Sisi by Katryn Unterreiner

In Vienna last year I toured among other places, the  stunning Schonbrunn Palace, hope of the Hapsburgs in Vienna and there  saw and hear a lot of Sisi, or Empress Elizabeth,  she was a recluse of sorts and died young.  She was born in Munich in 1837  and died in 1898.  Her designation was Empress of Hungary.  I picked up this small book about her.  She was a woman quite ahead of her time but still rather odd.  She was avid about physical exercise and  remaining trim.  Yest she had a very restless spirit and often was away from her husband and children. Someday I would love to read a real saga about the Hapsburg family.  This is more of a booklet at only 125 pages.  Many interesting pictures.  The author is a famed  Austrian Historian and referred to movies popular in Europe about Sisi's life, but I have never  seen nor heard of those here in the US.  I did  buy replica pins and earrings of the Hapsburg stars made famous by Sisi,  locals claim she often gave these to people.  Of course mine are only Swarovski crystal while the originals were diamonds. 

Picture and first page

 

The booklet was an interesting read and gives just a glimpse into her life and the lifestyle.  I passed it along to a friend whom I met on the trip.  I gave it 4 **** stars.

Deborah, Mother of Israel by Marlene Lake

Purchased in 2011 from a local writing group where the author, Marlene Lake attended.  This book has been lingering on my shelf so finally read it, a tale  of Deborah,  Deborah is mentioned as a prophetess in the Bible, Old Testament, Judges, Chapters 4 and 5.  At only  275 pages it is an ok read, but I will be sending this one off to a friend.  There is a lot more to the Deborah tale in this book than what I had known from the Bible because the author did extensive research.  The family names are of interest.  

However only 275 pages it is  a slow read.  I give it  3 ***(stars,  and while the writing is as good as can be expected, and the names and places are interesting, this will likely be more appreciated by students of the Bible than the average reader.  The author includes a listing in the front of all the major characters which I found helpful. The cover is lovely almost mystical.   

Back cover

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Gardenias by Faith Sullivan

Every so often I want to read fluff, just a good story, and because I had never read any other works by Faith Sullivan when this popped up at a book sale for $1 how could I resist.  It has been sitting and so in August I started to read it, published in 2005 originally.  It was a fast read, thru 376 pages of a nice size paperback published by Milkweed Productions. . Set in 1942, World War II on the home front through the eyes of Lark, a 9 year old  Minnesota girl who is moved from her roots when her mother Arlene Erhardt and her Aunt Betty decide to leave for California  for jobs in the defense industry.  Lark goes thru many changes in CA and enters adolescence seeing more about her mother  than a 9 year old needs to know. 

The novel is named for the scrawny gardenia bush  planted outside the project housing the women find in San Diego.  Lark tends to it along with her chores as her mother and aunt work and she is left on her own except for school and the local neighbors in the project.  We  meet several intriguing characters all  of whom add to this story, Jack and Fanny Dugan, Beau Eldridge, Mr. Trustworthy the owner of the second hand store where they shop to furnish their place and Lark acquires her painting, Lou the man who does hauling from the thrift store for them and his son Woodrow,   

 Arlene works in the office of the defense plant and Betty goes into retail.   Both have left husbands behind in MN and for a time Arlene poses as a widow while Betty acknowledges separation from Stanley.  I miss my late friend Sandy, now because I would have mailed this book to her, it strangely  has the Erhardt last name, one of the husband's Sandy's mother married.  Lark has but one friend,  Shirley Olson, a ragtag hardened  girl from Wyoming, who epitomizes a saying of my Grandma's, "Don't complain because no matter how bad off you are someone is always worse.." 

 Lark develops wisdom, cynicism and a certain hardness beyond her years,  and she begins to write short tales.  Pg. 116, she describes what it means to be 10 years old, "Age ten meant swimming (or drowning) between two shores of dependency and autonomy.  Grown ups began to shove you away from the near shore, expecting you to maneuver for yourself out there in the deep water of 12, 13, and 14, expecting you to solve your own problems, live with your own fears, conquer your own loneliness.  Weren't they sorry to be saying good-bye to you?"  and on page 118, "..but that was age 10 for you, too old to be cute, too young to be clever."  How sad, I reflected.  I think back to my childhood and I was such a little girl still at that age. 

Page202, Aunt Betty shares with Lark, "If you don't kill yourself right away when something terrible happens--like Baby Marjorie's being dead and Stanley leaving--if you go on living, you become a different person.  You're always becoming a different person."  

Page 344, " Human mutability was frightening.  Just when you thought you knew someone, they became someone else.  "People don't change,"  I'd heard someone say.  But people did change.  I regarded Mama, sitting opposite me and Miss Eldridge and Uncle Stanley.", 

I had a clipping from the St Paul Pioneer Press about Faith Sullivan written by MaryAnn Grossman  from September 13, 2015 so was curious about her books.  I had not heard of her although it seems Minnesota is her home base and she is quite a popular women's author. 
 http://www.twincities.com/2015/09/11/minnesotas-faith-sullivan-has-new-book-a-companion-to-the-cape-ann/

I will definitely read more by Faith Sullivan.  From the opening page where she quotes Jonis Agee, Sweet Eyes" We all need the waters of the Mercy River, Though they don't run deep, there's usually enough, just enough, for the extravagance of our lives."  

