Book Review: She Walks in Beauty by Caroline Kennedy

She Walks in Beauty: A Woman's Journey Through Poems by Caroline Kennedy

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This is a wonderful book for those who enjoy poetry, especially women. This is the answer to "What do you want for your birthday/anniversary/Mother's Day?" or just to read next, although I recommend owning a copy so you can savor the book over time. (Thanks, Caiti!) Caroline Kennedy has compiled a variety of thought-provoking, excellent poems that evoke the stages and feelings of life. Each section (e.g., Falling in Love; Breaking Up; Beauty, Clothes, and Things of This World; Friendship; How to Live) is preceded by a brief and insightful essay into the editor's choice of poems and their significance to her and to us. Read it with a pen to mark favorite passages and a pack of sticky notes so you can record your favorites in your "commonplace book" or collection of favorite quotes.

Kennedy chooses poetry from sources as early as the Bible and Euripedes, through familiar poets like Donne, Keats, Sappho, Millay, cummings, and the Brownings, to poets you may not be familiar with and poems from traditional folk sources. Some of my favorites: Margaret Atwood's "Variations on the Word Sleep"; W. S. Merwin's "To Paula in Late Spring"; Rumi's "Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing"; Barbara Ras's "You Can't Have It All"; St. Theresa of Avila's "May today there be peace within"; and Euripedes' "The Bacchae Chorus." This book is a treasure. Highly recommended.



View all my reviews

Book Review: As Always, Julia, edited by Joan Reardon

As Always, Julia: The Letters of Julia Child and Avis DeVoto by Julia Child

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


If you liked My Life in Paris and the movie Julie & Julia, you may really enjoy this book, which collects the correspondence between Julia Child and Avis DeVoto from their first contact when Julia was beginning to master the art of French cooking until and beyond the publication of her classic cookbook--a time during which they were "pen pals" and became best friends forever. The letters are well-edited and the editor, Joan Reardon, deserves recognition for doing a great job of filling in the blanks and identifying people and events mentioned in the letters that the reader might not know about. (She also translates the bits of French that creep into the letters.) Avis's letters are just as interesting, if not more so, than Julia's, as Avis was married to a famous and excellent writer, Bernard DeVoto, was a thinker and editor in her own right, and they knew many of the literary and other lights of society in their Harvard University/Cambridge, Massachusetts, community and throughout the country. In addition to the struggles and triumphs surrounding the writing and publication of Julia's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, the two women give a great depiction of their daily lives in the 1950s and the political climate in the United States at the time. (Both were horrified by the Communist witch hunt being conducted by Senator Joseph McCarthy and his House Unamerican Activities Committee; both were delighted years later by the election of President John F. Kennedy.)

Avis is the perfect friend and encouraging editor; without her, Julia may not have had the wherewithal to endure the years and setbacks involved in completing and publishing the cookbook. Also interesting are the details of Julia and her husband Paul Child's postings around Europe with Paul's job for the U.S. Information Service and the two friends' family and travel experiences. In addition to being a valuable chronicle for those interested in Child, the book is another addition to the growing body of resources on the value of women's daily lives and thoughts (in a vein similar to the historical work of Laurel Thatcher Ulrich). Brava! Highly recommended.



View all my reviews

Book Review: Fair Game by Valerie Plame Wilson

Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House by Valerie Plame Wilson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Valerie Plame Wilson, an undercover operative for the CIA, was "outed" by the Bush White House (a federal crime) in retaliation for her husband's opposition to the President's statement that Iraq had tried to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger--her husband, Joseph Wilson, was a former ambassador sent to investigate the Niger story and had reported to the CIA and the White House that the rumor was false. Nevertheless, the President included the story in his State of the Union address. This was during the time when the Bush administration was trying to make the case that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction as a reason for the United States to invade the country.

The revelation of Wilson's status put an end to her career, undermined some of the intelligence she had worked on and placed other CIA personnel and helpers in jeopardy, and resulted in the waste of thousands of dollars that the CIA had invested in this experienced, talented covert operative. She tells her story with the parts the CIA "redacted"--wouldn't allow her to reveal, including how many years she had worked there--"blacked out," but the story is still a fascinating read. An "afterword" by a journalist tells the full story, all of which was part of the public record anyway, so the CIA had questionable motives for disallowing its publication.

