Country by Michael Hughes

Fury. Pure fury. The blood was up. Lost the head completely.~from Country by Michael Hughes

Hughes begins his story in the middle of a conflict between two members of an rogue IRA terrorist cell group.

Achill and Pig, the 'trigger man' who killed eight Brits and the Officer Commander of a terrorist cell, clash over a girl whose father wants her back home. She had willingly come to Achill and he won't give her up. Pig insists the teenager will return to her da.

Achill capitulates but throws in the towel. He knows it is his reputation that keep the Brits scared. Let them see what happens without him. He was done. He was going home.

And that was the start of it. A terrible business altogether...Wait now till you hear the rest.~from Country by Michael Hughes

A tenuous truce has brought temporary peace, but the cell group won't give up the fight. This time, they are sure they have the upper hand with inside information about British plans. Independence is theirs, if they have the heart for it.

The tale is violent, gritty, filled with passion and tears. It is an engrossing read, a timeless and compelling story.

I was attracted to the novel as a retelling of The Iliad, Homer's story of the falling out between Achilles and King Agamemnon during the Trojan War. It's been a very long time since I last read Homer. The plotline and themes are there to be found, but readers will enjoy this novel if you don't know Homer.

Hughes novel has the feel of the epic in the narrative voice, the high passions, the rhythm of the language.

I won an ARC from LibraryThing a year ago. After it didn't arrive, I contacted the publisher in the fall and they sent me the published edition.

It was worth waiting for.

from the publisher:

Northern Ireland, 1996. 

After twenty-five years of vicious conflict, the IRA and the British have agreed to an uneasy ceasefire as a first step towards lasting peace. But, faced with the prospect that decades of savage violence and loss have led only to smiles and handshakes, those on the ground in the border country question whether it really is time to pull back—or quite the opposite. 

When an IRA man’s wife turns informer, he and his brother gather their comrades for an assault on the local army base. But old grudges boil over, and the squad's feared sniper, Achill, refuses to risk his life to defend another man’s pride. As the gang plots without him, the British SAS are sent to crush the rogue terror cell before it can wreck the fragile truce and drag the region back to the darkest days of the Troubles. Meanwhile, Achill’s young protégé grabs his chance to join the fray in his place… 

Inspired by the oldest war story of them all, Michael Hughes’s virtuoso novel explores the brutal glory of armed conflict, the cost of Ireland’s most uncivil war, and the bitter tragedy of those on both sides who offer their lives to defend the dream of country.

Brief Reviews of Finished and Unfinished Books

My book reviewing interferes with personal reading so that some books take me years to read since I only read them now and then. Sometimes I read them on my phone in a waiting room.

I also pick up books and decide not to read them.

Here are some brief reviews of books that fall into these categories.

Unfinished Books and Still Reading

The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, WIlliam Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism by Doris Kearns Goodwin

How could I NOT have finished this yet? I loved the early section about the childhood, marriages, and early careers of Theodore Roosevelt and William Taft. Then, I got bogged down on McClure's magazine and Ida Tarbell, and then there was...well, so much more. I am on page 722, the last section, and expect to finish it sometime this year. Gift ebook.

John Quincy Adams Militant Spirit by James Traub
I am 41% into this biography, for several years I have been reading it now and then in waiting rooms and such times. Having read numerous biographies of JQA I have not been impelled to read this one, although it has increased my understanding. The ebook was a gift.

Beyond the Horizon by Ella Carey is historical fiction about a woman who was a pilot during WWII but has kept her past a secret. I have picked it up several times and have read 30 pages. "Meg's grace seemed so small and helpless" stopped me the last time. I am puzzled over anthropomorphizing a grave. It has over 4 stars on Goodreads. Must be me. Amazon Kindle book.

My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell
I love love love the Masterpiece Theater series The Durrells of Corfu. And I need something to read that makes me laugh when the darker books I prefer get me down. This one does the trick. Lovely nature writing, hilarious characters. I am 41% in and don't expect to finish it soon. I don't want to. Like medicine, I save it for when I am sick at heart. Purchased ebook.

The Last Bathing Beauty by Amy Sue Nathan
A woman remembers her last summer of girlhood in South Haven, Michigan, before she accepted a marriage of convenience. I am 22% in. I have nothing against the novel, but romances are not my meat and potatoes so I may nibble on it now and then when I need to rest my brain. From Amazon Prime.


