A Dinosaur Named Sue by Pat Relf (2000)

Subtitle: The Story of the Colossal Fossil

I had the wonderful experience of meeting this author at our Cornell reunion. We had graduated the same year, but never knew each other back in college. She lives close to me, so we met for lunch, where I discovered she is the author of many non-fiction children's books. WorldCat lists her as the author of 87 (there are duplicates in that list) and my library has three of her kids books, her masters dissertation, and a book of local World War II memories in Archives. Two of the kids books are Magic School Bus books and over in the Education library (one checked out), so I checked out this one on Sue, the Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton over in the Chicago Field Museum.

I believe I have mentioned in this blog, that I love children's and young adult books, and sometimes turn to kids books when I want a clear explanation of something. When my son was studying the Civil War in grade school, I realized that I didn't really "get" the Civil War, especially after we visited Gettysburg and saw the massive destruction that occurred in this three day battle. So I went to our kid section and took out a few books that made the war much more understandable to me. Obviously it is an art to take complex topics and make them clear to others. The best teachers do this, good children's authors do this, and Pat Relf definitely does this.

This tells the story of Sue, the largest and most complete set of Tyrannosaurus Rex bones - how they were found, the legal battles, how they were auctioned off, how they were stored, cleaned, studied, and put together for a display. What did we know about T. Rex before, what new things we learned from these bones. Just enough information for me with the things that interested me and plenty of pictures.

Now I have dozens of questions for Pat - how did she work on this book, did she get to interview the people, see the scientists work on the bones, or was she just given a pile of "stuff" and asked to make sense of it into a book?

Happy Ever After by Nora Roberts (2010)

Though I wasn't thrilled with this series, just had to finish it with the fourth friend Parker, the organizer brains behind Vows, the wedding planning and hosting company and her unlikely beau Malcolm, the mechanic. But somehow it worked, they worked. When I saw the organized way she worked I realized I would not necessarily want to be her friend, definitely would not want to work for her, but would hire her to organize something that needed to be organized perfectly - but not necessarily a wedding. I don't like things that are timed perfectly, I like free flow, and definitely would not want to be herded out because the time was up. I am not much into fashion, but do see the point of helping a woman find the wedding dress in which she looks the best. I do like Parker's commitment to her friends, and her clients, her fast thinking and problem solving, and not just technical details, but things like keeping two feuding exes separated during an event. Or seeing the sorrow in a father's eyes, because his wife is no longer alive to see their daughter's wedding - and taking time to talk to him and make him ready to appreciate the day.

And then Roberts makes Malcolm the former stunt man and wildman attracted to this rich, high-class gal, but gives him a heart of gold - good with kids, helps one of his employees get going on an education, very straighforward, but as a guy has a hard time sharing feelings. And then how in the world did he know what shoes to buy Parker? In Roberts' world these things happen.

I wish this fantasy quartet all the best. Now that they all are getting married, I am trying to imagine all the fancy weddings with a possie of their kids running around. Of course they will have a special playground/room/whatever for those kids. I still don't see where they fit in their social obligations - attend other parties, benefits, fundraisers, but I guess the author knows best not to dilute a book.

Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness (2010)

In the last of 20 CDs it dawned on me that this was only the first of most likely a trilogy, and I mentally groaned. I am hooked on this story, even if it is about vampires. It helped that the first third of the story was mostly in the Bodleian Library at Oxford and that the main character is a historian, researching alchemy in old manuscripts, and that a major focus is on an old manuscript - Ashmole 762, which had seemed to disappear from sight and now was rediscovered by Diana Bishop, a reluctant witch. The structure of the world in this book is that there are humans and three other types of beings - vampires (which are nearly immortal), witches with extra powers, and demons, which seem to be unpredictable, but not necessarily evil. Seems like a lot of important powerful figures were one of these, most often witches or demons, as vampires tended to lie low with their long lives. Now there is a council, which governs their interactions, and one rule is that they cannot have relations across types of beings. So of course, our witchy heroine falls in love with a vampire. He seems to be drawn to protect her, and others are intent on doing her harm. He's been around for centuries, which intrigues Diana - to hear about history from someone that was there. Then there are the two great aunts that raised Diana when her parents were killed. Lots of intriguing ideas and a fun read.

The Oracle of Stamboul by Michael David Lukas (2011)

What a delightful book! Was recommended to me through Get Glue. Had to get it through interlibrary loan, and thought I would be reading it on vacation, but found time to read it in just a few days. I later read on the back cover that this book was "like biting into a perfect piece of pistachio-flaked baklava." (Rief Larsen) Strangely enough, this describes the book perfectly.

