The Cartoon Introduction to Philosophy

The Cartoon Introduction to Philosophy by Michael F. Patton and Kevin Cannon

The Cartoon Introduction to Philosophy uses the graphic novel format effectively in providing a well-rounded introduction to the field of Philosophy. The progression of knowledge in Philosophy is symbolized in the book by a journey down The River of Philosophy, narrated by the Pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus, most famous for his belief in change being the fundamental nature of the universe, and for saying, "No man ever steps in the same river twice."
Rather than provide a linear historic outline, the book is divided into seven chapters: an Introduction to the field and then chapters devoted to six of the major subfields of Philosophy: Logic, Perception, Minds, Free Will, God, and Ethics. In these chapters Heraclitus meets the Western philosophers who developed the major theories in each field as he travels down the river, mostly by canoe. They engage in discussions that often bring together competing thinkers to argue their beliefs. Each of the major philosophers is introduced in a half page panel that gives their dates, a brief summary of their importance, the name of their most famous work, a map that shows their home country, a quote from their works, and a Fun Fact. Along the way he is pursued by a pair of wise-cracking talking fish.
The language of Philosophy is bogged down with many abstract "-isms" coined by philosophers to give names to their theories. Each are defined as they are introduced, and there is a three page Glossary at the end of the book where they are summarized alphabetically. This is followed by a one page Bibliography that lists some of the major books written by the philosophers Heraclitus has met along the way.
I found this a rewarding book for getting a grasp of these major concepts and how they have played out in Western thought. As the authors state, it only "scratched the surface" and, as such leaves, out much more than it contains. Hopefully, it will leave the reader wanting to pursue further study.

Gone to Amerikay

Gone to Amerikay by Derek McCulloch

This is a beautifully drawn graphic novel that recounts the tale of an Irish mother and her young daughter who leave for New York in 1870 to stay with an aunt while waiting for her husband to follow. However the book also tells the story of a young man from Ireland who sails for New York in 1960 and becomes involved in the Greenwich Village arts scene of off-Broadway plays, coffee houses, and folk music. And, yes, there is a third story of a wealthy Irishman who hires a private investigator to track down a mystery involving the 1870's mother and the 1960's lad.

Disconcertingly at first, the novel as it progresses switches between these three stories about Irish people in New York. You the reader can see them eventually merging, but it left me a bit confused at first. The stories are richly rewarding and worth any trouble the sudden changes in settings may cause.

The artist excels at portraits of his characters both visually and in character development. I fell in love with the good heroes and even the villains of this richly rewarding portrait of the immigrant experience.

Beauty's Kingdom

Beauty's Kingdom by Anne Rice writing as A. N. Roquelaure

Anne Rice has written a fourth volume to the Sleeping Beauty Trilogy she wrote in 1983 under the pseudonym A. N. Roquelaure. The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, Beauty's Punishment, and Beauty's Release now have a companion volume called Beauty's Kingdom. The original trilogy was an erotic retelling of the Sleeping Beauty legend in which the prince who awakens Beauty after her 100 years of sleep takes her away from her familial home to live in sexual servitude in his mother's kingdom, a land where the children of the neighboring kingdoms are taken to serve and please the nobles of the court.

It has been thirty years between the publication of the final volume of the trilogy and the release of this fourth installment, but in Beauty's world a little over 20 years have gone by. She and her husband Laurent have retired and passed on their kingdom to their son. The old queen and her son have died while on an ocean voyage, and messengers visit Laurent and Beauty to ask if they would be willing to rule her mysterious land of erotic servitude. They agree to become the rulers of what is to become known as Beauty's Kingdom with the stipulation that from now on all erotic servitude be voluntary and no longer restricted to the nobility.

The book is in eighteen chapters, each told from a different person's perspective. Beauty is the narrator of five chapters, her husband King Laurent of two. Lady Eva, who was in charge in the queen's absence has four chapters. The story progresses slowly and without the brutality of the forced servitude of the original trilogy. Yet Anne Rice shows she still can write convincingly and beautifully. Some of the fans of the original volumes are disappointed, which can be expected. This is not volume four of the trilogy. It is a look back at the story by a more mature author and brings her readers for a new look at the setting with a different perspective. No longer is Beauty the passive yet erotically aroused submissive. She is now the queen and it is her vision that will bring the kingdom back to life and give it new meaning. Yet she is not a dominatrix like the old queen, and it is this difference that gives this new volume a life of its own.

The Camino: A Journey of the Spirit

The Camino: A Journey of the Spirit by Shirley MacLaine

The Camino, officially known as the Santiago de Compostela Camino, is a 500-mile path across northern Spain that for centuries people have walked for spiritual growth or other reasons. This book is the actress Shirley MacLaine's personal statement of her own travels on the Camino when she was 60 years old which is described as "an intense spiritual and physical challenge." She set a goal of doing it in 30 days which meant she had to average 20 miles a day over mountainous terrain. As the book progresses the focus shifts from the original physical challenge of walking so far, to a spiritual challenge that occurs for Shirley in her dreams where she is confronted with memories of past lives and spirit guides. If you are just looking for a book about the physical features of the Camino then this is not the best book for you. If you want to catch a glimpse into the rich inner spiritual struggles of Shirley MacLaine, and to perhaps grow a bit from the experience yourself, then you can be sure that this book will give you one heck of an adventure.

Me Talk Pretty One Day

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

When I moved to Raleigh in May of 1979, I started having my morning coffee at The Breakfast House Restaurant across from NC State University's Bell Tower. This is where I met David Sedaris who was the morning waiter. This was during the time David was a Raleigh performance artist as described in the chapter "Twelve Moments in the Life of an Artist."
Reading David's books is like getting a letter from a long lost friend. Only funnier.

Barefoot Gen, Volume Ten: Never Give Up

Barefoot Gen, Volume Ten: Never Give Up by Keiji Nakazawa

The Barefoot Gen series documents the life of young Gen Nakaoka of Hiroshima starting when he is six years old in the summer of 1945 when the USA dropped an atomic bomb on the city. Never Give Up is the tenth and final volume of the series, and is set in Hiroshima in 1953, eight years after the events of the first book. As in previous books, the characters suffer from memories of both the terrors of the war and the horrendous day the atomic bomb destroyed their city and caused their lives to change forever.
Gen and three other orphans of the bomb live together in a small shack and dream of opening their own business making and selling the dresses they now sell as street corner vendors. Gen has also been learning to be an artist while working at a sign shop, and falls in love with his boss's daughter. Yet the long lasting effects of the atomic bomb on the people of Hiroshima's bodies and their souls will not let them live in peace. Memories of the horrendous day and its aftereffects continue to fill their minds, as the silent poison of radiation sickness eats away at their bodies.
The anti-war theme that has pervaded this series, starting in the first book with Gen's father and his opposition to the war that the military and the emperor have forced on the nation, is especially visible in this, the last book of the series. In this book the author outlines Japanese war crimes and makes a call for a world without war, especially calling for an end to atomic weapons. The book opens with a short two page introduction called "Gen's Message: A Plea For Nuclear Abolition" written by the translators and editors of Project Gen. It states clearly that "nuclear weapons and nuclear power cannot coexist with life on Earth." This strong pacifist message against war and nuclear power gives the ten volume story of the bomb and its aftermath a structure and a meaning far beyond simple history.

