Book Review: A Flutter in the Dovecote by Jemima Norton ***1/2

A Flutter in the Dovecote is an entertaining introduction to a mystery series set in what I've always thought was a surprisingly neglected historical period - the Restoration. The English Civil War is over and the monarchy has been restored in the person of Charles II, but neighbors who were on different sides, as well as members of the same family who have been physically separated by the conflict, are still unsure of each other. Hal Westwood, whose father supported the Royalists with the result that he has been mostly raised in France, has just married the daughter of a wealthy family that stood with Cromwell and has brought her to his ancestral home. His uncle, who owns the property and intends to leave it to Hal, is missing, as is a tapestry that has been in the family for generations. The whereabouts of both are soon discovered, but this complicates the situation even more, as the crime is now not theft but murder.

This is a promising start to the series but it still has quite a few weaknesses. I saw the solution fairly early on and felt that it was pretty obvious. Also, I wasn't too sure how accurate the dialogue was, although the author did provide a glossary at the end and seems to have done a fair amount of research, However, most of the characters, with the exception of Hal's seductive French stepmother, who was a bit of a walking cliché, were well drawn and believable. I will definitely be checking out the other books in this series.

Most beautiful words

http://worddreams.wordpress.com/2011/07/29/103-most-beautiful-words-you-decide/

Nice. L, S, M and R seem to predominate.

Book Review: Naomi and her Daughters by Walter Wangerin Jr. *****

In this powerful and original retelling of the story in the book of Ruth, National Book Award winner Wangerin gives Ruth's mother-in-law Naomi, portrayed in the biblical story as an unsympathetic character, embittered by tragedy and grief, a back story and a character that explains and justifies Ruth's devotion to her. The character of Boaz, the man who befriends Ruth and Naomi in their impoverished widowhoods, is also given motivation and a past.

Moving back and forth over some thirty years, Wangerin never loses control of his narrative and paints a vivid portrait of an entire society, effortlessly weaving in other biblical stories and poetry from the Psalms and the Song of Songs, particularly through the chants and musings of Naomi, who is portrayed as a hakamah, a wise woman, healer and storyteller in her native village of Bethlehem.

Naomi and her Daughters is sure to deepen any reader's appreciation of the book of Ruth and the world in which it is set.

Coming out of hibernation

Below are a couple of older reviews that I wrote for the temple newsletter last year, but I just posted them on Amazon and thought I would put them up here as well.

I've also been jolted out of my extended inactivity by the tragic shooting in Tucson last Saturday. Needless to say, my thoughts go out to the victims and their families.

However, I have found the reaction to it interesting and somewhat disturbing, particularly in the media. On the left there has been discussion of the part played by the violent rhetoric of the last election season and, while the feeling is obviously that most of that has taken place on the other side, there has also been introspection and self-examination, most notably by Keith Olbermann. (I personally, would like to apologize for any intemperate language on my part; I'm sure there has been some, although I can't think of specific instances.) In the so-called "mainstream media," there has been a false equivalency; if rhetoric played a part, well, everyone does it in equal measure. On the right, with a couple of exceptions, there has been little but finger pointing at the other side and a hysterical defensiveness.

I find it sad that we can't agree on one thing: painting one's opponent as evil and not just mistaken but malicious, using language such as "take him/her out," "Second Amendment remedies" (which by no stretch of my imagination, at least, can be construed as "metaphorical"), and shooting automatic weapons at campaign events, particularly at cutouts labeled with the opponent's initials, should be beyond the pale - at least as of now. I can only agree with Bill Clinton's remarks on the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing:

"What we learned from Oklahoma City is not that we should gag each other or that we should reduce our passion for the positions we hold - but that the words we use really do matter, because there's this vast echo chamber, and they go across space and they fall on the serious and the delirious alike. They fall on the connected and the unhinged alike [my emphasis]," he said.

"One of the things that the conservatives have always brought to the table in America is a reminder that no law can replace personal responsibility. And the more power you have and the more influence you have, the more responsibility you have."

