Suspect

The Suspect: An Olympic Bombing, the FBI, the Media, and Richard Jewell, the Man Caught in the Middle by Kent Alexander and Kevin Salwen, 334 pages

On July 27th, 1996, Richard Jewell, a former sheriff's deputy doing security work during the Olympic Games, noticed a suspicious package under a bench in Atlanta's Centennial Park.  The bomb squad was summoned and Jewell joined his coworkers in attempting to clear people from the area.  Less than half an hour later, the bomb inside the package exploded, killing two people and injuring dozens more.  Within days, the press was reporting, based on leaks from within the FBI, that investigators had determined that Jewell had planted the bomb himself.  Tom Brokaw told millions of Americans that there was "probably" already sufficient evidence to arrest and prosecute Jewell.  Three months later, the FBI officially announced that it had, in fact, never had any real evidence to tie Jewell to the bombing, its focus on him having been driven by their belief that he fit the "profile" of a lone bomber, this despite the fact that the FBI knew early on that he couldn't have carried out the bombing alone.  As Kent Alexander and Kevin Salwen report, Richard Jewell's guilt had been a "convenient myth" - it had given the FBI a suspect, the media a story, and the Olympics a chance to move on.  That it had almost destroyed Jewell was a small price to pay.

If their book is a cautionary tale, it is not, however, a polemic.  Alexander and Salwen write in a way that is factual, compelling, and deeply personal, not surprising in that both were tangentially involved in the story and knew many of the players, Alexander as a US Attorney and Salwen as an editor for the Wall Street Journal.  It would be a hard heart indeed which is not moved by their account of the later years of Kathy Scruggs, the reporter who broke the Jewell story, and it is even possible to feel a grudging admiration for Eric Rudolph, the actual bomber, who spent over five years as a fugitive in the Carolina mountains, sleeping in caves and surviving only on what he could catch or scavenge.  Perhaps the greatest insight the book can give is into the direction of the massive power of the federal government and public opinion by ordinary, imperfect people just trying to do their jobs.

Shrill

Shrill by Lindy West    272 pages

Lindy West is a speak loud and never hold your peace gal that I like a lot.  Not speaking up is a form of acceptance and too much of that goes on in the world.   Lindy West is speaking up, speaking her peace and not backing down.   She doesn't pussyfoot around tough topics, her weight - she says she is fat - she does not go with the plus-size term, she stands up for women and calls male comedians out when they do rape jokes - rape is not funny and maybe if those making the jokes had first hand knowledge of the experience they might not choose to go there nor want anyone else to.   She is the target of an unimaginable load of torment and slurs in the internet sectors.    She is brave and must have thick skin made of cast-iron to endure the onslaught of extreme threats and negativity she gets on a daily basis.  She doesn't back up from internet trolls who hide behind their monikers threatening her, her sexuality, her body even some going so far as to impersonate her dead father saying how disappointed he is in her.  She talks about her life growing up shy then losing her inhibitions and finding her voice to give value to herself and also to other women.   She is funny, charming, honest -she shares the stories of her failed relationships, her abortion, etc,  and even when tackling the hard stuff she comes out open and honestly and can find something to mentor the reader on in all things.  She will at times make you laugh out loud and at others make you wonder how in the world she endures.    Well spoken.   For middle schoolers on up.  O.K. at times her speech is a bit salty but the lessons she teaches more than makes up for the off cuss word.   One of my new favorite authors.

The Story of a Happy Marriage

The Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett        320 pages

I thoroughly enjoyed this telling of many tales in the life of Ann Patchett.   She talks about the hard times in her life as well as the happiest of moments all with equal relish and candor.   She prioritizes things in her life, her grandmother, who she loved above all other people, her dog, Rose and later dogs she shared her life with and kept with her constantly whom she shared unconditional love and every writing project during her married life to her second husband - whom she also shared unconditional love with.   Her first husband left her feeling lonely even when he was in the room with her.  That is a terrible feeling so she kept running until she finally escaped for good.   She ran from her second husband many times, too, but her second husband ran after her and held her and said all the right things until he no longer had to.  A charming tapestry weaved by the masterful storyteller that is Ann Patchett.   I loved sharing in Ann Patchett's memories of her life growing up, her loves and losses she has such a beautiful style of relating that it is tangible, more than just words on a page she verbally reaches out from the page and takes your hand and pats it like two old friends sharing the events in their lives and the delicious knowing that has brought them together and made them friends.   I recommend this book to anyone old enough to read and young enough at heart to appreciate what life brings.  Great book.

