The Best of 2014

In 2014, I cracked the cover of 66 books, making it to the last page of all but five. Using the same 15% rule that I've used in the past (2013, 2012, and 2011),  I should select the 9.9 best books. What follows is the best of my 2014 reading list - 5 fiction and 5 non-fiction - with two honorable mentions tacked on. Happy reading!

Revolutionary Medicine: The Founding Fathers and Mothers in Sickness and in Health
(reviewed January 20, 2014)
Jeanne E. Abrams reveals the extent to which elite, early Americans (George and Martha Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson, for example) were marked at every stage of life by death and disease. There is not one who hasn't lost a child or spouse to what we look upon today as a highly treatable disease. The denizens of Washington, DC, are laid low by malaria with alarming regularity in Washington's time; today, such a diagnosis in the city would be regarded as singularly peculiar - and alarming. Revolutionary Medicine also serves as portrait of how medicine has changed. In the time of days of the Founding Fathers, an educated person knew as much of medicine as, perhaps, their physician - who may or may not have ever studied medicine...

Twenties Girl
(reviewed January 24, 2014)
Sophie Kinsella has created a lighthearted masterpiece here. Lara Lington's life is a wreck, and that's before her great aunt Sadie begins haunting her, harassing her about finding a missing necklace, without which she cannot go to her eternal rest. Did I mention that Lara never met Aunt Sadie while the woman lived? Or that Sadie is also determined that, in addition to finding the necklace, Lara will also learn the Charleston? Twenties Girl is completely and utterly over-the-top. It is ridiculous in the best sense of the word and it is hilarious pretty much from start to finish.

A Walk in the Woods
(reviewed April 17, 2014)
Bill Bryson wins the prize for best travel writing in 2014. Bryson, you see, has decided to hike the Appalachian Trail. Rather than hike alone, he has persuaded an old high school buddy to hike with him. Never mind that they've not seen each other for some 15 or 20 years. No, it's until the buddy, Stephen, shows up on the eve of the hike seriously overweight and badly out of shape that Bryson begins to doubt his plan. What ensues is general hilarity. From nutty fellow hikers to those who pick up hitchhikers to innkeepers and cab drivers, Bryson brings color - and humor - to each day's long, hard slog.

Cutting for Stone
(reviewed June 15, 2014)
Abraham Verghese made me cry. Not little sniffles, either. He is by far the only author about whom I can say that this year. (In fact, no book has come close to imparting the emotional trauma of Cutting for Stone since Leila Meacham's Roses, which I read in 2010.) This is an epic, sweeping novel that travels from early-twentieth century India to mid-century Ethiopia and onward to twenty-first century America. It is the story of Marion and Shiva Praise Stone, but more than that it is a story of man's unparalleled ability to make terrible, terrible decisions, most often when blinded by love. The prose is lovely and wisdom - "We come unbidden into this life, and if we are lucky we find a purpose beyond starvation, misery, and early death which, lest we forget, is the common lot." - is more than page deep.

Elizabeth is Missing
(reviewed July 16, 2014)
Emma Healey's Elizabeth is Missing is not only well-written and well-constructed (often a challenge for books with parallel narratives), but it is also a stunning, poignant look at aging and dementia. Maud's friend, Elizabeth, is missing. Or maybe not: Maud can't really remember. But as she tries to make sense of Elizabeth's disappearance, memories flood back of another disappearance, this of her older sister Sukey who simply vanished in 1946. The reader can feel the losses and confusion mount around Maud and her daughter Helen, whom Maud is often unable to recognize. Healey creates a genuine portrait of a woman falling away from the world, which is terrifying in its realness.

The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street
(reviewed August 26, 2014)
Susan Jane Gilman's novel begins when five-year-old Malka Treynovsky arrives in New York in 1913. Three months later she's crippled in an accident and abandoned. Taken in by an Italian family, Malka becomes Lillian, and ultimately marries the handsome but illiterate Albert Dunkle, with whom she builds an empire of ice cream shops starting with a single truck. Soon, Lillian is the head of an ice cream empire and a celebrity in her own right, which is wonderful for her right up until it isn't: when she finds herself on trial for both tax evasion and assault. In the midst of this double ordeal, Lillian has decided to share her ordeal with us, darlings, and her voice is what makes Ice Cream Queen the masterpiece that it is.

The Great Match Race: When North Met South in America's First Sports Spectacle
(reviewed October 17, 2014) 
John Eisenberg has taken a single event - and a horse race, at that - that happened nearly 200 years ago and imbues it with a level of suspense and outsize importance such that the reader feels the outcome truly matters. In 1823, a southern horse and a northern horse squared off in the first mass sporting event in American history. That summer, the race to be the fastest horse was merely a stand-in in the decades-long superiority contest between North and South that would culminate in the Civil War four decades later.

The Long Way Home: An American Journey from Ellis Island to the Great War
(reviewed November 5, 2014)
David Laskin has painstakingly reconstructed the histories of a dozen young, fresh immigrants to the United States, all of whom - by choice or by chance - return to the "Old Country" as soldiers in their adopted country's army to face the horrors of World War I. In Europe, some men barely see war, while others become heroes. As with the Doughboys write large, most of Laskin's subjects make it home after the Armistice, but some do not. As much about the immigrant experience as the soldier's, The Long Way Home is illuminating on both fronts.

Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932
(reviewed November 29, 2014)
Francine Prose has crafted the most amazingly constructed novel I have ever read. At its heart, this is the biography of Lou Villars, a cross-dressing, javelin-thrower-turned-race-car-driver, Hitler revering, collaboratrice extraordinaire. What makes Lovers so remarkable is that Prose has written, essentially, the biography of a woman who never existed (Lou Villars) written by an author who never existed, the chapters of which are interspersed with chapters from the memoir of a heroine of the Resistance, the unpublished diary of another Resistance hero, famous works of an American writer and Hemingway contemporary, and letters to his parents penned by a Hungarian photographer. There are also chapters devoted to the memories of the owner of the Chameleon Club. And none of these people ever existed: this is not historical fiction based on actual people; it is fiction transported to another time. This book is a fabulous, dizzying ride at the end of which the reader can't help but wish to have been there, Paris's lover, if only for a moment.

A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small in Mooreland, Indiana
(reviewed December 24, 2014) 
Haven Kimmel's memoir is written in a lighthearted and self-deprecating tone, and the many quirky characters of Mooreland, Indiana, (population: 300) come to life in the pages of Zippy. Unlike many other memoirs, this is a small story of a small life, but there is a touching sweetness to it, and a humor to which anyone familiar with small, Midwestern towns can connect. Fittingly, Growing Up Small is a small book, and a quick and happy read.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Villa Triste
(reviewed July 23, 2014)
Lucretia Grindle has actually written two books here, one historical fiction and one modern-day mystery, and woven them together rather ingeniously. Caterina Cammaccio is a nurse by day and a reluctant partisan (or Italian resistance fighter) by night in wartime Florence, which is simultaneously occupied by Nazis and overrun with fascists. Flashing to the present day, Giovanni Trantemento, an elderly and decorated former partisan, has been brutally murdered in his own home. As Florence's top cop, it's up to Alessandro Palliotti to solve the crime, but when another former partisan is similarly murdered elsewhere in Italy, it's clear to him that Trantemento's murder wasn't a mere crime of opportunity. I won't spoil the mystery - or how they connect - but I will say that Grindle has pulled off both parts of her novel beautifully, while creating an array of remarkable characters.

The Moor's Account
(reviewed December 27, 2014) 
Laila Lalami's novel is grounded in actual events: In 1527 the Pánfilo de Narváez expedition set off for the New World only to be beset by every trouble that could plague a sixteenth centruy explorer. Narváez, in fact, was carried out to sea on a raft and never seen or heard of again. Four men (of the six hundred or so who set off for the new world) did survive: Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Alonso del Castillo Maldonado, Andrés Dorantes de Carranza, and his Moroccan slave, Estebanico. Cabeza de Vaca returned to Spain achieved great fame with his account of their journey. The Moor's Account is Lalami's telling of this same story, but from the perspective of Estebanico. It is a beautifully written and captivating tale.

In the Land of the Living

In the Land of the Living is billed as a coming of age story. That seems to be a catchall all category for books that don't follow a tidy narrative. And, truly, the most trying thing about this book is that it isn't really about anything. It is an amble through the lives of the Auberon men. What's more, the first generation - Ezer - and two-thirds of the second generation - Dennis and Burt - simply vanish from the story. Unfortunately for me, I found the second generation far more interesting and sympathetic than the third generation - Leo and Mack - with whom I was stuck for the remaining 200 pages.

In many ways, I was reminded of The Goldfinch, possibly my least favorite book of 2014. In the Land of the Living has been on my reading list for months, since it was featured in the UM Alumni Magazine. I'll have to think twice before adding their picks onto my list. After a strong start - Edmund Love, Rich Boy, and The Blood of Free Me, I'm now 0-for-2. (Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin was also a bust.)

