Die Hard Cardinal Fan

Stan Musial: An American Life   by George Vecsey

In 1999, the Commissioner of Baseball Bud Selig decided to try a marketing ploy to create fan excitement, involvement and participation. Baseball fans were asked to vote on the top 25 players of the twentieth century. Selig did anticipate there would be some significant players from the past that would be overlooked, so he did set up a panel of experts to rectify any oversights.

One of the most glaring oversights was the omission of Stan Musial from the St. Louis Cardinals.  Musial, a first ballot Hall of Famer and widely considered in baseball circles to be one of the greatest hitters in baseball history, is perhaps the most underrated athlete of all time.  Sports journalist and writer, George Vecsey, with his recent book (2011) Stan Musial: An American Life, sets out to correct this oversite and give Musial his due as one of the greats in baseball.

This book was fairly well timed, because in less than two years, baseball and the city of St. Louis, would be mourning the passing of one of its greatest ballplayers.  On January 19, 2013 at the age of 92, Stan the Man Musial passed away.  Vecsey uses this biography to illustrate what a great player and person Stan Musial was. Vecsey really doesn't spend much time talking about specific games or Musial's play in the field.  Instead  he tells Musial's life story through the remembrances of those who played beside, worked with, and covered “Stan the Man” over the course of his nearly seventy years in the national spotlight.  Vecsey equates the quiet, dignified and gentlemanly way Musial conducted his life to the fact he is often underrated and overlooked when discussing baseball greats.

But consider these statistics and ask yourself if Stan the Man doesn't belong in the top tier of great baseball players.  During his long career (1941-1963) with the St. Louis Cardinals, Stan Musial batted .331, amassed 3,630 hits, won three National League MVP awards, and was named to 24 All Star teams.  Definitely recommended for any die hard Cardinal fan, but also for any baseball lovers or afficionados.

Story of the First Encyclopedia

The Philosopher's Kiss by Peter Prange

Anyone who has followed this blog knows by now my love for historical fiction.  The amazing aspect of this work of historical fiction is how much of it is TRUE.  All of the characters in The Philosopher's Kiss are real.  This is the story of the development and creation of the first comprehensive encyclopedia.  For history buffs, the individual responsible for the creation and concept of developing a comprehensive book of knowledge, the acclaimed French Encyclopédie, is the French philosopher, Denis Diderot.

The story follows a young Sophie Volland (a historical figure about whom little is known).  There is a historical record that Diderot was in communication with a Sophie Volland. Since so little is known about Volland and her relationship to Diderot, Prange uses the character of Sophie to explore the conflict between the pursuit of secular knowledge that characterized the Enlightenment and the autocratic power of the Catholic Church and the French monarchy.  Diderot's concept of developing a bible-like encyclopedia, containing all "human knowledge", becomes a threat to the Catholic Church and their control over the citizenry and influence on the monarchy.  Diderot is quickly persecuted and the lives of everyone associated with the production of the encyclopedia, including such famous names as Voltaire and Rousseau, are in danger.  

This historic tale is compelling and well written, and Prange particularly brings Paris to vivid life, and what it was like to live at a time when expressing new ideas or espousing a different viewpoint could place your life in danger. (Come to think of it, has much really changed?  Back then they had the Bastille and the guillotine, today we have semi-automatic rifles and Guantanamo.)  This historical novel does make you think.

Unfortunately Sophie, his heroine, is less interesting than the supporting characters, particularly the king's mistress, Madame de Pompadour and the king's censor, Guillaume-Chrétien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes, who ultimately saves Diderot and the encyclopedia.  You will have to read the book to learn what happens to Malesherbes. 

More on the Dragon Tattoo

The Tattooed Girl: The enigma of Stieg Larsson & the secrets behind the most compelling thrillers of our time.

