Aftermath

Aftermath by Chuck Wendig, 379 pages


So despite giving up on the Star Wars extended universe somewhere in my high school years, I was at least briefly drawn back into its fold. In what might be the first new canon book of the Disney owned Star Wars era, Aftermath takes place shortly after the destruction of the second Death Star, while the faltering Empire tries to consolidate its power, and halt the rampant advance of the New Republic.

Despite being away from these books for so long, I can certainly see why younger me was so interested. There are gun (blaster) battles, space fights and other melees. Since at this point in the canon there is really only the one known Jedi, Luke, there are not any lightsaber battles, which is kind of a let down. The space fight is also a little half-hearted for my taste. Where this book does thrive though, is the portrayal of Admiral Akbar and the rebellious fighting from which the New Republic was born. This is not the orderly and neat battles the Empire is known for, this is the knock down drag out bar like fights that really could go either way. It was in this element Wendig really captured what makes the Star Wars series such a compelling read.

Despite being labeled quite clearly across the top that this is part of the "Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens" this book does not quite get you there. Which makes sense, as this is, I believe, part of a trilogy that results in The Force Awakens. So just read Aftermath, and those other two books then go see the movie. But really who am I kidding, you already saw the movie.

Julien Benda and the New Humanism

Julien Benda and the New Humanism by Herbert Read, 33 pages

This is a small chapbook published by the University of Washington in 1930, assessing the life and work of French thinker Julien Benda and comparing his thought with that of the New Humanism developed by American cultural critics such as Norman Foerster, Paul More, and Irving Babbitt.  The analysis by Read - himself a distinguished critic - highlights the similarities between the Frenchman and the Americans without attempting to minimize their differences.  Given its brevity, it is remarkable how well the chapbook serves both as an introduction of Benda to an English-speaking audience and an original work of criticism.

Sword and Citadel

Sword and Citadel by Gene Wolfe, 411 pages

Sword and Citadel collects the third and fourth novels in Gene Wolfe's landmark The Book of the New Sun series, the centerpiece of his Solar Cycle.  The Sword of the Lictor finds Severian plying his trade as a Torturer in the cliff city of Thrax, his life stable again for the first time since leaving the Citadel.  Needless to say, this cannot and does not last, and events - and his own conscience - conspire to force Severian to become a fugitive.  The Citadel of the Autarch begins where The Sword of the Lictor ends, and carries Severian into new, unknown lands and dangers as well as back to more familiar but, as it turns out, equally mysterious territory.

For all the high concepts and plot twists, Sword and Citadel is fairly straightforward - neither novel has the hallucinatory, disorienting quality of The Claw of the Conciliator.  Old characters and settings return, often in surprising forms, but the revelations never seem forced or arbitrary.  No character, however, surprises as much as Severian himself.  The Book of the New Sun, taken as a whole, is a masterful performance of literary sleight of hand which subverts, inverts, possibly perverts but just as possibly converts readers' expectations.

De Gaulle

De Gaulle by Francois Mauriac, translated by Richard Howard, 229 pages

Nobel prize winning novelist Francois Mauriac's study of the career of Charles De Gaulle is less a standard biography than an extended celebration of the man who more than any other defined France in the twentieth century.  Published in 1964, twenty years after the General led the liberation of Paris, six years after his inauguration of the Fifth Republic, and six years before his death, the book is crammed full of extended selections from its subject's public pronouncements, giving De Gaulle ample opportunity to explain De Gaulle.  

Although as an author Mauriac was known for creating characters with profound psychological and spiritual depths, he deliberately avoids discussing or speculating on De Gaulle's private life or inner motivations, barely even referencing his life before the War.  Instead Mauriac presents a portrait which seems to be less concerned with the actual man than what he symbolized for a generation who were introduced to him as a voice on the radio in their darkest hour, broadcasting defiance to the German occupiers and their Vichy collaborators.  For Mauriac, De Gaulle is indissolubly connected to France by a sacred bond deeper than democracy, a concept whose echoes disturbingly resemble the rhetoric of Mussolini and Lenin, Hitler and Stalin, but Mauriac's evaluation of De Gaulle as resolutely opposed to every form of dictatorship has been vindicated by history, as have many of De Gaulle's own predictions concerning the future of Europe and the world.  Ultimately, the source of Mauriac's attachment lies in his understanding of his hero as primarily a spiritual and moral rather than political leader.

Lady Blue Eyes; My Life With Frank

Lady Blue Eyes: My Life With Frank by Barbara Sinatra  400 pages

Frank Sinatra. I don’t have to type anything else. I came of age when hard rock was blasting from every kids radio, but I have always preferred songs that told a story, crooners, and of course, a great saloon song. When someone asks me about the music of the last 50 years, I always say, “I quit listening when Sinatra quit recording.” What a voice for a man whose ear drum was perforated at birth!

I had the pleasure of seeing Mr. S. two of the times he performed in St. Louis…once in the 1980s and the other in the mid-1990s. By the latter, his voice wasn’t as strong as it used to be and he would forget some of the lyrics. But his charisma exuded from the moment he walked on stage was overwhelming. It’s was worth every penny I paid for those tickets.

When I stumbled upon his widow’s memoir of her life with the legendary singer, I couldn’t pass up a chance to read about his life. The all-nighters, the parties, the loyalty, the charm, the compassion, the women, the generosity, are tales fit for the tabloids. I learned he liked to paint in his later years, loved to read (I knew we had something in common), and do crossword puzzles (and he did them in ink).