The Moor's Account

The Moor's Account by Laila Lalami is another fantastic work of fiction. Like almost all good works of historical fiction, it is grounded in actual events: In 1527 the Pánfilo de Narváez expedition set off for America - and Florida, specifically - to be beset by every trouble that could plague a sixteenth centruy explorer. Narváez, in fact, was carried out to sea on a raft and never seen or heard of again. Four men (of the six hundred or so who set off for the new world) did survive: Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Alonso del Castillo Maldonado, Andrés Dorantes de Carranza, and his Moroccan slave, Estebanico.

Cabeza de Vaca returned to Spain achieved great fame with his account of their journeys through the New World. The Moor's Account is Lalami's telling of this same story, from the perspective of Estebanico (who began life as Mustafa al-Zamori). In that way, this is Mustafa-Estabanico's memoir, and Lalami does the story justice. The voyage to America, foundering of the explorers' party, and life among the natives, are interwoven with the story of Mustafa, from his birth to the day he became a slave, and then his initial years in slavery, which were spent in Spain.

The story is well researched and Mustafa's background story is beautifully created. Lalami writes things like, "...I had seen wonders that no other Zamori had. .... The world was not as I wished it to be, but I was alive. I was alive." that make me want to fall into the pages and read forever.

No surprises then: I enjoyed this tremendously. I enjoyed it all the more for having recently read A Splendid Exchange, which discussed both the Spanish and Portuguese presence in North Africa (fittingly, Mustafa is a trader), as well as the exploration of the Americas. In the end, this is all about the prose, though, for it is page-after-page of a beautifully imagined and marvelously written story.

A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small in Mooreland, Indiana

A Girl Named Zippy is the sweet and funny memoir of Haven Kimmel, born in Mooreland, Indiana, (population 300) in 1965. Her memories are told with a lighthearted and self-deprecating tone, and the many quirky characters come to life in her telling. Zippy ends on Christmas Eve, which I did not know when I began, of course, but which seems entirely fitting.

I was reminded more than once not so much of my own Midwestern birthplace, but that of my grandmother and great-grandparents, a place which still looms large in my memories. I imagine that such towns did not change much between, say 1965 and 1985, which is why reading this often felt like slipping into something familiar and well-worn. And, although the better part of several decades passed between the two memoirs, I was reminded again and again of Edmund Love's wonderful The Situation in Flushing, which still ranks as my favorite memoir. (It is also worth noting that Kimmel's life and early experiences could not be farther from the life and times of Lady Pamela Hicks, whose Daughter of Empire is the last memoir I read.)

I picked this up at the library after seeing it on BookBub - still one of my favorite web finds in 2014 - and read it in a matter of hours. Time well spent - and easily recommended for anyone who loves memoirs or small town America.

Merry Christmas!

Dance of the Winnebagos

Thirty-three-year-old Claire Morgan gets more than she bargained for when she accompanies her grandfather (in his winnebago) to Arizona to meet old friends and new ladies. In addition to a serious case of TMI as far as her grandfather's love life is concerned, she finds herself in the middle of a growing mystery - and whomever wants to keep it quiet will stop at nothing to prevent Claire learning the truth.

Dance of the Winnebagos is a really quick, fun read. It shares a number of similarities with the Fudge mystery series: there's an extraneous romance; a young, female protagonist who's obviously in over her head and makes decisions that beggar belief; and a plot-driven narrative with a compelling mystery that is strong enough to overcome the two aforementioned weaknesses.

I've already added the next book in Ann Charles's series to my reading list.

The Third Coast: When Chicago Built the American Dream (DNF)

I have been slogging my way through Thomas Dyja's The Third Coast: When Chicago Built the American Dream for the past two weeks. The premise drew me in - in the middle of the 20th century, Chicago was the American city. And Dyja forcefully and eloquently makes the case that Chicago was the American city for better (art and architecture) or for worse (corruption and racism). Still, after 200 pages (our of 412), I decided to end the slog.

The trouble is that this reader, at least, couldn't see the forest - Chicago - for the trees - all of the individuals who contributed to the city's rise in one way or another. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy certainly made important contributions, as did each of the dozens of other characters, but the story of the city got lost in their biographical details. I would have loved a less detailed history that focused more heavily on the events, rather than the people behind the events.

A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World

I have mixed thoughts on William J. Bernstein's A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World, a narrative on the history of world trade from the Sumerians to present day. Parts of it, particularly the opening chapters discussing the creation and growth of Islam and the role of trade in the Peloponnesian War were deeply interesting. Other chapters, such as those comparing the Dutch Wast India Company and the British East India Company (arguably the world's first multinational firms), felt too technical.

I also felt Bernstein missed the opportunity to tie some of the ongoing themes together more cleanly. For example, early in the book he discussed the role of trade in the Peloponnesian War. Similarly, trade was a precipitating factor of the British Opium Wars with China. However, Bernstein did not take the opportunity to compare and contrast these wars, their impact on trade balance and world power, and how trade factored into the dispute. A Splendid Exchange is a linear telling of trade history, but pulling upon earlier examples could have strengthened the book and further engaged the reader.

Berstein does offer excellent discourse on the advantages of trade, and examples of absolute and comparative advantage that any economics student can appreciate. Ultimately, this book is most likely to appeal to those folks with a strong - dare I say professional? - interest in the material.

The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America

Ever hear of the wildfire of 1910? Me neither. But the fire, filed under "Great Fire of 1910" on Wikipedia, burned an area the size of Connecticut across Washington, Idaho, and Montana in August of that year. In The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America, Timothy Egan (whose Worst Hard Time was one of my best reads in 2012) reconstructs not only the fire, but the policy debate around the whole idea of national forests that preceded and succeeded the fire.

Essentially, Egan explains, the story goes like this: America in the gilded age was a boom or bust kind of place, and nowhere was this more evident than in the mining and railroad towns running across the northern spine of the country (one of the few remaining frontiers). What to do about undesirable resident prostitutes one early forest ranger asked another? Replace them with desirable ones, came the deadpan response. And why, you ask, were resident prostitutes an issue for forest rangers? Because in the early days of the U.S. Forest Service, any number of activities - including tremendous logging and also the construction of railroads - was permitted. It was one of the many compromises Teddy Roosevelt (who comes off much better in The Big Burn than in The Imperial Cruise) had to make in order to establish the badly underfunded forest service in the first place.

By the time the brutally dry summer of 1910 rolled around, Teddy had been out of office for the better part of 18 months and it fell to Howard Taft to "manage" the burning west - or at least read the reports on it - but Teddy's shadow loomed large over the events surrounding the fire. Still, The Big Burn is as much about the likes of Gifford Pinchot (American's first forester) and William Clark (crooked copper magnate and U.S. Senator) as it is about Roosevelt. All-in-all, this is an interesting read, although not nearly as engrossing as Worst Hard Time.

Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932: A Novel

Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932 is, at its heart, the biography of Lou Villars, a cross-dressing, javelin-thrower-turned-race-car-driver, Hitler revering, collaboratrice extraordinaire. In her first pages, Francine Prose, tells her readers that this is the story of a woman whose embrace of evil knows no bounds. Lou - Lou who professes to love nothing about sport, God, and France - is the very same who told the Germans exactly where the Maginot line ended, who cost countless Frenchmen their lives by her espionage and her treason.

What has driven her to do this? Lou loves France, but after France denies her her livelihood simply for preferring pants to skirts, she will stop at nothing to "fix" her country. Her relationship with a fellow race car driver, the German Inge Wallser, leads her into thrall with Hitler - and to the conclusion that Germany seeks only to aid France, a quest into which Lou throws herself body and soul.

Lovers at the Chameleon Club is also an ode to Paris. It begins in the 1920s, amid the decadence of the Roaring Twenties, when Americans and ex-pat artists of every nationality people the city (think A Moveable Feast), continues through the worst of the Great Depression and the build up to war with Germany, the drôle de guerre of 1940, and finishes in the midst of the German Occupation (à la Suite Française). Through the years, Paris is the star, and the lovers of Prose's novel as much in love with the city as with one another. 

The most amazing thing about Lovers at the Chameleon Club is not the plot or the characters, but the book itself. Prose has written, essentially, the biography of a woman who never existed (Lou Villars) written by an author who never existed (Nathalie Dubois), the chapters of which are interspersed with chapters from the memoir of a heroine of the Resistance (Lily de Rossignol), the unpublished diary of another Resistance hero (Suzanne Dunois Tsenyi), famous works of an American writer and Hemingway contemporary (Lionel Maine), and letters to his parents penned by a Hungarian photographer (Gabor Tsenyi). There are also chapters devoted to the memories of the owner of the Chameleon Club (Eva "Yvonne" Nagy).

Their lives and stories, which are each told with a unique voice and perspective, intersect in intricate and meaningful ways. And let me say again: none of these people actually existed. Yet, Prose does this so convincingly that I actually Googled more than one of the characters early on thinking I had missed something and that this was historical fiction that drew heavily on actual people.

