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Connecticut River Valley, New England, United States

Sunday, July 31, 2016

Black Diamonds--A Real Story of Aristocrats Rather Than the Romance of Downton Abbey

Black Diamonds: The Downfall of an Aristocratic Dynasty and the Fifty Years That Changed EnglandBlack Diamonds: The Downfall of an Aristocratic Dynasty and the Fifty Years That Changed England by Catherine Bailey
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

As can be seen from the year and a half it took to read this book, it is neither engrossing nor exciting a story. It is, however, a dual tale--the story of the Earls Fitzwilliam family through several generations and the story of the British coal industry and its miners. The two are intrinsically entwined since it was through the back breaking work of miners who started in the pits at the ages of 10-11 that the luxury and jet setting the Fitzwilliams enjoyed was supported.
Reading of the poverty and living conditions of these families juxtaposed with the impossible affluence of the mines owners was heartbreaking. Oh, there were instances of care on the part of the Fitzwilliams that were taken that other mining families did not perform but none the less the goal was profit and not much profit sharing.
Throughout the family's history stood another character, which, in many ways was more imposing than any of the human characters whose stories were told and that was Wentworth House. It stood silently as the years passed, through WW I, through miners' strikes, through WW II and into the period when at last the miners' unions rose, the Labour Party won the election and the mines were nationalized. It began as a shining monument, large and gilded, filled with priceless works of art and furnishings, surrounded by miles of parkland and formal gardens-- one of many Fitzwilliam properties but the one that was most treasured by them--a paean to their glory and dominion over the surrounding countryside of miners' villages and coal pits. It ended as a dark island, closed to all but the recluse who now owns it, surrounded by open pit devastation. There are no more Earls Fitzwilliam, and though the house still stands, there is no more glory.
The sadness that I felt for the lives of the miners and their conditions did not overwhelm me at the demise of the aristocrats who ruled them, yet, at the end, somehow there was an emptiness matched by the emptiness of Wentworth.
There is none of the Downton Abbey romance in this true story.

This was a GoodReads giveaway in exchange for review. View all my reviews

Black Diamonds--A Real Story of Aristocrats Rather Than the Romance of Downton Abbey

Black Diamonds: The Downfall of an Aristocratic Dynasty and the Fifty Years That Changed EnglandBlack Diamonds: The Downfall of an Aristocratic Dynasty and the Fifty Years That Changed England by Catherine Bailey
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

As can be seen from the year and a half it took to read this book, it is neither engrossing nor exciting a story. It is, however, a dual tale--the story of the Earls Fitzwilliam family through several generations and the story of the British coal industry and its miners. The two are intrinsically entwined since it was through the back breaking work of miners who started in the pits at the ages of 10-11 that the luxury and jet setting the Fitzwilliams enjoyed was supported.
Reading of the poverty and living conditions of these families juxtaposed with the impossible affluence of the mines owners was heartbreaking. Oh, there were instances of care on the part of the Fitzwilliams that were taken that other mining families did not perform but none the less the goal was profit and not much profit sharing.
Throughout the family's history stood another character, which, in many ways was more imposing than any of the human characters whose stories were told and that was Wentworth House. It stood silently as the years passed, through WW I, through miners' strikes, through WW II and into the period when at last the miners' unions rose, the Labour Party won the election and the mines were nationalized. It began as a shining monument, large and gilded, filled with priceless works of art and furnishings, surrounded by miles of parkland and formal gardens-- one of many Fitzwilliam properties but the one that was most treasured by them--a paean to their glory and dominion over the surrounding countryside of miners' villages and coal pits. It ended as a dark island, closed to all but the recluse who now owns it, surrounded by open pit devastation. There are no more Earls Fitzwilliam, and though the house still stands, there is no more glory.
The sadness that I felt for the lives of the miners and their conditions did not overwhelm me at the demise of the aristocrats who ruled them, yet, at the end, somehow there was an emptiness matched by the emptiness of Wentworth.
There is none of the Downton Abbey romance in this true story.

This was a GoodReads giveaway in exchange for review. View all my reviews

Thursday, July 28, 2016

How Did Felix Lose His Head? Gaius and Tilla Investigate in Terra Incognita( Known to Tilla, However!)

