This is one of those books that make you wish you could read faster. It is also a fascinating tale that works well on many levels. It is primarily a business and family biography – the rise and fall and rise of the Gucci luxury fashion house and merchandise company. This story begins in 1904 in Florence, Italy and carries us forward to the cruel 1995 killing of the founder’s grandson.
It is also a true-crime story as we find out who wanted Maurizio Gucci murdered and why. Author Sara Guy Forden seems to have access to every family event, fact, rumor and relationship. This is not a drive-by biography, instead its one in which the reader feels like he/she is reliving the events at close distance… Waiting in the weeds.
Forden also does a fine job of including just the right amount of information on Italian culture and traditions. This may be a key reason this company tale seems so much more interesting than those detailing the rise and fall of American family-run corporations.
Finally, Forden reminds us of the foibles and terrors or human nature, which include intra-family rivalries, jealousies, and deadly grudges. In the end, this is very much – as promised – a sensational story of murder, madness, glamour, and greed.
After the Germans have invaded Poland the wealthy Jewish Stolowitzky family is separated, with father, Jacob, in Paris trying to finish up an important business deal, while mother, Lydia, Michael, and nanny, Gertruda are robbed of all they have by the family chauffeur on the way from Warsaw to Vilna. Lydia’s health is poor and made worse by her depression, and she asks Gertruda, on her deathbed, to care for Michael and be his mother. The book follows the struggles of Gertruda to survive and pass Michael off as her son.
Intertwined with this story is that of Karl Rink, a naive SS officer who is married to a Jewish woman. One day Karl’s wife disappears, and he decides to send his young daughter to a kibbutz in Israel, managing to get her out of the country before it is too late. Karl’s conscience troubles him the higher up he gets into the SS organization, and he does what he can in small ways to make life easier for the Jews he comes into contact with, one of whom turns out to be Michael.
The end of the war does not mean the end of Michael and Gertruda’s troubles. They live in a DP camp in Germany, hoping to get on a ship to Palestine. Because Gertruda isn’t Jewish, camp officials insist she can’t accompany the child she sees as her son, and for whom she has forsaken her elderly parents. It is not until she threatens to tell the press that the officials relent. She and Michael then board the ill-fated SS Exodus, a ramshackle ship being patched together for the voyage. Nearing Palestine, the ship is attacked by the British, and turned back to Europe. It is almost a year before Gertruda and Michael actually arrive in Palestine and are able to begin a new life.
Carnival of the Animals (2004), written by John Lithgow and illustrated by Boris Kulikov, was quite a treat. It even has a music CD in the back of the book. The New York City Ballet choreographer, Christopher Wheeldon, wanted to create a new ballet based on Camille Saint-Saëns’s orchestral suite Carnival of the Animals. He asked John Lithgow to help him turn it into a children’s story with rhyming narration. Did it work? Yes, it did.
This was my latest purchase from the .99¢ store believe it or not. I got three to give away as presents for the Book Club. Although I’ve never seen the musical, but I did like the book. Now, on to the review.
As the book begins, we see young Oliver Pendleton Percy the Third, a mischievous imp of a lad as he stows away in the Natural History Museum. As he sleeps, once familiar folks become animals and invade his dreams.
For example, the students who went to his school
Were hyenas, determined to break every rule.
And in shabby brown tweeds with an old yellow tie on,
Professor McByrd was turned into a lion!
In his dreams exist the most dreaded of all species, The Greater New York younger sibling. Next are the twins, Aspidistra & Myrtle, who went to the park every Sunday where they’d sit and they’d stare. Recalling their years with the Follies Bergère. The book goes on to tell the story of Oliver Pendleton Percy the Third’s exploits in the museum. Wanna’ know how it ends? I guess you’re going to have to read it. Do yourself a favor and pick it up.
Under the Banner of Heaven, by Jon Krakauer. Doubleday (2003), 372 pages.
One of the exceptional things about Krakauer’s writing is his talent for branching off into ten different fascinating offshoots of his topic, while building suspense by dropping certain threads at crucial moments and picking them up again at a later point. Every offshoot is always perfectly integrated into his main topic. He also astounds me with his ability to make any conceivable topic gripping. In fact, I would read about World War II submarines if Krakauer wrote about them.
