The History Book Club discussion

Lorna, this is your thread for 2018. I have included the link to the required format thread and an example. If you had a 2017 thread - it will be archived so when you get the opportunity move over your completed books and formats to the 2018 thread - but we will allow time for you to do that.

Please follow the standard required format below - I hope you enjoy your reading in 2018. Here is also a link for assistance with the required guidelines:

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Our Required Format:

JANUARY

1. by Winston S. Churchill
Finish date: January 2018
Genre: (whatever genre the book happens to be)
Rating: A
Review: You can add text from a review you have written but no links to any review elsewhere even goodreads. And that is about it. Just make sure to number consecutively and just add the months.

IMPORTANT - THE REVIEW SHOULD BE SHORT AND SWEET - THERE ARE NO LINKS OF ANY KIND IN THE BODY OF THE REVIEW ALLOWED. NONE. DO NOT REFER TO ANY OTHER BOOK IN YOUR BRIEF REVIEW. THE ONLY BOOK CITED IN YOUR REVIEW IS THE ONE YOU ARE REVIEWING - NO OTHERS. ALL LINKS TO OTHER THREADS OR REVIEWS ARE DELETED IMMEDIATELY - THERE WILL BE NO WARNING. WE CONSIDER THIS SELF PROMOTION AND IT IS NOT ALLOWED AND IS IN VIOLATION OF OUR RULES AND GUIDELINES.

Thank you Bentley, I appreciate it.

JANUARY

1. by Hampton Sides
Finish date: January 11, 2018
Genre: History, American West
Rating: A+
Review: Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson & the Conquest of the American West by Hampton Sides was a powerfully written and meticulously researched tale of the American West primarily from the early nineteenth century through the Civil War when President Polk's vision of Manifest Destiny was the ideological vision of the United States of America sweeping from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Having grown up in Colorado, New Mexico and California, I loved this book not only for its rich history but for its vivid descriptions of the southwest.

"They all had Spanish names and had had them since before the pilgrims sailed to Plymouth Rock: The Sandias. Manzanos. Ortiz. Jemez. Los Cerillos. Sangre de Cristos. San Mateos. Atalaya. Some seemed so close they could plucked as effortlessly as pendulous fruit, others more than a hundred miles off, thin blue phantoms rising from the Navajo country in the hazy west."

"The sagebrush gave way to cornfields and sheep pastures and then scattered houses, and finally the men dropped down to the somber capital--the Royal City of the Holy Faith of Saint Francis of Assisi. Although it had a fabled name with a venerable history--it was founded in 1609--Santa Fe was not a town that sought to impress anyone, numbering at most seven thousand inhabitants."

But at the heart of this saga is Christopher "Kit" Carson who was an integral part of this story. "There was something uncanny about Carson, in the way he popped up from the shadows and impressed his name on the scenes of history. . . . he did have a curious knack for making himself present at the critical instant. Whenever an expedition was in trouble--real trouble--he was there to bail it out."

It was also the chilling tale of the Navajo nation who found themselves unwilling participants in the last stages of Manifest Destiny. "It was not a single migration, but a series of them. . . But taken all together, it was a forced relocation of biblical proportions, one of the largest in American history--second only to the Trail of Tears of the Cherokees."

2. by John Grisham
Finish date: January 14, 2018
Genre: Novel
Rating: B-
Review: As the book jacket says, "Pull up a stool, grab a cold one, and get ready to spend some time at The Rooster Bar."

The latest legal thriller focuses on issues John Grisham is shining a light on, namely for-profit law schools, student loan debt and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Four third-year students at Foggy Bottom Law School in Washington D.C. are in their final semester, assessing their crushing debt and lack of employment opportunities, partially due to the poor reputation of their for-profit law school. As the scam becomes more and more apparent as they follow all of the leads, these friends find a unique way to resolve their dilemma as they attempt to turn the tables on the powers behind the for-profit law schools and the associated student loan scams.

From class-action suits to the unauthorized practice of law, this was a good book. While their actions were questionable and often unethical, if you subscribe to the old adage, "the ends justify the means," you can't help but cheer. I definitely enjoyed my time at The Rooster Bar.

Lorna, you are off to a great start - I will archive your 2017 thread now - it will be in the archival folder but still open.

3. by Rachel Joyce
Finish date: January 19, 2018
Genre: Novel
Rating: B+
Review: The Music Shop is a rare little book taking place in a run-down suburb of London where Frank selects the perfect location for his music shop on Unity Street. We also meet the ragtag group of other shop-owners as they struggle to maintain their businesses with the inevitable progress and gentrification beginning to drive them out.

As we come to see, Frank has a unique gift for determining the exact piece of music that one may need at a particular time in their life. However, it is the late 1980's and there is a push for CD's but Frank is steadfast in his decision that he will only sell vinyl in his shop. We begin to learn more of Frank's past as he reminisces about his relationship with his somewhat bohemian mother, "Peg." Peg loved music and would share that love with her son Frank. Oftentimes as a child, he would lie on the floor as Peg taught him how to listen and feel the vibrations of not only the classical music of Mozart, Bach, and Handel but also everything from jazz to rock.

"Jazz was about the spaces between notes. It was about what happened when you listened to the thing inside you. The gaps and the cracks. Because that was where life really happened; when you were brave enough to free-fall."

This is a book that pulses with music and quirky characters, friendship, caring and healing. This is a book that you read with a smile, and maybe an occasional tear.

4. by Ross King
Finish date: January 24, 2018
Genre: History, Architecture
Rating: B
Review: Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture was a fascinating look at the personal struggles and brilliance of Brunelleschi in his engineering, design and erection of the dome over the beautiful new cathedral Santa Maria del Fiore in the heart of Florence. However, it had already been under construction for a century when, in 1418, a contest was announced for designs to be submitted for the construction of a dome that would vault over the cathedral.

"However, of the many plans submitted, only one--a model that offered a magnificently daring and unorthodox solution to the problem of vaulting such a large space--appeared to show much promise. This model, made of brick, was built not by a carpenter or mason but by a man that would make it his life's work to solve the puzzles of the dome's construction: a goldsmith and clockmaker named Filippo Brunelleschi."

"The hoist that he created was to become one of the most celebrated machines of the Renaissance, a device that would be studied and sketched by numerous other architects and engineers, including Leonard da Vinci. And before the dome was complete, the hoist would raise aloft marble, brick, stone and mortar weighing an estimated 70 million pounds."

