Tag: historical

Common to This Country

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Munger, Susan H. Common to This Country: Botanical Discoveries of Lewis and Clark. Illustrations by Charlotte Staub Thomas. Artisan, 2003.

Reason read: August is Friendship month. Read in honor of Lewis and Clark’s relationship.

Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, an exploring match made in heaven. Lewis’s specialty was botany and Clark was an expert at creating topography maps. Together, they spent two and a half years traveling the country from the Louisiana Purchase to the Pacific Ocean in search of a waterway passage. Along the way, they were tasked with collecting, preserving and recording thousands of artifacts for President Thomas Jefferson. With the help of Sacagawea and varying native tribes, the members of the Corps of Discovery made their way over hundred of miles of prairies, mountains, cataloging and describing every rock, bird, animal, flora and fauna along the way.
Munger had a diplomatic way of describing conflict with certain Native American tribes. She called their relationship “edgy.”
In addition to sharing parts of Lewis and Clark’s journals and interesting facts about each plant, Munger shares if the particular plant can be purchased in a garden center.

Here are the flowers Munger highlighted in Common to This Country:

  • Osage Orange – supposedly this plant is still growing on the University of Virginia campus. It is said to be the direct descendant of the cutting sent by Lewis.
  • Calliopsis – used as a dye or tea. I want to see if I can grow this in my garden.
  • Bur Oak – fire, drought, and pollution resistant.
  • Narrow Leaf Coneflower – used to “cure” the bite of a mad dog or rattlesnake.
  • Lewis’s Prairie Flax – each bloom only lasts one day
  • Prickly Pear – probably my favorite from the southwest.
  • Western Serviceberry
  • Snowberry – planted on the banks to hold soil in place and prevent erosion.
  • Angelica – used for respiratory ailments and as a sweetener.
  • Camas – used the root to make bread.
  • Bearberry
  • Oregon Grape Holly
  • Lewis’s Syringa – used to make needles or combs.
  • Glacier Lily – the bulb, leaves, flowers and seed pods are all edible.
  • Ragged Robin – beautiful and uniquely shaped flowers.
  • Silky Lupine – probably my favorite of the bunch highlighted since they remind me of the lupine we have at home.
  • Old Man’s Whiskers – a unique looking flower that resembles an old or wisps of smoke.
  • Shrubby Penstemon – related to the Indian Paintbrush.
  • Monkeyflower – it needs a “cool situation” in order to thrive.
  • Bearberry Honeysuckle – not edible
  • Gumbo Evening Primrose
  • Bear Grass – a very beautiful plant that can lapse for ten years between blooms.
  • Ponderosa Pine – Indians ate the inner bark, seeds and rosin.
  • Bitterroot – the state flower of Montana.
  • Wood Lily – the official flower in the emblem for the Province of Saskatchewan.

As an aside, I was thrilled to learn of the pen pal relationship of Bartram and Collinson. while they never met, the exchanged letters for thirty-five years. I find that remarkable.

Book trivia: the map to plot Lewis & Clark’s journey is stunning. Common to This Country was dedicated to “The Tennis Group” whoever they are.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Lewis and Clark: Adventurers Extraordinaire” (p 136).

Colony

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Tayman, John. The Colony: the Harrowing True Story of the Exiles of Molokai. Scribner, 2006

Reason read: Hawaii became a state in August. Read to celebrate the history.

