been framed hung in the air like a cloud, the only person who could prove the innocence he claimed, had died in the three years it took for his case to come to trial. Although he encouraged Robert to study and work hard, in other ways his influence was detrimental. Robert spent years trying to get his father out of jail. He spent hours trying to obtain adequate health care for him when he became ill in prison. After ten years, the appeal was eventually successful, and his father was released. But, it was soon overturned. He had to watch his dad return to jail where he eventually succumbed to cancer just before his 60th birthday. His illness provided them an opportunity to be face to face, not separated by Plexiglas, for the first time in just under two decades.
When he was a boy, his mom realized the dreadful situation that existed in Orange, NJ public schools. She worked extra hours to send him to St. Benedicts, a private school. There, he excelled in academics. Still, to make ends meet, and to help his mom, he began to dabble in dealing drugs as his father had. The money was good. He was well liked and respected because he was smart, had an easy way about him, rarely losing his temper, and he always offered calm counsel to others. He had a coach at school who tried to mentor him. He had a benefactor that he met through St. Benedicts. The man paid for his entire education at Yale. He had friends who discouraged his bad behavior. He did not take advice well. When he had to stop dealing and taking drugs, he actually did. He was disciplined, but he always reverted back to dealing drugs when he needed ready cash. He was brilliant, usually scoring “A’s” and he graduated at the top of his class with a degree in molecular biology. He could have done great things. Where, or why, did he choose the wrong path in life? Was it the confluence of certain events that robbed him of his dreams or was it a culture he could not escape?
After visiting Rio de Janeiro, Rob decided that he would go there after graduation and chill out for a year. He loved it. He had saved quite a bit from his drug dealing and odd jobs. He had always worked legitimate jobs as well, even in research labs. He entrusted his suitcase full of cash to someone close to him, asking him to watch it while he was gone. That was a mistake. That someone stole his money. His dreams of living in Rio, of traveling, were over. Still, he did not lose his temper. He understood that people did what they had to, to survive. He eventually took a job as a teacher at St. Benedict’s to earn some money. He coached water polo which he had played, but he was not happy or fulfilled. His dreams were on hold. He still yearned to travel. Finally, to that end, he took a job as a baggage handler so he could hop a plane and see the world. His background, though, kept catching up to him, and he was soon dealing in designer gourmet marijuana which he created. His luck held, and although he was caught and reprimanded, even fired, he managed to avoid the legal consequences of his dealing. It wasn’t the law that caught up to him, it was life, the life he couldn’t escape, the life that poverty kept him bound to, the life that his mom had hoped he would avoid. He was simply his father’s son in more ways than one.
I felt a visceral pain reading about this promising young man’s short life. He suffered so unnecessarily. Had he just been given more than just enough to survive, he might not have turned to dealing drugs. Had he not had a father who dealt drugs, he might not have had the contacts. Had he not lived in Orange at a time when it was changing, he might have had a better chance. But might haves will not bring Robert Peace back. He survived just under 30 years, and the world was robbed of a man with a mind that might have developed cures for disease rather than designer marijuana. Jackie had such high hopes for him but she never took him out of the Newark area, and the area had changed from the time of her early childhood to the time of the birth of her son. After the riots in 1967, the community gradually became a ghetto. Before that, peace existed in that community. There were no drive-by shootings, there was no real gang situation and drugs were not rampant. Boys didn’t have to prove their bravery by showing how violent they could be. It wasn’t embarrassing to be smart and to succeed; that was actuallly considered admirable.
The poverty, the environment, society were all to blame but so was the culture in the community which perpetuated ignorance and violence, which worshiped sloppy dress and sloppy speech and an image of power, but not an image of strength of character. The culture has to change so that people like Robert Peace do not always get the short end of the stick, make the wrong choices. The community is filled with thugs. These children, these gang members are not, figuratively speaking, “dressing for success”, but rather for failure.
The author was Rob’s roommate at Yale for the entire 4 years they both attended, and yet, Jeff Hobbs never really got to know the real Robert Peace. They came from two different worlds and Jeff never fully understood Rob’s, while Rob knew full well what Jeff’s world encompassed. Jeff didn’t have to scrounge up money, he didn’t have to work or help his mom, he just had to ask for what he wanted; still Rob never outwardly showed anger or jealousy about that, but inside he seethed with resentment for the way society had treated his dad and now him.
When he was murdered, it wasn’t the police who gunned him down, it was his community. He was missed and eulogized by many, but he also brought down his friends because his stash was in their basement. They were “bros” and they protected each other, they had each other’s backs, literally. The cycle of violence and failure was perpetuated. The author did a fantastic job of ferreting out the circumstances of Rob’s life. The book is hard to put down, and the experience of reading it is heartbreaking. It feels like such a waste of a human being who could have contributed so much. He was murdered by a thug because he dealt with thugs, thugs who needed to prove their importance using violence, disrespecting life, because they couldn’t achieve success using their brains. That would not gain them the respect they desired; that would gain them ridicule. Rob was doomed to failure, because he lived in two different worlds, the world of Yale and the world of Newark. His world was schizophrenic!

Joseph Kanon has written a very exciting book about the politics and atmosphere in the world shortly after the end of World War II. With the demise of The Third Reich and the Social Democrats, the overriding fear of the Nazis receded and was replaced by a fear of Communism which when surfaced, rose to the top with a vengeance. After the war, many Nazis were actively recruited for their scientific backgrounds as the pursuit of a nuclear weapon emerged front and center as a goal for Russia, while at the same time, the United States was actively deporting suspected Communists who might be engaged as spies to further that and other ends.
In the 1930’s, prior to World War II, Alex Meier, a German Jew (half Jewish), was arrested in Germany, not for being Jewish, but for having ties to the Communist Party. As a political prisoner in Sachsenhausen, he was beaten and subjected to brutal conditions. When his freedom was purchased by Fritz von Bernuth, the father of close friends, he left his country behind and traveled to California where he intended to live out the rest of his life. However, at the war’s end, when the fear of Communism exploded, investigations led to the discovery of his background. His socialist and communist ties were uncovered. When, using blackmail-like tactics like those used in Russia and Germany, he still refused to give up the names of his friends, he was sent back to East Germany and forced to part from his wife and son.
Although anti-Semitism still raged on in Germany, he was welcomed as a Communist in East Germany. After being recruited as a spy by the CIA, he found himself also under the scrutiny of German Communists working for Russia. He is subtly blackmailed into working for them as well. The novel’s hero is a born double agent who managed to manipulate and outwit those that tried to murder him and/or use him to gain information. He finds he can do whatever he has to in order to survive and earn his way back, hopefully, to California where his now ex-wife and child reside. He is a devoted father
He discovers that his utopian vision of a Socialist Germany is not what it is cracked up to be. With Russia in charge, it is no different than it was in Germany before the war or in the United States, for that matter, as they sought to uncover secret Socialists and Communists whom they considered highly suspect and possibly dangerous. Because of his status as a writer, part of the new cultural wave sweeping Germany, he was entitled to a better way of life than most people. Instead of everyone getting the same, according to their needs, he was afforded extra ration cards, places to eat where ration cards were not needed and food was good and plentiful. He was treated like a celebrity, as an honored guest. Housing was quickly made available to him. However, he could not trust anyone because everyone was being used by the system to create a community that spied on each other to get what they needed to survive. There was no freedom as there was in America. He was very disillusioned with both systems, but he preferred to put those guilty to right and return to America.
The conclusion of the tale leaves the reader with more than a thriller resolved. It leaves the reader with some philosophical thoughts to ponder. How was it that the Germans complained about their suffering after the war, yet they had brought it upon themselves. They resented the rationing and the devastation, yet, they never took responsibility for the pain and suffering and destruction and loss of innocent lives for which they were responsible. How is it they didn’t notice the shortages in the ghettos, the disappearing victims, the theft of their belongings, the suddenly empty homes with no residents? It was only when it affected them, when the Russians were as barbaric as they had been, raping and pillaging, that they complained. They were not innocent, no matter how much they protested.
As far as I am concerned, anyone who did not speak out or try to stop Hitler’s advance, anyone who watched them invade their country and cheered them on as they murdered the Jews, humiliated the homosexuals, beat the gypsies, anyone like that was complicit and no matter what country they came from, they share in the guilt. That means the Poles, the French, the Russians, the Italians and all the fascists and all the anti-Semites will have to answer to some greater power, someday, for their despicable behavior.
I listened to this as an audiobook and found that transitions from one character and one scene or one time to another were sometimes awkward, but otherwise it really held my attention.

Shame and the Captives, Thomas Keneally
Based on a real historic event, the author has embellished the tale, changing some of the locations and adding characters to create a narrative about prisoners of war during WWII, but the tale concentrates largely on the escape the Japanese prisoners planned and carried out in Australia. Using facts about the Japanese code of conduct, their demand for honor, obedience and nationalism, he has caught the atmosphere of those times and those prisoner’s mindsets. The story concentrates on the captives and the captors and their relationships to each other and to their families; it largely concerns the Japanese prisoners but also illuminates the practice of using the Italian prisoners as farm hands instead of placing all of them in prison barracks and compounds. It lightly touches on the way the British prisoners of war were treated by their Japanese captors, but it is obvious that they were not treated as well, nor were the Geneva Convention followed. The Japanese would not accept defeat, did not want to be taken prisoner, and did not believe in giving up. Constantly on their minds was the thought of living to fight another day or dying with honor either at the hands of their enemies or at their own hand.
Around this 1944 event, Keneally has created a fictional narrative, including romantic impulses and infidelities due to the loneliness and distance war creates, and the nature of the characters seems very plausible, under the circumstances. The barbaric behavior of the Japanese is well documented, and the naivete of the Allies in their treatment of the enemy is evident. In the Japanese culture, their honor superseded the value of their lives and they believed that it was their duty to die fighting. It was sheer cowardice to allow the enemy to take them prisoner. Those that were captured, therefore, were recalcitrant, often giving false names so their families would not know they were alive and would mourn them as dead, honoring their memories as brave soldiers who died for their country, rather than as cowards who laid down their arms and were captured..
The arrogance and social distinctions that the British observed was also very well represented. It was that very arrogance that led to many of their mistakes in dealing with the prisoner outbreak. Each culture reacted differently to the loss of their family member and each culture treated prisoners with varying degrees of respect, with the Japanese often abusing their prisoners while the British might have babied them a bit, providing for many creature comforts and distractions, never thinking them capable of the brutality they eventually carried out, not thinking that they might want to even break out when they could stay safe until the war ended and return home to their families if they followed the rules.
The clash of cultures was apparent for the Japanese believed capture was shameful and humiliating; they tried to entice the victors to murder them by running at their weapons or attacking them so that they in turn would be attacked, or else, they even resorted to suicide which to them was an honorable death, more honorable than being a captive, eventually to be returned to society, to a society that had already mourned their loss and would have to revisit that trauma and perhaps shame. While the English and Italian soldiers would most likely be welcomed back home, the Japanese might very well be ostracized for what was considered shameful behavior by a soldier.

The author has woven a tale whose outcome will definitely surprise the reader at the end, so don’t peek as this mystery unravels. Jenna is a precocious 13 year old searching for her mother, Alice, who disappeared years ago, when she was a baby. She engages the help of a psychic, Serenity Jones, and a broken down former cop, Virgil Stanhope, the original cop investigating the dreadful accident at the elephant sanctuary which her parents owned and which led to Alice’s disappearance and an already ill Thomas’s complete and utter breakdown.
Before her mom met and married her dad, Alice had lived in Botswana, caring for and researching elephant behavior. When her dad visited Botswana, they met and were attracted to each other. Alice soon discovered she was pregnant so she traveled to America to decide whether or not to tell Thomas, and soon after, they married. They then ran the sanctuary together with the help of other employees.
Jenna’s parents, both scientists had been devoted to working with the elephants. Her father, however, is now institutionalized, having suffered a complete break from reality. Her mother, you know, is missing. The story does not proceed in a straight line and it is sometimes confusing as it goes back and forth from the present to the past, as each character’s life is explored and exposed. The reader is tossed and turned by the events and constantly surprised by the astute revelations of the teen. She seems to be the smartest one, at times, although she sometimes behaves in a manner which is shocking as she is also disobedient and rude much of the time. She alternates between being the only adult in the room to having immature emotional reactions
After the tragedy at the sanctuary and Alice’s disappearance, Jenna wants to know for certain that her mom loved her and would never have left her baby behind, willingly. Jenna, who is portrayed as having been brought up by her grandmother whom she disobeys with abandon, is obsessed with finding her. She cannot find peace any other way.
The scientist, Alice, studied how elephants displayed grief and how they dealt with their emotional attachments to other elephants. The author presents a wealth of interesting and informative details about elephants and their way of life. Anyone who has even a remote interest in elephants will find the details fascinating. Alice, like the author, bitterly resents the mistreatment of elephants and the poaching of elephant tusks. Many of the elephants experiences described are modeled after actual elephant events.
Secrets abound in each of the character’s lives, as does a bit of the supernatural. The loose ends, however, will all tie up in the end. I can write no more without giving away the story, so relax, enjoy and read.

Manchild in the Promised Land, Claude Brown
I wish I could give this book a rating of 10 stars. The language in the book is crude, but it serves only to make the story more authentic. Although this book was published five decades ago, it is just as pertinent today as it was then. It is such a precise and honest appraisal of black life in the ghetto, it could have been written about Baltimore, Detroit, Newark or Ferguson, as well as Harlem. It is the quintessential book on racism, crime and growing up poor. The culture of the ghetto is self-defeating. The effort to get out is monumental. The need to provide a way to do so is paramount.
This is a novel, but it is also the autobiographical story of Claude Brown’s life in his own words. Claude Brown was born in 1937, before drugs ravaged Harlem. Still there was terrible poverty. Some kids never had food. Some were simply always hungry. Some simply stole to eat. There mothers were not home; mostly they worked in menial jobs for white people who could afford help in the home, and some sold their bodies. Fathers who were employed did pretty much the same menial work, or they were often absent or unemployed or out drinking. The kids did what they had to do in order to get by, and so did the parents. When betrayed, they punished the betrayers, when preyed upon, they tracked down the bullies and fought them to maintain reputations so they would not be bullied further. Pride was power. If you didn’t prove yourself, you were a target.
Claude Brown had little respect for law and order, and he fully expected to be arrested at some time in his life. He defied the rules and the police, and he accepted his fate as unavoidable. He described the environment in the early forties, in Harlem, as he grew up, in an environment in which he revered those who would teach him to be a hustler. By the age of four, someone had already offered to school him in breaking the rules. The offer was made to teach him how to play hooky once he began school. By six he was already a thief. At 13 he was shot and wounded. At 14 he was in reform school. It was in these places that these young criminals were sent, that they honed their skills and learned more and more about shake-downs and breaking the law. They learned that cops would not always arrest them, fearing outcries of racism and brutality. They learned how to push that envelope to the breaking point. These places they were sent were also where many neglected and abused kids wanted to go for a time, to get three meals, a place to sleep that was warm and a roof over their heads. Their friends were all in the same place. It was better than home for some.
By the time he was a teenager, Claude was an accomplished criminal. He took what he wanted, abused others who didn’t’ agree with him and committed crimes with abandon, protecting and preserving his image. He had pride, above all, and it was important to show that to all in the world in which he lived. No matter what rules were in place at home, in school or in the community at large, he could defy them. He followed the rules of his friends, good or bad, because they were his mentors; they had his back. So, from the get-go, Claude, known as Sonny to his friends, was doomed. He had to grow up, when he was still just a child. By the time he neared the end of his teens, he had lived a lifetime. But, also by that time, he discovered that he had to get out of Harlem. He had always stayed away from habit forming drugs, fearing the consequences. That eventually was his saving grace. He did not want to be an addict.
Junkies were overrunning the community. Getting high with friends was a social event. Junkies committed crimes wantonly. The habit controlled them completely, and the habit destroyed them. Hospital beds in Bellevue filled with junkies who had committed crimes and were going mad with the desire for the drugs. Once a junkie got clean, even if he stayed clean which was rare, he still went back to the street and sold drugs turning others on to that awful habit and a life destined to failure. These victims of themselves and of the failure of society, blamed everyone but themselves for their addiction, their criminality and their poverty. The belief that they were continuously being oppressed was ingrained into the culture.
Various groups rose up to exacerbate the situation. Instead of encouraging hard work, they encouraged a belief in a black culture that was superior to the white culture, essentially trying to create a society that would be just as lopsided, but one in which they would be in control. Some groups wanted revolution, but there were also some that wanted to educate the young so they could get out of Harlem, break free from the culture of crime and poverty. That was largely the church effort, not the effort of groups like the Coptics, or the Black Muslims or the Black Panthers. Those groups seemed to want power, not progress. At first, it was believed whatever would create pride in being black was good, and some groups attracted large followings. Some of the men who joined them straightened out their lives, but many slipped back as they lost faith in the preachings of the groups, or saw through their arguments and recognized that they were self-defeating. Some groups taught hate and anger and anti-Semitism. Most taught hatred of the police whom they believed oppressed them. Unfortunately, it appeared from what I read, that violence and brutality to show strength, power and conrol, was respected far more than integrity, intellect and/or honest achievement. Gangs ruled with authority using fear and their own kind of justice to create obedience and unity. No slight could be ignored without retribution in order to maintain one’s reputation so as not to make one a continual target. The children of Harlem were sucked into the criminal culture at an early age by those hanging out in the neighborhood, by brothers and sisters and their friends, by the idea that this was the way of life to aspire to, this was all they would be able to accomplish in life, so why fight it. They became sexually active at a very young age. They “played”. They learned to simply take what they wanted and never look back. This was just the way their life was; you needed to get a reputation that made others fear you or you would be someone else’s prey.
For Claude, “real jail” was not an option. By the time he neared legal age, he knew he was going to have to make a change. He realized that a permanent mark on a police record, which could never be expunged, would condemn him to the ghetto for the rest of his life. He realized that he had to get out of Harlem because he couldn’t get Harlem’s way of life out of himself in any other way. He moved to Greenwich Village where all kinds of people were accepted. He went to work for a Jewish couple. The wife gave him books to read. His options broadened as his view of the world widened. He worked pretty steadily. He went to school and earned his High School diploma at night. Eventually, Claude even wanted to go to College. He passed the exam for Columbia, but he couldn’t afford to go to school. He became involved with a group from a church that promoted higher education and helped qualified students get a higher education. He learned to play the piano. He recognized that he no longer belonged in Harlem. This is not to say that he did not face obstacles or prejudice. He did, but he managed to forge on. He learned to control his temper. He visited different places of worship, trying to find a fit. He saw prejudice on both sides, white on black, black on white, and he was aware of anti-semitism, of the view that the “Goldbergs” were taking advantage of them. Some even vowed to shop only in black owned businesses, so no whites could fleece them any longer. They promoted the beauty of being black, they promoted their superiority, but It was no longer good enough to be equal, they wanted to be better. The problem seemed to be that they didn’t want to have an opportunity to get better, they simply wanted it to be that way. Everyone blamed someone else for the ills in society that they faced. He tried to influence others to escape from Harlem, including his brother, by making changes in their lives. He understood that there were too many funerals and too many young men locked up in prison from Harlem.
This was written in 1965 about the preceding 25 or so years, and, yet, today, some 50 years later, not much has changed. There are still some Claudes, but there are also those who continue to perpetuate that self-fulfilling prophecy of doom, just like his brother Pimp who never got out. As Brown took me on his journey from boyhood to manhood, dreams of crime to college dreams, in a story suffused with some tongue in cheek humor, I wanted to believe that progress does not have to be so elusive. I wanted to feel hope, Yet, the stereotypes still abound; as Claude writes in the book “whites are mean and stingy, if he is more stingy than mean he is a jew, if he is more mean than stingy, he is a cracker!” In a culture that reveres stealing and believes it is fun, that believes rioting is exciting and adventurous, is it any wonder that most wind up with lackluster lives, with little education and few accomplishments? Blame need not be assigned. It is unproductive, but solutions to this monumental failure of society have to be found before chaos reigns. It has to begin at the beginning. In a paraphrase of a common saying, “doctor heal thyself,” I say, people heal "thyselves", and that means all people!

I only gave this three stars because of the unnecessarily crude and filthy language and sexual descriptions. I listened to the audio and some parts were so graphic, I had to fast forward and skip them. The line between porn and sexy seems to have gotten very blurred. However, the story itself will keep you very interested, wondering how everything will work out, since Anna is playing with fire. The constantly moving timeline, mixed with her present day life and her memories of the past, will confuse you until the end, most likely. Perhaps the print book would therefore be a better choice. However, the book is read well, and when it ends, you will be stunned, so don’t turn to the last page, whatever you do.
Anna lives in Switzerland with her Swiss husband, Bruno and her three children. She is a sad woman, lonely and bored. As an expat, she has no real support system, and because she also chooses to keep to herself, she does not maintain relationships and she has few friends. Her husband Bruno seems to be distant, cold and very controlling in his behavior. He is as strict about the order of his life as the Swiss train schedule is about its arrivals and departures. His mother is quite stern and can be haughty and rude. Anna finds it hard to find a place for herself, a place where she feels loved, wanted, safe, and happy, in its embrace. When she does feel happiness, she is surprised and relieved, but most often, she thinks about what disappoints her, not what gives her joy
In her loneliness, Anna eventually seeks solace outside the home. First she visits an analyst who tries to help her deal with her depression. Then she seeks comfort in the arms of some strangers. She no longer respects her marital vows and begins to lead a double life taking unnecessary chances and jeopardizing her future. She is searching for something, but she is never sure of what that is, in the end.
As the reader witnesses some of her sessions with the analyst and the scenes with her lover, they see two Annas. One is wanton and uncontrolled, while the other is isolated and completely controlled, hardly letting anyone in to see who the real Anna may be. She continues to open forbidden doors which close all other doors to her normal life behind her. When a tragedy shocks her into action and an idle remark made by her best friend reveals her deepest secret to her husband, Bruno, she finds herself shamed, and beaten. With few options, she does not think clearly, and as always, she makes foolish decisions when more sensible ones are available. She dreams dreams, that can’t be fulfilled. She asks questions that have no real answers. She discovers that she has not been independent, that she has few options in life, and she makes a final choice.
Who is at fault for the pain and loneliness in Anna’s life? Is it the coldness of her husband, her distance from her place of birth, or it Anna’s lack of self control and her inability to seek solutions that will enhance her life. She always seems to throw in a monkey wrench that will make her choice more dodgy. Anna remarks, very early in the book, and then again at the end, that “she was a good wife, mostly”. Was Anna a good wife, mostly? This book would make for a good discussion if the reader can get by the real filthy language and excessively vulgar descriptions of her sexual encounters.

This is the second book in a planned trilogy; the first was “Some Luck”. In this book, the reader is transported to the 1950’s and carried slowly forward, using a multiplicity of characters, into the 1980’s. I listened to an audio version of the book and it was extremely hard to keep track of the characters, their parents, spouses, lovers, and children. I read that there is a family tree in the hard copy. Therefore, I recommend reading the hard copy, although the audio was produced well. Simply put, it will be less confusing if you can track the characters through their lives with a list of extended family members.

When it begins, the family is at the funeral of Rosanna’s husband, Walter Langdon, and when it ends, we have witnessed several more funerals, the last of which is Lillian Langdon’s. New beginnings await the family as a young man named Charles enters their lives, unexpectedly bringing tears to the eyes of the new widower, Arthur, and confusion to his surviving siblings.

Because of the numerous family members and their friends and extended families, the details sometimes become tedious and repetitive. Every societal ill is visited upon the family at one time or another, and the reader is subjected to a play by play description as the story plays out. Of course, children are born, the elderly die, relatives grow ill, sibling rivalry causes turmoil. There are clashes of philosophies as children grow older and disagree with their parent’s perspectives. All of the ordinary incidents of life, and then some, occur. Nothing is left out as the family moves through the years, travels to various locations, takes up diverse occupations and styles of life.

Some members join the military, some work for the government, some sell weapons, some enter the publishing field, some farm, some entertain, and some join cults. Infidelity is common as is divorce. The mental state of some of the family members leaves a lot to be desired. There is alcoholism, lying, and infidelity as well as divorce, bank failures and bankruptcies. All of society’s ills in those three decades are manifested in one way or another.

Across the pages we watch the soldiers march off to the Viet Nam War, we witness Nixon’s disgrace, the assassination of JFK, MLK and Robert Kennedy, the mass suicide in Guyana instigated by Reverend Jones who created Jonestown and the People‘s Temple. We follow Reagan’s election, Mao Tse Tung, Stalin, Patty Hearst, Jerry Brown and Angela Davis, also the workings of Un-American Committees looking for Communists. We read about itinerant workers, prostitution, socialism, funerals with their heartrending eulogies paying homage to the dead, family breakdowns, marriages torn asunder, college dropouts, tapped phones, police brutality, Kent State, cancer, and even childbirth in a bathtub. There is homophobia, homosexuality, racism, multiple births, drugs, protests, suicide, murder, domestic violence, intermarriage, religious bias, cross dressing and sex between patient and analyst, and of course, there are varied political points of view. Have I missed anything? Don’t worry, it will surely appear between the pages of the book. Just think, all of this happened in just three decades! What awaits us in the final installment of the book which will take us to the present day? One can only imagine.

This book is the first in a new series about Amos Decker, a tall and bulky hulk of a man. Amos was a college football star, but in his first game in the pros, he was tackled by an opposing player, and he received a catastrophic injury leaving him with a condition called synesthesia. After an extensive stay in a facility for those with cognitive disorders, he married, became a cop and then a detective. He loved his job in police work until the day his family was brutally murdered. Over the following 15 months after their deaths, Amos loses all interest in life and descends into the depths of poverty, even to the point of living on the street. Finally, he pulls himself somewhat together, moves into a Residence Inn and takes odd Private Investigating jobs. In all this time, there has been no progress in finding the murderer of his wife, daughter and brother-in-law. Suddenly, one day, a man walks into the police station and admits to their murders. This rouses Amos from his stupor, he cleans himself up, rudimentarily, and he schemes his way into the jail cell to talk to the man who says he murdered them simply because Amos somehow offended him. With his cognitive issue, all of his memories are permanent and cannot be forgotten. He is sure he will recognize the man if his confession is, in fact, true.
Baldacci has a gift. He can keep the reader riveted to the story, even when the story is a bit contrived and often unrealistic. This mystery fits that bill. It is interesting but some of the time the narrative is overly detailed. There is no shortage of brutal murders for those who like that kind of action. There is no shortage of dysfunction either. Throw in a bit of sexual dysfunction, teenage love gone awry, and a sideline budding adult love story, and all the bases are covered. There are few likeable characters, and even those that might fit the bill of being likeable are flawed. As a detective, without a portfolio, Decker is superb. He finds clues in places everyone else misses them, he puts clues together to discover facts that no one else seems to discover. Although the book is exciting, it is not very memorable as the story is pretty thin. It can be summed up this way: man’s family is murdered, man loses it, man tries to catch murderer, man reforms somewhat, man may find romance again… end of story.
Take this book on vacation, on a plane trip or a cruise and you won’t be disappointed. It requires very little cerebral effort and it genuinely entertains as a diabolical murder mystery unfolds.

The story takes place in Denmark. This book is part of a series featuring Detective Louise Ricks. She has recently transferred from the Homicide Division to the Missing Persons Division. When the body of an unidentified, disfigured, developmentally-challenged young girl is discovered, Louise swings into action with her new “partner”, Eik, to find out her identity. They quickly learn that she was brought up in a special home for children with mental disabilities and had been declared dead three decades before. Soon, they discover the possibility of another long time missing twin. To complicate matters further, there is a sudden rash of crimes involving murder and rape, as well as missing persons. Louise wonders if they all might somehow be connected. As she and Eik work together to solve these cases, their stormy relationship calms down and grows closer. As the clues mount up, the tension builds and the reader’s interest is fully engaged as long kept secrets are revealed.
There are some contrived love scenes which do not do much to enhance this mystery, however, those who enjoy a bit of titillation, will be satisfied. In addition, the sex is relevant since there are two types of love experiences explored in the story. One is the lovemaking of perfectly normal couples, like Camille and Frederick and Eik and Louise, and the other involves someone who has a condition in which uncontrollable sexual drives lead to violent behavior. So the sex is really an important theme when the reader considers both kinds of love/lust experiences. One type is violent, driven purely by animal instinct, and the other is driven by the true desire and affection between two people.
The home took care of young girls who were mentally challenged. They were left in the care of strangers, and their parents were told it was best to cut off all ties with them. They were encouraged to abandon them to allow them to adjust to their new situation. The conditions under which some were kept would not be acceptable today and common sense should have prohibited that in the past. The barbaric way the mentally troubled and disabled were treated is explored, and the indifference and coldness of the staff as they often turned a blind eye and covered up the obvious abuse is examined, as well. The girls were “forgotten” because the parents were encouraged by the medical community to desert them.
As the cases are resolved, many revealing facts about Louise and her past are brought to light. There are hints of another in the series being developed as she informs the reader that she is going to become involved in working to find out what really happened to her former sweetheart. The book is pure fiction, but because it is based on information in some actual case files, it becomes that much more shocking when the horrific behavior and situation in homes that cared for disabled children is exposed and then condoned by complacent onlookers and apathetic employees.
It has been my experience that many Scandinavian authors shoot it out of the park, consistently, when it comes to mysteries, and this book was no exception. Content rather than unsavory language and gratuitous sex, lead the reader through the twists and turns of the tale.

In the Unlikely Event is based on a series of tragedies that occurred in Elizabeth, NJ, over a short period of time from year end 1951 until a couple of months into 1952. These events led to a redesign of the flight paths of planes flying over residential areas. The story is based on a time period well remembered by the author since she lived in Elizabeth at the time. Although she calls this an adult novel, it is populated largely by teenagers and seemed more appropriate to me, for that age group rather than adults.
“Fifteen-year-old Miri (Miriam) Ammerman, narrates the story. She lives with her unmarried mother, Rusty (Naomi), her grandmother, Irene, and her Uncle Henry, a newspaper reporter. Like most 1950s American teens, Miri’s biggest worries are friends, homework and boys, until a Miami Airlines plane plunges into the Elizabeth River in December of 1951. Blume brings not just Miri and her family to life, but many of the passengers on those doomed flights. Although the tragic incidents are real, the characters are not. The title is based on the words of the flight attendant at the start of a flight. The book is based on how people react if and when that unlikely event occurs.
In an attempt to bring the time period of the early fifties to life, and what I believe was an attempt to honor the victims and witnesses of the multiple plane crashes, Blume has written a story that shows how they were all were ultimately effected by those events. It shows how they suffered not only from the loss of friends and family at the time, but how the fear engendered by the events, along with the grief and memories, lasted far into the future bringing along unintended consequences. There were many victims, not only those on the plane or their friends and families. There were those hidden in the shadows, those who merely witnessed the events, those whom the plane narrowly missed and those who participated in the rescues or in identifying the victims. They suffered long lasting effects from those terrible memories. In the present and in the future, the paths of their lives were altered.
As Blume takes us on a journey through those tumultuous months, she also introduces the famous historic events of the times and the story is quite nostalgic for those of us with memories of that era. She gives voice to the politics and morality of that time which are viewed very differently today. I, as a reader, could not help wondering if the tumultuous fifties, which began a trend of loosening morality, did not usher in much of the travails that the world faces today. In the fifties, it was a much simpler time, with clearer rules to follow, as opposed to today when rules are loose and anything and everything seems to be an appropriate behavior. Those t houghts aside, I do remember Hoover vacuums, although my mom had a Kirby. I remember Ronson lighters. I had one. I remember Esterbrook pens because I had one of those too. Deviled eggs and chicken ala king were the fare of middle-income homes. Dixie cup ice creams were a treat. Nylon slips were the fashion and Noxema skin cream, with its distinctive scent, was good for all your skin’s needs, including sunburn! There were no designer cosmetics like there are today. Children’s feet were fluoroscoped, kids necked in cars, and there were homes for orphans and unwed mothers. Women went to college to earn an MRS. and married to have sex. Working outside the home was frowned upon and only women who had to work went to business, as it was called then. My father was terrified of Joe McCarthy and my cousin came home from the Korean War with his hair turned white. Women who were unable to bear children were frowned upon as if it was their fault and divorce was considered shameful. There was no such thing as a legal abortion and many women died in the back rooms of unqualified doctors.
Having experienced that time period in my own life, although I am somewhat younger, and having suffered my own traumatic plane experience as a teenager, an event which prevented me from flying for two decades and wiped out my dream of becoming a stewardess (I wore glasses so I couldn’t anyway, you were required to have perfect vision), I have to admit this book was a hard read for me. Still, the book made me wonder if we were better off then, than we are today, with our different fears, not of the duck and cover type, not of the gangsters like Bugsy Siegel, not of student sit-ins which shut down schools, although that still occurs today and still today serves to dumb down education, rather than improve it, not of aliens or nuclear war, but of the constant threat of terrorism at any time and any place. Today, with the lack of a stay at home parent, we have more crime and more gangs on the street. Today we study sociological subjects more often than the three “R’s” which would serve our students better when they searched for employment.
It was a dark and gloomy book, at times, with far too many characters that often taxed the reader’s memory, with the mention of far too many societal ills (I would be hard put to think of one that was left out), and it ended in a somewhat fairytale way, since most of the characters featured, that suffered the trauma, eventually wound up with very satisfying and accomplished lives, even if it wasn’t the life they originally planned for themselves. Secrets and choices seriously affected the outcomes of many of the character’s lives, in unexpected ways, but in the end, everyone seemed to live happily ever after, and that surprised me. I was also surprised that some very poor behavior was totally acceptable, and everyone seemed to find their own prince or princess in the end. In a nice touch, the book ends with the names and ages of the victims being read off at a ceremony honoring them. Also all of the relationships introduced found ways to work themselves out. Parents forgave children, friends forgave friends and children forgave parents. Would real life have turned out that way?
While the reader read the story in a comfortable, resonant voice, accenting important moments with appropriate stress, her portrayal of Miri seemed to be the same when she was 15 as when she was 50. She still sounded innocent and immature and was speaking in a childlike manner. Miri was simply too perfect and level-headed a character to be realistic to me, since even as a teen, when she should have felt some need to rebel, she was well behaved and obedient. If she was fashioned after Judy Blume as a teenager, than Judy’s family was lucky to have such a “perfect” child. Because the book raises so many issues that society has to confront, I think it would be a good book for discussion groups. I also think it is more of a crossover, YA to adult, rather than an adult book.
In the end, I thought a philosophical message seemed to be imparted by one of the rather young characters. She says that “not all unlikely events are bad!” I also wondered if the ultimate message was that while “not all unlikely events are bad”, they also mark a period of new beginnings, even as they mark an untimely end to some that were planned. The book deals with how all different victims deal with their grief and recovery. It showed the long and short term effects of the tragedy on its victims.

