Tag: 5-stars

Review: Tastes Like War, Grace M. Cho

Posted on by Dana
Review: Tastes Like War, Grace M. ChoTastes Like War by Grace M. Cho
Narrator: Cindy Kay
Published by Dreamscape Media on August 3, 2021
Genres: Biography, Memoir, Nonfiction
Length: 9 hours 25 minutes
Format: Audio, Audiobook
Source: Library
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This post contains affiliate links you can use to purchase the book. If you buy the book using that link, I will receive a small commission from the sale.

Goodreads
five-stars

Grace M. Cho grew up as the daughter of a white American merchant marine and the Korean bar hostess he met abroad. They were one of few immigrants in a xenophobic small town during the Cold War, where identity was politicized by everyday details—language, cultural references, memories, and food. When Grace was fifteen, her dynamic mother experienced the onset of schizophrenia, a condition that would continue and evolve for the rest of her life.

Part food memoir, part sociological investigation, Tastes Like War is a hybrid text about a daughter’s search through intimate and global history for the roots of her mother’s schizophrenia. In her mother’s final years, Grace learned to cook dishes from her parent’s childhood in order to invite the past into the present, and to hold space for her mother’s multiple voices at the table. And through careful listening over these shared meals, Grace discovered not only the things that broke the brilliant, complicated woman who raised her—but also the things that kept her alive.

I found this memoir/biography moving and well-written. I learned a great deal that I did not know about schizophrenia and also about the Korean War and its aftermath. It was fascinating to see how Cho weaved together her interest in food, especially learning to cook Korean food and becoming a baker, with her mother’s story. One of the most compelling parts of the book comes near the end when we learn how much Grace’s mother loved cheeseburgers—the book’s last line is a gut punch. There is also an extended section about how Grace’s mother foraged for mushrooms and blackberries, which turned into a savvy business. There is much to appreciate in this beautiful memoir, but its heart is Cho’s attempts to understand her mother.

I checked this out after it was featured on the main page of my library’s Overdrive website as part of the Big Library Read. As such, there was no waiting list, and unlimited copies were available for checkout. I don’t think that’s still the case, but I highly recommend checking it out, and the audiobook is superbly narrated by Cindy Kay.

Note: I am aware that Cho’s brother and his family dispute the veracity of this memoir. If you are interested in their side of the story, you can find it displayed prominently on Goodreads. I am also aware that the family members frequently respond to reviews, tweets, etc. about this book and will not get in the middle of a family dispute.

five-stars

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A Thousand Acres

May Reading Update

Posted on by Dana

I finished several books, and with the busy end-of-school-year, I haven’t had a chance to share my thoughts about them.

May Reading UpdateDust Child by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai
Narrator: Quyen Ngo
Published by Algonquin Books on March 14, 2023
Genres: Historical Fiction
Length: 12 hours 28 minutes
Format: Audio, Audiobook
Source: Library
Buy on Amazon, Buy on Bookshop

This post contains affiliate links you can use to purchase the book. If you buy the book using that link, I will receive a small commission from the sale.

Goodreads
five-stars

From the internationally bestselling author of The Mountains Sing, a suspenseful and moving saga about family secrets, hidden trauma, and the overriding power of forgiveness, set during the war and in present-day Việt Nam.

In 1969, sisters Trang and Quỳnh, desperate to help their parents pay off debts, leave their rural village and become “bar girls” in Sài Gòn, drinking, flirting (and more) with American GIs in return for money. As the war moves closer to the city, the once-innocent Trang gets swept up in an irresistible romance with a young and charming American helicopter pilot, Dan. Decades later, Dan returns to Việt Nam with his wife, Linda, hoping to find a way to heal from his PTSD and, unbeknownst to her, reckon with secrets from his past.

At the same time, Phong—the son of a Black American soldier and a Vietnamese woman—embarks on a search to find both his parents and a way out of Việt Nam. Abandoned in front of an orphanage, Phong grew up being called “the dust of life,” “Black American imperialist,” and “child of the enemy,” and he dreams of a better life for himself and his family in the U.S.