Barefoot Gen, Volume 9: Breaking Down Borders

Barefoot Gen, Volume 9: Breaking Down Borders by Keiji Nakazawa

The Barefoot Gen series documents the life of young Gen Nakaoka of Hiroshima starting when he is six years old in the summer of 1945 when the USA dropped an atomic bomb on the city. Volume 9 takes place at the end of 1950 and through 1951. Gen is now 12 years old, and as the book opens the city has condemned the small hut that his family had called home. The rest of his family has either died from the blast or radiation sickness, or moved out. Now homeless, Gen decides to move in with the group of orphans he has befriended who have their own hut. While he is happy to be near the girl Natsue that he is fond of, her radiation sickness is now in its final stages and she is dying. After Natsue dies he is heartbroken but the spirit to live on through any adversity that his father instilled in him keeps him from despair.

The same spirit that has helped him and all who come in contact with him as they struggle out of the hellish remains of the atomic destruction of their city and their lives, now helps an artist in despair. The artist returns the favor by teaching Gen how to draw. The artist tells Gen "Art Has No Borders" which inspires him to learn the universal language of art so that he can break down the national barriers that led to the war and the destruction of his beloved city. As the book ends he dreams of a peaceful world free of war where all the countries are connected by rainbow bridges that people can cross freely and be friends.

Dreaming Spies

Dreaming Spies by Laurie R. King

Dreaming Spies finds Mary Russell and her husband Sherlock Holmes in three separate settings during the years 1924-25; on a ship from India to Japan, in a small inn along the ancient Japanese Kisokaido Road, and in Oxford, London and the countryside of England. On board the ship from India Holmes sees the Earl of Darley, his young new wife, and his adult son. He remembers the Earl from before the war when he was involved in blackmailing. Mary Russell meets a Japanese woman who is returning home from her studies in England and asks her to teach Russell and Holmes some Japanese language and culture.

Laurie King takes the readers slowly into a finely-crafted mystery filled with great attention to detail. She brings to life first the confined life on a steamship, then the turbulent changes sweeping over Japan as it transitions from a traditional to a modern culture, and also the academic community of Oxford and the Bodleian Library. Each chapter is introduced by a haiku written by King. This story of international blackmail at the highest levels of political life increases in intensity as it builds to a surprising and satisfying conclusion.

A Father's Story

A Father's Story by Lionel Dahmer

Jeffrey Dahmer was a serial killer and sex offender, who raped, murdered, and dismembered 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991. This book is written by Jeff's father as he goes back over the life of his son and tries to understand what drove him to commit such ghastly actions.
Lionel Dahmer is a PhD chemist whose 1966 dissertation at Iowa State University, written in Jeffrey's childhood years, was titled: Chromatographic separations of niobium, tantalum, molybdenum, and tungsten. In this book both father and son seem emotionally detached, and Lionel even equates his son's bizarre desires to his own unrealized childhood fascination with explosives and murder.
While I found this book interesting to read, the parents' and grandmother's total unawareness of Jeffrey's crimes and pathological thinking limit the value of the book to helping the readers understand what happened to this young man.

Fifteenth century books and the twentieth century: an address ... and a catalogue of an exhibition of fifteenth century books held at the Grolier Club, April 15 - June 1, 1952

Fifteenth century books and the twentieth century: an address ... and a catalogue of an exhibition of fifteenth century books held at the Grolier Club, April 15 - June 1, 1952 by Curt F. Buhler

Curt Ferdinand Bühler (11 July 1905–2 August 1985) was the rare book curator at the Pierpont Morgan Library and an expert on the art and history of books printed during the fifteenth century. In this book he gives a talk on the first half century of printed books which is followed by a catalog of 77 15th century books from the 1952 exhibition at the Grolier Club, and four full page pictures from these books. It is an amazingly good introduction to incunabula, the printed books of the 15th century.

One of the four illustrations is an illustration from an Italian 15th century book Vita et Aesopus Moralisatus edited by Francesco del Tuppo and published in Naples, February 13, 1485 that appears on page 55 of the book.

I found a link to the illustration at the Metropolitan Museum of Art:

http://images.metmuseum.org/CRDImages/dp/original/DP108935.jpg

which explains the story behind the picture as follows:

"The fable of the ant and the fly is not unlike that of the country mouse and the city mouse. The fly boasted that he partook of the finest wines and the choicest delicacies and drank and ate from vessels of precious metal. But the wise ant, who ate simply and lived by his honest labor, pointed out that the fly was always unwanted and scorned and could never take a bite without being in fear for his life."

Here is a version of the story online: http://www.aesops-fables.com/the-ant-and-the-fly

Lost Horizon

Lost Horizon by James Hilton

I have wanted to read this book since I was a child watching the movie version starring Ronald Colman and Jane Wyatt on TV.
It is the story of a chance for healing given to a World War I veteran who has been psychologically damaged by the war and living out his life as consular staff in remote outposts of the British Empire. Escaping from an Afghan city in turmoil in an air rescue mission, Hugh Conway and three others discover that their pilot has hijacked the plane. Instead of taking them to safety in India, they are flown to the most remote region of Tibet and saved from freezing to death by the lamas of a remote Buddhist monastery called Shangri-La.
Written during the Great Depression, the book is a Utopian novel that describes Shangri-La as a haven in a world set on self-destruction that promotes a philosophy mixing Buddhist and Christian values and holding a secret to extremely long life. Conway and his three companions each react differently to the environment, but the story is about the healing nature of the place on Conway's damaged soul.
The book suffers from undeveloped and stereotyped female characters, but James Hilton's prose is still a delight to read. It has instilled a desire in me to see the 1937 Frank Capra film again that was restored in 1986 and released on DVD in 1999.

My Friend Dahmer

My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf

Having gruesomely murdered 17 young men, Jeffrey Dahmer is probably the most notorious serial killer in the USA. Derf Backderf went to school with Dahmer, and was even the president of the Dahmer Fan Club in their rural Ohio high school. Derf lost track of Dahmer in 1978 after graduation and went on to become a cartoonist. When he found out, along with the rest of the world, of Dahmer's 1991 arrest in Wisconsin he felt compelled to flesh out his memories and to write the story of the lonely, disturbed teenage Dahmer he knew. My Friend Dahmer is the result. In graphic novel form he tells all that he can of Dahmer's teen years. This is not the story of a serial murderer, instead it is the story of a teen age boy who never got any help from his family, his schools, or his community in dealing with the feelings growing inside him. In this book is the boy Derf knew in high school as he struggles with the challenges of growing up that for him were so overwhelming that they eventually lead to a murderous life.
Derf sees the teenage Dahmer as a tragic figure, but he has no sympathy for Dahmer the murderer, who he sees as a selfish coward who should have ended his own life rather than taking the lives of others. He draws from his own memories and others, as well as recorded interviews, FBI reports, newspaper stories, and Lionel Dahmer's book about his son. These are all listed in a 23 page section of "Sources" at the end of the book. While this book is called a graphic novel, it is more a biography than fiction, and is of great value in getting to understand the early years of a serial killer.

