Shaman

Shaman, published in 2013, was a striking departure for Kim Stanley Robinson, a multiply-honored author of several super-realist science fiction books, notably including the Mars Trilogy.  Instead of once again imagining society in the future, in Shaman he recreates the world of prehistoric man, from about 30,000 BCE.  At the book's outset, the protagonist, Loon, is an orphan who is adopted by his clan's shaman, Thorn, thus becoming his apprentice shaman. Loon does not like the cranky Thorn and resists this relationship and this future as much as he can.  The book is an account of Loon's growth into a man, and his eventual reluctant acceptance of this role, set against the backdrop of the difficulty of surviving in a hostile world full of predators and enemies. 

This book has a special place in my heart; Noah did not read much, but I nevertheless gave it to him, feeling that Loon's embrace of nature, his quirky playfulness, and his love of women and dance would capture Noah's interest, but he never got around to reading it.  For me, reading it after Noah's death was joyful and heartrending.

 

Farewell to Manzanar

In 1941, Jeanne Wakatsuki was seven years old, living with her family in Long Beach, California.  Her father, a successful and domineering captain, owned two valuable fishing boats while her two older brothers served as crew.  But the bombing of Pearl Harbor stunned America and swiftly led to the incarceration of 110,000 Japanese, many of whom had lived in the United States for decades.  Farewell to Manzanar is Jeanne Wakatsuki’s moving and thoughtful account of her own and her family’s experience of losing their home and belongings, their boats, and their freedom.  

From Jeanne’s young perspective, there were occasional light moments:

We drove past a barbed-wire fence, through a gate, and into an open space where trunks and sacks and packages had been dumped from the baggage trucks that drove out ahead of us. I could see a few tents set up, the first rows of black barracks, and beyond them, blurred by sand, rows of barracks that seemed to spread for miles across this plain. People were sitting on cartons or milling around, with their backs to the wind, waiting to see which friends or relatives might be on this bus. As we approached, they turned or stood up, and some moved toward us expectantly.  But inside the bus, no one stirred. No one waved or spoke. They just stared out the windows, ominously silent. I didn’t understand this. Hadn’t we finally arrived, our whole family intact? I opened a window, leaned out, and yelled happily, “Hey! This whole bus is full of Wakatsukis!”

Outside, the greeters smiled. Inside there was an explosion of laughter, hysterical, tension-breaking laughter that left my brothers choking and whacking each other across the shoulders. 

 For Jeanne, there were some disturbing experiences, but there were also some positive features to the camp.  But when the war was over and the incarcerated family members were allowed, or eventually compelled, to leave the camp and find a home, the adjustment to post-war American life was challenging.  

They wouldn’t see me, they would see the slant-eye face, the Asian. This is what accounts, in part, for the entire evacuation. You cannot deport 110,000 people unless you have stopped seeing individuals. Of course, for such a thing to happen, there has to be a kind of acquiescence on the part of the victims, some submerged belief that this treatment is deserved, or at least allowable.  It’s an attitude easy for nonwhites to adopt in America. I had inherited it. Manzanar had confirmed it. And my feeling, at eleven, went something like this: you are going to be invisible anyway, so why not completely disappear.

But another part of me did not want to disappear.  With the same sort of reaction that sent Woody into the Army, I instinctively decided that I would have to prove that I wasn’t different, that it should not be odd to hear me speaking English. From that day forward, I lived with this double impulse: the urge to disappear and the desperate desire to be acceptable.

Later, after marriage Jeanne takes her husband and family to visit Manzanar - which is almost gone, with only remnants of the barracks and guard stations.  Interestingly, the US Park Service has created a National Historical Site with reconstructed barracks and an excellent visitor center.   Altogether the book is a fine introduction to a young person's view of the events surrounding the incarceration and its effect on the loyal citizens who were treated so unfairly.