This is an engrossing tale of the struggles, obstacles and brilliance of one man as well as a wonderful look at the history, art and architecture in fifteenth century Florence for all who are still amazed at the awesome beauty and grandeur of the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore.

You are making good progress

FEBRUARY

5. by Ken Follett
Finish date: February 1, 2018
Genre: Historical Fiction
Rating: B
Review: A Column of Fire was the final book in the Kingsbridge trilogy taking place from 1558 through 1620 with history spanning some of the most turbulent and violent times including the Protestant Reformation, The Spanish Inquisition and the religious wars in France and England. This saga begins with the reign of Mary Tudor, Queen of England followed by her half-sister Elizabeth Tudor and the forty year imprisonment of Mary Queen of Scots. It also explores the struggles in France between the Catholics and the French Huguenots or French protestants with the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day vividly portrayed.

". . . . the three great women of the sixteenth century were now dead: Elizabeth, Queen Caterina of France, and Margherita of Parma, governor of the Netherlands. They had all tried to stop men killing one another over religion. . . .Evil men had always frustrated the efforts of the peacemakers. Bloody religious wars had raged for decades in France and the Netherlands. Only England remained more or less at peace."

Nice review

Thank you Bentley.

6. by Dorit Rabinyan
Finish date: February 4, 2018
Genre: Novel
Rating: A
Review: All The Rivers is a beautifully written novel by Dorit Rabinyan. According to the book cover, All The Rivers became the center of a political scandal in Israel when the Ministry of Education banned the book from the high school curriculum.

Liat has come to New York in the autumn to house-sit for a childhood friend from Israel until the following spring. Studying for her masters degree at Tel Aviv University in linguistics, she is working as a translator. It is by chance that she meets Hilmi, her friend's Arabic tutor and an artist from Palestine, in a coffee shop in Greenwich Village. There is an immediate attraction as this modern day Romeo and Juliet tale evolves through the autumn, winter and spring in New York City. As they begin to share the stories of their lives, families, religion and language, they realize their similarities are greater than their differences. This was a beautiful book that will be with me for some time to come.

7. by Daniel Silva
Finish date: February 8, 2018
Genre: Spy Thriller
Rating: A
Review: Portrait of a Spy centers on international espionage and intrigue as former Israeli spy/ assassin Gabriel Allon is once again working with the United States and London's MI5 following strategically and symbolically timed bombs in Paris, Copenhagen and London pointing to the involvement of al-Qaeda with correlation to the times of the September 11th terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 2001. This was great book full of many twists and turns as the narrative goes from London to Washington, D.C. to New York City to Madrid to Paris to Zurich to the United Emirates and Saudi Arabia. And because Gabriel Allon is a gifted artist and art restorer, this is also a book about art with art playing a large role in the outcome of this thriller.

"Gabriel was known throughout the art world for the lightness of his touch and his uncanny ability to mimic the brushstrokes of the Old Masters. He believed it was the duty of a restorer to come and go without being seen, leaving no evidence of his presence other than a painting returned to its original glory."

8. by Walter Isaacson
Finish date: February 10, 2018
Genre: Biography
Rating: A
Review: Leonardo da Vinci is a meticulously researched biography of one of the most interesting and creative geniuses we have known. Leonardo da Vinci's interests spanned painting, architecture, engineering, medicine and science. With not only Isaacson's powerful narrative and a very detailed timeline, there are also beautiful color plates of da Vinci's art and notebooks throughout this book that illustrate how truly exceptional and innovative he was. From his Vitruvian Man, to the magnificent The Last Supper painted on the north wall of the refectory of the Santa Maria del Grazie church and monastery in the heart of Milan to the iconic and mysterious Mona Lisa in The Louvre in Paris, one is awestruck by his diverse interests and talents.

"What made Leonardo a genius, what set him apart from people who are merely extraordinarily smart, was creativity, the ability to apply imagination to intellect. His facility for combining observation with fantasy allowed him, like other creative geniuses, to make unexpected leaps that related things seen to things unseen."

"Because they 'think different,' creative masterminds are sometimes considered misfits, but in the words that Steve Jobs helped craft for an Apple advertisement, 'While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.'"

9. by Julie Otsuka
Finish date: February 10, 2018
Genre: Novel, Historical Fiction
Rating: A
Review: When the Emperor Was Divine is a powerful book that portrays the internment of those of Japanese ancestry after the bombing of Pearl Harbor during World War II and is told from the perspective and point of view of the father who is taken from their Berkley, California home by the FBI and imprisoned in New Mexico for the duration of the war. We also get the points of view of the mother, the 11-year old girl and the 8-year old boy as they are transported to an internment camp in a desert in Utah and the subsequent years spent there. Otsuka's simple spare prose adds to the power and tragedy of this shameful period of time in our history.

10. by B.A. Shapiro
Finish date: February 11, 2018
Genre: Novel
Rating A-
Review: The Art Forger is a riveting journey in the art world based on a true crime of a theft in Boston, Massachusetts in 1990 of over $500 million of priceless masterpieces of art, including Degas' "After the Bath" from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Claire Roth is a young and gifted artist but a very poor judge of character as evidenced by her being ostracized by the art community and her resorting to making a living by painting art reproductions known in the industry as "OTC" (over the couch) art.

But twenty-five years after the heist of the art, a gallery owner comes to Claire with a proposal. As she makes a Faustian bargain for her own art show of a project of her "window series" that she has been working on for some time is too tempting. Not to mention having an original Degas' piece of art, although fleetingly, in her possession.

"My heart races. I'm going to have the incredible good fortune of living with a work by Degas, touching it, breathing it in, studying its every last detail, ferreting out the master's secrets. It's a great gift. Perhaps the greatest. One that will inform my painting forever. Sweet. Incredibly sweet. Now I really can't breathe."

But as Claire researches Degas' art in depth and his brushstrokes (a signature in the art world), there are questions about whether this is the original work of art or not. Hang on as you see what unfolds as we are plunged deeper into the world of art forgery. I loved this book and while Boston has been on my bucket list for some time, now, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is now at the top of the list.

