I read Rachel Maddow's book Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power (#274) with a great deal of interest. Just what is going on with the outrageous amounts of money in our national Defense Budget? Why hasn't Congress been more involved in making the decisions about when and where and with whom we go to war? Will it ever stop?
Rachel Maddow explains in this easy to read and often funny (but hard to stomach!) book how the power to declare war was deliberately given to Congress in our Constitution, but has shifted since World War II from Congress to the Executive Branch. How did we wind up in Vietnam, or Nicaragua or Bosnia? What about Iraq and Afghanistan? I felt for the first time on reading Drift that I had some glimmers of understanding about what was going on in these places.
Rachel Maddow feels that we can change course to come closer to the "deliberately peaceful" ideal the Founding Fathers wished for our country, and outlines a few steps we could take in that direction. A lot depends on Congress becoming proactive in protecting their Constitutional rights. (And I wish all of us Americans good luck with that! I'm sure we'll be seeing pigs (or possibly drones!) flying past our windows before that happens!) It's eye-opening, to say the least. I think this book should be on every thinking American's "To Read" list.
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Monday, March 4, 2013
Habits of the House
Experiencing somewhat of a let down after my recent Downton Abbey marathon, I was delighted to receive a notice that Fay Weldon's Habits of the House (#273) was being held for me at the library. The cover blurb for the first book in this new trilogy promised "an entertaining romp for Downton Abbey fans." Well, no wonder. Ms. Weldon won a Writers' Guild Award for her pilot of another favorite, Upstairs, Downstairs. She obviously knows her turn-of-the-century British upper class households!
In this entertaining and scandalous entry, the action takes place in the Earl of Dilberne's household in a period of just over two months. It begins when the Earl's man of business rushes to Berkley Place to inform Robert Hedleigh that he is facing economic ruin after his gold mine is taken over during the Boer War in South Africa. Not only will the Earl suffer financially, but so will Eric Baum himself, who has lent the Earl the money to invest in the first place. The problem is, no one takes Mr. Baum seriously. He has disrupted the house by coming so early in the morning, and the servants won't even be bothered to open the door to him. From there, it's downhill for Mr. Baum's day. When the Earl, his Countess, their daughter Rosina, who fancies herself a "New Woman" and their son and heir, Viscount Arthur, are finally told the news over breakfast, it seems to have no effect on them. Life goes on, and the most important thing in their future is the December dinner party for the Prince of Wales. But underneath the placid surface, things are changing for the Hedleigh family: secrets will out, social barriers will be thrust aside, and the staff will play an important role in the fate of the family, and thus, themselves. The newspaper account of the Countess's successful dinner party honoring the Prince of Wales sums up the events of this novel nicely.
It's all very juicy and it does live up to the promise of The Guardian's cover blurb. But what happens next? Now I'm hooked. The only problem is that it's a longer wait between books than it is between episodes! Long Live the King is due out later this year, but I'll have to wait until early 2014 for the final installment, The New Countess. Trust me, these are both on my "To Read" shelf already!
In this entertaining and scandalous entry, the action takes place in the Earl of Dilberne's household in a period of just over two months. It begins when the Earl's man of business rushes to Berkley Place to inform Robert Hedleigh that he is facing economic ruin after his gold mine is taken over during the Boer War in South Africa. Not only will the Earl suffer financially, but so will Eric Baum himself, who has lent the Earl the money to invest in the first place. The problem is, no one takes Mr. Baum seriously. He has disrupted the house by coming so early in the morning, and the servants won't even be bothered to open the door to him. From there, it's downhill for Mr. Baum's day. When the Earl, his Countess, their daughter Rosina, who fancies herself a "New Woman" and their son and heir, Viscount Arthur, are finally told the news over breakfast, it seems to have no effect on them. Life goes on, and the most important thing in their future is the December dinner party for the Prince of Wales. But underneath the placid surface, things are changing for the Hedleigh family: secrets will out, social barriers will be thrust aside, and the staff will play an important role in the fate of the family, and thus, themselves. The newspaper account of the Countess's successful dinner party honoring the Prince of Wales sums up the events of this novel nicely.