This book is a fascinating collection of stories and commentary.  John-Henri Holmberg, a Swedish author and close friend of Stieg Larsson for more than three decades, provides a unique insider’s look into the secrets of the author’s imaginative universe, his life, and his ideas for future books-including the mysterious “fourth book” in the series, which Larsson had started but not finished at the time of his death. 

Through insightful commentary and revealing interviews with other Swedish crime writers, you will enter the unique world of Lisbeth Salander, Mikael Blomkvist—and of Stieg Larsson himself. You will discover the fascinating real-life experiences and incidents involving Swedish politics, violence against women, and neo-Nazis that are at the heart of Larsson’s work.  Reading this book convinced me the literary world, and the world of investigative journalism, is going to sorely miss the work and writings of Stieg Larsson.  I only hope the "fourth book" in the Millennium trilogy will somehow find its way into Eva's hands, so that she can bring Stieg's world and story back to life. 

This book also proved to be a great source to learn about other writers of Swedish crime thrillers.  I have ended up purchasing a couple of additional titles of Swedish thrillers.  Any fan of the Millennium trilogy and eager to learn more about Stieg Larsson, should take the time to track this book down.  It will show you how even an interesting and well written nonfiction title can quickly absorb you.

A New Historical Thriller

The Yard  by Alex Grecian

"Nobody noticed when Inspector Christian Little of Scotland Yard disappeared, and nobody was looking for him when he was found."  

This is a great opening line for the start of a historical thriller. 

The Place:  Victorian London.  The date:  1889, Jack the Ripper's reign of terror is finally over.  However the city of London is not resting easily, since the Ripper was never apprehended.  Scotland Yard is scrambling to deal with the ever increasing murder rate in London, by establishing a "Murder Squad".  Since they were unsuccessful in tracking down "Saucy Jack", you might say the Yard is also dealing with a public relations problem in addition to the growing crime rate.  The people of London don't trust the police, and now someone is killing them. 

Grecian grabs your attention with that opening line, and does a fairly decent job of building suspense and introducing several interesting characters.  This is Alex Grecian's first novel, and he loses some of the suspense or it begins to lag, when he starts each subsequent chapter bouncing the reader from one central character to another.  This technique is necessary when you have several different strands to your plot, which need to be tied together at some point.  As an example, at the end of one chapter, the wife of the main character, Inspector Walter Day, is found by her cleaning lady on the floor in her bedroom and is barely breathing.  The cleaning lady runs outside to find someone who will summon a doctor to the house.  The chapter ends with a description which leads you to believe she may have been assaulted by the murderer.  The incident occurs about half way through the book, but the reader does not learn what has happened to Day's wife until the end of the novel. 

However Grecian has done his research and many of the characters, Inspector Walter Day, Dr. Bernard Kingsley and Sir Edward Bradford are all based on real people in the annals of Scotland Yard.  Dr. Kingsley is based on the Yard's first forensic pathologist and Sir Bradford is the real name of a Scotland Yard Commissioner of Police, who introduced sweeping changes and innovations to the Yard.  Since I am a sucker for historical fiction, and I like the characters, I will be looking forward to Grecian's second novel with these characters, scheduled to come out in May 2013, entitled The Black Country.

Juliet by Ann Fortier

Juliet by Ann Fortier

This first novel by Ann Fortier transports you back to medieval Italy, but not to Verona, where Shakespeare chose to set his version of the tale of Romeo and Juliet.  Fortier takes us back to where the story actually took place...in Siena, Italy.  The story of Romeo and Juliet is based on the true tale of Romeo Marescotti and Giulietta Tolomei actually occurred in 1340 Siena.  And the feud between the Capulets and the Montagues is actually a feud between the contradas (neighborhoods) of the Tolomeis and the Salimbenis.

Having just visited Siena this past summer, the family names and the Siena locations in Fortier's novel are real.  Fortier does a marvellous job of weaving history and fiction together, and there are plenty of twists and turns in the story that will always keep you guessing.  In fact there were several occasions in which I exclaimed...WOW I didn't see that one coming.

