Books Set in Europe: Paris, France

The Room on Rue Amélie, by Kristin Harmel (2018)

The Room on Rue Amélie reads like a young adult sanitized version of Nazi occupation of Paris during World War II.

The novel focuses on Ruby Henderson Benoit, a young American woman who meets the French Marcel Benoit in a coffee shop in New York and marries him 6 months later.  They move to Paris in the late 1930s against her parent’s objections.  She is determined to become a true Parisian.  (She had learned French in school and can apparently speak a passable version of the language, albeit with an accent.)

Her marriage soon sours.  Marcel spends long hours away from their apartment and never explains his absences.  Since his character was not developed, we don’t know why Ruby fell for him in the first place, other than he was very handsome.  We do learn, however, that he is involved in the French resistance and has been hiding downed Allied pilots in a secret room in the hallway of their apartment building.  Marcel doesn’t want his wife to be involved in the Resistance, she wants to feel useful in the War effort.  She learns of the secret room and becomes involved in the escape line for downed pilots.

When the RAF pilot, Thomas, appears at her door, she falls head-over-heels in love.  The author doesn’t explain the attraction.  Why this pilot?  She harbors numerous downed soldiers.  We learn as much of some of the other soldiers as we do Thomas.

A Jewish family lives in the apartment next door.  Young Charlotte befriends Ruby.  When the French police round up Jewish families, Ruby promises Charlotte’s parents she will take care of her should anything happen.  Soon young Charlotte, who is forced to grow up very quickly, becomes involved in the resistance as well.

This was a very quick read, and something that I could see myself enjoying when I was about 12 years old.  The characters were not fully developed and the book did not depict the actual horrors and fears of living in Paris during the Nazi occupation.

Read:  July 6, 2020

3 Stars

Books Set in North America; United States; New York

The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother, by James McBride (1995)

The Color of Water is a touching memoir of James McBride’s mother.  The book alternates between McBride, in his voice, telling about his life growing up and his mother’s voice recounting her life.  The author was an adult before he learned of his mother’s background.

Ruth McBride Jordon was born on April Fool’s Day in 1921 in Poland to an Orthodox Jewish family.  Her given name was Ruchel Dwajra Zylska.  When she was 2 years old, she immigrated to the United States with her mother and older brother.  Her father had already settled in the United States.  She became known as Rachel once in America, but later changed her name to Ruth because she thought it sounded more “American.”  Ruth is an interesting choice, since there is a Biblical Ruth who is known for converting to Judaism.  Ruth McBride, however, tried to hide her Jewish roots and converted to Christianity.

When the author finally confronts his mother about her past, she acknowledges that they sat shiva for her 50 years earlier, as she became dead to them when she left her Jewish background and married a Black man.  We slowly learn of her childhood.  Her parents were in an arranged marriage and there was no love between her father and mother.

As a child, he would sometimes ask his mother why she looked different from the mothers of his friends, but her response was simply that she was “light-skinned.”

Life in the McBride home was not easy, but it was filled with love.  The author was one of 12 children.  The author never knew his father who died of cancer shortly before his birth.  Sometime after the death of her first husband, Ruth remarried Hunter Jordan, another Black man, who became a loving stepfather to James and 7 older siblings.  Ruth and Hunter would have another 4 children.  Jordan did like the chaos of so many children, so lived apart from the family except for weekends.

Ruth was a formidable woman and saw to it that all of her children went to college, and many went on to earn graduate degrees.  All the while, James, as a bi-racial child coming of age in the 1970s faced questions of his identity and race.  The author’s initial impression of the Jewish community seems harsh, but he was initially learning of Judaism through the eyes of his mother, who left an abusive and unloving childhood home.  Through his mother and his stepfather, whom he called Daddy, he learns a life of love and the important things in life.

I loved this book and look forward to reading other books by James McBride.

Read:  June 17, 2020

5 Stars

Books Set in Asia: Israel

The 188th Crybaby Brigade: A Skinny Kid from Chicago Fights Hezbollah, by Joel Chasnoff (2010)

Joel Chasnoff, the author of this memoir is a stand-up comedian, who, at the age of 24 decided that he wanted to join the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).  Chasnoff grew up in a Conservative home in the United States, but felt a strong connection to Israel.  He had made a couple of visits to Israel, and as he explored his Jewishness, he decided he wanted to fulfill his long desire to serve in the IDF.  He describes his entry into the IDF, where he was assigned to the Armored Corps.

