REVIEW: Jefferson's America by Julie M. Fenster

Synopsis

The surprising story of how Thomas Jefferson commanded an unrivaled age of American exploration—and in presiding over that era of discovery, forged a great nation.

At the dawn of the nineteenth century, as Britain, France, Spain, and the United States all jockeyed for control of the vast expanses west of the Mississippi River, the stakes for American expansion were incalculably high. Even after the American purchase of the Louisiana Territory, Spain still coveted that land and was prepared to employ any means to retain it. With war expected at any moment, Jefferson played a game of strategy, putting on the ground the only Americans he could: a cadre of explorers who finally annexed it through courageous investigation.

Responsible for orchestrating the American push into the continent was President Thomas Jefferson. He most famously recruited Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, who led the Corps of Discovery to the Pacific, but at the same time there were other teams who did the same work, in places where it was even more crucial. William Dunbar, George Hunter, Thomas Freeman, Peter Custis, and the dauntless Zebulon Pike—all were dispatched on urgent missions to map the frontier and keep up a steady correspondence with Washington about their findings.

But they weren’t always well-matched—with each other and certainly not with a Spanish army of a thousand soldiers or more. These tensions threatened to undermine Jefferson’s goals for the nascent country, leaving the United States in danger of losing its foothold in the West. Deeply researched and inspiringly told, Jefferson’s America rediscovers the robust and often harrowing action from these seminal expeditions and illuminates the president’s vision for a continental America.

Hardcover, 368 pages

Published May 10th 2016 by Crown (first published March 25th 2014) 

 

About the Author

Julie M. Fenster is the author of many works of American history, including The Case of Abraham Lincoln, Race of the Century, the award-winning Ether Day, and, with Douglas Brinkley, Parish Priest, which was a New York Times bestseller. She also cowrote the PBS documentary First Freedom, about the Founders and religious liberty. She lives in Upstate New York.


My Thoughts

John James Audobon, the orinthologist and painter, left his family at home in Ohio in October of 1820 and traveled in a slight state of desperation to New Orleans, a well-worn city newly vibrant and very rich.

A couple of years ago I read a fictional account of the life of Jefferson's oldest daughter Patsy, and it really piqued my interest about her father. So when the opportunity came to read this accounting of Jefferson and the exploration of The Louisiana Purchase I jumped at it.

Jefferson was rather forward thinking and was determined to "go west" and expand the US from sea to "shining sea". In pursuit of this dream, he made The Louisiana Purchase from the French in 1803.

This book is made up of the tales of the infamous team of Lewis and Clark, as well as lesser known explorers like Pike, Freeman and Custis and Dunbar and Hunter, whom Jefferson sent to explore The Louisiana Purchase. Lewis and Clark's main objective was to follow the Missouri River west and find whether it would offer a route to the Pacific. They were also expected to watch for opportunities of trade, resource availability, and document wildlife and native peoples encountered along the way, all of which was logged in detail in their diaries.

The book includes a handy map of the US in 1803-1804, pictures of the explorers, photos of things they encountered during their adventures, and excerpts from the explorer's diaries as well as editorial articles.


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My final word: Providing a good overview of both the expeditions and the politics of the time, I rather liked this book, although it could get a little too detailed at times for my tastes. Recommended for lovers of history.

My Rating:

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The Cerebral Girl is a nearing-fifty blogger just digging her way out from under a mountain of books in the deep south of Florida.

I received a copy of this book to review through Blogging for Books, in exchange for my honest opinion. I was not financially compensated in any way, and the opinions expressed are my own and based on my observations while reading this novel.

REVIEW: The Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra

Synopsis

From the New York Times bestselling author of A Constellation of Vital Phenomena—dazzling, poignant, and lyrical interwoven stories about family, sacrifice, the legacy of war, and the redemptive power of art.
 
This stunning, exquisitely written collection introduces a cast of remarkable characters whose lives intersect in ways both life-affirming and heartbreaking. A 1930s Soviet censor painstakingly corrects offending photographs, deep underneath Leningrad, bewitched by the image of a disgraced prima ballerina. A chorus of women recount their stories and those of their grandmothers, former gulag prisoners who settled their Siberian mining town. Two pairs of brothers share a fierce, protective love. Young men across the former USSR face violence at home and in the military. And great sacrifices are made in the name of an oil landscape unremarkable except for the almost incomprehensibly peaceful past it depicts. In stunning prose, with rich character portraits and a sense of history reverberating into the present, The Tsar of Love and Techno is a captivating work from one of our greatest new talents.

