The History Book Club discussion

Lorna, this is your thread for 2019. I have included the link to the required format thread and an example. If you had a 2018 thread - it will be archived so when you get the opportunity move over your completed books and formats to the 2019 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 2019. 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 2019
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.

Lorna, here is a link to your archived 2018 thread if you still want to add any other books that you completed in 2018.

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

This is the thread for 2019 - happy reading.

Thank you, Bentley. I’m looking forward to this year’s reading.

JANUARY

1. by John le Carré
Finish date: January 2, 2019
Genre: Mystery, Fiction
Rating: B+
Review: The Looking Glass War by John Le Carre was published after he had left his service as a spy in Britain for MI5 and MI6 during the height of the Cold War. At that time, Le Carre felt that it was important to write a book that didn't glamorize espionage, but explore the realities of spying on the ground, as he knew them. Hence, The Looking Glass War was his effort to portray the British Intelligence community in the Cold War era, with all of its shortcomings, feuds and betrayals. Le Carre certainly achieved his goal of portraying the grittiness, danger and loneliness of the lives of those in the Secret Service, particularly since there was a lack of funds, and the glamour had been stripped away at the conclusion of the war. The plot involved the risk of infiltrating into East Germany a spy to conduct surveillance of what was thought to be a missle production plant. What transpires will leave one breathless as the story unfolds and the dramtic ending leaves one cold. When it come to espionage, this was a literary masterpiece by one of the best.

"It's a great deal harder, I know, in peacetime. It requires courage. Courage of a different kind."

"They were his colleagues. Prisoners of silence, the three of them would work side by side, breaking the arid land all four seasons of the year, strangers to each other, needing each other, in a wilderness of abandoned faith."

"He put the keys back in his pocket, and as he drew his hand away he felt the links slip between his thumb and finger like the beads of a rosary. For a moment he let them linger there; there was comfort in their touch; they were where his childhood was. St. Christopher and all his angels, please preserve us from road accidents."

2. by Michael Lewis
Finish date: January 8, 2019
Genre: Politics, Non-fiction
Rating: B+
Review: The Fifth Risk is the latest book by Michael Lewis, basically exploring the events that transpired after the 2016 election and outlines how the Obama administration prepared to ease the transition of leadership as the Trump administration came into power. It outlines the resistance that was met, and the total lack of even a fundamental knowledge as to how the government runs. I have read a lot of these books recently and, I must say, this book frightened me in ways that no other has yet done. Lewis's narrative highlights how utterly ignorant as to the workings of government and unprepared the Trump administration was to take over the governing of this nation. What is abundantly clear is that it will take decades to restore some semblance of order and democracy to our nation.

"Another way of putting this is: the risk we should most fear is not the risk we easily imagine. It is the risk we don't. Which brought us to the fifth risk."

"The fifth risk did not put him at risk of revealing classified information. 'Project management,' was all he said."

"There was another way to think of John MacWilliam's fifth risk: the risk a society runs when if falls into the habit of responding to long-term risks with short-term solutions. 'Program management' is not just program management. 'Program management' is the existential threat that you never really imagine as a risk. It is the innovation that never occurs, and the knowledge that is never created, because you have ceased to lay the groundwork for it. It is what you never learned that might have saved you."

"Here is where the Trump administration's willful ignorance plays a role. If your ambition is to maximize short-term gain without regard to the long-term cost, you are better off not knowing the cost. If you want to preserve your personal immunity to the hard problems, it's better never to really understand those problems. There is an upside to ignorance, and a downside to knowledge. Knowledge makes life messier. It makes it a bit more difficult for a person who wishes to shrink the world to a worldview."

"There was a rift in American life that was now coursing through American government. It wasn't between Democrats and Republicans. It was between the people who were in it for the mission, and the people who were in it for the money."

3. by Elaine F. Weiss (no photo)
Finish date: January 13, 2019
Genre: Non-fiction, History
Rating: A
Review: The Woman's Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote is a comprehensive and meticulously researched study of the fight for the women's vote across the nation but focusing on the fight for the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in Tennessee, the thirty-sixth state that would bring voting rights for women throughout the United States, and not the patchwork of inequities and partial freedoms that presently existed throughout each of the forty-eight states in 1919. What was striking was that this was after seven decades of fighting for these rights. What I found so interesting was how the struggle for voting rights was such an intricate part of the civil rights movement. Weiss focuses on the last six weeks of the campaign as the suffragists and anti-suffragists converged in Nashville in advance of the vote.

"The crusade for woman suffrage stands as one of the defining civil rights movements in the history of our country, and its organizing stragegies, lobbying techniques, and nonviolentt protest actions became the model for the civil rights campaigns to follow in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries."

"The early advocates of legal rights for American women all began their activist careers as fervent abolitionists. They believed slavery was a grievous wrong and they were obliged to confront and stop it."

"When I ran away from slavery, it was for myself; when I advocated emancipation, it was for my people; but when I stood up for the rights of women, self was out of the question, and I found a little nobility in the act." -- Frederick Douglass 1888

You are off to a great start Lorna. Happy Reading in 2019.

4. by Jacqueline Winspear
Finish date: January 20, 2019
Genre: Fiction
Rating: A
Review: Pardonable Lies is part of an intriguing series by Jacqueline Winspear, featuring Maisie Dobbs, growing up as a housemaid and working her way through college at Cambridge. She later served during World War I as a nurse. At the conclusion of the war she opened a private investigation practice in 1929 in London. Coincidentally, in Pardonable Lies, Ms. Dobbs was researching the deaths of two soldiers during the Great War, one for a father that wanted to put to rest any chance of his son still being alive, and the other case researching the circumstances of the death of a close friend's brother. Both of these investigations brought her to France to determine the fate of each man in World War I. As the mystery unfolds, Ms. Dobbs finds that she must also come to terms with her own past, as well as her role in the Great War. There are a lot of gray areas as there are questions as to what constitutes a lie, and under what circumstances might it be understandable. At moments, there are passages in the book foreshadowing the threat of World War II. This was a very gripping and moving book.

"Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo. Shovel them under and let me work--I am the grass; I cover all. And pile them high at Gettysburg and pile them high at Ypres and Verdun. Shovel them under and let me work. Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor: What place is this? Where are we now? I am the grass. Let me work."--Carl Sandburg (1878-1967), Grass

"They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them."

Very good review Lorna.

Thank you Bentley.

5. by Richard Russo
Finish date: January 21, 2019
Genre: Fiction
Rating: A
Review: Trajectory is a collection of four delightful short stories by Pulitzer-prize winning author, Richard Russo, each in their own way unforgettable. Horseman was about a young professor faced with the dilemma of counseling a student guilty of plagiarism. The Voice was the tale of two estranged brothers brought together for a twelve-day guided tour in Venice, Italy, each haunted by the past. Intervention was the story of a realtor facing a very serious medical diagnosis, as well as dealing with the memory of his father. The last story, Milton and Marcus, introduces us to a playwright summoned to Jackson Hole, Wyoming to meet with a producer who has found an unfinished ten-year old script of his that had been written for another actor. The common thread pulsing throughout these stories, in addition to Russo's talented writing and humor, is the humanity and vulnerability of these characters as they attempt to work their way through their dilemmas. This is one of my favorite authors and this didn't disappoint.

Good progress Lorna.

6. by Andre Dubus III
Finish date: January 28, 2019
Genre: Fiction
Rating: A
Review: Gone So Long is the first novel by Andre Dubus, III in the last ten years, and it was well worth the wait. This was a heartbreaking and haunting tale, as well as a beautifully written and visceral portrayal of our humanity, and the ultimate power of forgiveness and redemption. This literally was a book that I could not put down, as I was so immersed in these lives and how they came to terms with their estrangement and pain, even as they are each struggling with their truth. I loved each of these people as I came to be part of their painful journey. This is a book that will be with me for some time.

"A warm wind kicks up from the east and brings with it beach sounds. . . . the creaking gears of the Ferris wheel and the popping water balloons and the cries of gulls. There's the tinny whine of the carousel organ and the rattling jerk of the rollercoaster cars, the shrieks of women and children hurled out over the hissing surf."

"How is it possible that after all these years--decades--that memory brings the feelings that went with it? It's as if the past is not the past at all but just layers inside us that are no more dead and gone than an old song on the radio."

"And it came to me, in those long broken months after, that only hurting this deeply could reveal the soul, that if there was a soul this must be it, some central integral part of you in love with the world."

7. by Kathleen Rooney
Finish date: January 29, 2019
Genre: Historical Fiction
Rating: A
Review: Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney is an absolutely delightful historical fiction novel based, in part, on the life of Margaret Fishback, purported to be the highest paid woman advertising copywriter during the 1930's for the iconic R.H. Macy's. This was a beautiful book as we come to know the lovely Lillian Boxfish on New Year's Eve in 1984. She has lived and worked in Manhattan for much of her life and has so many rich stories and reminiscing as she walks about the city. The scope of history that is encompassed in Ms. Boxfish's story goes from the Jazz Age and Prohibition to the crash of the stock market in 1929 and through World War II, the Cold War, and on to the mid-1980's. As we walk with Lillian Boxfish on this New Years Eve, we come to know and love her and love Manhattan and all of its all-encompassing history. It is also a testament in aging beautifully with style and grace. I loved this book and I will soon be walking again through Manhattan with Ms. Lillian Boxfish.

"I am old and all I have left is time. I don't mean time to live; I mean free time. Time to fill. Time to kill until time kills me. I walk and walk and think and think. It gets me out, and it keeps me healthy, and no one on the street seems to want to mess with me, as they say on the street."

"The point of living in the world is just to stay interested."

"My biases always run against the systematic and stylized in favor of the mess and adventure of human life."

"Penn Station. . . .The old station, the one that stood when I arrived in 1926, was a Beaux-Arts marvel of pink granite and glass and steel that evoked not just travel by rail, but also travel through time; the splendor of an ancient Roman past, plus the possibility of a future where beauty and civic function are not just valued but understood to be in harmony."

"Now? The future and I are just about even, our quarrel all but resolved. I welcome its coming, and I resolve to be attentive to the details of its arrival. I plan to meet it at the station in my best white dress, violet corsage in hand. Waving as it comes into view, borne toward the present on its road of anthracite."

FEBRUARY

8. by Lisa McCubbin
Finish date: February 1, 2019
Genre: Biography
Rating: B
Review: Betty Ford: First Lady, Women's Advocate, Survivor, Trailblazer was a meticulously researched and a delightfully told biography of one of my favorite first ladies. Being from Colorado, we first saw the Ford family come to Vail when Gerald Ford was Vice President. After the resignation of Richard Nixon, in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, Ford became President of the United States, and continued to spend Christmas holidays in Vail skiing, placing this alpine village on the map. As an aside, I must say that when Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon, I was with the new president as he declared that our national nightmare was over. Betty Ford first endeared herself, not only to me, but the nation, when she moved into the White House announcing that she would not have a separate bedroom, soon followed by the announcement that she had breast cancer. Her honesty in dealing with such a devastating diagnosis opened doors for women. Betty Ford was also an unabashed feminist as she proudly wore her Equal Rights Amendment button in 1975 as women were still struggling for equal rights. She later led the honest examination of the problem of drug and alcohol addiction as she bravely went into rehabilitation after a painful but loving intervention by her family. In their retirement years, the Fords spent much of their time in Colorado and were embraced and loved by all of us. I have many fond memories of the lighting of the Christmas Tree in downtown Vail, or a lovely summer evening at Bravo Vail when the Fords joined us in the rapture of a symphony in the beautiful outdoor venue of the Gerald Ford Amphitheater followed by a walk in the beautiful and iconic Betty Ford Alpine Gardens. This was a beautiful family; in leaving the White House, as Betty Ford is walking away with the White House photographer, she confesses that she always wanted to dance on the Cabinet Room table; an iconic photograph.