Time - late 19th century, places - Constanta (Romania, on the Black Sea) and Stamboul. (From Wikipedia: "Stamboul was used in Western languages as an equivalent of İstanbul, until the time it was replaced by the official new usage of the Turkish form in the 20th century. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, English-speaking sources often used Constantinople to refer to the metropolis as a whole, but Stamboul to refer to the central parts located on the historic peninsula between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara."- from H. G. Dwight) Historic period - Ottoman empire, with the Russian and German empires vying for more territory - I know very little about this time and area. When I was in the Lithuanian Museum in Chicago last week, I realized how little I know of Lithuanian history and their time as part of the Polish-Lithuanian empire.

Our main character is Eleonora Cohen, born in 1877 to Yakob Cohen, a Jewish rug merchant in Constanta. Her mother dies in childbirth, so she is raised by an aunt/stepmother and her father, who teaches her to read and write in various languages, when he realizes the girl is bright. (I love bright girls.) Turns out she is more than bright, she is a savant, and at age eight follows her father secretly on a trip to Stamboul, where they live with a Turk - Moncef Bey, she gets tutoring from an American rector of a college - Reverend James Muehler. One of my favorite moments in the book is when Cohen and Muehler first meet, they try speaking English, French, Russian and some other languages and settle on Turkish as the best language to use for communication. The whole book is a rich blend of cultures and languages - in a way I think Europe and various other metropolitan areas of the world operate today, but I don't see in the U.S. How many of us are fluent in more than two (or even one) languages and can jump freely between them, depending on the person we encounter?

The whole story is rich, and colorful, and touching. The Sultan's growling stomach at Ramadan, or his love for birds. Eleonora is followed by a flock of purple and white hoopoes from birth. (I am attaching an image from a hoopoe, though I found no references to purple and white ones - must be literary license.)  Eleonora gets to meet the Sultan and it seems to me, if circumstances were different, they would have gotten along quite well.

The Sea Wedding and Other Stories from Estonia ilus. by Inese Jansons (1978)

By Selve Maas and Peggy Hoffman.

My artist friend Inese Jansons died in February. I finally framed the piece of art she sent me a couple of years ago, and as a group of friends remembered her, I thought to look up the books she had illustrated. This is one that came up and that was available used through Amazon. Ineses illustrations are delightful, as usual, and since she is illustrating Baltic tales, all the characters are wearing ethnic clothes and feet shod in pastalas, kind of like moccasins, but laced up the leg like a ballet slipper. The main animal characters are also dressed this way. The book is from the 70's, so early in her career. She was so talented, I wish she had done more.

I have read a lot of folk tales in my day, and as a child, plowed through the 15 volumes of collected Latvian folk tales. These twelve tales felt familiar, but none of them was exactly like any Latvian tale I remember reading. There were tales of the sea, of justice, of fairies. One of my favorites was Six Hard-Boiled Eggs - about a man who hadn't paid for his hard-boiled eggs at an inn, and the innkeeper never forgot that debt. When years later the man returns to repay the innkeeper, the innkeeper declares he owes a thousand coins, for if those eggs had hatched, he would have many more hens and eggs to sell. On his way to court, the man meets a farmer, who promises to help him. The farmer rushes in late to the court, says he was planting peas, but had to cook them first. Dah! Cooked peas won't grow and boiled eggs won't hatch. I love these kinds of logic fairy tales.

Kristaps Ģelzis, text by Mark Svede (2005)

I have to admit I have had this book for a while, and had looked at the images of Ģelzis' work, but not read Mark's text (shame on me.) Mark always write so well, and brings in his knowledge of the art world in so many different ways. I think what amazed me the most is how well versed my friend Mark is in what is and has happened in Latvia. He is half Latvian, but hasn't followed the normal path of doing all things Latvian, so his grasp of the nuances there are quite astounding. (At least to me, my own grasp of nuances are probably minimal, as I don't keep up with events in Latvia regularly, and just have spurts of immersion with my family, the library world, etc.)

As much as I appreciate art, I do like it when someone explains things to me, so it was great to have images of Ģelzis work, especially his installations, along with Mark's explanations and interpretations. I know he is good friends with Ģelzis, and I recognize a couple of the pieces from Mark's home, so I assume he has a pretty accurate take on what Ģelzis is trying to say.

I chose to read the text in English, as I know that was the language in which it was written, but I did glance over to the Latvian text occasionally, especially when it was an especially complex concept or passage. It was fun to see how it translates into Latvian.

Winter Ghosts by Kate Mosse (2011)

Suggested by the audio book store guy. I actually have a couple of her books sitting in my "to read" pile.

