Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill by Candice Millard

Winston Churchill fascinates us. The statesman who said, “History will be kind to me for I intend to write it,” wrote volumes about his own life as did many others. Most of us think of him as the Prime Minister who rallied the British during World War II and refused to surrender to Nazi Germany. We may recall how he modernized the British Navy and warned of the threat of the Iron Curtain, but Candice Millard tells a new story – one of Churchill in South Africa in the Boer War in 1899. Then 24 years old, Churchill had just lost his first campaign for parliament. His father, who died at the age of 45, had many accomplishments and the young Churchill didn’t want to lose time making himself known. He wanted to fight in a war and to be noticed while fighting. He’d served as an officer in India and Sudan and as a journalist in Cuba, but none of those exploits had gained him glory. 

Millard notes that in 1899 the British Empire covered more than a fifth of the world’s land surface and ruled about a quarter of the human race – “more than 450 million people on every continent and on the islands of every ocean.” It was the largest empire ever known. “The greatest threat was from the burden of ruling its own colonies.” After a century of conflict with the Boers (Dutch settlers) and new concerns about control of gold mines, the war began when the British rejected an ultimatum to withdraw troops from the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. Churchill set off as a journalist with his valet and crates of vintage wine to cover the brutal war, but just two weeks after his arrival, he was taken prisoner along with the soldiers he was following and aiding. He later managed a harrowing escape only to find himself alone in enemy territory with almost no resources to aid in traveling the hundreds of miles to safety. Telling of his capture, escape, and journey to freedom would make quite a story, but that’s just the beginning as Churchill returned to London, enlisted, and set off again for South Africa to liberate the men with whom he’d been captured and who were still imprisoned.

Millard shows Churchill just as he was, an aristocrat of the times, in an era when he said of South Africa: “The temperate sun warms the life within the soil. The cooling breeze refreshes the inhabitant. The delicious climate stimulates the vigour of the European. . . All Nature smiles, and here at last is a land where white men may rule and prosper.”

This is a stirring adventure story filled with remarkable characters including Rudyard Kipling, Gandhi, Botha, and Paul Kruger, but it also affords a view of the experiences that molded Churchill into the man who was one of the twentieth century's most influential persons. Candice Millard offers a swashbuckling tale of young Churchill that should appeal to those who rarely read history. 

Summing it Up: Read The Hero of the Empire for a rip-roaring exploration of the early years of Winston Churchill. Quickly turn the pages as Candice Millard illuminates the Boer War in full Technicolor and shows young Churchill in his “Indiana Jones” years.

Rating: 5 stars

Category: Grandma’s Pot Roast, Nonfiction, Super Nutrition, Book Club

Publication date: September 20, 2016

Author Website: http://www.candicemillard.com/

 

Read an Excerpt: http://www.candicemillard.com/hero-of-the-empire.html

Interview with the Author (Wall Street Journal): http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-forgotten-story-of-winston-churchills-daring-escape-1472567050

What Others are Saying:

Kirkus Reviews: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/candice-millard/hero-of-the-empire/

Publishers Weekly: http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-385-53573-1

USA Today: http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2016/09/18/hero-of-the-empire-the-boer-war-a-daring-escape-and-the-making-of-winston-churchill-candice-millard-review/90377558/

Mischling by Affinity Konar

Mischling ("mixed-blood" in German) was the legal term used in Nazi Germany to denote persons deemed to have both Aryan and Jewish ancestry. Author Affinity Konar uses the word to lead the reader into the horror chamber of Auschwitz where Josef Mengele’s experiments were “acceptable” because of the lineage of the Mischling victims. 

