Tobacco Road

Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell

Tobacco Road is Erskine Caldwell's classic about the poverty of farmers in the American Southeast during the Depression. Jeeter Lester is a typical Georgia farmer: his grandfather owned a plantation, and his father was a sharecropper. He just wants to plant cotton as the spring is coming on, but he has no education, no food, no land, no credit, and no hope. All he has left is faith in God and an instinctual desire to farm the land as he lives for free in an abandoned shack on a deserted farm.

While Jeeter blames God, Caldwell blames Jeeter's problems on rich people who have withdrawn their financial support of the rural farmers, leaving them poor, hungry and illiterate. At the end of the book Lov says "It looks like the Lord don't care about crops being raised no more like He used to, or He would be more helpful to the poor. He could make the rich people lend out their money, and stop holding it up. I can't figure how they got hold of all the money in the country, anyhow. Looks like it ought to be spread out among everybody."

It is this callous indifference of the Southern rich to the poor people of their states that makes this book seem relevant in my mind to modern readers. Once again today we have rich people in power gutting the enlightened policies that helped raise the Depression era poor out of their squalid conditions. Will today's politicians create the conditions for a new generation of Jeeter Lesters to suffer in poverty and neglect?

Drawings from the Gulag

Drawings from the Gulag by Danzig Baldaev

Disturbing series of drawings depicting cruelty inside the gulags of Soviet Russia drawn by a prison guard. The original Russian text is translated, and notes are added to explain or verify incidents depicted. Not for the squeamish.

The Iron Pincers: Or, Mylio and Karvel, a Tale of the Albigensian Crusades

The Iron Pincers: Or, Mylio and Karvel, a Tale of the Albigensian Crusades by Eugene Sue

The Iron Pincers is the thirteenth volume of a nineteen volume series that Eugene Sue called The Mysteries of the People, or, History of a Proletarian Family Across the Ages. Each volume is written as if by a member of the family set down the events of their life. This volume is set in the beginning of the 13th century where Mylio is a troubadour who sings love songs to the ladies of the town while their husbands are away at the last Crusade.
In the opening scenes, Mylio is successful at both singing and wooing the ladies of the town, but when their husbands return from the Crusades they have a new mission from the priests. They are being told to take their armies south to slaughter the Albigensian non-Catholics, plunder their riches, and take their lands. When Mylio hears this he rushes south to warn his brother Karvel of the impending invasion. While they put up a good resistance, they are greatly outnumbered as city after city falls before the Catholic army.
This was one of the most difficult of the books in this series to read. The author has always depicted the invading ruling class as greedy, cruel and amoral, but this slaughter is one of the worst in French history and he doesn't spare the details to protect the readers.

A Scandalous Life: The Biography of Jane Digby el Mezrab

A Scandalous Life: The Biography of Jane Digby el Mezrab by Mary S. Lovell

Mary Lovell presents the scandalous life of Jane Digby in a detailed yet respectful way. She had access to family papers, so we get the inside personal view that her letters and journals provide, not the scandals and gossip of the press. It is a fascinating life for a 19th century British woman. At 17 she marries a wealthy but unloving husband, only to leave him when she falls in love with another man. After a divorce she is abandoned by her lover who cannot marry a divorced woman. She proceeds through continental Europe making a few more attempts at finding a place to call home. Always her famous beauty and outstanding personality wins her the devotion of men she doesn't love while the men she loves cannot provide her the legitimacy of marriage. Jane finally goes to Syria and marries a desert nomad half her age, living a strange double life as a muslim wife and an English lady expat spending months at a time in desert tents, but having houses in Damascus and Homs, places known to us today from news reports of the violent civil war.

Woman at Point Zero

Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi

Written in 1975 by an Egyptian doctor who was once the Minister of Health, but who lost her job and spent time in jail once she started fighting for women's rights, Woman at Point Zero is a powerful tale of the oppression of women by men and society. According to the Preface El Saadawi had lost her job in the Egyptian government and as a journal editor because of her feminist novels and was researching women in prison as a faculty member of Ain Shams University when she met Firdaus, a female prisoner convicted of murder at Qanatir Prison. Her interviews of Firdaus eventually became the source material for the novel Woman at Point Zero.

The novel begins with a short introductory chapter told in the voice of a woman psychiatrist studying female criminals at a prison. She is told of one extraordinary woman who is to be executed for committing murder but who will not see anyone. After many attempts to see her, Firdaus finally sends for her the day before her execution.

The main body of the book is Firdaus telling the story of her life to the psychiatrist. As she tells of the many ways she has been oppressed my men and society, her voice is sparse and coldly logical . She tells of a loveless life ruled by men. All of her attempts to take control of her situation are thwarted by men and societal norms. As a last resort she kills rather than submit any longer and, for this, society will execute her.

In the final two page chapter of the book the doctor realizes that Firdaus has more courage than she will ever have.

Canone Inverso

Canone Inverso by Paolo Maurensig

A man buys a unique violin "with a tiny anthropomorphic head carved into the top of the pegboard" at an auction in London. Soon after the instrument arrives at his hotel room, another man comes to his hotel offering to pay him twice or three times the price for it. He claims to know its terrible story, and the violin's new owner asks him to tell his tale. He says he is a writer and tells of meeting Jenő Varga as a street musician in Vienna playing for tips in a tavern. After befriending the strange musician, Jenő tells him the story of two young Central European violinists of extremely different circumstance who meet and establish a special bond at a Kafkaesque music academy in the years prior to World War II. Kuno Blau is from a aristocratic Austrian family, and Jenő is a bastard son of unknown paternity raised by a sausage-maker step-father. The one thing that holds a clue to their relationship is the unique violin that has a special meaning to each of them.

Just before their final year at the academy, Jenő falls hopelessly in love with the famous violinist Sophie Hirschbaum, and then accepts Kuno's offer to spend the summer with his family in Innsbruck. The twisted lives of Kuno's family, and a deteriorating friendship between the two boys transforms their lives and their music forever.

It is Jenő's tale that has driven this man to seek the violin, hoping to confirm some part of the fabulous story he has heard. How can the new owner of the instrument make sense of all of this, and what can he contribute to its meaning?

In addition to telling the story of a talented musician and his instrument, this book addresses the following questions. Where does the exceptional talent come from that makes a great musician? What is the relationship between musicians and the music they create. Is there a bit of madness necessary to bring music to life? At what point does there cease to be a division between the music and the musician?