Perhaps my favorite line in the book is on page 352, "There was a strange kind of comfort in misunderstandings and differences that were old enough to have lost their teeth."  

5 stars for this well written piece of  fluff.  *****

2 More by David McCullough an older one, 1776 and the newest, The Wright Brothers

2004 photo of David McCullough

I have finished two more by a favorite author,  1776,  published in 2005 but one which I  had not yet read and his newest,  The Wright Brothers, published in 2015.  As the title suggests, 1776 is  about that era of this country's history and those who served fighting for our freedom with George Washington.  It does have massive insight into the darkest hours of that war and the hearts of the men who valiantly proceeded against all odds.   I found it one of the least interesting books by McCullough until I was halfway  into it, the staging for the  battles and military strategies did not interest me as much as the personalities .  It is interesting to read about  the attitudes of the war for our independence and to reflect on today's similarities. 

Our Army was indeed a rag tag collection of volunteers from all walks of lives, teachers, shoe makers, farmers, no-accounts, shop keepers and every shape, size, and age, some "mere boys turned into soldiers." Pgs 32-33, The American militia in reality "looked more like farmers in from the fields than soldiers.  That so many were filthy, dirty was perfectly

understandable, as so many, when not drilling, spent their days digging trenches, hauling rock and throwing up great mounds of earth for defense.  ...It was dirty hard labor and there was little chance or the means ever to bathe or enjoy such luxury as a change of clothes.  Few of the men had what would pass for a uniform.  ..Not only were most men unwashed, and often unshaven, they were clad in a bewildering variety of this and that, largely whatever they had been able to throw together before they trudged off to war.  They wore heavy homespun cloth coats and shirts, often in tatters...The arms they bore were as various as their costumes, mainly muskets,"  A far different picture than the tricorner hats and breeches worn by strutting men  playing fife and drum that we have seen in musicals and movies.  There are many fine photographs of portraits again documenting the massive research efforts.

 I was amused to learn of one of George Washington's favorite quotes from Cato, by the English author Joseph Addison, the most popular play of that time.  One line, he frequently referenced as commander in chief, facing head on the realities of the situation, Pg.47, "'Tis not in mortals to command success, but we'll do more, Sempronius, we'll deserve it."   

I was struck by  page 226, a lesson from history that we seem to have fully ignored or declared no longer fitting to our times,is that George Washington fully realized that a full time Army was a necessity that a part time Army does not work.  Yet, today that seems to be what politicians and  Americans demand.  "..war is no work of a day, he warned and must be carried on systematically.  ..Good officers were mandatory and the only means to obtain good officers was to establish the army on a permanent footing.  There must be an end to short term enlistments.  Officers must be better paid, better trained.  Soldiers must be offered a good bounty, adequate clothing and blankets, plus the promise of free land."  

1776 also covers the  British and their attitudes, particularly British commander William Howe.   The narrative begins in London , October 26, 1775 when King George goes to Parliament to gain consent to crush the American resistance.  I learned lots of tidbits seldom  reported in history thanks to the author's massive research  in both American and British archives. Pg 291, quote written a century later by Sir George Otto Trevelyan, in a classic study of the American Revolution, "It may be doubted whether so small a number of men ever employed so short a space of time with greater and more lasting effects upon the history of the world."" I did not realize this book was written as a companion to McCullough's masterpiece biography about John Adams.  It is 294 pages of narrative, followed by acknowledgements and copious reference notes. I read this book in October and November 2015, but  just now am posting it here, as you know I have been a negligent blogger. It was an overall 3 star rating, average, middle  to the 5 stars I use, 5 being the best. ***


June and July I read The Wright Brothers, 262 pages, followed by extensive reference notes and including many photographs and the most famous of the Kitty Hawk in flight. .  It is as the title  reveals the story of Orville and Wilbur Wright, two brothers, bicycle mechanics from Dayton Ohio who founded American and indeed world wide aviation after a wintry day in 1903 on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  I savored this book, the history of aviation, the character study of the brothers and their sister, Katherine, their father Bishop Wright. One other brother, Lorin, the oldest lost patience with Wilbur in his early years,". "What does Will do" he wrote Katherine from Kansas where he had gone to seek his fortune.  "He ought to be doing something, is he still cook and chambermaid.?". 

There is fascinating detail about their ability, courage, intellect, curiosity and  true grit, determination.  Their absolute devotion to flying was the exclusion of any other aspects of life, the brothers would remain life long bachelors.  I did not know that after their successes, the French government  was the first to want to invest in flilght,  building on their success with gliders in France.  The US government  was a bit disdainful if not skeptical of the use of aviatn in the future.  The first chapter of this book is aptly titled, "Beginnings."  and the  first lines quote Wilbur Wright, "If I were giving a young man advice as to how he might succeed in life, I would say to him, pick out a good father and mother and begin life in Ohio."   It begins in 1909 when Wilbur is 42 and Orville 38 years old but goes back into the family history and the effect of the 1884 railroad and National Cash Register Company in the development of the Dayton area. 

