New England Captives Carried to Canada 1677 - 1760

A few weeks ago I received a lovely message to say that my name had been selected by Fieldstone Common and I had won a copy of New England Captives carried to Canada between 1677 - 1760 by Emma Louise Coleman and published by the New England Historic Genealogical Society.

Because of the time difference I, more often than not listen to the Fieldstone Common radio shows from the recording, and sometimes I not often a week or two late in listening.

This is the link to this episode, broadcast on 11th April which tells you a little about the book -

 http://www.blogtalkradio.com/fieldstonecommon/2013/04/11/new-england-captives-carried-to-canada-with-donald-friary

I am actually no stranger to the book. Back when I undertook my history degree this book, well the original two volumes that were published in 1925 were in fact on the reading list from the lecturer. Ironically no copy of these volumes existed in the university library, nor in any library within easy access of the south west of England.

This particular book is the republished complete volumes of those 1925 books. So how lucky am I?

The book arrived today, just before lunchtime to a pretty miserable south west England, so I whilst I my lunch I started to dip into this very interesting book.  Clearly I was so distracted as I had nearly finished my  ham roll, before I realised that I had forgotten to put the ham in!

At immediate first glance, it does look a really interesting book, which contains as much biographical data as was available about these individuals. In addition there is information on the social and economic aspects of the geography and the impact of the relationships between the natives and the new immigrants to the region.

A Train in Winter by Caroline Moorehead

Synopsis

They were teachers, students, chemists, writers, and housewives; a singer at the Paris Opera, a midwife, a dental surgeon. They distributed anti-Nazi leaflets, printed subversive newspapers, hid resisters, secreted Jews to safety, transported weapons, and conveyed clandestine messages. The youngest was a schoolgirl of fifteen who scrawled "V" for victory on the walls of her lycée; the eldest, a farmer's wife in her sixties who harbored escaped Allied airmen. Strangers to each other, hailing from villages and cities from across France, these brave women were united in hatred and defiance of their Nazi occupiers.

Eventually, the Gestapo hunted down 230 of these women and imprisoned them in a fort outside Paris. Separated from home and loved ones, these disparate individuals turned to one another, their common experience conquering divisions of age, education, profession, and class, as they found solace and strength in their deep affection and camaraderie.

In January 1943, they were sent to their final destination: Auschwitz. Only forty-nine would return to France.

A Train in Winter draws on interviews with these women and their families; German, French, and Polish archives; and documents held by World War II resistance organizations to uncover a dark chapter of history that offers an inspiring portrait of ordinary people, of bravery and survival—and of the remarkable, enduring power of female friendship.

The whole title of this book is A Train in Winter: A Story of Resistance, Friendship and Survival in Auschwitz. I don't read a lot of non-fiction but I knew I wanted to read this one as soon as it came out. I think part of the reason I was so interested is that I do find reading about people's experiences in big conflicts like WWI and WWII fascinating. I am aware that I could probably read non-fiction about WWII exclusively as there is a lot out there but I need a hook to catch my attention. In this case, the hook was the fact that the book was about a group of women who were active in the French Resistance and ended up being captured and then sent to the death camps like Auschwitz and Birkenau, among other places. The book follows a group of 230 women, all French political prisoners, from their activities in the Resistance to their capture and initial captivity in the French prisons and their eventual secret deportment to Auschwitz on Le Convoi des 31000, one of the only trains to contain female resistance prisoners. Of these 230 women, only 49 returned.

Broken into two parts, the first part provides the reader with background to life in France during the early days of the German invasion, the formation of the Vichy government, and then the initial resistance activity. We meet communist intellectuals who put out anti-Nazi newspapers, the couriers who deliver messages and copies of the newspapers, women who helped host people fleeing from the Nazis including other activists as well as Jewish people. While a lot of the people we meet lived and worked in Paris, there were also groups of people who were working in cities and towns in rural France. There were young women who were still in their teens, and older women with grown children, mothers with young children and so many more.

The second part focuses on their life within the camps, the constant stream of new arrivals and the daily horror that awaited them. Starved, beaten, sick, forced to stand for hours at a time in freezing condition, lice-ridden - the list of terrors go on and on. Forced to work in the infirmaries and to witness some of the medical experiments but it does also give them opportunities to try and save some lives where they can. One of the things that helps those women that do survive is their reliance on each other, their solidarity for want of a better term. It also touches on the difficulties of returning to 'normal' life, to the children who don't know the women who return, the memories, and more. One of the more telling quotes from the book comes from one of the survivors:

Looking at me, one would think that I'm alive....I'm not alive. I died in Auschwitz, but no one knows it.

The author does a good job of sharing just enough information about each woman, but there are a lot of them and there were times that there was just too many women that the reader had to try and keep track of. I am not sure if a couple of more in depth profiles of chosen people might have had just as big an emotional effect as so many smaller details. Even with this criticism, this book did pack an emotional punch. There were times that I cringed as I read about the terrible acts of inhumanity that these women were subjected to, along with millions of others who didn't fit the Nazi ideal of acceptableness, like the Jews but also other groups like gypsies, homosexuals, and so many more. I found the sections that talked about the fate of many of the young children and babies born in the camps to be particularly heartrending.

There are photos liberally spread throughout the book. Some of them included the children that the women left behind, some pictures of the camps and more. I must say one photo that did affect me was one of a group of German guards, mostly female, in the prison camps looking very happy. Given that it was strategically placed in the text in sections where they talked about how vicious some of these women guards were, it was hard to equate these happy, smiling faces with some of the sadistic punishments that were meted out.

