Finished: Golden Age (Smiley) The third book in the wonderfully written trilogy about the Langdon family, the farming family from Iowa, whose saga began in 1920 in the first book, and moves 100 years, to the end of 2019 in this final book. In the first book, Some Luck, Rosanna and Walter Langdon buy a farm and build it into a worthy, workable place in Denby, Iowa. They have their children there, and we meet each one as they are born, getting to know them as they grow into young adults. In the second book, Early Warning, which opens in 1953, Walter Langdon has just died, and we see which of his children stays behind to take over the farm, and follow the lives of the others as they make their own way, some with spouses and children, some not. Each chapter in both books takes place during one year as we follow these people who we know so well:  Frank, the oldest son; Joe, the second son; Lillian, the beloved daughter; Henry, the youngest son; and Claire, the baby of the family. Other than Henry, who is gay, each one has married and had children by the end of the second book. That generation of Langdons becomes the focus of the third book, which begins in 1987, as the five Langdon siblings grow old and pass away, one by one, except for Claire, the last of the siblings left alive in 2019. It's so sad to see those characters go, and the two spouses we came to know and couldn't help but care for, Frank's wife Andy, and Lillian's husband, Arthur, who are both very powerful presences in their children's and grandchildren's lives. As a matter of fact, Andy, in her late nineties, is the last character who we love to love who passes away in the last book, and her peaceful death marks the end of the book and the trilogy.

I can't possibly go into all the detail of all the characters in the book. It's hard enough keeping them straight while reading. Thankfully, there's a family tree in the front of the book. :-) However, I will say that we do see the good times and the  hardships of each of the family members as the country goes through the oil boom and stock markets, the recessions and scandals, the political and housing market upheavals, the mortgage and finance company affects on the farmers, the constant arguments about global warming, the conflicts in the middle east, 911, and finally the very current political situation, and a couple of years beyond. Interestingly, not all of the characters are focused on. For instance, Lillian and Arthur's daughter, Debbie, who has figured prominently in the last book and this one, has two siblings who are barely mentioned and two children who never get a story. However, all three of Frank's children, Janet, Michael and Richie get the brunt of the story. Henry, has a big part of the story as well...possibly the biggest part for one of the remaining original Langdon siblings. Debbie's older brother, Tim, who was killed right after enlisting in the last novel, has a son, Charlie, who no one knew existed because he impregnated his teenage girlfriend before leaving to enlist. Charlie becomes a beacon of light and everyone in the family loves him. He's incorporated into the family quickly, and marries a feisty proponent of global warming who refuses to have a child until they can make the world a better place. Tragically, and I mean my gut sank. Charlie is killed on the airplane that crashed into the Pentagon on 911. :-( He had just decided to fly out to California to meet his birth mother for the very first time, but of course, never makes it. It turns out, a devastated Riley IS pregnant, and she gives birth to daughter Alexis. Henry who had grown very attached to his nephew, becomes the surrogate father figure for Alexis, and he and Riley and Alexis form a wonderful bond. After Joe, the second Langdon son who had stayed to run the farm, dies, his own son, Jesse and his wife, Jen, take over. They do so naturally, as they love the life and living on the farm. Their own children, however, Guthrie, Perky and Felicity, have no interest whatsoever in taking over the farm one day. Guthrie enlists and is tossed into the Gulf War. He's another character you grow to love and it's heartbreaking to watch him go through PTSD and never quite get his life together until it is one day taken by a group of teenage boys who rob him for the $100 he has in his wallet when he is 34 years old. Perky also enlists and he thrives in the environment, becoming a career soldier. Felicity, the smart, practical one in the family, stays in constant touch with her parents, but goes on to be a micro-biologist, worrying about issues in the country, and eventually finding a male