historical fiction

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417. A Town Like Alice

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:  Noelle Mayne

Author:    Nevil Shute

Genre:   Fiction, Historical Fiction, Foreign

372 pages, published 1950

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

A Town Like Alice follows the story of Jean Paget, a young British woman who spends World War II trying to survive in Malaya as she and a group of women and children are marched around the country by the Japanese.  Back in London after the war, Paget inherits a large sum of money from a distant relative.  She heads back to Malaya to build a well for the village that saved her and then to Australia to search for Joe Harmon, a soldier she met during the war that she mistakenly thought had been killed after stealing chickens for Jean and her fellow refugees.  She eventually finds Joe and helps him build Willstown, a small, desolute town in the Australian outback, into a town like Alice Springs.

Quotes 

“She looked at him in wonder. “Do people think of me like that? I only did what anybody could have done.”  “That’s as it may be,” he replied. “The fact is, that you did it.”

 

“It’s no good going on living in the ashes of a dead happiness.”

 

“it was so beautiful’, he said. ‘the Three Pagodas Pass must be one of the loveliest places in the world. you’ve got this broad valley with the river running down it, and the jungle forest, and the mountains….we used to sit by the river and watch the sun setting behind the mountains, sometimes, and say what a marvelous place it would be to come to for a holiday. However terrible a prison camp may be, it makes a difference if its beautiful.”

 

“You don’t feel any different as you get older. Only, you can’t do so much.”

 

“It was a gambler’s action, but his whole life had probably been made up of gambles; it could hardly be otherwise in the outback.”

 

“Most jobs are interesting when you are learning them,’ I said.”

  

My Take

I really liked this well written, classic book which was first published in 1950.  I appreciated the pluck, common sense and all around goodness of the two main characters, Jean and Joe.  I also really enjoyed seeing how Jean and Joe were able to transform their tiny settlement of Willstown into a burgeoning town by figuring out what the population needed and then methodically providing it.

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413. Daisy Jones & The Six

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:  Joni Renee

Author:   Taylor Jenkins Reid

Genre:   Fiction, Historical Fiction, Music

355 pages, published March 5, 2019

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

Daisy Jones & The Six is a fictional account of a band whose album Aurora came to define the late seventies rock ‘n’ roll era.   Led by the brooding Billy Dunne and headlined by the adventuresome and reckless Daisy, the band briefly have their moment in the sun but come crashing to earth when internal tensions prove to much to overcome.

Quotes 

“I had absolutely no interest in being somebody else’s muse.

I am not a muse.

I am the somebody.

End of fucking story.”

 

“I used to think soul mates were two of the same. I used to think I was supposed to look for somebody that was like me. I don’t believe in soul mates anymore and I’m not looking for anything. But if I did believe in them, I’d believe your soul mate was somebody who had all the things you didn’t, that needed all the things you had. Not somebody who’s suffering from the same stuff you are.”

 

“She had written something that felt like I could have written it, except I knew I couldn’t have. I wouldn’t have come up with something like that. Which is what we all want from art, isn’t it? When someone pins down something that feels like it lives inside us? Takes a piece of your heart out and shows it to you? It’s like they are introducing you to a part of yourself.”

 

“Men often think they deserve a sticker for treating women like people.”

 

“You have these lines you won’t cross. But then you cross them. And suddenly you possess the very dangerous information that you can break the rule and the world won’t instantly come to an end. You’ve taken a big, black, bold line and you’ve made it a little bit gray. And now every time you cross it again, it just gets grayer and grayer until one day you look around and you think, There was a line here once, I think.”

 

“I think you have to have faith in people before they earn it. Otherwise it’s not faith, right?”

 

“You can justify anything. If you’re narcissistic enough to believe that the universe conspires for and against you—which we all are, deep down—then you can convince yourself you’re getting signs about anything and everything.”

 

“Confidence is being okay being bad, not being okay being good.”