The Mother of God

The Mother of God by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch

Leopold von Sacher-Masoch was born on January 27, 1836 in the city now known as Lviv in Ukraine. At the time, the city was in the Galicia region of Austria-Hungary and was called Lemberg. His early books were mostly non-fiction historical treatises written while he was a professor at the University of Lviv while his later works were short stories and novels.
Sacher-Masoch's 1870 novel Venus in Furs is his most commonly available book in English. The Mother of God was originally published in Leipzig as Die Gottesmutter in 1883. This is its first translation into English. The translator, William Holmes, is a semi-retired anaesthetist from Northern Ireland. Not liking the abrupt ending, Holmes not only translated the book, but added three additional chapters to the end "to bring it to a more satisfactory ending."
I do not agree with Holmes decision to tack on three additional chapters of what can only be thought of as fan fiction to a 132 year old novel. His writing style is not the same, and he shifts the point of view from Sabadil to Mardona. I feel that Sacher-Masoch ended the story abruptly so that the reader would look back into the text for deeper meanings, not project a satisfying ending. Fortunately, it is very clear in the book that this was done and the reader can view the extra chapters as the translator's work and not the authors. Holmes' translation flows well and where there are references that might not be clear to a modern English-speaking readership, he provides helpful notes to explain them or their significance.
The book tells the story of Sabadil, a 30 year old introverted farmer from the countryside around what is now Kolomyya, Ukraine. He prefers to walk in the woods alone and listen to birds singing rather than to socialize with his neighbors. On one of these solitary excursions he meets and becomes enthralled with Mardona, the charismatic young female leader of a Christian sect of a neighboring village called the Duchobarzen. Known to her followers as the Mother of God, Mardona is treated by them with unquestioning devotion, and has become a spoiled tyrant, yet she feels a strange attraction to Sabadil and his infatuation with her.
The Duchobarzen may have been modeled on the Dukhobors who were a 19th century Russian sect known for pacifism, egalitarianism, and communal living that used the life of Jesus to guide their faith and practice. The Duchobarzen of this novel were a community of a couple hundred farmers who are guided by the wisdom of Mardona and who live a simple life of prosperity, hard work, and communal living.
Mardona's divine love for her community is all-encompassing and egalitarian but isolating. Placed above them, they worship her as a divinity in their midst, kneeling before her and kissing her boots, and treating her every word as sacred. Coming from outside the community, Sabadil's love for her is the human love of a man for a woman. This is a new experience for Mardona, whose other lovers have always been intimidated by her divine nature, and she likes it, but doesn't know how to respond. As she makes Sabadil part of the community, she treats him like a pet that she strokes and keeps by her side.
Through his eyes we see the tension grow between his unrequited love and her annoyance at his failure to fit into the community until it reaches an explosive and shocking ending. This is a novel filled with details of 19th century farming life in central Europe and it is a fascinating look at the experience of divine and human love.
Sacher-Masoch is known to modern readers for his writings on the theme of powerful women and the men who become fascinated and enthralled by them. He was also well known in his own time for his writings about the local ethnic groups of central Europe and their customs. The Mother of God combines these two themes and shows the author at the peak of his literary career.

Iola Leroy or, Shadows Uplifted

Iola Leroy or, Shadows Uplifted by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

Frances Watkins Harper was born free in 1825 in Baltimore and was 67 years old when Iola Leroy was published. Before the Civil War she was a public speaker and political activist in the Abolitionist Movement and helped escaping slaves along the Underground Railroad. After the war she travelled the South speaking out for temperance, and the rights of women and African Americans, and other social causes.
Iola Leroy or, Shadows Uplifted is one of the first novels published by an African-American woman. It tells the story of a wealthy Mississippi planter who frees and marries his mixed-race slave. They have two children, Iola and Harry, that are raised without knowledge of their mixed background and educated in the North. In spite of his sincerest efforts to secure their future, after his death greedy relatives thrust Iola and her mother into slavery.
The book deals with Iola's emancipation and the period after the war when she tries to find her mother and brother and reestablish their lives together. As Iola and her brother are light skinned and highly educated, the book also deals with issues of passing and miscegenation. The concept of a single-drop of African blood making a person non-White and subject to ill-treatment by Society is a major theme. Written less than a decade before the Wilmington Massacre of 1898, this was a time when African-American prospects were still promising but were being threatened by racism and separatist thinking.
This novel is a great window on the era prior to the extreme racial repressions of the 20th Century, when Black people had hoped that education, hard work, and social responsibility could bring them social justice in the nation. As such, it is a great source of information written by a leader in the social justice movement of the time.

Barefoot Gen, Volume 8: Merchants of Death

Barefoot Gen, Volume 8: Merchants of Death by Keiji Nakazawa

The Barefoot Gen series of 10 graphic novels tells the story of the World War II atomic bombing of Hiroshima Japan through the eyes of a young boy Gen Nakaoka who relates the events lived through by the author Keiji Nakazawa. Gen's father, sister and brother were killed during the blast; his mother died several years later from radiation sickness. Gen is in Middle School and living with his older brother Koji and his younger brother Akira in the shack his family built from the ruins of the blast.
Book 8, Merchants of Death begins in June of 1950 with the beginning of the Korean War. Hiroshima has been rebuilding from the ruins of the blast and the war brings business to local merchants willing to supply materials for the war. With the war comes a crackdown on Communists and their sympathizers. Many in Hiroshima, remembering the horror of the atomic blast, are strongly pacifist. Anti-war feelings are looked on with suspicion by the occupying Americans and the Japanese government. It is from the war profiteering that the book draws its title.
In the first book Gen's father was constantly in trouble for speaking out against Japanese involvement in World War II. Here we see a similar current of suppression of those who speak out against war and militarism as Japan serves as a home base for American soldiers fighting the Korean War. This is an eloquent plea for cooperative action over militarism in a quest for world peace.

Revelation

Revelation by Peggy Payne

Revelation portrays one year in the life of a small town Presbyterian pastor as he struggles with his calling. Happily married and successful, Swain Hammond's life is shaken when he hears God talking to him in the backyard of his home in Chapel Hill, NC. Having been sure of his calling to the ministry since he was young, hearing the voice of God at first reaffirms him, but later begins to be an unsettling influence. The members of his church are not ready to accept that their minister is in direct communication with God. Peggy Payne takes us deep into the contemporary meanings of religion and spirituality as we share this year with Swain, his wife Julie, and the members of his small community church.

Being Mortal

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande

A neighbor gave me this book when my mother died and it took me a long time to read it. The topics it covers are the end of life, the medical response to terminal illness, and the needs of people facing their mortality. It was very hard for me to read about these things after spending 15 years watching my mother's health deteriorate and seeing her die from dementia. However, reading about the realities that we as humans face at the end of our lives, and how others have dealt well with dying, has been remarkably healing for me. I wish I had read this book a year ago so I would have had this information when I was living through my mother's final days. This book is not only useful to the terminally ill and their families, but can be helpful to anyone who wants to get a better understanding of the aging process and how it plays out for humans.

