Books Set in North America: United States: New York, New York

The Social Graces, by Renée Rosen (2021)

 

Set in the 1870s, The Social Graces focuses on two of the wealthiest families in New York ~ the Astors and the Vanderbilts.  The Astors were “old money” and the Vanderbilts were the nouveau riche, having earned their money through the railroads.  Old money looked down on the new money.

 

When the novel opens, women are basically chattel of their husbands.  Society marriages are arranged as business transaction not as love matches.  The wives must ignore their husbands’ affairs.  What the women do have is Society with a capital “S” and their children.  Caroline Astor, the Mrs. Astor, is the Queen of New York Society.  She is one of the most powerful women in New York Society.  She holds the cards for who is who in New York Society.

 

Alva Vanderbilt is the young bride of William K. Vanderbilt.  When she was young, her father lost the family fortune, so Alva had grown up in Alabama in relative poverty.  After her marriage to a Vanderbilt, she is suddenly thrust into tremendous wealth, but her husband’s money won’t buy her a place in Society.

 

Alva tried to enter into the Astor circle only to be snubbed time and time again.  A chance encounter with Emily Astor seemed to be the key to the Astors.  Alas, it wasn’t to be.  Still, Alva was determined to enter into the coveted Society Circle.  With the Vanderbilt money, Alva has certain powers that allow her to make her mark in New York.

 

This novel, based on facts of the Astors and Vanderbilts, is a delightful read and a page-turner.  I couldn’t put it down.  It reminded me of the novel The Swans of Fifth Avenue, by Melanie Benjamin, which was about New York Society in the 1950s.

 

Read: December 24, 2021

 

5 Stars

Books Set in North America: United States, Newton, Massachusetts

Defending Jacob, by William Landay (2012)

Defending Jacob is a courtroom drama that centers around 14-year-old Jacob Barber who has been accused of murdering a classmate who bullied him.  The reader sees the story unfold through the eyes of Andrew Barber, Jacob’s father.

Andrew Barber is the First Assistant District Attorney in Boston.  As such, he was the first attorney called to the scene of the crime.  Andy, as he is known, works with the police on the initial investigation.  Has the First Assistant, he has the option to take case himself, or pass it on to another ADA.  He initially takes the case, and he focuses in on a suspect who is a known pedophile.

Suspicion, however, soon turns towards Jacob.  One of Jacob’s friend’s posts an incriminating statement of Facebook suggesting that “everyone” knows that Jacob committed the crime and he owned a knife, much like murder weapon.  Later Jacob’s fingerprint is found on the victim’s clothing.  Circumstantial evidence seems to pile up against Jacob.  Andy must be recused from the case and his former protégée, Neal Logiudice, takes over.

Jacob’s defense attorney must prepare for all possible defenses.  He looks into the family’s past for inherited violence.  For several generations, the men in Andy’s family have exhibited extreme acts of violence.  Andy never knew his father, Bloody Billy, who is serving a life sentence in prison.  Andy never shared this fact with his wife, but now he must.  This revelation blindsides Laurie, Andy’s wife, and she begins to question whether her son, Jacob, might actually be predisposed to violence and could have committed this brutal murder.

I enjoyed the courtroom scenes.  They were very true to life in a criminal trial.  The novel fell apart at the end with several events coming together that didn’t make sense.

Spoiler Alert:  Andy finally visited his father in prison and his father later arranges, unbeknownst to Andy, to have a hitman “protect” Jacob.  The hitman ultimately tracks down the pedophile, has him draft a confession, then hangs him.  Thus, Jacob, is a free man as the case against him is dismissed.  The family then goes on vacation, where Jacob meets a young girl named Hope.  The two connect, but when she goes missing, Laurie suspects her son might have something to do with her disappearance.  The novel ends with Laurie driving her car over a cliff and Jacob is killed.

Read:  December 23, 2021

3 Stars

Books Set in North America: United States

Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal, by Mary Roach (2013)

 

This science book is an amusing telling of how our bodies are designed to process and digest the food we eat from start to finish.  The process begins with smelling the food we will put into our mouths and ends with defecation.  The author spares us details.  She is also very amusing and there are many laugh-out-loud bits in this book.  The book answers questions about the alimentary canal that most people never think about.

 

Read:  December 18, 2021

 

3.5 Stars

 

 

Books Set in Africa: Kenya

A Death in Kenya, by M.M. Kaye (1958)

This cozy murder mystery takes place against the background of the Kenya Emergency, as the British called it, or the Mau Mau Uprising.  It was the war in the British Kenya Colony between the Mau Mau and the British authorities that took place in the 1950s.  The major characters in the novel are British and live on large, and isolated, farms in rural Kenya with many African servants.  The attitudes of the white characters reflects the attitude towards their servants as would have been during this time period.

