“There are people who think that things that happen in
fiction do not really happen. These people are wrong.” - Neil Gaiman
Fiction: Historical Fiction, Archeology
The Dig by John Preston
I decided to read this book because I am a fan of Time
Team, a British archeology show. The show started in 1994 and ran for
20 seasons. Now Time Team is on YouTube and this spring they had
a dig at the setting of this book, Sutton Hoo.
The 1939 Sutton Hoo dig is the greatest Anglo-Saxon
discovery ever in Britain. Archeologists uncovered an Anglo-Saxon burial ship
for a king, long turned to sand, containing jewels and helmets, coins and gold
trinkets, silver bowls and implements. When it was discovered, the find redefined
Britain’s Dark Ages because it documented human capability and development.
The Dig is fiction but everything of
significance in the novel is factual; Preston does not make up names or alter
facts. At the same time, he shows exactly why fiction can be more effective
than non-fiction in telling such a story because he puts you there, seeing
through the eyes of people who are as involved with their emotions as they were
with their hands.
Edith Pretty, the owner of Sutton Hoo, hires Basil Brown, a
self-taught archeologist, to dig the mounds her late husband believed contained
buried archeology. As Basil Brown digs, artifacts are excavated. The local
museum is brought in to examine the artifacts. Once their intrinsic value is
realized, additional people from the national museum arrive to oversee the dig.
As the dig proceeds amidst mounting anxiety about the coming
war with Germany, each discovery leads to jealousy and tension among the
members of the dig team. Month after month of intense activity leads to
situations where locals are pitted against outsiders, professional
archeologists push amateurs, including Basil Brown, out of the dig and onto the
spoil mounds. Rivalries flourish.
Given my interest in archeology, I was initially frustrated
by the characters’ lack of excitement when they found artifacts! Then I
wondered, since this is fiction, if the author intended to convey a parallel theme
between the excavation of frail artifacts and the excavation of the characters’
thoughts and feelings. There is Peggy Piggott, a graduate student married to
her professor and brought to the dig during their rather strange honeymoon simply
because she is “light enough” not to disturb the fragile site. As she digs and
scrapes the soil, Peggy begins to wonder if her marriage is what she thought it
was. As she excavates the site, she “excavates” her emotions about her
marriage. Preston expertly invents an emotional life for each character which enriches
their stories without ever contradicting the facts. He also has the sense to
leave some loose ends, so that the characters’ stories do not overwhelm the
real one – the epic Sutton Hoo dig.
Fiction: Psychological Suspense, Mystery
The Lodger by Marie Belloc Lowndes (published
in 1913)
Former house servants, Mr. and Mrs. Bunting, have used their
lifesavings to purchase a house. It is a large house, and their plan is to
retire and live off the rent they will charge to lodgers. However, things do
not go to plan. Lodgers are few and inconsistent. Soon they are close to financial
ruin when they are finally blessed with a wealthy lodger, Mr. Sleuth. He even
pays them more than the going rate and for a whole month! Mr. Sleuth has some
“quirky” behaviors, but he is undoubtedly a gentleman, which is what the couple
were praying for as their former lodgers had been of the “lower class.”
Mrs. Bunting comes to know their lodger and his eccentric
ways best, as she is the only one who Mr. Sleuth will allow to clean his room
and bring meals for him. It appears that he has no relatives or friends, no one
comes to visit him. Mr. Sleuth goes out at odd times of night and sleeps during
the day. He reads the Bible aloud to himself, especially passages about the
evilness of women. Mrs. Bunting doesn't mind his quirkiness, because Mr. Sleuth
has paid for a month in advance and she knows he has more money for many more
months’ rent to come. However, he is shy, which causes Mrs. Bunting to feel
protective of him and, yet, at the same time, afraid of him.
Shortly after Mr. Sleuth’s arrival, several women are
murdered. To the deepening horror of the Buntings, they slowly begin to suspect
their lodger is the murderer, known as The Avenger.
A mound of circumstantial evidence begins to accumulate in
the minds of Mr. and Mrs. Bunting. Each new revelation makes it clearer that
their “angel of providence” paying them rent, might be a devil in
disguise. A tug of war wages in their consciences between the specter of losing
rental income and the fact that they may be sheltering a killer.
There is zero gore. The Lodger is a character
study, a morality tale. It is brooding, melodramatic, and intense. I thoroughly
enjoyed this book!
Nonfiction: Personal Finance, Self Help
No New Things: A Radically Simple 30-Day Guide to
Saving Money, the Planet, and Your Sanity by Ashlee Piper
Publisher’s Description: “For nearly two years, Ashlee
Piper challenged herself to buy nothing new. And in the process, she got out of
debt, cut clutter, crushed her goals, and became healthier and happier than
ever—all the things she’d always wanted to do but “never had time to” (because
she was mindlessly scrolling, shopping, spending, and stressing). After a
decade of fine-tuning, No New Things guides readers through the same
revolutionarily simple challenge that has helped thousands of global participants
find freedom and fulfillment in just thirty days.”