American Julie Jacobs travels to Siena in search of her Italian heritage--and possibly an inheritance--only to discover she is descended from 14th-century Giulietta Tolomei.  Fortier sets up this plausible tale of Julie Jacobs and her twin sister Janice with the death of their Aunt and the reading of the will.  Julie and Janice went to live with their Aunt in the United States after their parents are supposedly killed in a car crash in Italy.  As Julie starts unraveling the mystery of her parents and her legacy, Fortier alternates chapters from present day mystery back to 1340 and actual tale of Romeo and Guilietta and the Salimbeni, Tolomeis and Marescotti families.

So if you are a fan of historical fiction, literary history, mystery and romance, you will love this story.

Supercapitalism

Supercapitalism by Robert Reich

Even though Reich wrote this book five years ago, it seems to be even more relevant today.  Supercapitalism, according to Reich, refers to a totally deregulated economy, no holds barred approach where corporations pretty much control our government.  Reich shows how widening inequality of income and wealth, greater job insecurity, and corporate corruption are merely the logical results of a system in which politicians are more beholden to the influence of business lobbyists than to the voters who elected them. 

Reich contends deregulation, weakening of worker's rights, globalization and greater competition has brought on this era of "supercapitalism".   In this era of social darwinism, those who seize their opportunities in highly competitive environments tend to survive and prosper. 

Even though this book was written three years before the U.S. Supreme Court decision "Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission," (2010) which basically declared corporations as people, Reich seems to have anticipated such a decision.  In the final chapters he frequently claims corporations are not people and cannot behave as people.  They can not determine between right and wrong or make moral decisions.  The corporation is only concerned with profit and if they can provide a return for their shareholders. 

Reich argues a clear separation of politics and capitalism is necessary in order to foster an enviroment in which both business and government thrive.  He states capitalism should be in the service of democracy, and not the other way around.  We are fast becoming a plutocracy under the current situation.  Money has too much influence on politics, resulting in politicians being more beholding to their donors than to their constituents.

The List

The List by Martin Fletcher

What was it like to have been one of the few Jews that managed to get out of Germany, Austria or Poland before the Nazis rolled in and took control?  This story, written as a novel by journalist and foreign correspondent Martin Fletcher, is basically a story about Fletcher's parents.  Fletcher incorporates his family's story into his narrative of a young Jewish family, Holocaust survivors, struggling to stay afloat in their adopted country of London, England.  This poignant and heart wrenching story opens in London with the celebration of Germany's surrender.  But the war does not end with VE Day for Georg and Edith, a newly married couple, anxiously hoping to start a family and a new life, while at the same time awaiting word on the fate of their loved ones.  They each keep a List of the names of their family members. 

As they struggle to start over, each day brings the anguish of no news about their family or confirmation of another family member or friend who was murdered in the Holocaust.  They tearfully cross off another name from their list.  Edith eventually gets word her beautiful cousin Anna has survived and will be coming to London.  But Anna's stay in Auschwitz has changed her beyond recognition.  Fletcher not only successfully recreates this world where the survivors are caught in limbo, but he also reopens a painful chapter in London history. 

While Edith and Georg struggle to rebuild their lives, they face the threat of a growing anti-semitism movement in London.  Englishmen are starting to resent the Jewish refugees taking homes and jobs, as their soldiers return home to unemployment and shortage of housing.  They want to expel the Jewish refugees and send them back to their home countries.  After Edith makes a speech at a meeting about repatriation petitions, Georg becomes a target for retribution. Their mysterious neighbor, Ismael, an Egyptian Arab living at the boarding house, steps in to protect Georg.  This introduces a whole new subplot with possibly deadly consequences for Georg, Edith and Anna.

This deeply touching novel explores the themes of hope, prejudice, loss and love. It is both a breathless thriller of postwar sabotage and a heartrending and historically accurate portrait of an almost forgotten era.  This is what is meant when they say a good book transports you to another time and place.