An exciting thriller of terrorism, psychosis and high-level corruption in Italy, Hewson’s City of Fear is also a barely-veiled political expose of the infamous Gladio network that was created by the CIA’s Alan Dulles in the post-WWII period with the backing of the US and several European governments. The idea of the Gladio network was initially to have a clandestine “stay-behind” network of partisans in place should a Soviet takeover of Italy and Communist encroachment on the rest of Western Europe be attempted. However, the […]
Jen K’s Review #6 – In the Shadow of the Banyan
I’ve been looking forward to reading this novel for a while, even if other books kept getting in the way. I would like to visit Cambodia one day, mostly to visit Angkor Wat, and a friend of mine lives there. As a result I was very interested to read about this darker period of Cambodian history which I had only a vague inkling of. Ratner is a descendant of one of the Cambodian kings so this novel is very much drawn on her actual experiences […]
Puritan Prattle
We celebrate them at Thanksgiving, we revile them when we read The Crucible, but what do we really know about that first generation of religious malcontents to reach New England? Sarah Vowell’s The Wordy Shipmates gives us portraits of these strangers known as the Puritans who came to New England during the Great Migration, in between the Mayflower and the Salem witch trials. It is infused with Vowell’s pop culture references and Gen-X snarkiness. I like her style just fine, some people find it annoying. […]
Once Upon a Time in Old New York
1899. On a ship bound for New York in the middle of the Atlantic, a Golem comes to life. Soon after, her master and sole reason for living, dies. A little ways across the water, a Jinni turned human emerges from more than a thousand years of captivity in a flask in the shop of a tinsmith in lower Manhattan, thousands of miles away from his home in the Syrian desert. Both are out of time and out of place. Who are they in such […]
Off with Her Head
Quick Synopsis: The fall of Anne Boleyn as engineered by Thomas Cromwell. Quick Review: I liked it, and I’d recommend it for anyone with enough time and interest in the period to focus on the story and take in the historical detail. Read the Full Review
A May December Romance That Doesn’t Make Me Gag
My plan was to start 2014 off with a nice, important classic: namely, Walden by Thoreau. But then, What I Did for a Duke (2011) by Julie Anne Long became available at my library. Probably no one will be surprised when they hear that I am finished with What I Did for a Duke and only about ten percent done with Walden. Anyway, I’m very pleased to say that Mrs. Julien and I now have one romance novel that we both really like! I keep […]