Some Shorter Reviews

My plan this year is to read 60 books and I am getting there.  I have read 49 so far!  But I didn't get around to reviewing all 49 books and so I wanted to mention three which I read earlier in the year and really enjoyed.  I read these books months ago and so I can't give the detailed review I would like but here are a few of my thoughts:

The Civil War continues to be such a relevant historical event in American history.  And earlier this year I decided to check out Tony Horwitz's Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War (2011).  I was curious about the 19th century abolitionist John Brown. Who was he and what led him and 21 other men to the disastrous raid on the armory at Harper's Ferry, WV in 1859?  His fellow abolitionist Frederick Douglass warned Brown against the raid.  

But John Brown was a strict Calvinist who felt passionately that slavery was a sin against God.  He was right but the way he went about it was the problem.  It's a fascinating book and Tony Horwitz goes into John Brown's life, his family and the lives of the 21 men who joined him on the raid.  It's one of the best books I have read this year and I wish there were more books coming from Tony Horwitz but sadly he passed away in 2019.  But his books will live on and are so worth reading.

If you are interested in learning about The Florida Everglades and about South Florida, it's history and the eccentric characters who have lived here you need to check out: Swamp: The Everglades, Florida and The Politics of Paradise (2006) by Michael Grunwald. 

I found Swamp to be an interesting read that did not drag for me.  I would say though that it's a long book and needs to be listened to in audio.  That's how I read it and Michael Grunwald's writing and Adam Verner's narration are the perfect combination

"Ramona despaired. Nobody understood. She wanted to behave herself. Except when banging her heels on the bedroom wall, she had always wanted to behave herself. Why couldn’t people understand how she felt? She had only touched Susan’s hair in the first place because it was so beautiful, and the last time—well, Susan had been so bossy she deserved to have her hair pulled"

And for a change of pace I also read Ramona The Pest (1968) by Beverly Cleary this year. It's the second book in Cleary's Ramona series.  Last year I read the first book Beezus and Ramona. I liked it well enough but I finished it wondering why the Ramona series has attained such classic status.  And then this year it all became clear when I read Ramona The Pest which is excellent.

Ramona is now in kindergarten and she is learning that she can't have everything her own way.  But this is not a book where Ramona gets her comeuppance.  Instead she is learning how to interact with her teacher, her fellow students and she is still maintaining her curiosity and spunky spirit.  If you have never read Ramona you must and I advise beginning with Ramona The Pest.

Hope everyone is doing well and Happy Reading!

The Mapmaker's Daughter by Laurel Corona

"It’s a mapmaker’s job to leave people unsatisfied.” Papa’s spirit whispers as I feel him take his place next to Judah and Simona. “Look at what is not there. Don’t be distracted by what is.” Bartolomeu Dias has rounded the bottom of Africa now. If my father were alive, he would no longer have to draw a vague line to the south, nor guess at legends like islands of gold, but I don’t think that is what he means. “Look at the interiors, look at the faraway places. See how little we know?” - Laurel Corona, The Mapmaker's Daughter

The Mapmaker's Daughter by Laurel Corona is the sixth book I have read for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge hosted by Marg at The Intrepid Reader and Baker.  It's a very well written and researched novel about a dark time in history, the Spanish Inquistion led by Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain.  These two brutal leaders are determined that Spain will be an entirely Catholic country and they issue a decree that all Jews are to be expelled from Spain unless they convert.  

And when The Mapmaker's Daughter begins it is 1492 and we are introduced to Amalia Cresques.  She is 66 and has lived in Spain most of her life.  Jehuda Cresques her father was a talented mapmaker as was his father before him.  The family converted from Judiasm to Christianity before Amalia was born to avoid persecution..  But Amalia's mother always felt guilt about that and kept her faith behind closed doors.  This was dangerous because the authorities and the neighbors kept a watch on converts to Christianity and if you were caught observing the Sabbath or practicing any of the tenets of Judiasm you would be killed

And then in 1492 under the rule of Ferdinand and Isabella and the barbaric Torquemada they issue a decree all Jews living in Spain are to be expelled from the country leaving all of their possessions behind.  Amalia Cresques sits in her room waiting to leave Spain with her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.  She wants to take her father's atlas with her which is a beautiful document and has so much meaning.  As Amalia ponders what to do she reflects on her life and we follow her journey.  Amalia is strong and very bright.  She is a translator and has seen alot in her 66 years and she shares what she has been through and learned with the reader.  

