Never the Same: That Summer by Jennifer Weiner

I believe this is Jennifer Weiner's strongest novel. She has come so far in her writing career with this incisive book.

Diana, an attractive woman nearing 50, who manages a popular, upscale restaurant in Provincetown, Massachusetts, was once an intelligent, ambitious teenager who convinced her Boston parents to allow her to spend a summer on Cape Cod working as a mother's helper for a wealthy novelist/college professor and her husband, who own a large, beautiful second home with panoramic views.

Daisy, whose husband gave her that pet name in place of her own, also Diana, is a suburban Philadelphia wife, and the mother of Beatrice, a rebellious teenager. Daisy, in her early 30s, is an accomplished cook, and runs a small catering business out of her very comfortable home, while her husband, Hal, an older and very successful lawyer, rules the roost in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.

How, where, and why their lives converge is the focus of the story, which examines the lives and roles of girls and women, friendship, sexual mores and tensions, power issues between men and women, and the devastating trauma that results from date rape.

A Saga of Ambition: The Florios of Sicily by Stefania Auci

This multi-generational family saga is based on the real-life Florio family of Sicily, who rose from humble circumstances in a village on Italy's toe, which was destroyed by a massive earthquake, and became successful in a multitude of business ventures, including the first tuna canning, marsala wine exporting, and sulfur mining. 

The author masterfully describes the physical settings of the abandoned village, the atmosphere and physical surroundings of 19th century Sicily, along with insights into the social hierarchy, Italian politics and other important aspects that form the background of the Florios' lives. It's a wonderful lesson in history and sociology, as well as human nature.

Certain family members dominate as the story progresses but the ones that make up the heart of the book are Ignazio Florio, his nephew Vincenzo and his partner (later wife) Giulia, and their son Ignazio. Vincenzo is the strongest character of these and the one who was most responsible for establishing the family's successful business concerns. The family relationships among them and other leading characters are richly drawn.

The book is so vividly written that the reader feels completely transported to Palermo, and the background presented would greatly enhance any modern-day travel there.

Despite that, this is no lightweight romance or travel diary turned into a novel. It fully explores what the author has created as the emotional lives of the principals and we come to know them well. There is a lot to digest about family dynamics, the mores of the male-female roles of the time, business practices and so much more. The other key theme is family loyalty.

The novel is a rich and compelling read for anyone who enjoys history, is intrigued by Italian culture, and is a student of human nature, both its good and bad sides.

Highly recommend. 

70s Redux – Hearts of Darkness: James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Cat Stevens and the Unlikely Rise of the Singer-Songwriter

1970 and 1971 were the peak years of the Singer-Songwriter era in popular American music, according to author Dave Thompson. The phenomenon grew out of the folk and protest music of the mid to late 60s, which had already produced many iconic artists, including Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Tom Rush, Paul Simon, Art Garfunkel, and many more. Many of those musicians got their start in the coffeehouses and small clubs of Greenwich Village in New York, but gradually the scene shifted west. The Mamas and Papas' "California Dreamin", released in December, 1965, sums it up perfectly. Cass Elliott, one of the "Mamas", established a home in the Laurel Canyon section of Los Angeles that became the place where many of her fellow artists gathered. In 1970, Joni Mitchell's album, Ladies of the Canyon, referred to the area. 

In general, the late 60s and early 70s saw a tremendous number of musicians, singers and groups establish themselves, especially in Los Angeles. They were mainly among the earliest cohort of the Baby Boom Generation, and in fact, the three subjects of this book were all born in 1948. Despite the repercussions of the Vietnam War, it was a free and easy time in many respects, and youth culture reigned. Those of us who immediately followed by five to eight years also embraced their music and it became ingrained in our hearts and minds.

The Singer-Songwriters specialized in a lyric-rich songwriting style, and generally performed solo, at least in the beginnings of their careers. They were introspective and at times, brooding, writing and performing songs based on their personal life experiences, family and romantic relationships, and spoke to the social and political events of the day and how they affected them. Millions of listeners connected with both their angst and joy, and many of their songs and albums were hugely successful.

Thompson works through the chronological events of early careers of his three subjects, switching back and forth among them. There are many details and anecdotes of their interactions with the other artists, concert promoters, record producers and some family background. Some of it is interesting, some is distracting, and would have been better left out.

Two of the most appealing aspects of the book are the Epilogue, which presents updates on the various other artists, business figures and record companies that figure in the lives of the subjects; and, a Discography which lists all the recordings (studio and concert) of the three artists and their associates from 1963 through 1972.

Probably the least appealing aspect of the book is the cover art, which features a triptych of shots of Browne, Taylor, and Stevens. The picture of Taylor is an unfortunate choice. The handsome young Taylor graced the walls of many dorm rooms with his intense good looks, but here a shot was chosen in which he looks not unlike the notorious mass murderer Charles Manson (who committed his crimes in Greater Los Angeles in 1969). Perhaps that is because the author seems to have singled out Taylor (in my opinion, by far the most talented of the three subjects, and whose career has most endured) for the most criticism.

Beyond the Image: The Bohemians by Jasmin Darznik

On the site of San Francisco's Transamerica Tower, there once stood a four story building known as the Monkey Block, though its proper name was the Montgomery Building. This area was once the city's notorious red-light district, which went by the name the Barbary Coast, but it was also the center of San Francisco's thriving bohemian culture. 

The Monkey Block was the home for the artists, writers, actors, musicians and others who flocked to the city starting in the late nineteenth century and on into the twentieth. The noted photographer Dorothea Lange became a part of the lifestyle there, after arriving in 1918 from New Jersey. She first was a society portrait photographer but her interests changed and she became known as one of the foremost chroniclers of the Great Depression, taking many indelible images of the plight of the migrants who went west during the period's worst days, and battled the drought of the Dust Bowl along with their lack of money and employment. 

The Bohemians tells a novelized version of her life story in an imagined first person account that incorporates many actual biographical facts, along with the many significant individuals who made up her friends and social circle, along with an ambiguous portrait of her first husband, the artist Maynard Dixon.

One significant fictionalized character is Caroline Lee, a half-Chinese/half-Caucasian woman who becomes her best friend and her partner in her photography studio. Lee is based somewhat on Lange's actual assistant, a Chinese woman named Ah Lee. Ah Lee was rescued as a child by the crusading missionary Donaldina Cameron. Cameron ran an orphanage for Chinese girls who would otherwise have been sold into prostitution or worse in San Francisco's Chinatown before and after the 1906 earthquake. Cameron also makes a significant appearance in the book. 

Author Jasmin Darznik brings together fact and fiction and blends them seamlessly. In addition to this being Lange's story, it is also a homage to San Francisco and its fascinating mix of bohemians, capitalists, politicians and others, admirable and some very much not. It is a vivid trip to a city that is the favorite of many, most of whom know little of its history, but are captivated by its beauty, unique geography and today, celebrated multicultural appeal and tolerance of "alternate" lifestyles.

Runway Revolution: The Battle of Versailles by Robin Givhan

In November 1973, an epic event in the history of fashion took place. Five leading American fashion designers: Bill Blass, Stephen Burrows, Oscar de la Renta, Halston, and Anne Klein, and five renowned French couturiers: Pierre Cardin, Marc Bohan for Christian Dior, Hubert de Givenchy, Yves Saint Laurent and Emanuel Ungaro, presented their work with great fanfare and drama at the Théâtre Gabriel at the Palace of Versailles. 

The showdown between French haute couture tradition and the new trends of American design was intended as a fund raiser for the King Louis XIV Palace, which was badly in need of restoration. It attracted the leading lights of international high society, royalty – Princess Grace of Monaco was in attendance – artists, movie stars and others who were household names of the time. Not only were the designers' collections shown, but there was top flight entertainment from Liza Minelli fresh from her triumph in the movie Cabaret, iconic performer Josephine Baker, and the world famous ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev.

Robin Givhan, the Pulitzer Prize-winning fashion critic for the The Washington Post, presents the backstory and the preparations for the event and dissects all of its historical and social implications in this page turner of a book.

Givhan brilliantly describes how far more was at stake than who were the better designers – the French or the Americans. The early 1970s were an extension of the period of great social and economic change around the world that began in the early 1960s with the coming of age of the oldest Baby Boomers in America and abroad: new trends in popular music and art, changes in the role of women, youth culture, new sexual freedom as a result of the invention of the birth control pill, and the demands of the Black community for equality.

Givhan gives us capsule biographies of the designers, describes the fashion industries and their histories in both France and the United States, introduces us to the leading models, many of whom on the American side were African-American and had remarkable life stories, and weaves in the biography and accomplishments of master publicist Eleanor Lambert, a woman who wove together the all the elements of the event and brought it to life. Altogether, it is a remarkable slice of history. Almost fifty years later, 1973 seems both distant and only yesterday, depending on the age and perspective of the reader, but Givhan recounts that time and the settings for the events so vividly that they feel like elements of an incredible technicolor dream.

I highly recommend this book for readers with interests in social history, fashion as an expression of its time, and anyone who knows Paris or has worked in the fashion and garment industry in France or New York. 

The Grandeur that Was Rome: Eternal by Lisa Scottoline

For Lisa Scottoline's sweeping, superb first historical novel, after many successful and entertaining suspense thrillers/mysteries, she has chosen the subject of Rome under Mussolini prior to and during World War II, focusing on the plight of the Roman Jews and the rise of violent Fascism.

Rome has been home to a Jewish community for time immemorial, and in the pre-war years, many families enjoyed a comfortable life, positions in the professions and the universities. Roman Jews, at least the family she portrays in this novel, saw themselves as an assimilated part of society and as citizens of Rome and Italy, equal to their Christian friends and neighbors.

When Mussolini came to power after World War I, in fact, many Jews embraced him as their leader and joined the Fascist party, which sounds shocking now, in light of what occurred later.

Scottoline's novel follows three school friends, Elisabetta, a beautiful young Catholic girl growing into womanhood, Sandro, a brilliant Jewish mathematician and son of a lawyer and doctor, and Marco, a handsome cyclist whose father runs a popular bar/restaurant, and whose oldest brother is a priest. The boys have been best friends since early childhood and Elisabetta rounds out their trio.