Book Review: Annie's Ghosts by Steve Luxenberg *****

The starting point of Annie's Ghosts is when journalist Luxenberg hears that his elderly mother, who always claimed to be an only child, has mentioned in a talk with her doctor that she had a disabled sister, who was "sent away" as a young child. Several years after his mother's death he learns the sister's name, Annie, and that far than being a brief presence in his mother's young life, she was actually committed to a mental institution on the eve of her 21st birthday.

The remainder of the book is Luxenberg's account of his attempt to learn more about his aunt, who lived a further thirty-two years after her commitment, and to understand why his caring, loving mother had felt the need to hide the fact of her sister's existence from everyone in her life. Along the way, he interviews many of his parents' old friends and relatives, archivists and psychiatrists, as well as visiting the town in Russia where his family originated. He also weaves in information about the history of mental health care in twentieth-century America, the eugenics movement, and the lives of Jewish immigrants in the early to mid-twentieth century.

Annie's Ghosts is a moving meditation on family secrets; the stigma all too often attached to disability, both physical and mental; and a son's coming to terms with the fears and cultural attitudes that informed his mother's choices in life.

Book Review: The Prophet's Wife by Milton Steinberg ****

At the time of his premature death in 1950, Milton Steinberg, respected rabbi and author of the acclaimed As a Driven Leaf, left the unfinished manuscript of a second novel. After sixty years, The Prophet's Wife has finally been published.

Set in the days before the Assyrian invasion of the northern kingdom of Israel, The Prophet's Wife revolves around the life of Hosea, one of the earliest literary prophets and the one about whose personal life we know the most. Hosea talks in the book named for him about how he married a woman who betrayed him with other men, yet took her back as God would do with unfaithful Israel.

As in his other novel, Steinberg gives us a vivid re-imagining of ancient Israelite life and customs, as well as a very human portrait of Hosea, the scholarly yet unappreciated son of his pious father, and Hosea's erring wife Gomer. Steinberg's stately prose brings to mind the cadences of the Tanakh, yet is never inaccessible to the modern reader.

The editors of The Prophet's Wife have made the bold and unconventional decision to leave it in its unfinished state, ending at a pivotal point in its subject's life, adding two very different essays by modern scholars speculating on how Steinberg would have finished the book if he had lived. The reader, as well, can come up with his or her own ending for Hosea and Gomer's story.

Book Review: The Journal of Hélène Berr ****1/2

A graduate of the Sorbonne, student of English literature, and talented musician, Hélène Berr began her journal in April 1942 at the age of twenty-one. At that time it was still relatively easy to ignore the increasing restrictions being placed on the Jews by the Nazis, and the first part of the book is taken up with her own personal concerns, her studies, and her love life. Soon enough, however, she is directly touched by the decree that the yellow star must be worn by all Jews, and records her conflicted feelings, humiliation and determination to hold her head up high, as well as the small kindnesses she receives from strangers, which give her comfort and strength.

As things become worse for the city's Jews, deportations, suicides and arrests (including the temporary detention of her own father) become a litany interwoven with Hélène's determination to live as normal a life as she can while maintaining her own humanity and dignity. She becomes engaged but her fiancé flees to Free France to work against the Nazis from there, while she feels bound to remain with her family and continue her work saving Jewish children from deportation and resettling them when their parents have been arrested. After abandoning the journal for a year, she returns to it as a changed, more serious person. The entries become longer and more introspective as this courageous young woman is forced to face the likelihood of her early death and finds comfort in friends, family and the literature that she loves so much.

Hélène Berr was arrested in 1944 and died in Bergen-Belsen only a few days before its liberation, but her journal, which was kept by a friend and given to her fiancé after her death, ensures that her vital, intensely humane spirit lives on.

25 Favorite Books (for now)

(One has already changed.) We were coming up with lists of our favorites on one of the Amazon discussion boards. These are in no particular order except that mysteries are first, since it's a mystery group. Some are childhood favorites, some are just fun, and others, as Cathy says about her dreams in Wuthering Heights (on the list!) "have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they've gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind."

