Outrageous

Outrageous: The Victoria Woodhull Saga, Volume One: Rise to Riches by Neal Katz

Neal Katz has written and published a partial biographic novel covering the early years of the life of Victoria Woodhull, a 19th century American woman of great notoriety in her time, who was a pioneering voice in Women's Rights and Sexual Freedom. He promises to complete the story in a second novel due out later this year called Scandalous, the Victoria Woodhull Saga, Volume Two: Fame, Infamy, and Paradise Lost. Winning several awards, including the Independent Book Publishers Association Benjamin Franklin, the Independent Publisher Book Awards IPPY, the Next Generation Indie, and the IndieReader Discovery Award.

Starting in 1847 when Victoria was eight years old, Katz tells her story from the poverty and abuse of her childhood up to 1870 when she, with sister Tennessee Claflin, opened a brokerage firm and became the first female stockbrokers on Wall Street. He portrays a rags to riches rise that is an amazing story of women successfully living outside the defined social limits of the time.

Woodhull, long overlooked by history, has become recognized in recent years for her major role in American thought. In 2001, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame. A 1980 Broadway musical entitled Onward Victoria and a 2012 opera "Mrs. President" have been written. Scholarly biographies include:

2014 - The Scarlet Sisters: Sex, Suffrage, and Scandal in the Gilded Age, by Myra MacPherson
2004 - Victoria Woodhull's Sexual Revolution: Political Theater and the Popular Press in Nineteenth-Century America, by Amanda Frisken
1998 - Notorious Victoria: The Life of Victoria Woodhull, Uncensored, by Mary Gabriel
1998 - Other Powers: The Age of Suffrage, Spiritualism and the Scandalous Victoria Woodhull, by Barbara Goldsmith
1995 - The Woman Who Ran for President: The Many Lives of Victoria Woodhull, by Lois Beachy Underhill
1980 - The Vixens: A Biography of Victoria and Tennessee Claflin, by James Brough
1976 - Free woman: The life and times of Victoria Woodhull, by Marion Meade
1967 - Vicky: A biography of Victoria C. Woodhull, by M. Marion Marberry
1928 - The Terrible Siren Victoria Woodull 1838-1927, by Emanie Sachs

Cultural Slag

Cultural Slag by Felicia Lamport

Published in 1966, this collection of poems and short essays reflects the time in which it was written. Portions of the book previously were published in publications like The Atlantic, Harper's, Life, McCall's, The New York Herald Tribune, and The Saturday Evening Post. In addition to being a freelance author Felicia Lamport wrote the "Muse of the Week in Review" column for The Boston Globe. Cultural Slag is the third collection of her work all of which were illustrated by Edward Gorey.

For this collection Gorey created a series of full page drawings featuring striped insects and piles of stones that appear on the title page and introduce each chapter. In addition each poem or essay has its own pen and ink drawing. The combination of short poems and Gorey illustrations makes this book a quick and enjoyable read. Lamport had a sophisticated command of the English language and was often creative in her use of puns.

The short pieces of the book are clustered into chapters based on broad categories. Most are one page poems with a facing illustration, but there are also several essays as well.


THE NEW YORK PEDESTAL SET pays poetic homage to the statues and busts that grace public spaces in this city. These monuments are meant to pay homage to famous people, but what if the famous people of the past are no longer household names? That is the subject of one of the poems in this chapter called "Who He?" that begins:

One expects the mind to trigger
When one contemplates a figure
Cast for sempiternral fame,
But the brainpan starts to joggle
If the viewer starts to boggle
At the name.

This is followed by verses that remind the reader of some of the not-so-famous people who have commemorative statues in New York.


ALARUMS AND DIVERSIONS is a series of satirical poems on various performing arts and literature. My favorite is a poetic review of Edward Albee's 1964 play Tiny Alice called "DAS IST ALICE". I have never read a drama review written as a poem before. In one verse of this poem Lamport asks:

Was it turgid dramaturgy meant to vent on law and clergy
All the author's rage against the world today,
Psychopathia sexuAlice, or an allegoric chalice
He was raising in a reverential way?

This chapter also contains the first of Lamport's essays, a six page piece on non- and anti-book-reviews entitled "The Hypocritics". Anyone who writes book reviews will find much food for thought here.


POLITICAL CLINKERS is a collection of political poetry which has mostly aged badly as yesterday's politicians are largely forgotten quickly and with good reason. However her Viet Nam War era poem 'EMBATTLED OXYMORON" has some universal appeal even today. Here is a sample verse:

One grows strangely apprehensive
When one contemplates the sense of
Peace offensive,
Which, aggressively commanding
That which passeth understanding
Turns the sentiment it rouses
To: A pax on both your houses."


JOTS AND TITTLES is a collection of poems and an essay on travel and social interactions. The poem "SOUTHERN COMFORT' addresses that time in spring when the north is covered in snow while the south is in bloom:

No meter can measure
The infinite pleasure
Of people in tropic resorts
who squirm with delight
Through the sweltering night
At their home town weather reports.


ANIMAL SPIRITS is a short chapter of four poems about the Animal Kingdom. "ICHTHYOLOGIC" asks the question:

Why do fish, who get no pleasure out of mating,
Top all mammals in the rate of propagating?


PARTY LINES is another short chapter of five poems describing the urban party-going scene. The poem "DENSITY PROPENSITY" starts:

From five to seven every night
The party-goers coalesce
Participating in the rite
That equalizes social debts
In all the best sub-bourbon sets.


SWEET AND SOUR SERENADE TO CAMBRIDGE is a set of poems dedicated to Cambridge Massachusetts. The poem "EDUCATION INFLATION" ends with the verse:

Corporations vie to buy queues of the higher bracket I.Q.s
That were lately held in rather low esteem:
All of Cambridge now is reeling with such wheeling Ph.Dealing
As has never graced the grooves of academe.


SOCIAL SPINOFF is a chapter on social issues of the day. The preference for plastic cards over paper money is the subject of "YON CASH HAS GOT A LEAN AND HUNGRY LOOK". It opens with the verse:

It's funny what's happening to money:
It seems to have gone out of fashion.
The flashing of cash is considered so brash
That it turns any headwaiter ashen.

While the book is 52 years old, it can still provide some amusement, and the drawings of Edward Gorey fill the pages with art worth seeing.

Murdering Mr. Monti

Murdering Mr. Monti: A Merry Little Tale of Sex and Violence by Judith Viorst

While the title brings thoughts of a murder mystery to mind, the phrase A Merry Little Tale in the subtitle reveals this novel as a Comedy of Manners where the humorous situations, and some suspense, drive the plot.

Set in the suburbs of Washington DC, the book is about Brenda Kovner, a successful 46 year old syndicated advice columnist who is married to Jake a pediatric surgeon. They have two grown sons Jeff and Wally. Wally has fallen in love with Jo Monti the youngest daughter of Joseph Monti, a narcissistic bully of a man. Mr. Monti has dominated his wife and three daughters, and Jo has shown budding signs of rebellion by falling in love with a Jewish man. Mr. Monti stands in the way of Wally and Jo's plans. Not only does he intend to drive off Wally, but he has taken steps to ruin Jake and Jeff's lives.

Brenda has reached middle age having slept with only Jake her husband, and her attempts to micro-manage their life has created tensions in their marriage. She had decided before the story begins to sleep with other men before her 46th birthday in order to have a variety of sexual experience and ended up sleeping with three men in 24 hours. One of them was Mr. Monti.

Once she decides that the only way out of her problems is to murder Mr. Monti, the readers' fun begins.

Judith Viorst is an established author of poetry and children's books. This delightful novel shows her skills at character development and humor. Filled with her own advice from her syndicated column, well-developed characters, outlandish situations, and a complex plot full of surprises, this is a delightful fun read.

