Tag: NonFiction

Age of Napoleon

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Horne, Alistair. Age of Napoleon. Modern Library, 2004.

Reason read: Napoleon was born on August 15th. Read in his honor.

After already covering Napoleon’s military career in Master of Europe and How Far From Austerlitz, Alistair Horne felt he could concentrate on writing a book about Napoleon’s contributions to French society above and beyond his military career (although that is not left out of the story). Architecture (the construction of the Quai d’Orsay and rescuing Paris’s Sorbonne University), society (encouraging freedom of religion by restoring the relationship with the Vatican and restoring the sanctity of marriage after the Revolution), art, and even the renumbering of streets. Napoleon liked the finer things in life, but could turn on a dime and have little tolerance for those individuals making his beautiful things come to life. Even his wife Josephine was fired from the job of being his wife because she couldn’t produce an heir fast enough.
Horne simultaneously looks future forward as well as historically back to tell Napoleon’s story. He reminds his audience more than once that Napoleon was “no Hitler” and he makes multiple comparisons to World War II. Yet, for all of Napoleon’s military shortcomings, Horne is quick to point out, his legacy was that he was instrumental in creating important and lasting social equalities.

As an aside, I couldn’t help buy think of Dermot Kennedy’s line, “his eyes lit up with all the power” when reading Age of Napoleon. Napoleon was touted as being a hands-on leader. These days, I think his subjects would call him a micromanager or deranged. Just the fact he would ban plays if he didn’t care for them shows his ego.

Author fact: Is it any wonder that Alistair Horne is a British historian? Of course he is.

Book trivia: Age of Napoleon is a quick read, less that 200 pages.

Music: Beethoven’s Fidelo, Te Deum, Chopin, Edith Pilaf, and Le Triomphe de Tra Jan opera.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “The Complex Napoleon” (p 53).

In My Father’s Footsteps

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Matthews, Sebastian. In My Father’s Footsteps. W.W. Norton & Company, 2004

Reason read: Matthews was born in August. Read in his honor.

How do you pay homage to a person who repeatedly broke your heart and let you down as a child; a good guy with harmful tendencies in adulthood? Sebastian Matthews, by turns loved and looked to respect his father. From an early age, father and son had a complicated relationship. When William Matthews died of a heart attack at just 55 it was a shock, but no one was surprised. A womanizer, a drinker, and a smoker (and maybe a midnight toker), Matthews senior was a force to be reckoned with. In My Father’s Footsteps is aptly named for Sebastian followed closely behind his father: a lifelong jazz enthusiast, becoming a writer, and poet unable to commit to any relationship for more than a few dates. Deeply buried resentments over the divorce of his parents; standing in the shadow of his father’s brilliance as a poet and professor; trying to understand the complexity of his inheritance, Matthews carefully picks his way through the emotions to share a loving, yet brutally honest tribute to his father.

Confessional: there was a part of Matthews’s story when he was watching father and son bricklayers build a wall. It reminded me of an earlier story I read about a son following in his father’s footsteps as a bricklayer until he found science.

Author fact: I want to believe Sebastian has found happiness in marriage and fatherhood. As of the publication of In My Father’s Footsteps he still lived in Asheville.

Book trivia: both of Matthews’s parents were poets. At times Matthews would put poetry from each parent side by side.

As an aside, when the police were at Matthews’s father’s apartment they went from room to room turning on lights. Why don’t do they do that in the movies?

Personal connection: Dying alone requires the procurement of a court order before gaining permanent access to the deceased residence. If you die in public, even if it is of natural causes, your body is considered a crime scene and cannot be moved until fully investigated.