Past and present converge as these characters come together to confront decisions made during a time of war—decisions that force them to look deep within and find common ground across race, generation, culture, and language. Suspenseful, poetic, and perfect for readers of Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko or Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing, Dust Child tells an unforgettable and immersive story of how those who inherited tragedy can redefine their destinies through love, hard-earned wisdom, compassion, courage, and joy.

I really enjoyed The Mountains Sing, so I felt I’d enjoy Dust Child, and I was not wrong. I am not sure that comparisons to Homegoing and Pachinko are fair, as those books are more family epics. I figured out the connection among the different characters, but I wished for more closure on one loose end—I suppose lack of closure is realistic, however. I was interested to learn that this novel came from the author’s dissertation research.

May Reading UpdateThe Witch's Daughter (The Witch's Daughter, #1) by Paula Brackston
Published by St. Martin's Griffin on December 1, 2008
Genres: Fantasy/Science Fiction, Historical Fiction
Pages: 387
Format: E-Book, eBook
Source: Library
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This post contains affiliate links you can use to purchase the book. If you buy the book using that link, I will receive a small commission from the sale.

Goodreads
four-stars

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

An enthralling tale of modern witch Bess Hawksmith, a fiercely independent woman desperate to escape her cursed history who must confront the evil which has haunted her for centuries

My name is Elizabeth Anne Hawksmith, and my age is three hundred and eighty-four years. If you will listen, I will tell you a tale of witches. A tale of magic and love and loss. A story of how simple ignorance breeds fear, and how deadly that fear can be. Let me tell you what it means to be a witch.

In the spring of 1628, the Witchfinder of Wessex finds himself a true Witch. As Bess Hawksmith watches her mother swing from the Hanging Tree she knows that only one man can save her from the same fate: the Warlock Gideon Masters. Secluded at his cottage, Gideon instructs Bess, awakening formidable powers she didn't know she had. She couldn't have foreseen that even now, centuries later, he would be hunting her across time, determined to claim payment for saving her life.

In present-day England, Elizabeth has built a quiet life. She has spent the centuries in solitude, moving from place to place, surviving plagues, wars, and the heartbreak that comes with immortality. Her loneliness comes to an abrupt end when she is befriended by a teenage girl called Tegan. Against her better judgment, Elizabeth opens her heart to Tegan and begins teaching her the ways of the Hedge Witch. But will she be able to stand against Gideon—who will stop at nothing to reclaim her soul—in order to protect the girl who has become the daughter she never had?

I don’t understand the hate this one is getting on Goodreads. I put off reading it for something like a decade due to the low ratings! It’s actually pretty good. Parts of it are over the top, but the historical fiction aspects were well-researched and convincing, and I love a good story about someone who has lived through centuries of history. To me, that was the best part of Anne Rice’s books. I would read more of this author’s books for sure.

May Reading UpdateTime's Undoing by Cheryl A. Head
Published by Dutton on March 7, 2023
Genres: Contemporary Fiction, Historical Fiction
Pages: 352
Format: E-Book, eBook
Source: Library
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This post contains affiliate links you can use to purchase the book. If you buy the book using that link, I will receive a small commission from the sale.

Goodreads
four-stars

A searing and tender novel about a young Black journalist’s search for answers in the unsolved murder of her great-grandfather in segregated Birmingham, Alabama, decades ago—inspired by the author’s own family history

Birmingham, 1929: Robert Lee Harrington, a master carpenter, has just moved to Alabama to pursue a job opportunity, bringing along his pregnant wife and young daughter. Birmingham is in its heyday, known as the “Magic City” for its booming steel industry, and while Robert and his family find much to enjoy in the city’s busy markets and vibrant nightlife, it’s also a stronghold for the Klan. And with his beautiful, light-skinned wife and snazzy car, Robert begins to worry that he might be drawing the wrong kind of attention.