It is sobering to recall that though the Japanese relocation program, carried through at such incalculable cost in misery and tragedy, was justified on the ground that the Japanese were potentially disloyal, the record does not disclose a single case of Japanese disloyalty or sabotage during the whole war…

-Henry Steele Commager, Harper’s Magazine, 1947

 

 

The Director

The Director by Daniel Kehlmann is a fictionalized account of the career of C. W. Pabst, the famous Austrian director of Pandora’s Box and other masterpieces of early cinema. The very liberal Pabst fled to America during the rise of the Nazis but circumstances necessitated that he and his wife and (fictional) son return to Ostmark (Austria), where they then became trapped by the outbreak of war.  A major theme of the book explores how Pabst chose or was coerced into making (non-propaganda) films for the Nazi Ministry of Propaganda.

 

For me, it was one of those books that you can't put down....except that every now and then you have to put it down. By which I mean it's brilliantly written, very inventive, deeply absorbing, and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny, but it includes heavy doses of humiliation, terror, desperation and shame, resting upon a kind of covert foundation of increasing dread. It is deadly serious, and thinking about what I had read realigned some major viewpoints I had held.

Working

I revere Robert Caro, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography titled The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, and the four-volume (soon to be five-volume) biography of Lyndon Johnson, which also won a Pulitzer, as well as many other prizes. The books read like novels and the depth of his research is astonishing and widely celebrated - "Due to Caro's reputation for exhaustive research and detail, he is sometimes invoked by reviewers of other writers who are called "Caro-esque" for their own extensive research" (Wikipedia). Master of the Senate, which covers 11 years of Johnson's life, took Caro 12 years to write.

Caro is now 89. I used to say that I hoped he would finish the final volume of his Johnson biography before he died, but I now say that I hope he will finish it before I die.

Caro ends the Introduction to Working this way:

AND, FINALLY, one more question to answer: why am I publishing this book now, why don't I just include this material in the longer, full-length memoir I'm hoping to write? Why am I publishing these random recollections toward a memoir while I'm still working on the last volume of the Johnson biography, when I haven't finished it, while I'm still - at the age of 83 - several years from finishing it?

The answer is, I'm afraid, quite obvious, and if I forget it for a few days, I am frequently reminded of it by journalists who, in the course of writing about me and my hopes of finishing, often express their doubts about that happening in a sarcastic phrase: "Do the math." Well, I can do that math. I am quite aware that I may never get to write the memoir, although I have so many thoughts about writing, so many anecdotes about research, that I would like to preserve for anyone interested enough to read them. I decided that, just in case, I'd put some of them on paper now.

And the book is a profound pleasure. It recaps some of the main conclusions of the Moses and LBJ books, providing fascinating context and detail about how the research was done. And, as he reluctantly admits, to give the full story, he must sometimes provide insights into his own personality and motivations. For me, in addition to his incomparable reputation as researcher and writer, this book shows him to be a modest, honorable and admirable person.

The Perfect House

First published in 2002, The Perfect House by Witold Rybczynski is pure pleasure.  Rybczynski is now an Emeritus Professor of Urbanism (who knew?) at Penn.  He's a noted author, having written over 300 articles and more than a dozen books, which have received several important awards.

This book is an account of a trip to Italy Rybczynski took to personally visit the many villas in the Veneto designed by Palladio. He describes the history and design of each villa, and some history and thoughts on Palladio's life.  It's all very interesting, but a delightful surprise to me was how wonderful the writing is.  Simple, graceful, effortlessly insightful and witty. For example:

The final step of the makeover involved finding a more impressive name than Andrea di Pietro.  Renaissance architects regularly adopted professional names.  Jacopo Sansovino was born Tatti; Giulio Pippi de' Giannuzzi, a Roman expatriate practicing in the Venetian Republic, called himself Giulio Romano, or simply Giulio.  The mellifluously named Michele Sanmicheli had adopted the name of his birthplace, San Micheli, a village near Verona.  Andrea di Pietro might have become Andrea Padovano, or Andrea Vicentino.  It is generally assumed that Tissino (his mentor) proposed the name since he later used it in an epic poem.  The Latin palladius means pertaining to sagacity, knowledge, or study, and is derived from Pallas Athena, the goddess of wisdom.  It is a name to live up to.

