The Eagle's Conquest: A Novel Review

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(More customer reviews)This is a sequel to Scarrow's first book, Under the Eagle, and is every bit as good as its antecedent. Both provide us with a series of interesting, new twists. Few novels have been written of Ancient Rome that do not feature christians, the triumph of christianity, or the excesses of Latin civilization. This is one of the few that has none of that. It follows the career of a slave who was once in the Emperor's service and who so pleased that worthy that he was freed and sent into the Roman army in a position of responsibility (highly unusual for a recruit). The legion to which he's assigned is destined to invade and conquer Britain and I, being of British extraction, surprisingly find myself cheering for the efforts of the legions.
There is one important inaccuracy (I believe) that should perhaps be challenged. Claudius was the emperor during the conquest of Britain and that is accurate enough. However, he is portrayed as a bumbling dolt which, according to my old Ancient History professor at UCLA, he was not. Suetonius wrote of him as such, as did many of his contemporaries, but that was evidently because of physical disabilities and a speech impediment that made him appear retarded. Apparently those physical flaws masked a real ability for organization. Civil war abounded in republican Rome and had it remained a republic, many historians feel it would have collapsed shortly after Caligula's death. Claudius was the one who pulled that republic out of the hands of self-seeking senators made them responsible for their acts, and established a firm government administration as well as a standard of succession to supreme power. It was Claudius, not Augustus, who made Rome into the Empire that survived for another 300 years. But I digress.
Scarrow has given us a slightly watered-down, but exciting, view of life within the legions, and has filled his adventure with historical facts and some speculations that are nothing short of fascinating.
I cannot recommend this book too highly.

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The Wife's Tale: A Novel Review

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(More customer reviews)I liked Lori Lansens' last novel enough that I wanted to read this one right away. I liked this one too, though not quite as much. With its endearing conjoined heroines, The Girls was such an original story. The Wife's Tale, on the other hand, is very familiar--almost an archetypal ugly duckling tale. Yes, it's a story we've all read before, an oldie but a goodie. And here it is in a nutshell:

On the eve of their 25th wedding anniversary, Jimmy Gooch leaves his morbidly obese, middle-aged wife, Mary. She goes in search of him, and winds up finding herself. There's more to it than that, of course, but you can make those discoveries on your own.

What I will say is this--coming into this novel, knowing the above premise, my first thought was, "the husband's a monster!" But Lansens writing is more subtle than that. The husband is not a monster, and Mary Gooch has a lot of issues. While the story is familiar, Lansens is not regurgitating the same old black and white story. There's a little more nuance going on here, and some readers may not appreciate that not all the loose ends get tied up by the end. I, however, don't believe every novel has to end tied neatly with a red bow. This wife's journey is a tale worth reading.

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A Vision for Girls: Gender, Education, and the Bryn Mawr School Review

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(More customer reviews)I found this book very hard to put down. Anyone with an interest in women's history and education--and certainly anyone with a connection to the Bryn Mawr School--will find much to savor here. Bryn Mawr, a private girls school founded in 1885 in Baltimore, was the first school in the country that was designed to prepare girls for college, a revolutionary idea at the time. In fact, many families in late 19th-century Baltimore weren't quite ready for that idea. Hamilton's account of the struggles of the school's founders to stay true to their vision, their internal arguments over how much to accommodate the wishes of the public, and the way the school has adapted to changing times is fascinating. It's also interesting to see that some of the more recent debates within feminism (e.g., "difference" feminism vs. equity feminism) have roots that are over a century old. Despite Hamilton's tendency to repeat herself on occasion, the book is well worth reading and I highly recommend it.

