AND SO IT GOES : KURT VONNEGUT, A LIFE
by Charles J. Shields

While he was alive, there were no entries in dictionaries about him. Critics were always hard on his writings dismissing them. He was much loved, though, by the young (college-aged) crowd. But his life in public and what he wrote in his books was a complete contradiction to his private persona. He was never a happy camper and always felt lonely.
Kurt Vonnegut grew up in a home with servants. His father, Kurt Sr., was an architect and his mother, Edith, was barely a parent. They entertained quite lavishly but never hugged their children. Kurt Jr.'s older brother, Bernard, was favored because he was gifted (he became a scientist), so he got the attention. The only time Kurt Jr. felt wanted was during the summer when the Vonnegut family would go to Lake Maxinkuckee in Indiana. Other relatives would be there for him lending support and sympathy. (Having an extended family was one of the features in his books.)
Nobody listened to him (he was the youngest child) and the only way he could change that was to tell ridiculous stories that made people laugh. Humor became one of his strengths which he would use later in life when he would appear at events.
High school is when he began to write and it would become all-consuming to him. He also picked up two bad vices: alcohol and cigarettes (he smoked only Pall Malls) and could never shake off these addictions.
By the time Vonnegut was in college (Cornell and a science major), he was writing pretty steadily. He never graduated and enlisted in the army and became part of the 106th division that were captured by the Germans. (He saw the bombing of Dresden.) All of the POWs were housed in a huge slaughterhouse (supposed to be used for animals). The name of the compound was Schlachthof-Funf: Slaughterhouse-Five.
When Vonnegut returned from the war, he got married and he and his wife had four children. Soon enough, there would be four more but they would be his sister's boys. She died of cancer and her husband was killed in a train crash. Vonnegut was a terrible father. He ignored his kids (they thought of him more as a friend) because he was always holed up in his study writing. His relationship with his wife wasn't much better (he had dalliances on the side). They lived pretty meagerly since he was the sole breadwinner. He had written quite a few articles for magazines and a couple of novels but nobody knew who he was. Slaughterhouse-Five finally put him on the map and he really never had to write another book again. At the age of fifty, he was wealthy.
Having read Vonnegut's novels in high school and college, I never really considered what the man was like behind his writings. Charles J. Shields has brought him to the surface and it's very revealing. It took Shields five years to compose his research from interviews with Vonnegut, friends, family, neighbors and fifteen hundred letters. He gives you such a bird's-eye view that you feel as if you are a part of an intimate story.
The book is a real page-turner and very engrossing.
Highly recommended.

RUNNING AWAY TO HOME : ONE FAMILY'S JOURNEY TO CROATIA IN SEARCH OF WHO WE ARE, WHERE WE CAME FROM, AND WHAT REALLY MATTERS
by Jennifer Wilson

Why not go to Croatia for a sabbatical? Life is much simpler in this country and you can live off the land. This is what Jennifer Wilson, her husband, Jim, and their two children, Zadie and Sam did in 2008. They had lost half of their savings in the stock market crash and were stuck in a rut in Des Moines, Iowa. Jennifer's great-grandparents had left Croatia over one hundred years ago for America and she thought about returning to the homeland to discover her roots, find the graves of the relatives, talk to people who might have known them, try and look for their residences.
They spend four months, during the summer, in Mrkopalj living amonst 800 people, cavorting with the locals, drinking quite a bit of booze (adults only), attempting to learn the near impossible Croatian language, taking trips to the coast, attempting to milk the neighbor's cows, learning about the difficult history with the wars and the privation that followed, chopping wood, eating plenty of potatoes and sausage.
Running Away to Home is a fun, down-to-earth book about reconnecting with family no matter where you search for them.
The writing is very good and though it's difficult, at times, to read the names of people and places in Croatian, there is a glossary at the end with the phonetic pronunciations.
I really enjoyed the book. It's one of those feel-good reads.
Recommended.

