What Are You Reading / Reviews - January 2019

[Book Concierge]

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A Brand New Reading Year Begins ...

Read any good books lately? We want to know about them.
How about real stinkers? We want to know about those too!


Enter your reading list and/or reviews here. Did you like it? Hate it? Feel lukewarm?

Share your thoughts with us.

Happy reading!

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[Book Concierge]

The Constant Princess – Philippa Gregory – 3***
Book six in her Plantagenet and Tudor series focuses on Catalina, Infanta of Spain, daughter of Queen Isabela and King Ferdinand, and known in English history as Katherine of Aragon, first wife of Henry VIII. This was one fierce lady; intelligent, mentally and emotionally strong, an astute observer and able to plot and plan with the best of them. I was caught up in the novel at the beginning, but I found that the story seemed to bog down in details.
LINK to my review

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Angels at the Table – Debbie Macomber – 2.5***
This is a typical schmaltzy Christmas romance with more than a little humor thrown in. Some of the situations are downright ridiculous, and the angels, for all their good intentions, seem mostly inept. But it’s a fun read and everything turns out okay in the end.
LINK to my review

[James]

Hwang Sok-yong, The Old Garden
[2000, tr. 2012] 549 pages [Kindle]

The Old Garden begins in the present (at the time the novel was written) with the release of the protagonist, Oh Hyun Woo, a political opponent of the South Korean dictatorship, after almost eighteen years of imprisonment. Near the beginning, he discovers that his lover, a teacher and artist, Han Yun-hee, whom he has not seen since a few days before his arrest, has died of cancer a few years earlier. He returns to the house in the country where they lived together and finds her journals and unsent letters to him. The remainder of the novel is primarily flashbacks based on his memories and her writing, in a complex chronological structure reminiscent of the novels of Mario Vargas Llosa (especially La fiesta del chivo) but without the intentional disorientation of Vargas' writing. The way the novel is structured rules out any element of suspense as we know in advance that he will be captured and that she will die of natural causes without seeing him again; this focuses attention on the political ideas and the emotional reactions rather than on the plot.

The book initially concentrates on the events from 1981 on, starting with the aftermath of the Kwangju uprising, although for example through Han's memories of her father there is some context going back to the struggle against Japan. We see Oh as an underground activist for the next year, finally escaping to a refuge in the countryside and falling in love with Han, whom he lives with for a few months before "survivor's guilt" after his comrades are all captured or killed impells him to return to the now hopeless struggle in the capital. His experiences in prison are counterposed to her life on the outside, first waiting for him in the country, then returning to graduate school, and spending a few years in West Berlin as a student before returning home after the reunification of Berlin and the end of the Cold War. The tearing down of the Berlin Wall provides an emotional contrast to the still divided Korea.

This is a pessimistic book, as any realistic novel today must be; the capitalist liberalization of South Korea, which results in Oh's liberation as an old man, is shown as anything but what Oh and his friends had hoped for, and both the united Germany and the former Soviet Union are described as rather dystopian; and of course Korea was (and still is) divided between a poor and tightly controlled North and a corrupt and materialist if no longer dictatorial South. Nearly all the characters are tragic, dead or broken. It left me rather depressed. It's also a very powerful book, and I learned much that I did not know about the recent history of South Korea.

[Book Concierge]

The Cat Who Saw Red – Lillian Jackson Braun – 3***
This is book four in a delightful cozy mystery series starring newspaper reporter Jim Qwilleran and his two Siamese - Koko and Yum Yum. This is an entertaining series with a very likeable main character who is appropriately nosy, given his journalism background. His relationship with his cats is nicely portrayed without being overly saccharine.
LINK to my review

