Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay

I really enjoyed this book - I thought the overall story-telling concept was really very interesting and engaging. It's told from two primary points of view - a modern day American woman living in Paris and a little girl living in Paris during WWII.

The two stories center on the July 16, 1942 roundup of Parisian Jews by the French police for their eventual transport to Auschwitz - this round up was called the Rafle du Vel' d'Hiv (the name of an indoor sports arena where they were kept in awful conditions for several days).

The modern story comments that most in Paris were not aware of the round up in their history and when confronted with it, were reluctant to discuss it or accept it. Maybe just because I love history so much I found that entire concept insane and I'm not sure if its a common one that most people would share or if the author was focusing on Parisian's in particular.

I found the last one-third of the book kind of exasperating though - it moves from the two different perspectives to just the modern woman's (to keep suspense for the little girl's eventual fate). I felt like this part dragged on a little too long and some of the new character's she introduced were really weird. I thought the very end was predictable but it did round out the story well.

All in all, I'd recommend the book for a good weekend read!

The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff

I read this book this weekend and COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN! (Seriously, was camping and ignored Jeremy the majority of the time!) Absolutely fascinating book about Ann Eliza Webb Young - one of the wives of Brigham Young, Prophet and Leader of the Mormon Church during the mid 1800s.

The book is so interesting because its not just a biography of her life, it is spun in so many directions with different story lines. The whole time I was reading the book, I was thinking it was all factual - there are newspaper interviews, Wikipedia entries, letters of acceptance/denial to review LDS archives, letters from descendants, etc -- I knew obviously the modern day story was fictional but was convinced the rest was specifically lifted from the pages of the past. Turns out...gullible was removed from the dictionary and slapped on my forehead....but honestly, I think it made the book better for me.

The book goes back and forth in time between Ann Eliza's memoirs ( a real book she did release after her apostate (new word!) from the Mormon church and Brigham's control) and a modern day story around a polygamist women accused of killing her husband.

From the book, I'm curious to read Ann Eliza's real memoirs just to see how differently she is depicted in this book. Though raised Mormon (briefly) I know next to nothing about the church's past or the history if its leaders - Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. I couldn't believe the audacity of these men to say it was divined from God that they should take on "plural wives" to populate the world with Mormons to save everyone's soul....Seriously guys, SERIOUSLY? And people went for it! But as the book points out however, if this is all you know and this is put to you as a deal breaker to getting into heaven, they you do what the man in charge says but still...oy vey.

Ann Eliza's memoirs deal specifically with how plural marriage effects the women and compares it to a state of bondage - not unlike slavery (the Civil War was fought during this time so it was a perfect argument). The book does deal directly with how sister-wives related to each other and deal with a new addition to their families. Being a devotee to the HBO show "Big Love," I found this insight particularly interesting.

She also notes that what adults do is all well in fine - if adults want to marry 100 spouses and they are all happy about it, then whatever - but she specifies that it only matters once children come into play and what it will do to them and affect them for the rest of their lives. This was one aspect of the book that I thought the author was going a weird direction. The main character of the modern day story is gay and he makes a comparison at one point that being gay and being polygamist were both choices adults make and are fine until children come into play. The book never outright says it but I really felt there was a negative association made that I was disappointed in.

Despite what might be my oversensitivity to the last subject, I would highly recommend this book to everyone - its an eye opener to the history of a religion and a whole movement that apparently is still pertinent to our current time.

Stealing Athena Part II

I just finished Stealing Athena. I highly recommend it. It's a fascinating story, actually two stories. If I was Mary Elgin, I would have let her husband rot in prison in France! He was imprisoned (twice by Napoleon) primarily because Napoleon wanted all the Greek sculptures he'd stolen. Mary's husband was a spendthrift which wouldn't have been so bad if it was his money he was spending. Most of it was Mary's. She was an amazing woman. - Lisa (PS - Lisa is too - Tanya)

Stealing Athena by Karen Essex

I found this book at the library by chance. It's another historical novel loosely based on fact. The "modern-day" part takes place between 1799 and 1816 and is written from the perspective of Mary Nisbet, the wife of the Earl of Elgin, who was sent to Constantinople (now Istanbul) as an ambassador for Great Britain. The amazing thing is she was 21 when they arrived. Mary's husband has a passion for Greek architecture and art. In addition to his role as ambassador, his personal goal is to copy and/or appropriate as many Greek ruins as possible to take back to Great Britain to preserve them, glorify the Empire (because only the British can truly protect and appreciate these amazing artifacts!) and his own home.