Relationships become complicated when the trio reaches their teen years and both boys fall for Elisabetta, who is drawn to them each for different reasons. The advent of the war and the developments in politics, as anti-Jewish laws are enacted, change everything for Rome and for the three and their families.

When Mussolini joins forces with Hitler and the Nazis invade, things quickly move from bad to worse. Day by day, the noose around Jewish families and the Jewish community is tightened. Jews must leave their homes and professions and are forced into the Ghetto. There is first disbelief, and gradually, greater and greater suffering for the Jews and Italians as a whole. Scottoline has done a remarkable job of breaking down the day-by-day events and conveying the mounting tension and horrific conditions that lead to murders, violent beatings, and a round-up of nearly the entire Jewish population of Rome.

These are all historical facts, but the specifics will be new for many readers, as they were to me. The war destroyed much of the fabric of Roman society, just as it destroyed historic buildings with the bombings. It took decades for the city to revive after so much suffering, but the Jewish community of Italy will never be what it once was, after the deportations and emigration to Israel and the United States. So tragic what we do to each other.

Scottoline's novel is well-paced,  meticulously researched and a fascinating read. I hope she will follow up – perhaps with a novel set in Venice? To be determined...

Half a Quartet: The Saturdays and The Four-Story Mistake by Elizabeth Enright

I've made it a point to re-read some of the classic children's books of mid-twentieth century America – favorites like the Betsy-Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace, Beverly Cleary's novels of first love, and now I'm halfway through The Melendy Quartet by the writer and illustrator Elizabeth Enright. 

The Melendy Quartet follows a family of four sisters and brothers: from the oldest down are Mona, Rush, Randy (a nickname for Miranda) and Oliver. The children's mother has passed away (we never learn when or how in the first two volumes), and they live with their beloved father, housekeeper/governess Cuffy and Willy Sloper, the all-around handyman who is handy at many other things as well.

We first meet the Melendys in the Manhattan of 1940, where they live in a somewhat threadbare and rundown brownstone house somewhere on the East Side below Midtown. They are comfortable, but far from wealthy. The Depression has most likely taken its toll on the family finances. We are not quite clear on what the father does for a living, but it requires a lot of typing in his study.

The first book, The Saturdays, takes its name from a plan the children put together to pool their allowances so that each one can take his or her turn with a Saturday afternoon adventure in the city, on her or his own. Each one has his or her interest that they want to follow – Mona loves the theater and aspires to act, Rush is a pianist, Randy wants to be an artist or ballet dancer, and little Oliver (just six) wants only to see the circus. By our standards, it's quite remarkable that the children are allowed to go off on their own, but it feels wonderful liberating to imagine oneself in that milieu. The city was less dangerous in some ways eighty years ago, or so it seems... 

Randy's adventure turns out to have the most consequences for the family (in a good way). When she goes to see an exhibition of paintings, she runs into old Mrs. Oliphant, an eccentric family friend who knew their mother as well as their father. Mrs. Oliphant takes Randy to a wonderful afternoon tea and tells her stories of her youth in France. They become good friends and Mrs. Oliphant becomes a major presence in all of their lives, taking them off for a summer seaside adventure and so much more. 

In book two, The Four-Story Mistake, we learn that the family is moving to a house in the country, most likely "upstate" New York, in a place that is reachable by train. It is now wartime, and there are changes in their lifestyle. Father has a job in Washington, D.C, and the children are in the care of Cuffy and Willy most of the time. 

The Four-Story Mistake is the name for their new house, a large structure with a cupola, several miles from the nearest town. The children must learn how to live in a country setting, but being the intrepid Melendys, they adapt well. Mona, still in her mid-teens, finds a part-time job as a radio actress and goes to the city twice weekly with Cuffy to record, Rush and Randy draw closer by uniting more often in their adventures, and Oliver has fun doing what nine-year-old boys do in the country. 

As a reader with a love for old New York, it was as hard for me as for the Melendys to leave the city brownstone behind, but the new old house has its own glories. We all make the best of it, with many gentle lessons learned, and lots of fun along the way.

A Voice Silenced: Little Girl Blue, the Life of Karen Carpenter by Randy L. Schmidt

What a sad, sad tale...a young life and a great talent snuffed out by mental and physical illnesses. It's well-known that Karen Carpenter died at the age of thirty-two from heart failure brought on by an extreme case of anorexia nervosa. How she reached that disastrous point has been thoroughly traced and documented in this biography by Randy L. Schmidt.

While her older brother Richard's talents were intrinsic to their ultimate superstar-level success, it was Karen's singing voice that captured the attention of everyone who heard it. Her interpretations of songs by composers including Paul Williams, Burt Bacharach, Lennon-McCartney and others were, in many cases, the indelible and definitive versions of those songs and remain so decades after her death.

Schmidt explores the family dynamic of the Carpenter family in great detail. The family unit, consisting of Karen and Richard, and their parents Agnes and Harold, was tight and intense. The children were so controlled by Agnes Carpenter that they continued to live at home well after they were thoroughly adult and incredibly wealthy from their musical success. These circumstances set the stage for Karen's later problems.

Schmidt explains that Richard had a great talent for the piano, playing, arranging and composing music. This was recognized early on by their parents, particularly Agnes, who made sacrifices of all kinds to forward his career, while Karen was treated as a very secondary talent...and child. Nearly all attention was lavished on Richard, and Karen was left trying to please her mother and get some of the love and approval so freely given to her brother. Despite the great success of the duo, and Karen's singular recognition as an extraordinary singer and interpreter of lyrics, it never seemed to be enough, and Karen spiraled down from her early negative feelings into depression, self-doubt and sadness, which manifested itself in her eating disorder, a problem that was not recognized as it is now. In fact, it is because of Karen's death that attention was brought to anorexia and related conditions.

During her career, Karen developed close friendships with fellow singers Olivia Newton-John, Petula Clark and Dionne Warwick. Warwick contributed the foreword to this book. Schmidt interviewed them, along with many others, to obtain intimate details of Karen's troubled life and disappointments, her failed marriage and professional challenges. This chronicle of her life conveys what was truly a tragedy. To be so talented and so successful, yet in so much pain, is a terrible waste and a testament to the necessity for more awareness of mental and emotional illnesses, and better mental health treatment, especially for girls and women.

Greek Triumph: Ask Me Again Tomorrow, a Life in Progress by Olympia Dukakis

Olympia Dukakis, the well-loved and Oscar-winning actress who passed away earlier this year at the age of 89, is vibrantly and fully alive on the pages of this fast-paced and fascinating memoir. Her strong personality comes through on every page, first as she describes her childhood in Lowell, Massachusetts, her teen years and first career steps in and around Boston, and her young adulthood and continued career development in New York. 

Her Greek-American identity and fraught family relationships shaped her character. She was rebellious and unconventional from the start, not the "good Greek girl" she so often referred to. She had a tense relationship with her critical mother and eventually uncovered disappointing behavior on the part of her father, a philanderer who badly hurt her mother and the family.

Despite many challenges and setbacks, she was determined and ultimately succeeded in becoming a serious and successful actress, had a loving relationship and marriage that spanned 40 years, started and for years ran a theater company with her husband in their adopted home base of Montclair, New Jersey, and was the mother of two children.

Her memoir, written with Emily Heckman, recounts the many details of her struggles and travails to achieve career goals, to find acceptance as an ethnic "outsider" in many circles, her struggles with depression and health issues, and celebrates her many successes as well. While she also describes relationships with others in the acting field, she avoids imparting celebrity gossip – there is not a word, for example, about Cher, her co-star in "Moonstruck", for which they both won Oscars, though she is listed in the many acknowledgements at the close of the book.

While reading the memoir, it was hard to grasp that she was no longer with us, it is that vivid and intimate. It is almost like receiving the confidences of a friend who trusts you to listen, but knows you won't judge her. She is so real, so down-to-earth, that you feel you know her, and only wish she could live forever.

I was fortunate to have a fleeting moment in which I shared a space with her (from afar). A friend and I attended an Off-Broadway play shortly after "Moonstruck". We had balcony seats in the smallish Lambs' Theater (now demolished, sadly), and looked down into the orchestra section, where we spotted Olympia (in mink) and Cher (in a white fur) arriving and taking seats in the front row. We were amused to see them sharing an aluminum foil-wrapped snack during the intermission – maybe Olympia brought it from her kitchen in Montclair – who knows? So normal and so just like the rest of us!

I highly recommend her memoir, not only if you are a fan, but also if you have an interest in theater, and the lives of unconventional feminist mid-century women. There's a lot to chew and digest here.

Obituary for Olympia Dukakis from the Boston Globe

Fantastic Voyage – Out of Istanbul: A Journey of Discovery along the Silk Road by Bernard Ollivier

I was fascinated by this book by French journalist Bernard Ollivier, an account of the first part of his journey – on foot – along the route of the ancient Silk Road, beginning in 1999. I felt as though I was with him every step of the way from Istanbul across Turkey to the point just miles from the Iranian border where he unfortunately became ill and had to return to France to recover.

His descriptions of the scenery, villages and towns, his encounters with local people, his emotions and his physical condition are so vivid and compelling that I felt as though I was there. As an American Jew, I know I would never be allowed to enter Iran (even Ollivier had a very limited visa) when the time came. His continued walk will be covered in the next installment of the three covering his experiences in Central Asia.

Ollivier was 62 when he set off, a recent widower, and recently retired from his career as a political and economic journalist. He had recently completed a walk from France to the Shrine of St. James in Spain (Santiago de Compostela), though he did not do it for religious reasons, but for the experience of the journey.

