bookpagedev

FictionHistorical Fiction

Go tell it on the mountain

Review by bookpagedev

Eccentric old maid, one-of-a-kind, an original none of these clichŽs do justice to 50-year-old Miss Jane Hubbell Kinneson, who has second sight, carves life-sized wooden figures for company and sits astride the U.S.-Canadian border when she eats breakfast. A Jane-of-all-trades, she also teaches, farms, fishes, runs a library and bookstore, and finds herself duty-bound to expose Shakespeare, Pretender of Avon; to revise Henry Thoreau, the Proclaimer of Concord; and to set King James straight about his Bible. ( Horsefeathers appears in the margin of her Old Testament at the stories of Lot’s wife and the flood.) But Miss Jane is no fool. In 1930, she takes on the Vermont Department of Highways over the fate of the Connector, a highway project that would link Vermont and Canada but would destroy the natural beauty of Kingdom Mountain, her beloved family inheritance. Acting as her own lawyer, she shows herself as competent as any of the stodgy old men of the bar before her.

And that’s not all. Early on, she rescues Henry Satterfield, an itinerant bank teller dressed nattily in white with a crimson vest, from an icy death in his yellow biplane. Although his past is cloudy, his future will be bright if he finds the treasure of gold that was stolen from the local bank during the Civil War and hidden somewhere on the mountain. Improbable events ensue.

Howard Frank Mosher is one of those authors who proves that life is far more amusing than one ever expected. Embedded here like cinnamon in sugar toast is a nippy humor that brings a chuckle a page to this account of quests and riddles, insights and discoveries.

The author has written nine other books, one of which, Disappearance, was co-recipient of the New England Book Award for Fiction. Excuse me I’m off to the library to find it.

One-of-a-kind reviewer Maude McDaniel eats her breakfast in Maryland.

Eccentric old maid, one-of-a-kind, an original none of these clichŽs do justice to 50-year-old Miss Jane Hubbell Kinneson, who has second sight, carves life-sized wooden figures for company and sits astride the U.S.-Canadian border when she eats breakfast. A Jane-of-all-trades, she also teaches, farms, fishes,…
Fiction

A story of war and friendship

Review by bookpagedev

In his latest novel, prize-winning author Justin Cartwright offers an absorbing tale of two men from different cultures whose friendship is ruptured by the conflagration of World War II. Based on actual events, Cartwright’s novel reflects with true insight on the way in which momentous historical events have the power to test, and ultimately reveal, human character.

Most of The Song Before It Is Sung is told through the eyes of Conrad Senior, a journalist who finds himself in his mid-30s on the verge of divorce, and with little to show for his fitful labors. Senior’s former Oxford mentor, Elya Mendel, has bequeathed to him a collection of his papers, enjoining the writer to explore the close friendship formed between the Jewish Mendel and Axel von Gottberg, an aristocratic German Rhodes Scholar, at Oxford in the 1930s.

The bond between Mendel and von Gottberg is strained almost to the breaking point when von Gottberg returns to Germany and writes a letter to the Manchester Guardian, asserting that reports of persecution against Jews in the German courts lack any basis in fact. Mendel concludes that his friend is a loyal Nazi and his resulting denunciation undermines von Gottberg’s persistent, but ultimately futile efforts to persuade influential leaders in the West that the coming war can be averted.

Once war erupts, von Gottberg watches with rising alarm as the madness of the Nazi regime obliterates the idealized Germany he longs so desperately to preserve. He finally joins the July 1944 plot against Hitler, and when that assassination attempt fails, von Gottberg is tortured and eventually hanged along with the other conspirators. Senior’s dogged research into von Gottberg’s final days leads him to Berlin, where he uncovers a grisly film of the German’s execution, and a poignant letter written days before his death that attempts to set the record straight between the old friends.