Setlist: James Taylor, Cowboy Junkies. Indigo Girls, Joni Mitchell’s Hejira album, Tommy Flanagan, Booker Erwin, John Handy, Carnell Jones, Horace Silver’s “Song for My Father,” Gerry Mulligan, Joe Henderson, Alfredo Kraus, Elton John’s “Your Song,” Bob Dylan’s “On a night Like This” “Idiot Wind,” “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go,” “Shelter From the Storm,” and “Blood on the Tracks,” Mozart, Ella Fitzgerald, Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks, Duke Ellington’s “Cottontail,” “Amazing Grace,” Bach, Miles Davis’s “Flamenco Sketches,” Tallest Trees album, “All Blues,” and “Kind of Blue,” Bob Marley’s Babylon By Bus album, Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section, John Coltrane, Stan Getz’s “Sweet Rain,” the Jazz Messengers, Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Sonny Rollins, Lester Young, Earl Hines, Mal Waldron, Billie Holiday’s “I Can’t Get Started,” and “Miss Brown to You,” John Bunch Trio, Charlie Mingus’ Alum, “Goodbye Porkpie Hat,” and “Better Git It in Your Soul,” Thelonius Monk’s “Round Midnight,” Dexter Gordon, JJ Johnson, Bud Power, “Some Other Spring,” Getz and Gilberto’s “Girl from Ipanema,” Prince, Sweetheart of the Rodeo, Grateful Dead, Anita O’Day, the Police’s Zenyatta Mondatta album, “Easy Living,” “Let’s Get It On,” and “John Wesley Harding.”

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Me, Me, Me: Autobiographies and Memoirs” (p 162).

At the Mercy of the Sea

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Kretschmer, John. At the Mercy of the Sea: the True Story of Three Sailors in a Caribbean Hurricane. International Marine/McGraw Hill, 2007.

Reason read: August is the best time to be on the water. Read in honor of the perfect month for a sail.

John Kretschmer begins his story on November 14th, 1999. His main focus begins with his friend, Carl Wake, captain of the 42′ sailboat La Vie en Rose. Carl was sailing from the Chesapeake Bay to the Caribbean in time to meet Kretschmer for Thanksgiving so this part of At Mercy of the Sea is heartbreakingly personal. [How could it have been Carl’s first and last at-sea voyage?] Tragically, Carl meets up with Hurricane Lenny and does not survive the storm’s wrath. In addition to Carl’s story, Kretschmer also follows the tragedies of Steve Rigby, sailing English Braids and Guillaume Llobregat, captain of Frederic-Anne, also victims of Hurricane Lenny.
Hurricane Lenny was an anomaly, a dangerous freak storm that defied logic. Understanding how a hurricane is supposed to behave plays a huge part of the drama. Part of At Mercy of the Sea is the biography of a hurricane from birth (African, Gulf of Mexico or other) to its landfall slow death. Kretschmer carefully outlines what typically happens from start to finish, beginning with the naming of each hurricane. In this way, he is able to illustrate just how unusual Lenny turned out to be.
Confessional: Like The Diary of Anne Frank, I had a hard time reading towards the end of At the Mercy of the Sea. As the pages turned, the story brought me closer and closer to the demise of the sailors. I knew it was coming, but dreaded the end all the same.

As an aside, last month I read a book about the Vendee Globe race. When Kretschmer mentioned it I was thankful I had more than a passing knowledge of what he was talking about. He also mentioned the book A Voyage for Madmen by Peter Nichols, which is on my Challenge list.

Line I adored, “Retreating into the past is one way to keep your sanity – or disturb it, depending on what you run into there” (p 10). Kretschmer is not wrong. He is able to make keen observations about the psyche of a sailor too long at sea, probably because he has been there himself.
Other lines I really liked, “My wife was weary of my dreams and, worse, downright sick of my realities” (p 70) and “The only way to savor the essence of life is to nearly lose it” (p 173).

Another confessional: reading about hurricanes brings me face to face with conflicting emotions. I got married in the middle of Hurricane Ivan. I was twelve miles out to sea. According to Kretschmer, Ivan produced the highest measured significant wave height, fifty feet.

Author fact: Kretschmer is a professional sailor in his own right.

Book trivia: I would have liked to see photographs of the sailors or, at the very least, their boats.

Music: Louis Armstrong’s “La Vie en Rose,” Edith Pilaf, Neil Young’s “Rust Never Sleeps,” Pink Floyd, and Jimmy Buffett.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “See the Sea” (p 201).

Everything Feels Impossible Until It’s Done

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Van den Broeck, Vincent. Everything Feels Impossible Until It’s Done: How the Life You Build Becomes the Life That Saves You. Publish Nation, 2026.

Reason read: as a member of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing I get to read tragic yet inspirational books. This is one such story.