"Nestled at the base of the majestic snow-drenched mountains was the charming village of Vail. It was just a few blocks long at that time, and it looked like someone had taken a little town from Austria or Switzerland and plopped it right in the middle of Colorado."

"It was not a long address, but for years to come, the passage that all would remember was when he declared, 'My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over."

Excellent reviews and progress.

Thank you, Bentley.

9. by Truman Capote
Finish date: February 6, 2019
Genre: Classic, Fiction
Rating: B
Review: The classic, The Grass Harp by Truman Capote, was a delightful and whimsical book about an orphan boy taken in by two eccentric elderly women in the deep south, as it gently explores what constitutes the bonds of family, loyalty and love. I loved the beautiful prose of this book, purported to be one of Truman Capote's favorites. It seemed to be autobiographical in many ways, and a touching story.

"Beyond the field begins the darkness of River Woods. . . Do you hear? that is the grass harp, always telling a story--it knows the stories of all the people on the hill, of all of the people who ever lived, and when we are dead, it will tell ours, too."

"But Catherine felt no love for the tree-house; she did not know, as Dolly knew and made me know, that it was a ship, that to sit up there was to sail along the cloudy coastline of every dream."

". . . . after she'd died, she sometimes heard his songs in the fields of the Indian grass. . . . But the wind is us--it gathers and remembers all our voices, then sends them talking and telling through the leaves and the fields--I've heard Papa clear as day."

". . . a spirit, someone not to be calculated by the eye alone. Spirits are accepters of life, they grant its differences--and consequently are always in trouble."

Lovely review with beautiful quotes, Lorna.

Thank you, Connie.

10. by Susan Orlean
Finish date: February 11, 2019
Genre: Non-fiction
Rating: B
Review: The Library Book by Susan Orlean explores the devastating and mysterious April 1986 fire breaking out in the early morning hours at the Los Angeles Public Library, as well as all of its many facets, including multiple investigations and a trial. But more importantly, this was also a loving tribute to libraries and to books. Libraries and books have always been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, beginning with trips on the bus to the downtown Albuquerque Public Library where I would happily search for books that would open new worlds for me. I have continued that tradition with my children and grandchildren. To this day, I love walking to our neighborhood library to explore. Orlean has packed this book with a lot of information that is immensely readable. If you love books and libraries, don't miss this treasure.

"On the morning of April 29, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. As the moments passed, the patrons and staff who had been cleared out of the building realized this was not the usual false alarm . . . . The fire was disastrous: it reached two thousand degrees and burned for more than seven hours. By the time it was extinguished, it had consumed four thousand books and damaged seven hundred thousand more."

"Memory believes before knowing remembers." -- William Faulkner, Light in August

11. by John le Carré
Finish date: February 13, 2019
Genre: Fiction
Rating: B
Review: Call for the Dead is the first novel featuring British spy George Smiley by author John Le Carre, written while he was working for the legendary British secret service M15. George Smiley is the antithesis of what one may expect in a spy in the cold war era, but that is much of his appeal as we come to know the inner workings of espionage for the fictional Circus, through the perspective of Smiley. Subsequent to Smiley's interrogation of a Foreign Office operative, Samuel Fenman, after being assured by Smiley that there was no need for further investigation or action against him, takes his life only a few hours later. George Smiley is perplexed as to why Fenman would do this; had Smiley made a mistake? What ensues is Smiley's investigation as to why. This is a short, but compelling mystery as all of the threads are pursued by Smiley.

"What games did you think you were playing, you two? Do you think that you can flirt with power like theirs, give a little and not give at all? Do you think you can stop the dance--control the strength you give them? What dreams did you cherish . . . that had so little of the world in them?"

Good reviews, Lorna

Bentley wrote: "Good reviews, Lorna"

Thank you, Bentley.

12. by John Kelly
Finish date: February 27, 2019
Genre: History
Rating: B
Review: The Graves Are Walking: The Great Famine and the Saga of the Irish People was a well researched and documented history of the Irish Potato Famine beginning in 1845 when a fungus-like organism spread rapidly throughout Ireland, and ran rampant over the next several years, causing suffering and death throughout Ireland. John Kelly documents all facets of this suffering from the accounts of the families that are impacted to the government entities that so dramatically failed these people. This was a heartbreaking account of starvation and suffering as brought to life by Kelly, as he meticulously narrates the essence of the individual lives that were affected and as a witness to our humanity.

"In this 'Hidden Ireland,' Irish remained the first language: myth and legend attached itself to every feature of the landscape; the storyteller and the poet remained revered figures; and the old Irish families--the dispossessed 'ancient race'--were remembered and honored."

"In ten thousand townlands--in Kerry, in Clare, in Donegal, in Mayo and Roscommon: places as impoverished, overcrowded, and potato-dependent as southwest Cork--other 'little families' awaited death in cabins, in fields, and in roadside scalps and ditches. History has made fatalism a habit of mind in Ireland."

". . . The Belfast Vindicator raised the specter of universal famine. No one would escape the effects of what was coming, the paper warned. 'The cry is heard in every corner of the island. It startles and appalls the merchant at his desk, the landlord in his office, the scholar in his study, the lawyer in his stall, the minister in his council room, and the priest at the altar.'" "Give us food or we will perish."

