Death in the City of Light

Paris during World War II seems to have made it back on my list again. Death in the City of Lights is no ordinary WWII read, though: it's the true account of a serial killer, Marcel Petiot, preying on a cross-section of Parisians (for example, Jews fleeing Nazis as well as gangsters and prostitutes) at the height of the Occupation. Not only that, but the serial killer is a seemingly well-respected physician with connections to both the Resistance and the Underworld.

David King's telling is meticulously researched and recounted. In all of my previous reading of Paris during the war years, I had never heard this story, which is quite remarkable, not least because even today authorities are unsure of how many individuals Petiot killed - at least 26, but possibly as many as 150. (The uncertainty is due to the ways in which people simply disappeared during the war, a terrifying history in and of itself which bears thinking about.) King begins this book with the gruesome discovery of the bodies, then weaves the tangled web that confronted the authorities (full disclosure: I skipped the paragraphs that appeared to have too high an "ick factor" for me). At times I was as confused as Inspector Massu and Company must have been, but with his prodigious research, King does a fine job of untangling the web in an Epilogue that provides reasonable and satisfactory answers to most questions.

Death in the City of  Light is well-written and provides fascinating insight into the relationship between the various factions in Paris during the War. However, I did have two complaints. The first, which probably could not be entirely helped is that the cast of characters is tremendously long and I had a hard time remembering the relationships between them. (This is further compounded by the fact that many of them have additional code names or aliases and so even keeping straight, for example that Petiot is also Captain Valeri, Dr. Eugene, and Dr. Watterwald!)  In other cases, a character may disappear for hundreds of pages before reappearing, in which case I was grateful to be reading this on my Nook, which enabled me to do a quick search and remind myself who the person in question was. Obviously the latter instances could have been more easily addressed by the author than the former. My second complaint was that, once this book moved into the trial phase, it became a bit lopsided: some of the best passages come from the trial, which was aptly described as a "circus" at the time, but some of the most tedious passages are also contained in those chapters.

I think this is a great read for anyone looking to gain deeper insight into World War II Paris or those who would like to read something that's a bit "off the beaten path," so to speak. A more casual reader, less interested in the workings of the Occupation or mid-twentieth century Paris, may find it less enjoyable.

The Uncommon Reader

It’s the Queen’s Jubilee! Okay, so I missed it by a few weeks, but I actually read this little book—at 119 very small pages, the novella designation is very apt – closer to the Jubilee than I’m finally posting my review of it. (Also, I should add that it has been on my list for quite some time, but all the coverage of the Queen did spur me to actually drive to the library and check it out.)

So, what if Queen Elizabeth II started reading one day and became so addicted that it was all she wanted to do? That is the central question of Alan Bennett’s book, which begins with a rather improbable visit by Her Majesty to a traveling bookmobile/library. Never a tremendous reader, she is suddenly hooked and cannot get enough of the written word. She rides in carriages with a book open on her lap, she dismisses the Prime Minister early from their weekly sessions so that she can resume her stories, and she selects staff based on their appreciation for all things literary. The “peripheral” grandchildren are sent to purchase the titles their grandmother wishes to read next.

It’s all a bit silly, really, although at heart, this is less a book about the Queen’s imagined love of reading and more a book about what it means to love to read. For example, Bennett imagines, “the sheer endlessness of books outfaced her and she had no idea how to go on” and compares literature to a vast country to the borders of which one can travel but never reach. “I will never catch up,” the Queen laments on the same page. And it is true. For how many times have you contemplated the books in the library, or even the titles on an (ever-growing) reading list and thought, “so many books, so little time?” Later Bennett writes of the Queen that she “had not expected the degree to which [reading] drained her of enthusiasm for anything else.” I have often been guilty as charged. 

The Uncommon Reader  is definitely a bit far-fetched (to say nothing of the ending, which was very well done and absolutely made me chuckle), but if you are looking for a fast, light, fun summer read, love books, and can sympathize with wanting to do nothing but turn the page and find out what happens next, you’ll not be disappointed. And if you're more interested in the real life and times of the queen, I'd suggest adding Sally Bedell Smith's Elizabeth the Queen to your reading list.