You get the sense that Vincent’s life was adrift in his younger years. Example: when considering higher education he chose a degree because it sounded impressive. Unbelievably, he did not actually having a clue what it was for. Losing his mother to cancer at a young age must have played a significant part in this drifting. Grief can untether you from reality. It wasn’t until he entered the world of hospitality did Vincent begin to shine and really find his focus. He became a workaholic, taking on too much too soon; opening one restaurant after another; drowning in debt. It took an accident that nearly killed him before he was forced to slow down, take stock of his life and find his future.
You will have to read for yourself, but there are some really beautiful sentences and phrases in Everything Feels Impossible Until It’s Done. So much so that I wanted more of the story. It was too short! I wanted to hear more. Imagine a bumblebee darting from one fragrant flower to another; never taking the time to linger on one bloom for very long. Everything Feels Impossible Until It’s Done is a bumblebee of a story. Vincent never digs into the details of his life more than he needs to…but I wish he did.
As an aside, Vincent called the accident inevitable. I want to know why was it inevitable? Instead, I argue that our system for dealing with reckless or illegal drivers is tragically flawed. If it wasn’t, the driver who struck Vincent would not have been driving at all. Think about it. The driver was dangerous enough before Vincent’s accident to have his license taken away. We can do better as a society.

Book trivia: in the advance copy I received Everything Feels Impossible Until It’s Done did not include photographs. I would have liked to see the restaurant or meet his amazing wife.

Italian Education

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Parks, Tim. An Italian Education: the Further Adventures of an Expatriate in Verona. Grove Press, 1995.

Reason read: to continue the series started in June in honor of a festival.

With Italian Education British-born Tim Parks continues his lighthearted memoir about life outside Verona where he moved in the early 1980s. In addition to capturing the social, political, and cultural life of Italians, Parks introduces family life and raising his children as bilingual Italians. He and his wife Rita already had a toddler, but in the introductory chapters of Italian Education they discovered they were expecting child number two. This time a daughter. Stefi brings all the trials and tribulations of what it means to father a newborn who never sleeps. As Stefi and her brother Michele grow up they give Parks plenty of subject material on schooling (Italian schools do not offer extracurricular pursuits such as music, organized sports, hymns, or classes in carpentry or cooking), what to ask Santa Lucia for at Christmastime, fishing and going to the beach (Italy offers public beaches to avoid being accused of privatization).
Unlike his previous book, Italian Neighbors, Parks writes with an undertone of discontent in Italian Education. Like the soft green mold slowly starting to spoil a loaf of bread, there is a subtle sense of malcontent hidden in the descriptions of his narrative. There is less humor and more criticism. At the end of Italian Education Parks reveals his wife is pregnant with their third child. It is hard to tell if this brings him joy or angst.

Line I liked, “…the Italians are mislaying their rosaries among the clutter of their economic success” (p 312).

Author fact: Even though Parks has written a bunch of books, I am only reading two more: Juggling the Stars and A Season With Verona.

Book trivia: I wish Parks had included some maps of the region.

Music mentioned: Vivaldi’s Concerto in Re Maggiore for Two Mandolins, “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” “Oh When the Saints,” “Imparare in Liberta,” “Bells of Bovolon,” Giuseppe Verdi, Bellini, “Il treno dei desideri,” and L’Aida.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Verona” (p 243). Pretty simple.

Treetops

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Cheever, Susan. Treetops: a Family Memoir. Bantam Books, 1991.

Reason read: Read in honor of Cheever’s birth month in July.

Susan Cheever had already written a biography of her father called Home Before Dark so I was excited when she wrote in the introduction to Treetops that this was a book about the three generations of her mother’s family and Treetops as a place. By the end of the introduction she returns to the men: Tom Watson the inventor who assisted Alexander Graham Bell, Winter the grandfather who started the Yale School of Medicine and of course, her father, acclaimed writer John Cheever. Susan Cheever’s father dominates a great deal of the Treetops story…again. Cheever needs to share her father’s accolades and affairs with a healthy dose of name-dropping. It would have been refreshing if Treetops contained less about the man she had already written a full biography about and concentrated more on her mother’s life. Her mother is talked about as footnotes when she describes the short stories (in detail) of her father’s. Cheever would rather describe her father’s relationships with, and perception of, women as a gender. Most of the time the details of her mother as in reaction to something her father said, did, or wrote. The more Susan Cheever quoted her father’s short stories the less I enjoyed Treetops.

