Everybody Rise by Stephanie Clifford

Jerry Lee Lewis: His Own Story by Rick Bragg

Note to celebrities looking to publish their memoirs: forget about the ghost writer trying to tell your story in your own voice. Find a quality writer who has some knowledge about what it is that you do and let do what they do best and articulate your story. That's what Jerry Lee Lewis did with Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Bragg, author of All Over But the Shoutin' and The Prince of Frogtown. Bragg does an outstanding job of capturing Lewis' story and voice and has produced a real page-turner.

Born in poverty in Louisiana, at first glance Lewis seemed unlikely to take the world by storm with his music (he had one formal piano lesson in his life) Lewis spends much of his early life trying to reconcile his family's religious convictions with his desire to play the devil's music. Growing up close to his cousin, Jimmy Swaggart, Lewis bounced between playing churches and juke joints and even enrolled in seminary for a short while. He was too rough hewn for many established record labels but found a home at Sun Records, home to Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash. Lewis's insights on contemporaries such as Elvis, Cash, Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry are some of the highlights of this book.

Lewis's career was starting to flounder when he convinced Sam Phillips to send him to New York City for a last ditch attempt to give him some national exposure. The gamble paid off when a rollicking version of Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On (complete with piano bench being kicked across the studio floor) on The Steve Allen Show let the world know that he was a special talent. Great Balls of Fire and Breathless would soon follow and these great singles as well as half-crazed marathon shows made him the hottest star in the country.

Unfortunately, Lewis's fall would be swift, as he took his new bride Myra with him on his first tour of  Great Britain. When the British tabloids got word that his third wife was not only 13 when they were married but was a cousin as well, he was hounded and run out of the country before he could play all of his shows. While he had been advised to leave her at home, his orneriness became apparent in his insistence that he had done nothing wrong and would bring her with him, reporters be damned. Unfortunately this bad press sent his career into a long drought, although Lewis would never quit producing records or performing.

Following years of drug abuse, car wrecks (including a fantastic one at Graceland), concert fights, near-death hospital stays and even a role in a modern adaptation of Shakespeare, Lewis started to get the recognition that he deserved as he was initiated in the first class of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Amazingly, at 79 Lewis is still producing albums and playing live. In this book he is fiercely unrepentant about a life that has brought him seven marriages, IRS troubles and a constant internal struggle between darkness and light.

Bragg does a fantastic job at bringing Lewis's colorful history into the light without making any of it seem trashy, which could have been easy given the material. He gives readers a sympathetic taste of the South in which Lewis was raised, which is as familiar as Mars to me. Bragg nicely colors the facts of Lewis's life with Lewis's own takes on his motivations and desires. All-in-all this book was everything that a memoir should be - a well-written fresh look at a fascinating person.

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At the Water's Edge by Sara Gruen

 At the Water's Edge, the latest novel from Sara Gruen (Water for Elephants), transports us to a small Scottish village at the height of World War II. Our heroine, Maddie Hyde, is a young woman who has come from a wealthy but loveless home. When she is sent away to a prestigious school, she meets Ellis, her future (and worthless) husband, heir to the Hyde fortune. When she and Ellis make a serious faux pas at a Philadelphia New Year's Eve party, they are thrown out of the Hyde mansion and Ellis' allowance is severely cut. In an attempt to redeem the family honor, Ellis, school chum, Hank, and less willingly, Maddie, embark on an adventure to find the Loch Ness monster.

This is an adventure story that employs a journey motif. Staying in an inn without running water or electricity and surrounded by a cast of quirky characters, Maddie senses the shallowness of her life. But most important, she sees the truth about her marriage. As she struggles to find the Loch Ness monster, she discovers something far more important--the monsters within oneself.

If you are a fan of Sara Gruen, or simply looking for a light read, you will enjoy At the Water's Edge.

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The Secret Wisdom of the Earth by Christopher Scotton

 The Secret Wisdom of the Earth has been compared to To Kill A Mockingbird (for its small town aura), Cold Mountain (for its gorgeous descriptions of mountainous nature) and Flight Behavior (for presenting the reader with environmental information in the context of a page-turning novel.) Scotton’s writing has further been compared to that of Mark Twain and John Irving.

14-year old Kevin and his mother Anne arrive from Indiana to spend the summer at Anne’s father’s house in Medgar, Kentucky, deep in coal mining country. Kevin’s younger brother died in a tragic accident, and his father hopes that he and his mother will benefit from time away at Anne’s childhood home. 

