The Light Years (The Cazalet Chronicles Book 1)

So, the description on Amazon reads like this: "The first novel of the Cazalet Chronicle, this masterpiece in the tradition of Upstairs, Downstairs takes us to the Cazalet household in 1930s England, when the coming war is only a distant cloud on the horizon. Elizabeth Howard paints an irresistible picture of the family's intimate world."

This is, evidently, the first novel of the Cazalet Chronicle, it does take us to the Cazalet household, and war is on the horizon. I'm not sure I'd classify it as a masterpiece, though. My primary quibble with The Light Years is that Howard introduces far too many characters, with insufficient depth for the reader to differentiate one from the other. After 400 pages, I still couldn't consistently remember whether Teddy and Simon were the sons of Edward and Hugh, or the other way around. There are the senior Cazalets, their four grown children, three of whom are married, the children of those three, the sister, mother, and assorted relations of one daughter-in-law, a stable of servants, and assorted friends, colleagues, paramours, and others hangers-on. Oy.

What's more, there was no real story, no plot here. Or, what plot there was moved so slowly that it was difficult to discern and harder yet to follow. Howard records the minutae of their lives, with plenty of dialogue and details, but little action. I felt as if I were reading the blow-by-blow-by-blow of any family, without the author having done me the courtesy of distilling the salient bits. After close and faithful reading for the first half or two-thirds, I admit to heavy skimming of the remainder.

Two stars.

Last Boat Out of Shanghai: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Fled Mao's Revolution

Helen Zia's phenomenal Last Boat Out of Shanghai focuses on the personal stories of four Shanghainese who fled from Mao. Annuo, Benny, Bing, and Ho came from vastly different circumstances - Benny, the scion of a comprador family and WWII collaborator; Ho, the second-son of a land-owning family whose greatest aspiration is an advanced education; Annuo, the disdained daughter of a Nationalist general; and Bing, a spunky orphan who must learn at the knee of Elder Sister how to watch out for herself - and how the game is played.

In the late 40s all were faced with the same decision: stay or go. Their choices would ripple through the years, impacting their lives and the lives of their descendants. All of this Zia presents in eminently readable prose, retelling their lives such that the reader cannot help but root for all of them. More than capturing their personal histories and the logistics of fleeing Mao's army, Zia also draws an astonishing portrait of China through the ages, of the corruption and incompetence of the Nationalist government, of the wavering support of the United States, of Shanghai at a time when it was known as the Paris of the East. (Side note: Shanghai is everything I love about Asia and some of the things I don't. It is glitz, and grit, and glam, high tech as all get out and inefficient as hell. It's futuristic skyscrapers along side alleys that were once opium dens. Laundry hanging from trees next to hotels whose marble lobbies gleam. Enough neon to turn daylight to night, and the mingling scents of incense and cigarette smoke. Food that is to die for and water that will literally kill you. Pollution thick enough to leave a layer on your tongue, but the sunsets sure are gorgeous. Millions and millions of people living and laughing and loving and also shouting, frequently shouting, cheek by jowl. It is awesome in the original sense of the word. My experience in Shanghai is obviously many decades after Benny, Annuo, Bing, and Ho haunted the international concession, but the essence of the city must remain largely unchanged even as the topography dances on, for I recognize in her words this city that is so magical.)

Like The Long Way Home and 97 Orchard, Zia also captures the broader immigrant experience, tinged, of course, with the massive dose of racism that Chinese encountered in the era of McCarthyism and a quote of 105 per year. In doing so, she also brings to life the Embarcadero, Times Square, and points in between (such as Ho's time at Michigan - Go Blue!) circa 1950. Every aspect of this book is top notch, and I cannot recommend it enough.

5 stars.

The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz

If I were to rank Erik Larson's books, which I suppose I am about to do, I would rank them thusly:

1) In the Garden of Beasts
2) The Devil in the White City
3) Isaac's Storm
3) Thunderstruck 
5) Dead Wake
6) The Splendid and the Vile

That's not to say The Splendid and the Vile is a bad book. It's not. The first issue for me, no doubt, is that having recently read Lady Clementine, I had already reached my Churchill quota. Yes, yes, the two books are entirely different, but, and this brings me to my second issue, however great a leader Churchill may have been - and I'm not disputing that he saved the free world in no small part through sheer grit and determination - he was also, excuse me, a bit of an ass. This is a man who gave dictation from his bed or his bath, or wherever else suited him. He once expected Roosevelt to carry on a conversation with him while he (Churchill) was in the nude, as if this were entirely normal. In debt up to his eyeballs, he demanded his private secretary "fix it."