As an aside, when Cheever relived the invention of the telephone and detailed exactly what happened between Alexander Graham Bell and her great-grandfather Thomas Watson, I know she was setting up the historical backdrop to her family’s history, but I couldn’t help but think it was also device to subtly suggest Watson invented the telephone and Bell took all the credit.

Author fact: I have satisfied all of the Susan Cheever books I needed for the Challenge.

Book trivia: there are a smattering of photographs in Treetops.

Music: Ella Fitzgerald, Charlie Parker, and “Happy Birthday.”

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “All in the Family: Writer Dynasties” (p 5). Pearl put it perfectly when she said that when you related to someone famous there is almost an “irresistible temptation to write about the experience” (More Book Lust p 5). Cheever takes it a step further by writing about her famous great grandfather and notable grandfather as well.

Small Tree in a Texas Hurricane

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Benson, Robert Henry. A Small Tree in a Texas Hurricane: a Memoir. Pauraque Ridge Press, 2026.

Reason read: as a member of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing I get to read moving memoirs. This is one such book.

Benson makes you feel as though the two of you are sitting on a big wraparound porch in the summertime gloaming. As darkness grows and we can no longer see each other’s face the mood turns somber; the words become quiet confessional. There is a great deal Benson wants to share in A Small Tree in Texas Hurricane. His childhood and early adolescence was not easy. Peeling back the layers of his father’s volatile personality Benson reveals a hair trigger temper followed by outbursts of violence and crime. Poverty was a constant. Benson had the potential to follow in his father’s hothead footsteps, but through gritty perseverance he chose a different path. Earning a Ph.D in Physics seems an unlikely success for a bricklayer and one-time high school dropout.
Benson’s story is remarkable, but what I appreciated more was the way with words Benson has. He may have a Ph.D. in Physics, but his real talent is writing. I inhaled this book.

As with any advance reader copy, there were a few typos here and there such as quotation marks where they did not belong and a handful misspelled words.

Music: “A Boy Named Sue,” Paul Anka’s “And They Call It Puppy Love,” and “Away in a Manager.”

Copenhagen

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Frayn, Michael. Copenhagen. Anchor Books, 2000.

Reason read: July is the birth month of the atomic bomb.

Michael Frayn took real historical events and wrote a play about what he thinks happened next. It is true Danish physicist Niels Bohr really did take a walk with his German counterpart, Werner Heisenberg, but no one knows what was really discussed away from spying microphones. In Copenhagen Frayn imagines the private conversation between Bohr and Heisenberg, now spirits of the past; their words heating up to an argument. As scientists and physicists once working together on atomic physics and quantum theory, they both have competitive spirits and neither likes to be wrong. Complicating their relationship is the fact Bohr and his wife, Margrethe, are Danes under German occupation. Heisenberg is, of course, German. Frayn imagines Heisenberg struggling to make small talk with Bohr, a once trusted friend and mentor, but every time he opens his mouth it is to blunder around some insensitive topic. As former partners prior to 1941, the exchange is awkward. They want to stick to paradox and contradiction; the foundations of science through an objective universe; classical mechanics and the particle theory, but they cannot. Along for the garden stroll is Bohr’s wife, Margrethe. She offers a different perspective on Bohr and Heisenberg’s relationship, one that is grounded in human nature rather than scientific discovery.

Author fact: Frayn is a prolific writer of plays and novels, in additional to being a documentary filmmaker and a translator of Chekhov.

Music: Beethoven in G Major, and Bach.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Bomb Makers” (p 42).

Walking Along the Ancient Tokaido Road

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Asanuma, Ichiro. Walking Along the Ancient Tokaido Road: a Pilgrim’s Path: Adventures and Transformations (Volume 1: Departures). 2026.

Reason read: as a member of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing, I requested a copy of Walking Along the Ancient Tokaido Road.