I really enjoyed reading this book. It is written and read in an even-tempered and easygoing style, conveying the warm, comfortable relationship shared by the staff and the occupants of the country’s “house”. The book is filled with little tidbits of information that provide insight into the lives of the “First Families” and the staff that works so hard to support them throughout their term of office in the White House. It does not reveal anything earth-shattering, but it illuminates the true personalities of the occupants, in particular: Nancy Reagan who broke several ribs when her husband was shot, but was stoic, never revealing it, bearing her pain without complaint, instead devoting herself to the care of her husband, Hillary Clinton who suffered her husband’s indignity with dignity, although she may or may not have wounded him in anger, and Lyndon Johnson whose crudeness shone through often in crass behavior that surprised many. Little known facts that were not insulting or top secret made the book an interesting and informative read that respected all of the individuals discussed. Through the comments made by the staff, both the personal and professional White House staff, the true nature of the occupants, complete with their idiosyncrasies shines through. The author admits that most could not really speak that freely since they are employed for their ability to honor the occupants and to be discreet, and since they also feared retribution of some kind if they did. Those who currently work or who have worked for the Obamas, in particular, would not speak freely, perhaps because the Obamas are known to retaliate when they are displeased.
It was nice to learn about the children of the first families. They were typical kids, the teens pushed the envelope sometimes, played loud music and were generally normal. The younger children often entertained the staff and guests with their antics. Still, their lives in the White House were not normal. They had no privacy or freedom and had to learn to live with a constant shadow lurking nearby.
The first families and the staff mostly grew to love and respect each other. The staff worked hard to make each family feel special, to welcome them and support them when needed. They made every effort to anticipate their moods and requirements so that often, they did not have to be asked to do something; they simply knew to do it. They revealed that the Clintons were the most difficult to move into the White House and also entertained many unsavory friends who could not get clearance to enter the White House under ordinary circumstances. Without the express permission of the Clintons, overriding the rules to accommodate them, they would not have been admitted. They had a decorator who spent 8 years in the guest room at the White House because the decorating for them was an ongoing project. Chelsea was always polite and never gave them an ounce of trouble. They revealed that Hillary made excessive demands, at times, that Obama’s personal secretary, Rogers, was unprepared, and Clinton’s staff resented the Bushes for having defeated Gore, that Nancy Reagan had unrealistic expectations, often disregarding the fact that they had other lives outside and often needed or wanted to be home, yet the demands were always met. The Johnson girls and Ford boys were typical kids. Amy Carter stretched the envelope. The Obama girls were and are always well behaved. Their grandmother always gives their family private time and lives on a different floor. The description of Lyndon Johnson’s crude behavior was sometimes comical and the recollection of Nixon’s shame is a memorable, if not touching experience, for those who can recall that moment in time. The Kennedys brought class to the White House and the description of the scene that took place after the President’s assassination was particularly moving. The atmosphere in the White House on 9/11, was harrowing as the chaos and confusion is described. There was no plan in place for the evacuation of the staff in case of emergency. On the street, people were running all over, cars were abandoned and left running. In the aftermath, the staff thought about how it could have been them who were named as victims if the White House had been hit, and if the brave people who brought down the plane that was meant for it, had not acted as they did. Barbara and George H. W. Bush as well as Laura and George W. Bush, were especially devoted to the staff. They were used to having a staff to help them, so they got along very well, with mutual respect for each other, making few demands. Most of the families grew so close to some of the staff that they seemed like family and some relationships continued long afterward.
Although they were supposed to be non partisan, they were human and many resented Johnson after Kennedy’s death, Bush when he defeated Gore. Soon, however, they all adjusted to the new family and served them with dignity because that was their job and they did it well or they don’t remain. From Margaret Truman to Sasha and Melia Obama, all of the memorable moments of White House history are covered. The election of the first black President was especially moving for the mostly African American staff. Many never thought they would ever live to see such a day. In reality, most, regardless of background, probably never thought they would see that day in their lifetime. America has made progress.
This is the story of several decades of families in the White House and the staff that serviced their needs, kept them safe and loved them like family. Over several administrations, the staff is generally loyal and long term. They become totally devoted to the current residents and the feeling is usually in both directions. After several years together, relationships are formed. Few impart secrets for fear of some kind of retaliation, loss of job, pension or retribution of some kind. Few do because they also have deep respect for the occupants and their jobs.
However, the anecdotes included are interesting. Karen White reads it fluidly in a composed manner. It is a very readable “memoir” of the White House years through the eyes of those who served it, and in some moments, also in the eyes of the former occupants, mostly the female occupants. They told interesting stories about how secrets were protected, odd behaviors were acknowledged, and procedures were learned by the new occupants as they adjusted to life in the White House. The difficulty in changing administrations was fierce; they only had a few hours to make the change, but they did it each time with grace.
Although the time line bounced around as different events are illustrated, and although it sometimes felt a bit repetitious, this was a very interesting read. It humanized the occupants of the White House. It was very poignant to read about the devotion of the staff, about their effort to provide structure, comfort and security to each new family, about their discretion as they went about their daily duties, respecting the families need for privacy and revealing no secrets. They knew their place and appreciated it.

“The Sunflower” was republished in 1998, after fifty years. In this edition, there are many more respondents to the question that Simon Wiesenthal poses at the end of his story about the sunflower and the dying SS officer, Karl Seidl. It is very thought provoking. The audiobook has two readers who did a superb job playing the roles of the males and females who entered opinions into the narrative. They were able to narrate without affect, but with effective emphasis, leaving the reader to draw his/her own conclusion as to the message\'s meaning and to make a decision without any one’s opinion having undue influence.
As a prisoner in a concentration camp, Simon stood for roll call hoping to be selected to work outside the camp. With the work detail, he is taken to a place that used to be his high school but now serves as a medical facility. On the way there, he suddenly notices sunflowers. They are a happy symbol, and he is surprised to see them. In the camps there are no flowers. A nurse selects him to visit a patient who wants to confess his sins, his awful crime against the Jews. The patient is an SS officer, Karl Seidl. He asked the nurse to bring him any Jew, and she chose Simon. The German officer wants to confess to a Jew, and ask for forgiveness. Although Simon doesn’t want to do this, he remains and listens. He, unlike Karl, really has no choice. Karl wants Simon to forgive him for something he did that haunts him. He wants to die in peace, although he robbed the Jews of that same right when he murdered them. When Simon looked at the soldier’s hands, he thought he saw another sunflower. He thought, this soldier will have a proper burial, but he and the other Jews would not. He left the room without forgiving him. Simon asks the respondents and the reader, “What would you have done”?
The many replies in the book are from participants from all walks of life: Green Berets, former POW’s, religious leaders, political leaders, authors, judges, doctors, activists, Holocaust survivors, Jews, Budhists, Christians, and more. Famous names appear like Dennis Prager, Nelson Mandela, Cynthia Ozick, Harold Kushner, Joseph Telushkin, Primo Levi, Hannah Arendts, and Albert Speer, whom we are told was the only Nazi to ever show any remorse for his crimes at the trials. Some have direct, first hand knowledge of the Holocaust. Each participant‘s response commands the reader’s attention as voice is given to personal perspectives which are based on backgrounds and beliefs.
The book is sometimes heart wrenching because Simon takes the reader into his nightmare, and it is a bad place to be. When he asks the reader to tell him what they would have done had they walked in his shoes, it becomes a more painful read. It is a serious request to ask the reader to enter the world of Nazi Germany, to visit with the SS officer and think about whether or not they would have forgiven the Nazi. Does he even deserve to be forgiven? Perhaps he deserves vengeance for the crimes he has committed. Should he not be punished? Should there not be retribution? Is his fear of dying not a just punishment after what he has done? Would any G-d forgive him?
Is Karl’s crime one that fits into the idea of “turning the other cheek”, or “forgiving them for they know not what they do”? I don’t think so. I don’t think his crime is forgivable. Are such heinous crimes against humanity ever forgivable? For sure, they should never be forgettable. While I do not believe I could have forgiven him, my daughter said she would have. Is it the great distance in years that separates the crime from her personal experience that which makes her more easily forgiving? Or, is it that she really does not know anyone who was directly affected by those atrocious times, as I do. I thought that the horror of the Holocaust continued to project itself on succeeding generations, so should someone who actively participated, who was truly complicit, be forgiven? How can one forgive an SS officer, the very symbol of the Nazi’s brutality?
Why did Karl want a Jew to forgive him, the very same Jew he would have murdered without so much as a second thought? He believed they were not human; they were a scourge to be destroyed. This was what they taught him, and he chose to believe it. He was 16 when he joined the Hitler youth; he was not coerced. His parents did not condone his behavior. He was old enough to know better and did not have to comply with Hitler’s monstrous ideas. Was Karl, now 21, sorry for what he did, or did he just want absolution so he could die in peace? I do not think he really cared about what was happening to the Jews, but rather, only what would happen to himself. When I consider Simon vs. Karl, I choose Simon’s decision. Simon was a Jew waiting for death at the hands of the Nazis. Karl was a Nazi wounded and dying. If Karl was not wounded, would he have continued to kill Jews, would he have killed Simon? Even after witnessing the death of the family that so traumatized him, he continued to murder Jews; he continued to follow orders. His remorse was for himself only, not for the Jews he murdered or even for the family he watched die and helped to murder that inhabited his nightmares. He felt he was too young to die, but he had brutally murdered innocent young children. His pain and fear were due to the memory that haunted him, not to a genuine feeling of sorrow for his victims.
The reader learns that Karl’s mom did not want to sell and leave her home, although her son and husband were dead, for that represented her life, yet the Nazis freely stole the homes of the Jews and never looked back. Did she and others not notice that when the Jews disappeared they often left most of their possessions behind? Was that not their life they were being forced to leave, without any choice in the matter? Even after the war, most survivors had no place to which to return. How can the reader reconcile all of the contradictions and forgive the person responsible for them? Karl never really seemed to recognize the error of his ways, so his sin, to me, was even more unforgivable. When Simon visited Karl’s mother, should he have told her the truth about her son’s crimes, or should he have shielded her from the heinous acts he had committed? She thought he was a good boy. What kind of a good boy would be in the SS? Was she that naïve or simply blinded by her love? In actuality, though, what would be gained by causing her more grief and pain? She did not approve of what her son did, and Karl’s father never had a relationship with him after he joined the Hitler Youth. They were, however, like others, guilty of turning a blind eye to the atrocities going on around them, pretending not to notice, simply pretending that the Jews were just being sent to a place where they could all live happily ever after. That was a ridiculous supposition they chose to believe, and they had to know it was implausible. I do not know if I would have told her about her son’s violent behavior, but I do not think I would have been able to forgive her either.
Because each participant in the narrative is responding to the same question, there is some redundancy, so it would be better to read only a few responses at a time, digesting them first and then moving on to the next so the reader can fully take in and understand all the opinions rendered and acknowledge all of the references mentioned. Even today, looking back at the atrocities committed and those that continue to be, in several countries like Bosnia, China, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Tibet, and the Middle East, peace still remains elusive. I seriously question the theory that the old woman passed on about G-d. Did G-d temporarily turn his head? Did he take a leave of absence? Somehow, that theory does not wash for me. Are all G-d’s absent from time to time? I would prefer to think that for a period of time in history, G-d fails to defeat evil, but that, in itself is a frightening thought. On the subject of fear, how about what frightens me most? I find the need that most people today have to forget the Holocaust, even to rewrite it, to move on, is what concerns me. Forgetting diminishes the memory of those who died and eventually will weaken our resolve to prevent it from happening again. Have we not learned anything from the horror carried out by the Nazis and others like them?
Because there were so many respondents to the question posed, I sometimes lost the thread of the narrative. Since everyone was addressing the same philosophical question, it also sometimes became redundant and occasionally tedious when it took on the feeling of a school lecture. Yet, I believe the book should be taught in every high school class before a student graduates. The need to remember and prevent these genocidal maniacs from taking over should be of paramount concern. There were many interesting facts revealed in the book such as: there were more righteous Christians in Poland than anywhere else, but also Poland had the larger population of Jews, and the only country with an actual organization set up to help the Jews, originated in Poland, so although there was an enormous amount of anti-Semitism there, there was also a positive counterpart, as well. The Sunflower question reminded me of the Trolley conundrum. Both have no one right answer; and both are difficult problems to solve.
I found a couple of messages in the book interesting. They regarded a religious interpretation. One was that “Only G-d can forgive, so throw yourself on G-d’s mercy”, but another was that G-d was absent during the time of the Shoah. Why would G-d be absent, if not to allow it to take place? Was G-d complicit? When G-d returned, would G-d, therefore, actually be able to forgive the murderers? Does G-d exist? For what kind of a G-d would allow such crimes in the first place?

This author knows how to keep the reader on the edge of the seat throughout, even when the story is contrived and somewhat implausible. Although the story was an exciting tale with a slow build up of tension until the end, unfortunately, when it came to the end, it culminated in a less than stellar climax. The ending simply fell far short of the mark.
Radiant Angel is the seventh in a series of John Cory novels. Cory, once an ant-terrorism cop, has a reputation for being a loose cannon. His marriage is a bit unsteady at the moment, His wife is still working for the department he once did, while he is now working for the Feds keeping an eye on foreign diplomats. He suspects his was a convenient transfer for the purpose of putting distance between him and his wife, Kate Mayfield, so he could not keep an eye on her. He suspects that she might be having a cozy relationship with her boss, the boss who also used to be his boss.
Currently, Cory is watching Russian agents that are in the country under false pretenses. They are supposed to be involved with human rights issues, but Cory and his team believe they are behaving suspiciously. Actually, they are planning to carry out a bizarre and diabolical plot to murder Americans with a weapon of mass destruction, a plot which he and his partner become embroiled in and which places them in great danger. Cory is working with Tess Faraday, who is supposedly someone who has requested to work with him to learn under his tutelage, but in fact she, like the Russians, is far more than she seems to be, as well.
When they lose track of the Russians, Cory and Tess find themselves on the adventure of their lives as they work to stop a diabolical plot to blow up Manhattan, using a suitcase nuke, on the day after 9/11. The nuke is on a ship somewhere on the ocean. Will the nuke make it to New York or will they be able to find it in time, disarm it and save the city? Cory is a cool protagonist and doesn’t let too much upset him. Tess is a brave agent who is also cool under fire. The story is told with the usual flare De Mille has for creating tension while diffusing it with underlying humor. It is a very compelling read except for the ending which is simply not very credible and made an exciting read somewhat like a fairy tale.
The reader did a good job with a voice that never grew dull or boring and actually brought the story to life in a way that the print book might not have been able to do because the story was a bit thin in terms of content. The humor was sometimes crass, but coupled with the theme of possible mass destruction of a major city, it kept me interested for most of the book. For a book that will not tax your mind, but will surely entertain it, give it a try.

Madam President, Nicole Wallace, narrator, Tavia Gilbert
The book fell short of my expectations. I thought it would more positively encourage the idea of a woman for President, but for me it was the opposite. The plot seemed a bit obvious, and it felt like chick lit rather than a more serious presentation of a significant subject. It felt like a rewrite of the 9/11 terror incident, but instead of George Bush, we have Charlotte Kramer at the helm. There didn’t seem to be anything new offered, except perhaps for a behind the scenes look at the emotional reactions of the players, and since all of the major players were women, it was a rather vain and emotional interpretation which did not inspire me to vote for a woman at all.
The story seemed preoccupied with the largely female characters’ diets, cosmetics, wardrobes, love lives, images and emotional reactions, rather than their professional portrayal as competent politicians and White House representatives able to rise above the moment to deal with whatever crisis presented itself. Too much emphasis was placed on minute, unimportant details in the face of a terrorist act that hit multiple cities and murdered scores of innocent people. Many of the women and men portrayed on the White House staff and in the Press Corps seemed shallow and self interested, arrogant and rude, demanding and ungracious. By and large, the men were depicted as incompetent or self-serving boobs, disloyal and backbiting, the woman as demanding, unable to be satisfied, shrill, conniving and over-emotional. Both men and women were portrayed as victims of their hormones. Few characters were truly admirable, but the men were even less so. The nicest male character was killed off.
The 45th President is Charlotte Kramer, a Republican and the first woman to hold that office. Hers is also the first unity administration. Her Vice President, Maureen, is a Democrat. Her marriage is suffering under the strain of her ambition. Her husband Peter has had an affair with her Press Secretary, Dale, who is still on her staff, one of her twins is acting out and causing her embarrassment, and a terrorist attack has just thrown her world into chaos. Soft targets in multiple cities have been struck with large numbers of casualties. The CIA and other intelligence services failed to anticipate it and it is disastrous.
I found the dialogue a bit clichéd, often making me shake my head in disbelief. Rather than the tale intensifying with the search for the perpetrators of the terrorist attack, and bringing them to justice, it concentrated on petty grievances, pregnancies, romantic encounters and relationships, infidelity, extramarital affairs, and emotional outbursts.
The ending was a silly display of emotion, depicting a President and her confidant in an unrealistic, emotional moment, standing in a newly built nursery. It diminished the message the novel could have presented. I would think that working for the government and being engaged with National Security issues would require 100% of a person’s attention, if not more, and would not allow for having a child at their side, distracting them from the monumental decisions that have to be made on a moment’s notice. Having a child and having a high profile job are not always compatible pursuits. Sometimes, choices have to be made for the care of the child, to benefit the requirements of the country and not one’s personal life or needs.
The three most important characters were Dale, the Press Secretary, Melanie, the Defense Secretary, and Charlotte, the President, who shared the stage with alternating chapters devoted to each. Nicole Wallace is a good writer who knows her way around politics and Washington, having worked as a Press Secretary, Communications Director and Campaign Advisor, over the last decade and a half, for several administrations. This book exemplifies that knowledge, and is read extremely well by the narrator, Tavia Gilbert. I suspect that in the print version, I might not have like the book as much. I, therefore, recommend the audiobook because Gilbert breathed new life into a rather overworked theme.

This book is incredibly well researched, presenting an enormous amount of detail regarding rape accusations, investigations and trials. The descriptions are extremely graphic, and therefore, the book might not be for everyone, but the information in it should be provided to everyone in some format. I think every parent and every teen should be made aware of the information in it as they prepare for their independence and especially their entrance into college life when their discretion and common sense will be challenged often, until they mature more fully. Very often, men and women, girls and boys, are not prepared for their sudden freedom of choice, and so they make foolish choices. They drink too much and discover drugs; they are intimidated by popular groups and a desire to be accepted. They must learn about the consequences of careless behavior before they engage in it when they leave home to be on their own.
This story is based in Missoula, Montana, which has been tarred with the reputation of being the rape capital of the world. Most rapes are acquaintance rapes. The book addresses the enormous number of rapes that go unreported and the enormous number that are ignored by the justice system, when reported, because of the way they are treated by law enforcement. College towns are renowned for their rape statistics. The book impresses upon the reader that rape is on the rise, and the women and men who are raped are not responsible for the rapist’s attack and should be treated with respect.
Western Montana is mad for its football, and it seems that, therefore, the atrocious behavior of the players was ignored or overlooked. Often, they engaged in sexual assaults which went unreported and unpunished. Many females were unable to fight off the stronger male and were too frightened to speak out afterward, knowing it was their reputation that would be besmirched to protect the rapist, who was most often, the football star. Others were drugged or under the influence of alcohol they either drank willingly or that may have been spiked with date rape drugs or excessive alcohol which incapacitated them.
Beau Donaldson was a star football player for the Gris, the Montana football team. The town was obsessed with its performance. Allison's Huguet grew up with Beau and they were good friends. Her dad, like most residents, was a huge Gris fan and he took her often to the hill where they could watch the games for free, before he had the money to purchase tickets. The book begins with the detailed story of Allison’s rape by her dearest, childhood friend while she was asleep after a night of partying with friends. She and Beau had never had a romantic relationship, but she awoke one night and he was attacking her. She ran and he chased her. She was afraid he would kill her. Perhaps he just wanted to stop her and apologize, but she was in a state of frenzy and knew he had guns in his home. She called her mom, Beth who was divorced from her dad, and on the phone Beth was witness to her daughter crying and running, trying to escape, begging her to save her. She overheard Beau tell her to come back with him, and he would make it all right, but her mom kept telling her to run. Finally, he stopped chasing her. She and her mom returned to the house she fled, to rescue her friend Keely, who was still asleep there. Keely had had too much to drink and couldn’t drive them home that night. That is why they were both sleeping in that house. After she learned what happened, Keely admitted that she had also once been raped, her first year in college, during orientation week. The night she was raped, she had also had too much to drink and couldn’t get home. She became violently ill, and a male friend insisted that she stay at his place. She awoke and was being raped by him, but didn’t realize it because she was so drugged up. Neither female thought they were in danger because they were with their friends.
Allison went to a hospital and submitted to an examination. She had been egregiously wounded internally by Beau. The exam was necessary, but it was terribly invasive and humiliating. Photographs of her most private parts were taken. Also, in some instances, when women are admitted for rape, the men, often police officers in charge of the questioning, are brutally aggressive, insulting and rude. The burden is on the female who was attacked to prove she didn’t “ask for it”. The rules regarding the decision as to whether or not it is consensual sex or rape, usually favor the attacker. It is difficult to prove it is not consensual if consent is given and then withdrawn. If the victim is not able to give consent, it is rape, if the victim is too drugged to withdraw consent, once given, it is not rape, but consensual. Even if they are mentally incapacitated, that does not mean they are physically incapacitated, and therefore the thought is that the victim could have fought off the attacker if she didn’t want to engage in sex. Then, too, the only witnesses are usually the attacked and the attacker.
The book centers on the retributive need of the victim. The victims often suffer from PTSD and they want to exact a strict and lasting punishment for the attacker. It is believed that charges have to be brought to take away their pain. Often, though, one night’s loss of self-control ruins an entire life. Does the person who placed herself in danger, or entered the bedroom, have any responsibility? Supposedly, according to the statistics presented in this book, there are few false accusations of rape, but they do occur. Several rape cases are illustrated in the book. The details are explicit. The court transcripts are captivating and the testimony is heartbreaking, in most instances. I was troubled by the lack of self-control of the victim and the attacker. Both drank too much or were involved with drugs. Often consent was implied or given and then, perhaps, withdrawn.
The men were stronger than the women and they forced themselves on them. Many were forced to perform oral sex as well as engage in intercourse. Some were raped multiple times by multiple attackers. Most were either too drunk or too drugged to fight back. If the victim doesn’t fight back, regardless of whether or not they were able, they were often thought to have given consent. When they reported the incidents, regardless of the fact that many were injured, the burden was on the accuser to prove there had been a rape. Although they may not be criminally charged, the accused was often expelled because of the accusation and the preponderance of evidence presented. Currently, in Montana University, there is zero tolerance against suspected rapists. They do not have to prove guilt, only the suspicion of guilt for expulsion. The attacker is automatically assumed to be guilty and put on notice, once it is reported. Today, the laws have changed to encourage students to report acts of sexual violence in order to stop them. Law enforcement now receives additional training on how to properly handle rape victims so as not to intimidate them.
My disclaimer is this: I believe that women and men must have personal responsibility for their own behavior. Just as you wouldn’t enter the cage of a lion, one should behave appropriately when in certain social situations. It isn’t your own behavior alone, that you have to beware of, but you must also be aware of the other person’s behavior, the person who might just take advantage of you. My sympathies are with the assaulted women, but often, they showed a lack of common sense and a lack of preparation for the danger that existed.
In addition, the book had a decidedly pro left, anti right agenda. Rape does not favor a political party and I found that part of the book to be disingenuous. The reader’s tone was decidedly different when she presented quotes from the left and the right. It was softer for the liberal and harsher for the conservative view. I found that to be disrespectful. Both the left and the right suffer from rape equally. Also, one of the persons quoted positively about the rape issue, was Elizabeth Warren. Since she has been exposed as a possible liar, regarding her heritage, I found her referenced name to be out of place. In the case of rape, veracity is a strong issue. Another point I questioned was that anyone who disagreed with the premise of the book was considered objectionable and the objections were considered specious. Because several cases were presented and referenced, it was sometimes repetitive. That said, the research was thorough and the narrative was well written, placing the reader in the bedroom, at the rape scene and in the court room. Perhaps we need to take a step back, rethink the rules on college campuses and discontinue coed dorms so as not to overly tempt these unprepared and untested young adults.

The Truth According To Us, Annie Barrows, read by Ann Marie Lee, Tara Sands, Julia Whelan and others.
There are two tales interwoven into this book; one takes place in 1938 and the other in 1920. Twelve year old Willa Romeyn, a precocious, curious young preteen, who narrates the story, and Layla Beck, a young woman who is on relief and is working for the WPA, are both completely blindsided by their innocent and naïve appraisal of the world around them. As both explore the secrets of the town, each pursuing their own purpose, one eavesdropping and spying and the other interviewing and conversing, they expose mysteries, secrets and lies, in their quest for the truth. There are moments of pathos, joy, disappointment, grief, success, and failure. As the stories unfold, they make a compelling romance and mystery that will keep the reader completely engaged.
In the small town of Macedonia, West Virginia, there are many likeable characters, although some are quirky and some seem to be really objectionable, Even the most evil, though, somehow, have redeeming features. The town itself is not always welcoming to residents or strangers. Tongues wag and small town gossip is widespread, but so is the warmth and embrace of small town life which the author has very deftly captured.
In 1920, the death of Vause Hamilton, in a mill fire, under somewhat mysterious circumstances, has never really been resolved to the satisfaction of some of the townsfolk. Conspiracy theories abound almost two decades later. In 1938, the Romeyn family that used to own the mill is no longer prominent in town. To make ends meet, Jottie Romeyn takes in a boarder, Layla Beck. Jottie, a spinster, is raising two young girls, Willa and Bird Romeyn, the children of her brother Felix. His wife, Sylvia, is no longer present in the home. Living in the house with Jottie and the girls are Felix, Jottie’s sisters, and twins Minerva and Mae, who only stay there during the week. Jottie’s other brother, Emmet Romeyn, is also a frequent visitor. Macedonian daily life deals with day to day survival, town projects, and the business of the mill, which is run by an authoritarian cold, businessman, Ralph Shank. Mr. Romeyn, the former owner, was kinder and gentler. He genuinely cared about the employees and their families more than his bottom line. The townspeople are all still reeling from The Great Depression, feeling the abstinence of Prohibition, and wondering about the gossip they hear concerning the Nazis and anti-Semitism, as Europe heats up for a war.
Layla Beck is the daughter of a well-known Senator. Because she failed to accept a marriage proposal from a very eligible bachelor and is doing nothing productive in her life, her father gave up on her, tossed her out and discontinued all forms of income. Because he was so disappointed with her behavior, he felt he had to teach her a hard lesson. He leaned upon his brother who headed up the WPA, to find her employment. Without income, she was forced to go on relief, take public funds, and also take the job, at her uncle’s urging. Her assignment was to write a book on the history of the town of Macedonia, West Virginia, in honor of its sesquitennial celebration. At first, she was furious about having to work in such a remote place doing such a boring job and was unimpressed by the townsfolk with whom she mixed. Soon, though, after soliciting her friends and family for help and being roundly turned down, she accepted her situation, and after meeting the Romeyn family, she began to enjoy the work and interactions with them. As they embraced her as one of them, she began to enjoy, rather than resent, her situation.
As Layla worked to discover the secrets of the Romeyn family and the town, Willa, who disliked Layla, viewing her as a threat to her relationship with her dad, used her charm and curiosity to ferret out information about her father’s secret life, the life that she did not share with him. Both Layla and Willa were more and more determined to sort through the rumors and rout out the actual facts. They both found, however, that sometimes you have to be careful about what you wish for because the information sought may not be what is expected, and it may hurt, rather than help, when things don’t turn out as hoped. The warmth and small town lifestyle shine through, as do Willa’s simple explanations for living life, for handling life’s troubles in the only way one can, for doing the best one can do, after all, was all that one could do, according to her philosophy. While both Layla and Willa make impetuous decisions with unexpected consequences, they both learn from the experiences in their own way, and both, although in different generations, come of age.
The mystery surrounding Vause, the reason Jottie was a spinster, the answer to the question of why Felix did not work in the mill his father once owned, are all resolved when secrets are revealed through Layla’s open research and Willa’s own particular way of investigating. As the history and secrets are unmasked, there is shock, disbelief and also despair. Still, with Willa’s unending ability to find a bright side, there is also hope for the truth when it is uncovered.
The letters that flew between Layla and her friends and family truly enhanced the novel. They were witty, poignant and thought provoking as her past was slowly unrolled. They further explained the differences in the lives of those in big cities when compared to small towns. Expectations were totally different for each class. The tongue in cheek humor illustrated in Jottie’s conversations and Willa’s mischievous behavior, curiosity and escapades followed by her excuses for her actions, will warm the reader’s heart. The characters were really well developed. I felt as if I knew them and experienced what they were going through. The charm of the town life and its residents, who appreciated the simple things, just might make some readers yearn for yesteryear and the simpler life of a town like Macedonia, warts and all. Truth, in the end, is found in different forms, in the eye, ear and tongue of each beholder.
I wish that there had been more of Layla’s witty correspondence with her friends and family. They were so enlightening about people’s behavior and preferences. Book groups will have a field day discussing the women’s issues brought up in the book. For many housework and husbands were the only possible goals; for others, it was social life, entertaining and needlework. Book groups can discuss the merits of independence, the benefits of good parenting, the dangers of sibling rivalry, and the pitfalls of parent child relationships. Then, of course, they can discuss each person’s own interpretation of the meaning of truth in any given situation; then they can discuss the possible value of lies.

God Help The Child, Toni Morrison
For me, this was a tender story about growing up black with all of the pain and hardship that may one day be rewarded with success and joy. The struggles of the children that witness or suffer from the senseless crime and prejudice coming from within their own community and the anger they harbor towards the white community, can sometimes cripple their growth and keep them from reaching their potential. Emotionally these young characters were unable to let go of their grief and anguish long enough to enable them to move on and become responsible adults.
When “Sweetness” gives birth to a child with unusual skin color and hair, she rejects her. The child, Lula Ann, grows up feeling neglected and is emotionally scarred. She is blue black, the color of tar, and Sweetness is “high yellow”. The father does not believe that she can be his daughter, but in fact, Sweetness says that probably 20% of white people are walking around with mixed blood from blacks who passed for white, like her grandmother. Her grandmother abandoned her own family and entered the Caucasian world, without looking back.
As Lula Ann grows up, she is the butt of insulting racial remarks and often suffers the abuse of bullies who taunt her about her color. To obtain her mother’s withheld affection, when in grade school, she identifies an innocent teacher as a child molester. The teacher is sent to prison for 15 years and is then rejected by her own family. Lula Ann can never quite get over that transgression, and she eventually fails in her attempt to make it up to the woman.
As a teen, Lula Ann leaves school and takes several jobs, eventually winding up successful as a regional manager of a cosmetics company with her own brand of cosmetics called “You, Girl”. She learns how to take advantage of her stark black color and dresses only in white to accentuate her beauty. She changes her name and calls herself Bride. Her real name is Lula Ann Bridewell. At the time she meets and falls for Booker Starbern, an educated young man, he is not very gainfully employed. He takes occasional gigs playing his trumpet. Music helps him release the anger within him. When his older brother Adam was a child, he was murdered after being sexually assaulted, and Booker has been grieving his loss for most of his life. Like Lula Ann, he is estranged from his family except for one aunt.
After an argument with Lula, when she inadvertently admits to something she did which dredges up his anger and the memories of his deceased brother, he leaves her and she begins to wither. In her mind, she sees herself growing younger and smaller, thinner and less developed, regressing to the hurt and angry child she once was. She attributes this decline of her spirit and mind, to the moment Booker walks out on her. She sets out to find him and in that effort she is injured and weakened even further. She is discovered in her smashed car by a child named Rain and her guardians. Rain had been sexually abused and was found in the street, rain-drenched, by Steve and Evelyn. By choice, they live in a cabin without many modern conveniences. They took Rain into their home and cared for her. There is some question in my mind as to the legality of it, but since her mother was acting as her pimp, this young girl is much safer with the white couple who rescued her. Rain also has many problems to work through because of her mother’s irresponsible and criminal behavior. Steve, Evelyn and Rain tend to Lula Ann’s recovery together. Lula Ann provides the emotional connection to a human being that Rain seeks and that Lula Ann has been searching for, for most of her life.
When Lula Ann recovers, she sets out again to search for Booker. She must find out why he has rejected her and why that little spat destroyed their relationship so completely. When they reunite it begins with violence, but it ends peacefully. Bride realizes that she never really knew Booker that well, they simply had good sex. When a tragedy occurs, it draws them closer together, which followed by a surprise announcement from Lula Ann, suddenly makes Booker mature and gives us our fairytale ending.
The book is a study in stark contrasts of color, station in life, injustice, abuse, devotion, and survival. Most of the characters are suffering in some way because of their own needs and as a result of their own actions. Booker’s Aunt Queen has been with too many men and has too many children that she was unable or unwilling to care for. She deplores the violence of the young because the anger they harbor within their souls enslaves them and retards their development into responsible adults.
The names of the characters seemed somewhat indicative of their station in life. Booker Starbern enjoys reading books and is educated. He writes poetry referring to the stars and Bride notes the fact that when he sees them, they may no longer exist. Bride (Lula Ann) dresses in white and enjoys fashion, hence the name she took. Aunt Queen is the adult that Booker respects. She is the matriarch. Sweetness was the name her mother was given by Lula Ann’s father before he left. Rain was rescued from an abusive life because of the rain. Brooklyn, named for a tough borough, is hardened by her past life. Although she seemed to be able to second guess Lula Ann’s motives, and although she helped her, in the past, she disagreed with what she was doing and viewed her behavior as a sign of weakness. She doesn’t trust Booker. Both Bride and Booker ran away from life when it became too much.
The book opens the door to a racial conversation, as I felt that there were threads of racist beliefs running through the narrative. There are issues of blacks preying on blacks, whites taking advantage of blacks, blacks ridiculing whites and whites rescuing blacks. The biases dominate and define all of the behavior and all of the interactions of the characters. This is a good book for a book group if they can have an honest conversation about race and about life, as it is viewed from both black and white eyes. It is a very different landscape for each. There is also much to discuss about the justice system and the prevalence of sexual abuse in the community.
The book is read expressively and somewhat dreamily by the author, with perfectly modulated tone and inflection.

The Wright Brothers, David McCullough, narrated by David McCullough.
The book is read by the author, clearly, with perfect pronunciation, but sometimes his voice is drones on in a monotone. Since the book is really interesting, I suggest the print version over the audio. The story of the Wright Brothers is filled with so many interesting tidbits of information about their family dynamics, their efforts to create a flying machine, and world opinion about that endeavor, that it would be a shame to zone out and miss some charming fact because of a lack of expression.
Brilliant and talented, the Wright brothers were born into a time of wonderful innovation. By the early 1900’s, technology had made great strides. There were sewing machines, steam engines, bicycles, typewriters, cameras and horseless carriages. The time was ripe for new inventions. All of the Wrights were well brought up. Their father was a Bishop and the family had good values. They held each other in high esteem with great respect for, and strong loyalties to, each other. Although some thought that the brothers were fools for trying to create a flying machine, the family supported and stood by them throughout their years of struggle.
Orville was the younger of the two brothers, and while Wilbur was analytical, Orville was the more hands on partner. Together they made a perfect team. They truly admired each other and worked well together. They were frugal, building whatever they needed without turning to the outside world for help. To test the results of their work, they needed a remote place with the best climate for their project. It brought them to Kitty Hawk on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Through constant trial and error, after about a decade of laborious research and testing, they finally achieved acclaim in the United States. For several years before that, they were recognized in Europe, but America came late to their table.
Although the brothers did not have much higher education, they were so bright and dedicated that they accomplished amazing things, against all odds. When young, although illness plagued Wilbur, he overcame his weakness and began working earnestly with his brother Orville as soon as he was able. First they started a local newspaper and then opened a bicycle store, tweaking the bicycles to make them better and better, proceeding to grow until they were building special order, custom bicycles. Then, captivated by the thought that birds held the secret to flight, they began to study the creatures and read all available information on them, some of which they acquired through the Smithsonian Institute. Their meticulous research and documentation, followed by careful observation, experimentation and demonstrations, brought them success. Even when they experienced failure and serious injury as they tested their machines, they maintained a sense of optimism and with infinite patience continued their uphill struggle, confronting ridicule with courage and fortitude.
The bicycle shop financed their attempts to build the flying machine, since that was their full time work, and the attempt to build an airplane was merely an extracurricular activity, a sideline and an obsession, in a way. It was Katharine Wright, their sister, who helped run the shop in their absence and stood by them for many years at the expense of her own life. Originally a teacher, she was keen to help the brothers accomplish their goal and, in later years, she was with them in Europe where their success was first acknowledged.
Never married, the brothers and their sister remained very close, as did the rest of the entire, tight-knit family. Wilbur died young but Orville lived deep into his seventies. When Katharine married at 58, Orville was devastated and cut off ties with her for most of the rest of his life. However, out of respect for his brother, he continued his marketing efforts for flying machines! The book brings the Wrights to life and reads more like a novel than a biography about brilliant brothers. Aided by a sister, who sacrificed most of her life supporting their efforts, and parents that encouraged hard work and perseverance, parents and a family that helped them to be all they could be, they made history and improved the lives of countless millions.

