Looking over the books I've read lately, I see I have been off of the non-fiction train for a while. My once strong taste for insight into the mess in Iraq and the history behind it has been overcome by such disgust that I can't bring myself to read anything in that category any more.
Navigator of New York, by Wayne Johnston. My first EBook. I've read a few other Wayne Johnston books I liked. They usually center on Newfoundland and involve quirky characters. This one also included a bit of a frozen bozo twist, with Peary and Cook and arctic exploration thrown in, so how could it miss? Well, it was a bit off the mark. It centered around the rivalry between Cook and Peary. Cook fathers an illegitimate son by way of a Newfoundland girl visiting New York. When the boy grows up, he eventually chases down Cook in NY and becomes his assistant in the quest to best Peary in the trip to the pole. I would have preferred more action and less of the tortured relationship navel-gazing.
The Exception, by Christian Jungersen. Translated from Danish, the story concerns three women working for a Danish group that studies and publishes studies about ethnic cleansing. When they receive an Email threatening them personally, it ends up unearthing deep-seated rivalries and hostilities between them. It was interesting, but in the end it seemed more like an episode of The Office that was taking itself too seriously rather than a major literary statement.
New England White, by Stephen L. Carter. I liked the Emperor of Ocean Park by Carter, with a story that took place in a thinly disguised version of New Haven, so I thought I'd try this one. I enjoyed this mystery with an academic bent quite a bit. The dead body of a professor is found by the president of the university and his wife, who also turns out to be the long-ago lover of the deceased. He was investigating the circumstances surrounding the alleged rape of a white girl by a black man many years go, uncovering connections to the two current presidential candidates who were former roommates at college when the rape happened. A bit too much circumstantial crap and Robert Ludlum-like committee-of-seven stuff going on to make it go down smoothly, but enjoyable nonetheless.
The Lightning Keeper, by Starling Lawrence. I gave this book to A.J. when I saw him at Missy's a while back. It is an engineer's love story, centering around an immigrant who invents a new kind of water turbine to generate electricity, and his long love relationship with the daughter of his employer. I liked this book quite a lot. It had a mixture of real-world characters and circumstances, a bit of intrigue between GE and Nicolai Tesla, and a decent love story mixed in. Wonder if A.J. liked it.
The Last Town on Earth, by Thomas Mullen. Set in the Pacific Northwest during the flu outbreak during World War I, a remote town decides to quarantine itself and keep anyone from coming in or going out. When some lost soldiers bumble their way out of the woods, a young town guard kills one. The killing sets people against one another, as they try to keep it quiet and the flu descends on them anyway. A good people story, with plenty of historical background on the flu pandemic at ground level and the unrest surrounding involvement in WWI, but not very cheerful fare.
A Sense of the World, by Jason Roberts. The only non-fiction in my list this time, this is the story of James Holman (born 1786). While serving as a lieutenant in the British navy, he comes down with a mysterious ailment that leaves him blind. He ends up becoming probably the most widely travelled person of the time, publishing travel memoirs and gaining fame as the Blind Traveller. He did it all with basically no money and almost totally on his own. Sounds strange, and it was! Still, quite entertaining.
A Good Man in Africa, by William Boyd. I liked a William Boyd spy book, and when Mom said she had read other things by him, I thought I'd pick up another. This story follows a seemingly pathetic middle-aged bureaucrat in a backwater African country. He struggles with the incompetence of his superiors, his mistress, his infatuation with multiple other women, and the complexities of Britain meddling in local politics. He actually turns out to be a "good man" in the end, but the journey to get there was fun to read.
Sharp Objects, by Gillian Flynn. A tough Chicago reporter with plenty of complex family baggage returns to her Missouri hometown to cover a murder. Turns out there was an earlier similar murder, and of course there is a connection to that complex family baggage. I liked this book a lot, especially the main character, but you'll need to deal with plenty of psychologically damaged individuals and small town drama if you're going to read it.
One Mississippi, by Mark Childress. A very funny coming-of-age type of book. It follows a family that relocates to Mississippi from Indiana. The oldest brother enlists for Vietnam rather than stay, and the younger brother finds a local friend. They cause an accident after prom that results in a bizarre injury of the first black prom queen for the newly integrated school. That sets in motion a series of entertaining events leading to the not-so-funny final resolution that I won't reveal.
The Willow Field, by William Kittredge. William Kittredge is most often cited for his growing-up-in-Montana memoir, A Hole in the Sky, something I read a long time ago. This story is the fictional account of the life of Rossie Benasco beginning in the Depression, following his ambition to spend his life working with horses. He joins a team driving horses from Nevada up to Calgary, meets a girl there, and settles in Montana with her and her rich parents. I really enjoyed the early parts of the book, but his struggle with mooching off her parents, his foray into WWII, and his political ambitions amidst the McCarthy hearings left me unsatisfied in the end.
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