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"To educate American girls and women in ways beyond the traditional has been a dangerous experiment that has challenged basic notions of female nature and has seemed to threaten the social order... One such bold venture in female education-the Bryn Mawr School of Baltimore, Maryland-is the subject of Andrea Hamilton's lively and well-researched book... In Hamilton's telling, the story of the Bryn Mawr School moves beyond its local particulars to illumine much about the history of American education and life... The importance of Hamilton's contribution is that she never loses sight of the complexity of the school and its relation to society. Her history of the Bryn Mawr School helps us understand aspects of the unique position held by American women in national social, intellectual, and cultural life."-from the Foreword by Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz Baltimore's Bryn Mawr School was founded in the 1880s, the first college-preparatory school for girls in the United States. Unlike other educational institutions at the time, the Bryn Mawr School championed intellectual equality of the sexes. Established with the goal of providing girls with an education identical to boys' in quality and compass, it endeavored to prepare girls to excel in a public sphere traditionally dominated by men.Narrating the history of the Bryn Mawr School, Andrea Hamilton'sA Vision for Girls examines the value of single-sex education, America's shifting educational philosophy, and significant changes in the role of women in American society. Hamilton reveals an institution that was both ahead of its time and a product of its time. A Vision for Girls offers an original and engaging history of an institution that helped shape educational goals in America, shedding light on the course of American education and attitudes toward women's intellectual and professional capabilities. (2007)

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My Thoughts Be Bloody: The Bitter Rivalry Between Edwin and John Wilkes Booth That Led to an American Tragedy Review

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(More customer reviews)"My Thoughts Be Bloody", whose title is taken from a line in Shakespeare's "Hamlet", is an absolutely fascinating examination of the lives of an American acting dynasty. The Booths - father, three sons, son- and daughter-in-law - comprised the most influential, yet notorious, family of thespians in 19th century America. Nora Titone has mined hundreds of sources to chronicle the multiple rises and falls of this historic clan in surprising detail. It reads in part like one of the classic tragedies for which the Booth men were famous, and in part like one of the overdrawn melodramas of the age. In an America still small enough that nearly all citizens of note circulated within a relatively small universe, Edwin and John Wilkes Booth contested each other for favor, wealth and social standing. The interrelationships between the players on this stage are entirely engrossing. And as John's fortunes falter while Edwin's star rises, Titone leads us step-by-step to the well-known climax - and the less-familiar final curtain.

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The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Review

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(More customer reviews)This second entry in Smith's Botswana-set series picks up right where the wonderful The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency left off. Indeed, the two books are utterly seamless, and it'd be a real shame to read this without reading its predecessor first. The book picks up with the engagement of "traditionally built" Precious Ramotswe, Botswana's sole woman detective, to local master mechanic Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. While the structure is the same as the first book'a missing son as the central running mystery, and some smaller cases interspersed'the new couple's relationship is the real focus.
So, while Precious is asked by an American woman to find out what happened to her son, who disappeared from a commune ten years previously, she must also negotiate the pitfalls of setting up house with Mr. Matekoni, the acquisition of an engagement ring, and the dastardly schemes of Mr. Matekoni's nasty housekeeper, and the unexpected addition of two foster children to her household. All of which she does with her keen sense of human nature and wisdom. Her secretary/typist is also given increased attention, allowed to take on the case of a cheating wife all by herself.
Built into the stories are ruminations of the tensions between modernity and traditional values. There are a number of passages that attempt to capture the essence of Africa, and how that noble vision is under constant assault by greed, corruption, and power. The adventures of Precious and her cohort are a warm antidote to the often depressing news that dominates coverage of Africa in the West. Smith writes in a delightfully fluid and simple prose with pacing that makes the book quite difficult to put down. The series thankfully continues with Morality for Beautiful Girls and The Kalahari Typing School For Men, with further volumes to follow, one hopes.

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The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. 1: The Pox Party Review

