Sharpe's Triumph - Bernard Cornwell

Richard Sharpe. I cannot wait until I catch up to the Napoleon books and can actually tune in to see Sean Bean survive past the first episode. Also, I love that Bernard Cornwell decided to write these prequels because he loved Sean Bean's performance so much. It's the same way Cornwell loves Alexander Dreymon who plays my boyfriend Uhtred in the Last Kingdom series.

If it means more books, then I'm all for the love of page to screen. This book happens right after Sharpe's Tiger. Sharpe is still in India, but now he's a sergeant. It's great to see that Sharpe hasn't witnessed any real fighting yet and is afraid of how he'll perform. But he is sought out by Colonel McCandless to try to track down a Lieutenant Dodd who has left the East India Company after being accused of murder and has taken up with some local militias to fight the British.

Of course there is some intrigue and blast it! Obediah Hakeswell has survived and is out to kill Sharpe. There is a damsel in distress as well. Sharpe manages to dodge it all and fight with distinction on the battle field saving the general's life and earning his ensign rank in the process. Of course the battle is immense and difficult but Cornwell does such a good job describing military maneuvers and tactics. I quite enjoy all of it.

On to Trafalgar for me and Sharpe.

4/5 Stars. 

Sharpe's Tiger - Bernard Cornwell

So I finally figured out the Sharpe sequence and I'm going back to the beginning to see how Sharpe started. It feels kind of like cheating since early Sharpe fans had to go back and forth in his career rather than chronologically. I actually finished this almost two weeks ago so my fine detail recall is fading. What can I say? I'm a lazy reviewer this month. I just started taking classes for a new masters degree and I'm a little overwhelmed.

But anyway Sharpe. In Sharpe's Tiger, Sharpe's unit is taking part of the siege of Seringapatam, island citadel of the Tippoo of Mysore. And all of that was news to me. Having not grown up in the UK, all of this marching around the British soldiers did in India is NOT a surprise, but it is all relatively new information. I was trying to keep up.

In any case, a lowly private, Sharpe is considering deserting because his Sergeant, a vengeful, arrogant, disturbed man, Hakeswill, has it out for him. And his Captain, Morris, is lazy and also indifferent. All this over a woman who prefers Sharpe. After a wicked flogging, Sharpe is taken, mid-flog to see a general about a secret mission he will undertake with a fresh faced Lieutenant to rescue a Colonel who has been taken prisoner by the Tipoo.

It's a wonderful thing that Sharpe is clever and resourceful because he pulls off some pretty incredible last minute rescues and success. He also manages to teach the Lieutenant a thing or two about leadership that will better serve the entire unit, all while earning his sergeant stripes to boot. Was it so wrong of me to wish for Hakeswill's demise the entire book? He was a terrible person with no redeemable qualities.

I'm glad to have picked up another of Cornwell's series. He's such a good writer and I really have decided that I want to see how Sharpe continues to move up the ranks and into his field commission.

4/5 Stars. 

War of the Wolf - Bernard Cornwell

Oh Uhtred. What am I going to do with this irascible hunk of man? He's supposed to be 60 in this latest book (he'll always be 28 to me) but I digress, because no way a 60 year old man is riding his horse for days and then hopping off to swing a big sword around to kill Saxons. Just, not, happening. But he does it with such swagger that I'm willing to forgive him.

In the last book, Aethelflaed died and her brother Edward swept in to to snatch Mercia, because somehow this line of kings has it in their head that all of England is to be a English speaking, one God worshiping paradise. They have a very frank surprise coming in 1066 (pun intended). But for now, there are some Mercian's who are not satisfied with the idea of being ruled by Edward and in War of the Wolf, they show their displeasure by trying to overtake Caester in the name of Aethelflaed's daughter.

Uhtred, who is always stupidly giving oaths, promised Aethelflaed he would protect Aethelstan, the bastard/not-bastard eldest son of King Edward. So when he gets notice that Aethelstan may be in danger he rushes to Mercia to help. Surprise, Aethelstan is fine and Uhtred's love for people has been used against him to lure him out of Northumbria just as a new threat from the Norse threatens the last independent kingdom. (The TV show is called The Last Kingdom for a reason).

A Norse leader, thrown out of Ireland by the fierce Irish fighters, has taken refuge in Cumbraland, a lawless area to the west of Northumbria and North of Mercia, marginally held to be part of Northumbria. The leaders, Skoll, a warrior at the helm of a group of berserkers called the ulfhednar (wolf head), seeks to make Cumbraland and all of Northumbria his own. Well c'mon. He has to fight Uhtred first. And my man is not going to let some Norse dickhead roll over Northumbria unchecked.

True to Uhtred form, he underestimates at some point and overestimates at another and then gets a little lucky and... VICTORY. I'll leave the details to you. I will be DEVESTATED when Uhtred finally dies. We've had this thing going for a couple years now and I don't want to give him up. But all good things must come to an end. And a 60 year old man living in the 900s is not long for this world. Wyrd bid ful araed.

