Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford 4

 

"Time and space is a hard one to deal with, let me tell you. Moving all the way up here from the South, I can testify to that one. People relations is hard business. Hard to keep that going. But don't give up, something good will come of it all---things have a way of working out just fine, you'll see."      -Sheldon Thomas, advice to Henry

In 1986, Henry Lee learns of a discovery in the old Panama Hotel, a Seattle landmark: abandoned belongings of Japanese families evacuated back in 1942. Henry is grieving the recent loss of his wife, Ethel, and reminiscing about a beloved friend of his youth, Keiko Okabe, a Japanese American. There is a souvenir of that long ago relationship that Henry feels may be in that collection in the hotel and he has a great desire to find it.

The story is told in a split narrative, past and present. In 1942, Henry, a Chinese American boy, and Keiko meet as scholarship students in a white school. They both work in the kitchen to earn their tuition, and both are bullied. They become very close and when Keiko's family is relocated after Pearl Harbor, Henry is devastated. They promise to wait for each other and write letters. And Henry's good friend, Sheldon, a sax player takes him to the internment camp in Idaho to visit her.

They lose touch over 40+ years, each moving on with their lives. And I will let you predict the ending or read the book to find out.

The book was well-researched, a sad reminder of an ugly time in American history, but I enjoyed it all the same. My rating is 4. I learned some things about Asian cultures and I liked the characters, Henry, Keiko and Sheldon, and even Henry's once-estranged son, Marty.

The Wager A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann 3

 

"No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned."

         -Samuel Johnson

In 1740 during a war with Spain, the HMS Wager with several other ships, left Portsmouth on a mission to capture a treasure laden Spanish galleon. The subtitle of the book provides more than a hint to the outcome. 

While attempting to sail around Cape Horn, an area known for dangerous weather, Wager is badly damaged and runs aground near Patagonia. The crew, greatly diminished by scurvy and starvation, lapses into anarchy. Captain David Cheap is seen as a tyrant, blamed for the wreckage and accused of murder, which brings on a mutiny led by the gunner, Bulkely and others.

After 5 years a small percentage of those sent out have returned to England in a few different groups. The survivors of one group are casting blame on the others and a court martial is held in 1746.

I didn't particularly enjoy The Wager but I found it interesting enough to rate it a 3. I read Killers of the Flower Moon by this author a couple of years ago and gave it a 4; a more relatable story to me but one that made me angry and sad.

I learned a few things about sailing in the 18th century that I didn't know like why British  sailors are referred to as "limeys," how the ship was known as a "wooden world," where the expression "under the weather" originated and the meaning of "walk up Ladder Lane and down Hemp Street" (to face hanging as punishment).

There were many quotes for me to choose from, the one I began with and this from Herman Melville: "Impracticable Cape! You may approach it from this direction or that---in any way you please---from the east or from the west; with the wind astern, or abeam, or on the quarter; and still Cape Horn is Cape Horn....Heaven help the sailors, their wives and their little ones."

I would recommend this nonfiction to readers who have experience sailing the ocean.