Terra Incognita (Gaius Petreius Ruso, #2)Terra Incognita by Ruth Downie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Gaius Petreus Ruso, Medicus to the 20th and his slave, Tilla find themselves in the far reaches of the Roman Empire--up near Hadrian's Wall in Brittanica. It is the homeland of Tilla and she has returned after many years --several spent as the slave to a neighboring warlord who kidnapped her and the last year or so as Gaius' slave. The wives of Tresla, who first enslaved her, were jealous and sold her to an intinerant peddler who, in book 1, gladly sold off this outspoken woman who could not seem to conduct herself with the proper subservient demeanor.
Now, back home, where she is not allowed into the fort where Gaius is serving as temporary relief to the present medicus or doctor, Tilla reconnects with her remaining family and neighbors of her youth. She and Gaius have arrived just as the Romans are in the throes of determining who killed Felix, the trumpeter. The resident doctor has confessed but he seems to be out of his mind--talking about his triangles that don't meet and the fish he requires to wrap round his head. Gaius is required to perform the autopsy on a corpse which is mysteriously missing its head--which cannot be found.
As if these aren't plots enough, we find that a barbarian god in the form of a Stag has caused a wagon accident that injured many and killed a carpenter whose wife Tilla has just delivered of a newborn girl. Who is this Stag Man who rides into the community but vanishes like the air and what is his purpose.
Lastly, will Tilla marry Gaius eventually--he has asked but she has refused. He is relieved to not have been accepted and is glad he did not need to withdraw the offer since these barbarians require a payment of five cows for a negated proposal. Gaius does not have the cows nor the wherewithal to purchase them. It seems Felix may have lost his head under just the same circumstances. Gaius' pal Valens, who appears on the scene trying to escape the Second Spear, father to his girlfriend finds that it is better to just marry her and be done with it, when she appears in his wake.
All is solved in the end, though, as usual, Gaius' contributions are neither recognized nor rewarded by his superiors. Indeed, others, again as usual, take credit for his work. So, with murder solved, all other problems put to rest, Gaius and Tilla again head south to Deva,where he will take Valens place as medicus.
On to Book 3 to see how our Roman medical officer and his native housekeeper, slave and lover fare on their return.

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Sunday, July 24, 2016

Les Parisiennes by Anne Sebba

As this was an ARC from Bookbrowse the pictures which will be in the published edition were lacking and that is sad, for the captions of the empty spaces indicate that they will greatly enhance this story of the incredible women who lived through the German occupation of Paris and the rest of France during WW II. There are places where the story drags and others where the story is repetitious but overall it is a fascinating story.
It begins in 1939 when the City becomes aware of the German threat but during the lull when the Germans are gracious and cultured and polite. Soon things begin to change and the food shortages begin and Jews are rounded up and made to wear yellow stars, Jewish companies are aranized and their owners flee or to into hiding. Many French men have already gone to unoccupied France to fight in DeGualle's army, what few are left are gathered up and sent to work in Germany for the war effort.
Left behind are the women and children, whom they need to protect and feed. The choices made by the women are unbelieveable--some resist, some depart and others collaborate--some even collaborate while also resisting. All of the stories are heart-breaking and over and over I asked myself, what would I do, would I be able to survive some of the horrors , how would I protect my child?
Once liberation comes the story is far from over. All of the women who survived, no matter how, now had to face the future--for some a very short future, with death the result of trials that found them guilty of treason, or the result of illness and weakness resulting from years spent at the hands of brutal German imprisonment. Yet, others lived into their nineties and they, too, found their future shadowed by the years of the war and its aftermath.
Perhaps the most impressive line in the book is its last:"It is not for the rest of us to judge but, with imagination, we can try to understand." ( BTW, Liz Taylor was British--maybe American later.)

Saturday, July 23, 2016

June---Star Struck and Shallow

The most highly developed character in the book is Two Oaks, the great yellow mansion built by Gray Neeley in 1850's St Jude, Ohio. The house hums and stretches and leans and listens and groans. It is alert to the shadowy humans of the past who lived in it or partied in it and it vaguely senses the presence of the new tenant, Cassie Danvers, the despondent, depressed twenty something who has come home after the death of the grandmother who raised her, June. In an effort to explain Cassie's mind set and to explain the brooding mansion's decrepit state the author toggles back and forth between the present, 2015, and the past, 1955, the days of June's teens and the time of St Jude's fifteen minutes of fame as the setting for a mediocre Hollywood shoot of the film, Erie Canal. Unfortunately, this flashback approach dilutes the author's ability to develop the characters of these parallel plots. The description of St Jude and its surroundings as well as its buildings is excellent and the reader can easily envision the locale. It is also easy to see the changes in the place over the intervening sixty years. The excitement of small town folks invaded by Hollywood stars, their entourages and crews is very real. Unfortunately the sense of place does not create a sense of the inner workings of the main characters. Also difficult to discern is the relationships among some of the characters---why were Eben and Lindie so welcome in Two Oaks before the arrival of June and her mother and then just as rapidly persona non grata, not only by June's mother, Cheyl Ann but also by the housekeeper, Apatha? How is it that Lemon, though living at the beginning of the flashbacks, seems to have no influence in the home he built and there is no real demise and burial of his character.? There are many threads introduced in the 1955 sections that are left hanging tantalizing over the readers' heads, much as the ceiling rotting in an upstairs closet hangs threateningly over the temporary residents of the 2015 Two Oaks. Perhaps, the story would have been better told in two volumes--one before--the 1955 story with the secrets revealed--and one after--2015--with the living discovering them and making sense of the situation in which they find themselves. A orphaned artist, heart-broken at the loss of her grandmother, remorseful over the fractured relationship not healed before the death, finding herself suddenly the heiress of 37 million dollars in the estate of a playboy actor, with whom, to her knowledge, her family had no deep relationship. I read the book in one day, almost giving up several times with impatience but pushing on in hope that with time I would find something redeeming and deeper in the story. Finished disappointed and with a sense of something lacking. I received a free copy of this book from Blogging for Books for review.