Secret Empires

Secret Empires: How the American Political Class Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends by Peter Schweizer, 225 pages

In 2019, it became front page news that Joe Biden's son, Hunter, had been paid millions of dollars to sit on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, despite having no experience in the energy industry and not speaking Ukrainian, at the same time that his father, then Vice President, had taken charge of US relations with the Ukraine.  Interestingly, Peter Schweizer had already reported the story in this 2018 book, connecting it to other business dealings involving the Bidens, the Kerrys, and the Chinese, Mitch McConnell's in-laws and the Chinese, Rep Danny Rehburg's family and the Mongolians, George W Bush's uncle and the Chinese, the Daley family and the Chinese, the Kushners and Qatar, the Trump sons and Indonesia, and more, establishing an undeniable pattern of attempts by foreign businesses - many of them with strong connections to their own governments - to influence American political figures by channeling substantial amounts of money to their families.  Although, as he points out repeatedly, such behavior by US companies towards the families of foreign leaders is illegal, there are no restrictions in the other direction.

It is worth noting that there are no smoking guns here.  Schweizer charts the flow of cash into the pockets of politically connected individuals, but he cannot prove that this money bought anything - even though it seems naive to believe that it did not.  There is a suggestion of another kind of naivete, however.  In the West, modernity has advanced an ideal of the bloodless, "rational" individual, but the Rest is dominated by more humane, family-centered cultures, hence the clash between the fashionable Western vision of a family as a collection of autonomous individuals and the belief shared throughout much of the non-Western world that all business is ultimately family business.  The author seems to assume that the Western view is both correct and stronger.  At one point, he quotes Chicago dynast Richard J Daley's response to a question about favorable treatment his children allegedly received from the city, "If a man can't put his arms around his sons then what kind of world are we living in?"  Despite Schweizer's intentions, this question resonates throughout the book - is such a world even desirable, much less possible?

The Sun and Her Stars: Salka Viertel and Hitler's Exiles in the Golden Age of Hollywood

 

The Sun and Her Stars: Salka Viertel and Hitler's Exiles in the Golden Age of Hollywood  by Donna Rifkind   560 pages

 

I don’t often read biographies, unless they are exceptionally well-written and often in the genre of narrative nonfiction.  However, I am always eager to hear the tales of Old Hollywood, that time from the 1930s and ‘40s. I don’t recall ever hearing of Salka Viertel. She wrote five of Greta Garbo’s movies (including “Anna Karenina” and “Queen Christina”) and was her BFF.  Fascinating woman. This is a well-researched story of one of the forgotten people who worked hard, made movie magic, yet never received an Oscar.

 

I loved reading about the salons that she would host in her Santa Monica on Sunday afternoons, the variety of people who would show up and the conversations about everything under the sun.

 

The first two lines in the introduction hooked me: “The look, the sound, and the speech of Hollywood’s Golden Age did not originate in Hollywood. Much of it came from Europe, through the workd of successive waves of immigrants during the first half of the twentieth century.”  Viertel was under contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer from 1933 to 1937.

 

An immigrant from in what today is in western Ukraine, Viertel came with her parents to America in 1928. The plan was to stay for four years, but Hitler’s rise caused them to stay. Viertel was under contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer from 1933 to 1937.

 

In some places the story was dry and hard to follow because of all the names I did not know.  But when I did recognize such names as Charlie Cahplin and Garbo, my interest was piqued.  

 

It’s been a couple of weeks since I finished this book, and honestly I can’t recall a single antedote or passage, but I enjoyed learning about this woman. “The Sun and Her Stars: Salka Viertel and Hitler's Exiles in the Golden Age of Hollywood” receives 4 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

And They Called It Camelot

 

And They Called It Camelot by Stephanie Marie Thorton   480 pages

 

For fans of Melanie Benjamin’s “The Aviator’s Wife,” Paula McLain’s “The Paris Wife,” and for those interested in President John F. Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis.

 

It dawned on me while I was reading this that there are generations of Americans who may not know who the Kennedys were and the magic spell they had cast over the nation. They were our version of the royal family. They were a new generation, way back in the early 1960s, who were leading the United States. “A new generation of Americans, born in this century.”

 

Framed by deaths of her husband, JFK, her brother-in-law, RFK , and her second husband, Aristole Onassis, this novel focuses on Jackie, her losses (and there were many), her gains and the struggles she had to carve  a place of her own in the world.

 

Told for in first person, from Jackie’s point of view, the story opens in 1952. I felt a little cheated when Jackie referred to her fiancé, John. It turned out that it was John Husted. But this is also the time that she meets Congressman John F. Kennedy from Massachusetts. And this is the story of Jackie, the woman she was, the wife and mother she became, the woman grew to become.  Perhaps most importantly, this is the story of one of the greatest love stories of the 20^th century.

 

As I was reading, I felt like I was a fly who had perched on her shoulder and stayed there for more than 25 years. I felt her happiness and her sorrows.  I also learned a lot about the woman who was the 35^th First Lady and why the world fell in love with this shy and intelligent who would rather stay home than go to a State Dinner.