In many ways, both Lady Clementine and The Splendid and the Vile created the impression of Churchill as a caricature. I don't doubt it, but that render the lack of Larson's asides and flippancy more puzzling. (The example that jumps to mind from Dead Wake is Larson's note that a family by the name of Luck booked passage on the doomed liner, which causes Larson to add, "Why in the midst of great events there always seems to be a family so misnamed is one of the imponderables of history.") I couldn't say whether the change owes to Larson's (presumed) respect for Churchill or other factors, but I missed the zest.


While the bite may have been missing a bit, Larson was up-to-snuff in bringing to his work the multiple perspectives readers have come to expect. From Lord Beaverbrook to the teenaged Mary Chruchill to a private secretary by the name of Jock Colville, Larson has incorporated the views of those who surrounded Churchill...and then there's the German high command. Hermann Goring in particular features prominently (and is the subject of more than a few Larson barbs); it is one of his diary entries that, in fact, creates one of the most poignant lines in the entire book: "How beautiful the world can be! ... Human beings are so stupid. Life is so short, and then they go and make it so hard for themselves." Even evil can teach us something. Sweet mercy.

Four stars.

The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance

Because, I mean, who doesn't read a book about the plagues that might come when you're stuck at home because of the one that's already here??

Laurie Garrett's The Coming Plague is a good book, but a dated one (publication date: 1994). Having read David Quammen's Spillover a few years ago, I also found much of the information repetitive. They're certainly not the same though - for example, Garrett's treatment of the origins of HIV/AIDS is stronger than Quammen's, though she also tends to get bogged down in the weeds more easily. Similar to Quammen, Garrett explores the origins of numerous plagues, primarily those of zoonotic origin: the actual (bubonic) plague, Hendra, Ebola, hantaviruses, Machupo, Lassa fever...all the wonderful ways one can die. (Really. I'm typing this in the midst of Covid-19, grateful beyond reason that we're "only" facing a what we are, and not, say, a hemorrhagic fever.)

That said, there's no question that if I had to choose a single word to describe The Coming Plague, that word would be 'depressing.' For example, as we contemplate the potential of social distancing until there's a vaccine for covid, we're regularly reassured this will happen in the next year or two. Garrett writes, though, that on April 23, 1984, HHS Secretary Margaret Heckler announced the discovery of HIV. She also forecast an AIDS vaccine would be available within 5 years. The 36th anniversary of said pronouncement will occur next week.

Garrett also noted, way back in 1994, that virtually no civilian hospitals in the United States were equipped to handle a highly contagious, lethal microbe. Glad to see not much has changed in the past 25 years. Likewise, in contemplating future pandemics, experts expressed to Garrett their uncertainties around who should be in charge in the event of such an outbreak, and who knows enough to make "these kinds of decisions." Indeed.

Garrett's writing is at its finest when she recounts the histories of those infected with or researching (or both, simultaneously) Machupo, Ebola, and the like. In between their stories, the narrative can become bogged down in scientific detail, much of which I admittedly skimmed. (Again - this book was written in 1994. The plague has come. And the book is 772 pages long. It's just not reasonable to think of reading every word closely.)

Four stars.

The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life

It pains me to write this. For years, I've rather idolized David Quammen. From Monster of God to the all-too-relevant Spillover, I've relished Quammen's words and writing. For that reason, I was only too glad to grab The Tangled Tree from the library shelves the afternoon before it closed for the duration. Quammen's latest book focuses on discoveries in the field of molecular biology.

As usual, the writing is beautiful. Unfortunately, I couldn't read more than 150 pages on horizontal gene transfer, the cell walls of archaea, cytoplasm, and the like. Unlike Quammen's previous books, which connect scientific thought with real world implications - species management, for example, or the possibility of a global pandemic (hint: 100%; see: covid-19, 2020) - The Tangled Tree is science for scientists. It is the detailed history of molecular biology from the days of Darwin to present. I wanted to like it. I would have settled for reading it. In the end, much as I hate to admit it, I could do neither.

Die hard science fans only please; the casual reader need not apply.

Lady Clemetine

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.

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.