77. Tug of War

Rated 4 1/2 Stars


Set in 1926 France, this is Cleverly's sixth Joe Sandilands novel. The Scotland Yard Detective Sandilands is given the assignment to work with the French authorities to try to learn the identity of an amnesiac war veteran who's surfaced in a French hospital speaking English. As the French government would provide a lucrative pension to the soldier's family,
there's no shortage of people who claim him as their relation.

I am a huge fan of Cleverly's books. She really knows how to set the stage and give the reader a sense of physical, emotional and political place. Along with Charles Todd and Anne Perry, she writes about the horror of WWI and its impact on those who fought and lived it. She creates strong, smart, interesting characters, particularly Sandilands and Dorcas, but all her characters have dimension with dialogue that has a natural flow. But the core of it all is a good, solid traditional mystery that kept me turning the pages in the non-stop read. I highly recommend this book and the entire series.

76. Defying Hitler

By Sebastian Haffner
Rated 5 Stars

I cannot possibly improve on this blurb from the book jacket so I won't even try.

THE BLURB: This book was written in 1939, shortly after the author's escape to England. Although Haffner became a distinguished journalist and historian, he never published this book during his lifetime; it was discovered by his son and published after the author's death at the age of 91. Perhaps, like many war veterans, the experiences tangled up with the manuscript were so painful and so personal that the author couldn't bear to revisit them (a chapter was published on the 50th anniversary of an event that it describes).

What Haffner--and his son, who is the assured and elegant translator--have given us is one of the most compelling and insightful descriptions of the period that has been written. It can only be compared to the diary of Otto Klemperer as a revelatory description of how a nation of people, not so different from other nations at the time or indeed of any nation today, could descend into barbarism and criminality on the vast scale of the Third Reich.

From the opening sentence the 1920s and 30s in Germany is evoked: "This is the story of a duel." Specialists will be aware of the importance of actual duelling in middle and upper class German society as late at WWI, and its endurance as a symbol thereafter, and with this characterisation of his personal struggle against the Nazi State, Haffner seductively invites his reader into the authentic atmosphere of the period.

Scholars who have thought deeply about the Nazi period recognise it as the final culminating phase of a second Thirty Year's War that began in 1914; indeed, Haffner's explanation for the Nazi catastrophe is based upon his view that the generation who grew up during WWI, NOT the soldiers but the children who experienced the excitement but not the misery and death, were the key constituency for the Nazis.

Haffner's use of generational analysis is a powerful conceptual tool that is much more understood and accepted these days--Brokaw's "The Greatest Generation", however correct or incorrect it may be, has been a huge best seller--and Haffner in 1939 stumbled upon this type of analysis as he sought to describe how Hitler had come to power.

"Defying Hitler" is also the intense, personal description of the crisis that Haffner and his family and friends underwent during the rise of Hitler, conveyed with the power of a novelist. Haffner succeeds in humanising the Germans he knew and lived among without ever downplaying the horror of the decisions that they made, as he shows that it was all too clear what the consequences of those decisions were likely to be.

This is a unique book and it is highly recommended for both readers who have read almost nothing about the period, as well as readers who are thoroughly familiar with the subject, and yet are still trying to come to terms with how such a terrible catastrophe could occur in a civilised nation.

75. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

By J.K. Rowling
Rated 5 stars+

I drug my feet on reading this because I knew that when I had finished it the series would be over. Throughout this whole series was all about right vs wrong, love and loyalty. How all the religious right people can fail to miss this is a mystery to me. The only excuse I can think of them is that they never bothered to read it.

Of all the many theories I had about going in I was so glad to discover that most of them were right. I am glad that Snape was not a total baddie but I never believed that Dumbledore was really dead until I was forced to accept it.

The deaths that occured were very sad and some of them I never saw comming. Hedwig and Dooby probably hit me the hardest because they were such innocents. The death of Voldemart was kind of anti-climatic I thought. In the end he turned out easier to kill than I expected.

One of the members of my e-mail group pointed out the interesting fact that each Horocrux was destroyed by a different character. That flew right past me when I was reading.

It bothered me that the Malfoy's managed to weasel themselves out of trouble and I thought that Percy seeing the light at the 11th hour + 50 minutes was too little too late for me to forgive him.

I loved Molly Weasley's fight with Bellatrix. It was such fun to see her use her magic wand for something besides clearing the dinner table and my favorite visual was of Professor McGonagall running down a corrider waving her wand in the air shouting charge followed by a clattering herd of desks.

I am so sad that this series has ended. For my part it could have gone on forever.

Foyle's War - Video, Set of Four

Rated ★★★★★

This is the fourth set of this wonderful series. I am completely hooked. I hear by way of the Grapevine that there is going to be a 5th set. That makes me very happy. I am copying the blurb for this program because I just don't think I can do justice to it.

