Subscribe via RSS Feed

Category: Biographies

Review: Catherine the Great by Robert K. Massie

[ 12 ] January 31, 2012
VN:F [1.9.13_1145]
Rating: 0 (from 0 votes)

Reviewed by Colleen Turner

I remember, like many people I am sure, briefly reading about Catherine the Great and her unique place in Russian history while in school, smashed together with so many other historical figures. But who was she really, and what experiences lead her to become such a dynamic woman and leader? Robert K. Massie does a wonderful job giving us a well rounded, complete history of not only this unique persona but the people, country and world around her from her birth into a German family of minor nobility in 1729 to her death as empress of Russia in 1796.

While it is impossible to discuss all aspects of this rather large tome (the book tips the scales at over 600 pages), it is important to note that the author not only highlights the political, religious and professional aspects of this sovereign but gives us a clear view of who Catherine was as a woman and what shaped her decisions in every avenue of life.

Raised under her mother’s ambitious wings and without much familial affection, Catherine was shuttled off to Russia at fourteen to become the wife of Peter Ulrich of Holstein, the designated heir for the current Empress Elizabeth of Russia. Catherine was excited to escape her unhappy childhood and ambitious for how high her star might rise. What she faced, however, was a man-child of a husband who preferred military toys and humiliation to showing his young bride any love, and an empress who kept her isolated and lonely. She had been brought to Russia for one purpose: to produce an heir to the throne. Since her marriage remained unconsummated for nine years, this was not an easy task.

Catherine sought passion, companionship and happiness with twelve lovers over her lifetime (three of which are believed to have fathered her three children and one of which played a key part in bringing her to the throne) but power struggles, jealousies and an inability to balance her personal life with her role in society made it impossible for Catherine to find the love she had so often sought.

It wasn’t until Empress Elizabeth died and Peter became Emperor in her place that Catherine was able to glimpse how her many years of loneliness and abasement at their hands would come to an end. Her intelligence, humor, grace and compassion endeared her to the nobility, church, military and the vast Russian population, all of whom were angered by the changes made by Peter III, and a coup successfully placed Catherine II on the throne as Empress in her own right. While Catherine’s thirty-four years as Empress faced difficulties such as war, disease, religious conflicts and the horrific issues of serfdom and peasant uprisings, she also worked to establish a world of Enlightenment with improvements in tolerance and justice, medicine, education and the arts. While she refused to rule alongside anyone (including her son and heir) she did establish herself, to the best of her abilities, as a “benevolent despot” and took her role as mother of the Russian people to heart. She loved her adopted people and did her best to leave Russia a better place than she came to at fourteen.

While historical non-fiction can so often come across as dry, boring and riddled with excessive facts not necessary to the key topics of the book, I didn’t find this to be an issue with Catherine the Great. I won’t say for a minute that this is a quick and easy read (there is simply too much information to declare that) but I will say that the book flows well and is organized in a way that never made me feel bogged down in the facts. If you take the time and savor the experience, you should come away from this book feeling satisfied that you thoroughly know one of the greatest women in history.

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

Colleen lives in Tampa, Florida with her husband, son, their dog Oliver and their fish Finn. When not working or taking care of her family she has her nose stuck in a book (and, let’s face it, often when she is working or taking care of her family as well). Nothing excites her more than discovering a new author to obsess over or a hidden jewel of a book to worship.

Review copy was provided free of any obligation by Random House. No monetary or any other form of compensation was received.

View Post

Review: Death in the City of Light by David King

[ 7 ] January 29, 2012
VN:F [1.9.13_1145]
Rating: +3 (from 3 votes)

Reviewed by Lauren Cannavino

The amount of research and time needed to construct high-quality historical non-fiction must be staggering and author David King did an excellent job of producing an intriguing, in-depth book.

The story of the shadowy and twisted life and crimes of Dr. Marcel Petiot in Nazi-occupied Paris is detailed, thorough and dark. King mixes police information, conversations, recollections and actual case-related documents to tell the tale. Dr. Petiot used the ruse of a French Resistance escape route to lure victims to his home and dispose of them, while hoarding their clothing and keeping their riches. Once discovered, his victim count continued to rise and his twisted mental state and behavior would become exposed over a long period of time.