Lady Emily (Em) Debrett has lived in Kenya her entire life.  At age 72, she still run her farm estate, named The Flamingo.  It is her dream to build a family dynasty to be passed down through generations.  She lives on The Flamingo with her grandson, Eden, and his wife, Alice.  She seems dismissive of the uprising, believing that her family will live in Kenya long after it ceases to be a colony.

When the novel opens, a “poltergeist” has been wreaking havoc at The Flamingo.  Valuable items are broken or gone missing.  This, and the raging uprising between the Mau Mau and the British causes tension among the British farmers.

Lady Emily invites her young niece, Victoria, to The Flamingo help with the accounting books.  Victoria grew up in Kenya and has fond memories of the area.  She had been engaged to Eden, so has some trepidation about joining her aunt in Kenya but doesn’t want to disappoint the family.

The day Victoria is to arrive in Kenya, Eden’s wife has been found brutally murdered.  Alice had been returning to The Flamingo from the home of Gilly Markham.  Markham was The Flamingo’s estate manager, albeit he was more interested in music and drinking than tending to the estate.  He lived with his wife, Lisa, who was in love with Eden.  Was she killed by one of the servants?

Shortly Victoria’s arrival in Kenya, the white settlers travel into the countryside for a picnic.  After their meal, the participants go in separate ways to explore.  Then, another death occurs.  Suddenly, everyone becomes a suspect.  Secrets are revealed and past grudges erupt.

This was a fun read in the vein of Agatha Christie mystery novels.

Read: December 12, 2021

         February 24, 1995

3 Stars

Books Set in Asia; Pegu

The Jewel Trader of Pegu, by Jeffrey Hantover (2008)

 

In the late 1500s, Abraham, a young, widowed Jewish trader, traveled from the ghetto of Venice to seek jewels in Southeast Asia to send back to his uncle in Italy.  He traveled to Pegu, a kingdom in Burma, where he encounters a way of life vastly different from the one in which he grew up.  The novel is written mostly in letter form that Abraham sends to his cousin in Venice.  Abraham describes the lush jungle of Pegu and the people and the customs, as well as his struggles with keeping up his religious practices.

 

He found that the local people are tolerant of foreigners, and he resides in a house that had previously been occupied by another Italian trader.  Abraham is not the only European in Pegu.  Jesuit priest have come to convert the Buddhist to Christianity.  The Jesuits treat Abraham with scorn, but the local population he encounters are tolerant, although somewhat mystified by Abraham’s religious practices.

 

Abraham is fascinated by some of the local customs but is horrified to learn that it is a practice for foreigners to sleep with a bride-to-be on her wedding day, before sleeping with her husband.  Abraham at first resists this honor, but ultimately succumbs to this practice, although not without his coming to grips with his moral dilemma.

 

Young Mya entered the town to marry, but first was given to Abraham.  The next morning, her groom failed to come for her.  He had overindulged the night before and died, leaving Mya a widow.  Abraham allows her to stay in his house, and soon falls in love with her.

 

Abraham works with Win, a local broker, and as they become friends, they discuss their religious and cultural differences.  They respect each other’s differences and form a strong bond, which will help them both during the pending uprising.  Abraham realizes that, as a Jew, he has far more freedom in Pegu than he had in Italy, despite the cruelty of the Peguian king.

 

Pegu and a rival kingdom begin a violent war.  Abraham realizes that he must depart, but not without Mya, whom he as entered into a common-law marriage.  She is pregnant, so he doesn’t want to return to Italy until after the birth of their child.  They depart for deep into the country.  On the journey, Abraham becomes ill and dies, leaving a young, pregnant wife in the care of Win.

 

I enjoyed this novel.  The author provided vivid descriptions of the country as it existed so many years ago.

 

Read:  November 21, 2021

 

4 Stars

Books Set in North America, United States, New York, New York

The Hours Count, by Jillian Cantor (2015)

This novel imagines a friendship between Ethel Rosenberg and (fictional) Mildred Stein.  Ethel and Julius (Julie) Rosenberg and the Steins are two young couples living an high-rise in Knickerbocker Village in the Lower East Side, New York in the 1940s.  The Rosenbergs are a loving couple with 2 young sons.  The Steins, on the other hand, are in a loveless marriage with a young autistic son.

Ed Stein was an immigrant from Russia.  He and Millie married mostly because it was time and Ed needed an American wife.  When it becomes clear that their son, David, is not “normal” and is unable to communicate with anyone, Ed loses interest in him and is continually pestering Millie for another child.

At this period in history, Russians are looked upon with suspicion and communism is becoming a dirty word.  At a party of fellow communist at the Rosenberg’s apartment, Millie meets Dr. Jake Gold, who claims he is friends with the Rosenberg’s, although Ethel later denies known him.  Jake Gold is a psychologist and tells Millie that he can help her son.  Soon Millie and David are meeting Dr. Gold on a regular basis.  David takes a liking to Dr. Gold, and Millie finds herself falling in love with him.