“Pops,” Anne’s father, is the revered town veterinarian. He enlists Kevin as his assistant, taking him in and out of the rural hollers to treat animals of all kinds. Kevin makes friends with a local boy, Buzzy Fink, who introduces Kevin to swimming holes, hiking trails, and long standing country traditions. Pops takes the boys on a ritual two week “tramp” through the mountains, during which time they will live off the land, and fend for themselves. The three of them face unexpected obstacles on their journey; roles switch as Kevin and Buzzy take their turns as the hero.

Several subplots simmer beneath the surface of this coming of age/journey novel.

Mining has long been a source of jobs in Medgar, but the new method of coal mining, which involves literally blowing the tops off of the mountains, has pitted the locals against each other. Set in 1985, the story also addresses the small town resident’s attitudes toward homosexuality. Mr. Paul has grown up among them, and everyone has known that he has a special relationship with his housemate. When Mr. Paul organizes locals in protest against the mountain top removal of coal, things get ugly, and his personal life is exposed in public.

I recommend this book for so many reasons. It is old fashioned story telling at its best: the book spans one summer without jumping back in forth in time, or using multiple narrative points of view.  Christopher Scotton’s powers of description are amazing, his characters vivd. 

Nancy

The Greatest Knight by Thomas Asbridge

William Marshall was born the younger son of a minor English noble and as a result, was legally landless. His life was also chaotic; when he was only five years old his father gave him to the king as surety for a debt. While this solved some of his father's problems it was dangerous for William. Enraged that the debt was not paid in money the king sentenced the five-year old William to death by hanging. Luckily, cooler heads prevailed and William escaped the noose. He grew up to become  a wealthy knight and in time, rose to the rank of Earl.

William was the consummate knight, both battle tested and a tournament champion. The model of the chivalrous knight, William was was anything but soft  toward his enemies. He served five British kings, beginning with Henry II and his queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine. William's influence extended to his helping negotiate the terms of the Magna Carta. His life was never a calm one as the politics of the time required shifting alliances and a cool head.

Thomas Asbridge was able to tell William's colorful story thanks to the earthing of a 13th century biography of the knight. In 1861, a French scholar bought the volume, the only known copy, at auction and it has been kept in various private collections. This book is rich in historical detail and includes genealogical charts and maps, which add to the story.

What Comes Next and How to Like It, by Abigail Thomas

Even before I opened the book, I was intrigued by its title: What Comes Next and How to Like It, as well as the author photo. Thomas, a beautiful woman "of a certain age" is seated in an idyllic wooded landscape and surrounded by four dogs.

From the first page, I was captivated by her writing. The book is arranged in chronological vignettes that comprise the thoughts of and the key events in the author's life. Her comments range from the most mundane (a broken dishwasher) to the most sacrosanct (the bond between a mother and her daughter; the love for a best friend). Interspersed among these reflections are hilarious observations, such as when she reflects on her youthful sexual exploits when seeing a new gynecologist.

"Have you had more than one sexual partner?" the doctor asked.
"Yes," I said. Land sakes, yes.
"More than five?"
"Quite a few more," I said, as modestly as I could. I didn't want to appear to be bragging, so I added, by way of explanation, "It was the sixties."
It turned out that Medicare will pay for certain yearly exams if you have had more than five sexual partners. Who knew?" 

Wry observations about aging abound in this wonderful book. I laughed aloud at many passages while others brought me to tears. Thomas details her deep friendship with a literary agent, Chuck Verrel. Their friendship spans 35 years and includes a sexual betrayal that a lesser person may not have forgiven.

Because this is written in first person narration, the reader follows her as death flirts with those Ms. Thomas holds most dear. Depression and alcoholism trail closely behind.

Ultimately, What Comes Next and How to Like It is an inspirational book portraying an all-too-human narrator as she copes with the travails that are part of living. Above all, it details friendship and familial love that triumphs over devastating obstacles--and does so with humor and grace. In the author's words:

"Love can accommodate all sorts of misshapen objects: a door held open for a city dog who runs into the woods; fences down; some role you didn't ask for, didn't want. Love allows for betrayal and loss and dread. Love is roomy. Love can change its shape, be known by different names. Love is elastic.

And the dog comes back."


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Read Bottom Up by Neel Shah and Skye Chatham

Looking for something funny, clever and amusing to read? If so, this is the book for you!

I laughed out loud while reading it and have been recommending it ever since.

Read Bottom Up is about the treacherous and amusing world of  modern dating. Two young single New Yorkers, Madeline and Elliott, meet at a restaurant opening and attempt to date and form a relationship which is aided and abetted by technology.   