My Horizontal Life

My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One Night Stands by Chelsea Handler

My Horizontal Life is a set of 18 stories depicting short-term sexual relationships that Chelsea Handler claims to have had between the ages of 18 and 28. Actually the first story "Guess Who's Having Sex with Mommy" tells about the time seven year old Chelsea walked in on her parents having sex. All the actual details of these stories must not be taken as factually true because Chelsea Handler claims to drink and lie an awful lot. So the possibility that she can't remember details or that she makes them up makes this book probably more fiction than memoir. What she does remember or lie about is more often humorous rather than lascivious. I get the feeling that even Chelsea was too drunk to actually remember the sexual part of the relationship. So these stories consist of a lot of amusing situations leading up to and following the sexual act, without any actual salacious sexual details.

The Renegade Queen

The Renegade Queen by Eva Flynn

Eva Flynn's The Renegade Queen is a novel told in the first person about the life of Victoria Woodhull, one of the most amazing women of the 19th Century who, because of her radical positions, has been written out of many historical accounts of the time. There are several excellent biographies of Victoria that have built up the details of her life from the published sources of the time. Benefiting from all that research this novel, by telling her story in the first person, breathes life into the character and personage of Victoria Woodhull. What Eva Flynn has done most admirably in this book is to "channel" the spirit of Victoria's character so the reader can glimpse, not only what she accomplished, but why she did all the things she did in the fields of Spiritualism, Women's Rights, Civil Rights, Commerce, Publishing, Free Love, Politics, and so many others.

The Renegade Queen won the 2016 Independent Publisher Gold "IPPY" Award for Best Adult Fiction E-Book and I can see why. Not only does Flynn bring Victoria Woodhull to life, but she does the same for her two husbands Canning Woodhull and James Blood, her sister Tenny C. Claflin, her father “Buck” Claflin, Susan B. Anthony, Commodore Vanderbilt, Massachusetts Congressman Benjamin Butler, and a host of others. I feel the author has immersed herself in the Civil War and Reconstruction period and used her knowledge to create great depth in the characters and the settings of the novel. If you have ever wanted to learn more about Victoria Woodhull, this novel is a very enjoyable way to do that.

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris

David Sedaris is a master of short biographical memoirs that are funny, insightful, and poignant, sometime all at the same time. This volume collects a group of his essays mostly about the members his large Raleigh, NC family. I enjoy reading his insights into life as revealed by his interactions with others.
"Us and Them" is about moving next to a family that is raising their family without television.
In "The Ship Shape" David describes his family's version of the North Carolina custom of having or renting a house at the coast.
"Full House" describes David's first sleep over when he was in the sixth grade.
David gets hit in the mouth with a rock thrown by one of the most popular boys in his class in "Consider the Stars." This leads to a confrontation between his father and the parents of the other boy.
David's relationship with his rich great aunt is the topic of "Monie Changes Everything."
Asking for Spare Change at the NC State Fair is the topic of "The Change in Me."
In "Hejira" David tells the story of when his dad kicked him out of the house when he was 22 because he is gay.
"Slumus Lordicus" is about the time his parents' get rich plan of buying and renting out apartments.
In "The Girl Next Door" David makes friends with the nine year old girl next door with disastrous consequences until his mother saves him.
"Blood Work" tells of an unusual but lucrative experience David had while working in New York City cleaning apartments.
In the next story David tells of seeing "The End of the Affair" with his partner Hugh.
"Repeat After Me" describes David's visit to his sister Lisa and her talking parrot Henry.
On a visit to Amsterdam David asks the cab driver about his Christmas celebration and learns about the "Six to Eight Black Men" who accompany Dutch St. Nick.
David's brother Paul, who runs a floor sanding service in Raleigh, is the topic of "Rooster at the Hitchin' Post."
Hugh and David visit the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam in "Possession."
Most poignant was "Put A Lid On It" describing his visit to his sister Tiffany who lived in Boston. Their lives are obviously worlds apart and the distance is painful to watch unfold.
A "Can of Worms" found in Texas that survived the space shuttle explosion is the dinner table topic of an evening in Los Angeles.
In "Chicken in the Henhouse" David helps a young boy at a hotel, and then has second thoughts about how his gesture might be misinterpreted.
David and Hugh get into an argument over a rubber hand during a dinner conversation with friends in "Who's the Chef."
Paul becomes the first of David's siblings to have a child in "Baby Einstein."
A burglar gets stuck in a chimney and dies in "Nuit of the Living Dead."

The Voyeurs

The Voyeurs by Gabrielle Bell

This book was my first encounter with the cartoonist Gabrielle Bell and it took me a while to get into the structure and content. Most of the book is a chronological series of dated sketches from Bell's graphic journal covering the four years from 2007 to 2010. The book opens with a 13 panel cartoon called "The Voyeurs" from which the book derives it's name. In it Bell finds five of her friends on the roof of her apartment building watching a couple make love in an apartment across the way. I get a sense that she thinks of the readers as Voyeurs into her life through the reading of her journals.

Getting thrown into the middle of a person's life as revealed through their journals can be a bit disorienting at first and it took me a while to warm up to the format, the story, and the author. Once I got involved in her life, though, I found it a good read with lots of detail that the dialog and the sketches bring to life.

Red Rosa: A Graphic Biography of Rosa Luxemburg

Red Rosa: A Graphic Biography of Rosa Luxemburg by Kate Evans

Red Rosa follows the life of Rosa Luxemburg from her birth in Zamość Poland in 1871 to her execution in Berlin in 1919. Born with a congenital dislocation of the hip, Rosa's left leg was shorter than her right and she walked with a limp and used a special shoe with a lift. After she was born her family moved to Warsaw where, at the age of 15, she became involved with the Socialist Proletariat Party and helped organize a general strike. When four of the Proletariat Party leaders were put to death and the party was disbanded, she fled to Switzerland where she attended the University of Zurich. Her doctoral dissertation, "The Industrial Development of Poland," was published when she was 27. It is in Zurich that she meets and falls in love with Leo Jogiches who helps her organize Polish Socialist activities.

Wanting to be in Germany where the leading Socialist thinkers are, Rosa marries the son of an old friend Gustav Lubeck to get German citizenship and moves to Berlin in 1897. They never lived together and they formally divorced five years later. She became a leftist member of the Social Democratic Party and a founding member of The Spartacus League. Through these groups she promoted equal rights for women, an internationalist perspective, and opposition to the First World War. She tried to rally the workers to a general strike when war was declared saying "If they think we are going to lift the weapons of murder against our French and other brethren, then we shall shout: 'We will not do it!'". During the war the Spartacus League wrote illegal, anti-war pamphlets signed "Spartacus" (after the slave-liberating gladiator who opposed the Romans) and Rosa was imprisoned for two and a half years, as was her lover Karl Liebknecht. At the end of the war she and Liebknecht were freed from prison and they resurrected the Spartacus League, pushing for a Free Socialist Republic. Both were shot by right-wing paramilitary militia working for the government.

That is the framework that Kate Evans uses through her drawings to breathe life into the story of Rosa Luxemburg. She uses a recently made available letters written by Rosa and other works of scholarship to create a detailed account of her life. Filled with lovely black and white drawings, we find a Rosa Luxemburg that author Stephen Eric Bronner called in 1987 A Revolutionary for Our Times. I found her economic arguments written at the end of the 19th century, and very deftly explained by Kate Evans, very forward thinking and with extreme relevance to our 21st century predicament. Kate Evans' six pages of Rosa explaining Capitalism to her family at the dining room table is excellent. The book closes with 33 pages of notes for people who want to know more about particular events in the book. There is also an Afterword that brings the reader up to date on the historiography of thinking about Rosa Luxemburg and her influence. An excellent introduction to a radical and highly insightful scholar.

Munch

Munch by Steffen Kverneland

Munch is a graphic novel biography of Edvard Munch, the Norwegian painter born on December 12, 1863 and died 80 years later on January 23, 1944. Most known for his painting of The Scream, his works cover a wide range of portraiture and group settings and are drawn from his own life experiences. He painted what he felt rather than realistically portraying what he saw. Many of his paintings are recreated in the text or used as source material for the author's own drawings.