 

“But knowing you’re good can only take you so far. At some point, you need someone else to see it, too. Appreciation from people you admire changes how you see yourself.”

 

“But loving somebody isn’t perfection and good times and laughing and making love. Love is forgiveness and patience and faith and every once in a while, it’s a gut punch. That’s why it’s a dangerous thing, when you go loving the wrong person. When you love somebody who doesn’t deserve it. You have to be with someone that deserves your faith and you have to be deserving of someone else’s. It’s sacred.”

 

“Passion is…it’s fire. And fire is great, man. But we’re made of water. Water is how we keep living. Water is what we need to survive.”

 

“You can’t control another person. It doesn’t matter how much you love them. You can’t love someone back to health and you can’t hate someone back to health and no matter how right you are about something, it doesn’t mean they will change their mind.”

 

“Love and pride don’t mix.”

 

“But at some point, you have to recognize that you have no control over anybody and you have to step back and be ready to catch them when they fall and that’s all you can do. It feels like throwing yourself to sea. Or, maybe not that. Maybe it’s more like throwing someone you love out to sea and then praying they float on their own, knowing they might well drown and you’ll have to watch.”

 

“I believe you can break me

But I’m saved for the one who saved me

We only look like young stars

Because you can’t see old scars”

 

“It is what I have always loved about music. Not the sounds or the crowds or the good times as much as the words — the emotions, the stories, the truth — that you can let flow right out of your mouth.

 

“I wish someone had told me that love isn’t torture. Because I thought love was this thing that was supposed to tear you in two and leave you heartbroken and make your heart race in the worst way. I thought love was bombs and tears and blood. I did not know that it was supposed to make you lighter, not heavier. I didn’t know it was supposed to take only the kind of work that makes you softer. I thought love was war. I didn’t know it was supposed to… I didn’t know it was supposed to be peace.”

 

“It’s funny. At first, I think you start getting high to dull your emotions, to escape from them. But after a while you realize that the drugs are what are making your life untenable, they are actually what are heightening every emotion you have. It’s making your heartbreak harder, your good times higher. So coming down really does start to feel like rediscovering sanity. And when you rediscover your sanity, it’s only a matter of time before you start to get an inkling of why you wanted to escape it in the first place.”

 

“It scared me that the only thing between this moment of calm and the biggest tragedy of my life was me choosing not to do it.”

 

“I’m not perfect. I’ll never be perfect. I don’t expect anything to be perfect. But things don’t have to be perfect to be strong. So if you’re waiting around, hoping that something’s going to crack, I just… I have to tell you it’s not gonna be me. And I can’t let it be Billy. Which means it’s gonna be you.”

 

“When people asked me for my autograph, I used to write, “Stay Solid, Daisy J.” But when it was a young girl – which wasn’t often but it did happen from time to time – I used to write, “Dream big, little bird. Love, Daisy”

 

“If I’ve given the impression that trust is easy – with your spouse, with your kids, with anybody you care about – if I’ve made it seem like it’s easy to do….then I’ve misspoken. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. But you have nothing without it. Nothing meaningful at all. That’s why I chose to do it. Over and over and over. Even when it bit me in the ass. And I will keep choosing it until the day I die”

 

My Take

I really enjoyed Daisy Jones & The Six, especially the audio version which has multiple narrators who do a terrific job bringing this story of a 70’s rock band to vibrant life.  Listening to it, I really felt like I was there as the band went on a wild ride that burned bright but ultimately led to their dissolution.  The book also has a lot of interesting things to say about love, trust, soul mates and the creative process.  Highly recommended.