What makes this book work is the way that the story is told: Madeline and Elliot’s relationship develops in a series of emails and texts sent between them. Immediately the reader sees how easy it is for each of them to misinterpret the other’s words, sent flying through cyberspace. 

Adding another layer to their communication woes is that Madeline also texts and emails her best friend, Emily, often including portions of Elliot’s communiqués for Emily’s interpretation and analysis. Elliot is texting and emailing his best friend, David, asking him for advice on Madeline’s emails and texts. The reader has to laugh as these emails are played out on the page, every word and punctuation mark worried over for hidden meaning. Then add in the ability for Madeline and Elliot to follow each other’s Twitter feeds, and Facebook posts - there is so much room for error!

 Read Bottom Up is a quick read and complete with a happily ever after ending.

It's a Long Story: My Life by Willie Nelson

I can't stop reading rock and roll memoirs! The latest is Willie Nelson's It's a Long Story: My Life. I find Nelson's approach to life inspirational; he follows his muse from moment to moment, despite occasional doubts from people in his personal or business life.

Nelson's music has never been easy to pigeonhole. Ostensibly cataloged as country, his recordings include his takes on jazz, rock and the great American songbook. Nelson recounts instances where producers and record companies tried to get him to change his approach but in light of his success, it seems that the Willie Nelson sound trumps any genre.

It's a Long Story follows Nelson as he chases his muse from tiny Abbott, Texas to Nashville to Hawaii, with lots of stops between. His career got a boost in Nashville when he wrote hit songs for the likes of Patsy Cline, Faron Young and Roy Orbison but Nashville's cookie cutter style never seemed to fit Nelson. It wasn't until he teamed up with Columbia Records' Jerry Wexler that he became a star. Wexler was wise enough to let Willie be Willie and not overproduce his unique sound.

Of course the book also treats us to Willie's thoughts on marijuana (and related incidents), as he has become its outspoken proponent over the years. His battle with the IRS (blamed on a corrupt business manager) and many acting gigs are also discussed, as are a number of "life on the road" stories. He doesn't go into a ton of detail about family and personal life but guides us through his many marriages (and divorces) in a gentle way that makes us realize that there's probably not a lot of bitterness there.

This book is a fun read and captures Willie Nelson's easygoing life philosophy quite well. It reads like an old bandana and pair of blue jeans. If you're a fan of Nelson's music or just want a peek at his personal journey you'll like It's a Long Story.

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Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

 Life After Life, is termed a "companion work" to Kate Atkinson's latest epic, A God in Ruins, published this year. Life After Life's main character, Ursula, dies at the end of each chapter only to be reborn in the next. In between, Atkinson evokes the main events of the twentieth century and provides enough revisionist history to cover any and all "what-ifs." As Francine Prose so eloquently summarized in The New York Times Sunday Book Review: 

'Life After Life makes the reader acutely conscious of an author's power: how much the novelist can do. Kill a character, bring her back. Start a world war or prevent one. Bomb London, destroy Berlin. Write a scene from one point of view, then rewrite it from another. Try it this way, then that. Make our character perish in a bombed-out building during the blitz, then make her part of the rescue team that (in a scene with the same telling details) tries unsuccessfully to save her. 

The novel that is created using this technique is nothing short of fabulous. Just as A God in Ruins focuses on the beloved character of Teddy, Life After Life acquaints us with his sister, Ursula Todd. But in A God in Ruins, there is little belief in past lives or an after-life. There are no do-overs and certainly no opportunities to re-write history. That is the distinguishing difference between the two books.

Life After Life may be read either before or after A God in Ruins. Although each book can be read singularly, the experience will be far richer if one is better acquainted with the main characters' early lives. Fox Corner, home to young Ursula, Teddy, Pamela, Freddie and Maurice, is an idyllic place--serene and beautiful. As we see in A God in Ruins, it symbolizes an England that harkens to the past and is ultimately overrun by development and "progress."

(During The Blitz),Ursula thought that she would rather die for Fox Corner than "England." For meadow and copse and the stream that ran through the bluebell wood. Well, that was England, wasn't it? The blessed plot.

But Eden has its snake, too, albeit a somewhat comic one. Maurice, the eldest son of Sylvie and Hugh, is a callous boy, shooting every creature that crosses his path. He is depicted as a child who requires little worry--he seems remarkably resilient. Later in life, we see how his egocentric nature keeps him out of harm's way and allows him to rise in government positions. Both he and eccentric Aunt Izzie provide wry humor, and along with parents Hugh and Sylvie, underscore the complexities of family dynamics.

Indeed, Atkinson's descriptions of familial love provide some of the most moving passages in the book. They underscores how important human connections with others--including animals--are in the face of unpredictable events.