Fractured Fairy Tales

Fractured Fairy Tales by A. J. Jacobs

As part of The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, Jay Ward produced 91 cartoons between 1953 and 1964 in a series called "Fractured Fairy Tales," humorous retellings of classic fairy tales narrated by Edward Everett Horton and written by the staff writers for the show. This book, written by A. J. Jacobs in 1997, takes 25 of those cartoons and adapts them as short fairy tales. Some references are updated for a new audience but he is fairly faithful to the scripts and does well at turning them into stories. While Jacobs' retellings are funny and faithful to the originals, they have a limited appeal now that all of the original cartoons are available on DVD or YouTube.

The Witch of Cologne

The Witch of Cologne by Tobsha Learner

Set in the second half of the 17th Century in the city of Cologne Germany, this book tells the story of two people seeking rational truth in an age of religious superstition, political turmoil, and economic change. Ruth, the only child and daughter of the local rabbi, is a midwife trying to perfect her craft through scientific observation. She has returned from Amsterdam, the center of modern thinking, where, disguised as a young man, she studied under the great philosopher Benedict Spinoza. Detlef von Tennen, the younger brother of a local count, is the canon of the cathedral of Cologne. He has wealth, beauty and privilege, but he seeks truth and longs to study the forbidden books of the modern philosophers of Amsterdam. They are brought together when Ruth is accused of witchcraft by a sadistic monk of the Inquisition. While the monk sees black magic in her birthing skills, Detlef understands that her skill comes from the scientific method rather than a deal with the devil.
Although the book is about an impossible love between two people, it is more a historic thriller than a romance, Tobsha Learner has named the chapters after the ten Sefiroth of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. She includes a Historic Backdrop, Glossary, List of Characters, and Bibliography of reference books used in her research to help readers not up to date on German history. Weaving together the rich cultural, philosophic and religious differences of the times into an exciting adventure that keeps the plot changes coming, I found this an adventure and a romance that touched me deeply. Yet it provided a wealth of historic detail that satisfied my desire for historical accuracy and depth.

The Pilgrim's Shell by Eugène Sue

The Pilgrim's Shell; Or, Fergan The Quarryman, A Tale From The Feudal Times; by Eugène Sue & translated by Daniel De Leon. New York Labor News Company, 1904.

The Pilgrim's Shell is the 12th volume in a series called The Mysteries of the People; or History of a Proletarian Family Across the Ages that was written between 1849-1857. Eugène Sue created this series to be a European history that depicted the struggle between the ruling and the ruled classes. One family, the descendants of a Gallic chief named Joel, represent the oppressed and the descendants of a Frankish chief Neroweg, typify the oppressors. Down through the ages the successive struggles between oppressors and oppressed are depicted in a series of stories that culminate in the European Revolutions of 1848.

Considered classics of Marxist/Socialist thought, these books are mostly forgotten today, and the English-language editions published at the beginning of the 20th Century have only recently become available through large-scale digitization projects of Public Domain books. Daniel DeLeon, leader of the Socialist Labor Party of America and translator of this series into English, writes a Preface to each volume as an introduction.

The story of this volume is told in three parts. Part I, "The Feudal Castle" is set in the year 1094 when the Gallic descendent of Joel, Fergan the Quarryman, is a serf of the Manor of Plouernel, ruled by Neroweg VI. Serfs had no rights and were property to be disposed at the will of the lord of the manor. Most of the people of Gaul have become submissive to their ststus, but Fergan still carries the ancient fire of independence in his heart. When he learns that Neroweg has kidnapped his son, Fergan seeks to free the child by entering the castle through a secret tunnel his father built for Neroweg's father.

Part II, "The Crusade" is set in the year 1099 during the first of the European Crusades to the Middle East. Fergan and his family escape Neroweg's vengeance by leaving with the Crusade's peasant army. This section is an account of the hardships and atrocities of the Crusade as seen through Fergan's eyes, the eyes of a common working man.

In "The Commune of Laon" Part III, set in the year 1112, the disruption of war has left the Bourgeois middle class with the power to negotiate from strength with the lords and bishops. City communes have begun to replace the feudal system, at least in the cities. Fergan's son now runs a tannery, and a union of the businessmen and workers are struggling to maintain control of their newly-won independence against the attempts of the bishops and lords to destroy the Commune.

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
In my introduction to "The Silver Cross; or, The Carpenter of Nazareth," I said: "Eugene Sue wrote in French a monumental work--the Mysteries of the People; or, History of a Proletarian Family. It is a 'work of fiction'; yet it is the best universal history extant. Better than any work, avowedly on history, it graphically traces the special features of the several systems of class-rule as they succeeded each other from epoch to epoch, together with the nature of the struggle between the contending classes. The 'Law,' 'Order,' 'Patriotism,' 'Religion,' etc., etc., that each successive tyrant class, despite its change of form, hysterically has sought refuge in in order to justify its criminal existence whenever threatened; the varying economic causes of the oppression of the toilers; the mistakes incurred by these in their struggles for redress; the varying fortunes of the conflict;--all these social dramas are therein reproduced in a majestic series of 'historic novels,' that cover leading and successive episodes in the history of the race."
The present story--The Pilgrim's Shell; or, Fergan the Quarryman--is one of that majestic series, among the most majestic of the set, and, with regard to the social period that it describes--its institutions, its classes, its manners, its virtues and its crimes, and the characters that it builds--the most instructive treatise on feudalism, at the very time when the bourgeois or capitalist class was struggling for a foot-hold, and beginning to break through the thick feudal incrustation above. More fully than Molière's plays, and strangely supplemental of the best passages on the subject in the novels of George Eliot, The Pilgrim's Shell; or, Fergan the Quarryman chisels the struggling bourgeois on the feudal groundwork and background, in lines so sharp and true that both the present fully developed and ruling capitalist, inheritor of the feudal attribute of plundering, is seen in the historic ancestor of his class, and his class' refuse, the modern middle class man, is foreshadowed, now also struggling like his prototype of feudal days, to keep his head above water, but, differently from his prototype, who had his future before him, now with his future behind. This double development, inestimable in the comprehension of the tactical laws that the Labor or Socialist Movement demands, stands out clear with the aid of this work.
Eugene Sue has been termed a colorist, the Titian of French literature. It does not detract from his merits, it rather adds thereto, that his brush was also photographic. The leading characters in the story--Fergan, the type of the physically and mentally clean workingman; Bezenecq the Rich, the type of the embryonic bourgeois, visionary, craven and grasping; Martin the Prudent, the type of the "conservative workingman"; the Bishop of Laon, the type of usurping power in the mantle of religion; the seigneur of Plouernel, the type of the ingrain stupidity and prejudices that characterize the class grounded on might; a dazzling procession of women--Joan the Hunchback and Azenor the Pale, Perrette the Ribald and the dame of Haut-Pourcin, Yolande and Simonne, etc.--types of the variations in the form of woman's crucifixion under social systems grounded on class rule; Walter the Pennyless, the type of dispositions too indolent to oppose the wrongs they perceive, and crafty enough to dupe both dupers and duped; Garin, the type of the master's human sleuth--are figures, clad in historic garb, that either hurry or stalk imposingly over the boards, followed by mobs of their respective classes, and presenting a picture that thrills the heart from stage to stage, and leaves upon the mind rich deposits of solid information and crystalline thought. As a novel, The Pilgrim's Shell; or, Fergan the Quarryman pleases, entertains and elevates; as an imparter of historic information and knowledge, it incites to thought and intelligent action. Whether as literature of pleasure or of study, the work deserves the broader field of the Socialist or Labor Movements of the English-speaking world, hereby afforded to it; and inversely, the Socialist or Labor Movements of the English-speaking world, entitled to the best, and none too good, that the Movements in other languages produce, can not but profit by the work, hereby rendered accessible to them.
DANIEL DE LEON.
New York, January 1, 1904.