The Song Before It Is Sung is a multilayered work, challenging us to ask ourselves how well we know our fellow human beings, especially those closest to us. Harvey Freedenberg writes from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

 

In his latest novel, prize-winning author Justin Cartwright offers an absorbing tale of two men from different cultures whose friendship is ruptured by the conflagration of World War II. Based on actual events, Cartwright's novel reflects with true insight on the way in which…

Children's & YA

She’s leaving home

Review by bookpagedev

<b>She’s leaving home</b> Diane loves everything about her house the white shutters, the maple tree out front and, most importantly, the fact that her best friend, Rose, can ride her bike over. But what is Diane supposed to do when her parents tell her they’re moving? Diane’s dad has lost his job, and Grandpa Joe wants the family to move in with him. Of course, Diane doesn’t understand why her dad lost his job or what that has to do with her beloved house. She is just plain confused and sad, and she releases her emotions in her diary. In lyrical and bittersweet entries, she expresses her fears of moving and reminisces about some of her favorite times. Describing her last night in her old house, she writes, I’m lying in Dad’s old sleeping bag . . . tears spill like crying stars from my eyes. In this poignant children’s book, author Eileen Spinelli offers a unique way of conveying a young girl’s struggle with leaving the home and the life she loves. Diane is, quite frankly, a marvelous kid, a spunky girl who loves astronomy and writing poetry. Unfortunately, the idea of moving shatters her confidence. She imagines she can’t be herself in a new place. Happily, soon after the move, she discovers that this isn’t so. She learns that she can study the night sky anywhere and that her new neighborhood has the potential to inspire great poems. Most importantly, she realizes she has found a new friend, who knows more about stars than she does and who loves reading poetry. She just has to get over the fact that he’s a boy! <i>Andrea Hinds is a writer and preschool teacher in Nashville.</i>

<b>She's leaving home</b> Diane loves everything about her house the white shutters, the maple tree out front and, most importantly, the fact that her best friend, Rose, can ride her bike over. But what is Diane supposed to do when her parents tell her they're…
Children's & YA

On the sidelines of a historic battle

Review by bookpagedev

It’s the fall of 1960, and Louise Collins is a sixth-grader at William Frantz Elementary School in one of the poorest neighborhoods in New Orleans. Louise’s mother Pauline is keeping her out of school as part of a boycott against court-ordered integration. Almost the only child attending Frantz this year is six-year-old Ruby Bridges, the first African- American student to enroll there.

While Louise stays home helping out at her mother’s boarding house, Pauline is busy as a member of the Cheerleaders, a group of white mothers who gather daily to taunt Ruby as she enters the school. When a quiet stranger rents a room at Pauline’s boarding house, both Louise and her mother can tell right away that there is something that makes him different from anyone they’ve ever met before. What they can’t predict is the chain of events that his arrival will launch, touching every facet of their lives.

In My Mother the Cheerleader, first-time author Robert Sharenow brings readers into the heart of America’s civil rights battle. Sharenow succeeds where few authors have dared to venture crafting a convincing first-person account, and opening a window of understanding toward people supporting the wrong side of historic issues.

No one would blame Sharenow if he tied up the end of this novel in a tidy bow, transforming Louise and her mother from segregationists into civil rights freedom fighters. But the author travels a more difficult path, revealing the incremental ways that real change often takes hold. Robin Wright Gunn lives in Savannah, Georgia.

It's the fall of 1960, and Louise Collins is a sixth-grader at William Frantz Elementary School in one of the poorest neighborhoods in New Orleans. Louise's mother Pauline is keeping her out of school as part of a boycott against court-ordered integration. Almost the only…
Fiction

Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician

Review by bookpagedev

Henry Walker, the magician in Jeremiah Mosgrove’s Chinese Circus, has been having problems: He can’t do a trick to save his life. Yet before joining the circus, as the shadowy Mr. Sebastian’s protŽgŽ, Henry had been doing not merely tricks but real magic. Now, though, Henry has suddenly vanished in the volatile springtime of 1959 in northern Alabama, and his few friends in the circus a patchwork conglomeration of freaks and castoffs ponder his baffling disappearance. Had he found love, religion, money, or had some new trick gone diabolically wrong? Comparing what they think they know about Henry’s past, his friends put together a kaleidoscopic portrait of their missing magician. Henry, as everyone slowly begins to understand, had spent most of his illusory life floating in the no-man’s land of the imagination, somewhere between this life and whatever is on the other side. And the truth of the matter, as his friends realize, lies hidden in plain sight within the reality that none of us are what we appear to be. And, as readers discover in this phenomenal fourth novel from Alabama writer Daniel Wallace (Big Fish), all of the life-enhancing illusions for Henry may have finally fallen apart.