Barbara Ann Blakely, from Bosworth, Missouri, first heard Sinatra at a drive-in when she was fifteen years old. She had no way of knowing that she would someday become the love of her life. At least that’s her story. But I have to wonder.

True, she was his longest-lasting marriage, 22 years. In Lady Blue Eyes: My Life With Frank, Barbara comes off as a gold digger. As much as I enjoyed reading about their personal lives, there was always that feeling I had that she didn’t love him as much as she loved his money and his fame; not near as much he seemed, in this telling, to love her.

I liked the conversational, breezy style Barbara uses (with the help of co-author Wendy Holden). The stories were intriguing but never went into gory detail, except perhaps in the details of Mr. S’s good friend Jilly Rizzo’s death. That gave me nightmares. At the very heart of Barbara’s remembering, in my eyes, is Mr. S’s loneliness. An only child, he seemed to have felt that his entire life. He felt as deeply as his songs made others feel. That’s the best way to describe it.

His descent into old age was glossed over. There were two mentions of him sitting in wheelchairs and mentions of his health issues. They were disconcerting, and I wanted to know more about how old age was wearing him down.

The most touching scene in the book is Mr. S’s death at age 82. As Barbara begs him to fight him to fight, he whispers, “I can’t.”  Probably the only time in his life that he said that.

I wondered how other readers felt Barbara came off, so I perused that reviews on Amazon. There I noticed many attacks on Barbara. While she didn’t come off so well, I don’t feel a need to hate her. It’s okay to hate characters, but the ones I read were really tough on her. I tried to judge the book by its ability to hold my attention, to keep turning the page, and to allow me to take a small peek at one of the entertainers I most admire. And Lady Blue Eyes does just that, which is why I give it 5 out of 5 stars.

The St. Lucia Island Club

The St. Lucia Island Club by Brent Monahan   306 pages

Since 2000, author Brent Monahan has been penning the John Le Brun detective series. The St. Lucia Island Club is the fifth novel, and the latest, novel in the series. If I had realized that when I agreed to review, I’m not sure I would have.  However, Monahan does an excellent job in not having to have read the four previous investigations to enjoy this effort.  He did make several references to the first book, which were really unnecessary.

In this episode the “retired Southern sheriff-turned-New York City detective John Le Brun and his wife, Lordis, set sail in 1910 for a long-awaited honeymoon on the Caribbean island of St. Lucia, they expect to find relaxation in paradise.” They are traveling with another couple, but I don’t think that was their intention. The two couples seem to annoy each other.

Once there, they discover that they have been recruited to take the island’s perks back to their friends in Manhattan as a place they should vacation. The book, set in 1910, regales the reader with the lush descriptions of the island’s beauty, decades before it became an international commercial paradise that boasts more than 50 resorts. I loved this aspect of the story, and set against the racial, economic and social tensions of the island, it made for a wonderful dichotomy that many books today don’t have. The writing also has that slow, old-fashioned feel to it. It’s not a page-turner, but a book to be savored, even when the topic is murder.

Soon after their arrival, Le Brun is invited to join the wealthy planter’s at the Club (not sure why Monahan is fixated on men’s clubs). Then a planter’s family is horribly murdered, in what the guilty parties hope to appear as an accident. It’s a clever murder method that I rarely see used.

It’s not hard to figure out who-done-it.  And, for what I could gather, this is the first time that our hero allows his wife to help him as much as a female on that island can.

I enjoyed The St. Lucia Island Club and give it 4 out of 5 stars.

All the Ugly and Wonderful Things

All the Ugly and Wonderful Things by Bryn Greenwood.  352 pages

Wavy knows not to trust people.  As the daughter of a meth dealer, this has been made clear to her, and she doesn't even trust her own parents.  Struggling to raise herself, and then her little brother, she's the only responsible adult around, even though she's only 8 years old.  However, she finds someone to trust the night she witnesses one of her father's friends, Kellen, wreck his motorcycle.

This is one of the most unlikely love stories I've ever read.  The summary from Goodreads says, "What follows is a powerful and shocking love story between two unlikely people that asks tough questions, reminding us of all the ugly and wonderful things that life has to offer."  The story follows Wavy, although we get some perspectives from other character, which helps to round out the story.  However, Wavy is the focus, and an intense focus at that.  She's one of the more unusual and compelling characters that I've encountered, and I found that this book was hard to put down.  Once I finished it, I kept turning it over in my mind, which to me is the sign of a really good book.

I wouldn't say that this book is for every reader, considering that Wavy's growing up in an environment of drugs and parental neglect.  Kellen is in his early twenties when he meets Wavy, so there's a big age difference between the two of them.   And while they are friends at first, the story takes us through years, and their relationship deepens.  However, it was fascinating to read the story and see their relationship develop, and understand how she's able to trust him, even when she cannot trust anyone else.  

Home We Build Together

The Home We Build Together: Recreating Society by Jonathan Sacks, 240 pages

In The Home We Build Together, Lord Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth for over twenty years and a noted British commentator on religious and cultural matters before, during, and after his service in that office, presents a penetrating analysis of the successes and failures of liberal democracy.  In his view, liberal democracy in the Anglo-American mold is predicated on the realization that government is secondary in importance to a thriving civil society.  Part of the tragedy of the last fifty years, then, has been the increasing politicization of so much of life, accelerating the social fragmentation set into motion by consumerism and new communications technologies.  The result has been the nearly complete disappearance of the kind of narrative that builds and sustains communities.