Barefoot Gen Volume Seven: Bones Into Dust

Barefoot Gen Volume Seven: Bones Into Dust by Keiji Nakazawa

The Barefoot Gen series of 10 graphic novels tells the story of the World War II atomic bombing of Hiroshima Japan through the eyes of a young boy Gen Nakaoka who relates the events lived through by the author Keiji Nakazawa. Book 7, Bones Into Dust takes place more than three years after the war has officially ended. Gen's father, sister and brother were killed during the blast, and his mother now suffers from radiation sickness. Gen's older brother Koji has left to work in a coal mine to earn money for the family, leaving Gen and his younger brother Akira to care for their sick mother and find food and medical care. Gen has befriended an older man and a group of street orphans who develop scheme after scheme to find food, raise money, or steal what they need. The old man has written a novel called The End of Summer about the atomic bomb and its effects on Hiroshima that he wants to have published before he dies of radiation sickness.
The book opens with the orphans devising a plan to get the book published. When all the regular publishers have turned them down because they fear reprisal from the Americans, Ryuta, one of the orphans, suggests asking the prison print shop to print the books. All they need to do is find the money to buy the paper for the printing. Finding the money is a challenge that they solve. Once they have the book published and are distributing it, they are picked up by the local police and taken to a U.S. military base for interrogation.
Meanwhile Gen's mother continues to decline from her bomb-induced radiation sickness, and Gen's older brother Koji, now a depressed alcoholic, returns from the mines. The last section of the book reunites the family as the boys try to make Gen's mother happy in her last days. The subtitle Bones Into Dust refers to the cremation remains of Gen's mother as the family deals with yet another loss.

Taffy of Torpedo Junction

Taffy of Torpedo Junction by Nell Wise Wechter

Taffy of Torpedo Junction is a children's book originally published in 1957 that tells of the time German U-boats preyed on the shipping routes off the North Carolina coast in 1942, sinking tankers, and other vessels bound for England. Taffy was based on the real life Carol White Dillon (1928- ), who is now the owner of the Outer Banks Motel in Buxton, NC, when she was a girl of 13. In 1942 the author Nell Wechter was a school teacher living in a boarding house run by Carol's mother.
At that time Hatteras Island was served by a ferry rather than a bridge and had no tourist industry. Mainlanders on the island were rare. In 1942 the Coast Guard and Nazi submarines brought the war to this tranquil setting with the sinking of more than 60 ships in a six month period. Taffy and her friends experience the war right off their shore as tankers explode in the night, bodies are washed ashore, and talk turns to saboteurs and spies. Although this is a children's book, it can be of interest to adults interested in this unique part of the war. Dennis Rogers of Raleigh's News and Observer called this book "The best piece of children's literature ever produced in this state."
Readers can see a picture of the current day Carol telling of the war here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/blairpub/3447424643/ and hear her talk about about it online: http://monitor.noaa.gov/obxtrail/carol.html.

The Man in the High Castle

The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick

I started reading The Man in the High Castle after watching the Amazon series of the same name. While all the main characters are present in both, I was drawn to reading the novel when I found the ending of the online series unrewarding. The book is well worth reading even if you have seen the Amazon series. However, the I Ching (or, The Book of Changes), which plays a minor role in the movie, plays a much more significantly part in the book. I counted eight separate times the oracle is consulted and the results described to the reader. In fact the very first sentence of the Acknowledgments tells readers what version of the I Ching is used and quoted in the novel.
The novel is an alternate history set in the early 1960s in which the United States and its Allies lose World War II, and the east coast of the United States is run by Nazi Germany while the West Coast is run by Imperial Japan. Besides the I Ching, the other main plot device is a popular but banned novel written by Hawthorne Abendsen, the titular man in the high castle, which is called The Grasshopper Lies Heavy. The title of this book within a book is taken from Ecclesiastes 12:5. This inner book is also an alternative history, only here the Nazis and Japanese lose World War II and the details are different from the readers' real world history of events.
Readers are left with a view of reality where no one knows what is real, and people use 50 yarrow stalks and an ancient Chinese oracle to make sense of things. While I found the ending of the novel much more satisfying than that of the online series, those unfamiliar with the I Ching or uncomfortable with questioning reality may find the novel unrewarding.

The Blacksmith's Hammer, or The Peasant Code A Tale of the Grand Monarch

The Blacksmith's Hammer, or The Peasant Code A Tale of the Grand Monarch by Eugene Sue

The Blacksmith's Hammer, or The Peasant Code A Tale of the Grand Monarch is the 18th book of Eugene Sue's 20 volume series The Mysteries of the People; or History of a Proletarian Family Across the Age. The series was created to be novelization of 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, typifies 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.
The Blacksmith's Hammer, which is set in the 1670's, is a sequel to the events of the previous book in the series, The Pocket Bible, which was set in Paris in the 16th century. It is Eugene Sue's Romeo and Juliet, a tale of two lovers from the opposing families of the series, one Gallic and the other Frankish. Having been divided by race and class for so many years, Calvinism has finally created a bridge that can unite Bertha of Plouernel and Nominoë Lebrenn.
Part One takes place in 1672 Holland during William of Orange's persecution and murder of John and Cornelius De Witt. A French ship on its way to England is caught in a storm and seeks safe harbor along the Dutch coast. On board is the young and beautiful Bertha of Plouernel. With it's main mast and rudder lost to the storm, the ship is helpless and sends out distress signals. Just when all hope seems lost, a ship skillfully piloted by a virile and charming young man appears and tows them into the harbor at Delft. The seaman is Nominoë Lebrenn, who goes on to save Bertha's life several times and they fall in love.
Part Two takes place in Brittany during the Revolt of the Bonnets Rouges of 1675. Nominoë is one of the leaders of the peasant revolt and Bertha is the sister of Baron Raoul of Plouernel, the local landlord, whose taxes have caused the unrest. In addition to being a story of a great love, Eugene Sue makes both lovers politically aware of how their love could unite a country and their two races, healing centuries of class struggle.
While this is a sequel to the previous book in the series, it can be read on its own as the characters have their own compelling story to tell. Typical of the series, the author weaves his own fictional families into the real events of the period to create drama while maintaining historic accuracy.
Each volume in this series has a preface by their translator, the Socialist publisher Daniel De Leon, that helps set the story in the history of the labor movement of the early 20th century when these books were first made available to American readers.

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton observes of fiction that, when aspiring at something higher than mere romance, it does not pervert, but elucidates the facts of the times in which the scene is placed; hence, that fiction serves to illustrate those truths which history is too often compelled to leave to the tale-teller, the dramatist and the poet. In this story, The Blacksmith's Hammer; or, The Peasant Code--the seventeenth of the charming series of Eugene Sue's historic novels, The Mysteries of the People; or, History of a Proletarian Family Across the Ages--the author reaches a height in which are combined all the elements that Bulwer-Lytton distributes among history, tale, drama and poetry. The history is clean cut; the tale fascinates; its dramatic presentation is matchless; last, not least, the poetic note is lyric. As historian, as tale-teller, as dramatist and as a poet the author excels himself in this narrative, that serves at once as a sequel of the age described in the previous story, , and as prelude to the great épopée of the next story that deals with the French Revolution.
DANIEL DE LEON.
New York, March, 1910.