Tuesday, July 19, 2016

If Only the Silver Dollar Bush Grew Real Money in Darling

The Darling Dahlias and the Silver Dollar BushThe Darling Dahlias and the Silver Dollar Bush by Susan Wittig Albert
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Life goes on in Darling, Alabama during the Depression. FDR is in the White House but just barely. The Darling Bank has closed and a bank in New Orleans has purchased it, sending one of their men, Alvin Duffy to sort out the records and get it set to reopen if possible. But, the people in town, or most of them and the merchants, too, are rapidly running out of cash. Duffy and several of the other men in town are pulling together a temporary fix, scrip printed on colored paper to be used locally in lieu of the real thing.

Naturally, nothing runs smoothly--the first run of the scrip is misplaced by Charlie Dickens, the newspaper publisher and printer. Some of it shows up in town before its scheduled release. If a new run is printed the market will have more scrip and its value will decrease by half--inflation at the worst possible time.

In the meantime, on a personal level among the Dahlias, a romance is rekindled, another long term relationship is unexpectedly and sadly terminated, yet another pair seems destined for each other, the relationship between the two women who own the diner is still kind of undefined, there are deaths and the Feds are still after the shiners. Just another week or so in small town Darling.

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Friday, July 8, 2016

The American Tragedy of the American Southwest

Mesas and Plateaus in shades of red, orange, yellow, ochre, beige, purple, as far as the eye can see rising out of plains of sand and rubble with canyons cutting into them, their floors sometimes carpeted with thick short bladed fields of varying shades of green. A vast, open land under a vast open sky of blue, sometimes cloudless, sometimes filled with puffy clouds of the purest white. Mountains, thickly forested with straight trunked evergreen trees, majestic in and of the themselves, tall and full. The mountains so high that they leave the observer breathless, disbelieving in their reality. Climbing them one feels miniscule and the heights become dizzying, the depths of the narrow valleys below frightening to those looking over the edge of the ridges that extend to the horizon. Ridges, sharp and jagged. Long stretches of sand, hot and dry with cacti and other strange plant forms adapted to life without much water. This is Apacheria today, just as it was over 100 years ago. Oh, there are towns and people now, in places where there were few if any settlements then. Cities even. But still there is land, open and unchanged, as it once was. What is missing are the people who once lived here, free and able to roam at will, hunting and worshipping their gods. We call them Indians and we even can name certain tribes, the Apaches, the Chiricahua, Cheyenne but there were different tribes or bands of these natives, they were not all the same group and they certainly did not all get along. Yet, they all lived on this land and managed to establish family and home. Even before the Civil War, there was an influx of non-Natives into this land. The Mexicans and Apaches along the man-made line, called the border, certainly had become enemies, with the Apache raiding ranches for cattle and horses and the Mexicans brutally overrunning Indian settlements, killing the men, capturing the women and children to be used as slaves. After the Civil War, however, in an ever Westward expansion the Government of the United States exerted much greater pressure on these tribes. The beauty of the surface of this open land was nothing in comparison to the minerals and metals that lay beneath it. The desire for more land for settlers as immigration from Europe began to overcrowd the East became obsessive. And, then too, the necessity of building the railroads that would tie this world of the white man together and make the builders unbelievably rich, precluded any desire to allow these savages, these uneducated indigenous peoples to retain their homes or their way of life. And so, here, in over 400 pages, Paul Andrew Hutton, tries to tell the stories of the two decade long war against the Apaches. It is difficult, there are so many characters who were involved--the politicians in Washington ---and then, as now, the unwieldy number of agencies and people trying to run the show. The Presidents who succeeded one after the other, none at all very capable in regards to this aspect of our history. The Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Department of the Interior, the Army, the Dutch Reformed Church and all of the soldiers, agents, suttlers, commanders of Indian scouts, Indian scouts, Indian police--on the one hand--all trying to communicate with one another or not, in a time when any form of communication across the country took weeks rather than days until the advent of the telegraph. On the other hand, there were the chiefs of the various tribes, the warriors, the medicine men, the women and even the young children who would grow to adulthood and take active parts in the events. The tragedy of the defeat and almost complete eradication of these people is heartbreaking. The lies, the broken promises, the outright greed of those who came to make the decisions regarding their disposition are shameful. Oh, there were horrors perpetrated by the Natives but there were also families who tried to assimilate and accept the arrival of a new order. All of them were treated in the same way by the Government. Repetition of the same mistakes made with the natives of the East. Relocation to areas totally different than their homeland--first to Florida--off the coasts of Pensacola or to a St Augustine Fortification. This is time followed by relocation to Oklahoma around Fort Sill. Eventually, those who survived these relocations and survived without contracting malaria or tuberculosis, were allowed to return to their homes in Arizona and New Mexico. By that time, their numbers were severely reduced, their old homes populated by those who had usurped them. The beauty of the land remains--to this Easterner it is so vast and beautiful it is almost overwhelming. Friends who have come East to visit have told me they can't stand the humidity and feel claustrophobic here. When they say that, I think of those transplanted Apache and grieve once more for their plight. And when I go back to Apacheria, I imagine their spirits standing beside me. They are gone but the world around me echoes with their breaths. It will take a bit of time to read this book--it cannot be gobbled up quickly. The story is too overwhelming and needs stopping to think about the events and digest them. Also, the cast of characters is so great, it takes time to organize them. The pictures help and I found myself looking at them frequently to imprint their faces onto the words. If your only knowledge of the American West and the people who populated it come from John Ford, John Wayne and Ward Bond, then you owe it to yourself to read this book. Again and again. And then go, if you haven't already, to see the beautiful country in which these events took place. No book or movie can ever truly present the reality of its vastness, variety and grandeur. I received a copy of this book from Blogging For Books in exchange for a review