That she was able to accomplish all of this is a testament to Prose's skill as a writer - and her imagination. Lovers at the Chameleon Club is an experience unto itself, a fabulous, dizzying ride at the end of which the reader can't help but wish to have been there, Paris's lover, if only for a moment.

The Best American Travel Writing 2011

As I've said before, I'm a big fan of the Best American series. This volume contained many gems. My favorites:

Southern Culture on the Skids: NASCAR in a nutshell. Everything you've ever thought about the north-south and red-blue divide is contained in these pages.

Venance Lafrance Is Not Dead: American expats move to Haiti. Venance Lafrance is the young teenager they attempt to help while they live there. Also, they experience a devastating earthquake.

Stuck: Keith Gessen makes the case that Moscow's traffic is the worst in the world. Gessen posits that Russian drivers are jerks. A traffic engineer puts it more gently, "Russian drivers lack foresight." Either way, "don't block the box" is not a concept in Moscow. (Perhaps not coincidentally, I once sat in St. Petersburg traffic where the fast car on the road was the one being pushed by a half dozen men.)

The Summer Wind

A few months ago, I read Mary Alice Monroe's The Summer Girls, the first of a three-part trilogy, and decided I wasn't a fan. Or rather, I was a fan until the end when it all fell apart. However, in my quest to stay awake for every moment of a 14-hour flight (helps with the jetlag), I needed a few "beach reads" and I remembered Mary Alice.

To recap: Dora, Carson, and Harper are half-sisters who have not seen one another for the better part of a decade until their grandmother summons them to her lowcountry house, Sea Breeze, to celebrate her 80th birthday. On her birthday, she insists they remain the entire summer, or forfeit their soon-to-be (considerable) inheritance.

Dora, the oldest, is in the midst of a divorce and uncertain, at best, how to handle her autistic son. Carson has recently broken up with her boyfriend, lost her job, and is a borderline alcoholic, while Harper is spinning her wheels as her ice-queen-mother's personal assistant at a New York City publishing house. Different mothers, different lives, and now way too much togetherness.

The Summer Wind picks up where Summer Girls leaves off. The absurd dolphin story line that so got my dander up continues, but with less prominence and is, therefore, less annoying. Also less annoying: the central character of this book is Dora, who is far more relatable than Carson. Some scenes are definitely a bit dramatic for my taste, but I knew what I was getting into before I read the first page.

The Hangman

As with Death of a Dentist, I brought Louise Penny's The Hangman on a long flight recently because I knew I could count on Penny to keep me turning the pages.

The Hangman is actually a novella. At a scant 55 pages, I read the whole book in less time than it took the flight attendants to serve dinner (it was a big plane). In any event, Armand Gamache investigates the death of a Three Pines visitor who is found hanging in a nearby forest by a jogger one morning. Although the signs point to suicide, Gamache is not convinced and begins asking questions.

A great, short read. Louise Penny continues to be one of my new favorites.

Death of a Dentist

I needed a few quick reads for a long flight recently and M.C. Beaton never disappoints in that regards.

Death of a Dentist is a standard Beaton mystery. Hamish Macbeth, whose body count rivals that of Hercule Poirot, begins investigating a theft but soon finds himself with another murder on his hands when the roundly-despised Dr. Gilchrist is discovered dead in his own dentist chair. Hamish is convinced the two crimes are connected and begins connecting the dots.

This book is exactly what I was hoping for: a well-constructed mystery that moves along and kept me turning the pages long after I should have turned out the lights. (Except that the whole point was to stay awake from take-off to touchdown.)

Blood Royal: A True Tale of Crime and Detection in Medieval Paris

Of course I couldn't resist a real life murder mystery that rocked Paris six centuries ago.

Eric Jager's Blood Royal recounts the assassination of Louis, Duke of Orleans, in November 1407. Among other attributes, Louis was a gambler, a philanderer, and a profligate spender. He was widely hated for the regularity with which he levied taxes to fund his pleasures. Not insignificantly, he was also the de fact ruler of France for long and frequent stretches when his brother, King Charles VI, was incapacitated by bouts of madness.

Still, his murder - led in to a trap and then attacked with axes and knives, then left in a muddy gutter - shocked Paris. With truly old-fashioned detective work, the Provost of Paris, Guillaume de Tignonville, solved the crime, in the process setting France on a course to civil war and prolonging the already long and bloody struggle with the English.

Jager's book was excellent as he recounted the murder, detailed the various personalities involved (evidently Louis liked to play at being a monk when he grew bored of being a prince), examined potential motives (a cuckolded husband seemed most likely), and created a picture of life in medieval Paris (not pretty - the gutter was most definitely not the place to wind up!). de Tignonville's investigation makes for great reading, as does the escape of the murdered.

I have to admit that I wish the book had ended here. Once the murder was solved and the country descended bit-by-bit into chaos and war, the factions fighting for control, I became much less interested. The later focus on the battles with the English, most importantly Agincourt, felt a bit disconnected from Louis's murder. That is, I understand how one led to another, but they still felt like different stories.

In the Presence of Mine Enemies: The Civil War in the Heart of America, 1859-1864 (Valley of the Shadow Project)

If I wanted to describe Edward L. Ayers's In the Presence of Mine Enemies in one word, that word would be tedious. The premise is quite interesting: comparing and contrasting the experiences of the people living in the border counties on the eve, and during the first years, of the American Civil War.

To that end, he has selected Franklin County, Pennsylvania, and Augusta County, Virginia. Ayers has then painstakingly reconstructed the events and times from original sources: newspapers, letters, legal documents, diaries, and other public and private records.

The first section of the book is devoted to showing how similar the people and places are. Ayers does this, if anything, too well. Until half the men went off to fight in blue and the other half in gray, I could not keep the counties straight. He switches between them frequently and I often had to reread entire pages to make sure I knew which county was the focus of a particular episode.

These early chapters are also dry. The political arguments - whether recounted in newspapers or personal letters - simply do not make for compelling reading. There is little new material about John Brown's raid or the abolitionists' growing impatience, or the presidential election of 1860. I had determined to read this book months ago, though, and I had paid good money for the privilege (which I rarely do!), so I was determined to slog on.

Ultimately, I made the correct decision, as the firsthand accounts of war and the homefront do save the latter parts of In the Presence of Mine Enemies. In the end, though, this is a book for those who are interested in the original source material, and not simply a primer on the big early battles.

The Long Way Home: An American Journey from Ellis Island to the Great War

As much about the immigrant experience circa 1910 as it is about World War I, David Laskin's The Long Way Home: An American Journey from Ellis Island to the Great War offers a unique perspective - or perspectives - on World War I.

Laskin has painstakingly reconstructed the histories of a dozen young, fresh immigrants to the United States, all of whom - by choice or by chance - return to the "Old Country" as soldiers in their adopted country's army to face the horrors of World War I. The men come from Italy and Ireland, Poland and the Pale of Settlement, and from places that have long ceased to exist (Kaszubia, anyone?). They are driven to the U.S. for all the usual reasons, of course, which generally amounts to seeking an escape from bone crushing poverty. Their experiences here are different - from mining in Montana, gardening in Massachusetts, and of course eking out a living on the Lower East Side (population density 1,000 per square block).

Their roles in war vary as well. Sam Goldberg patrolled the desert southwest as part of the cavalry in the aftermath of the Zimmerman Telegram. Most go to Europe, though, where they are deployed along the Western Front to break a four-year-old stalemate. Here Laskin delves into the politics of fighting war: arranging troops, ordering advances, coordinating positions among men who do not speak the same language. All of this, of course, at a time when messages traveled no faster than a good horse and the messenger might be shot en route. (As a sidenote, I remain fascinated by the fact that the All American Division was comprised of men who spoke 43 languages, but frequently almost no English.)

In Europe some men barely see war, but others become heroes. Michael Valente received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions. And some do not come home.

In many ways, given the U.S.'s late entry into the war, The Long Way Home is a bookend to The Guns of August (still one of the finest World War I histories I've read). It is fast paced and, honestly, fascinating, offering insights on the immigrant's experience as well as the soldier's. All told, The Long Way Home: An American Journey from Ellis Island to the Great War is an excellent read.

To Fudge or Not to Fudge

To Fudge or Not to Fudge is the second in Nancy Coco's Mackinac Island-based murder mystery series. My thoughts on this book are very, very similar to my thoughts on the first book, All Fudged Up. Which means, if nothing else, that Coco is consistent.

Allie McMurphy, the new and young owner of the McMurphy Hotel and Fudge Shop has found another body. In this case, it's pieces of a body - bones to be precise, and they're buried in mulch under a flowering lilac bush. The annual Lilac Festival is just around the corner. To complicate matters, a reality show based around - what else? - fudge making comes to town, and with it more murder and mayhem. As usual, Allie finders herself at the center of the drama.

There is not earthly reason I should have stayed up past my bedtime to learn whodunnit. Allie is not especially endearing, the writing is not especially crisp (I really, really don't care what color Allie's t-shirt is, how many times she changes it, or most anything else about her wardrobe, which Coco appears to think is an important plot point given the frequency with which such things are mentioned), and the whole premise is - again - entirely over the top. And yet I really, really needed to know who and why and how...