To begin his trek along the Silk Road, Ollivier took a train to Venice, where Marco Polo began his expedition to China a thousand or so years ago, then a ferry across the Adriatic, before starting to walk from Istanbul. Once he began his trek, even though he was in good physical condition, he had problems with his boots until his feet became accustomed to them, but when they healed, he was able to cover astonishing distances nearly every day, stopping in small towns and villages to eat, sleep and purchase supplies. Once he left Istanbul and its more modern environs, he found some less than appealing conditions in certain places, though there were Internet cafés and banks where he could use an ATM card...but often the off the beaten track places he visited were fairly primitive by our American and European standards.

He spoke barely a few words of Turkish, but encountered English speakers (and very few French speakers) along the way with whom he could communicate when needed, but most of the time he was on his own. He had many heartwarming but fleeting moments with the Turkish people he met, but there were occasional moments of danger, and in the Kurdish areas to the East, closer to the Iranian border, the danger increased, along with the poverty. Despite that, until he was barely a day's walk to Iran, and contracted a serious case of amoebic dysentery, the trip was enormously rewarding.

For all those who are dedicated travelers and consider themselves citizens of the larger world, Ollivier's journey will be rich with the allure of the open road and of the experiences that beckon from afar. A walk across countries such as Turkey, Iran and other politically challenging regions is not for everyone, but even if our travel to those places must be more of the armchair variety, we can still savor Ollivier's experiences, and enjoy his vivid, first person account of his astonishing trek.

Better than Ever – The Moosewood Restaurant Cooking for Health: More Than 200 New Vegetarian and Vegan Recipes for Delicious and Nutrient-Rich Dishes

You can never grow wrong with a Moosewood cookbook, but I particularly like this very contemporary one that focuses on healthy dishes that suit vegetarian and restricted diets. It is full of great recipes, food and seasoning tips, non-boring nutritional information and more.

It emphasizes the importance of cooking and eating whole, natural foods and addresses which conventionally-raised fruits and vegetables absorb the most pesticides, thus providing guidance for what organic items should be purchased and which are unnecessary and just an extra expense.

Even though I follow a low-carb diet for health reasons, I can find many options here, and with a few adjustments, make most recipes work for me. Having borrowed a copy of the book from my local library in order to see if it was suitable for me, I can't wait for my own purchased book to arrive so I can dive in and add some new dishes to my repertoire. Thank you, Moosewood Collective! 

California Dream: The Luckiest Girl by Beverly Cleary

Of the three teen novels by the beloved Beverly Cleary that I have read, this is by far my favorite. Once again, the setting is California, this time the citrus-growing region of San Sebastian. Whether this is a mythical town, or an amalgam of several, I can't be sure, but it is long on charm and rich in atmosphere. Shelley Latham is our heroine, an Oregonian who is allowed to spend a school year with family friends. It's a whole new experience for Shelley, an only child living in a conventional household, to stay with the more free-spirited Michie family, which is composed of Mavis (Shelley's mother's college roommate), her husband Tom, and their children, Luke and Katie. Mavis is a potter with her own studio, Tom is a teacher and the high school basketball coach, and their quirky older home is filled with unique items. Luke is a typical teenaged boy, whose favorite pastime is working on an old motorcycle that he's restoring, and Katie is a thirteen year old experiencing growing pains as she leaves childhood and enters adolescence. It's Mavis's hope that Shelley will be a good role model for Katie, and as time passes, they develop a close relationship.

Shelley marvels at the palm trees, orange groves and warm dry weather – so different from chilly Oregon. On her first day of school, she meets Hartley, an attractive and personable boy who sits just behind her in their alphabetically arranged homeroom, but her head is quickly turned by tall, handsome Philip, the star of the basketball team.

Shelley falls into her new routine and classes, which include biology. Philip is assigned a seat at her side, but she also meets and becomes best friends with Jeannie, a whiz at biology. The fourth in their study group is Philip's best buddy Frisbie.

Philip and Shelley become an item, much to Hartley's disappointment, though they remain friends. While Shelley does well in most of her classes, she is distracted in biology and is horrified to receive a "D" for the semester, her first ever. Philip's grade is worse, an "F", and he becomes ineligible for basketball, and his strict father cuts off his social life. Shelley feels responsible and disappointed, but she also knows she must raise her grade to repair her average as she intends to go on to college.

When her relationship flounders, Shelley is hurt and miserable. She feels sad and homesick for the first time, but in examining her relationship and taking stock of herself, she realizes that she and Philip had little in common. Conversation was often difficult and it was a struggle to find common ground.

Ultimately, Shelley and Hartley get together and as the school year winds down, they enjoy each other's company. Neither want to see it end, but with Shelley's departure looming, they know their time is short and they make the best of it. When it's time for Shelley's parent to pick up, she knows she'll always remember her time in California, the friends she made there, and most of all, Hartley. She is the luckiest girl after all.

I found this novel to have more of a universal quality that transcends the decades. There is less dependence on lifestyle activities and it is more about personal growth and gaining maturity than Cleary's Fifteen or Sister of the Bride. Shelley could be a contemporary girl and Hartley a modern boy – they were both so real and honest. All is all, The Luckiest Girl is both an enjoyable and satisfying read. I only wish they could have met again and picked up their relationship as adults...

The Joys of Young Love: Sister of the Bride by Beverly Cleary

It's hard not to be charmed by anything written by the beloved author Beverly Cleary. I've recently read or re-read several of her teen novels now, and it's fun to travel back in time to the early 1960s, my grade school years, which I remember more clearly now with these books, which are as delicious as a just opened pound box of See's chocolates. I chose See's, rather than Russell Stover or Whitman's, because these books are set in Northern California, where See's originates.

Sister of the Bride follows sixteen-year-old Barbara as she navigates the social and family waters once her eighteen-year-old sister Rosemary announces her engagement. Rosemary is a freshman at the University of California (Berkeley, presumably), and is still wearing braces on her teeth, so it's a bit much to take in. Barbara, while stunned at the announcement, immediately embarks on a series of fantasies of her upcoming role in the wedding, and of her own sometime in the unknown future. Their parents are concerned and their father, in particular, needs to be won over.

Rosemary has suddenly gone from being a fluffy impractical teenager to the verge of being a hip young woman, who now prefers handmade pottery, earthy colors and sophisticated clothing to her former style. No registering for silver or china for her – she's modern. Barbara works hard to take in this change.

At the same time Barbara is dealing with the travails of high school, trying to manage the beginning of her own love life with two boys in the picture, and squabbling with her annoying younger brother.

There are quite a few amusing yet poignant scenes in the book as Rosemary prepares for the altar, including one in which she brings Barbara to her future apartment, in a building which she and her slightly older but still young husband will manage in order to keep expenses down while they complete their studies. It's quite a dreadful, rundown student building but Rosemary is game to make it work. It somehow lacks the charm of the Greenwich Village building of the play and movie Barefoot in the Park, but it is reminiscent, being set in the same period.

The parents are won over, wedding plans are set, Rosemary falls for the traditional appeal of her grandmother's gorgeous lace veil and wears a white dress rather than the practical suit she planned on. Barbara discovers which boy is the one she wants, and it all works out in the end, with an abundance of humor and joy.

 

Voices from the Past – Plunder: A Memoir of Family Property and Nazi Treasure by Menachem Kaiser

A memoir of an extraordinary journey in present-day Poland and into the past. Menachem Kaiser is a 30-something Jewish Canadian whose grandfather, the only member of his family to survive the Holocaust, attempted to reclaim family property in the city of Sosnowiec but was unsuccessful. The grandfather died before Menachem was born, but throughout his childhood, his father, aunt, and uncle kept alive the family's ties to their Polish origin through constant discussion.

Menachem decides to pursue the matter and travels to Poland, does what he can to assemble the required paperwork, and hires an attorney, an elderly woman known as "The Killer" who files claims with the government to go forward in the process. The result is a tale more surreal than any writing by Kafka or painting by Dalí.

The courts and the reparations process lead Menachem through an endless maze of bureaucracy, forms, and documents, and along the way he visits the building bearing the address of the one the family once owned, and meets many of its residents, some of whom have been living there more than 60 years.

Two particular things come to light in this account of endless ambiguity: the building Menachem visits turns out not to be the one his family owned, despite its having the same house number as the documentation and the address the family has always discussed; and, through one of the residents, he hears of an intriguing cult-like, loosely organized small army of treasure hunters, who are concentrating on the Nazis' Riese Tunnels, a vast underground complex in the Owl Mountains in Silesia, adjacent to Sosnowiec, built during the war by Jewish slave laborers who experienced horrendous working conditions and brutality. Rumors had spread that there were vast stores of stolen gold and other valuables hidden there, but Menachem's connection is the discovery that a cousin of his grandfather's generation, Abraham Kajzer, had written a memoir of his imprisonment that has become the stuff of legend among the fortune hunters.

Menachem's book first reads like a picaresque tale of an attempt at the righting of wrongs, but then very gray areas of morality intrude in his thoughts. While it's certainly true that the Kaiser family owned a building in Sosnowiec before the war and that they have never been compensated for what was taken from them, there are others to consider: those that live in the building who are innocent of any wrongdoing and would fear displacement from their homes. The war ended more or less 75 years ago and the world has moved on: how do we balance the wrongs of the past with the needs of those in the present? I couldn't help but think of African-Americans who seek their rightful place in our modern society after their ancestors were brought here as slaves 400 years ago, or of the factions in Israel and Palestine who are at odds over territorial rights, home ownership and ancient claims of a homeland stolen over and over through the millenniums of history. Where does it all end, and what is fair? Does anyone really have the answers to these questions?

I must mention that I was drawn to this book by the author's name and the subject matter. My family includes many named Kaiser/Keyser/Keiserman, etc., and while we didn't originate in Poland, but rather in Moldova/Ukraine, and my great-grandparents fled many decades before the Holocaust, the family suffered the effects of pogroms and other brutalities, and some distant cousins who survived World War II have recently come to light. Nothing is truly clear, and certainly nothing is simple. 

Painful Lessons in History and Social Science – Why Racism Persists: An Uncomfortable Truth by Dr. Walter V. Collier

Dr. Walter V. Collier, a doctorate in public policy analysis, has had a long career in research and strategic planning for a number of significant educational and non-profit entities.