Barefoot Gen Volume Six: Writing the Truth

Barefoot Gen Volume Six: Writing the Truth, by Keiji Nakazawa

The Barefoot Gen series of 10 graphic novels tells the story of the World War II atomic bombing of Hiroshima Japan through the eyes of a young boy Gen Nakaoka who relates the events lived through by the author Keiji Nakazawa. Book 6, Writing the Truth is set in the summer of 1948, three years after the war has officially ended. Gen's father, sister and brother were killed during the blast, and his mother now suffers from radiation sickness. Gen's older brother Koji has left to work in a coal mine to earn money for the family, leaving Gen and his younger brother Akira to care for their sick mother and find food and medical care. Gen has befriended a group of street orphans who develop scheme after scheme to find food, raise money, or steal what they need.
The book opens with the orphans raising money by selling bomb victim skulls to American soldiers as souvenirs. With the money they hope to go into the countryside and buy rice but they have to sneak it past police checkpoints that confiscate black market food being smuggled into the city.
As Gen's mother continues to decline from her bomb-induced radiation sickness, Gen's orphan friend Ryuta, who has adopted Gen's mother as his own, devises a daring plan to rob a group of gangsters to get the money for her care. Once the mob swears to revenge themselves, his only hope of escape to Tokyo is thwarted by their searching for him.
Gen sees a young woman attempting suicide and, when he rescues her, discovers she is Natsue, a radiation-scarred child he met in the days following the blast. She tells him of her desperate life following the blast and her despair at never being able to be the dancer she wanted to be. Gen brings her to the shelter he and his war orphan friends have built, where the only girl orphan Katsuko, who also has facial scars from the bomb, befriends her. The two girls devise a plan to start making clothing to sell.
The orphans live with an old man who is slowly dying from radiation poisoning. He has written a book about the bombing of Hiroshima and hopes to see it published before he dies. Too sick himself, Gen tries to find someone to print the book. The local publishers and printers are afraid of the Americans and will not consider it. The title Writing the Truth comes from the attempts to publish this truthful story of the bombing.

Barefoot Gen Volume Five: The Never-Ending War

Barefoot Gen Volume Five: The Never-Ending War by Keiji Nakazawa

The Barefoot Gen series of 10 graphic novels tells the story of the World War II atomic bombing of Hiroshima Japan through the eyes of a young boy Gen Nakaoka who relates the events lived through by the author Keiji Nakazawa. Book 5, The Never-Ending War starts in December 1947, two and a half years after the war has officially ended. Hiroshima is being repaired and is occupied by American troops. The Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission has set up labs to evaluate the effects of the blast on the people. Gen's father, sister and brother were killed during the blast, and his mother now suffers from radiation sickness. Gen's older brother Koji has to leave to work in a coal mine to earn money for the family, leaving Gen and his younger brother Akira to care for their sick mother and find food and medical care. Gen has befriended a group of street orphans who have been working for local racketeers and helps them escape a life of crime. This is a difficult book because it portrays the hardships that continue long after war is over. The Never-Ending War is the constant struggle that Gen, his friends and family must endure years after the war ended.

Midaq Alley

Midaq Alley by Naguib Mahfouz

Midaq Alley is the 1966 English translation by Trevor Le Gassick of Naguib Mahfouz's 1947 novel Zuqāq al-Midaq. The story is about the people who live and work in Midaq Alley, a small back street in Cairo during World War II that represents a microcosm of the world. Filled with a rich cast of characters who, while seeming to be unaffected by the war directly, are influenced in subtle ways by the changes going on around them. One of the key figures is the orphan Hamida, a beautiful but poor young woman who, dreaming of a better life, attempts to find wealth and happiness, but is restricted in her choices by her social status and gender.
Naguib Mahfouz was an Egyptian writer who won the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature; Midaq Alley is his most popular work. It was adapted into an award-winning Mexican film starring Salma Hayek (El Callejón de los Milagros).

Classics of Western Literature: Bloom County 1986-1989

Classics of Western Literature: Bloom County 1986-1989 by Berke Breathed

This volume is a collection of the newspaper comic strip "Bloom County" from 1986-1989 including pages of four black and white daily four panel entries and pages of two full color 6 panel Sunday entries. If you are a fan, this book provides additionally an introduction called "Last Word" containing some biographical information, Breathed's first cartoon penned in the 10th grade, his one 1977 political cartoon for the Austin American-Statesman newspaper, and 16 strips from his "Academia Waltz" submissions to the University of Texas' Daily Texan college newspaper in 1978-79. The fan who enjoys this volume may also want to read Berkeley Breathed's Outland: The Complete Collection which picks up where Bloom County leaves off in 1989 and contains all the Sunday color strips for "Outland" through it's end in 1995.

Barefoot Gen, Out of the Ashes

Barefoot Gen, Out of the Ashes by Keiji Nakazawa

Barefoot Gen, Out of the Ashes is the 4th volume of Keiji Nakazawa's autobiographical graphic novel series on living through the atomic bomb blast over Hiroshima. The atom bomb has been dropped on Hiroshima, destroying most of the city, killing many people, and causing others to become sick with radiation sickness. Gen's hair has fallen out from radiation exposure. He, his mother, and his newborn sister, no longer able to live in Hiroshima, are refugees in the town of Eba.

As this volume opens, the Emperor has just announced the surrender of Japan. Gen's two brothers return to live with them in Eba, one from the Navy and one from an evacuation camp. US soldiers are landing to study the results of the bomb. The distrust and hatred of the local community eventually becomes too much and the family moves back to what is left of Hiroshima. We see the U.S. occupation and the rebuilding of the city through the eyes of seven year old Gen.

Gen's compassion, humanity, and determination make this an inspiring book about the strength of the human spirit. The close loving values of his family are in sharp contrast to the amoral self interest of the black marketeers and the criminals who thrive in the disorder and poverty.

The work has been wonderfully translated from the Japanese original: Hadashi no Gen. It was originally published in serial form in 1972 and 1973 in Shukan Shonen Jampu, the largest weekly comic magazine in Japan, with a circulation of over two million. The drawings are all in black and white. This US edition was published as part of a movement to translate the book into other languages and spread its message. It is a powerful testimony to the strength of the human spirit and the horrors of nuclear war. There are a few introductory essays at the front of the book that help to put this book into perspective. It is a tragic but uplifting story that I highly recommend for anyone interested in the topic. This and the other volumes in the series are important books for their message on the dangers of nuclear war.

The Pocket Bible or Christian the Printer, A Tale of the Sixteenth Century

The Pocket Bible or Christian the Printer, A Tale of the Sixteenth Century by Eugene Sue

The Pocket Bible or Christian the Printer, A Tale of the Sixteenth Century is the 16th and 17th book of Eugene Sue's 20 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 in a series of stories that culminate in the European Revolutions of 1848.

Volume 1 of The Pocket Bible, named The Society of Jesus, is set in Paris in the year 1534 and depicts the historic events of the struggle between the Catholic church and the Reformation. This is the year that both Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus which is known today as the Jesuits, and John Calvin, the founder of Calvinism, are both in Paris. While neither stay in Paris long, they both are represented in this tale of Christian the Printer and his family who have embraced Calvin's teachings only to be caught up in persecution for their beliefs by the king and the Catholics.

Volume 2, named The Huguenots, takes place 34 years later in 1569 in the protestant city of La Rochelle where Christian's grandson Antonicq is an armorer as they come under attack by Catholic forces loyal to the king.