Girls

Girls written by Joshua Luna and illustrated by Jonathan Luna

A small town is cut off from the rest of the world by a transparent dome. The fifty six townspeople find themselves threatened by a giant glowing sperm and a horde of naked women who kill the local women and reproduce through sexual intercourse with the men. The invaders' different reaction to males and females pits the women against the men for survival. The authors have created a community much more diverse than normal, creating a microcosm of the USA to show how people react to crisis.

Originally published in 24 separate issues, there is plenty of room for character development and cliff-hanging moments. The main characters are two men, a low self esteem cashier and the town cop, and the female bartender they both love. As the naked women multiply and townspeople are brutally slain, there is lots of graphic content that is handled surprisingly well. The story provides enough detail to convey the plot while relying on gory or titillating imagery too much.

The setting seems strangely similar to Stephen King's novel Under The Dome, only he doesn't use naked alien women and a giant spermatozoa to accelerate the plot of his 1000+ page book. The similarities are enough to make me think he read Girls and saw a good plot device.

Manon Lescaut

Manon Lescaut by Abbe Prevost

Manon Lescaut is a story of a young man, the Chevalier des Grieux, and his lover, Manon Lescaut. Set in the year 1721 and first published in 1731, this story of uninhibited love and its dire consequences was both quickly banned and widely read. The novel begins when a narrator, spending the night in a small town, who sees the townspeople gathered around two large wagons loaded with women criminals who are being banished to the colony of New Orleans. Amongst this "frail sisterhood" sits Manon "whose whole air and figure seemed so ill-suited to her present condition, that under other circumstances I should not have hesitated to pronounce her a person of high birth. Her excessive grief, and even the wretchedness of her attire, detracted so little from her surpassing beauty... " Asking one of the guards about this rare beauty, the guard points to a man who has followed them from Paris, crying all the way and says that he knows her. Asked about Manon, the despondent stranger replies that he is completely in love with her and having failed at all attempts to free her, he plans to follow her to the ends of the Earth. Seeing that the stranger has no money and is in desperate need, the narrator gives him 4 gold louis-d'ors and 2 more to the lead guard, and goes on his way.
Two years later he again sees the young man, poorly dressed and walking the street of Calais, having just returned from America. Greeting him and learning he is still destitute, the narrator offers him a room for the night at the inn where he is staying. That night the stranger, who is the Chevalier des Grieux, tells the story of his tragic three year love affair with the beautiful and charming Manon Lescaut.
Manon is poor but beautiful and the 17 year old Chevalier's love for her is instantaneous and intense. He must have her, and runs off with her to Paris in spite of the disapproval of his father and brother. Losing his savings through various circumstances, he relies on the generosity of friends and his skill at gambling to support their existence. Manon, while she professes love for the Chevalier, uses her beauty and charm to attract the generosity of other men. Instead of her loose virtue turning him away, their mutual love keeps him faithful to her. Eventually they run into trouble with the law and he follows her into exile.
Told completely from his point of view, Manon's life and motives are at best poorly understood. We see her through the filter of 300 years, a translation into another language, and the eyes of a deeply infatuated young man. It is believed that the story is in part based upon an early love affair of the author Prevost.
Manon's story and the Chevalier's love for her has inspired several operas, and, 100 years later, the novel and play Camille by Alexandre Dumas. Both Manon and Camille have been made into movies again and again. I am glad that I have read the original version of this classic love story.

Dancing Naked in the Material World

Dancing Naked in the Material World by Marilyn Suriani Futterman

Marilyn Suriani Futterman is a photographer and this is a book published in 1992 of her photographs, taken while she went "undercover" as a waitress in an Atlanta nightclub. Almost every other page contains a photograph or photographs and most of them are of women dancers in revealing costumes. Yet seldom are the pictures eroticized. They are documentary in nature. All are black-and-white and many use available light. Other were taken with on-camera flash, and still others were taken in a studio setting.
The text accompanying the pictures are the dancers own words. They talk about why they do this work and how they feel about dancing and the customers they dance for. Some are more articulate and insightful than others, but all are thoughtful and personal.
The book ends with an article, "Stripping for a Living," by Dr. Jacqueline Boles, a Sociology professor. It describes the history and setting of nude dancing in American society. All in all, this is a well-conceived and executed documentary on exotic dancers, an occupation halfway between entertainer and sex worker.
In writing this review I came across a video that was made recently of the photographer, Marilyn Suriani, talking about creating and publishing the book.

AUNT EM and UNCLE HENRY in OZ

AUNT EM and UNCLE HENRY in OZ by MARCH LAUMER

Published in 1983 Aunt Em and Uncle Henry in Oz is one of 20 books about the land of Oz published by March Laumer between 1983 and 1999. While print editions are rare (the first edition consisted of 500 numbered copies), I found the text file online at T.E.A.M.L.O.A.D.: THOROUGHLY ENTHUSIASTIC ADMIRERS OF MARCH LAUMER'S OZ ACTION DRAMAS, The Official March Laumer Online Oz Books Website and was able to read the book (sadly, without the illustrations by David Maxine) using my iPhone's Kindle app and Amazon's Send to Kindle utility.

The land of OZ and its main characters were created by American author L. Frank Baum in his first Oz book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz published in 1900. Most people know this story through the 1939 MGM movie starring Judy Garland, The Wizard of Oz. Baum's Oz books were phenomenally successful (he went on to write 13 sequels). At his death, Baum's publisher hired a young writer Ruth Plumly Thompson to continue the series. She and others after her, went on to write official Oz books for the publisher until 1963.

