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Bodega Bakes

In the personable Bodega Bakes, pastry chef Paola Velez presents just that: sweets that can be made solely from the ingredients found at a corner store.
In the personable Bodega Bakes, pastry chef Paola Velez presents just that: sweets that can be made solely from the ingredients found at a corner store.
NonfictionPhotographyLifestylesAnimals

Faithful Unto Death

Faithful Unto Death is a thoughtful investigation into the bonds of pets and their owners that chronicles the ways in which we grieve and remember the animals we love.
Faithful Unto Death is a thoughtful investigation into the bonds of pets and their owners that chronicles the ways in which we grieve and remember the animals we love.
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Back to basics

To be clear, the title of this book by Alexander Langlands is Cræft, not “craft.” When we think of craft, we tend to think of expensive handmade objects, often considered anachronisms in a world of mass production and mass consumption. Cræft (pronounced “creft”) is the Anglo-Saxon root for the modern word “craft,” and it includes both the product and the process of crafting. But cræft has a more profound meaning: It is the wisdom, handed down from previous generations, that enables the crafter to create a perfectly useful object.

NonfictionTravel

A threatened way of life

Review by Carla Jean Whitley

BookPage Top Pick in Nonfiction, January 2018

All the Van Gujjar tribe wants is to maintain their ancient way of life. For centuries, the forest-dwelling, nomadic Indian tribe has spent winters in the jungle and summers in the Himalayas, where the water buffalo they herd find abundant food and a break from blazing heat. But in recent years, the country’s national park system has challenged their way of life. People aren’t meant to live in preserved lands, the park system argues. The Van Gujjars should stay out.

That tension is central to Himalaya Bound, in which writer and photographer Michael Benanav recounts one Van Gujjar family’s 2009 migration from the forests to the mountains. Benanav spent 44 days alongside the family as they traveled 125 miles and encountered 11,000 feet of elevation gain—by foot.

The days are long and, in many ways, simple as the tribe presses toward its destination. But there’s dramatic tension at the heart of the journey. Will the family be able to summer in its ancestral land, in what is now Rajaji National Park? Or will officials hold true to their word and ban the tribe?

As Benanav describes his experience traversing these miles, he offers a deeper understanding of the family’s troubles. India isn’t alone in questioning the notion of people in national parks; America has done the same, also challenging indigenous peoples’ right to their tribal lands. The argument is often made in the name of conservation. But as Benanav reveals, the relationships between humans, land and animals aren’t quite so easily explained.

Benanav deftly weaves scientific and historic context into the story of one family and one migration. As he does, he also shares an American’s perspective of this radically different way of life. The result is a compelling, thoughtful tale that encourages readers to examine their lives and impact upon the earth.

 

This article was originally published in the January 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

All the Van Gujjar tribe wants is to maintain their ancient way of life. For centuries, the forest-dwelling, nomadic Indian tribe has spent winters in the jungle and summers in the Himalayas, where the water buffalo they herd find abundant food and a break from blazing heat. But in recent years, the country’s national park system has challenged their way of life. People aren’t meant to live in preserved lands, the park system argues. The Van Gujjars should stay out.

How to start a nuclear war

Before Daniel Ellsberg became the iconic whistleblower of his time with the 1971 release of the Pentagon Papers, which revealed the history of the United State’s involvement in Vietnam, he had a decision to make: Should he also reveal the insanity at work in the nuclear war planning of the United States and the Soviet Union?

NonfictionMusic

Legends of rap

Review by Henry L. Carrigan Jr.

Drawing on interviews with members of N.W.A.—which founding member Ice Cube once famously called the “World’s Most Dangerous Group—their friends, families and musical associates, journalist Gerrick Kennedy vividly tells the fast-paced, captivating story of the group’s rise, fall and enduring legacy in Parental Discretion Is Advised.

With the staccato, sure-fire delivery of a rap artist, Kennedy chronicles the early lives of each of N.W.A’s members—Eazy-E, who died of complications of AIDS in 1995, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, MC Ren and DJ Yella—and how they came together to form N.W.A. Dre and Eazy met up as members of the World Class Wrecking Crew, mixing and sampling music at crowded venues around Los Angeles; the two saw rap as way of achieving a better life for themselves. The two eventually meet up with MC Ren, DJ Yella and Ice Cube, who writes many of the lyrics for the group’s biggest hits, including “F*ck Tha Police” and “Gangsta Gangsta.” When the group releases Straight Outta Compton in 1988, the album launches their careers even as it marks the beginning of the end for the group. Kennedy chronicles the now well-known story of Ice Cube’s financial disputes with Eazy and Dre and his subsequent move to a successful solo career, as well as the predatory management practices of their first manager, Jerry Heller. As Kennedy points out, N.W.A’s Straight Outta Compton was a “sonic Molotov cocktail that ignited a firestorm with acidic lyrics which shocked the world.”

