Great Books for Summer . . . reviewed by Suzanne

Here are two excellent and satisfyingly chunky books. They are available in paperback editions you can take with you whether you read at the beach, in Paris, or in your backyard.

PART TWO: Nonfiction

Gandhi and Churchill
by Arthur Herman
This fascinating history made me painfully aware of my almost total ignorance about India’s history. Herman has written an excellent revisionist account of the lives of these two mythic individuals. Reading this, they became considerably less mythic. Gandhi was a racist (while in South Africa he tried to convince the British to give Indians the same status as whites, but he considered black Africans not their equals), and Churchill had a giant ego and refused to acknowledge his mistakes (including the disastrous Gallipolli campaign of WWI). Don’t let the length of the book dismay you. It’s well worth the investment in time it takes to read.
Read the Commentary Magazine review.

The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals by Jane Mayer
Unless you are a fan of Dick Cheney, this book will raise your hackles. If you are a Cheney devotee, you might want to skip it, since he does not come off very well in this account of the methods used to pursue the “war on terror”. I learned that there was much more to the horrors and abuses of "enhanced interrogation" at Guantanamo and the "black sites" overseas than the news accounts covered. This is a tragic book; it made me very sad to learn the extent to which individuals in the government, military and CIA lied and covered up to subvert the constitution. There's so much evil in the story; however it was heartening to learn about the heroic efforts of some lawyers, military people, and FBI agents who protested the use of torture and tried to get it stopped. This is a superb choice for anyone interested in politics.
Read the New York Times review.

Recommendations from Macaire

The Smoke and
Spectres in the Smoke by Tony Broadbent
Having survived the war, Jethro the cat burglar is hard at work trying to survive the peace by relieving the wealthy of their remaining treasures when he attracts some unwanted attention. His Majesty’s Secret Service gives him the option of pulling a few jobs for MI5 or going to jail.

In The Smoke, Jethro is asked to break into the Soviet Embassy. Simple enough on the surface, but nothing is as it seems when you are playing spy games. With London’s crime bosses and MI5’s special operatives looking on, the talented Cockney creeper has his work cut out for him.

In Spectres in the Smoke, Jethro is once again called upon to help defuse political threats, this time by retrieving letters and photographs that could prove embarrassing to certain members of the Royal Family and other VIPs. When the caper requires that he impersonate a wealthy, upper crust businessman at a country estate, Jethro receives a little coaching from none other than Ian Fleming and David Niven. Putting real people in fiction is always tricky, but the cameo appearances are well done and add a nice dimension to the story.

Jethro’s adventures in espionage in post-War London are suspenseful and entertaining. The author creates a likeable character and wonderful atmosphere, effectively evoking the time period with details of everyday life. The city of London, or “the Smoke” in Cockney slang, is a brooding, seething backdrop to a society going through tremendous change, and traveling through it with Jethro as he dodges both good guys and bad guys in turn is tremendous fun.
Tony Broadbent's website.

Great Books for Summer . . . reviewed by Suzanne

For reading on lengthy and lazy summer days, I look for a book I can linger over. Here are two long novels. What held my interest--and I would have gone on reading if they had been twice as long--were the richly drawn characters and the detailed way the characters’ lives are described.

PART ONE: Fiction


Cutting for Stone
by Abraham Verghese
Verghese is a physician. I read his excellent nonfiction book My Own Country years ago. This, his first novel, is human in scale, humane in message, and a wonderfully told story.

Two brothers, born conjoined in a clinic in Ethiopia to a young pious nun from India. Their father, or so everyone thinks, is an American physician working at the clinic. I can’t tell you more plot details without giving too much away.

After their birth, the boys are separated in a difficult operation. They grow up in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where they are raised by the loving clinic staff. One of the brothers leaves Africa to do his medical training in America. That’s not the only reason he leaves, but again, I won’t give the story away.

The characters are unforgettable, especially Dr. Ghosh, who will long remain one of my favorites. Love, politics, betrayal, revolution, family, illness and healing are all ingredients that Verghese weaves together into a beautiful, tender story. There’s nothing stylistically or thematically innovative about this novel; it’s plain good storytelling.
Abraham Verghese’s website.

The Help
by Kathryn Stockett
Abileen, one of three narrators, describes her daily and weekly tasks--polishing the silver, ironing the dress with dozens of pleats, cooking for the weekly bridge club--in detail. The two other narrators are Minny, Abileen’s irrepressible friend, who has trouble staying employed because she is “sassy”, and Miss Skeeter, a 22-year-old white woman who aspires to be a writer but still lives at home where she is bossed around by her mother. How and why the three women become friends is the core of the story.

“Help” is, of course, a euphemism for domestics, or as my mother called them “maids.” I grew up in Virginia around the time period in which Stockett’s novel is set. We had a “maid”, and, like the white characters in the book, she arrived on the bus, wore a uniform, worked all day at the duties my mother set out for her, and then returned home. That my mother had a “maid” is a huge irony. Raised on a tobacco farm in North Carolina, where she and her 10 siblings worked from and early age at chores around the house and on the farm, my mother did not belong to the Junior League, the women’s group at the church (she was an agnostic) or own a silver service that required polishing. I wonder in retrospect if she had a woman come in to do housework because it was the thing to do. And, since our house had only one bathroom, the “maid” used it as well as the family. One of the themes in the novel is the insistence by some of the white women that their houses have separate “facilities” for the “help.”

I cringed at the meanness of the hoity-toity, backbiting white socialites and thought their characters were stereotyped and exaggerated, but who am I to say? I’m sure there were white women like that in the South (and elsewhere) in the sixties.