Millie takes a trip with David, ostensibly to visit the Rosenberg’s in the Catskills, with a brief stop to be with Jake Gold.  They have a one-night stand, and Millie becomes pregnant.  Things Jake tells her, however, that Millie knows are not true.  Still, she continues to long for him, as her own marriage begins to crumble.  Can she trust Jake even though she knows he doesn’t always tell her the truth?  [Spoiler:  Jake Gold is actually an FBI agent who was investigating Soviet spies.]

Soon it becomes apparent that the FBI is on the lookout for “atomic” spies, and suspicion falls on Ed Stein, who disappears from the family, and the Rosenbergs.  The novel begins on the day Ethel Rosenberg is to be executed.  Millie believes that Ethel is innocent and claims to have proof that will exonerate her.

I found this book to be annoying.  It started off well, but Millie’s pining for Jake didn’t ring true.  Furthermore, the author changed the names of the Rosenberg’s children for no apparent reason.  Although there is a kernel of truth in the novel (the Rosenberg’s were tried, found guilty of espionage and executed), the fictional story of Millie’s life and longing for Jake got in the way of the story.

Read:  November 11, 2021

2 Stars

Books Set in North America; United States, Hollywood, California and New York, New York

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, by Taylor Jenkins Reid (2017)

 

Seventy-nine-year-old Evelyn Hugo, a former Hollywood star, is determined to tell the world her life story only if young-and-coming writer Monique Grant writes the book.  Monique is a relatively unknown magazine writer and her boss reluctantly agrees to allow Monique to work with Hugo for an exclusive in the magazine.  Monique agrees to meet daily with Evelyn as Evelyn recounts her true life story.

 

Evelyn Hugo grew up as Evelyn Herrera in Hell’s Kitchen but was determined to become an actress.  Her first husband, Ernie Diaz, whom she married as a young teen, was her vehicle out of Hell’s Kitchen.  Ernie was a former neighbor with dreams of Hollywood, so Evelyn hitched a ride with him to realize her dreams.  The marriage was short-lived, but Evelyn quickly learned to trade her sexuality to climb the ladder into the movies.  Her life becomes a fabric of lies.  Her next husband is her co-star, Don Adler, who soon becomes physically abusive.  When he leaves her, he takes steps to ruin her career.  After a couple of years, Evelyn remakes herself making avant-garde films in Europe.  Her star rises again along with another marriage, and another, and another.

 

As Evelyn marries and divorces, it is apparent that her marriages are all shams.  She marries because the studio wants her to, she marries to cover-up her true feelings and sexuality, she marries for show.  Early in her career, Evelyn met a young starlet, Celia St. James, whom she mentors, then falls in love with.  As I read this novel, I couldn’t help thinking of some of the movie stars from this era who had multiple marriages and wonder how much of this novel rings true to the causes behind their marriages.

 

We know very little about Monique other than she is of mixed race – her father, who died when she was 7, was black and her mother is white.  Spoiler: near the end of the book, we learn just why Evelyn selected Monique to write her life story.  Monique’s father was the love of one of Evelyn’s husband.

This novel portrays a very jaundiced view of Hollywood in the 1950s and ‘60s.  It kept my interest, however.

 

Read: November 9, 2021

 

4 Stars

Books Set in North America; North America; New Orleans, Louisiana

The Things We Lost to Water, by Eric Nguyen (2021)

The Things We Lost to Water is a wonderful novel about a Vietnamese family that immigrated to the United States from Vietnam after the war.  The novel begins in 1978 when pregnant Hương and her young son, Tuấn, run towards a boat to escape from Vietnam.  Hương was grasping her husband’s hand, but in the crush of people, they were separated and he stayed behind.  Hương gave birth to her second son, Bình, in a refuge camp.

Ultimately, the family finds itself in Louisiana and settle in New Orleans East.  Hương writes and continues to try to communicate with her husband Công, begging him to leave Vietnam and come to New Orleans.  Most of her letters are returned to her, however, she eventually received a postcard from him telling her not to contact him anymore.  She tells her sons that their father died in Vietnam.  His absence in the family is actually a presence in the family.  His “ghost” hovers over his sons.

The author captures New Orleans East with its shotgun houses, slummy apartment buildings and bayou filled with garbage.  As a young teen, Tuấn rebelled against his mother’s overprotection and joined a Vietnamese gang.  Although he was very young when he left Vietnam, he had some memories, hence ties, to his country of birth.  Bình, however, never lived in Vietnam, and felt American, so insisted that he be called Ben.  Ben is studious and after he landed a job with a literature professor, was able to obtain a scholarship to attend college.