Here's another example:

Every evening I walk across the Piazza dei Signori from the trattoria where I regularly eat dinner to my hotel.  The ivory white Basilica shimmers in the moonlight.  Goethe characterized architecture as frozen music, which well describes this extraordinary building.  I don't know what kind of music Goethe heard when he looked at the Basilica, but I hear percussion - the great jazz drummer Philly Joe Jones, my boyhood idol. The tall half-columns are the steady rhythm beat of the bass drum, which Palladio accentuates by breaking the extremely deep cornice and projecting it forward over each capital.  At the attic level, a statue above each column provides a high-pitched cymbal clash.......(and further correlations!) 

And another striking description, of Rybczynski's visit to a different Palladio villa, with a powerful conclusion:

The main street of Piombino Dese, a large village east of Vicenza, is Via Roma.  The busy artery is lined with unremarkable apartment buildings and neon-fronted shops.  It's Sunday morning and there's not much traffic.  A parking lot near the church is temporarily occupied by a traveling amusement park whose single attraction resembles a huge lazy Susan.  Children line up to get on, then scream as the ride begins to turn, slowly at first, then faster and faster, finally tilting and turning at the same time.  The more daring boys leave their seats to crawl, crablike, across the angled floor. Strobe lights flash, and noisy calliope music is piped over loudspeakers.

Across the street, rising behind a brick wall, the stately portico of the Villa Cornaro overlooks the raucous spectacle.  The juxtaposition of the fun fair and the villa makes me think of a scene in a Fellini film. The villa more than holds it own.

Rybczynski thoughtfully adds a glossary of architectural terms and a chronology of Palladio's designs, with sensible cautions about the relative certainty of the dates of construction of different buildings.

Maybe not to everyone's taste, but a delightful read.

 

 

Sappho

This pleasurable book contains Mary Barnard's translations of 100 of Sappho's poems and fragments, together with a brief and lively introduction by  Dudley Fitts and a brief and an informative afterword by Barnard.

Sappho is wonderful - the breadth of mood from joy, to sadness, to anger is captivating and the spareness of her language distills and strengthens the emotions expressed.  Here are a couple that I really like, followed by a great quote from Mary Barnard:

16.       YOU ARE THE HERDSMAN OF EVENING

Hesperus, you herd

homeward whatever

Dawn’s light dispersed

 

You herd sheep – herd

goats – herd children

home to their mothers

 

91.       IN MEMORY

Of Pelagon, a fisherman,

his father Meniscus placed

here a fishbasket and oar:

tokens of an unlucky life

           

86.       EXPERIENCE SHOWS US

            Wealth unchaperoned

by Virtue is never

an innocuous neighbor

 

Barnard quotes a commentator's observation:

The sense of her poems goes naturally with the meter and seems to fall into it, so that it looks like ordinary speech raised to the highest level of expressiveness.  In her great range of different meters there is not one which doers not move with perfect ease and receive her words as if they were ordained for it.

And responds: 

I should say, rather: as if she had invented it in that moment for that phrase alone.

Gondola

Donna Leon's brief, charming paean to "the sleek, mysterious gondola, the boat whose name and image are inextricably linked with the city". The intertwined histories of Venice and the gondola are illuminated through amusing anecdotes (her recounting of the call and response between a gondoliere and the dachshund Artù is riotous); gorgeous illustrations from Canaletto, Carpaccio and Guardi; and Leon's love of the city, tempered (in both senses!) by her dismay at the assaults of cruise ships, pollution and corruption.  An accompanying CD includes barcarole sung for centuries by gondolieri and here re-created by Il Pomo d'Oro, featuring the exceptionally versatile and talented singer Vincenzo Cappezzuto, with a special guest appearance by Cecilia Bartoli.  It's the next best thing to a trip to Venice.