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(More customer reviews)"I do not believe they ever meant unkindness."
So Octavian says of those to whom he was an experiment, to those who claimed him as chattel, to those who weighed his excrement daily and compared it to his intake.
It is perhaps this book's most frightening truth that he is correct.
Octavian and his mother were sold into slavery in the 1760s, in Boston, to The Novanglian College of Lucidity. These men were rationalists, and sought to discover - once all of the niceties are removed - whether the Negro was inferior to the European. Octavian was taught "the arts and knowledge of the physical world...the strictest instruction in ethics...kindness, filial duty, piety, obedience, and humility," Latin, Greek, the violin, and while learning these things, he was dressed in silk and lavished with luxuries.
Yet we see the detached scientist immediately in his caretakers, as Octavian describes an experiment whereby they drowned a dog to time its drowning, and another where they dropped alley-cats from high places to "judge the height from which cats no longer shatter," and yet another where they tried to teach a girl "deprived of reason and speech" the usage of verbs, and when the girl could not master verbs, they beat her "to the point of gagging and swooning."
And yet they never meant unkindness.
While this is a book of fiction, it is useful to remember (as the author calls us to at the end) that while the College of Lucidity is a fictional entity, the kind of experiments they conducted indeed took place, and the question of inferiority was one that was much discussed.
Octavian, with his mother, Mr. Gitney, and Dr. Trefusis, excelled. He became literate beyond their hopes, and could play the violin as a virtuoso. Without a doubt, his education was better than the vast majority of children his age, white or black. But then the College's benefactor dies, and a new benefactor arrives, represented by Mr. Sharpe, who presupposes the inferiority of the Negro and demands that Octavian's studies be changed...changed to ensure his failure.
As with all stories, once change is introduced, the stakes increase.
Anderson tells this story with a remarkably sure hand, using spot-on eighteenth century diction and grammar as much as he could without losing his intended audience, young adults. The majority of the story is told through the backward-looking eyes of Octavian himself, but Anderson also employs newspaper clippings and a variety of letters (most entertaining were the set from the soldier, Evidence Goring, to his sister and mother) to further authenticate the tale and ground it.
All of the characters are three-dimensional. The plot is handled with meticulous care, moving cautiously in the beginning, like an orchestral score, building with intensity to the moment of change, the crescendo which, not surprisingly, also occurs side-by-side with a telling of a part of the War.
Setting his story against the backdrop of the Revolutionary War proved brilliant, for the irony of slave-owners sending slaves not promised freedom to fight in their stead for the cause of liberty, can be lost on no one.
This is without question one of the most moving books I have read in some time. The character of Octavian is one of the most unique and fully realized I have ever encountered in young adult fiction.
That this won the National Book Award should be no surprise.


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It's Hard to Talk about Yourself Review

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(More customer reviews)"It's Hard to Talk About Yourself" is a transcript (edited) of a series of interviews on RAI (Italian state radio) with Natalia Ginzburg, one of Italy's most esteemed authors--now deceased. It is a potpourri of chatty conversations and intimate questions about the author's methods, background, and career. Various critics and friends pop in and out, a kind of Ralph Edwards' "This is Your life" show. While the happy chat tone of much of it is offputting, there are nuggets of fact to be mined from this book--chiefly from the author herself, who modestly narrates the life she led. This involves her perilous life in Fascist Italy as a Jew and opponent of the regime.
Ginzburg is a modest woman, which matches the simplicity of her literary style and the subjects she has written about: chiefly family life in Italy of her time. Readers acquainted with her novels, such as "All Our Yesterdays" and "The Road to the City" will be eager to learn about how she came about writing them. She avoids any elaborate theories or influences (though Chekhov was her idol), and humbly states that each book was created line by line strictly from inspiration.
For those interested in this great writer, the book is essential reading.

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Van Loon: Popular Historian, Journalist, and FDR Confidant (World of the Roosevelts) Review

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(More customer reviews)Time has not been kind to Hendrik van Loon, notwithstanding that a number of his works have often been reprinted seventy and eighty years after he wrote them. Van Minnen has done a thoroughly-researched, intelligent rescue of flawed but brilliant teacher. The hatchet-job done by Van Loon's son, Gerard Willem, (The Life and Times of Hendrik Willem Van Loon, 1971, Lippincott) has been set right. While it may be a slight exaggeration to call Van Loon an "FDR Confidant" (Van Loon was never anywhere near FDR's inner circle), his influence was great. Van Minnen draws Van Loon, warts and all, in a clear and unbiased light. Van Loon was a worthy subject, who has found a sympathetic biographer.

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This biography is an exciting and nuanced portrait of one of FDR's true and closest friends, a man deeply involved in American cultural life in the first half of the twentieth century.