One of the things that I found amazing about these women was that while a lot of them were politically active as individuals, there were others who took up roles in the various resistance organisations after their husbands/brothers/lovers/fathers were arrested and taken away by the Germans. They KNEW the risks they were taking, they did their best to avert those risks but they still took up the work of distributing anti-German literature, or helping people cross borders into safer areas or whatever it is that they were doing. Sometimes they were caught thanks to the work of the French police who worked with the Gestapo, other times they were just caught almost by accident. Other women were denounced by their neighbours for listening to the BBC, which was banned, and in a couple of cases there was no evidence that the women were actually involved in any way but they were still rounded up and ended up in the prison camps.

What I wasn't expecting was to find myself contemplating big questions about myself. We are lucky to live a pretty easy life in that there haven't been any major wars in Australia. I did find myself wondering if I would have the strength of conviction to be an active resister if we were invaded. Would I have the fortitude to physically survive the terrible conditions and the mental strength to come back and live my life after seeing the many terrible things that these women were subjected to and witnessed? Having contemplated it for a while, I think that the fact of the matter is that I would probably not be a resister but would be more of the keep your head down and do the best to survive kind of mentality. I most certainly would have struggled physically and mentally! Heck, I struggle now at times.

The other thing that I do find myself pondering is about how a country like France moved on from the effects of the war, particularly when you think about the collaborators, the police who followed the German orders, the judges who enforced German laws. For example, how do you look your neighbour in the eye if you suspect that they were the one who denounced you to the Germans? How long did these after effects impact on life in French society? In the final section, the author talked about the fact that the last of the collaborators were released from prison in the late 1960s, which isn't long before I was born. Is the past fully in the past and if so how long did it colour daily life for the country as a whole?

I did think that the author drew some interesting conclusions. When looking at the women who survived there was an inference that it was only a certain age of woman who was likely to survive, and that they were most likely to be those with certain beliefs who were strong enough to stand the experiences that they were being subjected to. I am not quite sure why this was the conclusion that was reach, whether it was an agenda at the beginning of the process or if it was a more organic conclusion.

This is a very interesting book about a very important subject. After the war, there were only comparatively few women who were individually recognised for their bravery and their work in the resistance. This book attempts to redress that in some small way. It isn't a book that you can just get lost in or reading in a single sitting. The subject matter is confronting and distressing, and as you can see had me contemplating some pretty big questions in my own mind. I am glad that I took the opportunity to read this book as part of the tour.

Lifeboat No. 8: An Untold Tale of Love, Loss, and Surviving the Titanic by Elizabeth Kaye

Lifeboat No. 8: An Untold Tale of Love, Loss, and Surviving the Titanic by Elizabeth Kaye

Completion Date: April 14, 2012
Reason for Reading: Titanic Week.

When the Titanic started sinking, who would make it off alive? The two cousins who had been so eager to see their first iceberg? The maid who desperately tried to escape with the baby in her care? The young newlyweds who’d booked passage despite warnings not to?

One hundred years after that disastrous and emblematic voyage, Elizabeth Kaye reveals the extraordinary, little-known story behind one of the first lifeboats to leave the doomed ship.

Told in real time and in the actual voices of survivors, Kaye’s poignant, pulse-pounding narrative includes the story of the Countess of Rothes, the wealthiest woman on the ship, bound for California, where she and her husband planned to start an orange farm. It was the Countess, dressed in ermine and pearls, who took command of Lifeboat No. 8, rowing for hours through the black and icy water. In the words of one of the Titanic’s crew, she was “more of a man than any we have on board.”

At the heart of Kaye’s tale is a budding romance between the Countess’s maid, Roberta Maioni, and the Titanic’s valiant wireless operator, Jack Phillips. While Roberta made it safely onto Lifeboat No. 8, holding nothing but a photo of Jack she had run back to her cabin to retrieve, he remained on the ship, where he would send out the world’s first SOS signal. But would it be received in time to save his life?

Surviving that fateful night in the North Atlantic was not the end of the saga for those aboard Lifeboat No 8. Kaye reveals what happened to each passenger and crew member and how the legendary maritime disaster haunted them forever.

A century later, we’re still captivated by the Titanic and its passengers. With its skillful use of survivors’ letters, diaries, and testimonies, “Lifeboat No. 8” adds a dramatic new chapter to the ongoing story....

A longtime contributor to “Esquire,” “Rolling Stone,” and “The New York Times,” Elizabeth Kaye is the author of “Mid-Life: Notes from the Halfway Mark” and “Ain’t No Tomorrow: Kobe, Shaq, and the Making of a Lakers Dynasty,” as well as the bestselling Byliner Original “Sleeping with Famous Men.”

I was on Goodreads and I just happened to see Ana post that she wanted to read this book. I was intrigued because I hadn't heard of it before and that meant me checking it out almost immediately. Then I bought it... And then I read it. All in the same day. There are benefits to e-books! I love non-fiction about the Titanic, so I was curious about the more immediate nature of this book. It is a Kindle Short which, as far as I understand, is where authors say what needs to be said in as few words as possible. This was written in a very readable way that made it easy to read in one sitting. I am glad I went to check it out after seeing Ana mention it.

Lifeboat 8 was one of the first boats lowered on that fateful night. This book chronicles what things were like for the passengers it contained. In some cases it retraces their moments before the ship sinks. The book is based on testimony, quotes, etc that surfaced after the Carpathia returned to New York. The thing that is so great about how Kaye chooses to tell her story is that she tells it first-hand. It is not someone 100 years later recapping events, but more a chance to be there that night and the nights afterwards. I think it worked out really well. It might not contain entirely new information, but it chooses an aspect of the Titanic history that is limited, so there is more chance to get into the details. It makes the story seem fresh even though you have probably heard bits and pieces of it before in other books.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. It is perfect if you are looking for a quick introduction to some of the events from that night. My only major regret was that I actually wish it was longer and even more detailed, but Kaye was limited by the fact that all the survivors are now deceased and only so much remains of their impressions and experiences.