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The Ides of March – Thornton Wilder – 2**
In this work of historical fiction, Wilder uses a combination of letters, diary entries and official documents to tell the story of the last year of Julius Caesar’s life. Now, I appreciate Wilder’s writing, and there were times in the book that I was completely engaged in the story. I was fascinated to read of the intrigue and espionage, the role of Cleopatra, etc. But on the whole … well I think I had more “fun” translating Cicero’s oration against Cataline when I studied Latin in high school (and I hated that).
LINK to my review

[James]

Hwang Sok-yong, The Guest [2001, tr. 2006] 243 pages [Kindle]

The read for the World Literature group I'm in on Goodreads, this was the first of Hwang's novels to be published in English. The title, The Guest (Sonnim in Korean) is the name that was given to smallpox, a disease which was introduced from the west and reached epidemic proportions after the country was "opened" to western trade and exploitation. Hwang explains in the preface that he chose it to refer to Christianity and Marxism, the foreign ideologies which have divided Koreans from one another. I do have problems with his calling the Stalinist ideology of North Korea Marxist, and even more to his equating it with Christianity -- although I suppose it could be argued that modern Christianity, or at least the Korean version of Christianity, is equally distorted; unlike the situation with Marx, we don't have any idea what Jesus actually stood for. In any case, the forms in which these two western beliefs reached Korea were certainly both disastrous for the people of the penninsula. (I would also note, however, that the religion and culture they displaced were also largely a foreign import, derived from China.) Actually the novel itself does not treat the two sides as completely equal -- while there was overreaction on both sides, the guilt is clearly placed on the Christians, and the way the book is structured, it is largely about the repentance of the Christian characters.

This theme is not what made the novel so controversial; rather, it's that the book offers a revisionist view of the Sinchon massacre. Rather than simply present the novel as a fictional speculation, Hwang made the claim that he was revealing the real truth about the massacre. He apparently based his view on two alleged eye-witnesses, a minister who is the original of Reverend Ryu, the main character of the novel (and who according to some posters on the internet later said he was misinterpreted), and an anonymous person in North Korea. This hardly seems like conclusive evidence, and without questioning Hwang's honesty or sincerity -- it's obvious from his other novels that he is hardly an apologist for the United States or the South Korean government; The Shadow of Arms has a graphic description of My Lai -- I think it is better to treat the book as a fictional possibility rather than as a factual historical novel.

The official North Korean version of what took place at Sinchon is that there was a systematic massacre of almost forty thousand civilians by U.S. troops over a period of forty to fifty days. This certainly seems implausible to me; the two documented massacres by American troops, the 1950 massacre at No gun ri in Korea and the later more famous one at My Lai in Vietnam, were both carried out in a short time by small units and there were in both cases soldiers who refused to join in and eventually broke through the attempted cover-up. That a major operation against civilians was carried out by U.S. combat troops and no one ever spoke out about it, even after they had left the military, doesn't fit in with what I know about the mostly working class American citizen-soldiers -- only a highly professional elite corps like the European colonial armies or a highly fanatical military group like the SS could do something like this. On the other hand, despite U.S. and South Korean claims that it never happened, there seems to be real evidence of some sort of mass killing. That the U.S. military "advisors" may have participated in or even directed a massacre by the South Koreans is far more plausible, and would fit in with the atrocities in Vietnam carried out by Vietnamese troops under the supervision of the CIA in the "strategic hamlet" program. Another possibility of course is a right-wing paramilitary group of some sort, and this is essentially what Hwang is claiming -- an armed Christian youth group animated by religious and political fanaticism.

