Dangerous And Unseemly

 This is a interesting mystery novel from the perspective of a history lesson about how women were treated during the late 1800s. Women's rights were not equal at all even in an all girls school.  Concordia Wells is a single woman who goes to teach at Hartford College for Women.  She has to live in the dorm with the girls and along with the house mother, watch the girls behavior.  Male teachers can go home to their own homes at night.  Women teachers can not be married and there is a "lady principal" but there still is a school president who oversees the school.  As people are starting to die and some others are being attacked at the school, Concordia starts to help the lady principal investigate.  When her sister dies unexpectedly,  she is suspicious of what is happening at the house where she just returned from her honeymoon with her new husband .

Written by K,B, Owen this is a complicated mystery to follow with many characters and a few red herrings thrown in to make the murder undetectable.  But there are great descriptions of the clothes of the times the modes of transportation in a small college town and great details about the lifestyle women and their rights during this time period,.

Talking to Strangers

 Malcolm Gladwell has written, for me, another incredible read.  I really can follow everything he says and it all makes perfect sense. This time he is looking how we interact with each other.  he focuses on strangers, but I can see how it also works between friends and acquaintances because do we really ever know each other that well?

Talking to Strangers uses a few very.well known legal cases to make his points.  He starts back with Hitler and the beginning of World War II.  Neville Chamberlain went to see Hitler to negotiate with him about Germany not invading Czechoslovakia.  He met with Hitler on two occasions and came back to England reporting that hitler was not going to attack and that he was trustworthy.  This was even though many other leaders who had never met Hitler face to face were skeptical and did not trust him.

There are many other cases in the book to illustrate the same idea that people go to a trust default when they meet someone.  They want to believe that the person who is looking them in the face and saying something is believable.  Another example is the Bernie Madoff situation.  Madoff was able to convince so many people that he was trustworthy.  That even if you asked him directly if he was lying he would answer no and you would believe him.  There was one man who saw through to the reality of the corruption and was not fooled.  Gladwell refers to a person like this as a Holy Fool.  He sees the truth and is not swayed by the doubt from his position.

Gladwell tells a very convincing story about each of the cases he uses as examples through out the book.  As with all his previous books I find them fascinating reading and come away feeling that Gladwell has really unearthed some very interesting information about humans work and respond.

Germania

Germania, is another book in this sub-genre of mystery thriller set during World War II involving the Holocaust.  I would not say this is my favorite style of book to read, but I wills ay that the few I have read recently are very well written and compelling enough to make me stick with them until the end.

Harald Gilbers, a international bestselling author, brings the reader the heart-pounding story of Jewish detective Richard Oppenheimer as he hunts for a serial killer through war-torn Nazi Berlin in Germania.

We meet Richard Oppenheimer, as he awakened in his bed along side his wife, in the middle of the night.  A German officer enters the house and request that Oppenheimer accompany him.  It is really a command and from all the books I have read in the past, I didi not think we were off to a good start.  But it turns out that Richard is Jewish, married to a pure blood German and up until the rule that Jews can no longer hold down a job in Berlin, he was a well respected police detective.  

This call is not for his death, but for assistance on a murder investigation that has the Nazi officers baffled.Richard is being offered a chance to save his and his wife's lives as long as he is working on the case.  This is a very well developed mystery novel with different characters throwing you off track as they are trying to find the murderer before he kills again.  It deals both with the realities of the hate for Jewish people in Berlin and the idea that there are still murderers out there outside of the concentration camp annihilations.

A serial killer who likes to mutilate women is on the loose and the SS is having trouble finding him.Richard is putting his life at risk as he gets closer to the answers.  Gilbers makes Oppenheimer’s fears, and the moral compromises he makes, palpable.  He also makes it all feel so realistic .

Miracle Creek

'Miracle Creek': A twisty legal thriller that shows how far parents will go for their kids. One page into Angie Kim's debut novel, “Miracle Creek,” and I was already reaching for my phone to Google “hyperbaric oxygen therapy” (also known as HBOT).

This was a pretty disturbing story.  It was hard to read all the descriptions and details but I was able to read through to the end and find out the twisty ending.  I was reading it because I heard the author speak and she made it sound really interesting.  So there you go, author promotions and discussions really work.  Otherwise I would never had picked this book up.

Also I do think it would make a great discussion for a book group.  There are the issues of how far would you go for your child, your spouse.  

This is the story of an immigrant family here from Korea.  They start a business based on the HBOT tank which you take your child in for treatments for Autism.  So there is the topic of can these unusual treatments work, and should you even put your child through them.  There is a mother who is so frustrated with her child she thinks of how life could be better without him, or how life would be better if he were "normal".  What is normal for a child? Would she love him more if he were different?

There is a plot line around infertility and what that does to a couple.  How it either pulls you together or drives you apart.  Which is also about the family dynamics of marriage and how husbands and wives interact in different cultures.

There is also a plot line around a young teens coming of age and fitting in with the people at school, especially when you are from a different culture or country.  Then there is also the parent child relationships.  Do parents always know what their child is thinking and or feeling? Are they paying enough attention or are they caught up in their own issues?

It was a good read and held my attention but as I have mentioned it was at times uncomfortable to read.