11. by Julie Otsuka
Finish date: February 12, 2018
Genre: Novel, Historical Fiction
Rating: B+
Review: The Buddha in the Attic is a well-researched historical fiction novel about the plight of a group of Japanese women brought to San Francisco in the early 1900's, having been shown photographs of the husbands that they would meet in San Francisco and told that they were successful bankers or businessmen. However these Japanese "picture brides" quickly realized that they had been duped and instead, some were forced to live the life of a migrant farm worker in the fields of California while others cleaned the homes of the wealthy. As we follow these women from their horrendous voyage to America to their wedding nights to the births of their children and their lives for the next thirty years until they are ultimately rounded up and sent to internment camps for those of Japanese ancestry following the attack on Pearl Harbor. The sheer strength and power of this novel is in the cumulative voice of "we" to "some of us" and "others of us," as we are witnesses to the collective experiences of these women and their suffering and desperation subsequent to their immigration to America. This is written with hauntingly beautiful and lyrical prose.

"On the boat we carried with us in our trunks all of the things we would need for our new lives: white silk kimonos for our wedding night, colorful cotton kimonos for everyday wear. . . calligraphy brushes, thick black sticks of ink, thin sheets of rice paper on which to write letters home, tiny brass Buddhas, ivory statues of fox the god, dolls we had slept with since we were five. . . . "

"This is America, we would say to ourselves, there is no need to worry. And we would be wrong."

"We forgot about Buddha. We forgot about God. We developed a coldness inside us that still has not thawed. I fear my soul has died."

"Many of us had lost everything and left saying nothing at all."

12. by Robert M. Edsel
Finish date: February 14, 2018
Genre: History, Non-Fiction
Rating: B+
Review: Saving Italy: The Race to Rescue a Nation's Treasures from the Nazis is the final book in the Monuments Men trilogy by Robert Edsel. This was an all-encompassing and spellbinding account of the race to save Italy's cultural heritage after the Allied forces stormed into Italy in 1943 and the subsequent retreat of the German army. However, the Nazis had been pillaging priceless works of art for some time and were prepared to move them out of the country. But there was a small group of American and British men made up of museum directors, curators, artists, educators, the Monuments Men, volunteering to save Europe's rich heritage. Empowered by General Dwight Eisenhower on the eve of the Allied invasion in Italy to protect this nation's vast treasures, this small group of men began an almost insurmountable task of seeking out, preserving and returning these artistic treasures.

"In wartime when the thoughts of men fighting nations are concerned primarily with winning battles. . . it seems incongruous and inconsistent that the commanders of opposing armies should give attention to culture and the Fine Arts. . . there were men whose sole job was to preserve the heritage and culture of nations being torn to shreds by the ravages of war. Italy was the first to know the men whose job it was to care for her cultural and artistic heritage in wartime." -- Monuments Officer Captain Deanne Keller

"What happens when this dense fabric of human achievement, so infinitely precious, so incalculably old, so carefully guarded, is struck by the full force of modern warfare." -- Monuments Officer Fred Hart

"Museums in Italy followed the lead of other great institutions in Europe, including the Louvre in Paris, the National Gallery in London, and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, and transported their contents to remote storage facilities. Officials began removing works of art from Italian cities, transferring them to various countryside villas and castles."

"Noticing an organ behind the High Altar, Keller asked him to play Schubert's 'Ave Maria.' Some fifty or so Allied soldiers listened raptly. As the last note resonated, the servicemen stomped and cheered for more. War had introduced many new sounds to a soldier. After months of artillery fire, gunshots, trucks, planes, engines, and radios, music offered otherworldly grace."

13. by Rachel Joyce
Finish date: February 22, 2018
Genre: Novel
Rating: A
Review: The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry was a quiet and beautiful novel set in England. Harold Fry, recently retired from the brewery is at a loss as to what to do with his life. It is apparent that his marriage is somewhat strained as well as his relationship with his son. One day a letter arrives from Queenie Hennessey, a co-worker that he hasn't seen for over twenty years, saying that she is in hospice care and dying but wants to tell him good-bye and that she is at peace. Harold pens a letter to her and is off to post it. However, when he reaches the post office he decides to walk further to the next post office. As he continues his walk, he suddenly feels as if he needs to hand deliver this message to Queenie; that in doing so he can save her. So with that, Harold leaves Kingsbridge and heads out to deliver the letter to Queenie in Berwick-upon-Tweed, some five hundred miles away. He calls the hospice with a message for Queenie that he is coming and to wait for him. What transpires during this long journey is the slow revelation of Harold's life and his relationships. I know it must be the gypsy in me but I love books about people that suddenly uproot their lives and start walking. This is a book about Harold Fry's pilgrimage that will be with me for some time.

A few of my favorite quotes:

"They believed in him. They had looked at him in his yachting shoes, and listened to what he said, and they had made a decision in their hearts and minds to ignore the evidence and to imagine something bigger and something infinitely more beautiful than the obvious. Remembering his own doubt, Harold was humbled."

"As time passed and he found his rhythm, he began to feel more certain. England opened beneath his feet, and the feeling of freedom, of pushing into the unknown, was so exhilarating he had to smile. He was in the world by himself and nothing could get in the way. . . ."

"He understood that in walking to atone for the mistakes he had made, it was also his journey to accept the strangeness of others. As a passerby, he was in a place where everything, not only the land, was open. People would feel free to talk, and he was free to listen. To carry a little of them as he went. He had neglected so many things that he owed this small piece of generosity to Queenie and the past."

"He had learned that it was the smallness of people that filled him with wonder and tenderness, and the loneliness of that too. The world was full of people putting one foot in front of the other; and a life might appear ordinary simply because the person living it had been doing so for a long time. Harold could no longer pass a stranger without acknowledging the truth that everyone was the same, and also unique; and that was the dilemma of being human."

14. by Camille Aubray
Finish date: February 22, 2018
Genre: Novel
Rating: B
Review: Cooking for Picasso was a diversion that I enjoyed to take me to a place that I love, namely the beautiful French Riviera as the backdrop of the multigenerational saga of three women. At it's heart is the young and spirited 16-year old Ondine helping out in her parents' restaurant Café Paradis where she cycles daily taking one of their spectacular luncheons to a mysterious guest from Paris, an artist who is going by his family name of Ruiz but is the famous Pablo Picasso. Ondine begins to prepare a cookbook with the recipes and notes of Picasso's comments to tweak the recipes with a Spanish twist to these traditional Provencal recipes. We also meet Celine as she comes to the Cote d' Azur to explore the mysteries of her grandmother Ondine and her mother Julie as she takes a cooking class in the village where her grandmother lived to try to resolve the mystery of whether Picasso painted a portrait of Ondine those many years ago. If you love art, the Cote d' Azur, Provencal cooking and a sweet story, this is it.

