The Secret War of Julia Child by Diana R. Chambers 3

 

"I'm just fumbling my way through like everyone else, trying to do my best. One thing I learned---well, two things: Work hard. And never give up."

       -Julia's advice to Trixie, from the novel

I began reading this book thinking it was a biography and not until the Author's Note did I know for sure it is a work of fiction. But A Conversation with the Author, the Credits and Acknowledgements made it clear the author had done mountains of research to make this part of Julia's story as authentic as possible. 

A good portion of this book was over my head and other parts were confusing. There are so many acronyms for WWII, the author included a dictionary at the beginning to define them, for example OSS, FANY, SEAC, SACO, WRENS and several others. I don't read many spy novels, making this more challenging reading. There were so many characters, I almost gave up trying to keep track of who's who.

Julia McWilliams aspired to be a writer in her youth but ended up with the highest clearance working for the OSS in exotic (and dangerous) places like Ceylon, India and China. She is described in various places and by different people to be strong, resilient, intelligent, organized, dogged and ambitious. Reading this, it is hard not to be impressed, and she certainly managed to survive a few life-threatening incidents. 

I wondered if I wanted to keep reading when Julia's future husband, Paul Child, appeared. They didn't like each other at first, so I had to continue to find out how they eventually connected. I am rating the book a 3 since I liked it enough to finish and I learned a lot but didn't enjoy it immensely.

The Wind Knows My Name by Isabel Allende 5

 

"But no crying. We have to be good. No, we're not lost. The wind knows my name. And yours too. Everyone knows where we are. I'm here with you and you know where I am. See? There's nothing to be scared about. Mama will be able to find us; she just has to call and ask Miss Selena or Tita Edu. We don't have to worry about the guardian angel either. She always knows where we are and she never goes too far away."      -Anita to her sister Claudia

I chose this book because I thought I had enjoyed another novel by this author but in looking at a list of her work, I saw nothing familiar. According to her bio she is known for magical realism, a genre that I don't always like. In this novel, it worked for me because it came in the form of imaginings of a traumatized child, her escape in a very real way. I've rated the book a 5.

This novel spans time and place by presenting the stories of Samuel Adler, sent as a Jewish child from Vienna in 1938 to London to avoid the Nazis and Anita Nogales, a 7-year-old blind girl brought from El Salvador by her mother and separated by the heartless U.S. immigration policy in 2019 of taking children from parents.

Anita's story reminded me of We Are Not From Here by Jenny Torres Sanchez about young people making their way north after fleeing a horrendous situation in Guatemala and trying to survive very dangerous situations to get to the U.S.

Other characters important to the plot are Selena Duran, a social worker who becomes very involved with Anita's predicament and Frank Angileri, a lawyer recruited by Selena to help with the needed legal work.

I loved how the two immigration stories are compared and contrasted and how Anita's story is woven into Samuel's. It was interesting being reminded of the onset of COVID 19 restrictions and the author reflects negatively on President Trump's first term because of his treatment of the pandemic AND his cruel immigration policies.

Amos Fortune free man by Elizabeth Yates 4

 

"You'd set all the world free if you could, wouldn't you, Amos?"    Violet

"Just the part of it that I can touch. That's all any man can do."     Amos

This book won the coveted Newberry Medal in 1951 so I knew it would be special. It was written for youth, but the story is universal. I am not exactly sure of the genre---biography, maybe fictionalized? It is based on an actual man who became known as Amos Fortune.

At-mun was prince of the At-mun-shi people in Africa when he was kidnapped and sold into slavery in Boston as a 15-year-old. Fortunately, he was chosen by a Quaker man who treated him kindly. Renamed Amos by his owners, he learned quickly, worked very hard and rose above his sad beginnings. He would finally purchase his freedom at age 60 and then proceeded to save his earnings to purchase two wives who did not live long and a third, Violet, along with her daughter, Celyndia, who became a great support in their home in Jaffrey, NH. 

Amos became a very well-known tanner and was respected by the community in spite of the prejudice toward blacks at the time. He continued to buy freedom for and help many people before he died at the ripe old age of 91. (Illustrated by the quoted conversation above.)

An inspiring story of resilience and generosity! Rating: 4

Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene 1

"Hateread--to endure a book in order to write a scathing review." I recently learned this term from Dictionary.com. Sadly, that is what I was doing while reading Our Man in Havana. I believe I read another novel by this author years ago and liked it. This one however was awful. I read some 40% and had no idea what was going on! I decided life is too short to keep reading a book I hated. A rating of 1. (You may notice I found no quote worth sharing!)

While looking for an image to include I saw a summary. Maybe if I had read that ahead of time the story would have made more sense, but I doubt it!