"In 1846, emigration, though large--116,000 people left Ireland--had had an orderly character. By the spring of 1847, people were not leaving Ireland; they were fleeing, the way a crowd flees a burning building: heedlessly, recklessly, with no thought other than to get out."

13. by Anna Quindlen
Finish date: February 28, 2019
Genre: Literary Fiction
Rating: B
Review: Alternate Side by Anna Quindlen was a searing piece of contemporary literary fiction examining the lives of those living on one of the most coveted residential areas in Manhattan, a row of brownstones on one of the few dead-end streets. As the title suggests, if you don't have a space in the adjacent parking lot, you must find parking, often on the alternate side, depending upon the day. While the narrative is largely about Charlie and Nora Nolan and their twin son and daughter, both away in college, with upcoming graduations, this is likewise a book about this block in Manhattan and those that make up the flavor of this neighborhood. There is a shocking incident that involves the block, and everyone is forced to examine their values and beliefs. Anna Quindlen with her sharp dialogue and beautiful prose has written another timely book.

"The price they paid for prosperity was amnesia. They'd forgotten who they once had been."

"She'd realized that that was how life was, that certain small moments were like billboards forever alongside the highway of your memory."

"It was the first time anyone could remember the block erupting in this kind of discord. It had always protected its own, the facing houses seeming to agree, cornice to cornice, window to window, the intimacy and privacy could exist together."

"There were three types of people in New York: people like Nora, who had found their home there; people who talked about how much they hated it and would always live and eventually die there; and people who always had one foot over the border, to Scarsdale or Roslyn or Boca Raton."

"The price many of them had paid for prosperity was amnesia. They'd forgotten where they'd come from, how they'd started out. They'd forgotten what the city really was, and how small a part of it they really were."

Very nice

Thanks Bentley, this is a fantasy of mine, that in another life I am living in the heart of Manhattan. . .

Been there/done that. It is a great city.

MARCH

14. by Ingrid Rojas Contreras
Finish date: March 7, 2019
Genre: Literary Fiction
Rating: A
Review: Fruit of the Drunken Tree is a beautiful and heartwarming debut novel by Ingrid Rojas Contreras and based, in large part, on events from her own life. This book is told in lovely and lush prose from alternating viewpoints of seven year-old Chula and thirteen year-old Petrona. Chula and her older sister Cassandra live with their parents in an upscale, gated community in Bogotá, Colombia while Petrona comes to live with the Santiago family as a live-in maid from the slums outside of Bogotá. This takes place during the violent reign of drug lord Pablo Escobar where assassinations, kidnappings, and car bombings were rampant along with the threat of the guerillas throughout Colombia. One gets a sense of this through the developing and unlikely friendship between Chula and Petrona, as we come to know the differences, but striking similarities, between these disparate families. Ultimately each must make very difficult decisions in this sobering tale of how one deals with the threat of violence in order to survive.

The theme and prevailing metaphor throughout is the lore surrounding the Drunken Tree that is in the backyard of the Santiago home. Chula and Cassandra were cautioned by their mother not to spend too much time under the tree, a metaphor for the effects of the drugs. It is called the Borrachero in Colombia. It is a tree with beautiful fruit and flowers that hang from its branches that can be ground into a drug that causes extreme confusion. As an aside, the book cover is a beautiful rendition of the Drunken Tree that is captivating. I rarely listen to audible books but this was a delight as it is read by the author with such feeling. I loved this book and I'm looking forward to much more from this talented author.

15. by Ausma Zehanat Khan
Finish date: March 3, 2019
Genre: Fiction
Rating: B
Review: The Unquiet Dead by Ausma Zehanat Khan is a stunning debut novel with Detective Esa Khattak and his partner Rachel Getty. They are called to investigate the death of Christopher Drayton thought to be an accidental fall from a cliff, or was it? As the investigation evolves, there are questions about the victim's identity and his ties to Bosnia and the ethnic cleansing that slaughtered tens of thousands of people during the Srebrenica massacre in 1995 during the height of the Bosnian war. This is the first of a series of novels featuring Detectives Esa Khattak and Rachel Getty. I just became aware of this author at a Reader's Forum sponsored by our local independent book store where Ausma Zehanat Khan was one of the featured authors. I will definitely read more of her novels.

"Time had taught him to view his faith through the prism of compassion: when ritual was sacrificed in pursuit of the very values it was meant to inspire, there could be no judgment, no sin.."

"He heard the cellist's melody again: mournful, insistent, accusing. It had sounded as a requiem in the streets of Sarajevo."

"Survivors are quiet because they are haunted, because they still cannot accept what happened."

"This is the Bosnian lily, a native plant. It was a symbol on Bosnia's flag at the time of its independence from Yugoslavia. The coat of arms that bore the original fleur-de-lis is a much older symbol, It represents the arms of the Kotromanic family, who ruled Bosnia during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries."

"The unquiet dead and those who mourned them."

"The Adagio attributed to Albinoni. Vedran Smailovic played it on his cello in the streets of Sarajevo."

Very nice Lorna

16. by Erik Larson
Finish date: March 11, 2019
Genre: Non-fiction, History
Rating: B
Review: Isaac's Storm: A Man, A Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History by Erik Larson was a stunning and riveting account of the hurricane that struck Galveston, Texas in 1900, causing untold devastation, destruction and death in its wake. Isaac Cline, one of the new era's scientists, was part of a sweeping confidence in America in the beginning of the twentieth century that may have caused many warnings to be ignored. Larson's extensive research gives one an in-depth look of all that was occurring, in gripping detail, as the deadly hurricane approached. There is a lesson in this tragedy for us all.