Although she never stopped loving Công, Hương met and began dating Vinh, a fellow refugee with no apparent ability to hold a job.  He moves in with the family and tries to assume a surrogate father to Hương’s son.  Years later, Hương learns that Công died.  She and Tuấn return to Vietnam for his burial service.  They find that the country has vastly changed in the years since they were gone.

The novel takes the reader from the family running through water in Vietnam to facing the flooding following Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.  Water is a thread throughout this novel.  The Vietnamese word Nước means both country and water, thus the book’s title is a bit of a pun.  This novel captures the flavor of the New Orleans immigrant experience.

Read:  October 28, 2021

5 Stars

Books Set in North America, Washington State, United States

Snow Falling on Cedars, by David Guterson (1995)

 

Snow Falling on Cedars is part trial novel, part mystery.  Set in San Piedro, a remote island in the Puget Sound in the 1950s, it takes place in the years after World War II, where Kabuo Miyamoto, a Japanese-American stands trial for the murder of fellow fisherman, Carl Heine.  Many of the men of San Piedro had fought in the War, and many are still skeptical of the Japanese.

 

Although Kabuo was born in the United States, and thus was American, he was born of immigrant parents.  Even before the War, there was considerable prejudice against the Japanese who lived on the island.  Furthermore, there were laws which prevented its Japanese citizens from owning land.  Underlying this novel is a feud between the Heine and Kabuo families.  Carl’s father had an arrangement to sell Kabuo’s father 7 acres of property for growing strawberries.  Kabuo’s father was making regular payments, but before he could make the final two payments, he and his family were sent off to an internment camp.  While Miyamoto family was interned, Carl Heine’s father died.  Carl’s mother, Etta, was a bitter and prejudiced woman, who took the opportunity to sell the land to another strawberry family.  When the Miyamoto family tried to claim their land, they were surprised to find it had been sold out from under them.  This feud brewed for many years.

 

When Carl was found drowned under suspicious circumstances, the local law enforcement was quick to settle on Kabuo as their prime suspect.  The novel begins with the trial, but the story is told in flashbacks as the reader meets the characters.  The reader learns their backstories and the interactions between the townspeople and the island’s Japanese community.  As evidence piles up against Kabuo, prejudices of the entire community are exposed.  The novel builds the suspense to the end.

 

Read first: December 29, 2003 / Second time: October 21, 2021 (for Hadassah Attorney Council Book discussion)

 

4 Stars

Books Set in North America; United States

Fast Girls: The 1936 Women’s Olympic Team, by Elise Hooper (2020)

 

This is a novel that focuses on the lives of four young women athletes who competed to make the 1936 United States Olympic track team. The novel is based on the lives of Betty Robinson, Helen Stephens, Louise Stokes, and Tidye Pickett.  Each woman came from very different backgrounds and the author takes the reader back to their origin stories.

 

Running, and athletics in general, were not considered “suitable” for women at the time, and the Olympics Committee threatened to cancel future women’s events.  A strong lobby, however, kept women’s sports in the Olympics.

 

Betty Robinson was from the Chicago area and had competed in the 1928 Olympics at age 16.  While in high school, she caught the eye of the men’s track coach and was allowed to join the men’s track team.  From there, she ultimately qualified for the 1928 Olympic trials.  She had hoped to be able to compete in future Olympics, but a small plane accident in 1931 (although the story has the incident occurring in 1932), left her seriously injured.  She was not expected to live, but sheer will-power got her walking again.  Once she was walking again, her brother-in-law urged her to try running.

 

Helen Stephenson was from a small farming town in Missouri.  She was tall and gangly, and always felt like a misfit.  Her father was a poor farmer who wanted her to work and earn money for the family.  Her mother, however, had gone to college and wanted her daughter to gain an education.  Helen loved to run, and running was a way for her to be herself.

 

Louise Stokes was from a working-class Black family in Malden, Massachusetts.  She loved running but knew that she needed to help with her family’s finances.  Her church and her town, however, supported her ambition to run and provided her with the funds to join the Olympic team.  She faced discrimination but did become one of the earliest Black professional runners.

 

Tidye Pickett is the least developed character in this novel.  She, too, was a Black runner who made it to the 1936 Olympic team while fighting racism.

 

The novel also briefly delves into the politics of the 1936 Berlin Olympics.  The United States Olympic committee had debated whether or not to allow athletes to compete in the Games that were being held in Nazi Germany.  The decision to compete was close.  Some of the team members themselves, questioned whether or not they should participate in the games.

 

This is an interesting novel and the author tried to tackle such topics as feminism, racism and sexual identity.  The novel takes place when women’s sports is in its infancy and all of the women initially face obstacles intended to halt their competing for fears that it is unlady-like and will impair their ability to have children in the future.

 

I would classify this book as a Young Adult novel.  It is a book I would have really enjoyed as a junior high student.  It was an interesting look at the beginning of women’s track competitions.