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405. At the Water’s Edge

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:  Joni Renee

Author:    Sara Gruen

Genre:   Fiction, Historical Fiction, Romance, Foreign, World War II

348 pages, published March 31, 2015

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

At the Water’s Edge tells the story of Maddie Hyde, a young ingénue who has entered into a disastrous marriage with Ellis Hyde (who may be gay), a high society Philadelphia playboy.  On New Year’s Eve of 1942, Ellis is cut off financially by his father, a former army Colonel who is already embarrassed by his son’s inability to serve in WWII due to colorblindness.  To redeem himself, Ellis embarks on a quest to find the Loch Ness monster, a venture his father had attempted but failed at in a very public manner.  While in Scotland during the war, the Hyde’s marriage begins to fall apart as Maddie discovers there is greater meaning in her life than being a socialite.

Quotes 

“I paused beneath the arched entrance, where the drawbridge had once been, imagining all the people who had passed in and out over the centuries, every one of them carrying a combination of desire, hope, jealousy, despair, grief, love, and every other human emotion; a combination that made each one as unique as a snowflake, yet linked all of them inextricably to every other human being from the dawn of time to the end of it.”

 

“One Crow for sorrow, Two Crows for mirth, Three Crows for a wedding, Four Crows for a birth, Five Crows for silver, Six Crows for gold, Seven for a secret, never to be told.”

 

“The monster—if there was one—never revealed itself to me again. But what I had learned over the past year was that monsters abound, usually in plain sight.”

 

“Life. There it was. In all its beautiful, tragic fragility, there was still life, and those of us who’d been lucky enough to survive opened our arms wide and embraced it.”

 

“It seems there’s nothing so good or pure it can’t be taken without a moment’s notice. And then in the end, it all gets taken anyway.”

 

“It was full of luxurious trappings and shiny baubles, and that had blinded me to the fact that nothing about it was real.”

 

“I did not take enough care with my hair, but a permanent wave would fix that. I was not thin enough, but for that, alas, there was no quick fix. I should never put more than the equivalent of three peas on my fork at a time, or one small disk of carrot. I should always leave two thirds of my meal on my plate, and was never to eat in public.”

 

My Take

I had previously read Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen and really enjoyed it.  At the Water’s Edge is a lesser book with a bit too much romantic melodrama and characters who could use a bit more development.  Still, it was a decent read.

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386. The Maze at Windermere

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:   Terra McKinnish

Author:   Gregory Blake Smith

Genre:   Fiction, Historical Fiction

580 pages, published July 11, 2018

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

Like its title, The Maze at Windermere takes the reader on a maze like journey through multiple time periods in the same area of Newport, Rhode Island.  We follow the romantic entanglements of couples through the ages, starting in the present day and going back to the 1600’s.

Quotes 

“What interests me,” she took up finally, and there was now no touch of her characteristic satire, “is a life in which I am engaged in discovering what interests me. Not just now, as a young woman, but when I am a wife, and when I have children, and beyond. A life of imagination, and experience, and engagement, and commitment to something beyond myself.”

 

“But I feel myself marooned on the island of myself.”

 

“One must take care that one’s life does not begin to resemble the plot of a novel.”

 

“Ah, to be able to read both the surface and that which is below the surface!”

 

My Take

While it started out a bit slowly, around the halfway point I started to really enjoy The Maze at Windermere.  Smith is a talented writer and presents some compelling insights into the human condition and the motivations which drive us.  Interestingly, I found myself most captivated by the oldest story from the 1600’s and the most recent one from 2011.

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379. There There

Rating:  ☆☆1/2

Recommended by:   Lisa Goldberg

Author:  Tommy Orange

Genre:   Fiction, Historical Fiction

294 pages, published June 5, 2018

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

There There is a story of twelve characters, all of whom are traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow. Jacquie Red Feather is newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind in shame. Dene Oxendene is pulling his life back together after his uncle’s death and has come to work at the powwow to honor his uncle’s memory. Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield has come to watch her nephew Orvil, who has taught himself traditional Indian dance through YouTube videos and has come to the powwow to dance in public for the very first time.