version of herself to marry, Ezra. The underlying main story line is that of Frank and Andy's twins, Michael and Richie. Michael exhibits no moral compass at all, yet has three children with Loretta. He makes money off of other people's backs by being one of those ponzi scheme type investors. He even illegally signs over his own mother's millions to himself and "invests" her money as well. Of course, he loses it all and leaves everyone broke! His own mother, his own sister, Janet, whose husband subsequently leaves rather than kills himself, leaving her to continue raising their two children, Emily and Jonah, and countless others. Despicably, Michael had been socking away money in a foreign account, so he actually comes out of the mess with thirty million dollars, NONE of which he shares with his sister, mother, or anyone else he helped to ruin. He's also not prosecuted. Richie, who is the older twin, but who has somehow always lived in Michael's shadow, and been intimidated by Michael, becomes an amiable, yet fairly worthless, congressman who keeps getting re-elected because there's no one better to take his place. His wife leaves him a few years after their son Leo is born, but we do get to see snippets of Leo growing up. Anyway, even as I write this it sounds so jumbled. Too many details and relationships to get it all down right. There's story about Janet's daughter, Emily and Michael's son, Chance, who both go off to do their own thing involving horses! Towards the end of the book, Michael creates a secret investment company and buys the mortgage to the old farm...the family farm...the one that Jesse now runs...the one that Jesse's father and Frank's brother, Joe, took over when no one else wanted to stay. Michael has always resented that his father, Frank, just gave away his share of the farm to Jesse once Joe passed away...more than he left for any of his own children when he himself died. (Oh yeah...Frank was, rather appropriately I think....struck dead by lightening when he got out of a turboprop airplane in the middle of terrible storm to urinate by the side of the runway, lol.) Anyway, in his last despicable act, even though Jesse and Jen don't miss a payment on their new mortgage, bought from their bank by this new company, Michael's secret company forecloses on them and forces them to sell the farm that has been in the family for nearly a hundred years. :-( He's so horrible! Richie, who has made excuses for much of Michael's behavior in the past, cannot stand it when he finds out Michael owns the company. We never know for sure if Richie is just dreaming or what, but he vividly recalls getting in his car one night and driving to the drug store, but seeing Michael on the road and running him down, killing him! The next day there is no dent in his car, or no blood, clothing or hair in the car grille, but the police do come to the door to inform him that his brother, Michael, was the victim of a hit and run the night before! Maybe it was a just a twin thing, but finally Micheal is gone from the earth. On and on I could write, but instead, I think I'll just reflect on the characters that I liked and will miss, and the beautiful writing of Jane Smiley! :-)

Finished: The Orphan Master's Son (Johnson) The Pulitzer Prize winning novel that gives a shocking look into the life of a boy, Jun Do, born in North Korea during the leadership of Kim Jong-il. The story is still deeply resonating in me. The writing was very good, and the book was as well. I think I'm just still reeling from wondering if this is how things really are in North Korea. The author spent time in North Korea researching for the book, so I have to think that much of it is true. The book has several eerie chapters that begin with "Citizens! Gather around...". What follows are then the daily announcements from the loud speakers that are required in every home and every work place in North Korea. The announcements are complete propaganda, telling such untruths about how glorious day to day life in Korea is, and how terrible it is everywhere else. They also spin a fanciful tale about their most famous actress, Sun-moon. Sun-moon is a beautiful actress who has been the star of all of their films, and she has been the play toy of Kim Jong-il. However, when the famous Commander Ga, a worshipped hero in the North Korean military, comes home and declares that his reward shall be marrying Sun-moon, he not only takes her from the leader, but becomes a hated rival to Kim Jong-il....only in private. In public, Kim Jong-il must, of course, sing the praises of Commander Ga, who has known no rival in strength or cunning.