Here he addresses one of the most pressing problems of America in our time: racism and its origins. In the preface, Dr. Collier mentions that he wrote this book during the second term of President Obama, from 2013-2016. Much of the racially-motivated antipathy towards thwarting President Obama's agenda came from the Republican Senate, including preventing his Supreme Court pick, Merrick Garland, a White Jewish man, from even being considered. Ironically, President Joe Biden nominated Garland as his Attorney General and Garland now serves in that influential role, where he is working to undo the sham (and shame) of the Bill Barr Justice Department, a cesspool of corruption under the aberration of President-as-Emperor Donald Trump.

Dr. Collier addresses the historical economic issues that led to the Civil War as well as economic inequality in modern America. He discusses Whiteness and White Privilege, the psychopathology of racism and racists, the persistence of racism from generation to generation, political institutions and spiritual concerns and their impact on behavior.

I can only wonder what Dr. Collier might have added about the Donald Trump years, where we saw ever more outrageous behavior by White Supremacists towards Black Americans egged on and abetted by Trump himself, in no uncertain terms, leading up to the assault on the Capitol and our legislators on January 6th of this year. Sadly, some of those very legislators refuse to acknowledge what occurred that day, when most Americans were in tears over what they witnessed in real time on TV.

In addition, another variety of racism, against Asian-Americans, which rages on, came directly from Trump when he called the COVID-19 pandemic a China virus and other derogatory terms. Thirdly, during the Trump years, there was a substantial increase in anti-Semitic acts of hate and violence, highlighted by the massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue, and now carried forward into the Biden presidency as Trump's evil legacy.

Over the past year, in the midst of COVID-19 (a plague causing nearly 600,000 American deaths with a preponderance of bad outcomes for Black and Brown people, along with Seniors of all races, and a resulting enormous economic disaster – all of which Trump could have taken steps to combat and control), we have seen the beginnings of change, as exemplified by the outrage and protests by Americans of all colors, over the wrongful and violent deaths by police officers, of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many others far too numerous to name. Even now, after the conviction of Floyd's murderer, additional cases of police brutality and suppression of the truth are coming to light and most Americans are outraged by these injustices. But whether or not we will see real progress on racial inequality towards Black Americans remains an open question. There is no quick or easy fix to undo 400 years of a history of suffering by so many.

We have a lot of work to do in the United States to confront and address these issues and nothing will get better until we face our problems and take steps to move in a positive and inclusive direction. Dr. Collier has laid out the issues and their basis of existence and now we need to act on his research and observations, and also employ what we have most recently learned.

Literary Journey: The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles

This was a unique, insightful, and enjoyable look into Paris during World War II, told from an unusual perspective and based on real events. A young Frenchwoman, Odile, a lover of books and reading from her earliest days, trains to become a librarian and is hired at the American Library in Paris (ALP) in 1939, just as the war begins and right before the German Occupation takes place.

Odile lives with her parents and twin brother, Rémy. Her father is a high-ranking official in the French police bureaucracy, her mother runs the household, and Rémy is something of a dreamer – until he announces he has enlisted in the army, much to the family's consternation. Odile's bourgeois parents envision her emulating her mother's role, but Odile wants more out of life. Her father is resistant to her working, and brings an array of suitable young policemen to dinner to introduce to her, but she forges ahead with her plans. At the library, she encounters a number of unique individuals, including Miss Reeder, the library director. 

Forty years later, teenage Lily lives with her mother and father in the small town of Froid, Montana. Their next-door neighbor, Mrs. Gustafson, is a widow who keeps to herself, but everyone in the town knows she arrived as a war bride from France, and her first name just happens to be Odile.

The novel is primarily Odile's story, but a good portion is devoted to Lily and the bond the two form over time. Lily has fairly typical teenage concerns, but a tragic loss sends the story of her relationship with Odile along an unexpected trajectory.

Although there have been many books, fiction and non-fiction, about Paris during the war, this novel clarifies and expands on the experiences of everyday Parisians and the others in their midst during the terror and deprivation of the war years. The author is tasteful is her descriptions of the circumstances, but they are straightforward too. She does not gloss over what happened.

All in all, this is a very satisfying and informative read. Odile and Lily are both sympathetic characters that are entirely believable, and there is a lot of history to uncover here. Four stars.

Tale à la Russe: Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Moscow by Paul Gallico

When I first discovered Mrs. Harris in Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Paris, I was throughly charmed as she was a multi-dimensional character in a delightful book enriched with wonderful drawings. Mrs. Harris is one of those characters you just don't forget, and despite the book coming out many decades ago, it transcends the years. I haven't read the two installments that follow, but from what I gather they were also very good, most likely stronger than this one. I'm sure I will get to them eventually.

This final installment is somewhat disappointing. Mrs. Harris and her friend Mrs. Butterfield are much the same, and that is part of the problem as we don't really see anything new to round out the characters any further. The other concern is the cliché-ridden account of Russia, in 1974 still the U.S.S.R. Undoubtedly, many of the details are based on facts about the spying done by the KGB, the shortages of basic items like toilet paper (loo paper to these very British characters) in the stores, the rundown buildings and drab streets, and so on. Author Paul Gallico attacked the Soviet government with a vengeance – I have to wonder about what was in his own KGB dossier.

Mrs. Harris and Mrs. Butterfield have won a package tour to Moscow and when Mrs. Harris tells her journalist client Mr. Lockwood about it, he asks her to bring a love letter to Liz, his Russian girlfriend, a tour guide for Intourist, the Russian travel service. They have not been able to communicate due to the strict rules laid down by the Soviet government. She agrees, though she knows it could be dangerous for her to carry a letter written in Russian and give it to a Soviet citizen. But, Mrs. Harris believes in love and wants to help the couple.

Mrs. Butterfield has serious reservations about the trip and once she finds out about the letter her anxiety grows. She's right to worry, as unbeknownst to Mrs. Harris, the two London ladies are incorrectly taken for spies and get into some very compromising situations. All sorts of complications eventually arise, especially once they realize their status and Liz becomes involved, much to her own peril.

Gallico's plot feels contrived, and the caricatures of the Soviet and British diplomats who intercede fall somewhat flat. Even the then-dashing, handsome Prince Philip is written in to play a small part in events (and now it's hard not to think of his recent death).

Of course, it all turns out right in the end, as to be expected. I'm somewhat sorry that this installment completed the series, but it hasn't spoiled my memory of my introduction to Mrs. Harris, who remains a memorable and unique character.

Teenage Angst, Circa 1956: Fifteen by Beverly Cleary

Revisiting Beverly Cleary, a favorite author of my youth, with a book that was about 10 years old when I first read it and already sounded like "Once Upon a Time" to a young teen immersed in the "Age of Aquarius":

Fifty or so years later, and reading with more experienced eyes, it's a true journey back in time to 1956 when this book was originally published, taking the reader to a world that is no more. We find ourselves in a close-in suburb of San Francisco where its first tract houses have just been built for the influx of newcomers and are subtly criticized for their sameness and small bare lots, where teenage girls must wait for the phone to ring with calls from boys, and wear white gloves and suits for a dinner date in the city, where there are horse meat deliveries for family dogs and pet cats pampered with lamb liver from the local butcher, and finally, boys who fix up old jalopies and wear stainless steel ID bracelets engraved with their names. The town has a single movie theater and a café (aka a malt shop/soda fountain) where all the kids go. It goes without saying that everyone is White. Aside from these obvious time-stamp references and some more subtle, the fifteen-year-old heroine Jane Purdy is much like the girl I was and how most girls have always been: yearning for romance with a likely boy, wanting to feel confident and successful in her social setting, and being embarrassed by her clothes and family in her desire to look and feel "cool".

Jane is in the midst of all this, and by chance meets a new-in-town sixteen-year-old boy, Stan Crandall, while she is babysitting for a particularly difficult child. Stan is good-looking, well-mannered, and industrious – he already has a CDL (commercial driver's license) since he drives the delivery truck for that horse meat company. Shocking period detail: when Stan makes his deliveries, he walks into the UNLOCKED homes and leaves the delivery in the kitchen if no one is there.

Stan is also resourceful enough to track down Jane via her employer, and then confident enough to call her and ask her for a date. A gentle and gradual romance begins and progresses through the school year.

There are numerous travails, awkward moments and doubts. As she gets to know him better, Jane realizes that Stan is no more sure of himself than she and with this revelation, they form a bond of mutual understanding and affection. It culminates in Stan giving Jane his ID bracelet to wear – they are now "going steady" – a happy ending for Jane and the book, though we readers, through the eyes of maturity, know that this is only the beginning of growing up.

Beverly Cleary was a beloved and renowned author of children's and young adult books, and while Fifteen is dated as to its setting and circumstances, the predicaments and hearts of teenage girls haven't changed. Cleary handles it all with insight and humor, never with condescension or preaching.

Once Upon a New York Dream: In Sunlight and in Shadow by Mark Helprin

In Sunlight and in Shadow proves once again that Mark Helprin is one of the most outstanding novelists of the late 20th/early 21st century. This expansive and lyrical novel, is, at its heart, a tribute to New York at one of its most glorious points, the post World War II era, but it is also a love story, a war story, a family saga and a full-throated attack on the evils of organized crime.

Harry Copeland was a captain in the US Army, and belonged to a paratrooper unit that parachuted into German territory and fought amidst all the blood, danger and mayhem that entailed. When he returns to New York, it is to take control of the family business, which manufactures ultra high-end leather goods in a loft workshop in downtown Manhattan. He was an only child, his mother dying young and his father while he was away in the war. He has no remaining family other than an aunt by marriage on Staten Island.

A large part of his identity comes from his Jewish background, a family of immigrant strivers who succeeded in commerce, in their case the leather business, and eventually made the move to a comfortable existence on Central Park West. Harry is well-educated, a Harvard graduate and with an advanced degree from Oxford. A former student athlete, he also remains in excellent physical condition – as battle-ready as any soldier.