Asanuma began his journey in 2006 after surviving a life-changing traffic accident. Walking was prescribed as part of his physical therapy. To feel truly healed he resolved to stand on the Sanjo-Ohashi in Kyoto. Walking along the ancient Tokaido Road became a sixteen year long adventure. Using money from an insurance claim he was able to afford the trip, but he admits that he didn’t really pay much attention to the landscape he traveled through.
Walking Along the Ancient Tokaido Road (volume one) documents the beginning of Asanuma’s journey across Japan’s historical and cultural landscape. Told in three sections, Asanuma begins with “Departure (2006: from Tokyo to Shizuoka).” Part Two is “Insight and Memory (2009) from Shizuoka to Nagoya.” After the first trip, Asanuma started to pay more attention to the people around him. Part Three is called “New Beginnings (2022: from Kuwana to Kyoto).” This section is the final leg of the journey that was previously unfulfilled.
Like many other reviewers I could not identify a genre for this book. It could be seen as a personal memoir. Asanuma shared intimate details about his life such as the fact that he lacked the personality and social skills to mingle with strangers. Walking Along the Ancient Tokaido Road is confessional in that he shares deep feelings.
Walking Along the Ancient Tokaido Road could also be called a photo-journal. Asanuma included and explained in more detail the many different photographs he took; more so than he did of the actual journey. The gorgeous photography sets this book apart. The images are candid, raw and sometimes, moving.
Walking Along the Ancient Tokaido Road could be seen as an historical essay. For example, Asanuma describes the Edo period and the significance of the fifty-three stations of the Tokaido.
I enjoyed the color illustrations as well as the photographs. As an aside, the map of the hedgehogs is cute.

Everyone Kept Quiet So I Did Too

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Djukicin, Aleksandar. Illustrated by Dorde Balmazovic. Everyone Kept Quiet So I Did Too: Tales of a Reluctant Soldier: a Graphic Novel. do-dju, 2025.

Reason read: as a member of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing I get to read interesting books. I think this is my first graphic novel in nonfiction.

Three friends, three very different paths. Each sharing their experiences in the Balkans War between Serbia and Croatia in 1990. It was interesting how each side spun the same events to fit their personal narrative: the main theme being coward versus hero. In reality there are more than two sides of the coin to being a coward. You can be afraid of facing prison for not accepting the draft or you can be afraid to face the war for fear of death. Fear of inflicting violence on another human without understanding why. Such is the senselessness of war. As a graphic novel, it goes without saying that the visual images need to match the intensity of the words. The storyline was made more powerful by the illustrations of Dorde Balmazovic. Most striking was the line of soldiers waiting to go home fading to black.

As an aside, the illustration of the soldiers urinating after liberation made me chuckle.

Music: Miles Davis’s “Kind of Blue,” and Toma Zdravkovic.

Because I Deserve It

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Dominguez, Kenitra W. Because I Deserve It: What Chronic Illness Taught Me About Finding My Voice in the Healthcare System. Avocet Books, 2026.

Reason read: at first glance this might seem like an odd choice for me to request from LibraryThing. I am not Black nor do I suffer from a chronic illness. The only thing I have in common with Kenitra is that I am a woman. I requested Because I Deserve It from LibraryThing because of the subtitle “…Finding My Voice in the Healthcare System.” I am not confident when it comes to speaking up and being my own healthcare advocate. I chose this book because I wanted Kenitra to teach me how to stand up for myself when it comes to my own wellbeing. I knew there would be so much to learn. For example, why is it that women become apologetic or mute when dealing with a medical professional?
The best part of Because I Deserve It is the clear recommendations at the end of each chapter. I appreciated the section about navigating the myriad of questions a patient should ask and when. I also loved the idea of an audio journal to document how you are feeling every single day, whether you have an appointment with a provider or not. Finally, the advice to research your medications! Just because a white-coated professional prescribed a medication does not mean it is the right one for you. You are not Alice! You don’t not have to swallow what they put in front of you.
Kenitra also advocates for self-described introverts. She was spot on when describing an introvert’s characteristics which gave credence to her information.
The only criticism I found with Because I Deserve It was the repetition in some areas. Saying the same thing too many times gives the impression the author has run out of worthwhile things to say. Stressing a point is one thing, but echoing information over and over is quite another.
All in all I am glad I requested Because I Deserve It because I learned a great deal.

As an aside, as a librarian I practically applauded Kenitra when she said do not accept Google’s top results. I do not know how many times I have said that to students.

Confessional: I had never heard of idiopathic intracranial hypertension. It sounds like a nightmare.

Stars That Fell

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Short, Gary. Star That Fell: Poems. University of Nevada Press, 2026.

Reason read: as a member of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing, I am starting to read more poetry.