As presented in the novel, the underlying dynamic was one of class rather than religion, or rather the religious difference was the form taken by the class antagonism. The Christians according to the narrative were the more affluent farmers and petty bourgeois layers (the actual large landlords having already fled to the South), who had become wealthy through collaboration with the Japanese occupation; the Communists and their supporters were mainly among the tenant farmers, and the Christians were opposing the land reform which was giving the former tenants ownership of the land they had been working for the benefit of the landlords and the Japanese corporations. A violent opposition group made up of young Christians had fled to the hills after carrying out acts of terrorism, and armed themselves with the support of various groups such as the Anticommunist Youth Corps in the South; they returned ahead of the American invasion force and decided to exterminate the Communists and their families as agents of Satan. The returning Northern army troops then re-entered the area and suppressed the revolt, of course in turn going too far and killing many uninvolved Christians. The account seems quite familiar to anyone who has read about the alternating massacres of Christians and Moslems from Bosnia through the Middle East and into much of Africa, for example, or much of the violence in the former USSR after the collapse of the Stalinist regime. Some of the Christians at least belonged to a group called the Unification Corps; I couldn't help being reminded of the right-wing Unification Church of Rev. Moon, although I don't know if there is any direct connection between the two.

Leaving the historical controversy aside, the book has an unusual style, being based on the stages of a rite of exorcism; ghosts appear to the main characters throughout the book, and much of what we learn about the massacre is revealed supernaturally. The novel begins with the visit of the protagonist, Reverend Ryu Yosup, to North Korea after a lifetime in exile in the United States, and three days after the death of his older brother Yohan, an actor in the massacre. Apart from the ghosts, the narrative is made up of flashbacks and memories as in The Old Garden, but with many more characters' points of view; sometimes it is not immediately apparent whose memories are being given. There is much explicitly described brutality and this is a book that many people would have difficulty getting through. Despite putting the blame for the massacre on the Christians, the book seems very religious, being largely presented through the consciousness of the Reverend and concerned with repentance and forgiveness. There is much praying and many Bible quotations throughout. I have a problem with that whole theme too. It seems that from the original Athenian Amnesty to the recent Commissions on Truth and Reconciliation, the side of the rich and powerful always gets the benefit of any amnesty while the revolutionaries are always persecuted relentlessly. There isn't always forgiveness, of course, and one could point to many "red terrors", but if there is an amnesty it's always one-sided. Compare the treatment of the Shah of Iran or General Pinochet who tortured and murdered tens of thousands of innocent people with the treatment of say Leonard Peltier, convicted after a questionable trial of killing two armed FBI agents coming after him. I'm not for vengeance as such, particularly when the Stalinists punish people for their own and even their parents' and grandparents' class position, but when it comes to atrocities such as Hwang depicts (leaving aside whether events happened the way he depicts, I'm discussing this as a fictional narrative) there comes a point when one must ask, as one recent book on the Holocaust did, whether the living have the right to forgive crimes against the dead.

Although this is probably Hwang's most famous book, at least outside Korea, perhaps due to the controversies, I have to say that I thought the previous novel was better.

[Melissa]

City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments #1) by Cassandra Clare
5 ★

Clary Fray is having a bad night. Her mom has gone missing and now she's tangled up in a mystery with a group of Shadowhunters, demon killers. Clary has no idea what or who she really is and finding out from someone other than her mom is hard. She doesn't want to believe any of it, but Jace, one of the Shadowhunters and a jerk, is intrigued by her and determined to find out everything about her.
This was a great, fun book to read. The action is continuous and there are so many twists and turns. I found Clary to be a bit naive, but that's about normal in YA books. She does grow up quite a bit though and by the end has finally realized that it's all true and not a dream. Clary's best friend Simon was such a great addition to the story. Probably my favorite character. He's so innocent and geeky and loves Clary so much. He added humor and a bit of normalcy to the story. There is a shocking revelation at the end of the book that I'm still not sure about.