The Last Days of the Titanic: Photographs and Mementos of the Tragic Maiden Voyage by E.E. O'Donnell

The cover shows the last photo of Captain Smith.

The Last Days of the Titanic: Photographs and Mementos of the Tragic Maiden Voyage by E.E. O'Donnell

The Last Days of the Titanic takes in the full sweep of the liner's celebrated departure from England and Ireland, from boarding the special Titanic rail car at Waterloo Station, to port activity at Queenstown, and ultimately to final photographs of the ship as it disappeared from view off the coast of Ireland. A photo essay by Browne, titled "The Day a Liner Sailed," chronicles the bustling life of of an Irish seaport, and includes snapshots of illegal traders, packets transferring passengers, mail bound for America being loaded into holds, and authorized Irish vendors selling their wares aboard ship. Father Browne's own Titanic Album, assembled as a commemorative gesture in 1920, portrays crews and passengers at work and play, and contains such rare interior shots as a typical state room, the dining room, gymnasium, and a "reading and writing room." Hauntingly, the book also features the last photograph taken of Captain Smith, looking ominously down at Lifeboat Number two as a tender delivered passengers to Queenstown.

Unique mementos, such as Titanic brochures, menus, and floorplans are further supplemented by ephemera from the Olympic, the Titanic's sister ship and near duplicate. By way of conclusion, The Last Days of the Titanic chronicles the evolution of the tragedy as it was reported in Ireland and England, from the first desperate telegrams to scenes of Queenstwon in mourning, flags at half-mast over deserted quays.

The only reason I rushed out and got this book is because I have heard lots about Father Browne and his historical pictures, but I have never actually seen them all before in one place. They pop up in other books all the time and are easily found around the internet. Here is a small section of the pictures, but if you want to see more I suggest locating a copy of this very interesting book.

This is what the book looked like when Browne put his own copy together.

Bridge of the Olympic. No pictures of the Titanic bridge exist.

Inspection of the Life Jackets. The Titanic did not have a lifeboat drill like it was expected to on April 14. As a result no one really knew what they were doing and many people didn't even know where to find their life jackets.

Passengers Waiting to Board

Titanic Swimming Pool

Third Class Getting Settled

The first, and last, Titanic Special.

One of the last photos of the Titanic ever taken.

Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage: The Titanic's First Class Passengers and Their World by Hugh Brewster

This book also is being called: RMS Titanic: Gilded Lives on a Fatal Voyage


Completion Date: March 30, 2012
Reason for Reading: Titanic Week read.

April 14, 2012, marks the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. The “unsinkable subject,” the story of the giant ship that sank on its maiden voyage, has become one of our most potent modern parables and enduring metaphors. The image of the ship’s plunging stern is an icon, and expressions like “rearranging the deck chairs” and “hitting the iceberg” need no explanation. 

Yet on a cold, clear April night the disaster happened to real people—stokers, millionaires, society ladies, parsons, parlourmaids—people who displayed a full range of all-too-human reactions as the events of the night unfolded. With new research, R.M.S. Titanic weaves the dramatic story of that fateful crossing with compelling portraits of the people on board—those who survived, and those who tragically lost their lives—allowing us to place ourselves on that sloping deck and ask, “What would we do?”

I have always been interested in books about the Titanic, so I was very excited to read a few of the new books out in honour of the centennial. I will probably never be able to read all of them, but I want to read some of them. You would think there would be only so much that could be said on the subject, but since there were so many unknowns that evening there are a lot of theories. For example, despite some people saying the boat broke in half when it went down, it wasn't until the ship was found in 1985 in two pieces that this became the popular opinion. This means that for 73 years the popular opinion was that the ship went down in one piece. The thing with the Titanic is there are common events that cannot be ignored, but each book can choose an entirely different way of looking at things.

Hugh Brewster's book is one of the new releases for 2012. I was offered a chance to read it from Harper Collins Canada, and I knew I had to take the opportunity. I was curious about his method of telling the story. He chose to write it from the viewpoint of mostly the first class passengers, but he talked about some that I have never seen a lot of attention paid to before. It made for really interesting reading. Plus, for a non-fiction book it read like a novel and that is always a plus. I like how he just tells their stories, but makes he clear when he is only educationally guessing what they were doing at certain times based on other evidence or just the routine of the person. This way it is like he is telling a story with the beginning, middle, and end. And, he writes believable. We will never know for sure exactly how every event played out, but he does a very good job of hypothesizing. It makes people that have been dead for years come alive for the reader.

I think with the Titanic it is easy to get caught up in the facts and miss that these were real people with real stories. I really appreciate a book that reminds us of this. At the end of the book there are brief biographies on the survivors that he mentions in the book to say what they did with the rest of their life. There is also an extensive note section and bibliography that I have been browsing. The thing that my ARC lacks is the pictures. As there is a note at the back that says there will be Photo Credits; this makes me think the pictures that he talks about throughout the book are probably included in the finished copy. I know I will be buying a copy at some point to see. I want to concentrate on books I haven't all ready read first, or I would have probably bought it right away. I always like looking at the pictures.

I think this book does a great job of looking at the passengers of the Titanic. Strongly recommended!

