The History Book Club discussion

Lorna, thank you for the recommendation on the Alcott book! My TBR List has become a thing of monstrous growth!
Regards,
Andrea

by John Matteson

Thank you Lorna for your kind words but I think it is the eyes too (smile)

26. by Geraldine Brooks
Finish date: May 15, 2020
Genre: Memoir, Travel
Rating: A
Review: Foreign Correspondence by foreign correspondent Geraldine Brooks was a delightful memoir about her childhood in Sydney, Australia and dreaming of the world beyond her existence in the working class neighborhood on the west side. Years later on one of her trips home to see her ailing father, while in the basement of her parent's home going through her father's correspondence, Brooks came across a packet of her childhood letters with her pen pal friends throughout the world during the 1960's and 1970's that her father had kept for her. Her father had been a big-band singer in Hollywood and Hawaii during the 1930's before settling in Sydney to raise a family. It is from here that he corresponded with people throughout the world. Brooks notes that her father's escape was the yellow-painted metal mailbox containing flimsy aerograms or heavy bond paper with official-looking seals. She realized at the age of ten, that she too could write to strangers in far-away places where she imagined that history and culture were occurring in ways that she couldn't know in her small backyard two thousand miles below the equator. The book is divided into two parts; the first part her childhood in Sydney, Australia including the writings with her pen pals throughout the world, reaching from downtown Sydney to two boys from the Middle East, one Arab and one Jewish, to girls in New Jersey and Provence, France. The second part of the book focuses on Brooks attempting to track down all of her pen pals from childhood as she travels to the eastern part of the United States, the Middle East, and Europe. It was a beautiful book with many life lessons.

"Journalists usually get their experience at a discount. When we go to war we rarely die, we don't have to kill, our homes aren't pounded to rubble, we aren't cast adrift as exiles. If we are bruised at all, it is by the images we carry, the memories we wish we didn't have. I would always have them, dark pictures in a mental album that I could never throw away."

"For the first time, it occurred to me that my childhood had offered the best of both alternatives: the stability of a secure and reliable real world, and the infinite adventure of the invented one inhabited by my pen pals--those helpless ciphers on whom I had projected the fantasies of my imaginary life."

I haven't read anything by this author for awhile. I like her.

Bentley wrote: "I haven't read anything by this author for awhile. I like her."

Thank you, Bentley. I heard Ms. Brooks speak years ago when this book was first released but it has sat in my library since 1998. I am glad that I finally read it, as it was a pleasant surprise. I too like her writing.

26. by Geraldine Brooks
Finish date: May 23, 2020
Genre: Historical Fiction
Rating: B+
Review: Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks is a debut novel and an historical fiction account of the village of Eyam in Derbyshire, England during an outbreak of the bubonic plague in 1665. The outbreak of the plague was thought to be from a bolt of material that had been ordered by the village tailor from London. It was thought that the material had been contaminated with infected fleas which in turn led to the outbreak of the plague in the village claiming more than half of the villagers within a year. At the heart of this story is Anna Frith, a widow and housemaid to the rector Michael Mompellion and his wife, Elinor. Reverend Mompellion persuaded the village to agree to a self-quarantine to prevent the spread of the plague to surrounding communities meaning that no one was allowed to leave or to come into the village. Anna Frith, one who had suffered a lot of personal loss, still resisted the belief that the pestilence was a call for repentance and instead embraced the herbal remedies that she had learned of from Mem and Anys Gowdie, the village herbalists, with the help of Elinor Mompellion, and ministered to the village inhabitants. Anna Frith is at the center of the predominant theme of this book being that of God versus nature. It should be noted that in reading this as we are all in the midst of a Covid-19 virus pandemic in 2020, it was easier to see how fear caused many to turn on their friends, neighbors and sometimes family as they struggled for survival. It was a very devastating and moving book, but at the same time, it was uplifting as well.

"Dear friends, here we are, and here we must stay. Let the boundaries of this village become our whole world. Let none enter and none leave while this Plague lasts."

"By the second Sunday of June we had reached a sorry marker: as many of us were now in the ground as walked above it."

"There had been fear here, since the very beginning, but where it had been veiled, now it had become naked. Those of us who left feared each other and hidden contagion we each might carry."

That certainly is a timely book, Lorna, and a story that has crossed my mind a few times during this pandemic. Wonderful review!

Connie, thank you so much. Timely it was, sometimes almost too close to what is happening currently. But all in all, I am glad that I read it at this particular time to add a little perspective. Take care.

27. by Mark Kurlansky
Finish date: May 28, 2020
Genre: Non-fiction, History, Travel
Rating: B
Review: Havana: A Subtropical Delerium was a beautiful book by Mark Kurlansky, a journalist for thirty-five plus years, much of that time spent in the Caribbean as a foreign correspondent. This book focuses on the historic colonial city of Havana throughout its rich and colorful history from the early 1500's when the Spanish conquistadors developing it as a world class port, throughout its history with Batista and Castro. Each chapter features wonderful passages from Cuban writers as well as Kurlansky's own beautiful and illustrative pen-and-ink drawings to enhance the narrative. He talks about Columbian writers as Gabriel Garcia Marquez and features Latin American and Cuban writers such as Abilio Estevez, Jose Marti, Cirilo Villaverde, Cecelia Valdes, and Jose Lezama Lima featuring the epigraphs for each chapter. Graham Greene's Our Man in Havana is frequently referenced, too. It needs to be mentioned that Ernest Hemingway, drawn to deep sea fishing, spent a lot of time in Havana and he is one of their favorites, actually magical in how they revere him. After all, Ernest Hemingway spent thirty-plus years in Havana.

Cuba has long been on my list of places to go. There was a short window when Barack Obama was president, but that opening of diplomatic relations between President Obama and Raul Castro has been shut down by the Trump administration, but I still hope. . . Meanwhile, the book also has delightful recipes for everything from the perfect Mojito to picadillo to a variety of flavors of ice cream, some Fidel Castro's favorites. But we also have the delightful Havana and Cuban music that is son and said to have consumed the daily life of Havana as it pulses through the life of this city.

"The Malecon completely changed Havana's perspective. Until its construction, Havana was a city on the bay. Once the Malecon was built, Habaneros turned their heads from the bay to the ocean. Havana became a city on the sea, on the Atlantic, the Straits, facing the Gulf Stream--the city to which Hemingway was drawn. The Malecon is still a favorite spot--the place to go fishing, the place for lovers to walk along while listening to a rumbling sea or to embrace in the shadows, the place to pick out a tune on the guitar at night, the only place with Atlantic breezes on a relentlessly broiling day, the place to cool off at nighttime, the place to take refuge behind the endless columns of the buildings along the boulevard, the place to face the sea where the ocean runs a bit wild and whitecaps lap and splash over the edge of the road. It was thrilling to dive past the waves."