I do know about the reality of Jim Crow laws. Like the white characters in the book who know nothing about the personal lives, joys and sorrows of their domestics, I doubt if my mother knew much about her “maid’s” life. She was one of the black women and men who traveled to the white neighborhoods to work, but who could not live there. There were no African-Americans in the public schools I attended.

Although Stockett describes the characters listening to news accounts of sit-ins at lunch counters and James Meredith integrating the university, this is not political commentary. It’s a book about loyalty, generosity and about smart, proud and determined women with grit. The women are the strength of the book, and I loved them.

I would characterize this as fiction that would be of interest almost exclusively to women. I can’t imagine many male readers picking this up. Read the New York Times review.
Kathryn Stockett’s website.

Recommendations from Julie

The Little Sleep by Paul Tremblay
This was a fascinating detective story! The detective has narcolepsy which makes getting a case and solving it very hard. I can’t wait to read Tremblay’s next book!







The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher by Kate Summerscale
It was very interesting to look at the beginnings of detective fiction by looking at a true crime that took place in Victorian times. It's rather amazing that one case could have the impact on a society to create in the imaginations of writers an entire genre of fiction.

Fashion Victim . . . reviewed by Suzanne

Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution by Caroline Weber
Before Michelle Obama and Carla Bruni Sarkhozy, before Princess Di, there was Marie Antoinette. The Austrian princess was married at age 14 to the heir to the French throne in order to improve relations between their two countries. Initially unpopular with the French people because of her foreignness, her situation remained tenuous for years because she remained childless (not her fault!).

The blond-haired, porcelain-skinned, blue-eyed beauty learned to exercise power over people through her appearance and her clothes. As the author says, Marie Antoinette used fashion as a “high stakes political game.” In a court where the king’s wife traditionally remained subservient and in the background, she became famous - and sometimes infamous - for the outrageous styles she flaunted. She wore pants and rode astride instead of sidesaddle, she refused to put on the restrictive corset royal women were expected to wear and she adopted the "pouf", a construction of fake and real hair, horsehair, scaffolding and decorations that could tower as high as 3 feet above the wearer's head. Her outfits, accessories and hairstyles were copied by women of the nobility and bourgeoisie, sometimes driving their husbands into bankruptcy.

Her styles evolved during her years at court. When her husband completed the small palace, the Petit Trianon, for her as a retreat from the formal court life at Versailles, she adopted simple clothing - white gauzy dresses and straw hats decorated with ribbons and flowers.

By 1774 France was in a perilous economic state - huge deficits amassed to pay for costly wars meant crushing taxes on the middle and lower classes. Bread riots, unrest and criticism of the monarchy became increasingly frequent and violent. The queen's enormous clothing and jewelry bills (she consistently overspent her allowance) added to the economic woes and added fuel to the people's rage (the press mockingly labeled her “Madame Déficit”).

During the ferment of the revolution, she continued to express herself through her clothing. She initially, though reluctantly, wore red, white and blue, the colors that indicated solidarity with the political and social changes that were taking place. Later, she gave them up and defiantly took to wearing white, black and green - royalist colors.

Her last fashion statement, made in preparation for her final public appearance to meet Madame Guillotine, was carefully calculated to create a dramatic last impression.
And so, shedding the ragged black dress in which she had faced her accusers, Marie Antoinette slipped into her plum-black shoes, a fresh white underskirt, and her pristine white chemise. To complete the ensemble, she put on the white déshabilé dress Madame Élisabeth had sent her from the Temple and wrapped the prettiest of her muslin fichus around her neck. She even removed the dangling black ribbons from her makeshift widow’s coif: the result was a pared-down, ruffled linen bonnet as colorless as her hair. Paler than ever…, the Queen became a figure of pure, radiant white.

Queen of Fashion combines two topics I love the most: clothes and French history. The author, an academic historian, managed to make the book both informative and immensely entertaining.

Dogs and Fast Cars . . . reviewed by Judie

The Art of Racing in the Rain
by Garth Stein
I greatly enjoyed this book narrated by Enzo, the dog and best friend of Denny Swift. Denny is an avid race car driver who brings Enzo home as a puppy and gradually expands their family to include a wife and daughter, a house and a sports car. As their lives take some difficult turns, Denny’s strength is tested. Enzo listens and encourages him wordlessly as he observes the many human complications and despairs about his inability to speak and his lack of opposable thumbs, which he longs for and looks forward to having in his next incarnation as a man. Recommended for all of us who love dogs and fast cars!
Garth Stein's website.

Suspenseful Books . . . reviewed by Suzanne

Tsar by Ted Bell
Alex Hawke is an updated James Bond. Wine, women and danger are his metiers. Although he’s a British special forces veteran, he does special jobs for the CIA and the U.S. president. Hawke is wonderfully colorful. His father was a British lord, and his mother American. One of his ancestors was a pirate. The “Hawke” books are long and rather rambling, with several plots going on at once. You have to be patient and let yourself enjoy the stories and the quirky characters. As Tsar opens, Hawke is in Bermuda recovering from his last assignment. He meets a beautiful Russian artist with whom he has an affair, but has to leave her when he gets called back into action to foil a plot by a mad Russian who threatens to destroy the world. Not with Hawke and his team around! Ted Bell's website.

Now You See Him by Eli Gottlieb
The unraveling of the lives of two men who grew up in a small upstate New York town is the subject of this suspenseful novel. It’s told in 1st person by Nick, who learns of the murder-suicide of his best friend Rob and his girlfriend in New York City. Nick struggles to understand what could have happened to the handsome, talented Rob to make him end his life this way. In the meantime, Nick’s marriage is falling apart. It’s a story of secrets and lies. Eli Gottlieb's website.