The author wants Munch and the other characters in the book to speak their own words so all their spoken words are authentic quotes from letters, diaries, and notes. To make the book more interesting to read the author and his friend Lars Fiske introduce the book and appear occasionally explaining the methodology of the work or some of the background material, mostly as drawings but with some photographs taken at sites used in Munch's paintings. This mix makes for an enjoyable read that also provides an in-depth view of the artist, his family and friends, and the the society in which they worked.

I can highly recommend this book for anyone interested in the artist and his work. The translation from Norwegian by Francesca M. Nichols reads very well. It has made me interested in reading other volumes in the Art Masters Series put out by Self Made Hero Press.

When You Are Engulfed in Flames

When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris

I have been a David Sedaris fan for a long time. He grew up in Raleigh and writes humorous sketches on life, often based on his experiences here in the City of Oaks. When I moved to Raleigh in 1979, he was the waiter at the coffee shop I frequented before going to work each morning. Most days it was David, DD (a woman who worked in a dairy lab at the land grant university across the street), and me. This was before he was a writer. He considered himself a performance artist at the time and would stage strange performances with his friend Avi for a small but confused audience of friends. I am glad he took up writing as he is much better at it than performance art.

When You Are Engulfed in Flames was written in 2008 around the time David was living in France and gave up smoking. There is a large 83 page Smoking Section at the end of the book where he recounts his experiences with smoking and ends with his three month trip to Japan to give up smoking "cold turkey." This book seems to be more introspective than his earlier works and includes many stories about his relationship with his partner Hugh Hamrick. His mixture of humorous observations on life, mixed with his own foibles, make for both funny and tender reading moments that are unique.

Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy

Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy by Cathy O'Neil

Weapons of Math Destruction looks at the fields of Analytics and Big Data in a non-technical manner to provide a basic overview of how statistical models are built and used to predict behavior and improve efficiency. The focus is on showing how well-designed analytical models are built, and how to distinguish them from those that have destructive, but profitable, outcomes. It is an insider's look at the science and practice of Big Data for the benefit of those outside the field. As such, it is a good introductory text to the issues involved. Broad in its sweep, this book looks at Big Data applications in education, criminal justice, the workplace, and politics. It points out how, while promising fairness and efficiency, the uses of Big Data can often punish the poor while rewarding the upper class.
Any book with the word Math in the title can be expected to have formulas full of symbols, or at least graphs, spreadsheets or data. But this book has none of these and can safely be read by the math averse population.
What you can expect to come away with is a sense of how pervasive Big Data have become, how its use may effect your daily life and those who are hurt by it, and how to develop an understanding of ways to determine which uses of Big Data increase inequality and threaten Democracy.
What I felt was its weakest point was when the author talks about solutions. O'Neil sees this as a young field and that the problems pointed out in the book will be seen as the early days before the practitioners learned to bring fairness and accountability to the field. Suggested improvements in the book include teaching ethics to the researchers in the field, and developing a Hippocratic Oath for Big Data similar to the one used in Medicine. However, I think the book itself is a good start towards developing an informed public able to understand the fair and unfair uses of Analytics with a goal towards developing a regulatory structure that allows individuals to see how their data is being used, and to provide the feedback mechanisms to help users actively participate in their profiling.
While this is an overview written for a general audience, and is relatively free of footnotes, there is a 34 page section of Notes at the end of the book showing the sources used for the information discussed throughout the pages of the text. I came away from reading this book with a much better understanding of the impact of Big Data and the analytical tools used to work with it. Much of what I see online has been modified to fit a profile of me created by my past online choices that have put me in a statistical bucket or silo and limits what I see and hear. This reminds me of the parable of the frog in the well. The frog lived in a well where there was all he needed to live and a small patch of blue sky visible at the opening of the well. One day, a turtle came by and told him about the vast sea. The frog replies 'The sea? Hah! It's paradise in here. Nothing can be better than this well." With the Moral being that ignorant people know nothing aside from their own small world. Cathy O'Neil is the turtle offering this book as a way of showing us frogs caught up in our silos of information about the vast Ocean of Big Data that is out there if we can learn to see outside our small computer screen view.
Big Data for the Masses

The Galley Slave's Ring

The Galley Slave's Ring : Or, The Family of Lebrenn : A Tale of the French Revolution of 1848, by Eugene Sue

The Galley Slave's Ring is the final volume of a 19 volume series of novels written by Eugène Sue called The Mysteries of the People; or History of a Proletarian Family Across the Ages that was written between 1849-1857. The author, once called "the king of the popular novel," created this series to depict the struggle between the ruling and the ruled classes in French history. 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 told by the descendants Of Joel that culminate in the European Revolutions of 1848.

Considered at one time 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 become available again recently 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, wrote in his Preface to The Gold Sickle that it was owning class influence that kept English translations of this series from being available for over 50 years. A 2004 article entitled "Eugène Sue : Champion of the Oppressed" in The People, written to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the English translations, said the following about the series:

"It is by far the best work ever written for giving the working class reader an intimate picture of society as it evolved in France from the days of Gaul, before the Roman conquest, to the middle of the 19th century. It is especially valuable for the picture that it provides of the various phases of feudal society, and the growth of infant capitalism within the feudal womb."

While Sue's anti-Catholic works The Wandering Jew and The Mysteries of Paris are still known, this Socialist series of 19 novels has been out of print for over 100 years. Here is a listing of them:

The Mysteries of the People; or History of a Proletarian Family Across the Age series
1. The Gold Sickle or Hena, the Virgin of the Isle of Sen: A Tale of Druid Gaul
2. The Brass Bell; or, The Chariot of Death: A Tale of Caesar's Gallic Invasion
3. The Iron Collar; Or, Faustina and Syomara: A Tale of Slavery Under the Romans
4. The Silver Cross; or, The Carpenter of Nazareth: A Tale of Jerusalem
5. The Casque's Lark; or, Victoria, The Mother Of The Camps: A Tale Of The Frankish Invasion Of Gaul
6. The Poniard's Hilt; or, Karadeucq and Ronan: A Tale of Bagauders and Vagres
7. The Branding Needle; or, The Monastery of Charolles: A Tale of the First Communal Charter
8. The Abbatial Crosier; or, Bonaik and Septimine: A Tale of a Medieval Abbess
9. The Carlovingian Coins; or, The Daughters of Charlemagne: A Tale of the Ninth Century
10. The Iron Arrow Head; or, The Buckler Maiden: A Tale of the Northman Invasion
11. The Infant's Skull; or, The End of the World: A Tale of the Millennium
12. The Pilgrim's Shell; or, Fergan the Quarryman: A Tale from the Feudal Times
13. The Iron Pincers; or, Mylio and Karvel: A Tale of the Albigensian Crusades
14. The Iron Trevet; or, Jocelyn the Champion: A Tale of the Jacquerie
15. The Executioner's Knife; or, Joan of Arc: A Tale of the Inquisition
16. The Pocket Bible; or, Christian the Printer: A Tale of the Sixteenth Century (2 volumes)
17. The Blacksmith's Hammer; or, The Peasant Code: A Tale of the Grand Monarch
18:1. The Sword of Honor; or, The Foundation of the French Republic: A Tale of the French Revolution
18:2. The Sword of Honor: Part II - The Bourgeois Revolution: A Tale of the French Revolution
19. The Galley Slave's Ring; or, The Family of Lebrenn: A Tale of the French Revolution of 1848

Having already enjoyed Sue's The Wandering Jew, I looked forward to starting a work which united my interest in serial novels, historic fiction, and Class Warfare. Fortunately, the whole series is now available free to anyone who has Kindle or epub software on their reading device.