Hardcover, 352 pages
Published October 6th 2015 by Hogarth
ISBN 0770436439 (ISBN13: 9780770436438) 


About the Author

ANTHONY MARRA is the winner of a Whiting Award, Pushcart Prize, and the Narrative Prize. A Constellation of Vital Phenomena won the 2014 National Book Critics Circle’s inaugural John Leonard Prize and the 2014 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in fiction, as well as the inaugural 2014 Carla Furstenberg Cohen Fiction Award. Marra’s novel was a National Book Award long list selection as well as a shortlist selection for the Flaherty-Dunnan first novel prize. In addition, his work has been anthologized in The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2012. He received an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, where he teaches as the Jones Lecturer in Fiction. He has lived and studied in Eastern Europe, and now resides in Oakland, CA.  

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My Thoughts

I am an artist first, a censor second.

The Tsar of Love and Techno is an inventive and accomplished collection of interwoven short stories by the author of A Constellation of Vital Phenomena (my favorite read of 2015). The stories take place in the war-torn areas of Russia, Chechnya and Siberia, have characters, places, items and/or storylines in common, and span the years between 1937 to 2013.

An artist responsible for removing people from history.

Two ballerinas separated by a generation.

A quietly defiant man in love with a scarred and blind woman.

Two Russian prisoners of war.

Two young brothers living in a forest of metal.

A woman who was responsible for the execution of her own mother.

Young men seeking to avoid the war, and a father who will save his son by any means.

These are the characters that make up these stories.

She admired the scene for a moment, then walked out the back door to become part of it.

My final word: I've become a huge fan of author Anthony Marra! His writing is top notch, the characters well developed, the storylines are fresh and innovative. His stories are full of strong characters, and his writing is overflowing with sensitivity and barrenness. There's a beauty in its desolation. Please read anything you can get your hands on written by this author!

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My Rating:

 

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The Cerebral Girl is a forty-something blogger just digging her way out from under a mountain of books in the deep south of Florida.

I received a copy of this book to review through Blogging for Books, in exchange for my honest opinion. I was not financially compensated in any way, and the opinions expressed are my own and based on my observations while reading this novel.

REVIEW: The New Sugar & Spice by Samantha Seneviratne

Synopsis

A wonderfully unique and unexpected collection of desserts that showcase spice over sugar, with 80 recipes that both reinvent classic sweets and introduce more unusual spice-infused desserts.

In Sugar and Spice, veteran food editor and recipe developer Samantha Seneviratne invites readers to explore a bold new world of spice-centric desserts. Each chapter centers on a different spice--some familiar, like vanilla, cinnamon, and ginger; others less expected (especially in sweet preparations), such as peppercorns, chiles, and cardamom. With fascinating histories, origin stories, and innovative uses for each spice, this book will inspire readers to rediscover and re-stock their spice drawers, and raise their desserts up to a whole new level of flavor.

Hardcover, 240 pages
Published September 8th 2015 by Ten Speed Press
ISBN 1607747464 (ISBN13: 9781607747468) 


My Thoughts

We’re obsessed with sugar in this country, and we’ve overwhelmed our taste buds with the sticky sweet flavor of sugar. This book shows you how other spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, bay leaves, cloves and lavender can balance out the sweetness in desserts to produce more full flavors.

Author Samantha Seneviratne opens the book with an introduction on how she began baking and sharing her creations with her dearly beloved brother (whom she later lost), the hours spent in her grandmother's kitchen in Sri Lanka, and the transition that had her making over traditional American overly-sweet desserts to more full-flavored desserts spiked with things like cinnamon and cardamon. 

She then shares a chapter on “Baking Tips, Equipment, and Ingredients” before delving into the spices and recipes for which this book is named. The chapters are organized by spice ingredient:

• Peppercorn & Chile
• Cinnamon
• Nutmeg
• Clove & Cardamon
• Vanilla
• Ginger
• Savory Herbs & Spices (like Caraway, Bay Leaves and Lavender)

Each chapter has an introduction to the chosen spice named in it, replete with childhood memories surrounding how the spice was used in family recipes, the history of the spice, and buying and storing suggestions, before moving into the recipes themselves, which include lovely yummies like:

• Golden Syrup and Berry Pudding Cake
• New Love Cake
• Indonesian Spiced Layer Cake
• Pistachio and Chocolate Butter Cake
• Pavlova with Lime Custard and Basil Pineapple
• Butter Rum Snack Cake
• Bay Leaf Rice Pudding 

My final word: I was so excited to open this book for the first time. It looks and feels high quality. There is beautiful photography throughout to entice you, charming stories shared by the author. The recipes are easy-to-follow and have some pretty common ingredients that should be easy to come by. I love complex flavors and textures, and this cookbook is right up my alley! This isn’t just a cookbook. It’s a memoir and world travelogue of the palate.

My Rating: 

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The Cerebral Girl is a forty-something blogger just digging her way out from under a mountain of books in the deep south of Florida.

I received a copy of this book to review through Blogging for Books and the publisher, in exchange for my honest opinion. I was not financially compensated in any way, and the opinions expressed are my own and based on my observations while reading this novel. 