Wallace in the tradition of magical realism has created a paradoxical, though seamless, fusion of wistful fantasies, terrifying nightmares and the extraordinary twists and turns of our not-so-ordinary everyday lives. Like the best magic tricks, Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician is a very clever illusion, and that is the secret of this luminous new novel’s superior value as literature and entertainment. So, reader, prepare to have your heart broken and then as if through magic restored and enriched by Wallace’s mesmerizing tale of life’s relationships and possibilities.

Tim Davis teaches literature at the University of West Florida.

Henry Walker, the magician in Jeremiah Mosgrove's Chinese Circus, has been having problems: He can't do a trick to save his life. Yet before joining the circus, as the shadowy Mr. Sebastian's protŽgŽ, Henry had been doing not merely tricks but real magic. Now, though,…
Biography

Privilege and Scandal

Review by bookpagedev

Dearest Reader, It is my sincerest hope you will not consider me a shameful gossip if I whisper to you in these brief lines some of the subjects elucidated in Janet Gleeson’s Privilege and Scandal: The Remarkable Life of Harriet Spencer, Sister of Georgiana. Many secrets, hitherto buried between the lines of Harriet’s many letters (both to her and from her), are forthrightly revealed in Gleeson’s edifying, yet thoroughly beguiling biography of this vivacious, attractive and intelligent woman. Harriet Spencer, (who became Countess of Bessborough and is a feisty ancestor of the famed, though ill-fated, Princess Di) turned heads and raised eyebrows in 18th-century Britain by embroiling herself (a married woman!) in many peccadilloes regarding her participation in politics, gambling and illicit amours. The salacious details of that which I can only hint at here her lifelong involvement with a younger man, the painful particulars of her dalliance with playwright Richard Sheridan and how she managed to keep secret the birth of two of her six children are to be discovered in Gleeson’s detailed accounting.

But remember, dear reader, that a lady’s reputation in the Regency era is everything, and that such a lady a dynamic and influential figure of the Whig aristocracy, who braved social condemnation by giving voice to the reasoning of her acute mind, who was ever a faithful sister and friend, and who was such a loving and devoted mother, that, upon hearing her son was wounded in the Battle of Waterloo, raced alone across war-torn Europe to be at his side to such a one should every courtesy of confidence be given. Therefore, lest my words insinuate more than they illuminate, I pray you, burn my letter, and buy the book! Linda Stankard, your faithful correspondent, writes from Nanuet, New York.

Dearest Reader, It is my sincerest hope you will not consider me a shameful gossip if I whisper to you in these brief lines some of the subjects elucidated in Janet Gleeson's Privilege and Scandal: The Remarkable Life of Harriet Spencer, Sister of Georgiana. Many…
History

Founding Fathers

Review by bookpagedev

Everyone is connected, the argument goes, by a mere six degrees of separation: You have met someone who has met someone (and so on) who has met Queen Elizabeth II. James Burke takes this idea back through history to the signers of the Declaration of Independence. One by one, he traces the 56 names forward through time in American Connections: The Founding Fathers. Networked., leaping across oceans and continents (and even through outer space), until arriving at a modern resolution usually a person with the same name, but in some cases a ship or a shared residence 200 years apart.

Burke’s book is neither history nor biography. Perhaps the best description is to call American Connections a curiosity an experiment in what you can do with names, people and places, from the mundane to the bizarre, to arrive at connections that no one would imagine possible least of all the Founding Fathers. American Connections is best read in small servings, where the oddities can be appreciated as tasty morsels. Pick it up and read about Samuel Adams’ accidental connections with spies, transvestites, poisoners and movie stars. Later, move on to Stephen Hopkins, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and discover his links to a Nazi warship. Or follow founding father Matthew Thornton to the planet Mars. Burke’s writing moves quickly and is often mixed with wry humor, which adds to the fun. Try it, and see where the quirks of history’s network can lead. Who knows you might find a connection to yourself. Howard Shirley is a writer in Franklin, Tennessee.