Miss Grief and Other Stories by Constance Fenimore Woolson
After reading Anne Boyd Rioux's terrific biography of Constance Fenimore Woolson I picked up this collection of stories, edited by Rioux. I have read about half the book. I have reread the story St. Clair Flats for its description of how the St. Clair River appeared before we dredged it for our convenience. Wonderful stories. I purchased an ibook.

My Squirrel Days by Ellie Kemper
Being pop culture ignorant, I don't know Kemper although I do recall seeing an episode of The Office with my son....years ago...I have read nearly a quarter of the memoir. Entertaining enough. I will likely return and read a chapter now and then.
A Simon & Schuster free Glose ebook

I have been reading The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson since early February. I read a few poems several nights a week. It is interesting to read her poetry in order. I see how her themes and images progress as life changes. I am in 1862, the time of her greatest creativity. I am reading a paperback purchased forty years ago.

Finished Book

Appetite for America: Fred Harvey and the Business of Civilizing the Wild West--One Meal at a Time by Stephen Fried
I had this book on Kindle before I read Fried's masterful biography Benjamin Rush. I quickly read Part One over a summer, then slowly read Part Two over another year.  The entertaining book tells a story of an immigrant who builds an empire and changes the American landscape. Fred Harvey was "the father of the American service industry," building a chain of restaurants and hotels on the burgeoning railroads that opened up the West. It touches on many aspects of American history and society. Purchased ebook.

Simon the Fiddler by Paulette Jiles

She had me at Jock of Hazeldean.

Simon the fiddler had passed for fifteen years old, traveling from Paducah to Texas while evading the Confederate conscription men. People valued his gift of music and protected him.

Simon played Jock of Hazeldean at the barbecue party, a Scottish ballad of a girl who refuses the hand of a Lord to run off with her true love.

He "had a bottomless supply of waltzes, jigs, reels, hornpipes, and slow airs", the last "could bring men and women to a standstill" as the music raised memories of love and homeland, life before the war.

I personally loved the references to the music Simon plays. MacPherson's Lament tells the story of a condemned man who breaks his violin rather allow anyone else to play it. Lorena was a sentimental ballad, the most popular song of the war and was featured in Ken Burn's series. Doris asks Simon to play The Minstrel Boy, an Irish tune beloved by soldiers throughout time. Other songs mentioned include Shenandoah, the slow air Death and the Sinner, The Red River Valley, and Robin Adair (the song that gave my grandmother, mother, me and a cousin our middle names).

It was in the last days of the war Simon was found by the Confederates who take him for the regimental band. At war's end, Simon and other musicians traveled together, "servants of music and not of the state," seeking their fortune.

So it came that Simon played at a barbeque and saw the dark-haired girl in the audience who becomes his lodestar. To escape Ireland, Doris Dillon had signed a contract as an indentured servant to an elegant family ruled by a corrupt Colonel.

Every choice Simon makes afterward is rooted in his goal of becoming a man who can support Doris as his wife.

Texas was a shifting battleground for years, and after the Civil War vast areas were outside the arm of any law. The musicians traverse the state, living in abandoned places while entertaining polite society. They struggle to earn money for essentials and yet Simon saves up to purchase land of his own.

Throughout their adventures, Simon tries to avoid trouble, but he is undaunted in seeking to win Doris's love. He risks everything to save her from the unhappiness of her situation, for the Colonel preys upon the girl, whispering she will succumb to him in the end.

The climax involves music. While Simon is playing the Flowers of Edinburgh a disgruntled former band mate cries out for the lewd Shanty Hog-Eye Man. Simon finds himself in a fight for his life.

Simon the Fiddler is a romantic tale of a knight in homespun who saves an immigrant girl from the clutches of a drunk predator. It is a tribute to the power of music in our national and personal lives. And it is a vivid picture of a world broken by a devastating war.

I received an ARC from the publisher through LibraryThing. My review is fair and unbiased.

Read a sample and hear an audio excerpt here.

Simon the Fiddler
by Paulette Jiles
William Morrow
Publication April 14, 2020
hardcover 27.99 USD
ISBN: 9780062966742
ISBN 10: 006296674X

from the publisher

The critically acclaimed, bestselling author of News of the World and Enemy Women returns to Texas in this atmospheric story, set at the end of the Civil War, about an itinerant fiddle player, a ragtag band of musicians with whom he travels trying to make a living, and the charming young Irish lass who steals his heart. 