JUNE

28. by John Williams
Finish date: June 4, 2020
Genre: Novel, Classic
Rating: A
Review: Stoner by John Williams was first published in 1965 but was not that popular, even though there were positive reviews of the book and critical aclaim. However, Stoner was rediscovered in early 2000, quickly becoming an international bestseller and now considered by many to be a literary masterpiece.

This is a quiet novel with beautiful, sometimes heartbreaking prose, as the life of William Stoner unfolds beginning with his birth to simple parents working the land on a hardscrabble farm in Missouri, as had their ancestors. That was to be William Stoner's fate as well. However, he was given the opportunity to attend the University of Columbia to obtain an education in agriculture that would enable him to bring improved and scientific methods to the family farm. The agrarian program required that he have a certain amount of hours in the humanities. It was during his second year of college that he was introduced to Professor Archer Sloane and the beauty of English literature, with the course of his life changed in an instant while listening to one of Shakespeare's sonnets. Shortly thereafter, Stoner switched from the agrarian program to majoring in English with the eventual goal of becoming a teacher. At the heart of this beautiful novel, are the issues of love and loyalty and all of the forces that may interfere, all making for a complete life and a truly lovely book. It is one novel that I certainly will read again.

"In the University library he wandered through the stacks, among the thousands of books, inhaling the musty odor of leather, cloth, and drying page as if it were an exotic incense. Sometimes he would pause, remove a volume from the shelves, and hold it for a moment in his large hands, which tingled at the still unfamiliar feel of spine and board and unresisting page. Then he would leaf through the book, reading a paragraph here and there, his stiff fingers careful as they turned the pages as in in their clumsiness they might tear and destroy what they took such pains to uncover."

"The love of literature, of language, of the mystery of the mind and heart showing themselves in the minute, strange, and unexpected combinations of letters and words, in the blackest and coldest print--the love which he had hidden as if it were illicit and dangerous, he began to display, tentatively at first, and then boldly, and then proudly."

29. by Luis Alberto Urrea
Finish date: June 6, 2020
Genre: Non-fiction
Rating: A
Review: The Devil's Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea was a disturbing non-fiction account of an unforgiving corridor along the Mexico-United States border known as "The Devil's Highway." The author did extensive research and was granted access to documents and governmental reports from both Mexico and the United States including border patrol reports, sheriff's departmental reports, Mexican consular reports, Justice Department reports, testimonies and trial documents, correspondence and hours of taped interrogations and confessions. At the heart of this criminal case was circumstances leading up to twenty-six men and teen-aged boys, all from Mexico, were told by the smugglers that they would just have to walk a few hours before they would reach a highway. However, it was more than 50 miles of desert that would have to be crossed. Complicating their plight was the fact that they lacked water and the knowledge how to survive the 115-degree weather along "The Devil's Highway." Only twelve people survived with fourteen dead from exposure. They were found by the Border Patrol just east of Yuma and close to death suffering from exposure and dehydration. Urrea's account of what happened ensues in a fair and unbiased way, while presenting the facts in an historical context adding to one's understanding. It is an important book to read.

"Desert spirits of a dark and mysterious nature have always traveled these trails. From the beginning, the highway has always lacked grace--those who worship desert gods know them to favor retribution over the tender dove of forgiveness."

"A westerner named Francisco Salazar seems to have been the first to keep an eyewitness record of this phase of the killing fields. By 1850, he wrote, the Devil's Highway was ". . . a vast graveyard of unknown dead. . . the scattered bones of human beings slowly turning to dust. . . the dead were left where they were to be sepulchered by the fearful sandstorms that sweep at times over the desolate waste."

Good progress Lorna.

Reminder: Take advantage of your personal reading list to show what books you are currently reading, plan to read and note the ones that you have completed. The thread can be a great planning tool. I only see a few books of presidents but not your current reading, planned reading and the many that you have completed. It can be very helpful and we will carry over the personal reading lists from year to year. So it is a nice visual and work product.

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

30. by Heidi Julavits
Finish date: June 15, 2020
Genre: Novel
Rating: A-
Review: The Mineral Palace was the debut novel by author Heidi Julavits published in 2000, so it has been in my library for some time. Although the book quickly took on dark tones as Bena was increasingly forced to confront, not only her own demons, but those of the town of Pueblo, the beautiful and descriptive writing was filled with such compassion and strength to keep one's interest as Bena comes to terms with her roles of wife and mother.

It is 1934 and in the midst of the Great Depression when Bena and her physician husband Ted Jonsson move with their infant son from their home in Minnesota. Because there had been a problem in the clinic, Dr. Jonson had been forced to leave, feeling fortunate to find a position in a small clinic in Pueblo, a dwindling Colorado mining town plagued by dust storms and poverty. As they journeyed west in their black touring car, Bena has a chance run-in with Bonnie Parker of Bonnie and Clyde fame, while stopped in Dodge City, Kansas. The mysterious woman gave Bena a charm of a water tower with "Dodge" stamped across it for luck. However, Bena is fixated with numbers and how they may portend good or bad fortune as she is constantly reordering series of numbers as they present themselves. Bena lands a job as a society reporter for The Pueblo Chieftain. There are a lot of interesting, sometimes tragic, characters with one of the focal points being the famed Mineral Palace, now abandoned and in disrepair, but plans are being made to restore in to its former grandeur. Its original purpose when designed in the late 1800's was to promote the wealth of Colorado as a mining state. There are a lot of seemingly disparate threads that suddenly come together in an explosive ending. I will certainly read more by Heidi Julavits.

"In the distance she could see Pikes Peak; she could almost discern the trail beaten into its brown hide by Ute mothers as they climbed, arms outstretched and full with the children born without sight, without arms, their palates cleaving high and straight to the domes of their skulls."