Sacks begins with the basic understanding that communities are primarily moral in nature.  With traditional, inherited moral narratives in decline, the future belongs to deliberate, intentional communities, united in a network of shared values by the ecumenism of the trenches.  It is the chief virtue of liberal democracy that it allows room for civil society, embodied in such networks, to thrive.  Sacks' vision, then, is a profoundly optimistic one - the dissolution of the old social order, while creating the danger of total social collapse, also allows for the possibility of the growth of a more diverse, inclusive society.  Simultaneously, he is adamant that this new civil society can only be built from the ground up, and attempts to orchestrate its growth by political means will only exacerbate the conflicts that fatally undermined the old order.  For this dose of sanity alone - the recognition that political activism, however worthy the cause, is among the least important reasons why human beings associate and form relationships, and among the least effective means of achieving anything worthwhile - The Home We Build Together is a vitally important book.

Crossing the Threshold of Hope

Crossing the Threshold of Hope by St John Paul II, translated by Jenny McPhee and Martha McPhee, 229 pages

In 1993, to celebrate fifteen years as pope, St John Paul II agreed to give a televised interview to Italian television.  As it turned out, the interview never took place, but the Pope prepared written answers to the questions Vittorio Messori had submitted and had them delivered to the journalist with permission to use them as he liked.  Thus was born the book-length interview Crossing the Threshold of Hope, in which the saint, just over halfway through his twenty-seven year pontificate, expresses his thoughts on subjects ranging from the fall of communism to the Second Vatican Council to the nature of the papacy.

It is no accident that the book begins and ends with the words from John Paul II's first papal address - "Be not afraid!"  Not afraid of the wickedness of men, not afraid of the seeming absence of God, not afraid of our own weaknesses.  Yet Crossing the Threshold of Hope is not a devotional, nor an apologetic work, nor particularly personal.  Even when answering a question about his own prayer life, John Paul begins with a reference to Scripture and then moves on to Gaudium et Spes.  The Pope seems most comfortable fulfilling his old role as a philosophy professor, but he is not merely interested in idly comparing ideas, but is engaged in building an understanding of the world and of man's place in it that acknowledges the inherent dignity of the human person.  This understanding is built upon the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love, the same love which "drives out fear" and delivers the human person from arrogance and slavery into the freedom of the children of God.

The Invisible Life of Ivan Isaenko

The Invisible Life of Ivan Isaenko by Scott Stambach.  336 pages.

The tagline on this book is: "The Fault In Our Stars meets One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."   Our main character is Ivan, who, at 17 years-old, has lived his entire life in the Mazyr Hospital for Gravely Ill Children in Belarus.   Every day seems exactly the same, so Ivan, who is whip-smart, turns everything into a game, manipulating the people around him for his own amusement.  All that changes the day that Polina arrives.  She won't play his games, and she challenges his routines.  Ivan is irritated, and then gradually intrigued.  Soon, the two become friends, and then their relationship becomes more serious.  However, even though love can conquer a lot of things, it cannot conquer the inevitable.

This book is funny, but it's also very sad.  I don't think I'm revealing anything --- you can probably guess just from the summary (and the name of the hospital) that something sad will happen to someone.  This is a courageous love story, where the story unfolds through Ivan's journal entries.  It's an interesting way to tell the story, through the unfiltered lens of one character, and I found it was easy to imagine the setting, and the people around Ivan, as well.  I found Ivan to be a fascinating character, who blends together his knowledge of literature with his observations of the world around him to make for a mix of sometimes wry humor, a pinch of drama, and pathos.

This book is shelved in Adult Fiction, but I think it has appeal to both adult and young adult readers.

You Will Know Me

You Will Know Me by Megan Abbott.  352 pages.

Eric and Katie Knox have devoted their lives to their daughter, Devon, a gymnastics prodigy.  With Eric in particular becoming more and more involved with the gymnastics boosters, and gym, and Devon moving towards being an Olympic hopeful.  The family is stressed, but things seem like they are holding together...until the violent death of Ryan, someone in their tight-knit gymnastics community.  Now, just weeks before an important competition, everything seems to be at risk.  Additionally, Katie starts to discover some secrets that are now bubbling to the surface which threaten her and her family.

I had read Dare Me by Megan Abbott recently, and had anticipated that this book would have the same taut pacing and writing style.  And, I wasn't disappointed; this story pulled me in and had me staying up late last night to finish it.  I kept thinking I knew who was involved in Ryan's death, but then the author would throw a curve.  The story definitely has uncomfortable moments, but I liked that it made it feel realistic.  Katie and Eric have a second child, a son who really mostly gets pushed to the sidelines, since their focus is on Devon.  When the book starts, it feels like Katie and Eric are starting to push the boundaries of their relationship, but as the story continues, and Katie starts delving deeper into what she's discovering about people, including Eric and Devon, you really get the feeling that things are unraveling.

Last Divine Office

The Last Divine Office: Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Geoffrey Moorhouse, 256 pages

The Last Divine Office is a portrait of the English Reformation as viewed from the choir stalls at Durham Cathedral.  The book begins with an extended history of the cathedral, the attached Benedictine monastery which supplied its clergy, and the shrine of St Cuthbert which provided its focus.  Events in the outside world are kept largely in the background as the monks cycle through the birth, life, death, and resurrection of their Lord in the liturgical year, year after year, with the archbishop and monastery steadily growing in wealth and influence.  Even after Henry VIII's break with Rome, life for the monks continues more or less as normal, even as the process of accretion reverses, with the monastery's holdings methodically stripped away layer by layer to feed the royal treasury.  By the end of Elizabeth's reign, the monastery was a shadow of its former self, but, as Moorhouse reveals, an oddly substantial shadow.