Go Set A Watchman, Harper Lee, author, Reese Witherspoon, narrator
Atticus Finch, Jean Louise who was better known as Scout, and Henry (Hank), return in “Go Set A Watchman”. Although promoted as a sequel, it was actually written prior to “To Kill A Mockingbird”. Still, the story does begin several years in the future when Jean Louise, now an adult, returns home for her two week vacation. At 26, she now lives and works in New York City. Her old childhood friend and possibly even her sweetheart, Hank, now 30, is waiting to pick her up. Atticus, her father, has arthritis. He was not up to meeting her at the station as he usually did. In the years that have passed, Hank has gone to law school and entered the law practice of her father who has embraced him as a son.
For the first part of the book, there is really little new to learn, about the goings on in Maycomb, apart from the passing of some family members and the presence, in her old home, of her spinster aunt Alexandra, who now lives with her father to help him manage. Just about half way through the book, however, when Jean Louise happens upon a meeting of the Citizen’s Council of Maycomb, the worm turns, and the story takes flight. Witnessing her father and her friend Hank participating in a meeting with the desire to restrict the rights of Negroes, she finds that she is horrified. What she later learns about her father’s participation in certain organizations completely unnerves her. Jean Louise had been completely devoted to her “perfect” dad and this news destroys her, inspiring a temper tantrum resembling that of a child. Jean Louise has never truly grown up or looked at the real world through her own eyes, but rather she identified completely with her father’s interpretation in all things, and now to discover that he was blind and indifferent to the very ideas that troubled her the most, she is ashamed beyond belief.
Atticus is not only on the Council, but he is a board member. She also discovers he once even joined the Ku Klux Klan. He tells her that he joined to find out who lived behind the sheets so he would know who he was dealing with all the time. She did not believe that his reason was valid or truthful. She loses her temper with both her father and Hank and tries to distance herself from them. When Calpurnia’s nephew was arrested for the murder of a white man who wandered in front of his car completely inebriated, Hank does not want to defend him. Atticus insists that they defend him, but for all the wrong reasons, as far as Jean Louise is concerned. Calpurnia has worked for and been devoted to them for so many years, she believes that her father should give her nephew the best defense possible and not just defend him to prevent the NAACP from coming down and creating a scandal. If it wasn’t his fault, he should not be convicted, even if the town demands it because of the current environment. She decides that when he had defended Tom Robinson, many years before, he only did it because he believed in the letter of the law, not his right to equal justice under the law. Jean Louise understands the issues the community is facing but doesn’t look at them realistically, rather she is thinking idealistically, about solutions and not consequences. Still, she adamantly disagrees with her father, although she does agree with him that there are also white people who need as much help as the Negroes, and they should not be neglected in the effort to foster equality for all.
The white community believes they have treated the Negroes fairly, maybe even better than fairly. They are angry and resentful because of what they believe are arrogant demands to have equal access to voting booths and driver’s licenses. Negative stereotypes and prejudices rise to the surface and shock Jean Louise, especially when these negative views are voiced by those she loves. Her aunt is a believer in class and does not even approve of Henry, who was not of a background she deemed respectable. At this point, one has to pause and wonder if Jean Louise was living under a rock some place, to be so unaware of the racial divide that existed in the country. Even in the northeast, there were racial problems. On the opposite pole, the Negroes and their organizations, of course, believed that it was the white people that were behaving arrogantly, and if the scales were viewed honestly, one would have to say that they were probably right. The scales of justice were most definitely weighted heavily in the favor of the white society because generation after generation, hate had continued to be inbred. Although things appeared much better between the races on the surface, underneath prejudice seethed. Perhaps it is much the same today.
I believe that the author was either incredibly prescient or the book was updated and edited before publication, because, currently, even under the administration of the first black president, it seems the effort to get out the vote to make sure one or another political party wins, seems paramount, regardless of whether or not they can even legally vote or are actual citizens of this country. The legal qualifications of the voter no longer seem to matter, simply winning and pushing an agenda takes precedence. I thought this appeared to be the issue that motivated Atticus Finch against the equal rights movement, not racism. He believed the right to vote should not be taken lightly. He believed the voter should understand what, in fact, he was voting for or against. As we read the novel, we learn that “go set a watchman” possibly means to some, find your conscience and then act accordingly. Each person must do just that, when reading this book. Decide if Atticus was racist or a realist. Of course, if the issue is whether or not a black person can vote, then there can be only one conclusion. Every legal citizen of the country has and should have always had the right to vote, regardless of color or creed. If, however, it is based on whether or not you believe a voter should be aware of what he/she is voting for, you may come to an altogether different conclusion, but it should not be based on race. Keep an open mind while reading and determine if Finch is a racist or a realist. He lived in a different time and in a different place than we are now, but his thoughts may have foreshadowed future problems.
The book has caused quite a stir in the publishing world, which is largely progressive and/or liberal in their beliefs, and therefore tends to respond in the manner of the “politically correct”. Almost in a knee jerk reaction, many reviewers have decided that Atticus Finch, the hero of “To Kill A Mockingbird”, has clay feet and they are outraged. The former perfect human being is actually just a human being with personal opinions and feelings. However he had behaved before, regarding matters of race, has been erased, and he is now painted with the broad brush of his daughter, Jean Louise, who is furious with him. Although he claims to be doing what he has to do to survive in Maycomb, and he believes that he is trying to also discover who is the enemy and who is not, since he believes he needs to figure out who will work with him within the system to bring about change that is doable, rather than idealistic, headed for success rather than doomed to failure, he is just being judged on the basis of this one moment in time and on his feelings about the letter of the law and the right of anyone to vote who is neither educated nor prepared for what he considers a great privilege.
I wondered if perhaps there was another side to Atticus that we had not met, the Atticus that wanted to make sure that the Negroes would be provided with a better education to prepare them for the vote. Perhaps he didn’t, but that idea would have to be better developed in another book, because I don’t think they were developed well enough in this one. The main issue appeared to be Jean Louise’s decidedly immature reaction to his being on the board of what she considered to be a racist council, committed to limiting the rights of the Negroes in Maycomb. I thought the issue would come down to the problem of discrimination, but that issue seemed to drift to the background, for me, as her fury took the center stage.
The writing style of the book is pretty much the same as in “To Kill A Mockingbird”. It is straight forward and easy to read. There are, therefore, no mysteries to decipher in the narrative.

The English Spy, author, Daniel Silva, narrator, George Guidall
This is a tale of espionage involving Israel, Great Britain and the United States. The author does not seem to be a fan of the current political atmosphere under Barack Obama, and he comments on the way Israel is being treated by our government and also on the current Iran talks concerning nuclear weapons, of which he does not seem to approve. Many comments disparage Obama’s rudeness and his disengagement and possible disrespect of the Israeli government. He also comments on aspects of the Israeli and British governments, of which is not enamored.
The novel is read well by George Guidall, with just the right amount of expression. The narrative crosses numerous countries in Europe, as several spy agencies collaborate and try to solve the mystery of what caused an explosion on a yacht carrying a former British princess, the divorced first wife of the heir to the throne. Her mysterious death begins the intrigue, but sub plots within the plot drive the tale further. The twists and turns can sometimes be confusing, so perhaps a print book would be a better choice than the audio version.
In this fifteenth book of the Allon series, Gabriel Allon, future head of The Office, in Israel, is intercepted while on his way to Rome to restore a Caravaggio painting. Graham Seymour, of MI6, had been quietly contacted by Israeli intelligence with information about the assassin, Eamon Quinn, whom they believe was behind the murder of the former princess. Gabriel Allon is considered the one best suited for the task of finding this murderer. With Christopher Keller, a former British agent who is now a paid assassin, the team is assembled to solve the crime and bring the perpetrators to justice. Allon decides to take on the investigation, although his wife, Chiara, is only weeks away from giving birth to their twins. Because he is on the older side now, and more important, because he is soon to be promoted to head Israeli intelligence, it is not really a good idea for him to be involved and put in so much danger, but he makes the decision to join the effort, with his wife’s support, because the search soon becomes personal to him. Allon wants to catch Eamon Quinn. He is a killer for hire. A former member of the IRA, he was in prison when he met Tariq, an Islamic terrorist, a bomb-maker who was having trouble with his timing mechanisms. Quinn taught him how to make a better bomb. He then used his new knowledge to blow up Allon’s car, taking his son Daniel’s life and permanently destroying his first wife’s emotional stability. Allon was supposed to be in that car, but on that day, it was his first wife and son who became the targets instead. This sub plot involves Islamic terrorists, the Palestinian Arabs.
Christopher is willing to return to the intelligence service because for him the capture of Quinn is also personal. Both men, Allon and Keller, had once worked together to take down the IRA. Keller’s girlfriend and son were murdered when his informant turned on him, revealing their whereabouts. Keller and Allon are the two agents best suited for this kind of espionage effort. They are explosive experts. They both knew Quinn, and Keller had once been his prisoner.
On the other side of the coin, for Quinn, it is also personal. He wants to kill both Keller and Allon for the part they played in stopping the IRA and in the murder of many of its members. However, Quinn seems to take pleasure in the killing and the others do not. They are doing a job, while Quinn seems to be enjoying himself and priding himself on his kills.
Allon and Keller follow leads which bring them in contact with Quinn’s Russian accomplice, a young woman who was trained with Madeline Hart, the young Russian spy Allon brought to England. Unknown to them, the beautiful Russian woman they are following is going to plant a bomb. When Quinn leaves a cryptic message, “the bricks are in the wall”, on Allon’s cell phone, they know something terrible is about to happen. The message is proof positive to Allon that the assassin’s identity is Eamon Quinn. Quinn is a master bomb-maker. The bombing of the yacht was for the purpose of fleshing Allon out of the shadows. The Russians are angry with Allon for rescuing their spy, Madeline Hart, and providing her sanctuary in a safe house. The defection humiliated them. The bombing in front of Harrods was Quinn’s next stage which was intended to take out both Keller and Allon.
The plot twists and turns. There are personal vendettas to be resolved and while the book is not rocket science, it is really well written and well researched. It will keep you coming back for more as the tension builds slowly to a crescendo. One thing is important to think about at the end of the book. While it is true that Quinn was a cold blooded murderer as was the female Russian agent he worked with, so also were Allon and Keller. It gave me pause when I considered the thin line that separated the killer who was good and the killer who was evil and the reasons that defined both. Both thought they were working for a good cause, but the goodness seemed to be “in the eyes of the beholder”. Also, the Israelis were depicted as brutal when they questioned prisoners. I wondered if it showed that enhanced interrogation actually worked. Regardless, it seems that everyone involved turned a blind eye to everyone’s violence in the interest of their own cause.

The Little Paris Bookshop, by Nina George (Author), Steve West (Reader), Emma Bering (Reader), Cassandra Campbell (Reader), translated by Simon Pare
When we meet Jean Perdu, we find a very unhappy, introverted bookseller who manages to solve the problems of others but fails to find solutions for his own. He neither talks much to his neighbors nor has many friends. He operates a barge on the Seine, from which he sells books to customers that he first instinctively analyzes so that he can then suggest a book that is appropriate for them. He has the gift of insight into their innermost hopes and dreams, fears and challenges. He will not sell a book to a customer if he feels it will not help or satisfy the reader in some way. He is called a book pharmacist, and he operates a literary apothecary.
More than twenty years ago, Perdu’s sweetheart suddenly left him. Like his name which means lost, he has been lost ever since. One day, when tenants in his building ask him to help out a neighbor whose husband abandoned her and left her with nothing but her heartbreak, he reluctantly agrees. He gruffly suggests that he give her a book, but they insist on a more practical gift, a table instead. He agrees and enters a room hidden behind bookcases in his apartment, a room he has not entered in a long time, to retrieve a table for her. He leaves it outside her door. He places a vase on it, and pretty much speaking through the peephole in her door, he tells her to use it for red flowers. He hears her muffled sobs; he knows her heart is broken. He returns to the secret room, the room that represents a time when his own heart was broken and is still not mended, and he gets her a chair and then promises her a book, as well, to help her recover. The two neighbors, Jean and Katherine, begin to help each other survive their own particular grief as their friendship buds and flowers. When she tells him she found an unopened letter, addressed to him, in a drawer of the table, he becomes angry and refuses to take it. Finally, he does read the letter that has been trapped in the drawer for more than twenty years; he discovers that he had made a grave mistake, and his heart breaks anew.
The warmth they share somewhat frees Jean Perdu from himself and his burdensome thoughts; he decides to release the book barge and begins to travel down the river Seine to try and make amends for his past foolishness. As he prepares to leave, another neighbor, a 21 year old reluctantly successful author, Max Jordan, jumps aboard without invitation, losing his belongings in the process. Perdu is not happy he is there, at first, but soon they, too, begin to comfort each other and cure each other’s ills. Shortly thereafter, another man joins them. He too is searching for something. When they reveal their secrets to each other, they are greeted with surprise, anger, and then, forgiveness and compassion. The three continue their travels, and in the end, as their group grows larger, they all find ways to resolve their problems and begin to realize that everyone needs to love and be loved.
It is a tender story in which all the characters seem to be searching to find out who they really are, what they really want, how to stop their sadness and their pain and how to find the joy of living. They all, in a somewhat contrived fashion, do seem to find their own solutions to their problems by the book’s end. Even Jean’s father and mother, separated from each other, seem to reconcile some of their differences and find their way back to each other, even if only occasionally
The narrators did a superb job with accents and characterization. I really found that I could picture the characters in my mind as each one spoke. The mood was set by the tone and expression of the readers’ voices which were alternately sad or happy, dreamy or alert, soft or loud as the scene required. Not one ever over emoted.
This book is translated beautifully, with the exception of some words pertaining to sexual content that seemed entirely out of place and low brow for a book of this quality. The prose is poetic and poignant, moving the reader with real emotion and encouraging empathic feelings toward the fully developed characters. Highly emotional scenes are interspersed with charming humor that relieves the tension perfectly.
Jean Perdu, like his name was lost, but later found; in the same way that he encouraged his readers to find themselves, he discovered the person he should be, or rather, the person he had the power to be, the person hiding inside him all along. The reader knows that words have power and this book proves it. Jean Perdu was the bookseller of every reader’s dreams. He not only knew his books, but he understood his readers. As Katherine, his neighbor, eventually coaxed the inner meaning of the stone into her sculptures, as Jordan created children’s books that encouraged children to grow into all they could be, and as Jean discovered the inner needs of his customers, coupled with his developing friendship with Katherine, he began to realize that his lost love, Manon, had also helped him to make the journey into his own happy future with someone else.

Every 15 Minutes, Lisa Scottoline, author, George Newbern, narrator.
The book was read well by George Newbern in a voice that did not take over the story, but simply led the reader on in a straightforward fashion. Scottoline fans will love the tension that builds and the several premature endings that twist and turn until the final one is revealed. If you love a book that keeps you wondering, this is it, however, by the time the book actually ended, it seemed to me to be anticlimactic. It almost felt as if the author couldn’t decide which ending to use so she incorporated them all. She also couldn’t select one motive to follow, one plot line that was credible, so the book boiled down to a confusion of conspiracy theories. As one problem worked toward a solution, another was introduced to either create further confusion or tension, depending on the reader’s interpretation. Nevertheless, it is a thriller that will keep you engaged, if only to find out which ending is the real ending! The narrative is interspersed with the voice of a sociopath explaining what the term means, explaining that we should be afraid, sociopaths are everywhere and they look for victims, they prey on us, they feel no remorse. The sociopath presents questions and answers, explanations to benefit the reader’s understanding. For sure, the characters will keep the reader guessing to find out when the real sociopath will finally show up.
From the get-go, the book seemed a bit contrived with a main character, a Psychiatrist, Dr. Eric Parrish, who, while very honorable and empathetic, seemed way too naïve to be in the position he held as Chief of the Havemeyer General Hospital’s Psychiatry Department (could he be the sociopath?). There was Kristine, the conniving medical student (Was she the sociopath?), Kaitlin, a mean, vengeful almost divorced wife (Was she the sociopath?), a dying patient with a grandson who has OCD, an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder which causes the sufferer to repeat specific tasks to create emotional stability, (Was he the sociopath?), Hannah, a daughter who was over anxious (definitely not the sociopath, lol), and a host of other likely suspects. There was a hospital board that cared more for its bottom line than anything else, petty rules and privacy and confidentiality laws that compromise law enforcement investigations and freedom of information, a doctor who might be getting paid under the table, an FDA that was bought and paid for with pressure to approve certain drugs, jealous colleagues, sexual harassment, a hostage situation, a bomb threat, a hospital fire complete with heroes and villains, a legal system which meted out justice unfairly, but legally perhaps, hospital politics which protected itself while sacrificing employees who sacrificed for them, the cruelty of divorce and even its effect on the children involved, the prejudice against the field of Psychiatry and its practitioners, the brutality of police methods when searching a home or blackmailing a suspect into giving a confession or providing information, alcoholism, drug abuse, patient abuse, murder, and more. Actually, every societal problem that could be thought of was, if not developed, than it was touched upon. Truth and honor were major themes and even former President Truman was invoked with his famous quote, "I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell”. I kept waiting for one problem to be solved before another cropped up, but I was not to be appeased as they simply accumulated one on top of another. There were so many convoluted accusations against Eric by his wife, his hospital, his staff, the police, an odd family or two, that I couldn’t imagine how it would ever end, and perhaps that is the most redeeming feature, it did keep me guessing. Since there were so many false endings, every idea I could have imagined was invoked, but I never saw the actual ending coming.
Eric was a totally involved father who was being slowly and cruelly cast aside and left out of his daughter’s life, by his soon to be ex wife in her attempt to have more control over her daughter’s upbringing and to begin a new life with another man. She works as a prosecutor, and with her knowledge of the law, she seemed to have gained the very upper hand in the divorce proceedings. Eric’s lawyer did not seem to anticipate issues that she certainly should have in order to protect his interests. It seemed as if Eric was being gamed by his wife and the system in everything he touched. Eric had to deal with the politics of the medical world and the legal world at the same time as personal and professional problems were erupting all around him. The picture that was painted was not a pretty one. There was no end to the underhanded behavior hospital authorities, employees, policemen or wives would engage in to accomplish their goals, whether they were self-serving or altruistic. The world seemed rife with the possibility of corruption at every turn.
When Eric became overly involved, emotionally, with a private patient, Max Jakubowski, the story veered off in another direction and becoame intense as he attempted to help the teen. Although he only met the boy a few times, his issues led the narrative in one direction or another and created situations in which Eric made some really foolish, though more often than not, honorable decisions. Eric is a man who seemed to always be concerned about doing right by his staff and his patients, regardless of laws, rules or regulations. Will his righteousness defeat him or propel him into the future as the mystery works to its conclusion? When it comes right down to it, through a circuitous path, the reader will discover that the book is really all about the sociopath, even though it goes off in so many tangential directions. Don’t peek to find out the ending!

The Festival of Insignificance, Milan Kundera, performed by Richmond Hoxie, translated from the French, by Linda Asher.
This strange and brief little book is about a short time in the lives of a group of friends, Alain, Ramon, Charles and Caliban, as they plan a cocktail party for another friend, D’Ardelo, who has told them he is dying of Cancer. Each of the characters has his own particular issues to deal with which reveal themselves as the scenes evolve. At one point, I thought perhaps the tale was actually, in the end, a performance of a play, but instead, it was each character playing his own part, deciding on his own role.
Alain, was abandoned by his mother. He imagines conversations with her. Ramon is dealing with aging. He is also dealing with a mother who is about to abandon him, by dying, Charles gives Caliban work as a waiter and encourages his fantasies and performances. Caliban pretends to be Pakistani to fulfill his need to act, since he is currently unemployed. Alain contemplates the idea of a woman’s navel becoming the new seat of eroticism, and yet, it is not the seat of birth and the continuation of life. D’ardelo is pretending to be dying because a man who recently passed away was getting all the attention. A widow grieves briefly and is congratulated for her ability to love live so much that she can recover so quickly from her loss and go on, attending parties, even with eyes red from crying.
It is a spoof on life, I think, and although the author says existence is insignificant, ironically, each of the characters seeks to make his own existence worthy of notice, in some way, and in essence, with the talk of sex, sickness, angels, sorrow, and surviving as best as one can, under whatever circumstances one finds oneself, it seemed to be more profound than it pretended to be. There seemed to be many incongruous explanations and tales, but they really concerned themselves with significant subjects like life and death, success and failure, good health and illness. The stories about Stalin had greater hidden meaning, Alain’s fantasies about his missing mother were thought provoking. Who was the boy she drowned? Was it Alain? Can he make peace with her memory? The conversations between two characters, each speaking in a language not understood by the other, were humorous but also poignant because they were both so needy that the sound of the sympathy in their voices was enough to sustain them. The irony is that the insignificant was truly very significant. ?All of the characters seemed a bit detached from reality which is probably why they were searching for ways to achieve happiness and contentment, to find meaning for their very existence, because we all pass through life briefly, pass out of everyone’s memory eventually, and leave no lasting mark unless we find a way to make our moment in time the essence of significance.
The narrator provided a perfectly nuanced interpretation of the book, using just the right amount of emphasis for each situation to make its meaning clear.

The memoir gets its title from a poem by Richard Wright about a lynching. It foreshadows the direction in which the memoir will lean. Of course the heartbreak, brutality, and unfairness experienced by people of color, because of inequality, is horrifying, and joined with the complete and utter one-sided targeting of a particular group of people, is also outrageous, but how to assign blame and how to counteract such evil is an entirely different subject. Mr. Coates has written a very compelling case about discrimination, in the form of a letter to his 15 year old son. In this letter, he undresses his own personal views on racism in America, and he presents his approach to dealing with it. I found it a bit one-sided. However, there is a great deal of truth to most of what he presents.
In a very brief, essay type narrative, he summarizes the history of racism in America. My conclusion, from what I read, is that he believes our country’s racist history is shrouded in a fantasy made up by the white establishment to make them feel more comfortable with the idea of its past racism and its continued existence. This then, allows these “dreamer”, upwardly mobile whites, to rationalize their continued destruction of black communities and their concerted effort to eliminate black people, while they continue to think of them as less than, and as unworthy, and while they remain free of guilt.
The author believes that Blacks must learn to live in their own bodies, to embrace them, before they can prevent the “white world”, the world of those “dreamers”, from taking away their bodies at will, from taking not only their lives but from also murdering their spirits. He cites many wanton murders and many abuses of black men and women. He believes that the issue is not about color alone, since he identifies humanity as not white, but as Jewish, Muslim, Christian, immigrants, and people of all stripes and cultures. It is simply that those in power define themselves as white.
He relates an incident in which his 4 year old son was pushed by a woman distressed because the child was moving too slowly. I would have been distressed too. However, impulsively, he pushed the woman back. A man then threatened him with arrest, although he made no mention of how the woman mistreated his son. The woman and the man should have known better, but they were “white”. They thought they were in control and able to make threats against him without fear of reprisals against them. I think that he believes that the whites believe they are still the masters and the blacks are still simply their victims. He believes it is a trait handed down generation after generation.
He brings up many of the recent tragic events in which black lives were snuffed out, but he does not make any distinctions between those that appear to have been justified and those that were not,. For him, they are all abusive acts, all unjustified, regardless of the reckless behavior or lawless behavior of the victim. If it is indeed, that one race is treated more unjustly, then that is a legitimate issue, but if some of these abuses would not have occurred if the law was respected, some responsibility has to be placed on the shoulders of the victims, as well. This is not to justify the abuse, but to try and explain the root cause of much of this unjust treatment. If there is no justice for black people, that must be corrected, but it cannot be corrected by demanding injustice for others or for those who enforce the laws. Laws must be respected, because without law enforcement we have chaos. Until his presentation became decidedly one-sided, without accepting responsibility for the bad behavior of those who were disregarding the laws and without recognizing that not all of the incidents he cited were actual abuses, he had my full attention, but then I realized that if I disagreed with anything he said, I was going to be branded a racist, rather than a realist, because that is what he believes. It is so easy to change the narrative, in this racially charged atmosphere, by placing blame indiscriminately on the shoulders of anyone who disagrees with you, by calling them names, by insisting that they must be racist, but that is, in itself, racist!
I do not believe that murder is justified in any case, I am not even sure I support the death penalty for certain crimes, but I also do not believe that it is okay to resist arrest or run away from law enforcement, without expecting dire consequences. I believe that when an officer issues an order, it should be obeyed. It is a case of which came first the chicken or the egg. Are the cops over zealous because the blacks disrespect them, are they afraid, or are the blacks over reacting because the cops disrespect them, are they afraid? That is the dilemma that must be dealt with and the problem that must be solved.
Black people do not own the issue of discrimination. I know, as a Jew, that Jews have been under that gun for far longer, and although the idea of warning children to be extra careful when a policeman stops you or of having to work twice as hard to succeed is being claimed by the blacks as their own, they are not the sole owners of that advice. As a Jew and a female, my parents gave me the exact advice, the exact warning. As a female, I could not hide my sex any more than a person of color could hide their color. I could not get into the school of my choice, just because I wanted it. I could not get any job I wanted, just because I decided I should have it. I had to work twice as hard to achieve anything I desired and sometimes, I didn’t get it anyway. I didn’t expect anything for nothing. I worked to earn the money I needed and I got paid less for what I did because I was a female. My daughter did not get into the school of her choice because there was a Jewish quota. Today, blacks have the advantage in that arena. They have special privileges. Regardless of how frustrated I was, or of how oppressed I might have felt, for one reason or another, I would never have considered disobeying a law enforcement officer, because the larger picture is this, if we all decided to run, or disobey and confront the police, there would be complete pandemonium.
I wondered why Mr. Coates chose to consider Howard University his Mecca. Mecca is a place of importance in Islam, and many followers believe that unbelievers are infidels. Therefore, I am an infidel. In his desire for equality, does he want me to be less than equal or am I reading into this. The religion of Islam has as its stated goal to create the Caliphate, so I am hoping that I am wrong in my interpretation of his meaning. To replace one form of racism with another would be a futile exercise. Also, blacks do not own the problem of poverty or inequality or abuse. Perhaps more people need to be acquainted with Appalachia and its problems. Not all whites are upwardly mobile. That said, there is no doubt that blacks have suffered in this country. They were torn from their homes, brought here forcibly, abused and tortured, treated like animals, but that was then and there are many cultures that were enslaved. Jews were also enslaved. We all have to move forward and stop looking backward because, that too, enslaves us in our thought process.
Coates is right, even what we are taught about the Civil War is wrong. It was not fought for the right reasons, not fought to free the slaves. The economy was the driving force behind the war. He is absolutely right that the country was built on the backs of those captured slaves, but so too was the Middle East built on the backs of the Jewish slaves. I don’t see Arabs or blacks demanding that their brethren stop attacking Jews and stop demanding the annihilation of Israel.
I was very disappointed in the reaction of the author to the tragedy of 9/11. There is no moral equivalent between slavery and 9/11 or 9/11 and the Holocaust or any other genocide. It was an event unique and tragic, unto itself, and to try and equate it with anything else is to attempt to diminish its gravity. To say that NYC was always ground zero for blacks because of slave markets, is like saying Germany and the Arab Middle Eastern countries will always be nothing but ground zero for Jews. We must go forward and stop blaming past generations and their descendants for crimes they did not commit, unless they continue to perpetuate that heinous behavior.
His memoir simply felt too one sided as he painted the entire “white” population as racist. To me, that kind of makes him a racist. Although, as a Jew, i don’t ever intend to forget the victims or the tragedy of the Holocaust, or even my past as a slave, I do not blame the entire present German population or the entire past German population or the people of Italy or Russia where there were pogroms, or the entire Arab world for the sins of their forefathers, nor do I believe that anti-Semitism does not exist. I simply refuse to allow it to destroy me and make me just as evil as they are or were.
I can totally understand people like Toni Morrison supporting and praising this author, but their support is too monolithic, viewing the situation from only one point of view and disregarding that the blacks, in this way, are teaching their children to hate the police, resent the whites and not believe in the possibility of fulfilling their “dreams”. Like the madrassas that teach hate, this is a self defeating philosophy and I totally disagree with it.
I lived in an area of Brooklyn, close to the one the author mentioned, Flatbush, and I was not rich. I knew I had to fight harder if I wanted to go to college, and so I did. So did my sister, so did my brother, and we were totally identifiable as Jews by our last name. We were openly discriminated against. In order to become a teacher, working for the city, there was discrimination. Unlike today, when the king’s English is not required and accents proliferate that make it hard for students to even understand the teacher, we had to pass a speech pedagogy, to prove we did have a sing song Jewish inflection, or we would be failed and not allowed to teach.
So, I feel that some of the proclamations of innocence, protest a bit too much. I am not sure I like the bedfellows Coates keeps company with or admires. For sure, there is no dispute about the need to eliminate racism, but to encourage rebellion is something beyond the pale. I think the idea that black is beautiful is wonderful, but so is white, brown, yellow and red, etc. All cultures are different and all demand and deserve respect. All lives matter!
I was woefully disappointed in myself and in my knowledge of the books Coates cites, since it further points out the divide between the races is huge. I read so much, and if I am largely unaware of the things that are part of his culture, how can I understand any of the problems he faces, and how can I, therefore, help to fix them? There is a lot of work still to be done. Mr. Coates narrated the audio version of his book. I was disappointed, because someone so well educated should not mispronounce the word asked and ghettoize it as aksed over and over again, in much the same way that intelligent men and woman brutalize the pronunciation of nuclear by pronouncing it nucular. It confounds me. I respected the author’s views, but laws were made for all people to follow, not just white people. We cannot pick and choose the ones we like. There are consequences. One has to be responsible for one’s own behavior, regardless of color or religion. Calling all those who disagree with your view, racist, is nothing but an ad hominem argument. It prevents a sensible solution to any problem presented because it shuts down communication. You can’t correct injustice with another form of injustice. That is racism too.

The government has decided to buy the residents of Sweetland out for a handsome sum and then will relocate them to a place of their choice. However, 100% of the residents must sign on for the deal to proceed. Moses Sweetland is the last holdout and the townspeople are beginning to resent his obstinacy. The deal is sweet, and they are not happy that Moses is preventing them from getting their money. They want to leave the island that is no longer able to support them or their families, and they want to begin again elsewhere. Moses does not want to begin again elsewhere, and he has his good reasons, too. Soon, the once close community begins to unravel and diminish in size as the residents voice their resentment to him, sometimes acting out against him, and eventually, also moving on to new homes in other places.
The description of the quiet, hardscrabble lifestyle that the elements demanded of the residents is spot on. The dialogue is simple and perfectly captures the way in which the locals would have bantered with each other. Moses kept many secrets which he thought protected the community as well as protected the residents, in some cases, from the community’s wagging tongues. The climate was unforgiving and the commercial opportunities were scarce. Most subsisted on meager “givings” from the land and their livestock, working off-island, at times, to support their families. They adjusted to the way of life and would acclimate to their new lives as well. They were hardy people, and of necessity and also because of true concern, they usually treated each other like family, caring for and helping each other when necessary, until, that is, their greed began to obsess them.
Leaving Sweetland for Moses, would mean losing his heritage, the home in which he grew up, his memories, his buried relatives, and along with the camaraderie of his friends, neighbors and relatives, he would also lose himself, his raison d’etre. Leaving the island would mean erasing his entire past and ancestry. He and his family would simply disappear from memory. Sweetland struggles with and deals with his dilemma in the way of a simple man, without thinking it through well enough, because he didn’t really have the wherewithal to do anything else. He simply had the desire to protect what was his and on a wing and a prayer, he went forward.
The tale moves back and forth between the present and the past as Sweetland’s history and the secrets in his life are revealed. This is a story about a man the reader is going to love and root for, because he is a gentle, soul, not well educated, sometimes with a sharp tongue, who has simple needs and will probably confound and confuse the reader with his actions. He is dedicated to holding on to what he believes in, holding on to his heritage. He is being forced to resist the efforts of the townspeople he has lived with all his life, the friends and relatives who are now trying to convince him to take the deal and leave the land his family settled and for which the island is named. This remote area of Newfoundland is called Sweetland, and nearby, there is also an even smaller island that is called Little Sweetland.
Did the island become a prison for Moses, eventually, rather than a refuge, or was it his salvation as he marched into oblivion?

Drunken fireworks, author, Stephen King; narrator, Tim Sample
This short story will be part of King’s latest book, “The Bazaar of Bad Dreams” which is due out in November of 2015. In this story, two families, from the right and wrong side of the tracks, living on opposite sides of a lake, are engaged in a feud involving fireworks and a trumpet player. Like an arms race, every year, on the fourth of July, they compete to have the best fireworks display.
The Italian Massimo family is very wealthy and possibly well “connected” as in with unsavory characters, according to the McCauslands. The Massimos have the wherewithal to buy and accomplish anything they choose. As a result, they always win the competition. Not well educated or rich, but dedicated to the rivalry, the McCauslands, Ma and Alden, try every year to create a better display then the Massimos, although Ma sometimes finds the sound of their triumphant trumpet to be far worse than the experience of being bested by their display.
Mother and son are very close. They live together in a cabin bought by Mr. McCausland in ’91 and although they thought with his death they would have to sell it, a fortuitous insurance policy and a lottery win has made them solvent. They have enough money to sit around and do little more than drink the day away, at least for a certain period of time, after which, they will deal with what comes. The two families are portrayed as being on opposite ends of the spectrum, but in the end, they may not be that different.
I thought the ending was the perfect culmination to a neighborly dispute. I think any other ending might have seemed obvious and contrived. In this ending, there was the justice of an eye for an eye, but not literally. I thought the word touché, summed it up perfectly.
While I believe that the vulgarity and racial slurs might have been necessary for the tale, I still found them uncomfortable, but I thought that King expertly handled their treatment.
The narrator was perfectly in tune with the characters in tone and accent, and I think he enhanced the “reading” experience. I don’t know if the story would be as entertaining in print, but as an audio, which is its only format right now, it was excellent. The humor comes through with the personalities of the characters, and it reminded me of the old Steven King, the King who wrote stories that did not simply shock the reader with tales that were sometimes difficult to read because of their content, but challenged them instead, with creative and imaginative tales. This was just a good story without the horror and/or sadism that has been so prevalent in many of his novels.