31. by Maggie Doherty (no photo)
Finish date: June 20, 2020
Genre: Non-fiction
Rating: A
Review: The Equivalents was a fascinating and extensively researched debut non-fiction work by author Maggie Doherty. The book primarily focused on the groundbreaking program developed by Radcliffe in 1961 offering a small selected group of gifted women artists the opportunity to avail themselves of the resources they needed to succeed, namely, fellowship money, office space and access to a professional and creative female community for two years. It was limited to twenty-four women. However, Doherty primarily focused on the relationship and work of poets Anne Sexton and Maxine Kumin as well as writer Tillie Olsen. She also explored the creative process inherent in the sculptures of Marianna Pineda and the art work and portraits by Barbara Swan. As these women came together in collaboration and support of one another the institute for most was nothing short of life-changing. This was very a well written and compelling work that not only explores the history of that time but all that still needs to be done.

"This book is about a small group of women writers and artists who operated as a hinge between the 1950s and 1960s, between a decade of women's confinement and a decade of women's liberation. It tells the story of their careers, their friendships, and their art as a way of describing how and why the feminist movement reemerged in 1960s America. But the book is also about their particularities, their inner lives, their conflicts. It attends to the rich, idiosyncratic, loving, competitive relationships that form between women--the kinds of relationships that so often go unexamined and unrecognized."

----- Maggie Doherty, Introduction to The Equivalents

32. by Peter Hessler
Finish date: June 27, 2020
Genre: Non-fiction
Rating: A
Review: The Buried: An Archaeology of the Egyptian Revolution by foreign correspondent Peter Hessler was a well-researched and interesting account of not only the Arab Spring in Egypt, but an extensive and fascinating history of Egypt, one of the world's oldest civilizations. This book was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Peter Hessler skillfully weaves together a breathtaking memoir of the five years that he and his family spent in Cairo, as the Egyptian Arab Spring was erupting in dramatic fashion on the world stage. Hessler blends their life and experiences with the lives of ordinary Cairenes as he explores a side of the Middle East we would not otherwise know. It is a hauntingly beautiful portrait of a place, a people, and a movement by a master storyteller.

"But as time passed, we realized that there was the Egypt inside, and then there was the Egypt outside--these things weren't necessarily the same. The sense of being Egyptian ran so deep that it had little to do with the structures, or the lack of structures, of the actual country. This was the one reason why the place felt so coherent, and held together so well, despite a remarkable lack of governance."

"Sometimes I thought about the Yeats line: 'Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.' Things hold together; the centre doesn't matter. In a country where systems and laws had always been weak, there were other forces that kept the place from collapsing."

33. by Cristina García
Finish date: June 29, 2020
Genre: Fiction
Rating: B
Review: Dreaming in Cuban was an all-encompassing and heartbreaking saga of three generations of a family caught up in the cataclysmic historical events taking place in Cuba during the revolution. Although there is a lot of history here, for me the heart of the story were the lives of the matriarch Celia and her granddaughter Pilar. Celia's life was told in epistolary form as she wrote letters to her first love, giving us great insight to her sensibilities and inner life and yearnings. Pilar developed her artistic talents while living in New York with her family yearning for a time to go back to Cuba to reunite with her grandmother. This is the kind of book that speaks to my heart, an author that I will read again.

"Mostly, though I paint her in blue. Until I returned to Cuba, I never realized how many blues exist. The aquamarines near the shoreline, the azures of deeper waters, the eggshell blues beneath my grandmother's eyes, the fragile indigos tracking her hands. There's a blue, too, in the curves of the palms, and the edges of the words we speak, a blue tinge to the sand and the seashells and the plump gulls on the beach. The mole by Abuela's mouth is also blue, a vanishing blue."

JULY

34. by Beatriz Williams
Finish date: July 2, 2020
Genre: Historical Fiction
Rating: B+
Review: The Golden Hour was an engaging historical fiction novel by Beatriz Williams told in alternate timelines by two women until their life stories ultimately come together in an exciting conclusion. Lenore "Lulu" Randolph is sent to Nassau in the Bahamas in 1941 to report for a New York magazine the social doings of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. This Caribbean paradise was an intriguing setting for all of the rich and famous as well as unsavory characters and spies, all creating an exciting and gripping tale.

Ms. Williams noted that she wanted to weave Lulu's story with that of Elfriede von Kleist Thorpe in order to understand prewar Germany better from her perspective as her fate was woven into the fate of Great Britain at such an interesting time in history. Beatriz Williams describes her role in the book this way, "Elfriede forms the moral backbone of 'The Golden Hour,' and her journey is that of women everywhere."

"'I met this fellow in the south of France, this painter. Do you know what he called this time of day? The hour before sunset.' 'No.' 'The golden hour.' Wilfred waves his hand at the sun, which now burns just above the jagged peaks that form the horizon. 'He said that's when everything looks the most beautiful, just before the sun sets. This luminous air turning everything to gold. He said it made him want to paint the whole world. And then it's gone, just like that. The sun disappears. The night arrives.'"

35. by Julia Alvarez
Finish date: July 7, 2020
Genre: Novel
Rating: A
Review: Afterlife is the latest novel by author Julia Alvarez, a favorite writer of mine for many years. This is a beautiful book about not only loss, but loyalty and love and friendship and family. Most importantly, this is a story of how we can come to grips with loss and all of its consequences in one's life, and manage to go on. The Prologue in this unforgettable novel is one of the most beautiful and heartbreaking pieces of prose/poetry that I have read, as Antonia repeatedly asks, "Can you please help me find him?" We witness the fragmentation of Antonia's life as she comes undone as she desperately tries to put all of the pieces together once more.

And that is the beginning of this beautiful novel by Julia Alvarez, her first book for adults in almost fifteen years, and as she says, her first writing as an "elder." The protagonist, Antonia, is a writer and professor at the university, having just retired. She is to meet her husband for dinner to celebrate. He is late, and at first she is irritated, then it quickly escalates to panic, as she learns that he has died. With that news, Antonia begins a life without Sam. What transpires in this book is one's attempt to pick up the pieces and go on, and then we have the "sisterhood" who have dedicated themselves to help Antonia make it through this difficult time. Antonia's three sisters become an integral component of this tale, as well as several undocumented Mexicans that Antonia has befriended and become increasingly close to. It is a beautiful book that I will most certainly read again.

"An afterlife? All she has come up with is that the only way not to let the people she loves die forever is to embody what she loved about them. Otherwise the world is indeed depleted."

36. by John R. Bolton
Finish date: July 10, 2020
Genre: Memoir
Rating: TBA
Review: TBA

Thank you Lorna - would love to hear your comments on the threads about the book.

Bentley wrote: "Thank you Lorna - would love to hear your comments on the threads about the book."

