Alone Against Gravity

Alone Against Gravity  - Einstein IN Berlin: The Turbulent Birth of the Theory of Relativity, 1914 - 1918, written by Thomas De Padova, presents the life of Albert Einstein, his revolutionary theory about general relativity as the world around him is collapsing and entering a world war.

Einstein was fascinated by the idea of weightlessness.  As people were experimenting with flight he was wondering if someone were free-falling toward earth would they feel gravitational pull?

In 1914 Einstein moves to Germany just as they are mobilizing their army for war.  The book follows Einstein through his marriage to Mileva and his affair with his cousin Elsa and their eventual marriage.   It shows how physics was the most important mistress of the great scientist. The book mainly centers on the discoveries and political events and interactions Einstein has between the years 1914 and 1918.  

Author, Padova explains’ “ Einstein during the war transformed from being a ‘pure’ scientist into a politically engaged person.  It was the violent nationalism of his colleagues that lead him to pacifism.” Einstein, though a pacifist, never leaves Germany to go home to Switzerland.  He lived with many contradictions. The book lays out his theories, discoveries and interactions with other scientists in great detail. Thomas De Padova lives in Berlin and has a background in physics and astronomy.

Mensch Marks

Mensch Marks, the subtitles tell us is a book of "Life Lessons of a Human Rabbi", "Wisdom for Untethered Times".   That really captures the essence of what you will find when you read this book. 

Rabbi Joshua Hammerman started out as a young Rabbi in 1985.  He was twenty eight years old and has become the spiritual leader for a congregation in Connecticut. As the new young Rabbi, he writes, he realizes that being so young he may not yet look like a rabbi.  His energetic and over the top enthusiasm is attributed to his newness and others say it will diminish with time and experience.

He realizes that congregants are asking themselves; "How can this rabbi be mature enough to comfort mourners when he hasn't known a lifetime of personal grief? How can he represent us... when he hasn't what we've seen? Can a rabbi who is not battle scarred truly be a rabbi?"  Through the writings in this book, you watch as this young rabbi gets his feet wet, and is toughened up over the course of his career. 

Over the years Hammerman writes about everything from condolence calls to Bar Mitzvahs to questions of Kashrut and other rituals.  In 2018, after the Parkland, Florida school shooting a march was scheduled for a Saturday.  He talks about joining the March for Our Lives even though it means breaking the rules of Shabbat.  Hammerman writes that "sometimes filling G-d's command can only be done by violating it".  Hammerman talks about Pikuah Nefesh, reinforcing the idea that commandments are intended to sanctify and preserve life, not cause undue risk of death.  So that, like other famous rabbis before him, including Abraham Joshua Heschel, who marched alongside Martin Luther King in Selma, saying he felt like he was praying with his feet.  Rabbi Joshua Hammerman hopes that by joining the students marching, "I will be praying with my feet, too. And while I am walking, I'll be praying that, in small way, I'll be saving lives, and thereby, just maybe, helping to save the world.

The Fragments

Suspenseful and intriguing story of The Fragments of a long lost book on display at the museum bring out the people who are interested in finding out what really happened to the author of original book.

Toni Jordan builds suspense as the reader works along with Caddie Walker to uncover the mystery surrounding the last book written by her favorite author, Inga Karlson.  After seeing the exhibit of the remaining burnt fragments from Inga's last book, The Days, The Minutes, which burned with her in a warehouse fire, Caddie searches for an elderly woman she saw at the exhibit.  Working in a book store, Caddie reconnects with people from her past who were also interested in the author and her story.

Following the trend of other books I have loved this year, this story is told in alternating chapters between Inga's story in 1930's New York City and Caddie's life in 1980's Brisbane, Australia.
The story is tied to together by Rachel.  She was a young girl fresh from a farm life with a happy family to a change in the family's fortune, and an angry violent father.  Escaping to the big city, Rachel is working as a waitress and trying to make a life for herself when she meets Inga.  Inga is living a dazzling lifestyle of glamour and fame, after her first novel was extremely successful.  She takes Rachel along for the ride.  Rachel is enamoured of Inga and cannot believe that anyone would look at her this way, "New York is a town powered by fame: most of the shop girls and waitresses and cigarette girls and busboys and delivery boys have travelled to this heaving city to become the person they know they can be. The thin skin between the life you have and the life you desire - this a good part of New York's charm."

Caddie also a fan of Inga Karlson's first novel, All Has An End, and hungry to know what happened to the author and her second novel all those years ago, works to solve the mystery that was never solved because of the war that soon the nation's attention.  Caddie throws herself into discovering the secret which gives her a chance to shrug off the burden of her past and start off down a new path. 

This book is part historical fiction, with a bit romance thrown in.  It is not a mystery but there is a sense of suspense as we uncover the secrets at the core of the novel.  All is tied up at the end in a neat package, but getting there is particularly enjoyable.

The Tattooist of Auschwitz

The Tattooist of Auschwitz may seem on the surface like it will be just another in a long line of Holocaust fiction.  So the reader may be tempted not to pick this one up.  But it is again an incredible story of strength, perseverance, and incredible beauty in the face of unspeakable evil.