In this second book of an intended trilogy, the now retired former police detective Bill Hodges, runs his agency called Finders Keepers with the help of Holly Gibney, who acts as his secretary. He has trimmed down, having recently suffered a heart attack. Other familiar characters also return in this novel, and with all of them, the excitement continues and crimes get solved.
In this installment, we learn that a certain Morris Bellamy is going to be released from prison after 35 years. He was sentenced to life in prison for the brutal rape of a woman, a woman who had attended each of his parole hearings in order to prevent his release. Prior to his capture and sentencing for the rape, he had committed a murder and burglary for which he was never caught or charged. So that he could not be connected to the crime, he buried his booty under a tree at the back of the house where he lived with his mother, an author and English professor. Bellamy and his two friends had murdered the famous 80 year old author, John Rothstein, and stolen his money and his manuscripts from his safe. Morris Bellamy believed that Rothstein had destroyed his favorite character in the Jimmy Gold trilogy, making him a sell out, but he also thought that there might be another novel in the Gold series, one that redeemed Jimmy, the character he identified with and obsessed about as if he was real. He believed the missing volume was not yet published, nor would it ever be, because Rothstein had not published anything for the last 18 years. He did write, however, but just for himself, not for the world to see. Ironically, while in prison, Bellamy, too, became an author, an author of letters and appeals for his fellow inmates who were largely illiterate.
This book is sometimes told in two parallel time lines, one in 1978 and one in more or less present time. In 1978, Morris Bellamy and his two friends committed a shocking crime. In 2008, three decades later, there is another shocking crime committed by Brady Hartsfield. Tom Saubers is waiting on line at a job fair and is severely injured when a Mercedes is deliberately driven into the crowd, slaughtering and injuring a large number of innocent victims. Tom, who had already been unemployed, required months of rehabilitation and was not sure he would ever walk again. As time passed, the stress on the family caused further financial and marital problems. Tom and his family had to move to a less expensive area, and coincidentally, they moved into the house once occupied by the violent criminal, Morris Bellamy. Now we have that connection between the characters and the connection of two horrific crimes committed, decades apart, by two different madmen.
In 2010, heavy rains loosened the bank around a tree that was adjacent to the property that was occupied by both of these families, albeit, at different times. Its roots were exposed. Pete Saubers, sitting outside dejected because his family seemed to be falling apart, spied something hidden between the roots. Although it was good and stuck, he managed to extricate it and discovered a buried treasure; he discovered money and handwritten, unpublished manuscripts. He recognized the writing as the work of one of his favorite authors, the very same one that had disappointed Bellamy with his portrayal of his fallen hero, Jimmy Gold. He realized that the treasure must be stolen, but desperate to help his family, Pete decided to keep his discovery a secret and anonymously sent his family the cash from it, every month or so, until the money ran out. When his sister was disappointed because she couldn’t go to the school her friends would attend, he decided to try to get more money by selling the stolen manuscripts. He wondered if he would get caught and go to jail, but he didn’t know what else to do to help his family. His parents were happy again, and he didn’t want to spoil things. They needed the extra cash.
When, in 2013, Morris Bellamy, is finally paroled, he is still obsessed with Jimmy Gold and not at all rehabilitated. He sets out to recover his hidden loot with a vengeance. He wants to search through the manuscripts to find and read that last book he believes Rothstein had written about Gold. He returns to the property of his former home, but when the loot is no longer buried under the tree, he begins to search for the person he thinks has stolen it. Eventually he is led to Pete Saubers.
The action in the novel is intense. Winding in many directions, it always returns to the beginning to connect the missing dots. Even when the connections are a bit contrived and not very credible, the pace quickens and continues to hold the reader’s eyes on the page. It is really hard to put the book down. The reader is always wondering when the next shoe will drop, and who will be the next victim to fall prey to this monster. Also, although this is not his normal horror genre, which I generally do not read because of its intense violence and cruelty, in this book there is no shortage of brutality and sadistic behavior to all and sundry. King’s characters are often insane and unsavory. He gives them permission in their madness, to carry out the most coldblooded crimes, the most heinous acts that their warped imaginations make them capable of committing. Even scarier, sometimes, are his characters that are not insane, but still they do insane things!
When the first book in the trilogy ended, “Mr. Mercedes” was critically injured. There was little hope that he, Brady Hartsfield, would ever fully recover from injuries sustained when he was attacked by Holly Gibney. She prevented him from setting off a bomb at a crowded music concert, thereby preventing the murder and injury of countless people. Brady returns in this novel with Holly and also Jerome Robinson, now a college student. Brady is still a patient in a major hospital as the authorities wait for him to recover enough to bring him to trial. He is visited often by Bill Hodges who seems to take pleasure in tormenting him with cruel remarks each time he visits on the off chance that there is someone still inside his head, but Brady never shows any reaction to his barbs. At one time, Brady tried to influence Hodges to commit suicide. Now, one of the nurses in the hospital has committed suicide and Hodges wonders if he had anything to do with it. Since he does not communicate and is not mobile, it seems doubtful. However, there is a rumor that Hartsfield has developed some kind of magical power since he sustained his injury, a power that enables him to move things around and turn things on and off, like bathroom faucets and e-readers, while confined to his bed. This theory seems to be setting up the premise for the coming third book because the way King ended this book, the reader may expect Brady to return in the third installment.
Meanwhile, the villain in this book is not Brady Hartsfield, but is, rather, Morris Bellamy, the man who has spent more of his life in prison, than out of it, a man who, though he has spent decades in prison, had not been rehabilitated. The book is peppered with an abundance of platitudes that will make the readers roll their eyes. Sometimes, the story actually does not really seem plausible, but King has a gift, he puts even the most outlandish situation on paper and it is written in such a way that the reader not only believes it, the reader can’t wait to read on and will wait panting for the last book in the trilogy to be published to see how they are all tied together. This second book ends July 26th 2014, and I suppose this date will be very significant in the third book of the trilogy.
***I am curious about one thing, though. Why did King use a Jew, Rothstein, as the hoarder, not only of words, but of money? It is a rather disgusting variation of a negative stereotype.

Coralie lived in a house that also housed her father’s museum of wonders. She was not permitted to enter the museum part of the house until she reached a certain age. It contained specimens her father believed would be upsetting for her to see until she was 10 years old. In 1903, Coralie is finally old enough to enter. She has looked forward to this day, and although she enters with trepidation, she is also eager to see all that had been forbidden. Coralie had been sheltered from the world that existed outside of her home in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn. She was not allowed to mix with strangers. Brought up by a housekeeper/nanny, Maureen, who had been severely scarred from an acid attack, she was raised strictly. Her father’s rules were enforced and Maureen showed little outward affection toward her. Coralie really had no friends and no way to learn about the ways of the world. Coralie admired the “wonders” her father employed, the wonders that others, and even her father on some occasions, called freaks; the Siamese Twins, the Wolfman and the Butterfly Girl were all special to her, although many of the museum attractions often flitted in and out of her life because her father often fired them, without warning. Coralie had her own deformity. Her fingers were webbed. Her father warned her that she would be ridiculed and rejected as a freak if she showed them. As a result, she never went out in public without gloves.
Coralie’s father called himself Professor Sardie. Always on the lookout for a new attraction for his museum, he trained her to perform as a mermaid. She was able to stay submerged for great lengths of time, longer than most people could hold their breath. She trained in the Hudson River, a place she grew to love. In the museum, she swam in a tank; she was fitted with a mermaid costume. The museum held other strange wonders of the world under glass, some completely manufactured by Sardie. Coralie was devoted to her father and was always obedient. When attendance at the museum fell and their financial situation suffered, the professor abused Cora’s beauty and swimming ability to bring in extra cash. Cora was very naïve and weak and she did not fight back. She had no idea how to set herself free from her father’s control or his deceitful ways and was afraid, as she had been warned that society would reject her.
The major part of the novel took place in 1911, the year that Coralie turned 18. In that year, there was a terrible fire in the garment center of Manhattan. The owners of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory did not provide the workers with a decent wage or decent working conditions, and although the owners were able to escape a fiery death, their greed and cold-blooded disregard for their worker’s welfare was responsible for the deaths of scores of young children and women who worked the sewing machines slavishly. They were unable to get out of the building as stairways melted and exit doors were bolted. Two beautiful look-alike sisters worked there, but only one returned home that evening. Hannah Weiss was missing. Joseph Cohen, a devout, Orthodox Jew, advised Samuel to ask his son Ezekiel to find his daughter. He had not seen him in years, but he believed he had a talent for finding things. When he was about five years old, Ezekiel Cohen had escaped from the Ukraine and the pogroms with his father, Joseph. Somehow he was able to lead him out through the Russian forest. They came to the United States where Joseph earned his living as a tailor in Manhattan. Ezekiel followed in his footsteps, but for a variety of reasons he soon became disaffected with religion, and he Americanized his name and became Eddie. Leaving home in his teens, he eventually lost contact with his father and went to work for Abraham Hochman, the wizard, the seer of Rivington Street, a finder of missing things. After awhile, though, he came upon a photographer and was enchanted by his work. Soon, the photographer, Morris Levy was his mentor and surrogate parent. Eddie loved the camera lens because its eye saw more clearly than his own.
After the tragic garment center fire, spurred on by Joseph, Samuel Weiss beseeched Eddie to locate her. Eddie was shocked that his father even knew he was alive, yet alone where he lived. They had had no contact for years. Eddie was warmed by the thought that his father had been quietly watching him, never forgetting him. He surprised himself, moved by Weiss’ grief, and his father’s interest, he agreed to help, even though he no longer worked for “the wizard”.
Due to an odd set of circumstances, one involving Coralie and Eddie’s dog, Mitts, and another involving the search for Hannah Weiss, Coralie and Eddie meet for the first time. Instantly they are irreversibly attracted to each other, each occupying the other’s dreams afterward. Eddie had approached the Museum of Extraordinary Things in search of information on Hannah and was drawn to the strange “beauty” of the creatures lolling about there. He began to photograph them, completely enchanted, and he discovered that they were very willing subjects, eager to be sought after and appreciated. He spied Coralie, who was no longer a figment of his imagination or dreams, but Professor Sardie also spied him. Even after the Professor’s fury forced him off the property and he was violently beaten, their attraction to each other remained strong. Searching for love and a place to belong is universal, and all of the characters had been searching for years. Neither Coralie nor Eddie understood the meaning of love; Coralie had rarely been shown it and didn’t understand it; Eddie had misinterpreted several events in his life and become discouraged with it. Professor Sardie would have none of it, and he conspired to keep them apart.
As luck would have it, as the city advanced socially and commercially, and as Brooklyn became a mecca of amusement parks, the small museum’s success faded further. Greater attractions were being built and the museum was no longer profitable. Sardie, still obsessed with keeping the museum flourishing tried to “discover” a creature in the Hudson River that would reignite interest and bring throngs of people to his museum. To this end, he plotted and used Coralie in his maleficent scheme. However, his plan did not play out the way he had hoped and his difficulties soon grew worse. When a fire broke out at the newly renovated Dreamland Amusement park, it rang the death knell for his museum, as well.
Coralie discovered that the stories she had been told by her father, about her mother and her past were untrue. She began to wonder what else in her life was false. Who was her mother? How did Maureen acquire the scars? When she followed Maureen and discovered her relationship with the Wolfman, were they betraying her or protecting her?. Soon she realized that all she believed, all that her father had told her was not, in fact, the truth. He was not at all the man he pretended to be, and as his secrets were revealed she turned away from him. On the contrary, for Eddie, as his father’s secrets were revealed, he drew closer to his father. Where Eddie’s father possessed patience, Sardi possessed obsession and malice. They all soon discovered that the monster is often not the one who has the appearance of one.
There are a great many symbols and contrasting ideas expressed in the story. For instance, the blue thread is used to create things and to symbolize betrayal and death. It was a symbol both of luck and evil. The thread was used by the seamstress, the tailor, and on the opposite spectrum, the murderer and the victim. Injuries from burning recur in the story, from acid and flame. Fires break out in places of dreams and places of nightmares. There is a creature, a man who looks like a wolf, but his human nature is gentle and intelligent and then there is a wolf that has been somewhat tamed and tolerates some humans with gentleness and loyalty, although he remains true to his violent nature. There is the blue coat that is the symbol of a missing young woman and the coat that flies out as someone is thrown into the river, then there is the coat that is put on to provide warmth and comfort and the coat that is given as a gift of love, both in contrast. Water takes the life of some and saves the lives of others. One man is called ‘the wizard” because he discovers things that are hidden from those searching, another is called “the professor” because he discovers “wonders” to put on display and exploits those things he finds. Both main characters lived sheltered lives, one lived a life imposed by her father who thought he was godlike and the other lived a life imposed by his father and his father’s G-d, both lived in a prison of sorts from which they needed to break free. Famous names were sprinkled throughout, like the infamous criminal Al Capone contrasted with the opposing famous photographer, Alfred Stieglitz.
The story is told in alternating chapters featuring either Eddie or Cora. An additional narrator, at times, explained the background of the setting of the scene, and it sometimes created more confusion for me than explanation. At other times, the story veered off into extraneous directions which didn’t seem to truly serve much of a purpose, but then the reader might have a sudden revelation as the comparison between two opposing ideas became obvious. For instance, the relationship between the wolfman and the wolf was more interesting after careful thought. One behaved like a human and was taught to growl; the other’s nature was to growl but was taught to control it. This story coupled many ideas together in the same way that it coupled historic fact with fiction. It was a study in contrasts as well as kind of Romeo and Juliet drama. I was pleased to be encouraged to do further research into some of the incidents and areas described by the author. Ideas were presented and explored about the current events of the time frame, worker’s rights, women’s rights, class distinction, ethics and morality. The story clearly illustrated that you could, but should not judge a book by its cover. Wonders were not freaks, but simply people in different aspects. Outward appearances and behavior often gave false impressions. The Professor dressed well, but he was selfish and cruel. Raymond Morris looked monstrous, but he was kind and compassionate.
At the end, I had some unanswered questions to think about. I wondered why Eddie returned the watch he had stolen. Did it signify that he could finally see the truth of his errors while the other man remained blind and unwilling to see the errors of his own. Did he want to cut off connections to his Harry’s evil. I couldn’t help thinking of the Twin Towers as the historic fires were described, as victims jumped to escape the flames and other victims ran to escape. I wondered how many other readers might have also connected the two events.
I was drawn to this book because it takes place in an area I knew well. Born and raised in Brooklyn, Coney Island was my playground. I was a teacher in the Williamsburg area. My father was brought to Manhattan from the Ukraine by his father, who was, coincidentally, another Joseph Cohen. My grandfather, however, was a house painter. He eventually moved his family from the Lower East Side of Manhattan, to Brooklyn. My maternal grandfather came from Kiev and was a tailor. My husband’s grandfather came from Poland and was a tailor. I have a painting of a tailor in a skullcap that is faded and ghostly. So the story attracted me first because of the nostalgia, and then because I also grew up in the era of Barnum and Bailey and the notorious “freak shows” of the circus. I remember that it was the least favorite part of the circus for me. I rarely went with the rest of my family. As I recalled the neighborhoods and highlights of my younger days, I was drawn more and more into the story. Gravesend, Flatlands, Brighton, Kings County, Chelsea and Central Park were all familiar places to me and it was a fine place in which to grow up, in my day.

The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessey, author, Rachel Joyce; narrator, Celia Imrie
The author bills this book as a companion to “The Pilgrimage of Harold Fry”. In that book, Harold is trekking 600 miles across England, trying to reach the bedside of a friend in hospice care. Queenie Hennessy and Harold Fry have not been in touch for the last 20 years, but she has suddenly reached out to him. Touched by her letter, he drops everything and begins walking across England, from one side to the other, encouraging her to hold on and to for him to arrive. Whereas the first book was written from Harold’s perspective, this one is written from Queenie’s. This book is written with the same lightness and humor, rich with simple truths and marvelous characters. Even though the main character and her fellow residents are all dying, the book is not morose. Rather this book stresses the need to continue living, not to continue dying as so many do, but to enjoy life, taking pleasure from whatever opportunity presents itself and never giving up until death takes us in its arms. Harold Fry’s journey and Queenie’s effort to wait for him is a love story, a confession, an apology, and an expression of appreciation. It is also inspirational, as the reader joins the other hospice patients eagerly awaiting his arrival, hoping that they, too, will live until that day.
At the end of her life, Queenie seemed to be driven by the need to tie up her loose ends by making a full confession to Harold about something she had done that concerned him and his family. She believed that her actions were responsible for a tragedy that touched him, and that she must explain it to him so that she could be forgiven. This book, then, is the tale of Queenie, how she became who she was, how she came to write the letter to Harold, followed by a journal which was her full confession. It is the world as it was viewed from her eyes. The reader will learn abut the many sacrifices she made for Harold and of the ways in which she interfered in his life. It is about her unrequited, forbidden love for him and about her hidden relationship with his rather disturbed son. It is about a woman who managed to find the strength to recreate herself when necessary, to join in the life of her community, whether it was at home or in the hospice, and to enjoy her own company even when life seemed too difficult to face. It is a story about the beauty of the small things in life that we often overlook; the trees, flowers, rocks, scents and friendships are appreciated. The kind and patient Queenie always seemed to find the silver lining that she sought and often helped others to discover.
Queenie’s character and Harold’s son David’s character are much more fully developed and explored in this book, and there is a decided absence of his wife, Maureen. David was suffering from his own life threatening illness, depression and alcoholism. David was obsessed with life’s injustices and yet he committed more of them without remorse as each day passed. As his mental illness robbed him of a full life, he robbed others. He stole, not only Queenie’s money and possessions, but her poetry, and as a byproduct, his ultimate actions also stole a piece of her lifel. The book is Queenie’s memoir of sorts. It is her acknowledgment of her feelings and of her improper relationship with his son.
This book is really not about her death, though, but about her life. It is about everything having a season. Even her own beautiful seed garden was not immortal, nor was the child she lost. There are term limits on everything, it seems, but that doesn’t mean that the limit is what should be stressed, rather it is the time before that end date is reached that is important. The end of the book held some surprises for me and I had to listen to some of it over and over. The author truly dealt with the experience of dying, and yet it was not morose, rather it was enlightening. The patients were dying, but in that experience, they developed camaraderie among themselves and still took pleasure from life as they enjoyed each other’s company. If nothing else, this book sheds a light on how to treat those of us who learn, prematurely, of our own expiration dates. We all want to be treated with dignity. We all seek support and comfort when it is given sincerely.
The book was poignant as it concentrated on the interactions of the patients, the medical staff, the nuns, and those that inevitably watched and waited for Harold. Harold’s walk inspired them all to try and live another day, as it also illustrated how sometimes life hijacked one’s true purpose, so that the original meaning of one’s effort was lost in the shuffle due to the unwanted interference from others. Harold’s compassionate effort was usurped by those who sought the spotlight for themselves. They lost sight of the reason for his travels, which was to keep Queenie alive a bit longer, and were more interested in their own journey’s completion. His journey was a vehicle that explored human nature for good and ill.
The narrator provided a wonderfully sensitive reading in which the characters were perfectly drawn. The author wrote in an easy, simple but expressive prose. The words flowed so smoothly, making it a comfortable, tender read that never bent to the melodramatic. The dialogue between the patients and the nurses was often humorous but also very authentic and touching.
When Harold told Queenie she must wait for him to arrive, he somehow believed that she would continue to live. As Queenie tells she story, the reader will be rooting for her and for Harold. She had never faced her problems head-on before, and in her delusions, that she calls morphine dreams, she faces them squarely. Harold also wants to face his past and wishes to apologize and thank Queenie for protecting him. Did Harold arrive in time?
I wasn’t sure in the end about some of the parts. Were they real or delusions. Like Queenie, I entered her dream state, albeit without the morphine. I listened to the audio, and I think it truly enhanced the narrative in this book as each character came distinctly alive in their own special way, from the crotchety Mr. Henderson to the sweet Barbara and the marvelously compassionate nuns who encouraged the patients to live life everyday rather than contemplate their impending death. As was often thought and said, there was plenty of time for that.

Lacy Eye, Jessica Treadway, author, Ellen Archer, narrator
When the novel begins, the reader learns that on the same day that the Schutt family was robbed, by an unknown thief, Joe Schutt was awakened and murdered in his bedroom, and his wife Hanna was brutally bludgeoned and left for dead on the bed. She suffered a brain injury and was severely disfigured, but did survive. We later learn that Joe’s inhaler had sadistically been smashed, and the phone was ripped from the wall to prevent a call to 911, in this horrific home invasion.
While suspicion falls upon their younger daughter Dawn, for orchestrating both crimes, she is not indicted. It is her boyfriend, Rud Petty who is sentenced to prison, largely based on witnesses to Hanna’s responses to questioning on the night of both crimes. Because of a technicality regarding her “death bed nodding”, and the severity of her injuries, Petty has been granted a new trial. At the same time as this happens, Dawn, who had left home and moved to California after her boyfriend was sentenced, declaring she no longer loved him, decides to return home to help her mother get through the ordeal of another trial. The community is leery of her as many believe she committed or participated in the horrific crime, including her older sister, Iris, who never wants to see her again. Dawn is ridiculed and compared to Lizzie Borden.
Dawn Schutt has always been in the shadow of her sister who is the achiever in the family. Dawn is different. She had a lazy eye as a youngster and was bullied. She also seems to have an arrested emotional development, often reacting in unexpected immature ways. She has a lack of confidence, exacerbated by the way her fellow classmates and “friends” tease and torment her, calling her fish face and ding-dong because of how she looks and responds to them. Her reactions are often inappropriate and naïve. She seems to withdraw from confrontations, rather than respond with anger.
When she agreed, unexpectedly to go away to college, her parents were surprised but happy. There, she met and fell in love with Rud Petty. He is the first boy to ever really look at her, and although a decade older, she never even stops to wonder why he has such an interest in her, although everyone else seemed to be surprised. Dawn had created an entirely false persona for her friends at school, telling everyone stories about her background that had nothing to do with the truth. To hear her tell it, she was pretty much an heiress with a trust fund.
Next door to the Schutts there is a family with a child who is also different. Emmett Furth is the neighborhood troublemaker. Suspicion was immediately cast upon him because of his previous vandalism and malicious behavior around the neighborhood. Even Dawn tries to cast suspicion upon him regarding the robbery, murder and attack on her mother.
Now that there is going to be a new trial, the prosecutor has contacted Hanna. Gail wants her to help in the new trial by giving testimony, and she encourages her to try to remember anything she can about that horrible night. She does not want the original conviction reversed, but Hanna is beginning to wonder if Rud is guilty. She has begun to have strange flashes of memory and she doesn’t want to have the wrong man pay for the crime. She is determined to try and remember, but she has always been the “procrastinator in chief” and she keeps doubting the veracity of her flashbacks. Hanna, who generally tries to avoid confrontation, keeps lots of secrets, and she continues to do this with her recent thoughts about that fateful night. She attributes this closed-mouth behavior to her Scandinavian background. She insists to both the prosecutor and Dawn that she remembers nothing of that night.
While some of the clues misdirect, the solution to this whodunit is always at the edge of the reader’s vision, just waiting to come into full view. It is read expertly by Ellen Archer. When she engages the character of Dawn she is Dawn, and her diabolical nature shines through. With Hanna, her personality and practice of avoidance becomes so obvious I wanted to scream at her to wake up. The author’s descriptions of the characters, major and minor truly brought them to life. Once I started listening to this book, I couldn’t stop. I listened until the wee hours of the morning to finish it. It is a page turner or an ear burner!

Florence Gordon, Brian Morton, author; Dawn Harvey, narrator
I highly recommend this book for women who are extreme feminists and ultra liberals. They may like it far more than I did. It highlights the differences between generations and genders in the way they think, react and function. I did not like a single one of the characters. Every woman had a mean, nasty disposition. They didn’t speak to each other as much as they attacked each other or fenced with each other, parrying back and forth
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The female characters were far better developed than any of the males, however, they were all ultimately in the same mold, selfish and self-centered in their need to succeed and demand their rightful place in the world. It struck me that those people who marched for various causes rarely wanted equality, rather they wanted superiority, the same superiority they resented in the groups they protested against.

The book’s title takes its name from the main character, a woman with not much vanity who is an independent, no-nonsense, fiercely opinionated, crotchety, rude, bordering on malicious, writer of some stature. She has published books of essays for several decades, and although she had not had recent successes, she was once the trailblazer of the feminist movement. Suddenly, at 75, she appeared on the front page of the NY Times Book Review. The limelight had found her again. Florence was divorced from Saul Gordon, also an author, a man with a gruff appearance and personality. His fame had also occurred in the past, and he resented being forgotten, especially when she was suddenly remembered in again with such a tribute.

As parents to Daniel, Florence and Saul left a lot to be desired. They were too selfish and wrapped up in their own needs to care much about anyone else. Even when it came to their grandchild, Emily, there was no long lasting feeling of love lost. Emily was the child of Daniel and his wife Janine. They resided in Seattle where he was a policeman specializing in crisis intervention. Janine was currently, temporarily, living in NYC where she had taken a job doing behavioral research for a year. Emily had left college, theoretically, also temporarily, and is living with her mother.

When Daniel came to New York for an extended visit, making good use of his accrued vacation time, his family found his visit a little disruptive and intrusive. His mother preferred her solitude. His daughter had a romantic secret, and Janine was contemplating an elicit affair. He was the only character presented with any sense of morality and/or ethics. Most of the other characters, male and female were manipulative and even malicious at times.

There is a common thread in this book and that is that almost every character had a secret that they were keeping from one or another. Almost every one was rude at times, and few showed true appreciation for anything done for them by anyone or for what life had offered them. Rather they took and abused their gifts without any sense of gratitude. I found it a bit scary to think that these selfish, one-dimensional characters might and actually do resemble real live people. Each woman was a liar. Each sneaked around and disobeyed rules they didn’t like. Each tested the water of illicit desires. While each of the women seemed to believe they were superior in some way, they behaved poorly and seemed to want to be rewarded for their poor behavior, for their desire to party and misbehave as well as fight for their rights as equals in the workplace and the world. The author has painted an ugly picture of the independent woman. It would seem that the biggest effort expended by all is the effort to betray someone in some way. Left handed compliments, direct insults and self-serving behavior was the norm.

Perhaps this is supposed to be a funny critique of the feminist movement, but the tongue in cheek remarks and attempts at humor did not work for me. In addition, each of the male characters was also painted as flawed. They were largely unfaithful and some showed a distinct lack of ambition and/or desire to work hard and accomplish something worthwhile, rather they wanted to be rewarded for their efforts whether or not they had real value, and they were dependent on others for their happiness.

In the end, the book leaves the characters hanging in limbo, what does Janine do going forward, what does Emily eventually do, what does Daniel wind up doing? What really happens to Florence? Regardless of the questions raised and left unanswered, one thing is probably certain; it would appear that Florence never let anyone but herself rule her own destiny even when faced with the most traumatic of decisions.

When the book ended, I thought to myself, who wants a world dominated by these unfeeling, cold, thoughtless, sarcastic and relatively sadistic men and women, who concentrated only on their own needs always, first and foremost, without any consideration for the needs of anyone else? None of the characters were portrayed with nice character traits. One was addle-brained, one was too controlling, one was rude, one was crude, one was a letch, one seemed unbalanced and disturbed. A person’s shortcoming became the magnet for a display of discourteous behavior, for sarcasm and ridicule.

I can’t think of one character that I would choose to be with, as a matter of fact, although, at first I thought the granddaughter Emily might be a good character, or even Daniel the son, they turned out to have just as mean a streak as the others. None had enough redeeming features to make them likeable. Any character that appeared nice, was also stupid or naïve, take your pick! To think that those are the people who achieve the most fame and success was not very funny to me. Rather, it was a sad commentary on their lives.

The book is presented in short vignettes, with more than 100 chapters, which is a bit distracting, and the scenes and timeline are all over the place as they jump from character to character and event to event. The reader was not that effective at defining each individual character or moment in time so that they were sometimes not very recognizable. Sometimes the character’s voice actually seemed to slip out of character, and sometimes more than one resembled another. Political Correctness has run amok in this novel along with morality. Perhaps this author has a finger on the pulse of our world today, or is the media, the publishing world and the intellectual world actually creating the ugly reality we find so prevalent today?

The Secret Wisdom of the Earth, Christopher Scotton, Robert Petkoff, narrator
Although there are many themes in this novel, homophobia, the environment, an array of human emotions, devotion, life and death, good and evil, it really works because it is also a story about a grandfather and a grandson, their love for each other and the lengths to which they will go to hold onto that love. The book is poignant and humorous at just the right times so as not to make it cloying.
The generational divide disappears as the older man teaches the younger one to appreciate the natural world around him and how to survive within it. The author has given the reader the gift of watching them as they bond in a world that is alive with nature’s bounty. Also, we will be given a view into an Appalachian coal town, not only its beauty and its mountains, but into the world of its poverty stricken inhabitants who are inbred, illiterate and therefore unworldly and locked into a downward spiral from which it is difficult to escape.
It is 1985, Kevin Gillooly is 14 ½ years old; his 3 year old brother was killed in a horrifying freak accident, witnessed by Kevin and his mother, two months before. She has never recovered and has retreated into herself. Kevin’s dad is taking them from their home in Indiana to his mom’s family home for the summer, in the fictional mining town of Medgar, Kentucky, in the heart of Appalachia, to stay with her dad, Arthur Peebles, a former war hero, now a Veterinarian. They are hoping this change of scenery will help her snap out of her ever present stupor. Although Kevin barely shows it, he is actually guilt ridden because both his parents blame him for the death of his brother, Joshua. Arthur Peebles still mourns the death of his wife, decades later, so he understands his daughter’s grief very well. Her mom died giving birth to her, but unlike Kevin’s parents who assigned blame to Kevin, Arthur did not blame Annie for the death of her mother, his one true love.
Over the next few months, Kevin and his granddad, Pops, grow very close. He begins to accompany him on his veterinary rounds, and he learns a great deal about people and human nature, about how they treat each other and how they treat their animals. His granddad teaches him how to fish, trap and hike. He promises to take him on “the tramp” before the summer’s end, camping, fishing and living off the land alone. The reader is privileged to watch the beautiful relationship that develops between the older man, a seeming clone of the original Atticus Finch, and his grandson, as he teaches him the traditions and skills that only a grandfather in that part of the country could, that only one with the infinite patience of Arthur could. He seems to have the right sort of response for all circumstances. He is well respected in town and his influence is strong. Add Audy Rae to this mix and discover Arthur’s longtime housekeeper who is filled with the milk of human kindness and the story takes off. Surrounded by these loving characters, Kevin will begin to grow as he learns to appreciate the beauty of the country surrounding him at the same time as he begins to notice the destruction of the landscape around him and recognize that it is caused by the coal mining companies. They, blow off the tops of the mountains, contaminating the community without a second thought but for their own greed.
When Buzzy Fink enters Kevin’s life, all of the ingredients for his summer of growing up fall into place. Buzzy Fink comes from a poor family of good people. He lives in “Fink’s Hollow”. His family expects him to accomplish something, to behave properly and not to make trouble. His grandmother has taught him many homespun recipes for cures and many homespun superstitions as well, and they all come in handy. Buzzy seems far older than his 15 years, and with his mischievous behavior, he helps Kevin learn how to feel again. When necessary, he exhibits the rare courage few grown men possess, although it is Buzzy’s brother, Cleo, who is the town hero, for his athletic prowess. Yet, it was Buzzy’s courage that eventually forced Kevin to find his own brave heart.
Bubba Boyd was a bully as a youth and as an adult he still is a bully. He is the rich man behind the coal mine that is destroying the environment around them. He is trying to buy out all the landowners to expand his mine. He has no real interest in the town. He ignores the health issues that his mining has caused. For him the mine is really a matter of life and death. He blackmails the townspeople with promises of jobs and benefits to help them, but then does not accept responsibility when they suffer and die from the effects of the mine and the mining.
Paul Pierce (Mr. Paul), is a part owner with his cousin, Miss Janey, in the Paris Salon. He lives with his partner, Paitsel, a former baseball hero, and is the rare brave soul who is willing to fight big money and the bully, Bubba Boyd. Paul is leading the effort to stop Bubba’s rape of their land, blowing off the tops of the mountains and turning their landscape into a barren wasteland. He is contaminating their water supply and there are excessive amounts of disease as a result of the mine work and the environmental contamination. At one of the meetings, Bubba comes in and shuts it down because he owns the building and tells them that they can’t meet there. He insults the government representative, calling him a Jew boy, a heritage he vehemently denies. Then he reveals what was once an “open secret” in the town, and with its sudden public pronouncement, the town reels, humiliated. Arthur stops the shameful display of prejudice, but what follows afterward is a brutal murder which further shakes the townsfolk and the town to its core and reveals its deep seated hypocrisy.
Tilroy is a teenager from a more typical backward family in Appalachia. He makes wonderful drawings for Mr. Paul. He is a boy conflicted by his enormous artistic talent, his sexual confusion and his background of poverty and ignorance. He is the town bully and troublemaker. He is the prime example of society’s failure.
The beauty and the dangers of the natural world are explored alongside what some characters considered the unnatural behavior of human beings. The need to respect the environment is well developed, and the absence of respect for all human beings leads to tragedy. The stupidity of homophobia and of uneducated and extreme religious views, are also illuminated in the wake of the tragedy. Peer pressure and public shaming cause tragic behavior. Guilt, fear, bravery, good and evil are covered at turns, as well.
There are several tragedies that occur in this book, and most are vicious and violently described. Yet, they are dealt with in such a way that the reader is able to cope with them without wanting to look away. The deaths are an important part of the direction of the narrative. Blame, as well as praise, is often placed on the most obvious suspect, but that is often a trick of the eye or a blind eye on the issues. Hypocrisy is so rampant it will anger the reader at times, but all of the issues are dealt with well and appropriately. The harrowing details of Arthur’s rescue by his grandson and his friend sometimes stretch credibility, but the reader might just think, yes, it could happen that way, even when some of the details seemed unfathomable.
There is magic afoot with the appearance of an albino stag with huge antlers. He guides Kevin when he is in danger. When their eyes met, Kevin believed the deer carried within him “the secret wisdom of the earth”. Was the animal real or a figment of Kevin’s imagination to give him courage? No one else saw it.
After the terribly brutal murder of Mr. Paul, the arc of the story takes a different direction as the mystery of “whodunit” develops. While Pops, Kevin and Buzzy are on the tramp they are suddenly being watched and tracked. As they are hunted and they attempt to escape, they must stare down their own fear as the pressure mounts. Kevin must rescue Arthur, Buzzy must find their predator, will they all survive? Sometimes this part of the story took me back to memories of the movie “Deliverance” with all of its tense moments.
The book takes the reader from one century to the next, starting with the birth of Anna and Arthur, early in the 1900’s and ending in 2014, when they returned to Medgar for a funeral and brief reunion with Buzzy.
The narrator, Robert Petkoff was excellent. He absolutely identified each character in his/her own unique way and spoke the words with just the right emphasis and tone for each of them at every moment. This author has written a book that it is hard to put down!

Best Boy, Eli Gottlieb, author; Bronson Pinchot, narrator
This is a very moving story about a boy, now grown into a man, who has spent the last 40 years of his life, since the age of eleven, in some special facility equipped to handle those with special needs and brain injuries. Todd Aaron is autistic, but, with a bit of assistance, he can function somewhat independently. Although he is unable to process certain situations, thoughts and feelings comfortably, he seems unusually gentle and thoughtful, possessing more common sense than many of those around him who are in positions of authority and who are supposed to have healthy minds and/or professional training. He doesn’t lie; he tries hard to follow instructions and obeys the rules. He tries not to offend anyone and is polite and courteous. He takes his medications regularly and works very hard to control what he calls the “volts”, the times when he wants to explode because the world begins to spin out of control. Todd’s parents are both deceased, and his brother Nate is responsible for his care. Nate is married to Beth and they have two sons. Nate wonders if genetics is at play in his own family when he thinks about their behavior and the behavior of some older relatives. He should also wonder about his own behavior which leaves something to be desired.
Todd is known as the “best boy”. He is a model resident. Todd wants to go back home. He has always wanted to go back home. He reminds his brother, often, that he really wants to return to see his family home once more. Sadly, his brother keeps making excuses to explain why he cannot, blaming his wife and a past disruptive incident when they were all together. His brother often complains to Todd about his own difficult life and struggles.
It is sad to see how, in general, these people with special needs are abandoned by their families, sometimes because they are ill equipped to handle them and sometimes because they simply don’t want to be bothered. It is easy for an unscrupulous person to take advantage of a “damaged” individual. What is revealed in this book is that the family can harm the residents as well as the people who often work in these institutions who are transient and sometimes not well vetted. Evil people can manipulate them easily if they fall through the cracks and background checks. So, too, can some of the residents if they are left to their own devices and are poorly supervised. They can sometimes be more harmful to these needy residents than one would think and can cause them great harm.
The contrast between Todd’s honesty and that of some of the people closest to him is stark. Although he is the one with special needs, he seems to have a greater sense of ethics than those around him. There were times when I simply wanted to jump up and shout at some of the family members, employees, medical workers and law enforcement officers. I was surprised when I realized that even some of the residents were capable of inflicting harm to another because of their disorder. The art of pairing them up in living quarters required the utmost care.
The novel felt like it could be real, not fiction, like the characters could step from the page and be living someplace nearby in a group residence, struggling with their disability, struggling to find a place for themselves where they could fit in and feel comfortable and safe, a place where fingers didn’t point at them, a place where they could relax, a place called home.

