Killing Lincoln

I loved this history by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard about the assassination of President Lincoln. The authors do a wonderful job of driving the story, so it reads more like a novel. We all know the story of John Wilkes Booth assassinating Abe Lincoln, but I learned a great deal about how many others were involved, and also learned more about the players involved. I love the way the authors bring these very real characters to life.

I love historical fiction but I don't read a lot of historical non-fiction, but I thought the way O'Reilly and Dugard wrote this book made it feel like fiction. It's packed with information but it's never dry. If you're a fan of American history, and the Civil War era in particular, you do not want to pass on this book.

Thanks to Shari for the tip!

Killing Lincoln

The Birth of Venus

I really enjoyed this novel by Sarah Dunant about pampered teenager Alessandra Cecchi in 15th century Florence. The story and the characters are beautiful, intriguing, and I felt a real sense of the history of the period.

Alessandra is the daughter of a wealthy merchant, and she is beautiful, brilliant, and artistically talented. She's also rather naive. But when her parents marry her off to the much older Cristoforo, her eyes are opened to the wider world. Along the way she also finds herself drawn to the painter her parents hired to paint their chapel.

Meantime things in Florence are changing, from the lush life of the Medicis to the extreme piety of Savonarola. Alessandra and Cristoforo must do what they can to survive, and to be able to live life the way they want to live it.


The Birth of Venus

Outlander

Okay, so I realize this book is 20 years old, but I must have missed it back then because I don't remember reading it. And I think I would have remembered this 700-page, lose-yourself-in-it page-turner.

It's 1945, and English nurse Claire Beauchamp Randall is on a trip to Scotland with her husband following their separation during WWII. While there she walks through a standing stone and finds herself back in the Scotland of 1743 - a very different time. There she meets her husband's nasty ancestor Jonathan Randall, a likeable but suspicious bunch of MacKenzie's who take her under their collective wing, and a handsome young man named Jamie who offers a little something more.

I am a sucker for time-travel novels, particularly when the traveler goes back to some particularly interesting era of British history, and author Diana Gabaldon does it particularly well. The characters are really complex and likeable, and pretty realistic from my assessment. And the story just sweeps you up - it's really a page turner.

If you like British history with a little romance and fish-out-of-water thrown in, this is the novel for you. And apparently the first in a series... I just put the second one on hold at the library. That's a testament to how good these are - they're 20 years old and still on reserve!

Outlander

The Space Between Us

This is a really lovely, moving novel by Thrity Umrigar, about two women in modern-day India. Sera is a wealthy Parsi woman, and Bhima is her illiterate long-time servant. Umrigar tells the story from the perspective of both women, and in doing so shows how people's lives can be both very different and eerily similar at the same time.

Bhima has been Sera's servant forever, and they have seen each other through the hardships of each other's lives. Bhima has endured more than many women could - the betrayal of her husband, the death of her child, and the descent from the lower class into the life of the slum. But Sera has helped along the way, and has even paid to send Bhima's granddaughter to college, so that Maya will have a better life than her grandmother. Sera's life hasn't been easy, either, with a crazy, evil mother-in-law and an abusive husband, but Bhima has been there to nurse her through the pain, and Sera's daughter, Dinaz, views Bhima as almost a second mother.

But when something happens to come between the two families, we see who really is stronger, and we see who is more deserving of respect. It was a really great read - I couldn't put it down.

The Space Between Us

The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder

This is a really sweet book from Rebecca Wells, the author who brought the YaYa sisters to life. She does southern really well, and she's done it again with Calla Lily and her family and friends.

Calla Lily grows up in La Luna, Louisiana, in a loving family who are a little more free spirited than most people of the time, and who are the dancing and hair-styling center of their small community. Calla is born in 1953, and Wells really captures the next 30 or so years. When tragedy strikes, Calla uses the lessons her parents taught her, moving to New Orleans and beginning her adult life there.

As with the YaYa sisters, the characters are beautifully drawn and wonderfully charming. There isn't quite the story arc that there was for the YaYa's (and maybe that's why no one made a movie of this book yet), but I enjoyed moving through Calla's life with her, and meeting all of the interesting and engaging people she makes friends with. This is a really enjoyable, easy read.

I have to thank Rita again for the recommendation... great book!

The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder

Chasing Fire

Okay, I know I have my issues with Nora Roberts, but I really enjoyed this latest of her suspense novels. This is a book that even non-fans would probably enjoy.

Rowan Tripp - that's a chick - is a veteran Montana smoke-jumper, the daughter of legendary jumper Iron Man Tripp and a tough broad. Gulliver (Gull) Curry is a rookie jumper who catches Rowan's attention with his looks, ability, and charm. The fire season finds them dealing with not only fires, but a couple of murders, possible sabotage, and their burgeoning romance.

The murder mystery was okay - but I had a pretty good bead on who the murderer was pretty early on. The romance is great - these are two very likeable characters who aren't really like Roberts' other protagonists, particularly Rowan. And although some of the reviews thought Roberts went too deep into the fire-jumping stuff, I actually found that most enjoyable. Roberts obviously did a lot of research - and it would have been nice if she'd acknowledged who helped her (there wasn't anything in the Nook version) - and she really seemed to capture the experience of being a member of the elite "Zulie" smoke-jumpers.

This was a really enjoyable read - best Nora Roberts in a while.

Chasing Fire

The Cat's Table

I have to again thank Rita for a great book recommendation. This novel is by Michael Ondaatje, who wrote The English Patient. I never read that book, didn't see the movie either, but I may read it now since I enjoyed this novel so much.

Michael is an 11-year-old boy in the 1950's, traveling on a ship from Colombo, Sri Lanka to Great Britain. The story is about the experiences of Michael and his companions at the "cat's table" - the least important table on the ship. While there is some plot and story development, I would call this more of a "slice of time" novel, just telling what happens during those 3 weeks on board ship, and describing Michael's encounters with other shipmates and the friends he makes.

Towards the end there is some deeper explication of some of the things that happened on the ship, but what I enjoyed about the novel was the author's eloquence in capturing the boy's experiences, and his richly drawn characters. It really felt almost autobiographical, although Ondaatje makes it clear that it is not. But either way, it's just a really lovely book.

The Cat's Table