It does not seem possible that our government could rule that having leprosy would be a criminal offence. In 1866, that same government also believed these assumptions: that exile was the best means of controlling leprosy, that anyone in exile was an extreme contagion and finally, that everyone suffering from a leprosy diagnosis was never, ever, going to get better: to have leprosy was to have a death sentence. [As an aside, I guess if you can have a high ranking official tell you that drinking bleach can cure Covid-19 in 2020, we could have a government with such backward beliefs about Hansen’s disease in 1866.] The language of government criminality goes even further by calling a person with an unconfirmed case of leprosy a suspect and using bounty hunters to round up these “suspects.” Even a temporary release from the confines of the colony was called “parole.” This what fear can do. People were so frightened of the disease that they made hasty decisions to exile people too quickly without setting up proper accommodations. Seven years after the colony was first started, it still lacked running water, proper housing, and basic medical supplies.
The leper colony on the Hawaiian island of Molokai started on January 8th, 1866 with a dozen individuals all thought to be suffering from what was then known as leprosy. With each chapter, the colony grows in numbers until the cures and treatment of science start to win and numbers dwindle.
Tayman was careful to stress that in addition to the illnesses, Molokai was an inhospitable place in and of itself. Landing on the island’s rocky shore was a extreme danger, crops constantly failed due to water shortages and poor soil conditions. Living quarters were made out of any material people could find and were unsanitary. Mankind’s presence didn’t make life any easier. White man’s diseases: smallpox, syphilis, gonorrhea, and influenza all plagued the islands of Hawaii throughout history. Morale within the leper community was fraught with turmoil and confusion. Besides being in pain from debilitating diseases and missing their families, patients brought their grudges and prejudices to Molokai. If all that was not bad enough, political ambitions led certain officials to wildly exaggerate the success of the experiments in the fight to cure leprosy.
My only disappointment in The Colony is actually a complaint about Tayman. Makia Malo and Olivia Breitha changed their minds about being included in The Colony. They asked to be left out of the book and Tayman not only left in their stories, he also included photographs of them. If he wasn’t going to respect their wishes, at the very least, he could have changed their names and removed the photographs from the finished publication. Having said all that, I could not help but be inspired by Olivia and Makia’s spirits. Their courage and grace astounded me.

The Colony left me thinking about the psychology of cordoning off the undesirables, the dangerous. Our country has a history of sending people somewhere else, out of the public eye. The Japanese during the war; Jews in Europe, American Indians, Molokai. What we do not understand or trust, we banish.

As an aside, there is a 1999 documentary about Father Damien and his work on Molokai and Mark Twain based his Connecticut Yankee on William Ragsdale. There is also a documentary called “Olivia & Tim: Very Much Alive” which I want to see.

Playlist: “The Star-Spangled Banner”, “Home Sweet Home” (probably not the Motley Crue version), and “My Little Grass Shack in Kealakekna”.

Author fact: while Tayman wrote more books, I am only reading The Colony for the Challenge.

Book trivia: This might be a first for me, but the notes in The Colony included photographs that Tayman mentions in the text. No photographs are in the actual text. For the purists – Tayman didn’t change a single name in The Colony.
As an aside, the cover photograph by Todd Gipstein is stunning.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the very simple chapter called “Hawaii” (p 93). However, the book is misplaced. Pearl included it in fiction because of Father Damien mentioned in another book.

What Just Happened

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Gleick, James. What Just Happened?: a Chronicle from the Information Frontier. Pantheon Books, 2002.

Reason read: Gleick celebrates a birthday in August. Read in his honor.

Gleick needs a time machine. He wants his reader to put him or herself back in the 1990s as much as possible when reading What Just Happened. We need to remember the internet as it was just starting out. Portable phones. Pagers. ATMs. The essays cover bugs in Microsoft (essays written in August 1992 and again in June of 1997), the transformation of cellphone communication, the question of caller ID and ethics, the Y2K Crisis (for which Gleick apologizes for reporting impending doom four years prior), the idea of anonymous spending is only possible with cash (Think about it. No other form of money is without identifiers of some sort.), humorous password creations – all with a snarky tone that is just delightful.
Gleick’s opinion of internet pornography and its future is laughable. My favorite section was when Gleick unpacked an alert sent by MSN, pointing out vague language, half truths, cloudy communication, deliberate mis-directions, down playing failures, all with skillful ambiguity and clever concealment of the truth. Humor aside, Gleick makes you think about how far we have come.

Quotes to quote, “We have to learn the odd skill of speaking freely to someone who won’t hear us until later” (p 38). I wish I could teach my mother that skill. She will talk and talk on someone’s answering machine until she is cut off.

Author fact: At the time of publication, Gleick lived in the Hudson Valley. I wonder if Natalie Merchant was a neighbor?

Book trivia: What Just Happened isn’t Gleick’s only book. I am reading Chaos and Faster for the Challenge.

Playlist: “Stop in the Name of Love”, Supremes, Dolly Parton, Nat King Cole, “Naughty Angeline”, Crash Test Dummies, T-Bone Walker, Jim Fyhrie, 10,000 Maniacs (!), “Hail to the Chief”, Beastie Boys, Adiemus, Frank Sinatra, Harvey Danger, Dave Matthews Band, the Beatles, Scott Joplin, Mozart, and Madonna.

Nancy said: Pearl said What Just Happened is one of Gleick’s more accessible books. I agree 100%.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Science Books (for the Interested But Apprehensive Layperson)” (p 211).