Everyone is connected, the argument goes, by a mere six degrees of separation: You have met someone who has met someone (and so on) who has met Queen Elizabeth II. James Burke takes this idea back through history to the signers of the Declaration of…
Biography

The Most Famous Man in America

Review by bookpagedev

In this year’s winner of the Pulitzer Prize for biography, Applegate takes a fascinating look at the life of the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, brother of the writer Harriet Beecher Stowe. An energetic Congregationalist clergyman and outspoken abolitionist, Beecher achieved renown during the mid-1800s, when his Plymouth Church in Brooklyn drew people from all over the country. He was a charismatic speaker, a powerful writer and one of the first public personalities in America who could rightly be termed a celebrity. His perception of God as a merciful rather than an unforgiving figure was a new and welcome view, as was his overall take on Christianity, which he believed could serve as a path to happiness and forgiveness. Well-connected socially, he appreciated books, music, art and although he was married the company of women. When well-known feminist Victoria Woodhull publicly accused Beecher of committing adultery with a member of his church, her claims made national headlines. A trial ensued that absorbed America’s attention almost as much as the Civil War. How Beecher fared after the scandal makes for a gripping historical tale. Readers with an interest in American history will relish Applegate’s well-written, engaging narrative.

In this year's winner of the Pulitzer Prize for biography, Applegate takes a fascinating look at the life of the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, brother of the writer Harriet Beecher Stowe. An energetic Congregationalist clergyman and outspoken abolitionist, Beecher achieved renown during the mid-1800s,…
Sports

Q Schooling

Review by bookpagedev

John Feinstein’s latest, Tales from Q School: Inside Golf’s Fifth Major, finds the noted sportswriter in characteristic investigative mode. The PGA Tour Qualifying Tournament ( Q School ) is a grueling annual event in which both aspiring and erstwhile pro golfers compete for precious few available slots on the PGA Tour. Feinstein covers the 2005 Q School in a narrative rich with round-by-round reportage and engaging stories about the participants from fresh-faced guys right out of college to former champs like Larry Mize, who won the 1987 Masters but, now in his late 40s, willingly suffers the somewhat ignominious Q School regimen in order to return to the greens of his past glory. Feinstein’s general theme is that, in its own way, Q School is more inherently dramatic than any major tournament, mainly because, for these players, there is no tomorrow. Serious fans of the pro game will find this an engrossing read.

John Feinstein's latest, Tales from Q School: Inside Golf's Fifth Major, finds the noted sportswriter in characteristic investigative mode. The PGA Tour Qualifying Tournament ( Q School ) is a grueling annual event in which both aspiring and erstwhile pro golfers compete for precious…
Sports

Free and clear

Review by bookpagedev

Former golf pro Steve Eubanks’ Golf Freek: One Man’s Quest to Play as Many Rounds of Golf as Possible. For Free. offers a marvelous series of adventures in which the author, trading on his connections, set out to play rounds of golf either on courses new to his experience or with amazing golf personages. Eubanks’ travels take him from the foothills of the Himalayas to Zurich, Switzerland, from the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail in Alabama to the Yatera Seca Golf Course near the Guant‡namo naval base in Cuba. Typified by sharp wit and indelible good will, Eubanks’ Everyman-style memoir serves up keen reflections about the game but, more importantly, delivers ripe tales of fascinating folks, such as blind golfer David Meader, Korean female golfer Jeong Jang, retired pro Al Geiberger and the irrepressible Leo Luken, an 88-year-old legend who has shot his age more than 500 times. A poignant family encounter involving Eubanks’ dad and his Marine recruit son concludes the text, and helps humanize what is otherwise a delightful busman’s holiday of a book.

