The Boys in the Boat

My sister recently recommended to me a new non fiction. The Boys in the Boat is about the  University of Washington crew team who qualified for the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Writing good and readable non-fiction is difficult.  Laura Hillenbrand did it with Unbroken. Daniel James Brown did it with The Boys in the Boat.  The background stories of the crew members is both inspiring and touching.   These young men, children of the Great Depression, did not come from a life of privilege.  Instead, they milked cows, felled trees, paved roads and caught salmon.  Nonetheless, they succeeded in defeating the well-financed crew teams from elite California and East Coast schools for the privilege of representing the United States at the 1936 Olympics. Brown gives enough details about crew racing and boat building to add reality to the story without causing the reader to glaze over.  He also juxtaposes the crew team's preparations against the propaganda machine of Adolf Hitler. The result is a non fiction book that reads like a novel and is impossible to put down until the photo finish.

Two New Ones from Favorite Authors

Top Secret Twenty One by Janet Evanovich

Fans of Janet Evanovich will not be disappointed by this latest in the Stephanie Plum series. With exploding cars, rocket launchers, polonium,Russian thugs, feuding grandmothers and feral Chihuahuas, Evanovich continues to entertain readers.Once again, Stephanie’s romantic life careens between Trenton cop Joe Morelli and Ranger with his mysterious past.  This time, Ranger;s life is threatened by an assassin from his dark past.  It is up to Stephanie to save Ranger.

Sometimes, you need to laugh out loud and this book delivers the quirky characters and comic situations that make the Stephanie Plum series so enjoyable.

One Plus One by Jo Jo Moyes

On the surface, Jess Thomas has nothing going for her.  She is a single mother, working two jobs with no money, no education, no job skills, no child support. Her stepson is being bullied by the local toughs and her math prodigy daughter has just been accepting into an elite math school which they cannot afford.

Nonetheless, Jess possesses an unflagging sense of optimism and an unfailing faith in “doing the right thing.”

Ed is a millionaire software geek who inadvertently committed insider trading and is now faced with criminal charge and the loss of all his material goods.

Jess, her children, and smelly dog embark on a road-trip to a math Olympiad in Scotland where her daughter will hopefully win enough prize money to pay the entrance fees to the elite school.  When Jess’s car breaks down on the road, Ed rescues the group and drives them to Scotland. 

These four individuals embark on an odyssey that alternates between hilarity and and tragedy. At times touching, at times funny, this book would be an excellent choice for a book club. Moyes' last novel, Me Before You  required at least two boxes of tissues.  This one will only leave you with a few tears in your eyes.

What is Visible by Kimberly Elkins

We are all familiar with the inspiring story of Helen Keller, the first deaf/blind child to become educated in America.  Aided by her teacher, Annie Sullivan, Helen Keller graduated from Radcliffe College and launched a career as an author, speaker and advocate for the disabled.


However, in the mid-19th century, there was another deaf/blind child who was at one time the most famous woman in America.  Charles Dickens was one of many dignitaries who came to see Laura. Yet today, she has faded into obscurity. Laura Bridgman lost four of her five senses to scarlet fever at age 2.  At age seven, Laura was taken to the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Boston. 


Relying only on her sense of touch, Laura learned language skills and through her own intelligence and will communicated her thoughts on religion, philosophy, sex, and  the rights of handicapped people.  At the Perkins Institute, Laura was taken in by its founder the educator Samuel Gridley Howe. At times, Howe was her champion. At times, he used her to advance his own priorities.   Howe was married to the poet, suffragette, abolitionist and author, Julia Ward Howe.


This first novel is thought-provoking. Peopled with characters from real life such as Charles Sumner, John Brown, Charles Dickens, Dorothea Dix and Julia Ward Howe, this book gives great insight into Victorian era  America the author takes a great deal of literary license with Laura's inner thoughts and feelings, bur she explains her reasoning very well. More importantly, it really makes the reader think about the disable and how we treat them.  Do we allow handicapped people the human dignity make their own decisions? Can we see past the handicap and see the person inside?


For book discussion groups looking for an historical fiction, this book would be an excellent choice because it would generate a very meaningful discussion.

Alan Furst brings us another one - Midnight in Europe

Alan Furst, author of over a dozen historical spy novels, has brought us a new one.  Furst often starts at the Spanish Civil War which was a rehearsal for Nazi Germany.  In his latest novel, Midnight in Europe,  Furst  takes us through Europe in the years immediately preceding the invasion of Poland.  As stated by Sir Edmond Grey, British Foreign Secretary in 1914, "The lamps are going out all over Europe." Furst takes this quote as the theme of his book in which people and places are not what they seem and the treat of war is almost palpable.  Ordinary people such as the protagonist, Christian Ferrar, an international attorney, are drawn into the dangerous game of espionage and weapons smuggling in order to protect what is still honorable. 
Anyone taking one of those Europeans river cruises should read Alan Furst.  His scenes in cities such as Istanbul, Warsaw, Gdansk and Brno give a unique insight into Europe then and now.