[Melissa]

The Last List of Miss Judith Kratt by Andrea Bobotis
5 ★

As Miss Judith Kratt nears the end of her life she decides to make a list of all that she owns. As she does she finds that each item holds a story. This was truly a heartwarming, yet tragic, story of the Kratt family. The story alternates between the now and 1929. The reader gets to know Judith, her selfish sister Rosemarie and her nosy brother Quincy as well as her aloof mother and her overbearing father, Father Kratt as the kids call him. Miss Judith's closest friend is Olva and the reader learns quite a bit about her as well. The stories that Miss Judith tells are interesting and lead up to the pivotal moment that changed everyone's life. I was mesmerized throughout the whole book. The author details things so well and the stories are so intriguing that you want to move on just to see what happens. At first I thought the lists at the end of each chapter was unnecessary, but they grew on me. A reminder of what I have already read. This book could have ended with the last chapter, but the author delights the reader with a letter from Olva to her great niece. I loved the authors writing style and look forward to reading more from her.

[Book Concierge]

The Search for Joyful – Benedict and Nancy Freedman – 4****
A sequel to the popular Mrs Mike , this work of historical fiction is set primarily during World War II, and follows the career of a young Cree woman – Kathy (a/k/a/ Oh-Be-Joyful’s Daughter) – as she becomes an Army nurse and finds love and her place in the world. The authors are not First Nation people, and there’s little information about how they came to write this story. I’m skeptical about the truth of what they write, and still I’m drawn into the novel. I really liked Kathy Forquet as a heroine. It’s an inspiring and hopeful story.
LINK to my review

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Christmas Camp – Karen Schaler – 3***
As I read this, I kept thinking it was remarkably like a Hallmark TV movie I had seen last week. No matter, really. The movies are still fun to watch, and the schmaltzy Christmas romance books are fun to read.
LINK to my review

[Book Concierge]

The Christmas Scrapbook – Philip Gulley – 3***
This little novella is book 5.5 in the Harmony series featuring Quaker minister Sam Gardner, his wife Barbara, and the Friends of the Harmony meeting house. I love the gentle stories of one man’s efforts to make a difference in his community. The results of his efforts are predictably hilarious. But also impart a lesson about faith, tolerance, love and the spirit of Christmas.
LINK to my review

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A Deal to Die For – Josie Belle – 2.5**
Book two in the Good Buy Girls cozy mystery series has Maggie opening a new resale shop in her Virginia community. This has all the elements of a successful cozy series, but the juvenile rivalry between Maggie and her nemesis Summer, just irritates me no end, and lowers the rating by half a star. Otherwise a fast, fun read.
LINK to my review

[Book Concierge]

Two Little Girls in Blue – Mary Higgins Clark – 3***
This is a fast-paced thriller with a building sense of suspense. The reader is always in on the crime, knowing the identity of the kidnappers and even the “secretive” Pied Piper long before the characters catch on. But the changing points of view, keeps the novel moving forward and helps maintain that sense of suspense.
LINK to my review

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A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius – Dave Eggers – 1*
A huge disappointment. I’d read another book by Eggers and enjoyed it. It’s clear that Eggers is intelligent. Obviously, the circumstances that resulted in his guardianship of his baby brother were tragic, and every older sibling’s nightmare. But I found Eggers self-absorbed, immature, irresponsible and totally lacking in any insight. The most entertaining part was the preface, copyright and acknowledgements.
LINK to my review

[James]

Honoré de Balzac, Un grand homme de province à Paris [1839] 284 pages

The second book of the trilogy Illusions perdues, this follows Lucien de Rubempré to Paris, where he quickly (in a week or so) loses his illusions in Mme. de Bargeton, love, and life in Paris. As the novel progresses, he also becomes disillusioned with the commerce of literature, journalism and politics (first liberal, then royalist), rapidly succombing to the corruption of society. The biting satire on the book publishers, and the journals and their "criticism", is undoubtedly close to Balzac's heart and based on personal experience. I couldn't help but compare this novel written 180 years ago to the contemporary epidemic of "fake news"; it wasn't invented by Trump and Hillary and it's not due to the Internet. Reading Balzac is like reading about contemporary American politics; depite his own conservative politics, he is the expert at describing the phenomena of capitalist society in it's "advanced" centers. One of Balzac's most cynical novels, although there are contrasts in the family and friend he leaves behind in Angoulème (David, Eve, and his mother) and in the friends of the "Cénacle", particularly Daniel d'Arthez (but as with most "positive" characters, they are not portrayed as vividly or convincingly as the villains). Coraline, though wonderful, is too young to be more than a victim, and Lucien himself is hardly a very sympathetic character even if we feel he has been more than adequately punished for his faults.

