End of blog

We have been posting our book blog now as long as our travel blog.

However, to conserve, and also reduce broadband usage while on the road we have decided to send out our travel blog, 'Qo Vadis On The Road' only when we have access to free or unlimited WiFi.  And we have decided to end our book blog.

Frankly we are just not seeing much interest in it.

If any of our followers will miss the book blog please let us know, as we could continue it as we are the travel blog. Posting from free WiFi spots.

In any case, it has been fun reviewing each of the books we've read over much of the past year.  Now we'll just spend more time reading more books!

Ken and Mona

Tobacco Road

Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell

Tobacco road is the story of doomed people, fated to starve because the land is no longer fertile. To Jeeter, stuborn and hopeful, the land was where he was born - and where he would die along with remnants of his family he lived in squalor without prospect or purpose. A joke yet not without dignity; rotting physically and morally.

-FantasticFiction

Humorous in narrative yet sad in content, this Caldwell classic rates five stars*****.

-Mona

Dreamers of the Day

Dreamers of the Day by Mary Doria Russell

“I suppose I ought to warn you at the outset that my present circumstances are puzzling, even to me. Nevertheless, I am sure of this much: My little story has become your history. You won't really understand your times until you understand mine.”
So begins the account of Agnes Shanklin, the charmingly diffident narrator of Mary Doria Russell's compelling new novel,Dreamers of the Day. And what is Miss Shanklin's “little story?” Nothing less than the creation of the modern Middle East at the 1921 Cairo Peace Conference, where Winston Churchill, T. E. Lawrence, and Lady Gertrude Bell met to decide the fate of the Arab world - and of our own.

A forty-year-old schoolteacher from Ohio still reeling from the tragedies of the Great War and the influenza epidemic, Agnes has come into a modest inheritance that allows her to take the trip of a lifetime to Egypt and the Holy Land. Arriving at the Semiramis Hotel just as the Peace Conference convenes, Agnes, with her plainspoken American opinions - and a small, noisy dachshund named Rosie - enters into the company of the historic luminaries who will, in the space of a few days at a hotel in Cairo, invent the nations of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan.

Neither a pawn nor a participant at the conference, Agnes is ostensibly insignificant, and that makes her a welcome sounding board for Churchill, Lawrence, and Bell. It also makes her unexpectedly attractive to the charismatic German spy Karl Weilbacher. As Agnes observes the tumultuous inner workings of nation-building, she is drawn more and more deeply into geopolitical intrigue and toward a personal awakening.

With prose as graceful and effortless as a seductive float down the Nile, Mary Doria Russell illuminates the long, rich history of the Middle East with a story that brilliantly elucidates today's headlines. As enlightening as it is entertaining, Dreamers of the Dayis a memorable, passionate, gorgeously written novel.

-FantasticFiction

Fascinating book rich in historical fact.  This one rates four stars****.

-MONA

Fordlandia

Fordlandia, by Greg Grandin

Finalist for the National Book Award , “A gripping story of high hopes and deep failure-Boston Globe”. This is the story of the rise and fall of Henry Ford Senior’s forgotten Amazon jungle empire.  Hundreds of thousands of acres of land; thousands of people; two entire American style small towns right down to the concrete sidewalks, cape cod homes, and red fire plugs; and millions of planted rubber trees.  Dead and gone.

Fordlandia and its daughter community, Belterra, were built in the 1920’s and 30’s to grow latex producing rubber trees which would provide all the military needs of the US in case of war. The war came.  The latex, in any great amount, never did.

Disease, fungus, insects of many kinds in swarms and hordes did. And the blunders of the heretofore could-not-fail Ford industrial genius only added to or allowed the disasters to fall, one after another.

Nonetheless, this is not a story about failure, but about tenacity, and dreaming big, and heart.

Fordlandia still exists, almost completely deserted, its old mills and homes almost covered in the jungle it was cut out of.  The golf course, tennis courts, movie theater, almost all gone.  But not quite.

A thrilling story of the Ford family and the Ford empire, and Henry Ford himself, whose greatest gifts became as he aged his greatest weaknesses.

In this book, there is a lesson for every leader of others in any walk of life.-****

-Ken

Scarlet Women

Scarlet Women by J.D. Christilian

New York, 1871. A prostitute named Alice Curry is found murdered near the East Street docks. Not unusual, except that the clothes the victim is wearing belong to the missing wife of an aristocrat. Street-smart private investigator Harp takes on the case. When a restaurateur who was the closest thing Harp had to a father is also murdered, the two cases prove to be related. Harp, the son of a prostitute, once a street urchin and apprentice thief, possesses a sometimes unbelievable encyclopedic knowledge of the city. He knows everybody who is anybody in every dance hall, brothel, precinct house, and gambling parlor. Though less about the lives of prostitutes than the title implies, this novel invites readers onto the streets of Victorian New York and steeps them in its vivid stories of danger, corruption, destitution, and obsession. Harp's flawed but heroic triumphs prove highly entertaining. Christilian is the pseudonym of an author of historical nonfiction and fiction, screenplays, and contemporary suspense.