This does make the task of finding a suitable quotation difficult, because Under the Banner is about so many things. Should I look for a quote about the polygamists and pedophiles of Bountiful, Canada? A first-person account of being a plural wife in Colorado? Something relating to the history of Mormonism? The mid-1980s murder of a mother and child? The kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart two years ago? This book is about many, many things, almost all of which are astonishing, distressful, lurid, and/or deeply disturbing. The quotation I finally selected is not particularly lurid or astonishing, but it does highlight how colorful the historical segments of the book are.
EXCERPT:
“Another Saint who participated in the massacre later reported that while the men from the Fancher party were being executed by their Mormon escorts, the women and children were attacked ‘by the Indians, among whom were Mormons in disguise.’ An Arkansan named Nancy Huff, who was four years old at the time, later reported, ‘I saw my mother shot in the forehead and fall dead. The women and children screamed and clung together.’
The slaughter was over in a matter of minutes, leaving an estimated 120 emigrants dead. Approximately fifty of the victims were men, twenty were women, and fifty were children or adolescents. Out of the entire Fancher wagon train, only seventeen lives were spared—all of them children no more than five years old, deemed too young to remember enough to bear witness against the Saints. Those were taken to Mormon homes to be raised as Latter-day Saints; some were placed in the households of the very men who had murdered their parents and siblings. In 1859 an agent of the federal government managed to find all seventeen survivors and return them to their Arkansas kin, but before handing the kids over their Mormon keepers had the audacity to demand thousands of dollars in payment for feeding and schooling the youngsters while they were in the Saints’ care.”
(Authors, agents, and publishers: I would dearly love to see a first-person novelization of this event. Somebody please begin work on this right away, and send an advance copy to the Gustine Awards.)
This review first appeared in March, 2004
By Donna Long
There’s been quite a dust-up over the cover art originally chosen for the American ARC edition of Justine Larbaliester’s new book Liar, which portrayed a white girl with long hair, when the actual person inside the book is black with nappy hair. So much of one that Bloomsbury, the publisher, has now made the decision to change the cover for the hardback release, scheduled for late September. I’m happy to say that the new cover is both appropriate and quite stylish. The cover, along with Justine’s comments about it, can be viewed here.
The reason for the original cover? Unfortunately, it was apparently a marketing decision that felt that a cover with a black person on it just would not sell as well. Now marketing folks should be focused on the color green (as in money), but, as Justine herself says here, this is neolithic besides being racist thinking, fed by bookseller’s impressions with little hard apples-to-apples comparison data to back it up. Plus it showed just how little power an author really has in terms of how their work will be promoted.
The cover art for this book is important. I think the book itself is pretty damned good (see my review), and if it doesn’t get the promotion it deserves, it will be a shame. Because there aren’t many speculative fiction works that have protagonists that are people of color, and covers with white faces will probably not attract (and may actively discourage) young people of color from picking up this book, and discovering a marvelous person who has severe problems with who and what she is and how she eventually comes to grips with those problems. Not bad lessons for any young person of any color, nor for that matter any adult reading this (and they should!).
While I applaud Bloomsbury’s decision to change the cover, it makes me sad to think that this whole fiasco ever had to happen in the first place.
Grab your current read.
Let the book fall open to a random page.
Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!
Please avoid spoilers!
Glass By Ellen Hopkis and a sequel to Crank . Page 460 Sharing the whole page since it isn’t that long
In the White Shadow of Morning
He reaches for
Me. Rains down
On me, showers
Me with ecstasy.
My tears fall
Upon the pillow,
Fall upon his skin .
It drinks them in
Don’t cry, he
Sooths . You know
I love you, will
Never hurt you .
But hurt pounds
Against me now,
A hammer of pain
Beating my heart
I craw into his
Arms , lay my head against the shoulder
A fearful child .
“ I know you have
to go. But I don’t
know how to let
you. So just go.”
