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Wigtown: National Book Town (04/18)
Located in southwest Scotland in the Dumfries and Galloway district, Wigtown, the setting of Catriona McPherson's novel Quiet Neighbors, became Scotland's National Book Town in 1998. The Wigtown website touts it as: 'A book lovers' haven…with over a quarter of a million books to choose from, old and new.'
This claim...
Genetic Testing (04/18)
Mercies in Disguise discusses the impact of a rare genetic disease on a South Carolina family.
Genetic testing's history dates back to the discovery of chromosomes – the part of the cell that contains the genes which control how a living thing grows – in the late 1800s. It was early in the 1900s that inherited diseases were...
Margaret Fishback: The Inspiration for Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk (04/18)
The titular character of
Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk is modeled after real-life ad copywriter and poet, Margaret Fishback.
In a detailed
biography of Fishback at the Poetry Foundation,
Lillian Boxfish author Kathleen Rooney offers us a fascinating glimpse of a woman who was far ahead of her time, taking to print to declare that ...
The Evolving Definition of PTSD (04/18)
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a central theme in Elizabeth Strout's novel Anything is Possible, a condition clearly experienced by Vietnam vet, Charlie Macauley, but also by other characters. Returning to Amgash, the scene of her abusive childhood, causes Lucy Barton to have a full-blown panic attack. Lucy's parents may also ...
The Jedburghs (04/18)
The Jedburghs were highly trained guerilla warriors who operated behind the scenes, under the radar, and out of the headlines during World War II. In Dadland, we learn that the book's central character, Tom Carew, was part of Jedburgh commando teams, first in France and then in Burma.
The Jeds were recruited from military personnel who...
A Short History of Mardi Gras (04/18)
Some of the action in Michael Knight's story 'Our Lady of the Roses' takes place during Mardi Gras. The protagonist notes that the first celebration was in Mobile and not in New Orleans. That piqued my curiosity and I decided to do some research into this most colorful holiday.
The first thing I found was that, like many of our modern ...
Music During Nero's Time (04/18)
The appreciation of music seemed to be one of Emperor Nero's favorite pastimes. He not only organized musical competitions, but played several instruments himself.
Brass instruments such as the tuba (a long, straight trumpet-like device) and the cornu (the precursor of the French horn) were mostly used by the military of the day ...
A Veteran Writer's Ode to His Favorite Watering Hole (04/18)
There are two fairly common ways to memorialize someone: Raise a drink and propose a toast, or pick up a pen and write a tribute. But a handful of great writers have combined those two impulses and created memorable works that lionize their favorite drinking establishments. From Dickens' historic The George Inn in London to Hemingway's ...
The American Healthcare System: Did You Know? (03/18)
In
An American Sickness, Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal provides many intriguing details about the U.S. healthcare system. Here are a few:
- The first employer-sponsored health insurance plan was developed in Dallas, Texas in 1929 as a sort of pre-paid hospitalization account offered to teachers in the area. It evolved into Blue Cross ...
Staten Island Stats (03/18)
New York City consists of five boroughs: Brooklyn, The Bronx, Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island. The latter is the home of Sgt. Denny Malone, the street-wise detective in Don Winslow's The Force. Denny may keep an apartment in Manhattan, but Staten Island is home. That's where he grew up. That's where he keeps his wife and ...
Texting and Driving (03/18)
Over the years, technology has provided many wonderful enhancements to our lives. However, with these perks, we've also found problems. Perhaps we are too consumed by our helpful gadgets. It's nearly impossible to have down time anymore. We've forgotten the meaning of patience. Do we even still appreciate the peace that ...
The History of Homosexuality in Ireland (03/18)
In The Heart's Invisible Furies, author John Boyne traces the evolving acceptance of homosexuality in Ireland through the life of his main character, Cyril Avery.
Historically speaking, The Republic of Ireland has a conservative reputation, but homosexuality was actually accepted and accounted for in the set of medieval laws known ...