-Amazon

Touted to be "Gripping suspense for fans of The Alienist", I must say I was somewhat disappointed.  Although filled with detail of the underworld  life in New York in 1871, I was disappointed in the story.  Caleb Carr created a much more compelling mystery in his book The Alienist.  I can only rate this one with three stars***

-MONA

Off Season

Off Season by Anne Rivers Siddons

For as long as she can remember, they were Cam and Lilly--happily married, totally in love with each other, parents of a beautiful family, and partners in life. Then, after decades of marriage, it ended as every great love story does...in loss. After Cam's death, Lilly takes a lone road trip to her and Cam's favorite spot on the remote coast of Maine, the place where they fell in love over and over again, where their ghosts still dance. There, she looks hard to her past--to a first love that ended in tragedy; to falling in love with Cam; to a marriage filled with exuberance, sheer life, and safety-- to try to figure out her future.

It is a journey begun with tender memories and culminating in a revelation that will make Lilly re-evaluate everything she thought was true about her husband and her marriage.

-FantasticFiction

Anne Rivers Siddons does not just tell a story.  Her books draw you in and make you a part of the characters and their surroundings.  You want them to never end.  Once again she earns five stars*****

-MONA

A Beautiful Place to Die

A Beautiful Place to Die by Malla Nunn

When an Afrikaans police captain is murdered in a small South African country town, Detective Emmanuel Cooper must navigate his way through the labyrinthine racial and social divisions that split the community. And as the National Party introduces the laws to support the system of apartheid, Emmanuel struggles - much like Martin Cruz Smith's Arkady Renko - to remain a good man in the face of astonishing power.In a considered but very commercial novel, Malla Nunn combines a compelling plot with a thoughtful and complex portrayal of a fascinating period of history, illustrating the human desires that drive us all, regardless of race, color or creed. "A Beautiful Place To Die" is the first of a planned series of novels featuring Detective Emmanuel Cooper.

-FantasticFiction

Full of the pain and horrors of apartheid, the novel was very compelling.  I was somewhat disappointed in the ending as I felt that it ended rather abruptly and left a few unresolved issues.  I would give this four stars****

-MONA

The Wheel of Darkness

The Wheel of Darkness. by Douglass Preston and Lincoln Child

Pendergast has taken Constance on a whirlwind Grand Tour, hoping to give her closure
and a sense of the world that she's missed. They head to Tibet, where Pendergast
intensively trained in martial arts and spiritual studies. At a remote monastery, they learn
that a rare and dangerous artifact the monks have been guarding for generations has
been mysteriously stolen. Pendergast agrees to take up the search. The trail leads him
and Constance to the maiden voyage of the Queen Victoria, the world's largest and most
luxurious passenger liner--and to an Atlantic crossing fraught with terror.
-Fantasticfiction.com

I have read all but one of the 'Pendergast' series to this one in order.  They can be creepy, authentic, and riveting.  They are always just real enough to keep me from feeling they are too fantastic.  Wheel of Darkness was no exception.  And it will hold you riveted at least from page 350 through 470.

Enjoy!  *****

-Ken

The Midwife of Hope River

The Midwife of Hope River by Patricia Harman

A remarkable new voice in American fiction enchants readers with a moving and uplifting novel that celebrates the miracle of life. In The Midwife of Hope River, first-time novelist Patricia Harmon transports us to poverty stricken Appalachia during the Great Depression years of the 1930s and introduces us to a truly unforgettable heroine. Patience Murphy, a midwife struggling against disease, poverty, and prejudice - and her own haunting past - is a strong and endearing character that fans of the books of Ami McKay and Diane Chamberlain will take into their hearts, as she courageously attempts to bring new light, and life, into an otherwise cruel world.

-FantasticFiction

As well as sharing what life was like in the poverty stricken coal mining region of West Virginia, Harman's book contains a brief sketch of some of the worst mining disasters ever.  This one rates four stars****

-MONA

Death Comes For The Archbishop

Death Comes For The Archbishop, by Willa Cather

Considered one of the best southwestern historical novels of all time I was encouraged to read it in order to flesh out the feeling of the country in the 19^th century, not just the dates of what happened in it.  Cather follows carefully, but with a great novelists enhancements, the historical lives of the two most important catholic leaders of the time. 

 

Her characters, Bishop Jean Latour, the newly appointed bishop of  New Mexico  and his Vicar General Father Valliant (later made Bishop of Colorado) are taken closely from the French-American priests Jean-Baptiste Lamy and Joseph Projectus Machbeouf. The official histories of these men are factual enough, but Willa’s story binds them to the land and their people.

