5 Books Read Catch Up February to Now

I've been reading but just not posting the books, so here's the catch up for those interested.  Friday  is our Friends of the Library book sale where I will be donating and likely filling a sack with other hard to pass up finds for my awaiting reading shelf.  After I read and our book club chose to read "Unbroken" (see my January 12 blog post review) I wanted to tackle another book from my patriotic stack , about WWII, "The Wild Blue" by noted historical writer Stephen Ambrose.  This book over 263 pages is an excellent informative read about the ordinary young men of their day, the citizen soldiers of WWII who fought the enemy and formed a band of brothers who endured together.  This book is a memoir about George McGovern's WWI service as a highly successful, skilled, respected, bomber pilot  in Europe, a man whose politics differ from mine but for whom I have the deepest respect and gratitude after reading this.  Author Ambrose tells the extraordinary heroism, skill, daring and comradeship  with detail and affection about  the young men, the combat crews in our Army Air Corps who  flew the B-24's  over Germany.  As ever, I was intrigued reading about the Army Air Corps the pilot's  training, and the early days of navigation.  I learned that Ambrose's uncle, a 21 year old copilot of a B26 in the 8th Air Force, was killed in a crash in September 1944 returning from a mission over Europe. His uncle's body was never recovered.   In preparation for writing the book he  is treated to flying the B24 an B 17 in the co pilot seat, learning how extremely difficult the planes were to control.  "It was an experience with machines that could be compared only to being at the controls of a locomotive going up the Sierra Nevada."  In the prologue, Ambrose writes, "The B24 was built like a 1930's Mack Truck except that it had an aluminum skin that could be cut with a knife.  It could carry a heavy load far and fast but it had no refinements.  Steering the four engine airplane was difficult and exhausting as there was no power except the pilot's muscles."  You know this tells me more about the kind of young man my father had to be.  "..no windshield wipers so the pilot had to stick his head out the side window to see during a rain....Breathing only by wearing an oxygen mask."  Primitive conditions for brave men.   Pg. 24, "The Army Air Forces needed thousands of pilots and tens of thousands of crew members, to fly the B24's.  It needed to gather them and train them and supply them and service the planes from a country in which only a  relatively small number of men knew anything at all about how to fly even a single engine airplane, or fix it.  From whence came such men?"  We know today those men, pilots and crews of the B24s came from every state in the union, they were young,  fit and eager. They were all volunteers.  The Army Air Forces did not force anyone to fly, the men made the choice.  McGovern and his crew part of the 741st Bomb Group, 15th Air Force were  based at San Giovanni Filed, near Cerignola Italy, meaning land of cereals. Evidently the Cerignola region   grew hard wheat the best in Italy and  possibly the best in the world for making pasta.  The word "Cheerios" comes from Cerignola. I relished the information, history,  dialogues and the data.  I learned more than I had ever known about flak and deepened my perspective about the dedication and sense of responsibility the pilots held.  The writing is superb and because of the subject matter it is a keeper book, published in 2001, I am fortunate to have acquired a first edition. 

After the indepth reads I took a break with "Crime Brulee"  by Nancy Fairbanks, a paperback mystery that I acquired at the library sale for  50 cents, thinking it might resemble the Diane Mott series of culinary mysteries.  Well, it is set in New Orleans and I did relate to most of the places mentioned but the book is merely a quick non engrossing read, 274 pages in paperback.  It is billed as first in the series and I will not read others.  It is as though the author tried to put  any  twist she could to an insipid mystery.  Really the Nancy Drew mysteries of my youth were better.  The plot involves Carolyn, spouse to an academic, and obviously a woman who needs to get a life.  She is a typical pathetic empty nester with what to do now that the children are gone, woman with nothing to do, etc...Boring but I endured to see if  she solves the  her friend,  Julienne  disappears leaving everyone in the lurch in New Orleans at this academic conference.  This is likely a woman's book for those who may be amused.  I thought it might be a quaint mystery, and that would be a stretch, but I prefer good writing and decent plots. Something to engage me, even when I take a break from heavier reading.  This  returns to the Library sale rack.