Dead Man’s Walk

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McMurtry, Larry. Dead Man’s Walk. Simon & Schuster, 1995.

Reason read: McMurtry celebrates a birthday in June. Read in his honor.

As a prequel to Lonesome Dove, this is the reader’s first introduction to Call and Gus and their budding friendship. Together they join an expedition from Texas to New Mexico. They, along with 200 other men, cross a landscape fraught with danger at every turn. Apache and Comanche natives that could steal a captain’s horse or thirty without a sound; slit your throat without disturbing a single sleeping comrade. Mexican armies trying to defend “their land” from the Texans. Hunger and thirst at every mile. There are so many ways to die: falling over a cliff, drowning in a river, bleeding to death as a result of a scalping or throat cutting, arrow or lance through the heart, hanging, burning, whipping, suicide, starvation, freezing, exhaustion, thirst, firing squad, crushed by a horse, snake bite, spider bite, suicide, being run down by a buffalo, or gored by a bear. Things turn from bad to worse when the Rangers are captured and forced into a dead man’s walk across the desert in leg irons. Be forewarned – only a few will survive.
Please keep in mind, Dead Man’s Walk was published in 1995 and takes place years before one needed to be politically correct. In the spirit of authenticity of the era, one will have to endure racism and sexism on multiple levels. In contrast, McMurtry several times acknowledges native ownership of the land Call and Gus travel.
The opening line of Dead Man’s Walk reminded me of a line from Josh Ritter’s song “Myrna Loy” for she had a wolf pup at her heels and a snow white rabbit huddled in her arms. It wasn’t a 200lb prostitute carrying a snapping turtle by the tail…but close.

Book trivia: Dead Man’s Walk is a prequel to Lonesome Dove. Someone mentioned that if you read Lonesome Dove before Dead Man’s Walk you figure out who survives in Dead Man’s Walk.

Author fact: I am reading seven books by McMurtry.

Setlist: “Barbara Allen”, “Buffalo Gals”, and Verdi’s Nabucco.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Western Fiction” (p 240).

War and Remembrance

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Wouk, Herman. War and Remembrance: Vol. 1. Little, Brown and Company, 1978.

Reason read: to continue the series started in honor of Memorial Day in May.

War and Remembrance: Vol 1 covers the Americans at war from Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima and even though it picks up where Winds of War left off, Wouk assures his reader that War and Remembrance can be read independently of Winds of War. I disagree to a certain degree. In Winds of War we have gotten to know the Henry family very well. You can’t help but get tangled in their lives. There is something about this passionate family! We have followed their adventures in love and war. Torrid affairs and wild ambitions have led each family member through various trials and tribulations. We rejoin Victor as he struggles to understand his feelings for the young and beautiful Pamela while traveling across the globe from the Soviet Union to Manila and Hawaii. His time on the Northampton set my teeth on edge. Natalie and Byron still haven’t rendezvoused on American soil. Natalie is still trapped in Italy with the young son Byron has never seen. Warren and Janice have welcomed a baby into their family, too, but Warren is always away, piloting top secret missions. Rhoda can’t decide between an absent husband and a totally different man, one more than willing to be there in the flesh. Like Winds of War, Wouk will take his reader to intimate places most are unlikely to go, like the belly of a thin-skinned submarine.
Military politics can be a fine line to balance upon. It can have career-ending ramifications to reject a vice admiral’s invitation to tea, for example. Wouk recreates military conversations that are fraught with tension and innuendo. His characters vibrate with drama. War and Remembrance is every bit as exciting as Winds of War.

Confessional: by now you know that I sometimes get hung up on the details. Here is one: Warren and Byron are sitting on the lawn, drinking beer straight from cans. Dad comes out and Warren produces a “frosty glass” for him. To create a “frosty glass” one has to chill the glass, most likely in a freezer. Why would they have such a glass out on the lawn while they are drinking straight from the can?
Second confessional: I knew something was going to happen when Warren’s mission does not go as rehearsed; when they alter the plan from what they practiced. That sense of foreboding was pungent.

Line I liked, “This isn’t the war we trained for, but its sure as hell the war we’ve got” (p 45).

Author fact: Wouk lived to be 103 years old.

Book trivia: War and Remembrance was dedicated to Abraham Isaac Wouk who didn’t make it to his sixth birthday.