It was a terrible time and tragically the evil of antisemitism and a world divided by religion is still with us.  But Amalia is a character worth knowing, a courageous woman who like her mother is able to draw strength from her family and her Jewish faith.  It's a lesson for all of us.

Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. has an interesting topic this week: BOOKS ON MY FALL 2024 TO READ LIST.  And so I have chosen 10 books I hope to have read before the arrival of winter:

I hope everyone has a great Autumn and Happy Reading!

My Friends by Hisham Matar

"And yet I had imagined the others, the many more who attended the demonstration and then resumed their lives, able to walk away on their own two feet. I feel underwater when I think of them, because to think of them is to imagine that other, unharmed version of myself, who got back on the bus to Edinburgh, and could fly home for the summer, to sleep in his own house and swim in his childhood sea. The line that now separates me from my former self is the chasm that I remain unable to bridge". - Hisham Matar, My Fruends

In thinking about My Friends by Hisham Matar (lomglisted for this year's Booker Prize) I would describe it as a novel in which the narrator, Khaled Abd al Hady, reflects on his past and how one decision he made when first arriving in the UK as an 18 year old student dramatically altered the course of his life. 

My Friends begins in London.  It is 2016 and Khaled is now in his late 50's and seeing off his friend of many years, Hosam Zowa, who is moving to the US.  Hosam will not be returning to England and so this is a final goodbye.  Hosam leaves and Khaled spends the day walking around London visiting places with special meaning for him and reflecting on his life, his family, his friendship with Hosam and his friendship with Mustafa al Touny who eventally returned to Libya.

We learn that Khaled first arrived in the UK from Libya in 1983.  He had a scholarship to the University of Edinburgh where his plan was to earn a degree in literature.  Colonel Qaddafi ruled Libya at the time and you did not criticize the Qadaffi regime or your life would be in danger.  And though no fan of Qaddafi, Khaled wanted to stay in school, earn his degree, return to Libya and get on with his life.

But then in 1984, Mustafa, a fellow student, tells Khaled that there is going to be a demonstration in London in front of the Libyian Embassy and that they should go. Mustafa is a rebellious and impulsive young man.  Khaled in comparison doesn't want to go but he doesn't want to seem cowardly.  And since everyone at the demonstration will be masked what is the danger?  They can protest for awhile, show their support, and leave.

This demonstration at the center of the novel was a real event that occured on April 17, 1984.  We know of it because on that day Libyian officers stationed at a window inside the embassy opened fire on the demonstrators.  Eleven of the protestors were wounded and a young British policewoman Yvonne Fletcher was tragically killed.  Britain broke off all diplomatic relations with Libya after that.

And in the novel Khalid and Mustafa are among the eleven wounded.  They recover but because they had to spend weeks in a London hospital the Libyian government knows who they are and they cannot return to Libya.  They are granted asylum in Britain.  The novel progresses from there and in 1994 Khaled while visiting Paris meets his boyhood hero, the writer Hosam Zowa, who is also living in exile due to his opposition to Qadaffi. 

The three men, Khaled, Hosam and Mustafa form a bond and as the years go by their lives take different routes which Khaled shares with the reader as he walks through London reflecting on his life, his family, his friendships and what it means to live in exile.

I would say that My Friends is a political novel and a very good one.  The writing is first rate and thought-provoking.  And the author Hisham Matar has first hand experience with the subject matter. His father, Jaballa Matar, a vocal critic of Qaddafi was living in Cairo and abducted in 1990 by the Libyian secret police.  Hisham Matar never saw his father again and his memoir The Return about his search for what happened to his father was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2017.  A previous novel by Hisham Matar, In The Company of Men, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2006.  