 

But while this tale is about Christian faith and Catholic missionary work, it is most about the southwest and the Mexicans and Indians who inhabited it before these priests arrive.

 

The landscapes, the weather, the hardships, dangers, and joys of wilderness life are all so well portrayed by Willa Cather that you will only want to head west yourself to experience this country before what is left of it departs for good.

 

So that’s where we are going as soon as we can make it across the gulf states without the furnace on every day!

-*****

Ken

Two Graves

Two Graves by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

After his wife, Helen, is brazenly abducted before his eyes, Special Agent Pendergast furiously pursues the kidnappers, chasing them across the country and into Mexico. But then, things go terribly, tragically wrong; the kidnappers escape; and a shattered Pendergast retreats to his New York apartment and shuts out the world.

But when a string of bizarre murders erupts across several Manhattan hotels--perpetrated by a boy who seems to have an almost psychic ability to elude capture--NYPD Lieutenant D'Agosta asks his friend Pendergast for help. Reluctant at first, Pendergast soon discovers that the killings are a message from his wife's kidnappers. But why a message? And what does it mean?

When the kidnappers strike again at those closest to Pendergast, the FBI agent, filled anew with vengeful fury, sets out to track down and destroy those responsible. His journey takes him deep into the trackless forests of South America, where he ultimately finds himself face to face with an old evil that-rather than having been eradicated-is stirring anew... and with potentially world-altering consequences.

Confucius once said: "Before you embark on a journey of revenge, first dig two graves." Pendergast is about to learn the hard way just how true those words still ring.

-FantasticFiction

This twelfth book in the Pendergast series provides the conclusion to the Helen trilogy and is every bit as much of a pager-turner as the others.  Preston and Child earn another five stars*****

-MONA

Cold Vengeance

Cold Vengeance by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

Devastated by the discovery that his wife, Helen, was murdered, Special Agent Pendergast must have retribution. But revenge is not simple. As he stalks his wife's betrayers-a chase that takes him from the wild moors of Scotland to the bustling streets of New York City and the darkest bayous of Louisiana-he is also forced to dig further into Helen's past. And he is stunned to learn that Helen may have been a collaborator in her own murder.

Peeling back the layers of deception, Pendergast realizes that the conspiracy is deeper, goes back generations, and is more monstrous than he could have ever imagined-and everything he's believed, everything he's trusted, everything he's understood . . . may be a horrific lie.

-FantasticFiction

Book 11 in the Pendergast series and book 2 in the Helen trilogy is every bit as much of a cliff-hanger as was Fever Dream which preceeds this one.  Be sure to have Two Graves, the third book in the trilogy, handy when you finish Cold Vengeance!  a definite five stars*****

-Mona

John James Audubon - The making of an American

John James Audubon - The making of an American, by Richard Rhodes

I was SO wrong.  I've always thought Mr. Audubon must have been a sort of wimpy guy who went around chasing Tweety Birds to paint them for his cute portfolio.  Then Mona and I spent some serious time at the Audubon home, Mill Grove, on the Perkiomen Creek last year.  Then I read this book and discovered I owe this man a major posthumous apology.

JJ Audubon was an inventor, businessman, great dad and husband.  Oh, and he could draw and paint pretty well too.  Oh, and he was one of the finest 'natural', not university trained, naturalists in human history. Oh, and he was truly an American Woodsman right up there with the Boones, Crockets and Clarks.  What a guy!

Richard Rhodes does a fine job weaving this story about Mr. Audubon as well.  In fact, after a detail filled and therefore bit slow start, I could hardly put it down.

It didn't hurt that we have been walking in his steps many places in the Eastern United States this year, but I highly recommend this book to learn of the challenges of business failures, distant romantic relationships, crooked or at least mean spirited relatives and former friends, and BIRDS.

-Five Stars *****
Ken

Fever Dream

Fever Dream by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

At the old family manse in Louisiana, Special Agent Pendergast is putting to rest long-ignored possessions reminiscent of his wife Helen's tragic death, only to make a stunning-and dreadful-discovery. Helen had been mauled by an unusually large and vicious lion while they were big game hunting in Africa. But now, Pendergast learns that her rifle-her only protection from the beast-had been deliberately loaded with blanks. Who could have wanted Helen dead...and why?

With Lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta's assistance, Pendergast embarks on a quest to uncover the mystery of his wife's murder. It is a journey that sends him deep into her past where he learns much that Helen herself had wished to keep hidden. Helen Pendergast had nursed a secret obsession with the famed naturalist-painter John James Audubon, in particular a long-lost painting of his known as the Black Frame.

As Pendergast probes more deeply into the riddle-the answer to which is revealed in a night of shocking violence, deep in the Louisiana bayou-he finds himself faced with an even greater question: who was the woman he married?