Catherine Thomas Hale is the beautiful only daughter of a wealthier-than-wealthy WASP banker on Wall Street and his wife, who, in addition to their townhouse on Sutton Place, enjoy a lavish home in the Hamptons, a cottage in Maine and a flat in London. She's a recent graduate of Bryn Mawr, and an aspiring actress and singer, about to debut in her initial Broadway show, which will try out first in Boston. She's also about to become engaged to a man with whom she has had a long relationship. When their two families merge, it will join wealth and position at the highest level.

By the most unlikely chance (or perhaps because it is their destiny, bashert, in Yiddish), Harry notices Catherine on the Staten Island Ferry when he goes out to visit his aunt. He has business and family matters to discuss with her, and when gets on the boat to return to the city, he sees Catherine again. Their connection is made...

If by this point you are not intrigued, then this is not the book for you. But if you are, you will not be disappointed, because Helprin is the master of making the most unexpected, most unlikely events seem not just feasible, but absolutely as they should be. And, he does it with such elegance of description and exquisite imagery, that the reader becomes completely immersed in the events and settings he creates, and the characters become so vivid and alive that you join them.

Along with Harry and Catherine, the New York City of 1946-47 is a leading character in this novel. The descriptions of the buildings, the streets, the sounds and of the light as it falls across the city in yes, sunlight and shadow, bring the New York of that now-distant time to life in a most amazing way.

This is Helprin's great gift at work, and In Sunlight and in Shadow is a book you'll read, savor, admire and remember.

Michael, George and Ira: The Gershwins and Me by Michael Feinstein

The very-accomplished Michael Feinstein wears many hats: performer, archivist, businessman and author. He first appeared in the public eye as a twenty-year-old playing in Los Angeles piano bars in the mid-1970s. Through a connection to the deceased pianist and actor Oscar Levant, he became a temporary assistant to Ira Gershwin. The temporary position stretched into six years during which he organized and cataloged Gershwin's record albums, professional and personal memorabilia from his long career and more. Feinstein worked in Gershwin's Beverly Hills home and became steeped in the life history of Ira Gershwin and his brother, the much more famous George Gershwin. Organizing the immense output of the Gershwin brothers made him an expert on their extraordinary musical accomplishments.

Ira Gershwin was a renowned lyricist and collaborator to his brother George Gershwin, the composer of Rhapsody in Blue, Concerto in F, Porgy and Bess, and hundreds of songs, mainly introduced on the Broadway stage in the 1920s and 1930s. George Gershwin died tragically of a brain tumor in 1937, two months before his 39th birthday. Ira Gershwin survived him by many decades, dying aged 86 in 1983.

Feinstein has gone on to a long career of his own, championing and performing the works of the Gershwins, Irving Berlin, Richard Rodgers and his collaborators Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II, Yip Harburg, Johnny Mercer and many others who constitute the pantheon of great American songwriters of theater and movies from the 1920s and into the 1950s, often thought of as the Golden Age of popular music in the English-speaking world.

This book, The Gershwins and Me, is a valentine to the Gershwin brothers, and a real treasure trove of information, photos and anecdotes of their careers. Feinstein arranged it in chapters topically and thematically around twelve of their most famous songs, each having been featured in a Broadway show or a movie:
"Strike Up the Band", 1927
"The Man I Love", 1924
"S'Wonderful", 1927
"I've Got a Crush on You", 1928
"They All Laughed", 1937
"Someone to Watch Over Me", 1926
"Embraceable You", 1930
"Who Cares", 1931
"I Got Plenty of Nuttin'", 1935
"They Can't Take That Away from Me", 1937
"I Got Rhythm", 1930
"Love Is Here to Stay", 1938

While the material is fascinating, some of Feinstein's opinions can be a little strong and may offend fans of certain performers, particularly Frank Sinatra, whom he deems as a great singer, but criticizes for changing some of Ira Gershwin's lyrics. Though he has a point, it seems minor when one considers Sinatra's entire career as a singer and actor through many decades. He also relates a distasteful anecdote about Judy Garland. On the other hand, he lionizes Fred Astaire (who certainly deserves it), Rosemary Clooney (who was Feinstein's long-time friend and Ira Gershwin's neighbor), and others. The tendency to gossip takes the book down a star for me, but Feinstein is not an unbiased professional historian.

On the whole, it is a great book for anyone who appreciates and is interested in the works of the Gershwins and their milieu in the 1920s and 1930s. It is beautifully produced and printed. Feinstein also includes a CD of his recordings of the songs that he used for his chapter topics.

Lost Forever: All Gone by Alex Witchel

I hope that writing this memoir made author Alex Witchel feel better...her sadness and suffering over her mother's decline into dementia was painful for me to experience, just as a reader. In fact, I don't think I would suggest this book for anyone with elderly parents, a spouse or other loved one who is in such a situation – it's so heartrending. For me, having already lost my parents rather early in life, I know this is something I'm not going to experience. However, I have friends who are living through this right now and I feel some of what they are going through. My heart breaks for Alex Witchel and for those I know who are in the midst of this.

I applaud the author for her bravery. Confronting her circumstances was beyond difficult, and to write about it for anyone else to read, requires a willingness that many don't or can't share. It does a service, however, because as our population ages and lifespans lengthen, more and more people will face this problem, and it is clear that more attention and resources are required. Alex Witchel is more fortunate than many – she is financially comfortable, she is well educated, she has a supportive husband, and she lives in New York City, where many of the best doctors and care can be obtained. And while she took on the primary role in arranging her mother's care, she also has three siblings who could shoulder some of the weight, though she didn't turn to them that often. Most people don't have these advantages and many have to go it alone.

Witchel explained the role of food, the homemade food produced by our mothers and other family members, as the touchstones of both normality and memory. How many of us envision and can almost taste and smell the dishes of our childhood that brought about feelings of safety, comfort and love? When I manage to (almost) reproduce one of those, I am transported back to happier, more innocent times.

The recipes Witchel included are the ones her mother made for the family. Don't expect gourmet, sophisticated or nuanced dishes. I won't be preparing any of them, as I already have my own cache of the ones made by my mother or grandmother, but I understand how much they mean to Witchel, and how each time she prepares one, she feels a little of the mother she knew in her presence, and for her, as it would be for many, that's the ultimate comfort. 

A Tale of Two Eileens: The Switch by Beth O'Leary

Such an easy to enjoy novel, set in London and a small village in the Yorkshire Dales, about two women, twenty-nine-ish Leena and her seventy-nine year old grandmother Eileen.

Leena is a high-octane rising-star executive at a consulting company in London, known for her outstanding presentations. She's in a relationship with Ethan, something of a male counterpart. Eileen is supercharged too, but as the get-it-done, list-making center of village activities, serving on every committee and a friend to all. Her former husband, Wade, left her for a dance instructor, but she's doing just fine without him.

The two form a sandwich of a relationship with Marian, Leena's mother/Eileen's daughter. What they all share is their deep grief over the recent loss of Carla, Marian's younger daughter, to an agonizing death from cancer. Leena and Marian are currently estranged.

Leena has a panic attack and meltdown at a presentation, and her kind (fortunately) boss, Rebecca, forces her to take a two-month leave of absence so she can heal and regroup. Leena confides in Eileen, who urges her to visit in the village. They decide, on a whim, to switch places for the two months: Leena will stay in Eileen's village cottage and Eileen will go to London to Leena's apartment, which will be a chance for her to grab a taste of her youthful dream to be an independent woman in the city.

While the overall plot is somewhat predictable, many unlikely and surprising events ensue, and the result is a contemporary, colorful, entertaining, and heartfelt story that most readers are likely to enjoy (and maybe envy a bit). I definitely recommend Beth O'Leary's The Switch.

Just What the Title Says: Weight Watchers 50th Anniversary Cookbook

A nicely photographed cookbook with interesting anecdotes about the early days of Weight Watchers. Having been a member of Weight Watchers in the past (more than once), I am familiar with their programs and approach. They did work for me for a while at one time, but I got bored and a bit frustrated.

However, I thought it would be a good idea to check out this fairly new (2013) cookbook as I was looking for low carbohydrate recipes with restrained calorie counts. While I found a few, I was pretty surprised at the high values I found in many of their suggestions. Since its publication, there are newer books that feature food values and choices that are more relevant to my current needs.

You will probably find this book in your local library, as I did, and it certainly can't hurt to leaf through and make note of what may work for you. I appreciate the availability of books like this in my public library, and support its programs wholeheartedly.

Branching Out: All of a Kind Family Uptown

In this fourth book of the All of a Kind Family series, Mama, Papa, the five sisters and brother Charlie move away from New York's Lower East Side to the leafier, less-crowded Bronx, where the housing is newer and people of different backgrounds mix together a little more freely. Our observant Jewish family now lives in the second floor of a two-family house owned by the Irish Catholic Healys and there is an exchange of customs (the girls and Charlie see their first Christmas tree). Everyone is thrilled when Uncle Hyman and Lena have a baby.

World War I is imminent, Ella is in her final year of high school, and Sarah will be graduating from eighth grade. Ella becomes close friends with Grace Healy and the two families grow closer.

There are mishaps and challenges to be overcome: Mama becomes ill and must be hospitalized for an operation, Charlie has a dangerous episode while playing with matches, Sarah has a disappointment, and Jules, Ella's boyfriend, enlists in the Army. Jules befriends Bill, a fellow soldier, and just before the two ship out, he introduces Bill to Grace. They quickly fall for one another. The war news of Jules and Bill brings tears but in the end, of course, all is resolved.

As usual, author Sydney Taylor includes Jewish religious celebrations, such as preparation for the Sabbath, which the girls undertake while Mama is in the hospital, and the blessing for Hyman and Lena's son, but this time there is a little bit of Christmas included, when the family visits the Healys for the festivities. It's good to see these interactions with the wider world as the family's life moves forward. 

