Perhaps I might have liked The American Heiress better if the protagonist - the American heiress who weds an English duke and with her considerable fortune revives his estate - were not named Cora. To say nothing of one of Cora's few friends and kindhearted characters being named Sybil. Downton Abbey much?
Cora Cash is the richest girl in America, with the most overbearing mother. Her mother has decided that Cora needs a title, and takes her husband-shopping in England. Cora is particularly distressed, as she would have preferred to marry her dear friend Teddy, who deems her fortune too great a burden and sends her packing. Cora falls into the lap, almost literally, of an impoverished duke, with his own sorry history. They marry, and naturally misunderstand one another utterly.
I've said this about other books in the past, and it sounds a little tired, but this isn't a bad book. It's not badly written, the characters aren't overly tedious or annoying. It's just not the book for me. Interestingly, author Daisy Goodwin's name was seemed familiar to me, and I searched my blog where I discovered that a few years ago, I read another of her books, The Fortune Hunter. Re-reading my post, it seems as if I felt the same way about that one.
Final verdict: utterly forgettable, but also completely harmless.
Wednesday, May 31, 2017
Sunday, May 28, 2017
The Chilbury Ladies' Choir
The Chilbury Ladies' Choir is not by any means a bad book.
Nevertheless, I couldn't help but feel I'd read it all before: small
town scandals, war refugees, uncertainty and sacrifice in a small
English town. A little too much The Summer Before the War, perhaps, or even The House at Tyneford. I
also found it a challenge, especially for the first 100 pages or so, to
keep straight the myriad characters and sub-plots. One of them, which
appears early and often and is perplexingly central to the novel,
involves the switching of babies so that Colonel Winthrop, whose only
son and heir was killed in the opening days of the war, can again have
an heir. Frankly, I'm still mystified.
Also, I'm tired - and I've complained about this before - of authors using multiple viewpoints expressed through journals, letters, and such to love the story forward. Such writing was used to great effect in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, but now it feels gimmicky. (And, in the case of Chilbury, there are so many characters doing this that, as I said above, just keeping track of everyone and her sister- sometimes quite literally - is a task unto itself.)
On the whole, my complaints are relatively minor and I imagine most readers, at least those who haven't already read a litany of war-in-small-town-England book, would enjoy reading this one.
Three stars.
Also, I'm tired - and I've complained about this before - of authors using multiple viewpoints expressed through journals, letters, and such to love the story forward. Such writing was used to great effect in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, but now it feels gimmicky. (And, in the case of Chilbury, there are so many characters doing this that, as I said above, just keeping track of everyone and her sister- sometimes quite literally - is a task unto itself.)
On the whole, my complaints are relatively minor and I imagine most readers, at least those who haven't already read a litany of war-in-small-town-England book, would enjoy reading this one.
Three stars.
Monday, May 22, 2017
The Joys of Travel: And Stories That Illuminate Them
If you know me, you know that if there's anything I love more than reading, it's traveling, and if there's anything I love more than traveling, it's reading. (A cruel and unusual punishment for me, would be having to choose between the two on a permanent basis. But I digress.) Reading about travel, then, is as good as it gets - usually.
Sadly, that was not the case this time. I was not a fan of Thomas Swick's The Joys of Travel. In fact, I did not finish it. See, Swick's Joys felt more like a laundry list of places he'd been and random experiences he'd had than real, in-depth travel writing. He was a travel editor. I get it. Other people paid for his travel. Nice. He traveled hither and yon. Uh-huh. Also, he likes to read about the places he is traveling, particularly before he travels there. Fine. But at the end of the day, there has to be more than that. I neither laughed (Bill Bryson, Mark Adams), nor learned (David Quammen, Kennedy Warne). Rather, Swick's book has a haphazard quality to it, a first-I-went-here, then-I-went-there that left me scratching my head and wondering if a collection of Swick's articles, columns, and reviews mightn't have been more interesting.
I grant it is possible I'm selling Swick short. According to the Amazon page for this book, The New York Times, says Swick is "a perceptive, old-school travel writer whose prose brings celebrated and obscure destinations to life." Maybe. But I didn't get the feel from the first half of the book and if I'm going to read about obscure destinations (Zimbabwe, say, or even the Caucasus), I'd rather do so from true insiders than from someone who - like me - flies in and then out again, no matter how much pre-departure reading they've done.
Sadly, that was not the case this time. I was not a fan of Thomas Swick's The Joys of Travel. In fact, I did not finish it. See, Swick's Joys felt more like a laundry list of places he'd been and random experiences he'd had than real, in-depth travel writing. He was a travel editor. I get it. Other people paid for his travel. Nice. He traveled hither and yon. Uh-huh. Also, he likes to read about the places he is traveling, particularly before he travels there. Fine. But at the end of the day, there has to be more than that. I neither laughed (Bill Bryson, Mark Adams), nor learned (David Quammen, Kennedy Warne). Rather, Swick's book has a haphazard quality to it, a first-I-went-here, then-I-went-there that left me scratching my head and wondering if a collection of Swick's articles, columns, and reviews mightn't have been more interesting.
