Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Excape, and the Making of Winston Churchill

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by Candice Millard, 2017, Anchor Books4.0 stars

This is the story of Winston Churchill’s escape after he was captured when he was a war correspondent as a young man.

The book is well-written, and the author provides a great deal of context to the events that occurred as well as to Churchill’s character. She finishes the book with an epilogue that provides a nice conclusion to the book.

Because I didn’t know much about South Africa and am leaving on a trip to visit there tomorrow, the book gave me a great deal of information about the country I am travelling to. This book was recommended to me by one of my college classmates and I am glad I read it.

Freezing Order: A True Story of Money Laundering, Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin’s Wrath 

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Freezing Order: A True Story of Money Laundering, Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin’s Wrath, by Bill Browder, 2022, Kindle Edition, Simon & Schuster 4.0 stars

When I started to read this book, I thought I wasn’t going to like it as I believed it would be a rehash of his previous book, Red Notice. It is based on the murder of his employee, Sergei Maginsky, in Moscow, but the book quickly took off into what happened after the publication of the first book. I have to admit that i was hooked. I read the book in a few days.

The book outlines the steps taken by the Russians to discredit Browder and actually charge him with the crimes committed by the Russians and individuals in their government. I was surprised and disappointed that so many Americans actually aided the Russians in their campaign to go after Browder and many of the individuals who helped Browder defend himself from their attacks.

There is a great deal of information implicating many Russians and Americans in their complicity. Browder lays out this information very succinctly and I believe it at this point. My question is why so many individuals bought into the Russian version of the facts and whether there is anything that might validate their accusations? I hope not.

The book is fast moving and doesn’t get too bogged down in the details (which are plentiful). The astonishing and sad thing is that the activities that Browder describes can actually be going on in this world of ours.

Out of Africa, Shadows on the Grass

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by Isak Denisen, 1937 (Out of Africa), and 1960 (Shadows on the Grass), Kindle Edition, Vintage International 2.5 stars

The primary reason I read this book was to prepare myself and “get in the mood” for our upcoming trip to Africa. I thought it would give me some insight into the area as I don’t know much about it.

Although it is very dated, it did give me some feelings about Africa (Denisen, herself, later thought of Out of Africa as “much out of date as a papyrus from a pyramid” in her later book Shadows on the Grass). The descriptions of the native Africans and the countryside are very well done.

As I had seen the movie long ago, however, I expected the book to be more personally revealing. It turned out to be a series of reveries and musings on various occurrences and individuals. There was no coherent structure or timeline. I was interested in how she came to be in Africa and own a coffee plantation. Also, the movie had a bit of romance in it as she and her friend, Denys, traveled around the countryside in his Moth airplane. The book, however, revealed very little about herself. I wanted to know how she came to Africa, how she acquired the coffee plantation, what happened to her husband, etc. There was none of this in the book except a short page and a half about the author at the end. So, I had to go to Wikipedia to find out more about Isak Denisen. It turns out she really had an interesting life,but didn’t reveal much about it in these books.

I wasn’t really interested in a lot of the situations and individuals she describes in these books, but I did find the views she expressed regarding the natives, many of whom were her servants. She really did love these individuals as human beings but never gave up her beliefs that that the white race was superior in their achievements. She did, however, respect and honor the native culture at the same time.

In each of the books, a World War was in the background. I had no idea that Africa was affected so much by the first world war. She spent WWII in Denmark out of the limelight. She expressed her dislike of the Germans, especially the Nazis, but this was never the heart of her writings.

I didn’t really enjoy the books very much as they were just a collection of her various memories, very disorganized and not very revealing of herself. I can see, however, that they might appeal much more to other individuals who like that sort of thing.

A Noble Radiance (Commissario Brunetti Book 7)

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by Donna Leon, 1998, Penguin Books 3.0 stars

This mystery is about the murder of a young man from a noble Venetian family and the discovery of his remains in a field.

I enjoy reading Leon’s novels which center around police Commissar Brunetti as they are more psychological than thrillers. As such, they do plod along slowly until Brunetti finally solves the crime. Despite the slow pace, they offer a great deal of insight into Venice’s culture and place. Also, Brunetti and his wife are very likable persons despite the fact that he is frustrating at times.

The Target

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by David Baldacci, 2014, Grand Central Publishing 2.5 stars

This book is about a plot to overthrow the leader of North Korea and its subsequent results. It features two CIA agents and their actions and emotions during their assignments.

I found the book to be enjoyable to read it didn’t really hang together all that well. There were some twists and turns that never were resolved at the end. The culminated action at the end seemed to be thrown together to get the book ended.

The Swans of Fifth Avenue

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by Melanie Benjamin, 2016, Kindle Version, Delacorte Press 3.0 stars

This book is about the socialites in New York and their relationships with Truman Capote and each other. It provides an interesting portrait of the society at that time and of Capote.

The book is a work of fiction and the various conversations that are recounted are made up by the author. Nevertheless, the book’s portrayal seems realistic. The book also held my attention almost all ot the time despite dragging out a few of the situations a bit longer than I would have liked.

Each of the characters were flawed, but there is also a great deal of insight as to how they became the persons they were. This is especially true of Capote so that while I didn’t like him as a person, I could understand why he was the person he was.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the high society of New York City.

Billy Summers

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by Stephen King, 2021, Kindle Edition, Scribner 3.5 stars 

This is a very interesting tale about a former army sharpshooter who becomes a hired assassin. The book focuses on what he considers his last contract, but he doesn’t know much about who is footing the bill.

King weaves a captivating tale about a conflicted individual, but it sometimes seems to bog down. It’s a big book, over 500 pages, and most of the action takes place in the last one hundred or so pages. Stephen King is a very good writer and he makes the reading of his work very easy. He does, however, take his time setting the stage as he definitely does in this novel.

The Anomaly

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by Hervé Le Tellier, translated by Adriana Hunter, 2021, Kindle Edition, Other Press 3.5 stars 

Something happens on a flight from Paris to New York when the plane encounters a huge thunderstorm that wasn’t predicted. After the plane emerges from the clouds, things are different. The author unfolds the story very subtly, so the reader doesn’t initially know what is going on.

The story’s premise is extremely captivating, but I sometimes got lost in the philosophical and theoretical topics that were included. There were many threads and characters that made the book a little harder to follow than I would have preferred. At least one of these threads could have used further development.

The novel is an extremely interesting book that could have been even better.

Code Name Verity

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by Elizabeth Wein, 2012, Hyperion Press3.0 stars

This novel is about an English woman pilot in WWII and her friend who was trained to be a spy but was captured by the Germans in France. The characterizations and the events were portrayed well, but the book jumped around, so it was difficult to understand what was going on at times. The book did provide insight into the contributions that these British women made to the war effort as the author based the novel on some actual occurrences during that time.

The Long Petal of the Sea

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by Isabelle Allende, 2021, Audiobook narrated by Edoardo Ballerini, Random House Audio3.0 stars

We listened to this book as we traveled north to our summer home this year.

The novel spans decades and crosses continents following two young people as they flee the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War in search of a place to call home. They go to Chile, although they also spend some years in exile in Venezuela. Allende uses her knowledge of the history of Chile to weave a tale of hardships and displacement. Unfortunately, the book didn’t hold my interest as much as I thought it could. I just didn’t get into it.

The history presented was interesting as I didn’t realize the impact of the Pinochet regime as well as the shortcomings of the Allende regime in Chile. The circumstances in the Spanish Civil War that caused these persons to flee to Chile were also quite interesting.