So having never heard of Hisham Matar I am glad I paid attention to this year's Booker Prize nominees.  I strongly recommend My Friends and now on to The Safekeep and Enlightenment which I have high hopes for as well.  

Rules Of Civility by Amor Towles

"In our twenties, when there is still so much time ahead of us, time that seems ample for a hundred indecisions, for a hundred visions and revisions—we draw a card, and we must decide right then and there whether to keep that card and discard the next, or discard the first card and keep the second. And before we know it, the deck has been played out and the decisions we have just made will shape our lives for decades to come.” - Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

Amor Towles is a critically acclaimed internationally best selling author and so I have been meaning to read him.  I thought I would begin with A Gentleman In Moscow but Rules Of Civilty is a shorter read.  And Olive from ABookOlive has raved about Rules of Civility on YouTube.  She has read this book nine times and always finds something new.  And so I was curious.

Rules of Civility is set in NYC.  And when the novel begins it is the 1960's and Katey Kontent and her husband are at the Museum of Modern Art viewing a photography exhibit by Walker Evans that he took of people riding the subways during the late 1930's.  

As Katey (who is the narrator of Rules Of Civility) looks at these photos she spots a photo  of someone she once knew, Tinker Grey. The first photograph of Tinker is from 1938.  He is handsome, young and wealthy.  But then she spots a second photo of Tinker from 1939 and it's clear that in the space of a year Tinker has come down in the world financially. He's poor but paradoxically he also looks younger and more at peace with himself.  

The rest of the novel transports us back to 1938 when Katey was 25, living in Manhattan and rooming with her friend Eve Ross.  Both girls decide on New Year's Eve, as 1938 approaches, to go to a jazz club which is where they first meet Tinker (Theodore) Grey.  As Katey tells us:

"He was terrific looking.  An upright five foot ten, dressed in black tie with a coat draped over his arm, he had brown hair and royal blue eyes and a small star-shaped blush at the center of each cheek. You could just picture his forebear at the helm of the Mayflower—with a gaze trained brightly on the horizon and hair a little curly from the salt sea air. —Dibs, said Eve" 

It will be through meeting Tinker that Katey and Eve enter NYC's high society.  Wealthy young people who live on Central Park West, drive expensive cars, wear the latest fashions and dine at The El Morocco, The Rainbow Room, 21, The Explorer Club.  Amor Towles through his narrator Katey Kontent goes into great detail describing this world.  Katey is both critical of it but also hooked.  

And to be frank the book by going into so much detail about the expensive restaurants, the clothes, the beautiful apartments, the parties etc was dragging for me.  I wasn't sensing a plot.  But its around page 240 that a truth is revealed about Tinker which for me was worth waiting for and the rest of the novel was a very fast read.  

Tinker Grey went from a character I liked and felt bad for at times to a fascinating character that I ended up being smitten with.  I finished the novel wanting to know what happened to him and how his life turned out.  I hope Amor Towles will one day tell us and because of Tinker I am giving Rules of Civility 4 stars.

Jane Austen At Home by Lucy Worsley

"The Austens ‘were not rich’, yet they lived among rich people, landed squires and well-educated clergymen.  They belonged to what’s been called the ‘pseudo-gentry’, aspiring to a genteel lifestyle without having quite enough cash to pay for it. Members of the ‘pseudo-gentry’ did not own land, but were still ‘gentry of a sort, primarily because they sought strenuously to be taken for gentry’.They thought of themselves as being above ‘the middling sort’, who were connected with trade and enterprise, and, ironically, often richer than the Austens" - Lucy Worsley, Jane Austen At Home

I am a little late for Jane Austen July but I am so glad I have  gotten around to reading Jane Austen at Home (2017) by Lucy Worsley.  And thank you Cath at Read-warbler for recommending this Austen biography which I found excellent and please check out Read-warbler linked under Blogs I Follow.