 

I grieved over her miscarriage, the stillborn birth of a daughter, the death of an infant son, and that bloody day in Dallas so many years ago that is seared into many American’s minds and defined a generation. (One of the things on my list to ask God, should I be granted a seat in heaven, is who “really” killed JFK?)

 

I felt the wind in her hair as she rode her beloved horses. I felt how she grew into a fierce lioness who did what she had to do to protect her children, even if it included marry a Greek jerk with more money than God.

 

I loved this novel. I loved how it went behind the scenes at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port, the calamity of the Bay of Pigs, the urgency of the Cuban Missle Crisis and her devastation at the loss of her beloved Jack.

 

I would have like it to go on until her death, but the last two sentences sum it up best: “With Ari’s death, I was no longer Jackie Kennedy, or Jackie O. I was just Jackie.”

 

I HIGHLY recommend  “And They Called It Camelot.” It receives 6 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

Fool Moon (Book 2) The Dresden Files

Fool Moon  (Book 2) The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher     432 pages

Like a juicy episode of True Blood, everybody is fighting everybody.    Who knew there were so many different types of Werewolves?   And not all werewolf packs play well together.   Matter of fact Harry is the focus of most of the packs wrath.    Gangsters, Alphas are all in the mish-mash mix of the feral kind and once the sun goes down LOOK OUT.   Some alien types are afoot and Harry is covered up in women wanting to take care of him when they aren't trying to kill him that is.   Good book.   In the genre of Charlaine Harris who's Sookie Stackhouse series I miss desperately, this book feeds that need.    If you  are a fan of the macabre, the fanciful and aren't turned off by the occasional half-eaten body, this book is for you.   I highly recommend the series.   On to the third volume.

Storm Front (Book

Storm Front (Book 1 in the Dresden Files Series) by Jim Butcher   372 pages

Finally!   I started with book number 1 in a series.   Actually I had gotten the second book first but when I realized it was part of the Dresden Files I looked the series up and began with the first title to keep things nice and flowing.   The Dresden Files do not disappoint.    If you like murder mysteries with a little paranormal flair thrown in this is your series.   Jim Butcher is a good writer both in his descriptions to his dialogues.  A fun read.   I flew through the first title.   It is a mix of Buffy the Vampire Slayer with a little, True Blood and just a hint of Harry Potter.    Magic is afoot and when Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden, a wizard and private detective is around you honestly will never know what otherworldly thing might show up and how Harry might choose to deal with it.  He is a wizard by birth, both his parents have magic in their lineage.    The story is set in Chicago and      Harry works with the Chicago Police Department on cases as well as doing private detective work for the odd client.   Odd being few and far between the real odd creatures are the demons, etc. he comes up against.   Excellent book.    I will continue reading this series.   I highly recommend this book/series to paranormal mystery lovers, and pretty much everyone as the tale is an intriguing one.   Good book, good series.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

Prepared Not Scared: Your Go-To Guide for Staying Safe in an Unsafe World

Prepared Not Scared: Your Go-To Guide for Staying Safe in an Unsafe World by Bill Stanton
304 pages

Bill Stanton has a lot of good things to say and brings in several experts in the safety/protection sectors to share knowledgeable points with the reader on keeping safe, being aware at all times not just sometimes of your surroundings, keeping a safety stash in your car at all times for emergencies, keeping your kids and pets safe, protecting yourself and your home, office safety, crowd safety and so much more.   He cites statistics of crimes, against persons and property and shares excellent ideas on how to keep your environment as safe as possible and he teaches you what to look and how to gage strangers who may have ulterior motives.   He discusses how to deescalate situation that could go volatile and what to do if God forbid you find yourself in a dangerous situation even if you have done all the right things.   A good book and worthy read, some stuff is simply common sense, but, we all can use a wake-up call now and then before we walk blindly into trouble.  I highly recommend this book to anyone.   We all could use a crash course in safety these days.

Fall From Grace

Fall From Grace: A Novel by Richard North Patterson     400 pages

When a rich man dies under mysterious circumstances and in his will leaves millions of dollars to his mistress and another million to an obscure girl his son once dated, the tongues start wagging in Martha's Vineyard.   His long suffering wife whom he seemed to have little in common with kept tight lipped in her shame, though it was known long ago what a womanizer he was.    Questions arise about the state of the body and how it could have been other than an accident.  When the man's son ventures back home after several years away he begins searching for clues and finds out way more than he bargained for.   Family secrets come to light and not everyone who seems out to get something for nothing truly are.   Good book.  Well thought out plot.  The characters have many layers and like the bloom of a rose open to show more than the reader first saw.   Well done.  I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys mysteries whatever their age.

Cure for Consumerism

The Cure for Consumerism by Fr Gregory Jensen, 148 pages

Christianity has always had an ambivalent relationship with the world.  The world is, after all, simultaneously what the Lord overcame and what He died to save.  The world belongs to God, and yet His people are not of this world, and the world hates Him and them.  The goods of the world participate in the goodness of God, for otherwise they would not be goods, and they can serve as a ladder to Him, but divorced from their relationship with the Supreme Good who is their source and purpose, every ideal becomes an idol.