4/5 Stars. 

Sharpe's Rifles - Bernard Cornwell

Ah okay, I get it. I kind of messed this up. When I was browsing a used book store in Riverside, California for a return flight read (that was my first mistake, travelling cross country with ONE book), I picked up a copy of Sharpe's Rifles that helpfully had a #1 pasted to the spine and the inside sheet placed it as the first book in the Sharpe series.

Listen, I have a love affair with Uhtred in Cornwell's Saxon Stories series. So I was fairly confident he could get me through a return flight. And I'm trying to set up my exit strategy for when I run out of Uhtred books to read. So I felt like I knew what I was doing starting with Sharpe's Rifles. But I could tell something was a little off when I started reading the book.

First, I didn't really like Sharpe. He was boorish and not very perceptive. Listen, I get he's supposed to be an amazing soldier. Having served in the Air Force, I know the kinds of attitudes that STILL exist regarding prior enlisted officers, but even so, I mean, they guy showed zero leadership abilities and then could not imagine why he didn't inspire loyalty?

Second, some of the secondary characters seemed a little bland. I understand now that Harper is to become a beloved figure in the series, but things do not start out well with the taciturn Irish man who definitely DOES NOT want to be a sergeant.

Finally, there is a badly jammed in love triangle that does basically nothing to inspire the plot other than to make Sharpe appear a little more foolish than he already does. How is the guy who can figure NOTHING else out inspire so little confidence and somehow become a beloved literary figure? I wasn't buying it.

Thank goodness I found out this book is not the foundation for the series but a prequel. So, question, should I read these in publishing date order, or chronological order?

3/5 Stars. 

Death of Kings - Bernard Cornwell

Death of Kings represents a huge change in the plot for Uhtred and The Saxon Stories. Alfred, the West Saxon king who Uhtred reluctantly attached to himself in desperation for protection from his uncle, is really and truly dying. While still young by today's standards, Alfred has always been ill and now it appears stomach cancer will end his reign. His dream of a unified "England" however, will not die with him, as his children, Athelflaed and Edward, are committed to continuing progress to this dream. 

And finally, Uhtred willingly throws his support behind this idea and abandons the ideas of a Danish ruled England. This comes about not just through assimilation by Uhtred, but by his final understanding of the superiority of Alfred's vision and war craft. While the Danes continue to unsuccessfully throw themselves upon the walls of Alfred's fortresses, the wealth of the West Saxons is safe behind the walls. And Uhtred knows a winner when he sees one. So he throws his support behind Edward, pledging his sword to Edward (and his heart to Aethelflaed, hubba hubba). 

In any case, Uhtred braces the country for an inevitable invasion following the death of Alfred and the divided loyalties and leadership of the Danes prevents this from happening for a full three years. This is also the first time we see Uhtred recognize that he's not quite the spritely 20 year old who killed Ubba by the sea. He's now 43, and is taunted by a Dane who deems Uhtred, "too old to kill." Ouch. 

Uhtred is still Uhtred however. Disgusted with the piety and sometimes hypocrisy shown by the Church in England. He's becoming outnumbered in his faith and he doesn't like it. He's still good with a sword, but Uhtred's strength has also lain with his ability to understand and plan for an enemy's motivations and tactics. And FINALLY he gets the respect he deserves from Alfred. It felt like a nice closure on that story line. We'll see what Uhtred does in his old age. But it will probably involve more sword swinging and lady loving. (Thank God :))

4/5 Stars. 

The Secret Speech - Tom Rob Smith

I ran across the first Leo Demidov book by accident, when I finished a previous audio book and the did a search for more books by the narrator. What a fun find. Semi-historical, but slightly far-fetched, Leo Demidov, the ex-MGB officer turned homicide detective has been on the beat for three years since events ending the prior book, Child 44. The Secret Speech continued Leo's story and quest to become a better man. 

Leo and his wife Raisa are trying to raise Zoya and her sister Elena, girls left orphaned by Leo's prior activities in arresting denounced anti-Soviets. But you see, they're not doing a good job. Because try as he might, Leo is still responsible for their parents' death, and 13 year old Zoya is having NONE of this. 

In the meantime, it seems like someone is out to get old MGB officers, hunting them down and killing them. Well, they had created quite a few enemies. At the same time, Khrushchev has given a speech, a "Secret" speech before the party leadership denouncing the excesses and cult of personality operated under Stalin. Now the power dynamic is shifting and no one in Russia is quite sure what is going to become the new normal.

And, as it happens, the people who were made powerful by the denunciations, purges and reprisals of the past, are not looking forward to letting go of power. This leads to unlikely allies and a quest by Leo to hold his family together. 