Moorhouse covers the subject with skill, sweeping through centuries of history without becoming either boring or superficial.  Most importantly for the story he has chosen to tell, he ably conveys a sense of place - the reader is able to smell the accumulated reside of centuries of incense, hear the echoes of the Latin chants, feel the impress of the personalities of the patron saints as they shaped the history of the community.  Less convincingly, Moorhouse portrays Cuthbert Tunstall, who served as Prince-Archbishop of Durham from 1530 to 1559, under Henry VIII and all of his children, as the model of an Anglican bishop - able to bend with the passions of the day in order to preserve what is most worth preserving.  Unfortunately, this seems to neglect the lessons of Tunstall's own experience, which led the man who took the Oath of Supremacy under Henry to refuse to do so under Elizabeth.

The Weaver by Emmi Itäranta

The Weaver by Emmi Itäranta.  304 pages.   published November, 2016, will be on order for the library - I read an e-galley courtesy of Edelweiss.

A weaver in the prestigious House of Webs, Eliana is a model citizen.  However, she hides the dangerous fact that she can dream, an ability forbidden by her island's council of elders.  Despite her secret, life is smooth, until a young girl is found lying outside the House of Webs. The only clue to the girl's identity is a word tattooed in invisible ink across the girl's palm; a tattoo which is Eliana's name.  Curious to know why her name is tied to this girl, Eliana soon discovers a deep corruption at the heart of the island, putting herself, and those she loves, in great danger.

This is an absolutely beautifully written book.  I found myself turning sentences and phrases over in my mind, just enjoying them.  The imagery is clear, and it's easy to imagine the surroundings and the people.  In this world, women aren't allowed to know how to read or write, so communication between the House of Webs is limited.  Eliana, in addition to being a dreamer, can also read and write, so even if she wasn't a dreamer, she has dangerous knowledge.  The characters in this story are primarily female, and are fighting against several factors, including ignorance, and the system they live under, as well.  I'd give this to readers who liked The Queen of the Tearling by Erika Johansen, as well as readers who like some of Sheri Tepper's books.

Here's an example of the writing, from p. 91, "Winter-chilled stars shine like silver coins sinking into the sea, sprinkling their faint light on the streets and canals." Also, p. 115 "I imagine her writing down in her remedy notebook everything she has discovered, lifting the spread with small, knife-sharp letters that have the power to cut open the surface of the world."  

Trump and Me

Trump and Me by Mark Singer, 108 pages

Donald Trump has been good to Mark Singer.  Certainly, he called the journalist's 1997 New Yorker profile "a new low".  True, he responded to the piece's reprint in a 2005 collection with the personal message, "Mark, you are a total loser!  And your book (and writings) sucks!", adding the inimitable Trumpian flourish "PS And I hear it is selling badly."  But the Donald's presidential campaign has now allowed Singer to triple-dip on the time that the two spent together as a result of editor Tina Brown's expert matchmaking.

To describe his subject, Singer likes a quote from an anonymous security analyst so well he uses it twice: "Deep down, he wants to be Madonna."  Yet Trump's own comments are just as revelatory: "... the show is 'Trump' and it is sold-out performances everywhere."  "It's always good to do things nice and complicated so that nobody can figure it out."  "Part of the beauty of me is that I am very rich."  Singer sees these, no doubt correctly, as expressions "of a single theme: Trump.  Me.  Look."

The Last Days of New Paris

The Last Days of New Paris by China Mieville.  205 pages.

I usually have no problem writing a summary of a book. However, this time, I am bowing out and giving in to using Goodreads.  "1941. In the chaos of wartime Marseilles, American engineer—and occult disciple—Jack Parsons stumbles onto a clandestine anti-Nazi group, including Surrealist theorist André Breton. In the strange games of the dissident diplomats, exiled revolutionaries, and avant-garde artists, Parsons finds and channels hope. But what he unwittingly unleashes is the power of dreams and nightmares, changing the war and the world forever.

1950. A lone Surrealist fighter, Thibault, walks a new, hallucinogenic Paris, where Nazis and the Résistance are trapped in unending conflict, and the streets are stalked by living images and texts—and by the forces of Hell. To escape the city, he must join forces with Sam, an American photographer intent on recording the ruins, and make common cause with a powerful, enigmatic figure of chance and rebellion: the Exquisite Corpse."

See what I mean --- I don't think I could write anything that explains this any better.  Because, frankly, I feel like I'm not sure, after finishing this book, if I could adequately explain this book.  The story asks the question:"Can living artwork die? Can it live before it dies?"     In this book, yes. Living artwork, in all its strange beauty, can live (and attack).  I usually love this author's books, but this one took me a while to get through.  While I know some about the Surrealist art movement, and recognized some of the art and artists, I felt compelled to keep looking things up.   And, feeling like somehow, I just wasn't quite smart enough for this book.  I feel like if I were more grounded in my art history, I would have found the book to be more moving, or emotionally compelling.  As it was, I found the book fascinating, but much like a piece of art that I think I like, but can't quite explain why.  

So, good book, but an odd book.  If this is the first time you've heard of this author, I would recommend starting with a different book of his.   If this book sounds fascinating to you, then you might want to read this from the New Yorker.  And this from NPR.  Especially the first paragraph of that NPR article.