It's all very juicy and it does live up to the promise of The Guardian's cover blurb. But what happens next? Now I'm hooked. The only problem is that it's a longer wait between books than it is between episodes! Long Live the King is due out later this year, but I'll have to wait until early 2014 for the final installment, The New Countess. Trust me, these are both on my "To Read" shelf already!
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Holidays in Hell
I picked up P.J. O'Rourke's Holidays in Hell (#272) from my library's travel books display because I recognized his name from hearing him on NPR. The cover blurb "In which our intrepid reporter travels to the world's worst places and asks "What's funny about this?"" was enough to convince me.
It wasn't until I began reading it that I realized that this was a reissue of a 1988 collection of articles which originally appeared in other publications between 1986 and 1988. In his introduction, O'Rourke explains that his object was to visit places where conflict was occurring, not as a serious reporter, but rather as a tourist. An interesting (if not crazy!) way to see things. Can you spell adrenaline junkie? It was amazing to me how many of the political groups and conflicts which P. J. O'Rourke covered in this book used to make up the bulk of the nightly news, and that I remembered the names of the Lebanese and Nicaraguan splinter groups after not hearing them for years. But it was equally amazing how much has changed in just twenty five years, while remaining exactly the same. Only the place names and ethnicities are different.
I have to admit that the first group of articles was very amusing, even laughter provoking. But when I hit Weekend Getaway: Heritage USA (Does anyone even remember what this was now?) the mood of the book shifted from sarcastic, funny and spot on observations to sarcastic and downright nasty. I certainly wouldn't have classified either this ultra conservative fundamentalist Christian theme park founded by Jim and Tammy Bakker in South Carolina or Disney's Epcot Center in Orlando as locations too dangerous for the average American to travel to, but it's clear that O'Rourke's acid tongue could burn a large hole in your self confidence if you have the nerve to admit that you ever enjoyed either place. For the remainder of the book, there was a sameness to the articles which verged on extreme tediousness. I kept reading, hoping that Mr. O'Rourke would recapture some of the witty skewering he began with. Alas, it was not to be.
He was also way off the mark on the predictions he made for what the world scene would look like in 2013, although he did almost get one of his wishes: former New York City mayor Ed Koch did die this year, but that's long after O'Rourke hoped it would happen.
An interesting and quaint bit of nostalgia if you're old enough to remember the political scenes of the mid to late 1980s, but I certainly wouldn't add Holidays in Hell to my "Must Read" list.
It wasn't until I began reading it that I realized that this was a reissue of a 1988 collection of articles which originally appeared in other publications between 1986 and 1988. In his introduction, O'Rourke explains that his object was to visit places where conflict was occurring, not as a serious reporter, but rather as a tourist. An interesting (if not crazy!) way to see things. Can you spell adrenaline junkie? It was amazing to me how many of the political groups and conflicts which P. J. O'Rourke covered in this book used to make up the bulk of the nightly news, and that I remembered the names of the Lebanese and Nicaraguan splinter groups after not hearing them for years. But it was equally amazing how much has changed in just twenty five years, while remaining exactly the same. Only the place names and ethnicities are different.
I have to admit that the first group of articles was very amusing, even laughter provoking. But when I hit Weekend Getaway: Heritage USA (Does anyone even remember what this was now?) the mood of the book shifted from sarcastic, funny and spot on observations to sarcastic and downright nasty. I certainly wouldn't have classified either this ultra conservative fundamentalist Christian theme park founded by Jim and Tammy Bakker in South Carolina or Disney's Epcot Center in Orlando as locations too dangerous for the average American to travel to, but it's clear that O'Rourke's acid tongue could burn a large hole in your self confidence if you have the nerve to admit that you ever enjoyed either place. For the remainder of the book, there was a sameness to the articles which verged on extreme tediousness. I kept reading, hoping that Mr. O'Rourke would recapture some of the witty skewering he began with. Alas, it was not to be.