It is in light of this that Fr Jensen considers and reconsiders the Orthodox attitude towards capitalism.  He argues that the marketplace may be reimagined, not merely as an unfortunate necessity that must somehow be accommodated, but as a realm of genuine goods that ought to be nurtured.  The Christian can properly order the goods of the marketplace, and thus escape from the perils of idolatry, through a personal practice of asceticism.

Unfortunately, it is here that Fr Jensen's exposition seems naive, as he seems to fall into the peculiarly modernist delusion that a tool is a purely neutral object void of its own logic.  This causes him to neglect the reality of the free market as a social sphere which inevitably tends to totalize its own values.  While this may be resisted on the personal level, it can only be counterbalanced by a greater social force.

The Witches are Coming

The Witches Are Coming by Lindy West         272 pages

She starts off saying, "This is a witch hunt.   We're witches."   This is political and the witches are on their way to the 2020 election.   She discusses global warming,  LBGTQ, Black Lives Matter.   She talks about being a fat blonde feminist and activist.   Sometimes she is funny and sometimes the topics are so serious they require their due.   She cites statistics and other people's experiences as well as her own and she calls bullsh*t where she sees it.   She says the truth can transform us there is witchcraft in it.   I enjoyed this book very much.    She calls it like she sees it and she sees it all.  I would highly recommend this book to the open minded and I would not recommend it to the close minded.   A very good and often funny read.    Be aware she does espouse her political views

A Mrs. Miracle Christmas: A Novel

A Mrs. Miracle Christmas:  A Novel by Debbie Macomber 368 pages

A good story with a bit of supernatural thrown in with angels doing cameos here and there.   When Laurel and her husband Zach move in with Laurel's grandmother, Helen, to help keep an eye on her after Helen starts exhibiting signs of Alzheimers (getting lost in her neighborhood, going to school thinking Laurel is still a little girl and that she must pick her up from school, leaving the oven on which could have caused a fire)  it becomes more than a notion to keep up with Helen.   Laurel and her husband both work so it is decided that rather than putting her in home, they will try to afford a daycare worker to come in and stay with Helen.  Entre' Mrs. Miracle - an angel on assignment from the Arch Angel, Gabriel.  The story takes off and is an enjoyable one all about the Christmas season, programs, decorations and heavenly choirs.   Everyone thinks that Grandma Helen is a little spacey when she starts chatting about angels and the prophetic things that she and Mrs. Miracle have been discussing.   And Laurel gets very self-centered over an adoption gone wrong and starts behaving as though she is the center of the universe and every mention of children, adoption, whatever is never supposed to be said in her hearing because everyone is being mean to her.  The big whine bag she needed to get taken down and called out every time she treated her husband like dirt if he dared to mention trying to adopt again.   Laurel gave him grief that he was insinuating she wasn't good enough to bear children and on and on.   Frankly, I don't know how the poor man tolerated it as well as he did.  She was awful to him and he wasn't the only one.   It was like everyone in her presence was never to have an opinion on anything baby-wise or they were treating her badly.  Personally I wanted to get her in check - she was not the center of the universe and everything did not revolve around her nor everything nor ever word spoken did not pertain to her.   People have things to say that they wanted to share and for her to act like such a jerk just made me want to tell her about herself.   Read the book and you will see what I mean.   In spite of her nasty attitude it was still a pleasant story and I did enjoy it.

Fall From Grace

Fall From Grace by Danielle Steel   400 pages

What is a girl to do when her idealic life with the rich man of her dreams suddenly comes crashing down to an end?   Sydney and Andrew Wells totally devoted to each other living the high life of fabulous trips, beautiful manse, a collection of artwork, jewelry, clothes, everything but a current will.   When Andrew crashes his motorcycle and is killed Sydney is left to deal with the aftermath and it isn't pretty.   Andrew's ex-wife raised two vindictive adult daughters who literally hate their father's second wife, Sydney.   Sydney had nothing to do with their parents' break-up.    Andrew and Sydney didn't even meet until years after his divorce was final.    Sydney too, was a divorcee.   Her husband walked out on her and the girls, met someone new and started a second family totally ignoring his first one.   Sydney's girls grew up feeling the love of a caring father through Andrew and all were happy in the huge home until the girls grew up and moved out to live their own lives.   Now Andrew was dead and of all the loving things he had done for all of them he had never changed his will and at his death, everything he owned went to his biological daughters.  When he and Sydney first got married they signed a pre-nup so Sydney essentially signed away her right to contest anything.   And even though they had been happily married for several years it had never occurred to Andrew who was athletic to ever think about the eventuality of death.  No provisions whatsoever were made for Sydney and her step daughters gave her a month to leave her home.   She was only allowed to keep items received by her as gifts and her clothes but she was not allowed to take anything else out of the house.   Andrew had given Sydney an apartment in France as a gift so she was able to hold onto that with a lot of back and forth between lawyers.    This is an excellent story of love, loss and how one must find ways to continue on after a loved one dies.   The story goes in so many directions that I don't want to spoil it for the reader but know it is a very well told story that is only beginning with Andrew's death.    Many lessons are taught her for women to be mindful and not depend solely on a man for their living, if something happens to that man, the woman MUST have a plan B in place.    It teaches that women shouldn't give up their careers for a man nor give up their income on his promise to take care of them, life has ways of changing in the blink of an eye and women must be prepared to carry on in that possibility.   Excellent story.   I would highly recommend this one to anyone looking for a good story to read and especially for young women to get their eyes opened to tragedies that can happen and that they need to be prepared for. 