2019: Meghan McKenzie, the youngest reporter at the Detroit Free Press, has grown up hearing family lore about her great-grandfather’s murder—but no one knows the full story of what really happened back then, and his body was never found. Determined to find answers to her family’s long-buried tragedy and spurred by the urgency of the Black Lives Matter movement, Meghan travels to Birmingham. But as her investigation begins to uncover dark secrets that spider across both the city and time, her life may be in danger.

Inspired by true events, Time’s Undoing is both a passionate tale of one woman’s quest for the truth behind the racially motivated trauma that has haunted her family for generations and, as newfound friends and supporters in Birmingham rally around Meghan’s search, the uplifting story of a community coming together to fight for change.

This was a pretty good mystery. I liked the parts set in the present more; I think the author has a better feel for the present than the past. I thought the author handled the depiction of White allies with problematic families well. The book captures the setting extremely well; I feel certain the author has done a great deal of research.

 

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Review: Longbourn, Jo Baker

Posted on by Dana
Review: Longbourn, Jo BakerLongbourn by Jo Baker
Published by Alfred A. Knopf on October 8, 2013
Genres: Historical Fiction
Pages: 352
Format: E-Book, eBook
Buy on Amazon, Buy on Bookshop

This post contains affiliate links you can use to purchase the book. If you buy the book using that link, I will receive a small commission from the sale.

Goodreads
five-stars

• Pride and Prejudice was only half the story • If Elizabeth Bennet had the washing of her own petticoats, Sarah often thought, she’d most likely be a sight more careful with them. In this irresistibly imagined belowstairs answer to Pride and Prejudice, the servants take center stage. Sarah, the orphaned housemaid, spends her days scrubbing the laundry, polishing the floors, and emptying the chamber pots for the Bennet household. But there is just as much romance, heartbreak, and intrigue downstairs at Longbourn as there is upstairs. When a mysterious new footman arrives, the orderly realm of the servants’ hall threatens to be completely, perhaps irrevocably, upended.

Jo Baker dares to take us beyond the drawing rooms of Jane Austen’s classic—into the often overlooked domain of the stern housekeeper and the starry-eyed kitchen maid, into the gritty daily particulars faced by the lower classes in Regency England during the Napoleonic Wars—and, in doing so, creates a vivid, fascinating, fully realized world that is wholly her own.

I just loved this book. It’s hard for me to believe a retelling of Pride and Prejudice could be better than this. The lives of the servants, some of whom rate barely a mention, are fully realized in Jo Baker’s Longbourn. Mrs. Hill’s backstory is fascinating (and entirely believable, based on what we know of Mr. Bennet); she is mentioned only a handful of times in Austen’s novel. Sarah is mentioned only once in Pride and Prejudice, and the others are never mentioned by name.

I liked seeing Mr. Collins get a more sympathetic portrayal—he’s much kinder to the servants than some of the Bennets themselves. Jo Baker’s Wickham is odious—this story puts his elopement with Lydia in an entirely new and disturbing light. I appreciated Baker’s empathy for Mrs. Bennet. In her hands, Elizabeth Bennet is imperfect and a bit thoughtless.

In addition, Baker captures the setting well. Longbourn and Pemberley are drawn in vivid relief from the vantage point of the kitchens, servants’ quarters, and stables. There are some beautiful descriptive passages of the scenery, particularly near the end of the novel.

Austen doesn’t say much about the Napoleonic Wars; many critics have pondered the oversight. Baker makes them a central part of one character’s story. I also appreciated the way the book didn’t shy away from issues of race and class. It’s clear from the context that Mr. Bingley has earned his money somehow as part of the slave trade, and his former slave Ptolemy Bingley is a brilliant character.

I highly recommend this book to fans of Jane Austen, but even if you read Jane Austen and felt like something was missing, this book might be what you’re looking for.

five-stars

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Review: The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper, Hallie Rubenhold

Posted on by Dana
Review: The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper, Hallie RubenholdThe Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold
Narrator: Louise Brealey
Published by Highbridge on October 8, 2019
Genres: Biography, History, Nonfiction
Length: 10 hours 19 minutes
Format: Audio, Audiobook
Source: Audible
Buy on Amazon, Buy on Bookshop

This post contains affiliate links you can use to purchase the book. If you buy the book using that link, I will receive a small commission from the sale.