Orhan’s Inheritance, Aline Ohanesian, author, Assaf Cohen, narrator
Based on the author’s background and actual history, this book tells the story of the Armenian genocide that has for so long been denied by the Turks. It tells the story from all vantage points, illustrating the abuses and suffering on all sides of the tragedy as WWI raged. Nothing I have read in the past, or now, makes me believe that this did not happen or that it was not the atrocity the Armenians claimed, but I am sure there are Turks who will still deny it.
The brutality and violence inflicted upon an innocent group of people, aimed at wiping out their population because of their heritage, cannot be excused away by saying it was them or me. Its memory cannot be put on the garbage heap of history as if it never occurred. The forced exile of these people was carried out with a cold cruelty that brooked no compromise. Although the men and women of Christian and Armenian descent had done nothing to indicate that they were enemies of the Turks, the Turkish government wanted them out of their country, and the Turkish citizenry convinced themselves that the Armenians would do just the same to them if they had had the opportunity to expel the Turks first. The deed itself was heinous, but they made it worse by stealing their businesses and homes and possessions, justifying their own improved status as the consequences of war. Couple that greed and jealousy with religious bigotry and war, add in the thugs that were willing to carry out the willful extermination of a people, and you had all the ingredients needed to set the scene for the Armenian genocide. With guards, few in number but high in their ability to be vicious and sadistic, thousands of Armenians were suddenly forced to march out of Turkey without time for adequate preparation and with few belongings, to their deaths. Unable to defend themselves, and with no possibility of outside help, they had no choice but to obey the edicts. The scope of this criminal act, at this time, had no comparison. It was before Hitler. The Turks have tried to purge the event from memory, but the Armenians, like the Jews who suffered through the Holocaust, are keeping the memory alive, hoping to prevent such an occurrence from repeating itself. This is a novel, not an actual historic presentation, but it illustrates that time of horror, hopelessness and helplessness, because it did occur.
The story is told in two time frames. One begins in 1915, when all the able-bodied Armenian men and women were rounded up and arrested and most were murdered in cold blood. Then each remaining family was given an oxcart and forced to quickly evacuate, although there were not enough oxcarts to go around. The only men remaining were infirm or too young to help. The women gathered their children, what they determined were bare necessities and treasures, and prepared to leave. They were given little food and water and marched in all weather, until they dropped from exhaustion, thirst or starvation. The women and children were brutally raped and beaten, and sometimes they were taken pretty much as slaves. Anyone who came to their defense was beaten mercilessly and/or murdered.
The other time frame begins in 1990 when the dead body of Kemal, a man in his 90’s, is found immersed in a vat of blue die. His will leaves his business to his grandson Orhan Turkoglu and the home his father and his aunt Fatma live in to a stranger, a woman named Seda in California. Orhan’s father, Mustafa, is enraged. He threatens to take action knowing the courts and laws of inheritance will support him. He sues his own son, Orhan, for his own father’s property. Orhan sets out for the United States to try and get the house back from the mystery woman. This still does not make his father a happy man. His father is not a happy man, in general.
The back history about Kemal is that as a young illiterate man, he worked for the well-to-do Melkonian family that ran a successful Kilim business in Sivas Province and lived on the highest plot of land in the town, which was forbidden to Christians, but had been overlooked. His boss had two beautiful daughters, one of whom had touched his heart. Lucine was only 15 at the time, but she was forbidden, as an Armenian Christian to have any romantic relationship with a Muslim Turk, especially one that was beneath her, uneducated and poor. However they were friends and she was going to teach him how to read. Kemal’s family was also in the kilim business, they were weavers, but they were not as successful.
After Turkey expelled the Armenians, and they were separated, each of them, unbeknownst to each other, carried something the other had given them, as a talisman. He carried her handkerchief and she carried his drawing of herself that he had made. The artistic Kemal became a photographer. Using his grandfather’s camera he was able to see “more of the world” than with his own naked eye. However, he was arrested, beaten and tortured because of a photo he took, quite innocently. He was accused of being an enemy of the state and exiled to Germany. Eventually he was released and pardoned, and back in Turkey, he was conscripted. When the war ended, he found himself at an inn run by his Aunt Fatma. Fatma had rescued Lucine Melkonian, the woman Kemal had loved when they were children. When they were being forced to leave, he had actually offered to marry her and keep her safe. Kemal was a Muslim Turk and was not forced to leave. Lucine would not abandon her Armenian Christian family.
After some time, during the forced march out of Germany, Lucine wound up alone. Near death, she was rescued by Fatma, Kemal’s aunt, who was the whore at the local inn, servicing the servicemen. To survive, she did what she had to do. She renames Lucine Seda, which is a Turkish name. Fatma is pregnant and gives birth to a child. The father’s identity is unknown.
Kemal had asked Lucine to wait for his return. He went off to set up his future, but when he did not return or write in a timely fashion, when her uncle showed up, she left with him to search for her brother, Bedros. Eventually, Lucine leaves everything behind and travels to the United States, settling in California. Her thoughts of Kemal, and the pain associated with him, are buried deep within her, and she never speaks of her experiences in Turkey again.
In the present time, in California, 90 year old Lucine, now only using the name Seda, is living in the Ararat Home. Her niece Ani, is planning to run a show of remembrance for the victims of the genocide. The show will be held in the home where there are several survivors who did not succumb to the genocide. Ani wants to keep the memory alive and to get closure from the Turks who have never taken responsibility for the tragedy and their abysmal behavior. As Kemal watches these elderly Armenian victims bear witness, he begins to realize that what he always believed about that time of history, was not quite true. With Seda’s revelations, his world is turned upside down. He must process and reconcile this new information Seda has given him. What Orhan finds out proves that his father’s court case will fail. As Kemal’s family heritage is unwound by Seda, his history becomes clearer and so does his responsibility to the Armenians. He is determined to set the record straight, even though the newfound reality will be traumatic for some people close to him. Making it right, he believes, is the far better choice and is his greater responsibility. He realizes this is also what his grandfather must have wanted him to do and he does it for him, as well.
I had an audio and a print copy of this book, but I preferred the print copy because of the unusual names and foreign terms.

Purity, Jonathan Franzen, author; narrators, Dylan Baker, Jenna Lamia, Robert Petkoff
Jonathan Franzen has produced a novel about unlikeable people, each with a peculiar need or dysfunction. The language is foul and the sex is in every conceivable form. It seems to be written not for a literary purpose, but for shock purpose. I will say, though, that at the end, I was surprised he was able to knit all of the characters together, in one narrative and then tie up all of the loose ends, connecting all of the threads. It was, at times, tedious and unpleasant to read; I can’t recommend it. The story was sometimes humorous and very creative, but it was a kind of originality that had no redeeming features for me. The subject matter could have been interesting if that was developed rather than the deviant behaviors. The characters were preoccupied with ridiculous romances and projects that seemed totally meaningless. Most of the characters simply wanted to jump into someone's bed, if not literally, than figuratively.
Purity Tyler, 23, known as pussy cat to her mother and Pip to her classmates and friends, was obsessed with learning the identity of her father. She was brought up at or below the poverty line by her mother, Anabel Laird, an emotionally arrested and disturbed woman whom she utterly adored or hated, alternately. Unknown to most who knew her, Annabel was an heiress who had disavowed her extreme wealth along with animal products and had become a Buddhist. She manipulated everyone with her infantile, demanding behavior. The modus operandi of her daughter, Pip, was to entice and then sleep her way through her boyfriends. She did awful things, then lied about them and then apologized for doing them, believing that she would always be forgiven by all, as she had been forgiven by her mother; she seemed to be nothing more than an obsessed, immature young woman who did not often think before she acted. Katya was Annabel’s mother-in-law. She was domineering and most often verbalized whatever was on her mind, making her extremely rude and easy to dislike. Her son Tom adored her, but she was a thorn in Annabel’s back, pretty much for good reason. Their dislike for each other was mutual. When Tom could no longer tolerate Annabel’s behavior, they divorced. Tom remained in love with her and kept her secrets from Pip in an act of loyalty. David Laird, Annabel’s father, was very wealthy and that was his fatal flaw. Annabel hated him for exploiting animals to make his money. He, however, loves Annabel and often seeks reconciliation with her. His enormous wealth has, ironically, made unhappy victims of all of his children. When Annabel’s husband, Tom, accepts money from him to start a magazine to do investigative reporting, she is furious with him. She believes her father controls people with his gifts and cannot understand Tom‘s betrayal. Yet Anabel betrays those who care for her by keeping secrets and not divulging very important, personal information. Another female character is Leila. She is a self-sacrificing woman who is jealous of her lover’s (Tom) ex-wife (Annabel) and still takes care of her disabled husband (Charles), who is kind and was paralyzed in an accident. It was an undeserved cruel act of fate. Tom is jealous of her kindness to Chalres even though he still maintains a relationship with Anabel, on occasion.
Now we get to Annagret, a young, unhappy 15 year old who meets Andreas Wolf when he worked as a counselor at a church she would escape to in order to get away from her stepfather, Horst. She presented herself as the sexually abused victim of Horst. Andreas, almost twice her age, at 27, immediately fell in love with her, and when she expresses her desire to get rid of Horst permanently, Andreas jumps in with a plan. It is intimated that Annagret is sometimes unsure about her own sexuality and is also an accomplished liar. For his part, Andreas is sexually deviant and prefers masturbation and other sexual pleasures to intercourse. He believes he is destined for greatness and eventually becomes a famous personage who brings sunlight to the world by exposing people and events in much the same way as Julian Assange does in the present day. He is worshipped and revered by those who know him. All the females want to take him to bed. To the world, although he is quite insane, he seems quite charming and very successful, using the internet as his tool to inform on others.
As the story develops, Pip becomes involved with Andreas in her search for the identity of her father. A friend tells her that he can surely help and she takes a job as an intern with his company. It is through Andreas that she makes a connection with Tom, working as a kind of undercover agent for his organization, but she soon develops a close relationship with Tom and his lover, Leila and wants to discontinue working for him. Andreas, meanwhile is now in love with Pip, although she is much younger. His relationship with Anigret is over. Most of the time, Pip ends up in love/hate relationships with almost everyone she becomes involved. She often betrays them in one way or another, and afterwards, she is consumed with guilt and remorse. However, she rarely changes her pattern of behavior or matures until she meets Jason, at which time her life turns in another healthier, more positive direction.
Along with constant sexual references of one kind or another, the reader will be submerged in filthy language using the most despicable words to describe women. Many of the characters are introduced early and then explored later on in each successive chapter as the story develops. As a result, often the timeline goes back and forth and it can grow confusing and repetitive. All told, it is a book about socially maladjusted men, spoiled, dysfunctional women, foul language, sexual deviancy in many arenas, the thrill that a disturbed person might feel after committing a murder and the ramifications of the guilt that person carries with them ever after, the internet and social media with its incumbent dangers and benefits to individuals and society, mayhem, immaturity, secrets, lies and denials, suicide and hero worship, socialism and capitalism, politics, self-destruction and ambition, greed and selflessness with a lot of less than stellar characters. It is an examination of the behavior of an odd assortment of damaged characters. If this is your kind of book, have at it.
I read the book until the end because of the reputation of the author, so perhaps I am guilty of an offense some of the female characters were guilty of, hero worship, and like them, I was eventually disappointed. Perhaps, it would have been a better read, absent the overdone sex, filthy language, completely disturbed cast, and the not so subtle expression of the author’s personal politics. The author sent a bit of a mixed message with the extreme left and right positions voiced, although the obvious agenda was largely on the left. The love of money, corrupt governments and politics, the abuse of the environment, and animal rights took the center stage. While it has been referred to by some as a remodeling of Dicken’s “Great Expectations”, I think Dickens might turn over in his grave if he heard that!
I gave it two stars...one for both effort and content and one for reputation. It could have been a more interesting story about the growth of individuals who once lived in fear in a divided Germany, under the ever watchful eye of the Stasi, the brutal Secret Police force in East Germany. It could have catalogued their evolution as they traveled about and away, and developed their futures in places that offered more freedom of choice, like the United States. Instead, it was about victims who continued to carry with them the effect of their former lives, their former fears, the fears they had felt while living in an oppressive environment, society or home, a place that inhibited growth, diversity and success. Their futures and that of their offspring, coupled with the future of all those with whom they dealt, afterwards, would face serious consequences; there would be a price to be paid for their behavior.
The audio was effective although some of the voices ran into each other. Annabel’s sounded like Pip’s which was too young, but perhaps that was because Annabel was immature. I had difficulty discerning the voices of individual characters. The tone and expression sometimes felt overdone, as well, but mostly it was well done. Just beware, though, you, the reader, will be drowned in a sea of dirty words and dysfunctional sexual desire.

Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights: A Novel, Salman Rushdie, author; Robert G. Slade, narrator
I think Rushdie is brilliant. The time period in the title computes to 1001 nights. I had to do some research before I could begin to write the review because I could not remember the story of Scheherazade or The 1001 Nights which this fairytale is loosely based upon. His presentation is humorous, even though the subject is really a serious one alluding to the state of current world affairs. The tongue in cheek, sometimes very subtle references to the problems we face today are very thought provoking. This novel is much more than a fairy tale; it is a treatise on humanity, love and hate, peace and war, the future and the past. As the author states, this is a tale about Jinn, not genies, or the Jeanie of television fame who lived in a bottle and had a master. These are not the grantors of wishes. This is a race of creatures both good and evil, made up of smokeless fire.
Ibn Rushd, a Muslim Rationalist, a man who believed in reason and morality, (your eyes do not deceive you, his name looks like the author’s name), and Theologian, Ghazali of Iran, an Islamic scholar, had a philosophical feud. Ghazali was the victor. Rushd (pronounced Roosht), was not faithful enough and was exiled to a community that was famous for being the apparently not so secret, sanctuary of Jews who could not admit they are Jews. When, one day, there was a knock on his door and a woman appeared looking for refuge, he believed that she was one of the Jews who was not a Jew or one who could not admit to being a Jew. Her name was Dunia and she was a Jinn in the body of a human. She came down to Earth from Fairyland, through a wormhole or a slit that opened between both worlds. She fell in love with Ibn, although he was human and much older than she was, and she, in this human form, stayed with him and bore him many children, creating a race of parasite Jinn. These Jinn were both feared and revered, depending on the circumstances, since it was discovered that they had special powers and were thought to spread unusual diseases. The Jinn were recognizable because they had no earlobes; they were Dunians, descendants of the Jinnia princess, Dunia. It was implied that the Jews might be their descendants, but it was not spoken of out loud because the Jinn were also thought to be the spawn of the devil. Therefore, no one wanted to say they were their descendants. The union of Ibn and Dunia set the stage for a future war and ushered in the “era of the strangenesses”.
Abusive customs regarding the treatment of women were mocked with the use of pleasure bathhouses as were Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. They were, supposedly, not created by G-d, but rather they actually produced G-d by thinking him up after they ate the apple and this G-d was not happy about being created. I felt that by pairing Dunia and Ibn Saud, Rushdie scorned the antipathy between Muslims and Jews. He introduced many contradictory beliefs and he created interesting words like terraphiles or earth lovers.
He analyzed the creation and destruction of civilizations, their rise and fall because of good and evil, power and weakness, language and how it was used and abused to send the wrong messages. He illustrated the use of pomp and circumstance over substance and moderation, and pointed out that people really wanted to be entertained and listened to those who spoke louder and faster more than they did to those who had substance and could educate them. (It was prescient, if one looks at the rise of Donald Trump, today, in the Presidential election polls.) Usually, people would support the person that made them smile without offering solutions over the person that told them the awful truth. He exploited the fairytale genre in the best possible way because after exposing all of the ills of society, he came to the conclusion that rationality, coherence and reason would eventually win.
This imaginative tale is like the fairy tale that is filled with all of the elements fairytales usually possessed in order to teach children how to deal with life and death, good and evil, love and hate, artifice and betrayal, but in this version, it is teaching adults. It contains humor and life lessons as Rushdie tackled every important issue society has ever faced, and there is not a culture, religion, race, country or subject that he refrained from touching. Everything was fair game. By placing women in a society that required nothing but sex to thrive, he exposed the disrespect for women in certain cultures. He presented the obsession with drugs in some societies, a problem we continue to deal with in the present day. Every conceivable topic was disparaged sardonically and then whimsically analyzed so that rather than being insulting, the ideas were comical and self-deprecating.
In his easy to read prose, he exposed the futility of so many ideas, the foolishness with which they are handled and the stupidity of their premises. He poked fun at broadly accepted beliefs like when he says of a character that “she believed in G-d as firmly as she hated gefilte fish” or that Adam and Eve created G-d when they began to think about him and not the other way around. He exposes the foolishness of using skin color as a measure of worth. He disdained materialism. He illuminated the way a rush to judgment could lead to wrong headed beliefs and decisions. He wrote about the liberal network MSNBC, the preservation of the petrodollar, the weakness of education and welfare programs.
The use of the real names from the past, Ibn Rushd, Spinoza, Darwin, Descartes, Geronimo, Schopenhauer, Nietzche, served to make every allusion even more pertinent, more of a double entendre. There were colorfully named characters, as well, like Shining Ruby who inhabited the body of a financial tycoon named Daniel “mac” Aroni, Jimmy Kapoor also known as Natraj Hero, who became just that, a superhero because of his Jinn heritage, and the baby of truth, another Jinn who was able to recognize those who were not to be trusted and left her mark on them which caused them to decay. Mr. Geronimo, (aka Ibn Rushd), from India, liked the idea that the name people called him recalled to mind a famous American Indian. He was a gardener who wondered as he tended his gardens, if someone else was tending him, if he was perhaps part of someone else’s garden.
The narrator was superb using the proper accents and expression for each scene, however, the strange words made it difficult to follow, so I would recommend the print version over the audio, or having a print version handy to look up words as you listen. All in all, this is a very good read.

In a Dark, Dark Wood, Ruth Ware, Author, Imogen Church, narrator
When the story began, Leonora Shaw, an author who writes crime novels for a living, has received an unusual and unexpected invitation to a hen night for a friend she had not seen in a decade. The email was addressed to the name she used to call herself, Lee, but now she was known as Nora. She couldn’t figure out why her old friend Claire Cavendish would even want her at her hen party. For old time’s sake, though, when Claire’s friend Flo kept calling and pleading with her to come because Claire would be so pleased, she filled with guilt and decided to go. She made arrangements with her friend Nina, who was also invited, to go together, although neither really wanted to attend. Nora does not have a clue as to why she was even invited to the hen night; she was not invited to the wedding. Soon she will find herself involved in a situation the she might have imagined for a future book in her genre rather than something happening to her in her real life.
The house in the woods where the party was being held was a bit more extravagant and of a different style than what they had expected. It was a fairly new, large and modern house in a remote area with large glass windows looking out onto the woods surrounding it. Soon they discovered that although the house had modern conveniences, it had very poor cell phone service and a landline phone which ceased to work. They were essentially out of touch with the rest of the world for the weekend. Six guests were expected; they were mixed bag of individuals with different backgrounds. Five were female and one was male.
Nora liked to run, and after they arrived, she donned her athletic clothes and did just that. It grew dark quickly, and she was startled by the sudden appearance of the headlights of a car. The driver just happened to be her old friend, Claire, the guest of honor. She gave Nora a lift back to the house and revealed the name of her future husband to her. It was quite a shock since it turned out to be none other than Nora’s childhood sweetheart, James. She had not seen either of them in the past ten years which finally provoked Nora to ask the question she should have, when first invited. Why had she been invited to this hen night? The weekend had become even more awkward for her now.
When they arrived back at the house, there was no time for further discussion. The hostess, Flo, Claire’s very good friend and ardent admirer, actually, a woman who worshiped her, took over the conversation. She had made entertainment plans for the evening which ed out to be decidedly embarrassing and uncomfortable for Nora. When the rest of the weekend plans were revealed, they realized it was not going to be the typical hen’s retreat. Not every guest was as thrilled with the plans as Flo was, but they were good sports because she had truly worked hard and extended herself. Nora mentioned that she had noticed footprints in the snow when she returned from her run that morning, but no one else had seen them and the comment was dismissed, although the idea of the footprints were destined to come back and haunt them.
Flo had a short fuse and an odd temperament and she flew off the handle unexpectedly and inappropriately. Her hero worship of Claire often sent her into the stratosphere of emotional outbursts. Often, her anger was directed at Nora, the reason for which was a total mystery to her. It was Claire that stepped in at those times to calm Flo down which leads both Nina and Nora to believe that Claire has changed. She used to be quite malicious, storing up little embarrassing facts about everyone and dropping them publicly, at inappropriate times to humiliate them.
They all went skeet shooting the following day and learned how to use a shotgun, although they all thought it was an unusual event for a hen party. That evening Flo brought out a Ouija board game, the results of which unnerved many of them with its final message. It led to a conversation about the house they were visiting. They learned that Flo’s aunt had some issues with her neighbors when she was building her house and it burned to the ground under unknown circumstances and had to be rebuilt. Fortuitously, the insurance paid for most of it. The news was unsettling and before retiring for the night, they made an extra effort to make sure the house was locked up tight. The weekend has become oppressive and both Nina and Nora thought about sneaking out to return home, but the weather, the lateness and the fact that they had been drinking made them think better of the idea. They decided to tell everyone that they were leaving earlier than intended in the morning.
During the night, they were all awakened by a strange sound. Someone was in the house. Quietly, they all gathered in the hall, frightened. Soon they saw the shadow of a man dressed in dark hoodie. Flo shouted out at the intruder, pointing the shotgun that had been hanging over the mantle at him. It was supposed to be unloaded and was just intended to frighten him, but when she pulled the trigger, she made an awful discovery. A man had been shot, not just frightened. They all knew his identity. Without phone service there was little else to do but drive him to the hospital themselves. He was still alive. Nina, a surgeon, had treated him as well as she could under the circumstances.
In the next scene, the reader found Nora plagued by odd dreams, lying in a hospital, in pain, bloody and bandaged. She has no memory of anything beyond the frightening event that occurred in the house, and even those facts are sketchy. She finds herself unable to even speak her thoughts coherently, but she instinctively knew that something terrible has happened.
From here, the story really explodes, and as secrets are revealed, the reasons for the tragedy become clear. Repercussions from these many skeletons in the closet, were dire. I suggest reading this book to find out the rest of the story. Actually, I think this book should be listened to because there was a great deal of dialogue which was read with such appropriate expression and emphasis, with the tone of voice of each character clearly differentiated, that it was even better than I think it would be in print where the dialogue might have been perceived as more trivial. I could actually picture scene after scene in my mind’s eye from the author’s descriptions and the reader’s interpretation.
The story is basically set up as a murder mystery with strange unexplained events randomly occurring with no explanation. There are hints about all sorts of malevolence that never come to fruition, but they keep the reader interested. Misdirection and interesting twists and turns kept me interested and guessing as to what would come next. The author also used humor effectively to relieve the tension as it built up.
Who was shot, why was he shot, who was the shooter, did the victim live or die? How did the mystery end? It is a thrilling story which will keep you guessing, sitting on the edge of your seat waiting for the next word, the next phrase, the next page, hoping for answers to the strange questions arising, hoping to discover what secrets are behind this odd set of circumstances.

The Nature of the Beast, Louise Penny, author, Robert Bathurst, narrator
Three Pines is the name of the quiet village that former Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his wife Reine-Marie have settled down in, since his retirement. She had once had a career at the National Library. The small community is peopled with a menagerie of odd, but interesting, likeable creatures, appreciated for their strangeness. One character is an addle-brained, rude, crude talking woman who likes her drink. She has a pet duck named Rosa. Another is an artist described as having bits of food in her hair, while still another has purple hair combed in spikes. She is attempting to put on a play written by a serial killer! Then there is the former psychologist and bookstore owner, the grocer, the draft dodger and songwriter-singer and father of Laurent, the boy who likes to tell tall tales, and, of course, there is Inspector Armand Gamache and his wife, plus several others. Gamache was a former homicide detective with the Sûreté, (the police department). Some characters are not residents of the town but are drawn to it when Laurent discovers what he calls a huge gun with a monster writhing upon it. Two characters are from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the CSIS, one is a scientist who designed the supergun discovered in the forest, one is an unscrupulous arms dealer, one is a professor and scientist with a specialty in guns, one is a madman housed in the SHU, the special facility that handles high security prisoners. The number of characters can be very confusing for someone who has not read the previous 10 novels written about Inspector Gamache.
In this, the eleventh novel, the new narrator does an excellent job creating the tension of the murder investigation and also of expressing the humorous aspects of the broad assortment of characters as they interact. I have to admit that I was so engaged with the story that I listened from beginning to end in one day. I couldn’t wait to discover how the mystery would resolve itself. All of the loose ends were eventually tied up, and I think the author may have set it up for the next one in the series, or perhaps for one later on down the road, since some of the characters seemed to have left a kind of fingerprint for the next one, indicating that they might someday return to resolve other issues. There will always be those demented creatures desiring to invent destructive weapons, once the door opens on the possibility; there will always be those who try to prevent them and protect society. Also, it was mentioned that Inspector Gamache has been offered the job as Superintendent of the Sûreté du Québec. One is left conjecturing about whether or not he would take the job offer or would both he and his wife go into more professorial pursuits, like Professor Rosenblatt, the authority on guns.
Briefly, the story revolves around a young boy who has a reputation for telling lies. He is found murdered only a short time after he came running into the town’s bistro and excitedly announced that he had discovered a huge weapon in the woods, a weapon with a seven-headed monster writhing upon it. Needless to say, his story was not believed until his body was found and the weapon was discovered. Former Chief Inspector Gamache had been close to the child and although retired, he was drawn into the investigation, aiding the new Chief Inspector, Isabelle Lacoste. The twists and turns take the reader into the world of Gerald Bull, Saddam Hussein, the Viet Nam War, and John Fleming, a mad serial killer resembling the likes of Hannibal Lechter.
The story is cleverly rolled out with a wide assortment of subplots which misdirect and confuse, so the reader is always wondering what will happen next The mystery concerns Project Babylon, a secret program to develop a supergun, a weapon of mass destruction. While I found the idea a bit implausible, at the end of the audio, I learned that the story is actually based on the real Gerald Bull, a Canadian Artillery Expert commissioned by Saddam Hussein to build real superguns which were called Baby Babylon and Big Babylon. Fortunately, the weapon failed to work, but there still may be madmen out there trying to recreate a working model. The story was exciting as the search for the murderer progressed and the history of the weapon and its designer became the focus of the investigation. Fingers were pointed in many different directions which only enhanced the mystery. Sometimes it even felt that something supernatural might even be lurking in the background.
I fell in love with Inspector Gamache. I connected completely with his mostly quiet and thoughtful approach to crime solving and his willingness to put his life on the line to do what was right, willing to make the hard choices necessary to protect the most people. He seemed to exhibit that thoughtfulness in his relationship with his wife and in his approach to his retirement, as well. Reine-Marie was the ideal wife, completely supportive; they seemed fulfilled and content, simpatico, which made me admire them both. No one minor character in the novel seemed to take precedence over another. It was mostly about the Inspector and his approach to solving the crime and the mystery of the murder and the supergun.
I wondered if the opening scene with someone running from pursuers in the woods was meant to be a part of the boy’s imagination, his version of how he discovered the weapon, or was it simply a merging of the first and last scenes of the book, the discovery of the weapon and the end of it. It was definitely a device used to indicate some clues and to misdirect the reader since the person running seemed older than a boy with a stick that morphed into a rifle.

Truth or Die, James Patterson, author, Howard Roughan, author; Edoardo Ballerini, narrators
The book opens with the cold-blooded murder of a Neurologist, Dr. Hellerman. He was secretly aiding the CIA and he was in possession of a terrible secret concerning Owen Lewis, a brilliant, 19-year old researcher. Owen worked for him. Owen wanted to make the secret public because he had done the research on a serum that was being used as a weapon of torture, not a cure for Alzheimer’s disease, as he had been told.
Trevor Mann was a disbarred lawyer, a lawyer who served the cause of justice, but not his client, which is illegal; for that he was punished. He was known for his integrity. His sweetheart, Claire Parker, was a journalist. Lewis had reached out to Claire to tell her his story. Now she was also dead, shot in a supposed robbery gone wrong, murdered in the taxi taking her to see him.
Trevor Mann was grief stricken. Viewing the video of her murder he noticed a clue. She was hiding her phone behind her. He thought that it must contain valuable information about where she was headed. He couldn’t get her cell phone from the police, but in his apartment, he traces over the page underneath the one she had written on before she left; it had the imprint of the address she was headed for, and he discovered it was a hotel. There was also a room number! Rather foolishly, he goes there without notifying the police. When he gets there, he finds a dead body in the shower. It does not appear to be the occupant of the room, but instead, it is the man who was in the video, the man who murdered Claire. Soon, his own life was in danger, too, but the young man Claire was to meet, somehow finds him and saves his life. He is a computer genius, a techie who knows all kinds of tricks that ordinary people do not. They team up to find out who is sending out the killers because soon there are dead bodies almost everywhere they go. Why do they want Owen and Trevor dead and why did they kill Claire? Why is his public announcement so feared and so important?
The government had a secret location where suspected terrorists were injected with a serum that forced them to tell the truth or subjected them to interminable pain and eventually death, unless they broke. That was the theory, but in practice the results were different. Often, innocent subjects died as well, suffering terribly. The serum was flawed. The men heading up the program were mercenary and viewed the victims as collateral damage, but when the 19-year old whiz kid, Owen Lewis found out, he wanted to go public to stop it. This wasn’t a cure for Alzheimer’s disease, but a device to torture possible terrorists. He believed that the people should decide whether or not they wanted such a weapon to be used, not a group of government espionage agents working for a clandestine group within the CIA, the special activities division, which was a secret organization headed up by some very important people, high up inside the government. From moment to moment they were in danger and escaped by the skin of their teeth several times. People were simply taken out and murdered, considered collateral damage, just to protect the secret from becoming public. These powerful men did not want to lose their powerful positions. Who were the hard-nosed, sadistic people behind this conspiracy-to-murder that were so powerful they had no fear of being caught or of retribution? Who was so capable of covering up their brutality and their tracks? They searched for the scientist who developed the serum using Owen’s research. They knew the serum was behind the attempts to kill them and the others, and they had to trace its origin in order to find out who was funding it.
Often the dialogue was silly, but it was also humorous with pitch perfect quips for each occasion. It will not be the silly sex talk or sex scene that will interest the reader, but rather it will be the story that arouses genuine excitement and suspense. It is not rocket science, but it is a fast paced mystery. The book is well read by the narrator with a light tone when humorous and a more serous tone at appropriate times. It was well written by the authors so it was easy to understand as the plot revealed itself and the mystery was solved. It is a non-stop thriller.

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, Brian Stevenson, author and narrator.
Brian Stevenson is a descendant of slaves and a strong and honorable activist for a justice system that provides fair treatment for all, especially those who are powerless and poor, those who do not have the resources for their own defense. He began his career as an intern with the Southern Prisoners Defense Fund. In 1983, when he visited a death row prisoner, as a law student, what he witnessed changed his idea of fairness and equality, changed his direction in life. To his surprise, he learned that some prisoners on Death Row never even had access to legal counsel when they were tried and convicted, or if they did, they had inadequate counsel. He was horrified by their lack of resources to defend themselves.
After graduating, he went on to found the Equal Justice Initiative, and he dedicated his life to the cause of those people unjustly condemned to death or life in prison. He fights for the rights of all people, male and female, child and adult, and he does it with a commitment that is almost superhuman in order to accomplish goals others before him could not or would not or dared not. Disregarding threats to his life he soldiered on to bring reform and change to the legal system, sadly, too late in many cases.
It is necessary, however, not to cavalierly dismiss the gravity of some of the crimes committed. It is necessary to understand that in addition to defending the rights of those wrongfully accused and sentenced, he also defends and attempts to change the sentence of those who are guilty but have received sentences that seem decidedly unfair and outrageous considering the crime committed. He attempts to alter sentences which do not consider the age of the perpetrator or magnitude of the deed, but are the result of general rules and protocols that must be followed. One must bear in mind that even when some of the crimes committed were heinous, brutal attacks, even murder and rape, Stevenson still believed that the mental state and age of the criminal needed to be considered before trying these children as adults and sentencing them, sometimes to death, and often to life in prison.
Bryan blames a good deal of the crimes committed by the young in a community on their poverty, their environment, their immaturity and their inability to make sound judgments which is a proven scientific concept. However, I believe the community, the parents, and the delinquent child, regardless of age, also share in the guilt and must assume some responsibility for the behavior. The problem for me, however, is not really about who is at fault; it is about appropriate punishment for the crime and appropriate rehabilitation of the criminal. Certainly the sentencing guidelines are outlandish and need to be adjusted to the crimes, the age of the criminals and the magnitude of the offense. Certainly there is a need for some reform of the justice system. When he presents his thoughtful, sympathetic point of view, even if you do not always agree, it will be hard to dismiss his sincere effort and not consider the positive effects of the results he achieves.
Learning about the actual, overt instances of discrimination and fraud in our system of justice was difficult to absorb. The injustices, the corruption, the payoffs, the unqualified experts that testify, the outright manipulation of evidence, the perjury and the arrogance of those in the system expected to protect us all equally, must be cleansed. What I read in this book is nothing less than mind shattering. It illuminated the reasons that people of color distrust law enforcement and the entire legal system. It was stacked against them by a group of people with power who were in control. In the non-white community, many have experienced, or known someone who has been subjected to, the prejudices of the ignorant and weak-minded, but more powerful, evil influences in the justice system. There is no other conclusion than that reform is necessary. Stevenson is dedicated to achieving it, but he can’t do it alone.
Once someone wins his freedom or has his sentence reversed, years have already been spent behind bars. The reentry into society is difficult and Stevenson’s organization tackles that problem as well. As I read, I thought, what can possibly make someone feel comfortable in the outside world when they have been in prison for almost 50 years? That person may be happy to be free, but how will that person thrive. Family and friends might be long gone. They are no longer young. I could not fathom how anyone in that position could possibly adjust. How do you repay someone for robbing them of their life? Yet, if their crime was murder, the victim’s family might well ask, how do you give me back my loved one’s life?
Bryan decided that the reason he has dedicated his life to this mostly thankless job, with its many failed efforts, must be because he is also broken in some way. It is hard to think of him as broken when you learn of the overwhelming gratitude of those he helps, even when he fails them. This book makes you want to get into a closet and scream and scream and scream, railing against the deceit, the treachery, the cheating and the lying that exists, against the stupidity of white supremacy in certain places in the country, at bigots who think the lives of some are not worth as much as their own. The cases described in the book infuriated me. How could anyone, even a mental midget, have convicted these victims of our flawed justice system, when some were so obviously innocent, so obviously framed, and then go home and sleep at night? They are the ones who should be in jail. All of them should be punished for their perjury, their prejudice, their arrogance, their threats and their cruelty. As you read the book you might want to weep for our damaged society, weep for those it damaged. The time lost by these wrongfully imprisoned can never be returned. Their nightmare experience cannot be forgotten. To add insult to injury, they are rarely remunerated in any way for their wrongful imprisonment.
The book does have an undeniable liberal bent. Rulings that stop funding efforts are always blamed on the right with all good results arising from the efforts of those on the left. I cannot believe that this is so, and that is my only real concern about the book and its author. I was disappointed with the slanted presentation which could lead to divisiveness. I am a fiscal conservative. I am not in favor of abortion in the late stages of pregnancy, although I am pro choice. I do not approve of capital punishment unless it is truly beyond a reasonable doubt. I consider myself a liberal when it comes to most social issues, although I sometimes think that abortion and capital punishment have as its end goal, a way to rid the world of the unwanted. I think that Stevenson is working to create a more ideal, just world, in and out of the prison system. We can only hope that his efforts are rewarded, but as he sheds light on the way the prison system’s purpose has become big business and profit rather than rehabilitation and education, a system with irrational sentencing procedures, he sometimes glosses over why we have so many more prisoners in our jails, why there is a lack of patience for repeat offenders. He seems to blame it on outside influences rather than the perpetrator.
He addresses fairness and equality. He addresses how we treat the poverty stricken, the suspected lawbreakers, the victims of a society that “worships capital and dispenses capital punishment”, but he does not address the breakdown of family and the growing absence of faith and moral values.
He eloquently describes the historic institution of laws to prevent the equality of all people that were written even after the Civil War, especially to prevent the mixing of the races and the right to vote. Racial Integrity Laws were instituted. Interracial sex and marriage was outlawed and re-justified every time it was questioned. In 1967 anti-miscegenation laws were finally repealed, but racial strife was far from over. This book should be read by every human being, every student, every teacher, every law enforcement individual, every social worker, every aid worker, everyone involved in what could become the next injustice, and so perhaps prevent it!
The book is read expertly by the author whose dedication and honest concern come through with every word. Although the book is about much more than Walter McMillian, a man betrayed by the system, it is his story that begins and ends it, and his story that will touch the heart of every reader as the symbol of all those others who suffered and continue to suffer from a flawed system. Mr. McMillian was a victim of a terrible miscarriage of justice which tainted his life forever after, but he is just the tip of the iceberg! The corruption was, and perhaps still is, pervasive throughout the justice system. After reading about actual cases of abuse, the reader will find it impossible to fail to realize why people of color and different backgrounds fear anyone associated with law enforcement. The power lies with them, and they are powerless to fight it without the help of people like Bryan Stevenson.