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A Treasury of Children's Literature Review

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(More customer reviews)Ok, so I'm a little disturbed by some of the reviews here. These are the classics, and you should read them to your kids. Dark? Maybe, but no darker than reading the old testament or anything else like that. It's literature, children have been reading these stories for GENERATIONS and have turned out OK. And you know what? The original version of Rapunzel by the Brothers Grimm written in 1812 DID have Rapunzel giving birth to twins! These stories are enriching, they are stories of right and wrong, good triumphing over evil, and magic. You can't have great stories without these story lines, and in order to make the stories good - sometimes they have to be a little scary. This book is beautifully illustrated and will be a fantastic keepsake for your children. My little girl loves it. On top of the stories there are poems too, so if you feel need to hold off for some of the 'scarier' stories, get them for the poetry too!

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This one-volume library of classic children's literature contains nursery rhymes, poems, fables, and stories, and is lavishly illustrated with more than two hundred full-color drawings by sixteen different artists.

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Envy: A Luxe Novel (The Luxe) Review

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(More customer reviews)Penelope is the envy of society. She is married to Henry Schoonmaker and has everything money, privilege and blackmail can buy. But she cannot force the affections of her husband, or the loyalty of her friends.
Elizabeth has lived quietly since her return to New York. Grieving the death of her husband Will --- who she cannot recognize publicly --- her mother still hopes that she can make an advantageous marriage to fortify the family fortunes. But Elizabeth harbors another secret, one that will force her to marry or to live a life of shame.
It falls to Diana to uphold her family's position and reputation. The arrival of her father's mining partner has provided a temporary reprieve from the family's financial woes, but she still supplements her income by selling society scandal to newspaper gossip columnists. Diana is also nursing a broken heart. Why would Henry Schoonmaker marry Penelope Hayes when he was really in love with her?
Needing to escape the dreary winter that is post-holiday New York, ENVY features a trip to the opulent pleasure grounds of Palm Beach and the now-vanished splendors of the Royal Ponciana Hotel. Away from the prying eyes of the New York press, Palm Beach is the perfect place for clandestine meetings and new flirtations. Diana finds that Henry's marriage has not dulled his interest in her, while she also struggles to make sense of the attention she's receiving from Penelope's dashing brother Grayson. Elizabeth finds a renewed affection for Henry's best friend Teddy, while the self-styled heiress Carolina Broud finds herself courted by the wealthy and eccentric Leland Bouchard.
Unfortunately, the reprieve of the Florida resort does not last forever. After the death of Carolina's benefactor and guardian, Carey Lewis Longhorn, they return to New York's cold, damp streets and the lives they left waiting there.
ENVY is the third book in Anna Godbersen's Luxe series set in Gilded Age New York. Her characters still sit at the top of the world, but are now living with the consequences of their choices. Hope for love and personal happiness is swiftly vanishing, along with the cash they all require to continue living their lavish lives.
Carolina Broud's situation is most perilous. When her benefactor dies, she is ejected from her hotel room and has most of her belongings seized. Briefly acting as the social secretary to another upstart heiress, she is thrown out and spends a night on the streets contemplating her future. She has no real friends. Her friendship with Penelope is built on blackmail. The money she lived on was stolen or belonged to someone else. Her sister still works as a maid in Elizabeth and Diana Holland's house. Briefly taking a job as a seamstress, she sees the life she has always dreamed of vanish into drudgery.
The Luxe series affords the same guilty pleasure and curiosity that must have fueled readers of Gilded Age gossip columns. Godbersen's rigorous attention to detail with descriptions of parties, gowns, architecture and events are a large part of what make these books so much fun to read.
But I've also appreciated Godbersen's nods to larger forces in literature in history. Carolina Broud's descent carries echoes of Edith Wharton's classic about the Gilded Age, THE HOUSE OF MIRTH. The forces of history are strong enough to convince two of the novel's characters to enlist in Theodore Roosevelt's military during the occupation of the Philippines after the Spanish-American War. I imagine readers encountering these subjects in other parts of their lives with a sense of recognition.
As for the rest of the story, the question of whether any of these characters will be able to escape the narrow confines of their roles remains to be seen. Will Carolina manage to live the life of luxury of which she's always dreamed? Will Elizabeth find love and fulfillment after so much tragedy? Will Henry and Diana ever find a way to be together? Will Penelope finally reap the rewards of her villainous behavior? None of these questions are answered in ENVY, but the next book in the series, SPLENDOR, promises more romance and intrigue in Gilded Age New York.
--- Reviewed by Sarah A. Wood