And, I feel like it's appropriate to add this here -- one of my favorite works of art, which happens to be by Rene Magritte, a surrealist artist.    This is called "Time Transfixed," and it hangs in the Art Institute of Chicago.  I used to go to the Art Institute and search it out, just to visit one of my favorites each time I went there.

Sonnets to Orpheus

Sonnets to Orpheus by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Edward Snow, 58 pages

Vera Knoop died of leukemia at age nineteen.  An accomplished dancer from an early age, she was a close friend of Ruth Rilke, daughter of the poet Rainer Maria Rilke.  Several years after her death, at the time of his daughter's engagement, locked deep in depression as he struggled fruitlessly to compose what would become the Duino Elegies, Rilke found inspiration in the sorrowful memory of his daughter's deceased friend.  The result is 55 magnificent sonnets which allude at times to Vera and at others to Orpheus, the child of the Muses, patron of music, dance, and poetry. and therefore the connection between the poet Rilke and the dancer Vera.  Orpheus is invoked, not as a symbol of resurrection, but as a summoner of shades.

     Only he who has also raised

     his lyre among shadows

     may find his way back

     to infinite praise.

The sonnets speak less of hope than of pagan resignation

     Though the world change swiftly

     as the forms in clouds,

     all perfected things fall back

     to age-old ground.

But power belongs to poetry, to beauty

     Alone over the land

     song hallows and heals.

Which brings us to the justly famous conclusion

     And if the earthly should forget you

     say to the silent loam: I flow.

     To the rushing water speak: I am.

On Reading Ruskin

On Reading Ruskin by Marcel Proust, translated and edited by Jean Autret, William Burford, and Phillip J Wolfe, 165 pages

Early in his writing career Marcel Proust translated two of John Ruskin's works - The Bible of Amiens and Sesame and Lilies - into French, also supplying introductions and notes.  The translation itself was handicapped by Proust's rudimentary English, but the supplementary material reveals the depth of his attachment to, and engagement with, Ruskin's thought.  On Reading Ruskin collects this commentary in a single volume.

Six years separate the two works, and the years were not wasted by the French writer - the introduction to The Bible of Amiens was written by an ardent, though not uncritical, disciple of the master, while the introduction to Sesame and Lilies was written by the author of In Search of Lost Time.  What is truly remarkable is Proust's attitude towards Ruskin - at no time does he appear descend into agon.  Proust's primary criticism of Ruskin is that he is occasionally insincere - willing to endorse ideas because they are beautiful whether or not he actually believes them.  Against this is balanced an extensive meditation in which Proust extols reading as the highest (because most disinterested) kind of friendship.

Echoes of Edisto

Echoes of Edisto by C. Hope Clark    246 pages

Before I start talking about the Edisto mysteries, I have to comment that I love the first trilogy author C. Hope Clark penned, the Carolina Slade mysteries. They were excellent. One of the things that I love about Clark’s books is that they can be read in any order. There may be a reference here and there to another story, but it does not interfere with the plot at hand.

And that brings me to Echoes of Edisto where “murder came in with the tide.” It’s the third book in the series. Not sure if there will be any more, but after I go back and read Books 1 and 2, I sure hope so. I know I keep hoping there will be another Carolina Slade mystery (hint, hint Ms. Clark.)

The story opens with Police Chief Callie Jean Morgan debating about going off the wagon and having to deal with a diva celebrity visiting the island. That gives way to a 10-50 call and Callie rushes to the scene.

Unfortunately, the outcome of the car-in-the-water is given away on the book jacket. It takes away from the tension of the event. But Clark pulled me back in with the next scene and the story takes off from there.

Callie must deal with the death of her officer, the almost-death of her neighbor, her burgeoning romance with one of her officers, the mother, island politics, and the fight to stay on the wagon. I was shocked that Callie would take a drink as she did several times throughout the book’s 246 pages. It was confusing, at first, to determine the relationship between her mom and dad and her neighbor’s Sarah ad Ben.

The climax is harrowing…and shocking…which makes for a great read. I found myself gasping at the turn of events and the secrets that are uncovered. I would LOVE to tell you more, but that’s as far as I can go.

I give Echoes of Edisto 4 out of 5 stars.

Up From The Sea

Up From the Sea by Leza Lowitz   272 pages

On March 3, 2011, the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami happens. It was a disaster of epic proportions where “approximately 15,889 people died, 6,152 were injured, and 2,601 people are still missing. And 127,290 buildings were destroyed, with a million more severely damaged.”

Leza Lowitz, who lives in Toyoko, used that premise as the basis for her powerfully haunting novel about a teenage boy and the devastation that rocks his costal Japanese village.Kai is at school when the earth begins to shake. A 9.0-magnitude quake rattles and rolls his small village. The aftershocks, which number 11,106, often measured over 7.0.

This scenario would make an excellent novel, but Lowitz doesn’t take the easy way to tell of Kai’s life. Instead she has chosen a novel-in-verse.

Readers run with Kai as he heads for high ground with his teachers and classmates. We feel his weary arms cling to a tree as a wave hits. We reel at the loss of his mother, grandmother, and grandfather, his village, his friends, everything. Everything.

The only bright spot is that Kai’s estranged dad live in New York City; he hopes he can make contact with him, and that, somehow, they can be reunited.

Watching Kai search for his family’s remains and to try to pick up the pieces of his village is eerily reminiscent of watching New Yorkers combed hospitals, leave notes and pictures in the hours and days after 9/11. One thing I learned from this tale is that to the Japanese, 3/11 conjures the same type of painful memories that Americans feel every time 9/11 is mentioned.