THE STORY OF CHARLOTTE'S WEB : E. B. WHITE'S ECCENTRIC LIFE IN NATURE AND THE BIRTH OF AN AMERICAN CLASSIC
by Michael Sims

Charlotte's Web has sold millions of copies. It's the best children's book ever published in the United States according to a poll of librarians, authors, teachers, and publishers. Since 2010, it has been translated into thirty-five languages. For a very shy man who didn't like being in the limelight, that changed abruptly with the book's publication.
Elwyn Brooks White was always happier around animals than he was with humans. Growing up in Mount Vernon, New York, there was a stable behind the house with horses, chickens, geese, and rabbits. The darkness, the strong smells, the earthiness would be his refuge.
Elwyn began writing at an early age and was transfixed by nature. When he was ten, he wrote a poem about a mouse, sent it off to a magazine and was awarded a prize for it. Very soon, he was contributing to a periodical for children and joined a whole parade of, at that time, unknown teenagers: Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, E. Vincent Millay, and others.
When Elwyn went off to Cornell University in 1917, he changed his first name to Andy because one of the college's cofounders was named Andrew and Elwyn never liked his given name.
Journalism was his calling and when he graduated, he submitted his writings to different columnists. The New Yorker would be the magazine to hire Andy in 1927 and there he would write his columns for over thirty years.
Andy would buy a farm in Maine with his wife, Katharine, (she was the editor of The New Yorker) and it's here that his imagination blossomed. Charlotte's Web would be conceived from his experiences with animals and all of his cherished memories as a child and as an adult.
What a wonderful book. Michael Sims captures all of the nuances of White's character; why the spider was called Charlotte; how he created the story (it took him six years to write); who was used as an illustrator; how natural history about arachnids was brought in.
The latter part of the book is when Andy started on his classic. It's interesting to read his sentences especially when he crosses out words but you can still see them underneath the markings. He was a perfectionist and was forever making revisions.
Besides his masterpiece, Andy wrote seventeen other books. Remember Stuart Little? And there's The Elements of Style which students use in college.
It's obvious that E. B. White was quite prolific and Sims, seamlessly, brings everything together.
Beautiful writing and a pure delight to read.
Very highly recommended.

DEATH IN THE CITY OF LIGHT : THE SERIAL KILLER OF NAZI-OCCUPIED PARIS
by David King

For four years, during World War II, Paris was in the throes of the Nazi Occupation. The French would suffer from hunger, fear, tyranny and terror. It would become their darkest time in history. Admist all of this wretchedness, one man would inflict the most heinous crimes on the innocent. He was true evil incarnate.
On a particular night in March of 1944, thick black smoke streamed out of a town house in the fashionable district of the 16th arrondissement. The smell was especially putrid. Nobody was home and nobody could enter. Firemen were called to the scene and a window was smashed open. The horrific odor was traced to the basement where a coal stove was burning. Dismembered human body parts were scattered throughout. It got worse and there were more nightmares discovered.
The owner of this illustrious place became the instant suspect. He was Dr. Marcel Petiot who, ironically, was called "The People's Doctor" because he was kind, generous and gave free medical treatment to the poor. Supposedly, he was a member of the French Resistance (Petiot constantly bragged about that) and saved many by his vast network. He would charge an exorbitant amount of money with no questions asked of him. The evacuees were so anxious to leave that they readily agreed. They were never seen or heard from again. The number of missing persons kept increasing. At the time of Petiot's arrest, it was up to twenty-seven murders but the total, many believed, was even higher.
The trial was a total farce due to the prosecution's negligence of asking questions that missed the main points, ignoring the convoluted and contradictory answers and never seeming to be in control of the situation.
Petiot, on the other hand, was in his element. He was the star of the show being both brilliant and arrogant which the spectators ate up.
Death in the City of Light is quite a book. The amount of research (incredible details) is astounding. At times, it can be quite grisly but the tale is so absorbing that you cannot turn away.
If you like to read true-crime, this one is a winner.
Highly recommended.