I usually read quickly through Balzac's long descriptions of places, but the description of the restaurant and poor student hangout, Flicoteau's, was one of the best things in the book; anyone who went to college in the time I did knows a Flicoteau's. Perhaps no longer true in the age of identical fast food franchises. There is also some literary discussion which casts light on Balzac's own procedures. In criticizing Lucien's first novel, d'Arthez recommends that he abandon the procedures of Sir Walter Scott and begin in media res; Balzac begins using this technique about this time and his novels become much better because of it -- I hadn't realized until I saw a critical article on him recently that he was an innovator in this regard, so perhaps I was overcritical of his earlier works for the way they begin with long descriptions before reaching any action, the style that is criticized in this book.

[Melissa]

Last to Die (Rizzoli & Isles #10) by Tess Gerritsen
5 ★

What are the chances of 3 kids having faced the same tragedy in the same week and then another tragedy years later? Not very likely, but that is the case of 3 kids at Evensong, a boarding school for kids who have been victims of violent crimes. Maura is at the school visiting Rat and her and Rizzoli work together to figure out what connects the 3 kids. Someone is still after the kids and Rizzoli believes that Evensong, tucked deep in the Maine woods, is the place to keep them safe. Not so...
This series just continues to amaze me. Great characters and great story lines. I tried so hard this time to try to piece things together myself and failed. The author loves her twists and did a great job with this one. What ended up happening never crossed my mind.
I was glad to see Rat and Bear back, but Maura irritated me. I love her character, but she continues to treat Rat like a child. She actually treats all the kids like that, but although they are only 13-14 years old, they have been through a lot and are very mature for their ages. Maura is very stiff and strict to a fault. Way to by the book and unrelenting. I'd really like to see her loosen up a bit and go with the flow. I didn't like how she talked down to the kids. She is also close minded and refuses to see things differently, from other people's perspective. I know that she has been this way throughout the series, but it really bothered me this time.
Jane is still the same old Jane with her crazy parents/family. This whole situation made for some giggles. Interested to see what happens there. And, will Maura finally move on from Brody and start a new relationship, possibly with Anthony Sansone? I have my fingers crossed.

[Book Concierge]

Fangirl – Rainbow Rowell – 3.5***
Oh, the teenage angst of young adulthood! Been there, done that … don’t want to relive it. And yet, I found myself really engaged in this story. There were times when I thought Rowell had thrown too many wrenches into the mix. Still, Rowell kept the story moving forward, and gave us a heroine to root for.
LINK to my review

[Book Concierge]

Delicious! – Ruth Reichl – 3.5***
I’ve read several of Reichl’s memoirs and really enjoyed them. Now she’s taken a turn at writing a novel. This is part romance, part coming-of-age, part mystery. I enjoyed the story and was caught up in the intrigue. Reichl really shines when she is writing about food. I can practically taste the cheeses, smell the spices, and feel the warmth of steam rising from a simmering pot. All-in-all, I found it enjoyable and entertaining. A great beach read.
LINK to my review

[James]

Honoré de Balzac, Les souffrances de l'inventeur [1843] 177 pages [in French]

The final book of the trilogy Illusions perdues, originally called Eve et David, returns to Angoulème, where it describes the persecution of David Séchard for debt and the cheating of him out of his invention of a cheaper way to make paper. After reading all three books, I'd have to say this is definitely one of Balzac's best works. Now I need to make a decision, whether to read the long, four part sequel, or move on to the next division.