Tales of Immigrant Life: All of a Kind Family Downtown

To date, I have read All of a Kind Family, All of a Kind Family Downtown, More All of a Kind Family and All of a Kind Family Uptown, from the series of five books for older children written by Sydney Taylor in the 1950s. This is my favorite of the four, speaking strictly as an adult reader. Compared to the other titles, it feels more down-to-earth and less romanticized in its depictions of the difficulties of immigrant life on the Lower East Side of Manhattan around 1910. While all of the books are charming, this one does not gloss over the hard life people experienced. Poverty, illness and death were commonplace in all immigrant neighborhoods (and to some extent, still are) and we are not spared here from those sad realities.

The family, consisting of five sisters, a baby brother, father and mother, live in slightly better circumstances than some of their neighbors. They are observant Jews, and the holidays are beautifully explained and depicted. In this book, we hear more of Irish and Italian neighbors than we did in the first book, and in fact, a young boy named Guido plays an important role in the story. Guido is extremely poor. His father is dead, and his mother, who does piecework at home for a garment factory, has become very ill and can't work anymore. 

Ella, the oldest sister of our family, and her Mama pay a visit to Guido and his mother, bringing food and a small sum of money in case it is needed. Guido and the mother live in a back tenement, a building built behind the one facing the street. These were often the poorest and ill-cared for dwellings that can be found in a neighborhood that is already impoverished throughout because they tended to have even less light and air than the street front buildings. An illustration in the book depicts a slovenly rear yard with refuse, ashcans and alley cats.

Ella is sent to bring Miss Carey from the Settlement House and a doctor. Guido's mother is so ill she is hospitalized. The eventual outcome is as you might expect and it is heartbreaking. For a children's book, this is a story that will require special attention from parents and teachers to its young readers as they may find it upsetting.

There is more. Middle sister Henny's exploits and difficult personality are forthrightly addressed and we also learn about Miss Carey's sad back story.

Despite the difficult story line there are also celebrations of the Jewish holidays that all can enjoy. There are many lessons in this book, told with realism, but also with gentleness. As an adult reader, I found it very moving and in many ways, very contemporary. I would be careful though, in reading it with children who may find some of the events upsetting.

All's Well that Ends Well: More All of a Kind Family

What a delight! Chronologically, this is the third book in the series (although All of a Kind Family Downtown, the second, was written later). We are back with our favorite family on the Lower East Side of New York for more anecdotes and adventures. 

We enjoy a May Day celebration with the sisters and their friends, Charlie's antics with the baking of the weekly challah, and most importantly, Uncle Hyman finally meets the woman of his dreams – Lena, a new immigrant who happens to be an expert seamstress and cook and most importantly, loves him back. The romance progresses and they decide to marry, but there's a major problem: Lena is a victim of the latest polio epidemic, and though she recovers, she doesn't feel she should marry Hyman because she now walks with a pronounced limp. Hyman is heartbroken.

I felt so sad reading this episode, as it reminded me of my own dear grandmother, Pearl. Pearl was technically not my grandmother, but actually my great aunt. Her older sister Jennie (my natural grandmother) was my grandfather's first wife but Pearl, a victim of polio which left her with one leg shorter than the other and a severe lifelong limp, lived with Jennie and her family for many years after their own mother died in the flu epidemic of 1918. Jennie died before I was born, and for sake of propriety and as Jewish custom dictates, my grandfather married his sister-in-law. Years later, I once asked Grandmom Pearl, a pretty, loving and warm-hearted woman, why she hadn't married as a young woman. After some hesitation, she explained that she had had a boyfriend and they wanted to marry, but the young man's mother dissuaded him because Pearl was "crippled". How I ached for young Pearl experiencing such cruelty! We never spoke of it again, and Grandmom remained her cheerful and indomitable self, but I often think of how heartbroken she must once have been.

It worked out much better for Hyman and Lena. The family stepped in and convinced Lena that she should marry Hyman, whom she dearly loved, and the wedding was celebrated joyfully.

No Country for Women Either: Heresy by Melissa Lenhardt

I was really looking forward to loving this book, but I was so disappointed. The concept was great – a small gang of women who come together as outlaws after the Civil War and commit robberies across Colorado. The women are a former slave, a titled woman from England, and an aspiring travel writer who is making her way in the West. The women must pretend to be men, live rough, and take care of each other and themselves. 

I was also anticipating enjoying the methods the author used – fictionalized materials stylized as interviews of the former slave decades later as part of the WPA Writer's Project, diaries, and "reproductions" of newspaper articles about the hold-ups. 

After about seventy pages or so, I felt completely bogged down by the format of mixed materials. Additionally, the book was literally difficult to read, with everything but the reproduction newspaper articles set in a light, thin sans serif typeface. I just can't understand what the book designer was thinking – there is a reason why this review is in a serif font – it's so much easier to read. 

I'm sorry to say that the book, that I waited weeks for as an interlibrary loan went back today. I tried, I really did, but with so many others on my list, I no longer feel compelled to keep reading something that doesn't grab me and make me want to keep reading. 

Lost in Vermont: Afterlife by Julia Alvarez

This engaging and thoughtful work is the latest from the novelist Julia Alvarez, who came to the United States from the Dominican Republic when she was a young girl, and ultimately became a professor of English and the recipient of many honors for her work, including the National Medal of the Arts.

The character at the heart of the story is Antonia, a recently retired English professor in rural Vermont, a Latina from, yes, the Dominican Republic. Her husband, Sam, has just passed away and she is working painfully through her profound grief. She is one of four very close sisters, one of whom, Felicia, nicknamed Izzy, tends to go from crisis to crisis.

Her closest neighbor is a farmer who depends on the labor of undocumented Mexican immigrants, one of whom is sent over to help Antonia with some chores that her late husband would normally have done. Somehow, Antonia becomes embroiled in the life of the worker, Mario, and his fiancé, Estela, who is trying to follow him from Mexico, but has run into trouble with the unscrupulous coyote who is managing her journey across the border and beyond.

Meanwhile, Antonia and two of her sisters become alarmed when things escalate with Izzy, and they must find a way to intervene in a fraught situation.

Antonia feels overwhelmed by so much emotional turmoil as she deals with her own loss, but it feels as though the stresses just keep mounting. Despite them all, she makes her way.

Antonia's story is told with insight, sensitivity, and ironic humor. It is the story of a woman with a rich intellectual and emotional internal life who must confront external situations she doesn't want to own, and find a path to navigate through so she can make peace with herself.

It's quite a rare and refreshing thing to encounter a novel about the inner life and challenges of a woman who is no longer young – as it so often seems in real life, women beyond the age of their peak attractiveness or the travails of young(ish) motherhood seem to disappear and become almost anonymous non-entities in our society. There are plenty of us that no one seems to see, so we are not often the heroines of novels. Too bad, as our experience gives us plenty to say.

Sweet Memories: All-of-a-Kind Family by Sydney Taylor

This charming book is the first in the beloved series by Sydney Taylor, originally published in 1951, recounting the daily life and adventures of a family of five girls and their parents living on the Lower East Side of New York City in 1912. The series is particularly of note because it portrays a Jewish-American family, something of a rarity in children's books, and even more so at the time the books were published.

We meet the five sisters: Ella, Henny (Henrietta), Sarah (modeled on Sydney Taylor herself), Charlotte and Gertie (Gertrude) and accompany them to the public library where they develop a special relationship with the librarian, shopping in the street markets and more. A serious illness temporarily challenges the family.

Taylor explains the holidays and religious practices of the family in a very accessible and appealing way so that we can share with them. Readers experience the festivities of Purim and Succoth, and the celebration of the Fourth of July. We identify with the sisters as they experience the life around them and grow up in a loving family that is working hard to succeed in America.

Babe Betrayed: The Swans of Fifth Avenue by Melanie Benjamin

Melanie Benjamin's fast-paced read relies on a smooth mix of historical detail, believable dialog and vivid description. The "Swans" were the writer and later, media personality, Truman Capote's coterie of New York society women who hung on his every word as he flattered and cultivated them at the best French restaurants and swank cocktail parties starting in the period of his early fame in the 1950s. The women included Pamela Churchill (later Pamela Harriman, Ambassador to France during the Clinton Administration), Nancy "Slim" Keith, an often-married renowned beauty, and most importantly, the enigmatic Babe Paley, the wife of William Paley, the powerful businessman who founded and ran CBS.

The beautiful Babe Paley, who was always perfectly dressed, coiffed and groomed, became, over time, Truman Capote's closest friend, and the two were nearly inseparable for a time, despite her husband and his longtime lover and companion Jack Dunphy. While Babe appeared to have it all, her life was far from the perfection she presented to the world, and she confessed all of her unhappy secrets to Truman – later on, that would prove to be much to her chagrin.

Truman Capote achieved enormous success and celebrity as the writer of Breakfast at Tiffany's, (a novella that appeared in 1958 and was adapted into the classic film with Audrey Hepburn) but most notably, In Cold Blood, a crime novel based on a brutal true-life event, published in 1966. As an aside, I have to say that it was the most chilling and compelling book I can recall ever having ever read, going back to the early 1980s.

However, the bigger they are, the harder they fall. Over time, per the many episodes described in Benjamin's book, Truman fell so far that he died in 1984 at just 59, due to his abuse of drugs and alcohol, segueing from the boyish beauty of his youth to the nearly unrecognizable caricature of himself I remember from TV's Hollywood Squares and the film Murder by Death in 1976.

As for Babe, she and her society companions were thinly disguised in Capote's "La Côte Basque 1965", published in Esquire magazine as the opening to his unfinished novel, Answered Prayers. Capote used a mix of genuine and fake names but it was apparently obvious to those in the know about New York high society who the real players were, and he revealed many of the humiliating secrets Babe had entrusted to him. Capote quickly became a persona non grata and was abandoned by his former friends, Babe in particular.

The Swans of Fifth Avenue is a compelling novel that describes all this and much, much more, in great detail, with a bevy of all-caps names that will be familiar to many readers.

Later, Babe, a heavy smoker, developed lung cancer and died in 1978, aged just 63: a sad conclusion to the life of a woman who appeared, at least superficially, to have had everything.