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
With this story, The Galley Slave's Ring; or, The Family of Lebrenn, closes the series of the nineteen historic novels comprised in Eugene Sue's monumental work The Mysteries of the People; or, History of a Proletarian Family Across the Ages.
They who have read the preceding eighteen stories will agree that from the moment they began the first volume of the series, The Gold Sickle; or, Hena the Virgin of the Isle of Sen, down to the eighteenth, The Sword of Honor; or, The Foundation of the French Republic, they enjoyed a matchless promenade as they followed Sue through the Ages of History, from the time of the invasion of Gaul by Julius Caesar, shortly before Christ, down to the great epoch marked by the French Revolution. Nor will their expectations concerning this closing story be disappointed.
The Galley Slave's Ring; or, The Family of Lebrenn is staged on the Age that witnessed the downfall of Louis Philippe--the last of the Bourbon line--and the aspirations that raised the Second Republic. While several of the figures are historic, in this story historic characters step forth less pronouncedly than historic principles. In this story are found the Principles, the old and the newest, that have since occupied the stage of man's history, and the clash of which, down to our own days, occupies man's attention.
Inestimable as the previous stories are to the understanding of the Age of the present story, the present story, enlivened with the vein of romance, is inestimable to the understanding of our own Age.
DANIEL DE LEON.
Milford, Conn., February, 1911.

The Galley Slave's Ring begins in Paris on Rue Saint-Denis on February 23, 1848 during the constitutional monarchy of Louis-Philippe, and ends in December, 1851 during the French Second Republic headed by Louis-Napoleon. It is the story of Marik Lebrenn and his family who run a cloth and clothing shop and live upstairs. He and his wife are about 50 years old, and they have an adult son and daughter that help in the shop. Although he is a bourgeois shop keeper, his values and ethics are aligned with the working class of his ancestors. The book begins with Lebrenn preparing to take part in the "February Revolution" that ended the reign of Louis-Philippe. It was one of the many uprisings of The Peoples' Spring that spread across Europe in 1848.

At the same time he is helping his shy neighbor George Duchene, a laborer who takes care of his aging grandfather, to become engaged to his daughter Jeanike. Jeanike loves George but has caught the eye of Count Gonthram of Ploernel, who is descended from the Neroweg Franks whose family has oppressed Marik's family for centuries. The Count, not knowing the history of their two families, hopes to win over Marik with a large order of uniforms for his garrison so he can seduce his daughter Jeanike. Their dialog is one of the high points of the book as the Count plays on his wealth and class, and Marik, armed with his knowledge of the history of the two families, counters with the socialist values that have become so prominent in Europe in this time. The Count realizes he has met his match, and both go back to planning for their roles in the impending revolution.

They meet again on the barricade at Rue Saint-Denis on opposite sides of the battle, where the workers led by Lebrenn hold off the troops. At the end of the battle, Lebrenn hides the wounded Count in his house and arranges for his safe transport home, possibly saving his life. The battle ended the constitutional monarchy of Louis-Philippe, and marks the beginning of the Second Republic. However through a strange twist of fate, Marik finds himself accused, found guilty and sentenced to the life of a galley slave, while the Count becomes an officer in the army of the Republic.

Eugene Sue himself suffered a reversal similar to Marik's. After the French Revolution of 1848, he was elected to the Legislative Assembly in April 1850, only to be exiled the following year to Sardinia for his protest of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte's coup d'état of 1851. It is in Sardinia that Sue writes the 19 volumes of The Mysteries of the People.

As the last volume of the series, Eugene Sue uses this story to recap the history of the family that has been told in the previous 18 volumes and to point out the moral strength of the socialist working class. His goal in portraying the struggles of the working class is to show that set backs like the Second Empire should not cause people to give up hope, but to realize that the long history of progress has often been accompanied by losses that seemed hopeless at the time. At the end of the book, after showing his family the stories of his ancestors going back over 1,000 years, Marik tells them "What does it matter, my children, whether we actually witness or not the dawn, if we have the certainty that the sun of that beautiful day is bound eventually to shine over a regenerated world!" He goes on to say "Whatever appearances may be, whatever the present depression, revolutionary thought is at this very hour germinating under the soil. It is spreading and gaining in depth through a thousand underground rootlets. Sooner or later, its sudden and last irresistible explosion will be heard. Upon the ruins of the old social system a new social order will be established. There can be no doubt whatever, my children, regarding that great and crowning event. Progress is the law of humanity -- for society as well as for the individual. Our plebeian narratives furnish the irrefutable proof."

Prior to reading Sue's "Mysteries of the People" which ends in 1851 with the beginning of France's Second Empire, I had read Emile Zola's 20 Rougon-Macquart novels which are a panoramic account of the Second Empire. They are the story of a family between the years 1851 and 1871 who descend from the two family lines of the Rougons and Macquarts. The two series are wonderfully complimentary to each other and I recommend them to anyone looking for 40 or so novels to read that reveal the history of France.

The Painted Bird

The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski

This novel tells the story of a young boy who wanders through the eastern regions of an unnamed Central European country during World War II. As Nazi Germany invades the country he is sent east by his Jewish parents for safety. The boy ends up, with no friends or resources, wandering from village to village seeking refuge. As a dark-eyed, black-haired youth he is referred to as a Gypsy orphan by the blond, blue-eyed Slavs of the area. Mistreated as an outsider, he is like a painted bird who seeks to join the flock but is rejected because of its different appearance. In each village he is bullied and abused and only finds refuge in the most unsavory of situations, always under the threat of being turned over to the Nazi invaders as a Gypsy. Through all of this, the youth tries to understand the cruel and violent world with which he is faced, developing theories and philosophies of life and discarding them as they fail to help him cope with the primitive lives of the peasant farmers and their harsh treatment.
Describing all of the cruelty and horror of war in the voice of a young child, this book is not easy to read and may be too upsetting for some readers. For those readers who manage to endure, the story reveals the war in a personal way that can only be possible through the eyes of a child.
The author was born in 1933 in Łódź Poland. So he was the same age as the boy in the story during the war. He and his Jewish parents survived the war in eastern Poland by assuming false identities and living as Catholics with the help of local Polish families.
First published in 1965, this 1976 Second Edition has an Introduction by the author that tells the amazing story of the book and its reception both in the West and in Poland where it was banned. He responds to criticism that the book dwells too much on the horrors faced by people in Poland during the war. Although the book stands on its own, this is a really useful addition to understanding the author and the initial reaction to the work.

I Went Down to St. James Infirmary

I Went Down to St. James Infirmary: Investigations in the Shadowy World of Early Jazz-Blues in the Company of Blind Willie McTell, Louis Armstrong, Don Redman, Irving Mills, Carl Moore, and a Host of Others, and Where Did This Dang Song Come from Anyway? by Robert W. Harwood

Robert Harwood does a very good job of tracing the roots of the legendary American song St. James Infirmary, finding similarities with the 18th century British folksong The Unfortunate Rake and also the American ballad The Streets of Laredo. He also uses the history of this song to show the beginnings of the music industry's creation of Race Recordings, the recording of African American artists for sales to the Black community. In addition, he uses a copyright trial over the name of the song to illustrate how folk musicians borrowed and changed music and lyrics to make songs their own, and how the music industry used copyrights on sheet music and recordings to profit from the musicians' work.

For those who want to research these topics further, this is a good piece of scholarship with extensive notes, a three page bibliography, and four appendices. I found the writing could have benefited from the hand of a good editor as whole paragraphs appear more than once in the text. It was an interesting and enjoyable read for a fan of this classic song that has been recorded by many musicians in a diverse range of genres including folk, blues and jazz.

Hua Hu Ching: The Teachings of Lao Tzu

Hua Hu Ching: The Teachings of Lao Tzu by Lao Tzu and Brian Walker

Most people who have heard of Lao Tzu know him through his book the Tao Te Ching, a fundamental Taoist text. The authorship and history of the Tao Te Ching is still being debated. And so it is also the case for the Hua Hu Ching which is also often attributed to Lao Tzu. The text has come down to us largely through oral tradition although fragments, although a partial manuscript was discovered in a cave in China.< In 1979 the first English translation by Hua-Ching Ni of the Hua Hu Ching was published by Shambhala Press under the title Hua Hu Ching : The Later Teachings of Lao Tzu.
This 1992 translation of the Hua Hu Ching by Brian Walker, who is famous for his highly accessible translation of the Chinese text The I Ching or Book of Changes: A Guide to Life's Turning Points, is equally accessible to Western readers. Having not read Hua-Ching Ni's translation, I cannot compare the two. However, I have read various translations of the I Ching, and I can agree that Walker's translation makes a very good starting point for a Western reader to the concepts outlined in the text. I found it inspiring and only slightly unclear in certain spots where I felt a Glossary with fuller descriptions of certain terms would have been helpful. E.g. he seems to translate "Tao" as "The Integral Way" without ever sitting the reader down and explaining either term. It is a wonderful companion to the Tao Te Ching and I recommend it to anyone who, after reading the Tao Te Ching, wants to find something else to read to get more information.