 

Read:  October 16, 2021

 

3.5 Stars

 

Books Set in North America, United States, Seattle, Washington

Firefly Lane, by Kristen Hannah (2008)

 

This is a novel about a life-long friendship between two women who couldn’t be more different.  They became friends as young teens, when Tully Hart and her hippy mother, Cloud, moves into the house across the street from Kate Mularkey.  Although Kate and her mother have the normal teen mother-daughter struggles, she comes from a stable middle-class family.  Tully, on the other hand, lives mostly with her grandmother unless her mother floats into her life for brief periods.

 

Tully is a risk taker.  She decided early on that she was going to become a star reporter.  Nothing will stop in her way.  As teens, both girls were going to pursue that path, but that wasn’t the route that Kate wanted.  Kate knows that Tully always gets what she wants.  When both young women intern at the local television station, both are smitten by Johnny.

 

Sadly, this book is filled with cliches.  I quickly tired of the constant pop culture references beginning in the 1970s and continued throughout the length of the book, which ended around 2008.  The author constantly teases the reader into thinking that a rift will divide the friendship, and hints that the rift will be over Johnny.  The rift, which the reader knows is coming, is actually over another matter.

 

As Kate and Johnny’s daughter, Marah, becomes a teenager, she and Kate enter into their own teen-age mother/daughter struggle.  Marah turns to her “Aunt Tully”, who typically takes Marah’s side.  Hence the rift, which actually came about when Tully basically accused Kate of being an overprotective mother on live television.  After this event, the two women didn’t speak to each other for some unspecified years.

 

The point the author is trying to make is that in life, family is what matters most.  This comes only in the last 30 or so pages (and this is quite a long book).  As the book nears the end, we learn that Kate, who married Johnny after she became pregnant, has inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) and is dying.  She thinks that Tully is after Johnny but has reconciled with that thought.  Although Johnny had a one-night stand with Tully before he and Kate married, he was truly in love with Kate.

 

I read the book in its entirety.  If this had been the first book I read by Kristen Hannah, it would not have been inclined to read her other books.

 

Read:  October 10, 2021

 

3 Stars

Books Set in Africa: Cairo, Egypt

Sipping from the Nile: My Exodus from Egypt, by Jean Naggar (2008)

 

Sipping from the Nile is a memoir of a young women who grew up in a wealthy and privileged Jewish family in Egypt.  The author was born in December 1937, on the cusp of World War II.  She grew up in a pampered and sheltered environment, so the horrors of the War largely escaped her.

 

Although her family had Italian passports, they had roots in Egypt going back centuries.  Over the years, the family had amassed an enormous fortune through banking and lived in a large mansion with many servants.  They were integral members of high Egyptian society and rubbed shoulders with high level diplomats and kings.

 

As a young girl growing up, she and her family traveled extensively throughout Europe and she (as well as other members of the family) was fluent in many languages, including English, Italian, French and Arabic.  When she entered high school, she was sent to a boarding school in England.  It was her first time being separated from her family and, although it gave her some freedom, she was also very along among her British classmates.

 

It wasn’t until the Suez crisis in 1956 that the author began to realized that being Jewish in Egypt had consequences.  Although she describes the losses of their home and property, as she recounts the family’s life in exile, they seemed not to have suffered too badly financially.  She is still able to maintain a high-society lifestyle.

 

I found the first part of the memoir more interesting that the latter part.  I tired of reading of all the “fabulous” connections her family made: winning Olympic medals, meeting all the rich and famous, all the designer clothing her mother had commissioned, etc.

 

Interestingly, it wasn’t until after she moved to the United States that she began to realized that her Jewishness was and identifying factor.  While growing up in Egypt, although her family was Jewish and observed all the rituals and holidays, being Jewish was just a fact of life (until after WWII and the country itself had a massive political turnabout).

 

Scattered throughout the book are numerous family photos and scene of Egypt.  They added to the book, and I enjoyed perusing them.

 

Read: October 4, 2021

 

3.5 Stars

 

 

Books Set in North America; United States, Baltimore, Maryland

A Patchwork Planet, by Anne Tyler (1998)

 

This novel is narrated by Barnaby Gaitlin, the black sheep of his wealthy family.  As a teenager, Barnaby and his friends got their kicks breaking onto other people’s homes.  Instead of going for the money and valuable objects, however, Barnaby liked to read people’s diaries and look at photos.  His antics eventually got him in trouble, and he was sent to a reform school.  His teenage past is told slowly through his memories as he moves forward in his life.

 

Barnaby works at manual labor at a company called Rent-a-Back.  His job mainly involves doing small chores for elderly clients.  Although he could work for his family Foundation, he prefers living a quiet life, albeit one with little money or future prospects.