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A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson

A God in Ruins, by Kate Atkinson, is a saga that takes two of the main characters in her earlier work, Life After Life--Ursula and Teddy--and focuses on their lives both during and after WWII. In particular, it centers on Teddy, Ursula's brother--the heroic R.A.F. pilot who survives 70 bombing raids over Nazi Germany. The story seamlessly weaves between his harrowing experiences in the war and his later life as a civilian.

A God in Ruins is as much about England as it is about Teddy. Although not an anti-war book, Atkinson, as well as her characters, expresses moral ambivalence about the "collateral damage" wreaked upon citizens. Ursula asks Teddy whether he feels uneasy about bombing innocent civilians. His reply, at that time, reflects the certainty of a military man:

How do you define 'innocent' anyway?, Teddy rebuts...Workers in factories that are making bombs?...(Those in the Siemens factories in Berlin?--the company that supplied electrical parts to the concentration camps and 'had manufactured the ovens for the concentration camp crematoria'. And let's not forget it was the Germans who started this war.
"I rather think we started it at Versailles," Ursula said quietly.

But in later life, doubts linger:

Yet even then,...all those years later, he found that in the long dark watches of the night, plagued by insomnia, he would recite those names. Essen Bremen Wilhelmshaven Duisburg Vegesak Hamburg Saarbruken Dusseldorf Osnabruck...Some might count sheep. Teddy counted the towns and cities he had tried to destroy, that had tried to destroy him. Perhaps they had succeeded. 

Complex questions and characters abound in this thoughtful book. Nancy, a brilliant mathematician and Teddy's childhood sweetheart, gives up a promising career to become his wife. Similarly, Teddy is content as a nature writer for a small, rural press. He and Nancy find a rustic cabin to begin their companionate (if unromantic) marriage.

As Teddy ages--and he is blessed with a long life--the reader can't help but note the metaphor. His marriage to Nancy ends with her long illness, and his daughter--Viola--can only be described as a handful.

Later, in her twenties, Viola joins a commune and rebels against everything her father fought to defend. She  falls in love with a dissolute young man and becomes a neglectful mother to two children. Viola, and her children, Bertie and Sunny, are central to the plot and their lives run parallel to and intertwine with Teddy's.

A God in Ruins is considered a companion book to her earlier novel, Life After Life. The earlier book employs the artful premise of having Ursula die at the end of each chapter only to be reborn in the next. A God in Ruins, although nonlinear, is less hopeful. The characters are granted only one life--no "do-overs."  Ultimately, though, the author is not done with surprises. As The New York Times noted:

Structure, and its way of coalescing from the seemingly casual into the deliberate, has been a main attraction in other Atkinson books...As for that, Ms. Atkinson has one huge trick up her sleeve, but she saves it for the book's final moments to make it that much more devastating.

If you love character driven novels, historical or literary fiction, A God in Ruins is not to be missed.

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The Room by Jonas Karlsson

Jonas Karlsson is one of Sweden’s most prominent actors and a playwright. Fortunately for us, he has recently turned his considerable talent to writing fiction. 

The Room is set in a Swedish office; our main character is a new employee, Bjorn.

Bjorn has particular work habits that run counter to the norm and do not ingratiate him to the longtime employees. He works for exactly 55 minutes of each hour then takes precisely 5 minutes for a break. Each break is carefully designated for a visit to the restroom, or a snack, and no variations to the schedule are allowed. Therefore, he does not participate in group coffee breaks or lunches with his co-workers, and if that were not enough to make him stand out, he says he does his best work in – The Room. This room has the perfect desk, the most modern and efficient file cabinets, just the right lighting, formal artwork, and lush carpet. All are vastly superior to the standard issue desk and seat sprung chair adjoining other employee’s work space that he is expected to use.

Except - Bjorn is the only one who can see The Room. Everyone else simply sees Bjorn standing and staring for minutes at a time at a blank wall near the restrooms. They complain that he is crazy and needs to be fired. But when Bjorn starts turning out superior quality reports that draw the attention of the higher ups and says that he produces them in the that no one else can see, you begin to wonder who is crazy.

The Room is entertaining and somewhat reminiscent of the TV show The Office. It is also a small paperback (186 pages) that is just the right size for travel or commuting.

Our Souls at Night, by Kent Haruf

People often say they can't put a book down.  I can.  If the dog comes to me with a ball, the book goes down. If the now adult child wants to show me something on YouTube, the books goes down.  If the husband offers a trip to Baskin Robbins, well, you can guess what comes next.