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In the Blood Review

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(More customer reviews)This quiet, sad memoir penned by Andrew Motion, Britain's Poet Laureate from 1999-2009 is full of what Wordsworth called "the still, sad music of humanity." There is none of the garish "redemption" to which we have become accustomed in this "age of memoir." Rather, it is an at times Stoic, at times lyrical account of the fleeting, fragile nature of human life: In particular, the life of the poet's mother. His mother - unlike the "professional" reviewers would have you believe, mine is the first "amateur" one - did not suddenly fall into a coma after a horse-riding accident, but, rather, had been sickly all of Andrew's life after contracting brucellosis and losing a kidney.
The memoir moves at a stately, heart-wrenching, measured pace, and we come to know the entire Motion family: The reserved father, the younger brother, Andrew himself, and, of course, his mother. We grow up with Andrew, twigging what he can of the world he inhabits as he comes of age, and his relations with the rest of his nuclear family, with nature, with school and beyond. It is divided into chapters whose title is a phrase Motion remembers using or having heard that brings to life a whole series of events from his lost past. Sometimes these end in deft, poetic thunderbolts:
"When I got out of bed and opened the curtains to look to the Tree of Heaven, smashed bits of light were spreading across the lawn like a disaster."
And all the while Andrew is maturing, he intuits his sprightly, literary, poetic mother's slow physical disintegration in various ways. It is this slow, mysterious decay of a loved one - which, barring some sort of completely abrupt accident, is how most of us experience life, and death - that makes this memoir so, by turns, lovely, sad, disquieting and uniquely powerful.
I have not much more to add. Save perhaps a mental image Motion retains of his thinning mother leaving his bedroom the night before he is sent off to the inevitable boarding school:
"She got to her feet at once, and when she sidestepped into the bright landing it looked as though the light was solid, like a sheet, so she disappeared as soon as she reached it."


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Keystone: The American Occupation of Okinawa and U.S.-Japanese Relations (Foreign Relations and the Presidency) Review

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(More customer reviews)In this thorough and well-written work, Professor Nicholas Sarantakes relates the story of how the United States occupied and controlled the strategically vital region of Okinawa after World War II, and held it until the early 1970s. No issue is ignored: Sarantakes combines politics, diplomacy, strategy, and even culture in this detailed look at a controversial American policy.
A number of general things make this book especially valuable. Sarantakes writes well, especially in his vivid description of the 1945 battle for Okinawa itself. His research is impressive, as he makes use of material from presidential archives, government repositories, and a good collection of oral histories. His argument that Okinawa was essentially an American colony is clear and convincing, even if policymakers would not have used the term. And, he does a nice job showing why American policymakers began to rethink this approach in the 1970s; not because of any ideals or principles, but because of Japanese resistance to the heavy-handed American presence.
A few things in particular deserve mention. Sarantakes does an excellent job explaining how American policy toward Okinawa evolved, showing that policymakers first wanted control of the area because of fears of a rearmed and aggressive Japan. Then, when it became clear that Japan was not moving toward militarism, American officials still refused to abandon Okinawa, afraid that doing so might encourage Japan to move toward a more neutral position in the Cold War. His account of the political infighting between State Department officials who saw withdrawal as a means to build up goodwill in Japan and elsewhere, and military leaders who clung to the base for its potential strategic value, is particularly insightful. He also does a nice job looking at the way that, especially in the early years, military officials were able to rule Okinawa with an almost iron fist. Finally, Dr. Sarantakes does a nice job putting the occupation in the context of the Cold War; its strategic location, for example, which allowed American planes to threaten targets in Asia and parts of Europe, made Okinawa especially valuable as American fears of Chinese and Soviet expansion grew.
Overall, this is convincing, thorough, and interesting book. I recommend it highly.