Post World War I, Freddie, who has lost his brother in the war and is now lost himself, has an accident on a deserted road in the Pyrenees of southern France, finds himself in a small sad village while looking for help with his car. He seems to hear voices in the woods and at a village party has a deep connection and conversation with Fabrissa, a lovely young woman, who seems to understand his pain. Very interestingly woven story, that ends up telling not only about post WWI, but also centuries before, when villages were destroyed by soldiers of various rulers.

The Sixth Man by David Baldacci (2011)

Obviously I can't stay away from Baldacci, though I wasn't totally thrilled with my last read. But the audio book store had mistakenly put this book on hold for me, so I just decided to go with it. One more Sean King  & Michelle Maxwell story. Again well told.

I liked the main premise, that there might be certain people with the ability to use more of their brain capacity and they could absorb exorbitant amounts of information and analyze it, that they could take all the data that is gathered by our various security agencies and grok it into some valuable actions and policies to protect our country and our world. For example, destroying the opium crop in Afghanistan just makes the Taliban richer, but bringing in seeds of poppies that don't produce good opium and takes them out of being a player in the drug production world actually sounds like a good idea.

Edgar Roy is such a person who can process floods of information, but he is sitting in a high security prison, because six bodies were found buried in his barn. King and Maxwell have been hired by Roy's lawyer to help prove his innocence. When they get to Maine (nice setiing), they find the lawyer dead - and they are off.  The book is full of interesting characters - Peter Bunting, who invented this concept and who got government agencies to actually share information. He is a rather unlikable character in the beginning, but I grew to like him. I liked Kelly Paul and James Harkes, though for the longest time I didn't know which side they were on. At times they seemed to take over the action from King and Maxwell, and I wouldn't be surprised if Baldacci brings them back in future books. Baldacci even creates interesting small characters, like the owner of the inn where King and Maxwell stay - she doesn't care for Maxwell and chides them on spending time together in his room.

With Nora Roberts I know how many dead bodies to expect (usually 3), but with Baldacci, they kept piling up - a bit out of my comfort zone. Strange - I have a comfort zone to how many dead bodies I am willing to read about? How about watch? Many of my TV shows are violent. I guess it ups the ante on the gravity of the situation. The characters are literally facing life and death situations. Wonder if I could find non dead body mysteries? Or maybe ones that just have one? I'll have to start keeping count and see if Lisa Scottoline or other writers are less bloody. Probably someone has already done that on the net. (A quick Google search came up with a sentence in a readers advisory book about amateur detectives often being in less violent books. Authors mentioned were Diana Mott Davidson, Karen Greenland and Elizabeth Peters. I've read a couple by the latter, but hasn't intrigued me.) I also had strong moments of discomfort when the head of Homeland Security was being ultra nasty - ready to kill absolutely anyone who stood in her way. This was actually very similar to Baldacii's first book, Absolute Power (the last book of his I just read), where another highly placed government woman went beserk trying to hold on to her power.

Overall - a good read, but I think I'll take a break from Baldacci for a while.

Raymond Duncan by Adela Spindler Roatcap (1991)

Subtitle: Printer... Expatrieate... Excentric Artist.

This is one of those delightful limited edition monographs from The Book Club of California, and as far as I can tell, the only book about Raymond Duncan, Isadora Duncan's eccentric brother - not that she wasn't eccentric herself. He was born in 1874 in California, but moved to Europe, lived in Greece for a while where he married a Greek woman and started wearing Greek tunics and invented a type of sandal. He wore both exclusively until his death in 1966. For many years he lived in Paris, and after the death of his first wife, he married a Latvian. He seems to be one of the first hippies and simple life advocates, running an academy to teach his life style and promoting arts and crafts in his studios and galleries. Fascinating.

Paris Between the Wars by Carol Mann (1996)

I've been fascinated by Paris since visiting it and reading The Paris Wife. This book provided a great overview of what Paris was like between the two world wars, why it was so appealing to artists of all types. I love the abundance of photos, so I could visualize the place, the art deco, etc. My favorite photo was of two women dancers in shrimp costumes. Even though the photo was black and white, I could just image the bright colors. The most powerful photo was of the 1937 World's Fair, where Germany and the Soviet Union were posturing and squaring off against each other with massive pavilions that dwarfed everything around them, except for the Eiffel Tower. I must have been a strange and tense time. They also provided work for artists in hard economic times. World's Fairs were also an important event in the Tiffany book I read recently. My parents took me to the one in New York in 1964-65 numerous times, and Expo 67 in Montreal.