March Laumer takes the characters of Baum's land of Oz, and writes novels that are not necessarily for children where he speculates on what would happen to them over time. The story of this book takes place 81 years after Dorothy, Aunt Em and Uncle Henry move to Oz (told in Baum's 1910 book The Emerald City of Oz). Having adjusted to life in a fairy land where no one ages or dies, there is one small thing that still bothers Em: she lost her thimble years ago in the tornado that took Dorothy and their original Kansas home to Oz. No other thimble would ever do, and Henry has patiently listened to her complain and regret the loss of the special mother-of-pearl thimble her brother gave her.

The adventure begins when Henry suggests that Em's thimble might still be in the house that has been turned into a museum where it fell in Munchkinland. They decide to take a second honeymoon and go visit their old house to search for the thimble. Things get interesting when they get there and the remains of the wicked witch of the east, who died and turned to dust when the house fell on her, start to influence Em. Meanwhile the remains of the wicked witch of the west, melted when Dorothy poured a bucket of water on her so long ago, having settled to the bottom of the Pond of Peculiar Powers just outside the Tin Woodman's castle in Winkieland, are starting to have unexpected effects on the pond life.

Laumer's novel asks the question: since they lived in a land where people do not die or age, what happened to the two wicked witches that Dorothy destroyed. He also questions the concepts of good and evil that Baum played lightly with in his children's books, but that later writers like Gregory Maguire in his book Wicked would use effectively to bring the Oz stories to new mature audiences. Laumer appears to be a transitional author in the genre of Ozian fiction, being the first to ask the question as to whether these two sisters were truly wicked, or just misunderstood.

I found the novel confusing at first, with characters from Alexander Melentyevich Volkov's Russian novels about Magic Land mixed into Baum's Oz, but, as the story develops, it brings new maturity and wisdom to Oz. Growing up can sometimes be awkward, even for a literary genre. Laumer brings us through a transition from the official Oz series for children to something more by showing us his vision of what happens to Oz and its people in the many years since L. Frank Baum died. Nowhere near as polished as Maguire's work, but charming in its own way, I am pleased to have found Laumer's first book and look forward to reading more of this little known Ozian author.

Flight Behavior

Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver

Flight Behavior is in a new genre of fiction that is called Cli-Fi, or climate fiction (Wikipedia defines Cli-Fi as "a subgenre of science fiction that focuses on the Earth's climate, in particular emphasizing the effects of anthropogenic climate change and global warming..."). Here Barbara Kingsolver looks at the effects of climate change on a small rural community in the Appalachian mountains of Tennessee. The story is told from the point of view of a disgruntled married mother of two living with her docile, slow-witted husband and his parents on a small sheep farm. Into their lives appears a "miracle" in the form of a swarm of Monarch butterflies that come to spend the winter, instead of in their normal winter home in Mexico, in the pine forest above their house. When the news of the butterflies gets out, reporters, tourists, environmental advocates, and a team of university scientists also wind up on their hillside. But the changes that sent them the butterflies are also wrecking their livelihoods and their town.
The title relates to how we behave when we take flight from a bad situation in hopes of survival or growth.

Building Big

Building Big by David Macaulay

David Macaulay takes the reader on a tour of some of the really big civil engineering structures of our time. Building Big has sections on Bridges, Tunnels, Dams, Domes, and Skyscrapers. Each part of the book describes the design and construction of from four to ten outstanding examples of the structure highlighted. The examples in each category are described in chronological order with some going back to the time of ancient Rome. The drawings that accompany the text are excellent at focusing on the details and techniques described. The integration of text and graphics is wonderful. In each case, Macaulay describes the design objectives, the interplay between the structure and the environment, and the engineering solutions used to bring the structures into being. This is a wonderful book for anyone interested in structural engineering and design. I have not seen the related PBS video series, but I can say that the book stands on its own very well. Highly recommended.

Letters to Vanessa: On Love, Science and Awareness in an Enchanted World

Letters to Vanessa: On Love, Science and Awareness in an Enchanted World by Jeremy W. Hayward

Although written in the form of letters from a father to his daughter, this book is a great read for anyone interested in modern physics, neuroscience, and biology and their relationship to spirituality. If the "Dear Vanessa" is removed from the beginning of each chapter the letters take on a universal audience. By writing as if to a teenage daughter, the explanations of advanced scientific concepts and mindfulness practices become accessible to the general reader. Hayward re-enchants our world by showing how something he calls awareness-feeling-energy fills all of space. He shows how changing the way we think about the world can allow us to see the universe as alive and full of awareness. Three of the chapters in the book are what Hayward calls Interludes where he describes meditation practices derived from Buddhism that are aimed at helping the reader make the concepts described intellectually become integrated into consciousness. The bibliography is divided into chapters so the reader can pursue any concept discussed as far as desired. A great book for anyone interested in the topic.

The 85 Ways to Tie a Tie

The 85 Ways to Tie a Tie: The Science and Aesthetics of Tie Knots by Thomas Fink & Yong Mao



THIS BOOK CHANGED MY LIFE...
Well, maybe not my WHOLE life, but it has done wonders for that minute each weekday morning when I tie my tie. Before this book the most interesting part of this ritual was picking a colorful tie to match my clothes. Then came the boring task of getting one of the two knots I knew tied correctly. Now I can chose a knot that fits my collar line and the thickness of the tie.
What this book doesn't cover is the art of the tie. Ties are the most artistic part of a man's wardrobe and yet this book ignores the design element of the fabric and focuses on the knot tied about the neck to hold the tie in place. There is an introductory section on the history of neck cloths that traces them back to an ancient Chinese emperor and discusses all the major precursors to the "long tie." Then the authors, who are both physicists, give a brief introduction to Topology and its branch, Knot Theory, and we are off to the fun. Using higher mathematics and a few basic assumptions about ties that they call "constraints" they come up with (you guessed it) 85 ways to tie a tie.
Although I have read the whole book, I have not tied all the knots so I can't vouch for this next part. They added additional "constraints" for balance and symmetry, and narrowed these 85 down to 13 that meet their demanding criteria. Even if they are right and none of the others are superb, 13 is enough to make a boring routine into an exciting choice. Still there is the thrill of the undiscovered in the 72 they rejected. One of them may be the perfect knot for that beautiful silk Indian block print tie that hasn't looked good with either of my two knots, but that I love too much to throw away. I have finally learned the names of my two original knots and learned enough about tie knots to recognize some of the more famous knots I see on others.
The book is illustrated with black-and-white photos of the famous and not-so-famous wearing various knots in their ties and has the most wonderful diagrams that make tie knots a joy to learn. A great book for any man who wears a tie on a regular basis.