[Book Concierge]

Love Potion Number 10 – Betsy Woodman – 3***
Book two in the Jana Bibi Adventures series. Jana and Mr Ganguly’s fame grows, making him the target of a bird-napping plot. Woodman populates the fictional hill town with an array of colorful characters, and really gives one a flavor of the 1960s culture of India. Just charming.
LINK to my review

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Eats, Shoots & Leaves – Lynne Truss – 4****
Well this was the perfect work for me to satisfy a challenge to read a “geek-reed” book. There were more than a few moments when I felt Truss was channeling the good Sisters at Ursuline Academy who first tried to drum those rules into my head. Truss writes with a delightfully irreverent style, and yet still conveys the seriousness of her purpose. It was a fast, enjoyable read, and I think I learned (or re-learned) a few things.
LINK to my review

[Melissa]

The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick
3 ★

Pat has just returned home from time in a mental health facility and he is determined to stay in shape and be a good person so that he can win his wife, Nikki, back when apart time is over. Pat is confused though. He doesn't remember what happened that put him in the "bad place" and he doesn't understand why no one will talk about Nikki.
I enjoyed the story, but was disappointed in parts of it. The author references many books throughout the story because Nikki is a teacher and has her students read certain books. Pat was never a reader and decides to finally read them to make Nikki happy. The problem is that the author tells the reader what happened in the book and how it ends. Not good for someone who hasn't read the mentioned books. Also, Tiffany is a rude, hateful person. I just could not get myself to like her. Even after she apologized for the stunt she pulls.
If you are a Philadelphia Eagles fan, you will love this book. Football and the Philadelphia Eagles play a big part in the book. It's the one thing that brings Pat and his father and brother together. Unfortunately, each game also determines how his father is going to be over the next couple of days. His father treats his mother horribly and she prayers every week that the Eagles win. It's sort of sad and since I don't follow football, it's hard for me to process.
All in all, you can't help but really like Pat. He's simple and thoughtful. So hopeful throughout it all. I'm not so sure you could call the ending a happy one though. At least not in my opinion.

[Melissa]

Ashley Bell (Ashley Bell #1) by Dean Koontz
4 ★

Bibi Blair is told she has brain cancer, but 2 days later is cured. The price for her health: save Ashley Bell. Bibi does not know an Ashley Bell and sets out on a dangerous path to find out who she is and where she can find her. Along the way she must hide from the "bad people" who don't want her finding Ashley Bell.
This psychological thriller takes the reader on a very unique adventure. There were times when I thought I knew what was going on, but ended up being wrong. I did, though, figure it out before it was revealed. Bibi Blair and her family and friends are great characters. Surfers who use surfing lingo frequently. Don't worry...the author explains them all. Bibi's parents love her dearly and you can tell. You can also feel how much Captain meant to Bibi. He shaped her life way more then her parents did. The author did a great job connecting all the dots for am intense read. The only thing that I was confused about was the last chapter. I can see why the author added it, to continue one characters story, but I don't feel it was needed. Especially since her hasn't written a book 2 for the series.

[Book Concierge]

The Dog Who Knew Too Much – Spencer Quinn – 3.5***
Book four in the Chet and Bernie mystery series. I find looking at the mystery and the events that unfold through Chet’s eyes simply delightful and fun. Quinn has managed to give him a personality that befits a dog. He’s easily distracted by food or squirrels, given to taking things too literally (still looking for that wild goose they’re supposed to be chasing), loyal to a fault, and courageous.
LINK to my review

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Christmas At Little Beach Street Bakery – Jenny Cogan – 3***
This is a fun chick-lit romance with some over-the-top coincidences and new-adult drama. Not much of a spoiler to say that it all works out with a fairytale HEA ending. I didn’t realize it was a series when I picked it up, and I don’t really feel that I was missing all that much for not having begun with book one. Have to say I really appreciated the recipes at the end – especially the hot chocolate!
LINK to my review

[Book Concierge]