But I couldn't put down Our Souls at Night.  Granted, at 192 pages, the book is short.  But when I described it to someone today, I said it had only about 100 pages -- those extra 92 just flew by.

The story is simple.  Addie, a widow in a small Colorado town, knocks on the door of Louis, a widower who lives in the neighborhood, and she asks if he would sleep with her.  The invitation is not for sex, but for comfort.  For someone to talk to in the dark.  For a hand to hold before sleep comes.  After mulling the invitation over, Louis thinks why not?  At first he comes to her backdoor, pajamas and toothbrush hidden by a newspaper, so that neighbors won't talk.  But like the Bonnie Raitt song suggests, the two septuagenarians soon decide "Let's Give 'Em Something to Talk About" and the pair is strolling down the main street of town, arm in arm, she is a yellow sundress, and he is a wild western shirt.  Their relationship blossoms as they share sandwiches at lunch and tell each other their backstories. Complications, however, occur when Addie's young grandson comes to stay, but a couple of baseball mitts and a new rescue dog help smooth over the transition.  In beautiful language, the book celebrates the everyday and shows that simple pleasures can indeed be the best.  Like a dog with a ball, a kid with a video he want so share, a kind husband with an offer of ice-cream, a good book you can't put down.

The Internet is Not the Answer by Andrew Keen

We live in a world where anyone with a computer can have a platform for their opinion, start a business or download any type of media that they're interest in, often at low or no-cost. But what have been the consequences to people left out of the internet boom? And what lessons can we learn now that the internet has become so tightly integrated into all of our lives? Andrew Keen, the Christopher Hitchens of technology writing, uses his new book The Internet is Not the Answer to act the contrarian to today's full-speed ahead approach to the internet and to ask the important questions that often get pushed aside in our quest for the newest cool thing or the next Google.

The book's backdrop is San Francisco and Silicon Valley, which Keen observes have become increasingly divided been haves, who attend exclusive clubs that claim to cater to all types, and have-nots who live on the streets in front. What concerns Keen beyond the destruction of the middle class that has accompanied the internet economy, as jobs have simply vanished (with desolate Rochester, New York, the home of the dead film industry provided as an example), is the fact that internet "gurus" and their acolytes keep preaching job creation and freedom when evidence points to the demolition of entire industries. While the early history of the internet is based philosophically around a sharing economy, Amazon has accumulated enough power to put retailers out of business and to run modern sweatshops. Meanwhile, Uber is one of the hottest businesses around, and while it has created some jobs it has also put traditional taxi drivers out of work. And what will be the effect when driverless cars appear on the landscape? And are jobs really being created when a successful company like Instagram gets purchased by Facebook for a billion dollars when it has only thirteen full-time employees?

Keen also ponders the new narcissism of the Facebook/Instagram internet "selfie" existence, in which we all become celebrities in our own minds to a small circle of likeminded friends. Paired with a world where online journalism is defined by the self-publishing of Huffington Post while professional newspaper reporting is seemingly slipping into extinction, we have to wonder whether the internet that was supposed to open our world has actually trapped us in boxes in which the only opinions that matter to us are ones that mirror our own and we cease to exist if we are not sharing our faces and location with our friends. Our online lives themselves are becoming commodities for companies offering free services and between our willingness to share everything and a world where the government can potentially track our every online and physical movement, perhaps it's time to take a step back and consider how connected we actually want to be.

Keen even tackles the current "maker" craze, wondering whether the potential for people to create goods in their own homes is just a repeat of previous empty promises of every musician being able to have an equal platform on the internet, when the current situation of music streaming that pays artists almost nothing is much more complicated than originally envisioned. Could 3-D printing mean the end of sweatshops, as fabrics become easy to create in the home, or the end of an industry, displacing thousands of workers? Obviously the answers are not simple but at least someone is asking the questions. However, as the title of the book states, the internet itself is not the answer to anything.

Often The Internet is Not the Answer comes off as a humorless screed but that does not diminish the importance of Keen's writing. As a parent, I have often found myself wondering if the current enthusiasm in STEM education needs to be accompanied by an equal reemphasis of philosophy, ethics and critical thinking, and this book does nothing to change my opinion. In the meantime, this book will certainly get you thinking about the potential societal impact of the next Amazon purchase or Uber ride.

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1965: The Most Revolutionary Year in Music by Andrew Grant Jackson

A few years ago Bob Dylan was quoted in an interview saying "I guess the Fifties would have ended in about '65," and Andrew Grant Jackson, in 1965: The Most Revolutionary Year in Music, sets out to lay out the reasons that this is the case. In roughly chronological order, Jackson sums up the year in politics, civil rights and (of course) music and shows us how the country pivoted in this tumultuous year. It's an ambitious task that Jackson is not quite up to, but the book remains a fun read of a year of change in music and culture.