Police were called to a home at 21 rue Le Sueur after reports of a heavy and pungent smoke coming from the building. When the police arrived and entered, they were immediately faced with charred human remains, suitcases, scattered clothing and a strange room that resembles a torture chamber. When it was discovered that Marcel Petiot was the owner of the home, the search for the doctor began. What unfolded was a search that involved the Resistance, family members of Petoit, the Gestapo, local authorities and the underlings of Paris.

Petiot, while not mentally stable, was quick, very intelligent and created a story and an escape that made his capture hard to come by. His victim count was potentially over one hundred and when he was finally apprehended, the trial of the doctor was sensational. The details that were revealed were extremely sinister and often hard to believe, especially when the dark past of Petiot’s life came out. As a reader, I could only wonder how he had evaded arrest for so long, at any point of his life.

Death in the City of Light: The Serial Killer of Nazi-Occupied Paris is a well-researched and exciting book that focuses on a dark event within an already dark period of time. King does a nice job of filling in tiny details, names and places without becoming boring or tedious with his descriptions. King was also able to compile a lot of information into a fast-paced narrative that never seemed to lag or read like a textbook.

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

Lauren Cannavino is a graduate student, freelance writer, wine lover, and avid reader. Random musings can be found over at www.goldiesays.com.

Review copy was provided free of any obligation by Crown. No monetary or any other form of compensation was received.

View Post

Review: Pearl Buck in China by Hilary Spurling

[ 4 ] September 29, 2011
VN:F [1.9.13_1145]
Rating: 0 (from 0 votes)

Reviewed by Nina Longfield

Pearl Buck in China: Journey to The Good Earth by Hilary Spurling is an extraordinary review of a remarkable woman’s life. Pearl Buck was a woman who knew world leaders and artists. She advocated for equal and civil rights. She introduced the western world to the dying Imperial China of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Yet, in our modern world, the works of Pearl Buck are nearly forgotten. It is within the pages of Pearl Buck in China that Spurling reintroduces Pearl S. Buck in a fresh, sometimes fierce, scope. Spurling reminds us that Buck wrote several dozen books, she won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel (The Good Earth) in 1932, and she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1938.

It is in rural China, a place untouched by western missionaries at the time, that Pearl Buck’s life and subsequent career formed its foundation. Spurling’s Pearl Buck in China delves into Buck’s existence in China from Buck’s toddler years to her early adulthood. Spurling writes that “(Buck’s) own bestsellers combine hypnotic elements of fantasy and wish fulfillment with glimpses of more disturbing truths secreted beneath the romantic formulae, and occasionally disrupting it.”

It is in this dreamlike ether that Spurling gives new life to Pearl Buck’s life and career; yet, within the hypnotic elements, Spurling also displays the secreted truths. We, the reader, are shown a little blond child collecting the bones of throwaway female infants and burying them as she had witnessed at official Chinese burials. There is the constant reminder of Buck being different than her neighbors; she is spat on and called demon simply because of her blond hair and blue eyes. Buck flees revolutions with little more than her life. All these elements remained buried with her until they began to emerge through her varying written works.

Spurling’s writing is well structured, clean and engaging. She seems to have thoroughly researched her subject as she correlates Buck’s life with those of Buck’s written creations. Spurling shows how stories and storytelling encompassed Pearl Buck’s life from infancy and through her adult years. It was through stories that Buck could forget her troubles and reinvent herself. “She [Buck] said that every one of her own novels included a character who was a version of herself, and that her imaginary world of dreams, projections, and fictional presences came to seem to her as substantial as the real world.”

Within Pearl Buck in China, Buck is drawn as a multifaceted character imbued with significance. I suppose it’s the mark of a good biography that has me reading the subject’s (Buck’s) works once more.

Rating: 5/5

Nina Longfield is a writer living in Oregon’s fertile wine country. When she is not reading or writing in her spare time, Nina enjoys hiking in the hills surrounding her cabin.

Review copy was provided free of any obligation by Simon & Schuster. No monetary or any other form of compensation was received.