Wednesday, July 6, 2016

Kick--Another Kennedy Tale

Kick: The True Story of JFK's Sister and the Heir to ChatsworthKick: The True Story of JFK's Sister and the Heir to Chatsworth by Paula Byrne
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A fast read and interesting. Probably because she died at 26 without making many waves in world affairs, Kathleen Kennedy is as much an unknown in the Kennedy saga as her older sister Rosemary and her heir-apparent brother, Joe.

This copy of the book is an uncorrected proof so the fact that the redundancy of the comment of how everyone, males especially, fell immediately in love with this spritely girl is very irritating will be edited somewhat. Also we Catholics take Missals, not Bibles, with our rosaries to Sunday Mass and usually not the Rosary since it isn't part of Mass. It is true, however, that it is not unusual to take our Rosaries with us in pocket or purse as a matter of course. Also we usually capitalize the word Mass. Those few minor things aside the Irish Catholic upbringing of the time is not exaggerated and the stigma of marrying outside the Church was very real, though with the right connections and enough money, almost anything can earn a dispensation--see Henry VIII and divorce as an example. I'm amazed Cardinal Spellman was unable to get Kathleen the freedom to marry her Duke in the Church. Of course, the children would have had to be Catholic too and that was yet another sticking point.

The decadence of the life of these affluent young people with their parties and lack of any real direction is life was rather appalling . The incidence of Jack's telling his friend, Lem, about the "Ross Kennedy " alliance he and the Earl of Rosslyn had formed to" seduce as many women as they could find" rather than form a serious relationship as others were doing with the threat of war imminent brought to mind the recent Phillips Exeter scandal of the Senior Salute. Guess things haven't changed much in those circles. And it certainly made clear that Jack and, through other examples, Joe were apples that had not fallen too far from the tree that was Papa Joe.

Kick's dabbling in public service with the Red Cross in Europe so that she could circumvent her parents' efforts to keep her in America and away from Billy was yet another example of the noblesse oblige drilled into her by the nuns in her convent schools. And yet, there was little nobility in it--she didn't really like her work with the GIs--and was more self-serving that obligatory because of her nobility. I remember the nuns at my school using the same motto and, at the time, I thought there was an arrogance and snobbery in such a stance. Had to laugh when she was impatient the other Red Cross girls' staying up 'til 1:30 since she like an early night. Yet many examples showed she much preferred to be out much later in the early morning hours if there were dancing and dining and clubbing going on.

Rose and Joe's hypocrisy when stressed over the blot on the Kennedy reputation should Kick marry outside the Church was incredibly laughable also when one considers the philandering of the males of the family and, in Joe,Sr's case at the time, the adultery which was a flagrant violation of the Sixth Commandment!

In summary, if you are looking for anything new about the sainted Kennedy's you won't find it here. If you want to know how Kathleen fit the mold of the more well known siblings, you could do worse than to read this book. While it is more of the same old same old, it is a well written fast read.
If you don't know what the story was about Joe's early demise, Rosemary's frontal lobotomy and a bit more about PT 109, that is here as well. Actually, if you read this little volume you won't need to read any of the thicker tomes about this family.


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