 

He had a short-lived marriage, and now has a young daughter, who lives with her mother and stepfather.  Barnaby visits her once a month.  Because she lives in a different town, he must take a train to see her.  On one of his train trips, Barnaby meets Sofia Maynard, who is on the train on one of her regular visits to see her disagreeable mother.

 

When Sofia learns of Barnaby’s job, she arranges for him to do some small tasks for her Aunt Grace.  All goes well until Grace accuses Barnaby of stealing her lifesaving, which, because she doesn’t trust banks, she kept hidden in her flour bin.  Barnaby claimed he never touched it, but the accusation causes him to reevaluate his life.

 

I would call this a very quiet novel, but one in which the characters are interesting, and the reader wants to know how they navigate their lives.

 

Read:  October 2, 2021.  I first read this book on May 17, 1999.

 

4 Stars

 

Books Set in Australia

Picnic at Hanging Rock, by Joan Lindsay (1967)

 

The year is 1900.  On Valentine’s Day a group of young women who attend the Appleyard College for Young Ladies, private boarding school set out for a picnic at the infamous Hanging Rock in central Victoria, Australia.  Mrs. Appleyard, the Headmistress of the school, is very strict and has very rigid rules that the girls must follow.  She also keeps financial tabs on the students, taking care to garner to the wealthiest.

 

After their picnic lunch, several of the young women and one of the chaperones set off on a hike towards the Hanging Rock.  Come time to return to the school, these women were nowhere to be found.  Their mysterious disappearance is the beginning of a series of strange and dark events for the school and those involved in searching for the young women.

 

A search party is sent out to find the young women, but to no avail.  The girls’ disappearance sets the locals tongues wagging:  Were the girls abducted, murdered, “or worse”?  Meanwhile, while the girls set off, they passed the wealthy and privileged Michael Fitzhubert and his course coachman Albert Crundall.  Albert cat-calls the girls, much to Michael’s chagrin.  When he learns the girls are missing, Michael decides to go look for them on his own.  He discovers Irma, one of the young women, unconscious and near death lying on a rock.  Before he can return home, he falls and is rendered unconscious when Albert finds him.

 

Ultimately, both Irma and Michael rescued, Irma to the Appleyard College, and Michael to his uncle’s summer home, where they recover from their injuries.  Irma has no recollection of what happened at Hanging Rock.  Michael, seemingly to be of weak disposition, takes weeks to recover from his wounds.

 

Irma was one of the wealthiest students, so when her father informed Mrs. Appleyard that she would not be returning after the Easter Holidays, Mrs. Appleyard becomes concerned.  Soon other parents are withdrawing their daughters from the school.  Teachers and staff also begin to leave their employment with the school.

 

Spoiler Alert:  One student, Sara, is an orphan and not a favorite of Mrs. Appleyard.  When Sara’s guardian fails to send in his payment for the term, Mrs. Appleyard punishes Sara by not allowing her to continue art lessons.  Then, Mrs. Appleyard suddenly announced that Sara’s guardian was coming to collect her from the school.  Mrs. Appleyard insists that she, herself, will welcome the guardian and see Sara off.  After Sara is ostensibly sent away, under circumstances that seem strange to the remaining staff, we learn that Mrs. Appleyard receives a letter from the guardian apologizing for not remitting Sara’s tuition.  What really happened to Sara?

 

The novel ends with Mrs. Appleyard ostensible leaving the school to visit friends.  Instead, she set an elaborate plan to leave the school, head for the Hanging Rock and meet her demise.

 

This novel delves into several characters.  It was a bit hard to understand as there was a considerable amount of Aussie slang, which I am not familiar with.

 

Read: August 22, 2021

 

3 Stars

Books Set in Europe: England

Bitter Orange, by Claire Fuller (2018)

This is a very strange book.  The year is 1969.  Frances Jellico is a self-taught expert on English garden architecture and bridges.  Her mother, with whom she has been living, has just died, so 39-year old Frances has accepted a job cataloguing a dilapidated English manor that was recently purchased by a wealthy American.  Frances has lived a very sheltered life.

She has been relegated to live in two attic rooms in the manor.  She will be sharing space in the house with Cara and Peter, who have also been hired by the American to catalogue the contents of the manor.  They have the rooms below Frances’s attic apartment.  Before she formally meets them, Frances discovers that there is a peephole in her bathroom where she can see into Cara and Peter’s bathroom.

Cara is inclined to tell stories.  Although she is from Ireland, she pretends that she is Italian.  After leaving her home behind in Ireland, she recreated herself as an Italian and spins tales of her so-called exotic life.  Frances is gullible and believes Cara’s tales, but Peter warns her that all is not what it seems.  But is Peter being straight up with Frances?

The novel jumps from 1969 to 20 years in the future when Frances is dying in a hospital bed remembering the past.  As we delve into the novel, we realized the events of that 1969 summer were much darker than they first appeared.