Kennedy’s compulsively readable book shines a glowing light on a brilliant group once accused of destroying America’s moral fabric but now occupies a spot in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for their astonishing contributions to music.

Drawing on interviews with members of N.W.A.—which founding member Ice Cube once famously called the “World’s Most Dangerous Group—their friends, families and musical associates, journalist Gerrick Kennedy vividly tells the fast-paced, captivating story of the group’s rise, fall and enduring legacy in Parental Discretion Is Advised.

A city at the dawn of the modern age

Unlike most histories of 16th-century England, which concentrate on the machinations and religious convulsions of the Tudor monarchy, London’s Triumph concerns itself with the capital city’s merchant class and what it did to launch the explorations and conquests that would ultimately result in the world-girdling British empire of the 19th century.

NonfictionEssays

Twelve portraits of an island

Review by Alice Cary

For many, Cuba seems like a distant exotic cousin you've grown up hearing about but never been able to meet. Whether you're planning a visit or merely intrigued, Cuba on the Verge is a collection of 12 essays that offer an engrossing glimpse into this island nation and its endless dichotomies.

Carlos Manuel Álvarez writes beautifully about a 2015 visit with his father, a former doctor who had recently emigrated to Miami, and how they worked together shaking coconuts from the trees of wealthy homeowners, collecting 70 cents for each nut.

Wendy Guerra chronicles decades of change in Cuba, from the elegance of the early 1960s to her teenage years in the 1980s, when a ration book allowed her to buy one set of underwear a year and getting an abortion "is much more common than going to the dentist." She maintains that Cuban women have been empowered in various ways over the years, but laments that "today, female political leadership is still unthinkable."

Jon Lee Anderson remembers being an American writer in Cuba in the early 1990s, living in a house with no running water, dropping his daughters off at school to sing the Cuban revolutionary national anthem pronouncing "Yanquis [Yankees], the enemies of humanity" as he researched a biography of Che Guevara. Anderson describes returning to their house decades later with one of his daughters, gazing at the nearby spot where they once watched Cuban "rafters"―including their neighbor―plunge into the ocean in an attempt to escape.

Baseball, movies, music, Fidel and Raúl Castro, visits by Obama, the Rolling Stones and Pope Francis―all and more of these subjects are addressed. As author Patricia Engel's friend Manuel concludes, "Popes and presidents. They come and they see Cuba, then they leave and forget us. But for us, nothing changes. Here we are. Here we will always be . . . the same Cuba, the same ruta, the same struggle always."

For many, Cuba seems like a distant exotic cousin you've grown up hearing about but never been able to meet. Whether you're planning a visit or merely intrigued, Cuba on the Verge is a collection of 12 essays that offer an engrossing glimpse into this island nation and its endless dichotomies.

Garnett’s golden touch

Edward Garnett, a reader with exquisite taste, a perceptive critic and a writer, played a crucial role in the literary history of Britain between 1887 and 1937. His unique talent for recognizing and promoting future noteworthy authors is legendary, and he became many writers’ devoted friend and editor.

NonfictionBiography

An incredible story of survival

Review by Catherine Hollis

As a connoisseur of memoir, I thought I had read it all: stunningly dysfunctional families, toxic relationships, addictions. But I have never read a memoir as terrifying as Maude Julien’s The Only Girl in the World. Newly translated into English, this is the must-read memoir of the season for those who, like me, have read them all.

Today Julien is a French psychotherapist specializing in patients who are recovering from extreme psychological and behavioral control, such as cult victims. Julien had the misfortune of being born to a completely unhinged father who was able to disguise his insanity from the outside world. A high-ranking Freemason, he believed that his daughter would become a “supreme being” as long as she was raised under his control in complete isolation.

Julien’s father had previously adopted, raised and “trained” her mother, and he turned their remote château in the French countryside into a chamber of horrors. As a child, Julien was introduced to unthinkable trials designed to toughen her up: meditations on death in a rat-infested cellar, being forced to hold onto an electric fence. Written in a childlike first-person voice, this memoir brings to life Julien’s horrifying experiences and her subtle rebellions against her parents as she refuses to be broken. The reader, too, is trapped and riveted by her story. An epilogue, written from her adult perspective, explains Julien’s theory of the cultlike psychological and behavioral control she was subjected to, and how it continues to shape her dreams and fears. This is a truly fascinating and intense read, and highly recommended.

 

This article was originally published in the December 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

As a connoisseur of memoir, I thought I had read it all: stunningly dysfunctional families, toxic relationships, addictions. But I have never read a memoir as terrifying as Maude Julien’s The Only Girl in the World. Newly translated into English, this is the must-read memoir of the season for those who, like me, have read them all.

History of the hoax

Poet and scholar Kevin Young offers a history of the hoax and a chilling indictment of our current moment in this ambitious book. Bunk opens in the 19th century—the days of P.T. Barnum, Arthur Conan Doyle and Edgar Allan Poe—as Young pulls back history’s curtain to reveal hoaxes, humbug and circus tents with a sideshow of spiritualism and sensationalism.