I enjoyed learning about the workings of the CIA and was impressed with the hard work and patriotism of our country's intelligence agents. I was shocked by the illegal revelation of Wilson's status for political and retaliatory motives. Our national security depends on the intelligence services being able to operate free of any political agenda, and that didn't happen in this case. Recommended for those interested in real-life spy stories and in the integrity of government.

View all my reviews

Book Review: Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This book is not an easy read, but it's a good read. The story of Ali's life and her journey from poverty and an abusive childhood and adolescence in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, and Kenya, to her position as a member of the Dutch Parliament, would be enough. But her insights as a woman raised in Islam are equally fascinating. Based on intense, repeated study of the Q'uran, Ali determines that, unlike the fashionable "line" would have people believe, Islam is not at heart a peaceful, tolerant religion that has been interpreted or twisted to oppress women and girls and to lead to wars and death threats (some carried out) against Muslims and non-Muslims who preach against it or portray it in a negative light. Instead, Ali determines, the basic tenets of the religion allow the oppression of women and children and their subjection to men in the name of submission to Allah's will, as well as the other violence--moderation, peace, and tolerance are the "interpretations," although of course there are Muslims who try to live in the latter way. But Ali says they are not following the "true" version of Islam, which she determines is not for her, or anyone who wants to do more than "submit." 60 Minutes did a segment on Ali after the murder of Theo Van Gogh, the Dutch film producer who was murdered by Muslim fanatics after he and Ali made a film that showed Islam as oppressive to women, so her story may sound familiar, but the book is a great deal more than a short TV segment could show. Highly recommended, but not for the faint of heart.



View all my reviews

Book Review: The Silence of God, by Gale Sears

The Silence of God by Gale Sears

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


This was a really good book, a faith-promoting story of an LDS family's survival during the Bolshevik Revolution--until I found out at the end that the faith-promoting part was entirely fiction, with only the bare outline of the beginnings of the story being fact. Sears says up front that this is, indeed, a "historical novel"--it's even on the cover. In the Acknowledgements, Sears writes, "This book is one of fiction, but the Lindlof family was a real family and were eyewitnesses to the tumultuous years surrounding the Bolshevik Revolution. The events depicted in the novel actually happened to them. To these elements I have been true" (pp. v-vi, emphasis added). So far so good--the book includes brief footnotes at the end of most chapters, defining terms and identifying various parties, like the "White Russians" and the Cheka--the secret police. These notes add to the historicity of the book. The author also gives her historical sources for various scenes where the Lindlofs were "eyewitnesses" to history in St. Petersburg (then Petrograd) during this time--although the characters' ability to witness so many major events and see or even meet historical figures strains credulity, but that is a common device in accounts that focus on actual events as seen through the eyes of fictional characters. Unfortunately, this book is meant to be the Lindlof family history, not a history of the Russian Revolution.



Then the Lindlof family is arrested by the secret police. The parents and youngest child are allowed to emigrate to Helsinki, Finland, and the other children--two daughters and three sons, in the novel--are sent to the infamous system of Soviet prison camps later known as the "gulag archipelago." At this point, a note to the chapter states, "The story of the Lindlofs' 1918 arrest by Cheka police was documented, as was the fate of the Lindlof children" (p. 174, note 2). So the reader carries on, believing that the remainder of the novel is based of the "documented fate" of the Lindlof children, that these "events actually happened to them," with the author filling in scenes and conversations that were not recorded by history, as historical novelists often do--within the outlines of the known history of the people in the book. This "history" of the Lindlof children truly evidences the hand of God and His miracles in saving them from some of the worst abuses of the gulag. The coincidences are presented as miracles, and, after all, truth is stranger than fiction. Then you reach the end of the book and learn, again in a footnote, that the story of the children in the camps is totally fiction--their actual fates were quite different. All that miraculous intervention had no basis in the Lindlofs' actual history.



The book not even a "historical" novel, much less an inspirational treatise, when the author departs so drastically from the little that is known about the family, drawing the reader away from what little truth is available after presenting the story as based on the available, "documented" history. I felt deceived and disappointed after enjoying the book and then discovering the "miracles" were completely made up. I'm surprised Deseret Book allowed the author to suggest that the "fate of the Lindlof children" as told in the novel "actually happened to them," because it didn't.



View all my reviews