I like Leo's struggle to be a better person in the face of a state apparatus designed to bring out the worst in people. I also like the banality with which Soviet violence is presented. There's such an undercurrent of futility and waste that makes one wonder why the whole experiment didn't crumble sooner.

3.5/5 Stars. 

Home - Toni Morrison

When it comes to picking an author for Women's History Month, it just makes sense to spend some time with Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison. She's phenomenal. Her prose is smooth and if you're not careful will lull you into an odd sense of peace to only be broken by the truths she brings from the characters she brings to life. 

This short Novella follows brother and sister Frank and Cee Money. Frank has returned from the Korean War with wounds unseen. Having lost his two best friends, one who died right in his arms, Frank is haunted by the things he saw and the things he did during the war. What we would now call PTSD has led him to drink himself into oblivion. He seems to have found sanctuary and peace with Lily out in the Pacific Northwest. But when he receives a letter that his sister Cee "be dead" he knows he has to hurry to save her. 

Crossing the country has a black man in the 1950s is not easy and Frank is quickly waylaid into a mental institution. His escape and eventual arrival in Atlanta, Georgia is a master class as only Toni Morrison can present in the large and small cruelties of living in Jim Crow, segregated and overtly racist America. 

In the meantime, we're told that Cee left home as soon as she could, accompanied by a young man who professed love, but really had his eye on her father's car. Abandoned in Atlanta, Cee is determined to make her own life rather than return to the abusive taunts of her step-grandmother. Cee knows she needs a better job to make ends meet, so she applied to be a doctors assistant at a suburban home-office of Dr. Beau. Only, well Dr. Beau shows a little to much interest in his new assistant's anatomy and too little interest in her status as a human being. So this is how Cee becomes ill, only it's never really detailed, it doesn't need to be. One can google medical experiments of black women and find enough historical details to choke the joy from you for the day. 

This book is as much about Cee as it is about Frank, and their mutual healing after trauma. It's a shame that the brief descriptions offered mention Cee not at all, since her journey is just as moving. 

In such a short time, Toni Morrison paints a vivid and dense picture of redemptive sibling and self loves.

4/5 Stars. 

Warlight - Michael Ondaatje

I've been sitting on this review all day because I felt a lot of things while reading Warlight that I wasn't sure I'd be able to succinctly describe. After a few days I'm more comfortable about how I felt about the book so here goes:

First off, I'd like to say that I listened to the audio version of this book and I believe this was a critical and exquisite mistake. Exquisite because the vocalist did a fantastic job and had a wonderful voice. Critical because the language of the novel, the dreamy quality and the trustworthiness of the narrator led to a really hard narrative to follow in audio format.

The story opens with our narrator, Nathaniel, thinking back upon a very formative period in his life during his early teen years when both of his parents left him and his sister, Rachel, in the care of strangers. Their father, an emotionally distant, blurry figure who, as an executive at Unilever has been called to relocate to the company's Singapore offices for a year. Their mother, Rose, has decided to accompany him for the year, sending the children to boarding school. Their London home is to be looked after by a boarder whom the children refer to as "The Moth." During the months after their father's departure and the start of school whereby their mother will leave, the children grow close to their mother, whom they have no real connection with, having lived with their grandparents during much of the war years.

Once they are ensconced at boarding school, both Nathaniel and Rachel determine they hate it and sneak out to return to their home. The Moth promptly visits the schools and has the children converted to daytime only students. It is once they are back home that Rachel discovers their mother's steamer trunk, carefully packed with all those Singapore gowns, tucked away in a corner of their basement. Both children feel bereft and abandoned. With no way to get in touch with their mother they are left to wonder at the true depths of their abandonment and their parents' deception.

Left to their own devices, Nathaniel and Rachel grow close to The Moth and his case of vaguely criminal friends who frequent the house. Nathaniel especially grows close to a once successful amateur underground boxer nicknamed The Pimlico Darter. While The Moth encourages Nathaniel to get his first real job, The Darter teaches Nathaniel about the back waterways and alleys of the Thames while they smuggle racing dogs of questionable provenance. Un-moored, Nathaniel strikes up a relationship with a girl whose real name he never knows and manages to become close to her while still keeping her at a distance.

And all of this was very interesting and Ondaatje's writing is really fantastic, but then... well the story changes and Nathaniel starts telling the story of his mother, for reasons I don't want to say in this review for risk of spoilers. And given the wonderful distance and mystery Ondaatje spends the first 1/3 of the book creating, the credibility of the knowledge of the last 2/3 is stretched and destroyed by what Nathaniel is able to share about his mother.

The novel is really 1/3 a telling of a child's story from a child's point of view, and 2/3 a telling of a child's story from an adult point of view. It brings up questions and vulnerabilities that are touching and deeply moving and asks us to look at our parents anew from the distance of hindsight and the earned wisdom of adulthood. But it doesn't undo the damage done and the hearts broken in accepting a new perspective.