"For, no matter how many times I see this view, I still catch my breath at the way the Riviera's intense-but-soft sun fires up every color it touches to dazzling perfection: the pomegranate-red tiled roofs on candy-colored stone houses snuggled against terraced hills; the green of dense pine that clings to the shoreline and mountains; and most of all, blue--that infinite canopy of cobalt-blue sky over my head, and a wide-open aquamarine sea lapping at the shores, each reaching out to the other until they meet in a blurry watercolor embrace at a violet-blue horizon."

15. by Rachel Joyce
Finish date: February 25, 2018
Genre: Novel
Rating: A
Review: The Love Song of Queenie Hennessy: A Novel is the story of the life of Queenie Hennessy, now at the end of her life and in hospice care. She has written a letter to a former co-worker Harold Fry whom she has not seen for twenty years but telling him that she is dying and at peace. However, Harold Fry decides to walk the length of England from Kingsbridge to Berwick-upon-Tweed, some five to six hundred miles away to save her. As he is making his pilgrimage across England, we learn about the life of Queenie Hennessy, including her relationship with Harold Fry and why she suddenly left twenty years ago. This heartwarming book also portrays life in the hospice run by the nuns. We become acquainted with some of the other patients and the bonds forged among them as they become involved in the trek of Harold Fry. This was a beautifully written book that treated many difficult issues with understanding, insight and compassion. Well done Rachel Joyce.

MARCH

16. by John Matteson
Finish date: March 3, 2018
Genre: Biography
Rating: B
Review: Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father is the Pulitzer prizewinning, engrossing and meticulously researched biography of Amos Bronson Alcott, an educator, philosopher and part of the transcendental movement in the early nineteenth century along with Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller. It is also the biography of his famous daughter and author Louisa May Alcott. This was an interesting and fascinating look at the Alcott family and their relationships but focused primarily on the sometimes complicated but loving relationship between father and daughter Louisa, ultimately brought together by their writings and a sense of justice. Not knowing anything about Bronson Alcott, I found his opening of different schools and his philosophy regarding education and child-rearing fascinating, particularly his founding of what he hoped to be a utopian society at Fruitlands as well as his interest in the Shaker community.

The final paragraph by author and professor John Matteson sums up the essence of his biography as follows:

"To the extent the written page permits knowledge of a different time and departed souls, this book has tried to reveal them. . . . Biographers can sift the sands as they think wisest. But the bonds that two persons share consist also of encouraging words, a reassuring hand on a tired shoulder, fleeting smiles, and soon-forgotten quarrels. These contacts, so indispensable to existence, leave no durable trace. . . . Bronson and Louisa still exist for us. Yet this existence, on whatever terms we may experience it, is no more than a shadow when measured against the way they existed for each other."

Good progress Lorna

17. by Steven Galloway
Finish date: March 5, 2018
Genre: Novel
Rating: A+
Review: The Cellist of Sarajevo is a heartbreaking but beautiful novel based on the Siege of Sarajevo that raged on for four years. However, this book is compressed into a period of about four weeks. At 4:00 in the afternoon on May 27, 1992 several mortar shells struck a group of people waiting to buy bread at the market killing twenty-two people and injuring many more. For the next twenty-two days, a renowned local cellist, who had witnessed the murders from his apartment, played Albinoni's Adagio in G Minor each day at 4:00 pm at the site of the attack in honor of the dead.

Author Steven Galloway states in the Afterword that this was his inspiration for the novel. The Cellist of Sarajevo focuses on the impact of the cellist playing this haunting adagio had on three people of Sarajevo, namely Arrow, a female sniper and expert marksman; Kenan, husband and father of three children; and Dragan who had sent his wife and son to Italy since the outbreak of the civil war. How each comes to terms with their core values, what has become of their home and how they want to live is a gripping tale in the face of insanity.

18. by Tana French
Finish date: March 9, 2018
Genre: Mystery, Thriller
Rating: A
Review: Broken Harbor by Tana French is the fourth book in the Dublin Murder Squad series. This book centered on veteran police detective Mick "Scorcher" Kennedy and a rookie detective assigned as his partner to investigate one of the biggest murder cases involving a young family in the now pretty much abandoned housing community in Broken Harbor. Detective Kennedy prides himself on his unequaled solve rate in the Dublin murder squad and is happy to share his knowledge and expertise with his new partner as he trains Richie. The evolution of their working relationship was an enjoyable and intricate piece of this thriller.

"In every way there is, murder is chaos. Our job is simple, when you get down to it: we stand against that, for order."

"My solve rate is what it is for two reasons: because I work my arse off, and because I keep control. Over situations, over witnesses, over suspects, and most of all, over myself. If you're good enough at that, you can compensate for just about anything else.

"If you're good at this job, and I am, then every step in a murder case moves you in one direction: towards order. We get thrown shards of senseless wreckage, and we piece them together until we can lift the picture out of darkness and hold it up to the white light of day, solid, complete, clear.

The other big theme as this story progressed pertained to one's world view. Is everything either black or is it white? Or are there shades of gray that may blur the edges? It is in this philosophical and moral dilemma that we learn more about the significance of Broken Harbor to Detective Kennedy and his family as we see him struggle to maintain control. This was a powerful book as it explored the many layers of the human condition.

19. by Anne Fadiman
Finish date: March 11, 2018
Genre: Memoir
Rating: B
Review: The Wine Lover's Daughter: A Memoir is a loving tribute to Clifton Fadiman from his daughter Anne Fadiman as she told of his love of wine and love of his books. As she writes, "Aside from his books, he loved nothing--and no one--longer, more ardently, or more faithfully than he loved wine." And, "My father had long associated books and wine: they both sparked conversation, they both were a lifetime project, they both were pleasurable to shelve, they were the only things he collected."

