52. Ultimate Prizes

By Susan Howatch
Rated 5+ Stars
From:  My keeper shelf

This is the third book of Howatch's six book Church of England series but it is the second one I have picked up in my eratic re read of these books.  That Neville is a piece of work. *sigh*  The next book I am going to read will be Scandalous Risks which is actually book four in the series.  I know I am going to start being furious with Neville all over again.  Stay tuned.

BOOK SUMMARY:  Neville Aysgarth, an ambitious archdeacon takes center stage in this book to narrate the story of his lifetime quest for the "ultimate prizes." WW II has started, and Neville's marriage to Grace, the perfect wife and mother, is cracking under the pressure of being worthy of her perfection. After Grace dies, Neville marries socialite Dido Tallent, but when their first child dies at birth, his faith in both God and his own motives is rocked. In crisis, Neville asks his colleague Jon Darrow (narrator of Glamorous Powers ) for spiritual first aid and, guided by a wise abbot friend of Jon's, is forced to an honest appraisal of himself and his ambition--which has its roots in his early life. He struggles back to spiritual health and eventually emerges a wiser man, more honest and loving toward his family and his flock.

This is the third in Howatch's incomparable series about the Church of England in the 20th century; it's a measure of her achievement that, besides telling a fascinating story boldly and well, she illuminates often quite abstruse religious and ecclesiastical questions. Here, Neville's ministry to captured Germans in a local prisoner-of-war camp leads to the discussion of Christian--ethical, moral--behavior during war, a topic that can never be out of date.

51. People of the Book

By:  Geraldine Brooks
Rated 4 Stars
From Library, Audio Book

This is another one of those split into time books.  In a way this is very similar to The Source by James Mitchner in that it is a journey back in time.  This book traces the history of a sacred 500 year old Jewish prayer book.  I loved that part of it.

What I didn't love so much were the contemporary characters of Hannah the rare book expert and  Ozrem the librarian who saved the book from being destroyed in the siege of Sarajevo.  Hannah was way to abrasive for me to be able to muster up any sympathy for her personally although I had plenty of it for her cause.  Ozrem was a whiner who came across as a person who had a flash of courage and integrity every once in a while but didn't have enough character to sustain it over the long haul.  So my rating for this book is actually split, 5 for the history of the book, 3 for the parts of the story involving Hannah and Ozram.  In my mind that averaged out to a 4.


One of the earliest Jewish religious volumes to be illuminated with images, the Sarajevo Haggadah survived centuries of purges and wars thanks to people of all faiths who risked their lives to safeguard it. Geraldine Brooks, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of March, has turned the intriguing but sparely detailed history of this precious volume into an emotionally rich, thrilling fictionalization that retraces its turbulent journey. In the hands of Hanna Heath, an impassioned rare-book expert restoring the manuscript in 1996 Sarajevo, it yields clues to its guardians and whereabouts: an insect wing, a wine stain, salt crystals, and a white hair. While readers experience crucial moments in the book's history through a series of fascinating, fleshed-out short stories, Hanna pursues its secrets scientifically, and finds that some interests will still risk everything in the name of protecting this treasure.

50. The Devlin Diary

By Christi Phillips
Rated 4.5 Stars
From:  Jani

I really liked this book in spite of the problems I always have when an author jumps back and forth in time or POV.  That just a personal thing with me.  But this book is very well written and I can't thank Jani enough for sending me the books she reviews that she knows I will like.  This book is off to Texas next week.

FROM  AMAZON : London, 1672. The past twelve years have brought momentous changes: the restoration of the monarchy, a devastating plague and fire. Yet the city remains a teeming, thriving metropolis, energized by the lusty decadence of Charles II's court and burgeoning scientific inquiry. Although women enjoy greater freedom, they are not allowed to practice medicine, a restriction that physician Hannah Devlin evades by treating patients that most other doctors shun: the city's poor.

But Hannah has a special knowledge that Secretary of State Lord Arlington desperately needs. At the king's Machiavellian court, Hannah attracts the attention of two men, charming courtier Ralph Montagu and anatomist Dr. Edward Strathern, as well as the attention of the powerful College of Physicians, which views her work as criminal. When two influential courtiers are found brutally murdered, their bodies inscribed with arcane symbols, Hannah is drawn into a dangerous investigation by Dr. Strathern, who believes the murders conceal a far-reaching conspiracy that may include Hannah's late father and the king himself.

Cambridge, 2008. Teaching history at Trinity College is Claire Donovan's dream come true -- until one of her colleagues is found dead on the banks of the River Cam. The only key to the professor's unsolved murder is a seventeenthcentury diary kept by his last research subject, Hannah Devlin, physician to the king's mistress. With help from the eclectic collections of Cambridge's renowned libraries, Claire and historian Andrew Kent follow the clues Devlin left behind, uncovering secrets of London's dark past and Cambridge's equally murky present, and discovering that events of three hundred years ago may still have consequences today...

49. A lady's life in the Rocky Mountains

by Isabella L. Bird
Rated 4.5
From Library

I learned about this book on Bookflurries, a weekly Diary/book chat written by my friend Connie on The Daily Kos.  

Isabella L. Bird was a truly remarkable woman who traveled alone all over the world in the mid 1800's  and described her adventures in a series of letters to her sister. Here is a link to Wikipedia you can follow to learn more about her.  Isabella L. Bird 

FROM LIBRARY SUMMARY:  "In its simple and disarming style, it is a great piece of reporting on a rugged frontier."--San Francisco Chronicle "The book is a jewel case of keen perception, social analysis, and masterful description for this era."--Chicago Tribune In 1873 Isabella Bird embarked on a trip that called for the high level of stamina expected of an explorer or anthropologist. But the middle-aged Englishwoman who toured the Colorado Rockies on horseback--alone, for the most part--was neither of these. Painting an intimate portrait of the "Wild West," she wrote eloquently of flora and fauna, isolated settlers and assorted refugees from civilization, vigilance committees, lynchings, and the crude manners--yet gentle civility--among the men she encountered in the wilderness. A thoughtfully written, captivating narrative that provides a vibrant account of a bygone era and the people that forever changed the face of the American frontier.