The Secrets We Kept

Lara Prescott's The Secrets We Kept is the parallel narrative of Boris Pasternak's toil to finish - and publish - Dr. Zhivago and the CIA's mission to ensure that the latter occurs. To that end, the CIA employs two secretaries, one a seasoned spy last seen blowing bridges in the European theater, circa 1945, and the other, Irina, a total novice and daughter of Russian immigrants. As for Pasternak's life in Soviet Russia, it is as bleak as can be expected, with plenty of appearances by the secret police, stints in the gulag, and a general air of menace.

Each of the stories is interesting enough, though neither of them captured my attention in a way that made me feel I simply *had* to keep reading. Much of this I attribute to the characters, who generally struck me in much the same way as Sophie Duval in Meet Me in Monaco: none were ever more than mere characters to me, and I wasn't invested in what became of them in any capacity. The spy shenanigans were fun, and the period detail - early days of the CIA, Washington in the 1950s, that kind of thing - had much to recommend them.

More intriguing is that The Secrets We Kept was inspired by true events: yes, once upon a time, the CIA agitated to publish a book in an effort to change hearts and mind. On the one hand, it's amazing to consider such pre-internet tactics; on the other hand, there's more than a hint of the-more-things-change-the-more-they-stay-the-same when scanning headlines about Russian bots and social media. Hearts and minds have always been the key, it seems.

Three stars.

Salt: A World History

Salt: A World History is just that - a meandering tome exploring the history of the world as it has been impacted by salt. Who would write such a book? (Mark Kurlansky - who's also written on such comestibles as cod and milk, as well as Paper - Salt > Paper, for what it's worth.) Who would reach such a book? (Me. Also, at least 751 people who bothered to rate it on Amazon.) And yet, these are fair questions, after all how one could read or write 500 pages on such a basic substance?

The answer is lies in Kurlansky's approach. Displaying the same snappy style and inquisitive nature that he used in Food of a Younger Land, Kurlansky explores trade, war, engineering, voyages of discovery, cuisine, and the evolution of mankind through the lens of our biological need for salt. (As a commodity, it was once so valuable that people were paid in salt - the origin of the word salary. Who knew?)

It's the rare book that can cohesively stitch together the preparation of mummies in ancient Egypt and the creation of Tabasco sauce, but that is what Kurlansky has done in Salt. The entire book is peppered with obscure facts, zingy wit, and first rate writing. Although long, Kurlansky doesn't make the mistake of getting too deep in the weeds, and the entire book is accessible even to those with no prior knowledge of Salt, all of which is to say that this book is far better than its title might imply. Clearly, I need to add Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World to my reading list.

Five stars.

Meet Me in Monaco: A Novel of Grace Kelly's Royal Wedding

Meet Me in Monaco is a fluffy read, good for airplanes and beaches and those last few minutes before bed. Co-authors Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb have created their story by imagining the life and times of the (fictional) struggling perfumer whose family workshop was saved when Grace Kelly commissioned her to create a singular scent for her wedding to Prince Rainier.

The women are thrown together when Grace, still a film star, seeks refuge from a photographer in Sophie Duval's small Cannes shop during the 1955 Cannes Film Festival. The photographer, James Henderson, stumbles in moments after Grace is safely hidden away. From these two, small encounters are born relationships that will ebb and flow through the decades, until Grace's untimely death in 1982.

While one images that Gaynor and Webb set out to create in Sophie a character who was sympathetic and likeable, I found James outshone her in that regard. In many ways, Sophie was actually one of the least enjoyable aspects of the book - James Henderson topped the list, but so did much of the narrative (Grace's journey to Monaco, the making of a scent, Cannes in winter).

Ultimately, Meet Me in Monaco is a three-and-a-half to four star read, easy and fun, no deep thinking required.

Britt-Marie Was Here

I last encountered Fredrik Backman's work in A Man Called Ove, and with Britt-Marie Was Here, he clearly establishes it that the former was no one-off: the latter is equally as masterful and lovely.

At its most elemental, Britt-Marie Was Here is a book about the human condition. Birtt-Marie is quirky and fastidious and has led a quiet life as a homemaker; now at 60, she's made the first really big decision of her life in looking for a job. The book opens, in fact, with her at an employment agency, displaying her quirks in all their glory, equal parts irritating and endearing. (To the reader. To the employment agency staff, I think it's safe to say endearing is not the adjective of choice.)