Fadiman was born in Brooklyn in 1904 to Russian Jewish parents. He learned to read at age four, becoming a voracious reader enjoying Sophocles, Dante, Milton and Melville by age thirteen, and soon followed with Shaw, Yeats, Wilde and Wells. Graduating from high school at age 15, he went on to Columbia where he aspired to cross into Manhattan leaving his past behind. At age twenty-three, Fadiman went to Paris for the first time when he tasted a properly chilled white Graves wine and his love affair with wine began. Fadiman went on to be a literary and wine critic and editor as well as hosting a television show. As Anne Fadiman introduces us to her father throughout the book, she also deals with the fact that she did not enjoy her father's love of wine. This is not only a great read for those who love wine and books, but a delightful tale of an interesting man and his family, particularly vignettes like his eightieth birthday party where he enjoyed Chateau Lafite Rothschild 1904. Cheers!

20. by Jennet Conant (no photo)
Finish date: March 12, 2018
Genre: Biography
Rating: B
Review: Tuxedo Park was an engaging biography of Alfred Loomis, who at one point was compared to a modern day Benjamin Franklin but in reading this book, I also found parallels to Leonardo Da Vinci, a true Renaissance Man. Although his love was science, Loomis after graduating from law school began working at a prestigious law firm. From there he and his partner, Landon Thorne, took over an international banking firm and became a prestigious Wall Street banker at the time of the depression. Loomis then bought property in Tuxedo Park and was able to build his dream of a science lab and drew some of the greatest scientific minds that were to be an integral part of history prior to World War II and were instrumental in bringing about the Allied victory. Scientists as Ernest Lawrence, Enrico Fermi, Niels Bohr, Albert Einstein, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and many others all flocked to the Palace of Science shepherded by Loomis at Tuxedo Park where they worked on the development of radar and the creation of the Manhattan Project.

Much of this amazing story may have been lost because of the reticence of Alfred Loomis for publicity and the subsequent loss of many key documents. However Jennet Conant grew up with the Loomis children and her grandfather, James Conant, was not only the president of Harvard but a scientist who also worked with all the great minds assembled at Tuxedo Park.

With close ties in the worlds of finance, government and science, Loomis had virtually unprecedented access to the men who would ultimately decide the country's future.

Loomis exiled himself from the glittering world of New York society because he wanted to devote all his time to science. He set himself up royally in a castle in Tuxedo Park and financed his own audacious investigations of the stars, the heart, the brain--the secrets of the world. He built his private laboratory not as a shrine to himself, but because he desired nothing more than to be actively involved in the daily research and progress. He provided both the brains and backing for all kinds of inventions medical advances, and scientific studies."

21. by Truman Capote
Finish date: March 15, 2018
Genre: Literary Classic
Rating: A
Review: Breakfast at Tiffany's was a delightful but hauntingly sad novella by Truman Capote that I have waited too long to read, although I loved the classic movie starring Audrey Hepburn. I immersed myself in this book, loving Holly Golightly and her struggles, as our narrator "Fred" becomes closer to Holly and learns much of her past. This takes place in 1940's New York City where martinis flow and parties abound but juxtaposed with a war raging on in Europe. A lot to think about in this book. This may have been Truman Capote at his best.

"I want to still be me when I wake up one fine morning and have breakfast at Tiffany's."

Lorna, I love your reviews and the books you are reading, I will read many of them.

Thank you so much Helga. I think we like many of the same books. I think you and I have an eclectic choice of books that adds to the experience.

22. by Katy Tur
Finish date: March 17, 2018
Genre: Political History
Rating: A
Review: Unbelievable: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History was an inside look at the presidential campaign of Donald J Trump from the perspective of a veteran reporter, Katy Tur, who received the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in 2017. Ms. Tur was assigned by NBC/MSNBC to follow and report on the Trump campaign, necessitating attending political campaign rallies and speeches as well as interviews of Trump and his supporters for over five hundred days culminating in the victory party at the New York Hilton on Election Day.

Perhaps Katy Tur says it best in her dedication, "For the love of God." What more is there to say?

23. by Harper Lee
Finish date: March 23, 2018
Genre: Southern Literary Fiction
Rating: A
Review: There has been a lot of controversy regarding the release of this novel by Harper Lee and a lot of mixed reviews and reactions to it, much of it negative. That being said, I loved Go Set a Watchman, particularly when placed in the historical context of the 1950's and the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education and the resulting resistance of the South to integration of their schools.

Jean Louise comes home for a visit to Maycomb, Alabama from New York as a 26-year old adult and ultimately has to come to terms with her long-held beliefs and values and how those may be reflected in the actions of those she loves. It has been widely accepted that Atticus Finch is a racist as evidenced by some of his actions in this novel. However, I am not as sure about that. While it may be my long-standing hero-worship of Atticus Finch forged a long time ago, I think that there was also evidence that Atticus was concerned about the actions of the NAACP and he felt that he needed to be part of the leadership in the community to temper their reactions and actions in some form. Atticus was of the opinion that both the Federal Government and the NAACP were, each in their own way, overreacting to the Supreme Court ruling.

As Atticus so eloquently said, “Every man’s island, Jean Louise, every man’s watchman, is his conscience. There is no such thing as a collective conscious.” Or, “I can tell you two reasons I was there. The Federal Government and the NAACP."

In the words of the brother of Atticus Finch, "The law is what he lives by. . . . . but remember this, he’ll always do it by the letter and by the spirit of the law. That’s the way he lives.”

Great adds

Thank you Bentley.

24. by Peter Heller
Finish date: March 30,2018
Genre: Novel
Rating: A
Review: Celine is quite the story of a sixtyish, stylish and extremely capable female detective in New York City specializing in the reuniting of families, largely driven by her own haunted past. In the hands of author Peter Heller, who has an amazing facility with words captivating one, not only with his beautiful descriptions but sharp dialogue, Celine comes to life in the most riveting way as she becomes involved in investigating the disappearance of a National Geographic photographer twenty years ago in Wyoming, and the father of her client Gabriella. As the mystery unfolds along with the parallel development of Celine identifying with Gabriella on so many levels as she tries to come to terms with the loss of her own father, while her son Hank is pursuing his own attempt to learn more about his family history. This is a beautiful book about what makes up families and relationships.

It is impossible to encapsulate a Peter Heller novel as it takes on a life of its own. Perhaps it is best to give you a flavor of his writing.

"There was a contentment that felt deeper, that acknowledged and accepted the quieter offerings of small joys--of love and occasional peace in a life that was full of pain."

"There might not be a measure of happiness left in a life but there could be beauty and grace and endless love."