The "historical" part is the story of Aspasia (again a real person), the concubine of the Perikles, the most powerful man in Athens during the Golden Age. Mary does a lot of reading to educate herself about her husband's passion. One of the books she reads is about Aspasia who was very intelligent and well educated.

Being a historical novel, the role of women in both time periods comes into play and (as Tanya has already noted) can be quite annoying, but was true to life.

So far I'm finding the book fairly well written and interesting. Karen Essex has written several other historical novels that look interesting: Kleopatra, Pharaoh, and Leonardo's Swans.

After Etan: The Missing Child Case that Held America Captive by Lisa R. Cohen

I just finished this true story on the disappearance of 6 year old Etan Patz in 1979. Etan walked to the bus stop for the first time alone and disappeared somewhere within an 8 minute range of time. The family still lives in their SoHo apartment and has the same phone number with the idea that maybe he could one day come home or call. Although he was pronounced officially deceased in 2001, I can certainly understand hope holding them out.

Aside from how gripping a story it is - never fully solved, continuous updates every few years, the beautiful little boy - this book was really amazing. The author is a media producer who had followed the story over the course of her career and made it less about how traumatizing of an event this is but more about the people and relationships that it affected. We all know about Adam Walsh from the work his father has done but it actually was Etan's mother, Julie, who really started to galvanize the missing children's movement - having schools let parents know when their children don't come in, making it a federal crime, etc.

I think the most traumatic part of this book/story was the idea that there has never been a body or a concrete end to the search. Investigators certainly feel they have the correct man and were able to put him away until 2014 for an unrelated crime but I feel for the parents and can't imagine the anguish of never just KNOWING of always asking "what if?" its terrifying.

Certainly as a child/teenager/young adult I chafed under my parents restrictions - thinking they were being too clingy or cautious or overbearing. But reading this book and how often they say "Everything changed after Etan" I can kind of see where it came from (it might also be the adult perspective coming out). Its easy to say "let them grow and make their own way" but jeez, when an 8 minute period can wreck havoc on your entire life and sanity - is it worth it?? Julie (the mom) apparently coped well after a time and was able to raise her other 2 children without the smothering I would have expected but the book set me on edge and made me rethink the limits I had as a kid and realize that no precaution is too much when your child's life is at stake. Ugh, does this mean I have to say my parents were right?

This isn't a book I would typically read, terrible things happening to children completely unravel me but as I mentioned above, though there are some very hard parts to it, I feel overall its a book of the good that can come out of the awful from sheer will, luck, blood, sweat and tears.

I don't think the Patz family will ever know true peace but hopefully they can take some comfort in the millions of other child lives they have saved over the past 30 years.

The Widow of the South

This book by Robert Hicks was on the bestseller list several years ago but I'm just getting around to reading it as part of my genealogy research about an ancestor who died during the Civil War. The Widow of the South is based on a true story of a woman who buried nearly 1,500 Confederate soldiers in her backyard and tended their graves for the rest of her life. Hicks has woven an unusual love story between this woman and one of the soldiers into the larger story about the Battle of Franklin (Tennessee) and its impact on the people in that area.

The book is well-written and paints a grim picture of the Civil War for both soliders and civilians.

Books by Leif Enger

I absolutely loved Enger's first book, Peace Like a River, and have recommended it to many people. If you haven't read it yet, you should because it has great characters, a wonderful story line and incredible prose. Peace Like a River is narrated by Reuben "Rube" Land, an asthmatic 11-year-old boy, living in small-town Minnesota circa 1962. When Rube's older brother, Davy, kills a schoolyard bully, the whole family, including his sister "Swede" and their father, embark on an epic adventure across country.