• Stone Angel by Carol O'Connell
• The Water Room by Christopher Fowler
• Die for Love by Elizabeth Peters
• Deeds of the Disturber by Elizabeth Peters (or any of the Peabody/Emerson books where Ramses is young and obnoxious)
• The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
• Breakheart Hill by Thomas H. Cook
• Streets of Fire by Thomas H. Cook
• Past Caring by Robert Goddard
• As a Driven Leaf by Milton Steinberg
• The Chosen by Chaim Potok
• An Interrupted Life by Etty Hillesum
• The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank
• Dune by Frank Herbert
• Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert
• His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
• Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling (all of them, but if I had to pick one it would be Deathly Hallows)
• Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
• The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
• The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse
• The Ghosts by Antonia Barber
• Bid Time Return by Richard Matheson
• A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
• Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken
• A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

Book Review: The Fate of Katherine Carr ****

The Fate of Katherine Carr by Thomas H. Cook ****
George Gates is a former travel writer and investigator of historical mysteries who has retreated to safe, superficial newspaper writing after his young son was kidnaped and murdered. He then gets sucked into the mystery of what happened to a local writer (Katherine Carr) who walked out of her house one day in 1987 and vanished, leaving behind a mysterious story that seems to relate to her own life. He also becomes involved (both professionally and emotionally) with a 12-year-old girl dying of progeria (the "aging" disease), with whom he reads through the story, attempting to find clues to what happened to Katherine.

I think of this book as structured like a spiral, going from Gates' telling of the story to a man he meets on a cruise ship, to his investigation of Katherine's disappearance, to Katherine's story from 20 years before, and back. On the way it provides an interesting meditation on the effects of loss and of crime (especially unsolved crime) on its victims; not only has Gates lost his son, but Katherine had become a virtual recluse before her disappearance due to a vicious beating she had suffered a few years before. The ending is rather ambiguous, though, and the whole book seems unfocused - possibly a necessary effect of its structure and content, but that may account for the lack of complete satisfaction on my part.

P.S. As with other books I've seen or read lately, the cover bugs the hell out of me. It appears to be a young (pre-adolescent) girl, though it's hard to tell since the close-up cuts off most of the face. The only character who fits that description is dying of premature aging and wheelchair bound. Why is it considered so unacceptable in some circles to have a cover that bears some relation to the content of the book?

A beautiful tribute, sung by Susan Wehle

Book Review: The Blood of Caesar ****

The Blood of Caesar: A Second Case from the Notebooks of Pliny the Younger by Albert A. Bell, Jr. ****

An invitation to dine alone with the princeps (the historically accurate title used by emperors at this period) Domitian is not necessarily a good thing, and Pliny the Younger's friend Tacitus tells him that an astrologer has predicted that it will change their lives forever. As it turns out, Domitian has heard about Pliny's powers of observation and talent for detection, honed at the feet of his uncle, the naturalist and polymath Pliny the Elder, and has a job for him.

Pliny is shown an old letter from Nero's mother to her son taunting him with the fact that other descendants of Augustus, who could be his rivals for power, still live. Domitian, as a representative of a family with no relationship to the Julian-Claudian line whatsoever, is even more concerned, and asks Pliny to ferret out the truth of the matter.

This is the second book in what promises to be an enjoyable, well-written series featuring the historical figures of Pliny the Younger and the historian Tacitus. Pliny soon finds out that the dead man he was shown by Domitian as a test of his deductive abilities not only did not die by accident as he was told, but has a connection to the mystery, as well as to his own family. He also must deal with the domestic issues that come with being the relatively new master of a large household, as well as his mother's increasingly close relationship to two of their Jewish slaves and her apparent interest in their religion.

The central mystery in The Blood of Caesar is not a complicated one to unravel; rather, the enjoyment comes from the author's detailed picture of Roman life in the late first century and anticipation of how what seems like an impossible situation will be resolved. Since I've read about that time period, I'm somewhat familiar with the tortuous complexity of the Julian-Claudian family tree, so I'm not sure how clear it will be to those without such familiarity. There is a helpful glossary and timeline at the back, as well as numerous illustrations scattered throughout the book, but maybe a simplified family tree would also have come in handy.