"He thought of the two of them walking up that dirt road together in mud season in Vermont, the distraught girl holding the old admiral's hand, the cold wind through the bare woods blowing her hair so that it covered her tear-stained face, the aged sailor barely noticing, his wandering mind maybe coming at last to focus on his young charge, this current mission: To console and protect. To educate. To love. Which he did."

"It was the best time of year. Frost at night and warm, sunny days, when the yellows and oranges of the aspen and cottonwoods did something to the blue of the sky behind them that an artist might never mimic."

APRIL

25. by Adam Lipsius (no photo)
Finish date: April 3, 2018
Genre: Biography
Rating: C+/ B-
Review: The Birth of Dr. Seuss was a meticulously researched biography of Theodore Geisel, Jr., better known as Dr. Seuss, beloved and legendary children's author. This is why I love my book groups, both virtual and in-person. This was recommended by my longtime Denver Book Club; the connection being a member's senior prom date with the author, and a book that I never would have thought of reading but I found myself intrigued with the life of Ted Geisel. I was hooked at the Acknowledgements when author Adam Lipsius gave due to his parents, "Lastly, I'd like to thank Dr. and Mrs. Steven and Paula Lipsius, who read Yertle the Turtle to their little tyrant of a son, over and over and over again, until the message finally sank in." As we learn later, this was a satirical tale about Adolf Hitler.

We learn of the family history of the Geisel family's immigration to the United States from Germany in the early 1900's, who went on to found a brewery doing extremely well until Prohibition. As a child, Ted Geisel loved books and "was drawn to the shelter that books afforded and the distant shores of which they spoke."

"Ted Geisel consciously sought an audience with the young because he empathized with their struggle against the corruption of grown-up hatreds. The world was still fresh to them, and he turned his books into a means of preserving that ingenious innocent outlook on others and forestalling the inevitable degradation of adult differences."

This biography does a good job in detailing how the life and subsequent works of Ted Geisel, known as Dr. Seuss, impacted and related to his life. Ted Geisel came into his own in his years at Dartmouth, graduating in 1924, and then on to Oxford at a time that expatriates in Europe abounded. After graduating from Oxford, he went to Paris with his contemporaries, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and even got his own copy of Ulysses by James Joyce.

As we learn in the Epilogue, the author wrote this as his thesis as he graduated from Dartmouth in 1994: This thesis only naturally ends in a beginning with the birth of Dr. Seuss. I've sought to evoke something of the shy, quiet boy with a vivid imagination into the man with the prolific pen."

26. by Luis Alberto Urrea
Finish date: April 5, 2018
Genre: Literary Fiction
Rating: A
Review: The House of Broken Angels is a beautiful and heartwarming tale of three generations of a Mexican and Mexican-American family taking place between La Paz, Tijuana and San Diego with the Mexican-American border in the mix. Patriarch Miguel Angel de La Cruz, affectionately known as "Big Angel" is dying, and has summoned all of his family to celebrate his seventieth and last birthday. However his mother, Mama America, has just died resulting in her funeral the preceding day. As everyone gathers in Big Angel and Perla's home in San Diego, you begin to know the generations and history of this family related in endearing and fascinating ways as the family folklore unfolds in about a week's time where there is celebration, love, hope and understanding as well as sadness, grief and reconciliation, as this very American family struggles with the same hopes and dreams of us all. Luis Alberto Urrea's prose was beautiful. This is a powerful book on many levels that I no doubt will read again.

"His mind burned with random glory. Sunset over La Paz. The shadows in a ruined Mexican cathedral. . . The whale he saw in the Sea of Cortez, rising from the water and hanging there in shattered glass skirts of sea water as if the air itself held its impossible bulk aloft, and flying fish as tiny and white as parakeets passing under its arched belly and vanishing in foam."

"For Angel, La Paz was mostly light and small. The sunlight, bouncing off the sea and the backs of whales, silvered by marlins and waves and sand, ricocheted from bare rock spires and desert shimmers, was as saturating as a flood. Yellow, blue, clear, white, everywhere vibrating, everywhere frank and blunt and without nuance. Red flowers, yellow, blue as plastic. Light."

"And everyone loved sunsets. The light lost its sanity as it fell over the hills and into the Pacific--it went red and deeper red, orange and even green. The skies seemed to melt, like lava eating black rock into great bite marks of burning. . . Swirls of gulls and pelicans like God's own confetti snowed across those sky riots."

"The mariachis marched through the garage and burst out in a line, playing impossibly loud, joyous music. All in magnificent black and silver, crimson cummerbunds, vast sombreros. White frilly shirts with red ties elaborately fluttering. Trumpets, violins, guitarron, guitar."

27. by Anne Tyler
Finish date: April 9, 2018
Genre: Literary Fiction
Rating: B-
Review: Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant was a runner-up for the Pulitzer prize in 1982 and purported to be the favorite of author Anne Tyler of all of the novels she has written. That being said, I struggled with a lot of the book and never really cared much about the characters. However, the last chapter brought it all together for me.

We meet Pearl Tull at age 82 and dying as she reminisces about her life. It is also told from the point of view her three children over the years. Her husband Beck Tull, a traveling salesman only home on weekends, leaves the family when the three children are nine, elven and fourteen years of age. Pearl then goes to work Sweeney Grocery but Tull's absence is never discussed; it is almost like he is away on an extended sales trip. There was a lot of dysfunction in this family.

I found myself thinking a lot about the following quote that summed it all up for me as I was reading this book.

"Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go the grave with the song still in them." -- Henry David Thoreau

28. by Simon Sebag Montefiore
Finish date: April 17, 2018
Genre: Biography, History
Rating: A
Review: Jerusalem: The Biography is a sweeping and meticulously researched biography and history of Jerusalem from the early biblical times of King David, Moses and the Canaanites, including the history and significance of Jerusalem to Judaism and Christianity as well as the Muslims over the expanse of history and time through the administration of President Barack Obama. This is an engrossing and all-encompassing narrative of the sweeping and volatile history of Jerusalem including the genesis and importance of Jerusalem to Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

"The Dome has a power beyond all this: it ranks as one of the most timeless masterpieces of architectural art; its radiance is the cynosure of all eyes wherever one stands in Jerusalem. It shimmers like a mystical palace rising out of the airy and serene space of the esplanade which immediately became an enormous open-air mosque, sanctifying the space around it."