View Post

Review: The Murder of a Medici Princess by Caroline Murphy

[ 6 ] September 25, 2011
VN:F [1.9.13_1145]
Rating: 0 (from 0 votes)

Reviewed by Colleen Turner

On August 31st, 1542, Isabella de Medici was born to Cosimo de Medici and Eleonora di Toledo, the Duke and Duchess of Florence, Italy. Born the third of eleven children to this power couple she would be the undisputed apple of her father’s eye. For while he was a brutal and vicious politician he was also a devoted and loving husband and father. He would stop at nothing to ensure the relative happiness and advancement of his children and the Medici name.

As happens with all high ranking women of the time, she was married off to Paulo Giordano Orsini on September 3rd, 1558, a political move that would link the powerful, relatively new Medici to the old and established Orsini clan. Paulo was a spendthrift with cruel undertones and was more than happy to have the rich and powerful Duke Cosimo as his father-in-law. On Isabella’s part, she used her father’s control over Paulo to spend as much time away from her husband, ensconced in Rome, and with her beloved father and favored brother, Giovanni, in Florence. Paulo was left with little room to complain about the fact that he was not the ruler of his own wife. As long as he wished to receive benefits from Cosimo, he would have to deal with this stab at his manhood. This was, however, the seed of undoing for Isabella.

In 1562 Isabella’s mother and two of her brothers, Giovanni included, died in close succession. Devastated by her loss and without her constant companion to keep her wildness better contained, Isabella sought out the entertainments and intimacy she had had with Giovanni in other outlets. While she became the first lady of Florence upon the death of her mother, she also established herself as quite the party girl. She began an affair with Troilo Orsini, Paulo’s cousin, a brave, handsome cavalier much like the men from the tales she grew up loving. He was as different from the corpulent and cruel Paulo as can be, and they continued on as semi-secret lovers until her death.

Duke Cosimo de Medici died in 1574, leaving Isabella defenseless from the new Duke of Florence, her brother Francesco, and her own husband. With little love lost between the siblings, she could not count on her brother to support her wishes as her father had done. As she was raised to love life and pleasure and not to calculate for survival, she did not see how set her brother was on ending the scandal he believed she, and other female family members, brought to the Medici name. She did not see, when her husband convinced her to go on a hunting trip to the Tuscan countryside, the demise that awaited her. For the Duke had opened the door for Paulo to finally take his vengeance on Isabella, the woman he believed had made him look like a fool. He took her life on July 16th, 1576, by most accounts strangling her while her retinue was barred from the room.

Murder of a Medici Princess, while interesting, had some of the same downsides I have found in numerous works of nonfiction. It included information that I found unnecessary to the plot (such as the monetary amount of items, the distance between places, etc.) as well as a lot of information about the Medici that didn’t have anything to do with Isabella’s story. The political and historical accounts of Italy and its many families was, while intriguing in its own right, distracting from the main point of the story: Isabella and her eventual murder.

The actual moment of climax was quite disappointing as well, with the discovery of her murder being announced through a letter sent from Francesco to Paulo. All that being said the author’s style of writing was enjoyable and easy to follow which can be difficult with the onslaught of names, dates and locations inherent in nonfiction. If you like historical nonfiction, Murder of a Medici Princess is definitely worth reading. If you prefer the embellishment of fiction, you might skip this for a novel counterpart.

Rating: 3/5

Colleen lives in Tampa, Florida with her husband, son and pet fish. When not working or taking care of her family she has her nose stuck in a book (and, let’s face it, often when she is working or taking care of her family as well). Nothing excites her more than discovering a new author to obsess over or a hidden jewel of a book to worship.

Review copy was provided free of any obligation by Oxford University Press. No monetary or any other form of compensation was received.

View Post

Review: Ask Me Why I Hurt by Dr. Randy Christensen

[ 4 ] August 31, 2011
VN:F [1.9.13_1145]
Rating: 0 (from 0 votes)

Reviewed by Alyssa Katanic

“Wow!” That was my first reaction to Dr. Randy Christensen’s autobiography, Ask Me Why I Hurt. For so many of us, the life of a homeless teenager (and what brought them to homelessness) is far beyond our worst imaginings. I admit, when I picked up this book I half expected a somewhat triumphal read detailing the fairytale endings they were able to reach. Let’s just say that the reality is definitely more towards the grim and does not always end with a “happily ever after” … but, sometimes it does.