A Tale for Midnight

A Tale for Midnight by Frederic Prokosch

This is a great story and the best part is that it is true. It is a novel based on historic fact, and Prokosch did a considerable amount of research to be sure he got the facts right. The story is of a famous murder in Rome that occurred in 1598. Beatrice Cenci, the young daughter of a wealthy Roman count, killed her father with the help of her brother, her stepmother and her lover. A year later they were all found guilty and executed for the crime. The story has been told many times before in history books, fiction, plays, poems, and even music. Probably the most famous version in English is Percy B. Shelley's play, The Cenci, written in 1819. Although a great play, Shelley doesn't always get the facts straight.
This is the first novel that Frederic Prokosch wrote based on historic fact and he did a lot of research to ensure the accuracy of what he wrote. Prokosch was highly regarded in his time but now, a generation later, he has been mostly forgotten. This is sad because he is a great writer with an engaging style. His descriptive prose reveals his background as a poet, yet his dialog is crisp and direct. He writes mostly about the aftermath of the murder and the events leading up to the trial, detailing the tangled web of hearsay, rumor and fact that always follows a crime of national interest.
Highly recommended for lovers of historic fiction.

The Tough Winter

The Tough Winter by Robert Lawson


In The Tough Winter, written in 1954, Robert Lawson brings us back to the setting of his Newbery Medal winning 1945 book Rabbit Hill. Set on a small hillside near Danbury Connecticut, the book tells the story of a rabbit family and their animal neighbors as they face a tough winter. The kind Folks, who live in the Big House and love and respect the animals, are going south for the winter, and all the animals are concerned about how the Caretakers, who will spend the winter in the house, will treat them. In addition, Uncle Analdas has predicted that they are in for a tough winter.
Analdas' prediction takes on increasing importance at defining events as bad things start to happen. A major ice storm starts the winter off badly, and the uncaring Caretakers arrive with a dog who threatens the animals and their homes. Yet they show a response of communal support to all hardships that prevents tragedy from overcoming them. Lawson lovingly contrasts the wisdom of the older rabbits to the exuberance of the young Little Georgie and his friend Willie the field mouse.
Written three years before the author's death at the age of 64, this book is about threats and obstacles overcome and how community and cooperation are vital to this process. Its portrayal of a tough Connecticut winter is excellently done. Beautifully illustrated with black and white drawings of rabbits, this was a book I enjoyed reading.

Sex and Punishment: Four Thousand Years of Judging Desire

Sex and Punishment: Four Thousand Years of Judging Desire by Eric Berkowitz



Disputes over sexual behavior are not new, nor is our attempt to use the legal system to resolve differences involving sex. But Eric Berkowitz has looked at the legal disputes involving sex and has found that the behavior considered a crime and the punishments administered to those found guilty have varied quite a lot. Not only over time, and he has decided to look at a 4,000 year time period, but also between different cultures of the same time, what is considered criminal sexual behavior can vary significantly.
Eric Berkowitz is a writer and a lawyer and he takes us on a historic survey of documented sex crimes and their punishments from the Mesopotamia of 4,000 years ago up to the dawn of the 20th century. He felt to do justice to the 20th and 21st centuries in such a broad survey would require a second volume. His treatment is chronological with chapters on the Ancient World, Greece, Rome, the Middle Ages, 1500-1700, the New World, the 18th, and the 19th centuries.
His treatment is not prurient, but it is quite descriptive as legal documents often have to be, yet his writing is lively and enjoyable. While there are 20 pages of notes and a 20 page Bibliography for those who want them, the book can be easily read without referring to them. A large part of sexual abuse has to do with men of privilege and power having their way with those less fortunate than themselves, both male and female. Sometimes these wrongs against the powerless are judged and condemned by our legal systems, often they are not. While the author does not take a stance in the book, the amount of injustice presented may be upsetting to the reader.

THE INFANT'S SKULL

THE INFANT'S SKULL: OR, THE END OF THE WORLD, A Tale of the Millennium by EUGENE SUE
Translated From The Original French By DANIEL DELEON
NEW YORK LABOR NEWS COMPANY, I904

The Infant's Skull is the 11th book of Eugene Sue's 21 volume series The Mysteries of the People; or History of a Proletarian Family Across the Age. The series was created to be a European history that depicts the struggle between the ruling and the ruled classes. One family, the descendants of a Gallic chief named Joel, represent the oppressed and the descendants of a Frankish chief Neroweg, typifies the oppressors. Down through the ages the successive struggles between oppressors and oppressed are depicted as each generation of Joel's family writes the story of their lives and adds it to the collective story gathered so far.

In this book Joel's descendant is Yvon, the son of a forester, who disguises himself as an idiot called "The Calf" to avoid being oppressed into serfdom. When the book opens in 987, Yvon lives in the castle of Louis V, the last Carolingian King of France who was called Louis the Do-Nothing. Yvon uses his wits to craft a miracle cure that gets him his father's job as forester.

There are historic topics that are touched on but not developed related regicide and the Millennial hysteria of Christians believing the world is to end. The rich give their wealth and lands to a greedy church to obtain heavenly peace. The poor stop working the land thinking the end of their misery is at hand. After orgiastic revelry sweeps the land on New Year's Eve 999, the poor wake up to just another day worse than those before, with famine sweeping the land. Yvon and his family are driven by hunger and misery to leave for Anjou, where his son is at last forced into the serfdom that Yvon spent his life avoiding.

This is the shortest book in the series, and it has great dramatic moments. Sue's moralizing was designed to make this a proletarian statement, but there is no silver lining to the dark cloud he has created. Serfdom has taken its hold on France and there is no escape for the poor.

Translator's Preface
Among the historic phenomena of what may be called "modern antiquity," there is none comparable to that which was witnessed on the first day of the year 1000, together with its second or adjourned catastrophe thirty-two years later. The end of the world, at first daily expected by the Apostles, then postponed— upon the authority of Judaic apocalyptic writings, together with the Eevelations of St. John the Divine,—to the year 1000, and then again to thirty-two years later, until it was finally adjourned sine die, was one of those beliefs, called "theologic," that have had vast and disastrous mundane effect. The Infant's Skull; or, The End of the World, figures at that period. It is one of that series of charming stories by Eugene Sue in which historic personages and events are so artistically grouped that, without the fiction losing by the otherwise solid facts, and without the solid facts suffering by the fiction, both are enhanced, and combinedly act as a flash-light upon the past — and no less so upon the future.
As with all the stories of this series by the talented Sue, The Infant's Skull; or, The End of the World, although one of the shortest, rescues invaluable historic facts from the dark and dusty recesses where only the privileged few can otherwise reach them. Thus its educational value is equal to its entertaining merit. It is a gem in the necklace of gems that the distinguished author has felicitously named The Mysteries of the People; or The History of a Proletarian Family Across the Ages.
DANIEL DE LEON. New York, April 30,1904.

