Marie Benedict's Lady Clementine is the recounting of Clementine Churchill's life with Winston from their original meeting in 1908 to their marriage six months later, and then through much of their marriage, into the waning days of World War II, where Lady Clementine leaves off.
What I liked: Benedict does a fine job of highlighting Clementine's complexes and complexities. There's much here for which Clementine could be either condemned or condoned, but the well-roundedness of the character development allows the reader to assume a bit of distance and to observe rather than judge. I was also very much a fan of the style of the book. Lady Clementine covers a period of roughly 40 years, and does so in 300-ish pages. To accomplish this, Benedict's approach was to select episodes from Clementine's life and for the protagonist to narrate those key moments, such that the reader might lose 5 or 10 years at a time, but can still feel the keys bits are all captured. Any other approach would have likely felt tedious and overlong, and would have certainly been less readable.
What I didn't like: I would have liked for the book to continue beyond the war. Winston lived until 1965 and Clementine until 1977; given that the scope of this book was far beyond World War II-era, ending as it did came across as abrupt. That said, this is a minor - and stylistic - quibble in the scheme of things, and I certainly much preferred Lady Clementine to Carnegie's Maid, though the books don't purport to resemble each other, after all Lady Clementine was one of the best known English women of the 20th century, while Clara Kelly was a fictional maid to the Carnegie's. Enough said.
Four stars.
Tuesday, March 31, 2020
Wednesday, March 25, 2020
Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle
Although written in 2011, Dan Senor and Saul Singer's Start-Up Nation provides a well-researched history of how Israel has become a hotbed (the hotbed?) for high-tech start-ups in the world today.
Essentially, Senor and Singer argue that Israel is home to the perfect confluence of factors: military conscription, which provides all Israelis with an early dose of high-stakes problem solving replete with life-or-death consequences (and a built-in network of connections forged in this pressure-cooker environment); a large immigrant community, with all the benefits of risk-taking, multi-lingualism, and, potentially, overseas networks, that implies; a national history where constant external threat required agility and adaptability; and cultural norms of low power distance (with its attendant ability to question authority) and achievement orientation. Israel is also an export-driven economy, with a very small domestic market, and no possibilities of trade in the immediate neighborhood, due to tensions with surrounding countries
While the central arguments can be compressed to a handful of paragraphs, it's the examples of Israeli entrepreneurship that pepper the chapters that prove most interesting. From the technologies that drive online payment and security systems, to R&D teams for companies like HP and green technologies like electric cars, Israeli companies - and Israelis - are central actors. As Senor and Singer note, Israel has more companies on the NASDAQ than Korea, Japan, Singapore, India, and all of Europe combined (or at least that was true in 2011; I didn't verify the stats in 2020).
Obviously those with an interest in international business and trade will be most interested in Start-Up Nation, but this is a great book for anyone interested in how geography, culture, history, and the like influence the major market players today.
Five stars.
Essentially, Senor and Singer argue that Israel is home to the perfect confluence of factors: military conscription, which provides all Israelis with an early dose of high-stakes problem solving replete with life-or-death consequences (and a built-in network of connections forged in this pressure-cooker environment); a large immigrant community, with all the benefits of risk-taking, multi-lingualism, and, potentially, overseas networks, that implies; a national history where constant external threat required agility and adaptability; and cultural norms of low power distance (with its attendant ability to question authority) and achievement orientation. Israel is also an export-driven economy, with a very small domestic market, and no possibilities of trade in the immediate neighborhood, due to tensions with surrounding countries
While the central arguments can be compressed to a handful of paragraphs, it's the examples of Israeli entrepreneurship that pepper the chapters that prove most interesting. From the technologies that drive online payment and security systems, to R&D teams for companies like HP and green technologies like electric cars, Israeli companies - and Israelis - are central actors. As Senor and Singer note, Israel has more companies on the NASDAQ than Korea, Japan, Singapore, India, and all of Europe combined (or at least that was true in 2011; I didn't verify the stats in 2020).
Obviously those with an interest in international business and trade will be most interested in Start-Up Nation, but this is a great book for anyone interested in how geography, culture, history, and the like influence the major market players today.
Five stars.