Ask Me Why I Hurt is an eye-opening read on many different levels. The most obvious is the work of Dr. Christensen and his crew on the “Big Blue Bus” (the Crews’n Healthmobile) with the homeless teens of the Phoenix, Arizona area. Dr. Christensen also gives us a very personal glimpse into the real life of a doctor/husband/father: how he views his work, the time and emotion it requires, and the effects of that on his relationship with his wife and children. He is very candid and the transparency is refreshing.

Many of the stories of the teens with whom Dr. Christensen works are emotionally hard to get through. Their daily lives, and the childhood events that lead them there, will blow you away and leave you with a deeper understanding and compassion for them and those like them in your area. I am sure that Ask Me Why I Hurt is still just the tip of the iceberg, as far as what these children, and many like them, go through. I would not say, however, that it was emotionally draining to read. Instead, it stirs up the desire to love those around us, protect them, and look for ways to reach out to others. At the end of the book, Dr. Christensen includes a list of organizations through which you can do just that.

Rating: 5/5

Alyssa is a wife and stay at home, homeschooling mother of five, with two boxers, two cats, a soft shelled turtle named after Bob the Builder, and 7 frogs (admittedly a homeschooling project gone froggy). In all her spare time, she loves to read and believes that there is no such thing as having too many books!

Review copy was provided free of any obligation by Broadway. No monetary or any other form of compensation was received.

View Post

Review: Machiavelli by Miles Unger

[ 3 ] August 24, 2011
VN:F [1.9.13_1145]
Rating: 0 (from 0 votes)

Reviewed by F. Scott

Machiavelli was a nice guy—really, he was. Or so says Miles Unger in his Machiavelli. Oh, sure, Niccolò (1469–1527) left his wife home with the six kids for very long stretches while on his diplomatic missions, but at least he had dinner with the family before going whoring in town when back in Florence. But he was no different than other men of his generation—layman or cleric . . . or pope.

Unger, whose main qualification for writing a book on THE founder of modern thought seems to be that he lived in Florence for “several years” (and wrote a book on Lorenzo de’ Medici), is intent on rescuing the reputation of the political philosopher thought to be downright evil by many, then and now. He should have, I think, stuck with Machiavelli’s life and stayed away from his writings. One or the other.

We get the historical context of Florence and Italy in the 15th and 16th centuries from Unger, and what we learn is that Machiavelli was a second-rate bureaucrat (Second Chancellor) in a third-rate power, Florence, living within a rather confusing and crazy place called Italy. By the time Machiavelli comes on the scene in 1498, Florence is only hanging on by the skin of its florin, which does have some influence in Italy and with foreign invaders. The courts he visits treat him and his city as near nonentities. Amazing to know that despite this status, Florence gave us the likes of Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael (I know, I know, the last was originally from Urbino).

Unger tells us that we don’t know much about Niccolò before he turned 28—so why not just start there? The book could easily have started on page 71 when the young man takes his post in the Florentine government. But what I found very interesting is that Machiavelli took it upon himself to recruit and train a citizen army—he often warns against using mercenaries in his writings—and then successfully leads them against the archrival Pisa.

Unger writes as if he were given a minimum word count. He repeats himself much too much. Yes, I see, I get it already—Machiavelli was a realist, a hardnosed guy who learned his politics in the trenches of real life in the midst of the most powerful men (and women) in Italy. Not like those previous, pie-in-the-sky political philosophers of yore, such as Plato and Aristotle. But worse than the repetition is that Unger thinks this is what sets the author of The Prince and Discourses apart from his predecessors. I say, no, Machiavelli presents us with a radical new interpretation, not of the world, but of the ancient texts themselves.

Unger does get a lot of things right, however. But the book should have, could have been about one hundred pages shorter. (Can someone tell me what editors do these days?) The best parts of Machiavelli involve quotes from the evil one himself.

Beside the also repetitious (and annoying) use of “while”—please, people, what’s wrong with “although” these days?—Unger, although he cites some very good works in his bibliography, does not seem up to the task of interpreting Machiavelli’s thought. On page 232 he makes an error too big to be ignored. Unger claims that it wasn’t just Machiavelli who “gave aid and comfort to tyrants,” but Aristotle and Aquinas did it too. In my scholarly opinion, I have to say: “No freakin’ way, man!”