-FantasticFiction

This 10th book in the Pendergast series,  the first one in the Helen trilogy, will keep you on the edge of your seat and when it ends you will be sure to want to have the next one, Cold Vengeance, on hand to continue where this one leaves you hanging!  Definitely a five star*****rating.

-MONA

Blackberry Winter

Blackberry Winter by Sarah Jio

In 2011, Sarah Jio burst onto the fiction scene with two sensational novels--The Violets of March and The Bungalow. WithBlackberry Winter--taking its title from a late-season, cold-weather phenomenon--Jio continues her rich exploration of the ways personal connections can transcend the boundaries of time.

Seattle, 1933. Single mother Vera Ray kisses her three-year-old son, Daniel, goodnight and departs to work the night-shift at a local hotel. She emerges to discover that a May-Day snow has blanketed the city, and that her son has vanished. Outside, she finds his beloved teddy bear lying face-down on an icy street, the snow covering up any trace of his tracks, or the perpetrator's.

Seattle, 2010. Seattle Herald reporter Claire Aldridge, assigned to cover the May 1 "blackberry winter" storm and its twin, learns of the unsolved abduction and vows to unearth the truth. In the process, she finds that she and Vera may be linked in unexpected ways...

-FantasticFiction

I found this novel by Jio to be somewhat stilted and slow.  It just didn't "grab" me, so I only give it a three star rating***.

Tandia

Tandia by Bryce Courtenay

Tandia is just a teenager when she is brutally attacked by the police. Afraid and consumed by her hatred for white man, Tandia seeks refuge in a brothel. There she learns to use her mind and looks for the battles that lie ahead. But then Tandia meets a man with a past as strange as her own.

-FantasticFiction

Tandia is a child of all Africa: half Indian and half African, beautiful and intelligent, she is only 16 when she is first brutalized by the police.  Her fear of the white man leads her to join the black resistance movement, where she trains as a terrorist.  With her in the fight for justice is the one white man Tandia can trust, the welterweight champion of the world, Peekay.  Now he must fight their common enemy in order to save both their lives.

This sequel to Bryce Courtney's classic novel The Power of One is a compelling story of good and evil from Australia's most popular storyteller.  Definitely a five star rating*****.

-Ken

Free Air

Free Air, by Sinclair Lewis

"This cheerful little road novel, published in 1919, is about Claire Boltwood, who, in the early days of the 20th century, travels by automobile from New York City to the Pacific Northwest, where she falls in love with a nice, down-to-earth young man and gives up her snobbish Estate." (From the Book Stub)

From a critical perspective, Free Air is consistent with Sinclair Lewis's lean towards egalitarian politics, which he displays in his other works (most notably in It Can't Happen Here). Examples of his politics in Free Air are found in Lewis's emphasis on the heroic role played by the book's protagonist, Milt Dagget, a working class everyman type. Conversely, Lewis presents nearly every upper-class character in Claire Boltwood's world (including her railroad-mogul father) as being snobby elitists. The story also champions the democratic nature of the automobile versus the more aristocratic railroad travel. Lewis's showing favoritism towards the freedom which automobiles would eventually accord the working and middle classes bolsters the egalitarian, democratic aesthetic. Free Air is one of the first novels about the road trip, a subject around which the Beats (most notably Jack Kerouac) would build a cult following in the mid-20th century.

-WIKIPEDIA.com

I thoroughly enjoyed this road trip with Milt and Claire.  An easy, light, but enlightening as well.  The world of road trips was a whole different one in 1919 from the one we travel on today.  Although a couple of the roads we've raised dust on, driven through hail on, and even gotten stuck off of, certainly came to mind as I read!

-****Ken

Swimming Lessons

Swimming Lessons by Mary Alice Monroe

The cycle of life of the turtles of the Isle of Palms has special meaning for the turtle ladies who watch over them. Every season brings new life and new challenges as the turtles make their way back to the ocean.

Turtle lady Toy Sooner has faced her share of challenges. The single mother left an abusive relationship to raise her young daughter. She's found meaning working at the aquarium, but she's not sure she's ready for the challenge of starting a new turtle hospital…or a new relationship with her boss, Ethan.

As the summer progresses and the turtles take their steps toward healing and freedom, Toy must find her own strength to face her fear and move courageously toward the future.

-Fantastic Fiction

Although somewhat predictable, this heartwarming story of courage, love and the importance of family, as well as the natural cycle of life, is well deserving of five stars*****.

-MONA

The Baker Street Letters

The Baker Street Letters by Michael Robertson

First in a spectacular new series about two brother lawyers who lease offices on London's Baker Street--and begin receiving mail addressed to Sherlock Holmes

In Los Angeles, a geological surveyor maps out a proposed subway route--and then goes missing. His eight-year-old daughter, in her desperation, turns to the one person she thinks might help--she writes a letter to Sherlock Holmes.

