The Cobbler's Tale

Neil Perry Gordon has taken the story of his family's travels from Eastern Europe to a better life in America.  He has based the bones of the story on facts and created some suspense around the reality of bringing a family to the new world.

This novel is the story of a young Jewish immigrant, Pincus Potasznik, a cobbler who leaves his pregnant wife Clara and children behind in Eastern Europe’s Galicia region in search of a better life on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.  It is a year or so before the first great war begins and Potasznik leaves his wife, mother-in-law and children behind.  The Rabbi advices him that going to America will be good for his family and that he also should start a Landsman Society of Krzywcza,  in New York for other villagers who will travel there to help them get settled.

On the boat to America, he meets a man who will become his lifelong friend, Jakob Adler.  Without knowing it Jakob worked for the crime boss in Warsaw and is escaping after running into trouble back in Poland. He becomes a good friend to Pincus, helping him get ahead in New York, but also becoming a partner-in-crime.  HE changes the immigrant's story forever.  It is interesting how each occurrence in your life and alter the direction you were going.

It takes Pincus four years to return to Krzywcza to bring his wife, Clara and their children to New York.  He has been unaware of the turmoil and hardships they have faced as a result of the war.  Also there is a side story of Moshe, the eldest son, being recognized as a tzaddik, one of the 36 righteous individuals that Kabbalah believes live at any one time. 

Though this for the most part moves at a slow pace of everyday life, switching between chapters of Pincus' life in America getting settled and setting up his business and Landsman Society and then Clara and the kids living in a small shtetl as war approaches, there are scenes interspersed that create a sense of tension and pick up the pace of the story.  Just when you may say I have read enough, something grabs your attention and you want to find out how it will end.

I listened to this novel as an audible book.  Read by Michael Fischbein, it also seems that he is reading very slowly and clearly, enunciating and seemed to make the story also drag, until he would read one of the more suspenseful sections and the story would be more interesting.  you could almost hear the suspenseful music in your head as you reached those parts of the book.

Lady in the Lake

Lady in the Lake: The Mysterious Death of Sphinx Barmaid Shirley Parker is the real story that author Laura Lippman has based her book Lady in the Lake on. 

Lippman took a 1966 unsolved mystery and created a novel around what may have happened.  Madeline "Maddy" Schwartz is unhappy in her everyday life.  Married with a teenage son, she feels like something is missing.  Not sure what she is looking for she leaves her marriage of almost twenty years, her son and the upper middle class suburbs for inner city Baltimore. 

Leaving behind a pampered lifestyle, Maddie is trying to recreate herself, bring back some of her youthful passions and leave a mark behind when she is gone.  Also working through some deeply held secrets from her past, she sets out to become a journalist.  Fighting her way into a male dominated business, she uses some of the techniques she developed as a young ingenue.

She defies logic and the norms of the time, having an affair with a young black policeman, she meets in the neighborhood.  She helps to solve a murder of a young girl, finding the body and informing the police., which leads to her first job at the Star, the city's afternoon newspaper.

Twisted in between the chapters about Maddie Schwartz are the reflections of a woman speaking to us from the beyond.  Looking down and watching Maddie, Cleo's ghost wants Maddie to leave her alone, to stop her poking and prying.

Wanting to make a name for herself, Maddie hears about the recovery of the body of a young woman who has been missing. It seems to be Cleo Sherwood,  an African-American cocktail waitress about whom little is known. Sherwood's body was found in a lake in a city park months after she disappeared.  Maddie realizes this could be her big break.  She names her the Lady in the Lake and starts to investigate.  It seems that no one is really interested in the case, so she throws herself into the inquiry at full speed, disregarding how it will affect others around her.  Her failure to listen to the people around her will lead to tragedy and turmoil in her ambitious, driven, rush to prove herself.

This is a story of what life was like racially, socially,  politically and sexually during the 1960s.  Blending fact and fiction, Lippman has created a story which is much bigger than the crime being solved. 

Transcription

This is a fun spy novel written by Kate Atkinson.  I have not read other books by Atkinson yet so I do not know if this is her usual writing style.  But this book was so entertaining that I will go pick up some of her other books to find out.

Transcription is a wise, funny quick paced spy thriller.  It is a novel starts out 1981 as Juliet Armstrong looks back on her days as a young woman.   People in England still live with the proud sense of patriotism and love the pomp and circumstance.  A royal wedding is about to happen.

Back in 1940 after her mother's death, Juliet is scooped up by the MI5 to assist with the war effort. In the mist of the war, Juliet is employed to transcribe meetings that are being recorded between a group of fascist sympathisers and a man named Godfrey Toby, whom the fifth columnists believe is a Gestapo agent but is actually a British spy monitoring his informers.

As things get more complicated Juliet herself is recruited to spy and given an alias.  She learns to shift between different names and persona.  Life becomes a game of deception even in the most mundane experiences.  "It was a Saturday afternoon and here they were, Juliet thought, Englishwomen doing what Englishwomen did best wherever they were in the world - taking tea and having cozy chats..."

Then there are some scenes after the war when Juliet now working for the BBC runs into Toby again and some of the tragedies of the war are brought to light.  A clearer view of what they were fighting for. 

In another instance, as Juliet goes about her business of spying and transcribing she thinks,
"The future was coming nearer, one relentless goose step after the next.  Juliet could still remember when Hitler had seemed like a harmless clown.  No one was amused now."

This is so appropriate to that time period and so eerily relevant to our current times. Reading this book and thinking about our current world situation and questioning personal freedoms and patriotism .