Woman, Church and State by Matilda Joslyn Gage

Woman, Church and State by Matilda Joslyn Gage

I am currently re-reading in PDF downloaded from Google Books Woman, Church and State by Matilda Joslyn Gage on a tablet computer.

Matilda Joslyn Gage was raised in an Abolitionist home that was a stop on the Underground Railroad. A mother of four, she was a founding member of the National Woman Suffrage Association along with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Her life's work was the struggle for the complete liberation of women. Carved on her gravestone are the words she lived by: "There is a word sweeter than Mother, Home or Heaven; that word is Liberty."

Originally published in 1893, this book is a major feminist work of the Nineteenth Century that identifies the sources of women's oppression as the church and its offspring, the state. Alarmed by the conservative religious movement of the time that tried to amend the Constitution to declare the U.S. a Christian state, Gage wrote this book to articulate her views that christianity was the oppressor of women.

In the first chapter called The Matriarchate, the author tells of the rights women had in pagan pre-christian times. She talks of the Mother-rule, that preceded Patriarchy. She then shows that christianity from its beginning has worked to undermine women's rights.

The following seven chapters outline the oppression of women in the west and its sources in first the church, and later in the state that developed its ruling principles from canon law. These chapters deal with Celibacy, Canon Law, Marquette (a term that Gage uses for jus primae noctis, the right of lords to the sexual favors of their peasant women), Witchcraft, Wives, Polygamy, and Work. These chapters are filled with examples from history as well as the contemporary 19th century. The documented examples of women's oppression at the hands of ministers of the church and the law in this section are an impressive collection that makes this book a valuable source for feminist herstory.

In the last two chapters, Gage looks at the church of her day and shows that it is still bogged down in the same dogma of women's oppression. She predicts a great revolution which will liberate women and give them equal rights with men in both religion and society. I am sure the women's movement of the 1970s with its emphasis on women's spirituality and the Equal Rights Amendment would have convinced her that she was right.

The Iron Arrow Head: or The Buckler Maiden, A Tale of the Northman Invasion

The Iron Arrow Head: Or, The Buckler Maiden, a Tale of the Northman Invasion, Volume 10 of The Mysteries of the People, by Eugene Sue

The Iron Arrow-Head by Eugene Sue is the 10th volume of a history of France in novel form. The series tells the story of two groups: the original Gauls and the conquering Franks who invade from the northern lands of Germany and become a ruling class.
The setting of this volume is the year 911 in the city of Paris. France is controlled by Frankish lords and Catholic bishops, while the native Gauls are conquered people in their own land. Count Rothbert rules Paris, but fears invasion from Norse vikings who plunder in fleets of swift ships. He can control the Gallic people with his own troops, but fears they will join the vikings rather than fight them off.
The viking invaders, sensing that the Frankish rulers are divided and weak, have started making land claims as well as taking plunder and settling in parts of France. In The Iron Arrow Head, the viking leader Rolf (also known in history as Rollo or Robert I) attacks with over 1,000 ships and wants, in addition to plunder, the land now known as Normandy, and to wed Ghisele, the daughter of the French King, Charles the Simple. What makes this interesting to the modern reader is that Rollo's descendants were the Dukes of Normandy, and following the Norman conquest of England in 1066, kings of England.
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
The invasion of the Normans, or Northmen, or Norsemen—called throughout this brilliant story the Northmans—bears characteristics that distinguish it markedly from all the other European invasions. With all the others the migrations were brought on by home changes of soil and waterways that drove the invaders westward. War was only a means, the goal was bread. With the Northman invasion it was otherwise. The goal was war and adventure. This simple circumstance places a wholly different stamp upon the Northman invaders. It explains the impulse they gave to oratory, poetry, music and the fine arts. Their rush from the frozen north through Europe—conquering and transforming England; carving for themselves large domains out of the French territory, then held in the imbecile hands of the imbecile successors of Charlemagne; startling the populations of southern Italy and Sicily—acted like a leaven through all the territories that they traversed. And they traversed none without raising its tone with their poetic-barbarian spirit.
This story, the tenth of the Eugene Sue series "The Mysteries of the People; or, History of a Proletarian Family Across the Ages," is a matchless sketch of the Northman. It reproduces his uncouthness illumined with his brilliant latent qualities. The characteristics of the Northman invader have for their setting the physical and intellectual dullness of the Frankish conquerors of Gaul. The clash of the two reproduces a historic picture, or a page of history, that is unique.
The fears entertained by Charlemagne and expressed in the preceding story—"The Carlovingian Coins; or, The Daughters of Charlemagne"—are verified in this. A race of bold and adventurous invaders steps upon the scene of France, shocking the ruling class, arousing the ruled, and introducing a fresh breath into the land.
The Northman invasion of France reads, even in the driest work of history, like a rollicking Norse tale. That spirit is preserved in this charming historic novel, which is as instructive as it is entertaining, and in which again a descendant of the conquered race of Joel witnesses the degradation of the second royal house of France preparatorily to the witnessing, a few generations later, by another descendant of Joel, of the downfall of that second dynasty and the rise of the third, narrated in the following story, "The Infant's Skull; or, The End of the World."
DANIEL DE LEON.
New York, July, 1908.

How The Wizard Saved Oz

How The Wizard Saved Oz by Donald Abbott

How The Wizard Saved Oz is Donald Abbott's second book about the Wizard of Oz's adventures in Oz before Dorothy arrives there. The first book, How The Wizard Came To Oz, tells the story of how a circus ventriloquist rides a lighter than air ballon through a storm, lands in Oz, and is proclaimed a powerful wizard by the gullible people who live there.
In this book, the Queen of the Field Mice asks the Wizard for help in finding the field mice of Oz. All her subjects have suddenly disappeared, leaving behind only a scrap of cloth from a tailor who lives far to the north in the land of the Gillikins. The two set out to ask the tailor about the possible owner of the scrap. Instead of the tailor, they come across Mombi, a wicked witch with a nefarious plan to steal all the magic in Oz. Can a small mouse and a humbug wizard outwit an evil witch and save the field mice and all of Oz?
Abbott wrote a total of six early Oz stories that he illustrated himself in the style of the first illustrator of Oz, W. W. Denslow. They are prequels to the first two Oz books by L. Frank Baum that will entertain people who want more about Oz.

