Books under consideration this last week of the old year:
• The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and the Horse. Author Charlie Mackesy wrote the most delightful book about love, friendship, and kindness. This book speaks a universal language, including these thoughts: “What do you think success is?” asked the boy. “To love, said the mole.”
• The A.B.C. Murders by Agatha Christie was written in 1935. It is an enjoyable romp and the real killer is not who the reader is led to believe. A nice Winter’s book to read.
• Author Kate Moore wrote a disturbing account of the radium-dial factories in The Radium Girls. It is not a pretty story as the fatal poison of the radium takes hold. Discovered by Marie and Pierre Curie in 1898. Radium can live up to 1,600 years and was responsible for the deaths of these young women. It is not a recherche story, but one of horror and death.
• A Gentleman in Moscow was written by Amor Towles and is the best book I have read in the last five years since the book was released. A fantastic read with perfect English, history, human relations, and one man’s ability to see the positives in life even when death and incivility approach him. Read this book! “I assure you, my dear, even if you would play the piano on the moon, I would hear every chord.” Or. “Life will follow her in a taxi. It will bump into her by chance. It will work its way into her affections.”
• Stephen Inwood wrote a fascinating history of London in his book, Historic London. Stretches of Roman walls, medieval churches, Tudor homes, street markets, Georgian streets, Victorian terraces, and Piccadilly will be shown to the reader. Whether you want to read about London crime, science, music, shopping, pleasures gardens, coffee houses, Dickens, or waterways this book delivers.
• Christopher Wood wrote in Tissot of the brilliance of French and English society in the 1860-70s. Tissot showed in minute detail the ravishing costumes, decorative interiors and riverside scenes. One of my favorites is “Reading the News” c1874. A most beautiful book to enjoy again and again.
• In One Hundred & One Beautiful Small Towns in Italy, written by Paolo Lazzarin, the reader is transported to the luscious and bountiful culture that is Italian. View the antique treasures, the Roman aqueducts, the open-air markets, the festivals and the Travertine flowers. I wish I could transport myself today to Pisa for tea at Salza’s or to Florence and enjoy the chocolate gelato or to Rome and the Napoleon Hotel with its evening gatherings. Let us see the Amalfi coast and its arabesques on the sea. Or to Caserta, the Versailles of the Bourbons. I think the Christmas season in Italy would be marvelous, darling!
• A delightful prose book is A Cup of Christmas Tea written by Tom Hegg. It also comes with a tape of music. “The log was in the fireplace all spiced and set to burn,” begins this short read. Make some hot chocolate, pull the blanket around you and enjoy reading to each other in the evening’s stillness.
• A companion book is Tea Delectable for All Seasons by Maryjo Koch. “Ocha O Iremasu” or “I make tea for you.” Read about legends of tea and mystical alchemy. Learn how other cultures make and enjoy tea. Learn about making tea sandwiches or rose petal honey. Return to Chinese Emperor Shen Nung circa 2700 BC and the discovery of tea. Or of Mr. William Sullivan, a tea merchant in New York City, who inadvertently invents the tea bag.
• 100 Voices. Words that Shaped our Souls by Anne Christian Buchanan and Debra K. Klingsporn is a compilation of historic comments through the decades beginning in the 1900s. To wit: A woman is arrested in New York City for smoking in public in 1904. The Yellow Pages are born in 1905. The 1906 Earthquake hits San Francisco and kills 2,500. An expedition led by Robert Peary reaches the North Pole in 1909. If you enjoy reading history, you will like this book.
Now was the time to get back in business in the USA in 1920. The war was over. The boys and girls were home. Democracy had won over the forces of evil.
Modernity reigned. The telephone, automobiles, radio ,jazz, movies, all gave the promise of great prosperity. It was a staggering time when business tycoons, moneyed magnates, and the rule of Wall Street defined this decade. In 1925 John Logie Baird invented the television. In 1928 Amelia Earhart flew across the Atlantic. And she was quoted in 1929 saying that “Adventure is worthwhile in itself.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1929 wrote that “People thought of their best old dreams.”
So, dream again in 2022 in this a Happy New Year.