Playlist: Bing Crosby, “Battle Hymn of the Republic”, “Boogie Woogie Washer Woman”, “Der Fuchrer’s Face”, “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”, “Hut-Sut Song”, “Lili Marlene”, “Reactionary Rag”, “Rozhunkes mit Mandlen”, “Three O’Clock in the Morning”, “Yah Ribon”

Nancy said: Pearl called War and Remembrance good fiction.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “World War II Fiction” (p 252).

Winds of War

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Wouk, Herman. Winds of War. Simon & Schuster, 1974.

Reason read: Memorial Day is in May. Read to remember those no longer with us.
Confessional: I read most of this as an ebook. I made a lot of notes and highlighted many passages, but had to return it before I could transfer the information here.

The year is 1939 and Germany busily bullies the world into a clash that would later become the infamous World War II. The advances of Hitler into Poland and eventually England, France, and the Soviet Union indicate a man hellbent on world domination; all the while citing the “Jewish problem” as his justification and motivation. Wouk will take you on a panoramic journey through the intimate details of war. You will have a front row seat in the war room; be a voyeur in the bedroom; sit elbow to elbow in the libraries of world leaders as they speak in hushed tones about counterattacks. With a book this size (Winds of War is over one thousand pages long in paperback format), I wanted to make sure I kept track of all of the different characters. I wasn’t sure who was going to be worth remembering, real or imaginary. At the center is Berlin attaché Victor Henry (“Pug”), his glamorous but bored wife, Rhoda, and their three adult children. Winds of War begins when the parents are relocated with Germany on assignment. The three children, Byron, Warren, and Madeline are scattered across the globe. Pug desperately wants to captain a battleship but being relegated to serve as Naval attaché in Berlin has afforded him the opportunity to see the war fold out firsthand. As he gains the unusual trust of President Roosevelt he travels the world, gaining insight on future enemy tactics. Indeed, many real political powerhouses make an appearance in Winds of War.
A note about Winston Churchill: It is interesting to see how time blunts the sharp edges of an unfavorable reputation.
It is also interesting to see the varying opinions about the start of the war. Byron and his girl, Natalie, didn’t take it seriously until they were strafed in Poland and Natalie began to have troubles getting her Polish uncle out of Italy. Byron’s mother only had superficial societal concerns when Pug couldn’t accompany her to the opera. I mentioned she was the epitome of the bored housewife, didn’t I? She becomes even more cliché as the story progresses.
Separating fact from fiction: Did Hitler really have a remarkable smile?

Wouk certainly loved his women characters. As an aside, have you ever noticed that a woman’s breasts can be described with abandon (dressed or undressed), but barely (pun intended) anyone writes about the size of a man’s privates? Wouk is no different in the way he romanticizes the female body. Here are the breasts of Wouk: creamy breasts, pretty bosom, ample bosom,

Quotes to quote, “So they stood together, watching the Luftwaffe start its effort to bomb London to its knees. It was the seventh of September” (p 422).

Author fact: Wouk won a Pulitzer for The Caine Mutiny.

Book trivia: Winds of War has been made into a mini series starring Ali MacGraw and Robert Mitchum. Of course I haven’t seen it. Confessional: I confuse Ali MacGraw with Ali Sheedy.

Playlist: “The Star Spangled Banner”, Chopin, “Star Dust”, Liszt, “Deutschland Uber Alles”, “Three O’clock in the Morning”, “Horst Wessel Lied”, “Bell Bottom Trousers”, “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon”, “Auld Lang Syne”, “This Can’t Be Love”, Bach, Schubert, Beethoven, Mozart, “There Will Always Be an England”, and “Alexander’s Ragtime Band”.

Nancy said: Pearl called Winds of War good fiction.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “World War II Fiction” (p 252).

Giants in the Earth

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Rolvaag, O.E. Giants in the Earth: A Saga of the Prairie. Translated by Lincoln Colcord. Harper & Brothers, 1927.

Reason read: a celebration of spring and Minnesota became a state in May.