That letter creates an uproar at 221b Baker Street, which now houses the law offices of attorney and man about town Reggie Heath and his hapless brother, Nigel. Instead of filing the letter like he's supposed to, Nigel decides to investigate. Soon he's flying off to Los Angeles, inconsiderately leaving a very dead body on the floor in his office. Big brother Reggie follows Nigel to California, as does Reggie's sometime lover, Laura---a quick-witted stage actress who's captured the hearts of both brothers.

When Nigel is arrested, Reggie must use all his wits to solve a case that Sherlock Holmes would have savored and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle fans will adore.

-FantasticFiction

The concept of the book was interesting.  Sadly, the execution of the story left something to be desired.  I would rate this one with three stars.***

-MONA

Second Star to the Right

Second Star to the Right by Mary Alice Monroe

Sometimes fairy tales do come true...

As a single mother of two, Faye O'Neill has no time for fairy tales. She's not even certain she believes in luck. Practical, smart and desperate to escape a shadowy past, Faye takes a job at a top advertising firm in London where she hopes she and her children can find a fresh start. When she finds the beautiful two-story flat for rent in a stately old Victorian complete with a neglected but tumbling English garden, she can scarcely believe her good fortune. But it's not long before Faye realizes everything in the old home may not be as peaceful as it seems.

A strange light begins to appear in her children's rooms at night, and then there's the reclusive elderly tenant, Crazy Wendy, her landlady warned her to steer clear of, the woman who spends her evenings spying on Faye's children from her garret-room window. The woman who believes she is Peter Pan's Wendy. To make matters worse, Faye, who has sworn off men, discovers her downstairs neighbor Jack is a disturbingly handsome professor with a talent for charming women and children alike. Before she knows it, Faye has embarked upon a whole new adventure into a world where anything might be possible, where broken hearts can be healed by a kiss, and where Neverland may not be a place of fables, but a forgotten land one can still find if they are only brave enough to follow the second star to the right.

"Mary Alice Monroe breathes new life into the timeless legend of Peter Pan - and the result is nothing short of magical. Second Star to the Right will whisk you away at the whim of this masterful storyteller." Signe Pike, bestselling author of Faery Tale

-FantasticFiction

A fun, whimsical, somewhat predictable but nonetheless enjoyable novel deserving of four stars****.

-Mona

A Lion Among Men

A Lion Among Men by Gregory Malone

This is the third of four books in Malone’s decidedly different take on the back story to Baum’s ‘Wizard of Oz’ tales.  I got hooked through the audio book WICKED, and seeing the Broadway play. Then had to read the second in the series, Son of a Witch. I think this one, like his others, written in the same satirical, action oriented and often sexually risqué style, will be my last.

I was drawn to the fantastical way he supports many of the unknowns in Frank Baum’s books (they were kids books, after all. These are DECIDEDLY not for children!) Maguire weaves his backgrounds to and through the various original plot in ways that will astound the reader.  And this is true for LION as well.

But I’m actually not a fantasy fan. It’s just that I, like many of you, grew up on the MGM movie. So when Mr. Maguire has me believing that Dorothy was a whiney trouble maker who messed up a reasonably good universe called OZ, I just have to find out, chapter by chapter, where he’s going with this.

And where he’s going is simply more fun and fantasy. I find no profound political, Swiftian, statements being made between Gregory’s lines.  He’s simply enjoying the writing of good fantasy with a kick.

And now that I finally realize this, I, who does not like fantasy anyway, can sleep well without reading further.

But if you like fantasy, and if you loved the Baum Oz books and/or the Judy Garland movie, then by all means, if you also can take some occasional semi-pornographic images, read these books.  But read them in chronological order. Read  them any other way and I think the fantasy could become madness.

-*** KEN

Unravelling

Unravelling by Elizabeth Graver

A beautifully realized novel, in which a young woman triumphantly chooses independence over conformity. From a small, bogside cabin in rural New England, 38-year-old Aimee Slater unravels the story of her life, attempting to make sense of the tangled thread that leads from her mother's house-a short, unbridgeable distance away-to the world she now inhabits. It is soon after the Civil War; Aimee lives alone, but is graced with visits from two friends, a crippled man and a troubled eleven-year-old girl. She is perpetually caught between the sensual world she so desires and the divine retribution passed down to her by her mother's scorn. How Aimee ultimately creates a life for herself and bridges that distance makes for a moving story of love and loss. Told in a voice of spare New England lyricism, Unravelling is a remarkably haunting account of the power of redemption.

-FantasticFiction

A very descriptive novel built on the unravelling of the narrator's life, her thoughts and feelings, her joys and her sorrows.  I rate this one with four stars****.