In March 1865, the long and bitter War between the States is winding down. Till now, twenty-three-year-old Simon Boudlin has evaded military duty thanks to his slight stature, youthful appearance, and utter lack of compunction about bending the truth. But following a barroom brawl in Victoria, Texas, Simon finds himself conscripted, however belatedly, into the Confederate Army. Luckily his talent with a fiddle gets him a comparatively easy position in a regimental band.
Weeks later, on the eve of the Confederate surrender, Simon and his bandmates are called to play for officers and their families from both sides of the conflict. There the quick-thinking, audacious fiddler can’t help but notice the lovely Doris Mary Dillon, an indentured girl from Ireland, who is governess to a Union colonel’s daughter. 

After the surrender, Simon and Doris go their separate ways. He will travel around Texas seeking fame and fortune as a musician. She must accompany the colonel’s family to finish her three years of service. But Simon cannot forget the fair Irish maiden, and vows that someday he will find her again.
Incandescent in its beauty, told in Paulette Jiles’s trademark spare yet lilting style, Simon the Fiddler is a captivating, bittersweet tale of the chances a devoted man will take, and the lengths he will go to fulfill his heart’s yearning.

A Little History of Poetry by John Carey

It all started with A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson. Then, when I was eleven, discovering the poetry of Edgar Allan Poe. By fourteen I was borrowing every poetry book on the school library shelves, spending my scanty allowance to buy the poets I really liked.

I was drawn to some poets and ignored others. I knew little about the lives of the poets I was reading or the social and historical context of the poems.

My education included survey Lit courses, a Modern Poetry class, and an honors class on Milton. I was so ignorant that when my Modern Poetry professor asked me about Ezra Pound's antisemitism and alliance with Fascism it was the first I had heard of it. (My school history classes never seemed to make it past the Civil War.)

My high school World Lit class covered the entire Western Canon. We received mimeographed handouts (yes, I am THAT OLD). We learned about philosophers and economic and scientific thinkers and writers and poets. I went to the library to read from the original works. The brief excerpts piqued my curiosity and I needed to know more.

I tell this story for a reason. John Carey's A Little HIstory of Poetry reminded me of that World Lit Survey class. Carey ploughs through the entire history of poetry in the Western world, starting with Gilgamesh and ending with Mary Oliver and Les Murray.

I was quite familiar with my favorites, but I had given little attention a great many others. It was interesting to fill that gap in my knowledge.

Some poets are mentioned by name or with a few lines, but those Carey deems more important (or perhaps, with more interesting or scandalous lives) get pages.

This treatment has its limitations but also its uses as an introduction. Like my survey course did, readers may be inspired to read further.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

A Little History of Poetry
by John Carey
Publication Date: April 21, 2020
Yale University Press
Hardcover Price: $25.00
ISBN: 9780300232226

from the publisher:

John Carey tells the stories behind the world’s greatest poems, from the oldest surviving one written nearly four thousand years ago to those being written today. Carey looks at poets whose works shape our views of the world, such as Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Whitman, and Yeats. He also looks at more recent poets, like Derek Walcott, Marianne Moore, and Maya Angelou, who have started to question what makes a poem "great" in the first place. This little history shines a light on the richness and variation of the world’s poems—and the elusive quality that makes them all the more enticing.

Coming to Age: Growing Older with Poetry

In her poem Reconsideration, Mary Ann Hoberman reminds us, "...only lucky folk grow old."

When I was a young woman older people would tell me, "Don't ever grow old, Nancy." I would laugh and reply, "It's better than the alternative."

Now I am an older person, I still think old age better than the alternative. Still, every year brings a new reminder of what I am loosing. For the first time I feel a chill at the idea of nothingness. How can I not be? How can the world be if I am not?

This mystery begins to niggle at me when I wake at night. 

Coming to Age is a collection of poetry that speaks to the universal human experience of aging and the concerns and joys that accompany growing older. The poems were chosen for their universality and accessibility.

Themes include being rooted in this time and place; the passage of time; the solace of nature; the physical body's frailty; the loss of loved ones; the view from old age; the memories that made us who we are; the mystery of life; and that which gives solace and joy and sustains us.

Many of the poems moved me, eliciting a cold chill of recognition or a warm sun of memory.

"But memories, where can you take them to? Take one last look at them. They end with you," wrote Clive James in Star System. And I wonder about all the knowledge I hold that will be lost, the swing of my mother's blonde ponytail ascending the stairs when I was three, the sound of my son's baby voice. And I regret all the untold tales held secret in my mother's breast, the stories lost with death.

The breadth of the poems can be shown in these examples, Wendell Berry appreciating the peace nature brings and Kurt Vonnegut how we destroy the Earth.

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Wendell Berry

Requiem

The crucified planet Earth,
should it find a voice
and a sense of irony,
might now well say
of our abuse of it,
"Forgive them, Father,
they know not what they do."