He was also way off the mark on the predictions he made for what the world scene would look like in 2013, although he did almost get one of his wishes: former New York City mayor Ed Koch did die this year, but that's long after O'Rourke hoped it would happen.
An interesting and quaint bit of nostalgia if you're old enough to remember the political scenes of the mid to late 1980s, but I certainly wouldn't add Holidays in Hell to my "Must Read" list.
Monday, February 25, 2013
Flower Net
It's always a pleasure when you come across something by one of your favorite authors which you haven't read yet. That's the case with Lisa See's thriller Flower Net (#271), originally published in 1997. In fact, I thought it was such a good thriller that my husband will finally be reading his first Lisa See novel!
Set in modern day Beijing and Los Angeles, the bodies of two young men are discovered thousands of miles apart. One is the son of the American Ambassador to China, found frozen in a lake in a Beijing park. The other is a "Red Prince", the son of a wealthy Chinese business man whose body turns up on a Chinese cargo ship left adrift in American territorial waters with hundreds of illegal immigrants aboard. As Inspector Liu Hulan of the Ministry of Public Safety in Beijing investigates, her suspicions are aroused. Meanwhile, U.S. Assistant District Attorney David Stark is busy pursuing the connection between the China Peony, her passengers who all claim not to know anything about the body, and the role of the Chinese triads in the whole affair. A decision is made at the highest levels in the US and China to work jointly to solve the two cases that seem, by the manner of their deaths, to be related. Are the triads truly involved, or are Inspector Liu and David Stark hunting for a vicious serial killer? The action moves back and forth between Beijing and Los Angeles, and things aren't made any easier for Liu and Stark when they find themselves working together. Again.
I didn't want to put this book down once I started it, and I have to admit, I read it throughout the Oscar presentations. I was glad, though, that I didn't read this book until after I had been to Beijing myself. Although things have changed quite a bit in the fifteen years since Flower Net was first published, if you've ever been there yourself, you'll recognize much of the background that Lisa See incorporates in her plot, especially if you've been fortunate enough to visit the old style Chinese homes in the hutong. Even if you haven't, be prepared to set aside everything else while you try to stay one step ahead in this thriller.
Set in modern day Beijing and Los Angeles, the bodies of two young men are discovered thousands of miles apart. One is the son of the American Ambassador to China, found frozen in a lake in a Beijing park. The other is a "Red Prince", the son of a wealthy Chinese business man whose body turns up on a Chinese cargo ship left adrift in American territorial waters with hundreds of illegal immigrants aboard. As Inspector Liu Hulan of the Ministry of Public Safety in Beijing investigates, her suspicions are aroused. Meanwhile, U.S. Assistant District Attorney David Stark is busy pursuing the connection between the China Peony, her passengers who all claim not to know anything about the body, and the role of the Chinese triads in the whole affair. A decision is made at the highest levels in the US and China to work jointly to solve the two cases that seem, by the manner of their deaths, to be related. Are the triads truly involved, or are Inspector Liu and David Stark hunting for a vicious serial killer? The action moves back and forth between Beijing and Los Angeles, and things aren't made any easier for Liu and Stark when they find themselves working together. Again.
I didn't want to put this book down once I started it, and I have to admit, I read it throughout the Oscar presentations. I was glad, though, that I didn't read this book until after I had been to Beijing myself. Although things have changed quite a bit in the fifteen years since Flower Net was first published, if you've ever been there yourself, you'll recognize much of the background that Lisa See incorporates in her plot, especially if you've been fortunate enough to visit the old style Chinese homes in the hutong. Even if you haven't, be prepared to set aside everything else while you try to stay one step ahead in this thriller.