Thanks to Harper Collins Canada for my copy of this book.

Titanic Week - A Who's Who of the Titanic Crew

Bridge Crew:

Photo Credit
Back Row: Herbert McElroy, Charles Lightoller, Herbert Pitman, Joseph Boxhall, Harold Lowe
Seated: James Moody, Henry Wilde, Captain Edward Smith, William Murdoch

Photo Credit

Captain Edward John Smith. Went down with the ship.

• He was 62 at the time of the voyage.
• The Titanic was to be Smith's last voyage. He had plans to retire after it was completed. Other sources say this was incorrect and he was planning to retire after the Britannica maiden voyage.
• He also was the Captain of the Olympic where he survived 2 possible disasters.
• He was last seen in the bridge area. There have been various stories surrounding his final moments.
• His body was never found.

Photo Credit

Chief Officer Lieutenant Henry Tingle Wilde. Went down with the ship.

• 39 at the time of the voyage.
• Wilde was a last minute addition to the deck crew causing the officers to be rearranged. He was actually serving on the Olympic, but she was out of commission for the moment.
• The last reported sighting of Wilde was him attempting to free Collapsibles A and B from the roof of the officers' quarters.
• His body was never recovered.

Photo Credit

First Officer Lieutenant William McMaster Murdoch. Went down with the ship.

• 39 years old at the time of the sinking.
• He was originally to be the Chief Officer, but was moved down to 1st Officer because of the addition of Wilde to the crew.
• Was on bridge duty when the iceberg was struck. It was him that gave the orders in an attempt to miss the iceberg.
• He was in-charge of loading many of the life-boats. 
• His body was never recovered.

Photo Credit

Second Officer Sub-Lieutenant Charles Herbert Lightoller. Survived.

• 38 years old at the time of the sinking. Lived until 1952.
• He was originally the first officer, but with Murdoch dropped down in rank, he moved down as well.
• The original Second Officer was David Blair who wound up leaving entirely.
• He had the watch before Murdoch's. He loaded many lifeboats and almost entirely held to the rule 'Women and Children' first.
• Survived by climbing on top of the overturned Collapsible B.

Photo Credit

Third Officer Herbert Pitman. Survived.

• 34 years old at the time of the sinking.
• He lived until 1961.
• Pitman was not on duty at the time of the collision.
• He was in command of Lifeboat 5 and the passengers aboard it as well as a few other crew members.
• After the sinking he continued to serve the White Star Line and other sea-faring companies until his retirement.

Photo Credit

Fourth Officer Sub-Lieutenant Joseph Groves Boxhall. Survived.

• 28 years old at the time of the sinking. Died in 1967.
• Boxhall was headed to the bridge at the time of the sinking and overheard Murdoch's orders.
• Boxhall did the initial inspection of the ship, alerted the other officers, and worked out the ships position.
• It was also him that spotted the 'mystery ship' that was close enough to be seen, but did not come to their aid.
• He was in charge of Lifeboat 2 and set off green flares to alert other ships.

Photo Credit

Fifth Officer Sub-Lieutenant Harold Godfrey Lowe. Survived.

• 29 years old at the time of the sinking. Died in 1944.
• This was his first North Atlantic voyage.
• He was not on duty at the time of the collision and only woke when he heard voices that alerted him that something was wrong.
• He was in charge of lifeboat 14. It was this lifeboat that eventually went back to look for survivors, but by then there were very few left.
• It was also reported that Lowe fired his weapon to discourage people from jumping aboard his boat as it was lowered.

Photo Credit

Sixth Officer James Paul Moody. Went down with the ship.

• 24 years old at the time of the sinking.
• He was on watch at the time of the collision. He answered the phone when lookout Frederick Fleet called to say there was an 'Iceberg right ahead'.
• He could have left to command a lifeboat, but instead he remained behind to help load the boats.
• He was last seen by Lightoller trying to launch the collapsible boats.
• His body was never found.

Photo Credit
Left to Right: Will Murdoch, Charles Alfred Bartlett, Henry Wilde, Capt Edward Smith

Look-Outs:

Mr. Alfred Frank Evans. Survived.

• 24 years old at the time of the sinking. Died in 1974.
• Off-duty when the iceberg hit, but was on duty for about 20 mins starting at midnight before abandoning his post.
• He was rescued in lifeboat 15.

Mr. Frederick Fleet. Survivor.

• 24 years old at the time of the sinking. He died in 1965.
• He was on watch with Reginald Lee when they spotted a black mass ahead. It was him that called the bridge to report it. They didn't know at first how bad things were.
• He was rescued on lifeboat 6, the first boat launched from the port side.

Photo Credit

Mr. George Alfred Hogg. Survivor.

• 29 years old at the time of the sinking. He died in 1946.
• Went on watch for 20 mins with Evans before they gave up their post, but was off-duty at the time of the impact.
• He was rescued in lifeboat 7.

Photo Credit

Mr. Archie Jewell. Survivor.

• 23 years old at the time of the sinking.
• He had just got off his shift prior to the watch when the iceberg hit and was all ready sleeping.
• He was rescued in lifeboat 7.
• In an interesting aside, Jewell is reported to have gone on to live through the Britannic sinking, but went on to die in 1917 when the Donegal sank.

Photo Credit

Mr. Reginald Robinson Lee. Survivor.

• 41 years old at the time. Died in 1913.
• He was on the lookout with Fleet when the iceberg was sighted.
• He was rescued in lifeboat 13.

Photo Credit

Mr. George Thomas McDonald. Survivor

• 24 years old at the time of the sinking. 
• He would have just gotten off duty the shift before the iceberg struck.
• He was in charge of lifeboat 1.