How The Wizard Came To Oz

How The Wizard Came To Oz, by Donald Abbott



How The Wizard Came To Oz is a 1991 prequel to the L. Frank Baum book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Donald Abbott wrote 6 books and illustrated a couple more between 1991 and 1998 for The Emerald City Press. The Wonderful Wiki of Oz describes him as follows:
"He maintains an allegiance to what might be called 'early Oz' — his books are set early in the chronology established by the Oz books, even to the point of being prequels to Baum's novels. Abbott draws connections with early Baum books like Father Goose and with the 1902 stage musical adaptation of the first Oz book. He is also known for maintaining a style of graphic art that is modeled on that of W. W. Denslow, the original Oz illustrator."
The major difference between this book and the new Disney movie, Oz The Great and Powerful, is that Abbott's book is a prequel to Baum's book, where the movie is a prequel to the 1939 MGM movie The Wizard of Oz. Here we find a traveling circus ventriloquist who gets carried away in a lighter than air balloon and lands in the western region of Oz populated by Winkies and ruled by the Wicked Witch of the West. Struggling against this witch and her sister the Wicked Witch of the East, the simple and gentle Oz is secretly helped by Glinda the Good.
As the story progresses, Abbott introduces a lot of the major characters of the Baum series: the scarecrow, the tin man, the flying monkeys, the guardian of the gate, and the royal army. Being a prequel, we know how it will end, but for those who have read Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, this is a well crafted story, especially for children, with information about how the wizard came to be. It is more faithful than imaginative, and breaks little new ground. His illustrations in the style of W. W. Denslow are delightful and truly add to the story.
How the Wizard Came To Oz is still available from Books of Wonder.

The Auschwitz Volunteer

The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery by Captain Witold Pilecki

The Auschwitz Volunteer is a newly available English translation of a report written by Witold Pilecki, a Polish military officer, in the late summer of 1945 about the 3 years he spent inside the Auschwitz concentration camp from 1940-1943. Auschwitz was young then: Pilecki was on the second transport of prisoners to what had been a Polish cavalry base converted by the Germans into a camp for Polish prisoners. When the first transport was sent, Pilecki volunteered to infiltrate the prison, organize resistance, and send out reports. His was the second group of prisoners to arrive.

As a military report this work is extremely well written. Advised to "stick to bare facts without any kind of commentary," he has created a memoir that reveals not only the horror of Auschwitz, but also the soul of this brave man. Through his eyes, we see the infamous camp develop and grow. We learn how he and others survived and organized, preparing for a revolt that never became a reality.

Right after writing this Polish narrative of World War II, Pilecki went back to Poland to carry out intelligence operations for the Allies and the Polish government in exile. Rather than becoming a war hero, he was arrested in May 1947, convicted of activities against the state, and killed by the Polish communist government. After decades of silence and ostracism, this important memoir has finally become available in English.

Mandingo

Mandingo by Kyle Onstott

First published in 1959, before the civil rights movement had changed much in the USA, Mandingo is a book that takes a harsh and simplistic view of slavery in the 1830's South. As the author recreates this period, slaves are animals to be bred, worked, and sold as the owners see fit. The N-word is used frequently, and slaves are represented as simple-minded and devoted to their owners. Bored by their rural life, young white men enjoy sex with their female slaves and wagering on fights between their most muscular male slaves. Slave breeding and prices are about the only things that the plantation owners seem to have enough knowledge about and interest to discuss.

Hammond Maxwell is 18 years old and an only child. His mother died when he was young, and his father is disabled by rheumatism. He and his father Warren are the only whites on a large Alabama plantation. Since he reached puberty he has had his choice of bedmates from the slaves of the plantation. His father is pressuring Hammond to marry his cousin Blanche, who he hasn't seen since she was a baby, and who lives on a distant plantation. Although Hammond has had many children by his female slaves, his father is looking for a white child who can be an heir to their plantation, Falconhurst. Blanche's father is eager to arrange a match because he is deep in debt and hopes to secure a "loan" from Hammond in exchange for his parental approval. Hammond, on his side is willing to do his duty to provide his father with progeny, but finds sex with slaves much more satisfying than with his wife. Blanche, neglected by a husband who finds more time for his pure-bred Mandingo fighter than for her, turns to drink and eventually to infidelity to ease her loneliness.

The plot is simplistic and the characters two-dimensional. One would hope that the author portrayed them that way intentionally rather than through lack of skill. In either case, the reader gets a glimpse into the dehumanizing effects of slavery on both the owner and the owned. This is a difficult book that gives a harsh glimpse at a brutal way of life.

Flying Cars, Amphibious Vehicles and Other Dual Mode Transports: An Illustrated Worldwide History

Flying Cars, Amphibious Vehicles and Other Dual Mode Transports: An Illustrated Worldwide History, by George W. Green

This book provides six chapters of varying lengths on different forms of dual mode vehicles: Road-Air (126 pp.), Amphibious (53 pp.), Road-Rail (6 pp.), Water-Air (10 pp.), Other Duals (3 pp.) and, Triphibious (11 pp.). Within each chapter, the vehicles are listed chronologically. Many entries are brief paragraphs listing the inventor and a short description of the vehicle's significant features. More significant vehicles have longer descriptions listing important achievements and accompanied by photos and illustrations.

Vehicles are carefully designed for specific uses. Designing a vehicle for such radically different uses as flying and driving is a challenge that has captured the attention of many designers. This is an interesting engineering history of the main attempts that have been made in this area.

The Carlovingian Coins

The Carlovingian Coins; or, The Daughters of Charlemagne by Eugene Sue

The Carlovingian Coins; or, The Daughters of Charlemagne by Eugene Sue, set in the 9th century, is the 9th volume of a history of France in novel form. The first part takes place is the court of Charlemagne at Aix-la Chapelle in the year 811 where two Gauls, old Amael and his grandson Vortigern, are hostages taken by Charlemagne's Frankish troops in an unsuccessful attempt to conquer Brittany. Charlemagne attempts to convince them of the benefits to Brittany were they to capitulate and become a part of his vast empire. They argue back for their independence, saying if he did conquer, they would never submit, and constantly be preparing a revolt that would be a drain on him. They convince him to leave Brittany alone so he can focus his resources on other enemies.

Part two takes place 7 years later when Charlemagne's son Louis the Pious attacks Brittany, and shows Vortigern leading the fierce resistance of the Gallic people defending their last homeland.

Amael, who is now ancient, was the young warrior of the previous novel in the series, The Abbatial Crosier, which was set set in the year 737 AD. Each book stands on its own, but together they show the ongoing struggle between the native Gauls of France and their Frankish conquerors.