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Insane City
Very few writers can make me laugh out loud. Dave Barry is one of them. I spent the last couple of days reading his latest, Insane City (#270) and thinking that the comedians of America must be so grateful for the material that could only come from Florida, and in this case, Miami in particular.
What could be a more perfect place to have your destination wedding than in sunny Florida? And since Seth Weinstein is marrying the perfect woman, and this is what Tina wants, he assumes everything will go along just swimmingly since her parents have more money than God. He couldn't be more wrong. His Groom Posse doesn't even wait until they get to Florida to pull their first prank on Seth. From there it's downhill as he manages to lose his luggage (with the custom-made wedding ring) and the Groom Posse, run afoul of an angry stripper and her gigantic manager (and he had specifically told Marty "No strippers!!!), alienate even further his soon-to-be in-laws, become involved with some desperate Haitian refugees and royally piss off his bride-to-be, Oh, and did I mention the albino python and the two hundred fifty pound orangutan with a yen for the ladies? And could Seth really be responsible for interfering with his father-in-law's strategic social move to join the ultra secretive and powerful Gang of Six? Can true love possibly triumph?
Insane City is a novel packed with an assortment of zany characters, a suspenseful story line, and twists and turns that you may see coming, but you won't care, because the ride is so much fun. And reading about it is much safer than being there!
What could be a more perfect place to have your destination wedding than in sunny Florida? And since Seth Weinstein is marrying the perfect woman, and this is what Tina wants, he assumes everything will go along just swimmingly since her parents have more money than God. He couldn't be more wrong. His Groom Posse doesn't even wait until they get to Florida to pull their first prank on Seth. From there it's downhill as he manages to lose his luggage (with the custom-made wedding ring) and the Groom Posse, run afoul of an angry stripper and her gigantic manager (and he had specifically told Marty "No strippers!!!), alienate even further his soon-to-be in-laws, become involved with some desperate Haitian refugees and royally piss off his bride-to-be, Oh, and did I mention the albino python and the two hundred fifty pound orangutan with a yen for the ladies? And could Seth really be responsible for interfering with his father-in-law's strategic social move to join the ultra secretive and powerful Gang of Six? Can true love possibly triumph?
Insane City is a novel packed with an assortment of zany characters, a suspenseful story line, and twists and turns that you may see coming, but you won't care, because the ride is so much fun. And reading about it is much safer than being there!
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Neither Here Nor There
I found Neither Here Nor There (#269), an early travel book by Bill Bryson, at my local library. The subject of this one is a 1990 trip Bryson took after he'd moved to England to live, trying to recreate his first trip to Europe in 1972 with his friend Steve Katz. Things are never the same when you try to recapture those youthful memories...
Bryson begins his solo trip in Hammerfest, Norway, the northernmost town in Europe, in order to see the Northern Lights. Naturally, the best time to see them is in the winter. Suffice it to say, it's not a place on the top of my list to visit. After that initial outing, Bryson returns home to England to wait for spring and pleasanter weather to continue his wandering across the rest of the continent - France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, Austria and assorted Balkan countries, ending in Istanbul at the edge of Asia.
On reading this, I began by laughing out loud at a number of his situations and observations. If you've traveled for business or for pleasure it's easy to sympathize with many of his plights. But as Bryson continues on his journey, especially through Austria and Eastern Europe, I found his wanderings becoming quite melancholic. Why was he spending so much aimless time in such joyless places? And why on earth had he and Katz chosen to go there in the first place back in 1972? It was sobering, looking back at his visit to Sarajevo, that it took place just before the outbreak of vicious Serbo-Croat hostilities when much of the city he saw was destroyed, or that he visited Bulgaria just weeks before its revolution.
Both my husband and I wondered what Bryson would find if he took roughly the same trip today in the era of the smart phone. I think he would find the changes even more profound. You couldn't use this book today as blueprint for things to see and do in Europe the way we used his In A Sunburned Country before we went to Australia (See my post of 9/5/11.). Still, it's a bit of nostalgia to look back at his travels, and remember when you were there in the early 70s and again in the 90s. In many ways, I'm glad you can't go back there again.