So all this is to say there were things I really really loved about this book, but when it's all put together it left me wanting a more believable mechanism for getting to the heart of Rose's story without damaging Nathaniel's credibility.

3.5/5 Stars.

Sword Song (The Saxon Stories #4) - Bernard Cornwell

This series continues to be a delight for me and I'm surprised it's been so long since I finished book 3, Lords of the North. You see, I listened to the first three books on audio and although I've never seen the man, I have a complete voice crush on the narrator of the first three books. So when Sword Song was not available in audio I thought I'd wait and see if my library got it in. It didn't. So then I finally got around to requesting the kindle version of the book, and it popped into my queue so here we are.

I had forgotten a lot of the plot from Lords of the North, but thankfully my review of that book (read it here) was uncharacteristically detailed regarding the plot. 

Sword Song picks up with Uhtred manning his burh at Coccham. It's part of a series of defensive cities designed by Alfred to protect Wessex. And Uhtred is doing a good job because when it's military related, everyone knows that Uhtred knows his stuff. He's living happily with his wife Gisela, the daughter of the Viking king of Northumberland. They have two children and all is well. Which means that things for Uhtred are about to get a little bit worse. 

A report arrives that the Thurgilson brothers have taken the city of Lundene (London) and along with Haesten (a thoroughly unthankful a-hole who Uhtred would have been better off to let die) they intend to make a play for all of Mercia and Wessex. 

Alfred is smart but he's also kind of an a-hole so he marries his sweet daughter, Aethelflaed, off to Uhtred's butt kissing insecure cousin Aethelred, who somehow accepts that being less than the King of Mercia is an okay trade for being Alfred's man in Mercia. Alfred is trying to strengthen his position, but in order to do so, he extracts a promise from Uhtred that Uhtred will deliver Lundene as a wedding present to his cousin and Alfred's daughter. Oh Uhtred, he's always making these crazy promises.

In the meantime, the brothers, Sigefrid and Erik, along with Haesten, conspire to convince Uhtred that HE could be King in Mercia, if he only joins forces with them and convinces Ragnar to come down from Northumbria to join them. Uhtred considers because honestly he gets not respect, but ultimately Uhtred is more loyal than Alfred or anyone else give him credit.

So Uhtred comes up with a plan to take Lundene and in the meantime Aethelred takes out his insecurities on his incredibly young wife by beating her for perceived indiscretions with other men. Uhtred is NOT having that. He may be very violent and understand pillage and rape in the context of war, but hitting your wife is not acceptable behavior to Uhtred. 

So it's no surprise that Aethelred's insecurities lead to Aetheflaed being in the wrong place at the wrong time and being kidnapped by Sigefrid. Uhtred has to come up with a plan to rescue her or all of Wessex, Mercia, East Anglia, etc it's all royally F'd. And I'll just stop there.

The thing about these stories is that it's basically non-stop action and I really like the writing. And Uhtred is just a great character, but so is Father Pyrlig. So there's so much to like about these books. I even read it to myself in the narrators voice. So all was not lost. And now I can get the 5th book (also not in audio format from my library :()

4/5 Stars

Love and Ruin - Paula McLain

When I read The Paris Wife, I was living in Evanston, IL and had been obsessed with Hemmingway's The Sun Also Rises for some time. It was the first book I examined critically. My junior year term paper was all Lady Brett all the time. My husband and I both listened to Farewell to Arms while training for the 2010 Toronto Marathon. I have read or re-read basically everything else Hemmingway. So I was ready for The Paris Wife and I really liked McLain's voice in telling Hadley Hemmingway's story. I may have actually named by own Chicago-born daughter after Hadley. 

So I was nervous that maybe lightening wouldn't strike the Hemmingway brides twice in Love and Ruin. But thankfully, I was wrong. I really enjoyed McLain's portrayal of Marty Gellhorn. She reminded me a lot of Beryl Markham in McLain's Circling the Sun (you can read my review of CTS here). Marty, like Beryl, chafed at conventional expectations of womanhood. They both excelled in male-dominated fields. They both wanted adventure and career and to felt seen. These are all very modern aspects of my own life as a woman, but fortunately I live in a decade where having all these things and being a mother are not entirely out of the question (but also not a given). 

Marty, though madly in love with Ernest, does not want to be tied down by motherhood in a way that would limit her opportunities. It's not as if Ernest Hemmingway was going to be home with a toddler while Marty was a war correspondent. Above all else, Marty seemed to be committed to being her own true self, and there is so much to admire about that.

Ernest and Marty

The strong Marty chapters are interspersed with, what I thought were, unnecessary chapters from Ernest's third person voice. I thought this detracted from the overall story. Perhaps McLain felt Ernest was not coming along so well in the book. I was hardly ready to feel sympathy for him after his bizarre behavior with Hadley and Pauline Pfeiffer in The Paris Wife. 