Quotes 

“If you were fortunate enough to be born into a family whose ancestors directly benefited from genocide and/or slavery, maybe you think the more you don’t know, the more innocent you can stay, which is a good incentive to not find out, to not look too deep, to walk carefully around the sleeping tiger. Look no further than your last name. Follow it back and you might find your line paved with gold, or beset with traps.”

 

“The spider’s web is a home and a trap.”

 

“This is the thing: If you have the option to not think about or even consider history, whether you learned it right or not, or whether it even deserves consideration, that’s how you know you’re on board the ship that serves hors d’oeuvres and fluffs your pillows, while others are out at sea, swimming or drowning, or clinging to little inflatable rafts that they have to take turns keeping inflated, people short of breath, who’ve never even heard of the words hors d’oeuvres or fluff.”

 

“She told me the world was made of stories, nothing else, just stories, and stories about stories.”

 

“Kids are jumping out the windows of burning buildings, falling to their deaths. And we think the problem is that they’re jumping. This is what we’ve done: We’ve tried to find ways to get them to stop jumping. Convince them that burning alive is better than leaving when the shit gets too hot for them to take. We’ve boarded up windows and made better nets to catch them, found more convincing ways to tell them not to jump. They’re making the decision that it’s better to be dead and gone than to be alive in what we have here, this life, the one we made for them, the one they’ve inherited.”

 

“That’s what she loves about Motown, the way it asks you to carry sadness and heartbreak but dance while doing so.”

 

“The wound that was made when white people came and took all that they took has never healed. An unattended wound gets infected. Becomes a new kind of wound like the history of what actually happened became a new kind history. All these stories that we haven’t been telling all this time, that we haven’t been listening to, are just part of what we need to heal. Not that we’re broken. And don’t make the mistake of calling us resilient. To not have been destroyed, to not have given up, to have survived, is no badge of honor. Would you call an attempted murder victim resilient?”

 

“The problem with believing is you have to believe that believing will work, you have to believe in belief.”

 

“We’ve been defined by everyone else and continue to be slandered despite easy-to-look-up-on-the-internet facts about the realities of our histories and current state as a people. We have the sad, defeated Indian silhouette, and the heads rolling down temple stairs, we have it in our heads, Kevin Costner saving us, John Wayne’s six-shooter slaying us, an Italian guy named Iron Eyes Cody playing our parts in movies. We have the litter-mourning, tear-ridden Indian in the commercial (also Iron Eyes Cody), and the sink-tossing, crazy Indian who was the narrator in the novel, the voice of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. We have all the logos and mascots. The copy of a copy of the image of an Indian in a textbook. All the way from the top of Canada, the top of Alaska, down to the bottom of South America, Indians were removed, then reduced to a feathered image. Our heads are on flags, jerseys, and coins. Our heads were on the penny first, of course, the Indian cent, and then on the buffalo nickel, both before we could even vote as a people—which, like the truth of what happened in history all over the world, and like all that spilled blood from slaughter, are now out of circulation.”

 

My Take

While generally well written with a few interesting characters, There There is such a downbeat tale of victimology that I was happy to finally be finished with it.  It reminded me a lot of You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me by Sherman Alexie (author of the highly recommended The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian).  I get that Native Americans have had a raw deal in this country and feel betrayed.  It is  just a downer to read these tales of woe.

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375. Where the Crawdads Sing

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:   Pam Dupont

Author:   Delia Owens

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction

384 pages, published August 14, 2018

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

Where the Crawdads Sing tells the story of Kya Clark who was abandoned by her parents in the early 1960’s and left to fend for herself in the backwaters of Barkley Cove, a small town on the North Carolina coast.  Known to locals as the mysterious “Marsh Girl,” Kya teaches herself to read and channels her love of nature into a rare expertise for the tidewater flora and fauna.  When Chase Andrews is found dead in 1969, Kya is immediately suspected and put on trial.

Quotes 

“I wasn’t aware that words could hold so much. I didn’t know a sentence could be so full.”

