This is a remarkable book about religion, racism, sexism, feminism, colonialism, capitalism, socialism … and about an amazing family that came to Africa as missionaries and learned truths that had nothing to do with God and everything to do with humanity. The Price family arrives in the then-Belgian Congo of 1959, headed by Southern Baptist Reverend Nathan Price, a wife-abusing, child-abusing, fanatical tyrant and bitter disappointment of a man. He and his captive wife Orleana and his four daughters arrive unwanted in an impoverished Congolese village […]
A View of WWI England’s Homefront
This is one of those books where I get why it’s acclaimed and award winning, but I didn’t really enjoy it that much. Granted, I’m not sure if these novels are meant to be enjoyed since I would definitely classify them in that literary fiction category that’s more about teaching than enjoying. However, even within that, I can’t say the novel particularly moved me. I thought it was dark and oppressive but in a way that actually turned me off from the novel. It isn’t […]
A historical romance with a husband and wife falling in love after five years
3.5 stars First off, I just want to say that why the title brings to mind that dreadful “romantic comedy” with Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey, the plot of the book bears no resemblance, save that there are ten days involved. Sometimes I think publishers actually want people to be put off by their titles. Unusually tall and with her reputation in tatters, American heiress Edie Jewell had not had any luck finding a suitable husband, despite the aid of London’s premier matchmaker. With only a short time left […]
Pretty much everything I know about the Boxer Rebellion, I learned from these books
In Boxers, we see the origins of the Chinese Boxer rebellion through the eyes of Bao, who becomes one of its leaders. Bao grows up in rural China at the end of the 19th Century. He lives for the spring every year when travelling troups perform operas, full of drama, excitement and ancient stories of heroes and gods. The stories stay with him throughout the rest of the year when he performs his chores and is teased by his older brothers. His life changes irrevocably the day one […]
What’s invisible to me are the hours I’ve lost reading this thing.
Damn me and my inability to put books aside! I have finally, after almost a month, finished Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. I didn’t like it. But, I find it crazy difficult to stop reading a book and so I finished it. Plus I couldn’t continue over the next few paragraphs to bitch and moan about it on Cannonball if I didn’t really finish it. That would be cheating. Invisible Man was recently banned by a school district in my home state (NC) and for that […]
Monks and Spies in Tudor England
Okay, I’ll confess I read this trilogy out of order, and–worse–I reviewed them out of order, but I still highly recommend them if, like me, you’re an afficionado of good historical mysteries. Even more so since I just learned that this “trilogy” is about to have a sequel. Anyway… In this third novel, it is now 1584 and our hero Giordano Bruno is being stalked by someone through the streets of London. He has made a lot of enemies in Parris’ previous two books, and […]
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