I also have a bit of a weird feeling about the book because I've read a lot about Marty Gellhorn and I know that she was adamant that she not be treated as just Ernest Hemmingway's third wife. I think her phrase was about being a "footnote" in someone else's life. She was an amazing war correspondent, a novelist, and an interesting person in her own right. And, probably to Marty Gellhorn's consternation, this book ends, abruptly I'd say, right after her relationship with Ernest ends. It's a disservice to the bulk of work she performed and wrote after her divorce from Hemmingway, and the name she made for herself independently through the later decades. I would have loved to stay on the journey with her through her years in Korea and Vietnam. So I found the timeline of the book to be a bit of a betrayal to the heroine. 

Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging - Sebastian Junger

If Junger did exhaustive research in preparation for Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging, it doesn't really show in the text. I liked the premise, and when he started to delve into facts and figures the book felt grounded, but then it drifted into anecdotes which seemed to be given as much weight by the author as the empirical evidence. And that would be fine if this was a straightforward memoir, but instead, Tribe operates as an uncomfortable mix of memoir and topical thesis that never feels quite confident in its own message.

Listen, I agree, today's culture seems to be lacking in connection. Look no further than the things people are willing to say to each other behind the relative anonymity of internet comment sections. And smaller tribes. tribes on the brink of survival seem to form more cohesive units. But that type of intensity is necessarily temporary. Why does America seem to have more than its fair share of PTSD diagnoses? Junger suggests it's the contrast between home life, the lack of cohesive communities, and a little bit of fraud that can account for this. But again, where this information comes from and whether it's empirical evidence or Junger's opinion isn't really clear (maybe it's spelled out in the notes section at the end, but by that point, I just didn't care). 

Some of the details in the story rang true for me. When I returned from deployment, I remember feeling anxious and disconnected. Over time it faded, as Junger states is normal. I also found certain statements particulary interesting: 

"Unlike criticism, contempt is particularly toxic because it assumes a moral superiority in the speaker."

American Indians, proportionally, provide more soldiers to America’s wars than any other demographic group in the country.

roughly half of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have applied for permanent PTSD disability. Since only 10 percent of our armed forces experience actual combat, the majority of vets claiming to suffer from PTSD seem to have been affected by something other than direct exposure to danger.

It was better when it was really bad 

Interestingly, when I visited St. Petersburg in 2004, standing in red square next to a Burbury store in which I could afford nothing, I asked my tour guide how life had changed for him after the fall of communism. "I liked it better before," he said. "You had nothing, but everyone had nothing." Perhaps there was a shared sense of community through shared hardship.

Anyway, this was thought-provoking and interesting. But it just missed the mark for me.

3/5 Stars. 

Spider Bones - Kathy Reichs

I haven't read a Temperance Brennan book since probably before Bones became a TV show, so it was kind of like visiting an old friend. I'm not sure where in the series I left off, but lucky #13 Spider Bones seemed as good a book as any to start back with. 

A man found floating in a pond in Quebec has fingerprints traced back to a KIA from Vietnam. The investigation takes Tempe all the way to Hickam Air Force Base on Oahu where exhumed and discovered remains are identified and laid to rest by CIL. Additional remains become involved and well, no spoilers right? 

There is the familiar on-again off-again romance between Detective Andrew Ryan and Tempe. Daughter Katy makes an appearance as does Ryan's daughter, Lily. It's been a while so I didn't remember him having a daughter but well whatever. Some of those details seemed rushed and so did the overall story frankly. Reichs almost seemed just as done with the tedious details that have made the books interesting to read. 

Maybe it's just hard to write a book a year, but this well done story ended up feeling to rushed at the end and garners only three stars. If you've read these, you know what you're getting into already. It's my first "summer" read of the season and it was a perfect beach read, even though pool side will have to do for now. 

3/5 Stars. 

The One from the Other - Philip Kerr

The One from the Other was a little all over the place. I still like Bernie Gunther and his wit. In this installment it's no different. 

The story begins with Bernie travelling to Palestine with a young Adolph Eichmann. Bernie is there to set up a bank account and property for a Jewish business owner emigrating with the assistance/urging of the SD. Eichmann is there to see if he can make a few alliances that will help Germany strategically. Then we fast forward to after the war and Bernie is living in Dauchau at his father-in-law's hotel while his wife, Kiersten is in a mental hospital following a break down. 

Following Kiersten's death, Bernie travels to Munich to set up shop as a private investigator again. However, the clients who keep coming in are looking to help former SS war criminals awaiting German amnesty. Bernie doesn't' have a lot of enthusiasm for the work, but when a good looking woman shows up trying to find her missing husband, he doesn't ask many questions to figure out his motives. This leads to some further violence and well... the plot gets really twisty and turn-y after that. 

I still enjoyed reading/listening to this book, but at times I felt the history lessons were turning into filler. 

3/5 Stars. 