Wireless Operators:

Mr. Harold Sydney Bride. Survivor.

• 22 years old at the time of the sinking. Died in 1956.
• He was the assistant sharing with John Phillips.
• It is recorded that after the iceberg struck Phillips worked the wireless, while Bride relayed the messages they received to the captain.
• Even after they were told they could abandon their post, they stuck around, but eventually had to leave because of the water flowing in.
• He managed to climb on top of the overturned collapsible B, but suffered from frostbite in his feet.
• He continued to send messages while aboard the Carpathia.

Mr. John George Phillips. Went down with the ship.

• 25 years old at the time of the sinking.
• Phillips manned the wireless after the collision sending out the SOS messages.
• The wireless operators left at the same time, but went to different places. Somehow, though, they ended up both on the overturned collapsible B. 
• Phillips sadly did not make it, though. He was exhausted after a long day sending messages and repairing equipment and conditions were harsh on the boat.
• His body was not recovered.

Stewardess:

Violet Constance Jessop. Survivor.

• 24 years old when the Titanic sailed. Died in 1971.
• She is worthy of a mention because she was aboard the Olympic when it struck the Hawke, survived the sinking of the Titanic, and then went on to live through the mining and eventual sinking of the Britannic.
• On the Titanic she was rescued on lifeboat 16.

And the Band Played on...

It is widely known that the Titanic band played on until the last possible minute. It is widely debated what the last song was that they played, but they kept people calm.

Their ages ranged from 20 to 33. Only 3 of the bodies were recovered.

This is just a small percentage of the crew. If you are interested in learning more you should visit websites like Encyclopedia Titanica. All crew birth dates and deaths were taken from that site; as well as some random facts here and there and whether or not the bodies were recovered. The rest come from me being a bit obsessed with the Titanic for years and having a good memory.

A Venetian Affair by Andrea di Robilant

Giustiniana Wynne meets Andrea Memmo when she is only sixteen, and he is not much older. They fall passionately in love, but are prevented from openly pursuing the ordinary course of love and marriage by her mother, his family, and the rigid social structure in which they live. But these are no ordinary teenagers. Tenacious, talented, and philosophical, they try for years to engineer various plans intended to bring them together in spite of class differences, governmental opposition, and prolonged separation. All their efforts fail in conventional terms, but they succeed in remaining lifelong friends. Their correspondence, which was necessarily secret in their lifetimes, is now public and is a literary achievement perhaps more enthralling than any novel, because of its historical truth.

When Andrea di Robilant's father found a stash of letters in the old family Palazzo in Venice a journey of discovery began. The discovery of an 18th century doomed love affair between their ancestor Andrea Memmo and Giustiniana Wynne, a half English young woman.

This book is the compilation of those letters with di Robilants explanations and contextualisation of the period and the political incidents and social customs of the time. As a love story I must confess that reading some of the letters made me feel somewhat like a voyeur. The intimacy that they share was obviously for their eyes only, the letters were written in code by the way, and makes sense only to them.

But they do tell a lot more of Venetian society in the last decades of the Republic. Andrea and Giustiniana are of such different stations in society that a marriage between them is deemed impossible for most of the book and when considered is destroyed by rumours and revelations of the past. We realise that Venetian society was ruled by an old, unbreakable code that forbade marriages outside the oldest families for its sons and daughters, and that the old customs were maintained and enforced by a group of Inquisitors. The Republic also had strict rules about who was allowed to enter and reside in Venice not to mention that society eventually accepted or excluded the ones that were different or did not behave according to the norm.

To continue their affair the lovers plan was to marry Giustiniana off to some old man as married ladies had much more freedom of movements. That never happened and eventually Giustianiana leaves Venice but they never cease corresponding, maintaining their love and describing their lives. I found their life story a bit sad, they had to conform to the society they lived in and in doing so some of their actions are less than correct and certainly brought them no happiness. In the end, I felt that what stayed with me was the larger picture of Venice's story during the 18th century.

I found this an interesting story but better read as a work of nonfiction. It may be a bit too dry for historical fiction lovers.

Grade 4/5

The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale

The fascinating story of a famous Victorian murder case - and the notorious detective who solved it It is a summer’s night in 1860. In an elegant detached Georgian house in the village of Road, Wiltshire, all is quiet. Behind shuttered windows the Kent family lies sound asleep. At some point after midnight a dog barks.

The family wakes the next morning to a horrific discovery: an unimaginably gruesome murder has taken place in their home. The household reverberates with shock, not least because the guilty party is surely still among them. Jack Whicher of Scotland Yard, the most celebrated detective of his day, reaches Road Hill House a fortnight later. He faces an unenviable task: to solve a case in which the grieving family are the suspects.

The murder provokes national hysteria. The thought of what might be festering behind the closed doors of respectable middle-class homes – scheming servants, rebellious children, insanity, jealousy, loneliness and loathing – arouses fear and a kind of excitement. But when Whicher reaches his shocking conclusion there is uproar and bewilderment.

I was very curious about this book. I enjoy historical mysteries very much and that this one about a true crime seemed perfect to my tastes. Unfortunately that was not so... I found it very interesting in terms of analysis of the Victorian mind, in terms of early detective work but I ended up finding it a bit dry and too cluttered with information that while important to the real investigation dragged the story.

The crime in question is the murder of three year old Saville Kent. In 1860, in the middle of night and in a locked house someone removed him from his bed, took him to an outside privy and slashed his throat. The first suspects are his family and their servants. The local police couldn't come up with answers and the Scotland Yard sends one of their best detectives, Mr. Jonathan Whicher.