The Discovery of Heaven

The Discovery of Heaven by Harry Mulisch

If humans have free will, how does God know how everything is going to turn out? More significantly, how can God create a given outcome using these humans?

I first encountered Mulisch's work with his earlier title The Procedure which examines the way that inanimate matter becomes living organisms by telling the stories of a modern day Dr. Frankenstein, Victor Werker, a Dutch biologist who creates a complex organic clay crystal that can reproduce and has a metabolism, and the late sixteenth century Rabbi Jehudah Löw of Prague who creates a golem by following the procedure outlined in a third-century cabalist text that God used to create Adam.

The Discovery of Heaven is a large novel of 730 pages that deals with God's relationship with the human race, predestination and free will, and the lives of two men, the woman they both love, and the child she conceives to fulfill a divine purpose. Translated from the Dutch by award-winning translator Paul Vincent, the book makes a smooth transition into English. I found it easy and compelling reading with a thought-provoking ending. While this is one of the most read and respected novels in The Netherlands, American readers are not always so enthusiastic. I believe that the philosophical and theological questions raised and the literary style that Mulisch uses to covey them may be difficult to translate, sort of like reading an English translation of the Chinese I Ching.

It has a story within a story construction that opens with two heavenly spirits talking to each other. One is telling the other how complex it was to bring together the right genetic profiles to produce the desired child who would be able to fulfill a mission from God. The story the spirit tells begins with astrophysicist Max Delius and philologist Onno Quist meeting, seemingly by chance, in The Hague in February 1967 when Max stops his car at midnight to pick up Onno who was hitchhiking to Amsterdam.

Their friendship forms the core of the book, which tells the story of first Max, and then Onno, falling in love with young cellist Ada Brons. From this love triangle, Ada produces a son Quinten, whose paternity is uncertain, but we watch as he grows to maturity and the fulfillment of his mission.

This is a story of how heavenly predestination looks like free will to the humans involved as the humans exercise their free will, and yet their situations are manipulated from heaven by a spirit with a mission to accomplish. What does God need from humans at the end of the 20th century? Read the book and find out one man's thoughts on this.

The Sword of Honor, volumes 1 & 2: or The Foundation of the French Republic, A Tale of The French Revolution

The Sword of Honor, volumes 1 & 2: or The Foundation of the French Republic, A Tale of The French Revolution, by Eugène Sue

The Sword of Honor is the 18th volume of a 19 volume series of novels written by Eugène Sue called The Mysteries of the People; or History of a Proletarian Family Across the Ages that was written between 1849-1857. The author, once called "the king of the popular novel," created this series to depict the struggle between the ruling and the ruled classes in French history. 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.

Considered at one time 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, wrote in his Preface to The Gold Sickle that it was owning class influence that kept English translations of this series from being available for over 50 years. A 2004 article entitled "Eugene Sue : Champion of the Oppressed" in The People, written to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the English translations, said the following about the series:

"It is by far the best work ever written for giving the working class reader an intimate picture of society as it evolved in France from the days of Gaul, before the Roman conquest, to the middle of the 19th century. It is especially valuable for the picture that it provides of the various phases of feudal society, and the growth of infant capitalism within the feudal womb."

While Sue's anti-Catholic works The Wandering Jew and The Mysteries of Paris are still known, this Socialist series of 19 novels has been out of print for over 100 years. Here is a listing of them:

The Mysteries of the People; or History of a Proletarian Family Across the Age series
1. The Gold Sickle or Hena, the Virgin of the Isle of Sen: A Tale of Druid Gaul
2. The Brass Bell; or, The Chariot of Death: A Tale of Caesar's Gallic Invasion
3. The Iron Collar; Or, Faustina and Syomara: A Tale of Slavery Under the Romans
4. The Silver Cross; or, The Carpenter of Nazareth: A Tale of Jerusalem
5. The Casque's Lark; or, Victoria, The Mother Of The Camps: A Tale Of The Frankish Invasion Of Gaul
6. The Poniard's Hilt; or, Karadeucq and Ronan: A Tale of Bagauders and Vagres
7. The Branding Needle; or, The Monastery of Charolles: A Tale of the First Communal Charter
8. The Abbatial Crosier; or, Bonaik and Septimine: A Tale of a Medieval Abbess
9. The Carlovingian Coins; or, The Daughters of Charlemagne: A Tale of the Ninth Century
10. The Iron Arrow Head; or, The Buckler Maiden: A Tale of the Northman Invasion
11. The Infant's Skull; or, The End of the World: A Tale of the Millennium
12. The Pilgrim's Shell; or, Fergan the Quarryman: A Tale from the Feudal Times
13. The Iron Pincers; or, Mylio and Karvel: A Tale of the Albigensian Crusades
14. The Iron Trevet; or, Jocelyn the Champion: A Tale of the Jacquerie
15. The Executioner's Knife; or, Joan of Arc: A Tale of the Inquisition
16. The Pocket Bible; or, Christian the Printer: A Tale of the Sixteenth Century (2 volumes)
17. The Blacksmith's Hammer; or, The Peasant Code: A Tale of the Grand Monarch
18:1. The Sword of Honor; or, The Foundation of the French Republic: A Tale of the French Revolution
18:2. The Sword of Honor: Part II - The Bourgeois Revolution: A Tale of the French Revolution
19. The Galley Slave's Ring; or, The Family of Lebrenn: A Tale of the French Revolution of 1848

Having already enjoyed Sue's The Wandering Jew, I looked forward to starting a work which will unite my interest in serial novels, historic fiction, and Class Warfare. Fortunately, the whole series is now available free to anyone who has Kindle or epub software on their reading device.

The Sword of Honor covers events in France from 1789 to 1832, the period leading up to and including the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Era. Seen through the eyes of John Lebrenn, a Parisian blacksmith and descendent of the Gallic chief Joel, who relates the events of the time as an active member of the French Revolution. This was the hardest book of the series for me to read because Sue was not writing ancient history. Instead he was writing of recent history for an audience who lived through the events portrayed. Throughout the series Sue portrayed the behavior of actual historic figures as they fit into his narrative. He provided footnotes to document his sources to prove he was not fictionalizing their acts. He was writing this series for his French audience and making sure to set the record straight, which has sometimes been hard for me as a non-French reader. This setting the record straight almost overwhelms the story in this volume. Sue was addressing an audience who lived through the events and he wanted to make sure they were aware of the roles played by the significant personalities of the time. He was writing at a time when the leaders of the Revolution had been vilified and the misdeeds of the ruling classes swept under the rug. He wanted to lift up that rug and portray the leaders of the Revolution as the heroes of the People.

John Lebrenn and his sister Victoria are working class heroes in this novel. They were hard working and intelligent, informed of the class struggle between the Gauls and the Franks by the records passed down from generation to generation of their family - the previous novels of this series, each written down and carefully preserved by preceding generations. This volume is John's contribution to the family record. With them we experience the events of this most tumultuous time in French history. We see their victories and then the treacheries of the Church, the Ruling Class, the Bourgeoisie and the Military that betray the People to maintain their Class privilege. It is a long book and often offers much greater detail than a modern reader needs. Yet, the story is compelling and the characters well developed.