This book describes the rigors of the basic training and the bonds formed with his fellow soldiers.  At age 24, he was years older than his fellow recruits, who were all still in their teens.  His superior officers were barely in their 20s.  He is trained as a tank gunner, and after initial training, finds himself in the Golan on the Israel-Lebanon border.

On his rare days off, he visits his Israeli girlfriend and her family in Tel Aviv.  His training schedule is exhausting and on his time off, he only wants to veg.  His girlfriend, however, wants to party.  Maintaining a relationship is not easy.

When Chasnoff and his girlfriend decide to get married, he also learns just what it means to be a Jew in Israel.  Parts of this book were laugh-out-loud funny.  Other parts certainly provide food for thought.

This book was an easy and enjoyable read.

Read:  June 11, 2020

4 Stars

Books Set in North America and Europe

The Secrets We Kept, by Lara Prescot (2019)

The Secrets We Kept is a fascinating historical fiction about how the novel Dr. Zhivago made its way out of the Soviet Union and earned Boris Pasternak the 1958 Nobel Prize in Literature.  The CIA played a role in that endeavor.  The novel is told through many voices, including that of Olga Ivinslaya, Pasternak’s long-term lover, and the women in the CIA’s typing pool.

Pasternak’s manuscript had been banned from publication in the Soviet Union on grounds that it shed a bad light on the political situation in that country.  The manuscript was spirited out of the Soviet Union and the Italian publisher, Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, had the novel translated into Italian where is was first published.  

The 1950s were marked by the Cold War.  The CIA believed that freedom produced great art, thus initiated its “cultural diplomacy”, designed to expose the non-free world with music and literature of the West.  Russia was known for its great authors and literature.  When rumors abounded that Russian author, Boris Pasternak, had written a sweeping historical epic, interest in the West was piqued.

Once the CIA learned that the manuscript had reached beyond the Iron Curtain, it took steps to publish the novel in Russian and secretly slip it back into its home of origin.  In the 1950s, women had very few employment opportunities.  This novel focuses on several women who were employed by the CIA, ostensibly in the typing pool, but who were also recruited as carriers or swallows for spying on the Soviet Union.  While the women depicted in the novel are fictional, many of the other characters in the novel are real.

This was a fun novel and it has inspired me to find a copy of Dr. Zhivago to re-read.

Read: June 6, 2020

4 Stars

Books Set in Australia and Asia; China

The Song of the Jade Lily, by Kirsty Manning (2019)

This historical novel jumps back and forth between the present (2016) and the late 1930s’ through the end of World War II.  In the present, Alexandra Laird has a high-powered job with a financial company in London and has sought a transfer to Shanghai.  The transfer request was for three reasons: to escape part escape from a bad break-up; to be closer to her grandparents who live in Australia; and to learn about her birth mother who had been born in Shanghai.  Alexandra’s parents were killed when she was very young had had been raised by her grandparents, Romy and Wilhem Cohen.  Alexandra’s mother was ostensibly adopted and was of Chinese ancestry.  She is curious about her mother’s origins, but her grandparents have been very secretive about her past.

In flashbacks, we meet Alexandra’s grandmother, Romy.  Twelve-year-old Romy and her parents, who were Jews, fled Vienna shortly after Kristallnacht and made their way to Shanghai.  China was one of the few countries in the 1930 that was accepting Jewish immigrants.  They were not, apparently, practicing Jews in China, but their religious affiliation was not a problem in China.

In Shanghai, Romy met Li Ho, a beautiful young girl who is Romy’s age and the two become fast friends.  Li Ho’s father was a doctor in Eastern medicine, which intrigued Romy.  She picked up some herbal treatment methods, which she employed throughout her life.

Initially, Shanghai was safe.  In the 1930s it was a major international city.  Late in World War II, however, Shanghai fell under Japanese control and the city became very dangerous.  There are parallels between the brutish treatment of the Nazi’s towards the Jews and the Japanese soldiers’ treatment of the Chinese.  Li’s parents were active in the resistance, which lead to a tragic result.  Li and her brother then had to take whatever steps necessary to survive.