Former golf pro Steve Eubanks' Golf Freek: One Man's Quest to Play as Many Rounds of Golf as Possible. For Free. offers a marvelous series of adventures in which the author, trading on his connections, set out to play rounds of golf either on…
Sports

Up to par

Review by bookpagedev

The U.S. of the 1950s has traditionally been viewed as wholesome and peaceful, dominated by the sober presidency of Dwight Eisenhower. Ike’s recreational penchant contributed mightily to that image, since he completed more than 800 rounds of golf during his eight years in the White House. Catherine M. Lewis’ Don’t Ask What I Shot: How Eisenhower’s Love of Golf Helped Shape 1950’s America makes interesting contributions both to golf lore and to sociopolitical history. In eminently readable prose, Lewis profiles Eisenhower the man, the key events during his terms in office and the general cultural landscape, which encompassed a nation transitioning from an era of white male dominance to a more pluralistic society. The serious analysis of Ike’s presidential conduct including his conflicts with Southern politicians over school integration is balanced nicely with a sense of America’s broadening golf fanaticism, typified by Ike’s ongoing affiliations with celebrities and pro athletes such as Bob Hope, Arnold Palmer and Bobby Jones. We also learn plenty about Ike’s golf game: He was lucky to break 90, he took many a mulligan, and he was not averse to sending Secret Service agents out into the rough in search of his errant tee shots. The book’s title is a quote from Ike himself, indicating that the Prez had no illusions about his struggles on the fairway.

The U.S. of the 1950s has traditionally been viewed as wholesome and peaceful, dominated by the sober presidency of Dwight Eisenhower. Ike's recreational penchant contributed mightily to that image, since he completed more than 800 rounds of golf during his eight years in the…
Sports

No mulligans required

Review by bookpagedev

He was christened Vincent Damon Furnier, but the world knows him as the original shock-rocker Alice Cooper, whose big ’70s hits I’m Eighteen and School’s Out launched a decades-long music career. Alice Cooper, Golf Monster: A Rock ‘n’ Roller’s 12 Steps to Becoming a Golf Addict is essentially an autobiography, charting Cooper’s journey from Michigan to Arizona to California and through his eventful showbiz life. But the memoir is equally Cooper’s account of his struggles with alcohol addiction and how a newfound passion for golf came to supplant his attraction to booze. Cooper has proudly been off the sauce for years, thus saving his personal life, but his affinity for golf may be even more obsessive. He plays hundreds of golf rounds a year, spending every available moment on the course, the result of which is sobriety and also an amazing six-handicap. He’s become one of the finest amateur golfers around, and he’s found a way to keep his still-shoulder-length hair out of harm’s way. Cooper’s book is a quirky but inspiring effort, filled with humor and sincerity.

He was christened Vincent Damon Furnier, but the world knows him as the original shock-rocker Alice Cooper, whose big '70s hits I'm Eighteen and School's Out launched a decades-long music career. Alice Cooper, Golf Monster: A Rock 'n' Roller's 12 Steps to Becoming a…
Lifestyles

You wear it well, Dad

Review by bookpagedev

What it is about today’s society that gives fathers so much disrespect, especially around Father’s Day? On Mother’s Day, our opposite numbers get flowers and jewelry and candy and sentiment, but on our day we dads get shirts that don’t fit, underwear, gag gifts and goofy cards. It’s those attempts at humor that really hurt, mainly because they’re usually true. I present to you a case in point: Richard Jarman’s Smooth Operators: The Secrets Behind Their Success, a look at men’s fashions of the 1970s and ’80s, told with an almost straight face. Jarman’s motivation is not to humiliate every man who lived through those decades (though he’s wildly successful in this), but to come to terms with the way his newly divorced father acted and dressed during that time. Evidence abounds in the advertising of those years; the scary part, for me, is that I know these guys heck, I was trying to be these guys! This droll little book illustrates our decades-long fashion faux pas, and as someone who lived through that time and who committed some of the same fashion atrocities (polyester, mutton-chops, platform shoes), I find this book downright embarrassing! So will your dad.

What it is about today's society that gives fathers so much disrespect, especially around Father's Day? On Mother's Day, our opposite numbers get flowers and jewelry and candy and sentiment, but on our day we dads get shirts that don't fit, underwear, gag gifts and…

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