Both volumes of this novel document the excesses of the Catholic attempts to destroy the Huguenot minority in France. The author carefully footnotes many of the most horrific details of this persecution to prove that they really occurred. As such he has carefully inserted his Gallic family into this historic novel documenting the religious turbulence of 16th century France.

Each volume in this series has a preface by their translator, the Socialist publisher Daniel De Leon, that helps set the story in the history of the labor movement of the early 20th century when these books were first made available to American readers.

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
The epoch covered by this, the 16th story of Eugene Sue's dramatic historic series, entitled The Mysteries of the People; or, History of a Proletarian Family Across the Ages, extends over the turbulent yet formative era known in history as the Religious Reformation.
The social system that had been developing since the epoch initiated by the 8th story of the series, The Abbatial Crosier; or, Bonaik and Septimine, that is, the feudal system, and which is depicted in full bloom in the 14th story of the series, The Iron Trevet; or, Jocelyn the Champion, had been since suffering general collapse with the approach of the bourgeois, or capitalist system, which found its first open, or political, expression in the Reformation, and which was urged into life by Luther, Calvin and other leading adversaries of the Roman Catholic regime.
The history of the Reformation, or rather, of the conflict between the clerical polity which symbolized the old and the clerical polity which symbolized the new social order, is compressed within the covers of this one story with the skill at once of the historian, the scientist, the philosopher and the novelist. The various springs from which human action flows, the various types which human crises produce, the virtues and the vices which great historic conflicts heat into activity—all these features of social motion, never jointly reproduced in works of history, are here drawn in vivid colors and present a historic canvas that is prime in the domain of literature. In view of the exceptional importance of some of the footnotes in which Sue refers the reader to the pages of original authorities in French cited by him, the pages of an accessible American edition are in those cases either substituted or added in this translation.
DANIEL DE LEON.
New York, February, 1910.

Barefoot Gen: A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima, Vol. 1

Barefoot Gen: A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima, Vol. 1 by Keiji Nakazawa

Barefoot Gen: A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima is an autobiographical graphic novel series that has ten volumes which was written by Keiji Nakazawa and relates his experiences during and after the atomic bomb explosion in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. This first volume relates the experiences of Daikichi Nakaoka and his family from April 1945 to that historic and catastrophic day. He and his pregnant wife Kimie, and their five children Koji, Eiko, Akira, Gen, Shinji struggle to find food to eat as all supplies are shipped to the military to support the war effort. Their lives are complicated by his outspoken opposition to the war for which he is labelled a traitor. Throughout the book, he makes his feelings known.
"Japan will lose the war for sure." (p. 6)
"Japan can only survive by foreign trade. We should keep peace with the rest of the world." (p.13)
"The military was misled by the rich. They started the war to grab resources by force." (p.13)
"For poor people like us, war doesn't do one damn bit of good." (p. 18)
"It's because I love Japan that I'm against the war." (p. 32)
"War brings us nothing but misery. Japan has to walk the path of peace, not war." (p. 34)
"The only way to prevent war is to be friends with other people." (p. 74)
"The ones who started the war are to blame, but every citizen who willingly goes along with it is at fault also." (p. 168)

Mr. Nakaoka is taken to jail and beaten, his children are persecuted at school, the family is shunned, and their efforts to live are thwarted. The only friend they have is their Korean neighbor Mr. Pak who was brought to Hiroshima by force to work in a factory. The narrative progresses through the eyes of young 6 year old Gen and his little brother Shinji as they cry in hunger and devise methods to find and eat food.

The last 50 pages of the book that portray the events of August 6 leading up to and following the atomic bomb blast are the most compelling graphic novel content I have ever read. The story of how Gen's family survives is told in the subsequent volumes.

The work has been well translated from the Japanese original: Hadashi no Gen. It was originally published in serial form in 1972 and 1973 in Shukan Shonen Jampu, the largest weekly comic magazine in Japan, with a circulation of over two million. The drawings are all in black and white. It is a wonderful testimony to the strength of the human spirit and the horrors of nuclear war.

The book begins with an Introduction by the American cartoonist Art Spiegelman and A Note from the Author. These set this graphic novel series in perspective of the genre of autobiographical graphic novels for adults and the author's life. A publisher's note at the end tells the story of Project Gen, a movement to translate the book into other languages and spread around the world its message of the threat of nuclear war..

Fun Home

Fun Home by Alison Bechdel

I decided to read Alison Bechdel's 2006 graphic novel Fun Home because, after it was chosen by Duke University as the summer reading book for the incoming class of 2019, one student decided to say on Facebook that he would not read the book because it contained graphic visual depictions of lesbians engaging in oral sex which he felt were immoral. On reading the book I did find one page (p. 214) where cunnilingus occurs but only pubic hair is graphically depicted, and another (p. 81), without visible pubic hair, of nude females. On both pages, a female nipple is depicted. This whole thing reminds me of the furor 25 years ago over the Where's Waldo nipple depiction. I don't see why the student could not just skip those two pages since he was clearly aware of their existence.
What upset me most about this book is the depiction of 60 book covers with visible titles and authors on over 85 pages of the text, turning this graphic novel into a graphic bibliographic review of what the young college age student should be reading. Since many are depicted without comment, I feel the author did us an injustice by not provided an annotated bibliography. Characters are depicted sitting reading these books, taking them off bookstore and library shelves, handing them to each other, and stacking them up for later reading. Is it possible that Duke chose the book as a way to get awareness of these 60 books into their students' minds?
Actually the story of the book is very compelling. It is an autobiography of a daughter and her father, each dealing with their homoerotic feelings, that depicts the amazing change in attitudes that have occurred in a single generation. The father, coming of age in the 1950s, hides his homosexual feelings, marries, and has three children. While the daughter "comes out" in college, and much of the depicted bibliography are classics of homosexual biography and theory. In the middle of the book (p. 104) is a depiction of the teenage Alison walking past the location of the Stonewall riots during a visit to New York City that shows how this turning point in the gay rights struggle marks the difference between her's and her father's experience of their sexuality. This difference between the societal repression and its internalization experienced by the father, and the daughter's societal acceptance and her resulting self-awareness is at the heart of what makes this book great.
To help out Ms. Bechdel I am providing the following bibliography to the books depicted in Fun Home (with page numbers to where they appeared in the text), including links to the Wikipedia or Amazon entries.