My Venice and Other Essays

Donna Leon was born in Montclair, New Jersey, but lived in Venice for over 30 years.  She is best known as the author of the Commissario Brunetti mystery series (>32 books and counting) all set in Venice.  The Commissario is calm, decent, humble, smart and immensely likable - and the mysteries are well-crafted and quite revealing of life in Italy.  But Leon also has written many essays and other books. One is a delightful book on Gondolas, which is accompanied by a CD with gondolier songs in the Venetian dialect sung by a lively virtuoso (Leon is a music aficionado who is mad about Handel - as she describes deliciously in one of this book's essays).

Brunetti's wife Paola is very likable, but has strong, forceful views - In real life, Leon seems to be like Paola - only more outspoken and forceful!  These essays can be charming, humorous, or blistering attacks on customs or viewpoints that Leon finds intolerable.  Since I agreed with almost all her views, I found the essays to be very entertaining!  Below is an excerpt from one essay, which she introduces by explaining that she had called her plumber, who finally arrives three hours late, and offers this explanation:

"Giorgio's putting in a new bathroom." The plumber lives in my neighborhood, and both of us buy our fruit and vegetables from Signor Giorgio.

Curious about any bit of neighborhood gossip, I asked, "What's he doing to the bathroom?"

"He's putting in new fixtures and lining the walls with black marble." 

"Black marble?"

"Yes"

"Giorgio?"

"Yes"

"Giorgio il fruttivendolo?"

"Oh, no, that other Giorgio. The nice one from Rome who bought the palazzo around the corner. Giorgio Whats-His-Name? Olmini? Olmoni?"

This couldn't be. "Giorgio Armani?" I asked, voice tentative.

"Yes, that's right. Armani, that's his name. Is he a friend of yours? Do you know him?"

No, I didn't know him, but I wish I did, for I'd love to tell him the story.

 

The Janissary Tree

 This very enjoyable read is the first in a series of mysteries by Jason Goodwin that feature Yashim the Eunuch, a kind of free-lance investigator who is loosely affiliated with the court of the Sultan Mahmud II in 1830's Istanbul. 

The rise of the Ottoman Empire was fueled by the conservative Janissary Corps, which had been founded in the 1300’s.  But over the following 500 years, while Western Europe modernized its military organization and technology, the Janissaries became a reactionary force that resisted all change.  Sultan Mahmud II, whose reign began in 1808, introduced extensive administrative, military, and fiscal reforms and, recognizing that Turkey needed a modern military force, abolished the Janissaries in 1826, executing 6,000 or more, during the so-called Auspicious Incident.  There was substantial opposition to these changes by conservative forces, which underlies the (fictional) events of 1836 described in The Janissary Tree. (My thanks to Wikipedia, which helped this description and my understanding of the setting of The Janissary Tree!)

Yashim is admirable and likable - he is calm but game for action, speaks several languages, and is a good pick-up cook (Goodwin has also written The Yashim Cookbook, which includes recipes for Yashim's intriguing concoctions!)  

    "So it seems," Yashim mused, "that junior attaché Potemkin springs into a coach with four of the brightest New Guard cadets - and they're never seen alive again."  

    Palewski's eyebrows shot up. "Meet a Russian--disappear--it's a common phenomenon. It happens all the time in Poland."

   .......

Fine cities whose contented citizens support an intelligent administration do exist, containing not a single dilapidated public building, a solitary wood-strewn building lot, or even a crumbling palazzo; but a great city must have them all, for decay too, is a sign of life. In the right ear, dereliction whispers of opportunity.  In another ear, of delinquency and corruption.

The Janissary Tree is excellent: enlarging and entertaining!