Age of the Baroque in Portugal

The Age of the Baroque in Portugal, edited by Jay A Levenson, 295 pages

If the seventeenth century witnessed the Spanish Golden Age, it is reasonable to treat the eighteenth - and particularly the reign of John V - as having hosted an analogous, albeit somewhat more modest, Portuguese flourishing.  Certainly, it saw the height of Portugal's colonial empire, and a corresponding attempt to transmute the riches of the world into glory for God, country, and king.  This catalogue of the 1993 exhibition at the National Gallery of Art (fittingly, staged a year after the Columbian quincentennial) presents a wide array of beautiful and intriguing objects from the period, from furniture to jewelry to azulejos to a complete custom coach commissioned by the Portuguese ambassador to the Holy See.

The Fame Thief

The Fame Thief by Timothy Hallinan  (Book 3 in the Junior Bender series)   352 pages

Is every book now part of a series?   I am beginning to think so.   I get it - get your reader hooked on the characters they love and they will return.   O.K. Timothy Hallinan, you've got me.   I really like your characters so I will be looking up the other books in your series.   From old hollywood with a delicious mix of truth, fiction and paranormal activity this story is captivating.   Readers will enjoy the story, the trip through old hollywood and so many true names of actors, actresses, and gangsters that actually are telling hollywood tattles that are now known facts to be true.  Some of the characters the author tells us were based on real people just fictionalized enough to likely keep from getting sued for defamation of character.  The stories are juicy, the characters spicy and it is an excellent blend of just a little of this and a touch of that the reader in my opinion will love it.   I think middle school to octogenarians will enjoy time tripping to when we were young and the world was innocent or so we thought.  Man were we naive!   Great story.   Gangsters, Ghosts and Greta Garbo, Junior Bender you are a marvel!   Very fun read.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.

From Fire By Water

From Fire By Water: My Journey to the Catholic Faith by Sohrab Ahmari, 207 pages

Sohrab Ahmari is a classic immigrant success story.  Born to intellectual, secular Iranian parents several years after the Islamic Revolution, his mother brought him to the US as a teen.  Starting out in a Utah trailer park, able to understand the language but not always the culture due to his love of Hollywood films, he managed to earn his way into the Ivy League and eventually a job as op-ed editor of New York's premier newspaper, the New York Post.  

But that isn't what this book is about.  Rather, as the subtitle indicates, it is an explanation of the lifelong journey that led to his 2016 reception into the Catholic Church.  Beginning with his childhood as a dissident Persian boy in love with an ideal America as the alternative to the mullahs, he then explores his disappointment with the real America, his adolescent passion for Nietzsche and collegiate passion for Trotsky and later embrace of neoconservatism and, finally, his ultimate dismissal of all utopian ideologies.  Through it all, he movingly relates his growing recognition of the human need for order and therefore authority, an order and an authority not imposed by force but grown from sacrifice.

Filthy Rich

Filthy Rich: The Shocking True Story of Jeffrey Epstein: A Powerful Billionaire, the Sex Scandal That Undid Him, and All the Justice That Money Can Buy by James Patterson, John Connolly and Tim Malloy    320 pages