Childhood memories and adult laments weave vivid snapshots in time. The poems of Stars That Fell are autobiographical and fragile in nature. Honest emotion is slowly revealed through sparse words and economical phrases. The pain of losing a mother to cancer. The pain of an abusive father. The pain caused by the death of a brother. Different pains caused by different family members, yet all deep rooted grief all the same. I hope there is catharsis in the telling. I practically wept for the sheer beauty and innocence of the narrator’s voice. There is a raw honesty to Short’s writing so much so that I will be seeking out his previous works.

The a mention of some of the poems:

  • Little Makeweights of Guilt – the destruction of a hive
  • I Lay My Brother Down – a memory of a brother
  • Flying Over Sonny Liston – the great boxing legend’s life in a poem
  • Herida de Amor – Mexico
  • Driving Down Highway 93: Nevada – an inadvertent drive in the desert
  • Brothers Playing Catch on Christmas Day – a family memory
  • Psalm – did he save the goose or not?
  • Gathering – childhood crushes last a lifetime
  • The Stars That Fell – a loss of innocence when confronted with death
  • The Collector – secrets, capturing insects, learning of a mother’s love before dad
  • American Light – test bombs and an innocent hope.
  • What I Believed – coming of age
  • Dust – who knew dust could be so beautiful?
  • Teaching Poetry to Third Graders – the things that matter to children
  • Imperfect History – what do you remember from childhood?
  • George Pascho Miller – the death of a friend
  • White – cancer
  • Sway – a vulnerable moment finding his father in the barn
  • Gentle Blue Sway – a remembering of a fight of his parents.
  • France Blue – abuse and a troubled relationship

Line I loved the most (please keep it in the final publication), “never mind these footprints in front of me…”

Music: “Night Train,” “Herida De Amor,” and Willie Nelson.

Author fact: Gary Short has written other poetry books.

Godforsaken Sea

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Lundy, Derek. Godforsaken Sea: Racing the World’s Most Dangerous Waters. Algonquin Books, 2000.

Reason read: June is the perfect month for an ocean voyage.

I would call the Vendee Globe sailing’s answer to the Barkley Marathons. The rules of the 27,000 mile race make the endeavor one of the most challenging competitions in the world. Sailors must sail solo without a crew. Once underway sailors cannot receive help from anyone on shore, either. They can moor their boat for a stop to make repairs, but they themselves cannot step foot beyond the high tide mark. At the time of publication the minimum funding needed to enter and prepare for the Vendee Globe was four million pounds. Only the truly dedicated (or insane) attempt the Vendee Globe.
Lundy, an avid sailor himself, chronicles the trials and tribulations of the sixteen sailors attempting the 1996-1997 Vendee Globe. He focuses most of the adventure on the extreme weather conditions around the most difficult leg of the race, the Southern Ocean. Only six of the sixteen vessels to enter the race will finish. As a result of the outcome of the 1996-1997 Vendee Globe race officials created new rules, making boats safer for future competitions.
I appreciated the anatomy of a ocean vessel I have never been aboard. Even more than that, I thrilled to learn the Beauford Wind Scale: the assigned number to the force of the wind and corresponding wind speed in knots, miles per hour, meters per second and kilometers per hour; the World Meteorological Organization categories (calm to hurricane); and what the water looks like from the land (mirror to air filled with foam and the sea completely white with driving spray. You know that the weather is terrible when you cannot tell the sea from the sky from the clouds.
Confessional: I have always been a dreamer about the idea of reincarnation. To think that a fellow sailor came back as an albatross to keep Chaband company was pure magic.

In the very beginning of Godforsaken Sea Lundy describes the capsizing of the boats of Dinelli, Bullimore, and Dubois. Cruelly, he leaves you hanging as to their fates.

Quote to quote, “It is interesting to contemplate what combination of compulsion and desires drives these sailors to the Southern Ocean” (p 177).

Confessional: I have a friend who is not necessarily all that good with boats. He definitely will not be reading Godforsaken Sea anytime soon. Most definitely not.

Other harrowing stories about trying to sail around Cape Horn:

  • The Bounty Mutiny (Bligh)
  • Two Years Before the Mast (Dana)
  • My Old Man and the Sea (Hays)

Author fact: Lundy was trained to be a lawyer but decided to do something different.

Book trivia: there are no photographs in Godforsaken Sea.