NonfictionBiography

An aristocrat turned war hero

Review by Deborah Mason

BookPage Top Pick in Nonfiction, December 2017

Step aside, James Bond. There’s a new sexy spy hero in town, and this one has the advantage of being real. His name is La Rochefoucauld, Robert de La Rochefoucauld, and his career as a résistant in Nazi-occupied France is the subject of Paul Kix’s The Saboteur: The Aristocrat Who Became France’s Most Daring Anti-Nazi Commando.

La Rochefoucauld, the carefree second son of one of France’s most distinguished families, was an unlikely hero. A bit of a ne’er-do-well, La Rochefoucauld was in no way the exemplary son that his beloved elder brother was. But La Rochefoucauld inherited the same sense of duty that had marked generations of his family, and at the age of 19, when France capitulated to Germany, he was determined to continue the fight against the Nazis.

After rigorous—and downright dangerous—training in England, La Rochefoucauld parachuted into France and began his spectacular career as a saboteur of Nazi operations. Captured, tortured and condemned to death by the Germans, La Rochefoucauld managed to escape from certain doom time and time again. If this were fiction, the plot would be fantastical; as a work of nonfiction, it is a testament to the resilience and ingenuity of the human spirit.

Kix’s sharp, well-paced writing is perfect for telling La Rochefoucauld’s story. But this is more than a gripping yarn of daring-do. La Rochefoucauld was a complex character, and Kix’s portrait is nuanced and moving. We are introduced to La Rochefoucauld when he is about to testify in the trial of an accused war criminal and collaborator—for the defense. Obviously, this is not your stereotypical resistance fighter, and Kix’s book poses the big questions: What is duty? What is courage? What is loyalty?

Like many veterans of his generation, La Rochefoucauld rarely spoke about his experiences to his family. We are fortunate to have Kix’s richly detailed book so we can remember the remarkable courage of an extraordinary man.

 

This article was originally published in the December 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Step aside, James Bond. There’s a new sexy spy hero in town, and this one has the advantage of being real. His name is La Rochefoucauld, Robert de La Rochefoucauld, and his career as a résistant in Nazi-occupied France is the subject of Paul Kix’s The Saboteur: The Aristocrat Who Became France’s Most Daring Anti-Nazi Commando.

A journalist fighting against the status quo

Did you know that “common scold” was once a legal term, applicable only to women, punishable by ducking the scold into water? In fact, in 1829, the Washington, D.C. Circuit Court convicted writer and gadfly Anne Royall as a common scold, sentencing her to a fine rather than the ducking stool. This bizarre trial is just one aspect of Royall’s larger-than-life story that Jeff Biggers delves into in his biography, The Trials of a Scold.
HistoryAmerican History

An unlikely friendship on the frontier

Review by Anne Bartlett

Talk about strange bedfellows: William "Buffalo Bill" Cody and George Armstrong Custer were buddies who went bison hunting together. After Custer was killed at Little Bighorn, Cody did his utmost to avenge his death. But just nine years later, Cody was courting Sitting Bull, the instigator of that battle, to appear in his Wild West show. And when the great Lakota chief was in his own final confrontation with white men, Cody tried unsuccessfully to save his life. They, too, were friends.

Enemies turned comrades, in less than a decade? Cody and Sitting Bull only worked together for a few months in 1885, but it's a fascinating chapter in the lightning-fast transition from Wild West reality to traveling circus. In her compelling Blood Brothers, Deanne Stillman, an expert on the American West, examines their lives to explore the era’s complexities.

When you delve into it, their connection seems less odd. Both were genuinely charismatic men, natural leaders with generous natures. Both also had a shrewd eye for economic opportunity. Sitting Bull was the product of a lifetime of betrayal by whites; Cody understood that, and played it straight with him.

Their ultimate symbiosis was not unique. Even as whites vilified Native Americans, they flocked to get Sitting Bull’s autograph. And Cody had no trouble hiring Native Americans. Forced onto reservations, many were destitute and eager for even the simulation of their old lives.

Stillman also shows that a third person was crucial to the relationship between the two men: Annie Oakley. Both were a bit in love with that remarkable woman, and her story is as riveting as theirs.

Cody survived long enough to try a comeback in Hollywood, making a documentary that retold Sitting Bull’s death and the massacre at Wounded Knee. It failed commercially and is now lost.

William "Buffalo Bill" Cody and George Armstrong Custer were buddies who went bison hunting together. After Custer was killed at Little Bighorn, Cody did his utmost to avenge his death. But just nine years later, Cody was courting Sitting Bull, the instigator of that battle, to appear in his Wild West show. And when the great Lakota chief was in his own final confrontation with white men, Cody tried unsuccessfully to save his life. They, too, were friends. 

How to rise above

Dan Rather reflects upon what it means to be a patriotic American in What Unites Us. Written with collaborator Elliot Kirschner, the book is a deeply felt reminder of what is the best of America.

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