Volume One of Giants in the Earth was published in Norway in 1924. The second volume was published a year later. Vern Lewis Parrington (editor) wrote an introduction. Rolvaag wrote the foreword. Forty-six pages later we begin the story…Per Hansa is moving his family from Minnesota to the the Great Plains of the Dakota Territory in the hopes of putting down roots.
A lot of comments have been made about Beret and her mental illness. Her uncontrolled fear of the Midwest was justified. She was in a strange land without the comfort of true community. There was an underlying fear of Indians – fear and fascination in equal measure. I am reminded of the 10,000 Maniacs’ song, “Gold Rush Brides” written by Natalie Merchant. The lines, “The land was free and the prices was right”, and “Who were the homestead wives? Who were the gold rush brides? Does anybody know?…Accounts of madness, childbirth, loneliness, and grief” are particularly poignant. When Beret uncovers an evil secret wrongdoing her husband committed she starts to question their entire relationship. She fears that evil everywhere and her husband seems oblivious to her growing concerns. No one in the community notices her distress until it is beyond breaking. They even make fun of her nonsense. Were they distracted by opportunity? Were they preoccupied with adversities such as the strain of long, harsh winters and plagues of locusts in the summers? Did they want to slough off their old world identities identities in the new world by choosing new names? The question becomes how does one honor traditions of Norway while forging a new existence in America?

Quote to quote, “But it was easier to warm his body than thaw his soul” (p 277).

Author fact: Rolvaag was born in 1876 on the island of Donna almost in the Arctic Circle.

Book trivia: The title comes from a Bible quote.

Nancy said: Pearl said Giants of the Earth is one of the earliest sagas written about the immigrant experience (More Book Lust p 123).

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “The Immigrant Experience” (p 123).

Living to Tell the Tale

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Marquez, Gabriel Garcia. Living to Tell the Tale. Alfred A. Knopf, 2003.

Reason read: Gabriel Garcia Marquez was born in March. Read in his honor.

If you like Gabriel Garcia Marquez as a writer, you are going to love his autobiography. What a different world Gabriel Garcia Marquez lived in. From an early age he was exposed to unheard of violence. Imagine! It was common for men (and women) to swagger around with a revolver in their waistbands. The headless horseman still rides through my dreams. Marquez writes with such honesty and clarity it is if you are standing beside him when he is so poor he cannot pay for a copy of his first published story. He needs to ask a reader if he is done with his copy. Time and time again Marquez pulls back the curtain on some of his childhood secrets. Imagine the embarrassment he felt in boarding school knowing he would talk in his sleep.
Living to Tell the Tale is not only a first installment of a man’s autobiography, but it is also a peek into the mind of a budding writer; tales about Marquez’s mother and how she was his first character and her life, his first plot; the starting of a cultural weekly to combine sports with literature. Crawl inside the mind of this extraordinary writer’s mind and you will find a man who cared deeply for perfection. Example: the difference between Madrilenian and Caribbean dialects can alter the text’s meaning considerably. Marquez had copies of such an incorrect edit destroyed.
Living to Tell the Tale only takes the reader up to Marquez’s life in the 1950s when he proposes to his wife, but there are glimpses into his future such as in 1962 when In Evil Hour won a novel competition and he celebrated the birth of his second son.

Questions I wanted to ask – did Marquez grow up to be sexist because, in his culture, women were not allowed in offices and workshops? Or because he learned about sex in an unconventional way (according to him)?

One of the most beautiful phrases in Living to Tell the Tale was when Marquez was building a character in one of his novels. He used a lover from his past saying, “I rescued her from my memory…” (p 234). Here is another phrase I loved, “…I took off the strait jacket of my shyness” (p 337).

Author fact: Marquez was misdiagnosed as having pneumonia when it was actually lymphatic cancer. He later died of pneumonia.

Book trivia: Living to Tell the Tale was supposed to be the first in a three-volume set. the rest of the story never got published.

Setlist: “After the Ball is Over”, “Anapola”, Angel Maria Camacho y Cano, Bach, “Hard Days Night” by the Beatles, Beethoven, Bela Bartok’s “The Autumn of the Patriarch”, Brahms, Carlos Gardel’s “Cuesta abajo”, Chopin, Corelli, Daniel Santos, “El cisne”, Haydn, Joaquin Vega, Maurico Anaias, Migelito Valdes, Mozart, Preludes of Debussy, Schoenberg, Sonora Matancera, Tona lea Negra, Vivaldi, and “When the Ball is Over”.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Hail, Columbia!” (p 90).

Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All

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Gurganus, Allan. Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All. Ivy Books, 1989.

Reason read: There is a day in March called “Hug a G.I. Day”. I don’t remember where I read that, but that’s my story and I’m sticking with it.