Goodreads
five-stars

Five devastating human stories and a dark and moving portrait of Victorian London—the untold lives of the women killed by Jack the Ripper.

Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine, and Mary-Jane are famous for the same thing, though they never met. They came from Fleet Street, Knightsbridge, Wolverhampton, Sweden, and Wales. They wrote ballads, ran coffee houses, lived on country estates; they breathed ink-dust from printing presses and escaped people-traffickers. What they had in common was the year of their murders: 1888. The person responsible was never identified, but the character created by the press to fill that gap has become far more famous than any of these five women.

For more than a century, newspapers have been keen to tell us that "the Ripper" preyed on prostitutes. Not only is this untrue, as historian Hallie Rubenhold has discovered, but it has prevented the real stories of these fascinating women from being told. Now, in this devastating narrative of five lives, Rubenhold finally sets the record straight, revealing a world not just of Dickens and Queen Victoria, but of poverty, homelessness, and rampant misogyny. They died because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time—but their greatest misfortune was to be born a woman.

This book was very moving. I cried twice: while listening to the Introduction and while listening to the Conclusion/A Life in Objects. What I particularly appreciated about this book is that it focused on what is known about the five canonical victims of Jack the Ripper and not what he did to them. The book also did not focus at all on the killer himself. I appreciated this fresh approach. One problem I have with true crime as a genre is the way it can be overly glib about horrific crimes; people forget that real people were at the center of these crimes. Hallie Rubenhold handled the story of each woman gracefully. She has done a wealth of research into these women’s lives. The great tragedy that seemed to be at the heart of most of their stories was that they were poor and struggled with alcoholism. Rubenhold argues that the women have been dismissed as sex workers, the implication being that perhaps the world was better off after they were killed. However, not only is it untrue that they were all sex workers—as though that even means they deserved what happened to them, which Rubenhold also dismisses—but she also emphasizes their relationships with family members, loved ones, and friends. This book was a refreshing biography and should be the model for other books about famous crimes. It’s a shame that we, as a people, are more fascinated by a psychopathic misogynist than the women he killed.

five-stars

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Review: The Girl with the Louding Voice, Abi Daré

Posted on by Dana
Review: The Girl with the Louding Voice, Abi DaréThe Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré
Narrator: Adjoa Andoh
Published by Penguin Audio on February 4, 2020
Genres: Contemporary Fiction
Length: 12 hours 6 minutes
Format: Audio, Audiobook
Source: Library
Buy on Amazon, Buy on Bookshop

This post contains affiliate links you can use to purchase the book. If you buy the book using that link, I will receive a small commission from the sale.

Goodreads
five-stars

The unforgettable, inspiring story of a teenage girl growing up in a rural Nigerian village who longs to get an education so that she can find her “louding voice” and speak up for herself, The Girl with the Louding Voice is a simultaneously heartbreaking and triumphant tale about the power of fighting for your dreams.

Despite the seemingly insurmountable obstacles in her path, Adunni never loses sight of her goal of escaping the life of poverty she was born into so that she can build the future she chooses for herself - and help other girls like her do the same.

Her spirited determination to find joy and hope in even the most difficult circumstances imaginable will “break your heart and then put it back together again” (Jenna Bush Hager on The Today Show) even as Adunni shows us how one courageous young girl can inspire us all to reach for our dreams... and maybe even change the world.

This book is fantastic. I picked it up as part of the Book Voyage Challenge. The March book is a book set in Africa, and the recommendation for this one was so compelling that I decided to pick it up, and I’m so glad I did. Adunni is an inspiring heroine. The other characters in the book are complex—never just straight “bad” or “good,” they’re a realistic mixture of both. Daré even manages to help the reader feel compassion for her antagonists.

I listened to the audiobook and cannot compare it to the print text, but I thoroughly enjoyed Adjoa Andoh’s narration. Some listeners might have trouble with Adunni’s dialect, but I found as I listened that I got an ear for it and could follow the narration without too much trouble.