Kai is selected to go to New York to participate in the 10th anniversary of 9/11. That part of the story was not delved into enough for me. It almost sounded like a vacation.

I read Up From the Sea in less than two hours. The prose is highly visual and emotionally gut- wrenching. I could not put the book down until I learned how Kai came to terms with what he had endured.

I give Up From the Sea 5.5 out of 5 stars. The whole 9/11 thing could have been left out without hurting the story at all.

Irish Way

The Irish Way, edited by Frank Sheed, 343 pages

A collection of biographical essays by Irish authors on holy men and women of "the island of saints and scholars", The Irish Way was published in the momentous year of 1932, the year of the International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin and the 1500th anniversary of the beginning of St Patrick's mission to the Irish.  The accumulated essays amply demonstrate how the legacy of St Patrick's mission inspired the Irish missionaries who over the centuries served the Church heroically in Scotland, Lombardy, Paraguay, England, and the United States.  It is a remarkable experience to read of Patrick's untiring journeys throughout Ireland, shadowed everywhere by threats of assassination, to save the souls of the people from the fires of Hell, and then read of the Franciscan friar Michael O'Clery's equally restless travels a thousand years later, shadowed everywhere by threats of arrest and execution, to save the history of the people from the fires of the Reformation.  It is exceptionally poignant to read Alice Curtayne's lyrical descriptions of the beautiful Irish countryside as Fr Thaddeus Moriarty follows his Master down his own via dolorosa.  It is inspiring to read side-by-side the parallel lives of Catherine McAuley and Mary Aikenhead as they labored to found the Sisters of Mercy and the Irish Sisters of Charity in the troubled nineteenth century, and humbling to follow Margaret Hallahan, an orphaned serving maid, as she struggled to restore a sense of the sacred amongst newly emancipated Catholics in England. 

Although The Irish Way is less literarily distinguished than its successor volume The English Way, it is more unified and cohesive.  This is less the result of an overall plan than the nature of the subject - the story of how the Irish people "having been despoiled of all the precious things by which nations keep their souls alive, all except one, remained vitally a nation, a fact explicable only by some extraordinary quality in their Catholicism, in the special Irish Way of being Catholic."

Three Generations, No Imbeciles

Three Generations, No Imbeciles: Eugenics, the Supreme Court, and Buck v Bell by Paul A Lombardo, 279 pages

In 1924, Dr Albert Priddy declared Carrie Buck to be "socially inadequate", which by Virginia law allowed for her involuntary sterilization in order to protect society from her potential offspring and their undesirable genetics.  He premised his conclusion on a study of Carrie's mother and infant daughter, finding both to be feeble-minded.  A legal challenge to the Virginia law, considered a model by eugenicists across the nation, was launched on Buck's behalf, and her case eventually reached the Supreme Court.  Famed jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote the majority opinion that summarized progressive thinking on the matter - "It is better for all the world if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind...  Three generations of imbeciles are enough."  Carrie Buck was duly sterilized as a threat to public health, along with tens of thousands of other women across America over the decades that followed.

Paul Lombardo's research into the case of Buck v Bell turns up a number of surprises.  Carrie Buck was carefully selected by Priddy and his associates as a test case for the law he helped write, and her lawyer was also a eugenics enthusiast.  The evidence presented concerning Buck's family history and mental faculties were riddled with errors, errors her lawyer had neither the information nor the inclination to correct.  The author succeeds admirably at his double task of telling the story of Carrie Buck and placing that story within the broader context of the push for eugenic sterilization, although he does oddly downplay the wide acceptance of eugenics among social scientists and social engineers.  Lombardo is a legal scholar by profession, but this is not a dry account of motions and counter-motions - he possesses a considerable talent for conveying the personalities of the individuals involved, making even the villains of the narrative understandable and even likable.  His readable, relatable tale of institutional abuse and technocratic arrogance sheds a light on a key part of a dark - and ongoing - chapter in American history.

All Is Not Forgotten

All Is Not Forgotten by Wendy Walker.  310 pages.

This book is set in a small town where everything seems perfect.  That is, until the night that Jenny Kramer, a young teen, is attacked at a party.  Because the assault is so awful, her parents make the decision to give her a controversial drug that will medically erase her memory of the event. However, in the weeks afterwards, Jenny struggles with her raging emotional memory.  Her parents are at opposite ends; her father becomes obsessed with finding Jenny's attacker and her mother does her best to pretend nothing happened at all.

Enter the doctor who works with Jenny, trying to recover her memory so she can completely heal emotionally from the attack.  He has has success helping other patients, so maybe he can help Jenny. Question is, is this doctor somehow involved in her attack?
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Well, I definitely won't forget that I read this book.  I found it got progressively more disturbing, and while that didn't keep me from turning the pages (because I so wanted to find out who was involved in the rape), at the same time, I felt like I maybe didn't want to keep reading.  This is a psychological thriller with a nasty tone underneath, which I found enjoyable, but at times kind of repellent.  The narration of the novel is interesting, where you get someone who is just outside of the main events, and giving us the viewpoints of other characters, sometimes as seen through his own emotional lens.