This true story taken from the headlines just shows what money and power can buy today.   Jeffrey Epstein, though, young women and teens came out of the woodwork with incriminating evidence to convict him and that would have convicted others with fewer connections and less money, and far more accusers than in the Bill Cosby case - but - Epstein got a slap on the wrist went briefly and I mean briefly (15 months/less with good behavior to a Camp Cupcake Detention Like Center where his privileges were such it wasn't really like being incarcerated at all.    The man has a penchant for young girls and carefully worded his hiring of teens who were all coached to say they 18 some as young as twelve, to become masseurs.   Jeffrey Epstein likes at least 3 massages a day and had young ladies living with him who would recruit young girls wanting money for clothes, school, etc.  And how tantalizing the recruiters could make it sound that the girls could make $200 or more a day just massaging him.   Of course, if they wanted to make more money, they could do more to earn it.  This is how Jeffrey Epstein became labeled a sex addict and pedophile.    There were charges of prostitution brought up too as he would pimp the young girls that were up for any activity out to other men - England's Prince Andrew being one of them although the Royal Family denied all such scandal as ridiculous and lies, even though there are tell-tale photos.   Other famous names who went on trips with Jeffrey Epstein when he had a bevy of underage girls along were Donald Trump, Alan Dershowitz, Bill Clinton and many other well known politicians and celebrities.    The story is jaw dropping that names are named, the girls tell their stories without filters, lawyers talk about the evidence,  many people who were involved or attended some or all of the parties, weekends, trips overseas, etc.    And yet, to this day Jeffrey Epstein is still soliciting young girls for "work" through his cohorts and getting away with it.    A look inside the legal system and where and how money talks and a pedophile walks.    I would recommend the book for its sheer eye-opening quality and I would recommend it to young girls so they can know what can be behind a too good to be true offer through older people who find criminal accounts interesting.   Sad that this sort of thing goes on but this is a very indepth look into what a child molester can be capable of and if he has sway with money, and those in the legal fields what can make him like teflon so nothing sticks.   A well written book on a tough topic to read.

Advice to War Presidents

Advice to War Presidents: A Remedial Course in Statecraft by Angelo M Codevilla, 280 pages

Theodore Roosevelt famously summarized his approach to foreign relations: "Speak softly and carry a big stick."  According to Angelo Codevilla, however, since TR left office administrations of both parties have tended to wield the stick clumsily at best.  Worse, their speech ("soft" in a sense very different from Roosevelt's) has been used to obfuscate inconvenient realities rather than to provide clear statements of principles and intent.  Unfortunately, both respect, the key to good foreign relations, and unity, the key to good domestic relations, depend upon clarity.  The studied ambiguity of the establishment, whether Liberal Internationalist, Realist, or Neoconservative, has thus denied America any chance at real peace or real victory, not in spite of but precisely because of their aversion to conflict.

A book on this subject might be expected to be of limited interest to anyone not directly involved, or hoping one day to be involved, in the making of American diplomacy, but Codevilla's most trenchant observations come when he considers the roots of the problems that are his focus.  In his view, the fundamental issue is that the opinions of the establishment proceed from a flawed anthropology (and therefore, one might infer, a flawed theology) which imagines that human beings are motivated almost entirely by material needs and desires, and that war is therefore always a regrettable interruption in the collective pursuit of prosperity.  To deracinated American elites, the idea that men might be inspired to struggle by love of tribe or religion is almost entirely foreign, and therefore such motivations, the highest in the human experience, are considered only as the cover for baser drives, and thus irrelevant.  This irrational presumption, it seems, may be the cause of much of our modern political and social dysfunction.

Chattery Teeth and Other Stories

Chattery Teeth and Other Stories by Stephen King  240 pages

Now these stories were back to the old Stephen King style, maybe that is because they are revamped and pulled from an earlier printing but of late, I've felt that Stephen King's heart was not in his writing it had lost that fun spark so this restored my faith that all is good in Stephen King land and that it never hurts to do a little recycling when things go momentarily stale.   I love the hero in the Chattery Teeth story and the teeth themselves made me think of those giant vampirelike choppers so hilarious in the Three Stooges shorts where they played Dentists.   So funny.   These choppers delighted just as much if not more and sparkled with that mischievious wit King is known for.   Then the Sneakers, wow!   This story gave me pause when at a climactic moment the door opens and the ghost has the face of the person opening the door to which King  elucidates that often the face of ghosts we see have our own face (Freud would have had a field day with that one).  My Pretty Pony in which King describes time as being a pretty pony with a wicked heart.   Last of all Dedication - that odd little place in King's mind where he just has to try something really gross in to grab the reader's attention and triiger that repulse reaction.   A little black magic goes a long way.    Good stories, up to Dedication I would have recommended the book for middle schoolers on up but that revolting part makes me up the age limit to adults just because.   If you are a King fan you will not be disappointed.   The horror quotient is there just more subtle.   I would recommend this book to anyone looking for an interesting and entertaining read - go easy on Dedication though.   It might cause you to close the book.