The book is divided into four sections, based on the seasons of the year. 1965 began with the recording of The Rolling Stones' early self-penned numbers The Last Time and Bob Dylan's transitional Bringing it All Back Home album in January and ends in December with The Beatles' experimental Rubber Soul and the heavy debut by The Who (as well as A Charlie Brown Christmas special, to which Jackson points out the oddness of launching a neurotic cartoon character with jazz accompaniment to massive appeal).

Naturally, there are a number of names that loom largely over the year 1965's music. Bob Dylan shifts from protest singer to rocker when controversially bringing out an electric backing band at the Newport Folk Festival (and later attacks the folkies with Positively 7th Street). The Rolling Stones were transitioning from an R&B group to one that favored exotic instrumentation in its hard rock hits. The Beatles try LSD for the first time in March and mix new Dylan influences with sitars and string quartets. Brian Wilson brings the Beach Boys to a new experimental level as he shifts from surf to Pet Sounds. James Brown creates a new kind of funk. The Byrds bring jangly Dylan covers to the masses. All in all it was not a bad year for music!

Lurking in the background of these musical changes are the societal crises that influenced a new kind of musician and music consumer. 1965 was the year of the Selma to Montgomery march, the assassination of Malcolm X, the escalation of U.S. forces in Vietnam (and protests spurred in response), new sexual freedom and increased drug experimentation. The author tries hard to make sure that we know the background behind the changing sounds.

Jackson works hard to integrate these threads into the overall story, and while they are essential to know about, they don't necessarily fit his chronological structure. Likewise, while it's great to hear about the development of the various subgenres of music that rose during the year, many of the sections of the book come off as long, interesting sidelights. But while Jackson probably bit off more than he could chew in trying to link politics and music, it still remains an enjoyable snapshot of a particularly eventful year.

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Black Diamonds by Catherine Bailey

When I think of black diamonds, I think of the black gem stone, not coal. But coal and coal mining is the subject of this account of the aristocratic Fitzwilliam family and their Yorkshire coal mines. This fast-paced social history shows how coal gave this family its fortunes yet also caused its rapid downfall.

The family owned not only a vast estate but most important, the mineral rights to the coal below ground. The villages the coal miners lived in, the schools, hospitals, stores, everything that touched the miners' lives was dependent on the Fitzwilliam family. By all accounts they were decent people to work for and the mines were productive and successful. When the 6th Earl Fitzwilliam died in 1902 he left an estate among the richest in England.

The family lived in the 300-plus room Wentworth House, once the largest privately owned house in England. But the politics that emerged after the great wars changed the family's fortunes in a spectacularly short time. The Labour government that came to power after the first World War levied massive taxes on the great landed estates; the government nationalized the country's mines following World War II. Today the Fitzwilliam estate is a wasteland and the once great Wentworth House a ruin.

Bailey writes books about the British aristocracy and their failings and foibles. In this fascinating book she lays the family's affairs, politics, deaths, alcoholism, illegitimate children, the cutting off of heirs and its ties to the Kennedy family bare for all to see. The story of their spectacular downfall reads like a novel. I found it fascinating.

Hausfrau by Jill Alexander Essbaum

 Hausfrau is sure to evoke strong reactions. Its publisher, Random House, is extoling it as "a literary 50 Shades of Grey." It  has sold publishing rights in 14 international markets and ordered a third printing.

The book is a modern re-telling of Anna Karenina. In Hausfrau, Anna is an American living in Switzerland with her austere and handsome Swiss husband, mother-in-law, and three young children. Her lack of language skills and her own aloofness contribute to her ongoing sense of alienation. Yet, the main characteristic of our protagonist is her passivity.

As the novel progresses, we realize that Anna lacks all sense of direction. She has no moral core. Adultery, in the form of casual sex, is her escape from boredom and her acquiescence to a need to be desired.

Essbaum is a poet and her novel's language substantiates this. Her characters are well-drawn. Yet the difficulty in loving this book rests in Anna's unlikeability. We learn, through Anna's sessions with her psychoanalist, that she lost both her parents at a critical age. She felt unloved by others who cared for her. This may have contributed to her need to be dominated by men. However, Anna is so self-absorbed and uncaring of others that the reader finds it hard to understand her.

Hausfrau is definitely a well-written book with lots of explicit sex scenes. Anna is a complicated character, the subject of which might ignite heated debate at a book club. As Anna Russell wrote in The Wall Street Journal: "(Hausfrau) is guarenteed to be a hit. Nothing sells better than a large group of people complaining about the content...Now we just want to see what the fuss is about."

