Hell Before Breakfast by Robert H Patton

 
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The Gilded Age. A time of advancing technology that gave rise to the modern world we know. Thanks to the creation of the electric telegraph and the transatlantic cable, for the first time it was possible for foreign correspondents to share their dispatches with the general public days and sometimes even hours after the events. Out of this came the first war correspondents, Americans sent to cover twenty years of conflict in Europe and Central Asia. Pushed by bitter competition but brought together by a brotherhood born of common experience, these men drove public opinion and fuelled passions that would not come to rest until World War I. Hell Before Breakfast tells their story, through the Crimean War, the American Civil War, the Russian conflicts in Central Asia and through to the sinking of the Titanic.

I have a thing about history books set in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, so Hell Before Breakfast was right up my alley. As such it jumped out at me from the Amazon Monthly Editors’ Choices and went straight on to my TBR list as a book I was definitely looking forward to getting to. In the end, the book was an enjoyable read, though not as much as I had been expecting. After all, a non-fiction book dealing with journalism at a time when the profession was truly a cut-throat one, could only be exciting, right? Well, yes and no. While the book has its moments, especially when the correspondents become directly involved in battles, there is also a lack of flow in the narrative – you sometimes get the feeling that the book would have worked better with a different chapter concentrating on each correspondent or newspaper, rather than on a simple linear story. The journalists themselves, though, are truly the stars of the book: every single one of them comes across as a real character, complete with extravagant foibles and – for some of them – extremely dramatic lives (and deaths!). The theme that remains omnipresent throughout is the fact that these men were responsible for providing us with an important glimpse of the world of the time, putting everything on the line in order to do so. Overall, I enjoyed Hell Before Breakfast, though I can see ways in which it could have been improved. 

I gave Hell Before Breakfast 3 stars.

New on the Library Shelves 10 08 14

AKA Showcase Sunday

A new segment here, participating in the Showcase Sunday meme over at Books, Biscuits & Tea.

A slow couple of weeks for review copies, but I brought a couple of books I've been looking forward to, including Lauren Beukes' Broken Monsters which I've been hearing good things about. If it is anywhere as good as The Shining Girls, I should be in a for a nice treat.

 

 

For review:
A.D. 30 by Ted Dekker
Empire of Sin by Gary Krist
The Gods of War by Graham Brown and Spencer J Andrews

Bought:
The Fantastic Laboratory of Dr Weigl by Arthur Allen
Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes
Dead Line by Chris Ewan
The Girl from the Well by Rin Chupeco
The Year of the Ladybird by Graham Joyce
The Widow's House by Daniel Abraham
Take Back the Skies by Lucy Saxon
A Spy Among Friends by Ben Macintyre
We Were Liars by E. Lockhart
Frostborn by Lou Anders
In the Kingdom of Ice by Hampton Sides
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

Teeth of the Tiger by Tom Clancy

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When a group of terrorists carry out a brutal terrorist attacks on mainstreet America, three rookie operatives of a secret organization established off the books by former President Jack Ryan are set on the trail of the men who organized the attack. While two of them, the Caruso brothers, are trained killers (an FBI agent and a marine), the other, Jack Ryan Jr, is nothing but an analyst. As the scope of the conspiracy becomes clear, however, all three men realize that nothing they have been through up until now has prepared them for the reality of the new world order… and that their lives are about to become far more dangerous.

A follow-up to Tom Clancy’s beloved Jack Ryan series, this first book follows three members of Ryan’s family – his two nephews, Dominic and Brian Caruso, and his son, Jack Ryan Jr – as they become involved in a black ops organization that Ryan set up just before leaving office. Although Ryan himself does not appear, he is omnipresent throughout the book, his own actions leading directly to the situation the three younger men find themselves in. Clancy spends as much time as usual on technical description of the world of espionage, and he creates a very realistic situation here for his characters to encounter – an alliance between Columbian drug cartels and Muslim terrorists, leading to an attack on a series of malls. Clancy’s conservative politics and pro-espionage stance are once again obvious here, a fact that sometimes detracts from the likeability of his main characters. While there seems to be an effort to show both sides of the story, the Caruso brothers especially seem to be two-tone cowboy type characters, with a hint of racism and misogynism thrown in. The book moves at a fair pace, however, and the pages turn almost by themselves. I look forward to the follow-ups which bring the original hero of the series back to the forefront. 