 

Poetic, ingenious, and exquisitely beautiful while simultaneously agonizing and sad, this is not a novel for sissies. I eschew plot-driven stories, yet I’m more able to stomach hard truths when the narrative compels me to turn the page. I was mesmerized by Konar’s brilliant use of metaphor and language, yet for this reader, the narrative didn’t propel it from a very fine novel to an exceptional one. Mischling deserves accolades for its subject matter, creativity, and prose, yet the narrative thread didn’t emotionally propel me as it might have done. Alternating between twelve-year-old twin sisters Pearl and Stasha’s views of their time in Mengele’s zoo, Mischling brilliantly highlights the emotional damage done by separating the twins as he experiments on them. As the sisters suffer primarily from their isolation from each other, Mengele’s physical and mental abuses seem even more horrific. Konar also paints kaleidoscopic pictures of villains, conflicted workers, and the other sets of twins within the camp with a brush that makes them come alive even as they make the reader want to escape. 

Konar’s ear for dialogue is spectacular and when the characters speak, the novel is transformative. Early in their time in Auschwitz, Stasha asks Pearl, “Would you rather be the key to a place that will save us or the weapon that will destroy our enemies?” Her answer, “I’d rather be a real girl,” Pearl said dully. “Like I used to be.”  Later Stasha’s friend Felix tells her, “I think you like to see the good in people because there’s been so much bad that you have to believe in good.”  Stasha replies, “Do you do that too?” “No. I see the good in knives instead of people. Although there’s really no such thing as a bad knife or a good knife, so long as it cuts.”  

I admire Konar’s lack of sentimentality in her portraits of the many suffering children and even of Mengele, yet, I found myself comparing my connection to them to my deep and abiding empathy for each character in Anthony Doerr’s All the Light You Cannot See. Doerr created a tour de force with characters that still haunt me. Konar created a fascinating glimpse of the people and horror of Auschwitz, but for me, it isn’t a masterwork.  I recommend it highly for its writing, however. Thinking of Konar’s name, Affinity, and its dictionary definition as a spontaneous or natural liking or sympathy for someone or something, sometimes expressed as a kinship, I can acknowledge that Affinity Konar created a world that gave this reader a sympathy for the characters and their plight, yet I didn’t develop the kinship needed to deem this a masterpiece. Still, I admire Konar’s skill in making Mengele real, yet never allowing him to highjack the story. The novel rightly belongs to the twins and to those real children and caretakers who suffered through Mengele’s brutality and whose lives inspired Konar’s well-researched novel. I’m grateful for Konar’s telling of their stories, yet, there were times when I could barely turn the page. 

Summing it Up: Mischling exquisitely bears witness to the atrocities perpetrated by Josef Mengele at Auschwitz, but reading of the abuses suffered by so many children in Mischling is almost impossible to endure. Twins Pearl and Stasha’s dual narratives offer prize-worthy, lyrical language and ask deep questions about forgiveness, yet this novel is only for those able to stomach those horrors.

Rating: 4 stars   

Category: Fiction, Gourmet, Pigeon Pie, Super Nutrition, Book Club

Publication date: September 6, 2016

Read an Excerpt: https://www.bookbrowse.com/excerpts/index.cfm/book_number/3448/mischling

Interview with the Author: http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/interviews/article/70631-unpacking-the-mengele-monster-pw-talks-with-affinity-konar.html

What Others are Saying:

“Mischling is a paradox. It’s a beautiful novel about the most odious of crimes, it’s a deeply researched act of remembrance that somehow carries the lightness of a fairy tale, and it’s a coming-of-age story about children who aren’t allowed to come of age. If your soul can survive the journey, you’ll be rewarded by one of the most harrowing, powerful, and imaginative books of the year.” – Anthony Doerr, Author of All the Light We Cannot See

Bookpage: https://bookpage.com/reviews/20261-affinity-konar-mischling#.V9LVha1AqOs

Kirkus Reviews: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/affinity-konar/mischling/

Publishers Weekly: http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-316-30810-6

USA Today: http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2016/09/03/mischling-affinity-konar-book-review/89535020/