The Best American Travel Writing 2013

The only thing better than traveling vicariously is traveling vicariously to places you have previously visited and seeing them from a new perspective. So many memories triggered, so many moments relived. That, for me, is Best American Travel Writing 2013 in a nutshell.

I love the Best American anthologies for the gorgeous writing. From the opening pages to the closing paragraphs, I never doubt the richness of the prose. This volume was an especial treat for me with pieces on Cuba, Maine, and Paris, which I have visited, as well as many places (Egypt and Vietnam, for example, which I have not, and likely will not any time soon.)

Many of the pieces, such as the one on Cuba, are traditional travel writing. Author goes to location, spends time in location, reflects on experiences while there. Many of the included essays do not follow this mold, though, and in a refreshing way. The essay on Paris evokes the City of Lights, but focuses primarily on dentistry in said city. The essay on Peru takes in the landscape and culture, no question, but does so against the backdrop of child labor and human trafficking. Another selection discusses an author's decision not to travel, in his case by foot the length of the U.S.-Mexico border.

As I wrote in my recent review of Best American Short Stories, I had forgotten how wonderful these anthologies are. I've got another lined up for company on my next long flight. So many books, so little time.

The Great Match Race: When North Met South in America's First Sports Spectacle

I never expected to enjoy a book about a horse race so much.

In 1823, a southern horse (whose shall remain nameless, as the selection of this horse is the heart and soul of the book) and a northern horse, Eclipse, squared off in the first mass sporting event in American history. Running the "heroic distance" (4 mile heats), the race to be the fastest horse was merely a stand-in in the decades-long superiority contest between North and South that would culminate in the Civil War four decades later.

What is remarkable about this book is the quality of the storytelling. John Eisenberg has taken a single event that happened nearly 200 years ago and imbued it with a level of suspense and outsize importance such that the reader feels the outcome truly matters, even if the reader can't quite decide who should win. The characters - two- and four-legged alike - are richly drawn, the conflicts (and there are so many beyond the actual race itself) given life and legs, and the outcome smoothly drawn out to the closing pages.

My only complaint with this book, and it is a relatively minor one, was the frequency with which the main characters are referred to by their nicknames (i.e., William Ransom Johnson is almost always Napoleon and William Wynne is invariably Racing Billy).

The Great Match Race: When North Met South in America's First Sports Spectacle is an improbably wonderful read, certainly for anyone who loves horses, sporting events, American history, or any combination of the three. Four stars.

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

Anyone who has ever lost a friend and not known why can relate to Tsukuru Tazaki. The defining experience of his life is that at age 20 his four best friends, the people he considered an extension of himself, cut him off without explanation. Sixteen years later, their treatment of him still stings - it is the reason, Tsukuru believes, that he always keeps a distance between himself and others, that any future rejection will not cut so deeply. Spurred by a new girlfriend, Tsukuru strives to make peace with his past by visiting - unannounced and one-by-one - each of his former friends.

I have mixed feeling about this book. On the one hand, I read it in about two days, so I was obviously hooked. But I still can't figure out why. Tsukuru is not a particularly likeable character and the pages are often filled with minute details on nothing (this is a character whose single hobby is watching trains arrive and depart from Tokyo train stations). I also found the ending a bit maddening - perhaps the author was tired of his story and simply wanted to finish?

I have read other review that say, essentially, if you've read one Haruki Murakami, you've read them all. I can't say; Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki is my first. What I can say is that the book is infused with a sense of "Japanese-ness." That is, the entire essence of the book is Japanese which is, I believe, what ultimately kept me reading and why in the end I still liked it.

The Long Way Home: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel

Peter Morrow is missing. Peter is one of the best regarded artists in Canada, or at least he was until his wife's talent (and fame) outstripped his. Tired of his petulance, Clara sent him packing with a plan to meet again in one year and reassess one another. But when he doesn't return she senses something must be amiss and so turns to her friend Armand Gamache, former Chief Inspector of Quebec's Homicide Unit, to track him down.

Louise Penny has written a wonderful mystery with all of the requisite twists and turns. Her characters are quirky, but fairly fade into the background so that the real star is her plot (as it should be). I've read only one other Penny novel (Bury Your Dead, which is also an Inspector Gamache novel), and of the two I preferred the Bury Your Dead to Long Way Home for the reason that the former is set in Quebec City and is alive with the sights and sounds of that lovely city. The small villages along that Saint Lawrence that form the setting of Long Way Home do not have the same vitality.

One of the great things about Penny's mysteries is that they are quick and light reads, a form of pure entertainment. I read this one on an airplane recently - my only regret was that the flight ended before I could finish.

The Best American Short Stories 2013

Years ago, my mom used to receive the full series of Best American writings at work (one of the perks of working in a university English department!) and would pass them along to me. My source dried up when she changed jobs and I can honestly say I had forgotten how much I enjoyed reading these anthologies.

The title, of course, says it all. This is a collection of the best short stories published in 2013. The style and setting of each varies, from those set centuries ago to those that border on the dream world. My favorite was the very first, which is set in an unnamed South American country, in a dusty, forgotten town, in the aftermath of a patriarch's death, in which the protagonist finds himself wrestling with promise and prosperity and unfulfilled ambitions.

The beauty in all of these stories is the writing, though. Few pleasures in life are greater than immersing oneself in truly fine writing and that, above all, is what Best American Short Stories offers.

The Scarlet Sisters: Sex, Suffrage, and Scandal in the Gilded Age

There is so much potential in Myra MacPherson's The Scarlet Sisters: Sex, Suffrage, and Scandal in the Gilded Age. Victoria Woodhull and Tennie Claflin make fascinating protagonists who led amazing lives. As the book notes, Victoria and Tennie were "two sisters whose radical views on sex, love, politics, and business threatened the white male power structure of the nineteenth century and shocked the world." Or, as the saying goes, well behaved women rarely make history.

In the opening chapters, my hopes were high that Scarlet Sisters would be similar to the Hetty Green biography I read last year. Unfortunately, fairly quickly Scarlet Sisters bogged down in nitty-gritty (largely political) details such that the potential was largely unrealized. Too often I felt that the larger story was sacrificed to what I felt was MacPherson's personal agenda (writing Scarlet Sisters as a counter to the current "war against women"). This is unfortunate because I assume almost anyone reading this book is firmly in her corner already, and would have appreciated a good story more than dozens of detailed pages on the competing factions of the women's suffrage movement, the hypocrisy of the church (we're looking at you, Mr. Beecher) or the possible motivations of the overzealous Anthony Comstock.

In the end, I struggled to finish Scarlet Sisters, which is a shame, as it would have been a good forerunner to Flapper: A Madcap Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity, and the Women Who Made America Modern.

When the World Was Young

Elizabeth Gaffney's When the World Was Young defies easy categorization. Essentially, it is the coming of age of Wally Baker. After the death of her glamorous mother, Stella, Wally, lives with her grandparents, but is largely raised by their black maid, Loretta, in the years after World War II. Gradually, Wally comes to see the complexities unfairness of life in a gradual stripping away of innocence.

When the World Was Young is beautifully written, with prose that transports the reader into Wally's world: Brooklyn, circa 1950. The characters, too, are distinct and sympathetic, even the wildly unstable Stella whose life has been marred by a series of disappointments and tragedies. This is a lovely read, a book that is hard to put down, and one that any lover of fiction should enjoy.

The Age of Edison: Electric Light and the Invention of Modern America

Electricity is such an ingrained part of our lives that we rarely think of it, unless we happen - temporarily, God willing - to be without it. So it's hard to imagine the entire world before electric lights - the sheer and utter darkness that enveloped everyone and everything from sundown to sunup. Obviously, then, the arrival of electricity was the one of the seminal events of their lives for millions across the world.

Ernest Freeberg works hard to make the reader feel the excitement caused by the electrification of America (with the occasional visit across the pond to England, France, and Germany). He traces the arrival of light from the various oils to gas to, finally, the incandescent light bulb. (Sidenote: Thomas Edison was 32 when he invented the incandescent light bulb.  I learned this in the opening pages of Freeberg's The Age of Edison and spent the rest of the book feeling only slightly inconsequential.)

Electricity was not without controversy as the electric companies, in the era of robber barons, worked to part individuals and municipalities alike from their money as quickly as possible, often while stringing miles of dangerously hung wires. Americans of the day were treated to regular news headlines of men, children, even horses electrocuted by a dangling or fallen wire.

The Age of Edison is an interesting read, though slightly dry, and rather too technical at times. Freeberg notes at one point that, "Few in the public could follow the heated, technical, and contradictory claims made by the rival companies...or the bickering between city inspectors..." I know the feeling.

The Fortune Hunter

I am disappointingly ambivalent about Daisy Goodwin's The Fortune Hunter.