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Death of a Dishonorable Gentleman

The book opens on the morning of Lord and Lady Montfort's annual summer ball. Iyntwood, a Downton Abbey-like house is in an uproar. Guests are arriving, supplies being delivered and the family black sheep, Teddy Mallory, Lord Montfort's nephew and ward, who has just been tossed out of Oxford for bad behavior, is on his way home. His removal from Oxford is just another incident in a long list of indiscretions.

The ball moves ahead as planned and everyone is having a good time, including Teddy who is being his usual horrible self. Things take a very bad turn the next morning, however, when the estate's gamekeeper finds a man  hanging from a gibbet in the woods. He turns out to be a family member and the guests are now sequestered at Iyntwood while the police investigate.

This book reads like a Downton Abbey episode as the very proper upper crust try to deal with a family scandal while around them there are more scandals, involving yet more guests and staff.  One murder, a missing guest, secrets and a missing house maid all make for a light mystery read. If you are a Downton Abbey fan this book is for you!  If you like cozy mysteries this book is for you. And if you are looking for a new mystery author, this book is for you!

A Kim Jong-il Production by Paul Fischer

Bizarre. It's hard to write about North Korea without using that word. By now, we've heard so much about the cultlike devotion to the late Kim Jong-il (and now his son, Kim Jong-un), dictators whose starving citizens are forced to listen to propaganda pumped through home speakers propped above portraits of the country's leader, that we move to the next overheard bizarre North Korea story without blinking an eye. A Kim Jong-il Production is a recently published book filled with accumulated details that illuminate a strange-but-true tale, one that might be difficult to accept if a reader lacked previous knowledge of North Korea's history. Even knowing quite a bit about the country I found myself shaking my head in disbelief.

The stars of the story are Shin Sang-ok, a well-known South Korean filmmaker; Choi Eun-hee, his film star wife; and the aforementioned Kim Jong-il, whose rise to the country's highest post started with his role masterminding the Ministry of Propaganda, which included the country's filmmaking division. Jong-il was a massive film buff who had collected thousands of movies from around the world and kept them in a secure bunker, for his eyes only. When North Korea's economy started to dry up, he decided that exporting motion pictures was a way to bring revenue into the country. This is where the story's weirdness begins.

Jong-il's plan involved kidnapping Sang-ok and Eun-hee, bringing them to North Korea and forcing them make films for the glory of the country. And believe it or not, he succeeded. The book gives us a litany of North Korean kidnappings in the 1970s - their heyday - of which Sang-ok and Eun-hee were but two victims. While Eun-hee found it best to play along, Sang-ok tried multiple escapes, which eventually landed him years in some very harsh prisons. After his "reeducation", Sang-ok decided to play along and make movies for North Korea, a role which gave him unpredecedented freedom and produced movies like North Korea had never been able to create on its own.

This book does a great job providing the history of North Korea and Jong-il and building up suspense towards Sang-ok and Eun-hee's eventual - **spoiler alert** - escape to the West after eight years. Following their getaway, many questioned their account and wondered if they had voluntarily gone to North Korea in order to resurrect careers that had run aground in South Korea, despite much evidence that the kidnapping did indeed happen. While leaving a number of great South Korean films (and even some highly regarded North Korean ones) Sang-ok's post North Korea career was spent in the US creating the likes of the Disney Channel rerun fodder, 3 Ninjas, before he eventually returned  to South Korea.

This book was the essence of readable history and once the story got rolling I found it difficult to put  down until I found out how the couple would make their getaway. Fischer does a great job of telling a story with only a limited number of available resources about their North Korea stay. I also found myself fascinated by Jong-il's quirks, charms and obsessions. If you're looking for a little bit of bizarre (there's that word again) post-Cold War history then this book should definitely be added to your "to-read" list.

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George Harrison: Behind the Locked Door by Graeme Thomson

Who's your favorite Beatle? Are you into winky, cutesy Paul? Is John's politicizing where it's at? Or maybe you're a Ringo person...if you're 5 years old. Let's face it though - by any possible means of measure, George was the coolest Beatle. He might not have been the best songwriter of the four but he did write Something, which has been covered by everyone from James Brown to Willie Nelson to Frank Sinatra (who supposedly called it his favorite Lennon-McCartney tune). When Paul was escaping to his farm and John was shuttling between New York and L.A., Harrison purchased the 120-room gothic mansion Friar Park, which included extensive gardens and underground tunnels - UNDERGROUND TUNNELS!!! And while Ringo brought us the Thomas the Tank Engine TV show and McCartney birthed the woeful film Give My Regards to Broad Street, Harrison was responsible for producing Monty Python's greatest film, Life of Brian!