Refined Trailblazer: The Woman Behind the New Deal by Kirstin Downey

Before I read this book, I knew that Frances Perkins had been Secretary of Labor for FDR, but I don't think I really grasped the rarity of her situation or the importance of her work. I knew nothing about her background or her closeness to FDR. She was the first woman to occupy a cabinet post, with all the prejudice and negativity you can imagine that would entail, but despite that, she was the architect of Social Security, unemployment insurance, worker's compensation, and the eight-hour workday. Her contributions to safety in the workplace are legion.

She lived a long life, dying at eighty-five, and worked nearly until her last days. She was widely known in political and academic circles, but now, in our modern age, she is more or less forgotten, and overshadowed by Eleanor Roosevelt, who of course had many remarkable and important accomplishments, but was not an official part of the government and not a policy member.

The author, Kirstin Downey, a former reporter for the Washington Post, has done a remarkable job in creating a portrait of Frances Perkins and emphasizing the importance of her accomplishments. The research must have been long and intensive, but the resulting book is so worth it. By reading it, not only will you learn about Perkins, but will obtain a truly in-depth understanding of the Settlement House movement (where Perkins got her start as a social worker), the Great Depression, World War II and the root causes of the evils of McCarthyism in the 1950s. Perkins was right in the middle of all of it. The lessons of her role in history, which ends in the 1960s, are helpful as a background to the situation we find our country in right now. We all have so much to learn...

Abandoned: The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone by Olivia Laing

I found this subject matter intriguing, since I had also lived alone in Manhattan for eleven years, and often thought about so many people living so closely together but maintaining such singular and single lives. At times it was invigorating to be alone in the crowd, walking the streets on my personal quests, but there could be lonely moments when it seemed there was no one who was available to go along for a meal, a walk, a drink...and this was long before the Internet, texting or the social media we rely on today to keep us connected. Fortunately I was not the sort of person who was intimidated by a singular seat in a movie theater or a coffee shop, and as a devoted reader, I always had the company of a pile of books just crying out to be savored.

I got a little tired of reading about the author's melancholy experience of being alone in a strange city, but when she moved on to writing about the artist Edward Hopper, I was much more engaged, as I have always been intrigued by his work, which seems so emblematic of certain aspects of the city. I found the section on Andy Warhol interesting at first, but about a third of the way through, my desire to continue with the book petered out. I leafed through the rest, but nothing else really caught my eye and encouraged me to continue. There is a long section on AIDS, but perhaps because I lived through the height of the epidemic and lost friends, neighbors and acquaintances, I didn't want to revisit that horrible time. 

I abandoned the book after about sixty-five pages.

So, while I didn't finish it, I am finished with it. It will be back to the library later in the day...  

The Spirit Remains Strong: The Lost Boys by Faye Kellerman

After 26 novels featuring the same two primary characters, you might think a series could be getting stale, but I can assure you that is not the case with Faye Kellerman's latest suspense novel, The Lost Boys. Detective Peter Decker and his wife Rina Lazarus are back, along with Pete's partner, Tyler McAdams, to solve a disturbing crime, and Gabe, Peter and Rina's foster son, who has family issues to resolve. 

These characters keep becoming more complete, and more nuanced, with each book. They've aged and changed in a realistic way – Peter is now looking towards 70, and Rina is well into her 50s. They've left behind Peter's high-pressure job at the LAPD and have already spent a few years in a small college town in upstate New York, where the crimes are fewer but no less complex.

The blended Decker family includes Peter's daughter Cindy and her husband Koby, Rina's two sons Jacob and Sam and their wives, Peter and Rina's daughter together, Hannah, and her husband plus a tableful of grandchildren. Gabe is in his 20s now too, and in a serious relationship. The changing and expanding family figures heavily in this book.

Along with the usual murder plot, Kellerman dwells heavily on where life will next take the Deckers. What lies in store for this unique couple? Observant Jews, Peter came late to discovering his heritage but has throughly embraced it, while Rina is as contemporary as can be while honoring her Orthodox background, keeping kosher, dressing modestly but stylishly, and spreading her goodwill and kindness everywhere she goes. Kellerman acknowledges how priorities change during life's stages.

It was thoroughly enjoyable to spend some time with these characters, who at this point, feel like old friends. I'd love a seat at their Shabbos table sometime...especially if Rina does the cooking.

 

Writers and Artists under Fire: Red Letter Days by Sarah-Jane Stratford

The Red Scare of the 1950s destroyed or derailed the careers, personal lives and reputations of many prominent people working in publishing and entertainment. Being denounced as a Communist, or suspected of having Communist or Socialist political sympathies affected the famous, including writers Lillian Hellman, Ring Lardner, Jr. and Dalton Trumbo, and directors Martin Ritt, Lee Grant and Jules Dassin, but average working Americans, especially union members, Jews, and African-Americans who were working for change in organizations like the NAACP were caught up in the mania and arrested, jailed or called to testify before HUAC, the now-notorious House Un-American Activities Committee.

In Red Letter Days, Phoebe Adler is a young woman trying to make her way in the bohemian atmosphere of 1955 Greenwich Village. After growing up poor on Manhattan's Lower East Side, she worked in an aircraft factory during World War II, as many women did, and made her views on equal pay for women known. Phoebe's ambition was to become a writer, and she had finally achieved some minor success with scripts for the new medium of television. Then the unthinkable happened – she was blacklisted, fired from her job, branded a Red, and told to sign a loyalty oath...

Phoebe's parents had passed away and she helped support her older sister Mona who had been ill from birth with a rare disease. She lived in a facility where she was an object of medical research in exchange for her room, board and care, but Phoebe contributed money so Mona had her own room and some extras. The two were very close and Phoebe worried about Mona's gradually deteriorating health.

When Phoebe found herself jobless and in danger of arrest, she went to Mona for guidance. Mona advised her to get her things together, and buy a ticket on the first ship to London that she could. Phoebe reluctantly agreed and with her small amount of savings, and some help from her best friend Anne, she fled across the pond on the Queen Mary.

Hannah Wolfson was also a former New Yorker, living in London with her husband and two young daughters. Both were journalists, but Hannah had found a new career in TV and started a company to produce programs for ITV, the commercial competition to the BBC. 

Hannah was sympathetic and took Phoebe on as a script girl. Hiring blacklisted employees was risky, but Hannah had a number of them using assumed names. The TV show they were producing was meant for the British and American markets, so the credits could not show any blacklisted individuals. Gradually Phoebe settled into the job, and became close to Hannah, her friends and associates. Hannah invites her to call Mona each Sunday from her apartment when rates are lower – Phoebe has no phone and the calls are very expensive.

Things go well for Phoebe at first. She sells a few scripts to Hannah, and meets a charming man. While she is always fearful of being deported, she feels relatively safe in sympathetic Britain.

Hannah's program becomes a great success once it airs and her future looks bright until her husband shifts from supportive to cold. They divorce, painfully for Hannah, but the show still thrives.

Gradually, it becomes clear that neither woman is truly safe from investigation, and Phoebe is arrested by American agents...

Author Sarah-Jane Stratford has done the research and referenced real-life events and the lives of some actual individuals, constructing a compelling novel with a fast pace and plenty of tension that will keep you turning the pages till the very end. Be sure to read the Author's Note for a complete experience. 

Windy City Newswoman: White Collar Girl by Renée Rosen

In 1955, Jordan Walsh, a recent journalism school graduate, tries to break into the newspaper business as a reporter, but is stymied by the rampant sexism of the era. She lands an entry-level job at the Chicago Tribune, where she works on write-ups of weddings and other events for the society pages, and along with her other female colleagues, edits recipes under a shared pseudonym. From day one, she chafes at the bit, wanting to do more.

Jordan comes from a literary/journalistic family: her mother is a published poet and her father is a journalist working on a novel. Her brother, Eliot, was an investigative reporter until he died in a hit-and-run accident two earlier, leaving the family bereft and broken. Jordan is determined to follow in Eliot's footsteps, but also to make a name for herself.

Many famous real-life names dot the pages of this novel where they are worked in as friends or colleagues of Jordan's parents, but they add color and texture to the story and don't feel like simple namedropping. Actual events of the period concerning politicians and criminals are also part of the stories that Jordan and her fictional colleagues pursue, which add further authenticity.

Renée Rosen's descriptions of the Chicago of the time feel spot on. The seedy bars, diners and dirty streets are very evocative, and of course, everybody smokes everywhere and uses pay phones. It's easy to imagine Jordan confronting cops, political hacks and others...along with her incredibly sexist male superiors and co-workers.

The novel is a fast and compelling read, and covers Jordan's family problems and romantic entanglements as well as her ambition and work. She sounds like a woman that many readers will recognize, if not in themselves, but in the older generations of women who worked so hard to succeed in a man's world.

The author is very careful to provide documentation for the adjustments to the historical timeline, and how she managed to effectively merge real and fictional events. Well done, Renée Rosen.

Note: strictly coincidentally, I recently read and reviewed another novel by Rosen, What the Lady Wants,  also with a Chicago setting, quite enjoyable but not as fast-paced and snappy as this one.  I'll be checking out more of her work shortly.

"On State Street, that Great Street": What the Lady Wants by Renée Rosen

This novel is subtitled "A Novel of Marshall Field and the Gilded Age", and it is true that the legendary Chicago department store entrepreneur is a key character, but the narrator and central character is Delia Spencer Caton, who eventually married Field after she was widowed from her first husband, Arthur Caton, the son of the very rich and influential Chief Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court. 

Delia comes from a leading Chicago family – her father is a partner in a leading retail enterprise and the family hobnobs with the other leaders of Chicago business, many with names that became household words, such as the Swifts and Armours of the meatpacking business, and others less well-known now but incredibly influential in American industry, such as Cyrus McCormick who created a revolution in farm equipment and whose company became International Harvester, and George Pullman, an engineer who developed the Pullman sleeping car (for trains) and was founder of an eponymous company town, and Potter Palmer, who developed and operated Chicago's grandest hotel, the Palmer House. 