This is typed exactly how it is in the book. With a lot of poems spacing is very important. It makes me wonder whom Kristina AKA Bree is speaking to. It would seem the spacing is there to empty putting herself at a distance from this other person who I am assuming is guy and perhaps a boyfriend. She’s afraid that he will hurt her or her dangerous habits will bring him down into the horror of her world. Since I am only a couple of pages into this going to take awhile to figure the context of this conversation.
Crank
Reading level: Young Adult
Paperback: 544 pages
Publisher: McElderry (October 5, 2004)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0689865198
ISBN-13: 978-0689865190 Cover Art: A. Now this one is hard to rate. While the cover is very plain with only the title and author name , believe that is the way it should be. The story is not pretty and the cover is trying to show that. The world Hopkins creates is ugly and lays bare the truth of what it feels like to struggle with a drug addiction.
Characters : A+ All well developed, interesting to read about. Strong narrator
Plot : A+ Lots of twist and turns. One of those books you can and will not want to put down
Writing : A+ The style is such an interesting way to tell a story. Even though it makes the book a little long , the story itself is so worth it.
Today is also a review day since I finished the book that came before this one called Crank. In short Crank , another word for meth, is the story written verse about a sixteen year old girl named Kristina. Overall Kristina seems like you average girl. She makes good grades , loves her family even though it is far from normal, what with a lesbian sister, and divorced parents, and overall she is the typical teenager. Then she goes to visit her dad. As soon as she gets there she meets a boy named Adam , falls for him and discovers the “Monster” crank. Long are innocent days of doing well and being the overly good daughter. Now Bree comes out to play. Kristina becomes a wild, dangerous, over sexual teen girl who worries only about when she can get high again. Through her crazy downward spiral with the drug, she discovers friends, relationships and a few quite unexpected surprises.
Now while Crank is referring to a the drug that Kristina uses and what she calls the Monster, think her thinking can refer to a lot of addictions and how they start off with one little hit and then turn into crazy climb to have more and more. While the book is told in verse from Kristina’s point of view, all the characters are very fleshed out and feel like anyone the reader could know or could of read about. The novel does an excellent job of showing the dangers of this risky behavior without preaching that the behavior is wrong.. Believe that it could be used as a add for teens or really anyone who might consider doing drugs. All seem to thing that the first time won’t be bad or they can stop before it gets out of control, sadly that just isn’t the case. Kristina’s struggles, highs, and lows show the reality of a girl so hooked on an illegal substance she begins to become someone she doesn’t know anymore. Be prepared to be blown away by the real, dirty, and gripping journey through the eyes of a girl struggling to say a float as she battles her own demons and tries to fight the Monster that has taken over her life.
Come Onshore and We Will Kill and Eat You All: A New Zealand Story by Christina Thompson
I just finished this book by Christina Thompson and it got the BFR – The Best Friends Read. I haven’t read this book before or anything by this author, but it was a delightful read. She tells the story of first contact Europeans and Maori’s from a historical perspective, and also from the point of view of her Maori husband. The history was great, I really didn’t know anything about New Zealand and the Maori culture except for some general knowledge of facial tatoos and agressive posturing.
The book gave great information about traditional tatoos and this was especially interesting to me because I’ve been wanting to get a tatoo for a long time. The Maori tatoo system involves great personal artistry; it tells the story of the person, their life, accomplishments, and status in the clan. I, on the other hand, want to get a tatoo on my back, between my shoulder blades, of a chorus line of dancing chihuahuas. When I rolled my shoulders the little dogs would wiggle. I don’t know if I’ll ever actually do this, but I love the idea. Compared with the Maori tatoos, my own lacks a little…substance, but I’m a ‘cough-cough-something’ administrative analyst and geekery is my culture. Agressive posturing doesn’t really come up in my environment, unless we’re standing in line at the Starbucks stand on a busy lunch break.
Back to the book: it followed her marriage to a Maori man named Seven and his delightful sort-of assimilation into her Boston Academic culture. The author and her husband sound delightful, and the books’ focus on his family and the modern culture of Maori’s in New Zealand opened a door to a completely new people. This was well worth the ‘Best Friend Read’.
