The Secret Chord

I met Geraldine Brooks several years ago at the Key West Literary seminar.  It was the year that they were featuring Historical fiction.  I LOVED everything about the seminar that year.  For that event, I read her book:  Year Of Wonders.  Since then I have read everything that she has written that I know about.

This book reminded me of Anita Diamant's The Red Tent in that it takes a small part of the Bible and with imagination and research turns the segment into a full length, fascinating account.  I loved the Red Tent and I loved The Secret Chord.

After I recommended this book to a knitting buddy, I told her the next week that the book is very violent.  And I would caution my readers to be aware of the violence.  This is definitely a book for adults rather than children.  One does not have to believe every interpretation that Geraldine Brooks makes about the life of David, but the ideas are fascinating to consider.


Here are a few highlights from reviews found on Amazon:

"The Secret Chord," by Geraldine Brooks, is a novelization of King David's life, narrated by Nathan, who counseled the sovereign for many years. As the scorned youngest son of Yishai, David spends most of his days tending his father's sheep in the wilderness. Samuel proclaims that David, whom his older brothers ostracized, is destined to become the future king of Israel. The young man's victory over Goliath brings him great acclaim, and initially, King Saul takes the boy under his wing. David not only distinguishes himself on the battlefield, but also composes beautiful music, plays the harp, and sings with divine inspiration. Unfortunately, Saul becomes jealous of David and turns against him in a murderous rage.

 It is in his middle age that David falls in love with Batsheva and it is with her that he conceives a child Solomon (referred to as Shlomo in this book). Solomon is raised differently from the rest of his brothers ad he receives some of the finest education a boy of his time can get. It is with cunning of prophet Nathan and David's wife Batsheva, that Solomon assumes power and becomes King of Israel. It is during his reign that Israel prospered and some of the most beautiful verses of Old Testament are created.

 King David is believed to have composed a large part of the Book of Psalms in the Bible, .....

I read this book via audible.com.  I recommend it.

Guests On Earth

I really enjoyed Lee Smith's book: Guests On Earth.

I will post one of the professional reviews below as I am always fascinated by the fact that sometimes I come away from a book thinking: "did the reviewer read the same book that I read?"

I am also hoping that I will be able to add the list of research that Lee did in order to write this book.  It is amazing!  I am so used to seeing the footnotes at the end of a genealogical article or historical article....it is refreshing to see the list of misc information consulted in a casual and easy to read form.  I suppose that if I were planning on doing my own research, it would be nice to have it more formal.  But for a novel, it is nice that it is easy and pleasant to read.

So many surprises in this book that I am not going to say much more as almost everything that I might say would ruin one of those surprises.  I do have one question:  "why did Evalina not go looking for Pan?" or perhaps she did....


Abandoned as a child upon her mother’s death in New Orleans in the 1930s, Evalina is sent to Highland Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina, by her mother’s wealthy lover—a convenient way of dealing with an inconvenient problem. Evalina may be a lot of things—a budding musician, a romantic dreamer—but mentally ill she is not. Yet over time, the mental hospital becomes her home and its staff and fellow patients her family. Celebrated for its unorthodox treatment methods, Highland attracts the penniless and the notorious, and Evalina is influenced by a nearly feral young man and the hospital’s most famous patient, Zelda Fitzgerald. Equally creative, emotive, independent, and adventurous as Zelda, wife of the renowned author F. Scott, Evalina also contradicts society’s standard for female behavior, guaranteeing that no matter how often she escapes or improves, she will always return to Highland. Riding the recurring wave of Zelda-mania, perennially best-selling Smith (Mrs. Darcy and the Blue-Eyed Stranger, 2010) presents an impeccably researched historical novel that reveals the early twentieth century’s antediluvian attitudes toward mental health and women’s independence. --Carol Haggas

Adding the research list is not as easy as I had hoped.  I'll try it again another day.  I read this book via Kobo on my phone.

Born Fighting How the Scots-Irish Shaped America

I am reading this book with an actual paper copy.  I had loaned the book just after I bought it to someone who wasn't that enthusiastic about the book.  So it had ended up on my shelf unread.  For whatever reason it was yelling to me the other night and I picked it up.