"The swells came very slowly, at intervals of one to five minutes."

"Many years later he would write, 'If we had known then what we know now of those swells, and the tides they create, we would have known earlier the terrors of the storm which these swells. . . .told us in unerring language was coming.'"

"Far out to sea, one hundred miles from where Isaac stood, Capt. J.W. Simmons, master of the steamship Pensacola, prayed softly to himself as horizontal spheres of rain exploded against the bridge with such force they luminesced in a billion pinpoints of light, like fireworks in a green-black sky."

"Within the next twenty-four hours, eight thousand men, women and children in the city of Galveston would lose their lives. The city itself would lose its future. Isaac would suffer an unbearable loss. And he would wonder always if some of the blame did not belong to him."

"The Cubans took a more romantic view, a psychoanalytic approach, that was the product of the island's long and tragic experience. Nearly every Cuban alive had experienced at least one major hurricane."

17. by Irving Stone
Finish date: March 24, 2019
Genre: Biographical Novel
Rating: A
Review: Irving Stone's The Agony and the Ecstasy was a magnificent literary biographical novel of the renowned and beloved artist Michelangelo. It beautifully details the complexity, not only of the man, but a lifetime of his works, including the many and famous sculptures from Carrara marble, paintings, frescos and architecture, not only in Florence, but in Bologna and Rome. Michelangelo's large body of work included his iconic sculptures of David and the Pieta. Although he preferred other forms of artistic expression over painting, some of his most famous frescos include the beautiful ceiling in the Sistine Chapel as well as The Last Judgment on the altar wall. At the age of 74, Michelangelo became the architect of St. Peter's Basilica that occupied the remainder of his life. He worked on models of the dome he envisioned over the nave of St. Peter's so it could be completed after his death. I loved this book and I'm looking forward to another trip to Italy to once again enjoy these timeless artistic works of Michelangelo, but this time with a much greater understanding, appreciation and awe of the artist.

"White marble was the heart of the universe, the purest substance created by God; not merely a symbol of God but a portrait, God's way of manifesting himself. Only a divine hand could create such noble beauty. He felt himself a part of the white purity before him, felt its integrity as though it were his own."

"Art for me is a torment, grievous when it goes bad, ecstatic when it goes well; but always it possesses me. When I have finished with a day of work I am a husk. Everything that was inside of me is now inside the marble or fresco. That is why I have nothing to give elsewhere."

"Every work of art is a self-portrait. They have tremendous emotional impact; it's as though I must project myself into their unfinished forms, complete them by my own thinking and feeling."

". . . he was content. He had come into the autumn of his life: a man has his seasons, even as had the earth. Was the harvesting of autumn less important than the seeding of spring? Each without the other was meaningless."

"St. Peter's . . . He entered the church through its front portal, walked in the strong Roman sunshine down the wide nave, stood below the center of the dome, just over the tomb of St. Peter. He felt his soul leave his body, rise upward into the dome, becoming part of it: part of space, of time, of heaven and of God."

Excellent progress

Thank you Bentley.

18. by Gilbert King
Finish date: March 26, 2019
Genre: Non-fiction
Rating: A
Review: Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys and the Dawn of a New America by Gilbert King was winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 2013. The book is a riveting examination of race relations in Florida at the height of the struggle for civil rights where the power of the embittered Ku Klux Klan and the lynching of blacks was not uncommon. It was at this time that Thurgood Marshall in working or NAACP Legal Defense Fund, was close to bringing the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education before the United States Supreme Court. However, because of the sheer injustice of the Groveland case, Thurgood Marshall became involved despite threats to his life. Gilbert King points out that even though Thurgood Marshall brought the Groveland case before the U.S. Supreme Court, that it is barely mentioned in civil rights history, law texts or the many biographies of Marshall. However, he notes that there is a not a Supreme Court justice that served with Marshall or lawyer who clerked for him, that did not hear his lively renditions of the Groveland story. Gilbert King had access to materials never before published, including the FBI's undredacted case files pertaining to the Groveland case, as well as the files of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. This was a powerful historical narrative that will stay with me for some time.

"With his far-reaching triumphs in landmark cases he argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, Thurgood Marshall would indeed redefine justice in a multiracial nation and become, as one civil rights pioneer described him, The Founding Father of a New America."

"By the fall of 1951, Marshall had already filed and had begun trying in lower courts what would become his most famous case, Brown v. Board of Education, when he was again riding the rails toward Groveland."

"Southern juries might be stacked against blacks, and the judges might be biased, but Thurgood Marshall was demonstrating in case after case that their word was not the last, that in the U.S. Supreme Court the injustice in their decisions and verdicts could be reversed."

"For Marshall, the fight was never over with a jury's verdict. For him the Supreme Court was as level a playing field as you'd find in the land: that was the courtroom he wanted to fight in."

"'They can keep me from the courts of Florida,' Marshall shouted. 'But there is no man alive or to be born who can prevent me from arguing the Groveland case before the U.S. Supreme Court.'"

"Unlike any other state in the Deep South, Florida was undergoing a large-scale transformative demographic shift in the mid-fifties."

"'There is very little truth to the old refrain that one cannot legislate equality,' Marshall posited in a 1966 White House conference on civil rights. 'Laws not only provide concrete benefits, they can even change the hearts of men--some men, anyhow--for good or evil.'"

APRIL

19. by Isabel Allende
Finish date: April 1, 2019
Genre: Novel
Rating: A
Review: The Japanese Lover is the latest novel by Isabelle Allende. Noted for her beautiful and lush prose, this did not disappoint. Ms. Allende has long been one of my favorite authors and I have had the pleasure of hearing her speak a few times, happily coming away with many a signed book with her iconic autograph and whimsically drawn flower.