Ultimately, Britt-Marie lands a job as caretaker of sorts at the recreation center in a largely neglected community where the soccer-mad children's most fervent wish is to reconstitute the local soccer team, which is easier said than done given that their field has been sold and their coach has recently died. Like Ove, the resulting stew is the best mixture of hilarity and poignancy, peppered sharply with wise observations on life's bittersweet choices.

So much of the book, in fact, is about choice, and what it means to make choices, and the events that  seemingly innocuous choices set in motion, and the interconnectedness of it all. In a year of many great books, this might be the greatest I've read yet.

Five stars.

Blood River: The Terrifying Journey through the World's Most Dangerous Country

Between Spillover, Dark Star Safari, Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness, and the Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu, I felt I had a well-rounded sense of the dangers that might lurk around the corner of any number of African countries, from the hazards of travel to militants, terrorists, and thugs to your run-of-the-mill, mind-numbingly-terrifying, bleed-from-every-orifice-as-you-lay-dying disease. Not that I expected to encounter any of these scenarios on my own African foray, of course.

In any case, the title of Tim Butcher's travelogue says it all: a terrifying journey through [one of] the world's most dangerous countries. Is Somalia more dangerous than the DRC? Syria? Yemen? It hardly seems to matter. The man spent months traversing the bush, battling bad water, deadly mosquitoes, and the logistics of traveling through a country where nature has reclaimed all but the largest of roads. Everything - everything - is in short supply and everyone lives in near-constant fear of what or who is around the next bend - most of all the feared mai-mai fighters whose ability to vanish into the bush is as troubling as their violence and tactics.

So why, one might ask does Butcher undertake this adventure? Ostensibly, he seeks to retrace the steps of nineteenth century explorer/adventurer H.M. Stanley whose own voyage down the Congo River ultimately led to the country's nearly-century-long experience with the brutality of colonialism, first as King Leopold's personal possession and later as a Belgian colony. More tangibly, it seems that retracing Stanley's route may have been the germ of the idea, but that once seeded, Butcher could not let it go - as an international correspondent who'd covered his fair share of combat zones and front lines, this journey became one more way to test himself and his mettle, mental as well as physical. To which I say, bully for him. It's hard to imagine anyone else mad enough to entertain such a journey (I mean, even Paul Theroux stuck to the overcrowded and rattletrap "taxis" and "buses" in Dark Star Safari), but it makes for a fascinating backdrop for the history and politics that Butcher deftly incorporates.

Four stars. 

American Princess: A Novel of First Daughter Alice Roosevelt

“I can be President of the United States, or I can control Alice. I cannot possibly do both.” 

I was familiar with one of Teddy Roosevelt’s more memorable lines, as well as his own back story (death of his wife and mother on the same day, subsequent abandonment of his two-day-old baby, followed by remarriage to a woman who wasn’t exactly crazy about her rambunctious step-daughter, and even Alice’s Pacific tour), but American Princess provides a far more in-depth look at Alice Roosevelt, from her days living in the White House to her days visiting it during the Kennedy years.

This is historical fiction at its finest, with the characters finely drawn from letters, diaries, newspaper clippings, interviews, and other source materials that allowed Stephanie Marie Thornton to create a detailed portrait of the life, loves, and legacy of Alice Roosevelt Longworth. (For what it’s worth, I previously knew about the womanizing husband, but not Aurora Borah Alice.) 

Thornton's work is fast-paced and lively, not unlike Roosevelt Longworth herself, it seems, and she manages to imbue all of the characters with a complexity that is undoubtedly true-to-life. (Case in point, I found Teddy himself much more sympathetic in this work than in any previous book I've read about him.) American Princess is beautifully written, and the scandals and hijinx are as readable as any tabloid, while being the heart and soul of a work with a true literary feel. This is historical fiction, but - and I mean this is all the best ways - it's sometimes difficult to discern where the truth stops and the fiction begins.

Five stars.

Tune In Tokyo:The Gaijin Diaries

Tim Anderson is a gay southerner who finds himself drifting after college and decides the cure for his ennui is a stint in Japan. A former English major, Tune-In Tokyo is the resulting memoir documenting his time teaching English in and around Tokyo.

This is not the finest book about Japan I’ve ever read, but it provides a unique perspective on life there, and particularly on the business of the ubiquitous English schools. (I know of ex-pats who’ve made a veritable fortune teaching English, so the demand is certainly there!) Anderson has no desire to go full-native, a la Jake Adelston and Tokyo Vice, but anyone who is familiar with the in, outs, and many quirks of Tokyo will find much to relate to in Anderson's work. 

3.5 stars