What I found interesting is that our narrator, Dr. Alan Forrester, is not the most likeable guy.  So, you have this awful attack, and then your main perspective is from someone who isn't likeable, and who doesn't really improve much throughout the story.  Instead of becoming a more sympathetic character, I found that he became more unlikeable. If you want to read another reader's opinion of this guy, check out the review on Goodreads from reader Emily May.  She writes, for example,
"Problem is, this guy is an insufferable douchebag. And no, I don't mean he's a flawed, interesting character prone to human vices like selfishness and jealousy. I mean he's a smug, pompous know-it-all who slut-shames, patronizes his wife, and wants to see the rape in Jenny's eyes. "

I felt this was an interesting book, and I definitely felt the author kept me on my toes wondering who was involved in the assault.  When the reveal comes towards the end of the book, I felt like I had been sucker-punched (which was fine -- I'd rather not be able to predict everything in a story). This might make for an interesting book group choice, just because I think there would be a lot of things people might want to talk about after reading the book.  Do I want the book on my own shelves, to read over and over again? Not really, although it was an interesting book, and maybe something I'll get from the library again at some point.

Two Days Gone

Two Days Gone by Daniel Silva.  400 pages.  Due out in January, 2017 (galley read)

Thomas Huston remembers the knife, and he killed his family, didn't he?  Or did he?  Daniel Silva keeps you guessing in this page-turner focused on Thomas Huston, a bestselling author whose wife and children are found brutally murdered.  In the small town they live in, everyone thought that they were the perfect family, and Thomas couldn't have murdered them (could he?).  However, Thomas is missing, which means he's the prime suspect.  However, Sergeant Ryan DeMarco, who has gotten to know Thomas over the years, thinks maybe something else may have happened.  DeMarco has some sad secrets of his own, and can't believe that Thomas could be capable of this crime.  However, as he delves deeper into Thomas' notes on his newest novel-in-progress, it appears Thomas has been keeping secrets of his own.

This book really kept me on my toes, and off-balance.  You get the viewpoints of both Thomas Huston and Ryan DeMarco, and when you encounter Thomas, he's already on the run and appearing to be suffering some post-traumatic distress.  However, it's hard to know for sure what really happened.  As DeMarco reveals what he is learning about Thomas, it feels like the mystery gets deeper, and as more is uncovered, it actually feels like the path to the truth grows a bit murky.  This is a dense story with some twists you might not see coming.  A bit of a slow start that keeps building to a surprising finish.

Catholic Social Principles

Catholic Social Principles by Cletus Dirksen CPPS, 233 pages

Catholic Social Principles is a guide to the social doctrine of the Catholic Church, especially as it unfolded in the wake of Leo XIII's landmark encyclical Rerum Novarum and in the encyclicals of Pius XI, Pius XII, and John XXIII.  The book is not a history of the development of this teaching, however, but rather a summary of where it stood as of the book's publication in 1961 - indeed, Dirksen does not generally differentiate between sources, instead presenting the teaching as a unified whole.  Since then, additional elements have been contributed by Bl Paul VI, St John Paul II, and Benedict XVI, and the greatest weakness of the book is its understandable inability to foresee the nature of those contributions.  This leads to a concentration on the conflict between capitalism and communism and a corresponding neglect of other dimensions, especially those relating to development in the third world and respect for the environment.

Dirksen proceeds by way of neither flashes of insight nor appeals to the reader but by slow, careful brick-by-brick exposition.  This approach makes the book somewhat dull, but the Catholic argument benefits greatly from his thoroughness.  If Dirksen could not, given his human limitations, predict future developments, those developments are still built on the foundation he surveys.  Indeed, his work is all the more vital in the spirit of Orwell's dictum that "the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men."

Rocket-Bye

Rocket-Bye by Carole P. Roman, illustrations by Mateya Arkova    32 pages

In this delightful picture book from the team of Roman and Arkova, children become “pirates in the clouds” as they take a voyage through the solar system. An older brother (or maybe sister, the characters are gender neutral) and younger sister (again hard to tell) climb on back of a rocket ship and soar through the galaxy, whizzing past the planets and playing among the constellations.

The cadence of the poetry feels off, which is why I give this little story 4 out of 5 stars.

Guapa

Guapa by Saleem Haddad    368 pages

Rasa has been educated in America and is a translator for western journalists in an unnamed Arab country. I got the feeling that the story took place not many years of 9/11.

Taking place over the course of 24-hours, Rasa must confront the man who he really is. The day starts off horrifically when he learns that his beloved grandmother, the woman who raised and loved him, saw him with his lover, Taymour, the night before. He feels guilty and deceitful. Grandma has taken to her room.

Rasa cannot stand to know the dishonor he has brought on his house. Taymour doesn’t seem as in love with Rasa as Rasa is with him. He receives vague texts from Taymour about their relationships, which seem counter to the man Rases loves.

The next day, Rasa learns that his best friend, drag queen Maj, has been arrested. Maj is star at Guapa, an underground gay bar. He roams the city’s slums, looking for Islamist rebels, finds himself at Guapa, and eventually winds up at a wedding. Through it all, the backstory of Rasa’ life are interwoven, giving the narrative an unbalanced feeling.

I get that that’s to help the reader feel what Rasa is feeling, but that unsettling wasn’t consistent. There were times, like Rasa’s life, the book was riveting and times that the story seemed to drag. Upon reflection, debut author Haddad did a remarkable job. However, I didn’t care for this story. The bouts of compelling reading interspersed with lengthy, rather boring text just can’t make me like the story. And I still don’t understand why the book was named after a bar. Maybe I missed it.

I give Guapa  2 out of 5 starts. 

Link: The Shadow of Light (Book !)

