The Contemporary Books Discussion Groups will be reading at least one  book a year (till 2015) in commemoration of the sesquicentennial of the American Civil War.  “The March” refers to what happened in 1864  when Union General William Tecumseh Sherman burned Atlanta and marched 60,000 troops east through Georgia to the sea and then north into the Carolinas.

This is a novel but, according to reviews, Doctorow did a lot a research to be as accurate as possible with dates, places, and attitudes.  There are many fascinating characters from both North and South, from historical to purely fictional,  from slaves to plantation owners, from committed troops to deserters, from nurses to photographers, from Generals to conscripts, all with their own unique stories.   What a chaotic, complicated, tragic time period this was!

A couple of my favorite characters were the Union doctor from Germany, Wrede Sartorius, and the southern aristocrat, Emily Thompson, who worked for a time as his nurse after her home was destroyed.   Many people at the discussion loved reading about the evolution of Pearl, the young mulatto slave girl.  And some liked Will and Arly, the Southerners condemned to death because one “just wanted to go home” and the other fell asleep while on guard duty.  And then there was the unforgettable Albion Simms who lived with a large stake jammed in his skull.

For those of you who think history is dry and just want a good story (but still want to learn something), this may be a book for you.  Doctorow’s plot is complex but compelling.  Some may be put off at first when they realize that quotations marks are never used to designate dialogue.  But most readers quickly get used to it.  Think of all the ink that was saved!  And if you’re in a book group, contemplating why Doctorow specified no quotation marks is a topic for discussion.

I’ve encountered some readers who want to read only nonfiction about the Civil War.  I like to quote from Wallace Stegner: “In fiction I think we should have no agenda but to tell the truth.”  There is much truth to be learned from both fiction and nonfiction.  These days I definitely like to embrace both and encourage fans of both to periodically try the other.  That’s just part of my job as an information librarian.

We have an annotated Civil War fiction bibliography available and for browsing the Civil War nonfiction, the Dewey Decimal Number is 973.73.

Drama: an actor’s education

You may recognize John Lithgow as an award-winning actor on stage, in movies and on television, or even as the author of eight children’s books.  His latest book, Drama: An Actor’s Education, is a very personal memoir of his life as an actor, rather than an autobiography.  Lithgow prefaces the book with the month he spent as a caregiver to his 86-year old father.  His father was having a difficult recovery from surgery and seemed to have lost the will to live, until Lithgow rediscovered the family’s favorite short story book.  In a moment of inspiration, he read to his father one of the stories his father used to read to him – P.G. Wodehouse’s  Uncle Fred Flits By. His father laughed, began to recover, and Lithgow had a revelation about the importance of storytelling and acting as a career.

This memoir is a tribute to his father, Arthur Lithgow, who was also an actor, director, and producer of many Shakespeare festivals and summer repertory companies.  Arthur achieved some respect but not much success in his theater career. The family was constantly moving and living on the edge financially.  Lithgow first describes these days from a child’s viewpoint of fun, and then with the more realistic insight of a mature adult.  I enjoyed John Lithgow’s tales of growing up in summer theater, as I have spent many summers doing Shakespeare with my family, although on a more amateur level.  Many of his tales describe the difficulties common to any young person who is constantly moving from school to school and trying to fit in.  Lithgow learned to act his way to popularity and acceptance in school and later on Broadway.  Very few actors attain the level of success of Lithgow, and as you would expect, the story of his acting life is a tale of skill, hard work, and what seem to be random chances.  I recommend this very personal book which is also one man’s musing on the arts and why they are important.

This is the first title in the Sister Frevisse Medieval Mystery series.  It takes place in 1431 at St. Fredeswide’s Priory in England.  The frail and saintly novice Thomasine is close to making her final vows, but her aunt, the blaspheming, hard-drinking Lady Ermentrude has other plans for Thomasine.  When Ermentrude dies suddenly, Sister Frevisse, the hosteler of the priory and an amateur sleuth, fears murder and the most likely suspect is Thomasine.

Sister Frevisse is an interesting multi-layered character with a tie to the outside world through her uncle Thomas Chaucer, a real-life relative of the author of “The Canterbury Tales”.  The titles in this series are take-offs of “Canterbury Tales” characters, and quotations from Chaucer serve as epilogues.  All the nuns at the Priory are distinct individuals from the prioress to the cook to the herbalist.  They exhibit varying degrees of “saintliness”.   It’s fun to get to know them.

Margaret Frazer is a stickler for accuracy.  Even her vocabulary has to include only words available in the 15th century.  If a modern word had a different meaning in the 15th century, she finds a 15th century substitute.  She wrote in an essay: “Trying to hold to medieval vocabulary provides me with an insight into the time and keeps me from imposing alien concepts on the characters while giving readers a subtle sense of being there instead of here, of being then instead of now.”  Another interesting fact is that women in the Middle Ages had a surprising amount of power and rights.