Whicher arrives two weeks after the crime and some of the evidence is already lost. But careful analysis of what he could find and the family history led him to the conclusion that one of the family members was indeed guilty but the evidence was not conclusive and the case almost brought him to ruin.

I thought, from what I had read about it, that the book would be about his investigation, finding the clues and analysing them to reach a conclusion. Instead it ended up being more about the family relations, class system and mental illness. Which is also very interesting but it doesn't make for a fluid reading when it is described with as great detail as it is here.

One interesting aspect is when Summerscale mentions how Mr. Whicher influenced the detective fiction of the time and the works of writers such as Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens. Readers who enjoyed The Moonstone or Bleak House will find this a very interesting read. Other shocking murders of the time are also mentioned, some with motivations more material and, to me, easier to understand than this one.

In the end it is clear that the author did a great deal of research about the Saville Kent murder and her explanation of what might have happened to the two Mrs. Kent sounds like a plausible one but I think that is terms of resolution, despite the fact that Mr. Whicher's suspect confessed half way through the book, we are still left with many questions.

This book is very interesting for people wanting to find out about the family life in the Victorian world, about the crimes of the time, the motivations and the beginning of the forensics methods that led some of the criminals to justice. As for people wanting to find out just about this murder, the information is there but you need to filter through all the other details provided.

Grade: 3.5/5

The Six Wives of Henry VIII - Alison Weir

The tempestuous, bloody, and splendid reign of Henry VIII of England (1509-1547) is one of the most fascinating in all history, not least for his marriage to six extraordinary women. In this accessible work of brilliant scholarship, Alison Weir draws on early biographies, letters, memoirs, account books, and diplomatic reports to bring these women to life. Catherine of Aragon emerges as a staunch though misguided woman of principle; Anne Boleyn, an ambitious adventuress with a penchant for vengeance; Jane Seymour, a strong-minded matriarch in the making; Anne of Cleves, a good-natured and innocent woman naively unaware of the court intrigues that determined her fate; Catherine Howard, an empty-headed wanton; and Catherine Parr, a warm-blooded bluestocking who survived King Henry to marry a fourth time.

I did enjoy reading Weir's The Six Wives of Henry VIII, she has a simple style and it's really easy to read. It's not written as separate biographies, in fact we could almost say that the women were only important after their path crosses with the king and so their early life is just slightly mentioned. And it's as much about Henry as about his wives, if not more, because it reads like his story and his transition from wife to wife. I was left with the feeling that had he not died when he did and we might have had more Queens. It seems the more he got rid of them the easier it became.

The book is uneven in its treatment of the women; most of the book is devoted to Katharine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn (with Katharine getting the most pages) and then the other 4 queens being treated with less detail. That was unfortunate for me because I was more interested in the less known women than in the first two wives.

I had some problems right from the beginning though as in the introduction she immediately states her views of Henry's Queens. I was left with the feeling that what was to come was the confirmation of those particular views and not some neutral material that would allow me to make my own mind. In a way I felt that through the whole book. Like facts being related and in the middle of them a personal opinion here and there.

It seemed to me like a good beginning to approach the era and Henry's marital and succession problems but I was left with the feeling that maybe not all was as black and white as Weir paints it. I was left with an appetite for more.

Grade: B

Extraordinary Canadians: Lord Beaverbrook by David Adams Richards

Press baron, entrepreneur, art collector, and wartime minister in Churchill's cabinet,Max Aitken was a colonial Canadian extraordinaire. Rising from a hardscrabble childhood in New Brunswick, he became a millionaire at age 25, earned the title of Lord Beaverbrook at 38, and by age 40 was the most influential newspaperman in the world. Fiercely loyal to the British Empire, he was nonetheless patronized by London's upper class, whose country he worked tirelessly to protect during World War II. David Adams Richards, one of Canada's preeminent novelists, celebrates Beaverbrook's heroic achievements in this perceptive interpretive biography.

I am so happy that I came across this series of books being put out by Penguin Canada. I saw that Charlotte Grey was writing a book about Nellie McClung and bought it because I like both the author and the subject matter. When the book arrived, I saw a website and went to see where it led to and found a treasure-trove of a series! I love history, especially Canadian history, so I was thrilled to see that famous Canadian authors were writing books on famous Canadians! And, famous Canadian artists were creating the cover art for the books. Some of the subjects I know a lot about, while others I have only heard about in passing. Lord Beaverbrook is one subject that I have never really paid a lot of attention to.

I am very glad that I took the time to read this book. I chose to read this one next because I really enjoy David Adams Richards as an author (most of the time), so I wanted to see what he would do with Beaverbrook. Both men are from New Brunswick, so it made sense that he was the author writing about him. This series is not meant to tell you every little detail about the subjects life, it is more to bring history to Canadians and then you can decide if you want to explore the subject in more depth. While I enjoyed learning more about Beaverbrook, I do not think he made a lasting impact on me. Politics can be my thing, but I pay more attention to modern politics than the history of them.

Beaverbrook was reviled in his adopted country of England, looked upon as a colonial, and hated by the aristocracy as an upstart. He was snubbed by those he must wanted to impress, and betrayed by those he trusted and helped. The heroic and historic role he played on the world stage from 1910 to 1945 is almost forgotten in Canada (like so much else about our history).

He does sound like quite the character, and he was, but this will probably be the only book I read on the subject. I am glad I know about more about him because I do not recall ever learning about him in school, and that really is a shame because he was a colorful character that did a lot for this country.