The whites, Richard Price under the pen name Harry Brandt; narrator, Ari Fliakos
This detective novel seemed to be out to prove one thing, and that is that the line that separates the criminal from the cop is thin enough to miss. None of the characters had much character. The police didn’t respect the laws of the land and took justice into their own hands. Then they closed ranks around each other and covered up their crimes. The criminals, the gangs, the thugs, and even those who became innocently involved, all had warts of some sort.
The story revolves around the life and experiences of Billy Graves, a cop who had accidentally shot and killed a young boy while high on coke. The crime was covered up, but he was transferred to night duty after that. Almost two decades later, he is still working the graveyard shift. The reputation of the journalist who reported his crime was trashed and her career ended, as the officers protected one of their own.
Billy Graves is quick to judge the crimes of everyone around him while he remains blind to his own and unaware of his wife’s. When his family becomes the target of an unknown assailant, secrets start climbing out of the woodwork, as the investigation proceeds. Billy’s childhood friends/gang are all still in the area. Of them, one is a funeral parlor owner, another is a janitor, another is a rogue cop. His dad, a former cop, is suffering from the early stages of dementia.
The women featured also tread the thin line between right and wrong. They all defy the rules they should be following and make excuses for their own behavior that they would not allow others to use. Several have committed crimes.
It is a story filled with crude language and behavior, errant cops and neurotic women who all seem to be on one drug or drink in order to function. The bad guys/criminals commit every type of crime that is conceivable. Every one of the characters, good guys and bad guys alike, bends the rules to suit themselves.
This novel simply had too many arms to contemplate. The dialogue is hackneyed. Obtuse slang pervades the narrative. The past invades the present. At some point, two stories eventually intertwine, clearing up a lot of the confusion that exists throughout much of the book. Police are not pictured in the light of law abiding and law protecting citizens, but rather as a bunch of corrupt, loudmouthed dispensers of a crooked form of justice.

The Heart Goes Last, Margaret Atwood, narrators, Cassandra Campbell, Mark Deakins
The premise of the book seems to be that the world has descended into a state of turmoil; all hell has broken loose on the ground with joblessness, poverty, starvation, and lawlessness growing in many cities. However, those who can afford to rise above the fray, actually do. They live in floating cells/pods, in their own self-contained fully functioning societies, and apparently, they are all now preoccupied with creative ways to satisfy their sexual needs, and to this end, the idea of robots servicing their needs is the next Silicon Valley get-rich idea, albeit, not in Silicon Valley.

A town called Concilience (combining the word convict with resilience) is created by the Positron Project. The establishment of this controlled community will supposedly eliminate civil disobedience and create a better world by providing full employment and equal opportunity. The deterioration of society in certain parts of the country will no longer be an issue with the growth of these cooperative environments. Everyone will be taken care of fairly. In these new communities, residents will spend half their time in the Positron prison and half their time in a luxurious home. An alternate family will share the home and prison cell every other month. Their lives will be completely controlled and all needs will be provided for them. They will be given jobs, one of the three choices they select, and although they will be at the mercy of the administrators for all decisions, there should be no reason to complain. There is one problematic codicil, once they sign on, they may never leave. The environment of the 1950’s was determined to be the most peaceful and comfortable and so everything in this created community is in that style right down to the music and clothing, food and television shows. It seems like a “Leave It To Beaver” perfect world combined with “Father Knows Best”.

In the end, however, some of those who had previously not been tempted to do anything wrong or immoral, were soon tempted to be unfaithful, and they broke the rules, possibly because of the ho hum, boring existence they were forced to endure day after day. In addition, greed somehow reared its ugly head, once again, with some wanting more than they were entitled to and more than they already had. Perhaps a natural consequence of being human is stretching the envelope and tempting fate. This old saying was also in evidence, “absolute power corrupts absolutely”.

In truth, although the imagination of Atwood was still feverishly at work, and she created an unusual narrative, infused with humor, albeit obsessed with a world that wanted nothing more than satisfying sex, it was disappointing. It did make me wonder, though, with all of the stress today, on sex enhancing drugs, and drugs that induce pleasure, are we not, perhaps, going in that direction? Perhaps Margaret Atwood is a visionary once again, as she was in “The Handmaid’s Tale”, with the idea of surrogate mothers. (I hope my remark is tongue in cheek and not a foretelling of the future.) I stuck with the book because of my respect for the author, but the plot seemed implausible and the sexual preoccupation seemed ridiculous. It was hard to take seriously, a woman who falls madly in love with a teddy bear in a medical procedure gone wrong, and Elvis impersonators as spies and vigilantes, simply did not capture my interest.

On the positive side, the character development was very detailed and the narrators were excellent, getting into the character’s heads and playing their roles well. Also, I did not realize that this was part of a series of books, and I did not read the first three, (“I’m Starved For You”, “Choke Collar” and “Erase Me”), so perhaps if I had, I would have had a different reaction.

After You, Jo Jo Moyes, author, Anna Acton, narrator
I want Louisa Clark to be my new best friend forever! I seriously cannot wait for this author to write the next book in this series, for surely there will be another. I simply enjoyed watching Louisa grow into a full-fledged adult, watching her character morph from a young woman with no ambition, no dreams, into a woman who will take risks, fall in love, reunite with her family, show compassion and courage, and manage to keep all things in perspective, much to her own surprise. I liked the way the author used flashbacks in the narrative to help those who read the first book “Me Before You”, to recall the basic story, and to also introduce it to those who had not. I want to have another window into Louisa’s next stage of life. Many months after the suicide of Will Traynor, the man for whom Louisa was a caregiver, she still mourns the loss. She loved him and her grief has overwhelmed her. She moved to London with the help of the money he left her, but has not, as he had wished, begun to “live life”. She tried to travel, but she gave up quickly. She did not return to school. She works in an airport bar, pretty much a dead end path forward. After she falls from the roof of her building in a freak accident, she requires weeks of healing. Many suspect that she was so despondent that she jumped. She returns home to her family and begins to enjoy the safety of their company and concern. Her sister, Treena, kept encouraging Lou to return to school, to get a better job, to stop living at home if she didn’t have to, because Treena felt that her own life was truly a dead end and she wanted more for her sister. What hope did she have as an unmarried mother with a good university degree but no job prospects? When Louisa returns to her own apartment, flat as it is called in the book, to try and return to her life and job, she discovers the 16-year daughter of Will Traynor. Her first shock is that he never told her about Lily, and her second is that this young girl had been on her fire escape once before, the fire escape leading to her roof and her accident. The two of them develop a relationship which is sometimes fiery as well as loving, sometimes combative and dysfunctional as Lily experiences teenage angst and feelings of insecurity and isolation. When she begins grief counseling, she meets Jake, a 16 year old teenager. Walking with him, she meets the man who came to pick him up from the session. She recognizes him. He is Sam, the ambulance driver who held her hand after she was seriously wounded in her traumatic fall from the roof. He kept encouraging her to stay alive. Soon, a relationship begins to flower between them. The character, Louisa, is defined by her compassion, her sense of responsibility for others, her genuine feeling for their welfare and her quirkiness. Lily’s character is at first defined by lying, stealing, inappropriate comments and angry outbursts. Her need to feel wanted and loved has made her a manipulator who acts out inappropriately when she feels threatened. With Louisa’s help, she grows into a more responsible teenager who can function quite well in the new world in which she begins to live. I loved this fairytale. It introduced so many interesting threads, feminism, juvenile delinquency, pedophilia, alcoholism and recovery from grief. It does veer off in many extraneous directions, but all of the twists and turns come together and are resolved in a satisfying conclusion. Josie, Lou’s mom, discovers women’s rights, her sister Treena loses her spoiled attitude and acknowledges her own failures, Georgiana, Will’s sister becomes less self-centered and more interested in her extended family, the Traynors embrace their newfound grandchild, and Louisa begins life anew at the same time that Lily begins to follow a more positive path. Yes, this novel is like an adult fairytale, but it is one that I thoroughly enjoyed. Jojo Moyes writes in a clear style with a touch of humor that is so well balanced that even the most traumatic scenes are tolerable. The narrator was excellent. She invited me into the story and held me there, thoroughly engaged as she brought each character to life.

Everybody Rise, Stephanie Clifford, author, Katherine Kellgren, narrator
Upwardly mobile 26 year old Evelyn Beegan is on the rise, but the rarified atmosphere of the Gatsbyesque world she wanted to join soon began to corrupt her moral sense of judgment. To hobnob with the rich and famous and accomplish her goal of rising in this esteemed circle’s judgment, hopefully catching a rich husband, also on the rise, she sacrificed her character and her sense of ethics, soon lying and spending far more money than she earned, pushing herself into deeper and deeper debt until it buried her. As reality set in, she deluded herself and lived in a state of denial to justify her behavior. Evelyn’s story is engaging, even as her actions and those of her frenemies become more and more repulsive.
Evelyn’s dad is a fairly well known lawyer who fought for the cause of those abused by big pharmaceutical companies that he and his clients believed had little regard for the dreadful side effects of some of their products. He was the darling of the Democrats. He won large awards for the victims of this perceived corporate corruption. One day, the bubble burst, and his methods attracted the scrutiny of the government. Evelyn’s life, already complicated, became more so.
She had been living beyond her means in the world of her dreams and had constructed a past and a personality that had no resemblance to reality. She was soon even assuming the identity of a former debutante, outsmarting those around her, trying to f it into that world with her charades. She became so embroiled in her own schemes that she convinced herself that she was trying to use her new found stature to rescue her family from its total collapse. She descended into a chaotic world of her own creation. After awhile, she fooled no one but herself.
She preferred the company of the snobs and class-conscious Brahmins of the world to that of ordinary hard working people and haughtily assumed the appropriate air of self-importance to suit the situation. She watched those in the know and carefully imitated them to ingratiate herself into their world, the world of the upper crust, and seemed unaware of the phony and artificial atmosphere. Evelyn was not truly up to the standards of the friends she wanted to run with, nor was she armed with the weapons to outclass them as she hoped. She soon learned to imitate and betray them, but it was doubtful that she could beat them at their own game.
There are humorous exchanges, especially between Evelyn and her mother. Evelyn seemed to be a contradiction in terms, though. On the one hand she was once a kind and good friend, and on the other she was a social climber, first and foremost. Will the real Evelyn ever stand up? Her relationship with her elitist mother dominated her behavior. I kept wondering if the people that she was dealing with could truly exist in the real world, but then I thought of places like Palm Beach and Rodeo Drive and said, yep, they exist, and those awful people who think they are better than the rest of us, also exist. It isn’t the wealth that makes the person offensive; it is the assumption of a higher status at the expense of others.
This book is a case study of a family that falls from grace, slowly but surely. Father, daughter and mother seem to live in an alternate reality. Each of them has severe character flaws. The author develops the characters very well but the story goes on and on with many extraneous dialogues and details as it attempts to explore the chasm between upper and middle class society. I got the point of the book fairly soon, but then it was belabored! Evelyn was rendered too naïve in many ways which contrasted almost too sharply with her obvious intelligence. Her mother seemed like a caricature of someone, not truly real.
Politics is at play here as the rich are demonized overtly and subtly. They are selfish, self absorbed, self-serving characters, even when they are working for a worthy cause. They preyed on the weak in order to control them and made unrealistic demands, more often than not, expecting complete obedience and deference to their station in life. They were not nice people. The middle class and worker bees appeared more genuine, thoughtful and real in their portrayal by the author!

Paul Roberts is a teacher. He has a daughter, Edie, from his first marriage to Becca. He is now married to Ginger, a woman about a decade younger than his first wife. She has recovered from various problems with addiction. Ginger and Paul are childless. Believing they are too old to deal with an infant, they are considering the idea of adopting an older child. Ginger desperately wants to be a mother. To this end, they decide to try an experiment; for a few weeks in the summer, they take in a child from the Fresh Air Fund to see how it works out for them. |
Velveteen Vargas is of Dominican heritage. Her unhappy mother, Silvia Vargas, came to America to be married, but her plans did not work out. She was pregnant and alone in a strange country. The Vargas family lives in Brooklyn. Silvia never married and because of her disappointments she does not trust men or the world around her. Velvet lived in this world of limited opportunity and poverty with a mother who resented her presence in it, while at the same time, she feared for her safety as Velvet developed into a young lady. Silvia’s parenting skills left a lot to be desired. Coupled with her mom’s physical and verbal abuse, Velvet had to deal with the unsafe neighborhood and school environment where there were gangs and bullies. Velvet defied authority, did not follow rules and often broke them. Her school work was poor, although she was a bright young girl capable of doing better. In her neighborhood, it was an uphill battle to survive. She was not in a good place.
When 11 year old Velvet goes away for a few weeks in the summer, sponsored by the Fresh Air Fund, she is coupled with Ginger and Paul. She is sent from her urban nightmare to the bucolic world of upstate New York. The Roberts home is adjacent to a horse barn where she is introduced to their world. Ginger offers her the opportunity to take riding lessons, and in exchange for Velvet working there, cleaning stalls and grooming the horses, they begin. Velvet falls in love with a mare named Fiery/Fugly/Funny Girl, pretty much the most dangerous horse in the barn. You could say the two of them are known troublemakers. Both have been abused. The reader is given a window into her coming of age as the relationship between Ginger and Velvet develops in unexpected ways over the next couple or three years.
At times, it is hard to know who is being better served in the growing relationship between Ginger and Velvet, even as those around them seem to grow more distant. Both are troubled by their own thoughts, sometimes hopeful and sometimes envisioned in nightmares; their innermost thoughts are revealed as each event unfolds and they struggle with their personal realities. Ginger is obsessed with creating a better life for Velvet, sometimes losing perspective about who is the better parent, Silvia or Ginger.
As Velvet learns to redirect her anger and frustration, she seems to be able to communicate with the horses. Velvet is like a “horse whisperer” as she hears them talking to her, telling her how they feel, what they want, and what they need. She begins to have feelings of her own self-worth, formerly foreign to her. Her mom does not see her as worthwhile, but rather, she says she is bad like her father; in the world of the horses, however, people praise her and value her. Her growing knowledge of the horses’ behavior with human and animal plus her difficulties in learning how to deal with the others in the barn, actually help her to better understand her own behavior and the behavior of others. Even horses want to be appreciated and loved. As she tamed the horse she loved, she also tamed herself.
Silvia, Velvet, Paul, and Ginger narrate their own side of the story, and they often have contradictory views of the same situation. Each is flawed in some way, each is characterized by the secrets they keep and the lies they tell, lies of omission and outright lies. Velvet seemed to be a contradiction in terms at times, endowed with powers that seemed almost supernatural when it came to communicating with the horses. She often seemed older with regard to her attitude and views while at the same time she was woefully naïve. Both Ginger and Velvet are products of poor parenting, both have behavioral problems. Sometimes it was hard to determine “who was the adult in the room”!
Loyalty to family is a major theme with loyalty to wife, mother and friends questioned. This “fostering” experiment has great ramifications on all of their lives. The exposure to a different lifestyle, other than their own, causes conflict as they truly do not understand the plight each faces in their separate and vastly different worlds. Perhaps through each other they will learn how to love and respect each other and their differences or perhaps they will face conflicts they cannot resolve. The characters, searching for love and acceptance, sometimes did not know how to show love, but perhaps because they had been abused, they did not know how to accomplish that goal. They felt worthless and powerless because their dreams and plans had been thwarted by circumstances they submitted to willingly or by circumstances beyond their control over which they felt unable to resist.
I thought it was really interesting the way the author illustrated human nature by examining the way a horse is trained and reacts, by examining how Ginger, Velvet and others reacted in relationship to the animal world. Horses like people were capable of deception and affection. Cheating and lying were artifices in both the life of the adult and the child, and the reasons for their deceptions were examined as the book explored how they navigated their disparate worlds.
The personal political views of the author are presented in a rather negative representation of Republicans, at one point referring to them as greedy pigs. I do not think it was necessary to include those insulting views since they really lent little to the story other than, perhaps, to point out that most unsuccessful people are Democrats and most people who have succeeded are Republicans.

The Murder House by James Patterson, David Ellis, authors; Therese Plummer and Jay Snyder, narrators.
Patterson may not be the most eloquent writer of classics, but when it comes to murder mysteries, he has hit this one out of the park. You will be on the edge of your seat in spite of the trite dialogue and often shallow characters, from the first page until the last, as this diabolical murderer is pursued. The story begins in Bridgehampton in 1995, with a 12-year old shooter at a school. It then fast forwards into 2011 when two bodies are found in a mansion that is known as the murder house, “the house that no one ever leaves alive, the house at 7 Ocean Drive”. As the narrative proceeds, several unsolved murders involving the mansion are revealed.
In that same year, that the latest gruesome murder took place, Jenna Murphy, a detective in New York City, discovers corruption on the police force and reports it to her boss. She is then framed and is forced to resign or face an investigation on trumped up charges that she cannot refute or disprove. She committed the cardinal sin of disgracing the force. Her uncle, Langdon James, the police chief in Bridgehampton, offers her a job to get her out from under the mess she found herself. If she resigns, there will be no investigation of the false charges; no battle, that she would surely lose; the fix was in, working against her. Absent her uncle’s opportunity, she would probably never work in law enforcement again, so she accepts his offer. When she arrives back in Bridgehampton, a place she had not been to since she was a child, she begins to have visions and nightmares about something she cannot identify, especially when she passes or enters the murder house at 7 Ocean Drive. Her dreams terrify her.
7 Ocean Drive was a mansion that was originally owned by Malcolm Dahlquist. His descendants, for six succeeding generations, were all afflicted with a sadistic madness that they could not control. It was thought that the Dahlquist ancestry ended with the murder of the sixth Dahlquist in the line, but when the bodies of two brutally murdered townspeople turn up in an upstairs bedroom, new suspicions are aroused as the investigation proceeds.
The circumstantial evidence soon points to Noah Walker, a handyman, since the murder victim, Melanie, had recently broken off her relationship with Noah in order to date the man with whom she was found murdered. Witnesses had observed Noah angrily arguing with her. He had also worked on the mansion’s upkeep and had access to “the murder house” property. Jenna Murphy, the new detective on the force is in charge of the arrest which takes him down, but is then ordered to stay out of any further investigation. Her uncle tells her that Noah is guilty, that he has confessed, and therefore, there is no further need to look anywhere else; he is their man. Will Noah be the serial killer that they eventually uncover? Who is Holden?
The murder mystery in Bridgehampton twists and turns, often confounding the reader. It is hard to figure out who the real killer or killers might be. There is so much sleight of hand and trompe-l’oeil that I am quite certain most readers will bounce around from character to character as each new clue is provided, first accusing one and than another, but I would be surprised if anyone guessed the entire story.
Jenna’s New York City frame-up, for a crime she denied, foreshadowed other corruption that occurs as the story moves forward. It is hard not to get the feeling that the justice system is flawed and the cops are sometimes corrupt. For the person in charge, it is easy to make false accusations and back them up with planted evidence. The person with wealth can make things happen, impact promotions and elections. There are always those, for a price, that are eager to do the bidding of someone who wishes to influence the outcome of events in some way. Arrests and even trials can become nothing more than staged events with which to influence a jury. It is difficult to disprove invented scenarios and false accusations. The trial portion of the book is interesting as it points out how easy it is to corrupt the system with lies, bribes and payoffs, how easy it is to frame someone with circumstantial evidence and false witnesses.
Jenna Murphy seemed to me to be the weakest link in the book because she was simply not credible as a seasoned detective. She often behaved impulsively, like a rookie, and her deductions were often very naive. In spite of the hackneyed dialogue, though, the story is an exciting, nail-biting experience, and any reader that enjoys a good mystery will not be disappointed. Take this book with you to someplace you go to relax, on vacation, to the beach, to the hammock on the back porch, and lose yourself in a tense, well designed mystery that will hold you fast.

The Muralist, B. A. Shapiro, author; Xe Sands, narrator.
In 1939, the reader is introduced to a brave young woman who when faced with the horrors that were facing her family became desperate in her attempt to save them. Alizee Benoit, an artist, is living in the United States and working for the WPA, The Works Project Administration, a program that is part of The New Deal that is designed to put people back to work, even artists and writers. Her parents are dead, but her siblings and extended family are all living in France. With the rise of Hitler they are facing great danger. They are trying to obtain visas to immigrate to America and Alizee has been solicited to try to help them. She is an American citizen. Through her work painting murals, she has had the opportunity to meet Eleanor Roosevelt and has asked for her help in obtaining visas for her family.
Alizee wants to use her art to influence the political situation and to illustrate the plight of the Jews. Some in the government are actively working against the emigration of Jews to America, trying to prevent or slow the issuance of visas for them. Eleanor is in favor of helping the Jews, as was Lyndon Johnson. Others in opposition to saving them are Breckinridge Long, Joseph Kennedy and Charles Lindbergh. The President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, was of a mind to protect his election rather than to aid the Jews. Therefore, he is unwilling to do anything to rattle his constituents. They do not want war, they do not want the Jews, and he will not help Europe in its effort to defeat Hitler’s rise to power and jeopardize his political future. He waited until the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor to respond.
In 2015, Danielle, Alizee’s niece, discovers pieces of a mural, that she believes were her aunt’s, behind some paintings in a collection of art that has been sent to her to be identified and verified for auction. She believes that these pieces of a mural might have been painted by her Aunt Alizee who has been missing since 1940. Her efforts to prove this are thwarted as her boss believes they are Mark Rothko’s work and that her attempts to prove they are Alizee’s are useless and unwarranted. Her aunt worked for the WPA together with artists like Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollack, and Lee Krasner, before they achieved fame. It was a time when Picasso was just beginning to exhibit his abstract art and he was not appreciated fully. She believes her aunt’s art has been lost. Danielle begins to research everything she can find to figure out what happened to her aunt, in spite of her instructions to abandon her investigation.
Slowly, as the story bounces, sometimes uncomfortably, between 1939 and 2015, the heinous history of Hitler is revealed. It is tastefully done and will not alarm the reader as most of the information is already well known; the situation at home and abroad is not welcoming to Jews. The story is more interesting when it takes place in 1939 than in 2015, as Danielle searches for clues to her aunt’s final whereabouts. As the mystery unfolds, there is a surprising, unexpected conclusion. Woefully naïve, and emotionally unstable in some way, Alizee was not prepared for the danger she would face or for the power of her enemies. When she received letters from her relatives describing the dire situation they faced, she became unraveled and made foolish decisions. She believed in her cause but was up against a bureaucracy that was far more powerful and able than she was. Is this story plausible? Perhaps not, but for me, Alizee represents the brave souls who tried to effect change and save lives during those terrible days leading up to and including the Holocaust, and Danielle represents the need today to keep the memory alive so that it won’t happen again and so that we can be reminded of the need for the Jews to have a homeland in which to feel safe and welcome.
The history is interesting and accurate, but I found the story to be not as engaging as I would have liked since no major new idea was presented. Many people suffered in Europe and many people in many countries tried in vain to save their families. Most faced opposition from all avenues of escape. Some of the details in the book were nostalgic, like references to a Betty Crocker calendar. Since the book doesn’t dwell on the horrors of the Holocaust, it is not a difficult read in that sense, however, reliving the horrors, even on the fringes, could be difficult for Jews, especially those that were directly affected with family loss and property loss.
In conclusion, the book’s plot seemed naïve and not very credible. The book did raise a question for me, however. Is the sacrifice of one life to save many, an honorable effort? Is it a crime of conscience? If that person is perceived as an enemy does the verdict change? It is a philosophical problem that has long been debated. Like the ethical dilemma of The Trolley Problem, whom do you save and whom do you sacrifice is difficult to answer?
I listened to an audio and found the narrator became too involved with her
presentation, speaking in a glib tone at times, sometimes staccato and sometimes in too conversational a tone, at others her voice was too soft and melancholy, and at other times the sing song nature of her tone and presentation was distracting and hard to follow. She simply did not enhance the book, but rather seemed to be presenting herself more than the story. She over indulged herself in her interpretation. I have listened to other books narrated by her and have to admit that I was pleased with only one of the narrations. I have a print copy of this book, but I didn’t find the tale compelling enough to plow through it again.
In light of the situation today in the Middle East and an administration hesitant to enter the fray with a forceful response, one can only hope there will not be a catastrophe that forces this President’s hand. Regarding Syrian immigrants, the book has jumped to the forefront and is very current in its message about allowing immigrants into the country. The Syrians are fleeing in massive numbers and countries are fearful of accepting them since some will be terrorists bent on death and destruction. How does one determine who is righteous and who is not? However, there is no moral equivalent between the Jewish immigrants and the Syrian immigrants. Jews were trying to escape the people who were trying to kill them. They had not waged war against anyone. The Syrians are Muslims, and some Islamic extremists have waged war against the world, and the United States. It is not easy to know which Syrian Muslim is the enemy and which is not. It is a conundrum because they also do not seem interested in becoming part of our Democracy, but rather, some seem to want to create a Theocracy ruled by Islamic laws.

Rogue Lawyer, John Grisham, author, Mark Deakins, narrator
Sebastian Rudd is the rogue lawyer who defends hard to defend plaintiffs, plaintiffs that most lawyers reject. Once married to a woman who left him for another woman, he is the father of a second grader. His ex-wife, Judith, is also a lawyer in a lesbian firm, and she comes to his aid when he pushes the envelope and winds up in jail himself, as he attempts to defend his clients, clients he believes are entitled to a fair shake, no matter how heinous their crime. However, in all other matters Judith is his enemy, constantly suing him for custody of their child, a child she always refers to as hers.

The book is about a series of his cases involving murder, drugs, kidnapping, bribery, the mentally unstable, the guilty and the innocent, and all are among a gamut of other crimes, as well. It plods along without too much excitement as it exposes the corruption and incompetence that exists within the legal system. The variety of cases are interesting and from those he describes, one has to come away with the uncomfortable feeling that the entire justice system is not only blind, but it is also rife with smoke and mirrors, easily hijacked by dishonesty and very easily bought by different players.

The book is vintage Grisham as it is clear and concise as it dissects the dishonesty in our world with all of its warts and foibles. If you believe the author’s presentation, everyone has a price, and everyone has the capacity to be dishonest: the cops, the lawyers, the judges, the wardens, the guards, and the criminals. It is hard to know which one is the worst of the bunch!

Rudd is not likeable since he thinks nothing of defrauding the system he is sworn to uphold. He wears his politics on his sleeve and uses his disgust with the injustices of the system to stretch the rules himself. The cases that the author has chosen to highlight most probably are used to expose his own beliefs about law enforcement, the jury system, the expert witnesses, the lawyers, the business world, and the thugs. Since he was once a practicing lawyer, one has to assume he knows from whence he speaks so that even when a story seems implausible, the reader has to pause and question their incredulity. Grisham must have witnessed variations of these miscarriages of the justice system in person.

Grisham makes it feel like the courtroom is almost a venue for entertainment, where lawyers perform, and justice be damned! Politically, the views lean heavily to the left. The narrator did an admirable job, although there were times when the dialogue was confusing as one or another character spoke in the same tone of voice. This book is a great beach read, so pack a bag, toss it in, and go on your way.

Us, David Nichols, author; David Haig, narrator
Be prepared to raise an eyebrow, smile and even laugh out loud as this story unfolds. Us is a charming and tender tale about the mating game and all that it involves as it evolves from the courtship to the marriage, to the raising of a family and beyond, complete with all of the attempts to attain a harmonious family life complete with the pitfalls that are faced in that endeavor. The burden of providing for a family often necessitates some happy and some unhappy choices to accommodate changing needs. Compromises often have to be made in the face of some stubborn adherences to selfish desires. Successful parenting is a work in progress and is often taxed by the disagreements between parents. Marriages are also works in progress and they are taxed by boredom and infidelity.
What would you do if your spouse suddenly decided that after more than two decades of marriage, she/he wanted to separate? Would you try to salvage the relationship or accept the judgment? Would you be demoralized, devastated or acquiescent? What would you do if you had a child with whom you were unable to communicate, a child who shut you out of his life? Would you abandon that child or attempt to reconcile. This was the dilemma that faced Douglas Petersen, 54 years old, just prior to a month long vacation, a European tour that he had planned for the family, very meticulously; it was the tour that was originally intended to reunite him with his son, and now, was meant, he hoped, to reunite him with his wife. After spending about 2 1/2 decades learning to live with each other, his wife had announced that she was not sure she could continue to live with him after their son went off to school. The empty nest was a hole she could not bear to contemplate and really felt that although she loved Douglas, she believed that their marriage had run its natural course and should dissolve. Essentially, as a couple, they had no future; they had outlived their usefulness, according to Connie.
So “Us” is the story of Douglas and Connie, two diametrically opposed characters; one is a scientist who studies fruit flies and this oddly fascinates his wife, and the other is an artist who paints pictures which her husband professes to like, but does not really understand. One is completely type “a”, up-tight and obsessed with rules, while the other is free as a bird, accepting all kinds of outrageous behavior. When they decided to marry, I thought that one of them must surely become subservient to the other, in order to cohabit peacefully, and soon, after their son Albie/Egg, was born, they both did have to learn to compromise even more.
As the marriage proceeds, Connie proves herself to be the more peaceful, the most forgiving, and the loosest in her expectations, but often, she is also the instigator, encouraging her son’s greater devotion to herself by openly disagreeing with Douglas’s expectations for his son. Douglas, socially inept, surprises himself, often, with his sense of humor and capabilities, but he is unable to show affection easily in the way that is wife is able, and she, therefore, manages to deal more effectively with the angst of her teenage son and his defiant behavior.
Their lives are taken apart, explored and put back together again by this very skillful author, with humor and wit that softens the tension and makes for a delightfully, enlightening read about relationships between spouses, between parents and children, and between strangers. Connie and Douglas come from divergent backgrounds and bring that history with them to their marriage, a blending of which creates a very confused Albie. Albie generally feels that while his father thinks little of him and is someone he simply cannot please and has given up trying; his mother offers him the sympathy, affection and understanding he craves.
Connie seems to be easy going, but possibly selfish and immature. She demands little in the way of decorum from her son while she accepts his teenage expression of independence, his experimentation with drugs, sex and a need to be solitary, as normal. She abets his behavior, by disregarding it and so does Doug, who while disliking his behavior and criticizing it, still funds it. At seventeen years old, Albie is immature, spoiled and willful, often deliberately rude and cruel to his dad, while Connie looks on, almost encouraging his behavior and ridiculing Doug’s. I was not in favor of their family dynamic, but I recognized the signs of warring hormones in Albie.
As the European tour proceeds, the landscape, art exhibits and museums are brought to life, but the Petersens can’t escape the tension inherent in their family dynamic, especially when Albie brings home a stray, a young woman accordion player, Kat, who has pretty much left her own home and run away. She is completely outspoken, without reservation, and she lives off others without shame while flaunting the rules of society. Connie likes her; Douglas does not. In the end, one lesson learned is that you must not judge a book by its cover, often there is a lot more between the pages of that person. When the disillusionment mounts, Albie takes off into the sunset, still expecting his parents to foot the bill, and as they twist and turn trying to find him, each accepting his disappearance in their own way, the reader is right there with them, worrying and fearing for his safety, wondering if he will ever return home.
The dynamics of their marriage and family life, plus the habits from their past that they bring with them and with which they infect their son, are carefully dissected with great detail. The dry, funny humor of the British, even when dealing with trauma and life threatening danger, prevents the story from becoming too bogged down with issues; each sardonic remark eases the tension allowing the readers and the internal narrator, Douglas, to understand and laugh at themselves and their own behavior.
In the end, one has to wonder, is this story an argument for or against a marriage of opposites? Can compromise and devotion save the day? As it examines different relationships and reactions between adults, between teens, and also between adults and teens, even among strangers who meet serendipitously, the reader will notice how the characters mature according to their experiences, in many different ways. Different personalities, with their likes and dislikes, learn how to accommodate each other or, they do not!
The ending is somewhat hopeful, but it is not a fairy tale ending, in the least. It is realistic and pragmatic as all of the characters do a bit of growing up, a bit of maturing and learn to see their own true images in a mirror, eventually coming to terms with who they really are.
Connie was my least favorite character as she seemed to be playing both ends against the middle in most situations. Albie, also known as Egg, was next since he seemed to be unappreciative of all that his parents provided for him, always expecting more, expecting to do as he pleased without giving anything back in return. Douglas was recalcitrant and hard-nosed, set in his ways and unable to relax. He meant well, but could not think outside the box, most of the time. He was always planning and organizing and was the most obvious and easy to predict. In each character, the readers will se a bit of themselves, and they will laugh as the self-deprecating main character introduces them to the exigencies of his life and the demands of his relationships while also exploring the hole that is left in a family unit when a child leaves the home, a child who has been the center of attraction for his entire life, a child that leaves an emptiness behind that he used to fill, an abyss that may be too deep and wide for one spouse to contemplate accepting and crossing to reach the other.

In Simon Mawer’s first book about Marian Sutro, “Trapeze”, she was one of 40 young British girls enlisted to help in the war effort, working in enemy territory for the SOE (Special Operations Executive). She was flown into France where she parachuted in and assumed a French identity. She was trained as a spy in techniques of survival, but still, she was betrayed and caught, cruelly interrogated and sent to the Ravensbrück Concentration Camp. In this book, “Tightrope”, her story is continued, told through her eyes and the eyes of her childhood friend Samuel. More than a decade younger, he was completely devoted to her.

During her brief career as a spy in France, Marian had assumed many identities, committed murder and suffered torture at the hands of the Nazis. She had learned subterfuge and knew how to lie, a skill she carried with her after she finally escaped and returned home. She used those skills in her effort to create a life for herself after what she had experienced. It was difficult. She had been grievously hurt, emotionally, physically and mentally by her treatment. Returning home, she found a world that was engaged in a Cold War and an arms race. The events in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were shocking and unacceptable to her. She was conflicted about the results of the war effort and was completely against the development of the bombs. She felt greater access to the technology should be made to other countries which she believed would prevent the bombs from ever being used. Her brother Ned agreed with her, and after the war, they often spoke about their feelings of frustration.
Marian looked for some kind of work in order to return to the real world, but she had no real skills besides spy work. She was awarded medals and accolades for her service. When Britain recruited her again, to help with the politics of the Cold War with Russia, she accepted. She married, worked for the Peace Union and attempted to live a normal life. When Ned’s homosexuality was discovered, she was blackmailed by the Russians into helping them, as well. She became a quasi double agent. It was difficult to know to which country she felt a greater loyalty. She was an accomplished liar and constantly took advantage of the survival techniques she had been taught when trained for her drop into France.
Although she was tricked and betrayed by her enemies, compromised and drugged in order to extract information from her, she still seemed to be able to rise above and meet every challenge, tricking those attempting to trap her. She was brave and strong, even if somewhat misguided. Marian had little real allegiance to anyone but herself. Secrets were her stock-in-trade and she never told the whole truth. It was hard to know which part of her story was real and which was imagined even when she confessed her sins, so to speak, to Samuel.
Both Marian and Ned became involved in an effort to change the course of history. Ned never knew why his sister became involved with Russia, nor did he know the true extent of what she did or how she did it. He only knew that she compromised herself with her sexual promiscuity and naïveté, endangering her own life and possibly the lives of others, but he too, was promiscuous and naive. Marian suffered from survivor’s guilt and often had nightmares, sometimes forgetting who she was and reverting to a previous wartime identity. Searching for peace within herself, a persona she could live with, she often behaved without regard to morality. She was disloyal to her husband and viewed cheating almost as her right of passage. She frequently seemed to take unnecessary risks, playing both ends against the middle, but her ability to lie, most often saved her. Because of her training in espionage, she often noticed danger, things around her that others might not. Still she put herself in harm’s way, regardless.
The story moved slowly but steadily to its end as the author placed us in the European theater through the prewar and postwar environment. The setting was realistic, the mood somber. There were shortages of food and other necessities of life. There was misery and frustration and suffering. For some, it seemed a bit easier than for others, but the adjustment back prewar life was monumental. Marian was often lost in her own imagination, sometimes not fully rational or realistic, and even as she tried to reconstruct her life, she was defeated by her memories and her training; yet it was ultimately that training that saved her.
The end of the book fast forwards into the future and we find Marian, now 80 years old, living with still another identity in Switzerland. Out of the blue, Samuel, the son of her mother’s friend, reappears after 50 some years to tie up the loose ends of her life. She has never told anyone her whole story, and one has to wonder if, in the end, her confessions to Samuel were actually true. Who was the real Marian Sutro?
I listened to an audio version of the book, but I also have a hard copy. It requires a slow and thoughtful reading of that time period of horror for the world. The narrator read it in a steady, smooth, and calm voice, making the revelations stark and real in their barbarism but also easier to absorb. War affected everyone in different ways. No one was unscathed, and the effort of everyone involved was based on different motivations. The reading was presented with little emotion, in a matter of fact way, which is how Marian was also portrayed. She proceeded almost like an automaton, doing what she must, planning carefully and thoughtfully, always prepared to run, always on edge on the inside but calm on the outside, as she had been taught.