Al Jaffee's Mad Life

 Another cartoonist who lived a long life and had a prosperous career is Al Jaffee.

The book by Mary-Lou Weisman about his life, Al Jaffee's Mad Life is the incredible history and life story of Jaffee and how he grew up between Savannah Georgia and his mother's native home in Lithuania.  

Born Abraham to Morris and Mildred Jaffee in Savannah Georgia after moved there for a job from New York City.  His parents had two more sons, his brother Harry and Bernard.  But Mildred is very unhappy in the south and America in general, so she takes the boys back to Lithuania for a visit that ends up lasting years. Their father, Morris stays in the States and works for years to earn enough money to fly to Lithuania and have enough money for tickets to bring them all home again.  This happens more than once in Al's young life and in the end he ends up in America with his father but leaves his mother and brothers overseas.  These childhood experiences are part of the making of the man, they shape who he grows up to be.  

He grows up drawing incredible, intricate drawings of how things work.  He makes many connections along the way attending art school and creating relationships and working with such big names as Stan Lee, Harvey Kurtzman and Will Edler finally landing on his feet at Mad Magazine where he had a very successful run starting in 1955.

This is a fascinating tale.  A brilliant cartoonist at the height of Mad Magazine's incredible success.

True Believer, The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee.

 True Believer,  The Rise and Fall of  Stan Lee.   This is the true story of Stan Lee, who he really was and how the myth of his greatness was created and spread.  It is written by author Abraham Riesman, who interestingly once met Lee as a young man and asked him for his autograph.  Now as an adult he looks back at the myth and legend of Stan Lee.

This is a very interesting book that chronicles Lee's life from his childhood through his career at Marvel Comics and the growth and popularity of the super heroes, the Fantastic Four and others.

There are many of the names I grew up hearing mentioned here in their connections to Lee.  Milton Caniff who had a very successful career drawing Steve Canyon.  Vince Colletta, who my father knew as Vinney, who worked with many different comic writers and artists.  My father, Hy Eisman, drew many of the comic pages working for Vinney, who got the jobs and then passed on the finished work, my father had ghosted.  That was the secret for Stan who was not a good cartoonist, he had so many great people like Jack Kirby drawing and he put his name to their work.

This book shows the enormous climb to the top that Lee made, but also shows the end of his life as an unhappy, allegedly bullied and abused man.  He had a long marriage, with one daughter.  His daughter in the end was a sick and troubled woman who the book says took advantage of him and was horrible to him at the end of his life.

So sometimes the grass is not really greener and success is not always sweet.

On The Chocolate Trail

 

This is a fascinating book. I have had it on the shelf way too long.  So glad I finally took the time to pull it off and read through the story of the cacao plant and the delicious treat I love to nibble.

An interesting story of the cacao plant and its place in religious history. Also some delicious recipes at the beginning of each chapter. With interesting tidbits of information like that an old custom of St. Nicholas, the patron saint of sweets, rewards children with gold-covered chocolate coins for a festival associated with his birthday in December. So many other mouthwatering tasty cocoa nibs in this book.

Another fun fact, that in 1896 Leo Hirshfield started a small candy company, in New York City, after having learned the candy business in Austria.  his special taffy-esque formula of Chocolate Tootsie Rolls - named after his daughter - avoided the cost of actual chocolate by using cocoa powder instead.  He individually wrapped them separating the candies and made them easily portable, even in the summer.

Then there is the story of the Aski- noshie bar, created by founder Shawn Askinosie, whose father converted from Judaism to Christianity, but gave his candy bar a Yiddish name, from nosh, to bite or snack.  Also a a Kosher for Passover chocolate that donates all the proceeds to rescuing dogs.  

So many interesting stories about chocolate and its varied history of how it started becoming a nectar of decadence and a common everyday enjoy treat.

The Muse

 The Muse by Jessie Burton is a wonderful novel to get lost in.  Written in one of my favorite styles we slip back and forth between the present and the past.  

Modern day, 1967,  we meet, Odelle Bastien, a young lady who has left Trinidad to find her independence and make a life in London as a writer.  Taking a job in an art gallery working for Marjorie Quick, who wants to support and push Odelle's writing career.   In a twist of fate, Odelle meets Lawrie who has a painting he wants to sell.  As they discover the artist who painted the arresting artwork, they develop a personal relationship and uncover the secrets of the past.

In a parallel plot line we slip back in history to Spain in the 1930s as the Spanish Civil War is brewing.

Isaac Robles and his half sister, Teresa come to the finca as Harold Schloss, an art dealer,  his wife, Sarah and his daughter, Olive move in.  They have arrived from London.  Each of the characters in the story have secrets of their own.  There is a telephone in Harold's office that rings and rings.  Sarah is despondent , but then seems to thrive as others are sinking.  Olive is an artist, and Isaac, also an artist but also more interested in his political agitator ideas feeling he is helping the revolution..  Teresa sees the genius of Olive's work and wants to help promote her work.  As the revolution is heating up the Schloss family seems to ignore the enclosing danger.

Between these two stories are the lives of people, love, art and recognition.  The needs of humankind does not change.  All people want to be recognized for their talent and loved by someone.