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

Amor Towles’ debut novel, The Rules of Civility, an elegant character study set in a lush 1930s New York setting, was a major hit with readers. In A Gentleman in Moscow, Towles returns with a polished sophomore effort that evokes the people, setting, and history of Russia with charm, panache, and substance. Readers will inhale all 480 pages of this gem with relish while critics offer glowing reviews. It’s rare that a novel that can be called charming wins a Kirkus star as charmers are often too sentimental, too twee, or simply too-too. A Gentleman in Moscow is that rare novel that will appeal to your maiden aunt, your snobbish high school lit teacher, your friend who wants a page-turner, and your colleague who wants to learn a little history.

Covering the changing Russian landscape from 1922 to 1954, A Gentleman in Moscow succeeds at capturing the essence of Russian politics without ham-handedly annoying the reader with a dry recitation of facts. Instead, the novel’s characters stand in for the rulers, the ruled, and the simply confused and they do it all with a whimsical touch.

The novel opens as Count Alexander Rostov listens to a Bolshevik tribunal sentencing him to house arrest in the Hotel Metropol, a luxurious haven where he’s lived for the past four years. The Count offers witty bon mots instead of apologies as in this reply to why he returned to Moscow from his self-imposed exile in Paris: “I missed the climate.” The tribunal officers are not amused and tell him, “should you ever set foot outside of the Metropol again, you will be shot.” So, on the twenty-first of June in 1922, armed guards escort the Count through the gates of the Kremlin into Red Square and across the street to the hotel where they move him from his elaborate suite to attic quarters barely 100 feet square. Prepared with hidden resources, the count survives and even flourishes as he enjoys the restaurants, his barber, his seamstress, and the ever-cordial staff. Soon he befriends precocious Nina, a young girl who hopes he can tell her how to be a princess. She encourages him to look beyond the hotel’s public spaces and tells him “Don’t be such a fuddy-duddy” and he looks inwardly while replying “A man can never be entirely sure that he is not a fuddy-duddy. That is axiomatic to the term.” To which he joins Nina and the world within the hotel opens to him.

Ultimately, the Count becomes a part of the Metropol community where he encourages the staff to become their best selves despite their individual limitations. The Count’s interactions with staff members and guests of the hotel make the novel resemble Muriel Barbery’s The Elegance of the Hedgehog, another wry, philosophical tale. The third person narration moves the pages swiftly, yet never interferes with the wisdom and appeal of the characters or their dilemmas.

When I set this book down, I felt as if I’d returned from a vacation on another continent in the distant past where I’d had a whale of a good time.  Who could ask for more? 

Summing It Up: A Gentleman in Moscow is a kind, witty, compassionate, and informative glimpse of thirty-two years in the lives of a cast of engaging characters in a hotel in Moscow.  It would be a disservice to the reader to reveal any more of its delectable plot. From its witty beginning to its artful ending, this novel is sure to please.

Rating: 5 stars   

Category: Fiction, Grandma’s Pot Roast, Dessert, Pigeon Pie, Super Nutrition, Book Club

Publication date: September 6, 2016

Author Website: http://www.amortowles.com/

Read an Excerpt: http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/311564/a-gentleman-in-moscow-by-amor-towles/9780670026197/

An Interview with the Author: http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/profiles/article/70864-banished-to-luxury-amor-towles.html

Q & A with the Author: http://www.amortowles.com/gentleman-moscow-amor-towles/gentleman-moscow-qa-amor-towles/

What Others are Saying:

Kirkus Reviews: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/amor-towles/a-gentleman-in-moscow/

Publishers Weekly: http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-670-02619-7

Shelf Awareness: http://www.shelf-awareness.com/issue.html?issue=2806#m33287

In his remarkable first novel, the best-selling Rules of Civility, Towles etched 1930s New York in crystalline relief. Though set a world away in Moscow over the course of three decades, his latest polished literary foray into a bygone era is just as impressive… —Booklist