The Christmas Boutique

The Christmas Boutique by Jennifer Chiaverini   304 pages 

This is actually Book 21 in the Elm Creek Quilts Series!   The story read as a stand alone book so there was no real problem with it but gee whiz!  Starting with #21 in the series sounds like I have missed an awful lot!   The charactes are likeable, some are cantankerous enemies and sad for them they also happen to be next door neighbors.   That would have to be awful having such a terrible relationship filled with literal hate for one another and then live next door to each other and have to run into each other potentially every day and maybe even several times a day.   You would be under scrutiny for every little thing constantly like living under a microscope.   And it has gone on for years according to the story.  But that is just one aspect of the story.  The two ladies do have some duzies of encounters, though.   It seems in this story someone's good Samaritanism goes awry and accidentally burns down the church hall just before the Christmas fundraiser for the local food pantry so two of the volunteers stop by elm Creek Manor to ask permission from Sylvia to hold the fundraiser there so the local food pantry can still benefit from the proceeds.   Naturally Sylvia Bergstrom Compson says yes then the excitement mounts to get the manor decorated and volunteers offer talents from their many areas of expertise be it crafting, cooking, decorating or advertising/marketing the event at its new location.   The two feuding neighbors add humor to the story and there are many love relationships blossoming and here and there time comes to move on from one that just isn't working but Christmas time and snow and cold is the main theme throughout with lots of lovely quilts described as well.   Procrastinators have decorative quilt tops to display though no finished pieces there are also conspiracy theories going on that blend well with the procrastinators.    A fun book and definetly a pleasure to read for those who love Christmas any time of year.   I would recommend this book to anyone looking for an easy book to curl up with on a cold night with a blanket and a mug of hot chocolate, anyone who loves quilts and/or quilting. 

Liberty

Liberty: The God That Failed: Policing the Sacred and Constructing the Myths of the Secular State, from Locke to Obama by Christopher A Ferrara, 642 pages

In Liberty, Christopher Ferrara takes aim at the "moderate" Enlightenment, as exemplified by Locke and the American Revolution, demonstrating that it was just as essentially inimical to classical and Christian conceptions of politics and virtue as its more extreme counterpart.  "Liberty", it follows, is nothing but a euphemism for the revolt against Christendom.  In his view, Social Contract theorists merely applied the Protestant notion of private judgement to the political sphere, and in so doing rejected every form of natural human affection in favor of a supposedly "rational" individual consent.  For moderns, then, "Liberty is Power unrestrained by moral or theological limits", and necessary unity is maintained in good times by social conformity and general complacency, in bad times by naked force.  Any sacrifice being worthwhile in defence of Liberty, the State inevitably asserts a level of control unthinkable in traditional "authoritarian" societies, while the "enemies of freedom" or "democracy" or "the people" are persecuted.  The result is not the separation of Church and State but the subordination of churches to the State, so that political dogmas are made the judges of the creeds of the churches.  

In an anti-intellectual climate where memories are short, the presence of Obama's name in the subtitle is likely to immediately raise suspicions that Ferrara, writing in 2012, was primarily concerned with the politics of the moment and that his primary target was the then-current president.  The opposite is the case.  Ferrara attempts to demonstrate that the Obama administration's assaults on religious liberty were not a deviation from but in continuity with the views of the Founders.  Along the way, he demolishes the cherished libertarian myths of a pure Jeffersonian constitutionalism corrupted by Hamiltonian centralism and a small-government Confederacy overpowered by the big-government Union.  Even more importantly, he warns against the pernicious theological effects of a social order which elevates the will of the people over the will of God.

Ferrara is an unabashed Catholic partisan, and he takes every opportunity to praise the Church and elevate her above merely human institutions.  In a history where Catholicism is more visible in its rejection than in its affirmation, this often takes the form of digressions, some of which are fascinating but distract from his central arguments.  This tendency is also likely to alienate non-Catholics who might otherwise be sympathetic to at least some of his contentions, although Ferrara would likely maintain that such a partial truth would represent a first step along the road to total error.

The Hollywood Daughter

The Hollywood Daughter by Kate Alcott   438 pages

A very good story of a young girl who's father worked in Hollywood as a publicist, who's biggest client was Ingrid Bergman.  It was a high good ride for a long time as Hollywood careers go and Ingrid Bergman and her then family, the Lindstroms,  lived next door to the Malloys (her publicist), in Beverly Hills.    Bergman's career was soaring and Jessica Malloy a teenager at the time adored the star who would talk to her at the school bus stop when Bergman walked her daughter, Pia down to catch the bus.   Jessica was totally star-struck and remained a fan of Bergman throughout her life.  When Jessica came off a little too saucy and savvy about sex, her parents (her mother especially) pulled her out of public school and sent her to a Catholic School for more religious education.   Her mother was a devout Catholic, her father not so much, though he would attend church with his wife and daughter on occasion until the McCarthyism set took hold of the country.   Hollywood was in the line of fire and several writers were singled out as Communists and were blackballed from working in Hollywood.   It became a huge witch hunt and many careers were lost because of it.  Bergman had gotten a roll as a nun in the film, "The Bells of St. Mary's " and in this story the location scout got Jessica Malloy's Catholic school to let them shoot several of the scenes there for authenticity.   The school and its students were all excited, Jessica Malloy most of all.  And it was quite a coup when the other students realized Jessica and Ingrid knew each other.  While the "Bells of St. Mary's" didn't win an Oscar that year, Ingrid still won for "Gaslight."    Ingrid Bergman's next role was as Joan of Arc and her legion of fans grew by leaps and bounds especially within the Catholic Church.   Then during the McCarthyism chaos Ingrid got a role in a Roberto Rosellini film, "Stromboli," and while in Italy filming she had an affair with the director and a child out of wedlock.   She was still married to her first husband who denied her visitation with their daughter, Pia, and who would not grant her a divorce.   A big fiasco blew all out of proportion, Bergman was banned from entering the United States and Jessica's dad lost big time, too.   The Catholic church urged all of its members to turn against her and sermons were preached about the evils of Hollywood which made Jessica's dad completely turn away from Catholicism.    While Bergman had played a nun then a saint the public had gotten the impression she was a virtuous woman who had fallen to degradation fueled by her Hollywood career but Bergman's reaction was she never said she was nor had she tried to be a saint but only a woman.   Jessica held her hero up in the face of those who would trash her name.   Much more happens  As Jessica grows up and there are surprises afoot.   I recommend this book it was an enjoyable read and a look into how those most affected by the accusations and hounding of the 50s dealt with their torment.    I think tweens on up will like this story as will readers my age and older who remember what was up back then.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Organized Enough:the Anti-Perfectionist's GUide to Getting-and Staying-Organized