My blog friend, Vicki Lane hits it big with her mysteries, suspense tales, by good writing, exquisite character development, and enticing tales.  "In a Dark Season" a paperback of 428 pages starts out  with Chapter 1, "The Palimpsest"  whatever does that mean?  The book's opening sentence hooks the reader is as it did me and kept me reading and wondering when the characters would get together and tie it all up.  Page 1..."The madwoman whispered into the blue shadows of a wintry afternoon.  Icy wind caught at her hair, loosing it to whip her cheeks and sting her half closed eyes."  Eventually it does happen, but the book has it all and if women want to read something fulfilling yet mysterious they will not be disappointed with Vicki"s works.    The southern dialect is intriguing, "howsomever" a word that spoke to me and  yet is so  deep in the hills.  Page 81 has a splendid line, "hard as an ex-wife's heart."  How about that?  This sequential tale features Vicki's  great character, Elizabeth Goodweather of Full Circle Farm, still a newbie to the North Carolina  area despite  a more than 20 year residency. Those of us brave enough to relocate to other ares know the difficulties of assimilation and bare acceptance amongst long timers.   Elizabeth who has been the key in other books is  a widow,  in a relationship with Philip, a semi retired detective, and friend to the local sheriff.  Phillip would eagerly marry her if she would agree, but she is her own person.  In this tale a frail old lady, Nola Barrett attempts suicide and ends up in a local nursing home with a diagnosis of dementia while her niece  appears to get things in order and sell off.  Development looms in the area as can happen in the better areas to live today.  Over Christmas holidays, Elizabeth comes to grips with having to move on in life despite maintaining grief over loss of her husband.  Pg. 144  where Elizabeth explains why she and her daughters who return for the holiday maintain their Christmas traditions in spite of the loss of her husband, their father....Christmas will not, cannot be taken away with grief...it is a light in a dark season...Death took Sam but not the holiday.  This especially  hit home with me having lost our son so close to Christmas.  Vicki weaves back and forth between the history of the area,  a local hermit of sorts,. and the contemporary mystery of Nola Barrett.  It is a great read and one I recommend for good entertainment, a good tale and a good mystery that all weaves back together at the end..and I did not  guess exactly what would happen.

Our book club chose the novel, "A Soft Place to Land"  by Susan Rebecca White as one member had picked it up in a northern bookstore.  Sigh, sigh, the idea of reading a tale of "complicated love between two sisters.." was not enticing to me, but then sometimes others choose a book that I might not have and it turns out to be of interest.  This was not.  It is a tale of adolescent angst that lasts until the sisters are in their late twenties.  The sisters are raised  in luxury in Atlanta with their mother and her  second husband who is the step father of one and the father of the other.  The tragedy of losing their parents who die on vacation and then being separated to different coasts plagues Ruthie and Julia.  One is headed for disaster early in life evidence by the crowd she hangs with, poor habits, smoking, drinking, etc. generally  all activities that one would not want for a teen, her  lack of interest in school despite her  intelligence  and generally being a wilder one.  The other who is sent to the Bay Area to be raised by her mother's sister blossoms in San Francisco and Berkeley.  I know all the places mentioned in the book and still found it tedious reading at best, not because I have no sister to relate to but because it focuses on adolescent trials, behaviors and the realm of angst. Finally by the last 30 pages there is something worth reading; this book could have been a good short story, but as a novel it bombs.  I will be interested to hear what others thought when we meet on April 19th but for me, this book goes to the donate pile and I would not read others by this author.   I plodded through for sake of the book club discussion.

Finally a book I have been awaiting paper back release hit the shelves before we left on our trip and when I saw it at Sam's into my basket it went.  "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot has rightfully earned its place on the New York Times and other Best Seller lists for some time. I cautiously thought I might not  enjoy this book not being a scientific person, but  my curiosity would not allow me to  pass it up.  I recall vaguely hearing about HeLa cells in biology and chemistry courses.  I hesitated because this book, the true tale of Henrietta who dies of ovarian cancer and whose cells doctors take at John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore Maryland, without the consent or any discussion of the family,  is  a wealth of scientific information.  Moreover it is the tale of the woman and her family and  her legacy, how her cells become known world wide in research as HeLa cells and yet her family lived and still lives in poverty. Henrietta is a poor black tobacco farmer who marries her cousin and  whose cells are taken without her knowledge in 1951 and live on to become one of the most important tools in  medicine still today, vital for developing the polio vaccine, cloning, gene mapping and more.  Henrietta's cells have been bought and sold by the billions yet only through this book do we know about her as a person.   The book raises realistic pondering about medical ethics and where and when science and research may cross a line.  Although this is a technical book at times it is packed full of human interest and humor as the daughter acknowledges that her mother is still calling shots from the great beyond through her cells.   It is a book that questions issues of race and class and medical care and research.  When does one own one's body and  at what point is the body or  parts, malignant though they may be available without recourse?  Is knowing all the good that results from medical research adequate compensation for survivors?  Is there any real need to compensate survivors?    And how can a family from the depths of poverty ever begin to seek recourse, or do they want that, are they satisfied with their lives and do they merely appreciate the telling of Henrietta's tale?  Everyone I talk with who has read this book including my dentist have been as engrossed as I was; I could not put this book down and relished all 328 pages and additional notes and bibliography.  Skloot is an award winning scientific writer but this is her first book.  Oprah Winfrey and Alan Ball are adapting it into an HBO film.  Read the book to learn and imagine.  Be aware it is history we see backwards through the prism of today's issues.