The Japanese Lover spans a few generations with protagonist Alma Mendel Belasco at the heart of this epic multi-generational saga. With Hitler invading Poland in 1939, eight-year old Alma is sent by her parents to stay with her wealthy aunt and uncle in San Francisco. Here Alma is embraced by the Belasco family and it is here, in this family ancestral home overlooking San Francisco Bay, that Alma will remain for much of her life. As a child Alma was drawn to the gentle son of the Belasco's Japanese gardener, Ichimei Fukuda. Their friendship flourished until the Fukuda family was sent away to an internment camp as World War II raged on and Pearl Harbor was attacked. It was during this time that Alma and Ichimei corresponded for years thus deepening their friendship. We first meet Alma in her eighties as she has moved herself into a graduated living facility known as Lark House, much to the chagrin and surprise of her family. A parallel story concerns Irini Brazili, a young personal assistant and nursing aide hired by Alma to help her organize her papers, and who forms a friendship with her favorite grandson Seth. Irina and Seth become curious as to the meaning of mysterious gifts and letters sent to Alma as well as her occasional disappearances for several days. This beautiful book deals with love and loyalty on many different levels as well as families in a most quiet and simple, almost poetic way. This is also an interesting look at aging and the myriad issues involved.

"So began Alma's stay in the grand house at Sea Cliff, where she was to spend seventy largely uninterrupted years. She almost completely exhausted her stock of tears in her first months there in 1939, and from then on wept only rarely."

"Alma lived with her cat in one of the independent apartments, with a minimum of furniture and personal belongings. She drove around in a tiny car, completely ignoring all traffic regulations, which she chose to regard as optional."

"The process was the same: they advanced step by step toward the end, some more quickly than others, and lost everything along the way, for we cannot take anything with us to the other side of death."

20. by Larry Tye
Finish date: April 4, 2019
Genre: Biography
Rating: A
Review: Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon was a most engaging, comprehensive and meticulously researched and well-sourced biography of one of the most controversial members of the Kennedy family dynasty. Larry Tye was approached by the Kennedy family and asked to write an honest book about Bobby, the book he deserved to examine the many facets of this complex man and the arc of personal change that his life and career represents, and an honest portrayal of both the good and the bad that formed the fabric of this life. This was a beautiful book. Having lived through the assassinations of John Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, I was moved to see the transformation of this most important man in our history. I was moved by his love for his family and for all of the people of this nation. We miss you Bobby.

"'Each time a man stands up for an ideal,' RFK reminded us, 'he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.'"

"That he could change so substantially and convincingly over the course of his brief public life helped restore a changing America's faith in redemption. In the end he could become this nation's high priest of reconciliation precisely because he had once been the keeper of our darkest secrets."

"In the end, this McCarthy phase of his life would be a baseline from which to measure Bobby's--and America's--political transformation and growth."

"The loss of his brother also left him more nuanced. A palette that had been entirely blacks and whites now included shades of gray that reflected the ambiguities of the real world."

"Like the character he loved in Man of La Mancha, Bobby Kennedy would tilt at windmills that his more cautious brother and father would not have noticed."

21. by Walter Isaacson
Finish date: April 6, 2019
Genre: History, Non-fiction
Rating: B+
Review: The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson was a well-researched and delightfully told beautifully as only Mr. Isaacson can do. I am not a scientist, nor do I even pretend to understand the complex technological science that is encompassed in this meticulously researched book, but I get the thrust of the history of the digital age and all of the people that made most important contributions. I would be remiss if we didn't start with how Isaacson became interested in this book. Having been a fan of Walter Isaacson for some time, I was drawn to his fascination to those individuals that excel in creativity and innovation in many different disciplines. Isaacson has written marvelous biographies of Benjamin Franklin, Leonardo Da Vinci and Steve Jobs. It was in working on those books that he began to recognize that there was a commonality in how they approached their craft. Isaacson dramatically shows us how each person's innovations formed a basis for the next scientist to build upon. As Isaacson states, "The collaboration that created the digital age was just not among peers but also between generations. Ideas were handed off from one cohort of innovators to the next." What I found most interesting was the interface between science and the arts. As Walter Isaacson said in the Introduction, "Finally, I was struck by how the truest creativity of the digital age came from those who were able to connect the arts and sciences. They believed that beauty mattered."

This book is a history of the digital age from its very beginnings beginning with Ada Byron, the daughter of Lord Byron. Her mother was determined that she study mathematics as it was an antidote to "poetic tendencies" and her "Byronic tendencies." However, Ada with Charles Babbage in the early 1800's were able to set forth many of the basics that were built upon over the subsequent digital age. The science that develops over the subsequent years culminating in the Silicone Valley is well done, right down to the issues of patents and lawsuits. It is a wonderful book that will make us all stop to look back in awe at where we have come in such a short period of time and ponder our future.

"The tale of their teamwork is important because we don't often focus on how central that skill is to innovation."

"The collaboration that created the digital age was not just among peers but also between generations. Ideas were handed off from one cohort of innovators to the next.

"The people who were comfortable at this humanities-technology intersection helped to create the human-machine symbiosis that is the core of this story."

"Leonardo da Vinci was the exemplar of the creativity that flourishes when the humanities and sciences interact. When Einstein was stymied while working out General Relativity, he would pull out his violin and play Mozart until he could reconnect to what he called the harmony of the spheres."

"The reality is that Ada's contribution was both profound and inspirational. More than Babbage or any other person of her era, she was able to glimpse a future in which machines would become partners of the human imagination, together weaving tapestries as beautiful as those from Jacquard's loom."

