Books Set in North America; United States; Kentucky

The Giver of Stars, by Jojo Moyes (2019)

 

Between 1935 and 1943 the Pack Horse Library Project was a program administered through the WPA.  The WPA hired women in Appalachia to ride horses and mules through the rural countryside delivering books to families living in remote areas.  This novel is based on that Project.

 

This novel was based on this Project and focuses on several women who were part of the Horseback Librarians of Baileyville, Kentucky.  Alice Wright, a young British woman, married the handsome Bennett Van Cleve, a wealthy American.  She dreamed of escaping her sheltered life in England and envisioned an exciting life in the United States. Instead, she found herself in rural Kentucky, living with her husband and his father.  The Van Cleve family made their money running a coal mine.  Life in Kentucky was far from what Alice thought life in America would be like, nor was her marriage.

 

When a traveling library was formed in Baileyville, Alice eagerly volunteered.  Margery O’Hare was instrumental in coordinating the traveling librarians and taught Alice to ride a horse through the rural back trails of Kentucky and to shoot a gun.  Margery, however, was a bit of an outcast and from a “bad” family.  Alice and Margery were soon joined by Beth, a renegade; Izzy, a young woman affected with polio; and Sophie, the Black librarian.  The library provided Alice with a sanctuary from her loveless marriage and her cruel father-in-law.  She formed bonds with the other women delivering books to the greater community.

 

After it became known that the women of Baileyville were requesting a factual book on sexual satisfaction, the future of the library became threatened.  The library was further threatened when tragedy befell one of the librarians.

 

I enjoyed this book, however, it only briefly touched upon the treatment of workers in the coal mines.  I thought this would also be a thread of the novel.

 

Read:  Sept. 30, 2020

 

3.5 Stars

 

Books Set in Asia: China, Shanghai

The Last Kings of Shanghai: The Rival Jewish Dynasties that Helped Create Modern China, by Jonathan Kaufman (2020)

 

This book is about the Sassoon family and the Kadoorie family, both from Baghdad, Iraq, who built tremendous business empires in Shanghai, China.  They arrived in Shanghai at a time when was becoming an international city.  Europeans were beginning their colonization of the city.

 

The Sassoons were a wealthy business family in Iraq, but due to political influences in the early 1880s moved their enterprise, first to India, and then to China.  They increased they wealth in the Opium Wars.  This book gave a clear explanation of the origins of the Opium War, and how the Western world help to feed and exploit the opium trade in China.

 

The Kadoorie family arrived in Shanghai a few decades after the Sassoons.  They built their empire from the ground up.  They opened up lavish hotels and began one of the largest electric companies in the country.

 

During World War II, the Kadoories build shelter and fed numerous Jews fleeing from Nazi Germany.  China was one of the very few countries open to Jews during this period.  The city also came under Japanese occupation during the War.  The families survived through this occupation and then sided with Chiang Kai-Shek as the Nationalist and Communist faced each other.  Ultimately, Communism won and the two families lost virtually everything.

 

It was an interesting slice of history.  I wish this book had been published a few years earlier and I could have read it prior to my visit to Shanghai.

 

Read:  September 17, 2020

 

3.5 Stars

Books Set in North America: United States: Mississippi

Pale: A Novel, by Edward A. Farmer (2020)

In 1966, Bernice, a young Black woman whose husband has left her, moved to be closer to her brother, Floyd, who worked in the field at the Kern cotton plantation in Mississippi.  Bernice would work in the plantation house with another Black servant, Silva.  At the house, they would tend to old Mister and his younger, but vindictive wife, Missus.  Neither the old Mister nor his wife seem to care much for each other, or anyone else, for that matter.  Years ago, they lost their young daughter, Elizabeth, an event from which Missus never recovered.

Silva was a widow with two young sons.  One summer, Silva’s sons, Jesse and Fletcher, were hired to work in the field picking cotton.  Missus threw a tantrum when she saw Fletcher and forbid him from working on the property.  She sought out Jesse, however, and began a dangerous flirtation with him.  She convinced Jesse to write her love letters and instructed him what to write.  Bernice tried to warn Jesse, but Missus held a power over him.  And she was trying to get back at her husband, who fathered Fletcher.

Fletcher had plans to go leave Mississippi and obtain an education.  After his first year at school, Missus used the letters Jesse had written to blackmail him into returning to the plantation to work as a field hand.  She insists that being on the plantation is his home and where he belongs.

Dark and twisted secrets hold the servants and owners to the land.

Read:  September 3, 2020

4 Stars