Jane Austen At Home is not a very long book but I agree with Cath it's densely written and so it's not a book to be read in a day or two.  But it's a fascinating read.  Lucy Worsley is a historian and she has done her research on the Austen family and what life was like in Georgian, England and the political events that were happening during Jane's life: The French Revolution and The Napoleanic Wars.  Jane's brothers were officers in the British Navy and so they set sail for distant lands.

Jane Austen in comparison never travelled very far from where she was born in Steventon, Hampshire.  But Jane, her sister Cassandra and their mother Cassandra Leigh lived in quite a number of different homes during their lives particularly after their father passed away.  Jane's brothers helped out financially but they had families of their own to look after.  And so the three Austen women were living in increasingly diminished circumstances.  Not in poverty but money was definitely tight and a cause for worry.  

There is so much of interest in this book, so much I didn't know and I won't go into too much detail.  But I would like to mention Jane Austen's father, George Austen.  He did not have an easy childhood but George Austen worked hard and became a parson.  He also enjoyed reading novels and he bought Jane her first writing desk and as Lucy Worsley tells us:

"It was Mr Austen who took practical action to get his daughter’s work published ... He wrote, on 1 November 1797, to offer First Impressions (Pride and Prejudice) to a publisher named Thomas Cadell, asking him what sum his firm might advance for it, and indeed asking what the price would be for it to be published ... This was generous. Mr Austen was proposing an arrangement where he himself would pay for the printing of his daughter’s novel. If it didn’t sell, he would bear the loss. Just as Mr Austen had written endlessly to admirals on behalf of his naval sons, he also did his best by his younger girl". 

I really enjoyed Jane Austen At Home.  Lucy Worsley writes very well.  And with the new information I now have about Jane Austen and the times in which she lived I am inspired to reread a few of Austen's classics with a new perspective. 

The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff

"She had chosen to flee, and in so choosing, she had left behind her everything she had, her roof, her home, her country, her language, the only family she had ever known, the child Bess, who had been born into her care when she was herself a small child of four years or so, her innocence, her understanding of who she was, her dreams of who she might one day be if only she could survive this starving time. Think not of it, girl, she told herself, think not of it, else you shall die of grief". - Lauren Groff, The Vaster Wilds

I was wondering what to read next and so I went to Libby clicked audiobooks and began to scroll through the choices.  I came upon Lauren Groff, a writer I have been meaning to read for some time.  Her latest novel The Vaster Wilds (2023) was available right away.  I clicked borrow and I am so glad I did.

The Vaster Wilds is a beautifully written haunting and atmospheric novel that includes powerful scenes of nature and the elements.  And Lauren Groff has a fascinating story to tell about a teenage servant girl (we never learn her name) who arrives in Colonial America with her mistress, her mistress' husband, and their four year old daughter.

The time is the 1600's and the servant girl and the family she works for are living in a  settlement in Jamestown, VA and the situation there is grim.  The settlers are starving and then something happens which requires the servant girl to flee.  We learn at the end of the book why she needed to run away and the reason is shocking.

As to where the young girl is headed she doesn't really know.  But she has heard about another settlement run by the French.  Maybe she could meet a young man there and they could eventually move to France where their lives would be much easier and happier.  That is her dream at the beginning of the book.

But the deeper into the wilderness she goes the more The Vaster Wilds becomes a story about survival, finding shelter, searching for food and hiding from dangerous animals and people.  And as the girl makes her way through the wilderness she reflects on her short life which has not been easy.  She has a deep puritan faith when her journey begins but she starts to question what she has been taught as she experiences the terror but also the wonder of the natural world.  

The Vaster Wilds is one of the best books I have read this year and Lauren Groff is an excellent writer.  She has expertly woven a young girl surviving the elements into a marvelous coming of age story.  And in terms of a lone character confronting nature this novel reminded me a bit of Jack London's The Call of The Wild or To Build A Fire.  I highly recommend The Vaster Wilds and please check out the audio version narrated wonderfully by January LaVoy which definitely adds to this brilliant book.