Michael Kitchen triumphs again as detective chief "superintendent Christopher Foyle. He often identifies himself, however, rather more charmingly: "My name is Foyle. I'm a police officer." No badge is shown or papers presented while so introducing himself. Such would be superfluous though as Kitchen's Foyle, in mannerisms, demeanor, as well as the way his carries himself, makes it rather apparent that he is in law enforcement. And to boot, all this takes place in the early days of the 4th decade of the 20th century, "in the beautiful southern English countryside amid the disorder and danger of World War II"(to quote the packaging).

As in all Foyle episodes a murder takes place and Kitchen methodically goes about solving it. He has a sergeant for assistance as well as an actress side-kick (whose most unusual name in real life is Honeysuckle Sweet) who plays an army soldier seconded to drive for Foyle, who is without a license to do so. Like in many detective dramas the who did it is rather less important than the drama getting to that point. Actually, these hour and forty minute long Foyle episodes often go by for me without my giving much serious contemplation toward the solution Foyle seeks. Watching is also very much a period drama, as I've said, giving one a feel for wartime England, the country lanes, the occasional military vehicle and soldier(s), authentic clothes, hats, people on missions greater than themselves passing through the lens. My advice thus is not to overly focus on actively trying to solve these tough-to-crack mysteries to better revel in the actual performances herein.

The episodes:
"Invasion"
March 1942: The US Army Corps of Engineers arrives in Hastings to build an aerodrome and Foyle needs to calm a local farmer whose land has been requisitioned by the government. In this episode we also are treated to a guest appearance by Philip Jackson; aka Chief Inspector Jap from Agatha Cristie's Poirot series, although he's but a pub owner herein. And we also get a major development in the Sam Stewart/Andrew Foyle relationship.


"Bad Blood"
A lone aircraft drops a bomb over farmland. Nearby sheep start dying, then a farmers wife, and Sam falls ill.

"Bleak Midwinter"
December 1942: DCS Foyle investigates the death of Grace Phillips who died in what appears to be an accident in a munitions factory.



"Casualties of War"
March 1943: Foyle receives a visit from his goddaughter, who he has not seen for 10 years, and her young son who is shell shocked from when his school was bombed.

The Great Influenza

by John M. Barry
Rated 5 stars

"In the winter of 1918, the coldest the American Midwest had ever endured, history's most lethal influenza virus was born. Over the next year it flourished, killing as many as 100 million people. It killed more people in twenty-four weeks than AIDS has killed in twenty-four years, more people in a year than the Black Death of the Middle Ages killed in a century. There were many echoes of the Middle Ages in 1918: victims turned blue-black and priests in some of the world's most modern cities drove horse-drawn carts down the streets, calling upon people to bring out their dead." "But 1918 was not the Middle Ages, and the story of this epidemic is not simply one of death, suffering, and terror; it is the story of one war imposed upon the background of another. For the first time in history, science collided with epidemic disease, and great scientists - pioneers who defined modern American medicine - pitted themselves against a pestilence. The politicians and military commanders of World War I, focusing upon a different type of enemy, ignored warnings from these scientists and so fostered conditions that helped the virus kill. The strain of these two wars put society itself under almost unimaginable pressure. Even as scientists began to make progress, the larger society around them began to crack." "Yet ultimately this is a story of triumph amidst tragedy, illuminating human courage as well as science. In particular, this courage led a tenacious investigator directly to one of the greatest scientific discoveries of the twentieth century - a discovery that has spawned many Nobel prizes and even now is shaping our future."--BOOK JACKET.

74. Hood

By Stephen Lawhead
Rated 4 Stars

I just finished Hood by Stephen Lawhead a few minutes ago. I stayed up late last night and then picked it back up this morning and read to the end. (hooray for being retired and able to indulge in this kind of behavior )

I highly recommend this book (THANKS Beth) but I need to put in a couple of caveats. First one is that I found it hard to get into. That this is the traditional Robin Hood tale, reset in an earlier time, in wales with all of the characters much the same but different was distracting to me. Also, as I get older my mind doesn't seem to be as elastic as it used to be and some characters from books I have previously read remain fondly in my mind. Faulke Fitzwilliam from Lords of the White Castle is one of them. That one of the villains in this book was named Count Falkes de Braose. Also since LOTWC was set in roughly in the same place as this book only in a later time it took a while for me to adjust.


But these are all my own personal problems and have little to do with the story. It's a very good book. In fact, and here I go again, between pages 404 and 418 such brilliantly written mayhem occurred that the thought briefly crossed my mind that Francis Crawford must have wandered into the story for a short visit to stir things up.

