The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book is nothing like the kind of thing I choose to read. It is the kind of thing found in the "New fiction" section at Barnes and Noble, or "Literature" in other places. I'm a genre fiction sort of girl, and so this isn't something I'd have ever read under normal conditions.

But, when the Vice President comes flying down the hall to give you her copy because she's sure you'd enjoy it...well.... And to be fair, we did talk about it when we were doing the Walk for the Cure in October, and our tastes do overlap considerably.

So, I figured--what the heck! I'll give it a go.

It was lovely.

The narrative voice is...witty, and acerbic, and warm (as appropriate), and just a little odd. Odd in a good way (a very original use of first person). It has three interesting sisters as the protagonists--and this is the chick-lit part that normally I don't go near--who are growing, and learning, and becoming better than they start out the book as.

There were some uncomfortable moments, like seeing some of what I like least about myself on the page; some events are near triggers given what is going on in the lives of some friends; and making me feel homesick for the family I've lost, for dreams I abandoned. But, for all that, I'm glad I read it.

But, of course, I've gone on too long, a bit incoherently. If I were the father in this novel, I'd simply have said,

"If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber'd here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream..."



View all my reviews

An Irish Country Doctor by Patrick Taylor

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I'm somewhat bashful to admit that I absolutely loved this book.

It is an inescapable fact that this book is reminiscent of All Creatures Great and Small in some ways, or Ballykissangel, and if you don't like those, you won't like this book. I found those pleasant enough, but not as engaging as the world Patrick Taylor has created here.

The voices of the characters are distinct, they're charming, annoying, dotty, nasty...in short, a village of people. The events are simple day to day experiences in a rural town in Northern Ireland when Jack Kennedy was newly dead, the lads from Liverpool were solidly on track, and a new band led by some kid named Jagger was starting to make noise. The second wave of The Troubles hadn't begun, and there were many who remembered the first round, and worried about a young cleric named Iain Paisley and the things he was saying. But that is all background noise to little girls with appendicitis, old men with heart trouble living in their cars, and young men desperate to "do the right thing" but unable to marry the girl unless there's enough money to support the three of them.

There are four more books in the series. I'm going to fight the urge to tear through them. They are short, and there are times when I think I'll desperately need to get away to Ballybucklebo, and Fingal O'Reilly, Barry Laverty, Kinky, Lady Macbeth, and Arthur Guinness--the Smithwicks loving retriever. Yes, I'll keep these, as they say, "in my back pocket," for when the need arises. Who'd have thought this Republic loving girl would grow so fond, so quickly, of some folk from the 6 counties.



View all my reviews

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


When I was in junior high school I saw A Man for All Seasons and Anne of a Thousand Days fairly close to each other. They jumble a bit in my mind, and I often find myself remembering Burton as Henry VIII in scenes with Paul Scofield as Thomas More (no--that would have been Robert Shaw, in a masterful stroke of hideous mis-casting). Nonetheless, those two films early on formed many of my ideas about that period of British history. Then add in Keith Mitchell in The Six Wives of Henry the Eighth. Now add in all my catechism classes as a good Catholic girl. And that the chapel at my graduate school (as at many) was St. Thomas More Chapel. I think you can see where I'm going with this.

So, I came to Wolf Hall thinking that I was venturing into well-known territories. The tragedy of Henry's conflicted conscience and libido; the noble Katherine; the pitiable Mary; the horrible Anne; the venal Wolsey; the ambitious Norfolk; the wise More; and the greedy, villainous Thomas Cromwell. I was utterly unprepared for what I found instead.

This book is told from the point of view of Cromwell. In its pages you find a patriotic Wolsey, a fragile Henry, and all of the other characters are painted in equally unforeseen ways. Most surprising of all in the their presentations are More, and most especially Cromwell--who we see as son, father, husband, widower, master, and friend. I'm not sure I'll ever forgive Mantel for creating a Cromwell I can care about.

The writing itself is a marvel, and I fully understand why it won the Booker. While unrelentingly first person, there is a surprising lack of ego in the voice, and at times it wanders into dream, or fever, and yet there is never any sense of wrongness, just a change of perspective that throws everything before and after into a new light.

As this book ends Thomas More has just lost his head. There are more volumes to come, we are told. I'm not sure I can bear to read them, because, as history tells us, the lords pull Cromwell down, and Henry claims his head. This is a moment in history I am used to cheering. I wonder if I am strong enough, brave enough, to face a chance that I will mourn this Cromwell. Or even that I may weep.