Bibliography:
The Stones Of Venice by John Ruskin (p. 19)
Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling (p. 21)
A Happy Death by Albert Camus (pp. 27, 48)
The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus (p. 47)
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (pp. 61, 200)
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (pp. 61, 64)
The Far Side of Paradise by Arthur Mizener (pp. 62, 65)
The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare (p. 69)
Word Is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives (pp. 74, 75, 203)
The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall (pp. 75, 205)
Our Right to Love: A Lesbian Resource Book by Ginny Vida (p. 75)
Homosexuality in Perspective by William H. Masters (pp. 75, 76, 207)
Delta of Venus by Anaïs Nin (p.76)
Out of the Closets: Voices of Gay Liberation by Karla Jay (p.76)
Maurice by E. M. Forster (pp.76, 207)
The Gay Report: Lesbians and Gay Men Speak Out About Sexual Experiences and Lifestyles by Karla Jay (p.76)
The Front Runner by Patricia Nell Warren (p. 76)
La Batarde by Violette Leduc (p.76)
Our Bodies, Ourselves (p. 76)
Roget's Thesaurus by Peter Mark Roget (p. 76)
The Dream of a Common Language: Poems 1974-1977 by Adrienne Rich (p. 80)
Beginning with O by Olga Broumas (p. 80)
The World of Pooh by A. A. Milne (p. 80)
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl (p. 81)
"Sunday Morning" by Wallace Stevens (p.82)
Zelda: A Biography by Nancy Milford (pp. 84,86)
Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust (pp.92, 119)
Women in the Shadows by Ann Bannon (p. 107)
The Wind in the Willows Coloring Book Toad's Adventures by Kenneth Graeme (p. 130)
The American Dream by Edward Albee (p. 131)
Morning's at Seven by Paul Osborn (p. 132)
The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care by Benjamin Spock (p. 138)
Complete Works of Oscar Wilde by Oscar Wilde (pp. 154, 165)
The Waterfall by Margaret Drabble (p. 185)
The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien (p. 198)
The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger (p. 198)
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (p. 199)
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (p. 200)
Ulysses by James Joyce (pp. 202, 204, 206-208, 226, 228)
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce (p. 202)
Dubliners by James Joyce (pp. 203-204)
Earthly Paradise by Colette (pp. 205, 229)
Lesbian/Woman by Del Martin (p. 205)
Orlando: A Biography by Virginia Woolf (p. 205)
Desert of the Heart by Jane Rule (p. 205)
Self-Portrait With Friends: The Selected Diaries of Cecil Beaton, 1922-1974 by Cecil Beaton (p. 205)
The Homosexual Matrix by Clarence Arthur Tripp (p. 205)
Lesbian Nation: The Feminist Solution by Jill Johnston (p. 207)
Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown (p. 207)
Our Right to Love: A Lesbian Resource Book by Ginny Vida (p. 207)
Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing by May Sarton (p. 207)
The Letters of Virginia Woolf by Virginia Woolf (p. 209)
Flying by Kate Millett (pp. 217-219)

God

God by Alexander Waugh

God by Alexander Waugh takes on the question of who (or what) is God by going to the source, what God himself has said about himself or done in sacred texts. From the God of Adam and Eve to the present, he looks at how God acts and describes Himself to his faithful. Knowing that humans are fallible but that God must by His very nature be infallible, Waugh hopes to find the truth in this manner. He finds that the Old Testament God and Jesus are irreconcilable and different beyond justification. This leaves the reader to decide if the question of the nature of God is unanswerable, or if the author is, as his high school teacher said, suffering from "presumptuous arrogance."

Barefoot Gen: Life After The Bomb. A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima, Part 3 by Keiji Nakazawa

Barefoot Gen: Life After The Bomb is volume three of a four part series. The atom bomb has been dropped on Hiroshima, destroying most of the city, killing many people, and causing others to become sick with radiation sickness. Gen's hair is falling out from radiation exposure. He, his mother, and his newborn sister have to leave to survive. His mother can think of only one person to turn to, Kiyo, her childhood friend in the town of Eba. But the people of Eba are afraid the Hiroshima survivors have a strange contagious illness. Kiyo's family and the whole town treat them with suspicion and contempt. As refugees, Gen and his mother have to find food, money, and shelter in a hostile environment. He takes a job caring for a rich man's brother who has been quarantined and left to die by the family because he has radiation sickness. Gen's compassion, humanity, and determination make this an inspiring book about the strength of the human spirit. The close loving values of his family are in sharp contrast to the narrow-minded self interest of the people in the Eba community. The work has been wonderfully translated from the Japanese original: Hadashi no Gen. It was originally published in serial form in 1972 and 1973 in Shukan Shonen Jampu, the largest weekly comic magazine in Japan, with a circulation of over two million. The drawings are all in black and white. This US edition was published as part of a movement to translate the book into other languages and spread its message. It is a powerful testimony to the strength of the human spirit and the horrors of nuclear war. There are a few introductory essays at the front of the book that help to put this book into perspective. It is a tragic but uplifting story that I highly recommend for anyone interested in the topic. This and the other volumes in the series are important books for their message on the dangers of nuclear war.

Grandma Gatewood's Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail

Grandma Gatewood's Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail by Ben Montgomery

Emma Gatewood was an abused housewife who, in 1955 when she turned 67, decided to walk the Appalachian Trail. She was the first woman to walk the entire trail and she did it with about 22 pounds of gear in a hand-sewn duffle bag and Converse sneakers. I decided to read this as inspirational reading for my turning 67 and retiring from full-time employment. It has worked. While I am not planning any interstate walking, I do plan to walk myself back to fitness in the local area. Emma's journey is well documented by Ben Montgomery who intersperses events from Emma's history with the long trek of the trail. He has access to her journals and goes looking for the people she met along the trail and to see how the trail has changed since the early days when she travelled from Georgia to Maine. It is truly an inspiring story and not an overstatement that she saved the trail. She appeared on Groucho Marx's You Bet Your Life television show, which is now available on YouTube, but I have not been able to find the episode in which she was a guest. I would love to see her talk on screen to see how she compares with the woman Ben Montgomery has written about.

The Kingdom of God is Within You : Christianity Not as a Mystic Religion But as a New Theory of Life

The Kingdom of God is Within You : Christianity Not as a Mystic Religion But as a New Theory of Life by Leo Tolstoy

This is Tolstoy's major work on Christian nonviolence. He puts forth the principle on non-violent resistance to evil and bases it on Christian principles. It took me a long time to read this book because, being written in 1894, the significance of many of the references that Tolstoy makes to 19th century European politics and society are not easily grasped by the modern 21st century reader. Yet if you want to understand the history and theory of nonviolent resistance, I feel this is an important book to read and understand. Not only because of Tolstoy's thinking, but because he outlines the work of previous writers and activists that contributed to his thinking. Tolstoy raises the stakes on what it means to be Christian. I am sure that most of the people who profess Christianity today would turn away from Tolstoy's teachings and go on supporting their country's wars and their own personal wealth that comes from these wars. He starts small with just asking his readers to recognize the truth of what he says, and to speak the truth instead of living the lies. I believe I will read this book again someday as the long time it took to read has diluted its impact on me. Having sampled the wine and found it good, I hope someday to be able to drink it to the dregs.

Sister India

Sister India by Peggy Payne

In Sister India Peggy Payne masterfully mixed her travel writing background into a novel about three guests and their fateful week staying at The Saraswati Guest House alongside the Ganges River in Varanasi, India. Each is new to India. Marie Jasper is 75 and, after the death of her husband, is seeking peace in her soul. Jill Thornton is a young businesswoman doing some sightseeing after a business meeting, and T. J. Clayton is a married man from Florida on a grant to study river pollution. The Saraswati Guest House is considered to be a worthwhile experience for adventuresome travelers, largely due to the unique perspective of the massive proprietor Madame Natraja, a 300-400 pound blonde practicing Hindu from North Carolina, who has spent the last 20 years of her life in Varanasi.
The story of the week is told from the viewpoint of Madame Natraja who has spent the past 20 years turning herself from thin to obese suppressing her feelings by stuffing herself with Indian sweets. My favorite sentence in the book is on page 271 when Madame Natraja muses to herself: "Surely there is in each life a natural process of unfoldment, like the gradual bloom and ripening of the papaya, which even the most skeptical will agree is foreordained." Maybe Payne puts these words in the book to explain why it has taken 20 years for Natraja to face her inner demons. She, her Indian cook Ramesh, and these three guests will all take a new look at their lives after the killing of a Muslim man by two Hindus just outside the guest house leads to a week of retaliations and curfews.
Sister India is a short book that provides great detail without overdoing it. While experiences are related carefully and accurately, the background details of the culture and conflicts in Varanasi are given sparingly so as to not bog the reader down in history or theology. I found myself often looking up things online that Payne mentions but does not explain. While this is not necessary to understand the story line, I found it useful to see how much research Payne did in writing this work. I recommend Sister India to those who like stories about the natural healing power of the human spirit and who enjoy a novel set in a distant place.