Do not be intimidated by the length of this book. Miss Lucille Marsden will keep you entertained through every single page. Even when she is telling you about the horrors of war, she will keep you riveted every paragraph. Even when the story is not from her point of view, she will have you glued to the sentences. Within Lucy’s monologue Gurganus lays out the entire southern society from before the Civil War up to the mid-1980s when Lucy is almost one hundred years old. History breathes in and out with every colorful sentence; from the recognition of Baby Africa and every aspect of owning another human being to life in a nursing home.
Lucy herself is a treat. Married at a mere fifteen years old, she saw the world with a sensitivity and sweetness. She cared about where people came from (Castalia from Africa) or how displaced a foreigner can feel (Wong Chow from China). Even though her husband was in his fifties when they married, Lucy became a baby factory having nine children in eleven years. Her marriage was painful as her husband could be very abusive. Sleeping with a hatchet was not out of the question for Lucy. But I digress. Take your time with Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All. Know that every character serves a purpose at the moment of introduction but may not need remembering a hundred pages later.
Confessional: I was not sure I knew what to make of William Marsden. His story jumped around quite a bit. In the beginning I thought it was poignant how Captain Marsden mourned the loss of a childhood friend more than his love for his own children. Death has a funny way of elevating one’s stature to martyrdom.

As an aside, Lucille never says the word clock. She always refers to Seth Thomas like it is an unspoken prized possession.

Line I liked, “We all need to stay a little mad” (p 15). Amen. Here’s another, “You force exposed words to spell what you want” (p 133). And another, “Fear can be the start of the truest love” (p 468).

Author fact: the only other book I am reading by Mr. Gurgangus is Plays Well with Others.

Book trivia: each chapter of The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All begins with a quote from the Bible.

Playlist: “Aida”, Bizet, Debussy, “Dixie”, “Frozen Charlotte”, Gounod, Handel, “He was Despised”, “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring”, “Last Rose of Summer”, “A mighty Fortress is Our God”, “The Old Reb”, “Royal Fireworks”, “Sheep May Safely Graze”, “Sherman’s Barbequeing Mother”, “The Shoe Fits”, Stephen Foster, the Supremes, “The Tailor and the Leg”, Wagner, “When the Colors Change” “Who’s Sorry Now”, “Work for the night is Coming”, and “Yankee Doodle Dandy”.

Nancy said: Pearl called Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All “pure gold” (Book Lust p 12).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “And the Award for Best Title Goes To…” (p 12). Pearl could have included Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All in the chapter called “Men Channeling Women” as well.

Little Liar

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Albom, Mitch. Little Liar. Harper, 2023.

Reason read: I needed a book for the Portland Public Library Reading Challenge in the category of a book currently on the New York Times bestseller list. Little Liar was on that list when I was looking for something to read.

Where do I begin with this little book about a liar? From start to finish it was amazing. I couldn’t read for hours at a time due to the subject matter of the Holocaust, but in small doses it was fantastic. I do not want to describe the plot at all except to say the angel of truth is the first person narrator which lends an air of fairytale, but it is far from being a magical imagining from Albom’s mind. The setting is World War II. Real people like actress Katalin Karady and real events like the rescue of families waiting to be shot by Arrow Cross are faithfully reproduced in Little Liar. The magic comes from Albom bringing all characters and events, factual and fictional, to life. The characters’ human emotions come across loud and crystal clear and yet, like glass, there is a delicacy, a subtle nuance that haunts. Take, for example, how easily the small misunderstandings during childhood can quickly blossom into full blown adulthood hate. Lifelong passionate jealousies carried behind a vengeful ice cold exterior. It reminded me of the cold and heavy chains of Jacob Marley.
As an aside, what an interesting locale for Little Liar. When people speak of World War II and the Nazi regime not many people think of how the island of Greece weathered the atrocities.

As another aside, the last person to read my copy of Little Liar must have smoked like a fiend because the book reeked of old cigarette smoke. So gross. I put it in the freezer for a little while with some lavender sprigs. That seemed to do the trick.

Line I loved the most, “By the time you share what a loved one longs to hear, they often no longer need it” (p 142). I am living that truth every single day.

Author fact: I was first introduced to Albom when he published Tuesdays with Morrie. While I haven’t read everything he has ever written, I can say I have enjoyed everything I have.

Book trivia: this should be a movie.

Playlist: Lucinda Williams

Volcano Lover

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Sontag, Susan. The Volcano Lover: A Romance. Farrar Straus Giroux, 1992.

Reason read: the Carnival of Ivrea happens in February every year. It is essentially a four-day food fight with oranges in the town of Ivrea in Northern Italy.