Book Review: Bone by Bone *****

Bone by Bone by Carol O'Connell *****

Twenty years ago, at the age of 17, Oren Hobbs left his small California town after the disappearance of his younger brother Josh. Now he has been called home to find that his brother is also returning, one bone at a time being left on the porch of his family home. This is the situation at the beginning of Bone by Bone, Carol O'Connell's first novel after the (presumed) culmination of her incredible Kathy Mallory series, and the absence of Mallory has not hurt her writing one bit.

As in the Mallory series, the solution of the mystery is secondary to O'Connell's brilliant characterizations and her portrayal of the interlocking relationships and tensions that have turned this claustrophobic community into a pressure cooker ready to explode. Even the stock characters in this type of story, such as the family housekeeper, a tiny woman who can quell a grown man with a glance, and Oren's childhood crush, with whom he has never exchanged a word and who appears to harbor homicidal passions toward him rather than the usual kind, are unique and individual human beings.

As Josh's burial place is found and the investigation into his murder proceeds, Oren is drawn more and more deeply back into the secrets and haunted lives of the people in the town - the alcoholic socialite and birdwatcher who has chronicled the life of the town in her journal by portraying them as various types of birds, her controlling attorney husband, the crippled and scarred ex-policeman, and others. Josh was an inveterate shutterbug with a talent for capturing people's secrets with his camera. Could he have exposed one too many? Bone by Bone will keep you reading as it races towards the final confrontations and revelation of the various secrets that have poisoned the town for decades.

Book Review: Mr. Darcy Presents His Bride ***1/2

Mr. Darcy Presents His Bride by Helen Halstead ***1/2

To me, one of the true tests of a great novel is the involvement of the reader in the lives of the characters, to the extent of not wanting to give them up. How many of us have wondered what happened to Mr. and Mrs. Darcy and their friends and family after the end of Pride & Prejudice! Helen Halstead attempts to provide an answer, and in large part she succeeds.

The Darcys set off to London for the new bride's formal introduction to society, and she captivates many, although Lady Catherine de Bourgh's disapproval still holds sway in some quarters. There is triumph and tragedy, misunderstanding and reconciliation, and of course several characters, including Darcy's sister Georgiana, his cousins Anne de Bourgh and Colonel Fitzwilliam, Kitty Bennet, and even the odious Miss Bingley, find true love.

The main weakness in this book, I feel, is in the editing, or, I suspect, the lack thereof. I suspect that this is a self-published book, which is too bad, since effective editing would have stengthened it enormously. In places it is unfocused, situations such as Miss Bingley's engagement are not handled as well as they could be, and the overall plot could be tightened.

However, while not as polished as many of the P&P tie-ins and sequels, Mr. Darcy Presents His Bride is a worthy entry which manages on the whole to stay true to the characters of most of the people we grew to know and love in the original novel. I give it an A for effort and a B- for execution.

Leahy Lays Out Case For Truth Commission In Time

Sen. Leahy, I'm sure you think you have a fine idea and your motives are the best, but one of Keith Olbermann's legal experts (Jonathan Turley, I think), pointed out that truth commissions and the like are used in EMERGING democracies - you know, places that don't have properly functioning judicial systems. There is no reason on God's green earth why this country can't investigate and prosecute these crimes as it would any others, and as we would expect any of our allies to do.

At least let's wait a little and find out how many whistleblowers come forth of their own voliition and what Mr. Holder finds in the pit of corruption and iniquity formerly known as the "Justice" Dept., where there are a lot of good people who have been hunkered down and biding their time until the nightmare was over.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Cantor Susan Wehle

Cantor Susan was one of those lost in the tragic plane crash outside of Buffalo on Thursday night. Of course, each life lost was precious and my heart goes out to all of their loved ones, but Susan was the one whose life touched my own, as well as those of many others. Here are two news stories that examine the wonderful variety of those 50 souls, among them college students with their whole lives ahead of them, an expert on genocide, and, with the most tragic irony, a 9/11 widow.