I’ve read a couple of critiques about this book, the gist of which is that the plucky girl who wants an education is a trope in Nigerian fiction. I can’t speak to that as I simply don’t have enough reading experience, but perhaps those who have read more might agree that the story is predictable and cliché. That was not my experience, but it seems that plenty of other reviewers felt that way. One criticism I’ve seen that I don’t think is fair is how Adunni sometimes waxes poetic. Dialect is no indicator of intelligence, and just because she is uneducated doesn’t mean she isn’t poetic.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and I’m glad I read it.

five-stars

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Review: Above Ground: Poems, Clint Smith

Posted on by Dana
Review: Above Ground: Poems, Clint SmithAbove Ground by Clint Smith
on March 28, 2023
Genres: Poetry
Pages: 128
Format: Audio, Audiobook, Hardcover
Source: Audible
Buy on Amazon, Buy on Bookshop

This post contains affiliate links you can use to purchase the book. If you buy the book using that link, I will receive a small commission from the sale.

Goodreads
five-stars

The number one New York Times bestselling author, intellectual, and spoken-word poet Clint Smith gives his devoted readers a collection of poetry straight from the heart. It is a meditation on the country he studies through the lens of all he has learned from fatherhood. The poems are manifestations of Smith's wisdom and latest observations, starting with the precarious birth of his son, to the current political and social state of the country, to childhood memories, and back again. Smith traverses the periods of his life from four different cities and the process of realizing what it means to build a life that orbits around his family. Amid all of it, he has watched as the country has been forced to confront the ugliest manifestations of itself, and he has thought about what it means to raise children amid the backdrop of political tumult. Smith is a poet who uses the form to interrogate his own autobiography and the state of the country today, affording those who prefer reading poetry a shot of news, and those who normally seek out nonfiction, some lyrical beauty. Above Ground is a lyrical, sometimes narrative work of poetry that follows from Smith's first book of poetry, Counting Descent.

I thoroughly enjoy everything Clint Smith writes. My students read Smith’s previous collection Counting Descent, and we engage with his work in other ways over the course of the school year. I was very excited about this collection when I first heard about it and pre-ordered it from Loyalty Books in Silver Spring, MD, so I could get a personalized, signed copy. Smith is my favorite living poet, hands down. I love what he says about poetry in his guest spot on The Late Show.

I downloaded the audiobook to listen to Smith reading the poems as I followed in the book. I highly recommend you do the same because these poems are meant to be savored both in print and in Smith’s reading voice.

Some of my favorites in the collection:

  • “When People Say ‘We Have Made It Through Worse Before'”
  • “Your National Anthem”
  • “For Willie Francis, the First Known Person to Survive an Execution by Electric Chair, 1946”
  • “Roots”
  • “Pangaea”
  • “The New York Times Reports That 200 Civilians Have Just Been Killed by U.S. Military Air Strikes”
  • “Nomenclature”
  • “This Is an Incomplete List of All the Reasons I Know I Married the Right Person”
  • “We See Another School Shooting on the News”
  • “The Gun”
  • “Gold Stars”
  • “The Most Remarkable Thing About Dinosaurs”
  • “Ars Poetica”
  • “The Andromeda Galaxy Is the Closest Galaxy to Our Milky Way”

If that sounds like a lot, well, that’s because this collection is incredible. I really liked all of the poems, but the list above stood out to me as I read.

April is National Poetry Month. Do yourself a favor and enjoy this new collection of poems by one of the greatest living poets.

five-stars

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Review: Weyward, Emilia Hart

Posted on by Dana
Review: Weyward, Emilia HartWeyward by Emilia Hart
Narrator: Aysha Kala, Helen Keeley, Nell Barlow
Published by Macmillan Audio on March 7, 2023
Genres: Fantasy/Science Fiction, Historical Fiction
Length: 10 hours and 51 minutes
Format: Audio, Audiobook
Source: Audible
Buy on Amazon, Buy on Bookshop

This post contains affiliate links you can use to purchase the book. If you buy the book using that link, I will receive a small commission from the sale.