Heartwood by Amity Gaige 4

 

"Some lost people don't have the skills but instead they have something else. I don't know what to call it. Heart. They survive because of their love of life or of the dear ones in their mind. They stay present. They keep their eyes open. Often when these people are rescued, they report feeling a sense of wonder out there. For the moments they had left. For the privilege of being alive at all."         

           -Lt. Bev Miller, from the novel

Heartwood is the Page Turners' May selection. I am not sure I would have selected it, but it was a page turner, a fast-paced thriller. I am giving it a 4 rating.

Three main characters alternate their experiences in moving the plot. Lt. Beverly Miller is the Maine State Game Warden in charge of the search for a missing woman who has disappeared from the Maine portion of the Appalachian Trail. It is a race against time to rescue her.

The missing woman is Valerie Gillis who is writing a letter to her mother which is actually like a diary. She was to meet her husband at a certain location but failed to show up. A member of the "tramily" (trail family) had to leave her and she is alone and lost and without means of communication.

Lena Kucharski is a 76-year-old woman living at Cedarfield Active Life Plan Community in Connecticut when she finds news of the missing woman and becomes fixated on the search. I found her interesting because I am close to her age and live in such a community. She writes about her scooter, the slowness of her neighbors (She wishes for a fast lane.), ladies who are into jigsaw puzzles and other things I see quite often where I live.

It was rather fascinating how the stories of all three women come together. The one thing I didn't like was the somewhat choppy writing style.

At first, I had a hard time getting into this story. I am not a true outdoor person so 'lost in the woods" is something I find hard to imagine. My husband, on the other hand, once dreamed of hiking the AT, as it is called in the book. I fondly remember reading My Side of the Mountain when I was teaching 5th grade. Lt. Miller mentions having read the novel in her youth.

I wonder what our group will have to say about Heartwood.

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans 4

 

"If all of this amounts to you as nothing more than drivel, then you might also consider a simpler value of the written letter, which is, namely, that reaching out in correspondence is really one of the original forms of civility in the world, the preservation of which has to be of some value we cannot yet see. The WRITTEN WORD, Mr. Watts. The written word in black and white. It is letters. It is books. It is law. It's all the same. I had some notion of this from as far back in my life as I can remember, and I've been writing letters out into the world since I could form a sentence with a pen (age nine).

                    -Sybil Van Antwerp, from the novel

The Correspondent was highly recommended to me by a close friend, and I had seen it near the top of the Best Seller list for quite some time, so I figured it had to be special. This was the third book I have read lately in the epistolary style; the plot is revealed in letters written by and to the main character.

In 2012, Sybil Van Antwerp is turning 73 and experiencing a vision problem that will ultimately leave her blind. She is a divorcee, a retired attorney, an avid reader and prolific letter writer, thus the title. She is also wrestling with guilt from events in her past.

She writes letters, emails, and notes to, and receives responses from, her brother, her best friend, her neighbor, a suitor, a young man she is mentoring, and favorite authors, among others. It is fascinating to see how an author can establish a plot purely through correspondence. I am rating the book a 4. I loved the references to authors and books, some of which were familiar to me. I could empathize with Sybil since I am near her age and suffering my own infirmities. I thought it was not realistic that so many people in the 2000's would be writing letters, especially a next-door-neighbor. It does seem like a lost art, which is somewhat unfortunate.

Sinning Like a Christian by William H. Willimon 4

 

"If I were making a list of Deadly Sins, Greed would be at the top of my list. Maybe this is just personal, or maybe it is the result of living in this society. We tell the world that we go to war in the Mideast to bring freedom and democracy, whereas much of the world is convinced it's all about oil. Greed has a way of turning everything that's gold into dross. As James Ogilvy says, 'Greed turns love into lust, leisure into sloth, hunger into gluttony, honor into pride, righteous indignation into anger, and admiration into envy. If it weren't for greed, we would suffer fewer of the other vices.'"

       -from Sinning Like a Christian

Our pastors chose this book to inspire a series of Lenten studies. Since I would not be attending the classes, I purchased the book and took my time reading it, maybe a chapter a week. I found it easy to read, very interesting, even enjoyable. My rating is 4. The author shows his considerable knowledge of the Bible, quoting scripture as well as a number of theologians and philosophers on the subject of sin. He presents his commentary in a non-preachy, unthreatening way, He frequently includes some humor, often self-deprecating.

The subtitle of the book is A New Look at the 7 Deadly Sins. I liked the quote above because it lists all the 7 Willimon covers and shows how Greed is often the root cause of the other 6. I regret I didn't get to attend the classes at church to see how it was presented.