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Felicia Hemans Review

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(More customer reviews)Felicia Hemans is a rising star in the field of Romantic literature, now regarded as equal in significance to any of her more famous male contemporaries. And here is the ideal way to read her: through Susan Wolfson's breathtaking selection of poetry and other source materials. This is the fruit of many years hard labour, but it is presented in an accessible, readable fashion. Full marks to Wolfson on this achievement: an absolutely essential book for anyone interested in Hemans or ROmantic literature.

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The Voice of Small-Town America: The Selected Writings of Robert Quillen, 1920-1948 Review

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(More customer reviews)We are indebted to John Hammond Moore for compiling and editing this fine collection of reportage, editorials, and one-liners written by the now obscure Robert Quillen (1887-1948), who, beginning in the 1920s, was for more than twenty years "one of the leading purveyors of village nostalgia" (xi) from his home in Fountain Inn, South Carolina.
Quillen was born in Kansas, and briefly worked in both the Northeast and the Pacific Northwest before creating the Fountain Inn Tribune in 1911. By 1932 his work was being syndicated in more than four hundred newspapers.
Quillen the adoptive southerner was a facile writer. But he was not especially profound or consistent in his political, economic, and racial views. (Moore advises that some of Quillen's words "may shock or dismay the modern reader.") Not surprisingly as well, some of Quillen's humor--especially pieces using colloquialisms of the early twentieth century--seem dated seventy-five years later.
Nevertheless, there are many fine paragraphs in this anthology, well-constructed pieces that can take their place with the best American journalistic writing. I was especially moved by Quillen's obituaries.
Those interested in the history of the early twentieth-century South would also do well to peruse this book. Without even considering the gaping racial divide, Quillen's work emphasizes how different was the Fountain Inn of his era from exurb of today. Quillen constantly alludes to passages in the King James Version. He suggests that landowners provide vegetables to their tenants so that they won't get pellagra. He urges that prisoners not be tortured but taught to read. He warns that driving unlighted wagons or "flivvers" at night is against the law and might be fatal. He prefers tax cuts to paved streets and public education. In all, a book well worth reading by historians, journalists, and local history buffs.

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Sniping in France 1914-18: With Notes on the Scientific Training of Scouts, Observers, and Snipers (Helion Library of the Great War) Review

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(More customer reviews)It would appear that this title has not been published since its first appearance in 1920; a great pity given its unique subject and the authors' expertise and experience in the field. Prior to the war, Hesketh-Prichard had been a big-game hunter, expert shot, cricketer, and travel author. He entered the army in 1914 and set about trying to improve the poor standard of British army sniping evident in France, eventually creating the "The First Army School of Sniping, Observing and Scouting (SOS)" which set the standard for sniping in France.
In this very readable book, the author discusses his enthusiasm for sniping and the problems he encountered setting up such a school in a British army that had no `Establishment' (his words) for such a thing. Early on he describes seeing a sniper in action who was adamant he was putting every one of his bullets through the enemy's loop-hole at 600 yards with his telescopic rifle. Hesketh-Prichard observed through his own Ross telescope that they were consistently striking six feet to the left. This illustrates a common theme in the book, where `snipers' used telescopic rifles that weren't sighted in, were poorly maintained, and were used by untrained soldiers with little or no experience of stalking, using cover, or camouflage. The result was that the Germans had the upper hand and were causing appalling casualties. Hesketh-Prichard could see the benefit to unit morale of having truly expert snipers using specialist weapons, and successfully fought to teach this unique skill.
The book discusses the early days, memories of both sniping and observing, the curriculum of the School, the training of the Portuguese, and includes two chapters illustrating the value of observation and information-gathering, `Wilibald The Hun' and "The Cat'. Following the book proper is three appendices that discuss the training of observers, the general teaching cource at the First Army School of SOS, and care of arms, range practice, patrolling and scouting, the stalking telescope, front line observation and reports, use of scouts, observers and snipers in attack, defence and open warfare, and the Enfield 1914 pattern `snipers rifle'.
The text is leavened with a number of expert sketches and photographs illustrating points in the book, such as cover and camouflage, observation, etc. I did note several instances of lax proof-reading, limited to full stops in inappropriate places. These do not detract from what is a fine book written by a recognized expert in his field, and which is a joy to read. Very highly recommended.
This review is of the 2004 hardcover edition by Helion & Co.