I gave The Teeth of the Tiger 3 stars.

Unwrapped Sky by Rjurik Davidson

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Sedition seethes beneath the streets of Caeli-Amur, while the three Houses fight a hidden war to gain control… In an ancient city full of ancient technology and dark mysteries, the time of the Festival of the Sun brings the minotaurs and sets a female assassin on an unexpected path. Meanwhile, strikes in the factory district provide a minor functionary with an opportunity to scale the heights of power, but the deals he will make with the city’s overlords will change him beyond all belief. And down below the streets, a young seditionist seizes control of his group and begins to gather numbers and weapons, preparing to find a way to overthrow the Houses of Arbor, Technis and Marin in order to return the power to the people. All three come together in the search for access to Amur’s sister city, a city of deadly knowledge and unimaginable power, a city lost beneath the waves…

Every so often, I read a fantasy novel that reminds me why I love this genre. Unwrapped Sky is one of those! Full of imaginative concepts, flawed and multidimensional characters and some fantastic prose, Rjurik Davidson’s debut is a fantastic opening to a new series, reminiscent of China Mieville’s Perdido Street Station, while not quite reaching the heights of that masterpiece. A true entry in the Weird genre, Unwrapped Sky follows three POV characters through the upheavals in Caeli-Amur, bringing their paths into collision and then spinning them off again, changing each and every one of them along the way. Davidson’s true skill is in the world he has created – a world that feels lived in, full of weird technology and weirder magic. The line between the two is kept blurred, combining at one point gods and space travel and satellites in orbit. The characters are all well drawn – none of them are true heroes, but all of them have their moments. The only negative would be the plot, which is slightly meandering and does not have a true resolution at the end. Everything is left very much up in the air, in preparation for the follow-up, expected in the first half of next year. 

I gave Unwrapped Sky 4 stars.

Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932 by Francine Prose

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Paris, the 1920s. A place of excitement, dissolution and liberty. A place of ambitions, passions, art in every form, where the discontented of the world over come to find freedom. In the centre of this world lies the Chameleon Club, where expats, artists and libertines rub shoulders with extraordinary athletes, journalists and cross dressers. Into this world come a group of people whose lives will come together for a time before breaking apart in the horror of the Second World War. Centered on Lou Villars, a former runner and racecar driver who becomes a Nazi interrogator, these sometimes lovers, sometimes friends, sometimes enemies see their fortunes rise and fall. From the Hungarian photographer Gabor Tsenyi, to the America writer Lionel Maine, these characters live and breathe through the heights of the 20s, the despairs of the 30s and the darkness of the Occupation.

Told through a kaleidoscope of voices – letters, diaries, memoirs and a non-fiction work – Lovers at the Chameleon Club is a truly epic work, providing a sweeping vision of a city and a world that came to an end in the fires of the Second World War. While the plot comes to revolve around the character of Lou Villars, who begins her life as an athlete before becoming a racecar driver, a mechanic, a spy and finally a torturer, all of the characters have their own stories and lives. Showing the effect that one person can have on so many lives, Lovers at the Chameleon Club also deals with the unreliability of narrators, as each and every one is shown at some point to have exaggerated, hidden or even outright lied about the truth. Where the book truly excels, though, is in the creation of the Paris of the 20s and 30s, and especially the portrayal of the Chameleon Club itself. Prose does a fantastic job of describing this world on the cusp of such brutal change. She also manages to give each narrator their own individual voice, passing the story from one to the other with aplomb. Though far from being an action-packed thriller, the pages turn by themselves, and I got to the end of it before I had realized it. With a surprise twist in the final chapter, which puts everything else into a new light, the novel is a triumphant depiction of an intriguing period of history, told through the eyes of some fantastically drawn characters. 

