Review: King Peggy by Peggielene Bartels and Eleanor Herman (Feb 2012)

Posted on Monday, 23 Jan 2012 by Cozy Librarian

Subtitle: An American Secretary, Her Royal Destiny, and the Inspiring Story of How She Changed an African Village

At first, Peggy Bartels thought it was a joke. The 2008 phone call from her native Ghana delivered the news that she had been selected King of Otuam, an impoverished fishing village of a few thousand souls. There she was: a secretary in the Ghanaian embassy in Washington, D.C., an American citizen, the owner of a condo with a mortgage that was under water.

Otuam had been ruled by her late Uncle Joseph, so poor that Peggy sent him money every month to help him get by. The royal palace was in ruins and, as King Peggy soon found out, the council of elders that ruled the village was corrupt to its core. And the treasury had a zero balance. The financial burden of rehabbing the palace – required so as not to dishonor her ancestors – and giving the late King a spectacular funereal send-off would be on Peggy’s shoulders.

Leaving a trusted cousin in place as her regent while she returns to America, Peggy agonizes over how she is going to provide running water to her village, build a high school, fund a library – and pave the potholed roads. King Peggy is a story of her first two years as king.

Although the book blurb compared King to Alexander McCall Smith’s African detective Precious Ramotswe, King Peggy is in a category all by herself, one that she needn’t share with a fictional character. No, King Peggy is the real deal.

This book is definitely an autobiography, but it’s written in third person, which I found odd at first.  But King Peggy gives readers a snapshot of a culture that’s worlds away from ours in America. We may read about Africa in newspapers, see it on the news –King Peggy provides much more insight into the lives of ordinary Ghanaians, and the extraordinary life of one of its kings.

Review based on published-provided copy of King Peggy.

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Review: Hometown Appetites by Kelly Alexander and Cynthia Harris

Posted on Sunday, 22 Jan 2012 by Cozy Librarian

Subtitle: The Story of Clementine Paddleford, the Forgotten Food Writer Who Chronicled How America Ate

Born just before the turn of the last century, Clementine Paddleford graduated from college in her home state of Kansas, went to New York City to make her way as a writer, became a famous and accomplished newspaperwoman and expert on American regional cooking, died, and then faded into obscurity. The authors, a New York magazine editor/writer and a Kansas librarian, join forces to resurrect Clementine Paddleford and her legacy.

Hometown Appetites is a wonderful story, researched to the nth degree, and beautifully written by two women who approach their task and their subject with respect and affection. What a story! How I have gone through life without ever hearing of Clementine Paddleford is amazing to me.

Now that I know about Ms. Paddleford, I’m on the lookout for a copy of her 1960 book, How America Eats. Who knows? Maybe this biography will prompt a resurgence of interest in her books and columns.

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Review: Fiction Ruined My Family by Jeanne Darst

Posted on Tuesday, 17 Jan 2012 by Cozy Librarian

It’s best to not know too much about Fiction Ruined My Family before jumping in. (I bought it because it was 50% off at Barnes & Noble and I liked the title.) The Darsts are an exquisitely dysfunctional family: dad, a failed writer; mom, a sometimes lovable lush; four daughters. “Normal” is never in the cards for them.

Jeanne is the youngest. She is bawdy, profane and funny.

Fiction Ruined My Family is not my normal cup of tea. But reading it was like rubber-necking at a train wreck. I couldn’t help myself.

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Review: Three-Day Town by Margaret Maron

Posted on Friday, 13 Jan 2012 by Cozy Librarian

North Carolina Judge Deborah Knott and hubby Dwight Bryant, a high-ranking police official, head from Colleton County to the Big Apple for a much-delayed honeymoon. They’re staying gratis in the Manhattan co-op apartment of Dwight’s sister-in-law. While they’re at a neighbor’s party, a man is killed in their apartment, bringing in Sigrid Harald, a NYPD lieutenant. By coincidence, Judge Knott is delivering a wrapped package to Sigrid for her to give to her mother; the package is from Sigrid’s grandmother, who lives in Colleton County NC. (Sigrid Harald is another of Margaret Maron’s series characters.)