Rating: 3/5

F. Scott holds a PhD in political philosophy, has lived in Rome, visited Florence, and studied lots of Machiavelli with pleasure (even though he really is evil).

Review copy was provided free of any obligation by Simon & Schuster. No monetary or any other form of compensation was received.

View Post

Review: The Dressmaker of Khair Khana by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon

[ 8 ] August 19, 2011
VN:F [1.9.13_1145]
Rating: 0 (from 0 votes)

Reviewed by Alyssa Katanic

Imagine that a new government immediately takes over your state and informs you that women are no longer to work, attend formal education, be seen in public without a head to toe covering and a related male chaperone, and must not communicate with any male outside of their own families. I am not sure that our own experiences and culture would even allow our brains to begin to rightly imagine such a dramatic change in lifestyle, but The Dressmaker of Khair Khana portrays a true story of women from Kabul, Afghanistan who experienced just that. Overnight, their lives change from a largely westernized lifestyle to one of seclusion from society. Many families were, therefore, left without providers for the family, as widows were not permitted to work and many young men had to leave their families in order to escape forced service to, or death by, the Taliban.

After weeks of being shut up at home, shut out of pursuing her education and career, and having to part with her father, mother, and one of her brothers, Kamila Sidiqi was faced with finding a way to provide for her many younger sisters and brother.  Through the challenge, this brave and strong-willed young lady became an entrepreneur who provided employment and hope, not only for her own family, but for her community as well.

The Dressmaker of Khair Khana by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon is a well-written account of life suddenly taken under Taliban control. It gives an exceptional picture of how fear-filled such a life is and what a difference one brave, quick-minded woman can make. The dressmakers accepted the restrictions placed on them and excelled despite them. They are truly inspiring.

There is so much depth to Lemmon’s The Dressmaker of Khair Khana that it is a must read!

Rating: 5/5

Alyssa is a wife and stay at home, homeschooling mother of five, with two boxers, two cats, a soft shelled turtle named after Bob the Builder, and 7 frogs (admittedly a homeschooling project gone froggy). In all her spare time, she loves to read and believes that there is no such thing as having too many books!

Review copy was provided free of any obligation by Harper. No monetary or any other form of compensation was received.

View Post

Review: Blind by Belo Miguel Cipriani

[ 8 ] August 12, 2011
VN:F [1.9.13_1145]
Rating: 0 (from 0 votes)

Reviewed by Amanda Allalunis

When Belo was a young, homosexual teenager growing up in East San Jose, CA, his like-minded, yet morally questionable friends were his lifeline and his closest confidants. But when Belo outgrew the rough crowd, went to college and began his life as a successful man, his old childhood friends grew bitter and vindictive. One evening in the spring of 2007, Belo’s longtime friends brutally attacked him, leaving him damaged and in a world of total darkness for the rest of his life.

Blind: A Memoir is a riveting account of Bello’s life after the attack. It is an inspiring example of courage, perseverance, and the change that hard work and technology has made in his life and that of thousands of others.

From the moment I opened this book, I was completely drawn into Belo’s story. It has been a long time since a book has reached out and grabbed me the way Blind did, and to me it was an amazing feeling. Cipriani writes like a poet. His sentence structure and story lines are, for the most part, very simple yet elegant and somehow complex at the same time. He manages to convey an extremely personal and obviously traumatizing true story about his life without an overabundance of self pity or anger, and yet he also connects to the reader on a deeply personal level, almost from the first word he writes.

Every once in a while I would run across an awkward sentence or an abrupt change in the story’s timeline, but even those brief moments of distraction –which would usually be enough to completely steal my focus in a book – only added to the charm and honesty that emanated through every page in the book. I would recommend Belo’s story to anyone, it has been a long time since I’ve found a book as simple yet compelling as Blind and I’m sure it will be a long time before I find another.

Rating: 5/5

Amanda is mommy, freelance writer, and blogger in her spare time. If you like this review, be sure to check out the blog at Giveaway Blogdom or take a minute to read her most recent article on Childhood Vaccinations.

Review copy was provided free of any obligation by Author Marketing Experts. No monetary or any other form of compensation was received.

Related Posts with Thumbnails
View Post
Page 1 of 512345

Page optimized by WP Minify WordPress Plugin