Link: The Shadow of Light (Book 1) by Summer Wier    318 pages

For her 17^th birthday, Kira’s closest friends---Zane, Fischer and Faye---have taken her to their favorite camping spot in the woods.  Kira has a crush on Zane, and the feelings seem to be reciprocated, but neither acts upon them.

As Kira takes a midnight swim, a foreign light, races toward the lake. The collision between the light and water pushes Kira toward the bottom. Faye best describes the incident, “It fell out of the sky, and then nothing. No rock, no meteor, not even a UFO. Did you see how it lingered on the lake? Dancing like…I don’t know, liquid fire melting into the water.”

It seems whatever happened out there, it changed Kira. She awakes two days later, realizing she has been somewhere else. The place seemed like her planet, but it’s not. There is a boy, Evan, who seems to be her guide. He shows her how to navigate the carnival-cave she materializes in, so that she can slip through her world and his. When she goes back to sleep, she awakens on her own planet.

Turns out Kira has descended into a black hole. The star that gives her the power to move between planets is dying. She can feel the light ebbing away from her. She must solve the problem of her missing father, and stay back home before her star dies, trapping her in the other world. To mention anything else, would give away the plot, and I won’t do that to you.

I like the way author Wier describes both planets like Earth. I was rather taken back when I learned that Kira and the gang’s home was not planet Earth, but that’s part of the premise that human life as we know if can exist on other planets. There is some real science in the book, not enough to turnoff readers, but enough to give Wier’s theories validity.

I was pulled into the story until about page 75. I didn’t like the way it ended, with no real resolution. I understand that Wier is luring readers to want to read Book 2. I think I read somewhere that The Shadow of Light series is to be a trilogy.

For those reasons, I give Link: The Shadow of Light (Book 1) 4 out of 5 stars.

Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman

Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman by Lindy West

"With inimitable good humor, vulnerability, and boundless charm, Lindy boldly shares how to survive in a world where not all stories are created equal and not all bodies are treated with equal respect, and how to weather hatred, loneliness, harassment, and loss--and walk away laughing."

Usually, I try to write my own summary, but this time, I felt like that quote summed it up.  This series of essays by writer Lindy West is a narration of her life, as well as her insights into what culture expects from women.  With the expectation that girls should be as small, compliant and quiet as possible, as a child, Lindy knew she'd never fit that mold.  She didn't, and she still doesn't, and she's unapologetic.  And I like that.

I really loved some of the chapters, like the one about her writing for The Stranger, and how she and Dan Savage got into it over what she saw as Dan's writing that was fat-shaming.  I felt like Lindy made some awesome points about how society seems people who are fat, and how people leap to make judgments about them.  She says, "However, it is easier to mock and deride individual fat people than to fix food deserts, school lunches, corn subsidies, inadequate or nonexistent public transportation, unsafe sidewalks and parks, healthcare, mental healthcare, the minimum wage, and your own insecurities."  (emphasis mine)  I put my sticky note flags in a bunch of places in that chapter.

Do I agree with every single thing she says?  No (and seriously, I never agree with every single thing that anyone says. It's just not possible).  However, I feel she makes a bunch of valid points, and totally calls out a bunch of things that I think are important to call out.  And talk about.  And hey, maybe be loud about.

What I really mean to say, after reading this book, is that I feel like I'd want Lindy West as a friend.  I kept looking at her author photo on the book jacket and thinking that she looks like a total badass. Maybe I should send her some cupcakes.  Or some wine.  Maybe both.  Reading her book made me laugh out loud, but also silently (and in my own head), raise a fist in a heck yeah! gesture a couple of times.   I'm going to buy a copy of this book for myself (shocking, since I rarely buy books, since I'm surrounding by them at the library).   Seriously also considering buying a few extras, so I can give them to some people I know (including a few in my own family).

July Totals!

Congrats to Krista R, who read the most books and pages and earned the most points in July!
 
July Stats:

Blogger	Books	Pages	Points
Krista R	20	6,207	20
Jen O	13	4,789	13
Jason S	14	4,433	14
Dennis M	13	3,122	15
Julie E-C	5	1,803	5
TOTALS	65	20,354	67

Greco-Persian Wars

The Greco-Persian Wars by Peter Green, 287 pages

In 480 BC, the Great King Xerxes, ruler over much of the known world in the form of the Persian Empire, crossed a pontoon bridge his engineers had laid across the Bosporus with an army larger than any Europe had ever seen.  His target was the city-states of southern Greece, particularly Athens, which had supported attempted revolts among the Greek city-states of Asia Minor and defeated a prior Persian invasion at the battle of Marathon in 490 BC.  The story of the Persian invasion and how it was ultimately defeated by a shaky Greek alliance is the subject of The Greco-Persian Wars, originally published in 1970 as The Year of Salamis.

The original title was more appropriate.  Green only passingly covers the conflicts between Greeks and Persians before and after Xerxes' invasion.  His description of that momentous year, however, is excellent, combining a thorough knowledge of the primary sources with an easy familiarity with the Greek landscape and classical military strategy.  Green manages to find a mean between the tedious minutiae of an academic history and the too-tidy narrative of too much popular history, admitting where there is uncertainty and explaining the reasons for his choices of alternatives.  Above all, Green is very aware that even before the war had ended, the legend of the Greek victory became almost as important as the fact of the victory.  The struggle over the meaning of the war - freedom against slavery, Greek identity against Persian cosmopolitanism - and the causes of victory - the Spartan army and the Athenian navy - would help shape the history of the world for centuries to come, even as the names of the great battles of 480 - Thermopylae, Salamis, Plataea - continue to resonate down through the millennia.