The History of Fictional Female Detectives (03/18)
Many great novels start with a premise, which mirrors or takes inspiration from something in real life. In Greer Macallister's Girl in Disguise, the inspiration is the real-life Kate Warne, the first female private detective who began her career with Pinkerton's in 1856. Learning about her made me wonder which came first – did the ...
Pope Francis (03/18)
In The Delight of Being Ordinary, Pope Francis invites the Dalai Lama along on a road trip through the Italian countryside.
Pope Francis was born Jorge Mario Bergoglio on December 17, 1936, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. His father, Mario Jose Bergoglio (1908-1959) was an Italian immigrant who fled Italy in 1929 to escape Mussolini's...
Radium: The Dangerously Radioactive Element (03/18)
The high demand for radium is at the heart of Kate Moore's book, The Radium Girls.
Radium is a naturally occurring element, most of which is found in uranium ore; it makes up approximately 1 part per trillion of the Earth's crust, making it our planet's 84th most common component. One ton of uranium ore can contain as little as 0.14 ...
Women who Scheme: The Female as Villain in Greek Tragedies and Beyond (03/18)
The story of Clytemnestra is told in bits and pieces across several play cycles from the Classical period, and before. At the end of the House of Names, the author Colm Tóibín notes that, while the majority of the novel's events are not related to any source material, the overall shape of the narrative and the main characters ...
Ten Facts about the New York City Police Department (03/18)
In
Proving Ground, Blauner's modern noir mystery, the colossus that is the New York City Police Department, one of the largest civil law enforcement entities in the world, is a supporting character in its own right.
Here are ten fascinating facts about the NYPD:
- NYPD has over 49,000 employees of which 34,000 are uniformed ...
José Martí - Havana's Poet Revolutionary (03/18)
Mark Kurlansky's
Havana begins with this poetic snippet:
El corazón es un loco
Que no sabe de un color.
(The heart is a fool
that knows no color.)
The composer is the highly regarded José Martí, a significant figure in the pantheon of Latino writers, and more especially, in the small but distinguished group of ...
The Hui Panalä'au Program (03/18)
Imagine being sent to a remote island just to populate it so that your country can then call it theirs. The Hui Panalä'au program did just that, as Doug Mack describes in
The Not-Quite States of America.
As Japan became increasingly aggressive to its Pacific neighbors in the 1930s, the United States needed an effective way ...
Famous Predictions for the Future (03/18)
Would you like this in your daily life?:
Getting dressed involves an automated device that cuts and stitches a new outfit every morning, indexed to your personal style and body type. The fabric is made from laser-hardened strands of a light-sensitive liquid polymer that's recycled nightly for daily use.
Or how about this?:
...
What Is a Manifesto? (03/18)
The book Women & Power is labeled a manifesto, which comes from the Latin word manifestus, meaning 'to manifest, to clearly reveal, or to make real.' It is a broad term for a public statement of intent, belief, or a call to action issued by an organization or an individual.
Most nonprofit and political groups have a manifesto of some ...
The Rise Of Counseling in America (1900s-1940s) (03/18)
Much of The Driest Season revolves around the suicide of Mr. Jacobson and the effect it has on his youngest daughter—and main protagonist—Cielle. As Cielle tries to better understand the reasons why her father took his own life, she discovers that he was secretly seeking help for depression through a counselor, a fact he kept ...
Belle Époque Paris: From Civil War to Artistic Profusion (03/18)
The year 1789 was by no means the first time the city of Paris had experienced upheaval, but the Revolution and the decades following it were particularly tumultuous. The Terror, Napoleon, the brief restoration of the Bourbon monarchy, the Second Empire under Napoleon III: the political pendulum swung wildly and violently throughout the ...
Guy Fawkes Night (02/18)
In one of the most memorable sequences in Golden Hill, the protagonist, Mr. Smith, attends a Guy Fawkes Night celebration that goes terribly awry after an effigy of the Pope is burned. Smith is taken for Catholic and pursued by an angry drunken mob.
In Britain, Guy Fawkes Night is a celebration of the failure of the 1605 ...