Other Voices, Other Rooms – Truman Capote – 3.5***
Capote’s debut novel is a semiautobiographical coming-of-age story. It’s a classic Southern Gothic novel, full of ghosts, haints, superstitions, secrets and closed off rooms. Joel is isolated not only by the remote location, but by the lack of connection with these people. He is confused and cautious, and his loneliness and despair are palpable. Capote’s writing is wonderfully atmospheric. Still, at times, much like Joel, I felt lost in unfamiliar surroundings.
LINK to my review

[James]

John D'Agata, The Next American Essay [2003] 475 pages

Another book for a friend's class (maybe someday I'll get to take one myself), this is a collection of "essays", mostly American, one for each year from 1975 to 2003. I put "essays" in quotation marks because the editor says that they blur the distinction between nonfiction and art -- and many of them seem more like poetry or fiction than essays. The selection is very subjective, and emphasizes "literary" writing. Like any anthology this one is very uneven; one or two selections I found boring, and a few were basically incomprehensible, but there were also some I really enjoyed reading. This is the third collection in the editor's New History of the Essay; I didn't actually find his comments and introductions very enlightening.

[James]

Donald Culross Peattie, Green Laurels: The Lives and Achievements of the Great Naturalists [1936] 368 pages

This book was made up of short biographies of a selection of "naturalists" ("field" as opposed to "lab" scientists) from the Middle Ages to the late nineteenth century, written in a flowery literary style, and woven into a basic narrative frame; there were a few anecdotes I hadn't heard before but essentially nothing new. After reading a lot of depressing modern fiction over the past few months, though, this sort of "whiggish" popular history where there is actual progress instead of everything going from bad to worse was a kind of mental relaxation. The author notes that if some of the ideas of the earlier naturalists seem quaint or even bizarre in the twentieth century, the future would feel the same way about twentieth century ideas, and that is already the case with much of his reflection on the meaning and importance of some of these figures; in particular he seems to have a rather poor understanding of what evolution is about, apparently thinking that Lamarck has been vindicated against Darwinian natural selection (the mid-thirties were about the last time that anyone could seriously think that was the case, when the "modern synthesis" was still new and not fully accepted.)

One problem that I had with the book was his tendency to present pairings of "good" and "bad" figures, and suggest that there were "conspiracies" to suppress ideas because of personal animosities -- this is still a theme of much pseudo-scientific rubbish, that the authors of new (usually crank) ideas are suppressed by "official" science; not that it never happens, but it doesn't succeed for long except for proprietary or classified research. Some of the pairs he treats that way are Buffon vs. Réaumer, Cuvier vs. Lamark, and Audubon vs. Wilson. It was worthwhile however to learn more about the less well-known figures, who do often deserve more consideration.

This book certainly doesn't take the place of a real history of biology (I would recommend Ernst Mayr's The Development of Biological Thought for that), but as I said it was an enjoyable relaxation.

[Book Concierge]

Carnegie’s Maid – Marie Benedict – 3***
Irish immigrant Clara Kelly comes to America in hopes of finding employment so that she can send money home to her impoverished family. She winds up as a lady’s maid in the Carnegie family’s Pittsburgh mansion. I was intrigued by the story and quickly caught up in the tale of this intelligent, resourceful, determined and diligent young lady. I did think it was somewhat repetitious, but still enjoyed this historical fiction that takes a few facts and weaves a compelling story to help explain them.
LINK to my review

[Book Concierge]

The Hamilton Affair – Elizabeth Cobbs – 4****
Cobbs is an historian, who also occasionally writes a work of historical fiction. The story unfolds in alternating perspectives: Alexander and Eliza each get a turn at relating events. In this way we get some insight into each character’s background, guiding principles, joys, sorrows and desires. While Cobbs’ sympathies were clearly with Hamilton, she did not shy away from pointing out his faults. I really appreciated how she developed Eliza’s strong character. I was interested and engaged from beginning to end.
LINK to my review