The Girl in the Blue Beret

The second book I read on vacation was, unfortunately, as disappointing as the first (How I Paid for College...). The story is this: it's 1980(ish) and a former World War II pilot is about to retire from his job as a commercial airline pilot. Forcibly - pilots used to be required to retired at 60. Anyway, to mark his retirement, he decides to visit the Belgian site where he crash landed during the war. Remembering the Belgian and French civilians who helped him and the surviving members of his crew evade the Germans and return to London by way of Spain at great risk to themselves, he moves to France and begins to search for these men and women.

The premise is great and, reading in Paris, which is also the setting for much of the book, the location had much to recommend it as well. Yet, after a strong start, it never really held together. For example, a few characters disappeared completely and others were introduced only to have their stories fizzle or to leave me wondering why they had been introduced. Had two characters truly entered the story only as a way to tell the story of one particular wartime atrocity or was I missing something? Clumsily, in fact, the focus of the story changed, zeroing in on the ruthless and barbaric acts the Germans committed and contemplating the impact these acts had on one particular character - whom we never met.

As quickly as the book changed course, it ends, and in a way that left me completely unsatisfied as a reader. Where had all of these characters gone? Not only was I left with that question (as well as the 'whys' I mentioned earlier, but in many ways I was unclear of even how it was ending. If I thought this were to set-up a sequel, I would be more forgiving, but really it felt like the author (Bobbie Ann Mason) simply grew tired of writing. All in all, I had high hopes when I began reading, and probably through the first half of the book even, but by the end I was confused, frustrated, and disappointed.

How I Paid for College: A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship, and Musical Theater

I picked up How I Paid for College at the immensely wonderful Powell’s Bookstore in Portland, Oregon, earlier this spring. It was a staff pick and, particularly as I had read and enjoyed several other staff picks (Destiny of the Republic chief among them), I skimmed a few pages and decided to purchase a copy. The premise of the story is that Edward Zanni has lived a nice, cushy life until his father remarries to a “stepmonster” and then refuses to pay for him to attend Juilliard. At times, it was funny. Mostly, however, the pranks, frauds, and hijinks felt entirely non-sensical and often gratuitous. The characters largely blended together, which was weird because it was clear that many of them were intended to be the ultimate stereotype of one or another type: the junkie, the exotic foreigner, the eccentric theater student, etc. This was especially strange because I felt like one of the subliminal messages of the book was a sort of “there’s-more-to-any-person-than-meets-the-eye” lesson, where the reader is supposed to look beyond the supposed stereotype to see the whole person. At the end of the day, I just couldn’t buy it, though, and the feeling I had upon finishing the book was one of relief.

Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun

I heard about this book from a good friend who heard about it from NPR. It is the story of how a handgun that was developed in Austria by a curtain rod manufacturer came to dominate the U.S. market and, more salaciously, of the various scandals that have rocked the company in the past three decades. Hit men, alcoholism, domestic violence, tax evasion, and embezzlement have never been more intriguing.

Paul Barrett did a phenomenal amount of research for this book, speaking with any number of characters – upstanding and shady, alike – on both sides of the pond to put together a comprehensive and relatively unbiased look at how Glock has grown and prospered in the 25 years since the guns first entered the American market. (Unbiased except for the tax evasion bit – it’s clear he thinks evading Uncle Sam is bad, and also that he is pretty incredulous about some of the poor management practices at the company. In fact, at times this reads as a case study, but a very, very good one.) Although it seems clear at times that he does not agree with the NRA, he does nevertheless articulate their arguments in accessible language so that even a gun-control advocate such as myself can say, “well, I never thought of it that way,” even if thinking of it that way still doesn’t bring me around to their side.

Overall, Glock, read like a book-length journalism feature story, which is high praise from a WSJ or Washington Post geek like me. I am very glad this book was recommended to me, as it’s unlikely I would have found it on my own and, at the end of the day, it really checked all of the boxes for me: thoroughly researched, well-written, engaging, and on a topic which I didn’t know much about and would otherwise be completely ignorant. Also, the scandals are about as much fun as you can have in high finance and international business…

To Conquer the Air

To be honest, I found this book a bit boring. James Tobin certainly deserves credit for his utter thoroughness in documenting the race to flight. While certainly concentrating the most attention on Wilbur and Orville Wright, he examines the earliest attempts at flight in Europe (which, to a man, ended with the death of the would-be pilot/inventor in his craft), the attempts of lesser known Americans to achieve flight (Samuel Langley, anyone? Octave Chanute?), as well as one of the country's best known and most beloved inventor's efforts: Alexander Graham Bell. And yet, by and large the book simply didn't hold a candle to Jim Rasenberger's America, 1908. (Even Thomas Selfridge's death as Orville's passenger is better told in the latter book, with Rasenberger foreshadowing the man's demise  - and Orville's later feelings of guilt - by quoting from correspondence between the brothers in which they lament how it would be better if Selfridge were out of the way.)