The Cavalier, an art dealer and British ambassador to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, is obsessed with three things: collecting beautiful and rare pieces of art, watching Vesuvius breathe and rumble, and having a relationship with his nephew’s former lover. I know, it’s an odd beginning. When the Cavalier’s nephew, Charles, grows tired of his mistress he simply sends her to live with his uncle once the Cavalier became a lonely widower. How do you learn to love a stranger? What do you do when that love matures into devotion and passion falls by the wayside? Beyond being a story about relationships and circumstances, The Volcano Lover is also the love story of art, war, and devotion to a life well lived with passion.
There is a cleverness to Sontag’s writing. Most of the story is told in the third person with touches of first person narrative sprinkled in. Is that Sontag offering personal tidbits about herself? Who is this off-camera speaker? In the very last section of Volcano Lover the Cavalier, his wife, his mother-in-law, and the Queen all offer first person perspectives on their lives with one another. Both the Cavalier and his mother-in-law are careful to never reveal the Cavalier’s wife real name (modeled after Emma Hamilton). No one mentions the hero’s name (Lord Nelson in real life), either.

As an aside: I listened to an interview with Sontag conducted by Muriel Murch. The whole time I kept thinking one of their voices sounded familiar. There is a professor (retired now) who sounds exactly like Sontag.

Lines I liked, “Sometimes it felt like exile, sometimes it felt like a home” (p 67), “Pleasure is haunted by the phantom of loss” (p 201) and “Nothing is more hateful than revenge” (p 313).

Author fact: While Sontag has written more than The Volcano Lover, it is the only book I am reading for the Challenge.

Book trivia: The Cavalier is based on Sir William Hamilton.

Playlist: Farinelli (Carlo Broschi), “God Save the King” and “Rule, Britannia”, Mozart, Haydn’s “The Battle of the Nile”, Vivaldi, Handel, and Couperin.

Nancy said: Pearl calls The Volcano Lover a historical romance for intellectuals. She’s not wrong.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the very simple chapter called “Naples” (p 146).

First American

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Brands, H. W. The First American: the Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin. Doubleday, 2000.

Reason read: Benjamin Franklin was born in January. Read in his honor.

Any book you pick up by H.W. Brands is going to be entertaining. Never dry or boring, in First American, Brands not only brings his subject of Benjamin Franklin to living and breathing life, but also the era in which Franklin lived. Society, religion, politics, and the arts are vividly presented to the reader as the backdrop to Franklin’s life. For example, details like explaining how apprentices were not allowed to visit taverns, inns, or alehouses served to give insight into Franklin’s future beliefs. As a young man, he could not play cards, dice, or even enter into marriage. Franklin was essentially slaves with pay.
Brands also brings to light what an interesting man Benjamin Franklin became in his older years. His range of interests, his need for self-improvement, his contradictory beliefs, and his ambitions were nothing short of astounding. His goals and resolutions surrounding virtue and the way he went about trying to master his them were admirable for all mankind. Everyone knows the story of the silk kite and key, but who remembers Franklin deciding that Philadelphia needed more academia to teach the subjects that were useful to the youth? His quest for vegetarianism? His ability to change his mind about slavery?
With Franklin’s use of aliases (Silence Dogood, Martha Careful, Caelia Shortface, and Polly Baker to name a few), I wonder what Franklin would have thought about our ability to hide behind user names and criticize our fellow man for everything from the color of her skin to the way our neighbor mows the lawn.

Author fact: Even though Brands has written a plethora of books, I am only reading two for the Challenge: First American and The Age of Gold.

Book trivia: there are absolutely no photographs or illustrations of any kind in The First American. Maybe that is because we all know what Ben Franklin looks like? I would have liked to see maps of Philadelphia and Boston.

Nancy said: Pearl mentions Brands talent.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Founding Fathers” (p 91).

Staying On

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Scott, Paul. Staying On. Avon books, 1977.

Reason read: The Booker Prize was awarded in October. Staying On is a Booker Prize recipient.

On August 15th, at the stroke of midnight in 1947, British rule comes to an end and India has gained her independence. Not all British soldiers have departed India in shame, though. Colonel Tusker Smalley and his wife, Lucy, have stayed on. It is now 1972 and the couple have started to fade in money, health, vitality, and the real reason they decided to remain in the remote hill station of Pankot. Everything is in question now. Complicating matters is their antagonistic landlady, Mrs. Bhoolabhoy. Bhoolabhoy is determined to humiliate the British couple into leaving her country. After all these years her tactics are getting more and more hostile, forcing the English couple to renew their commitment to one another.
A backdrop for Staying On is the tapestry of culture and caste. What it means to have wealth and status in a country on the verge of finding a new identity. The Smalleys and the Bhoolabhoys are no different in their hope for the future.