Historical accounts state that Marshall Field and his first wife, Nannie, had an unhappy marriage. Their constant fights were well-known and not confined to the privacy of their palatial home. Nannie spent long periods of time abroad, with and without the Fields' two children (a third had died very young). This is made abundantly clear throughout the narrative. The novel also describes her as a laudanum (an opiate) addict, but this may or may not be true.

According to the novel, Delia first meets Marshall Field when she is seventeen years old. It is 1871, and the time of The Great Fire that burned down vast parts of the city. Delia and her family are attending a ball at the Palmer House when the fire takes place, and Bertha Palmer, Potter Palmer's wife, introduces them. Delia is immediately smitten and apparently Field, twenty years her senior, is too. 

The Spencers discover that their home and business were completely destroyed. Rebuilding will take quite some time, but just a few weeks later, with his extraordinary business acumen, Marshall Field and his partner have reopened in temporary quarters. 

Around this time, Delia meets the handsome Arthur, whom she will eventually marry five years later. Their marriage brings together money and social prestige, but is portrayed as unhappy. While Delia and Arthur form a close bond of friendship, the marriage lacks sexual chemistry. Delia wants to have a child but it becomes clear that this will never happen. Arthur drinks heavily and though he is a lawyer, he spends his time with his horses and at his club. Despite this, the Catons build a luxurious mansion that backs up to the property of Marshall Field's even more spectacular home.

Arthur has a close relationship with his friend Paxton Lowry (an invention of the author). The two are nearly inseparable, though Paxton works through an array of girlfriends. When he leaves town for New York, Arthur is bereft. Eventually Paxton will return, marry and have a child, another enormous blow for Arthur. Paxton's and Arthur's relationship weaves in and out through the Catons' lives over the years...but eventually Delia and Marshall embark on their own clandestine affair, which per the plot will last over thirty years, and is lavishly described.

Historic accounts vary about the true degree and type of involvement between Delia and Marshall, but in this novel, they are passionate soulmates. Some real-life rumors about them went so far as to say that they had a tunnel built between their homes to enable their trysts.

Eventually, Nannie Field dies abroad in 1900, leaving Marshall free to remarry. Arthur dies in his and Delia's hotel suite at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York in 1905. Newspaper accounts indicate various causes of death, but there were rumors of suicide and that is one of most the dramatic portrayals of the novel.

Delia and Marshall marry just months later, but the marriage is short-lived due to Marshall's untimely death a year later in 1906.

Historical accounts state that Delia lived on, moving to Washington, D.C., where she became a celebrated hostess. She died in 1938.

Another interesting detail of this novel is the intermittent appearance of Harry Selfridge, a leading employee of Marshall Field & Company, who eventually relocated to London and opened his own celebrated department store, Selfridge & Company, which exists till this day. Selfridge was the colorful subject of a British TV series that ran on PBS's Masterpiece several years ago – Mr. Selfridge.

I enjoyed the true-to-historical detail of Gilded Age Chicago, and the fabulous descriptions of the homes, the clothing and of the surroundings. The author also does an excellent job describing business practices of the period, key events like the Great Fire, The Columbian Exposition of 1893 (Chicago's first World's Fair, and the subject of the superb non-fiction work, The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson), the Haymarket Riots, and more. Arthur Caton and his relationship with his invented friend Paxton add drama, but there is a huge amount of supposition involved – a testimony to the author's skill, but that may also feel heavy handed.  

A Tale of the Blue Ridge: Under a Gilded Moon by Joy Jordan-Lake

I wasn't so sure about this novel at first, but it grew on me...very quickly. My initial concerns with a seemingly formulaic storyline – young woman escapes humble origins, gets a taste of big city opportunity, but gives it up for a family crisis – were eclipsed by the far more intellectual and complex ins and outs of the characters and plot.

Set at and during the 1895 opening of Biltmore, the vast and magnificent Vanderbilt estate and now historic house museum, and its environs near Asheville, North Carolina in the Blue Ridge Mountains, it is partly a study of the haves, the ultra-rich Gilded Age captains of industry, and the have-nots, the poverty-stricken Scots-Irish people of Appalachia who struggled to survive on small farms and in traditional industries.

In addition to the class and social conflicts between those two groups, it is also a commentary on the tensions between the overall dominant "white" Anglo-Nordic population of late nineteenth-century America, and the enormous influx of immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe – the Russian Jews, Southern Italians and others – from its height in the late 1880s and 1890s until legislation in 1920 by a reactionary U.S. Congress slammed shut the Golden Door of immigration for decades. At the same time, freed former African-American slaves were trying to make their way in a society that was using mistrust and prejudice to foil them with the extreme violence of the KKK and other White Supremacy groups, and the Jim Crow laws that arose in the American South to combat the freedoms that had been granted by Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of the Constitution. In addition, Chinese immigrants were suffering under the 1875 Page Act which banned Chinese women from immigrating and the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which completely prohibited further immigration of all Chinese laborers. In short, in many aspects, America was a far-from-welcoming place.

The major fictional characters, Kerry MacGregor, the young mountain woman who goes to New York with a scholarship at Barnard College, but returns to care for her sick father and join the staff at Biltmore, Salvatore Catalfamo, an Italian immigrant who comes to work at the Biltmore stables, Lilli Barthélemy (note the play on Edith Wharton's Lily Bart in The House of Mirth), are deftly woven with the historic ones, including George Washington Vanderbilt II, the owner of Biltmore and Madison Grant (who widely promoted the false science of eugenics in his book The Passing of the Great Race but was at the same time an early wildlife conservationist). A full range of secondary characters, authentic or invented but plausible, along with the majors, wind together in an intricate plot that involves two murders, romance, suicide, death by alcoholism, and a Pinkerton manhunt. All this happens while the author also emphasizes her overwhelming appreciation of the beauty of the natural surroundings and the magnificence of Biltmore in lyrical description.

The historical aspects are beautifully presented and feel natural in the context of the action. Readers may feel motivated to learn more about the architecture and construction of Biltmore and the social and financial concerns that continue to haunt Appalachia. As to the plot, all the threads are neatly tied by the novel's end, which concludes with a satisfying romantic touch. Under a Gilded Moon is most definitely a "good read".

Boldly Delicious: Vegetables Unleashed by José Andrés

Alluring, enticing recipes, vivid photography and food styling, and highly personal, energetic commentary from Spanish Chef José Andrés, who is not only renowned for his multi-cultural restaurants and food trucks, but for his humanitarian efforts in dealing with the food shortages in Puerto Rico and Haiti after natural disasters and now here in the United States in the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

I first heard of Chef Andrés in CNN reports of his trips to Puerto Rico after Category 5 Hurricane Maria devastated much of the island, destroying homes, roads and the electrical infrastructure, leaving tens of thousands homeless and destitute in isolated areas. He set up a volunteer network and makeshift kitchen stations all over the island that served millions of meals. That humanitarian work was profiled in his prior book We Fed an Island: The True Story of Rebuilding Puerto Rico, One Meal at a Time. He is a remarkable man, with a truly larger than life personality and an extraordinary zest for living.

I can't wait to try some of Chef Andrés's recipes, which bring together what might sound like unlikely combinations of certain vegetables, grains and seasonings. During the pandemic, preparing almost every single meal every day has become a challenge in staving off boredom, as well as repetition. After a full year in which I can count on one hand how many take-out meals my husband and I have had, and on the other, outdoor dining excursions with him or a friend, I am much more than ready for new culinary ideas, especially ones that have been presented with such color and energy.

Like nearly all the books I have read in the last few years, I checked this one out from the library via an inter-library loan, but it is so good, I have it on my Amazon wishlist for a future purchase. For now, I'll jot down some of the most appealing recipes and go from there.  

Passage to India: The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey

It's always a treat to find a "new" author, and then discover that they have published at least dozen books that you'll want to read. My "new" author is Sujata Massey, a former Baltimore Sun reporter turned novelist.

According to the book jacket, Ms. Massey's parents were Indian and German but she was raised in the United States. Her Indian background must have been invaluable in creating this first-in-a-series novel set in the Bombay of the early 1920s and featuring a heroine inspired by the first woman to practice law there. 

Perveen Mistry is a young woman solicitor from a successful Parsi family of lawyers and a business in real estate construction. Parsis are Indians of Persian descent who follow the Zoroastrian religion. Zoroastrianism dates back to approximately 600 BCE, making it more than 1200 years older than Islam, which overtook it in ancient Persia/Iran. In the 1920s, Bombay had separate religious communities for Moslems, Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Jews and Christians, as well as Parsis. Each had their own parallel society and specific legal requirements. A lawyer needed to understand both the religious and civil laws to represent clients. At this time, India is still ruled by the British and that there is a rigid social and legal system with the white British community at the top, no matter how distinguished, successful and wealthy any Indian might be.

Two parallel threads form the narrative, one for Perveen's work and one for her personal life. They are cleverly interwoven in alternate chapters that move between her present and her recent past. In her present, about 1921, she has recently completed her legal studies and works in the law practice of her father on the paperwork for various cases (women are not yet allowed to appear in the courts – in the British and Indian systems, lawyers who present cases in court are known as barristers, while those who handle all other aspects of the law are called solicitors), and in her recent past, we learn about what happened in her life five years earlier, providing the background for her present circumstances.

One of the practice's clients is a wealthy, highly traditional Muslim family. The husband has died leaving three widows (don't be judgmental – remember that this is 1921) and several children. The widows live in purdah (religion-based seclusion) in a large villa in an exclusive neighborhood. Perveen becomes involved in the details of executing the will for the widows and the man who had been appointed to manage the business affairs of the family. On a visit to the household to conduct business, Perveen discovers that he has been been brutally murdered...

Not only does the novel solve this mystery, but it also introduces an intriguing heroine who explores the societal issues of the rapidly changing times in India, including colonialism and feminism, giving the reader a fascinating window into a complex, diverse and sophisticated culture, presented for maximum appeal with vivid descriptions of the locales, dress, food and more. It is a wonderful opportunity for a journey to an exotic destination in a just distant enough time frame.