The irony would be
that we know what
we are doing.

When the last living thing
has died on account of us,
how poetical it would be
if Earth could say,
in a voice floating up
perhaps
from the floor
of the Grand Canyon,
"It is done."
People did not like it here.
Kurt Vonnegut

It takes a kind of courage to read these poems, to open yourself to grapple with life and death. But you will find catharsis and a recognition that you are not alone, and you will perhaps even find joy.

There is "So much to do still, all of it praise," Derek Walcott wrote in Untitled #51.,"...how pure a thing is joy."

"What love, what longing, my reader, speaks to you from this page!" proclaims John Hall Wheelock in To You, Perhaps Yet Unborn, in which he imagines readers who read his words posthumously.

These poems are the gifts of poets whose words reach out over years or centuries to alter our perceptions and comfort us.

I was given a free ebook by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

Coming to Age: Growing Older with Poetry
by Mary Ann Hoberman and Carolyn Hopley
Little, Brown and Company
Pub Date April 14, 2020
ISBN: 9780316424912
$25.00 (USD) hardcover; $12.99 ebook

from the publisher:

This exquisitely giftable anthology of poems about age and aging reveals the wisdom of trailblazing writers who found power and growth later in life. 

At eighty-two, the novelist Penelope Lively wrote: "Our experience is one unknown to most of humanity, over time. We are the pioneers." Coming to Age is a collection of dispatches from the great poet-pioneers who have been fortunate enough to live into their later years. 

Those later years can be many things: a time of harvesting, of gathering together the various strands of the past and weaving them into a rich fabric. They can also be a new beginning, an exploration of the unknown. We speak of "growing old." And indeed, as we too often forget, aging is growing, growing into a new stage of life, one that can be a fulfillment of all that has come before. 

To everything there is a season. Poetry speaks to them all. Just as we read newspapers for news of the world, we read poetry for news of ourselves. Poets, particularly those who have lived and written into old age, have much to tell us. Bringing together a range of voices both present and past, from Emily Dickinson and W. H. Auden to Louise Gluck and Li-Young Lee, Coming to Age reveals new truths, offers spiritual sustenance, and reminds us of what we already know but may have forgotten, illuminating the profound beauty and significance of commonplace moments that become more precious and radiant as we grow older.

The Story of Harriet Tubman: A Biography Book for New Readers by Christine Platt

The Story of Harriet Tubman by Christine Platt
Shown with Harriet Tubman detail on my quilt
I Will Lift My Voice Like a Trumpet

"Stories about Dreamers JUST LIKE YOU," the back cover promises. And Harriet Tubman had big dreams and with fearless courage changed her life and the lives of over 300 other enslaved persons over ten years. And she never lost a passenger on the Underground Railroad.

During the Civil War, Tubman became a spy. Concerned for the indigent and homeless former slaves, she created a home. And she worked to secure voting rights for women.

Who would have imagined that an enslaved, illiterate field hand could make such a dramatic impact?

The Story of Harriet Tubman by Christine Platt relates Tubman's dramatic and inspirational story with learning aids including a glossary, quiz questions, timelines, and discussion questions.

Platt does not sugar-coat the horror of Harriet's life as a slave. Readers read that she was beaten and nearly died and experienced 'sleeping spells' and visions after she recovered.

"How will her courageous spirit inspire you?" the back cover asks. And that is the purpose of the biography. One may be on the lowest rung of the social ladder, seemingly without power or control over one's one life, but with vision and commitment, sometimes one does the impossible.

Colorful illustrations by Lois Lora bring the text to life.

I received a free book through Callisto Publisher's Club in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

from the publisher:

Discover the life of Harriet Tubman―a story about courage, bravery, and freedom.

Harriet Tubman became a celebrated leader in the fight to free people from slavery. Before that, she was a determined young girl who believed that everyone deserved to be free. Harriet Tubman bravely used the Underground Railroad―a network of secret routes and safe houses―to free herself and many other enslaved people. Explore how Harriet Tubman went from being a slave on a plantation in Maryland to one of the most important figures in American history. 

How will her courageous spirit inspire you? 

This Harriet Tubman biography includes:

• Path to freedom―Explore a visual timeline of Harriet’s life so you can see her progress over time.
• Helpful definitions―Discover a glossary with easy-to-understand definitions for the more advanced words and ideas in the book.
• Test your knowledge―Take a quiz to make sure you understand the who, what, where, when, why, and how of Harriet’s life.

If you’ve been searching for Harriet Tubman biographies for kids, look no further―this one has it all.