I didn’t think it would be possible for Godforsaken Sea to mention music, but I was wrong: the Who and the Platters.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Adventure By the Book: Nonfiction” (p 9).

Italian Neighbors

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Parks, Tim. Italian Neighbors: or, A Lapsed Anglo-Saxon in Verona. Grove Weidenfeld, 1992.

Reason read: the Arena di Verona festival is held every June. Here is something cool: while I was in Verona we walked by the amphitheater while they were busy setting up.

Tim Parks takes you on an Italian journey where every mundane experience comes alive in vivid detail. From the moment he and his wife move into the apartment inhabited by the belongings of ghosts thirty years passed to learning that all beverages have their time slots (order your cappuccino before 10:30am), Parks will have you giggling with delight on the outskirts of Verona. At the same time as delivering humor, Parks also brings the beauty of the region with cherry blossoms in spring and the sharp white peaks of the Alps piercing the bright blue sky. Doesn’t it all sounds so magical?
Parks takes you by the hand and leads you through various instances of Italian customs and cultures. Taxes. Death. And speaking of death, take cemeteries for example. Sometimes loved ones are moved from their final resting place. As Parks says, “They come to find their loved ones and discover the grave is gone” (p 144). I would not have believed him until I experienced this for myself. I went with friends to a cemetery in Udine. We were looking for a long-deceased uncle. Row after row of photographs of loved ones smiling out at me from the grave, but we could not find Giuseppe. The family shrugged and nonchalantly declared he must have been moved or removed. They then wandered away from the place he should have been, discussing what to have for lunch.
Another example: driving in Italy. Parks paints an action movie picture of racing through winding and narrow lanes with walls on either side; just room enough to barely clear the sideview mirrors. All the while another motorist is following you too closely to avoid an accident should you stop short. As so often with all of Italy, the picturesque is juxtaposed with the sharp edge of danger. This much is clear.
Italian Neighbors was such a delight to read that I cannot wait for the sequel, An Italian Education.

Confessional: I now want to stay in Montecchio. According to Tim Parks, June is the month to go because of all the poppies in bloom. Sounds wonderful.

Line I liked (and there were a bunch), “A test of the extent of your Italianization is whether you still grind your teeth when you hear that something has closed” (p 262). I picked this sentence as my favorite because after driving nearly two hours when we arrived in Florence we discovered the park closed at two. We arrived at 2:02pm.

Author fact: Parks returns to the subject of Verona in A Season With Verona which is on my Challenge list, along with An Italian Education and Juggling the Stars.

Book trivia: I really wished there had been photographs in Italian Neighbors.

Music (I think): “On the Bridge at Bassano We Hold Hands” and Ave Maria.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the simple chapter called “Verona” (p 243).

Question of When

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Fosco, Cory. The Question of When: a Practical Guide to Knowing When It’s Time for Assisted Living, Memory Care or Skilled Nursing. Campion Hall Press, 2026

Reason read: As a member of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing I often chose books that seem interesting to me. Very rarely do I chose a book because it pertains to my personal situation. This is one such book.

Confessional: it took me a very long time to read Question of When. Not because it is poorly written (it isn’t). Not because I did not believe Fosco’s words (I did). But because the subject matter hit home in ways I did not expect.
Nearly everyone has to go through the painful process of watching a parent age. It is either from a remote distance across the country or painfully up close and personal in the same house. Neither scenario is all that comfortable, but Fosco does an excellent job of clearing away some of the confusion surrounding the hard (and harder) decisions to come. Even if you think you have all the answers, Question of When makes you think again. Second guessing your knowledge and preparedness is a good thing. You are forced to ask the painful questions like, “are we merely adjusting to mom’s decline and losing perspective? Are we making excuses for the forgetfulness and erratic behaviors?” The difficult answer could be yes.
Fosco delivers a primer on territory; knowing the difference between the various facilities available to the aging loved one. Long term care versus assisted living or memory care. Each chapter ends with a takeaway piece of advice and a single action step to take. Small bites for a daunting and often overwhelming process.
Almost immediately I started to think about my own situation with my aging mother. If something were to happen unexpectedly, would I know what to do? Do I really know what mom wants for her final years, but more importantly, do I have the financial capacity to fulfill those wishes? There are financial implications with every situation, planned or unplanned. This is a book I will buy for my sister and not before it is too late.

Author fact: Fosco has thirty-four years of experience.