"It ranks with the temples of Solomon and Herod as one of the most successful sacred-imperial edifices ever built and, in the twenty-first century, it has become the ultimate secular touristic symbol, the shrine of resurgent Islam and the totem of Palestinian nationalism."

"If a land can have a soul, Jerusalem is the soul of the land of Israel."--David Ben-Gurion

"No two cities have counted more with mankind than Athens and Jerusalem."--Winston Churchill

29. by Dan Brown
Finish date: April 25, 2018
Genre: Mystery/ Thriller
Rating: A
Review: Origin was an incredible journey into the world of science as one of the world's leading scientists is about to release findings that will change science forever with the promise to answer the questions comprising the universal mysteries.

"These two mysteries lie at the heart of the human experience. Where do we come from? Where are we going? Human creation and human destiny. They are the universal mysteries."

Edmond Kirsch has chosen the Bilbao Guggenheim Museum for his stunning revelations as much of the world is watching. Because of the impact on religion, Kirsch had previously met with the leaders of the three major religions, so that they had the opportunity to preview his findings. What transpires that evening at the Guggenheim keeps you riveted to the tale as it unfolds with chaos rampant threatening the revelation. Robert Langdon, Harvard professor and former teacher of Kirsch, joins with the Ambra Vidal, director of the Guggenheim Museum, as they race around Spain attempting to unlock the mysteries of Kirsch's findings and ensure its release which takes us to some of the most iconic places in Barcelona, as well as some of the most famous works by Spain's famous architect, Antoni Gaudi, namely Sagrada Familia and Casa Mia. I loved this book on many different levels.

MAY

30. by Kai Bird
Finish date: May 5, 2018
Genre: Biography
Rating: A
Review: American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer was the Pulitzer prize-winning book in 2006. This was a comprehensive biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer and the birth of Los Alamos and the atomic bomb, devised to bring the end to World War II with the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The irony of this book may be that Oppenheimer, as a young man, came to New Mexico, finding not only himself, but that he loved this beautiful country. Many years later, I think that a regret that he had was bringing the attention of the world to northern New Mexico.

". . . he craved the exhilaration and the invigorating calmness induced by Perro Caliente. There was a rhythm now to his life: intense, intellectual work, at times to the point of near exhaustion, followed by a month or more of near exhaustion, followed by a month or more of renewal on horseback in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of New Mexico."

"We learned to watch the snow on the Sangres, and to look for deer in Water Canyon," Phil Morrison later wrote, with a lyricism that reflected the emotional attachment to the land that seized many residents. "We found that on the mesas and the valley that there was an old and strange culture; there were our neighbors, the people of the pueblos, and there were the caves of Otowi canyon to remind us that other men had sought water in the dry land."

Having spent my early childhood in Los Alamos, I am still very conflicted about that time in our history. Oppenheimer was not only the choice of General Groves, but also the one who was able to assemble a group of physicists and scientists to come to a remote part of the United States and pioneer this daunting project. Much of the genius of Oppenheimer was his uncanny ability to ferret out the best talent and to relentlessly pursue that talent and to motivate and inspire them. However, the underlying and dark theme throughout this book was the hysteria that was rampant in the 1950's about communism.

This is also a tale of a very complex man, not only a brilliant scientist and leader and a true twentieth century "Renaissance Man", but one who was devastated with the human toll that was wrought with the unleashing of the science that he had shepherded. This was a man who was well versed in Shakespeare and The Bhagavad Gita, who spent many years urging nuclear arms control.

"Today that pride must be tempered with a profound concern. If atomic bombs are to be added as new weapons to the arsenals of a warring world, or to the arsenals of nations preparing for war, then the time will come when mankind will curse the names of Los Alamos and Hiroshima." -- J. Robert Oppenheimer on October 16, 1946

"We may be likened to two scorpions in a bottle, each capable of killing the other, but only at the risk of his own life." -- J. Robert Oppenheimer, 1953

31. by Peggy Pond Church (no photo)
Finish date: May 8, 2018
Genre: Memoir
Rating: B+
Review: The House at Otowi Bridge: The Story of Edith Warner and Los Alamos was a dual memoir by author Peggy Pond Church, not only of her early childhood experiences of the high Pajarito Plateau where her father founded the Los Alamos School for Boys, but the memoir of Edith Warner who witnessed the changes coming to this beautiful and remote part of the country.

"The Pajarito Plateau opens like a huge fan from an arc of blue mountains in northwestern New Mexico. From a distance, it looks almost level, covered with a dark blanket of yellow pine. It is grooved by canyons that radiate from the mountains like crudely drawn spokes of a wheel. The canyon walls rise through many-colored layers of hardened volcanic ash, pink and rose and buff, like petrified waves."

This is the story of Edith Warner coming in 1928 at age thirty-five from Pennsylvania to northern New Mexico, renting a house in the shadow of Los Alamos and opening a tea room. This beautiful and remote place was soon to be famous throughout the world.

"It was Edith Warner in her little house by the bridge on the way to Los Alamos, who saw it all happen. Through the years of upheaval she and Tilano guarded for us all the changeless essence. It brought us a feeling of calm to know she was still there. It was as though we still had a little corner of the Pajarito land we could call our own. She kept watch for us all over the circling seasons and listened for us to the music of the river."

Ultimately the United States Government during World War II, came to this remote area and took over the Los Alamos Ranch School in Otowi, New Mexico, much of it already on federal land, for the Manhattan Project, headed by J. Robert Oppenheimer.

"The scientists who took our place at Los Alamos became her friends. It was one of the strange aspects of Edith Warner's fate that brought these men and their wives from many nations to gather around her table. Among them were some of the greatest minds in Europe and America, and their work was to change the world beyond believing. Edith's house became a kind of sanctuary for them in the tense years before Hiroshima."

The irony was that this where J. Robert Oppenheimer came as a very young man, falling in love with the beauty and isolation of northern New Mexico, ultimately suggesting this remote and mystical locale as the site for the Manhattan Project.

"This man too had come back. There was something about him that she liked. His senses were alert as some creature of the woods. He had a poet's face, with eyes as blue as gentians and a mouth that was at the same time firm and a little wistful. She learned that he was a professor of physics at a California university. It was not until 1945, after the atomic bombs had been exploded at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that she could tell us that this was Robert Oppenheimer."