Ploughshares Winter 2017-2018

It's Ploughshares Time! Do you subscribe yet? There are a lot of good stories in this Winter 2017-2018 Edition. So here are some of my favorites:

Fiction:
The War Ghosts Bureau by Eric Fair was achingly delicious and dark. I loved so much about this story. Its subtle moments and its over the top moments. It deftly explores the theme of collective guilt and the dirty secret of the paltry percentage of Americans who serve in the modern all-volunteer armed forces. In order to avoid the burden of collective guilt, former military personnel are required to carry their ghosts around with them until they achieve understanding and forgiveness. If they start to lift the burden on themselves and forget their deeds in war, the War Ghosts Bureau is there to keep them in check. It's brilliant. 

Almost by Carol Dines explores a complicated sister relationship wherein one sister seems to make herself the patron saint of lost causes (despite Jude already having that job) and the other sister tries to keep her distance so as not to entangle herself in the drama. I love stories that explore siblinghood. I think it's one of the most important relationships you can have in your life. And this story's exploration of siblinghood into adulthood was excellent and nuanced. 

Minnows by Nathan Go is the story of five sailors living on a beached ship claiming territory for the Philippines, or rather, keeping the Chinese from claiming the territory. It's a lonely duty and frankly a situation I had just never thought of before. I love that Ploughshares can take me to far away lands and worlds and existences of which I know nothing about.

Il Piccolo Tesoro by Valerie Miner was a lovely story of strangers who live in a pensione in Italy and come to be a family under the watch of the Scottish proprietor. It was a cute diverting story that took me back to my twenties and days spent in a cafe in Italy and not quite grasping the novelty and luck that had brought me there. 

Nonfiction: 
Eulogy by Patricia Foster is a great story in which a wife uncovers the past of her mother in law. Her husband's painful childhood is brought into clearer focus as the wife comes to terms with the woman her mother-in-law had been. It has that muddy clarity of grace we can offer people as we get older.

Poetry:
It's so hard to describe what it poems are about or what makes them my favorites in Ploughshares. Some I like because of the lyrical quality. Others I like because of the meter, or I'm struck by 
a single line, a single word. So without further explanation, here are the poems that struck me, stuck with me, inspired me, comforted me, or merely amused me:

Theodicy by J. Estanislao Lopez
Glimpse by Amy Gerstler
The Woman Who Had the Job by Jenny Irish
Pavlov was the Son of a Priest by Paige Lewis
Mementomori.com by Owen McLeod
Epistle from the Hospital for Cheaters by Jenny Molberg
Fine Despite by Dzvinia Orlowsky

4/5 Stars. 

The Cellist of Sarajevo - Steven Galloway

The Siege of Sarajevo lasted from 5 April 1992 to 29 February 1996 during with time the Army of Republika Srpska encircled Sarajevo in its surrounding hills and bombarded the city with artillery and sniper fire. A total of 13,952 people were killed during the siege, including 5,434 civilians. During the siege cellist Vedran Smailovic played Albinoni's Adagio in G Minor in ruined buildings around the city.

These are the events that inspired this book. Vedran Smailovic is not named in the book and in fact, when he found out about the book he was deeply upset and felt that his story and likeness were stolen from him and asked for remuneration from Steven Galloway. This little wrinkle left a bit of a sour taste for me after finishing what I thought was otherwise a brilliant book. 

The Cellist of Sarajevo begins with the cellist's decision to play at the site of a bombed-out market place for 22 days to honor the 22 people killed there. The story then breaks off from the unnamed cellist and follows three characters - Arrow, a sniper; Kenan, a father going to fetch water; and Dragan, a brother going to get bread. 

Arrow is a city defender and her story spans a couple weeks in the time it takes to detail Kenan and Dragan's single day. I found this an interesting editorial choice, but decided I ultimately liked it. For the civilians, Kenan and Dragan, even the mundane tasks take a very long time and only Arrow, who can take action and move through the city with more confidence with a weapon at her side, time is under her control. 

The book really captures the banality of evil and of war - situations where killing is random and undignified. Kenan's arduous task of gathering water from one of the only sources left, across the river at the brewery, becomes an odyssey through which he is forced to confront the very heart of his humanity. The same goes for Dragan, who is heading to the bakery where he works on his day off in order to secure the one loaf of bread he provides to his sister and her family every day. As he waits to cross an intersection he discovers it has become targeted by a sniper and he is forced to a deeper understanding of his own cowardice and the extent to which he will allow the war to change him. 

Arrow operates on her own terms with a loose affiliation with the army. As a sniper, she is given the task of protecting the cellist. She can sense her priorities shifting and her values disintegrating and has to make a decision about what to do. 

In the end, the book seems a little contrived as all three characters come to more or less the same conviction about whether or not they will allow the war to change their true character. In that respect the book reveals itself as written by an idealistic outsider rather than someone intimately familiar with the stark realities and necessities of war.