If I haven't convinced that Harrison was the coolest Beatle then you really owe it to yourself to pick up the new biography George Harrison: Behind the Locked Door by Graeme Thomson. If you already love the man then you definitely need to read the book. It's a comprehensive warts-and-all look at "the quiet Beatle" that at 400 pages does not overstay its welcome.

Despite being with the Beatles from the very beginning, George's status as the youngest Beatle seemed to define his relationship with the others. A strong guitarist who was more comfortable playing set parts than improvising, George found himself in one of the most popular bands in the world by 21. At an age when most of us were looking for our first post-college jobs, George was one of the most recognizable people on the planet. As his songwriting progressed, he found it hard to convince the others in the band of his skills - somewhat understandable when he was competing with the likes of Lennon and McCartney to get songs on albums. Many people don't realize that not only was Harrison the first to leave the band, over frustration with the other musicians' dominance (he'd soon return) but he was also the first to release a solo album, with the experimental soundtrack Wonderwall Music.

While Harrison may not have been the musical leader of the band, he was the one who initiated the spiritual quests of the Beatles, leading them on trips to India to meet the Maharishi and meditate. While Ringo had very little interest and John a little bit more, the effect of Indian religion on George lasted his whole life, influencing his outlook on life, death and celebrity. More noticeably to the rest of us it also affected his role in the Beatles music, with exotic sitar colorings bubbling to the top of their songs.

There are many well-documented reasons behind why the Beatles broke up and certainly the release of Harrison's monumental All Things Must Pass (the first triple album in rock) shows that he had more material available than The Beatles could ever handle. The rest of the book follows Harrison through a long career decline, as his limited writing skills became more evident. Following the charity Concert for Bangladesh event and his ill-fated 1974 Dark Horse tour he retreated, as he attempted to reconcile his fame with his desire for peace and quiet. He was able to launch a late career comeback with 1987's Cloud Nine and his Travelling Wilbury's supergroup but without a desire to tour and lacking any massive hits from a number of subdued and sometimes lazily produced albums, the late 1970s and early 1980s remained quiet musically. He claimed many times that he simply wanted to be a guitar player and not a Beatle.

Harrison died a tragically young 58, though arguably his spirituality allowed him to accept his cancer diagnosis as well as a person reasonably could. He had been quoted many times as saying that he saw no difference between life and death as far as the spirit was concerned. Be assured, however, that the book does not paint him to be an angel. The author makes us aware of many of the material world struggles that Harrison dealt with - from drugs and alcohol to interpersonal relationships - and it points out that while having a serene and accepting outlook on life he also had an acidic side.

I really enjoyed this look at Harrison's life. It's a comprehensive look at a private person thrust into celebrity and dealing with all that followed. Even more importantly, despite the author's reservations about the quality of certain Harrison releases, it did get me listening to some of his albums again and appreciating his unique slide guitar sound once again.

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Aquarium by David Vann

 David Vann is an internationally acclaimed author whose oeuvre has garnered fifteen awards, including best foreign novel in France and Spain. His book have been on 75 Best Books of the Year lists in 12 countries.

Aquarium is a coming-of-age story told through the eyes of a 12-year old girl. Caitlin is a sensitive and resilient child for whom the local aquarium becomes both sanctuary and her place for scientific exploration. Her environment is bleak. She lives surrounded by factories and concrete. Only a few trees line the subsidized development where she lives with her mother, Sheri, a dock worker at a container port who works long hours. As a result, Caitlin must fend for herself and she makes the aquarium her after-school destination. It is there that she meets a mysterious old man who shares her love of fishes and whose past nearly shatters her life.

Caitlin is a very lonely child who feels safest in the aquarium's cave-like atmosphere that mimics the ocean. She is comforted by the anonymity the darkness gives her; the uniqueness of the fish mirrors her own sense of being different. The fish, caged as they are, also mirror her own feeling of entrapment.

What distinguishes this book from other bildungsromans is that it builds on the many personal secrets of its characters. Sheri never discusses her painful childhood with Caitlin but it soon becomes clear that it has damaged her badly. Just how badly drives the novel and is the foundation of the co-dependency she and her daughter share.

Aquarium is a spellbinding novel that analyses the lasting impact of childhood trauma. Ultimately, it is a redemptive work that explores the limits of love and the healing aspect of forgiveness. Its crystalline prose and three dimensional characters make this book a must-read for everyone--young adults included.

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