I gave Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932 4,5 stars.  

Collecting Shakespeare by Stephen H. Grant

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When the Folger Shakespeare Library opened in Washington D.C. in 1932 (on the Bard’s birthday) it housed an amazing number of First Folios, even more books and manuscripts, and even included an Elizabethan Theatre. All of this came together thanks to the tireless, almost obsessive collecting of an American couple – Henry and Emily Folger. The purchase, collection and storage of all sorts of items about Shakespeare and his era became the centre piece of their marriage, financed with the fortune Henry accumulated as president of the Standard Oil Company, where he worked with John D. Rockefeller Sr. In Collecting Shakespeare, Stephen H Grant recounts the story of this amazing couple, whose love for Shakespeare was only eclipsed by their love for one another…

I really wanted to like Collecting Shakespeare. A non-fiction book about book collecting at the turn of the century? Revolving around the collection of works about and by William Shakespeare? Collected by a man who lived and worked with one of the business moguls of the period? It seemed to be right up my alley. Unfortunately, it was a big disappointment. Stephen Grant lets the subject matter down with unexciting, ponderous prose, which leaches all of the fun out of what could have been an intriguing slice of turn of the century history. Considering the world of book collecting and the rivalries that Grant gets into, as well as Folger’s place in a world of oil and corruption that caused him to be brought up on charges more than once, this could have been great, exciting narrative history if in the hands of an Erik Larson or a Paul Collins. Unfortunately, in Collecting Shakespeare we get a simple, dry enumeration of events, one that at times follows a linear timeline and at other times jumps about in a more thematic view. This makes for a messy narrative that is not easy to follow. All in all, a disappointing treatment of an interesting subject. 

I gave Collecting Shakespeare 2 stars.

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books I'd Give To Readers Who Have Never Read Narrative History

From the Broke and Bookish

Top Ten Books I'd Give To Readers Who Have Never Read Narrative History

Narrative History is defined by Wikipedia as the practice of writing history in a story-based form. For me, it has always been making history interesting, relevant and exciting. For anyone who has never read a narrative history book, here is my list of top ten books to interest you: 

The Fall of the House of Walworth by Geoffrey O’Brien

Opening with patricide and then turning back to look at the rise and fall of a New York aristocratic family
 
Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard

A double narrative following President Garfield, the man who assassinated him and the man who could have saved him – Alexander Graham Bell

The Lost City of Z by David Grann


A true adventure story, this book follows a British explorer who vanished in the Amazon during his search for a lost, mythical city
 
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

The narrative history book par excellence, the Devil is a serial killer masquerading as a doctor during the 1893 Chicago World Fair. Best little tidbit? The serial killer’s last name? Holmes! :)
 
The Murder of the Century by Paul Collins

Any book about people throughout the New York area finding parts of the same dead body has to be enthralling, right? Set amongst the newspaper battles between Joseph Pullitzer and William Randolph Hearst.
 
The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale

A great book chronicling the career and most famous case of the detective who lies at the origin of every police detective in literature, Inspector Jonathan Wincher.
 
Duel with the Devil by Paul Collins

Another entry for Paul Collins, this time about a trial that pitted two of the Founding Fathers against one another – Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr.
 
Frozen in Time by Mitchell Zuckoff

From the back cover copy:
Two harrowing crashes . . . A vanished rescue plane . . . A desperate fight for life in a frozen, hostile land . . . The quest to solve a seventy-year-old mystery
Need I say more ? :)
 
One Summer: America 1927 by Bill Bryson

A slightly more epic entry, tracing an entire summer in America, which saw Charles Lindbergh cross the Atlantic, Babe Ruth break the home run record, Al Capone tighten his grip on Chicago and the first ‘talkie’ be released.
 
50 Children by Steven Pressman

The most recent narrative history I read, 50 Children is the touching story of one couple’s attempts to save 50 Jewish children from the Holocaust just before WW2.
Any books you would add to this list? What type of books would you choose to introduce a genre or a writer to someone?