Charlotte Baird is soon to be the richest woman in England - once she reaches her majority and inherits the Lennox fortune, that is. And so, as might be expected in Downton Abbey-era England, Charlotte has no shortage of suitors, even once they discover her quirks, such as a love of photography and disdain for fashion. Unfortunately, she's falling in love with Bay Middleton, a cavalry captain deemed utterly unsuitable by her older brother (and guardian) Frank, and his insufferable fiancee, Lady Augusta Crewe. Bay, however, has been drafted to pilot the Empress of Austria around England for the hunt season, and with each hunt seems to fall further under her spell.

All of the characters are real people: some, such as the Empress, achieved lasting fame (and infamy) in their lives. Others, like Bay Middleton "the hardest rider in England" have fallen into obscurity, before Goodwin plucked them out and brought them back to life. Her writing is rich, and the research painstaking. She transports her readers into the era and events depicted on the page, without anything feeling forced. I simply had a difficult time caring too much what happened to the characters, perhaps because they are real and Lady Mountbatten and the Countess of Carnarvon have provided a glimpse of what their lives actually looked like.

All Fudged Up

Last week was ice cream and this week was fudge. Sounds like my last vacation. In any case, my local library was highlighting this book for its Michigan flavor: a murder mystery set in a Mackinac Island fudge shop.

That is, Allie McMurphy has just inherited a Victorian inn and attached fudge shop from her recently deceased grandfather when she opens a closet door to find one of the island's longtime denizens dead on the floor. Since her grandfather had an open and long-running feud with the dead man, and since he certainly didn't die of natural causes, she finds herself at the center of a murder investigation that threatens to derail everything she's worked for.

Okay, so, it's a bit over the top. Honestly, everything about All Fudged Up is over the top - I mean, the author has chosen the pen name of Nancy Coco, which caused my husband to groan audibly when he saw what I was reading. Also, the recipes - which appear to be somewhat randomly inserted throughout the book - are rather awkward. I would have preferred a recipe collection at the end, although I don't typically pick up a mystery in order to improve my cooking (or candy making). I struggled with the prose for the first 50 or so pages as well: these are not beautiful, flowing sentences with vivid descriptions and there is nothing subtle about the writing or word choice. Still, the mystery was well constructed and this was a quick, fun read without any emotional investment.

Nancy Coco may not be Agatha Christie, but I am already on the waiting list for the next book in the series, To Fudge or Not to Fudge. Happy eating...er, reading!

The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street

As a general rule, I tend to read much more non-fiction than novels, but I've been on a roll with fiction this summer and Susan Jane Gilman's The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street definitely falls in the category of great fiction. (Villa Triste and Elizabeth Is Missing are the other wonderful novels I've read recently.)

Five-year-old Malka Treynovsky arrives in New York in 1913, one of the huddled Eastern European Jewish masses yearning to breathe free. Her family wasn't even supposed to come to America, but now that they're here, Malka is determined to find her happy ending. Three months later she's crippled in an accident with an Italian ices peddler and abandoned. Taken in by the peddler's family, Malka becomes Lillian and forges a new identity and life for herself.

Lillian marries the handsome but illiterate Albert Dunkle, and the two of them build an empire of ice cream shops starting with a single truck. Soon, Lillian is the head of an ice cream empire and a celebrity in her own right, which is wonderful for her right up until it isn't: when she finds herself on trial for both tax evasion and assault. In the midst of this double ordeal, Lillian has decided to share her ordeal with us, darlings, and her voice is what makes Ice Cream Queen the masterpiece that it is. Part Jewish immigrant, part Italian immigrant, and with more than a touch of megalomania, Lillian's gravelly, no-nonsense voice is still ringing in my ears.

The Goldfinch

I really wanted to like Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch. People I know and like read it and, frankly, raved about it. It won the Pulitzer Prize for goodness sake! And I couldn't even bring myself to finish it...

The Goldfinch opens with the grown-up Theo Decker on the run in Amsterdam. The reader knows he's in some trouble - too nervous even to venture to the lobby other than in the dead of night. How did this happen? Theo begins his story where all good tales begin: at the beginning. And in the beginning, Theo Decker is 13 years old and the victim of a bomb attack that kills his mother and leaves him, essentially, orphaned. From here the story becomes, frankly, evermore unlikely and, frankly, bizarre.

The biggest issue for me is that I simply could not connect with Theo - or any of the other characters - on any level. I became annoyed with the ceaseless pages of descriptive minutiae that did little to move the story along. I mean, it's not like I didn't try: I read over 400 pages of this book. And I'd waited for months to get a copy from the library. But with nearly 400 more pages to go, I simply couldn't do it.

Browsing through the reviews on GoodBooks, I found some sage advice I wished I'd stumbled on 300 pages earlier: "To anyone wondering if they should still read this book, since reviewers are so divided (e.g. you either LOVE it or HATE it): by all means, YES. Read it! But: if you find you are hating it within 100 pages, just put it down and walk away. Because it won't ever get better for you (Really. do as I say and not as I do: Put. It. Down.)." If only I'd known...

Paris at the End of the World: The City of Light During the Great War, 1914-1918

Somewhere along the line, John Baxter's Paris at the End of the World: The City of Light During the Great War, 1914-1918 stops being so much about Paris and starts being much more about Baxter's own search for the records, and more importantly experiences, of his paternal grandfather, Archie.

Here's the deal: I love Paris. And I'm very interested in World War I. I have a much harder time investing myself in why an author's grandfather might have enlisted 100 years ago (to escape an uncomfortable domestic situation, Baxter ultimately surmises), retracing said soldier's steps from eastern Australia to western Europe, uncovering his medical history (oh the banality of varicose veins!), and then hypothesizing on how he got to Paris and who he might have met.

Unfortunately, I was not much more impressed with the Paris parts of the book. The section on Gallieni's use of Paris's taxicabs to transport French troops to the front was likely the most interesting, although that particular story is pretty well known. I take that back - the very most interesting bit concerns the drug kit containing "cocaine, morphine, syringes, and needles" sold by Harrod's and marketed as a "welcome present for friends at the front." Indeed. In any case, Harrod's stopped selling the kit, along with vials of heroin gel, after the British government restricted sale because those same friends at the front were too stoned to go "over the top."

Ultimately, the best of Paris at the End of the World are the myriad images, from old photographs to wartime to postcards and magazine illustrations, that are sprinkled liberally throughout the book. These, along with the various long-forgotten quotes and ditties (such as the riff on La Marseillaise, "Aux gares, citoyens / Montez dans les wagons") are the strength of Paris at the End of the World. Even so, more complete and in-depth books on World War I Paris are available; this one is probably best left to those seeking every perspective on wartime Paris, including that of a long-dead Australian soldier.

Salt, Sugar, Fat

Michael Moss's look at "magical formulations of salt, sugar, and fat," as he so nicely phrases it, is not for the faint of heart. Salt, Sugar, Fat is no less than an expose on how Big Food has altered the diets of Americans (and increasingly those all over the world) since the heady days after World War II.

Although neither a quick nor light read, this is a book that makes the reader think seriously about the "food" we all consume. Moss provides an inside look at everything from marketing campaigns targeted at "heavy users" of cream cheese to the creation of Lunchables. Moss demystifies such innocuous seeming ingredients as fruit juice concentrate and potassium chloride.

Ultimately, Moss's conclusions mirror those of the authors of The Food of a Younger Land: if only we would eat only what would have been recognizable as food by our great-grandparents, we might all be a bit healthier - and slimmer. In any event, I challenge anyone who reads Salt, Sugar, Fat to not take a hard look at their current diet and find room for improvement. I've definitely banished a few "foods" from my shopping card.

Villa Triste

Lucretia Grindle's Villa Triste has been on my reading list for years - and it is fantastic.

In many ways, all of them good, the book's structure reminded me of Elizabeth Is Missing. Villa Triste essentially consists of two narratives. One of them is the slowly unfolding tale of Caterina Cammaccio, a nurse by day and a reluctant partisan (or Italian resistance fighter) by night. The setting is World War II Florence, simultaneously occupied by Nazis and overrun with fascists. The other narrative is actually a mystery. Giovanni Trantemento, an elderly and decorated former partisan, has been brutally murdered in his own home. As Florence's top cop, it's up to Alessandro Palliotti to solve the crime, but when another former partisan is similarly murdered elsewhere in Italy, it's clear to him that Trantemento's murder wasn't a mere crime of opportunity.

As in Elizabeth is Missing, the two narratives that form the heart of Villa Triste are closely intertwined and the story unfolds magnificently. (I should add that the way in which the events during the war directly impact the current mystery also recalls Once We Were Brothers.) Grindle has pulled off both the mystery and historical fiction elements of her novel beautifully, while creating an array of remarkable characters.

I have read no small number of books (fiction and non-fiction) with World War II as the backdrop. Villa Triste is the first book I've read about the war in Italy, though, which also lent it an additional interest factor as I was reading.This is an easy book to recommend to lovers of historical fiction or mysteries or both. Happy reading!