There is a great deal of information about wind and velocities (Pg. 40),  equilibrium (pg.38) that I found educating and fascinating scientific reading. ( Pg. 48 As time would show, caution and close attention to all advance preparations were to be the rule for the brothers.  They would take risks when necessary, but they were no daredevils out to perform stunts and the never would be."  Pg. 49, "Wind would be all important and contrary to the old Irish wish--'May the wind be ever at your back'--a good wind had to be head on.  As would be said, for the Wrights the winds were never the enemy."  Chapter 4, titled, Unyielding Resolve, "Pg 65, "We had to go ahead and discover everything ourselves." Orville Wright.  Pg. 70 "The work was unlike anything the brothers had ever undertaken and the most demanding of their time and powers of concentration.  They were often at it past midnight.   As said later in the Aeronautical Journal fo the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain, "Never in the history of the world had men studied the problem with such scientific skill nor with such undaunted courage."   

 The one colleague the brothers  would have and would depend on was Charlie Taylor, a man they hired to keep their bicycle shop going while they were in North Carolina.  It was not easy going for the brothers, when they began to solicit  the manufacture of a light engine for flight  from American automobile engine  manufacturers, only one responded and that with a far too heavy motor, so  the brothers with no experience building engines had more work to do themselves. Pg 86, In time to come the brothers would b widely portrayed as a couple of clever, hometown bicycle mechanics who manged to succeed where so many others had failed because of their good old fashioned American knack for solving seemingly impossible mechanical problems.  This was true only in part."   Pgs 86 and 87 discuss Charlie Taylor's contribution early on, although distrusted by Katherine who disliked his know it all attitude, His only prior experience with a gas engine had been to try to fix one in an auto a few years previously. " But that January working in the back shop with the same metal lathe and drill press used for building bicycles, he went to work and 6 weeks later had it finished."  I was intrigued to learn  he built the engine block from cast aluminum provided b "the up and coing Aluminum Company of America, based in Pittsburgh."  The Alcoa company was a major  employer in my hometown in PA.

Pg 236, "A machine was like a horse, Wilbur said, 'If it's new you have to get used to it before it will do just as you want it to.  You have to learn its peculiarities."

This is another 5 star read by David McCullough, I found it engrossing. *****

Often I cut reviews from other sources or copy links.  I thought it worth sharing this one on The Wright Brothers here by Tom Beer in Newsday , if the link does not work I have scanned the article and will attach it below as well. 

http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/books/david-mccullough-s-the-wright-brothers-takes-flight-1.10464245 

The Land Remembers by Ben Logan

I read this lyrical book last year and from time to time I read one of its stories again, so it has been sitting alongside my upstairs reading chair.  It's that kind of book, one with stories that  to be re-read, savored and one to keep on my full book shelves.   It was first published in hardback by Viking Press in 1975 and a mass market paperback edition by Avon Books in 1976.  In 1992 a collector's edition was published by NorthWord Press and in 2000 a 25th anniversary edition.  My copy 286 pages, is the eighth edition, first printing, 2006, by Itchy Cat Press in Blue Mounds, WI.  I picked up this treasure at a local book sale and was amazed that I had never heard of it living in the area where the author writes about his farm life just down the road along the Mississippi River, up the hills on the Wisconsin side.  The stories are about life on the farm, his three brothers, mother and father and hired hand Lyle,  the people of the area, the "hilltop world in 1930's in southwestern Wisconsin."  The family farm was on a ridge top, 260 acres is  called "Seldom Seen" and the author traveled as a merchant seaman and worked as a novelist, producer and writer for film and television, living forty miles north of New York City.  But his roots remained in the southwest Wisconsin hillsides, in the mid 1980's he returned to the farm and lives there.  

Back flap

I smiled and was drawn to keep turning pages from the very introductory page, " Laurence, Lee and Lyle, the only ones left who shared that hilltop world with me, told me when we met that I didn't get all my facts straight.  We argued some about that, but mostly I just reminded them of what a neighbor used to say--"when you're trying to tell somebody who ain't been there just how hot it is in a hayfield with the temperature at a hundred degrees int he shade, it's not lying if you make it a hundred and ten."    Now only my brother Lee and I are left."  It's that kind of book, true, life,  comical, sad, whimsy, just a very enjoyable read, and beautifully written.  

Page 3, "There is no neat and easy way to tell the story of a farm.  A farm is a process where everything is related, everything happening at once.  It is a circle of life and there is no logical place to begin a perfect circle.  This is an unsolved paradox for me.  Part of the folly of our time is the idea that we can see the whole of something by looking at the pieces, one at a time."  I am a city girl you could say, but  Jerry grew up in these parts and spent his young years on his grandparents' farm, so I thought he might enjoy this book as well, he has read several of the stories too and each time, says, "this is a good book."  He enjoyed the Chapter about Haying, "Such days were agony, but there was a glory in them.  It was as though in proving ourselves equal to the harsh demands of the land, we glimpsed some hint of immortality."  