Spider House

Spider House by Van Wyck Mason

I heard of Spider House because the Oxford English Dictionary says the first usage of the phrase "cold as a witch's tit" appears on page 210 of this book:

Quote: 1932 Van Wyck Mason, Spider House p. 210 It's cold as a witch's tit outside.

I had been trying to find out where this phrase came from, and Cecil Adams' The Straight Dope listed the OED reference and goes on to say: "Van Wyck Mason was a writer of mysteries, at a time when colorful metaphors were common. There is a strong possibility that he invented the phrase himself." So I started looking into the book and Van Wyck Mason, its author.

Fortunately my local college library has the original 1932 edition of Spider House. As a special treat this copy was originally owned by Merle Norman whose famous line of cosmetics is known around the country.

The story is about a man named Ezra Boonton who made a fortune on Wall Street taking money from poor good-hearted people. He became known as The Spider of the Street and is now retired and living in fear for his life in a specially built house in New Brunswick, NJ, where he has blockaded himself on the 2nd floor with a guard and security systems to protect him from being murdered. On a particular cold November night he has asked State Trooper Captain Janos Catlin to visit him because he is in "a momentary danger" of his life. At the house are his butler/guard Kelly, his nurses Dora DelRay and Hans Gruber, his brother Juan Boonton, and Dr. Lewes his physician. Two more troopers join Captain Catlin to provide extra security. Then, in this secure house, first the butler appears to shoot himself while cleaning his gun and then it seems a gun with a silencer is used to kill Ezra Boonton, but the murder weapon cannot be found. All that can be determined is that several people heard a low hum and there is a smell of burnt hair.

By the time it is solved this is quite an elaborate mystery with lots of excitement and intrigue. Van Wyck Mason's writing suffers from racial and ethnic caricatures that, while acceptable in the 1930s, make this book hard to read now. As for the famous phrase in the book, "It's cold as a witch's tit outside," that would outlive the author's fame, it was one of seven similes for how cold it was that Mason used in this book. The others being:

Cold as an Arctic gale (p.74), Cold as all hell (p.107), Cold as human greed (p.107), Cold as a grave stone (p.210) Cold as a witch's tit (p. 210), Colder'n a loan shark's smile (p.214), and Cold as a Pharoah's heart (p.272).

This gives credence to Cecil Adam's theory that Mason was just trying to use colorful similes to get across the frigidness of the weather.

Wim Delvoye: Art Farming

Wim Delvoye: Art Farming by Wim Delvoye

Wim Delvoye is a Belgian artist. One of his projects has been tattooing pigs and exhibiting them in various places around the world. Originating in Belgium, he now has a farm in China called the Art Farm where he raises these pigs. This book, published in 2008, is a photographic album of this project. Each chapter contains color photos from different places arranged in chronological order from 1997 to 2007. Some are collections of photos from exhibits which, since his art is displayed on the skins of live pigs, have the strange mix of an art exhibit and an agricultural show. Some chapters are of his production facilities, first in Belgium and later in China, where he has tattooed and raised the pigs. The cover and fly leafs are pictures of tattoos on the skins of two of his pigs. There are no captions to the photos, just an introductory chapter title giving the location and date of the photos in the set. At the end of the book is a page giving a full Exhibition List showing all the places the pigs have been.
If you want to know more about this project you will have to look elsewhere. This book could have used some additional text to describe the photos, the project, the lives of the pigs, or reactions to the work. It stands as a visual display. The pictures show pigs at the farm, at exhibits, being tattooed, and being seen by audiences and staff. The tattoos are beautiful as are the pigs. While the pigs seem to have a better life than the typical factory farmed pigs raised for food, the book raises questions in my mind on the relationship between humans and animals. This is certainly an unusual aspect of the relationship, but totally in keeping with the power dynamics of humans and farm animals.

Femen

Femen by Galia Ackerman

Femen tells the story of the Femen radical feminist group that originated in Ukraine and has become an international movement based in Paris. Told by French historian Galia Ackerman this brief history also includes many sections written by the four major founders of the movement Anna Hutso, Oksana Shachko, Alexandra Shevchenko, and Inna Shevchenko. The result is both an objective look and a personal statement.
Femen is a nonviolent radical group opposed to women's oppression that uses the tactic of appearing at public meetings of major sexist patriarchal political figures with flower crowns on their heads and bare chests covered in brief feminist slogans like "Ukraine is Not a Brothel." They are radical in that their purpose is to disrupts events, so as to be arrested and removed forcibly by police, creating publicity for their cause.
The book tells the story of how these women met, became radical feminists, and built a movement in five years that drew world-wide attention. It explains how they developed their ideology and their methodology. There is an Afterword entitled One Year Later that tells of events in 2013 after the completion of the book. The book is one-sided telling Femen's history from the perspective of its leaders. While conflicts and criticisms are mentioned, the leaders are portrayed as they see themselves.

Out of Oz

Out of Oz, by Gregory Maguire

I wanted to like this book more because there are a lot of really good plot elements. However, for a final book of a series, it feels like Maguire was just trying to tie up loose ends rather than making some grand closing statement.
His first book Wicked inverted the L. Frank Baum's Oz story making it about Glinda the Good Witch and Elphaba the Wicked Witch of the West, and telling the story from Elphaba's point of view. He presents an Oz troubled by civil war and social injustice that is much different than the benevolent fairyland of L. Frank Baum. Dorothy is now only a minor character who succeeds in killing both wicked witches but does little else. The second book of The Wicked Years series, Son of a Witch, tells the story of Liir, a boy Elphaba raised who may be her son. The third book, A Lion Among Men, tells the story of Brrr, the Cowardly Lion.
Out of Oz claims to be the final volume in the Wicked Years, but its ending leads me to believe that a new era may follow the Wicked era of these four books. It tells the story of Liir's daughter Rain who is born green like her grandmother Elphaba as she and Liir struggle to stay alive being hunted by both sides in the ongoing war. Some of Baum's most famous characters like the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman are only mentioned in passing, and others like Jack Pumpkinhead, Tiktok and General Jinjur make the briefest of cameo appearances. Dorothy, Tip and Mombi have roles to play but they seem to be inserted into Maguire's world as an afterthought rather than integral parts of the story. Only Brrr the Lion has made the transition naturally from Baum's Oz to Maguire's.
While some elements of the plot seem contrived, the basic story of Rain and her parents negotiating their own familial relationships while trying to find peace in a troubled country at war is a strong and fitting end to the series.