View all my reviews

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


On one level I liked this book quite a bit. Having taught A Night to Remember, and being a fan of the Belle Epoch, there's a lot about this book to love.

It takes place solidly on the line between gaslight and electricity, between the Victorian social and commercial paradigms and Womens Suffurage and the rise of Unions. It is also set in a period disturbingly like our own as America and the world suffer with catastrophic economic downturns provoked by the greed and profiteering of a few, bank mismanagement, and the excesses that come when the middle and lower classes live like grasshoppers instead of ants. The book is populated with the rich and famous of those times--Sarah Bernhardt, Buffalo Bill Cody, Annie Oakley, George Pullman, Marshall Field, and dozens of others who walk through its pages; others, like Frank Lloyd Wright and Walt Disney are directly connected to the events and characters. American consumer icons are born before our eyes--Shredded Wheat, Cracker Jacks, and a dozen others. Not to mention wonders that are born during the events of the book that brighten our nights and our imaginations to this day.

Then there are the darker, parallel threads in the book--a sociopath and a madman, each with his own narrative thread, moving beneath the bright distractions of the Columbian Exhibition of 1892 and Chicago's obsession with its "White City."

There are also important figures I'd never heard of, most conspicuously Daniel Hudson Burnham. If this book has a protagonist, it is Burnham--architect of the Columbian Exhibition as well as the Masonic Temple in Chicago, the Flatiron Building in New York, and Filene's in Boston, to name a few. He is also a major figure in the city planning movement, and was influential in the design of the National Mall in Washington, D.C. His struggles to be recognized for his talent, and then the Herculean efforts required to bring the Columbian Exhibition to life, are the heart of this book.

And, unfortunately, that is where the author loses me at times. His personal fascination with the intricacies of building skyscrapers on the unstable land that is Chicago, the minutia of pallets, and grosses, and tons of material, the obsessions of Fredrick Law Olmsted (who designed, among other things, New York's Central Park) when it came to the landscapes of the Exhibition, all become a bit numbing.

Additionally, the title of the book implies an equal balance in the content between "The Devil" (serial killer H.H. Holmes) and "The White City" (the Exhibition's "Court of Honor"), but the balance is uneven. I didn't count the words, but at the very least the writing made it feel as though far more time was spent on one than the other, so I felt a bit deceived.

It is hard for me to not be intrigued by a book that starts aboard the White Star Line's luxury liner The Olympic on April 14, 1912; and I feel I learned many things I am glad to know. Also, I'd be lying if I said I didn't find the Holmes thread compelling--after all, Criminal Minds, about the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit, is one of my favorite shows--it's only a matter of time before the writers use Holmes as a template for the "unsub" (Unknown Subject) for one of the episodes. And even poor, deranged Prendergast will live in my memory. Still, I come away dissatisfied with the book as a whole. This is one of those times when the whole is less than the sum of its parts.



View all my reviews

Paths of Glory by Jeffrey Archer

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I've read a number of books by Archer (loved First Among Equals, but this biography of George Mallory, the team-leader on the first two European attempts to ascend Everest (and possibly even the first to reach the summit) is first non-fiction I've read by him.

It was up to Archer's usual prose standard, which is fairly high. However, I did have extended periods of a little voice in the back of my head saying "he [Archer] couldn't know this." I like there to be a brighter line between "biography" and "historical fiction" than the one Archer draws. The other problem I have is that at times this biography/true life adventure comes across as more hagiography than biography.

But, that said, I felt my time was well-spent with this book. Even if Archer himself apparently leaves a lot to be desired.



View all my reviews

Inside Nancy's Noodle: Why Can't Churches Be More Like Contra-dances?

Inside Nancy's Noodle: Why Can't Churches Be More Like Contra-dances?

Walking a Mile in Their Shoes

I recently returned from a conference in Philadelphia. Our transportation to the conference, where we stayed, all the monies for room and conference fees, were taken care of by the college. We were on our own for gas, parking, food and incidentals, though we can put in reimbursement requests for most of that.

The conference was an innovations in education themed event, with presentations and roundtables, all about innovation in the community college and its classrooms. Predictably, most of the sessions focused on the use of technology to invigorate learning, power better learning techniques, present information, enhance knowledge, make assessment easier (both at the classroom and institution level). In short, it was full of the tech geeks of education. You had people who rely on their Smartphones, iPads, laptops, and access to the wide wonderful wireless world in order to function.