The description so Shanghai bring the city to life with its sight and smells.  Unfortunately, the characters are lacking and are not fully developed.  Alexandra too quickly falls into a new relationship that doesn’t quite fit as described in the novel.

The novel was a very quick read, although it could have used a better editor.  There were several places where the author repeated herself.  The twist at the end, however, made the book a worthwhile read.

Read:  May 25, 2020

3 Stars

Books Set in Africa and Europe; Egypt and France

Zarafa: A Giraffe’s True Story, from Deep in Africa to the Heart of Paris, by Michael Allin (1998)

This is the delightful story of how, in 1826, a baby giraffe was captured in the Sudan and transported to Paris as a gift from Muhammad Ali, Ottoman viceroy to Egypt, to Charles X, King of France.  In the process, the reader is treated to a brief glimpse of the world as exploration in Egypt was opening up, compliments of Napoleon.

Napoleon exposed Egypt to Europe.  For centuries, the artifacts of ancient Egypt had been buried to the world.  After Napoleon’s army landed in Egypt, Europeans began looting its tombs for profit.  Europe was intrigued.  Muhammad Ali, a brutal ruler to his own people, wanted to forge a link to Europe, so arranged to have a baby giraffe captured and transported to France as a gift to the post-Revolution King of France.

Allin explained how it was possible to trap the young giraffe, probably no more that 2 months old at its capture, and have it sent down the Nile River, across the Mediterranean, and finally the long walk from Marseille to Paris.  The young giraffe had not yet been weaned, it could be separated from its mother, while it was still tame.  Because it hadn’t been weaned, several cows travelled with it to provide it with 25 gallons of milk per day.  Details of the trip from its initial capture until it reached Cairo are sketchy, however, detailed records existed on the trip from Cairo to Paris.  Two and a half years after its capture, it entered Paris, where it lived for the next 19 years.

Modern Europeans had never seen such an exotic animal before, so during its trek through France, hordes of people flocked to see the creature.  The reader learns that the ancient Romans had imported exotic animals for gladiator fights, but that had long been forgotten.

This is a fun book that describes not only a bit about the lives of giraffes, but also a slice of political life in France at the beginning of the 1800s.

Read:  May 23, 2020

4 Stars

Books Set in Europe: England

Queen of Shadows: A Novel of Isabella, Wife of Edward II, by Edith Felber (2006)

This historical novel is as much the story of Isabella, Queen consort of England and wife of Edward II, King of England as it is her lady-in-waiting, Gwenith de Percy.  Gwenith was a young Welsh woman who landed herself a position on the English Court bent on revenge for the actions of Isabella’s father-in-law, Edward I.  Edward I had conquered the Wales and stripped the nobility of its lands.  He the process, he named his son the first English Prince of Wales.

Isabella, the French princess and daughter of Philip IV, King of France, arrived in England at age 12 to marry then Edward, Prince of Wales.  She soon learned that her husband had a string of male lovers.  Despite this, they have 4 children together.

When Edward became King Edward II, he proved to be a weak king.  This allowed the the young and ambitious Hugh Despenser to dig his claws into Edward.  Hugh became Edward’s lover, but with the idea of becoming ruler of the country.  Isabella recognized that Hugh’s interest in Edward was not on altruistic grounds.  She despised him.

Meanwhile, Gwenith became friendly with the Welsh baron Owain de Rhys.  He first initiated a friendship with her in hopes that she would be able to convince Isabella to spare fellow Welshman Roger Mortimer his life.  Mortimer had been in prison awaiting his execution at the hands of Edward, or more likely Hugh Despenser.  Gwenith convinced the Queen to visit Mortimer in prison.

Mortimer and the Queen became lovers and she was able plan his escape from the Tower of London.  Soon Isabella and Mortimer were plotting to overthrow Edward.

While reading this novel, I did a lot of fact-checking and most of the events depicted in the novel corresponded to actual historical events.

I enjoyed this book.  It is a fast read, and interesting because it tells the story of King Edward from Isabella’s point of view.

Read:  May 14, 2020

4 Stars