 

“She knew the years of isolation had altered her behavior until she was different from others, but it wasn’t her fault she’d been alone. Most of what she knew, she’d learned from the wild. Nature had nurtured, tutored, and protected her when no one else would.”

 

“She could read anything now, he said, and once you can read anything you can learn everything. It was up to her. “Nobody’s come close to filling their brains,” he said. “We’re all like giraffes not using their necks to reach the higher leaves.”

 

“His dad had told him many times that the definition of a real man is one who cries without shame, reads poetry with his heart, feels opera in his soul, and does what’s necessary to defend a woman.”

 

“lot of times love doesn’t work out. Yet even when it fails, it connects you to others and, in the end, that is all you have, the connections.”

 

“How much do you trade to defeat loneliness?”

 

“Time ensures children never know their parents young.”

 

“Autumn leaves don’t fall, they fly. They take their time and wander on this their only chance to soar.”

 

My Take

I liked, but did not love, Where the Crawdads Sing.  I typically am a big fan of books where the main character overcomes a big hurdle by relying on themselves and others to learn what they are capable of.  This book has that in spades along with some well done courtroom scenes.  However, it was a bit too formulaic with an unearned, twist ending that keeps me from rating it higher.

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373. All for Nothing

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:   Meris Delli-Bovi

Author:   Walter Kempowski

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction

384 pages, published July 2006

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

All for Nothing takes place in Germany during the end of World War II when everything is falling apart.  The Russian army is advancing and Germans are fleeing the occupied territories in cars and carts and on foot.  In a rural East Prussian manor house, the wealthy von Globig family tries to seal itself off from the world.  Twelve year old Peter von Globig fakes illness to escape his Hitler Youth duties.  His father Eberhard is stationed in Italy with a desk job safe from the front and his mother Katharina has withdrawn into herself.  The house is run by a Auntie with the help of two Ukrainian maids and a Pole.  The family has no plans to leave until Katharina’s decision to house a Jewish stranger for the night forces their hand.

Quotes 

 

My Take

A very depressing, but insightful, book about the human condition, especially when under stress.  As a Christian, I don’t agree with  the author’s sentiment that our lives are “all for nothing.”  I think what we do during our brief stay on earth matters and how we live our lives and treat those around us has value.

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372. The Taster

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:   Nancy Sissom

Author:   V.S. Alexander

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction, World War II

323 pages, published January 30, 2018

Reading Format:  Audio Book on Hoopla

Summary

In early 1943 Germany, a teenaged Magda Ritter is sent to live with her relatives in Bavaria.  Living in deprivation as a result of the second World War, Magda’s Aunt and Uncle expect her to get a job.  After an interview with the civil service, Magda is assigned to the Berghof, Hitler’s mountain retreat, to be a taster for the Fuhrer’s food to prevent poisoning.  High in the Bavarian Alps, the Berghof is its own world, far from the battles that are consuming Germany.  While Magda grows accustomed to her dangerous job, she begins to have doubts about the war, doubts that are stoked by Karl, a young SS officer with whom she falls in love.

Quotes 

 

My Take

I liked, but did not love, The Taster.  I’ve read so many books about World War II and, other than some details about the last days of Adolf Hitler, there was little new in this book.  While it is well written, I had little connection with any of the characters.

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346. The King’s Curse

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Phillipa Gregory

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction

592 pages, published August 14, 2014

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

The King’s Curse is the final novel in the Cousins’ War series by renowned historical fiction author Phillipa Gregory.  It tells the fascinating story of the ups and downs of noble woman Margaret Pole, a lady-in-waiting to Katherine of Aragon and cousin of Elizabeth of York (the White Princess).  Margaret had a unique vantage point to witness the rise to power and eventual corruption of Henry VIII, one of history’s great monsters who was cursed to never produce a male heir.

Quotes 

“Thomas More once told me: lion or king, never show fear or you are a dead man.”