OCD in Young Adult Literature (02/18)
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) impacts the lives of many Americans, including young adults and children. According to a 2013
article in American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, OCD 'is seen in as many as 1 in 200 children and adolescents.' Labeling exact characteristics of the disorder is difficult because, as the
Anxiety...
Volcanic Activity on the Canary Islands (02/18)
Floods both real (due to global warming) and figurative (tides of refugees washing ashore in the Mediterranean and elsewhere) dominate the imagery of Margaret Drabble's novel, The Dark Flood Rises. One of the most memorable discussions involves speculation about volcanic activity on the Canary Islands (where much of the novel's ...
Arlie Russell Hochschild (02/18)
Sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild's eleventh book, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, was a 2016 National Book Award finalist. She has also written several magazine and newspaper articles and essays, all focusing on how 20th Century changes in roles, relationships and responsibilities affect the...
Joan of Arc in Many Forms (02/18)
In Yuknavitch's near-future vision, a character inspired by Joan of Arc seems poised to be the savior of an all-but-doomed Earth. Yuknavitch is far from the first writer and artist to be inspired by the fifteenth-century French heroine. Images of Joan of Arc have appeared in opera, film, literature, art, and even video games and ...
Betelgeuse (02/18)
In Edgar and Lucy, author Victor Lodato often uses the symbolism of stars, especially Betelgeuse.
Betelgeuse is a star in the Orion constellation, one of the most easily recognized groups of stars in the night sky. Orion's Belt consists of of three stars (also known as the Three Kings or the Three Sisters). Betelgeuse, officially ...
Che Guevara (02/18)
Next Year in Havana is partially set during the Cuban Revolution (1953-1959). Che Guevara (1928-1967) was one of the Revolution's central figures. Although he does not appear directly in Next Year in Havana, the cause he fought for forms the backdrop to much of the story.
Born Ernesto Guevara de la Serna in Rosario, Argentina, ...
My Thoughts About Fredrik Backman's Books (02/18)
As I noted in my review of
Beartown, I've read all of Fredrik Backman's works that have English translations. In fact, I was lucky enough to be one of the first early readers of his debut novel,
A Man Called Ove. I realized then that I was witnessing the birth of an amazing talent and, to date, he hasn't ever let me down. Unfortunately, ...
Complications - The Mechanical Watch Variety (02/18)
In Hannah Tinti's novel, The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley, Hawley and Jove are sent to recover an antique watch, a priceless item stolen from a crooked boxing promoter and now in the hands of a thief-survivalist living on an island off Washington's coast. The watch has many complications, the term used for any mechanical watch ...
Christina's World (02/18)
Andrew Wyeth's painting Christina's World, the subject of A Piece of the World, was initially met with little fanfare, and its critical reception was lackluster. Nevertheless, the painting, which features Christina Olson reaching toward her home in the distance, was purchased during its first showing at a New York Gallery in 1948 by ...
Body Snatching (02/18)
Whitehead's well-researched novel The Underground Railroad offers glimpses into numerous phenomena characterizing the often-brutal experiences of black Americans in the early nineteenth century, both in the South and the North. In one section, Whitehead profiles a group of Boston-area body snatchers, spurred by demand for cadavers in the ...
Breathtaking Butterflies (02/18)
Night of Fire frequently references butterflies, often ethereal, almost infinite in variation, and miraculous in their metamorphosis: '...the butterfly's resurrection was different: the winged angel risen from a worm...It showed that anything could become anything.' It's as though Thubron wants to remind us time and again that we can ...
The Bardo (02/18)
The word bardo comes from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and means 'in-between.' It refers to a transitional state when one's awareness of the physical world is suspended. According to
Spiritualtravel.org the concept is an 'umbrella term which includes the transitional states of birth, death, dream, transmigration or afterlife, meditation...
Disenfranchisement and Voter Suppression (02/18)
Despite the fact that voting in a federal election is a primary and vital constitutional right held by American citizens over 18 years of age, the playing field for voters is not equal from one state to another.
In Fortress America, Elaine Tyler May argues that disenfranchisement holds individuals back from contributing to their ...