The Crossing (Harry Bosch, #20), by Michael Connelly, author; Titus Welliver, narrator
The LAPD (Los Angeles Police Department), has arrested DQ Foster for the brutal rape and murder of a sheriff’s wife. The accused is the client of Mickey Haller, half-brother of Harry Bosch. Lincoln Lawyer, Mickey Haller, is convinced that his client is innocent and has been framed. The murder was a high profile case and all the powers that be were clamoring for it to be solved.

Harry Bosch had been forced to retire from the LAPD. Currently, he has an active lawsuit against the department. Haller knew that Bosch was fixing his old motorcycle but was otherwise unoccupied. He asked him for his help because he believed he was the best investigator in the business. Harry did not want to cross the line from a cop who investigated and caught criminals, to an investigator of the cops and the criminals they captured. He went after criminals; he didn’t try to absolve them of their guilt. He said all criminals proclaim their innocence once caught. Furthermore, he did not want further trouble with the police department and did not want to be looked upon as a traitor to his brothers in uniform. Still, Haller implored him to just read the murder book for himself and then decide whether or not to help him.
Bosch agreed simply to read about the crime, but promised nothing else. He soon discovered what he believed could be flaws and omissions in the investigation. He wasn’t saying he believed the client was innocent because there was compelling evidence against him, like his DNA found at the scene of the crime, but his interest was piqued. He tried to quietly conduct an investigation. His meddling into the case was soon discovered. He was working for the other side, and he was harassed by some in the police department.
Bosch believed that when the detectives assigned to the case thought they had caught their murderer, they dropped the ball and stopped their investigation, failing to follow up on some clues, leads and loose ends. He noticed that there was a line from a watch on the victim’s wrist and wondered where that watch was. Was it stolen at the time of the murder? Was she even wearing it at the time? Was it being repaired? As he investigated that watch further, the mystery expanded. More bodies turned up and he began to wonder if he was leading the murderer to them. As he researched the clues and the evidence, he exposed the possibility of further crimes involving the vice squad and blackmail. Was there a sex scandal afoot? Was the murder of the sheriff’s wife far more complicated than it looked?
This latest book in the Harry Bosch series rolls out smoothly and methodically. The narrator is at first off-putting since his voice is low and not very well modulated, but as the story continues, it is the perfect tone and emphasis for the tale. His portrayal of the characters is engaging and will hold the listener’s interest throughout. The narrative is very well written and never grows confusing, but instead, it slowly becomes more and more magnetic, drawing one further and further into the story as the mystery twists and turns. Even though the plot is fairly obvious as it exposes the corruption in the justice system and the criminal cover-up that really dominates the story, the reader will never be bored. The court scenes are realistic and serve to expose the games lawyers play to defend their clients and the extent to which law enforcement will sometimes go to defend their brotherhood. In short, this is a really good, fast read with lots of interesting details.

Dear Mr. You, Mary-Louise Parker, author; read by author
The book is written and read well by the author, a well known, award winning actress, but I am not sure what purpose she wished to accomplish by writing it, except perhaps to clear up her own conscience as she reviewed her life and perhaps to right some wrongs she committed along her path to stardom. I did not find the memoir compelling, and I am not sure that there were enough reviews yet written to justify the glorious praise being given to it. It consists of a short series of letters written to people involved in her life, people with whom she interacted, with whom she had relationships, people whom she abused, people whom she loved dearly, people who influenced her, and pets that she adored. Also, keep it in mind that she is still a young woman, hopefully with many more years to live. Born in 1964, she is only just entering her 50’s, so the memoir is by that very nature, brief.
In the letters she wrote to these people, even one to the unknown man who might become the husband of her now middle school aged daughter, she offers her advice and apologies, and in some cases, condemnations as she explains her past. She writes about her children, her parents, her siblings, friends, teachers, lovers, animals, taxi drivers, designers, fellow actors, and others, but especially praises the oyster harvester who managed, against all odds, to bring her father his last meal before he succumbed to a grave illness. She invites us to be voyeurs, looking into the window of her life as she explores it.
The author loved her father deeply, and the final pages of the book were the most moving expression of her emotion and the most poignant for me. Prior to that I simply felt she was reviewing and critiquing her sexual exploits and partners and was attempting to prove that she had mastered the use of crude, descriptive language. I found some of the letters to be more interesting and revealing than others, like those describing her childbirth experience, her near death experience, and those involving her father. Others were confusing, without a timeline or purposeful direction.
The author’s parents were married for more than 6 decades; Mary-Louise Parker never married. She is the mother of two children. One, a young boy born in 2004, and the other, a child she adopted in 2007, from Ethiopia.
The memoir seemed to be helping her to work through the events, tragedies and joys of her life, but it is a picture of someone who spent a lot of time being unhappy and angry, defying the rules and generally often behaving irresponsibly, until she finally “came of age”. Although her father was excessively ethical, she seemed to be exactly the opposite, possibly in rebellion. His overzealous adherence to rules created chaos in his life since he could not bend rules under any circumstance; she, on the other hand, took pleasure in doing just that.
I did not bond with this book. Often I zoned out and forgot what I was listening to because the author made no connection with me. Growing up, while the author seemed sometimes reckless, my coming of age was the polar opposite; I did not have the luxury of being irresponsible, and so I followed the letter of the law. Still, the memoir is written with a light sense of humor and subtle wit as she describes her reactions to certain events in her life and her feelings about certain people, so if it is your cup of tea to read a book that will not tax your brain, and if you like to read about the rich and famous, have at it!

The Grownup, Gillian Flynn, author, Julia Whelan, narrator
Sometimes I think I live in an alternate universe. At first, listening to this book, I believed that it was about a young woman whose former mode of employment, for a period of three years, was to provide “hand jobs” for her clients. In this endeavor, she had therefore estimated that she had provided more than 23,500. The idea that someone would write a story about this was odd enough to me, but more strange was the fact that I was listening to it and laughing at the excellence of her presentation. I am in shock, and I am in a moment that I believe may exist only in my own imagination. When did this kind of subject matter not only become mainstream, but also, apparently, appealing to a large number of readers? She tells her story with a considerable amount of humor, as in the carpal tunnel syndrome she describes as a hazard of her profession. So, the subject may be lewd, the descriptions may often be crude, but the short story is funny and then, by turns, really scary. It was after midnight when I listened to it on my itouch, and in just over an hour, this story of just over 60 pages, rattled me so much, I could not turn off the lights! I listened to the audiobook at my desk. It was expertly read by Julia Whelan. I actually won and received a hard copy the next morning, from Read It Forward.
Briefly, so as not to give the tale away, it is about the narrator, who remains nameless, and the woman, Susan, who comes to her for counseling. Her husband travels a lot. She is concerned about her difficult stepson, Miles. He has changed since they moved into their newly renovated, older home, and both the home and the child have begun to frighten her. Our narrator offers to cleanse the home for her. Our narrator is the quintessential con artist. As soon as she becomes familiar with Miles and his erratic behavior, and with the house with its odd sounds and strange past, she too grows frightened. Soon, this tale takes on a very chilling character as she begins to think that Susan could be in real danger. Actually, she thinks, they might all be in harm’s way.
This is a really twisted psychological thriller which is so much more than a silly story about a woman who satisfies her male clients six days a week. It simply cannot fail to hold any reader’s interest! Who will be the real grown-up in the room? Is there a grown-up, after all?
Written by the author of “Gone Girl”, this short story will possibly shock the reader, as it did me, but it will also be very entertaining because she is a gifted writer with a classic wit as she describes the narrator’s life, occupation, mother, boss, clients and above all, how a mind works to manipulate the world!
***I won this book from Read It Forward.|

Fates and Furies, Lauren Groff
The opening lines of this novel capture the reader immediately. The short staccato sentences rush at the reader who races after them, so beautiful is the prose. The story examines personalities and relationships, marriages and what goes into them, and then it also examines different types of love, loss, identity, shame and guilt. These things shape us all as we deal with what comes in and out of our lives. The novel begins with a young couple affectionately devouring each other with their love as they walk down the beach. Although they barely know each other, Lancelot (Lotto), and Mathilde (Aurélie), have impulsively married, in secret, after a brief courtship. Their joy is obvious as they soon fall to the sand and make love passionately. When suddenly, she becomes offended by something he says, the idea that he owns her, even figuratively, he is mystified. She is showing a side of herself that he has not seen before. We soon learn that they have lots of secrets from each other.
This story is divided into two parts. The first part, “Fates”, engages us with Lancelot Satterwhite and his worldview. Born to Antoinette and Gawain, it was his Aunt Sallie, his father’s sister, who decided he should be called Lotto, rather than his too sophisticated given name which was Lancelot. Lancelot was the "Golden Child" until his father’s sudden death at age 46. His mother, bereft and pregnant with his sister, Rachel, suddenly decides to sell their assets, including the highly successful family business. She moves the family to a new, much smaller home and begins a more frugal lifestyle. Whereas in his previous life he was catered to and loved by all, he was now, at the awkward age of 15, dealing with the agonies of puberty, cystic acne, loneliness and grief. In a strange neighborhood, a strange house, and a strange school, he began to flounder. Although he was a likable sort, since he was generous and didn’t harbor bad thoughts about anyone, he made few friends except for a pair of twins, Chollie and Gwennie, three years older than he and more socially aware. When he got into trouble one night, after becoming sexually involved with Gwennie, he was banished by his mother and exiled to a private boarding school. She thought it was for the best, but it made matters worse for him. There, he was nicknamed Bumblefuck, which explains the environment he endured in his new life. Once well groomed and good looking, he began to grow unkempt. He had difficulty adjusting, but excuse after excuse prevented his return home for a visit. Although his Aunt Sallie and his sister Rachel visited and shared some vacations with him as years passed, his mother never did. As she became more and more obese and more and more agoraphobic, her varied illnesses prohibited her from doing many things and their estrangement grew. Their fragile relationship existed on the internet only.
Lotto's increased sexual activity and promiscuity somewhat resolved his issue of loneliness, but it was his discovery of acting that finally set him free and gave him a “raison d’etre”. One night, after a performance, when most everyone was high and/or drunk, Mathilde walked into a cast party. He had previously noticed her and was now completely smitten. He fell to his knees before her and proposed marriage. Mathilde had actually already set her sights on Lotto, intending to seduce him, because she had heard he was wealthy. Soon, however, she was madly in love with him. When his mom disowned him because she disapproved of the match and their failure to get an annulment, she never missed the money or regretted her actions. She adored Lotto. Their marriage was kismet.
The second part of the book, “Furies”, takes us deeper into Mathilde’s worldview. Once, she too had been adored, but then, at the tender age of four, she did something awful; she became a “bad seed” in everyone’s eyes. She was abandoned by her parents, bounced around from foster home to foster home and then to the homes of strange relatives who bore no love for her. She was never shown true affection or acceptance but was rather tolerated since they all believed the worst of her. She lived in the shadow of a tragedy that marked her for life. Her name, Aurélie, pronounced orally, made her the butt of jokes so she changed it to the more sophisticated Mathilde. Lotto breathed new life into that frail self-image, into her damaged soul. While Mathilde did whatever she had to do to survive, Lancelot, more or less, took it for granted that he would always survive. Mathilde expected nothing while Lancelot innocently expected everything as his due. Both rejected, they were broken people who made each other whole. Mathilde catered to Lotto’s every need, and, in return, he adored her, gave her the love she craved. Her unconditional love made him, once again, the “golden child”. What more could either of them ask for?
Mathilde worked behind the scenes, making secret alliances in order to make ends meet when Lotto could not provide for their needs. Over the years, she spurred him onward and upward. She engineered his progress, propped him up when he despaired, essentially wrote, produced and directed his life. He became a successful playwright largely due to her efforts on his behalf when she encouraged him to give up acting. He actually thought that she was happy to be what he inferred was the lesser member of the family, happily giving up her own future to support his so that she could then share in his success, so secure was he in his perceived superior talent and she so content in her subservient place in that life.
When Lotto suddenly died, young like his father, there didn’t seem to be a Mathilde any longer. She retreated inside herself, neglected her hygiene, then alternatively, she engaged in promiscuous behavior and cared little about anything but ridding herself of her pain, her loss, and her feeling of emptiness. On the outside, their marriage seemed to work very well, and everyone had assumed it was the perfect match that they could not achieve for themselves. Behind the scenes, though, Lotto’s friend Chollie had resented Mathilde for taking Lotto’s attention away from him. He was waiting for revenge. Lotto’s mother, too, was jealous of the love Lotto showered on Mathilde, at her expense and was seeking revenge. Soon, Mathilde, enraged, would want to seek vengeance upon those who deliberately set out to come between them. The loyalty and devotion of Aunt Sallie and Rachel finally helped her to reenter her life. They revealed a secret to her that changed her outlook; she had an epiphany. Her fury toward her perceived enemies abated, and she began to look at her future differently, more hopefully. She began to see a way to continue to live with Lancelot, if only by preserving his work and his memories.
Underlying this tale is the fact that while Lotto and Mathilde seemed perfectly suited to each other, they also both deceived each other. Was their relationship and their marriage all that it seemed to be on the surface, or were there troubles brewing beneath that outer calm and smooth façade? After more than two decades of marriage, they had, unexpectedly, kept many secrets from each other. Did they ever really fully know each other? Was the marriage perfect or was it their creation that looked perfect? Were they both merely seeking the love of a family they missed and which they provided for each other, to some degree, absent children? Would the marriage of the original Aurélie and the original Lancelot have been kismet too?
Throughout the book there are references to Shakespeare's themes and characters. All of Lotto’s plays have undertones of Shakespeare within their seams. As the story plays out, there are explanations in brackets occurring after some of the important moments. They are there, like tongue in cheek revelations, just in case the reader isn’t aware of the magnitude of the idea presented; they are there to help provide perspective for the reader. Like the asides in a stage play, they are offstage remarks to enlighten the viewer or the voyeur.
Lotto was a playwright who puts his life into his plays, his feelings and his conflicts are all there as are Mathilde’s. It appeared that he was the successful member of the family, but it was she who had secretly collaborated with him, engineered his train and helped to expose his talent to the world.
Lotto and Mathilde had a romance with life. Every sentence was a joy to read, like the words of Aunt Sally, “But don’t you fret. I’ll make sure you’re Lotto. And because she could move behind wallpaper like the mouse she resembled, Lotto is what they called him.” So Antoinette gave Lotto his life, Sallie gave him his name, and Mathilde nurtured him until he blossomed, then withered and died. The name Mathilde provided Aurélie with the perception of sophistication, but it was Lotto who gave life to Mathilde, and without him, she almost withered and died.

Tom Clancy Commander in Chief, Mark Greaney, author, Scott Brick, narrator
Three things are happening behind the scenes in this realistic modern day novel of suspense and foreign intrigue. The Russian President, Valeri Volodin, threatened with extinction because of his country’s precarious financial position and loss of power and stature in the world today, had devised a demonic plan of destruction to guarantee his country’s return to a position of strength, and in the event of failure, he had laid out a broad and creative plan to enable his escape, as one very rich man, to a place of refuge outside Russia. To this end, 1) he was repositioning his armed forces and weapons in Europe, weapons that have been improved that the rest of the world is not aware of, including new and more advanced nuclear submarines; 2) he was staging and engineering terrorist attacks in various cities around Europe, planting evidence that pointed away from Russian responsibility, and instead credited the havoc, death and destruction created on small splinter groups of discontented revolutionaries, in order to instill fear around the world; 3) he had people secretly transferring money stolen from his country, to the tune of billions, to secret accounts in his name, using bitcoins that could not be traced in case he was unsuccessful in accomplishing his master plan and needed to make a quick getaway. He threatened those refusing to help him with death and torture; he kidnapped families and held them hostage; he engaged assassins and willingly sacrificed innocent men and women, Russians and foreigners, to achieve his goals. He had engaged the help of brutal mercenaries from all over the world to stage the attacks, and it would seem that there was simply no end to the number of people willing to do anything for money.
From country to country, as terrorist attacks took place, President Jack Ryan and his advisors began to suspect that Russia was behind the turmoil being created because of the way it was being carried out. The attacks appeared to be engineered by groups who were using far more sophisticated methods than previously had been used, and the groups seemed far better trained than they were previously known to be. Someone was training these men in advanced methods of attack. Witnesses soon provide conflicting evidence to the contrary of what appeared originally on initial investigations, and it became obvious to some that mischief of a very dangerous nature was afoot and was probably birthed in the womb of Mother Russia.
The President of the United States was tasked with the job of convincing Nato to aid in the defense of the countries being attacked, but he was thwarted by excuses that reeked of politics, protocol and a decided lack of enthusiasm because the countries that needed to help were also countries that were dependent on their dealings with Russia. They didn’t want to jeopardize their fragile economies by interfering in what might not be as threatening a situation as the United States suspected it would become, that might simply be a false alarm or a wild goose chase. However, the United States advisors had surmised that the evil plan of destruction and sacrifice of human capital existed to propel Valeri Volodin into the spotlight, making him the hero of his country or the best escape artist, who would leave Russia behind with a sack of money if he failed. Jack Ryan was unable to convince his allies to assist him in moving troops around Europe to protect what he believed would soon be an invasion, by Russia, into independent nations that were formerly part of the USSR. He believed that Volodin was up to something so disruptive that it would destabilize the rest of the world and put fear in their hearts, giving the Russians greater power and position.
When a routine surveillance operation accidentally becomes involved in the Russian debacle, there is further evidence of Russian complicity. These surveillance teams were working for the Campus, a secret organization that protected the President. Jack Ryan is the son of the President. He worked with the Campus and had unwittingly become involved in an international act of war. As the President’s son, he was forbidden from being in such a high profile and dangerous position. He took unnecessary risks putting their work into jeopardy and subjected himself to severe consequences because of his actions. His current lady love was working with him, and although he tried to protect her, she had come to serious harm.
Russia’s weapons had been more highly developed than Nato or the US was aware and as the conflict escalated and fighting began, they discovered that their submarines, missiles and tanks were far more advanced than was previously known. Their brutality and Machiavellian behavior astonished the world, although given its past history, it would was hard to believe that part of the plot. How could heads of countries have been that naïve, and would they really have been that unwilling to believe the threat presenting itself or that unwilling to engage in defensive actions?
Jack Ryan, the President’s son, did not play as prominent a role in this particular Jack Ryan novel. Rather, his position in life and the danger he placed others in by ignoring his importance, upstaged him. He was forced to return home as his presence was placing The Campus and the operation in greater danger. Other operatives assumed a more prominent role in this dangerous endeavor. Jack, however, chomped at the bit to get involved again, even if he had to disobey orders that would have serious consequences for him.
From start to finish, this novel of intrigue will grip the reader to the seat as this very plausible real-world scenario plays out. Will Russia succeed with the diabolical plans of its leader? Will America convince NATO to enter into the mysterious world of treachery that they believe Russia is now engaged in, or will the international community balk at any idea that might negatively influence their economic and political circumstances? Will Russia’s nuclear submarine continue to threaten the coast of the United States positioning itself outside of particular cities of interest like Washington DC? Who will outsmart whom in the end? Will it be a no win situation eventually bringing everyone down? It was not until the seeds of this evil plan had begun to grow that the world actually came late to the table, joining the United States to make a united effort to stop the forces of evil that threatened national security everywhere. When the book ended, one could not help wondering if this novel was prescient and would soon play out in one form or another in the not too distant future.
Scott Brick is an excellent narrator who uses authentic foreign accents and appropriate expression.

The Brass Verdict-Michael Connelly, author; Peter Giles, narrator
I am becoming a Harry Bosch and Mickey Haller devotee. This book in the series opens with a courtroom case. Mickey Haller is the public defender for Barnett Woodson who has been accused of murdering two men. An ex-con, career criminal, Ronald Torrance is presenting evidence against him for the prosecution. Was he being framed? Was justice served? Jerry Vincent was the prosecutor on this case. When his career faltered, Haller introduced him to defense law, and as the years passed, each would use the other when an associate counsel was necessary. Both defended the indefensible, but it was the right of every criminal to have a fair trial, and the duty of every lawyer to represent them fully.
Mickey Haller had become addicted to pain medication, wrecked his marriage and finally entered rehab. When he got out, he tried to get back to himself, and slowly, possibly even reluctantly, he returned to the practice of law. He had few cases and was limping along. His assistant, Lorna Taylor, was his first ex-wife. Out of the blue, she tells him that Judge Mary Holder had called and summoned him to her office several times. He has no idea why she summoned him, but he doesn’t think it is good news when a judge asks for your presence. From the judge, he discovered that his associate, Jerry Vincent, had been murdered. His cases were left to Mickey. Some of the cases were going to present a problem, but this would definitely provide him with more legal work.
Mickey Haller had a lot of baggage to carry around. His second ex-wife, Maggie McPherson, was the mother of his daughter Hayley. He had limited visitation because of his behavior and past addiction, and he was working hard to control his temper and not resent Maggie’s interference and control over the time he spent with Hayley. She often questioned what they did when they were together and was unhappy with his responses.
After leaving the office of Judge Holder, Haller visited Vincent’s office where he found his secretary, Wren Williams, showing definite signs of grief. She had unwittingly let two detectives look through the office files for clues. One of the detectives was Harry Bosch, a detective well known for his police work. Haller asked them to leave to protect the lawyer/client privilege. After an edgy conversation, they left in a huff, especially annoyed when he asked them to leave the files they had selected. Since Vincent’s laptop, briefcase and calendar had been stolen, Lorna had to reconstruct the cases from the files and she began immediately. Mickey called his investigator, Dennis Wojciechowski, nicknamed Cisco, to help him out as well. He was perfect for the job, and soon they were all deeply involved, not only in Vincent’s legal cases, but also in the criminal investigation of Vincent’s murder. Slowly, Haller realized that he was involved in more than taking over a practice. This was not a simple murder/robbery mystery. In the search for answers, he finds himself working with Harry Bosch. They are both cagey about helping each other, but they provide whatever information they can to see that justice is done without breaking laws, although some are bent and stretched.
One of the cases that Haller inherited from Vincent was the defense of a well-known entertainment personality. Walter Elliot. He was rich, arrogant and brash, a man who hobnobbed with the rich and famous and he was accused of brutally murdering his wife and her lover. From the first, Elliot showed no fear. He simply assumed that he would not be convicted of the crime. Haller wondered why he was so positive. He proclaimed his innocence and demanded that Haller believe him. So who was behind the violent crime? Between Haller and Bosch, the mystery is finally resolved, but its solution remains obscure to the reader until almost the very end. It is what makes this and other novels by this author so exciting. In this book, the reader is given a bonus surprise, because at the end, there is a revelation about the Bosch and Haller relationship.
The action held my interest from beginning to end, even at the times when some details seemed excessive. The investigations and court scenes were intense and authentic, and the ending was totally unexpected. The story twisted and turned until it reached its surprising conclusion. The narrator of this audio used just the right amount of expression and tone for the action scenes, creating much of the tension in this thriller. It was a great book to listen to on a long drive up the east coast of the USA. FYI: A brass verdict means “street justice”.

This is the loveliest story about the most unlovely subject. Why is this book designated for grades seven and up? The message is more profound than what is perceived initially on its surface. This is a tale about evil that is witnessed through the eyes of a child and is far more accurately seen in that way, than through the eyes of an adult with the ability to alter and shape it to suit his ability to understand and cope with it. A child sees it without the decorations an adult often surrounds it with to make it more acceptable. A child simply sees the idea for what it is, evil incarnate; good and bad are simple concepts, one is to be sought and one is to be avoided. Anna is a child who possesses the wisdom of a far older person; she has the innocence of a child, but she also has the ability to interpret what she sees before her with simple clarity, without the need for a prettier package to soften the impact of what exists around her. She detects good and evil. Of necessity, she learns to survive.
It is 1939; Germany has marched into and conquered Poland. Anna is 7 years old when her father fails to return home, and she is unexpectedly abandoned by a close family friend who had been watching her in her father’s absence. She finds herself suddenly alone in Krakow, Poland, during a time of war. Unable to get into her apartment without a key, she returns to the family friend who left her, and outside his shop, becomes acquainted with “the Swallow Man”. Who is this Swallow Man? He becomes her protector and she becomes his ward. Their symbiotic relationship develops slowly as they wander through forest and field, searching for sustenance and safety. He teaches her how to survive and she teaches him how to feel in ways he seems to have forgotten.
Although the Holocaust is never really directly confronted, the horror and fear it invoked is clearly represented by the narrative and behavior of the characters. There is an absence of laughter and birdsong except at special moments. There is an evident war against Jews, but it is more hinted at than elucidated. The presence of fear and the threat of death as well as the feeling of cold and hunger are always simmering on the surface. The simple description of Bears and Wolves, both as predators who are to be feared for different reasons, paints the picture of the enemies they face, who are not only the Germans, but also are the Russians. There are few friends, and danger is ever present in the animal form, while birds often foreshadow safety.
This little book could be a wonderful tool to teach children about the nature of enemy vs. friend, compassion vs. indifference, survival vs. death, good vs. evil. It is a gentle, subtle, almost poetic presentation of the nature and horror of war, of the inanity and danger of prejudice, in a palatable way. The Holocaust becomes accessible in this book without the horrific descriptions usually used to offer information and instruction about a subject that remains a blight on the history of the world. It offers an opportunity to discuss and understand the event without the blood and gore which often prohibits its free discussion. The book should transcend the age limit for which it was recommended because it is appropriate for all ages.
Because I had both a print and audio of the book, I listened to and read it. Both versions were worthwhile. The narrator, Allan Corduner, was excellent when portraying each character, getting into their minds and attitudes with utter authenticity, forcing the reader to share their experiences.

The Guest Room, Chirs Bohjalian, author; Mozhan Marno, Grace Experience, narrators
I could not stop listening to this book once I began. The story is interesting because of the subject matter; it is about the sex slave industry and the often reckless behavior of men which enables such an industry to exist.
This novel is basically two stories that merge into one. The first begins in Armenia where a young girl, recently orphaned, is abducted, and taken to Moscow where she believes she will be trained as a professional dancer, but is instead, she is a prisoner, trained to be a courtesan against her will. Threatened with punishment for herself and/or her remaining family members, she complies. As a teenager or younger, she doesn’t have the judgment, tools or ability to fight back. She is a captive with no control over her life, and she grows totally dependent upon her captors for her survival, some sex slaves often exhibiting signs of the Stockholm Syndrome.
The second story takes place in America, in NYC. Richard is a nice enough guy who accidentally gets caught up in this sex slave industry when he good naturedly agrees to host his brother’s bachelor party at his home. Although he is aware of the fact that his brother is often immature and has less than stellar friends, he is happy about his coming marriage, and as best man, he wants to do this for him. He has no idea what a nightmare that decision will spawn.
Unbeknownst to Richard, his brother Philip’s best friend, Spencer, makes arrangements to have strippers at the party who are far more than simple strippers, and the evening’s entertainment brings tragedy to his home. When the girls arrive with their “bodyguards”, the entertainment begins. Excessive drinking impairs the judgment of many of the guests. The party quickly descends into debauchery as the females are intended also to be special gifts for both Richard and his brother to enjoy. A series of events take place which are catastrophic. Richard’s life is turned upside down. He is no longer trusted by his wife, his job is in jeopardy and he is placed on leave by his firm. The brutal double murder that occurred that night has placed the spotlight upon him.
Richard’s wife’s reaction seems a bit shallow, at first. Although she believes her husband has sinned, which is unbelievably upsetting, in her immediate reaction she gives little thought to what he has experienced while witnessing the murders which have scarred their home, not only with the memory, but with the blood of the victims. She questions his protestations of innocence. She thinks only about her own shame and humiliation and gives little thought to the victims. When Richard confesses partially to the sins of the evening, the evidence against him is incriminating, and she suddenly becomes insecure about her own self-image and sexuality since she believes he has strayed from her. Yes, her husband’s behavior was suspect, and she rejected him, but was she possibly too self-righteous? It was actually, Spencer, his brother’s friend who was responsible for the entire debacle. This fact is not stressed by the author, rather the enabling of the event becomes the problem, I believe, in order for the author to shine a light on the wickedness of the sex slave industry.
The double murder that occurred in their home during what the papers were calling an orgy, possibly with underage sex slaves, placed the event on the front page of the news and the tongues of all of the people who know them, even the friends of their fourth grader, Melissa. The affect on each of them was different. Their daughter was confused and afraid, alternately vacillating between sympathy and disgust for her father, depending on her mother’s mood. His wife, Kristin, who was a teacher, worried about how the teachers and students and neighbors would react. Her daughter attended the same school in which she taught, and at first, she didn’t consider the effect of the tragedy upon her, but just upon herself. She kind of wallowed in self-pity. Richard, felt not only the humiliation and rejection, but also shame and fear about what occurred. He seemed genuine, while the other characters behavior seemed a bit contrived. He was complicit because it was in his home, and he did allow himself to go briefly astray, but he had no part in the organization of the entertainment, and he was shocked by the way the tragedy leached into all avenues of his life and by the caliber of Philip’s friend Spencer; his friends distanced themselves, his wife mistrusted him, his job was in jeopardy, and his daughter seemed to no longer love him unconditionally.
One other character seemed totally genuine. Alexandra (not her real name) was one of the so-called strippers. Her back story, background and experiences seemed plausible and appalling. Her telling of her story was captivating and if even a fraction of her story was based on reality, it was a nightmare scenario.
I found some of the reactions of observers to be over the top and of the police and justice system to be excessive with unnecessary innuendo and decisions. The behavior of friends and family members was disappointing. It seemed no one rallied around Richard, who was immediately judged and cast as the bad guy, even though he seemed, overall, to be the most innocent of the unintended victims.
The two themes that ran concurrently in the novel, sex slavery and infidelity are important subjects that needed to be explored more fully for the public. Did the end result seem justified? At one point in the book, the question is asked: “Who is worse, the seller or buyer of young girls?” That is a point worth considering further in discussion. Aren’t the sellers really the enablers of such a heinous industry?
Both narrators did a great job with both Richard’s and Alexandra’s dialogue perfectly expressed, accented and presented, putting the reader right in the middle of the action with all of the emotion, confusion and fear they experienced.

The Man Without a Shadow, Joyce Carol Oates, author; Susan Hanfield, narrator
Margot Sharpe is an intern in the Darven Park, Pennsylvania, neuropsychology laboratory of Milton Ferris. His university is engaged in the scientific study of memory, and its chief subject is amnesiac, Elihu Hoopes. It is hoped that through him they will unlock doors and solve problems regarding memory loss. Margot, is young, just about 24 years old, and she is overwhelmed by the opportunity to study, not only with Professor Ferris, but also to be involved in Project E.H. Hoopes is, at this time, in 1965, when she meets him, 38 years old. Fourteen months have passed since the illness that robbed him of his memory. Between the covers of this book, there is not only the scientific investigation of an amnesiac and the human brain, but there is also a possible murder mystery and an unorthodox love story unfolding. The book moves forward three decades in which Margot and the subject Elihu Hoopes are intimately involved with each other. Hoopes has no memory of those years, while Sharpe creates her own memories of their experiences, documenting some and leaving others out of her records in order to protect her own dysfunctional need to be loved. Her feelings for Hoopes are too strong; she cannot seem to help herself. The reader will learn that after contracting Herpes Simplex Encephalitis and failing to call for help soon enough, a part of Elihu Hoopes’ brain was compromised, the part that controlled memory. No longer could he hold onto the thread of any idea for longer than 70 seconds; therefore, he had no future and almost no present; he lived only in his past since those memories remained mostly intact. For the remainder of his life, he would be 37 years old, the age he was when he was stricken with the illness. His altered appearance would not register with his brain; he would see the image he remembered of himself before his illness. As those he once knew aged and their appearance changed, he would no longer recognize them.
Each time Eli met someone new, in his mind, it was for the first time, since as seconds passed, the memory of having met that individual simply disappeared. He had accommodated in some way for his loss, and he had become quite adept at answering questions in a way that avoided admitting his constant confusion when he was questioned. Often, he responded to his interviewer with a statement implying that he knew the answer and surely so did the interviewer, so why query him? Sophisticated technology like that of the MRI had not yet been developed, so most of the methods used in the study of Elihu’s memory were hands on investigations conducted by analysts, face to face.
There were tests that gauged his memory of pain which caused him discomfort, but the researchers justified the pain with the thought that it was a scientific study, and they escaped their feelings of guilt because he could not remember what he had experienced, and he, therefore, would not understand the reason for his continued discomfort. He was, essentially their guinea pig. The neuropsychology lab eventually came under the control of Margot Sharpe. She severely limited outside intervention as she wanted complete control. She became far too deeply attached to him, hoping he would become attached to her, as well, even with his memory deficit. However, although Elihu Hoopes was the subject of study for Margot Sharpe for three decades, until his death in November of 1996, he made little progress and never remembered who she was from visit to visit.
Joyce Carol Oates researched the subject well and her examination of the minds of this amnesiac and those who studied him, of the world of research with its competition and duplicity, and of the dangers of getting too close to a subject and losing sight of the purpose of the study in favor of one’s own needs is detailed and informative. Subtly, Oates compared the mind of the analyst to the mind of the amnesiac, pointing out how the memory problems of the afflicted and the supposedly more normal memory of the analyst paralleled each other in several ways. Margot Sharpe knew that in some cases, either one couldn’t remember accurately or one sometimes chose not to remember. She was a victim of that same symptomology as she more and more over identified with her subject, soon falling in love with him. Who better than an amnesiac to satisfy her need to be loved and accepted? He would reassert his love anew, each time she instigated the idea of their love for each other. She then chose to remember their meetings in her own way, often having nothing to do with reality, often hiding from the reality. Because she was in complete control of his environment at the university, she was able to conduct her fantasies with him without interference. He dominated her life to the exclusion of all else. Were Margot Sharpe’s memories any more accurate than Eli’s.? Both had dreams and nightmares about events that may or may not have occurred. Did she see herself as an aging woman or did she see what she wanted to see in the mirror, as Eli was forced to see what he once was in the mirror? She had irrational expectations, like a possible pregnancy in her mid fifties. Throughout the book, the reader will not be able to prevent the thought, “doctor heal thyself”. Is this psychoanalyst in need of therapy too? Is her behavior acceptable? Are her motives genuine and altruistic or unethical and selfish?
Perhaps because Hoopes was forced to live in a world of constant repetition, so was the reader. Because it was so repetitive, it was occasionally tedious. However, the in-depth exploration of the interaction between the characters and the development of their disparate personalities and dysfunctions was interesting. Although the timeline seemed unclear, at times, I attributed that to the author’s desire to immerse us into the confused world of Hoopes and Sharpe. Hoopes was perpetually in 1965, and Margot’s new life began then and ended with the death of Hoopes in 1996. It almost seemed as if the analyst was more damaged, at times, than the subject. Although she was supposed to be the rational one, she often behaved irrationally.
The research world was depicted as a bit corrupt with deserving researchers going unsung, not receiving credit for their effort while the heads of the labs reaped the fruits of their work. The narrator of the book had an appropriately spectral voice, especially when it came to the responses of Hoopes to his interviewers. She created an atmosphere of wonder with her tone, even of otherworldliness when it came to describing the dreams and nightmares of both Sharpe and Hoopes. When Eli asks Margot if there could be a person without a shadow, explaining that without a memory it was like being without a shadow, he revealed that he believed he was a man without a shadow. I wondered if Margot’s shadow was somehow lost in his. From 10/17/1965-11/26/1996, Margot devoted her life to the study of Eli. She loved him, the man who could not, but briefly, love her. Was those brief moments enough?