The main character of the story, Jun Do, is the son of a man who runs an orphanage in North Korea. As a baby, his mother had been "taken away", where beautiful women of North Korea were often taken...to be used by someone with power. By the time he is ten, Jun Do is responsible for deciding which of the orphans he lives with gets to have the better food, the warmer bed, and the less treacherous work details each day. His own father treats him worse than he does any of the other orphans because he doesn't want to show favoritism. Jun Do does not even get to carry his father's surname, which leads to everyone believing he is an orphan himself. After the orphanage closes down, and he is uncertain what becomes of his own father, Jun Do is assigned to the team of people who sneak over to the coast of Japan in boats and kidnap people from the beaches! Jun Do has great moral struggles with this, since his own mother had been taken, but he tows the party line and does what is expected of him. He is then sent to be a tunnel rat...meaning he learns to do warfare in the complete dark in the tunnels under North Korea that run all the way to the DMZ zone. Though a war is not currently going on, it is still a stressful assignment, but his ability to fight in the dark will come back to aid him in later years. After both of these assignments, Jun Do is rewarded by going to language school, learning English, and being assigned to a fishing boat as a secret spy radio operator. He actually likes this job, as he gets to hear all kinds of broadcasts, including the broadcasts of two female American kayakers who are trying to circumnavigate the world. Occasionally he hears suspicious military talk that he reports back to his superiors. While on the boat, as a sort of rite of passage into the sailor's life, the crew holds him down and tattoos an image of Sun-moon on his chest, over his heart. All of the sailors have tattoos of their wives closest to their hearts, so since Jun Do is not married, they tattoo the famous actress over his heart. A series of events leads Jun Do to be considered a hero, and he's then taken on a mission to Texas in America! Apparently the American military has boarded a North Korean boat and stolen an implied nuclear gadget from them. Kim Jong-il sends a delegation of Jun Do, and two higher ups to meet with a senator from Texas and get back the "package". While in Texas, Jun Do experiences a bit of American life, and he also meets the very compassionate wife of the senator, and a female government official who gives Jun Do a camera that she tells him to use anytime he wants to send her any kind of private information, or if he needs some kind of help. Both of the women try to convince Jun Do to defect, but he refuses to do that, knowing that his defection would mean the death of the other two in the delegation. Of course, the delegation fails to get the Americans to give back the nuclear device, so when they arrive back in North Korea, the leader of the delegation is never seen again, and Jun Do is taken to work in the prison mines. He spends several years there, barely surviving, barely clothed, mostly malnourished, doing hard labor. One day Commander Ga comes to visit the prison mine. When he sees the tattoo of his wife on Jun Do's chest, he laughs it off on the outside, but he is seething on the inside. He takes Jun Do down into a tunnel and plans to do away with him, but Jun Do gets the better of him when he knocks out the only light! That training in the complete dark comes back to save the day, and Jun Do actually kills Commander Ga. Jun Do puts on Ga's uniform, which is much to big for him, and declares himself to be Commander Ga. The prison warden is so overwhelmed, mostly because Ga has always been torturous to him, that he lets Jun Do walk out of the prison and be driven off by Commander Ga's driver! That is the last that we see of who we have come to know, and sympathize with, as Jun Do.

In the next part of the book, Jun Do assumes the identity of Commander Ga. Of course, everyone from Sun-moon, her two children with Ga, Ga's best friend, and especially Kim Jong-il all KNOW that he is not Commander Ga, but in their way of spewing out propaganda, Kim Jong-il announces that Commander Ga has returned home from another successful mission. Commander Ga goes straight to Sun-moon's house, and sees how beautiful she is, yet how she has been mistreated by Kim Jong-il because she married Ga. As punishment, she has been given no movie rolls in years, even though it wasn't her choice to marry. She does love her children, though, a young boy and a young girl. She doesn't know what is happening at first, and thinks that the new Commander Ga is just a trick by her husband to get her to be unfaithful. However, in time, she comes to believe that Commander Ga killed the old Commander Ga, and she finds him to be a kind person who actually adores spending time with her, and cares for her and her children very deeply. When it becomes apparent that Kim Jong-il has decided that Commander Ga has almost outlived his usefulness to him, Ga and Sun-moon concoct a wild and dangerous scheme to defect