Kosher Chinese

So excited to read a book about Kosher Chinese food.
SO not that book!

Interesting memoir of a young man who joined the Peace Corp and taught English to Chinese students in China. Not so much about food except that he does give up his vegetarian and kosher ways to experiment with different Chinese foods. 

Mainly this is a travelogue memoir of his experiences while living in a Chinese province for two years.
Michael Levy leaves his easy American suburban lifestyle to spend two years in  Guiyang, the largest city in southern China's relatively rural Guizhou Province.  He has left home as a Jewish, kosher vegetarian but know that while he away that will be very hard to stick to.  "From day one, I decided that I was going to be as good a guest as I can, and that meant saying yes to anything they put in front of me."

Through this book we are enlightened about  China as Michael experiences  many different obstacles in his path.  First of course is the language difference.  He has lessons and thinks he is speaking correctly, but in many interactions he has mangled the pronunciation or the sentence structure.  Then there are times where he is actually speaking correctly and the people do not want to think that an American can speak their language so they refuse to understand him even when he is right.

There are the funny interactions with his students.  They have taken on English names based on things they have heard in American music or on television.  So Michael tries to carefully without insulting them help them change their names to more acceptable words.  When he explains he is Jewish, the student become fascinated and start a Friday night Shabbat Club, where they cook dinners of "Jewish food" together.  They are eager to learn as much as they can from him.  The students are always challenging Michael to explain why what they have learned from books provided by the Chinese government about America and Americans, other religions and the world could be incorrect.


Michael Levy's experience is entertaining but also very educational for the reader to learn what life is like in China for the people who are average working class citizens.  He shows us how restricted their lives can be.    We can live vicariously through Michael and then decide if we want to travel to China to taste the foods and even try the toilets for ourselves.

Murder From Scratch

Leslie Karst has started a new murder mystery series involving a restaurant and cooking. 
This is not the first novel in the series so I will have to go back and read her earlier mysteries.

Sally Solari has inherited a restaurant which I know I will find out the story behind that in an earlier plot.  Now she signing . the papers to become a co owner with her head chef and keep the restaurant going.  This time a long forgotten relative is murdered and her newly discovered cousin needs a place to stay while the house is a crime scene.

Her cousin Evelyn comes to live with her and together they try to uncover who is behind the murder of Evie's mother's death.  Though it looks like a suicide Evie is sure her mother would not do that and leave her. 

This is a bit of a formula mystery and a bit slow moving, but still entertaining enough that I read through to the end.  There are also discussions about Italian food and restaurant kitchens that keep the pace of the book moving. 

At the end there are a few of the recipes for dishes referred to in the story.  They do look good.

Doom and Bloom

Another fun, entertaining mystery in the Gardening series by H.Y. Hanna.  She is prolific and the books  just keep on coming.  The characters develop and build relationships as the storyline continues from book to book.   Cute vivacious, Poppy is getting the hang of gardening taking over her grandmother's business.  She has two cute animals that are part of the  plot and two neighbors who are connected to the animals.  One a handsome, author, Nick and possible romantic interest?, the other an absentminded professor, Bertie.  Of course there is a police detective, this time a woman who Poppy can share information with. There is always a murder to solve so the fun can continue. 

This time Poppy is learning how to create a garden that will be calming and attractive to an elderly woman's dog.  The woman is a bit eccentric, so when her niece is killed, Poppy tries to figure out who could have a motive for murder.  While trying to get her business up and running, Poppy has a chance to interview various people in the village.  She has the assistance of Nick and Bertie as she tries to ask questions surreptitiously and the ear of the police detective, Susan who will eventually bring the culprit to justice.

Along the way Hanna shares some gardening and florist tips that Poppy is learning.  All good fun for a quiet afternoon.

Dutch Girl: Audrey Hepburn and World War II

Robert Matzen is the author of Dutch Girl : Audrey Hepburn and World War II.   
One of my all time favorite stories is Gigi!  
Well known for her role in My Fair Lady, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Roman Holiday,
Audrey Kathleen van Heemstra Ruston, also had a secretive past.
This book is an eye opening look into that hidden past.

This book reveals the turbulent childhood of Hepburn,
living in the Netherlands through the German invasion and occupation of 1939 -1944.  
The details of the story presented in Dutch Girl are fascinating in that they
happened to Audrey Hepburn, but also this is a historical account of World War II from
the Dutch perspective that has not really been examined until now.  
The book reflects on the five years that Hepburn and her family along with the
Dutch people lived under Hitler’s rule.
“Not that they had ever listened to his speeches or obeyed,
but it had been a life under the oppression of his terrible will
and his twisted soul that they had endured.”  Audrey and her family
lived in the town of Velp, which when the British and Americans came to
liberate them had been under siege and everyone was living in hiding.

She was sixteen at the time of the liberation. Audrey and her mother went to live in Amsterdam.
This would later connect her to Anne Frank’s story.
Then onto London to start her career and leave her mother and her political troubles behind.
 Her first success was as a chorus girl in High Button Shoes.  
Then MGM came to town and Audrey won a screen test.  Her stardom began in 1953.
The amazing part is that like Gigi and Eliza Doolittle from My Fair Lady,
Hepburn’s story is a similar story of unexpected success at something she was aiming toward.

In an 1965 interview she says, “I can safely say that unlike others
I simply stumbled into movies. And from one thing to another.”  
It was never a career she wanted, it was a career that came easily to her -
she had grown into an exotic face that responded to makeup and lighting.

“My success - still bewilders me.”  And she was - a great success!