 

“A single man’s imperfect conscience can never be superior to centuries of tradition.”

 

“Life is a risk, who knows this better than me? Who knows more surely that babies die easily, that children fall ill from the least cause, that royal blood is fatally weak, that death walks behind my family like a faithful black hound?”

 

“But Elizabeth and I are accustomed to loss, we are Plantagenets—we dine on a diet of betrayal and heartbreak.”

 

“He was such a happy boy, and happiness is not memorable.” 

My Take

I’m a big fan of Philippa Gregory, the prolific writer of historical fiction in Britain.  Since starting my reading quest, I’ve read and enjoyed the following books by Gregory:  The Queen’s Fool, The Taming of the Queen, The Kingmaker’s Daughter, and The Last Tudor.  The King’s Curse did not disappoint.  Gregory makes you feel a part of history, delving into the lives, motivations, hopes and fears of historical figures that brings them and that part of history to life.  I have always had a particular interest in 14th and 15th Century British history and increased my understanding of the players and times of that era after reading The King’s Curse.

 

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329. The Great Alone

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:  Drue Emerson

Author:   Kristin Hannah

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction

435 pages, published February 6, 2018

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

The Great Alone takes place in 1974 Alaska when 13 year old Leni Albright moves there with her father, Ernt, an impulsive and unstable former Vietnam POW, and her mother Cora, whose alternating deferral to and taunting of Ernt causes even more trouble for this already troubled family.  The Albrights move to Alaska for yet another “fresh start” and attempt to make a go of it with little in the way of resources or knowledge necessary to survive.  When Ernt’s mental state deteriorates and her family begins to fracture, Leni must make difficult decisions in order to survive.

Quotes 

“Books are the mile markers of my life. Some people have family photos or home movies to record their past. I’ve got books. Characters. For as long as I can remember, books have been my safe place.”

 

“All this time, Dad had taught Leni how dangerous the outside world was. The truth was that the biggest danger of all was in her own home.”

 

“You know what they say about finding a man in Alaska—the odds are good, but the goods are odd.”

 

“Everyone up here had two stories : the life before and the life now. If you wanted to pray to a weirdo god or live in a school bus or marry a goose, no one in Alaska was going to say crap to you. No one cared if you had an old car on your deck, let alone a rusted fridge. Any Life that could be imagined could be lived up here.”

 

“A girl was like a kite; without her mother’s strong, steady hold on the string, she might just float away, be lost somewhere among the clouds.”

 

“How will I stop loving him, Mama? Will I …. forget ?

Mama sighed.

Ah. That. Love doesn’t fade or die, baby girl. People tell you it does, but it doesn’t. If you love him now, you’ll love him in ten years and in forty. Differently, maybe , a faded version, but he’s part of you now. And you are part of him.”

 

“You have a child, so you know. You are my heart, baby girl. You are everything I did right. And I want you to know I would do it all again, every wonderful terrible second of it. I would do years and years of it again for one minute with you.”

 

“All this time, Dad had taught Leni how dangerous the outside world was. The truth was that the biggest danger of all was in her own home.”

 

“They were trapped, by environment and finances, but mostly by the sick, twisted love that bound her parents together.”

 

“Leni saw suddenly how hope could break you, how it was a shiny lure for the unwary. What happened to you if you hoped too hard for the best and got the worst?”

 

“Did adults just look at the world and see what they wanted to see, think what they wanted to think? Did evidence and experience mean nothing?”

 

“It’s like his back is broken, Mama had said, and you don’t stop loving a person when they’re hurt. You get stronger so they can lean on you. He needs me. Us.” 

My Take

As a big fan of Kristin Hannah, having previously really enjoyed Winter Garden and The Nightingale, I was looking forward to reading The Great Alone.  I liked it, but not nearly as much as her previous books which were more gripping page turners.  The characters and the plot in The Great Alone were not quite as compelling as Hannah’s previous efforts.  Still a good, just not great, read.

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