Goodreads
five-stars

I am a Weyward, and wild inside.

2019: Under cover of darkness, Kate flees London for ramshackle Weyward Cottage, inherited from a great aunt she barely remembers. With its tumbling ivy and overgrown garden, the cottage is worlds away from the abusive partner who tormented Kate. But she begins to suspect that her great aunt had a secret. One that lurks in the bones of the cottage, hidden ever since the witch-hunts of the 17th century.

1619: Altha is awaiting trial for the murder of a local farmer who was stampeded to death by his herd. As a girl, Altha’s mother taught her their magic, a kind not rooted in spell casting but in a deep knowledge of the natural world. But unusual women have always been deemed dangerous, and as the evidence for witchcraft is set out against Altha, she knows it will take all of her powers to maintain her freedom.

1942: As World War II rages, Violet is trapped in her family's grand, crumbling estate. Straitjacketed by societal convention, she longs for the robust education her brother receives––and for her mother, long deceased, who was rumored to have gone mad before her death. The only traces Violet has of her are a locket bearing the initial W and the word weyward scratched into the baseboard of her bedroom.

Weaving together the stories of three extraordinary women across five centuries, Emilia Hart's Weyward is an enthralling novel of female resilience and the transformative power of the natural world.

This was an engaging read. I know I’m enjoying an audiobook when looking extra forward to my walks so I can listen and when I actually don’t mind doing dishes. I like to listen to audiobooks when doing tasks that don’t require concentration. In fact, I actually listened while sitting on the couch and mindlessly playing with a coloring app. That’s how I know I am really enjoying a book: when I have trouble putting it down.

Of the three characters, Altha was probably my favorite. I really liked the narrator who read her part quite a lot. Kate’s story resembled the plot of Sleeping with the Enemy. However, I didn’t find that to be purposeful or stilted—I suppose when you get down to it, stories of abusive relationships will often sound familiar.

Men do not come off too well in this book, but to be fair, Violet’s brother Graham, Kate’s father Henry, and a minor character, Adam Bainbridge, are all good, decent men. However, all the other male characters are flat evil, using their power as men to hurt the women in their lives. It seems to me the difference is fear. The good men in this book are not afraid of women and are not threatened by female autonomy. They also view women as fully human. This book has a lot to say about the harm of misogyny—both to women and men.

The family historian in me loved the idea of discovering the rich history of one’s ancestors in the way that both Violet and Kate do. Who wouldn’t want to discover they had inherited a centuries-old cottage and a gift for communicating with animals?

The setting is also well-drawn in all three eras. The idea that the families who stayed in Crows Beck flitted into all three women’s stories as minor characters—the Kirkbys, the Metcalfes—made the story feel more like an authentic family saga while also offering an Easter egg for the reader.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes historical fiction about witches. I also love how it reclaims the title of “witch” from its negative history. It’s a great read.

five-stars

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Review: Madhouse at the End of the Earth: The Belgica’s Journey into the Dark Antarctic Night, Julian Sancton

Posted on by Dana
Review: Madhouse at the End of the Earth: The Belgica’s Journey into the Dark Antarctic Night, Julian SanctonMadhouse at the End of the Earth: The Belgica's Journey into the Dark Antarctic Night by Julian Sancton
Narrator: Vikas Adam
Published by Random House Audio on May 4, 2021
Genres: Nonfiction
Length: 13 hours 28 minutes
Format: Audio, Audiobook
Source: Audible
Buy on Amazon

This post contains affiliate links you can use to purchase the book. If you buy the book using that link, I will receive a small commission from the sale.

Goodreads
five-stars

The harrowing true survival story of an early polar expedition that went terribly awry—with the ship frozen in ice and the crew trapped inside for the entire sunless, Antarctic winter.

In August 1897, thirty-one-year-old commandant Adrien de Gerlache set sail aboard the Belgica, fueled by a profound sense of adventure and dreams of claiming glory for his native Belgium. His destination was the uncharted end of the earth: the icy continent of Antarctica. But the commandant's plans for a three-year expedition to reach the magnetic South Pole would be thwarted at each turn. Before the ship cleared South America, it had already broken down, run aground, and lost several key crew members, leaving behind a group with dubious experience for such an ambitious voyage.