 

 

My Past and Thoughts, vol I

Alexander Ivanovich Herzen (1812 – 1870) is considered by many to be the "father of Russian socialism".  His influence is illustrated, for example, by the fact that he was the key figure in Tom Stoppard’s trilogy of plays evoking the per-revolutionary period in Russia. 

But Herzen's first,"pre-revolutionary," volume chronicles his childhood, university years, and banishment to northeastern European Russia, a punishment for having been part of left-leaning student groups:

 “His autobiography is often considered one of the best examples of that genre in Russian literature…..the impressions he left of his father and other relations, of the Moscow idealists, and of the leaders of the European Revolution are unforgettably vivid….the first parts devoted to his life before his exile contain the broadest, truest, and most penetrating view of Russian social and cultural history in the first half of the nineteenth century”. (Wikipedia)

For me, this was a very enjoyable, leisurely read.  Herzen's descriptions of the countryside are lyrical. His family was aristocratic and his father played a key role in negotiations between the Tsar and Napoleon. As a child, Herzen was very isolated and his father was forbidding and cruel - his descriptions of his father were initially sharp and severe, but eventually were tempered with sympathy: a striking contrast.  Herzen relates vivid impressions of the Tsars and his sympathy and passion for freeing the serfs were admirable.  Despite some anecdotes about now obscure Russians, Herzen's memoir is very readable and is interesting for its insights into a time when revolution was in the air.

 

 

 

 

 

Warlight

 

Warlight by Michael Ondaatje is a growing-up story told by Nicholas, who eventually discovers that his parents were important British spies during World War Two.  His story, revealed in flashbacks, is like a dream, with vivid imagery, disconnected, puzzling events and colorful characters (The Moth, The Darter, Marsh Felon) who appear and disappear suddenly and meaningfully.  The title references the reduced-light conditions imposed by blackouts during aerial bombings of London.  The difficulty of discerning objects under these conditions is echoed by repeated instances of things later turning out to be different than they seemed at first. 

Besides, hearing another version of the goat incident was a further layering in the world that I was entering.  I felt I was a caterpillar changing colour, precariously balanced, moving from one species of leaf to another.

Much of the war work in which my mother and others participated was carried out, it is now clear, with a similar invisibility, the real motives camouflaged, the way childhood is.

That familiar false modesty of the English, which included absurd secrecy or the cliché of an innocent boffin, was somewhat like those carefully painted formal dioramas that hid the truth and closed the door on their private selves.

 The writing is often beautiful, with lovely descriptions of the countryside or the Thames at night, alternating with fast-paced, nefarious adventures.

All Systems Red - Martha Wells

This book was fun. The same energy (humorous outerspace swashbuckling) as The Martian, but with a cyborg murderbot as the protagonist. A very quick and enjoyable read.

A Memory Called Empire - Arkady Martine

A Memory Called Empire was phenomenal. My favorite genre of sci-fi is cyberpunk, and although this was not that, and was more a traditional Star Trek- or Ursula K. LeGuin-style exploration of cultures intersecting in outer space, this did have my favorite cyberpunk trope, of stacks and sleeves (or wetware and hardware, or whatever you want to call it -- importing one's consciousness into a new vessel). This novel uses a form of this trope I particularly enjoy, a la Jadzia Dax, where the individual's consciousness merges with that of their predecessor, forming a new hybrid individual. In Memory, this technology is called an 'imago line,' which citizens on Lsel Station use to covertly preserve the knowledge, personality, and memories of generations.

In this work, Mahit is the new Lsel Ambassador to the Empire, appointed after her predecessor, Yskandr, dies under suspicious circumstances. Mahit is fitted with Yskandr's imago, which should give her the benefit of his expertise, but it's missing 15 years of his experiences, and then mysteriously stops functioning at all, leaving her entirely alone and unsupported on an alien planet. Mahit must rely upon her own instincts (and some unlikely allies) to navigate the politics of the imperial court, investigate Yskandr's demise, and preserve the independence of Lsel Station -- all against a backdrop of increasing civil unrest in the imperial City.