Bryson begins his solo trip in Hammerfest, Norway, the northernmost town in Europe, in order to see the Northern Lights. Naturally, the best time to see them is in the winter. Suffice it to say, it's not a place on the top of my list to visit. After that initial outing, Bryson returns home to England to wait for spring and pleasanter weather to continue his wandering across the rest of the continent - France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, Austria and assorted Balkan countries, ending in Istanbul at the edge of Asia.
On reading this, I began by laughing out loud at a number of his situations and observations. If you've traveled for business or for pleasure it's easy to sympathize with many of his plights. But as Bryson continues on his journey, especially through Austria and Eastern Europe, I found his wanderings becoming quite melancholic. Why was he spending so much aimless time in such joyless places? And why on earth had he and Katz chosen to go there in the first place back in 1972? It was sobering, looking back at his visit to Sarajevo, that it took place just before the outbreak of vicious Serbo-Croat hostilities when much of the city he saw was destroyed, or that he visited Bulgaria just weeks before its revolution.
Both my husband and I wondered what Bryson would find if he took roughly the same trip today in the era of the smart phone. I think he would find the changes even more profound. You couldn't use this book today as blueprint for things to see and do in Europe the way we used his In A Sunburned Country before we went to Australia (See my post of 9/5/11.). Still, it's a bit of nostalgia to look back at his travels, and remember when you were there in the early 70s and again in the 90s. In many ways, I'm glad you can't go back there again.
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
The Fifth Assassin
Caution! Don't read Brad Meltzer's latest thriller The Fifth Assassin (#268) unless you've already read the first book in this series The Inner Circle (See my post of 4/13/11.). Otherwise, you'll only be frustrated by the constant references to things, people and events in that book, and you'll miss half of what is going on here.
This time, someone is imitating the assassinations of the four Presidents of the United States killed in office. The difference is that each of the first four victims are pastors, but it's apparent that his or her ultimate target will be the sitting president, Orson Wallace unless they can figure out when and where the assassin will strike next. Beecher White, Archivist of the United States, is once again drawn into the plot with his mentor, Tot. Given his past history with President Wallace, is this accidental, or is it deliberate? The players involved make Beecher think that the plot's roots might be buried somewhere in his own past. Will the Culper Ring, sworn to protect the presidency, have enough manpower and resources to prevail against an unknown enemy whose motives are unclear?
If you have read The Inner Circle, you'll find The Fifth Assassin just as exciting. I burned the midnight oil finishing this one because I couldn't bear to wait until morning to find out what would happen and who was responsible. I did NOT see it coming! But be forewarned. Just like The Inner Circle, Mr. Meltzer intentionally leaves some threads dangling tantalizingly at the end. There will be more...(Or should I say, there'd better be more!)
This time, someone is imitating the assassinations of the four Presidents of the United States killed in office. The difference is that each of the first four victims are pastors, but it's apparent that his or her ultimate target will be the sitting president, Orson Wallace unless they can figure out when and where the assassin will strike next. Beecher White, Archivist of the United States, is once again drawn into the plot with his mentor, Tot. Given his past history with President Wallace, is this accidental, or is it deliberate? The players involved make Beecher think that the plot's roots might be buried somewhere in his own past. Will the Culper Ring, sworn to protect the presidency, have enough manpower and resources to prevail against an unknown enemy whose motives are unclear?
If you have read The Inner Circle, you'll find The Fifth Assassin just as exciting. I burned the midnight oil finishing this one because I couldn't bear to wait until morning to find out what would happen and who was responsible. I did NOT see it coming! But be forewarned. Just like The Inner Circle, Mr. Meltzer intentionally leaves some threads dangling tantalizingly at the end. There will be more...(Or should I say, there'd better be more!)
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