Saturday, March 21, 2020
Dancing Bears: True Stories of People Nostalgic for Life Under Tyranny
In Dancing Bears, author Witold Szablowski travels the length and breadth of the former Soviet states (and satellite states), conversing with those whose lives have changed, not always for the better.
The dancing bears of the titles are those bears who were kept by the Roma of Bulgaria, rescued by a German NGO upon Bulgaria's entry into the EU, and now live a pampered and free life at a park in Belitsa. Much to the chagrin of the park managers, when sad, lonely, or stressed, the bears revert to the behavior that ensured their keep for years: dancing. Neither have their former keepers adapted well to the changing times. Szablowski frequently encounters Gypsy families that have splintered, fractured by depression and death, in the aftermath of the bears' departure.
Beyond Bulgaria, Szablowski introduces his reader to the Stalin-loving guides at the Stalin Museum in Gori, Georgia, where the great man's memory looms large, and to the questions of nationality and identity confronting Russian Estonians...or is it Estonian Russians? He also explores the quietly simmering tensions of life in Kosovo and, in the western hemisphere, Szablowski journeys to Cuba, where more than one leery Cuban expresses uncertainly about the fate of the country should Fidel Castro die (Dancing Bears was published in 2014). On the brighter side, there's good money to be made running goods from the Polish EU to the decidedly-not-the-EU Ukraine.
This is a unique book that provides western readers with perspectives that aren't otherwise easily encountered. Szablowski's work on the dancing bears is especially provocative, yet balanced; he presents a clear-eyed view of the obvious downsides of training bears (removing their teeth, inserting rings through their noses, creating alcohol dependency), but also a sympathetic view of the keepers - Szablowski is at pains (in a good way) to remind readers to the extent to which training bears was a genuine part of the cultural fabric.
Dancing Bears reminded me of Secondhand Time, another work that seeks to provide understanding of how and why the transition from Communism has been so daunting for so many. Whereas I found the latter became repetitive, and ultimately too long, I would have happily read another 100 pages of this one.
Five stars.
The dancing bears of the titles are those bears who were kept by the Roma of Bulgaria, rescued by a German NGO upon Bulgaria's entry into the EU, and now live a pampered and free life at a park in Belitsa. Much to the chagrin of the park managers, when sad, lonely, or stressed, the bears revert to the behavior that ensured their keep for years: dancing. Neither have their former keepers adapted well to the changing times. Szablowski frequently encounters Gypsy families that have splintered, fractured by depression and death, in the aftermath of the bears' departure.
Beyond Bulgaria, Szablowski introduces his reader to the Stalin-loving guides at the Stalin Museum in Gori, Georgia, where the great man's memory looms large, and to the questions of nationality and identity confronting Russian Estonians...or is it Estonian Russians? He also explores the quietly simmering tensions of life in Kosovo and, in the western hemisphere, Szablowski journeys to Cuba, where more than one leery Cuban expresses uncertainly about the fate of the country should Fidel Castro die (Dancing Bears was published in 2014). On the brighter side, there's good money to be made running goods from the Polish EU to the decidedly-not-the-EU Ukraine.
This is a unique book that provides western readers with perspectives that aren't otherwise easily encountered. Szablowski's work on the dancing bears is especially provocative, yet balanced; he presents a clear-eyed view of the obvious downsides of training bears (removing their teeth, inserting rings through their noses, creating alcohol dependency), but also a sympathetic view of the keepers - Szablowski is at pains (in a good way) to remind readers to the extent to which training bears was a genuine part of the cultural fabric.
Dancing Bears reminded me of Secondhand Time, another work that seeks to provide understanding of how and why the transition from Communism has been so daunting for so many. Whereas I found the latter became repetitive, and ultimately too long, I would have happily read another 100 pages of this one.
Five stars.
Sunday, March 8, 2020
Vanishing New York: How a Great City Lost Its Soul
Jeremiah Moss's Vanishing New York is for anyone who has visited a city they used to love and found it changed beyond recognition, or even visited a city for the first time and found a succession of familiar storefronts where once a range of independent shops proliferated. The trend isn't new, but it's been on my mind since an article about a beloved grocery store closing in Le Marais, only for the space to reopen as a high-end lingerie store. Jeremiah Moss feels the pain of the Parisians bemoaning this turn of events.