I was intrigued by the initial portion of the novel, but the last third seemed to drag.

Read:  July 21, 2021

3 Stars

Books Set in Europe: England

The Midnight Library, by Matt Haig (2020)

 

Nothing is going right for Nora Seed.  She is 35 years old, she just lost her job, her brother is upset with her, her best friend moved to Australia, and her cat is dead.  She is depressed and just wants to end it all.  So she does.  She takes an overdose of antidepressants and goes to sleep.

 

Then, just a midnight, she awakens in the Midnight Library.  It’s that place where some people go that is between life and death, but still have a choice to live or die.  The library is huge and is filled with endless books.  The librarian is Mrs. Elm, the school librarian of Nora’s childhood.  Mrs. Elm explains to her that the books are filled with alternative choices that Nora could have taken.

 

Nora is first given a book entitled The Book of Regrets, which is filled with regrets, large and small, in Nora’s life.  As she ponders over some of the regrets, they fade away as they become meaningless.  As she selects other books in the library, she gets a glimpse of what her life could have been had she not made some of her choices.  For a brief time, she gets to sample the lives she might have experienced had she made different choices.  What would have happened if she hadn’t gotten cold feet two days before her wedding to Dan?  In the first book she selects, she finds herself outside a pub and is married to Dan.  After she quickly sees that she was living in Dan’s dream life, she fades away and is back in the Library.  So, she makes other book selections and tries on different lives.

 

Nora can remember events from her past “choices” so sometimes the people she meets in one “life” come back in another.

 

This was a quiet and gentle story as Nora sees what could have been and has to make the ultimate decision.  Does she want to live or die?  Will she be granted that choice, or will the decision be made for her if the library time passes midnight?

 

I loved this book.

 

Read:  July 18, 2021

 

5 Stars

 

 

 

Books Set in North America: the United States

How to Fight Anti-Semitism, by Bari Weiss (2019)

 

Antisemitism is on the rise in the United States.  In this book, journalist Bari Weiss provides a brief history of antisemitism in the Western world and how it has manifested itself throughout the years.  Antisemitism has many faces.   It displays itself very differently depending on one’s political bent.  Some displays of antisemitism are obvious and violent.  Other displays are more subtle.  I found the first part of this book to be all over the map, as the author wanted to include so much.

 

The last chapter of the book was the most informative and provided tools that American Jews must use to combat antisemitism.

 

Read:  July 17, 2021

 

3 Stars

 

Books Set in North America: Canada: Ontario

The Culprit, by Martin Sasek (2020)

 

This is a memoir about the family’s life with animals with most of the focus on their pet kitten the author acquired after he and his wife became empty nesters.  It was at times funny, but the book could have used a good editor.  There were too many exclamation marks and grammatical errors that were distracting.  This book was recommended by a woman in one of my gym classes.  It was a fair read for the flight from Boston, Massachusetts to Charlotte, North Carolina.

 

Read:  July 14, 2021

 

2 Stars

 

Books Set in North America; United States, Washington, D.C.

The President’s Club: Inside the World’s Most Exclusive Fraternity, by Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy (2012)

 

The modern President’s Club began when Dwight David Eisenhower became President of the United States.  At the time, there were two living former Presidents: Herbert Hoover and Harry S Truman.  Although the two former Presidents had very different politics from Eisenhower, both were the only two people in the world who understood the pressures of being the leader of the free world.  They were there to provide support and advice to Eisenhower.

 

Since that time, former Presidents have made themselves available to the current President for support and advice.  Note, however, that this book was published in 2012, so only applied to presidents up to Barack Obama.  The former Presidents all knew that the most important aspect of American democracy was to protect the Office regardless of which individual held it.

 

Interestingly, there was some controversy regarding the vote count in the 1960 election.  John F Kennedy had won the election, but Richard Nixon believed (and there is evidence to support this contention), that votes in Illinois were skewed in favor of Kennedy.  Nixon was advised by the former Presidents not to contest the election to protect the legitimacy of the Presidency.

 

The role of former Presidents has been the background so as not to diminish the leadership of the current President.  Although egos and personalities can influence decisions, the authors provide anecdotes showing how presidents can warm up to, and become friends, with their successors.

 

This was an interesting and eye-opening account of the interaction of former Presidents with the current President, at least up until the 2016 election.  It makes one wonder how the immediate past President’s action may impact the Office in the future.

 

Read: Summer 2021

 

3 Stars

Books Set in North America, United States, New York, New York

The Wife, the Maid, and the Mistress, by Ariel Lawhon (2014)

 

In August 1930, Judge Joseph Crater disappeared off the streets of New York City.  His disappearance remains an unsolved mystery to this day.