Heather Morris has written a beautiful novel based on the interviews and real life story of two Holocaust survivors.  She has captured the strength of character of Lali Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew, who was imprisoned at Auschwitz in 1942.  He is given the job of tattooing numbers on the arms of thousands of incoming prisoners. He falls in love with Gita Furman as he is tattooing her number on her arm.  From that moment on he is on a quest to outlive the war, marry Gita and live happily ever after with her. 

 He is incredibly strong and brave as he works to help others.  He is brave and noble and uses his special position int he camp to its slight advantage.  He is able to go places and talk to people that other prisoners are not allowed.  He is able to create a small black market of valuables that he can trade for food and medicine for the fellow prisoners. 

The reader is drawn into the daily life of what it was like in the concentration camps, both the living conditions and the interactions between the prisoners.  Also the interaction between guards and prisoners.  The relationship between Lali and the guard to escorts him to his post to tattoo prisoners and back to his bunk each day develops over time.

The novel is told from Lali's perspective and we learn so much about the life he led during his interment at Auschwitz.  Even blended between fact and fiction it is a captivating story that pulls at your heart strings and gives you another chance to believe in the goodness of mankind in the face of horrific circumstances. 

As I am reading newspaper articles about the book there are questions about its factual basis.  Are these the remembrances of an elderly man and not grounded in reality anymore?  Even if they are not based in complete facts, this is a love story that has lasted long after the war ended and they survived the horrors of the Holocaust to live a life of love and create a son who lives on.  Lali and Gita won and Hitler and his henchmen lost.  That is the important lesson.

Chocolate Cream Pie Murder

This is the 26th murder mystery featuring Hannah Swenson and her family and friends.  We are brought back to Lake Eden and The Cookie Jar during a harsh winter.  Hannah has been wronged by the man she thinks she married.  As she announces to the church community that she was tricked, she also is getting ready for Valentines Day and testing cookie and pie recipes to sell at the shop and cater different celebrations. 

Of course there will be a murder and Hannah will help police detective Mike, along with his deputy, Lonnie solve the crime.  Norman, who is still in love with her will be there to protect her and her sisters and mother will also be there to assist with baking and protection.

These mysteries are getting a bit too predictable.  They are formulaic and the dialog is stilted.  But the recipes are plentiful and though I probably will never bake any of them, way too much butter and sugar, they are sprinkled throughout the book.  So then I am not sure why I keep reading this series, except that it is a fun way to spend a rainy afternoon.

Joanne Fluke has a good recipe here for continued success.  She seems to be gathering recipes from readers and I think gives them credit in the book as she uses the recipe in The Cookie Jar.

Finding Dorothy

READ THIS BOOK!  I just put down Finding Dorothy, and for a child of the 1960s this is a journey into a childhood icon, " an object of uncritical devotion", says the dictionary definition.
What an enjoyable novel, based on the true story of the life of L.Frank Baum, author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz  and his wife Maud and their personal story.  Incredible, touching and so well written.  Also so much history about the making of the movie, the characters, Judy Garland and MGM and the executives, director, and people behind the scenes. So much fun to read and so emotionally rich.
"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."  "Follow the yellow brick road.", "I'll get you my pretty and your little dog too." and "Some where over the rainbow..."  so many memorable quotes that have become apart of everyday speech. 

Elizabeth Letts has done a remarkable job recreating the lives of Maud Gage and L. Frank Baum along with their parents, siblings and children.  It was amazing how realistic the book is and how incredible the lives of these people really were. 

Maud Gage was the daughter of Matilda Joslyn Gage one of the suffragettes who along with Suzan B Anthony worked for years to help women today have the right to vote.  Maud was one of the first women to attend Cornell and face the inequalities of higher learning for women at that time.  though her mother wanted so strongly for her to complete her degree, she left to marry Baum and follow him as he traveled across the country with his acting troupe. 

When Maud became pregnant with their first child, Frank tried to settle down and take on regular acceptable employment for the time period.  Though he worked for many years to support their growing family, he was never really happy with conventional jobs. 

Reading the story of their lives and their family trials and tribulations shows how The Wizard of Oz was created in the mind of Baum.  It is not just the imagination of an author's mind, it is based on so many of the real life situations the Baum family found themselves working through.  It is the optimism that Frank Baum was able to maintain through all the troubles and hardships his family endured.  He has left us with a sense of hope and the story has lasted because of the ability to believe the idea that the book carries with it, an incredible message of living a life that is hard, but always looking for the light at the end of the rainbow. 

The Collector's Apprentice

What a wonderful story written by B.A. Shapiro author of The Art Forger.  Using her knowledge of art forgery and art work she has painted a colorful plot of intrigue and romance. 

Listening to the story from each character's point of view we learn how George Everard woes Paulien Mertens, a young girl from a wealthy Belgium family.  When George turns out to be a con man who has taken her and her entire family for everything they owned.  Alone, disowned and devastated, Paulien takes on a new persona, Vivienne Gregsby.  She sets out to recover her father's losses, prove her innocence and exact revenge on George.

Using her knowledge of art, she gets a job with an American collector, Edward Bradley, and puts her plan into action.  Traveling through the Paris social scene, Vivienne becomes friendly with Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas.  She becomes involved with Henry Matisse.  Living in the United States she and Bradley set up the first Museum of art in Philadelphia and start an art school for people to learn art appreciation.  Mixing reality and fiction Shapiro has painted an entertaining work of fiction.