Page 13,  Chapter 3, The Awakening Land, Spring was a contradiction.  It was both creeping change and explosion.  Because the soil was frozen solid, four or five feet deep most years, and covered with snow, it held the cold.  The air warmed ahead of the soil in a false feel of spring that was only of the air---not of the entire land." Page 15, "But no one ever talked about a year without a spring.  It was as unthinkable as trying to convince someone that they had never been born."   

I have included quotes to give the flavor of how well written and why I describe it as lyrical.  It is difficult for me to choose one story that I liked better than any of the others, because they are all different, but if I were to limit to only one it would be in the winter section, Chapter 36, The Year the Corn Shredder Stayed All Winter, I have read this about 6 times, it always brings out the grins.  It begins, "Lyle claimed the old men in Petersburg could start swapping stories some morning, changing things as they went along, and go on for three days before they realized they were telling each other the same story."  This is the story of a man named Nubbin,  who works his tractor and corn shredder through the farms.  "The tractor, corn shredder, and Nubbin, the owner were all getting old.  Things kept going wrong on each job and it was early December before the rig came chugging and smoking up to the barnyard gate.  I'd been hearing about Nubbin.  I expected a giant but he was short, about the size of Lyle, had a bright red nose, big bushy eyebrows, and a scraggly beard.  The story was that he was superstitious--never shaved on a week that had a Friday in it."  See what I mean about lyrical, comical,  just reading paints the scene and the characters.

There is a new Afterword in my edition and the very last chapter, The Circle of Life describes a feeling I have shared as I try to piece together ancestry of my family, though I have no affinity for a farm or land.    Page 177, "As the changing seasons carry me forward in time, a stubborn part of me keeps reaching back to preserve, unbroken my linkage with the land. Partly I reach back to find myself at some age of innocence when the land was my whole world.  Partly I try to recapture those taken-for-granted persons I called Father and Mother."   He closes with some sense of tribute to the land, back to ice age, forward to fur trappers,  Indians, old tales.

A 5 star read *****

The Survivor by Vince Flynn and Kyle Mills

Published in 2015, this was the last Mitch Rapp book that  author, late Vince Flynn had underway before his untimely death in 2013.  Kyle Mills continued it to  produce  another Rapp thriller.  Kyle melded this with characters from his own thriller novels apparently.  It was just as good as the Flynn created Rapp series bringing the Afghanis and that rugged country along with Pakistanis  and nuclear powers head to head.  In this thriller packed with action and intrigue, Rapp, CIA operative will face an old long time nemesis, lose his mentor Stan Hurley and battle cyber threats while fighting on the ground in the same rough physical pace this character portrays best.  Irene Kennedy may face the end of her career in humiliating circumstances. 

Some of my favorite passages are as follows. Page 69, "Rapp was the pinnacle.  Most people had become resigned to the fact that he was unkillable.  Gould was one of the few people on the planet who had tried and lived to tell the tale and even he had to admit that he'd been lucky.  Twice.....Rapp wasn't just unkillable, he was in many ways unstoppable..."    Page 264, reveals a chilling consideration, likely more truth than fiction,  "It was shortly thereafter that he had joined with Mitch Rapp and the Americans.   Not because he believed in their futile and unwelcome efforts to turn Afghanistan into a modern democracy.  No, he'd simply seen them as a powerful ally in his quest to kill the men responsible for taking away his life.....The Americans were a confused and naive people, but generally the champions of peace and stability.  Occupations were not in their nature.  Unlike the fanatics who had converged on his country, the Americans could be counted on to leave." 

Page 275 rings true especially with this current inept cowardly federal regime aka administration.  " The problem was that unimaginably stupid had become a job requirement in Washington.

It's a 5 ***** read and  hopefully Kyle Mills will continue this Rapp series, a character ala Jack Bauer of the former TV show 24, something of a marvel in this time of political correctness and wussiness.  .  

Inside Flap

A Dangerous Fortune by Ken Follett

  Paperback Back and front cover 

I purchased this paperback to take with me  on my European trip along the Danube in November and December.  It went along all those miles and remained right in my tote bag as a companion, I never did open it other than on the flight to Amsterdam.  But recently I opened it and was drawn in as always with Ken Follet's fictional sagas.    Yesterday I was "resting" taking first doses of antibiotics for a UTI so that was how I read through and finished it, all 568 pages, it kept my attention, so I could remain at rest, curled up with a good book and so the afternoon passed easily.  

This work about the fictional Pilaster banking family begins in 1866...from the beginning, Follet sets a scene that will work its way through generations and the primary characters. Page 1, ""On the day of the tragedy, the boys of Windfield School had been confined to their rooms. It was a hot Saturday in May and they would normally have spent the afternoon on the south field, some playing cricket and others watching from the shady fringes of Bishop's Wood.  But a crime had been committed.  Six gold sovereigns had been stolen from the desk of Mr. Offerton, the Latin master, and the whole school was under suspicion."    In another few lines we meet Micky Miranda and Edward Pilaster, two friends, students.  Their  friendship will remain lifelong through years and events and the attachment will become deadly over decades.  

I enjoy Follet's works and this one was first published in 1993. His characters are reflective of all human traits, good and bad,  adorable and detestable.  It's difficult to pin one word to the genre, some reviews reference  "political and amorous intrigue, cold blooded murder, gripping complex plot, fascinating characters, financial crises" but consistently reviews applaud "old fashioned entertainment."   