As the ship progressed into the freezing waters, the captain had to make a choice: turn back and spare his men the potentially devastating consequences of getting stuck, or recklessly sail deeper into the ice pack to chase glory and fame. He sailed on, and the Belgica soon found itself stuck fast in the icy hold of the Antarctic continent. The ship would winter on the ice. Plagued by a mysterious, debilitating illness and besieged by the monotony of their days, the crew deteriorated as their confinement in suffocating close quarters wore on and their hope of escape dwindled daily. As winter approached the days grew shorter, until the sun set on the magnificent polar landscape one last time, condemning the ship's occupants to months of quarantine in an endless night.

Forged in fire and carved by ice, Antarctica proved a formidable opponent for the motley crew. Among them was Frederick Cook, an American doctor—part scientist, part adventurer, part P. T. Barnum—whose unorthodox methods delivered many of the crew from the gruesome symptoms of scurvy and whose relentless optimism buoyed their spirits through the long, dark polar night. Then there was Roald Amundsen, a young Norwegian who went on to become a storied polar explorer in his own right, exceeding de Gerlache's wildest dreams by leading the first expeditions to traverse the Northwest Passage and reach the South Pole.

Drawing on firsthand accounts of the Belgica's voyage and exclusive access to the ship's logbook, Sancton tells the tale of its long, isolated imprisonment on the ice--a story that NASA studies today in its research on isolation for missions to Mars. In vivid, hair-raising prose, Sancton recounts the myriad forces that drove these men right up to and over the brink of madness.

Belica in the ice by Adrien de Gerlache
Belgica dans la glace by Adrien de Gerlache

This is a terrific nonfiction account of a harrowing experience in Antarctica during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Julian Sancton’s author’s note and notes on sources demonstrate a thorough and dedicated effort to tell the story of the Belgica’s winter trapped in the ice as faithfully and accurately as possible. However, his writing style renders the story as gripping as any adventure film. In fact, I can’t believe this book hasn’t been made into a movie. Surely someone out there has purchased the rights and plans to film it.

This book reminded me quite a bit of Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. I can’t say I had the desire to travel to Antarctica before reading it, and if I did, I’ve been cured—much like Krakauer convinced me climbing Everest is not in my future (not that I wanted to, but after reading Into Thin Air, I really didn’t want to). I knew the crew survived mostly intact because this account existed, but it was harrowing to read, and Sancton kept me guessing how in the world these men would get out of Antarctica alive.

I have to say, Roald Amundsen comes across as a complete and total badass. I don’t know that I would have liked him personally, but no one could argue he wasn’t brave. Look at this dude.

Belica in the ice by Adrien de Gerlache

He’s a complete and total Viking.

I highly recommend this book. Even if you think you are not interested in Artic or Antarctic exploration, trust me, this book is captivating. I also recommend the audiobook. The author clearly enjoyed reading this breathtaking adventure, and his narration added a good deal to my enjoyment of the book.

 

five-stars

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Review: Country, Michael Hughes

Posted on by Dana
Review: Country, Michael HughesCountry by Michael Hughes
Narrator: Michael Hughes
Published by HarperAudio on October 1, 2019
Genres: Historical Fiction
Length: 7 hours 19 minutes
Format: Audio, Audiobook
Source: Library
Buy on Amazon, Buy on Bookshop

This post contains affiliate links you can use to purchase the book. If you buy the book using that link, I will receive a small commission from the sale.

Goodreads
five-stars

A vivid and brutal reimagining of Homer's Iliad, set in the Troubles of the late twentieth-century.

That was the start of it. A terrible business altogether. Oh, it was all kept off the news, for the sake of the talks and the ceasefire. But them that were around that part of the country remember every bit. Wait now till you hear the rest.

Northern Ireland, 1996.