I am not sure why I chose this book! I think this was
written for a young adult who is purchasing new, unnecessary things regularly. I
am old and I already have more stuff than I need. The
Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning by Margareta
Magnusson is more “up my alley.”
However, since the author was a political strategist before
she became a writer, I found Part 2: How Did We Get Here? to be the most
interesting section of the book for me. Piper briefly discusses the history of
marketing with an emphasis on how Americans shifted from citizens to consumers.
“To be a good citizen, one must consume. And through
it all, our attitude toward consumption was being reprogrammed from meeting
needs to manufacturing mythic wants. As time goes on, this
production-consumption loop continues to wield devasting impacts not only on
our health, our wallets, and the perpetuation of inequities, but on our
planet.”
As a professor of marketing and a former high-level
political strategist, Piper describes the tremendous power of marketing. When
done ethically, it can help change hearts and minds – think of public service
ads. However, 99.9% of the marketing you’re exposed to daily is “designed to
keep you feeling like you’ll never have or be enough.” Basically, making
you feel less so you’ll buy more.
Piper goes on to describe “emotional puppeteering.” This can
be seen as retailers push “must-have” items or social media influencers hawking
things they deem “essential.” These marketing techniques blur the lines between
actual needs and wants.
“The reality is you’re never just being sold a
product; you’re being sold a dream – and that dream is usually whatever you
wish you were or had more or less of.”
After reading Piper’s section on marketing, I was reminded
of the most notorious political marketing, “Language: A Key
Mechanism of Control” by Newt Gingrich. It was a pamphlet written
in 1990 to market Republican candidates. Gingrich’s marketing plan provided a
relatively simple message that branded Republicans as the pro-family, law and
order, common sense party of patriots, and Democrats as corrupt traitors who
were anti-flag and anti-child. It didn’t matter whether there was any truth to
the characterizations, it was marketing - propaganda.
After 35 years of listening to this divisive language it’s
no wonder people now think in terms of “us” versus “them.” Like all marketing,
this pamphlet and the political language it inspired was designed to keep you
feeling like you’ll never have enough or be enough because of “them.”
Nonfiction: Medicine, Health, Science
Super Agers: An Evidence-Based Approach to Longevity
by Eric Topol
The author, Eric Topol, is an American cardiologist,
scientist, and author. He is the founder and director of the Scripps Research
Translational Institute, a professor of Molecular Medicine and Executive
Vice-President at Scripps Research Institute, and a senior consultant at the
Division of Cardiovascular Diseases at Scripps Clinic in La Jolla, California.
Ninety-five percent of Americans over the age of sixty have
at least one chronic disease and almost as many have two. Topol explains the
power of the new approaches to the worst chronic killers—diabetes/obesity,
heart disease, cancer, and neurodegeneration—and how treatments can begin long
before middle age, and even long after.
This fact-dense book is an evidence-based digest of advances
in medicine, science, and technology that directly affect our lifespans. Topol
outlines the evidence of how these advances may change aging and provide
possible paths forward for millions of people.
“It is not enough for a great nation to merely to have
added new years to life – our objective must be to add new life to those
years.” – John F. Kennedy
Here are just a few facts that intrigued me from Super
Agers:
- Retina photographs can be used to predict the risk of heart attack and stroke. (I have a photo annually to track a “freckle” on my retina. I am going to ask about this at my next appointment!)
- I learned we have a glymphatic system in our brain. It functions like our lymphatic system in the rest of our body. While we sleep, the glymphatic system clears metabolic waste from our brains. Which is why sleep is essential for good health; seven hours each night is optimal.
- The HPV vaccine is excellent protection against cervical cancer! In Scotland 90% of teens/women (up to the age of 45) received the HPV vaccine. Then they monitored the outcome for 40,000 women who received the vaccine. How many cases of cervical cancer occurred in these 40,000 Scottish women? – 0 – zero. In the USA only 60 % of teens/women (up to the age of 45) have received the HPV vaccine. The American Cancer Society estimates for 2025 are 13,360 cases of cervical cancer with 4,320 deaths. Sad.
- Family history of Alzheimer’s disease is the most important factor for the disease. The genetic risk increases if there is a maternal history of memory impairment at any age. Walking matters! An extensive gene expression analysis of over 1,000 genes linked to Alzheimer’s identified “exercise as the top theoretical treatment.”
There is so much more detailed information in this book! Topol
explains what we do and do not know (yet!) about aging. It is well worth
reading for anyone interested in medical science and hopes for a healthy
future.