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
Most persons know the French Revolution as a tremendous outburst in human affairs. Many know it as one of the race's great steps forward. That, however, it was the revolution which carried into power the then rising bourgeois, now capitalist, class; that this class, while appealing for and using the help of the working class, secretly hated and feared the demands of the latter, and blocked them at every opportunity; that finally the bourgeoisie, having obtained as revolutionists, by the aid of the workers, their end of the revolution, became as violently reactionary as had been the nobility they fought, and ruthlessly shot and guillotined to pieces the then definite proletarian movement for full political equality and collective ownership of the tools of production--that is an insight into the French Revolutionary period hitherto vouchsafed to few. To that insight Eugene Sue's genius has, with the present thrilling novel, made straight the way for all.
This, The Sword of Honor; or, The Foundation of the French Republic, is the eighteenth and culminating unit in Sue's great historic-fiction series, The Mysteries of the People; or, History of a Proletarian Family Across the Ages. Following close upon the previous volume, The Blacksmith's Hammer; or, The Peasant Code, in which the popular storm was seen gathering head under the atrocities of the gilded age of the Grand Monarch, the present story portrays that storm breaking in all the accumulated vigor of its centuries of postponement, and sweeping away the empty lay figures of an outgrown feudalism. True, one barrier to human liberty was thrown down only to disclose another. To the empire of birth and privilege was to succeed the empire of the shekel; to the rule of do-nothing kings, the rule of do-nothing plutocracy. But it is in the act of drilling itself for the overthrow of that final parasite class--for the final conquering, in other words, of freedom for the race--that Sue portrays the proletariat in the next and closing work of the series, The Galley Slave's Ring; or, The Family of Lebrenn. Though he minimizes none of the difficulties, his message for the future is of hope only.
Nothing is more unanimous among historians of the period than expressions of commiseration for the condition of the French people before the Revolution. Yet nothing, on the other hand, is more unanimous either than the condemnation showered upon this people the moment it seizes the reins and enters upon the task of putting down its age-long tyrannizers. Into this absurd breach of consistency Sue's genius saved him from falling. In his pages Marat, Danton and Robespierre walk to their doom with head erect, clean from the smut slung at them by their bourgeois enemies, for whom they were going too far. Friends of the People once, so they remained to the end; and in that mantle Sue has preserved their memory for all time. For him who would rail at their summary deeds Sue has far from spread a bed of roses. The memory of the royalist massacres in the Vendee and of the triumphant bourgeois massacres during the White Terror, rescued by his pen from the oblivion in which they were sought to be buried, have thrown the Revolutionary Terror into its proper perspective. It is a bagatelle beside the acts committed by its denouncers.
Sue's clear presentation of the maxim, "To the peasant the land, to the workman the tool"; his unflinching delineation of the debauchery of court and ecclesiastical circles of the time; his revelation of the role of the political machine under the guise of religion sending out its arms as willing regicides or agents provocateurs by turn; and his clear depiction of the cowardly, grasping, double-dealing and fraud-perpetrating character of the bourgeois, all of which is presented in the easy reading of a story, make this thrilling work of fiction an unsurpassable epitome of the period in which its action elapses.
Finally, it is the distinctive test of good literature upon any topic, that it does not sate, but incites to further thought and study. Not the least of the values of The Sword of Honor; or, The Foundation of the French Republic, is that it performs this reverent duty matchlessly for the momentous period of which it treats.
SOLON DE LEON.
New York, April, 1910.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

I started reading this book after I heard that, in addition to the three books in the Millennium series by Stieg Larsson, two new books in the series came out in 2017 written by David Lagercrantz. That renewed my interest in the series. When I looked into it and found out that this first book was originally titled in Sweden Män som hatar kvinnor (in English: Men Who Hate Women), I decided that I wanted to at least begin reading the book. I had seen the Swedish and USA movies, so I knew the basic plot and wasn't sure the book would hold my interest. I was put off at the beginning by the large number of characters and felt I would never keep them straight. However, reading the book was as engaging as watching the movies and I devoured this 590 page book quickly. Now I am looking forward to reading others in the series.

The Procedure

The Procedure by Harry Mulisch

The Procedure is about the life of a famous scientist after he has made his ground breaking research, in this case the creation of life from inorganic matter. It starts out with the biblical story of creation, then it moves on to the Jewish esoteric book that deals with how god created life, the Sefer Yetzirah (or Book of Creation), and then to the creation of the golem in the Prague ghetto in the 16th century. It is only after this introductory material that the readers are introduced to the scientist Victor Werker and his research on creating living matter from clay.
However the main body of the novel is about Victor after his famous discovery, and it is a very internal exploration of how his fame and research effect his later life. Struggles with the other scientist in the project, with the mother of their stillborn child, and with his attempts to move on to new areas of study are played out in Victor's thought processes.
The novel delves into the scientific mind as it tries to cope with the emotional and interpersonal realities of life. The translation reads well and the book, while it seemed to get bogged down in details in the middle, was compelling reading for me.

Emma and the Civil Warrior

Emma and the Civil Warrior by Candy Dahl

Set in the two weeks between April 11 and 26, 1865, this book tells the events of the Union Army's occupation of Raleigh NC as seen through the eyes of one 12 year old girl, Emma Graham, who lives a couple of blocks from the state capitol building.

When last heard from, her father was fighting with General Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, but the Yankee soldiers say General Lee has surrendered to General Grant. So Emma worries about what has happened to him in the 3 years since he left. She lives with her mother and her 5 year old brother. Jinny, a free black woman, cooks and lives with them. The day before the Union troops marched in, the government officials and Confederate troops marched out of the city and left a single black slave, who author Dahl names Simon Battle, to secure the Capitol building. When the Union soldiers arrive they set up a signal station at the top of the Capitol building with Lieutenant George C. Round in charge.

Emma is initially hostile to Lieutenant Round and the invading troops, who see sees as the enemy, but the lieutenant, knowing that Lee has surrendered to Grant in Virginia and that Confederate General Johnston is in Durham with General Sherman negotiating the terms of his surrender, is so polite and kind.

Ms Dahl has researched her topic well and provides an accurate and engaging look at this small piece of a vast war. Through her detailed look the reader gets a glimpse of the issues and complexities of the broader war. Written for young adults, this is a war without the gore approach suitable for the age group that will be especially of interest to North Carolinians and Raleighites.

Sky Pyrates Over Oz

Sky Pyrates Over Oz by Sherwood Smith

Sky Pyrates Over Oz (2013) is the third in a trilogy of novels including The Emerald Wand of Oz (2005) and Trouble Under Oz (2006) that are "founded on and continuing the famous Oz stories by L. Frank Baum." This three book series was originally arranged by Byron Preiss with HarperCollins and the L. Frank Baum Family Trust. While the first two books were published as planned by HarperCollins and illustrated by William Stout, this third book is published by Pumpernickel Pickle and illustrated by Kim McFarland after a hiatus of 7 years. It is good to finally see Smith's trilogy completed and in print.

These three books tell of the adventures in Oz of Dori and Em, two sisters who believe themselves to be great-nieces to Dorothy Gale of the original L. Frank Baum Oz series. In Sky Pyrates Over Oz Dori and Em are magically transported with their father to a sky island by two mischievous princesses. L. Frank Baum first wrote about the floating islands in the sky in his 1912 book Sky Island. Sherwood Smith builds on this by creating a world of sky islands populated, like Oz, with magical and unusual characters like the six Snub-Nosed Princesses, Lanendir the Librarian, tiny butterfly people called Neeper-Geeps, the Nightmare Sorcerer, and, of course, the Sky Pyrates. Into this aerial world land Dori and Em and their dad who is promptly turned into a dog by a magic spell. An adventure in the sky filled with excitement and many new and old Oz friends that completes the the series and adds a new chapter to the history of Oz that will be a great treat for long-time fans of Oz.

Stories from Uzhgorod:

Stories from Uzhgorod: Stories by Sandy McCulloch

When retired biologist Sandy McCulloch of Corvallis Oregon was in his 70s he visited Uzhgorod in western Ukraine and wrote these stories. Corvallis and Uzhgorod are sister cities and share cultural exchanges so Sandy's visit is not completely strange or random.