I grant it is possible I'm selling Swick short. According to the Amazon page for this book, The New York Times, says Swick is "a perceptive, old-school travel writer whose prose brings celebrated and obscure destinations to life." Maybe. But I didn't get the feel from the first half of the book and if I'm going to read about obscure destinations (Zimbabwe, say, or even the Caucasus), I'd rather do so from true insiders than from someone who - like me - flies in and then out again, no matter how much pre-departure reading they've done.
Sunday, May 14, 2017
The Housekeeper and the Professor
The Housekeeper and the Professor caught my eye in an airport bookstore recently for one reason and one reason only: it is a Japanese novel, and I was soon to be on my way to Japan. (Greetings from Kyoto, by the way.)
Unlike other Japanese fiction I have read (for example, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage or A Tale for the Time Being), it is infused with a sense of the Japanese, but not of Japan itself. What do I mean? "The truly correct proof is one that strikes a harmonious balance between strength and flexibility." That single sentence contains the essence of Japanese culture. Yet, there is no sushi in this book, no Ueno Park, no pulsing Tokyo just beyond, no temples or shrines, nothing more than the Hanshin Tigers and the occasional cicadas.
The Housekeeper and the Professor, it must be said, is a slightly odd book, at least to my American sensibilities. The pages are often filled with theorems and formulas, and the constant chatter of prime numbers, but this is a also a book that I can unironically describe as calm and peaceful - not my typical vocabulary when thinking about a book.
Yoko Ogawa's style - and here I must state the obvious - at least as it has been translated into English, is simple and understated. The plot is simple: the housekeeper, whose name we never learn, works for an agency, and is assigned to the home of an eccentric professor. He, too, is nameless, and also a brilliant mathematician, but without any memory past 1975, the result of a near-fatal car accident. As a result, he regularly writes himself reminders which he pins to his suit, giving his outward appearance a rumpled and confused look.
Examined apart, the story's elements make no sense. Together, though, the story is sweet and highly readable, although I will admit to only skimming the densest of the mathematical explanations. Ogawa's work is one of both mathematical fact and light fiction, an achievement which it its own right surely deserves several stars. Or, as the Japanese would say, this is a highly harmonious book.
Unlike other Japanese fiction I have read (for example, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage or A Tale for the Time Being), it is infused with a sense of the Japanese, but not of Japan itself. What do I mean? "The truly correct proof is one that strikes a harmonious balance between strength and flexibility." That single sentence contains the essence of Japanese culture. Yet, there is no sushi in this book, no Ueno Park, no pulsing Tokyo just beyond, no temples or shrines, nothing more than the Hanshin Tigers and the occasional cicadas.
The Housekeeper and the Professor, it must be said, is a slightly odd book, at least to my American sensibilities. The pages are often filled with theorems and formulas, and the constant chatter of prime numbers, but this is a also a book that I can unironically describe as calm and peaceful - not my typical vocabulary when thinking about a book.
Yoko Ogawa's style - and here I must state the obvious - at least as it has been translated into English, is simple and understated. The plot is simple: the housekeeper, whose name we never learn, works for an agency, and is assigned to the home of an eccentric professor. He, too, is nameless, and also a brilliant mathematician, but without any memory past 1975, the result of a near-fatal car accident. As a result, he regularly writes himself reminders which he pins to his suit, giving his outward appearance a rumpled and confused look.
Examined apart, the story's elements make no sense. Together, though, the story is sweet and highly readable, although I will admit to only skimming the densest of the mathematical explanations. Ogawa's work is one of both mathematical fact and light fiction, an achievement which it its own right surely deserves several stars. Or, as the Japanese would say, this is a highly harmonious book.
Monday, May 8, 2017
Chicken Every Sunday: My Life with Mother's Boarders
Chicken Every Sunday is a marvelous little book. I first heard of it in the pages of When Books Went to War; it was described as being one of the absolute favorite Armed Services Editions, one that simply could not be published fast enough to meet the demand of the troops wanting to read Rosemary Taylor's memoir. As Books author Molly Guptill Manning explained, the troops craved not only Taylor's descriptions of the home front, but also and especially her descriptions of mealtimes. And no wonder.
Taylor's family, the Drachmans, were a family unlike most others. Her mother was a Claiborne from Virginia (an FFV, or First Family of Virginia, as Taylor explains) who had been weaned on a former plantation in the immediate post-Civil War South. Taylor's father grew up in one of Arizona's original pioneer families. The pair of them, and their three children - of whom Rosemary is the oldest - are wonderfully entertaining. More than the Drachman's though, are the boarders: since before Rosemary's birth, Mr. and Mrs. Drachman had boarders, both as a service, if you will to early visitors to the territory (for there were no good hotels in those early days before statehood), as well as to earn additional income (primarily on the part of Mrs. Drachman, who saw her husband's get-rich-quick-schemes for what they were).