Vanishing New York is a work to evoke sadness and anger in those who don't want to inhabit a cookie cutter world. Moss takes a deep dive into gentrification, public policy (especially the "tax breaks" that politicians like to hand out like candy), and corporate greed, while also laying a share of blame at those who want to play tourist - or up sticks and move somewhere new altogether - all while being able to eat and shop in the same places they know at home. In short, it's a depressing read laying bare a knot of problems, none of which has easy solutions. (It's all good and fine to exhort everyone to eat/shop local, but as Moss points out, in many cases corporations are going to great lengths to appear local, especially to those who aren't in the know.)
Moss devotes the most ink to the changes in Manhattan, from the Lower East Side to Greenwich Village to Harlem, and then dives into Brookyln before quickly looking at Queens and the Bronx. Staten Island doesn't merit a mention. Whether this is because the same forces aren't impacting it, or aren't impacting it yet, or Moss simply doesn't like it, I couldn't say, but my only quibble what that unexplained omission.
A well-written and depressing read. Five stars.
Vanishing New York is a work to evoke sadness and anger in those who don't want to inhabit a cookie cutter world. Moss takes a deep dive into gentrification, public policy (especially the "tax breaks" that politicians like to hand out like candy), and corporate greed, while also laying a share of blame at those who want to play tourist - or up sticks and move somewhere new altogether - all while being able to eat and shop in the same places they know at home. In short, it's a depressing read laying bare a knot of problems, none of which has easy solutions. (It's all good and fine to exhort everyone to eat/shop local, but as Moss points out, in many cases corporations are going to great lengths to appear local, especially to those who aren't in the know.)
Moss devotes the most ink to the changes in Manhattan, from the Lower East Side to Greenwich Village to Harlem, and then dives into Brookyln before quickly looking at Queens and the Bronx. Staten Island doesn't merit a mention. Whether this is because the same forces aren't impacting it, or aren't impacting it yet, or Moss simply doesn't like it, I couldn't say, but my only quibble what that unexplained omission.
A well-written and depressing read. Five stars.
Wednesday, March 4, 2020
The Sunrise
The Sunrise is the most glamorous hotel in Famagusta, the most glamorous city in Cyprus. In his quest to ensure every element of the hotel is the best, owner Savvas Papacosta hires both Turkish and Greek Cypriots, providing guests with the finest of everything. All of that changes in the summer of 1974 when war breaks out between the two sides following a coup d’état. Papacosta and his glamorous wife Aphroditi abandon The Sunrise and Famagusta along with virutally every other resident.
The Turkish Cypriot Özkans (mother Emine worked in the beauty salon and son Huseyin was, essentially, a beach boy for the hotel) and the Greek Cypriot Georgious (oldest son Markos was Savvas Papacosta's righthand man, even filling in for his boss at important functions) find themselves dependent on one another for survival when their beloved city of Famagusta is abandoned. Out of options, they move into the hotel each had known as an employee, waiting out the war, options dwindling and secrets emerging.
Victoria Hislop's novel, by the same name as the hotel, unfolds slowly at first, but the story builds as the characters develop. The action of the story is primarily in the 70s, but Hislop uses the last couple of chapters as an extended epilogue, following up on the lives of her protagonists. The inclusion of these chapters adds a richness to the story it would otherwise be missing and feels especially satisfying.
Four stars.
The Turkish Cypriot Özkans (mother Emine worked in the beauty salon and son Huseyin was, essentially, a beach boy for the hotel) and the Greek Cypriot Georgious (oldest son Markos was Savvas Papacosta's righthand man, even filling in for his boss at important functions) find themselves dependent on one another for survival when their beloved city of Famagusta is abandoned. Out of options, they move into the hotel each had known as an employee, waiting out the war, options dwindling and secrets emerging.
Victoria Hislop's novel, by the same name as the hotel, unfolds slowly at first, but the story builds as the characters develop. The action of the story is primarily in the 70s, but Hislop uses the last couple of chapters as an extended epilogue, following up on the lives of her protagonists. The inclusion of these chapters adds a richness to the story it would otherwise be missing and feels especially satisfying.
Four stars.
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