Organized Enough: the Anti-Perfectionist's Guide to Getting-and Staying-Organized by Amanda Sullivan     229 pages

I love this book.   When you really want things perfect it is so easy to procrastinate, "well, I don't have time to do it the way it really needs to be done (perfectly) so I will wait (put it off) until I do."  But that magical time never comes and stuff literally becomes clutter.  Amanda Sullivan's take on organizing is PEOPLE IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE PERFECT!   O.K. is good enough.   She gives you permission through her FLOW system Forgive yourself, Let stuff go, Organize what's left, Weed constantly.   She offers a far more forgiving and easy system for allowing ourselves breathing room in our quest for clutter free lives.  She also talks about habits forming after doing them consecutively for 28 days so decide what habit or habits you would like to add to your skill set and do one new task every day for 28 days so that on the 29th day, it is automatic, you don't even have to think about it.  She suggests starting with doing a sweep through the house before you go to bed.   No cleaning involved just take a sweeping glance through each room, if there is something there that doesn't belong take it to the place it does belong. (Kid's toys, Fido's chew toys, the sweater you draped across the chair when you came in, mail on the countertop, keys left who knows where and of course any remote control someone walked in another room with, etc.)  Establish that habit first.  A good second habit is washing any dishes left in the sink.   You will feel so much better walking into a clean kitchen with NO DISHES in the sink.   After that, habits are what you want to establish.  But whatever you decide do it for 28 days in a row and then it will meld into your daily routine and you won't even have to think about it, you will just do it.    And again she stresses you home doesn't have to look like a showplace or like a photo from a magazine but, it should look like your place - well lived in among the things you love.   She suggests grouping like things together on shelves to make it appear as a collection not random things.   She suggests the same with your groceries put them away in cabinets with other items you will need to use with it coffee, creamer, sugar together,  pancake mix and syrup you get the idea.  It makes it easier and faster when you go to use the items.  It works in all areas of the home, if all the like items you need are together - you stay more organized and have everything together when you need it and boo on perfection.   It doesn't have to be perfect - she for one, hates books that are on a shelf by size, color or alphabetized.   She suggests putting groups of like topics together.   There are no hard and fast rules to sorting but remember the one item in one item must go out rule.    And stop accumulating paper!    It piles up fast.   It needs to be in either a hard copy file cabinet or digital form.  It doesn't have to be color-coded  or labeled fancy it just has to work for you so you can locate what you need when you need it.  I highly recommend this book to any and all who might want toread a book on organization that doesn't make you feel like you must march to a certain way of doing things.   Your way is o.k. if it works for you.     

January total

January was a very slow month for the blogging team.  However, the nasty cold that seemed to sweep through all of the library's locations likely had something to do with it.

This month:

4 people

read 27 books

For a total of 9120 pages

Shirley J was this month's Super Reader, logging 18 books all on her own!  The other good news was that this month, we logged a total of 9 books with one of the wild categories, "Author Name Double Letter."

Onwards to February!

Road From Decadence

The Road from Decadence: From Brothel to Cloister: Selected Letters of JK Huysmans by JK Huysmans, edited and translated by Barbara Beaumont, 235 pages

This collection of letters spans four decades and includes the author's correspondence with such literary luminaries as Emile Zola, Guy de Maupassant, Stephane Mallarme, Paul Verlaine, and Leon Bloy, as well as less famous figures with whom he was involved financially, socially, or spiritually.  Through the chronological arrangement it is easy to trace Huysmans' journey from Realism to Decadence to conversion, and to witness how through these transitions he remains stubbornly consistent in his dissatisfaction with the world and rejection of every form of sentimentality and superficiality.  Although his devoted admirers will doubtlessly enjoy this collection, there is admittedly little here to interest a wider audience.