22. by Ruth Ozeki
Finish date: April 9, 2019
Genre: Novel
Rating: B
Review: A Tale for the Time Being is a very different but engaging novel by Ruth Ozeki. It involves the lives of 16-year old Nao living in Tokyo and author Ruth, living in a remote island in British Columbia with her husband Oliver. Their lives intersect in the form of a diary by Nao, along with some other artifacts placed in a Hello Kitty lunch box that is washed up on the shores of the Pacific Ocean, and thought to be in the wake of the tsunami in Japan, among the other flotsam. Ruth becomes fascinated with the diary and hence the life of Nao as she puts forth the story of her Buddhist nun great-grandmother with whom she lived for a summer. We become involved in Nao's life as we learn that she is contemplating suicide. We learn more about Ruth and Oliver as they pore over the diary. There are a lot of threads that are skillfully woven together as we explore the impact of these lives on one another. It forces one to question the mysteries of time and place as well as our connections to one another. This is a wonderful book on many different levels.

"Hi! My name is Nao, and I am a time being. Do you know what a time being is? Well, if you give me a moment, I will tell you. A time being is someone who lives in time, and that means you, and me, and everyone of us who is, or was, or ever will be. . . . . And if you're reading this, then maybe by now you're wondering about me, too. You wonder about me. I wonder about you."

23. by Michelle Obama
Finish date: April 10, 2019
Genre: Memoir
Rating: TBA
Review: TBA

Great progress

Thank you, Bentley.

24. by Alex Kershaw (no photo)
Finish date: April 11, 2019
Genre: History, Non-Fiction
Rating: B+
Review: Avenue of Spies: A True Story of Terror, Espionage, and One American Family's Heroic Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Paris was the heartbreaking tale of the horrors of Nazi-occupied Paris, the French Resistance fighters and an American family that risked it all. Sumner Jackson was an American physician and surgeon living with his wife and young son on the exclusive and beautiful tree-lined Avenue Foch in the heart of Paris. Sumner Jackson served as a combat physician during World War I where he met and later married French nurse Toquette. During the occupation, this exclusive residential area was the center, not only for the Nazi officers, but the spies, informers and collaborators with the Vichy government. Sumner wanted to go back to America when it was still possible to leave the country but his wife, Toquette, wanted to remain in Paris so that she could be near her family. Dr. Jackson continued to operate on the many injured soldiers and prisoners-of-war at the American Hospital, where he was respected and revered. The heroism in their resistance to Hitler and the sacrifices of this family were many at this very tragic period in our history.

"Finally, de Gaulle exhorted his fellow citizens to never give up, assuring them: 'Whatever happens, the flame of French resistance must not and shall not die.'"

"The stress for many within the resistance, not just for Toquette and Sumner--who were only too aware of the growing dangers surrounding them--became too much to bear. Every shrill of the telephone, every knock on the front door, every shifty look from a stranger, might herald the end."

25. by Pat Conroy
Finish date: April 14, 2019
Genre: Memoir
Rating: B+
Review: My Losing Season was a delightful coming-of-age memoir by the late Pat Conroy, an author close to my heart. Conroy relates the perils of growing up in a military family with the frequent moves and changes in schools and friends. However, from the time he was introduced to basketball, his life changed dramatically. The book primarily focuses on his senior year at the Citadel, where he was point guard and coach for the Bulldogs. It is also a tribute to how he made the transition during his schooling at the famous military academy to writing. It is replete with memories from his past as well as the relationships with his coach and teammates described as only Pat Conroy can. It is also a loving tribute to the many teachers that made a difference in his life along the way.

"Joseph Monte hit me like an ice storm and I still think that great teacher was sent into my life by God who saw the directionless, blemished side my life was taking in my disfigured household. The great teachers fill you up with hope and shower you with a thousand reasons to embrace all aspects of life."

"That was the semester I encountered Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde, fell in love with Isabel Archer in 'The Portrait of a Lady,' followed Anna Karenina to her death in the trainyards of Moscow, and listened to the gregarious Charles Martin lecture about England with such passion and eloquence that I grew enamored of the country and its people long before I stood on Hadrian's wall."

"In the hushed streets near the College of Charleston I said in a whisper, 'I'm going to write about you, Charleston. Listen to me. I'm going to write about you and you're going to like what I say. You are so beautiful. Thank you, Charleston."

26. by Naomi Klein
Finish date: April 18, 2019
Genre: Non-fiction, Economics
Rating: A-
Review: The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism was a riveting look at the policies advocated by economist Milton Friedman and his many followers at The Chicago School of Economics. Basically, it is a deliberate and strategic use of shock therapy to implement unpopular policies, utilizing the exploitation of national crises. The thinking is that the population would be so traumatized by the crises at hand, that they would pay little attention to what was happening, nor would they have the capacity to resist. Kline begins with individual patients that were experimentally treated with increasing frequency of electroconvulsive therapy treatments to induce a regression in the patients, thinking that then they could reshape their personalities. She then moves to the early 1970's and discusses the use of the shock doctrine in South American countries focusing on General August Pinochet and the takeover of the Chilean government. The premise of the disaster capitalism complex is also explored by Kline. Her theory is that corporations have learned to profit from disasters. However, one of the most disturbing parts of the book were the events that ensued after the attack on the World Trade Center in September 2001, where country was traumatized. It was at this point that the Bush administration employed, as led by the neoconservatives, namely Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and John Bolton, in their shock and awe and in the invasion and supplemental occupation of Iraq. Kline concludes with the winners and losers of economic shock therapy and the ultimate backlash against shock doctrine and the economic institutions supportive of it. . Kline concludes with the winners and losers of economic shock therapy and the ultimate backlash against shock doctrine and the economic institutions supportive of it. Needless to say, there has been a lot of controversy surrounding this book. It is worth the read.