I did come away with a deep admiration and greater understand of what the Wright Brothers accomplished (beyond the end result of flying, that is). Tobin devotes great chunks of text to the many, many iterations of the "aeroplane," as the brothers called it, as well as the rather horrendous conditions at Kitty Hawk, where they frequently battled either sweltering or freezing temperatures and swarms of biting and stinging insects in addition to the obvious hardships of life in rural America 100+ years ago: the need to find, shoot, and skin your dinner before eating it, the necessity of building every structure by hand, and the lack of showers, toilets, and other conveniences. Clearly no one smelled fresh as a daisy or sweet as a rose. I was also struck by the clear-sighted view they had of their invention and it's capabilities. Tobin quotes relatively early correspondence from Wilbur in which he writes, "We stand ready to furnish a practical machine for use in war at once." Similarly, when witnesses of early flights asked what the machine would be good for, they received a single word response: war. Indeed.

Several times I considered abandoning the book as too dry, too slow or, as when Tobin were veer off to explore the efforts of some other unknown would-be inventor, too choppy. Yet, had I done so, I would have missed the descriptions of the flights over New York, the first time the masses saw an airplane fly. The following paragraph especially struck me, capturing the awe of a people and an age:

"On the Jersey shore, people saw the machine bank and sweep into a tight half-circle, then head away, back over the harbor. Now every skipper in the harbor opened his steam whistle. ... Just ahead lay a far greater hulk in the harbor. It was the Cunard liner Lusitania, outbound for Liverpool. ... The flying machine came on and flew just overhead, and the liner let loose with a volcanic blast of steam. A hundred feet up, the roar and the heat enveloped Will."

It seems fitting that it was the Lusitania in the harbor, saluting one new weapon of war and soon to be sunk by another.

The Food of a Younger Land

The Food of a Younger Land provides a fascinating glimpse back in time to the American of the 1930s (and earlier). The book, which is comprised primarily of original, unpublished manuscripts collected as part of a WPA project in the late 1930s and early 1940s (last submissions: December 11, 1941) is essentially a glimpse of what and how Americans ate in the opening decades of the 20th century. The impetus for the government collecting this information - and the project lasted for nearly a decade, beyond the whole Great Depression thing, was the appearance of bottled salad dressings in grocery aisles. As Mark Kurlansky, who really did a wonderful job of stitching piles of 70-year-old papers into a highly readable book, writes in his introduction: “What could better spell the beginning of the end than the manufacture of bottled salad dressing, a product that was so easy to make at home?”

In 1930s America, Italians ate ravioli and Mexicans ate tacos and these foods needed to be described in detail for anyone else. Ravioli, by the way, are “diminutive derbies of pastry, the crowns stuffed with a well-seasoned meat paste,” or at least that is how the WPA writer described them in the late 1930s. Also, tourists in Virginia who do not find the “Virginian foods” along the highway are advised to “knock at some farmhouse door, register [their] complaint against American standardization, and be served after a manner that conforms to the ancient rules of hospitality.” As Kurlansky notes, if that instruction isn’t evidence that this book is about a different country as much as different foods, I don’t know what is.

Given what people in this earlier version of America ate, it’s amazing they didn’t all die of coronary disease at age 35 (of course, I suppose one could make the same argument today)... Primarily, they ate meat and they ate corn. Baked, fried, broiled, and barbecued, they started with hearty helpings of country ham in the morning, plates of fried chicken at noontime, and slabs of beef at night. That, of course, is when they weren’t eating squirrel, possum, rabbit, bison, duck, venison, the intestines of any and all animal, or my personal favorite, beaver tails. Also beans, biscuits, and the omnipresent corn, as a vegetable, a bread, or often a gruel. Whatever Oregon Trail taught me, I wouldn’t have made a good pioneer.

If you’re curious about an earlier era in American history or how cuisine has evolved, I definitely recommend this book. The heartiest might even try a recipe or two (potato salad or breads most likely, unless you fancy trying your hand at pheasant or beaver, though I personally recommend against it). Seeing that I’m not much better in the kitchen than I would have been as a pioneer, I’ll stick to reading the recipes myself.