The next book in this series is not over here but is coming out next month in the UK. Rats! This means I have a long wait before the next book or I will have to bite the bullet and order it with my devalued dollar from amazon/uk.

Jeanette

80. Starburst

by Robin Pilcher
Rated 3 stars

I keep hoping that Robin Pilcher will finally write a book that is just HALF as good as his Mother's. Sadly that doesn't seem to be happening. I had sworn off him but then he wrote this one about the Edinburgh Festival and I couldn't resist.


From the Book Jacket: It's Edinburgh in August. A group of people, drawn to the city for the forthcoming Festival, meet for the first time, little knowing that the events of this long hot summer , and the arrival of Angelique Pascal, a talented and beautiful violinist, will throw their lives into turmoil. Angelique Pascal is in Edinburgh to headline at the Festival's finale and her fiery spirit is already making waves. Tired of being controlled by her overbearing tutor, Albert, Angelique finds herself yearning for a moment's respite from both the constant touring and the restrictions of her celebrity status. But when events take a sinister turn and Angelique must flee in terror from all that she has known, she finds safety in the most unexpected place.

This all sounds good in the blurb but to me he had way to many characters and each one had their own story so he was bouncing around between POV's so much that it all got confusing and he didn't do justice to any of them. Had he had only used half of them it would have been helpful. Also some of the things they did were just plain stupid. Real peope wouldn't have done or said those things. All in all it was a typical Robin Pilcher book. Not very good.

79. Your Not You

By Michelle Wildgen
Rated 1 1/2 Star

From the book jacket:

"College student Bec is dangerously adrift. Self-conscious and increasingly uncertain about her long-term plans, she's studying a major that no longer interests her and is caught up in a bewildering affair with a married professor. In an impulsive attempt to redeem herself, she answers a want ad seeking a caregiver." "What she finds is a wealthy, cultivated woman in her midthirties. Once an advertising executive, accomplished chef, and skilled decorator, Kate is now in the advanced stages of ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). She and her husband, Evan, handle their situation with mordant humor, careful planning, and a lot of determination. Yet while Bec perceives the couple as charmingly frank and good-humored, strains exist beneath the surface." "Bec is soon a vital part of her employer's household, and their increasing closeness transforms both women's lives and their relationships. The more she acts on Kate's behalf, the further Bec strays from her stringent comfort zone. She performs every task, from the most administrative to the most intimate, and she translates Kate's speech for strangers, friends, and even family. Sometimes enthusiastically, sometimes reluctantly, Bec advances further and further into Kate's world, surprised by her own increasing dedication and ease. But how closely can Bec intertwine her own life with Kate's?" "The two confront their obstacles unsentimentally, with dark humor and unflinching candor, as their relationship is slowly stripped of pretense. Honesty becomes their touchstone: They may find humor in the most devastating moments, but they won't pretend to believe in silver linings that don't exist. With crystal clarity, debut author Michelle Wildgen has crafted a deeply affecting novel about the singular relationship between two women, balancing humor and regret, sensuality and necessity, and testing the outer limits of friendship

81. Privilege and Scandal

By Janet Gleeson
Rated 4 Stars

It is an account of the life of Harriet Spencer, Sister of the more well known Georgiana, Dutchess of Devonshire. I have been reading on this book for a while as I had to take a break in the middle of it because her life is such a train wreck and I was getting very annoyed by her consistent self destructive behavior. But it is very well written and contains a wealth of details about the Regency era that Georgette Heyer never mentions

Below is a better description of the book that I copied from Amazon. I think what blew me totally away and was the reason I had to put the book down and take a little rest was when Gleeson wrote that at one point Georgiana had run up 100,000 pounds in gambling debts and that in today's money it would be 6 MILLION pounds or converted to US dollars roughly 12 MILLION dollars! I found that beyond shocking. And guess what, it didn't stop her, or Harriet who was almost as bad. Me, I get in a snit if I lose $10 on the nickel slots.

"The first biography of Lady Harriet Spencer, ancestor of Diana, Princess of Wales, and devoted sister of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. Harriet Spencer was one of the most glamorous, influential, and notorious aristocrats of the Regency period. Intelligent, attractive, and eager to please, at nineteen she married an aloof, distant relative; the only trait they shared was an unhealthy love of gambling. Harriet began a series of illicit dalliances, including one with the playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Then she met Lord Granville Leveson Gower, handsome and twelve years her junior. Their years-long affair resulted in the birth of two children, and concealing both pregnancies from her husband required great skill. Harriet was an eyewitness to the French Revolution; traveled through war-torn Europe during the time of Napoleon; quarreled with Byron when he pursued her daughter; and became one of the leading female political activists of her day.--From publisher description."