A brilliant, exciting, authorial debut, written by an author with a passion for poetry and linguistics, which deepen and enrich this political space opera. Highly recommend!!

The City of Brass - S.A. Chakraborty

The City of Brass grew on me as I went along. In the beginning of this story, scrappy polyglot Nahri is living in Cairo, where she uses her street smarts and unique magical healing abilities to swindle wealthy merchants. She dreams of saving enough money to become a legitimate physician, but these plans are turned on their head when she accidentally summons a mysterious djinn warrior. The rest of the novel is an romance/adventure set in the fantastical realm of Daevabad. 

Some of the writing felt a bit clunky to me, particularly the romantic bits, and I found it difficult to keep track of the byzantine djinn tribal histories. However, the Middle Eastern setting was beautifully realized, and a nice change of pace from the Euro-centric fantasy I'm used to reading. The action also heated up as the story progressed, and there were some thrilling fight scenes. Alizayd, the king's spartan and idealistic son, was my favorite character - if I continue with the next books in the trilogy, I hope we see more of him. 

Gideon the Ninth

 Gideon the Ninth was... interesting. In this gory sci-fi/fantasy, necromancers from nine Houses compete to become Lyctors: powerful sorcerers in the service of the necromantic God. With the aid of their loyal sword-wielding partners (cavaliers, or "cavs"), the necromancers must complete a series of brutal challenges. The hero of the story is Gideon Nav, a red-haired, foul-mouthed, ass-kicking lesbian, and reluctant cav to Harrowhark, a sadistic and tight-lipped female necromancer of the Ninth House. Each House has its own flavor; the Ninth has a gothic vibe and is known for its secrecy and bone magic (perhaps the most creative device in the book). 

The concept of this story intrigued me, and the action was very exciting. However, I found it impossible to keep track of the 16+ characters (I missed the character summaries at the end of the book, which would have been really helpful). I was also disconcerted by the author's penchant for inserting modern slang into the mouths of her otherworldly characters. Finally, I was not satisfied with the answer to a central mystery, which struck me as very abrupt and contrived. 

In the final assessment, I enjoyed the read, but would likely not continue with the next books in the series. 

World War Z - Max Brooks

World War Z was excellent. One could be forgiven for thinking it would be pulpy drek (though I personally love zombie stories) -- however, nothing could be farther from the truth! Brooks treats the zombie virus rationally, using it as a thought experiment to explore the ramifications of rampant contagious disease and violence on all levels of society, world-wide, over a span of decades. Truly impressive and far-seeing. The novel is framed as a collection of survivor interviews, and Brooks' ability to compellingly embody many diverse characters and perspectives makes for very enjoyable reading. Some of the stories are very ugly and heartbreaking, but overall I found it uplifting, about the resilience of the human spirit. Would definitely recommend. 

As an aside-- the (very mediocre) disaster flick World War Z bears no resemblance to the book, they basically just copped the title. While the book is genius, the movie's sole virtue is that it features hottie Brad Pitt. Still, I enjoyed both. 

The Double Helix

 This fascinating, gossipy story of how the structure of DNA was discovered is the widely accepted accepted account of the most important biological discovery of the 20th century.  

Watson and Crick are among the few scientists whose names and accomplishment are known to most laypeople.  Also widely acknowledged is Watson's general misogyny and especially his denigration of Rosalind Franklin scientific skills and  his wildly inappropriate portrayal of her as a shrew.  Sadly, Franklin's exceptional x-ray crystallographic data were absolutely essential for Watson and Crick to discover the correct structure of DNA - and they obtained her data in a furtive way and then published their proposed structure without acknowledging her essential contribution. 