Bentley, I will certainly check out the group discussion and participate as I can. I had requested the book quite some time ago, and an electronic copy was recently provided by my local library but the loan and the link expire in a few days. Therefore, my husband and I both have been scrambling to get it read.

I bet!!!!

37. by Jaquira Díaz
Finish date: July 13, 2020
Genre: Memoir
Rating: A
Review: Ordinary Girls was a stunning and beautiful, sometimes heartbreaking memoir by Jaquira Diaz growing up in the projects in Puerto Rico and Miami Beach, Florida. Diaz's father is black and his mother created a safe and nurturing place for her family, her beloved abuela, as opposed to her white mother and her grandmother Mercy, both in the throes of mental illness and drug addiction much of their lives. Diaz talks about her love of books coming from her Papi as a young child, because of his love of books. It was Papi's books that she first read. She was always writing in her journals from the time she was a young child as well, perhaps foreshadowing her love of the craft.

This is a memoir told in a linear fashion grouped by subjects and themes as Diaz relates her story, much as it would be for memories surfacing in a very non-linear way. I think that Jaquira Diaz is a powerful voice in today's literature and this was a very powerful book on so many levels.

"We were the girls who strolled onto the blacktop on long summer days, dribbling past the boys on the court. We were the girls on the merry-go-round, laughing and laughing and letting the world spin while holding on for our lives. The girls on the swings, throwing our heads back, the wind in our hair. We were the loudmouths, the troublemakers, the practical jokers. We were the party girls, hitting the clubs in booty shorts and high-top Jordans, smoking blunts on the beach. We were the wild girls who loved music and dancing. Girls who were black and brown and poor and queer. Girls who loved each other."

38. by Emily Nemens
Finish date: July 18, 2020
Genre: Novel
Rating; A
Review: The Cactus League was a delightful debut novel by Emily Nemens. It actually was a series of short stories, all loosely woven together by our narrator, a former sports journalist from a now defunct newspaper as he encourages us to settle in for the long game. The structure of this book was in nine chapters (or short stories) and reflective of the nine innings a baseball game. It is set in Scottsdale, Arizona where the fictional Los Angeles Lions have come for their spring training as part of the Cactus League at the Salt River Fields training facility.

Most likely a lot of the draw for me to this book is that I have been a lifelong fan of baseball from Saturday afternoons with my father in front of the television to being a Colorado Rockies season ticket-holder for many years. Salt River Fields, adjacent to the Talking Stick Resort, has been the spring training home for the Colorado Rockies and the Arizona Diamondbacks. For many years, it has been our hope to go down for a week during spring training in March.

What I found fascinating with our narrator, as he set up each chapter in the series, he would go into the archaeology and science of how that part of the Southwestern desert came to be going back millions of years ago to show the origins of the topography and the prehistoric animals that roamed the earth. He also spoke of the lost tribes of Native Americans such as the Hohokam to the current Pima and Maricopa. Each of the stories focused on those involved in the baseball scene in Scottsdale from the coaches, baseball players, baseball player's wives, baseball talent agents, and baseball groupies to the essential workers helping the ballpark to function. The common thread uniting all of the various chapters was Jason Goodyear, a two-time Golden Glove winner and the star outfielder for the Los Angeles Lions. It was an exciting book that only made me yearn more for an afternoon at the ballpark.

"No, a Hohokam field was a dug-out oval coated in caliche, stretching anywhere from eight to two hundred feet. That's like the stretch from the plate to shallow center, nothing small about it. They even constructed sloped, rising sides around the field, so a crowd could gather, sit down and watch. Not a lot different from Salt River's own outfield lawn, the patchwork of beach blankets and picnic baskets that fans spread out today."

I, too, Lorna, am a baseball addict, but for me it’s the college version that most sets my blood pressure rising! Oh, “take me out to the ball game!”
Regards,
Andrea
P. S. My TBR List thanks you.

by Emily Nemens

Thank you, Andrea. If one is a baseball fan and of the southwestern part of the United States, this is a wonderful book. I will look forward to your thoughts.

Lorna, GO RICE OWLS!!! (Sorry Lorna, I just couldn’t resist that.). Do you actually keep a scorecard on every game that you watch? That’s a dying art form.
Regards,
Andrea

Andrea wrote: "Lorna, GO RICE OWLS!!! (Sorry Lorna, I just couldn’t resist that.). Do you actually keep a scorecard on every game that you watch? That’s a dying art form.
Regards,
Andrea"

Andrea, you make me laugh. No, I do not keep a scorecard. I am too in the ambiance of what is going on. Oh, I am really missing baseball!

Lorna, you might want to re-think that if you try reading “The Joy of Keeping Score.” I don’t keep score either, but my best friend does religiously. She can go back years and reconstruct a ball game from her elaborately coded scorecard book. For her it’s a memnonic device.
Regards,
Andrea

by Paul Dickson

39. by Stephanie Soileau
Finish date: July 18, 2020
Genre: Fiction, Short Stories
Rating: B
Review: Last One Out Shut Off the Lights was a stunning debut collection of short stories taking place in the bayous of southwestern Louisiana by author Stephanie Soileau. This area has long been plagued by natural disasters such as hurricanes, flooding and erosion, as well the man-made disasters imposed by the presence of oil refineries and chemical plants leading to the industrial waste, contamination and pollution that has ravaged this area.

The Cajun influence as well as endurance and survival is a predominant theme pulsing through these short, many heartbreaking stories, and many unforgettable, in this hardscrabble existence. Soileau's honesty and unflinching voice as well as her empathy with these people and this area is key. The prose is stark but beautifully descriptive, making it impossible to put this book down.

"Her mother was in the kitchen stirring a pot of roux on the stove, easing the bubbling flour-and-oil brew from pasty beige to nearly black. It filled the house with a charred, ashy tang that smelled both catastrophic and delicious."

". . . she crossed the bridge to Lake Charles and pulled off, finally at the beach. . . . On the opposite shore: a petrochemical metropolis, the likely source of this muck. . . . A long white burn-off cloud trailed from a smokestack to join a low blanket of actual clouds, which made it seem the plants and refineries might be the source of all weather and gloom."

"At night, from top of Lake Charles Bridge, the plants dazzled, a spectacle: merry twinkling lights, fires atop chimneys white and slim and tall as dinner candles. The casino boats floated at the shore, yoked to the town like a couple of water buffalo to drag it out of the sludge pit of the 1980s."