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
The Age of Charlemagne is the watershed of the history of the present era. The rough barbarian flood that poured over Western Europe reaches in that age a turning point of which Charlemagne is eminently the incarnation. The primitive physical features of the barbarian begin to be blunted, or toned down by a new force that has lain latent in him, but that only then begins to step into activity—the spiritual, the intellectual powers. The Age of Charlemagne is the age of the first conflict between the intellectual and the brute in the principal branches of the races that occupied Europe. The conflict raged on a national scale, and it raged in each particular individual. The colossal stature, physical and mental, of Charlemagne himself typifies the epoch. Brute instincts of the most primitive and savage, intellectual aspirations of the loftiest are intermingled, each contends for supremacy—and alternately wins it, in the monarch, in his court and in his people.
The Carlovingian Coins; or, The Daughters of Charlemagne is the ninth of the brilliant series of historical novels written by Eugene Sue under the title, The Mysteries of the People; or, History of a Proletarian Family Across the Ages. The age and its people are portrayed in a charming and chaste narrative, that is fittingly and artistically brought to a close by a veritable epopee—the Frankish conquest of Brittany, and, as fittingly, serves to introduce the next epopee— the Northman's invasion of Gaul—dealt with in the following story, The Iron Arrow Head; or, The Buckler Maiden.
Daniel De Leon.
New York, May, 1905.

The Abbatial Crosier

The Abbatial Crosier or Bonaik and Septimine. A Tale of a Medieval Abbess, by Eugène Sue

The Abbatial Crosier, set in the year 737 AD, is the 8th volume in a series called The Mysteries of the People; or History of a Proletarian Family Across the Ages that was written between 1849-1857. Eugene Sue created this series to be a European history that depicted the struggle between the ruling and the ruled classes. One family, the descendants of a Gallic chief named Joel, represent the oppressed and the descendants of a Frankish chief Neroweg, typify the oppressors. Down through the ages the successive struggles between oppressors and oppressed are depicted in a series of stories that culminate in the European Revolutions of 1848.

Considered classics of Marxist/Socialist thought, these books are mostly forgotten today, and the English-language editions published at the beginning of the 20th Century have only recently become available through large-scale digitization projects of Public Domain books. Daniel DeLeon, leader of the Socialist Labor Party of America and translator of this series into English, writes a Preface to each volume as an introduction.

The Abbatial Crosier is set in the year 719 when Germanic Franks under the leadership of Charles Martel (The Hammer) are driving back invading Moslems. The native Gauls are enslaved by both sides of the conflict. Sue quotes a female slave as saying "Sad days these are for us. We have only the choice of servitudes."

One young enslaved Gaul, having helped keep his master's weapons sharp, armor clean, and horse well-fed, takes them one day. Assuming a new name, he disguises himself as a free warrior. Fierce in battle, he wins his way into the heart of Charles Martel. He enjoys fighting other German tribes and Moslem invaders, but feels out of place, and fears he will be called upon to fight his own people. One day he must decide between the glory of working for the ruling class, or returning to his Gallic roots.

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
The turbulent epoch that rocked the cradle of the Carlovingian dynasty, the dynasty from which issued the colossal historic figure of Charlemagne, is the epoch of this touching story—the eighth of the series of Eugene Sue's historic novels known collectively under the title "The Mysteries of the People; or, History of a Proletarian Family Across the Ages." From the seething caldron of the valleys of the western Rhine, inundated by the Arabs from the south, the Frisians from the north, the Saxons from the west, and in which the chants of Moslems, of Christians and of barbarians mixed into the one common cry of desolating war, the feudal social system, previously introduced by Clovis, and now threatened to be engulfed, emerged from the chaos as a social institution. Many a characteristic of feudalism would be missed if this, a crucial period of its existence, is not properly apprehended. As in all the others of this series of Eugene Sue's stories, the information is imparted without the reader's knowledge. What may be termed the plot seizes and keeps the interest from start to finish, steadily enriching the mind with knowledge historically inestimable, besides connecting with the era described in the previous story— The Branding Needle; or, The Monastery of Charolles—and preparing the ground for the thrilling events that are the subject of the succeeding narrative —The Carlovingian Coins; or, The Daughters of Charlemagne.
DANIEL DE LEON. New York, 1904.

The Branding Needle

The Branding Needle; or, The Monastery of Charolles: A Tale of the First Communal Charter by Eugene Sue

The Branding Needle is the 7th of a 20 volume series called The Mysteries of the People; or History of a Proletarian Family Across the Age that Eugene Sue wrote between 1849 and 1857 to depict the struggle between the invading Franks and the oppressed Gallic people of France over a period of 2000 years.
This volume, set in the year 613 in a small monastery, is a sequel to The Poniard’s Hilt which told how 50 years earlier rebellious bandits, fighting the oppressive rule of Frankish overlords and their allies, the catholic bishops and priests, signed a truce with the king and settled in the valley of Charolles. In this book the aged monk Loysik must confront Queen Brunhild, whose bishop has asked her to give him control of the monastery.
Sue writes descriptively of the cruelty and excesses of Brunhild and King Clotaire II who are involved in a struggle for control of France. He writes of how, through a combination of military strength and religious hypocrisy, they enslave the Gallic peasants, and take their lands and property. In opposition to the Frankish control by force and fear, he shows the communal life of the Gauls of Charolles as an example of how people can live in mutual respect and shared resources.
While the structure is a simple morality tale of evil Franks and bishops versus the good peasants of Gaul, Sue's writing brings alive the history of France through a series of episodic novels that trace a Gallic family through generations of oppression and strife. In each book a member of the family recounts their own tale, and adds it to a communal history that has been preserved to inspire future generations with the story of their struggle.

Garment of Shadows

Garment of Shadows by Laurie R. King

Garment of Shadows is the 12th book in Laurie King's Mary Russell series which has seen Mary grow from a teenager who befriends the retired Sherlock Holmes, to his wife and equal partner in adventures all around the world. The setting for this book is the city of Fez in the early 1920s at a time when Morocco is divided between French and Spanish protectorates, and an independence movement with its own government is at war with both. Fez is the capital of the French section, and Holmes, a distant cousin to the French governor, comes to the city seeking his missing wife who is wandering the streets of Fez with amnesia. Mix in a bunch of thugs who are trying to kill them, a couple of British spies, a mute child of mysterious background, and both Russell and Holmes in disguise as local Berbers, and you have an idea of what the reader is in for.
While I enjoy Laurie King's writing, this book is not her best nor her worst. Russell's slow recovery of memory is well done, but there are times when the characters tell each other what happened that drag the story down. The author has done a lot of research on Fez, and gives many details about the setting, but there is little interaction with the Moroccans.