Elizabeth Is Missing

Maud, 82 and suffering from dementia, is overwrought that her friend, Elizabeth, is missing. Or maybe not, she can't really remember. She has notes in her pockets and in her purse; some tell her Elizabeth is missing and others say definitely not. If only she could remember. And try she does, but as she tries to make sense of Elizabeth's disappearance, memories flood back of another disappearance, this of her older sister Sukey who simply vanished in 1946. As Maud's dementia worsens and she spins further and further from reality, she begins to puzzle back together the details of her sister's disappearance, making startling discoveries from a distance of 70 years.

I have to say: Wow, I loved this book! Emma Healey's Elizabeth Is Missing is one of the most fascinating, amazing, well-constructed novels I have read this year. Often, parallel narratives can fall apart, but this one simply gets better as the book progresses. What's more, this is a stunning, poignant look at aging and dementia. The reader can feel the losses and confusion mount around Maud and her daughter Helen, whom Maud is often unable to recognize. Healey creates a genuine portrait of a woman falling away from the world and, frankly, Elizabeth Is Missing is all the more terrifying for being so. (I couldn't help but think - repeatedly - how very much I did not want to end up like Maud, missing sister and friend aside.)

The bottom line: I read this entire book in less than 48 hours. It is simply wonderful. I cannot recommend it enough.

Where'd You Go, Bernadette?

A friend recommended Where'd You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple as a quick, fun summer read, which it is. I actually finished it several days ago, but I wasn't entirely sure what I wanted to say about it until now.

A little background: Bernadette Fox is one unhappy lady. Living in Seattle, married to a Microsoft exec, with a well-loved daughter, you might think she'd be a bit happier. Instead, she is, essentially, a recluse, who hates (in no particular order) the rain, the drivers, Idaho, Canada, other parents at her daughters school, and leaving the house. She hires a virtual personal assistant from India to do things like make Thanksgiving dinner reservations. So things really fall apart when her daughter insists on a family trip to Antarctica one Christmas. Fall apart as in Bernadette disappears, hence the title of the book. She just might be a little crazy.

I liked a lot about this book, most especially the style. It's written as a collection of emails, memos, letters from school, and other assorted documents, with the occasional narrative paragraph through in for good measure. The style allows for multiple perspectives simultaneously and also moves the story along at a rapid clip. The plot itself is pretty kooky, but just this side of believable from a reader perspective. (Fishing vests, the Russian mafia, and mudslides are all involved somewhere along the line, no easy feat for a writer!)

I had a harder time connecting with the characters themselves. Bernadette is, as previously stated, coming undone. I had a hard time pinning how Semple wanted the reader to feel about Bernadette's fellow private school mothers and even husband and father Elgin. All too often,15-year-old Bee feels like the most grown-up person in the room...er, book.

Semple does manage what would seem to be impossible by keeping a book about a mother's disappearance fun and upbeat. It reads quickly and at no point did I contemplate abandoning Where'd You Go, Bernadette? Still, I hesitate to give it a full endorsement because at the end of the day it felt just a little bit hollow.

Death of a Gossip

Lady Jane Winters' fellow vacationers can't stand her, but which one of them had sufficient reason for wanting her dead?

It was almost exactly a year ago that I first discovered M.C. Beaton. I don't have a particularly good excuse for why it's taken me a full year to read another Beaton book, this one Death of a Gossip. I've mentioned before (many times; thank you for indulging me) my love of Agatha Christie, and Beaton's books feel similar to me. There are lots of characters - in this case, the vacationers at and owners of a Scottish salmon fishing school - a consistent detective - Hamish Macbeth - and plenty of motives to go around. Death of a Gossip (and I'm getting the impression this holds true for pretty much all Beaton books) is a fun and quick read. Hopefully it won't take me a year before I rediscover this!

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

A.J. Fikry is the owner of a small bookstore on one of the coastal islands off Massachusetts. Life has not been especially kind to A.J. recently: his wife died in a tragic accident, sales at his store are down and still falling, and his most prized possession (a rare, first-edition book, of course) has been stolen from under his nose - and then he learns his favorite publishing house agent has died and been replaced by a young flibbertygibbet who doesn't even know all the types of books he dislikes and, therefore, will not carry in his store. He is not short on self-pity.

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry was recommended by one of the librarians at my local library, and especially recommended for readers who enjoyed The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society or  Major Pettigrew's Last Stand. I loved both (but read Major Pettigrew before I began this blog), and also haven't exactly been batting 1.000 selecting my own books lately.

So. The story is great. Gabrielle Zevin has created engaging characters and an interesting plot, all woven around the fabric of - what else? - other books. A.J.'s reviews of various books are highly enjoyable and add to the readability of Storied Life. My only complaint is that, in many ways, I was only beginning to truly care about the characters and be interested in what happened to them, personally, as opposed to focusing on the creative and well-written narrative, when the book ended. I realize not every book can - or should - be a tome à la Roses, but I wasn't quite ready to close the book on A.J. Fikry.

Coolidge

Calvin Coolidge appears to have been all things that modern presidents rarely are: unfailingly humble, forged by circumstances that can only generously be called modest, and genuinely decent. At least that is how Amity Shlaes portrays the 30th president in his aptly-named tome, Coolidge.

Unfortunately, Coolidge's rise through Massachusetts politics and to the White House is, with all due respect to Amity's research and prose, rather dull. Or at least would not seem to require 500+ pages. I read diligently, closely event, for 250 or 300 pages and then decided life is too short to become bogged down in the minutiae of, for example, the Teapot Dome Scandal. (My patience was perhaps especially short having just slogged through another too-long bio - on the life and times of Jane Franklin.)

For those who wish to become intimately acquainted with Calvin Coolidge, you could not ask for more than what Shlaes delivers here. For those interested in a snapshot of the Coolidge administration, Bill Bryson's One Summer: America, 1927 does an excellent job of providing just that and laying the groundwork for all that was to come - namely, Hoover and the Great Depression.

Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin

The University of Michigan Alumni Magazine reviewed (and recommended) Book of Ages in its last issue and, having had great success with past recommendations (Edmund Love, Rich Boy, and The Blood of Free Men all come to mind), I borrowed it from the library. Unfortunately, I wasn't a fan.

The truth of the matter is that Jill Lepore's Book of Ages proves her lament: histories of great men, novels of little women. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Book of Ages is the biography of Benjamin Franklin's youngest, and longest living, sister, Jane. She was the only sibling to outlive him, the one to whom he was closest, and the one with whom he shared a lifelong correspondence. This biography is constructed through the letters the Franklins exchanged, not all of which, of course, survive. Lepore fills in a bit of conjecture where necessary: did Jane, for example, read Benjamin's autobiography, published posthumously? If so, here is what she would have found... And so on. It is not a bad book, but, fair of me or no, Jane Franklin's life does not require 316 pages, and I became rather impatient.

Book of Ages essentially chronicles the lives of those to whom Franklin was related: siblings, cousins, nieces and nephews, all of whom, with few exceptions, led poor, if not hard scrabble lives in colonial America. It does not help the reader that they seem to have used only about 10 surnames among 100 or so people (Jane, Benjamin, Josiah, Sarah, and Jenny being the most common), and so I was hopelessly lost remembering who was who, who begat who, and who, frankly, really mattered.

Unfortunately for Lepore ordinary lives do not make for great reading when relayed in ordinary ways. The reader only has so much interest in the making of soap or the laundering of smalls. For a more vibrant read on Revolutionary times, I recommend, alas, a novel: The Schoolmaster's Daughter.

In a Sunburned Country

I like Bill Bryson's work quite a lot. I like travel writing in general. I believe I would very much like Australia. And yet, I really did not care for In a Sunburned Country. Bryson's meanderings through the southern continent are neither hilariously recounted (as is his hike through Appalachia), nor are they especially thoughtfully and engagingly constructed (as is his latest work on the summer of 1927).

Rather, In a Sunburned Country is a rambling roll through the cities and countrysides, no different, perhaps, that if you or I were to write a book on our last vacation - assuming, that is, that we might take a months long vacation for the purpose of writing a book. And there it is: this book feels forced. Instead of undertaking something and then deciding it would make a good story, Bryson has predetermined that there will be a story here, dammit, and it just never quite takes flight. In fact, I made less than halfway before abandoning the effort altogether.

Cutting for Stone

A colleague-friend recommended Abraham Verghese's Cutting for Stone to me this spring - Abby, if you're reading - thank you. Cutting for Stone is an epic, sweeping novel that travels from turn of the (twentieth) century India to mid-century Ethiopia and onward to twenty-first century America. It is the story of Marion and Shiva Praise Stone, but more than that it is a story of man's unparalleled ability to make terrible, terrible decisions, most often when blinded by love.

Marion and Shiva are identical twins, bound together, yet simultaneously torn apart. They come of age at the Missing Hospital, shaped by constant presence of medicine in their lives, by the many ways the human body can fail, and death can come. As Ethiopia descends into chaos and war, Missing Hospital becomes their anchor, the place where they can find safety and shelter and home.

Until, of course, the day they can't.

Verghese's prose is beautiful and very often heart-wrenching, with a wisdom that is more than page-deep. "We come unbidden into this life," he writes early in Cutting for Stone, "and if we are lucky we find a purpose beyond starvation, misery, and early death which, lest we forget, is the common lot." He does not mince his words.