Can Organ Transplants Change Who You Are? (01/18)
A staggering number: over 34,000
organ transplants were performed in the U.S. in 2017 alone. Another staggering number: 115,000 people are currently waiting for life-saving organ transplants in the U.S. As the medical techniques and success rates continue to improve, organ transplants are quickly becoming a tremendous lifeline for some of...
The Bathroom Bills (01/18)
The joys and perils of raising a transgender child are beautifully brought to life in Laurie Frankel's This is How it Always Is. The question of where Poppy should go the bathroom when at school is a sensitive issue.
In the United States, since 2013, more than 24 state legislatures have proposed so-called 'Bathroom Bills' with the ...
Eastern State Penitentiary (01/18)
The catalyst for Long Black Veil takes place within the ruins of Eastern State Penitentiary, located in the heart of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Now remade into a museum and identified as a National Historic Landmark, the former prison stood unattended and in shambles from its closing in 1971 until 1994.
The author cites a visit to...
A Slew of Southern Writers (01/18)
Mary Miller's Always Happy Hour is set in the south, but many will see it as something other than true southern fiction. The protagonists are too internalized, too walled off from the southerness – the land, the people, the ethos of pride, racial discord, and defeat – that is the beating heart of most great southern fiction...
The Father of Microbiology (01/18)
The discovery of microbes – those single-celled organisms that exist by the millions in a drop of water, blood, or tiny patch of any living tissue – was a game-changer, scientifically speaking. The once-preposterous notion of invisible creatures inhabiting our world opened the door to understanding how germs infect the body, ...
The Big Dry - Rivers and Drought in Australia (01/18)
The Big Dry was a nine-year drought experienced in Southeastern Australia from 2003 to 2012. The region suffered the most severe dry period in recorded history and assumptions made by early pioneering colonists – that there would always be wet periods in these lands – began to be questioned. The alternative, that there might be ...
Operation Valkyrie (01/18)
The events of The Women in the Castle are set off by a failed attempt at assassinating Adolf Hitler conducted by the husbands of the main characters and their fellow resisters. This is based on the real-life July Plot, also known as Operation Valkyrie.
The plan was organized and executed in 1944 by high-ranking German military ...
The Boy Scouts of America (01/18)
The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) plays a significant role in
The Hearts of Men. The youth organization was in the news in 2017, beginning to adapt to current social mores.
The New York Times reported on January 31, 2017: 'Reversing its stance of more than a century, the Boy Scouts of America said on Monday that the group would begin ...
Pachinko (01/18)
'If you are a rich Korean, there's a pachinko parlor in your background somewhere,' Min Jin Lee writes in her novel Pachinko. Several of her Korean characters end up working in pachinko parlors, despite their differing levels of education and their previous experience.
Pachinko is essentially an upright pinball machine. Gamblers ...
The Art of Glassmaking (01/18)
At one point in Glass House, Brian Alexander describes his childhood experience of peering into one of the glass manufacturing plants in his home town: 'Nuns had spent years engraving images of hell on my imagination. The flames shooting out of the squat stack on the roof, the white-red glow of the furnace inside, the gray shadows of the ...
Castaways on the Antipodes Islands (01/18)
In The Mannequin Makers, a mysterious character called The Carpenter finds himself shipwrecked on a tiny island, part of the Antipodes Islands that lie several hundred miles south of New Zealand. He has no idea where he is, beyond being lost somewhere in the Southern Ocean. The island which he describes as the 'lemon wedge' (and his ...
Keeping Wolves as Pets in the United States (01/18)
In Helen Benedict's novel Wolf Season, a character illegally keeps pet wolves behind a fence on her upstate New York property. At first her neighbors don't believe she actually has wolves – they think it's just a rumor passed around by children – but when they realize the wolves are real they become alarmed and look for legal ...
Blackface in Performance (01/18)
Early in Zadie Smith's novel Swing Time, the narrator shows a friend a clip from the 1936 Fred Astaire musical by the same name. She doesn't have her glasses on the first time she watches it so is startled when she realizes that Astaire performs a solo dance referred to as the 'Bojangles of Harlem' in blackface.
Music and dance had ...
