Blood and Beauty

I'm not one to read huge novels lately - I'm still in grad school for goodness sake - but I guess I have made an exception for Sarah Dunant's Blood and Beauty.

Can we say it in one word? Borgia. Yep, that infamous family. Dunant's novel starts up the tale just as Alexander VI takes up his papal throne in 1492 and proceeds to wine, dine and bribe the great houses of the Italian states. And on the chess board is his teenage daughter Lucrezia.  Which family will be the most advantageous to marry into? And what about his son Cesare? Some how becoming a powerful cardinal is not going to be enough for the ambitious and lethal young man.

Dunant takes the reader for a journey with glimpse of the chaos and glamour that was the Italian Renaissance. It really was a time of great contrasts. Wondrous paintings by artists on the Vatican's walls vs. political assignations on the dark side streets of Rome. Great piety shown by their holy men vs. backroom power deals. Powerful Italian city states vs. a  backwater Rome that needs to be rebuilt.  Hmm, how modern it all seems...

The author makes us take another look at the 'evil' Borgias - were they the worst people as the rumors suggest? Or were they merely surviving the best they could in such an environment? This book lets you decide for yourself as Dunant leads the reader through the family's tale. There are characters to love and hate, and whether you find yourself feeling for Lucrezia who seems to bring death where ever she goes, or seeing her as a product of her position and time - that is for the reader to decide. Alexander VI is the proud papa who loves his children and wants them to have the best. Cesare is a genius at seeing political patterns and does not let being in holy orders stop him.  But I would not want him next to me at any dinner party.

Dunant lets the tale flow and brings us this fictionalized version of a true story that is stranger than fiction. You can't make some of the things they did up. Because they did them! A great saga of a controversial family during tumultuous times. Highly recommended for lovers of  long books of historical fiction.

Bossypants

Tina Fey's Bossypants is really a series of sketches. Sketches about how she grew up - bit and pieces. Chapters about her parents - bit and pieces. And how Second City, SNL and 30 Rock work - bit and pieces. She gives us a good tale, punches it up with some laughs and moves on the the next topic - which makes this book a very fast read. And an enjoyable one. It really is. She really has a nack for showing her reader that she is just like us - and just lucky.

I think my favorite part of the book - besides the essay on child rearing (The Mother’s Prayer for Its Daughter) which can be found wandering online - is where she tells us how hard it was to break the comedy barriers that were still around by the time she got to Second City. She was part of one of the first casts to have an equal number of men and women on it. Before her cast apparently, they had only needed two women to be funny. As someone who knows several funny women, and has worked and performed with some more, I find that insulting to our gender.

I thought she was very polite about gender politics at SNL. It is obvious she still works with them and is on the NBC Network. But you can tell she is thrilled that sketches with just female members of the cast get on the air. And her chapters about "becoming Sarah Palin" are interesting. She comments how she was never good at doing impressions - mostly because she never 'looked' like anyone famous, and then this happens. She just got lucky.

Lucky my eye! The woman has talent! A very fun read, but I wished it was longer!

Assassination Vacation

I got the chance to see Sarah Vowell give a lecture of her work. Meeting a favorite author in person usually makes one feel like a bit of a geek. Standing in a autographing line makes one race, to think up something pithy and witty to say to the author in the 2 minutes you may get, to converse with her. Then nerves take over - you give her your name and you say something about how you love her work and you just went to the Lincoln Museum in Springfield, yadda, yadda, yadda... And when the moment is over and you move on- you realize you really can't remember if you came off like a knowledgable citizen of the world or as a provincial rube. Sigh. But you percieve that this author is a bit of a geek herself in some ways - at least that is how you feel from reading her work - so in the end, you feel she may understand. We, history geeks have to stick together.

Have you been always wanting to take a relaxing tour of presidential assassination sites? Sure ya do. Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation does just that. And while entertaining us with her travels via the Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley assassination sites, she makes pithy statements and parallels about the modern presidency.

The book focuses mostly on the Lincoln assassination - but the others were all interconnected. Vowell points out that Robert Todd Lincoln was there for all of them. She refers to him as Jinxy McDeath. Always popping up near the appointed assignation time. Talk about being cursed. She also goes into great detail about the lives of those involved, so this book is definitely not just history lite.

With humor and irony, Vowell leads us on the path of discovery. We see how these men's lives affected their times and the policies that the United States still has today. And how the dedication of local historians and small museums keeps this history alive and that the truth truly can be weirder than fiction. And she makes the history geeks want to hitchhike along for the ride. An excellent read.

If you get a chance - try and listen to a bit of the book on audio. Vowell is a commentator on NPR's This American Life, and this shows in the audio book version. Can't wait until her next book - it is supposed to be on the Pilgrims.

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America is a book authored by Barbara Ehrenreich. Ehrenreich when railing against polices in the current presidential administration, tells her editor that some one should do a book on the jobs of working class people. He tells her she should write it. And thus began the idea for the book. She puts her regular life on hold and takes various jobs to see if she can live the American Dream for a month on those wages. To vary the experiment she goes to different states - Florida, Maine and Minnesota. She uses her maiden name and does not list that she has a degree on her job application. She has other limitations and personal restrictions, but ends up with these jobs: waitress, an nursing home aide, a cleaning lady, and a retail worker in a Walmart.

Within this book, she points out some interesting things about this working world - the rise of testing - both drug and psychological in the hiring process. How workers are so busy with the struggle of living that they really don't have time or money for anything else. And that most are unaware of the rights they have as workers. She writes of her co-workers with compassion, and a bit of guilt, for she realizes that if it were not for her college education, as a middle aged woman this would probably be her working world.

The hardest part of this book is realizing that for most of us - we are only a few paychecks away from living this kind of daily struggle. Very thought provoking, and makes one appreciate what one has, and it will make you leave a bigger tip at the next restaurant you go to. You may not appreciate her politics, but you will realize that for some, the American dream is far off. A very good book.

All the President's Men - with Friends Like These...

I have been a bit busy lately and have fallen behind in my posting, but not in my reading. And I had to read this title for a current events genre study. Yeah, it is not a "current event" but the ramifications of this political era still resonate throughout our political life.

All the President's Men by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward could be called one of the first political "instant" books. These books are written during or right after a political event. They started the in-depth investigation into the break-ins at the Watergate building, and proceed to bring the rest of the media and in some circles, the country, with them. It really is a great study of investigative journalism that still has meaning today. The question, for me is - would they have been able to publish this information in the Washington Post today? Would they have been forced to put this in a blog? What would be different if they had today's technology? Half the book is devoted to finding out who are the players and how they are connected - would this have been faster or not? Consider the current administrations' block on information flow - how hard would it be now?

As they take you through the story, one of the most interesting things to me is the loss of political innocence. The people who finally cooperate with Bernstein and Woodward - really love their country and the presidential office and they can not believe the lies and liars that are surrounding Nixon. You can tell these people got involved in public service because they believed that they were helping their country. And that they were let down, and in some cases, betrayed by a paranoid president.

Whether you are a Nixon fan or not, (some of us did not have well formed political views at that time, and wished all those talking men behind the curtained tables would stop blocking our summer television programs!), this is a great study of how power corrupts and how the American public gained their cynicism for their political leaders. It is greatly detailed book - I admit I needed a timeline cheat sheet to keep everything straight - but it reads like a thriller as the authors try to uncover the truth. A great read.