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The first volume in the new Helion Library of the Great War, a series designed to bring into print rare books long out-of-print, as well as producing translations of important and overlooked material that will contribute to our knowledge of this conflict. Sniping in France provides a detailed and richly-informative account of how the snipers of the Great War British army trained and fought, and measures taken against their German counterparts. The author was responsible for organising a cohesive structure to the training of the snipers via the First Army School of Scouting, Observation and Sniping, established in 1916. Written in a very readable style, filled with anecdotes and fascinating detail, the author's study covers the genesis of sniping in the army, his early days instructing XI Corps, and then First Army, including much on the curriculum and work at that unit's School of Scouting, Observation and Sniping. It also includes anecdotal chapters describing sniping memories, before concluding with recollections of training the Portugese Expeditionary Force's snipers, and looking ahead to the future of sniping.

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The Winter Rose Review

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(More customer reviews)The Winter Rose, a sequel to The Tea Rose, is a simply stunning tale of family drama, politics, and medicine at the turn of the last century. Ms. Donnelly brings back familiar characters such as Fiona and Joe, and adds newer ones that equally enthrall. Long and densely written, this is a book you will not want to put down and one that will stay with you for a very long time.
The scene opens on India Selwyn Jones's graduation from medical school in 1900. Full of idealistic notions, India chooses to forestall marriage to Freddie Lytton while she pursues clinical help in the lower classes of Whitechapel. India isn't marrying Freddie for love, though she is fond of him, but his reasons are much more nefarious. Naive and determined, India is shocked when she has to treat the notorious gangster Sid Malone. As Sid's life hangs in the balance, the two share their stories and eventually become lovers. At the same time as their story is unfolding, Joe Bristow decides it is time for him to go into politics, and his life takes a nasty turn at the hands of Sid. Or was it Sid? The story moves at a fast clip and keeps the characters entangled with lots of coincidences and near-misses. How the path to happiness develops for India, Joe, Fiona, and Sid will keep you turning the pages. The introduction of Seamie, Fiona's younger brother, and his adventurous spirit, help set the stage for a third entry in the series sometime in the future.
This is a fabulous book with larger than life characters. It is satisfying in its ability to bring the reader into the story and it will make you care deeply for every person and situation. It is indeed a tour de force, and one I can wholeheartedly recommend to those who love family sagas, historical fiction, and plain good storytelling. Highly, highly recommended.

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Dreamers of Dreams: Essays on Poets and Poetry Review

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(More customer reviews)To read John Simon's writing on poetry is to be held enthrall by a master. He doesn't waste his time or ours with theories. He doesn't believe that poetry has anything to hide behind. There was a lot I missed in school, and Simon is invaluable for catching me up with (fairly recent, as in the 20th-century) literary history. (So I'm willing to overlook the total absence of even one mention of my all-time favorite Elizabeth Bishop.) Although more famous for his scathing movie reviews, Simon is vastly more in his element as a literary critic. Which does not mean, in his case, spouting jargon. Even when he's chiding, more love shines through in this book than in anything else he's written. In fact, you may miss the "acerbic, mean" side of Simon if that's what you're accustomed to. (In fact, I don't think he's tough enough on Philip Larkin; Simon actually seems amused by Larkin's antics and disappointingly doesn't probe the essential Larkin contradiction --a political ultraconservative who loved jazz.) This collection isn't as rollickingly, savagely funny as his earlier lit volume Sheep from the Goats (a book that's devastating, hilarious and out-of-print). The introduction to Dreamers, in which Simon ruminates on and quotes at length from obscure, forgotten yet excellent poets is worth the price of the book alone. It may be the most moving, personal and incandescent passage ever to flow from Simon's pen. Pauline Kael once wrote of the British critic Paul Coates, "he leaves the dross out of criticism and goes right for the gold." The same might justly be said of John Simon.

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