The first 120 pages were amazing!  I was unable to type because I was undergoing a lymphedema treatment in which my right arm was bound, so I marked pages that I wanted to write about once the treatment is over.  WOW!  There are probably 15 stickies in the book.  I don't know if I'll get around to doing all of them.  But I found the history of the Scots and their move into Ireland to be absolutely fascinating.  I am not quite as enthusiastic about the history of their move into the forests and the mountains of America as I suppose that I know that history much better.  So my reading has slowed a bit as I begin to read the chapter Westward Ho!


But here are some of the highlights of the first 120 pages:

The author explained that the Scots "embraced members of other ethnic groups".....in the Celtic societies, ....he was "of the kin" so long as he accepted the values and mores of the extended family.  At the idea that the Northern Ireland problem might be solved by importing a hundred thousand Hong Kong Chinese to emigrate to Ulster in order that " new blood might leaven the brawl and even shake away old hatreds"  The thoughtful Northern Ireland native who was presented with this idea said:  "You're wrong because you underestimate the power of the Celtic culture.  We'd absorb them....Within ten years we'd have the IRA Chinese and the Orange Chinese....I laughed out loud when I read this.

And for research purposes:   "English migrations to Ulster did pick up again in the late 1600s, particularly from the northern border areas next to Scotland, where many of the English emigrants shared the predominantly Celtic heritage of the Scots.  Others, such as the Puritans and Quakers who, like the Scots, were "dissenting" Protestants in conflict with the "reformed" English Episcopacy and the Catholics, also trickled into Ulster during this period.  They frequently joined the Presbyterian congregations, intermarried, and thus became part of the Scottish communities.  As a consequence, despite their English antecedents, both of these groups tended to reinforce rather than detract from Scottish dominance of Ulster.  In large measure they also account for the many English-origin surnames that show up among Americans of Scots-Irish descent.  The "notion of Celtic kinship" was again well served, as the Scots characteristically absorbed the new immigrants."

Mistress of the Monarchy: The Life of Katherine Swynford, Duchess of Lancaster

Acclaimed author Alison Weir brings to life the extraordinary tale of Katherine Swynford, a royal mistress who became one of the most crucial figures in the history of Great Britain. Born in the mid-fourteenth century, Katherine de Roët was only twelve when she married Hugh Swynford, an impoverished knight. But her story had truly begun two years earlier, when she was appointed governess to the household of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster and fourth son of King Edward III. Widowed at twenty-one, Katherine became John's mistress and then, after many twists of fortune, his bride in a scandalous marriage. Mistress of the Monarchy reveals a woman ahead of her time—making her own choices, flouting convention, and taking control of her own destiny. Indeed, without Katherine Swynford, the course of English history, perhaps even the world, would have been very different.



I found it very interesting to read this biography of Katherine Swynford just after having read the historical novel about the same woman written by Anya Seton.  Their interpretation of the life of Katherine was not exactly alike.  One of the very interesting things in Alison Weir's biography is the examination of some of Geoffrey Chaucer's works for possible references that would add to the understanding of how Katherine might have looked or her life in general.  Geoffrey Chaucer was brother-in-law to Katherine.  I particularly have enjoyed Alison Weir's explanation of how she looked at various clues and why she interpreted each clue in the way that she did.  Her historical detective work is fascinating.  I read this book via audible.com.

Katherine by Anya Seton

Overview

“A glorious example of romance in its most classic literary sense: exhilarating, exuberant, and rich with the jeweled tones of England in the 1300s.” —Austin Chronicle

Katherine is an epic novel of a love affair that changed history—that of Katherine Swynford and John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the ancestors of most of the British royal family. Set in the vibrant fourteenth century of Chaucer and the Black Death, the story features knights fighting in battle, serfs struggling in poverty, and the magnificent Plantagenets—Edward III, the Black Prince, and Richard II—who rule despotically over a court rotten with intrigue. Within this era of danger and romance, John of Gaunt, the king’s son, falls passionately in love with the already-married Katherine. Their affair persists through decades of war, adultery, murder, loneliness, and redemption. Anya Seton's vivid rendering of the lives of the Duke and Duchess of Lancaster makes Katherine an unmistakable classic.