Much of his story takes place during the Second World War and I was very interested to learn about what part he played in it. I have always paid attention to history pertaining to both of the World Wars and I was surprised that I did not recall ever really hearing mention of Beaverbrook. He was a great friend of Winston Churchill, a name that is known far and wide, and it is a shame that Beaverbrook is not better known because without him, much that happened when Churchill had the reins would never be.

Anyone that wants to know a bit more about Canadian history should check this series out. The books are not dry and they give you a very good overview of the lives of these famous Canadians.

Shakespeare: The World as Stage by Bill Bryson

William Shakespeare, the most celebrated poet in the English language, left behind nearly a million words of text, but his biography has long been a thicket of wild supposition arranged around scant facts. With a steady hand and his trademark wit, Bill Bryson sorts through this colorful muddle to reveal the man himself.

Bryson documents the efforts of earlier scholars, from today's most respected academics to eccentrics like Delia Bacon, an American who developed a firm but unsubstantiated conviction that her namesake, Francis Bacon, was the true author of Shakespeare's plays. Emulating the style of his famous travelogues, Bryson records episodes in his research, including a visit to a bunkerlike room in Washington, D.C., where the world's largest collection of First Folios is housed.

Bryson celebrates Shakespeare as a writer of unimaginable talent and enormous inventiveness, a coiner of phrases ("vanish into thin air," "foregone conclusion," "one fell swoop") that even today have common currency. His Shakespeare is like no one else's—the beneficiary of Bryson's genial nature, his engaging skepticism, and a gift for storytelling unrivaled in our time.

For years and years I have read about Shakespeare. He was the author that was the common denomination in all of my schooling, so he is always someone that I have been a bit interested in. I think he is a bit overdone, I have to say that, but just because I am tired of learning about his plays does not mean I was not interested in the man. It is so fascinating to me that he is one of the greatest playwrites of all time, but very little is known about him. We do not even know for sure if he existed, or if it was someone else that wrote all of his plays. Look at Alexander Graham Bell, though. He lived in a more modern time and the guy was believed to not be capable of anything involving electricity, but he invented the telephone. So, anything is possible.

Considering how many pages of play we have by Shakespeare, it is interesting how short this book is. It does not come close to the writing of the man it is about, but Bryson covers a fair amount of things. He writes it so that he covers many viewpoints, he even mentions all the people that were involved in the conspiracies through the ages. If you want a short look at the life of William Shakespeare, this is a book that I would recommend. It is a short introduction, but it also encompasses much of the information exisiting on the man. I always find myself thinking, did this man really exist, or are the conspiracy theories closer to the truth.

Reluctant Genius: The Passionate Life and Inventive Mind of Alexander Graham Bell by Charlotte Gray

Impeccably researched, and written with Charlotte Gray’s unerring eye for personal and historical detail, Reluctant Genius tells the story of a man very different from his public image. Most of us think of Alexander Graham Bell as a white-bearded sage, but the young A lec Bell was a passionate and wild-eyed genius, a man given to fits of brilliance and melancholy. His technologies for photophones, tetrahedrals, flying machines and hydrodomes laid the groundwork for future achievement. And he adored his wife, Mabel, a beautiful, deaf young woman from a blueblood Boston family.

Gray goes where no other writer has gone, delving deeply into Bell’s personality and into his intense relationship with Mabel, whose background and temperament were a startling contrast to his own. Reluctant Genius takes us on an intimate journey into the golden age of invention and the vibrant life of a man whose work shaped our world.

This is my first time reading Charlotte Gray, one of Canada's predominant biography authors. Alexander Graham Bell has always been an author that has interested me. I remember learning about him as long ago as elementary school, and he has always been one of those people that I wanted to read more about. Charlotte Gray has also been one of those authors that I have heard good things but never had a chance to read before. Now that I have read this book by her, I look forward to reading more from her in the future.

Alexander Graham Bell was always an interesting inventor. He invented the telephone, which I believe we all know. Once he invented the phone, though, he got bored and wanted to work on something else, so he did not finalize any of his plans. He had a conversation with his partner, fiddled with it a few more times, and then he was done. The phone, though, would be the invention that followed him through his entire career. He would start some inventions that would influence others, but nothing was as successful for him during his lifetime as the phone.

The fact that Bell managed to invent anything was impressive. He was supposed to go to university, but it never managed to become a reality. He also had really no understanding of electricity. How he managed to accomplish anything is an impressive achievement considering his background. He was also very dedicated to the deaf community. He believed that deaf children should be raised in the hearing world so that they were not cut out of regular society. His wife did not know sign language, she spoke and read lips, so that many people were not always aware of the fact that she could not hear.

This book was marketed as a biography of Alexander Graham Bell, but it was also a book about his charming wife, Mabel. Readers get a chance to see their relationship, and also to learn about both of their lives. Mabel was an extraordinary woman for her times, she was a loving mother, but also the head of the household in many ways. It is quite apparent that her husband could be about unbalanced, but she never let it get her down. She was quite capable of keeping her husband balanced. It is hard to say what would have happened to ell without her there to keep him straight.

Charlotte Gray wrote a very good biography of a very interesting man. It was very readable. Sometimes biographies can be a bit dull, but this one was not. I strongly recommend this book if you have any interest in this subject matter.

Baptism of Fire by Nathan M. Greenfield

The Second Battle of Ypres and the Forging of Canada,
April 1915

Nathan M. Greenfield's talent for combining rich (and often overlooked) historical data with first-person accounts made his book The Battle of the St. Lawrence both a critical and popular success. Now he turns his formidable storytelling skill to one of the defining battles of the First World War and a seminal event in the building of our country.