-MONA

12 Years a Slave

12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northrup

This unforgettable memoir was the basis for the Academy Award winning film 12 Years a Slave.  This is the true story of Solomon Northup, who was born and raised as a freeman in New York. He lived the American dream, with a house and a loving family - a wife and three kids. Then one day he was drugged, kidnapped, and sold into slavery in the deep south. These are the true accounts of his twelve hard years as a slave - many believe this memoir is even more graphic and disturbing than the film. His extraordinary journey proves the resiliency of hope and the human spirit despite the most grueling and formidable of circumstances.

_Amazon

One powerfully graphic description of the subjugation and horror that was slavery and the sheer will to endure and overcome.  A very definite five star rating*****.

-MONA

North River

North River by Pete Hamill

It is 1934, and New York City is in the icy grip of the Great
Depression. With enormous compassion, Dr. James Delaney
tends to his hurt, sick, and poor neighbors, who include
gangsters, day laborers, prostitutes, and housewives. If they
can't pay, he treats them anyway.
But in his own life, Delaney is emotionally numb, haunted
by the slaughters of the Great War. His only daughter has left
for Mexico, and his wife Molly vanished months before,
leaving him to wonder if she is alive or dead.
Then, on a snowy New Year's Day, the doctor returns
home to find his three-year-old grandson on his doorstep,
left by his mother in Delaney's care. Coping with this
unexpected arrival, Delaney hires Rose, a tough, decent
Sicilian woman with a secret in her past. Slowly, as Rose and
the boy begin to care for the good doctor, the numbness in
Delaney begins to melt.
Recreating 1930s New York with the vibrancy and rich
detail that are his trademarks, Pete Hamill weaves a story of
honor, family, and one man's simple courage that no reader
will soon forget.

-FantasticFiction

Hamill's novel brings alive the New York of the 1930's with such realism that you are there, seeing the city as it was...the people, the events, the love of baseball, the mob, the romance and the love of a doctor for his patients, his family and Rose.  Well deserving of five stars*****.

-MONA

The Death of Santini

The Death of Santini by Pat Conroy

 

In this powerful and intimate memoir, the beloved bestselling author of The Prince of Tides and his father, the inspiration for The Great Santini, find some common ground at long last.

Pat Conroy's father, Donald Patrick Conroy, was a towering figure in his son's life. The Marine Corps fighter pilot was often brutal, cruel, and violent; as Pat says, "I hated my father long before I knew there was an English word for 'hate.'" As the oldest of seven children who were dragged from military base to military base across the South, Pat bore witness to the toll his father's behavior took on his siblings, and especially on his mother, Peg. She was Pat's lifeline to a better world - that of books and culture. But eventually, despite repeated confrontations with his father, Pat managed to claw his way toward a life he could have only imagined as a child.
     Pat's great success as a writer has always been intimately linked with the exploration of his family history. While the publication of The Great Santini brought Pat much acclaim, the rift it caused with his father brought even more attention. Their long-simmering conflict burst into the open, fracturing an already battered family. But as Pat tenderly chronicles here, even the oldest of wounds can heal. In the final years of Don Conroy's life, he and his son reached a rapprochement of sorts. Quite unexpectedly, the Santini who had freely doled out physical abuse to his wife and children refocused his ire on those who had turned on Pat over the years. He defended his son's honor.
     The Death of Santini is at once a heart-wrenching account of personal and family struggle and a poignant lesson in how the ties of blood can both strangle and offer succor. It is an act of reckoning, an exorcism of demons, but one whose ultimate conclusion is that love can soften even the meanest of men, lending significance to one of the most-often quoted lines from Pat's bestselling novel The Prince of Tides: "In families there are no crimes beyond forgiveness."

-FantasticFiction

No one can evoke such raw emotion in his writing like Pat Conroy and this latest book of his is no exception.  In this biography of his family, dealing particularly with his relationship with his abusive father, he opens the wounds of their lives in order to allow for their healing.  This one definitely rates five stars*****.

-Mona

The Genuine Article

The Genuine Article by Edmund S. Morgan

This is NOT a book for someone who does not like history, specifically American and more specifically 18^th and 19^th century American history.  That said this is not a book written for only historians to enjoy.  It is also not a history book of its own.

What this book is is a compendium of reviews by one of America’s finest 20^th century historians with many great books to his own credit. Edmund S. Morgan critiques very clearly and with much peaceful candor books others have written which have made a difference in his own understanding of our nation’s past.

Through his reviews of these other historical authors he answers questions like, “Why did a general who lost most of his battles and rarely took back a city claimed by his adversaries end up being called ‘the Father of His Country’ “?

Or, very interesting for a guy who used to preach most Sundays in a year, “How can we learn more from the sermons given by great preachers through the course of America’s history than from those preacher’s biographies.”?