REVIEW: The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins

Synopsis

Neil Gaiman meets Joe Hill in this astonishingly original, terrifying, and darkly funny contemporary fantasy.

Carolyn's not so different from the other human beings around her. She's sure of it. She likes guacamole and cigarettes and steak. She knows how to use a phone. She even remembers what clothes are for.

After all, she was a normal American herself, once.

That was a long time ago, of course—before the time she calls “adoption day,” when she and a dozen other children found themselves being raised by a man they learned to call Father.

Father could do strange things. He could call light from darkness. Sometimes he raised the dead. And when he was disobeyed, the consequences were terrible.

In the years since Father took her in, Carolyn hasn't gotten out much. Instead, she and her adopted siblings have been raised according to Father's ancient Pelapi customs. They've studied the books in his library and learned some of the secrets behind his equally ancient power.

Sometimes, they've wondered if their cruel tutor might secretly be God.

Now, Father is missing. And if God truly is dead, the only thing that matters is who will inherit his library—and with it, power over all of creation.

As Carolyn gathers the tools she needs for the battle to come, fierce competitors for this prize align against her.

But Carolyn can win. She's sure of it. What she doesn't realize is that her victory may come at an unacceptable price—because in becoming a God, she's forgotten a great deal about being human.

Hardcover, 388 pages
Published June 16th 2015 by Crown
ISBN 0553418602 (ISBN13: 9780553418606)


About the Author
from Goodreads

"I'm forty-five and I live in the Atlanta suburbs with my wife and a whole bunch of dogs."

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My Thoughts

Carolyn, blood-drenched and barefoot, walked alone down the two-lane stretch of blacktop that the Americans call Highway 78.

I'm not sure how to summarize this book. I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I'm not a big Fantasy/Sci-Fi reader, so this one was a bit of a stretch for me, but it sounded interesting.

The first chapter started out great. Vague and alluding, creepy and disturbing, it left me wanting more. Then Chapter 2 started, and I didn’t know what the heck was going on for the next 80 pages. Like disjointed images from a dream, it just didn’t make sense to me. Are they kids? Are they animals? Is Father supposed to be “God”? Is this hell? Is Father the devil, and the kids are demons? What is going on here?

One minute they are having a conversation, and then they just throw in a jaguar growling, or deer that seem human (or are the humans deer?), and a disgusting guy covered in blood wearing a tutu, digging up graves to raise the dead. What the heck is going here???

There is no disputing that the author is a gifted wordsmith. It isn’t his writing style that I had a problem with, but the storyline and content.

I almost gave up on this book by about 50 pages in. I was frustrated, because the author was quite obviously a masterful writer. However it was like being inside of someone’s LSD trip. Just flashes of disjointed scenes that made little sense to me. Maybe this is typical fantasy, and fantasy just isn’t my cup of tea? But I had seen a review that said the first 100 pages didn’t make any sense, but then it turned around. So I hung in there.

Sure enough, the first three chapters had me tripping. Then the fourth chapter began, and FINALLY some sanity! I could follow along at last!

The pieces began to fall together, the picture began to clear. Carolyn was a tricky character. There wasn't a clear liking or not liking of her. She was a very complex character, very well written. Glimmers of compassion and gentleness amid brilliant detachment and cruelty.

The characters of the other children are less well-developed. Carolyn is closest to Michael, who seems gentle and sweet and brave. David is sheer chaos and brutality. Jennifer is like a hippie shaman. Margaret is simply out of her mind.

Carolyn seeks out Steve for a job. Steve has made some bad choices in life, but he's been staying clean. He's a bit of a Taoist...

“Are you a Buddhist?”

“No. I’m an asshole. But I keep trying.”

Carolyn brings him nothing but trouble, and tests his innate goodness.

There is a lot of religious symbolism in the book. Some of it may not be obvious to all, but would be to those more familiar with scripture.

Even when things were chaotic, confusing and insane, it was still a little genius. At one moment, there is a conversation about the ancient language of the Atul and a concept that essentially means “the moment when an innocent heart first contemplated the act of murder”. It said to the Atul “the crime itself was secondary to this initial corruption.” And another phrase which is “the moment when the last hope dies”. These concepts alone were brilliant!

My final word: I was initially nervous about my choice to read this book, but by chapter four it started to get under my skin. Little by little things came together, and I began to see the big picture. It became more engrossing as time went on, and I was really impressed with the writer's ability to captivate and draw me in. I'll still be hesitant to read fantasy and sci-fi, as I still think it is a shaky genre for me, but this author has definitely won me over!

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My Rating: A

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The Cerebral Girl is a forty-something blogger just digging her way out from under a mountain of books in the deep south of Florida.

I received a copy of this book to review through Blogging for Books, in exchange for my honest opinion. I was not financially compensated in any way, and the opinions expressed are my own and based on my observations while reading this novel.