In his Introduction McCulloch says: "Most of the stories in the book deal in some way with the people of Ukraine or Russia -- my friends. How then shall I write of my friends? It is called fiction. This is a book of fictional stories; but many of them in truth are a mixture of what we call reality and what we call imagination."

Although written in English, Stories from Uzhgorod was edited and published in Uzhgorod by Art Line Publishing House. The book has very limited availability in the United States, Canada, or the United Kingdom. Being published in Uzhgorod with a Ukrainian editor lends a sense of authenticity to McCulloch's writing which reflects how a person from the USA might react to the everyday life of Ukraine.

I bought the only copy available on Amazon because I had been to the city myself just two years earlier than the author. It is an amazing city in the heart of Europe, and this literary visit reminded me of the joy I had there. I am sure it has changed much since the writing of this book, but Mr. McCulloch has done a wonderful job of capturing the spirit and the people of this small regional capital at the turn of the century.

The stories are short images of what a retired white man from the USA might glimpse of life in a small Ukrainian city. They deal with the difference in perspective of an everyday American and the Ukrainian community he visits. He writes in the first person, which he explains is his literary style, and the stories are not necessarily all about him.

"An Ordinary Day In Uzhgorod" tells of the events of one day that starts with him buying an engagement ring for his Ukrainian girlfriend. Later she feeds two hungry children they find on the street, and she intercedes with the employer of a friend to get some money paid to his widow. His message is that hunger and hard times cause people to help each other and stay happy.

"Please, Kill Him" - What would you do if you were an American in a foreign country and a child you had befriended asked you to kill someone?

"Hunger" - There are more than one kind of hunger. While many Ukrainians suffered from a lack of food, this story is about an American coming to Ukraine to marry and live with a local woman. Her hunger is not for food, but for his money.

"Americans Can't Understand Us" looks at the differences that an American in western Ukraine must come to terms with in living there.

"Footprints" is the author's musings, illustrated with four examples from his own experiences, on the idea that when some significant event happens in a certain place, the event leaves a residue that can be felt over time by later visitors.

"The Mirrormaker" is written in the style of a traditional folk tale and tells of a female mirrormaker and the young boy who is infatuated with her.

"The Best Talk In The World" is the author's memories of several great discussions he has had with Slavic people in his or their homes over drinks and/or dinner.

"Fire In The Desert" - what would cause a man who had put together a library of 4,000 books to burn them?

"Chekhov's Angels" is a brief story about 22 year old Leila whose mother plans to marry an American from Corvallis.

"Chekhov's Angels - Anna" is a story about the author meeting a Russian prostitute named Anna during a visit to Istanbul.

"The Cat That Walks By Herself" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling. McCulloch tells the story of Ukrainian Natalie who reminds him of the cat from Kipling's story.

"Plato's Magic Box"is the author's retelling of Plato's Cave for the television age.

"The Health House" tells of the author's visit to a health spa in the Carpathian Mountains near Uzhgorod. This spa, which is not usually frequented by tourists, was one I visited in 2000, so I found the story especially interesting.

"Moments Out Of Time" is exactly that, brief images of life in Central Europe that stood out in an American man's mind.

"A Perfect Suicide" tells the story of retired librarian facing her life after the library.

"Only Two Laws" tells a story based on two laws: Vengeance and Gratitude.

Death of a Red Heroine

Death of a Red Heroine by Qiu Xiaolong

Set in Shanghai one year after the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, Death of a Red Heroine is a police murder mystery that gets overshadowed by the political implications of the case. In a time when Communist Party ideals were being challenged by new marketplace values, the police detectives have to navigate political implications as well as follow the clues in order to solve the case. The city itself is a major character as the case takes us from the palatial homes of the Communist Party elite to the families of workers living in single rooms and sharing communal kitchens. But above all, the book is about honest cops trying to do the right thing in a shifting moral environment.
If you like to visit different times and cultures through well-written books, this may appeal to you. As a Best First Novel it was nominated for an Edgar Award and received an Anthony Award. The author was a Chinese scholar born in Shanghai who was studying in the USA at the time of the Tiananmen Square protests. He stayed in the USA and this was his first mystery novel in English.

A Samba for Sherlock

A Samba for Sherlock by Jô Soares

Originally published in Brazil in 1995 as O Xangô De Baker Street and translated into English in 1997, this novel features Sherlock Holmes and his partner Dr. John Watson being summoned to Rio by the real life actress Sarah Bernhardt who, on the first stop of her 1886 world tour, suggests to the Emperor of Brazil that the famous detective may help him find a stolen Stradivarius violin. While they are on board ship to Rio matters take a macabre turn as a prostitute is found in an alley stabbed to death with a violin string curled into her pubic hair and a flap of skin cut from her body. So when they arrive, it is not only a theft, but a murder they are asked to solve.

The author José Eugênio "Jô" Soares is a Brazilian television talk show host known for his observational comedy, surreal humor, and deadpan style, and this is his first novel. He takes liberties with his portrayal of Sherlock making the book both humorous as well as a mystery. I fear that a lot of his Brazilian humor gets lost in translation to an American audience. His willingness to make the detective the butt of much of his humor may not endear this work to diehard Holmesians. Readers willing to go along with the joke may find his portrayal a lot of fun.

Soares fills the book with a large cast of characters, as well as locational and historic details, that make it a rich and rewarding experience. I have not come across many novels like this one where the author provides a five page Bibliography of references, although I am sure other authors have done even more research than he in creating their historical fiction. I found it hard to keep track of all the names of the players and, even though the book came with a detailed endpaper map of Rio, impossible to follow the geographic references. So while I enjoyed the book, I was left feeling I had missed half the jokes, found the cast of characters confusing, and was in the dark on most of the local references.

The book was made into an award winning Portuguese/Brazilian movie O Xangô de Baker Street in 2000.

Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama

Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama by Alison Bechdel

Following up on Alison Bechdel's first exploration into her family history called Fun Home is Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama. The first book looked at her relationship with her father, a closeted bisexual who commits suicide, as she is coming out as a lesbian. This second excursion, as the title suggests, examines her relationship with her mother, but also the love relationships in her life, her connection with her psychoanalysts, and her reading of the works of Sigmund Freud and D. W. Winnicott.

Nat Turner

Nat Turner by Kyle Baker

Nat Turner was a African American slave in Southampton County Virginia who was born in 1800. He led a slave rebellion in August 1831 and was executed that November. When he was in jail awaiting execution, a white lawyer named Thomas R. Gray visited him and wrote down Turner's own story which was published in 1831 as The Confessions of Nat Turner. This is not to be confused with the 1967 novel of the same title by the white Virginia author William Styron. However both Styron's novel and the graphic novel Nat Turner by Kyle Baker are derived from Gray's original Confessions.

The illustrations for Baker's Nat Turner wordlessly illustrate the original 1831 Confessions which appears as text set in the graphic novel. The words of the original Confessions and Baker's graphic narrative enhance each other, creating a most powerful document for understanding Turner's life and motivation. Originally self published as a four part series, Nat Turner sold out two printings and won several prizes in 2006, including an Eisner Award for best reality-based work. Since 2008 it has been published as a single volume through a commercial press.

Part One is called "Home" and tells the story prior to that covered in Gray's Confessions of Nat Turner of Nat's mother being captured in Africa by slavers, transported to the coast, and put onto a slave ship to America where she is sold as a slave. Part Two is called "Education" and tells the remarkable story of Nat, a gifted child with mysterious powers, who can read, who is deeply spiritual, and starts to receive visions and messages. At the same time, he is witness to the brutality of human slavery all around him and as it effects him and his parents, wife and children. After his wife and children are sold away from him, his visions take a dark turn where he sees white spirits and black spirits engaged in battle and blood flowing in streams. He is told to be prepared to receive a sign to begin his fight against the Serpent. The first sign of a solar eclipse marks the beginning of Part Three - Freedom in which Nat starts to tell a select group of close associates of his visions and they make plans for the rebellion. The Great Barbados hurricane of August 1831, which turned the Sun blue as far north as Virginia was to Nat Turner, the sign he had been waiting for to begin the slaughter. He and his four allies went into houses in the dark of night, killing all the whites, taking their weapons and horses, and recruiting followers from their slaves. Before they were eventually stopped, there were about 60 armed freed slaves following him and over 55 dead whites in their trail. Part Four - Triumph details Turner's last days.