I picked up this book to read one of the reviews, and ended up reading them all.  If you want a clearer take on what some of the greatest of the very first Americans really thought and why they acted as they did, read ‘The Genuine Article’ cover to cover.  Because IT IS what it says it is.

Five *****

-Ken

Sycamore Row

Sycamore Row by John Grisham

Sycamore Row is John Grisham's newest courtroom thriller and it is a sequel to his twenty odd years ago hit A TIME TO KILL.

We return three years after the Hailey trial to find Jake, Carla and Hannah Brigance struggling to make ends meet as they deal with an insurance company unwilling to pay up for their KKK arson burned home. But their world is about, once again, to be turned upside down.

Seth Hubbard was the richest man in their part of Mississippi, but no one knew it because he kept his life so secret.  Now everyone knows because he has hung himself from a tree and left his millions not to any family member, but almost all of it to his part time maid.

Why?

That's the million dollar, literally, question.

Grisham weaves a great tale and goes back effectively into the mid eighties to show what prejudice among blacks and whites in rural Mississippi was like.

30 years later, has much changed?  We were just in northern MS a couple of months ago and found some open and trusting persons of all colors in and around the town of Corinth.  Maybe we'll learn more when we head back through Mississippi on our way west the end of this year or early next.

In any case, this read was one I could not easily put down, and I feel more enlightened about the people and places we'll be seeing soon.

I encourage a read by you, and a Hollywood producer to consider giving Jake Brigance another shot at the silver screen.  Yes, a digital movie screen is STILL silver!

***** 5 stars.
-Ken

Rutland Place

Rutland Place by Anne Perry

'A curious and most disturbing thing has happened...' When Charlotte Pitt learned of her mother's distress at losing a locket with a compromising picture, she could not know that it was the beginning of a chain of bizarre events that would end in sudden death. For hidden behind the sumptuous elegance of Rutland Place were terrible secrets. Secrets so horrifying that only murder could conceal them. But the dangerous persistence of Charlotte and the quiet patience of Inspector Thomas Pitt made it possible to unwind this most macabre and chilling mystery...

-FantasticFiction

This fifth book in Anne Perry's Thomas and Charlotte Pitt series, with it's surprise ending, is well deserving of the four stars that I give it****.

-Mona

A Death in Vienna

A Death in Vienna by Frank Tallis

It is Vienna at the beginning of the last century, and Dr Max Liebermann is a young psycho analyst - and disciple of Freud. Psychoanalysis is only just developing and viewed with a mixture of excitement and suspicion. The world of 1900s Vienna is one where philosophy, science and art are at their most exciting and flourishing, with the coffee shops full of men and women debating the latest cultural and political theories. Liebermann's good friend Oskar Rheinhardt is a Detective Inspector - hard working, but lacking Liebermann's insights and forensic eye and so it is through Rheinhardt that Libermann is called upon to help with police investigations surrounding the death of a beautiful young medium, in what seems at first to be supernatural circumstances. While Liebermann attempts to get to the bottom of the mystery, he also must decide whether he is to follow his father's advice and marry the beautiful but reserved Clara.

-FantasticFiction

Interesting....but a bit slow at times.  I would rate this one with three stars***.

-MONA

The Prince of Tides

The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy

I began reading this classic South Carolina Low Country novel well before we arrived in the low country and have just finished it as we are in the middle of our time here.

Conroy is one of this regions finest but also deepest authors.  Fine, in that you live the stories as he tells them, deep, as you feel the pain and heartache of living those stories as well.  And there is much heartache in his tales.

Born of his own tough childhood he weaves a families life over 40 years of weird, strange, awful and wonderful times. As they say, the worst of us each had a mother.  In this case, what a mother!

Who is the Prince of Tides?  That is the ever present question which remains at the bottom of the Colleten River till almost the last page when the answer rises up like the moon at sunset.

*****Five stars, of course.  Can I give less than the finest reviewers of the age?
-Ken

Focus

Focus by Arthur Miller

Written in 1945, Focus was Arthur Miller's first novel and one of the first books to directly confront American anti-Semitism. It remains as chilling and incisive today as it was at the time of its controversial debut. As World War II draws to a close, anti-Semitism is alive and well in Brooklyn, New York. Here, Newman, an American of English descent, floats through a world of multiethnic neighborhoods indifferent to the racism around him. That is, until he begins wearing glasses that render him "Jewish" in the eyes of others, making him the target of anti-Semitic persecution. As he and his wife find friendship and support from a Jewish immigrant, Newman slowly begins to understand the racial hatreds that surround him.

-FantasticFiction

A very thought provoking book well worth the five stars I feel it deserves*****.