ASSASSINS OF THE TURQUOISE PALACE
by Roya Hakakian

In 1992, on a beautiful autumn evening in Berlin, eight men who were members of an Iranian and Kurdish opposition group gathered for dinner at a small restaurant. This event was something that they had all looked forward to for days. It would be short-lived. No sooner had they started eating, when two men walked in and shot twenty-six bullets in two rounds. There would be four survivors.
The next day began the guessing game concerning the perpetrators. It would not take long for the federal prosecutor to focus in on the regime of Iran. Since 1980, one year after Khomeini rose to power, a list was created for "enemies of Islam." Anybody who was considered an opponent: artists, writers, intellectuals, political activists were silenced, thrown in prison or executed. A total of five hundred people were being hunted down all over the world.
The eventual trial would last four years and the verdict caused quite a shake-up.
The book is superb with both riveting and beautiful writing. I was captivated from just reading the first page. Author Roya Hakakian is a Persian poet and her previous book, a memoir, "Journey To The Land Of No" is gorgeous and lyrical. So, she obviously knows how to dazzle the senses.
Not to be missed.
Very highly recommended.

DESTINY OF THE REPUBLIC : A TALE OF MADNESS, MEDICINE, AND THE MURDER OF A PRESIDENT
by Candice Millard

Four months after being shot by a crazed individual named Charles Guiteau and close to death, James A. Garfield wondered what kind of legacy he would leave behind as the president of the United States. Had he lived, he could have been, most likely, the best man to ever serve in the White House. Up until this time, his life had been truly extraordinary. Born into abject poverty (his father died when Garfield was barely two years old) his mother instilled dignity, an incredible work ethic and a solid educational background in him. This would be his backbone.
As a student, he loved to be challenged and was always pushing himself. Garfield turned out to be quite a scholar. When he couldn't pay the tuition for his schooling during his first year, he worked as a janitor. By the second year, Garfield was promoted to assistant professor and taught literature, mathematics, and ancient languages along with three other subjects.
His brilliance continued when he became a general in the Union Army and won an important battle. Soon after, Garfield was elected to Congress. He fought for the equality of freed slaves.
His speeches were legendary. People would listen spellbound, so when he took the podium at the Republican National Convention in 1880 to nominate John Sherman for the presidency, his oratorical skills so completely captivated the audience that at the end of the speech, they were screaming for him not Sherman. Their reaction stunned him. He tried to put them off to no avail.
Garfield was nominated and won the presidency most reluctantly.
What a tremendous book! The writing is absolutely superb. Candice Millard captures everything that went on during that time period so astutely and you just cannot stop reading nor do you want to. There's so much fascinating information that will not be divulged but here are some tidbits: the doctors who treated Garfield and what they did and did not do is very disturbing and appalling; Alexander Graham Bell attempts to save the president (not by the telephone) and works long hours trying to perfect his latest invention; the madman's reason of why he shot the president; the political infighting behind the scenes.
If you're a history nut or just want to be blown away by exceptional storytelling, get a copy of this book. You won't be disappointed.
Very highly recommended.

THE ARROGANT YEARS : ONE GIRL'S SEARCH FOR HER LOST YOUTH, FROM CAIRO TO BROOKLYN
by Lucette Lagnado

Four years ago, Lucette Lagnado wrote The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit which was a portrait of her father, Leon, who walked the boulevards of Cairo so proud of himself and of what he had accomplished. The book was a terrific story and now a follow-up memoir has just been published.
In The Arrogant Years, Lucette writes about her mother, Edith and herself. Edith grew up in Old Cairo rather poor. There was no father (he had left early on) and Edith's mother, Alexandra, obsessively doted on her daughter. A lover of French literature, Edith would become a schoolteacher and a librarian. She was beautiful, vibrant, intelligent and charming and caught the eye of a much older man one day in a cafe. They got married and she had to give up her career much to her dismay.
By the early 1950s, the political situation had changed in Egypt. King Farouk was forced to abdicate. The Jews were terrified (under the kings they were protected) and started leaving the country in droves.
Lucette was born during the chaos in 1956. Seven years later, the entire family would try and rebuild the hearth in New York. Being an immigrant in a new country was tough and Lagnado tried desperately to fit in. Her many trials and tribulations (at the age of sixteen, she would be quite ill with Hodgkin's lymphoma) only made her that much stronger. While her confidence grew, her parents' struggles deepened.
I didn't want this book to end, at all. I read everything even the Acknowledgments which, most times, are long-winded with a million names. She makes it interesting breaking sections up by countries because the people who helped in her research were all over the world.
Lagnado is a wonderful writer and really knows how to showcase a family's history with such honesty and emotion.
Very highly recommended.