Hugh Pilaster is the unworthy cousin whose father died disgraced and who is generously taken in by his uncle Joseph and aunt Augusta, a character who makes Cruella deVille seem angelic. But Hugh is the essence of a man who will always do the right thing, while cousin Edward, son of Augusta and Joseph is a weak character at best, a pervert at worst.  Kind of a Cinderella tale of male cousins, and in the end good triumphs.  The story based in London, reaches to a  fictional South American country, Cordova, and the  nitrate mines there amidst extreme political disruptions.  Scenes weave from ballrooms to board rooms to brothels to the exclusive men's clubs in London.  The Pilaster family legacy of success holds intrigue, deception, tragedy, triumph all the while reflective of wealth of the times, the influences,  and the impact of markets across the ocean in America and globally.  Besides Augusta, Mickey Miranda is a true devious villain character and another one who opposes Hugh.  There are several other characters all with different  attributes.  What I enjoy about Follett's work is his characters are revealed in depth,  they are  lifelike, some detestable, some shaky, some likeable.  Humanity portrayed back in time perhaps not so different today.. 

The last  lines of the novel, "But it was over now.  The debts were paid. If there had been an evil spirit it had returned to the bottom of the pond.  And Hugh had survived.  He stood up.  It was time to return to his family.  He walked away, then took a last look back.   The ripples fom the stone had disappeared and the surface of the water was immaculately still once again. "  

This is a 5 ***** read, an excellent novel that kept my attention til the end.  

Dead Wake by Erik Larson

Dead Wake is another excellent historical research nonfiction novel by Erik Larson, published 2015 by Crown Publishers, 353 pages, 6 pages of Acknowledgements, 50 pages of Notes, 8 pages of Bibliography and the Index  all together to offer a complete story of the sinking of the Lusitania.  This is the 3rd novel  of Larson's I have read and enjoyed.  This relates the voyage of the commercial Cunard cruise ship, Lucy aka Lusitania, torpedoed and sunk by a German U20 boat near the end of its sailing across the Atlantic from New York  to Liverpool.  The sinking of this ship, death of the American passengers including some who were very prominent precipitated the entry of the United States in WWI.   May  7, 1915 making good their threat to sink commercial liners as well as military, the Germans stepped up U-2 boats off the coastal waters surrounding England. Captain Walther Schwieger of the Unterseeboot-20 aka U-20, submarine was responsible for the disaster.  As stated on the inside cover flap, " an array of forces both grand and achingly small--hubris, a chance fog, a closely guarded secret, and more--all converged to produce of the the great disasters of history." Of the 1959 passengers there were 189 Americans.  

With all the historical information, the author does an excellent job introducing characters such as Captain Turner of the Lusitania, the German Captain  Schwieger, and many passengers and President Woodrow Wilson.  There is intrigue about the British Room 40, the secret decoders a system which was kept fully secret.  I had thought and recalled that the sinking of the Lusitania immediately drove President Wilson to enter WWI when actually the US did not enter the war for another two years. 

Erik Larson, author

I absolutely enjoyed reading this and learned a lot about the era, the technical aspects of the German submarines and President Woodrow Wilson. I felt sorry for Captain Turner being made the scapegoat by the Cunard line and the British Admirality. Pg. 355, Acknowledgements by the author:" What especially drew me was the rich array of materials available to help tell the story in as vivid a manner as possible, --such archival treasures  as telegrams, intercepted wireless messages, survivor depositions, secret intelligence ledgers, Kapitanleutnant Schwieger's actual war log, Edith Galt's love letters and even a film of the Lusitania's final departure from New York.  .....Finding these things was half the fun.  Every book is an expedition into unfamiliar realms, with both an intellectual and a physical component..  The intellectual journey takes you deep into a subject, to the point where you achieve a level of expertise...."  

Near the end  page 326 takes the reader down the lane of "what ifs", "if only ....Captain Turner had not had to wit the extra two hours for the transfer of passengers from the Cameronia he likely would have passed Schwieger in the fog, when the U-20 was submerged and on its way home.  ...More importantly had Turner not been compelled to shut down the fourth boiler room....." 

I give this the full 5*****.  Another excellent example of why historical nonfiction, properly researched and presented by a good author is my preference in reading.   

The Whole Truth by David Baldacci

The Whole Truth, fast paced  401 pages, by David Baldacci, one of my go to authors is another book I read earlier in the year but haven't posted here.  It's time to gather books to donate to our local library's monthly  book sale,  and this one which is  a first edition from April 2008 is going despite my fondness for the author.  I am trying to not accumulate more books because I have over flowed the  shelves in the study once again.  According to the inside jacket this is the first international thriller Baldacci has written and with it introduces new characters,  the  protagonist, Shaw, a man without first or other names with a colorful past, who is "reluctantly" following directions of  a secret multinational intelligence agency, traveling the globe to keep it safe. Shades of the New World Order are reflected in this novel.   Nicolas Creed administers the Ares Corporation, the world's largest defense contractor.  Katie James, journalist striving for the story or interview that will place her at the top of her profession.  In a note at the end of the book, the author writes about "perception management" defined by the Department of Defense in its manuals and offered by public relations firms today.  "Apparently if you want to be exceptional at creating the Big Lie, you really need to specialize in it.  Perception managers are not spin doctors because they don't spin facts.  The create facts and then sell them to the world as the truth.  And that to quote Mark Twain who would've had a field day with the PM guys is the difference between the lightning bug and lightning."  Another excellent thriller by Baldacci.  5 *****   