"It was the vague, embedded memory of those desolate '80s, the oil-bust years, the slim Christmases and government issued "cheese food." The bumper stickers everywhere that read LAST ONE OUT SHUT OFF THE LIGHTS! It was all of this and it was none of this. And if it wasn't this, what was it? It was her. It was in her. It was something awful in her. What candle could light such a darkness?"

40. by Samantha Power
Finish date: July 21, 2020
Genre: Memoir
Rating: A
Review: The Education of an Idealist: A Memoir by Samantha Power was an engaging and highly reflective book. I vividly remember Samantha Power as a human rights advocate and as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations in Barack Obama's second term with her impassioned speeches and pleas to the United Nations about atrocities that were taking place throughout the world, including the gassing of children in Syria. I also remember Ambassador Power at Secretary of State John Kerry's side when he was attempting to broker the deal with Iran and the Paris climate accord agreement.

Samantha Power has clearly been a key player on the world stage, but in this memoir was the rest of the story, her compelling and beautifully told story. Her early years were spent in Dublin, Ireland before emigrating to the United States of America at age nine. Her experiences as an immigrant were key in shaping who she became and what she has fought for throughout her life. I have always had a lot of admiration and respect for Ms. Power which was only deepened by this heartfelt and unflinching memoir.

"This reminded me of the peril of applying analogies in geopolitics, best encapsulated in Mark Twain's line: 'A cat who sits on a hot stove will never sit on a hot stove again. But he won't sit on a cold stove either.'"

"The editors did their best to remind me of the US context so I could keep my readers foremost in my mind. They drilled into my head one of the basic truisms of reporting: if I did not make the stakes of the issue clear and compelling, most people would not read past the first paragraph."

"Amid the darkness, the resilience of the people of Bosnia was inspiring. They asserted their dignity in large and small ways. . . Poets, novelists, and musicians kept writing. Though the main theaters had been reduced to rubble, artists found places to perform plays and music."

"If the United States steps back from leading the world--because of exhaustion, disillusionment, or internal division--American ideals, American prosperity, and American security will suffer. "

"People who care, act, and refuse to give up may not change the world, but they can change many individual worlds."

THANK YOU, LORNA! Your articulate review reminds me of why I put this book on my TBR List to begin with. Now I shall move it forward in the cue.
Regards,
Andrea

Andrea wrote: "THANK YOU, LORNA! Your articulate review reminds me of why I put this book on my TBR List to begin with. Now I shall move it forward in the cue.
Regards,
Andrea"

Thank you, Andrea. It is truly a wonderful book. I will look forward to your thoughts.

by Samantha Power

41. by Paulette Jiles
Finish date: July 25, 2020
Genre: Historical Fiction
Rating: A-
Review: Simon the Fiddler was another riveting account of the settling of the American West in the state of Texas in the years at the close of the Civil War, and all of the tumult it encompassed, written in beautiful and descriptive prose as Paulette Jiles does so well. I have lived my life in the American West, and as such, gravitate toward literature that describes the history and magic of this vast and incredible country and its people.

This is the story of young Simon Boudlin from Paducah, Kentucky at the close of the Civil War. Simon had managed to avoid conscription for some time when he was captured by the Confederate Army, but luckily assigned to the regimental band because of his talent as a fiddler. It is in this setting that we come to know Simon and his ragtag group of itinerant musicians. While playing for the Union Army one evening, Simon falls in love with the beautiful Doris Mary Aherne, an indentured young girl from Ireland serving as governess for a Union colonel's young daughter. Simon vows that he will someday make a life with the lovely young Irish lass in this vast territory of east Texas. I enjoyed the unfolding tale of Simon the Fiddler, and in addition to Paulette Jiles' beautiful prose, the interplay between the history of the United States as told through the beautiful music was both lyrical and magical.

"Every evening through the months of April and May the wind came up out of the Gulf at nine o'clock like a transparent armada set loose on the world of deep south Texas Simon could hear the Rio Grande River just beside camp where the Mexican women came to wash their white laundry in the brown water. He could hear the bells of churches on the other side. The wind bowed the thick stands of carrizo cane and the horses ate slowly. Egrets rose up with long leisurely strokes of their wings."

"He knew that he did not play music so much as walk into it, as if into a palace of great riches, with rooms opening into other rooms, which opened into still other rooms, and in these rooms were courtyards and fountains with passageways to yet more mysterious spaces of melody, peculiar intervals, unheard notes."

"Simon turned back at a run to get his fiddle. It was all he had against a chaotic world, and the mindlessness of a losing war, against corruption, thievery, cowardice, incompetence, cactus, gunsmoke, and hominy."

"The wild horses disappear into the distance in a cloud of dust; faerie enticements."

"It was a dreaming time; the long blue Nueces curving through this grassy country with a secret all of its own, and on both sides of it herds of wild horses stood together quietly grazing or sleeping. Wild cattle lifted their heads down in the brush alongside the river to hear the noise of the loping, scenting wolves, who ran with their noses to the ground searching for the smell of something newly born, something wounded, something old, something sick. The river fed the darting Guadalupe bass and its own gallery forest on either side."

"He saw all the hard road before them unrolling like a scroll and their names there, for better or worse, written in the Book of Life."

Good progress Lorna.

AUGUST

42. by Jhumpa Lahiri
Finish date: August 3, 2020
Genre: Essay
Rating: B+
Review: The Clothing of Books was a delightful essay by one of my favorite contemporary authors, Jhumpa Lahiri, as she explores the meaning of book covers. Quite a few years ago when we were in the process of renovating our home, I remember being horrified at the suggestion of an interior designer that I should remove all of the covers from the books in my library. I couldn't imagine anything worse than stripping my beautiful books of their unique identity. Lahiri explores the meaning of book jackets to her as a writer and their significance throughout the world. It was a delightful read that was first presented as the keynote speech for the Festival degli Scrittori in Florence, Italy in June 2015.

"If the process of writing is a dream, the book cover represents the awakening."

"The right cover is like a beautiful coat, elegant and warm, wrapping my words as they travel through the world, on their way to keep an appointment with my readers."

"If I could dress a book myself, I would like a still life by Morandi on the cover, or maybe a collage by Matisse. It would make no commercial sense, and would probably not mean anything to the reader. But I recognize myself in the abstract eye, the chromatic palette, the language of each of these painters. It would make sense to me."