Two little known, but extraordinary women- The Invention of Wings

When we think of abolitionists, we remember some familiar names from our history books - William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Robert Gould Shaw and the Massachusetts 54th, Bronson Alcott(father of Louisa May).  Of these folks who were white, they were all upper class, Northeast liberals. However,  two women from South Carolina, Sarah and Angelina Grimke, who were born into a wealthy slave-owning family came to abhor the South's "peculiar institution."  These two remarkable sisters opposed their family, friends and society to speak their conscience about the evils of slavery which they personally witnessed.  Moreover, they campaigned for the abolition of slavery, racial equality and women's rights years before Seneca Falls!


In her latest novel, The Invention of  Wings,Sue Monk Kidd, author of the Secret Life of Bees and The Mermaid Chair,  gives voice to the Grimke sisters as well as a fictionalized slave who was given to Sarah Grimke as a birthday gift on her eleventh birthday. In beautifully written dialog, Kidde brings to the page a woman born into slavery who managed to survive a brutal system which divided families and dehumanized both  the slave and the slave owner. Kidd also uses the quilts often made by slave women to tell their stories, several of which are currently on display in Washington and Boston.  Denmark Vesey, a freed slave, who organized one of the few documented slave revolts is also a character in this book.


All in all, this is an eye-opening book, which is difficult to put down.  This would be an excellent choice for a book discussion group and I hope Hollywood starts working on a movie version.

Another famous couple

Nancy Horan, who brought us into the lives of Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Borthwick Cheney in Loving Frank, once again brings us into the lives of another famous couple.  Her latest work is Under the Wide and Starry Sky which is the evolving saga of the marriage of Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Osbourne. Stevenson has spent his life fighting the lung ailments which often rendered him an invalid.  While vacationing among the Bohemian set in France, he meet Fanny van de Grift Osbourne, an American divorce with children who is many years his senior.  Nonetheless, Stevenson falls in love with Fanny.  They spend their lives together creating art and literature, fighting insolvency and Stevenson's declining health.  Stevenson was a prolific writer of novels (Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), travel writings, letters and poetry which is an amazing body of work considering his ill health.


So, my offspring tell me that retro is in - in terms of cocktails, jewelry, accessories and interior design.   Let's extend retro to literature.  For all of us who were regaled with the antics of Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom in Pirates of the Caribbean, pick up the original pirate story - Treasure Island.  Shiver me timbers!  Yo ho ho!

Ode to Libraries

For Mother's Day, one of my offspring gave me a copy of a recently published book The Public Library a Photographic Essay by Robert Dawson.  I recommend that you pick it up and browse through it.  Dawson and his son travelled throughout the United States taking photos of representative public libraries.  The photos are stunning - from the neoclassical buildings in the Northeast to the ultramodern libraries on the west coast.  More impressive are the photos of the decrepit and abandoned libraries in inner cites and the stark realities of the corrugated buildings on desolate Indian reservations.  In addition to photos, there are essays about libraries in some cases by noted authors such as Amy Tan and Barbara Kingsolver.  There are stories about libraries.  My favorite was the inspiring story of The Northeast Nevada Regional Bookmobile which brings books to some of the most remote areas of the United States.  I nearly reverted to the 1960's over the story of the proposed closing of the Salinas Library due to budget cutbacks.  John Steinbeck was truly spinning in his grave.


I have been a librarian for a very long time and I have seen many changes in technology.  But I have always maintained that libraries are there for the "have nots" as well as the "haves."  It has been a privilege to meet and serve the folks who have come to me at the reference desk.  Yes, I have called the police when  the need arose.  I have banned more than one person for inappropriate and dangerous behavior. But libraries are there to serve those who do not have a computer or Internet access or books or formal education or the ability to read English. We libraries look everyone in the eye equally. We have been at the forefront of defending the Freedom to Read.  The First Amendment is in very good hands in American public libraries.


Public libraries today are facing their greatest challenge in funding.  Many municipalities are faced with  the unpleasant choice between libraries and public safety.  The local library should not be viewed as a nice extravagance.  Libraries change lives and libraries save lives.  So if it is within your means, send a donation, volunteer with the Friends, serve on the Board or buy used books at your local book sales. It will make a difference in somebody's life.