Fifty Varied Lives, Ended on a Cold, Foggy Night
Passengers and Crew Aboard Flight 3407: Their Stories

My deepest condolences to all who knew and loved Susan. She had a beautiful voice, a joyous heart and a generous soul. She was one of the many who welcomed me when I joined Temple Sinai back in the 90s, and while I was sorry when she left us for Beth Am, I was also happy to see her continuing in her spiritual and professional journey. She taught me haftarah chanting and prayers for my adult bat mitzvah, but watching her on the bimah, giving her heart and soul to the prayers, was an education in itself, as well as a joy and a pleasure. Her life was a celebration of the Divine and of the possibilities inherent in all of us, and the entirety of her life is what should be remembered, more than the tragic manner of its ending.

No man is an island, entire of itself
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main
if a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were,
as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were
any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls
it tolls for thee.

— John Donne

More books

Since I haven't really felt like doing any full-fledged reviews lately (lazy, lazy, I know), here are a few books that I'm reading or have just finished and some thoughts about them.

The Bone Garden and A Cursed Inheritance by Kate Ellis - intelligent, interesting mysteries with a historical twist, featuring a young black police inspector in Devon (England) named Wesley Peterson. Peterson studied archaeology in college, and in both of these books a murder that he is investigating intersects with an archaeological dig on which his friend Neil Watson is working, and the present day solution, at least in the first book, echoes the past events.

Below the Root by Zilpha Keatley Snyder (I've always loved that name) - in a "perfect" society, ominous rumblings of things gone awry and corruption at the top. I read this when I was a kid and along with some others that I liked, managed to get another copy through paperbackswap.com (a great site, if a little top heavy with romances). Although the setting is pastoral rather than underground, this reminds me a lot (or really, the other way around since this was published first) of The City of Ember. I'd never realized that it was the first of a trilogy, so if I like it as well as I remember I'll have to try and get hold of the other two. I loved her books as a kid, especially The Egypt Game, The Changeling and The Headless Cupid.

Elleander Morning by Jerry Yulsman - a fascinating thought experiment. A copy of the Time-Life History of the Second World War makes it into a parallel universe in which there never was a Second World War, and a nuclear-armed Germany decides to use it as a playbook. This is another one that I read when it first came out in the 80s and picked up again through paperbackswap.com. The personal story of the woman who finds herself hurtled backward in time and uses the opportunity to kill a young Viennese artist named Adolf Hitler, and her granddaughter in the new world she's created, attempting to find out what happened, are in the foreground, but the premise is fascinating. I haven't finished it yet, so don't know if he manages to live up to the expectations he creates.

Autism's False Prophets by Paul A. Offit - I can't recommend this book highly enough - I may even get off my duff and actually review it. An excellent review of the hold vaccines-cause-autism "school of thought" including an examination of the social and cultural forces that allow this kind of bad science, as he terms it, to go mainstream and actually be accepted by large numbers of people. For now, I can't do better than to link to an excellent review over at the ScienceBlogs Book Club.

President Barack Hussein Obama

Now, get over it, racists and unredeemed right-wingers. Everyone else, break out the champagne before we roll up our sleeves and get to work fixing this mess.

I couldn't help but think, when last week's amazing plane landing on the Hudson River took place, that it was the perfect symbol of our transition to a new era of competence and calm, cool and collected leadership. As I said to a couple of people, imagine if Chesley Sullenberger and crew had had the skills, training and qualifications of John McCain's "quintessential American," Joe the Unlicensed Plumber.

Let's also not forget, as many people have done in the rush to (deservedly) praise Mr. Sullenberger, the co-pilot, Jeff Skiles, and the flight attendants, Sheila Dail, Doreen Welsh, and Donna Dent, who were the ones who actually got the passengers out once the plane had landed.