Hometown history Little Chicago by Dennis L Marsilli

To appreciate this book, you would have to be from New Kensington, Pa and have lived there or grown up during the best of times, it's heyday when employment was full and the city was a population of some 20,000. the 1950's and 60's as I did.   We lived there in the American Dream, but e didn't know it.  The book back cover states it is the story of how two Italian American brothers from a small Pennsylvania "factory town" became influential power brokers as part of the most successful criminal organization in US history.  The Mannarino brothers, Samuel and Kelly, their family ancestral history, reaching back across the ocean to Italy as well as their influence and some admit control of our town, New Kensington  are the focus of this book  written by a retired New Kensington police detective, Dennis Marsili.  Today New Kensington is not even a good slum, no downtown businesses although from time to time a few try to establish themselves. The steel mills closed and Alcoa left, employment disappeared along with many people.  Homes were sold, the  old timers who stayed lock their doors and  try to maintain their homes.  I worried constantly about my mother living there but she would not move and now all my family is dead and residing in Greenwood Cemetery.  Most of us who lived there left long ago, after high school or college for many other parts of the country.  We return sporadically for family visits, funerals, perhaps class reunions.   I doubt there will ever again be a thriving New Kensington, it is not even a good suburb of Pittsburgh, although now there are highway bypasses and people commute to parts of Pittsburgh to work.  It is a ghetto overrun by druggies and  prostitutes, filth and unorganized crime.  The mob ran things well, clearly organized crime is different from the unorganized. The streets of that town were safe, day and night.  The available evening entertainment for the adults was first class at a time when men wore suits to go out and women dressed up in their finest.  The best of times. Problems were dealt with expediently and justice was swift. Charity happened anonymously often and when needed.  The author mentions that old timers are defensive of the mob days, yes for good reasons, no fright but respect and appreciation for what once was.  We grew up knowing about the mob, but thought nothing of them.  They were respectable church going people, and as Marsilli reveals, they controlled everything even the politicians from local to the state level.  I awaited the publishing and release of  this book for years and followed the author's occasional Facebook posts.  He has filled it with research and history back to the 1920"s and before.  Parts made me laugh,  the humorous explanations by Monsignor Fusco of the St Pete's ( the Italian) Catholic church about how "gambling is not a sin."  The town had 3 major Catholic churches when I grew up there, St. Mary's where I and those of Polish descent attended, St. Peter's for the Italians, and St. Joseph for the Irish and all the rest of the Catholics.  There was often almost an envy among the churches of the majesty and magnificence of St. Pete's compared to our parishes, and it was easily explained, "the mob goes there."  This book raises that speculation again about how they supported their church and how their church indeed supported them.  In only 174 pages there are fascinating tidbits.  It starts slow but then drew me in to where I had to read it in a  couple evenings.  Today when I visit "home" and talk with friends, we agree, "The boys ran a good town."  It was also amusing to read the names of the local politicians affiliated, "on the take" owing to the Mannarino's.  I suppose because some of those last names were relatives of some school mates who thought they were the high class of the area, I had to laugh.  Still I enjoyed this book, nothing shockingly revealing but insights and names.  I recommend it to anyone from "home."  5 *****

2 more duds from last year

I tried and set these aside but I will not finish reading either so only formy own documentation and later reference, I include  "Star of the Sea" and "Scandalmonger" here.  

Back cover

I see by my note inside that I attempted to first read Star of the Sea January 14, 2015, and after repeated efforts I give up on page 136 of it's 401 pages.  A friend sent this one to me and it sounded interesting about the Irish migration in 1847.  Although this has a Reading Guide for Book club discussions, it never kept my attention.  The Star of the Sea is the ship on which the characters are sailing along with a killer who stalks the decks searching for vengeance according to the back cover.  A mystery in combination with historical fiction could be intriguing.  The sketches and settings are interesting along with quotes here and there from London, Ireland and the American abroad.  The chapters titles are appealing; it begins with a prologue, "The Monster"  The very first sentence, "All night long he would walk the ship, from bow to stern, from dusk until quarterlight, that sticklike limping man from Connemara with the drooping shoulders and ash coloured clothes."    .In that same opening chapter, page xiv,  "The sailors sometimes wondered if the Ghost's nightly ritual was a religious observance or exotic self punishment such as the Catholics of Ireland were whispered to favour. A mortification perhaps for some unspeakable transgression...."   Notice the British (should I say Irish?)  spellings and sense of intrigue.  But the story drags, never gets off the duff.  The  characters wander back and forth, nothing happens, slow, tedium.  Apparently this man dubbed the "ghost" by the sailors is in the steerage compartments, is he the killer, I will never know.  I just could not keep plodding along.  Written and published in 2002, I understand it is a difficult book to find, so perhaps my donation to our library book sale will benefit someone else.  