Reading Across the Seas Book Club: International Fiction,
Fantasy
The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep by H.G.
Parry (New Zealand)
Publisher’s Description: “For his entire life, Charley
Sutherland has concealed a magical ability he can't quite control: he can bring
characters from books into the real world. His older brother, Rob -- a young
lawyer with a normal house, a normal fiancée, and an utterly normal life --
hopes that this strange family secret will disappear with disuse, and he will
be discharged from his life's duty of protecting Charley and the real world
from each other. But then, literary characters start causing trouble in their
city, making threats about destroying the world... and for once, it isn't
Charley's doing.
There's someone else who shares his powers. It's up to
Charley and a reluctant Rob to stop them, before these characters tear apart
the fabric of reality.”
This is a story of fictionalized characters being read to
life. For fans of literature this may be just the book for them. However, it
was just “okay” for me. I had a very difficult time getting into the story and
then maintaining an interest in it. Between the characters, the writing style
and the length, it was just not the novel for me. It eventually became a chore
to read but it was for Book Club, so I pressed on. I think the following quote
from the book is a good descriptive summary of The Unlikely Escape of
Uriah Heap.
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It doesn’t have too,” I said. “It’s a story.”
However, the overall premise of the plot was creative. Readers
who enjoy magic and fantasy should enjoy this book, and they may also be
inspired to delve deeper into the world of English Literature.
Fiction: Magical Realism
Weyward by Emilia
Hart
Weyward follows three women through time, all
of them related. In 1619 Altha is a healer who is on trial for witchcraft after
a man was found trampled to death by cows. In the 1940s, Violet has an
unfeeling, cold father who refuses to tell her about her deceased mother. In
modern times, Kate is desperate to escape her abusive husband. These women are
separated by time but not by blood, and all of them face the worst possible
realities that their respective society can provide.
"Weyward, they called us, when we would not
submit, would not bend to their will. But we learned to wear the name with
pride"
This book deals with domestic violence and rape and is not a
book for the faint-hearted as these incidents are realistically described. Every
single man in this book was utterly horrible, except Kate’s deceased father. Each
of the Weyward women’s experiences paints a polarizing black and white picture that
men are awful and women are great. This supports the theme of women’s resilience
throughout history, especially when dealing with a patriarchal society. However,
the thematic impact was dulled by the fact that these women were also powerful
witches.
“We never thought of ourselves as witches, my mother
and I. For this was a word invented by men, a word that brings power to those
that speak it, not those that it describes. A word that builds gallows and
pyres, turns breathing women into corpses.”
The situations the characters faced were realistic but how
they dealt with them was magical. Because key moments often revolved around
acts of magic, the focus shifted from celebrating internal strength to
showcasing extraordinary magical powers. It felt like the message was,
"Women with magical powers are strong.” But what about “Women are
strong”, period?
Weyward is well-written. The descriptions of
nature are vivid, and the characters are believable. While it switches back and
forth between each of the three storylines, the author has created a seamless
tale across time. Ultimately, Weyward is about what women have
experienced throughout history at the hands of abusive men and the impact of
generational trauma.
Fiction: Classic American
Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
One evening I watched an episode of “Dr. G: America’s Most Shocking Cases.” It told the story of author, Sherwood Anderson. He
died an agonizing death after he unknowingly swallowed a martini olive toothpick.
(He was known to be a heavy drinker!) I
realized that I had not read any of his books and it was time that I did!
Winesburg, Ohio is a book of short stories that
begins with an old writer thinking of the people he has known throughout his
life. Particularly entrenched in his mind are the “grotesques” of
Winesburg, the small fictional town in Ohio in the 1890s. (There is a Winesburg
in Ohio, but this story is based on Anderson’s experiences living in Clyde,
Ohio.) In this small, seemingly inconsequential place there are many points of
view. Anderson stories reveal a fascination with the thoughts and motivations
hiding beneath the surface of Winesburg’s citizens.
One man George Willard, a reporter for the newspaper, is a
frequent character in the stories. As Winesburg’s only reporter, he is a close
observer who tries to record the affairs of the townspeople. His occupation
gives him an air of importance that leads many people to confide in him.
Consequently, we learn about an array of interesting and
unusual characters who all suffer from loneliness. Each person longs for
meaningful human contact, whether from a friend or lover, to fill an aching gap
in their lives. They all struggle from an inability to adequately voice their
desires. Often this inability to express themselves verbally leads to significant, and sometimes harmful, physical expressions.
Winesburg, Ohio is a dark and strange book. While Anderson’s depiction of
loneliness is often sad, it also has its touching moments. In this small town
he beautifully shows that pain, longing, and uncertainty are unavoidable
aspects of what it means to be human. I was left with the thought that we must
love and cherish the one and only life we have.