VERY entertaining!  I found myself pulling out my knitting so that I have an excuse to listen to a bit more. I liked the introduction that audible gave explaining that historical fiction was very popular in the early to mid 1900s but lost favor in the second half of the 20th C.  I think that I will dig some more of these historical fiction works up to read.  It is certainly an easy way to get a feeling for the times surrounding our ancestors in England.  I think it particularly interesting that this couple ended up being the ancestors of most of the British Royal family:

the Tudor dynasty was directly descended from John and Katherine's eldest child, John Beaufort, great-grandfather of Henry VII, who based his claim to the throne on his mother's descent from John of Gaunt, a son of Edward III. John Beaufort also had a daughter named Joan Beaufort, who married James I of Scotlandand thus was an ancestress of the House of Stuart.^[7] John and Katherine's daughter, Joan Beaufort, was grandmother of the English kings Edward IV and Richard III, the latter of whom Henry Tudor (thus becoming by conquest Henry VII) defeated at the Battle of Bosworth Field; Henry's claim was strengthened by marrying Elizabeth of York, eldest daughter of Edward IV. It was also through Joan Beaufort, Countess of Westmoreland that the sixth queen of Henry VIII, Catherine Parr, descended.^[8] John of Gaunt's son — Katherine's stepson Henry of Bolingbroke — became Henry IV after deposing Richard II (who was imprisoned and died in Pontefract Castle, where Katherine's son, Thomas Swynford, was constable and is said to have starved Richard to death for his step-brother). John of Gaunt's daughter by his first marriage to Blanche of Lancaster, Philippa of Lancaster, was great-great-grandmother to Catherine of Aragon, first wife of Henry VIII and mother of Mary I of England. John of Gaunt's child by his second wife Constance, Catherine(or Catalina), was great-grandmother of Catherine of Aragon as well.

 Katherine's sister Philippa, a lady of Queen Philippa's household, married the poet Geoffrey Chaucer.

I read this book via audible.com

Still Alice

I found my self unable to keep from talking with others about this book.  The author did such an excellent job of moving through Alice's thoughts as her terrible disease took it's toll on Alices brain and on her life.  Alice was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's disease at the age of 50.  The disease moved very quickly.

Others told me that the movie was excellent.  I will probably watch it at some time.  However, there is no way that the movie could depict that thoughts that were in Alice's head as she dealt with Alzheimer's every day of her life after her diagnosis.  

I don't want to ruin the story, so if you haven't yet read the book, you might want to quit reading right now.  I just want to comment for my own later reading that the end was very satisfying.  The family made such good decisions on how to resolve the problems that they faced and how to deal with Alice as her disease made her more and more out of touch with the world around her and the family that loved her.

Excellent book!

Orphan Train

I really liked this book!  I liked the characters a lot.  Probably I liked the characters even more than I liked the plot.  Here is a review taken from the internet:

Between 1854 and 1929, so-called orphan trains ran regularly from the cities of the East Coast to the farmlands of the Midwest, carrying thousands of abandoned children whose fates would be determined by pure luck. Would they be adopted by a kind and loving family, or would they face a childhood and adolescence of hard labor and servitude?

As a young Irish immigrant, Vivian Daly was one such child, sent by rail from New York City to an uncertain future a world away. Returning east later in life, Vivian leads a quiet, peaceful existence on the coast of Maine, the memories of her upbringing rendered a hazy blur. But in her attic, hidden in trunks, are vestiges of a turbulent past.

Seventeen-year-old Molly Ayer knows that a community-service position helping an elderly widow clean out her attic is the only thing keeping her out of juvenile hall. But as Molly helps Vivian sort through her keepsakes and possessions, she discovers that she and Vivian aren't as different as they appear. A Penobscot Indian who has spent her youth in and out of foster homes, Molly is also an outsider being raised by strangers, and she, too, has unanswered questions about the past.

Moving between contemporary Maine and Depression-era Minnesota, Orphan Train is a powerful tale of upheaval and resilience, second chances, and unexpected friendship.

I read Cokey Muth's copy in paperback.  I'll pass it along to one of the knitting group today.  I think that Mom might like this book.  I might buy it for her to read on her iPad mini.