The conference was held at the Marriot Downtown/Convention Center. Which is a "business" hotel--in short, the majority of patrons are placed there by businesses, where the business pays all fees, etc.--like parking and, wait for it....wireless access. In the entire hotel there were two "hotspots"--one in the Starbucks off the lobby, and one in a little raised area that seated about 50 (the conference attendees were upwards of 1400). There was NO access in any of the conference rooms--which made it difficult for many of the presenters since their presentations were designed around links to the web that they couldn't access. The conference did set up a set of laptops so that conference attendees could check their email. Otherwise, it was $12.98 a day to have internet access in your room. Those were your options.

The irony burns.

Then, our happy little band had other problems. There was a communication failure between the funding and the hotel's computer, that meant some of us couldn't check in (that was settled within a couple of hours, but it was very unwelcome after 7 hours in a car and one of us having not eaten in 14). We also hadn't been warned that this hotel, unlike others where I've attended conferences on the college's dime, required each of us to use one of our own debit ($25 hold, per day--there 5 days, $125 hold) or credit cards (ummmm--don't have one!) to have on file for "incidental expenses." That put a serious dent in some of our abilities to, well, eat. Also, unlike most of the conferences I have attended, parking in the hotel's garage was an additional charge-$38 a day in this case, rather than comped for those with rooms in the hotel. And in the past when using a college vehicle the college's fleet gas cards were provided. When we opened the envelope there were no cards, so again, an unplanned expense. While none of these were unreasonable (we'll get reimbursed for the gas and parking), and spread between four fully employed adults, they were unexpected, and at least one of us did not have the resources to adjust.

But as I looked at the situation, and heard extremely frustrated conference attendees complaining about the lack of wireless access, I thought to myself, "Now you know how students feel."

Let me see if I can explain what I mean.

Showing up at the desk, having done "everything right," and being told, despite our paperwork showing that we'd done "everything right," being told we can't check in because the money isn't showing up is like the student who does all the work for financial aid and goes to register and is told she can't because her "financial aid hasn't come through yet." There she is, with all her life in her car, her classes planned, and she gets deregistered and put through emotional hell, because some piece of paperwork got lost in some office somewhere between her and the college. It isn't her fault, it isn't the college's fault, but her impulse is to take it out on either the person who organized everything or the person who has just given her the bad news.

Then there is the student who doesn't make a pest of themselves to inquire about every little fee, every little possible difference between this new college and the college she last attended. Is wireless included in my dorm fee, or do I have to pay extra? Can I park on campus, and is there an additional college parking fee? She gets there, thinking everything is covered, because at her last college all those things were rolled into her dorm fee, and at her brother's college they are, too, so that must be true here, too. Right? No. So now she either has to come up with parking money on top of everything else, and she can't get wireless in her room because she didn't pay the fee, and she can't until she gets her refund check from her loan. Or she could park on the street--5 blocks away, and hope her car doesn't get stolen, towed, or broken into. And remember to move it so she doesn't get tickets. Joy. So she pays for parking, and that cuts into her food for the next two weeks, because she doesn't have enough to sign up for the meal plan, and she's left with only $50 for two weeks, and all the food on campus is SO expensive and she can't cook in her room--there isn't even a refrigeratior, unless she rents one of those! And now she's mad that the college didn't make information clearer in the literature, and mad at herself for not asking annoying questions, because she hates the tone people use when they answer her.

So she checks in to the dorm, after parking her car, and the room is wonderful. And she likes her professors, but she still has to finish the online work from her summer class, because that semester is still going on, even though she's at her new college because unlike half the people at her new school, she isn't on break--she still has work. But she doesn't have wireless in her room, so she has to either haul her laptop off campus to somewhere like Barnes and Noble or Starbucks, and spend money she doesn't have to drink something so she can work there and not be thrown out, or she has to use one of the open labs on campus, and hope there is a computer free. And there are governors on how much data she can use for free, and if she uses too much, it shuts her down and she has to pay an additional access fee. Or maybe she can find people who have access in their room, and use theirs, but she's not that desperate yet.

But she's stressed, and annoyed, and feels jerked around. Because communication was bad, things didn't work as promised, or things were not as expected.

I see those students every fall, and every spring. And I saw people just like them at the conference--they were my colleagues. They were the face in my mirror. I hope those professors and deans, the next time they see a student dealing with the same issues, remember how it felt to be in a strange place, feeling helpless and a little bit betrayed by those they trusted and a system that seemed designed to defeat them. It's not about fault, it's not about blame, and it's usually not about "fixing" it. It's about empathy. It's about compassion. It's about looking them in the eye, and saying, "I understand," and having that be true.