43. by Michael Cunningham
Finish date: August 3, 2020
Genre: Memoir, Travel
Rating: B+
Review: Land's End: A Walk in Provincetown was a delightful book by Michael Cunningham discussing his long love affair with Provincetown at Land's End on the sandy tip at the end of Cape Cod, dating back more than twenty years when he first spent time there as part of a writing fellowship. Not only did he quickly fall in love with the haunting seascape and quaint village, but for the first time, he actually felt like he had found "home," the place where he belonged. Cunningham talks not only about the history of the this quaint area but also the influence of art and literature over the centuries. Exploring Michael Cunningham's Provincetown was a lovely way to spend an afternoon.

"There is a short interval on clear summer evenings in Provincetown, after the sun has set, when the sky is deep blue but the hulls of boats in the harbor retain a last vestige of light that is visible nowhere else. They become briefly phosphorescent in a dim blue world."

"If I die tomorrow, Provincetown is where I'd want my ashes scattered. Who knows why we fall in love, with places or people, with objects or ideas? Thirty centuries of literature haven't begun to solve the mystery; nor have they in any way slaked our interest in it."

44. by Rick Atkinson
Finish date: August 4, 2020
Genre: History
Rating: A
Review: The British are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777 is a meticulously and deeply researched history of the American Revolution by renowned historian Rick Atkinson. This first volume of the anticipated Revolution Trilogy was riveting as you watch the struggling Continental Army up against the mighty and formidable forces of the British Army and Royal Navy dispatched by King George III.

This is the story of the newly formed colonies in America and their struggle, not only for freedom, but to forge a new democratic nation. Atkinson describes the first twenty-one months of the American Revolution with the battles at Lexington and Concord, to those at Trenton and Princeton, told in painful detail. We see each of these battles, not only from the point of view of the generals to the soldiers, but to those waiting at home.

This was a fast-paced book as we see well known characters from our history to the more obscure. I, for one, will be anxiously awaiting Volume II of this remarkable tale of America's early and laudable history.

"Still, the British Army and Royal Navy had been driven off by a rabblement of farmers and shopkeepers. Led by low-born ascendant men like the plowman Israel Putnam, the anchorsmith Greene, and book vendor Knox. Washington had displayed persistence and integrity, as well as political agility. The revolutionary hour had passed, to be succeeded by other hours, some of them dreadful."

"That a large, balding American, renowned across Europe as a scientist, diplomat, and revolutionary, would remain inconspicuous as he trotted through the French provinces defied probability. Whatever the great man's purpose, Paris was alert and giddy while awaiting his arrival. When word spread in London of Franklin's advance in on Paris, British stocks fell."

"'Common Sense' had helped nudge Americans toward their declaration of independency, converting fence straddlers into patriots and patriots into radicals."

"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of this country. But he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph." -- Thomas Paine

45. by Jack Kerouac
Finish date: August 9, 2020
Genre: Classic
Rating: A
Review: What better time to read Jack Kerouac's timeless classic On the Road than during a pandemic when all my travel plans are on hold indefinitely. This is a delightful book written about Kerouac's travels, primarily with his friend Dean Moriarty, but with many other friends and acquaintances along the way as they traversed America at least twice and Mexico as well from New York to New Jersey to Denver to San Francisco to New Orleans to Houston to Tucson in their search for freedom and individuality. The prose was descriptive and captivating integrating regional music including jazz from the Mississippi Delta to New Orleans to Kansas City as well as local foods into the narrative. This is a story of young people of the Beat Generation trying to find themselves and their way in the world post World War II and during the presidency of Harry Truman. I enjoyed Kerouac's writing. This may have been the perfect time to read this as I was able to vicariously travel throughout America.

I was halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future, and maybe that's why it happened right there and then, that I went outside. And there in the blue air I saw for the first time, far off, the great snowy tops of the Rocky Mountains. I took a deep breath. I had to get to Denver at once."

"It was a wonderful night. Central City is two miles high; at first you get drunk on the altitude, then you get tired, and there's a fever in your soul. We approached the lights around the opera house down the dark narrow street; then we took a sharp right and hit some old saloons with swinging doors. Most of the tourists were in the opera."

"It seemed like a matter of minutes when we began rolling in the foothills before Oakland and suddenly reached a height and saw stretched out ahead of us the fabulous white city of San Francisco on her eleven mystic hills with the blue Pacific and its advancing wall of potato-patch fog beyond, and smoke and goldenness in the late afternoon of time."

46. by Nicholas D. Kristof
Genre: Non-Fiction
Finish date: August 13, 2020
Rating: B
Review: Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope by Nicholas Kristoff and Sheryl WuDunn was the most sobering and depressing account of where this country is today and why. Nicholas Kristoff went back to the farming community of Yamhill, Oregon to follow up with all of the children on the Route Number 6 School Bus that he had grown up with. These were the children with whom Nicholas Kristof rode to and from school each day on the Number 6 bus, his friends. What he found was harrowing, depressing and discouraging; almost one-third of his classmates had succumbed to the ravages of drug addiction, alcoholism, and suicide.

But in spite of the harrowing accounts of so many lives in peril, there were also many threads of hope throughout this book even in the midst of suicides, drug addiction, alcoholism, domestic violence, poverty, homelessness and despair. It makes one wonder why there was such a sharp and drastic discrepancy in their childhood. Nicholas Kristoff was brought up in this same area but in his home there were books as well as an intact and loving family, and what a difference it proved to be. Certainly, that was a factor but perhaps there were other factors as well. The importance of access to education, child care, and affordable health care is explored. As the authors researched the prevalence as well as the history of these societal ills, there were solutions put forth, but we all must first recognize the problems before we can fully address the possible solutions to them.

"But increasingly, for those from the lower socioeconomic spectrum, life resembles a tightrope walk. Some make it across, but for so many, one stumble and that's it. What's more, a tumble from the tightrope frequently destroys not only that individual but the entire family, including children and, through them, grandchildren. The casualties are everywhere in America, if we only care to notice."

47. by Jordan Ritter Conn
Finish date: August 19, 2020
Genre: Narrative Non-Fiction
Rating: A
Review: The Road From Raqqa: A Story of Brotherhood, Borders, and Belonging was a riveting non-fiction narrative of two of the Alkasem brothers, Riyad and Bashar, as told by author Jordan Ritter Conn. The author first came to meet Riyad Alkasem in January 2016 in Hendersonville, Tennessee at his restaurant, Café Rakka, located in a strip mall deep in the American South. Conn was given Riyad's name as the best Arabic translator in Tennessee and located near his Nashville home. At the time Jordan Ritter Conn was working for ESPN and had already traveled once to the Syrian-Turkey border, now preparing for a second trip reporting on a soccer team aligned with the Syrian rebel forces. He and Riyad telephoned Conn's source and talked about the war tearing his homeland apart, and the men and women of the rebel forces who believed they were fighting to build a better Syria than Riyad had left quite some time ago. Jordan Ritter Conn then spent the afternoon and many subsequent afternoons in the following years listening the story of Riyad and his brother Bashar and the story of their ancestral home in Raqqa, Syria.