 

The Wife, the Maid, and the Mistress is a fictionalized retelling of his disappearance and offers a possible explanation to account for what happened to him.  While the Carters were vacationing in their Maine summer cottage, the Judge received a phone call and told his wife that he must return to the City immediately.  She never saw him again.

 

New York in the 1920s and 30s, was during the time of the Tammany Hall political scandal.  Political positions were procured through bribes and corruption.  Carter had recently gotten a position on the State Supreme Court through these channels.  He frequented a speak-easy owned by a known gangster and was fond of Broadway theater and showgirls.  As depicted in this novel, the showgirls got their jobs through giving themselves to the men operating the theaters, often gangsters.  (Not unlike the pressure used by some film producers in Hollywood).

 

Sally Lou Ritz, known as Ritzi, was one such showgirl, and was the mistress of Carter.  She was one of the last individuals to have seen Judge Carter.  She testified that she had dinner with him at a fancy restaurant in the theater district on the night he disappeared, but claimed she was dating another associate of Carter.

 

Once the maid, Maria, entered the Carter’s Manhattan apartment to clean, thinking that the Carters were in Maine, and walked in on the Judge and Ritzi.  Thus, further complicating her with the Judge’s disappearance and Stella, his wife.  The author suggests that the three women conspired to have Carter killed.

 

There are many twists and turns in this riveting tale.  At the time, it was quite a sensational story and was in all the newspapers.  At the end of this novel, the author provides a brief summary of the characters, most of whom were real people and many of the events in the book actually happened.  The author does indicate where she used poetic license.

 

This was a fast read and very entertaining.

 

Read:  June 30, 2021

 

4 Stars

Books Set in Europe; France

Code Name Hélène, by Ariel Lawhon (2020)

Code Name Hélène is a biographical novel about Nancy Grace Augusta Wake (1912 ~ 2011), the Australian woman who joined the French Resistance and later became a Special Operations Executive (SOE) during World War II.

 

She left her native country and landed in Paris in 1936, where she bluffed her way into becoming a freelance journalist for Hearst.  While in Paris, she met the wealthy French industrialist Henri Fiocca.  She played hard to get, but ultimately, they married and moved to Marseille, where Henri’s business was headquartered.

 

In 1940, Nancy convinced her husband to purchase her a truck that she used as an ambulance to transport wounded soldiers.  Soon, she found herself in the French Resistance.  She had a strong personality and became one of its lone female leaders.  She acquired many code names, including the titled Hélène, as well as a The White Mouse, the name the Nazi’s gave her.  During the War, she helped smuggle Jews out of France into Spain, she fought the Germans occupying France, and she spied for Britain.

 

This novel reads like a suspense novel.  It is not told chronologically, so it is important to note the dates at the heading of each chapter.  The story unfolds in such a remarkable manner.  In the author’s afterward, we learn that most of the events and characters in the book are real and actually happened.  I found I couldn’t put this book down.

Read: June 28, 2021

5 Stars 

Books Set in North America, Canada, Newfoundland, Gander

The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland, by Jim Defede (2020)

 

On Tuesday morning, September 11, 2001, after terrorists crashed 4 planes on United States territory.  United States airspace was immediately closed, so the planes bound for the US were ordered to either return to their country of origin, or if they had passed the half-way point, to land at the nearest airport.  Thirty-eight planes were diverted to the remote town of Gander International Airport in Newfoundland.  The airport had once been a military base, so had exceptionally long landing fields.

 

Gander, however, was a very small, remote town in Newfoundland ~ far from any major city.  The townspeople were so welcoming.  When they learned of the tragedy unfolding in the United States, the townspeople opened their arms and welcomed thousands of the stranded passengers.  They immediately opened up churches and schools to make room for the passengers to sleep, they brought their own bedding and towels for the passengers.  Many people welcomed passengers into their homes.

 

No one knew initially how long it would be before planes could once again fly into the United States.  Over the next four days, many of the passengers became friends with the Gander townspeople.  Most of the passengers were grateful for the assistance.  When planes were initially given clearance, passengers believed they would be flying directly back to the United States, but some planes were ordered back to their country of origin.  Most passengers understood this, and accepted this inconvenience.  A couple of families, however, chose to find their own way back home.  (I found I had little sympathy for their behaviour.)

 

One passenger was Werner Baldessarini, the then-chairman of Hugo Boss.  He had been on his way to New York for Fashion Week.  He had the opportunity to have a private jet come and collect him, but he appreciated the kindness and humanity of the residents of Gander, so stayed with his fellow passengers.  As a show of thanks, many of the stranded passengers collected money to provide scholarships and computer equipment for the Gander schools.

 

This book provided the inspiration for the musical Came From Away, which I saw a few years ago and loved.  This book shows that there is good in the world even in the face of evil.

 

Read:  June 20, 2021

 

5 Stars