Yes, the boarders. As Taylor wrote, "One of the boarders who ate Mother's chicken every Sunday summed it up when he said, "I was told that in your house I'd have good food and some fun." They all had fun, and they all became part of the family -- Jeffrey, who lost his front teeth and won his independence, Rita Vlasak, who loved anything in pants, including Father, Miss Sally, who loved Miss Sally and cold cream, the Lathams, who bought a mine, and even the hell-bent-for-heaven Woolleys, who were sure God had sent the skunk to hide under the house because the family didn't go to church on Sunday." Taylor's gift is for bringing them all to life, making the reader today as much a part of the family as the boarder's were 100 years ago.
All of which is to say, they don't make books like this anymore. Cheaper By the Dozen, The Situation in Flushing, All Creatures Great and Small, they are memoirs in the same vein as this one. If you read and loved any of them, Chicken Every Sunday will be soup for your soul; if you read this one and want more of the same, any of the others will provide the same sustenance.
Taylor's family, the Drachmans, were a family unlike most others. Her mother was a Claiborne from Virginia (an FFV, or First Family of Virginia, as Taylor explains) who had been weaned on a former plantation in the immediate post-Civil War South. Taylor's father grew up in one of Arizona's original pioneer families. The pair of them, and their three children - of whom Rosemary is the oldest - are wonderfully entertaining. More than the Drachman's though, are the boarders: since before Rosemary's birth, Mr. and Mrs. Drachman had boarders, both as a service, if you will to early visitors to the territory (for there were no good hotels in those early days before statehood), as well as to earn additional income (primarily on the part of Mrs. Drachman, who saw her husband's get-rich-quick-schemes for what they were).
Yes, the boarders. As Taylor wrote, "One of the boarders who ate Mother's chicken every Sunday summed it up when he said, "I was told that in your house I'd have good food and some fun." They all had fun, and they all became part of the family -- Jeffrey, who lost his front teeth and won his independence, Rita Vlasak, who loved anything in pants, including Father, Miss Sally, who loved Miss Sally and cold cream, the Lathams, who bought a mine, and even the hell-bent-for-heaven Woolleys, who were sure God had sent the skunk to hide under the house because the family didn't go to church on Sunday." Taylor's gift is for bringing them all to life, making the reader today as much a part of the family as the boarder's were 100 years ago.
All of which is to say, they don't make books like this anymore. Cheaper By the Dozen, The Situation in Flushing, All Creatures Great and Small, they are memoirs in the same vein as this one. If you read and loved any of them, Chicken Every Sunday will be soup for your soul; if you read this one and want more of the same, any of the others will provide the same sustenance.
Wednesday, May 3, 2017
Axis Sally: The American Voice of Nazi Germany
Axis Sally pops up continuously in my World War II readings, most recently in the last book I read, When Books Went to War, where her repeated appearances were enough to convince me to check out the Axis Sally biography at my local library. What I learned surprised me. Specifically, I was surprised to learn that while Mildred Gillars was officially Axis Sally, several women actually broadcast under the moniker. And Gillars was essentially made to take the fall for all of them: she was tried for treason and sentenced to a decade in prison for her broadcasts - in fact several women used the moniker, most notably Rita Zucca, who broadcast from Rome.
Gillars herself is both a fascinating and pathetic character. A failed showgirl, she appears to have got into the broadcasting business both to curry favor with her (already married) lover and to gain a level of fame that eluded her in Vaudeville and on Broadway. A college dropout, she earned her degree as an elderly woman, and spent much of her post-imprisonment life teaching in a convent. Reading the transcripts of her broadcasts from the distance of 70-plus years, and (as author Richard Lucas correctly points out), after the Vietnam protests and general coarsening of society, it is difficult to see how her deeds rise to the level of treason.
The book itself is fairly dry. Lucas wrote it, as he explains in the preface, upon discovering that no biography existed, and, while this will sound more uncharitable than I intend, it's not difficult to see why. Gillars is just not that terribly interesting. I was most interested in the hypocrisy and double dealing of the U.S. government that Lucas details throughout Gillars' trial, as well as the existence of Zucca. I mean no slight to Lucas, whose writing is clear and concise and research painstaking, but Axis Sally is a book that even the most devout history buffs can likely skip without missing too much.
Three stars for writing; one star for interest.
Gillars herself is both a fascinating and pathetic character. A failed showgirl, she appears to have got into the broadcasting business both to curry favor with her (already married) lover and to gain a level of fame that eluded her in Vaudeville and on Broadway. A college dropout, she earned her degree as an elderly woman, and spent much of her post-imprisonment life teaching in a convent. Reading the transcripts of her broadcasts from the distance of 70-plus years, and (as author Richard Lucas correctly points out), after the Vietnam protests and general coarsening of society, it is difficult to see how her deeds rise to the level of treason.
The book itself is fairly dry. Lucas wrote it, as he explains in the preface, upon discovering that no biography existed, and, while this will sound more uncharitable than I intend, it's not difficult to see why. Gillars is just not that terribly interesting. I was most interested in the hypocrisy and double dealing of the U.S. government that Lucas details throughout Gillars' trial, as well as the existence of Zucca. I mean no slight to Lucas, whose writing is clear and concise and research painstaking, but Axis Sally is a book that even the most devout history buffs can likely skip without missing too much.
Three stars for writing; one star for interest.
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