Author fact: Scott also wrote the Raj Quartet. I am only reading The Jewel in the Crown, book one of the four.

Book trivia: as mentioned before, Staying On won the Booker Prize. I probably should have read The Jewel in the Crown before Staying On. Oh well.

Quotes to quote, “I’ll sue the bitch from arsehole to Christmas” (p 29), “I feel worn to a shadow”, (p 125),

Playlist: “Onward Christian Soldiers”, “Flowers of the Forest”, “God Save the King”, “Abide with Me”, All Things Bright and Beautiful”, “These Foolish things”, the Inkspots, Judy Garland, Dinah Shore’s “Chloe”, and Ravi Shankar”.

Nancy said: Pearl compared Staying On to Women of the Raj.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “India: a Reader’s Itinerary (History)” (p 125).

When Broken Glass Floats

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Him, Chanrithy. When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge. W.W. Norton and Company, 2000.

Reason read: I needed to pair a nonfiction book on history with a historical fiction on the same subject for the Portland Public Library 2023 Reading Challenge. Both When Broken Glass Floats (nonfiction) and For the Sake of All Living Things (fiction) are about the days of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. I am also reading When Broken Glass Floats in honor of the monarchy of Cambodia being restored in the month of September.

Many times, more times than I could count, I found myself trying to put myself in Him’s shoes. Having her brother waste away and die before her very eyes. The utter grief she experienced when her father left for “orientation” before she could say goodbye (not to mention his subsequent murder). Those are only some of the devastating events Him experienced during the rein of Pol Pot terror. Then came the never-ending slave labor and extreme starvation. One by one, her family withers and dies. How does one survive such constant suffering? Him is courageous and her will to survive is astounding.
Confessional: Despite the horrors Him relates in When Broken Glass Floats, there was a fascinating component of describing cultural superstitions. When Him’s brother is dying it was believed he urinated on someone’s grave and that is why, during the worst of his illness, he could not speak or relieve himself.

Author fact: Chanrithy is a human rights activist as well as an author.

Book trivia: one of the maps in When Broken Glass Floats is curious. Places are pinned as meals: supper, breakfast, dinner, dessert, snack, and lunch.

Playlist: Sinsee Samuth, Ros Sothea, and Leo Sayer’s “I Love You More Than I Can Say”.

Nancy said: Pearl called When Broken Glass Floats heartbreaking and unforgettable.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter simply called “Cambodia” (p 47).

For the Sake of All Living Things

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Del Vecchio, John M. For the Sake of All Living Things. Bantam Books, 1990.

Reason read: For the Portland Public Library Reading Challenge of 2023 I needed a book of historical fiction to pair with a nonfiction on the same subject. I am reading For the Sake of All Living Things with When Broken Glass Floats. Both books cover Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge. A second reason is Cambodia had its monarchy restored in the month of September 1993.

I don’t care how many years pass. The plight of Cambodia in the years following the Vietnam War is atrocious. For the Sake of All Living Things is a difficult read. It is powerful. Powerful like a 250 pound man of all muscle punching you in the gut. From scenes when the poorest of poor farmers have to pay tolls or “donations” just to travel a road to the vicious methods of torture and killing (chopsticks driven into the brain via the ears, bodies cleaved in two, children buried alive) I was wincing the entire time I read For the Sake of All Living Things. Through fear and violence the dominance of the Khmer Rouge spreads like a staining black oil throughout Cambodia, indoctrinating and training villagers to become killing machines for the Pol Pot regime. The methods of brainwashing are subtle and sly. As a historical fiction For the Sake of All Living Things reads like a nonfiction because of the appropriate terminology, government reports and various strategic maps. At times I was internally cringing to be American.
I read somewhere that For the Sake of All Living Things is actually the second book in a trilogy about the Vietnam war, Cambodia and the Pol Pot year zero cleansing, and veterans coming home.

Author fact: While Del Vecchio has written a few other works, this is the only one I am reading for the Book Lust Challenge. Confessional: I am kind of relieved.

Book trivia: this should have been a movie or a mini-series. Maybe it is a movie. I don’t know. Everyone has made comparisons to The Killing Fields, the 1984 film directed by Roland Joffe.

Nancy said: Pearl did not say anything specific about For the Sake of All Living Things.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the simple chapter called “Cambodia” (p 47).