Enger's second book, So Brave and Handsome, is narrated by Monte Becket, a former postman who wrote a bestselling novel but who now suffers from writer's block. Monte is happily married and has a young son but can't decide if he has another book in him or if he made a mistake quitting his job with the post office. He meets Glendon Hale, a self-confessed rascal seeking redemption, and follows him across country while being pursued by Charles Siringo, a real-life bounty hunter who infiltrated the Butch Cassidy gang while working for the Pinkerton detective agency.

Both books use the imagery of the old west as background for the main storyline. Enger has a way with words that will make it difficult for you to put either book down once you start reading.

The Stories Art Inspires

Recently I've read several books that are fictional accounts around the creation of famous works of art. I absolutely love this concept of taking one single image and painting lives and stories around what could have been. From some basic research it appears that the Tracy Chevalier books were mostly works of fiction - due to the lack of facts around the paintings themselves but the Renoir book had an insane amount of research behind it and I guess because of the late 19th century time period - had more accessible information.

Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
I thought this book was just okay - pretty predictable and I found the main character slightly annoying. She definitely had backbone and sense of self but other than this quivering to be an artist, she had no passion or appreciation for what was around her.

I understand historically her reluctance to be the master painter's model but I felt like in the book it built up to it too long and she just seemed whiny and wishy-washy.

I've never seen the movie but can totally see both Scarlett Johansen and Colin Firth in the two main roles.

The Lady and the Unicorn by Tracy Chevalier
I had never heard of this piece of work until Carrie and Elizabeth told me about it from their France trip. They were actually able to go and see the real tapestries. I downloaded a few to see them but the resolution is off and they are hard to actually see well - though the descriptions from the book are so vivid, that I painted a fairly good mental image.

I thought this book was much more interesting than Chevalier's book above. Each chapter had a different character perspective and there were several different story lines to follow, though all interconnected through one slightly sleazy artist. Like most books on the period, it had strong commentary about the antiquated place of women within society. I get why its important to discuss but at the same time, it sometimes can become like a broken record - maybe I should just take a break from period books...


Luncheon of the Boating Party by Susan Vreeland
I absolutely LOVED this book! It was told mostly from Auguste Renoir's perspective, but had a few insights from other characters, and told the story Renoir's "moment in time" painting that combines several artistic techniques. According to the book he was warring with his Impressionist leanings and critiques from social commentators on how to incorporate more life into his art.

The whole time he was painting, I fell in love with the characters - who were all his actual friends- they were celebrating "la vie moderne" and celebrating life and love as actively as humans can. Just looking at the painting I was jealous, I want to be at that party! I want to sit out on a balcony after some amazing food and wine, relaxing and chatting with my friends! Maybe that is the success of the painting - the overwhelming desire to be apart of it.

It's fun to blow up the picture to be huge and really look at it closely - the level of detail was amazing and just trying to imagine coordinating 12 people for sittings is insane.

According to Wikipedia - the people in the painting are:

• The seamstress Aline Charigot, holding a dog, sits near the bottom left of the composition. Renoir would later marry her.

• Charles Ephrussi—wealthy amateur art historian, collector, and editor of the Gazette des Beaux-Arts—appears wearing a top hat in the background. The younger man to whom Ephrussi appears to be speaking, more casually attired in a brown coat and cap, may be Jules Laforgue, his personal secretary and also a poet and critic.

• Actress Ellen Andrée drinks from a glass in the center of the composition. Seated across from her is Baron Raoul Barbier.

• Placed within but peripheral to the party are the proprietor's daughter Louise-Alphonsine Fournaise and her brother, Alphonse Fournaise, Jr., both sporting traditional straw boaters and appearing to the left side of the image. Alphonsine is the smiling woman leaning on the railing; Alphonse, who was responsible for the boat rental, is the leftmost figure.

• Also wearing boaters are figures appearing to be Renoir's close friends Eugène Pierre Lestringez and Paul Lhote, himself an artist. Renoir depicts them flirting with the actress Jeanne Samary in the upper righthand corner of the painting.

• In the right foreground, Gustave Caillebotte wears a white boater's shirt and flat-topped straw boater's hat as he sits backwards in his chair next to actress Angèle Legault and journalist Adrien Maggiolo. An art patron, painter, and important figure in the impressionist circle, Caillebotte was also an avid boatman and drew on that subject for several works.