Wonderful in too many ways to count, you will most likely need more than one tissue before you finish. But you can't finish if you don't start.

The Mysterious Death of Miss Jane Austen

Despite the obvious use of the word "mysterious" in the title, I didn't realize The Mysterious Death of Miss Jane Austen would be a rollicking mystery, but, indeed, it was. On my reading list for years, I finally read Mysterious Death this past week and enjoyed it tremendously.

Lindsay Ashford's historical novel is based on the friendship of Jane Austen and Anne Sharp, governess to Jane's niece, Fanny. In the opening pages, the reader learns that what follows are a memoirs, of sort, written following the death of Jane as Anne struggles to understand how her friend died so suddenly. This quest is the mystery at the heart of mysterious death and it unfolds superbly. Honestly, I didn't much care for the character of Anne, although I recognize that is likely because Ashford has positioned her so successfully as a 19th century governess: her world is small, her perspective is narrow, her options are few, her choices are a product of these constraints.

Ultimately, The Mysterious Death of Miss Jane Austen is reminiscent of the best of Agatha Christie, with a slowly burning mystery, a substantive plot, and great historical details.

One Summer: America, 1927

I am finally getting around to reviewing Bill Bryson's One Summer, which I read while I was in Japan last month. I was previously familiar with Bryson only as a travel writer; I needed something to read in e-format, though (no sense carrying 40 pounds of books across the Pacific), and my library had this title available.

I loved it. Even though today is but the first of June and I have, hopefully, more than half a year of good reading ahead of me, I'm certain One Summer will make my "best of" list at the end of the year. The summer of 1927 was one heck of a summer and Bryson covers a tremendous amount of ground here. This was the summer of flight, when flyers disappeared one-by-one in their quest to cross the Atlantic and one Charles Lindbergh actually made it to Paris. This was also the summer of baseball, and specifically of the New York Yankees and the long ball - Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig were in fine form that summer, hitting balls out of the park with a regularity never before seen, and that would not be seen again for some decades. Prohibition was in full effect; Bryson references some of Daniel Okrent's more colorful anecdotes from Last Call: Rise and Fall of Prohibition in America, which was one of my favorite 2011 reads. And, of course, we couldn't have prohibition without Al Capone, Chicago, and the mob. (My favorite Chicago mob story actually dates to 1921: when Anthony D'Andrea died, his honorary pallbearers included 21 judges, nine lawyers, and the Illinois state prosecutor.)

Michigan (the state, as well as the university) gets a fair amount of coverage here, too: Lindbergh's parents are UM grads and his mother teaches school in Detroit. (His father is dead.) Henry Ford is going crazy preparing to build a new kind of car, hating Jews, and trying to build an empire in Brazil ("Fordlandia," and neither Bryson nor I made that up), all from the happy confines of southeastern Michigan. And, as an example of how the world has always been populated by deranged and angry folks, Bryson also writes about the school bombing in Bath, Michigan.

And so much more. Calvin Collidge chose not to run for re-election. Four bankers set the world on a path to the Great Depression. Hollywood transitioned from silent film to talkies.

Bryson does a remarkable job exploring the personalities, politics, and problems that captivated Americans that summer and that would ultimately shape the course of the country from entertainment to economics, sports, politics, and the idea of celebrity. He is, as ever, highly readable, engaging, and not a little irreverent. Come one, come all to the pages of One Summer. 

Riding the Iron Rooster: By Train Through China

I'm sure Riding the Iron Rooster was a better book when it was written in 1988 than it is today. The Iron Rooster is a Chinese Train, one of dozens that Paul Theroux travels in as he criss-crosses China for months on end seeking to better understand the country in the late '80s. His adventures are amusing, but rarely more, and his descriptions of China are now so dated that it's hard to see beyond that. I actually found his stories from the Soviet bloc, then in its final throes, though few knew that at the time, to be more interesting than many of his dispatches from China.

I much preferred Paddling the Pacific and Hotel Honolulu (read in the pre-blog days) to Riding the Iron Rooster and, honestly, likely wouldn't have finished it at all if I'd had anything else to read on my way to Japan. Final verdict: only the most serious Chinese history and/or rail travel lovers need apply.

The Summer Girls

The Summer Girls is the quinessential beach read. It's 377 pages, but reads much faster. Each character, and there are no more than a handful, is distinct, the plot moves quickly, and it's even set at the beach.

Dora, Carson, and Harper are half-sisters who have not seen one another for the better part of a decade until their grandmother summons them to her lowcountry house, Sea Breeze, to celebrate her 80th birthday. Dora, the oldest, is in the midst of a divorce and uncertain, at best, how to handle her autistic son. Carson has recently broken up with her boyfriend, lost her job, and is a borderline alcoholic, while Harper is spinning her wheels as her ice-queen-mother's personal assistant at a New York City publishing house. Different mothers, different lives, and now way too much togetherness.

I bought what Mary Alice Monroe was selling for roughly 300 pages. The last quarter of the book, though, sort of fell apart for me. All of the storylines save Carson's seem to vanish, and hers goes from improbable to utterly absurd. In the end, I just wasn't a fan.

The Road to Yesterday

I have already written of my love affair with the Anne of Green Gables series and of course earlier this year I read L.M. Montgomery's Chronicles of Avonlea and Further Chronicles of Avonlea, so I seem to be on a bit of a Montgomery kick lately. The Road to Yesterday did not disappoint - a series of short stories, each centered around a family known to the Blythes but never quite measuring up to them, this is a quick read. For the most part it is all sweetness and light, at least in as much as stories so densely populated with old maids and orphans can be considered as such. (It is also not entirely surprising that Wikipedia notes, "For a woman who had given the world so much joy [life] was mostly an unhappy one." I suppose Montgomery knew of what she wrote.) Even so, there is no shortage of happy endings for characters she takes such pains to create.

By and large, there's not much substance to The Road to Yesterday, but I mean that in the best possible way. This is escapism reading. Montgomery has a gift for transporting her reader where she wants and with whom she wants and I felt myself fully drawn into the homes and lives of these lovely characters. Anne, her husband Gilbert, and their children are so artfully woven in that the reader doesn't realize that Road is, in many ways, simply a continuation of the Anne series, told from different viewpoints, but mining much of the same ground. This is a delightful little read for anyone who has ever thrilled at Anne's adventures or been entranced by her world.

The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II

The Girls of Atomic City is a bit like Debs at War, with the twist that these American girls 1) by and large were from quite unprivileged backgrounds in contrast to the likes of Princess Di's aunt; and 2) had absolutely no idea that the factory where they worked was actually creating the material for the atomic bomb. The latter is probably the most fascinating aspect of Denise Kiernan's story of Oak Ridge, Tennessee: virtually no one knew anything - and doesn't seem to have given it too much thought. There was a war on, there was a job to do, and for most of these women, from the small towns and smaller farms of the rural south, there was a paycheck to earn, the size of which they'd never dared imagine.

In the age of social media and, yes, Edward Snowden, it's also fascinating to contemplate what the government accomplished - buying and clearing land, hiring tens of thousands of people, building an entire town, to say nothing of the nuclear plant that was its raison d'être, and all without nearly anyone knowing. Following FDR's death, even Harry Truman had to be briefed on the Oak Ridge facility, a revelation which left him gobsmacked. He would write, in fact, that learning of Oak Ridge left him feeling "like the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen on me."

I especially enjoyed the way in which Kiernan intertwines the history of Oak Ridge and the women who lived and worked there with the history of nuclear science itself, as well as the breadth of women she interviewed and ultimately profiled in this book. These women held jobs ranging from janitor to statistician to high level scientists and hailed from equally variable backgrounds. Although it can be hard at times to keep up with which character did what, when, and with whom, the cast of characters provides a comprehensive look at what went into the making of the atom bomb on a day-to-day, behind-the-scenes basis.

David Golder, The Ball, Snow in Autumn, The Courlif Affair

I have previously read several of Irène Némirovsky's longer works (my favorite,
Suite Française, as well as All Our Worldly Goods and The Wine of Solitude); this book encompasses four short stories. Like The Wine of Solitude, each of the short stories is that of a Russian individual or family forced one way or another into French exile, not unlike Némirovsky herself. (That's not entirely true: the origins of the family at the center of The Ball are not Russian, but they are outsiders to Parisian society, still finding their way after coming into money. They are also - like Némirovsky - Jewish.)

Snow in Autumn  and The Courlif Affair were my favorite stories of the four. The former chronicles the flight of a White Russian family from their lovely villa into the chaos of Boshevik Russia and then onto Paris; more poignantly, it is also the story of the family's most devoted servant who adapts to the changes with even greater difficulty than those for whom she worked for more than half a century.