4/5 Stars. 

Ploughshares Solos Omnibus Volue 5

This will likely be the last book I finish for 2017 and it's a fitting end to this weird tumultuous year. Nine stories that take you so completely out of your element and make things seem upside down but normal at the same time. Solos Omnibus #5 was a really great way to experience multiple places and time in one short volume.

Face the Music by Michael Lowenthal - This excellent story of a jazz music student learning under the visiting professor tutelage of Sun Ra was sort of a musical coming of age story. Wherein the student realizes that all the notes he'll ever learn of jazz won't make a difference when it comes to actually playing jazz. Sun Ra forces the students to look at music, not academically, but intrinsically. In the end, the student recognizes his own limitations, and therefore, Sun Ra's genius. 

Koppargruva by Hugh Coyle - Before Nobel was the name of a prize given out in Sweden, it was the name of a man, an inventor, whose work in dynamite and nitroglycerin helped revolutionize the mining industry. This short selection of a book in progress (which I am looking forward to purchasing and devouring upon release), tells the story of Nobel's travels to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and his attempts to sell his products and his innocence in the death of his brother and several other miners in Sweden. 

Footing Slow: A Walk with Keats by Eli Payne Mandel - Keats was an English poet who was underappreciated while he lived, died young, and then became an integral part of the English literary fabric. In this story, Mandel attempts to recreate the walk across England and Scotland attempted by Keats towards the end of the 19th Century. Ultimately neither Mandel or Keats could complete their planned trips and while their experiences varied widely, the telling of the attempt was very satisfying.

A History of China by Carolyn Ferrell - A young woman tells the story of her German mother and GI father who tried, and failed to make their love work under the cruel light of a pre-civil rights movement America and the other inherent challenges that come when your vision of something does not match the reality and your shame in failing to make the vision happens manifests itself in many ways. For the young narrator, her large family and all of their complicated relationships with her father bleed out into her own actions. 

The Girl Who Lied by Uche Okonkwo - A tale of young girls at a private boarding school. The wealthy, interesting Kemi tries everything to get back home and to be shown love and concern by her absentee parents. Meanwhile the narrator feels shame at her own family's humble means. A real grass is greener scenario with a little bit of self awareness to make the tale satisfying. 

Bones by Lisa Horiuchi - A retired white collar worker decides his life needs more excitement and so he travels to Belize to try to find the bones of "the missing link" in evolution. He's stymied by a language barrier, government uprisings, and porous national borders. He's not even sure why he's interested in the bones in the first place except that he wants to see them. 

The Critic by Timothy Parrish - This story felt just a little bit too long for me, but was a very interesting tale of a critic obsessed with Bob Dylan who he refers to as "the Twerp." The critic and the musician circle around each other for years as the 60s come and go and the critic feels like the best good times have passed. He's probably right, the music of the 60s is iconic and informs most of what we hear today. But would we feel that way if a critic hadn't been there to point it out? 

Girl of Few Seasons by Rachel Kondo - This sad tale of a poor Maui family centers on a brother and sister, Ebo and Momo, who raise pigeons together until Momo is injured and has to be moved to Honolulu for care at a state run facility. Her brother, desperate to see her after nine years apart, enlists in the US Army in order to have one visit with her. It's a take on island life I've thought little about and made me realize I know embarrassingly little of the demographics on the Hawaiian islands. 

and Finally Kaat by Edward Hamlin - A Flemish woman and her American lover live in Paris. The women are forging ahead in their relationship until a motorcycle accident calls into question the commitment of the American. Nothing is certain and decisions are made on conjecture. It's a bit melancholy actually. 

The entire set of stories were well written and interesting. I liked being transported for a time out of our current news cycles and into these mini-worlds filled with people still going about their experiences with eyes wide open.

4/5 Stars. 

Lords of the North - Bernard Cornwell

Once again I thoroughly enjoyed reading about 9th Century England and the various kingdoms. Lords of the North focuses, not surprisingly, on the Kingdom of Northumbria, to where Uhtred has been trying to return since the Saxon Stories began. 

Following his victory at the battle of Ethandun (Edington), Alfred has granted Uhtred a small holding, and Uhtred is, understandably, a bit miffed. But he takes Hild and his horse to bury his horde and then heads north to try to figure out a way to reclaim his lands. But the North is in disarray. Arriving in Eoferwic (York), Uhtred finds the Danes have been slaughtered based on the sermons of a priest. Fearing eventual retribution, Saxons are fleeing the town and Uhtred agrees to go with a wealthy merchant. In order to go where the merchant intends, Uhtred must past through Kjarten's lands, thus bringing him within sword distance of his enemies and satisfying a cliff hanger of a confrontation begun in the very first novel.

This encounter was ultimately satisfying because it answered so many questions left from the first novel, principally, what happened to Thyra!? And it's always satisfying to finally see Uhtred get some of the respect he deserves for being such a great warrior (not until after he's been thoroughly humbled of course). 