The story of Riyad and Bashar is told in riveting and beautiful prose as we explore their childhood in Raqqa and the history of generations of the Alkasem family dating back to the legends of eighteenth-century warrior Ibrahim and his great-grandson, Taha. The history of this once lovely city located in the desert on the northeast banks of the Euphrates River was spell-binding, as was the childhood of Riyad and Bashar in Raqqa. This is also the heartbreaking story of a people being driven from their homes because of violence and war. It is the different paths taken by the two Alkasem brothers and their different paths of immigration as they made their way to their adopted countries. This is the harrowing story of refugees fleeing their homeland and trying to find their place in their new world. This was a beautiful and heartbreaking book, one that I will not soon forget.

"And Riyad and Bashar grew up learning the stories of their ancestors and of their city, and they saw themselves as carrying on the traditions passed down from Taha on the land passed down from Ibrahim."

"And Riyad and Bashar wondered what makes a city when its people have fled or died, what makes a home when a house has become rubble, and what makes a family when brothers and sisters are sent to scatter across the world."

"They say there is something different about the wind in Raqqa. That it starts on the river and lifts across the desert, pouring down the streets of the Old City, into squares and private courtyards, always carrying the season's scent. . . . . Without that wind from the Euphrates, maybe no one ever would have smelled the coffee brewed by Taha, all those centuries ago."

"Raqqa's people were scattered, but not by the Euphrates wind."

Good progress

48. by John Boyne
Finish date: August 23, 2020
Genre: Fiction
Rating: A
Review: The Absolutist by John Boyne was probably the most sobering account of the grim reality of war in the trenches of the Great War that I have read to date. While I have only recently become aware of the beauty of John Boyne's writing, since I have discovered this lovely Irish author, I am slowly making my way through his brilliant body of work.

The Absolutist begins with Tristin Sadler arriving in Norwich from his home in London to deliver a packet of letters to the sister of his wartime friend, Will Bancroft. In their unit of twenty young men, there is a "feather man," while conscientiously objecting to fighting, he is willing to carry a stretcher as contrasted to an absolutist, one who has chosen to have no part in the war effort at all. It should be noted that out of that group of twenty young men, only two survived.

This is a gripping tale unfolding as Tristan Sadler meets with Will's sister, Marian Bancroft. The narrative alternates with their time together and the times recalled by Sadler as we live the horror of their training at Aldershot and then their dispatch to France in the trenches as they fought the Germans. This is a book that unflinchingly deals with the realities of war as young men try to determine what their role should be as well as a coming-of-age story told as only Boyne can do. This was an unforgettable book.

"The caricature of me writing my books in the corner snugs of London saloons, the one that irritates me so and has caused me, in later life, to rise up, bristling and whinnying in interviews like an aggravated horse, is not,, in fact, a mistaken one. After all, the clamour of the crowded public house is infinitely more welcoming than the stillness of the empty home."

"Why did I come here? I wondered. What was I thinking? If it was redemption I sought, there was none to be found. If it was understanding, there was no one who could offer it. If it was forgiveness, I deserved none."

"My twin contradictory places of idleness: the public bar and the chapel. One so social and teeming with life, the other quiet and warning of death."

"I don't think I did survive it. I may not be buried in a French field but I linger there. My spirit does, anyway. I think I'm just breathing, that's all. And there's a difference between breathing and being alive."

49. by Charlotte Alter (no photo)
Finish date: August 28, 2020
Genre: Non-fiction, Political History
Rating: A
Review: The Ones We've Been Waiting For: How a New Generation of Leaders Will Transform America by Charlotte Alter was a riveting look at the political upheaval that has been taking place in recent years, but at the same time so hopeful as she profiles ten millennials who are changing the political landscape as they seek to change the fabric of this country. Alter is a national correspondent for TIME and has covered the 2016, 2018, and 2020 campaigns as well as youth social movements and women in politics. It is within this backdrop that Ms. Alter has tapped into the changes that are occurring as she highlights the millennials that are giving their all to public and government service, both locally and nationally, because they care deeply about the pressing issues, including climate change, health care, economic security and student debt.

The millennials featured in this book were the likes of Pete Buttigieg, Haley Stevens, Braxton Winston, Elise Stefanik, Dan Crenshaw, Eric Lesser, Max Rose, Lauren Underwood, Svante Myrick, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. This was the generation that was shaped by 9/11, the candidacy and presidency of Barack Obama, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, climate change, marriage equality, and the fight for affordable health care. I loved this book, and in a time when we are struggling to survive in the midst of a COVID-19 pandemic with all of the attendant social and economic woes, I am tired. I am ready for this new generation to rise through the ranks and come to lead us in a new direction, preserving our democracy and creating a place for all Americans to thrive and flourish. I will finish in the words of one of my favorite authors, Walter Isaacson, "By the end, you'll smile and say to yourself, 'There's hope.'" Indeed Mr. Isaacson, there is hope and I am applauding and cheering their dramatic entry onto the national scene. Godspeed.

"This little-known Illinois senator represented a definitive break from the past. Before Obama, politics was for parents and teachers--after Obama, young people of color could see themselves reflected in the Oval Office. Before Obama, politics was boring--after Obama, politics was cool."

"This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected," he said. "And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation--the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election." -- Barack Obama, March 2008

". . . the Obama presidency would be a transformational moment, not just for them, but for their entire generation. Over the course of eight years, the president--their president--would deliver for them on affordable health care, college loans, marriage equality, and climate change, all issues that would become especially important to millennials in the years to come."

"Pete and AOC may have been on the opposite sides of the Democratic primary, but together they would represent the dawn of a new political era--one in which millennials swung the center of political gravity to the left just as boomers had swung it to the right."