The second dud, all of my own choosing at a book sale is "Scandalmonger" by William Safire, published in 2000, and a New York Times Notable book of the year winner., 430 pages, followed by a 12 page Epilogue documenting what happened to the various historical characters appearing in the novel,  and 51 pages of notes which are very detailed history and information.  This sounded like just my kind of book, well researched by a respected author, but another selection that I repeatedly sat aside, returned to from time to time when I finished reading another book or two and finally gave up  at page 103.  The novel  was alluring with  various chapter headed about Scandals in colonial times, involving Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson and so many other historical men and women.  An opening page, "note to the Reader" begins, "The reader of historical fiction wonders, "What's true and what's not?"  As docudramas blur the line between fact and fiction, the reader is entitled to know what is history and what is twistery....."  The novel opens December 17,1792 in Philadelphia with "Prologue."  "The man now in jail who got me into all this trouble says he has enough on the Treasury Secretary to hang him."  The note from his former clerk startled Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg, .....,"the member of Congress from Pennsylvania--about to begin his second trm as Speaker of the House of Representatives read on: Reynolds claims to have proof showing that Hamilton secretly engaged in speculation in government securities..  Alexander Hamilton corrupt?"  So the opening stirred my curiosity and reflection how yes, political scandals have always been with us.  The author states that  quotations of Jefferson, Washington and Madison are almost verbatim.  Chapter 8 opens with a  sketch of the "Congressional Pugilists" Lyon vs. Griswold in 1798 depicting the intense argument where Matthew Lyon, an Irishman spit at Griswold and anti immigrant sentiments made others squirm.  I have to admit, it must have been quite a scene and perhaps such vociferous expression shows how far we have come in manners, or have we?

Page 88 has an interesting observation, "Even if Hamilton is telling the truth about his financial purity and I presume he is, a claim of sexual immorality is no defense.  Adultery is just a different manifestation of dishonesty."  Yes there are many similarities with politicians of today with the scandals abounding in this novel.  The writing is very good, of course for someone of Safire's stature as an author,  that is expected. However, I could not continue to read anymore of this tale.  I was fascinated by some words that are no longer used today.  Page 446, explains "contemelious"  I learned this archaic word  was a favorite Hamilton synonym for slanderous and "flagitious for villainous.  Some anachronisms have lasted through time,  such as "boozy and tipsy."  Nevertheless this book returns to the collection I will donate to our next month's local Library book sale.  

Both books prove that old adage, you cannot judge a book by it's cover.    

Most boring book read in 2015

This was the most boring book I nearly finished reading in 2015 and am just now posting.  A friend had sent it to me because she knows I enjoy history and mysteries and she thought, Californian that she is, I might enjoy reading about MN where we now live. It sounded like some local history with the murder mystery catching my eye and in paperback 289 pages, published by Beaver's Pond Press, a first printing edition from 2013, it held promise which quickly turned into a false one.  It is about the September 27, 1839 grisly discovery of the corpse of Sgt. John Hays by some Dakota Indian boys along the Mississippi River about seven miles downstream from Ft. Snelling.  The area is near an ancient Indian landmark, Carver's Cave.    Hays had been a popular soldier who had disappeared 21 days earlier and had shared his cabin with his business partner Edward Phelen or also spelled Phalen.  Phalen was an unlikeable sort and from the information friendless and most unfriendly.  Sounds interesting, but the writing is not.  Apparently the author,  amassed a collection of material about this unsolved murder although  Phalen was arrested and charged with the murder.  Perhaps the book could have been interesting if he had collaborated with a writer or simply given the material and his thoughts to an author.  As written it is boringly repetitive.  There are interesting quotes here and there such s page 121 where the author shows his research and further information referencing Winston Churchill, ""a riddle wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma."  From the beginning the author admits the murder is unsolved and yet he spends page after page with his thoughts about "who done it" or what else I'm not sure.  I give this book 2 ** and that is a stretch.  It goes into the donation pile. 

I was Born Under a Spruce Tree by J J Van Biber

I purchased this book in Dawson City, in the Klondike Yukon territory August 17, 2013 on our trip to Alaska.  I had taken the day off away from the tour we were on and wandered around Dawson, which I prefer to being herded.  There in the local drugstore I met the author and two sisters, Pat Van Bibber, Lucy Sanderson and Kathleen Thorpe.  This book is a biography about their late brother JJVan Bibber.  I had heard about it on local news in Alaska and it is just the kind of activity I enjoy, meeting authors.  Kathleen is a famous local artist.  

This is an amazing paperback, only 147 pages but rife with history and photos  of the family.  It had been published only in 2012 and illustrated by a grandson, Shannon Van Bibber.  The grandchildren persuaded JJ to write down all the stories he had shared with them about his life in the 1920's growing up in Mica Creek, the 1940's with his marriage to Clara, the 1970's when he surveyed for the government.  These native peoples lived through and survived in a country known for wilderness.  The women were as hearty as the men to survive.  Each tale has it's own mystique and sense of wonder.  