Tragically, Franklin died at a very young age and before the Nobel prize was awarded for the discovery of DNA's structure. Because Nobel prizes are not awarded posthumously, Franklin was not included in the award.  Although Watson and Crick could not have gotten the correct structure without Franklin's results, Crick, in an interview, stated that if he and Watson had not announced their proposed structure, Franklin would have gotten the structure on her own "certainly within 3 months".   Crick has also denounced Watson's self-serving account as "a contemptible pack of damn nonsense" Nevertheless, it does provide insight into how biological research is conducted and it is still a mesmerizing read.

Silverview

 "And they all lived happily ever after" ends no John LeCarré book ever!  His more usual endings indicate that the challenge described was resolved, for better or worse, until the next problem should arise, likely immediately rather than later. Silverview, the last book LeCarré completed before his death in December 2020, is a well-written, instantly absorbing tale, in this case dealing with changing allegiances.  It's relatively short, with less impact than his greatest works (The Spy Who Came in from the Cold; Tinker Tailor; The Perfect Spy) but I enjoyed it a great deal and recommend it highly.  

Interestingly, there is an Afterword written by LeCarré's youngest son, Nick Cornwall, also a writer, under the name Nick Harkaway.  Years before, he had promised his father that he would complete any work unfinished upon his father's death.  And then Silverview was there, wrapped up in a bundle in a desk drawer.  It had been finished and polished some time previously, yet never submitted to the publisher.  "Why?" his son wondered after reading it, thinking it  "fearsomely good."  They had never discussed it, but Cornwall the younger has a theory, "baseless, instinctive, and not susceptible of proof".  His father was fiercely loyal to the intelligence service in which he had worked, never betraying any of its secrets.  But unlike his earlier novels,  Silverview "shows a service fragmented: filled with its own political factions, not always kind to those it should cherish, not always very effective or alert, and ultimately not sure, any more, that it can justify itself."  And "it is the humanity of the service that isn't up to the task - and that begins to ask whether the task is worth the cost....I think he couldn't quite bring himself to say that out loud." Interesting!

Senlin Ascends Tetrology - Josiah Bancroft

At Terra's suggestion, I recently finished the BRILLIANT 4-book Babel series by Josiah Bancroft. These were easily the most creative, exciting, and compelling books I've read in a long while. The books are set in a familiar yet distinctly different world from our own, one where the major cultural epicenter and tourist attraction in the land of Ur is the famed Tower of Babel! Pedantic and rule-loving headmaster Senlin brings his quirky and beautiful young wife to visit the Tower on their honeymoon, but swiftly discovers it is far, far different from the orderly citadel of culture he had imagined! Our unlikely hero rises to meet the occasion via the most satisfying character development I've maybe ever read. 

This book defies genre classification -- perhaps it's best seen as a swashbuckler, but this epic straddles fantasy, adventure, sci-fi, steampunk, comedy, and romance. A thrilling read for over a thousand pages! Moreover, Bancroft is so creative, and so rich in interesting observations on life, love, and friendship, that he crams within one book more insights than most authors can hope to share in their entire opus.  Destined to become a classic, and should be read by all.

Cheaper by the Dozen

 This delightful old-school tale is the loosely autobiographical story of a family with twelve children, two of whom are the authors.  It was suggested by a friend who heard that JEHOE are moving to Montclair, New Jersey, also the home, in the 1900's and 10's of the large, talented and amusing Gilbreth Family!

Both the father, Frank Bunker Gilbreth, and mother, Lillian Moller Gilbreth, were internationally known time-and-motion efficiency experts, and they ran their home (with remarkable efficiency and good humor) as a kind of collaborative experiment:

"One reason he had so many children - there were twelve of us - was that he was convinced anything he and mother teamed up on was sure to be a success".

This book, which depicts American life at the turn of the century and is very funny, was very popular: two Cheaper by the Dozen movies were made, one with Clifton Webb and Myrna Loy, and a much later version with Steve Martin and Bonnie Hunt.  

I quite enjoyed this breezy, optimistic and amusing story.