50. by Albert Camus
Finish date: August 29, 2020
Genre: Literary Fiction
Rating: B
Review: The Plague written by Albert Camus in 1948 was a fictional narrative about the city of Oran in Algeria that was afflicted with the bubonic plague. This has long been considered to be a literary classic of the twentieth century, so what better time to finally read it but in the midst of a worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, maybe not. As in epidemics of the bubonic plague, it starts first with the exponentially increasing death of rats, soon followed by human fatalities. How this community becomes aware of the gravity of their situation and what they do is engaging, beginning with shutting their community off from the rest of society. The narrator of this harrowing chronicle is Dr. Bernard Rieux. The crux of the story is the reaction of the people of Oran, as they each, in their own way, come to terms with their reality. There are a lot of interesting and colorful people as we see how they attempt to cope. What was key to me were all of the conflicting emotions that you witness in each person in Oron as attempt to endure their lot.

It should be noted that in 1957, Camus was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. I became very engaged with the stark but expressive writing of Camus. While this book has been compared to an allegory of the German occupation of Europe, and I could definitely see parallels, I won't be reading it again to explore that premise. Be safe everyone, and take care.

"For our fellow citizens that summer sky and the streets thick in dust, gray as their present lives, had the same ominous import as the hundred deaths now weighing daily on the town. That incessant sunlight and those bright hours associated with siesta or with no holidays no longer invited, as in the past, to frolics and flirtation on the beaches. Now they rang hollow in the silence of the closed town, they had lost the golden spell of happier summers. Plague had killed the colors, vetoed pleasure."

SEPTEMBER

51. by Leif Enger
Finish date: September 2, 2020
Genre: Fiction
Rating: B
Review: Virgil Wander is the latest novel by one of my favorite writers, Leif Enger, as he brings the town of Greenstone in northern Minnesota and its ragtag and quirky group of residents to life. The town has seen the loss of mining, shipping, and many businesses causing a feeling of malaise. When we meet Virgil Wander, he is recovering in a hospital in Duluth after being rescued from Lake Superior where his car had careened from the icy and snowy highway into the frigid lake waters. Sustaining a severe concussion, Virgil is suffering from memory loss and language problems, as in the loss of adjectives from his vocabulary. The quiet beauty of this story is in the parallel healing of Virgil Wander as well as the town of Greenstone; it is a tale about family and friends, unbreakable bonds, trust, hope and faith. It is also a story about changes, both large and small, that we all must face. It was a delightful and moving journey in the capable hands of Leif Enger.

"But all I can say is our future is airborne, I never saw a winter so blue. We all dream of finding but what's wrong with looking? When the sun rises we'll know what to do."

52. by A.N. Wilson
Finish date: September 5, 2020
Genre: Literary Biography
Rating: A
Review: The Mystery of Charles Dickens by A. N. Wilson is captivating on so many different levels as this English author is able to weave his life and personal reflections throughout this beautiful book. Because of the author's personal connection to Charles Dickens and the interesting way that this was approached, as in separating the chapters into segments of Dickens' life gave one a whole new perspective. The impact of the comparisons of Dickens' literature with his life experiences was invaluable as well. A. N. Wilson researched this book extensively, not only on Dickens' written words but his many speeches throughout the world.

I think we imagine A Christmas Carol when we think of Charles Dickens as that is how most of us became acquainted with this wonderful talent. One can only imagine all of the different portrayals of this magnificent play that have been performed over the years. I know that in our family it was always a tradition to see A Christmas Carol each year at the theater, later including our grandsons as well.

And as an aside, I must add a few words about this beautiful and haunting book cover. Those of you who know me, know that I pay attention to the artistry of book covers, in fact, I even have a shelf dedicated to my favorite book covers and this one is special. It is from the famous unfinished watercolor by the artist Robert William Buss -- Dicken's Dream, depicting Charles Dickens in his study at Gad's Hill, his eyes closed, cigar in hand, slippers on his feet and the characters of his fiction dancing around him. These characters include Little Nell, Mr. Pickwick, Oliver Twist and Fagin. This magical painting can be seen in the Dickens Museum.

This was a beautiful book and extensively researched but what made it special was A. N. Wilson's willingness to share his personal journey with Charles Dickens. While I am working my way through Dickens' beautiful body of work, this will be a book that I will read again as I think there is much that was lost on me because I have not read all of his works. We all need a goal . . .

"It was in the novel that he soared to his great heights, in the novel that he touched millions of human hearts."

53. by Leif Enger
Finish date: September 9, 2020
Genre: Fiction
Rating: B+
Review: So Brave, Young and Handsome was such a beautiful tale by one of my favorite contemporary authors and such a masterful storyteller, Leif Enger. I have an affinity for the early, rough and tumble, nitty gritty exploration and development of the American West. This author can spin stories from an earlier time reminiscent of the likes of Larry McMurtry or John Steinbeck. This is basically an old-fashioned road trip where all of our basic beliefs and values come in to play. This is a book that will keep you enthralled throughout this beautiful and often heartbreaking journey. I will be looking forward to his next book.

"The Cowboy's Lament"

We Beat the drum slowly and played the fife lowly
And bitterly wept as we bore him along
For we all loved our comrade, so brave, young, and handsome
We all loved our comrade although he'd done wrong

54. by Paulette Jiles
Finish date: September 26, 2020
Genre: Historical Fiction
Rating: B+
Review: Enemy Women was the stunning debut literary novel by Paulette Jiles set during the Civil War in southeastern Missouri. Each chapter begins with epigraphs giving varied historical information, background and context for the devastation and despair flowing from the "War Between the States." Even though the Colley family avowed neutrality, they were caught up in the maelstrom of devastation and destruction as the war raged on.

Forced to leave when the Union Army burned their home, beating up her widowed father and driving her brother into hiding. Adair Colley then salvaging what she could, including a Log Cabin quilt, fled with her younger sisters, vowing to find her father and brother as well as their horses. While fleeing, Adair Colley was falsely accused of crimes by a fellow traveler and imprisoned in St. Louis. Forced to undergo hours of interrogation by a Union major, he finds that he is in love with her. Before leaving the prison on a new military assignment on the front, he promises that he will return for her and gives her what she will need to escape when the opportunity arises. Adair Colley then becomes an "enemy woman" on the run. This is the story of Adair Colley and the story of Major Will Neumann.

"Adair drew the Log Cabin quilt out of its linen wrapping and examined it in the firelight. . . . She studied it with intense interest. The hearths were all velvets of varying reds. Carmine, scarlet, a garnet, a deep rose. There was a beautiful silk repeated over and over on the shadow side, which was a dark brown with a figure in garnet that might have been the face of a clock. Adair spread her hand over one of the blocks as if over her home with its red velvet fire in the heart of her family, both living and dead."