Me standing behind Pat Van Bibber

 

Back cover

It was beyond delightful to talk with these people.  Pat took an instant shine to me because he said, "you Pat, I Pat.  Good name."  With help from an anthropology student from the University of Alberta, Niall Fink, JJ talked about his life."They're making a book about me.  Yeah.  It is going in all the schools so the kids can learn about how we lived in the old days.  They call it oral history. "  Page 3,JJ's introduction.    Born in 1920 and whether or not under a spruce tree might be questioned, he led a fascinating life setting trap lines, building moose skin boats, playing the harmonica, . His father was a white settler who came to the Klondike from West Virginia  in the Gold Rush and married his mother Eliza who was born in the 1880's.  Page 9, "My mother was an Indian, you see.  She could talk both languages.  I don't know how she did it but she could talk to Indians around Stewart River at Dawson and they talked different languages altogether.  She knew Tlingit too.  Her mother was married to Chief Jackson, from around Juneau."  It is beyond intriguing to read how they went away to school, as very young tots, really away, down river and had to stay until the end of school term, away from their families.  Pat was 92 when I met him and sharp but tired.  This last photo shows me with the family.  This is a 5 ***** book.  

  

Killing Reagan by Bill O'Reilly & Martin Dugard

The latest book in author OReilly's Killing series and to me it was the least interesting.  A friend passed this one along to me, so I was spared wasting any money on its purchase.  It appears to be a collection or rather a smattering of all sorts of miscellaneous information gathered by the authors and pages are consumed with this ranging from sagas about Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and more.  I am unsure if I disliked this book because of all the extraneous smatterings or if it is because so much of this history is current to me having lived through it all.  I really do not understand how they could have written this book without interviewing contemporaries of Reagan's like  Edwin Meese or others.  At only 283 pages it is a quick easy read but rambling.  If this is the best they can do, perhaps it's past time to move on from the niche of their Killing books and find another title, "Smatterings About and Beyond...."  whoever is my suggestion.  There has been controversy about this book, that it demeans Reagan.  I did not find that so much as I just became very tired of all the asides here and there,  It is nice that it is dedicated to caretakers as that is how Nancy spent the last many years.  It was an attempt to fill a book with tidbits. 

Rating it only 3 *** and that's generous.  I read this last year, 2015, but just now documenting it for this blog. 

One of many reviews copied and attached here from USA Today October 2015 by Ray Locker as well as a link to that article.  http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2015/09/22/killing-reagan--violent-assault--changed--presidency/32520031/

2016 First book review Blood Feud

Read this in a few setting, another remarkable political expose about the rivalry and deep hatred between the  Clintons and Obamas. On the surface they appear to be allies  but behind the facade they are bitter enemies.    Edward Klein reports what I've long suspected about the enmity between these two factions of the Democratic party.  It is a paperback, only 305 pages, published October 2015, which is when I bought it, but set  it aside until a couple weeks ago.  I am a conservative but a political junkie and read through it with ease. My career at higher levels of state government and with contacts in the federal levels, gives me an advantage over the average reader.  But I still wonder how these people can live with themselves.   His chapter on the  Bengazi deception  offers succinct information that others are not readily discussing, namely that it was a cover up for a bothced CIA operation to run arms thru Turkey to the Syrians.  It sounds plausible and yet it is all the more disturbing because it reeks of massive inherent incompetence at the highest levels of this current administration, another fact I find plausible.  In addition it reveals Hillary to be a congenital liar.  I cannot stand how she lied to the families of the murdered men and over their caskets lied to their families.  That part is stomach turning.  But as Klein explains, she can fabricate at the drop of a hat without any twinge of conscience.  

I loved his quote on page 114 about politicians and  find it a perfect way to describe to the majority of people who only know what they hear on television why politicians are not like you and me or ordinary people.  Klein describes politicians as like  nation states, they have few to no friends.  They have contacts or interests which is why they can schmooze with their own self interest always in view.   Relations among politicians are not about sentiment.  Politicians resemble nation states they don't have friends so much as they have permanent interests.  In the case of Bill and Hillary their nation state was the Clinton Foundation."    
I have believed Obama to be a petulant, arrogant in over his head person for a long time and this book confirms that.  However what is very revealing is another tidbit that is not talked about in the media, that Valerie Jarrett who adopted the Obamas and mentored them really controls the White house.  This is horrifying yet believable from what has happened during the reign of this administration over these years. 

Page 186 on describes Obama's 3 prong strategy post his second election something we are now living with.  "First he planned to go over the heads of his Republican opponents, barnstorm the country during his second term and use election style tactics to pressure Republican members of Congress to vote for his bill whether they liked it or not." Second Obama would "demonize Republican adversaries" to make voters turn against them.  He intends to break the back of the GOP and reinstall Nancy Pelosi as House Speaker.  Third he planned to use the power" of the imperial presidency" declaring executive orders at whim to circumvent congress.  Obama believes he was elected king is why he feels  so sure he can do all this freely.

Liberal Democrats would not be interested in this book but I have not read any attacks against it. Nevertheless for those who are considering Hillary as the next president, it might behoove them to read about her.  She is different for sure, soulless and not as likable as Bill and very capable of being nastier than Obama.  The end of the book discusses Bill's failing health and hers.  A book to make Americans shudder.