Three-Day Town is written mostly from the viewpoints of two narrators, one concerned with Judge Knott’s doings, the other with Lt. Harald’s – so while readers see both, the protagonists know only their own. Ms. Maron handles those viewpoints in her usual masterful fashion, but I didn’t care much for that approach. I also would prefer to find Deborah and Dwight back on their home turf, but I understand that authors need variety in their writing and Three-Day Town certainly provides it.

I thought the sub-plot involving the mysterious, wrapped package to be somewhat distracting – and the resolution of that plot thread a bit disappointing. Still, this series remains one of my long-time favorites – and Three-Day Town was a good read from a wonderful writer.

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Review: News to Me by Laurie Hertzel

Posted on Monday, 09 Jan 2012 by Cozy Librarian

Subtitle: Adventures of an Accidental Journalist

News to Me is a memoir by a Minnesota journalist about her 18 years at the Duluth News-Tribune – and a wonderful memoir it is. Although she documents the rise and fall of an American newspaper, this is a more personal story. And if News to Me isn’t the best memoir I’ve read, I can’t really think of one that tops it. Maybe that makes it the best. (And I’ve read a ton of memoirs and autobiographies of journalists, most of them much more famous than the author.)

Laurie Hertzel knows how to tell a story and how to avoid the twin traps of telling too much or telling too little. In News to Me, she gets it just right. Ms. Hertzel is funny and introspective, self-confident and self-deprecating.  This book is so good, I may just read it again someday.

Although journalists might be more attracted to News to Me, I believe any reader would appreciate Laurie’s story and storytelling … I especially enjoyed the story of her reporting trip to Russia. And her love for Duluth and its environs comes through on every page. When it comes out in trade paperback, I’ll recommend it for my non-fiction book group’s selections.

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Review: Hedy’s Folly by Richard Rhodes

Posted on Monday, 09 Jan 2012 by Cozy Librarian

Subtitle: The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World

I remember hearing somewhere that Hedy Lamarr held some important patents that she gave to the US government. Hedy’s Folly tells the story of how a glamorous film star came to be an inventor. According to the book, starring in Hollywood movies was her day job, one that enabled her to indulge in her true passion: invention. She grew up a curious child with an indulgent father who took her on long walks during which he would explain how things worked. Then she married a wealthy Austrian man whose family business was armaments – war weaponry that would eventually be sold to the Nazis in World War II.

“Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid,” she is quoted as saying. And while she was married to her controlling first husband, she was the docile wife, great at entertaining; over dinner, she sat still and soaked it all in all the war talk.

Natural curiosity, education and the knowledge she obtained over dinner helped Ms. Lamarr make good use of her drafting table once she arrived in the U.S.  The invention that was the capstone of her inventing career was one that involved radio frequencies … creating a mechanism that would make radio-controlled torpedoes invulnerable to jamming.  Her collaborator was George Antheil, a tradition-breaking composer.

Although Hedy’s Folly is a short book, just over 200 pages of text, I thought it was too long. The story, which I’ll admit is interesting, would have been better as an article in a Sunday magazine. I thought the author spent too much time on Hedy’s inventing partner, his life and times – and not enough on really explaining Hedy’s inventions. Richard Rhodes is an established and award-winning non-fiction author. I guess I expected more from his book.

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Review: The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England by Ian Mortimer

Posted on Monday, 09 Jan 2012 by Cozy Librarian

Subtitle: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century

Although I’m a great fan of fictional time-travel stories (Connie Willis is my favorite author in that genre), this is not a book I would have read had it not been a selection by a non-fiction readers’ group of which I’m a member. What fun it was … and I’m glad I didn’t miss it.

I didn’t need to read any book to know I wouldn’t have relished living in the Middle Ages. Talk about a tough life!  The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England gives it to readers chapter and verse. From clothing (dictated by one’s class) to the legal climate (grim for civil liberties), food (surprisingly varied) to health and hygiene (ugh!), Ian Mortimer shows what life was like in the 1300s. Although a few people are named, for the most part The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England has no characters.

(While I was reading this book, I kept on thinking how an historian eight centuries from now would write such a book about the US in our current century. What a job that would be!)

The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England would make a wonderful supplementary text for a European History class. I have to hand it to Ian Mortimer – he tells such a wonderful story without really having people and events to hang his tale on. The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England was incredibly interesting.