After twenty-five years of conflict, the IRA and the British have agreed an uneasy ceasefire, as a first step towards lasting peace. But if decades of savage violence are leading only to smiles and handshakes, those on the ground in the border country will start to question what exactly they have been fighting for.

When an IRA man's wife turns informer, he and his brother gather their old comrades for an assault on the local army base. But the squad's feared sniper suddenly refuses to fight, and the SAS are sent in to crush this rogue terror cell before it can wreck the fragile truce, and drag the whole region back to the darkest days of the Troubles.

Inspired by the oldest war story of them all, this powerful new Irish novel explores the brutal glory of armed conflict, and the bitter tragedy of those on both sides who offer their lives to defend the honour of their country.

What a fantastic book. I am not sure what it says about the progress of humanity that setting a retelling of The Iliad amidst the end of the Troubles works so well, but it’s masterful. Working knowledge of neither The Iliad nor the Troubles is absolutely required to appreciate this book, but you will appreciate it on an entirely different level if you’re familiar with both. The characters are not caricatures or cardboard cutout representations of Greek and Trojan heroes; Hughes fleshes them out so fully that rather than a retelling, the story feels like it’s happening all over again, and this time, to real people. It’s well written, too, and I’m extremely glad I listened to the audiobook, read by Hughes, though a word of warning: a decent understanding of a Northern Irish dialect is required. Hughes manages to pick up some of Homer’s cadence while still making the story completely his own.

This book reminded me a little bit of Marlon James’s A Brief History of Seven Killings. In my review of that book, I wrote, “I’m not sure what to say about this book. It’s hard for me to recommend it to anyone because it’s really violent and disturbing, but it was completely captivating at the same time. I was riveted.” I might say the same about this book. I have a feeling this book will be one of my top reads of the year. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the Troubles.

five-stars

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Review: The Pull of the Stars, Emma Donoghue

Posted on by Dana
Review: The Pull of the Stars, Emma DonoghueThe Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue
Narrator: Emma Lowe
Published by Hachette Audio on July 21, 2020
Genres: Historical Fiction
Pages: -2
Length: 9 hours 6 minutes
Format: Audio, Audiobook
Source: Audible
Buy on Amazon, Buy on Bookshop

This post contains affiliate links you can use to purchase the book. If you buy the book using that link, I will receive a small commission from the sale.

Goodreads
five-stars

Dublin, 1918: three days in a maternity ward at the height of the Great Flu. A small world of work, risk, death and unlooked-for love, by the bestselling author of The Wonder and ROOM.

In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city center, where expectant mothers who have come down with the terrible new Flu are quarantined together. Into Julia’s regimented world step two outsiders—Doctor Kathleen Lynn, on the run from the police, and a young volunteer helper, Bridie Sweeney.

In the darkness and intensity of this tiny ward, over three days, these women change each other’s lives in unexpected ways. They lose patients to this baffling pandemic, but they also shepherd new life into a fearful world. With tireless tenderness and humanity, carers and mothers alike somehow do their impossible work.

In The Pull of the Stars, Emma Donoghue once again finds the light in the darkness in this new classic of hope and survival against all odds.

This book is yet another book I picked up to fulfill a reading challenge, in this case, the Decades Reading Challenge, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s probably one of the most harrowing books I’ve read in a while, and Nurse Julia Power is a worthy hero. I also had an opportunity to learn about Dr. Kathleen Lynn, whom I’d never heard of, and she was a fascinating historical figure. The 1918 flu pandemic and the aftermath of World War I in Dublin are drawn in sharp relief. It’s hard to believe, but Donoghue finished this book in March 2020, just as the world was beginning to come to grips with the fact that COVID-19 was a global pandemic and threat to millions of lives. I did not realize that the 1918 flu pandemic killed more people than World War I. Why is it that we have discussed this horrible pandemic so little? Would we have actually learned from history? I suppose that’s something we never do as a species, so probably not. The book made me extremely glad that I gave birth to my children when 1) more modern medical practices existed, and 2) a pandemic was not raging. All the women everywhere, at every time in history, who gave birth under such uncertain circumstances are heroes.

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