The Second Battle of Ypres pitted the highly trained German soldiers - armed with the first weapon of mass destruction, chlorine gas - against the 1st Canadian Division, which had been in the trenches for just over a week. Yet it was the Canadians who ultimately triumphed, stopping the German advance that followed history's first poison-gas attacks.

In Baptism of Fire, Greenfield revisits the battlefields and war rooms of history, deconstructing military motives and unearthing scores of unpublished interviews, giving voice to the men who faced what one officer called a "filthy, loathsome pestilence" that turned copper buttons green and seared the Canadians' lungs. He describes how surprise turned to terror as the infantry saw the first clouds of chlorine gas rolling towards them; how, at first, the German soldiers had joked that their mysterious silver cylinders, spied across the enemy line, were a new kind of German beer keg. Recreating how the Canadians immediately filled the 12-kilometre-long hole in the Allied lines after the initial gas attack, Greenfield takes readers into the unimaginable horror of shell fire that turned men into "pink mist" and obliterated trenches, leaving the survivors to defend a position of death. And he explains how the untried Canadians, with their defective Ross rifles, breathing through urine-soaked handkerchiefs, successfully made one of the most important stands of the war - perhaps even staving off an ultimate German victory.

With alacrity and a great respect for the men in the trenches, Greenfield adds a new dimension to, and explodes a few myths behind, the Battle of Ypres. Within his pages are the words of the Canadian - and German - soldiers themselves, many of whom have never been heard before. Their accounts make this a gripping read for anyone seeking to understand our historical or military past.

This book will be out on October 5, 2007. I had an advanced reading copy to enjoy! Well, not really enjoy, it is about a book about death and destruction, but you know what I mean!

Baptism of Fire is about the Battle of Ypres, or as many Canadians know it, the Battle at Flanders Fields. This is the second time a battle was fought there during the First World War, and it was really the first time that Canadians had been involved in a major battle. Canada became separate from Britain in 1867, but when Britain declared war, Canada was still under responsibility to follow the Mother Country. It may not have been their war, but they were part of Britain for so many years, it was a necessary thing. The Second World War they were allowed to make their own decisions, so they only entered because they decided to help the war effort.

I learned a lot reading this book. I am sad to say that I know more about World War Two than World War One, simply because it was WWII that my grandfather and other family members played a part in. What I knew before opening this book was a poem written by a doctor, John McCrae. It is one of the most famous poems in Canadian history, and it is spoken aloud at Remembrance Day ceremonies across the country. I have heard it so many times, I know it by heart.

In Flanders Fields
Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

I copied it here, and it really is 'blow' not 'grow'. When the poem was recorded on the Canadian Ten-Dollar bill, many people thought it was an error. It is not. So, that is what I knew about the Second Battle of Ypres. The Battle for Vimy Ridge is talked about more, but Vimy owes many things to this battle. When people began recording this battle after it was completed, Canadians had identities. Instead of being listed as part of the British Troops in some manner, Canadians received a lot of attention and names were named. Greenfield continues this tradition, when I finished this book there were names that I had seen enough time to remember. Many people said that this makes it look like it was on the Canadians were there, which is not true, but since its founding Canada had switched back and forth between the English and the French. This was Canada's first major battle as its own country, and it deserves way more attention than it receives.

I learned a lot reading this book. This was the first battle where poisonious gases were released on the Allies. This is a battle where communication was almost non-existant, and many mistakes were made because no one knew what was going on. Soldiers fought for several days without any food, water, or sleep, so it was a very trying affair. The Allies held their own, though, despite extreme abuse to their bodies, they fought on. Could this battle have been handled differently? Probably, but they did the best they could considering this was 1915. One of the things that really bothered me about this battle was the guns. It was made clear several times that the guns the Canadians had to work with were horrible because they kept seizing on them. Just functioning guns would probably have made a big difference.

Baptism of Fire was a very interesting book. I learned a lot from it about just one battle because the battle revealed so much more about what it was like to be a Canadian soldier during the First World War. They are the dead, and we owe it to them to never forget the sacrifices they made to insure freedom for Canada. They were not alone, there were other people there, but this book is about Canada's contribution.

Be sure and pick up your own copy when it is released in October!

(Received from Harper Collins in 2007)

Britannia's Daughters - Joanna Trollope

Britannia's Daughters, Women of The British Empire is about about the role of women in the expansion and the building of the British Empire. Some of their adventures and achievements were impressive and the conditions in which they lived, especially the working class, were difficult and hard.

I found this a very interesting book even if a bit dry, the book follows close to it's sources: letters, diaries and other documents and sometimes it seems more like a history text book. It is fascinating however to know the lives of the women throughout the Empire, how different opportunities could be found being out of England but how life's hardships still depended much of the woman's status in society. I'm always very interested in the history of women because equal rights is modern concept and for a long time the women that are known in history are the exceptions, the ones that really stand out and conquered some independence.

It's easy to believe that Trollope really did a huge amount of research as every account is extremely detailed portraying not only different countries but also classes and professions (from the diplomat's wives to prostitutes). And it's a wonderful resource to know a bit more about the history of women in the Victorian period.

Non-Fiction

Shakespeare: The World as Stage by Bill Bryson by Bill Bryson
Reluctant Genius: The Passionate Life and Inventive Mind of Alexander Graham Bell by Charlotte Gray
Baptism of Fire by Nathan M. Greenfield
Britannia's Daughters by Joanna Trollope
Nellie McClung by Charlotte Gray
Extraordinary Canadians: Lord Beaverbrook by David Adams Richards
The Six Wives of Henry VIII by Alison Weir