27. by T.J. Stiles
Finish date: April 22, 2019
Genre: Biography
Rating: A
Review: The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt was a meticulously and extensively researched biography of Cornelius "Commodore" Vanderbilt. This interesting and compelling book told not only the story of this powerful man but also the history of America during one of the most sweeping and memorable times in our history. Born in Staten Island, New York in 1794 at the time of George Washington, Vanderbilt began as a young boy working for his father's ferry service in New York Harbor and later starting his own ferry service as a young man. He later became associated with Thomas Gibbons and his steamboats as well. Gibbons, fighting against a steamboat monopoly, ultimately prevailed when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in his favor in the landmark decision in Gibbons v. Ogden. Ultimately Vanderbilt went on to become an entrepreneur in the steamboat and steamship industry. It was during this time that he also began to build up his interests in the railroad industry. During his lifetime, there was the war of 1812, the Industrial Revolution, The Civil War, the doctrine of Manifest Destiny as the country moved westward, as well as the panic of 1873 and resulting depression. Stiles opens this epic biography in a packed courtroom in lower Manhattan on November 12, 1877 where the will and massive fortune of Cornelius Vanderbilt was being contested by two of his children. As he points out so poignantly, most of those in the courtroom had lived their entire lives in the shadow of Cornelius Vanderbilt, the Commodore. I loved this book and the exciting tale it told, not only of the man but of America.

"Perhaps there were those who understood that Vanderbilt's true significance was more complex, even contradictory. How could it not be? His life spanned a period of breathtaking changes, from the days of George Washington to those of John D. Rockefeller (with whom he made deals). "

"Yet in those daily handfuls of silver shillings he discovered his hunger for money, an ache that would mingle with his pride and longing for control to shape his life at every turn."

"In the immediate aftermath of Gibbons v. Ogden, however, no one doubt that the world had become a better place. The Livingston monopoly could not stop steamboats from entering New York waters from other states, the Supreme Court ruled; to the public, this was a blow for freedom. Chief Justice Marshall's decision provided one of those rare turning points in history that is recognized as one at the time."

"At fifty-four, Vanderbilt could look back on a career of breathtaking leaps of imagination. Steamboats and railroads, fare wars, market-division agreements, and corporations; all were virtually unknown in America when he mastered them. He was about to imagine a work of global significance--to create a channel of commerce that would help to make the United States a truly continental nation."

28. by Candice Millard
Finish date: April 27, 2019
Genre: Biography
Rating: B
Review: The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey was a riveting tale of the harrowing expedition of Theodore Roosevelt in Brazil's previously unexplored and uncharted River of Doubt, a tributary of the Amazon River in the dangerous Amazon jungle in 1913-1914. Roosevelt was very down after his crushing defeat in the 1912 presidential election to Woodrow Wilson. In that election, as part of the Bull Moose Party, Roosevelt also ran against William Howard Taft as well. From the time he was a young boy, Roosevelt had always felt that he could overcome any adversity by plunging himself into a rigorous physical challenge. Having been asked to give lectures in Brazil, he decided on the expedition to the Amazon led by Brazil's most famous explorer Candido Mariano da Silva Rondon. This book was a very different look at Roosevelt and showed him at a most vulnerable time in his life as the expedition is faced with a lot of adversity as well as plagued with the consequences of poor planning for this previously unexplored tributary of the Amazon. This was also an interesting exploration of his relationship with his son Kermit who accompanied his father on this ill-fated journey. This was an important book and gives us insight that we may not have had otherwise.

"With only a handful of men, he had set out on a self-imposed journey to explore the River of Doubt, a churning, ink-black tributary of the Amazon that winds nearly a thousand miles through the dense Brazilian rain forest."

"Such unbounded energy and vitality impressed one like the perennial forces of nature," the naturalist John Burroughs once wrote of Roosevelt. "When he came into the room it was as if a strong wind had blown the door open."

"Even in a time when great feats of discovery were almost commonplace, a descent of the River of Doubt would be audacious. Not only was the river unmapped--its length and direction unknown and each whirlpool, rapid, and waterfall a sudden and potentially deadly surprise--but it coursed through a dense, tangled jungle that had a dark history of destroying the men who hoped to map it."

"As the men of the expedition looked up at the clear black sky above the River of Doubt, and marveled at the brilliant stars which pointed their way home, they neither knew nor likely even suspected who was actually responsible for their safe passage out of the jungle."

MAY

29. by Pat Conroy
Finish date: May 2, 2019
Genre: Memoir, Cookbook
Rating: A
Review: The Pat Conroy Cookbook by the late Pat Conroy is an intimate look into his life experiences and their relationship to food, not only in beautiful prose but in the glorious and colorful language that is his signature. He talks about his love and awe of the Low Country and Beaufort, South Carolina, that truly took him in as he made his home on Fripp Island for much of his life. In this book, Pat Conroy talks about living in Atlanta, Georgia as well as in Rome and in Paris, as he relates the working on his many books and the foods that were pivotal to those times. It is a beautiful book that gives one more insight into his life and the resilience of the human spirit. In addition to all of the wonderful stories, there are many enticing recipes. I am looking forward to enjoying many, and all in tribute to an author dear to my heart.

"Home is a damaged word, bruisable as fruit, in the cruel glossaries of the language I choose to describe the long, fearful march of my childhood. Home was a word that caught in my throat, stung like a paper cut, drew blood in its passover of my life, and hurt me in all of the soft places. My longing for home was as powerful as fire in my bloodstream ."

"The people of the Low Country measure the passing of the seasons not by the changing colors of its deciduous trees but the brightening and withering of its grand and swashbuckling salt marshes, the shining glory of the Low Country and the central metaphor of my writing life."