About the author:

Christine Platt is a literacy advocate and passionate activist for social justice and policy reform. A believer in the power of storytelling as a tool for social change, Christine’s literature centers on teaching race, equity, diversity and inclusion to people of all ages.

The Story of Harriet Tubman
by Christine Platt
Rockridge Press
Publication April 7, 2020
$6.99 paperback
ISBN: 978-1646111091

Odetta by Ian Zack

In 1978 my husband and I went to the Philadelphia Folk Festival. Our interest in folk rock turned into a deep love of folk music.

We attended concerts around Philly and bought recordings and listened to WXPN on the radio, discovering favorite singers.

One name we heard was Odetta, Odetta, and we knew she was a queen who had once ruled and was still worshipped.

I was a child in the 1950s, cushioned in my working class white neighborhood, unaware of things beyond my front door when Odetta was breaking into songs that stirred souls and feed movements and engendered a whole generation of singers whose names filled the airwaves of my sixties teenage years.

I knew so little about her.

Ian Zack's Odetta: A Life in Music and Protest  is a wonderful biography of Odetta that presents her life, her art, and her legacy.

Odetta's amazing voice spurred teachers to encourage training and her mother scrimped to find the funds for voice lessons. After high school, Odetta worked menial jobs days and studied European classical music nights, singing in the Verdi Requiem and Bach's Mass in B Minor. Odetta loved opera and art songs but knew her career options were nil because of her color.

Odetta was cast for a revival of Yip Harburg's Finian's Rainbow in 1950 which led to her work with Turnabout Theater Jr.

Folk music was the new big thing, The Weavers success spurring an interest in folk songs. Friends took Odetta to hear a concert including Lead Belly songs and it "touched the core of me," she said. It changed the twenty-year-old's life.

The shy girl whose voice was a powerful instrument sang with her eyes closed as she inhabited the songs of her people.
She eschewed straightening her hair, cutting it short and leaving it natural, unwittingly engendering a movement.

Pete Seeger became her biggest fan and promoter. Generations claimed Odetta as their spiritual mother including Joan Baez and Bob Dylan, Carly Simon, The Kinks, Grace Slick, and Janis Ian.

There are so many interesting stories in these pages. Odetta was on the TV Western Have Gun--Will Travel because Richard Boone was a fan. The script was a "clear endorsement of black rights," Zack writes.

With the arrival of the Beatles, popular music took a new turn and Odetta struggled to attract the new audience--basically, my generation. She had a series of flops. Her love life had its ups and downs, mostly downs, with a failed marriage and unsustainable relationships.

And yet with age, she became more comfortable with herself, confident on stage, celebrating her African American heritage. President Clinton awarded her the National Medal of the Arts and Humanities, confessing that she had inspired him as a boy.

I enjoyed this biography as a vehicle for learning more about this iconic singer and the role of folk music in American history. It was also a nostalgic trip 'down memory lane', recalling the first time I heard many of the artists who inform the story.

I was given access to a free ebook by the publisher through Edelweiss. My review is fair and unbiased.

Odetta: A Life in Music and Protest
Ian Zack
Beacon Press
Publication Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN 9780807035320, 0807035327
Hardcover $28.95 USD, $38.95 CAD, £22.50 GBP

from the publisher:

The first in-depth biography of the legendary singer and “Voice of the Civil Rights Movement,” who combatted racism and prejudice through her music.

Odetta channeled her anger and despair into some the most powerful folk music the world has ever heard. Through her lyrics and iconic persona, Odetta made lasting political, social, and cultural change.

A leader of the 1960s folk revival, Odetta is one of the most important singers of the last hundred years. Her music has influenced a huge number of artists over many decades, including Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, the Kinks, Jewel, and, more recently, Rhiannon Giddens and Miley Cyrus.

But Odetta’s importance extends far beyond music. Journalist Ian Zack follows Odetta from her beginnings in deeply segregated Birmingham, Alabama, to stardom in San Francisco and New York. Odetta used her fame to bring attention to the civil rights movement, working alongside Joan Baez, Harry Belafonte, and other artists. Her opera-trained voice echoed at the 1963 March on Washington and the Selma to Montgomery march, and she arranged a tour throughout the deeply segregated South. Her “Freedom Trilogy” songs became rallying cries for protesters everywhere.

Through interviews with Joan Baez, Harry Belafonte, Judy Collins, Carly Simon, and many others, Zack brings Odetta back into the spotlight, reminding the world of the folk music that powered the civil rights movement and continues to influence generations of musicians today.