The dreaded "headless bodice"

Looking at the list of my "book" pet peeves I see that I've left off the biggest one of all, the one that I really hate with all the heat of a thousand white hot suns but which seems to be ubiquitous. It's what I am told is called the "headless bodice," where a picture (photo, illustration, whatever) of (virtually always) a woman is put on the cover of a book but she is only shown up to the chin or maybe just under the nose. It's as if only the outfit matters, not the person, and, while I suspect that there are quite a few different reasons (easier for the artist if it's an illustration, focus on the historical period if the book is set in the past), it just seems to me like a complete objectification, and I don't even consider myself a raging feminist. Not only do I find them offensive, but, while they may once have been different and eye-catching, by now they've been done to death. Not that the publishers probably care, but while I may get them from the library, I refuse to buy them.

Note: Interestingly enough, the portrait on the cover of Jane Boleyn is actually of Jane Seymour, the woman who replaced Jane B.'s sister-in-law Anne Boleyn on the throne. I guess they just wanted a portrait of a woman from the right period and I think they credit it correctly, but that's just weird.

Book Review: Destined to Choose ****

Destined to Choose by Sheyna Galyan ****

Rabbi David Cohen is struggling to write a sermon for Tisha b'Av, a fast day commemorating the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, the observance of which the leaders of his congregation feel is a waste of time. His obligations to his family and his job are in conflict, to the detriment of both. Finally, an elderly Holocaust survivor has turned to him for help in finding the man's eighteen-year-old granddaughter, who has left their home after a furious argument over a philosophy paper she wrote for college. This is the situation at the opening of Sheyna Galyan's Destined to Choose.

Rabbi Cohen's intensive counseling sessions with Avram and his granddaughter Anna, once she is located, are at the center of this promising first novel, and their discussions, as well as his interactions with other characters, range widely over several aspects of Jewish thought, practice and theology, while still remaining relatively accessible to the average reader. A helpful glossary of Jewish terms is also provided at the end of the book.

Are people basically good, or tainted from the start? If they are basically good, how do we explain Hitler and his followers? What are the reasons for the rabbi's refusal to perform a marriage between a Jew and a non-Jew, and how far should he go in attempting to portray Judaism as an attractive option to the non-Jewish partner? How does he reconcile the conflict between the needs of his family and the requirements of his job, and should he stand on principle when it puts his livelihood in jeopardy?

Not all of these questions are answered, but Ms. Galyan, who, according to her website, "identifies herself as Traditional Conservative, with occasional leanings toward both Reform and Feminist Orthodoxy - sometimes simultaneously," gives her readers plenty of food for thought in the course of the book.

Avram and Anna are rounded, sympathetic characters whose positions are occasionally diametrically opposed to what a more stereotyped viewpoint might suggest. The rabbi's loving relationship with his family, as well as his supportive friendship with his colleagues and the secretary at the temple are also well portrayed.

Since this is a first novel, it has some weaknesses. The president of the temple comes off as more of a caricature than a real person, and some might feel that the rabbi's many problems resolve themselves just a little too neatly at the end. However, the story and and the thoughtful way in which the author and her characters wrestle with some serious issues more than compensate for these minor flaws and make Destined to Choose a worthwhile and enjoyable read.

On a lighter note....

I've been thinking of compiling a list of my pet peeves, but one of them is that I've been trying to do it in my head and so the list never gets very long because I keep forgetting them. Anyway, here are some of my least favorite things in books, things on which, while I may have liked or enjoyed or not been bothered by them at one time, I now feel it is time to put a moratorium.

1) Vampires, at least until someone can do something original with them. The whole S&M-tinged, "vampire as great lover" thing has been done to death. BO-ring.

2) Dragons, except as bit players as in Harry Potter.

3) Women with charming but selfish, usually alcoholic fathers whom they adore no matter how badly the fathers treat them, their siblings and their mothers.

4) Women with irresponsible hippie-type (if not actual hippie) mothers whom they must parent, and for whom they feel a mixture of love and exasperation.

(Note: Neither of these types of parents ever appear to have sons, or at least sons who appear as main characters in novels or memoirs.)

5) Bad puns in the titles of mysteries.

6) Whole mystery series built around crosswords, scrapbooking, gardening, etc., etc.

7) Books written in the present tense - something I have hated since the first one I read.

Well, that's all for now - I'm sure I'll think of more