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Review: Poison Penmanship (1979) by Jessica Mitford

Posted on Friday, 06 Jan 2012 by Cozy Librarian

Subtitle: The gentle art of muckraking

Jessica Mitford (1917-1996) was born in England, but made her mark as a modern-day muckraker in America. Poison Penmanship is a delightful anthology of some of her essays. She was relentless in pursuit of wrong-doers, a self-educated woman who never really attended school, and the author of The American Way of Death (1963). That is the book she is best known for, but her shorter-form works are equally intriguing. That book revolutionized the funeral industry and made her a pariah with morticians.

In Poison Penmanship (reprinted 2010), Ms. Mitford relates her encounters with the Famous Writers’ school, the American south, a spa/fat farm, her stint teaching at San Jose State University (and much, much more). Each essay is followed by her commentary. I enjoyed every one of the essays, with the exception of the last, on Egyptology, which I began in earnest but finished by skimming. In her comments, she admits it is an article she didn’t have her heart in, and includes it as “one that got away.” Maybe that what I caught wind of.

Although I had heard the name Jessica Mitford, I didn’t know anything about her. That will soon be remedied when I receive a copy of a well-reviewed 2010 biography, Irrepressible by Leslie Brody. It seems she comes from a family of oddballs and eccentrics, including her sisters — who may define both categories.

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Review: The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

Posted on Sunday, 01 Jan 2012 by Cozy Librarian

Subtitle: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business

Two days ago, the pre-pub of this book showed up in my mailbox unannounced and I started leafing through it. Then I started at the beginning and read for awhile, and all of a sudden, I was half way through it – it was that compelling.

The author is an award-winning science writer for The New York Times. (Being a NYT reporter gives any author an edge with me – at the very least I can count on their books’ being well written and well researched.) In The Power of Habit, he looks at the neuroscience and psychology behind habits – the unconscious way we respond to various cues in consistent ways. And Charles Duhigg explores the habits not only of individuals, but of companies, not-for-profit organizations and churches.

It’s the stories, mini case-studies really, that make The Power of Habit a great read. Those alone are worth the price of the book, even if it didn’t (which it does) provide some wonderful insights about “why we do what we do.”  My only complaint is that the pre-pub doesn’t have “A Reader’s Guide to Using These Ideas,” which the finished product – due out 6 Mar 2012 – undoubtedly will. When I noticed that, I wrote to my public library suggesting the librarians order a copy of The Power of Habit for its collection.

Surprisingly, to me at least, is that my favorite example in the book is about Alcoa (the aluminum company) and how a new CEO turned it around. An amazing story!

This review is based on a published-provided copy of the book.

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Review: Thinking Small by Andrea Hiott

Posted on Friday, 30 Dec 2011 by Cozy Librarian

Subtitle: The Long, Strange Trip of the Volkswagen Beetle

Thinking Small tells the story of the men who designed, brought to life and promoted the Volkswagen Beetle. The emphasis is on Ferdinand Porsche, whose concept of a People’s Car was fostered by none other than Adolph Hitler, and Bill Bernbach, whose cutting-edge New York ad agency helped make a small German car palatable – beloved even – by drivers in post-World War II America. As the subtitle suggests, it was a long and strange trip.

I usually eat up business history books. But I want my non-fiction to be well written, superbly organized and sourced to the nth degree. In this regard, I was disappointed with Thinking Small. (It didn’t help that the source notes and index were incomplete or absent in the bound galley.) To me, it read like a first draft rather than a finished book. The fact that Thinking Small contained some anecdotal gems tempered my displeasure somewhat; and I did enjoy learning about Doyle Dane Bernbach, one of America’s premier advertising agencies of the ‘50s and ‘60s. Also fascinating was the story of how Germany was administered by the Allies after the end of the Second World War.

I was particularly put off by the author’s lapsing from third to first person; by her inconsistent use of names on second and subsequent references; by her wordiness and lack of clarity. The last few chapters seemed disorganized and the author frequently veered into lecture or editorializing mode rather than story-telling.

Still, there were parts of the book that sparkled and I can recommend it with just a few reservations.

Review  based on published-provided copy of the book.

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