If you like medieval mysteries or mysteries with nun detectives, ask for the If You Like Margaret Frazer bibliography.

Lionheart  is, of course, about another Richard, one of the four surviving sons of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. He is generally considered a warrior king, absent from England for much of his reign. He led the Third Crusade, hoping to free the city of Jerusalem from the Infidels, but never set foot in the Holy City himself. Richard was forced to declare a truce with Saladin and leave the Holy Land when his younger brother, John, tried to take over his kingdom and his crown.

Don’t be intimidated by the length of the book, or the 3- page cast of characters at the beginning.  Penman introduces each character so smoothly and completely, you won’t even have to refer to the guide after a while. In the Afterword, Penman promises to continue Richard’s story in her next book,  A  King’s Ransom. I can’t wait!

By 1958, Harry and Snowman were the grand champions of the horse show in Madison Square Garden, inspiring milions with the horse’s rags-to-riches story. He even appeared on the Johnny Carson Show!

If you liked “Seabiscuit” by Laura  Hillenbrand, you will enjoy reading the true story of the plow horse that became a champion and his owner who never gave up.

After we did our study of non-fiction this past summer, I was left with a lengthy list of titles on my to-do list.  I decided to dip in with the most appetizing, so to speak.  Ruth Reichl was the restaurant critic for the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times and editor-in-chief of Gourmet  magazine.  This is a woman who knows food.

And she knows how to write about it.  In Garlic and Sapphires, she talks about a broth that she ate at Lespinasse, “The shimeji mushrooms went sliding sensuously across my tongue with the lush texture of custard.”  That sentence inspired a perfect picture in my mind of the feel of mushrooms.  Reichl knows that great food isn’t just about taste, but involves all the senses.  A few sentences later, she describes a tuna dish, “The clear, almost translucent fish had been tumbled with caviar so that it glowed, deep red, like rubies among black pearls.”  Can’t you just see that in your mind’s eye?

So far, I’ve read two of her four books (Tender at the Bone and Garlic and Sapphires), and her other two are on my to-read list.  But first I have to head to the kitchen.  I don’t know if I’ll try the recipes that she lists, but her loving descriptions of good food have made me long for some comfort food of my own.

When I’m looking for an eBook to read, I’ve been known to bemoan the lack of serendipity – the simple joy of stumbling across a title on the shelf that grabs my eye.  Well, I will bemoan no more.  Last one evening last week, I ran out of books and was scanning through the fantasy novels available through the Library’s Overdrive subscription.  I stumbled across His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik, the first of the Temeraire novels.  In the intervening week and a half, I’ve read the first four books and most of the fifth book in the series.  My house is dirty, I’ve neglected my sleep, my children are going hungry.  Okay, not that last one, but that may just be because they have a very conscientious and loving father.

Novik sets her series in England during the Napoleonic wars in a world where dragons exist, both feral and domesticated.  Both Great Britain and France have Aerial Corps, dragons trained to fighting with full human crews aboard them.  In Great Britain, the Corps is a necessary evil; they’re not respected, but they are relied upon.  When William Laurence, a Navy man through and through, discovers a dragon egg among the spoils of a sea battle, he does everything he can to get it back to England before it hatches.  At that point, the dragonet will attach itself to the first person to harness and feed it, and there are any number of young men in the Corps who want that dubious honor.

Unfortunately for Laurence, the dragonet has something else in mind.  Not only does it hatch while still at sea, it completely disregards the  young man that is supposed to impress the dragon and ends up attaching itself to Laurence, which does it for his Naval career.  He’s a member of the Corps now, whether he wants to be or not.

Novik has done her dragon research; she stays true to many dragon legends, but still brings new ideas.  Why not have a crew of thirty or fifty men aboard a huge dragon?  Why not incorporate them into all aspects of warfare?  Why not make them inquisitive, petulant, greedy, honorable and all of the other traits that any human army will also contain?  If you’re into the descriptions of battles, I’ve read other reviews that indicate the Novik does them well.  I admit to doing some skimming there.  But the relationship between Laurence and Temeraire is beautiful, and watching Temeraire force Laurence’s notions of honor and duty to their full potential and beyond over the course of the series results in some very suspenseful reading.  I can’t put ‘em down.  Really.  Just ask my children.

The Novels of Temeraire

Packing for Mars

The author visited the labs where the astronauts train and even participated in some of the exercises, so her writing, as well as being funny, is very authentic. Roach’s writing style is extremely non-technical and easily understood by the layman.

This book makes me want to read one of her others: Stiff (about cadavers), Spook (the afterlife), and Bonk (about sex).