After WWII, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were arrested for spying, tried, convicted of stealing secrets enabling Russia to obtain an atomic weapon, and summarily executed. Were they guilty? David Greenglass, Ethel’s brother, implicated Julius after his own arrest. His own wife Ruth, had recently been badly burned in an accident. To save his life and hers, did he accuse his brother-in-law of being a traitor, and then to save Ruth, did he implicate and condemn his innocent sister to death? The country was awash in anti-communist fever fueled in part by the madness of McCarthy’s anti-communist investigations. It was a time when the only thing on people’s minds was the bomb, and there were hungry masses who were desperate to find someone to blame for their fears. Were those arrested encouraged to lie and make deals to save themselves to calm those fears? Perhaps justice was not served, but that angry mob, seeking vengeance for the passing of secrets to the Russians was certainly appeased.
Cantor portrays the Rosenbergs as a perfectly normal family. Ethel and Julius seemed devoted to each other and their children. He even operated his own small business. They lived happily in a neighborhood in New York City, at 10 Monroe Street, in a place called Knickerbocker Village, where Jews, communists and socialists felt at home. The Rosenbergs held meetings in their apartment with friends and associates. One day, in 1947, Ethel Rosenberg met her neighbor, Millie Stein, and the two women bonded to each other because of their loneliness. The unusual behavior of their sons caused most other parents to shun them. It is through the connection of these two women, which is made up out of whole cloth that drives the story forward.
Both women appear to be young, naive mothers struggling with somewhat difficult children who need some kind of outside intervention. One child, David Stein, is two years old when we meet him; he does not speak yet and prefers simple repetitive activities. He often simply pounds on walls or bangs on floors to get attention. His father has rejected him because he is not “normal”. The other child, John, son of Ethel Rosenberg, is bright and over aggressive when he is thwarted, often getting physical. Soon, both women have a second child and begin to help each other as neighbors often do. Both also have their children engaged in therapy to help them adjust.
Millie Stein’s husband, Ed, is a Russian who had recently come to the United States. He was a rigid, non-communicative, controlling man who made demands but showed little affection for his family. Julius and Ethel were also of Russian background, but they treated each other warmly. Julius appeared to be not only a loving and considerate husband but also a hands-on father.
At a gathering at Ethel’s apartment, Millie meets Dr. Gold. He is the therapist who later begins to treat her son’s developmental problems. They develop a relationship. At this party, Millie also hears talk of Russia. She is confused because she thought her husband had left all thought of Russia behind when he adopted the United States as his country. She then learns that Ed knew the Rosenbergs before she did and was surprised he had never introduced her to them. However, Millie is an unsophisticated young woman who asks few questions and prefers to maintain the status quo, not creating problems. She doesn’t ask her husband to explain anything about himself or his background.
When Dr. Gold offers to help Millie and David for free, she is overwhelmed and not very suspicious about his motives. He wants to analyze and study Millie and study David, hopefully helping him to learn to function on a more communicative level. Eventually he wants to publish, writing about them, without using their real names. Is his proposal realistic? As the plot plays out, the theme of secrets develops, and the story seems to be two tales in one. The first concerns what may have been the unduly, unjust treatment of the Rosenbergs which ended with their execution in 1953. Did they compromise American security to the extent of which they were accused? Did Ethel even know what her husband was up to, at the time, if he was a spy? The first half of the book develops a little slowly, perhaps because it lays the foundation and most people know the end result; the Rosenbergs were convicted and sentenced to death. The second half sets the stage for the investigation and develops the different motives of the characters. It is then that the story catches fire. The romance that developed between Millie and the doctor who treats David grows. Her life becomes more hopeful and exciting. His kindness seems to give the boy some serenity and eases his frustration, as he encourages him to find alternate ways to communicate. The second also explores the methods used by the FBI and other law enforcement during that time.
Questions will rise in the reader’s mind. Was Dr. Gold the man he presented himself to be? Was he really a doctor? Was Ed the man he presented himself to be? Were the only ones true to themselves actually the Rosenbergs? In the book, it would seem that way. After doing some research, I discovered that the Rosenberg children, Richie and John were adopted by the Meeropols. As adults, they tried to clear their parents’ names, especially that of their mother when new evidence was revealed, but they were unsuccessful. They do believe now, that their father was guilty, but that their mother was not.
The author has written a very sympathetic account of the Rosenberg’s lives in which she presents a very plausible scenario to show that at least one, if not both, could have been framed by others in order to save themselves, and in fact, decades later, two others convicted of spying for Russia at that time, did eventually tell the truth and at least attempt to clear Ethel’s name. One of those was her own brother who confessed he lied because his wife meant more to him than his sister. Should Ethel, at least, be granted a pardon for the sins for which she was condemned, sins that were never committed by her? Were the Rosenberg’s guilty? Were they sacrificial lambs, convenient victims because of their ties to communism, their Russian background and their Jewish religion at a time when the effects of the Holocaust were still ripe, and anti-Semitism was still alive and well? Who better than a couple who were perceived to have betrayed not only America, but their fellow Jews? Were the tactics used to convict them ethical, moral or legal? Was Millie a credible character? Was her behavior at the end justified? The reader will wonder about many questions, not only those I presented.

The Swans of Fifth Avenue, Melanie Benjamin, author; narrators, Cassandra Campbell and Paul Boehmer
Covering about three decades, this is a fictional, biographical presentation of Truman Capote and his swans, the upper crust ladies of New York society, obsessed with their appearance, raised largely to seek appropriate husbands, perform their wifely duties impeccably, and seek the camera lens that would feature them on the society pages. Their wealth and breeding defined them. Truman, on the other hand, came from a different walk of life. He seemed self-absorbed, narcissistic and insecure and would stop at nothing to gain fame and fortune. He was the ultimate sycophant, but he miscalculated the affections of others for him, which led to his downfall.
Truman Capote sought fame as an author. He befriended and was befriended by a group of socialites who enjoyed being surrounded by his flamboyance. His closest relationship among them, was with Bobolink (Babe Paley), as he called her. They developed a warm and unusual, intimate relationship. A self-professed homosexual, he was affected, but fun to be with in the manner of a childhood best friend. At times foppish and garish in his demeanor and dress, his insecurity, disguised as arrogance and his fondness for drink, led him astray. Eventually, the social climber that he was betrayed those who provided him his place of honor in society, and his fall from grace was of his own making. He wrote a story for Esquire Magazine, entitled "La Côte Basque 1965", which was intended as a prelude to his next novel. The story humiliated and exposed his friends for the shallow, catty, striving human beings they occasionally were, as he revealed their secrets to the world, secrets that they had confided in him over the years. He was soon ostracized. He incorrectly predicted their reactions to his disclosures.
The book is described as fictional biography and/or historic fiction, and the story is colorful and interesting as it exposes the underbelly of yesteryear’s high society and those who sought it by whatever means necessary. At all times, it is engaging, even though it sometimes reads like a gossip column written by Liz Smith and at times like a confession. The names of the rich and famous are dropped into the narrative; Bennett Cerf, Peter Duchin, Papa Hemingway, Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, Princess Margaret, Jackie Kennedy, Eleanor Roosevelt, the Cushings, Whitneys, Vanderbilts, Mortimers, Astors, and more are all present and accounted for in the book. This was indeed the world of the elite.
The relationship between Truman and Babe Paley was portrayed as unique. They were confidantes. Truman was neglected as a child and loved to be entertained and appreciated since he lacked that for most of his life. Babe filled that need. She was brought up to be the perfect wife, never letting herself slip in public, never being anything but her best. She could let down her guard with Truman and simply be herself. Her friends also confided in him and treated him like “one of the girls”. The fact that he betrayed these members of society who had befriended him, opened doors for him, and supported him in his endeavors, seemed shameful even though their own ethics and behavior left much to be desired.
This audio was a very authentic reading of the characters' personalities, accents and speech impediments. Truman’s lisp and the air of aristocracy of the rich and famous literally rolled off their tongues. The narrators made the book come alive as if it was a stage performance. I highly recommend the book and anything read by these narrators. I am more familiar with Cassandra Campbell who I have heard and enjoyed before, but this narration by both narrators was excellent. The author scored a winner with them. I had both the print and audio version of the book and preferred the audio.

When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalinithi, author; Cassandra Campbell, Sunil Malhotra, narrators

Paul Kalinithi loved literature and planned a career in academia. When he visited a home for brain injured patients who were abandoned by their families, he was deeply affected and his direction in life changed dramatically. He had never considered a career in medicine, although many family members were physicians, but now he reversed course and decided to pursue a future in neuroscience. This is the story of his brave fight to become a neurosurgeon and neuroscientist in spite of a terrible medical diagnosis that would change his life.
Even though Paul Kalinithi wanted to put a happy face on the way he faced and dealt with his disease, his terminal cancer, and the reader may greatly respect his effort and honor his life, it will be hard to justify his suffering. He had so much to live for and so much to give to the world of science and patient care, until life intervened in a way he would never have anticipated. Suddenly, he would not only have to decide how to live out the rest of his life, but how also, to face his coming death. We all are born with an expiration date, but most of us are unaware of when it will be. Paul now knew that his time was not only limited, but also very finite, and his activities and training would now be cut short, as well.
It seemed so terribly unfair that after years of study, after perfecting his techniques for neurosurgery, after his career in neuroscience began to show such promise, that he would be cut down too soon, before he would have the opportunity to hone his skills further and educate others about the way in which science, medicine and compassion could be combined to provide a more sensitive and realistic approach to patient care, an approach in which the doctor did not have to become maudlin or overly dramatic, overly hopeful or the opposite, overly terrifying, when approaching a terminal patient to explain the prognosis for the disease’s progression. He wanted patients to understand what they would face in their future, depending on their choice of treatment, by putting the most positive face on a negative outlook, but keeping the outlook real so that the family and friends of the patient were also aware of what awaited them as they went forward. He was now forced to live with that philosophy.
All life choice decisions are difficult to deal with and are very personal in nature. How we choose to live and how we choose to die is often left to chance. I have always felt that when illness strikes, you are still the same person, just that person with more information. However, when the diagnosis comes back as you hope it never will, is it then possible to maintain such a Pollyanna attitude? Paul Kalinithi proved that, he could practice what he preached. Although he struggled at times, it was possible to conduct his life as if it would continue, albeit, perhaps not that far into the future.
Is our quality of life important or our length of life? Do we want to be attached to machines or do we want to have palliative care so that we are comfortable, or do we want to be tethered to the bed by the tools of medical intervention. Paul Kalinithi wanted all patients to learn how to live, and how to die, but foremost, he wanted them to understand how they could live with even the worst diagnoses with some hope so they could face whatever bit of future remained, so they would simply not give up and lay down and die. He wanted them to understand what they would face so they could make a rational decision for whatever time remained.
He wanted desperately to finish this book since his first love had been literature, even before medicine and science. In the end, he did not, although I found it complete in its message. His wife Lucy, also a doctor, an internist, closes the book for him. She was aware of what his diagnosis meant and understood the difficult path they would face together. She reviews his purpose, his courage and his kindness. She illuminates his unique combination of bravery, intelligence and compassion. He was ever hopeful and instilled that hope in his friends and family. He hoped his child would someday think of him and understand what he was trying to do with his life and with this book.
I found some of the data in the book to be a bit too much information, a bit too upsetting, and I wondered how many people would actually manage to read it completely, even though it has received acclaim, is highly recommended and is a very worthwhile read. Although its purpose was to encourage a more positive approach to the way we face the end of our lives, it was an incredibly difficult read which I suspect will move even the most impassive person to tears. I must admit it brought me to my knees even though I tried to resist its wrenching emotional effect.

Salt to the Sea, Ruta Sepetys, author; Jorjeana Marie (Reader), Will Damron (Reader), Cassandra Morris (Reader), Michael Crouch (Reader)
The author gears her books to young adults between the ages of 12-17, but they are so well written about such interesting, often little known subjects that they are crossovers into the world of adult books as well. This is a book that is ageless. Although most everyone knows that Hitler was evil and murdered millions, few know about the lives of those that were forced to live under his rule, or the lives of the type of human being that could be persuaded to help and support him. Few view Nazis with kindness or sympathy, but this book puts a human face on those that tried to defy him, those that followed him blindly, those that were kind and tried to help others in spite of the risk to themselves, those that were simply selfish and thought only of themselves, and those that were simply caught in the maelstrom of events of that time.
The book takes place in 1945, very near the end of World War II. Hitler is retreating in the face of several defeats and a crushing Russian advance across the territories he controls. The book only covers a few months of that year, but it takes the reader far into the future, into 1969, when it ends, so the loose ends of the story can be resolved. This is historic fiction. The events surrounding the tale are real. The characters are not, but they are used to expertly illustrate the tragedies of that time period. Each character had a major turning point to awaken them from their stupor, from their mindless obedience to the madman and in some cases to their own insanity and obedience which was reinforced by their fear. The book tells the story of the war, but not from the more common side that is usually told, about the Jewish genocide. Rather it illustrates the plight of those under Hitler’s oppressive rule who were simply citizens of the countries that aligned themselves with him or were invaded by his forces successfully. Some welcomed and supported him. Some did not. The book lends insight into what made a supporter and what made a resister and what made a bystander who merely accepted the situation without supporting or rejecting it.
As the story develops, the reader is introduced to a ragtag group of travelers, of assorted ages, backgrounds and personalities. They are all trying to escape, all trying to reach a ship that will take them out of the path of the marauding Russians and Germans who have been laying waste to the lands they conquered and the people they encountered. Their trek and their voyage would be fraught with danger. At first, all of the characters had nicknames, but as the time passed, their identities became clearer. The nurse girl became Joana. The knight or thief as he was called, became Florian. The blind girl became Ingrid and the shoe poet, became Heinz. The wandering boy was Klaus. The Polish girl was Emilia. These characters were basically good. Then there was Alfred, the German sailor and Sorry Eva, the Viking. The author did a very good job developing these characters and illustrating just what made each of them tick.
Florian, a Prussian, had been an art restorer apprenticed to a German officer, Dr. Lange. He discovered that Dr. Lange was actually a monster who was stealing art and intending to betray him. Joana was a very compassionate nurse from Lithuania who had assisted a surgeon and made good use of her medical training. Ingrid had been separated from her aunt on a train platform. Then, helpless, when her aunt did not return, she was robbed of her luggage and ignored. She was now being cared for by the kind and thoughtful Joana. Klaus was a 6 year old little orphan boy who wandered out of the woods after his grandmother died, and he joined their troupe. Emilia was a 15 year old Polish girl traveling alone. She had escaped from the farm where she had been left by her father who believed that she would be safer there. However, that proved to be untrue. Alfred was a weak-minded German boy-soldier who followed Hitler to the letter. He had always been bullied and now found sanctuary in his delusions of grandeur. He pretended to write letters about his heroism, fighting for his Fuhrer, to a neighbor girl he had been very fond of who had spurned him. Her name was HanneLore, and she had good reason. Eva was rude and selfish. She thought of herself as superior and more important than the others. She was a big woman who did not want to allow anyone but Germans into their group. She worried only about her own safety and did not concern herself with the hardship of others. Heinz was my favorite character. He was a simple, kind-hearted shoemaker who kept the little group together with his good and calm counsel. He had found new meaning in his life as his love for little Klaus grew. Each of these characters harbored a secret.
This is an important book because it showed that those not directly persecuted by Hitler also had something to fear. It showed the sensitive, human side of these people. They too, suffered. All of the characters were haunted by their own personal fear, guilt, shame, hate and often their memories. Did they deserve to endure the hardships their apathy helped to create? Were Germany’s and Russia’s soldiers only doing their duty when they behaved with brutal cruelty? Could any of them really have been ignorant about what was happening to the victims of the war? Where did they think the millions of people simply disappeared to without their belongings and their treasured possessions? Why did they plunder the victims homes? Were these people, who were perhaps merely followers, actually guilty also of crimes against humanity? Did they have any other choice but to follow their occupiers or their leaders?
In the name of the Motherland, the Soviets were barbaric and in the name of the Fatherland, the Germans were blind brutes committing even more savage and horrific acts. War is ugly and so are the spoils of war. Young girls and women were raped and tortured, villages were plundered, homes were burnt to the ground, supplies were stolen, and the people were left to freeze, starve, suffer and die. They were forced to make impossible choices, to save one child and sacrifice another. Yet, the man they followed, Hitler, had done the same and more to his innocent conquests, victims who had done nothing. Fate had simply been unkind to some who were born with a disability or who were homosexual or emotionally disturbed. Others were simply members of a religion he rejected and a genetic structure he found inferior to his own.
There are so many untold stories about the war years and this is an important one. Thousands of innocent civilians were killed trying to escape the terror of war on land and on the high seas. It is easy to think of them as innocents, but, sometimes, I still wonder about them. If they were complicit by not fighting back against the forces of evil, by turning a blind eye to what was occurring around them, were they truly innocent?

The Survivor, A Mitch Rapp Novel: Vince Flynn and Kyle Mills authors, George Guidall, narrator
In this book, the head of the ISI (the Pakistani secret service), has devised a diabolical plan to bring down the CIA and the United States with the help of a former CIA agent turned traitor and a corrupt Senator. The ISI chief is after the head of Irene Kennedy, the CIA director and a rogue agent with a no-nonsense, loose cannon reputation, who is a thorn in his back, Mitch Rapp. Rapp is also known in the world of spies as “the angel of death”. He is the kind of agent you want as a friend, not an enemy. Even his boss, Kennedy, worries about whether or not his behavior will create problems that she will be unable to mitigate.

The ISI chief has decided to secretly siphon off a portion of the billions of aid dollars provided to his country by the Americans. He then uses it to promote the campaigns of U.S. politicians who will then lobby Congress to provide his country with more money that they will again use to entice more corrupt politicians! It would seem that everyone has a price. If you add a disgruntled and disturbed CIA agent with a grudge to the mix and couple him with a corrupt senator, you will have the makings of a novel about espionage, possible treason and cyber warfare.
The traitorous former CIA darling, Joe Rickman, has arranged to have information about secret CIA transactions released even after his death, if he is unsuccessful in bringing down his country while he is alive. The release of these damaging documents, revealing the espionage and clandestine activities of America, will have a cataclysmic effect on relationships with allies and enemies alike, and they will surely bring about the deaths of secret agents and double agents, and possibly their families, before they can be extracted.

In addition, the heads of Kennedy and Rapp are valuable prizes for international spies because not only would that greatly damage America’s prestige and power, if they were killed and the agency were compromised, but that would also elevate the stature of their killer in his corrupt, terrorist world.

Government agencies and officials sometimes find it necessary to engage in behavior that walks a tightrope between legal and illegal. They sponsor theft, lies, kidnapping and even murder, at times, in the name of national security.

As Rapp and his fellow agents bounce from country to country as they endeavor to stop the release of the damaging information, the international intrigue widens. The reader will be exposed to the barbaric tactics of the Pakistani methods of interrogation and retribution, as well as to the stretching of the rules by U.S. agents as they attempt to eradicate and stop the damage caused by the traitor.

The book sometimes gets bogged down by details that seem unnecessary, that seem to exist just to add pages of print, but otherwise, as a read, it is interesting, and it is a good distraction from the stress of one’s everyday life.

This is not an easy book to read. It feels almost as if it is set in a world of make-believe, and perhaps it is. When it begins, we meet a young man, Tomás, who walks backwards to deal with his grief from the sudden deaths of his lover Dora, a servant in his uncle’s house, their child Gaspar, and his father, Silvestro, all within the same week. It is his way of voicing his objections to G-d about his loss rather than an expression of his grief. Tomás works as an assistant curator in a museum dealing with ancient art. When he is sent to do research on a particular shipment that arrived at the museum, he discovers the diary of a defrocked priest, Father Ulisses Manuel Rosario Pinto. He secretly removes it, so he can read it. In the diary, it is revealed that the priest had an epiphany and objected to the slave trade and to the way slaves were treated. He was excommunicated from the church. He set about creating a gift which he believed would shed light on the mystery of life. Ulisses believed we were “risen apes, not fallen angels”. Tomas believes that the gift he created had to be a crucifix. He leaves his job and sets out to find this object in the high mountains of Portugal where the priest had lived. He believes if he can locate it, he can reveal a truth that will change the world and give a greater voice to his feelings about his suffering and the reasons for it. The year is 1904, in Portugal. His uncle lends him a car which he does not know how to drive, a car that is unique and valuable. The car is assaulted on his quest, as is Tomás. People are astonished by the sight of it and by the odd appearance and behavior of its driver. Then, one day in the high mountains of Portugal, Tomás discovers the crucifix he seeks within a church and is stunned by its appearance. When the car is involved in a strange, tragic accident causing the death of a child, the beautiful son of the Castros,Tomás abandons the car and runs off.

In Part two, still in Portugal, in the mid 1930’s, a renowned pathologist, Dr. Eusebio Lozora, is mourning the loss of his beloved wife who died strangely and unexpectedly. He is lost without her, but he insisted on performing the autopsy himself in order to discover the reason for her death, in spite of his sorrow. One evening, a stranger called Maria, knocks on his door and asks the pathologist to perform an autopsy on her husband’s body. She wants to find out how he lived. She has packed her husband Rafael, inside a trunk. Their child was the victim of an odd, tragic automobile accident, in 1904, after which Rafael Castro was never the same. Superstitions grew up around the death of that golden child believed to be an angel who could grant wishes of fertility. In this way, part 1 and part 2 are connected. As he performed the autopsy, he found unusual and strange objects like a chimpanzee, a bear cub, twigs, a knife and a fork, within the body’s various cavities. Eventually, he sews the body back up and bizarrely, the woman climbs inside and is enclosed, as well.

In Part three, in 1981, a Senator, Peter Tovy, from Ontario, Canada goes on a trip to the United States and unexpectedly purchases a chimpanzee named Odo. He, too, was bereft because of the loss of his wife, Clara. He decides to pack it all in and retire to his parent’s birthplace in the high mountains of Portugal, leaving his son Ben and granddaughter Rachel, behind. Coincidence after coincidence takes place until he finally realizes he has returned not only to his family’s birthplace, but also to the actual family home. The unusual crucifix, sought by Tomás, is coincidentally still in the church in his family’s hometown, and the connection to the beginning of the tale is made. In the high mountains, he regresses as he identifies more and more with his pet Odo, and less and less with societal needs. He gives up many creature comforts like his watch for he discovers that the natural world keeps the time for him. He finds he enjoys the company of the ape, more than he expected, and is quite content.

When the book ends, loose ends are joined and characters unique connections are revealed, but still, there are open questions. While the three stories are linked, they also feel oddly disconnected, in their own way. It is as if chance has brought them together, as if serendipity is at work. Recurrent themes are important to the story, like religion, Agatha Christie novels, chimpanzees, crucifixes, anti-Jewish sentiment, the automobile, suitcases, loss and grief and the different roads people choose in order to recover from their individual loneliness and sorrow. The book tackles the human need for comfort and company, Darwin and religion, and even politics to some degree, as it covers almost a century of time, with slapstick humor and fantasy.

The mirth in the tale was evident in phrases like "the car was eating up the road”, or it was "like a stomach in need of feeding", which painted bizarre images for the reader of the car as a living animal. His effort to get rid of lice, with a powder used for horses, had disastrous consequences. The use of several Portuguese quotes was distracting, but the prose was almost poetic. The narrator was perfect for the book, modulating his voice appropriately and presenting the role of each character clearly, so at least in that way there was no confusion. For creativity, the book deserves a 5, but for credibility, only a 3. For pleasurable reading, the book was also a 3, for me. It felt like hard work, at times, as I tried to connect the dots and figure out the meaning behind the story.

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante; Hillary Huber, narrator; translated by Ann Goldstein
If you are a reader who becomes attached to the characters of the books you read, this is a winner for you because it is part one in a series of four books about the evolution of a friendship between two girls, Elena and Lila, from the time they are in 2nd grade and continues, throughout their lives. This first book in the series begins when one of the friends, Lila, now in her 60’s, has apparently gone missing. Her no-account son, Rino, has reached out to Elena to find out if she knew where Lila might be, but she claims no knowledge of her whereabouts. The story then works backwards in time to the beginning of the girl’s friendship and takes the reader through approximately one decade of their lives as they mature from little seven year olds in the 1950’s, living in the outskirts of Naples in post-war Italy, to blossoming young women.
The friends were naïve and unworldly as many young people of that time were. Unchaperoned fraternizing of males and females was limited. Boys and girls learned about life and sex by accident or experiment. The community had its share of secrets, petty squabbles, madness, and violent outbursts. Their families were working class, largely uneducated and poor. The girls plotted, planned and dreamt of a different, better life, of escaping the demands and confines of their family and community by marrying the man of their dreams or by writing a novel and having a career which would bring them fame and fortune. They were loyal to their families but wanted very much to separate from them. Their experiences were explored as they went to school, discovered boys, fell in and out of love, teased and tormented the opposite sex with their developing feminine wiles, studied and educated themselves in whatever way they could, and competed with each other, sometimes reacting with petty jealousy, with each thinking the other had the upper hand.
Lila considered Elena her brilliant friend, but it was Lila who actually learned more easily and quickly, almost without effort. Their rivalry felt more one-sided on Elena’s part, but that could be because she narrated the story, so we are getting her point of view. Both girls seemed to be capable of cruelty and seemed awfully mean at times, perhaps a symptom of their youth, deprivation and lack of exposure to the world. Their parents set a poor example for them as they held grudges and harbored resentments for years, waiting to extract some kind of vengeance, and they rarely forgave perceived sins. Creature comforts like cars and televisions were only owned by the more successful and rich members of the community. Often, the history of how they got their money pointed to collaboration during the war or black marketeering and led to arguments and distrust and to questions about their character. These were mostly poor, hard-working people, grocers, shoemakers, bakers, and carpenters, living in a country recovering from a war they lost. They were quick to rush to judgment and mete out their own system of justice and punishments to settle their disagreements, and the girls witnessed their methods which were often violent, impulsive and unlawful.
Elena’s family was able and willing to let her try her hand at an education, but Lila’s parents could not or would not provide the money necessary for her to have the tutoring she needed in order to take and pass the exams for entrance into Middle School. Often, as time passed, Lila used Elena’s formal education as a stepping stone for her own. As they matured, they competed with each other and helped each other, but they were not always kind to each other, and they occasionally resented the other’s achievements. Elena always felt like second best. Lila was like a cat, always ready to spring. She was prettier, smarter and more sought after by boys. She could learn on her own, didn’t have to do anything to attract the opposite sex, was brave and daring, stood up for what she believed in, sometimes instigated fights, and always plotted to get her way. She was fearless while Elena was tentative, more obedient, not as pretty or svelte and appealing. She was plump, needed to study harder and was not yet attractive to the opposite sex. Lila believed Elena was really smart and should always continue with her education. She relied on her for advice, at times, and as an accomplice in her plans. They seemed to use each other.
The book was interesting with a diverse mix of families and a well developed group of characters set in a clearly drawn post war community. Women had limited opportunity and the experiences of life that the girls were exposed to growing up were carefully examined. They learned about the relationships between men and women, about marriage and work possibilities as they experienced the day to day life in their community, observing both kindness and cruelty. There was also brutality in the neighborhood which housed letches and bullies along with the more ordinary members of a community.
The maturation of the girls as they experienced puberty, went from being playmates to competitors, alternated between respecting and resenting each other, morphed into girlfriends who had boyfriends, was replete with the jealousy and manipulation that growing up encompassed. It drew me in but then left me prematurely at the wedding of Lila to Stephano, the catch of the town, at the tender age of not quite 17. I had little hint of what the future would bring for Elena, Lila and the several families that were introduced. I had hoped that although this was part of a series, the book would feel more like a stand alone; but it felt incomplete. Although I enjoyed it, I would not have read it had I realized it was attempting to marry me to the next three books.

About Grace, Anthony Doerr, author; George Newbern, narrator
David Winkler has the gift of second sight. His dreams predict the future. Can he alter that future by changing part of the event when it occurs? Often, his dreams predict tragedy, but also they predict kismet as when he dreams of the woman he will marry. When his dream becomes reality, and he meets this woman he has dreamt of, he falls in love with her immediately. It is 1975, Her name is Sandy Sheeler, but she is already married to Herman Sheeler. Still, they have a secret courtship and then an affair. When she becomes pregnant, they leave Anchorage, Alaska, and they run away to Cleveland, Ohio, where they begin a new life together and have a daughter named Grace, in 1976.
Soon, David begins to have recurring dreams predicting the drowning death of his daughter when the Chagrin River overflows, and he fails in his attempt to carry her to safety. To prevent his dream from coming true, as other dreams of his have done, David spontaneously abandons his family, traveling 2000 miles away to the Grenadines in a cargo ship. When the actual flood occurs, in 1977, he hopes that if he isn’t there with Grace, she will live on and he can alter her future. After some weeks away, and several attempts to reach his wife, he is successful. He hopes to find out if Grace and she have survived. He is hoping Sandy will take him back and forgive him for abandoning them once she understands his reason. He hopes to arrange for his return with her help. He has run with only the clothes on his back. However, she neither tells him about his daughter’s survival nor does she want him back. She tells him never to return.
David begins a second life in St. Vincent. He is a vagabond, with no means of support. Lonely, bereft, hungry and unkempt, he wakes one day and meets Felix Orellana sitting and eating next to him. He takes him home with him, explaining that it is Easter which is a time of forgiving. David had already met his wife, Soma. She helped him place his phone calls to Sandy. They are both kind and caring people. He grows close with their young daughter, Naaliyah, and he teaches her how to carefully observe the world around her which inspires her to begin a career as an Entymologist. When his dreams once again disturb his reality, becoming more frightening as he once again dreams of a drowning, he tries to warn Naaliyah that she must stay away from the water or she will drown. More and more he wonders, can he alter the future once it has been written? Can he save her when his dream becomes reality?
Years pass and David adjusts to his new and limited lifestyle. He takes whatever job he is able to find, but always, in the back of his mind he wonders if his own daughter is still alive. He is sorry for what he has done because he believes it was all for naught, and she must be dead. One day, Naaliyah provides him with an address for Sandy Sheeler, who is back in Anchorage Alaska. Both she and her mom encourage him to contact her and try to find out about Grace. The lack of knowledge about her is tormenting him. However, he does not follow up on their suggestion.
Finally, after living on the island for 25 years, he takes what money he has saved and leaves the Grenadines to return to Cleveland and begin a search for Grace. He obtains a list of all Grace Winklers and begins to hunt for her across America. He is overwhelmed, and along the way he is attacked and severely injured by one of the Grace Winklers he locates, and eventually, he is robbed of all his remaining money. He finally makes his way to Alaska, wounded and hungry, alone and hopeless, and he begins to search for Naaliyah. She eventually finds him, battered and ill, and she helps to nurse him back to health. Throughout the years, David has lived by the grace of others who have been kind to him in spite of his disheveled state and poverty. His rescuers have been abundant. He soon resumes his search and winds up at the door of Herman Sheeler, in Anchorage. He helps him to find out about Grace and, oddly, they actually develop a friendship.
The book is about finding Grace Winkler, but it is also about the different variations of the term grace, as in the saying of a prayer of thanks, or a refined and elegant behavior, or the favoring someone with your blessings or your presence, or granting a reprieve in the fulfillment of a promise or showing someone a kindness. It is about forgiveness.
The novel is well researched. Every subject brought up is explored completely in layman’s terms so the reader even understands hydrology and entymology. David studies water and has a particular interest in snow crystals. Naaliyah explores the insect world with a passion. Doerr has connected us to their world and made the study of snow and of bugs romantic and a thing of beauty. There are so many interwoven parts of this novel that the reader is never bored, just intrigued and eager to turn the page to become more and more involved and invested in the well developed characters’ lives.

I enjoyed this book immensely. The prose alone was worth the read. The story will tug at your heart strings as it takes you down memory lane into the world of England with its proper manners, pomp and circumstance in the early 20th century. It is told in four parts, by a wonderfully gifted author whose last book “Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand” charmed me as well. It begins just before WWI and immerses the reader into the very proper and quiet life of Rye, a community very much aware of class distinction and a woman’s place in the world. Using vocabulary that is descriptive, civilized and literary, the reader will not be subjected to any over-the-top, possibly inappropriate descriptions of sex or of foul language so common in many popular books of today. For that reason alone, I found the book quite refreshing.
Readers might be pleasantly reminded of Downton Abbey and even find similarities in some of their character traits. I was reminded of Lord Grantham and Countess Cora Grantham, Lady Mary and Lady Edith, and the maid Daisy, just to name a few. John Kent holds a high position in the foreign office, and as such was privy to information not yet available to the general public concerning the coming war. His wife, Agatha, quietly promoted women’s rights without offending the powers that be. She worked through proper channels, gently manipulating others to get her way. She had been able to secure a Latin teaching position for Beatrice Nash who had suddenly found herself in need of employment after the death of her father, a man of some minor fame as an author. Daniel Bookham, a poet, and Hugh Grange, training to be a surgeon, were nephews of the Kents. Beatrice’s job and future were on the line and they all became the greatest supporters of her endeavors.
When Beatrice had first arrived in the town of Rye, she was expected to be unattractive and spinsterish. Her finer appearance both concerned and surprised many. Unmarried women were frowned upon and dependent on the kindness of other, especially if they had no visible means of support. Beatrice’s had been her father’s assistant and was brought up to be independent. Suddenly, with his death, she had been thrust into a world in which others would oversee her finances and lifestyle. She would no longer be able to manage her own affairs and would not fully inherit until she married. This was, a state to which she did not aspire, and she was surprised by her father’s actions.
To complicate life in Rye, there was the murder of the heir-apparent to the Austrian throne, the Archduke Franz Joseph and his wife, in Sarajevo. This caused great turmoil as WWI loomed on the horizon. Enormous changes were coming. Rationing was expected as well as a demand for soldiers to defend England. Hoarding was frowned upon. The town of Rye and its surrounding residents were thrown into a frenzy trying to figure out appropriate ways to help in the service of their country. Some enlisted, some knitted socks, some passed out white feathers to those who shirked their duty, and some housed soldiers and refugees from Belgium after it was invaded by Germany. The inappropriate behavior and expectations of some citizens demonstrated that they had lost themselves in the nitty-gritty of position and class and tended to forget the cost of war for its victims. They tended to forget compassion in their need to stand on ceremony.
The story will sometimes make you smile and sometimes bring a tear to your eye, but it will always be a good read. The pages will fly by as you are immersed in the countryside, on the battlefield and in the life of the upper class and working class of England at a time when class and birth were still of the utmost importance, when change was resisted first and foremost and protocols had to be followed.
There are some contrived moments with problems serendipitously solving themselves, but they work well for the tale. The prose is sharp and the dialog between the characters is refined even when words are used to cut like ice picks. The historic background, including the need for strict adherence to rules regardless of the circumstances, illustrated how those in charge subjected those beneath them to cruelties and exposed the fragility of life and the stupidity of war which is often conducted by ill prepared or improperly trained men and women..
The book uses a subtle wit, genuine romance and the terror of war in the telling of the story as it exposed the differences in the lives of those living in poverty and those living with wealth. Both the gentry and the working class in their expectations and approach to their futures is well defined and obvious. The unfairness of the system may rankle some readers as they observe that the design of the class system actually prevented the advancement of the working class even when qualified and intellectually able to move ahead. There are characters whose snobbish behavior will offend, like Mrs. Fothergill, Professor Fontaine, and Mrs. Turber, as well as characters whose innocence and charm will endear them like, Hugh, Snout and Celeste! War affects those with or without the refinement imposed by birth and background. All equally suffer. However, the humor that infused the tale, as the idiosyncrasies and snooty reactions of the characters were highlighted in all avenues of life, worked to make the tale even more enjoyable.