I had read Gray's book The Confessions of Nat Turner prior to reading Baker's graphic novel, and I find the combination of the hauntingly expressive images with the simple straightforward text an exceedingly effective manner to present Nat Turner's life and activities to a modern audience. The story is compelling to me because I live just two hours from the site of the rebellion, and slave conditions would have been the same here as they were for Nat Turner in Virginia. Baker has made the story one that I will never forget. At the end of the book is a Bibliography of further readings and a Teacher's Guide that would make this a powerful classroom instructional tool.

Fräulein Else by Arthur Schnitzler

Fräulein Else by Arthur Schnitzler

This novelette written in 1924 and translated into English in 1925 by Francis Hamilton Lyon, a prolific translator of Scandinavian and German books, tells in stream of consciousness style one day in the life of 19 year old Else while she is on holiday at the Hotel Fratazza near Monte Cimone, the highest mountain in the northern Apennines, of Italy. She is traveling with her aunt Emma, cousin Paul, and his girl friend Cissy when an express letter comes to her from her mother in Vienna. The letter states that Else's father, a lawyer, is in a dire financial situation and needs 30,000 Guldens, or he will be arrested for embezzling a trust fund. All other avenues of borrowing the money are exhausted, and her mother asks Else to make a personal request of a loan from Herr von Dorsday, who has loaned her father money in the past, and have him wire the money as soon as possible.
The Austro-Hungarian Gulden was replaced by the Krone in 1892, with 1 Gulden = 2 Kronen. In 1913 one US Dollar was worth approximately 5 Kronen. So the 30,000 Gulden of this story might have had a value of around $12,000.
Dorsday is a rake who was been casting lingering glances at Else, and she is reluctant to put herself in a compromising situation with him. The book follows her thought process as she struggles with the dilemma that her mother's letter has created for her. She cannot ignore her father's plight and yet is in dread of her own situation of being indebted to von Dorsday. How she resolves her inner struggle makes compelling reading.
Some of Schnitzler's works were controversial due to their frank description of sexuality. While Else is not unaware of the sexual implications of her plight, this is not one of his pornographically labeled works. It is one of his notable works, and this edition provides a good readable English translation.

Myra Breckinridge & Myron

Myra Breckinridge & Myron by Gore Vidal

Today author Gore Vidal is mostly known for his Narratives of Empire series of seven novels on American history published between 1967 and 2000. These books (Burr, Lincoln, 1876, Empire, Hollywood, Washington, D.C., and The Golden Age) tell the history of the American Empire through the lives of two fictional families and their interactions with real figures in American history. Few recall the critical uproar caused by his 1948 novel The City and the Pillar that dealt frankly with male homosexuality. And while many recall Myra Breckinridge, it is usually the 1970 film (often listed as one of the worst films ever made), not Vidal's 1968 best-selling novel, that people remember. The 1974 sequel Myron is largely forgotten.

Myra Breckinridge and its sequel Myron are two novels that were very much a product of their times, the Sexual Revolution of the late 1960s. In his 1993 Introduction to this volume combining the two, Vidal quotes poet Thom Gunn as saying "These two books [are] the twentieth-century equivalents of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass." They form part of a series of completely fictional novels that Vidal calls his satirical inventions, that also include Messiah, Kalki, and Duluth. In the 2014 biographical documentary Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia Vidal says of the novel: "When I start an entirely invented book like Myra, I seldom start with anything more than a sentence that has taken possession of me. In this case, 'I am Myra Breckenridge whom no man will ever possess.' Who was she? I could only find out if I kept on writing. It was not until I was half way through the story that I realized that she had been a male who changed his sex."

Told as a series of entries in a therapy journal kept by Myra for her analyst and doctor, the novel tells the story of her arriving in Hollywood to meet retired film star "Buck" Loner who now runs the Academy of Drama and Modeling on the fifty acres of land that once held his father's orange groves. Myra claims to be his nephew Myron's widow. She tells Buck that his sister, her mother-in-law Gertrude, always told her and Myron that her father's property was left jointly to her and Buck, and that she passed on the rights to her half to Myron and Myra. Myron was a film critic who studied the films of the 1930s and 40s. Myra tells Buck that Myron fell off the Staten Island Ferry and drowned. When Buck offers Myra a job teaching at the Academy as their lawyers work out the details of the inheritance, the plot is set for the novel.

I was surprised at how much of this novel is about film theory and criticism. Myra's stated goal in the novel is to finish writing Myron's book Parker Tyler and the Films of the Forties; or, the Transcendental Pantheon. I had to look up Parker Tyler who it turns out was a New York film critic who wrote on gay and underground films from the mid-40s to the mid-70s when he died. Throughout the book Myra exhibits an encyclopedic knowledge of the films of the first half of the 20th century. So while this book is one of the earliest novels about a transgender character, it is not really written to provide insight into the concerns and problems of a transgender person, which often disappoints its audience. Both these books are social satires on sexuality that explore Vidal's belief that people are basically bisexual and that gender roles and sexual orientation are social constructs established by societal norms.

If Myra Breckinridge is a satire on social norms with Myra as a modern Alice visiting a Hollywood wonderland, the second book Myron is a Through the Looking Glass time travel sci-fi satire where Myron, now happily married and living in the suburbs, falls through the screen of his television one night while watching the 1948 MGM movie Siren of Babylon starring Maria Montez. He lands on the set of the film in production just at the scene he was watching, and is trapped in the Hollywood past with a group of other viewers who seem to stumble through the screen each time the film is aired on TV. The actors on the set cannot see these visitors from the future, but once Myron leaves the set, the local people outside the studio and across the street at the neighborhood hotel can see the people they call out of towners who have taken up residence there. Here Myron starts to struggle with his alter personality Myra for control of their body with comic effect. The locals and the other out of towners are left wondering at this strange person with dual gendered personalities. While Myron seeks to get back to his wife and life in the suburbs, Myra wants to save MGM at this crucial point in their history and recreate a golden age of film. She also has a plan to save the world from overpopulation that is unique. I find the time travel paradoxes handled quite well by the author. The two books together like this in a single volume make for great reading. They have inspired me to take a look at other of Vidal's satirical invention novels.

The Curious Cruise of Captain Santa

The Curious Cruise of Captain Santa by Ruth Plumly Thompson

Ruth Plumly Thompson was hired by the publisher Reilly & Lee when L. Frank Baum died to continue writing books in his Oz series. She ended up writing almost twice as many Oz books as Baum did. So it is quite natural for Thompson to also try her hand at writing a children's book about Santa Claus, seeing as how Baum had written several. Originally published in 1926, and using the same illustrator she and Baum used for the Oz series, John R. Neill, The Curious Cruise of Captain Santa is a delightful fantasy adventure.
Just after Christmas one year, Santa decides to build a ship and go sailing in search of new and interesting toys for him to give to children. He has heard of The Lost Islands and the rumors that they have living dolls, and he wants to find the islands and bring back some of these fabulous dolls for the children next Christmas. Accompanying him on the adventure is an orphan named Jim who has come to live at Santa's North Pole Palace, a talking polar bear named Huggerumbo, and Penny the Penguin, who looks after Santa. They set sail for the Lost Islands with a cargo of toys and treats to trade for new toys that they might discover along the way. After many amusing adventures, they return with a hold full of new toys and the hope to sail again another year.
While the book can be read on its own and enjoyed as a post-Christmas adventure yarn for children who wonder what Santa does the rest of the year, this is most likely to appeal to folks like me who are devoted readers of the Oz series.