This novel also brought forth a new love interest for Uhtred, Gisela is sister to Gothrid, the new King of Northumbria. And it was nice that she didn't die this time around. (Sorry Iseult). 

All and all this was a solid book in the series, although it did, at times, have a bit of padding that was evident. I continue to be thoroughly entertained by these, even if they do prompt my husband to ask which one of us went to engineering school (he thinks I'm a giant nerd).

4/5 Stars. 

The Quiet American - Graham Greene

Let me start by saying this is a wonderful piece of short fiction. Thomas Fowler is a British journalist living in Saigon and doing his best to remain independent and indifferent to the French Indo-Chinese War occurring in Vietnam. Already the seeds of America's Vietnam conflict are beginning to be sown as Fowler meets Alden Pyle, an American with the Economic Relief effort. 

Pyle seems naive to the extreme, having read and relied on a text by York Harding, a man who once visited the region for a week and somehow came up with theories on how the entire region could be saved by communism. The simple arrogance of the presumption is completely lost on Pyle, who has found a mission and the blueprint for making a lasting effect on the country. Pyle, intent on this outcome is willing to overlook all the casualties in its wake as a reasonable cost for the desired effect. 

Prior to Pyle arriving, Fowler was living a quiet life of boring cables, opium filled evenings, and the affections of a simple unassuming Vietnamese woman, Phuong, who bides her time with Fowler ostensibly until someone better (unmarried) comes along who can marry her and take her to the west. Pyle sets himself up to be just such a suitor, and Fowler, who was comfortable not facing the inevitable conclusion of his time in the East, has to face his own limitations and fears as an aging man. He ultimately comes to understand that indifference is impossible: "Suffering is not increased by numbers: one body can contain all the suffering the world can feel. I had judged like a journalist in terms of quantity and I betrayed my own principle; I had become as engaged as Pyle, and it seemed to me that no decision would ever be simple again." 

See, there is a ton of stuff packed into this short work! That both Pyle and Phuong are seen through Fowler's lense means that they are ultimately misunderstood and given a flawed presentation in the novel. It's too simple to merely accept them both as naive and simple characters as Fowler does.

5/5 Stars.

City of Thieves - David Benioff

This was can't put down good. The premise is a grandson asking his grandfather about the war. You know, THE war, WWII. The grandfather was a Soviet citizen in Leningrad (St. Petersburg) at the time and the grandson wants to know what his grandfather did during the war.

So we get the grandfather's version of what he did. Lev Beniov lives in The Kirov, an apartment building in the outer ring of Leningrad. He serves on the building's fire brigade, there to put out any fires should the building get shelled during the Nazi siege of Leningrad. One evening, while standing watch on the top of his building with his friends, Lev spots a dead German paratrooper falling from the sky. As the city has been starving for months and people are dying from starvation daily, the youths figure the German paratrooper may have food on his person and decide to be the first ones there to investigate the possibility. Except, as an enemy soldier in Leningrad, the dead body is now government property and taking anything from the body would be considered "looting" and stealing of government property. 

When he pauses to help a friend running from the police, Lev is caught and taken to a Leningrad prison. Sometime in the night he is joined by an army deserter, Kolya. The head of the NKVD gives them the task of finding 12 eggs in the next five days for his daughter's wedding cake. Lev and Kolya then go about the impossible task of procuring a dozen eggs in a food wasteland. 

It is Kolya's indomitable spirit through the Lev's pessimistic lens, that carries this story from horror to humor and back again in endless and glorious cycles as the two undertake their quest. I didn't want this book to end.

5/5 Stars. 

The Last Kingdom (Saxon Stories #1) - Bernard Cornwell

What a delicious feeling it is to start a new series and thoroughly enjoy the first book. I recently took a long car trip and The Last Kingdom was my companion for ten hours of riveting driving through southern Illinois. The series begins with Otrid (I listened to this so be prepared for some completely inaccurate spellings) in Northumbria. He marches to war at 10 years old with his father and sees his father and most of the Northumbrian army slaughtered by the invading Danes. He's taken captive by a Dane named Ragnar and grows up learning to fight.

As the Danes move to take Mercia and East Agnlia, Ostrid is introduced to real battle and becomes torn between his love for Ragnar and the Danish way of life, and to his fealty to his homeland of England. When the Danes move to take Wessex, the last kingdom free from Danish rule, they are met by an unlikely English champion in the pious King Alfred. 

The book is just really really well done and I have to give special props to the voice narrator for his inflections and changes between accents. Listening to this was really delightful. Cornwell was lucky in that not many source documents exist from this period of time to draw his facts from so he had a lot of room to invent and imagine, but he still kept everything in the realm of reality. 

I was sad that I couldn't immediately start the next book in the series. I can't wait for it to show back up off my hold list at the library.

4/5 Stars.