-MONA

The Girl on Legare Street

The Girl on Legare Street by Karen White

In this sequel to The House On Tradd Street, when Melanie Middleton was seven years old her mother, Ginnette, left home, abandoning her husband and her daughter. Now, nearly thirty-three years later, Ginnette has returned to Charleston, South Carolina, to confront her past and make amends with the daughter she left behind. Melanie is less than thrilled when her mother reappears in her life and asks for her help in buying back the family home. But before she can slam the door in her mother s face, Ginnette tells her it was a premonition that brought her back a premonition involving old family secrets and a malevolent presence. It has come for Melanie, and to fight it, they will have to stand together.

-FantasticFiction

I did not enjoy this second book in Karen White's Tradd Street series quite as much as the first.  She seemed to have a hard time determining what she wanted this to be...mystery, romance, paranormal, comedy, historical family saga.....The story got quite confusing at times between dead characters as well as a seemingly constant flip-flop of relationships and feelings between the main characters in the book (one minute enemies, the next minute friends working together to solve the mystery, then back to being enemies again working against each other).  White also seemed to leave a number of issues unresolved by the end of the book....possibly in the next one????  Not sure I want to go on to the next one someday.  I can only give this book three stars***.

-MONA

The House on Tradd Street

The House on Tradd Street by Karen White

A brilliant, chilling series debut, featuring a Charleston real estate agent who loves old houses - and the secret histories inside them.

Practical Melanie Middleton hates to admit she can see ghosts. But she's going to have to accept it. An old man she recently met has died, leaving her his historic Tradd Street home, complete with housekeeper, dog - and a family of ghosts anxious to tell her their secrets.

Enter Jack Trenholm, a gorgeous writer obsessed with unsolved mysteries. He has reason to believe that diamonds from the Confederate Treasury are hidden in the house. So he turns the charm on with Melanie, only to discover he's the smitten one...

It turns out Jack's search has caught the attention of a malevolent ghost. Now, Jack and Melanie must unravel a mystery of passion, heartbreak - and even murder.

-FantasticFiction

Part romance, part ghost story, part mystery. I read this while we were in Charleston so that I could feel closer to the story itself...minus the ghosts, of course!  It made walking the streets South of Broad come alive with even more beauty, if that's possible.  Interesting enough to rate four stars****.

-MONA

The House Next Door

The House Next Door by Anne Rivers Siddons

 

Their love would never be the same.

Colquitt and Walter Kennedy enjoyed a life of lazy weekends, gathering with the neighbors on their quiet, manicured street and sipping drinks on their patios. But when construction of a beautiful new home begins in the empty lot next door, their easy friendship and relaxed get-togethers are marred by strange accidents and inexplicable happenings.

Though Colquitt's rational mind balks at the idea of a "haunted" house, she cannot ignore the tragedies associated with it. It is as if the house preys on its inhabitants' weaknesses and slowly destroys the goodness in them -- ultimately driving them to disgrace, madness and even death.

Anne Rivers Siddons transports you deep into the heart of a neighborhood torn apart by a mysterious force that threatens their friendship, their happiness and, for some, their very existence.
-FantasticFiction

 

A haunting page-turner!  Anne Rivers Siddons does it again....another five star rating*****

-Mona

The Road

The Road by Jack London

It took me a couple of tries to get the correct pic for this post from the internet.  Google Search, after all, is built to go after the hottest connection to the key words given to it.  The words ‘Road’ and ‘Jack’ kept finding ‘On the Road by Jack Kerouac’, the 1950’s best selling book that turned the world on to not just beatniks but James Dean and antiauthority-disestablishmentarianism that would soon rock the sixties.

Kerouac’s book has got cars roaring through the night carrying wild youth across America. London’s has decidedly wilder and more determined youth of all ages riding the couplers on railroad freight cars at 40 miles an hour and up, in all weathers.

Yes, the same author who gave us poems, plays, nonfiction, ‘Call of the Wild’ and ‘Sea Wolf’ also gave us this auto-biography of a… well, let a Wikipedia author tell it better than I can:

The Road is an autobiographical memoir by Jack London, first published in 1907. It is London's account of his experiences as a hobo in the 1890s, during the worst economic depression the United States had experienced up to that time.^[1] He describes his experiences hopping freight trains, "holding down" a train when the crew is trying to throw him off, begging for food and money, and making up extraordinary stories to fool the police. He also tells of the thirty days that he spent in the Erie County Penitentiary, which he described as a place of "unprintable horrors," after being "pinched" (arrested) for vagrancy. In addition, he recounts his time with Kelly's Army, which he joined up with in Wyoming and remained with until its dissolution at the Mississippi River.^[2]

I couldn’t wait to read each next chapter, though at times I had to. This is one of the several books that stirred my heart to ever live on the road myself.  Though living the way Jack London did, on the road he chose?  Not for me!

But the book is!  *****

-Ken