"Oppenheimer persuaded the military authorities to let small groups of men and women come down from 'The Hill' for dinner at the little house by the river. Perhaps from his own experience he knew that those whose daily thoughts were involved with techniques of destruction would find healing for their divided spirits at the place-where-the-river-makes-a-noise."

This was a lovely book with beautiful prose and poetry and a softer, more humanistic view of Los Alamos, one that I will cherish.

32. by Michael Isikoff (no photo) and David Corn (no photo)
Finish date: May 11, 2018
Genre: Politics, Non-fiction
Rating; B
Review: Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin's War on America and the Election of Donald Trump is a well-researched book by veteran journalists and investigative reporters Michael Isikoff and David Corn, one of international espionage and political intrigue set in motion to interfere with the 2016 presidential election. However, if you have been paying attention to the daily news, there is not any new or groundbreaking information disclosed in this book. It is impossible to stay ahead of the daily, and often hourly, breaking news pertaining to the Trump administration. However, one of the biggest strengths of this book is that all of the information pertaining to Donald Trump's involvement with Russia and Vladimir Putin is now in one place and set forth chronologically in a riveting manner with the identification of all of the players in a clear timeline. It is a "who's who" of the Russian oligarchy and how they interfaced with Donald Trump and his family as well as many of those previously associated with the Trump campaign. It becomes quite clear that Robert Mueller and his investigators have done a remarkable job in working their way through this morass of data, and no doubt, have many of the answers before the questions are being asked. What happens remains to be seen but this book lays a great foundation.

33. by Jessica Bruder
Finish date: May 13, 2018
Genre: Non-fiction
Rating: B
Review: Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century by author and award-winning journalist Jessica Bruder is an insightful and chilling look at economic struggle of so many Americans subsequent to the financial collapse in 2008 and resulting economic recession. These are people that have found that they were unable to make ends meet on their Social Security benefits. Many were forced into an early retirement because of the economic collapse of so many corporations and businesses, and unable to obtain another comparable job and benefits. Others were forced into economic peril by divorce or health issues or foreclosure on their homes. Many were unable to meet the skyrocketing rents.

This is the population that has taken to the road, moving about the country for seasonal jobs; many with Amazon, some with parks and recreations facilities hosting at campsites in the national parks. Bruder immersed herself over a period of years with an ever-expanding population that call themselves workampers as they move about the country, living in their recreational vehicles, vans and many in their cars. Bruder lived in her van she named "Halen" as she migrated around the country with this burgeoning population. Bruder focuses on a few of these people and follows their struggles and successes. This book is a testament to the resilience, ingenuity and camaraderie of humanity. However, one can't help but fear that this is a harbinger of what is to come.

34. by Malcolm Lowry
Finish date: May 19, 2018
Genre: Classic, Literary fiction
Rating: A
Review: Under the Volcano by Malcom Lowry is a riveting literary masterpiece transpiring over a period of twenty-four hours in Quauhnahuac, Mexico beneath the volcanoes, on the Day of the Dead and on the eve of the war in 1938. Geoffrey Firmin, former British consul in the throes of alcoholism, is visited by Yvonne, his estranged wife, who has come back to Mexico in hopes of salvaging their marriage, as well as by his half-brother Hugh and a childhood friend, Jacques.

"Before him the volcanoes, precipitous, seemed to have drawn nearer. They towered up over the jungle, into the lowering sky--massive interests moving up in the background."

"The cemetery was swarming with people visible only as their candle flames. But suddenly it was as if the heliograph of lightning were stammering messages across the wild landscape; and they made out, frozen, the minute black and white figures themselves. And now, as they listened for the thunder, they heard them: soft cries and lamentations, wind-borne, wandering down to them. The mourners were chanting over the graves of their loved ones, playing guitars softly or praying. A sound like windbells, a ghostly tintinnabulation, reached their ears. A titanic roar of thunder overwhelmed it, rolling down the valleys. The avalanche had started. Yet it had not overwhelmed the candle flames. There they still gleamed, undaunted, a few moving now in procession. Some of the mourners were riling off down the hillside."

Malcom Lowry was a British novelist and poet. It is reported that he worked on Under the Volcano for ten years with much of the material based on his own experiences in Mexico. The book was published in 1947 with Lowry's subsequent death in 1957 attributed to asphyxiation after a night of heavy drinking.

35. by James A. Michener
Finish date: May 26, 2018
Genre: Historical fiction
Rating: A
Review: Mexico by James Michener is a sweeping saga of the colorful and often tumultuous history of Mexico and its people. This takes place in the fictional city of Toledo, Mexico where Norman Clay, an American journalist, comes to explore his Spanish roots as well as to report on its Festival of Ixmiq-61 and its bullfights pitting two celebrated matadors in a decisive duel; the Spaniard Victoriano executing dramatic arabesques versus Juan Gomez, the relentless little Indian. Clay reports that it is "appropriate, therefore, that our protagonists should represent almost ideally the two historic strains of Mexican history: the ancient Indian, the recent Spanish".

Where the cactus and maguey meet, my heart is entwined in the tangle of Mexico."

"It was as if Mexico were divided into two nations: the Indians, who worked the fields and the markets, and the Spanish who ruled from the halls of government."

"Many spectators, reviewing in their minds what they had seen that afternoon, must have concluded there was something more to bullfighting than dancing gestures and poetic passages. There was, in all honesty, a naked moment when man and bull stood equal, with all nonsense gone. This was a fight of life and death, a summary of all we know of man's dark passage, and it deserved a certain dignity."

"This dignity could not be observed in a hundred afternoons of Victoriano Leal, but this damned little Indian had somehow reminded the plaza of the very essence of bullfighting and life."

Good review of a very good writer.

Helga wrote: "Good review of a very good writer."

Thank you Helga. Michener's books are always a treasure.

36. by Barbara Kingsolver
Finish date: May 30, 2018
Genre: Literary fiction
Rating: A
Review: The Lacuna was a sweeping and epic work of literary fiction that spans from Mexico to Washington, D.C. to Asheville, North Carolina combining history and fiction and taking place from the 1930's to the 1950's. This is the intricate tale of fictional character Harrison William Shepherd with the background of people like Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, renowned Latin American artists, to Lev Trotsky and the rise of McCarthyism in the United States. There are beautiful literary and artistic references throughout and the lacuna is used metaphorically in this novel with great effect.

I read this one and liked it. I like her writing.