Snow in Autumn contrasts neatly with The Courlif Affair whose narrator is a Red Russian born to celebrated revolutionary parents and assigned at a young age to assassinate the Minister of Education, whose policies are responsible for the heavy-handed repression of the student movement at high schools and universities across Russia. As part of his assignment, he becomes the personal physician to his intended target, changing his perspective, if not the ultimate outcome. He, too, ends up in France after the Revolution, hunted and perhaps haunted by this assignment more than any other. 

As always, it is a pleasure to read Némirovsky's prose, and her character development and story telling are superb. This book is a wonderful compilation of short stories, one that I can easily recommend.

Lulu in Hollywood

I have wanted to read Louise Brooks's memoir Lulu in Hollywood since I read The Chaperone last August. Louise Brooks, lest you need a refresher, was a well-known actress of the 1920s and 30s, perhaps most famous for popularizing the highly scandalous bobbed haircut. Her memoirs are more forgettable. (Although she would recoil to hear them called that, having ended her non-memoirs with the line, "That is why I will never write my memoirs."I'm sorry to say, don't quite live up the hair.)

Brooks was born in Kansas, moved to New York at age 15, and was a major Hollywood star so there seemed to be potential, but...

Brooks finally lost me at the chapter devoted to Marion Davies' niece (that's actually the name of the chapter). Said niece was Pepi Lederer and Brooks takes her reader through the whole sad tale of Pepi's addictions and eventual suicide. In fact, most chapters focused on other people Brooks had known, but revealed little of her thoughts or emotions on the people or the events. I suppose she tried to warn her reader: these are not really her memoirs.

Did not finish.

A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail

Bill Bryson wrote A Walk in the Woods over 15 years ago, but I learned of it for the first time this past weekend as I was scanning the library's collection of currently available ebooks. I have read his books before (Lost Continent, most notably) and find them to be humorous and quick to read. I wasn't disappointed. At times, A Walk in the Woods is laugh-out-loud funny.

The deal is this: Bill has decided to hike the Appalachian Trail. He would prefer not to do this alone, though, so he invites basically all of his friends and acquaintances to join him. The one person who takes him up on the offer is an old high school buddy, Stephen Katz, whom Bill has not seen in roughly 20 years. Katz, as Bryson describes him, is recovering from his stint "as Iowa's drug culture," and is seriously out of shape and overweight to boot. He must gorge himself on donuts (or Snickers, or something else of that nature) regularly to avoid the seizures that have plagued him since his run-in with a bad batch of narcotics a decade earlier.

So it is that this unlikely duo sets out for the southernmost end of the trail, deep in Georgia, and begins hiking. Their adventures, or more specifically those they encounter over the course of their adventures, make for fantastic reading. From nutty hikers to those who pick up hitchhikers to innkeepers and cab drivers, Bryson brings color - and humor - to each day's long, hard slog.

In addition to chronicling his very long walk in the woods, Bryson offers a great deal of history on the Appalachian Trail, the National Parks Service and Forest Service pretty generally, and even the dreaded zoonotic diseases one might encounter within the parks. For a moment I forgot I was reading Bryson and thought I was reading Quammen.

Four stars.

My Notorious Life

I must confess: I read closely for 300 pages, then skimmed about 100 before reading the last 30-40 closely again. I don't feel like I missed anything. I liked Kate Manning's My Notorious Life, but it was simply too long. More than once I had to flip back through hundreds of pages to refresh myself on some person or event - and it's not like it took me six months to read!

My Notorious Life opens with a suicide - whose and for what reasons will not be revealed until the closing pages of this drama. In between, we are treated to the life and times of Axie Muldoon aka Mrs. Ann Jones aka Madame DeBeausacq aka Madame X. Axie-Ann-Madame is the orphan daughter of Irish immigrants. The defining events of her early life are riding the orphan train west from New York City to Rockford, Illinois, where she alone among her siblings is not adopted, and watching her mother die in childbirth. Both will mark her, of course, and set her on the path to becoming Madame X, the city's most sought midwife who delivers her patients safely of their babies, though often "prematurely."

Madame is on a collision course with Anthony Comstock, he of the famous Comstock laws, though and it is this battle that leads to the events of the opening pages - and the closing ones.

Written in the style of a memoir, Manning does a nice job of capturing the voice of a poor immigrant girl in nineteenth century. The language is pitch-perfect, non only Axie-Ann-Madame's, but especially that of her German friend, Greta, whose own history is so intertwined with that of the protagonist.

Returning to my opening comments, the (undue) length is the only knock I have against My Notorious Life. Certainly there were times I wanted to reach through the pages and shake one or more of the characters, but that is the hallmark of good writing. The twists and turns are mostly unpredictable, the language rich, and the work of the midwife deftly handled.

The Schoolmaster's Daughter: A Novel of the American Revolution

John Smolens's The Schoolmaster's Daughter had been on my reading list for well over a year before I finally read it last week - and it was worth the wait.

This is the story of Boston's Lovell family, in the opening days of the American Revolution. The father is the well-respected schoolmaster of the Latin school (hence the title of the book) - and a devoted loyalist. His three children on the other hand, James, Abigail, and Benjamin, are avowed Americans - and known revolutionaries. This is particularly true of eldest son James, he of the slightly dodgy past and mysterious illness (which is oddly and annoyingly never explained) who pens many of the missives that drive the Revolution.

Primarily Schoolmaster's Daughter focuses on the parallel stories of Abigail, who alternately woos and spurns a British corporal and finds herself accused in the murder of a sargeant, and youngest brother Benjamin who slips through siege lines and fights in the early, hot battles in the countryside outside the city. The latter he does alongside Ezra Hammond, whom Abigail expected to wed until he left Boston without a word some months before the opening shots of the war - and whose own history is one of the most intricately woven pieces of the story.

Smolens has written a wonderful novel, replete with such larger-than-life characters as Paul Revere and his wife Rachel (conveniently Abigail's best friend) and General Thomas Gage who is friendly with the schoolmaster himself. Ultimately, the language and the events of the time so permeate the pages that the reader feels immersed in Revolutionary Boston and surprised to find herself, say, in a crowded airport.

Four stars.

The Painted Girls

Cathy Marie Buchanan's The Painted Girls is the fictional story of Marie van Goetham, the real-life model for Edgar Degas's Little Dancer Aged Fourteen, and her sisters, Antoinette and Charlotte.

Fourteen-year-old Marie struggles with her place in the world, while 19-year-old Antoinette is torn between mothering her younger sisters and idling away her days in the company of Emile Abadie, who may or may not be a murdered. Nine-year-old Charlotte is a somewhat fleeting presence, while the mother of all three is addicted to the bottle, the reek of absinthe never absent from her breath.

Buchanan cleverly weaves together their stories, using clippings from Le Figaro and other papers to move the action along and fill in any gaps. Occasionally there are even glimpses of 1880s Paris (the portrayal here being 180 degrees from the Paris of Zola in The Ladies' Paradise). The biggest problem for me, however, was that I didn't care much about Marie, who often seemed rather pathetic, or Antoinette, who often seemed rather stupid, or Emile Abadie for that matter. The ending was the strongest part of the book, but even so, The Painted Girls is not in any danger of cracking my year's best list when the time comes.

Two stars.  

Daughter of Empire: My Life as a Mountbatten

In season four of Downton Abbey, Dame Maggie had the pitch-perfect line, "If I were to search for logic, I would not look for it in the English upper class." Lady Pamela Hicks's Daughter of Empire: My Life as a Mountbatten lends credence to that advice. Pamela's parents, the reader learns in the opening pages, each have lovers who live with the family and take delight in presenting their young daughters with such pets as wallabies, lions, and bears. Her experiences are light years from anything most readers will have experienced: her father, one of Queen Victoria's grandsons, was the last viceroy of India and Lady Pamela herself was one of Queen Elizabeth's bridesmaids - and later served as lady-in-waiting on her tour through the Commonwealth.

As is often the case with memoirs, the book becomes richer and more engaging as the author ages and the memories become clearer and more meaningful. The earliest chapters of Daughter of Empire are the least interesting, except in terms of voyeurism, as I've already mentioned. It begins to gain steam as World War II breaks out and Pamela and her older sister Patricia are sent to New York City, where they live as guests of Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt. The war also has the affect of making Pamela's mother, the heiress Edwina Ashley, into a serious person, who becomes much more sympathetic and likeable. 

It is the post-war years, though, that are the meat of this memoir. These are the years when the Earl of Mountbatten serves as viceroy and Pamela finds herself in the whirl of history, with Gandhi making regular appearances, for example. These are also the years when Princess Elizabeth marries Pamela's cousin, Philip, when Pamela accompanies the young couple on a tour of Africa, during which Princess Elizabeth becomes Queen Elizabeth, and then when Pamela serves as lady-in-waiting on a the round-the-world royal tour that begins in the Caribbean and ends in Gibraltar. 

Ultimately, I enjoyed this peek into the last years of the great Empire. In that sense, it is similar to Elizabeth the Queen, only much shorter. I wished the epilogue had mentioned the most famous - and most tragic - episode in the Mountbatten family, that of the assassination of Lord Mountbatten and other members of the family by the IRA in 1979. This a very minor quibble, though, and one that is easily overlooked.