to the U.S. You see, Kim Jong-il has been holding one of the American kayaking women for over a year in a bunker beneath his palace! The North Koreans killed one of the rowers, and took the other hostage when they rowed into North Korean waters. Ga (really Jun Do, remember) is able to send a picture on the secret phone to the military woman in America to show her that North Korea is holding the presumed dead American kayaker. The U.S. strikes a deal with Kim Jong-il that they will bring a plane to take the woman home, and in return, bring back the leader's nuclear package...which the U.S. has determined isn't workable in any event. Kim Jong-il treats the upcoming meeting as a gala, and plans a bigger, better Texas hoe down than the Americans planned for the North Korean delegation when they went. He even plans for famous actress, Sun-moon, to be there to sing a song for the Americans. Ga and Sun-moon, however, plan their escape. Ga again uses the secret phone to send his plan to his contact in the U.S., asking her for help. When Ga realizes that it will be imperative for him to distract Kim Jong-il and his men while getting Sun-moon and the two children safely aboard the plane, he sacrifices himself for them and doesn't board the plane himself. :-( He knows that they will be taken to and aided by the Texas senator's wife. He is still heartbroken, though, as are we, because he and Sun-moon and the children too, had all come to love and respect each other as a family. The Americans park their plane ready to take right back off. They are having none of the gala. To them, this was a trip to come and retrieve a hostage! Just when they've taken off, Kim Jong-il wonders why Sun-moon never did come out of her changing room to sing. His men look everywhere for her, and when he realizes that she escaped on the plane, Ga is taken into custody and taken to the harsh interrogation center. Not able to admit that North Korea's most famous actress defected, to save face, the concocted story that Commander Ga has fallen from grace because he has killed his wife and children and disposed of their bodies, is broadcast to the public. Even the interrogators believe this lie, and spend weeks trying to torture the truth from Ga about where the bodies are. Finally, in the end, when they have hooked him up to a machine that will send enough volts of electricity through his body to lobotomize him, Ga manages to loosen his strap and turn the dial higher, giving himself a lethal dose. So, Ga aka Jun Do aka the orphan master's son, finally finds purpose in his life by sacrificing his own for a short-lived familial love which he had never experienced in his own life. This recap, as usual, doesn't do the book justice! This was a very, very good one!

Finished: The Gustav Sonata (Tremain) A very compelling story about two five year old boys who meet in Switzerland when the world is on the brink of World War II, Gustav, a little boy born and raised in the small town of Matzlingen, Switzerland, and Anton, a Jewish boy who has moved with his parents from Bern to Matzlingen. Gustav and Anton develop an unbreakable bond, despite the fact that Gustav's cold, unloving mother, Emilie, blames her husband Erich's compassion for the Jews on his fall from grace and eventual death. Erich is an assistant police chief in Matzlingen when he first marries Emilie. He is faced with the impossible task of either breaking the law or breaking his own moral code when the police in Switzerland are ordered by law to no longer accept Jewish refugees escaping over the border from Austria. When Erich falsifies several immigration forms by predating them before the law is ordained, he is betrayed by someone close to him in the department, losing his position and his status in the small community. When he's forced to leave the comfortable apartment they had and move Emilie to a near desolate apartment, she can't handle his fall from grace and goes home to her mother. She had already become distant from Erich when he caused her to miscarry their baby boy, to be named Gustav, when he accidentally caused her to fall at five and a half months pregnant. She eventually forgave him and came to understand that he was an honorable man because he was trying to do the right thing by falsifying the forms. Emelie returns to Erich and becomes pregnant with her second baby, who will also be a boy, and be named Gustav. Emelie can't really ever bond with Gustav, though, even though Erich does. She always looks past Gustav wondering if she would have loved her first baby more. Poor Gustav! All he ever wants is to please his mother, or Mutti, as he calls her. He does everything he can to earn her love and nurturing, but he never succeeds. Tragically, when Gustav is just an infant, Erich dies of a sudden heart attack. :-( This throws Emelie and Gustav into more dire circumstances as she works to make ends meet for them. Gustav's finds a happiness in life when he meets Anton in kindergarten. Anton, new to the area, spends the entire first day crying and the teacher assigns him to the compassionate Gustav to buddy with. Gustav befriends Anton and even gets him to laugh. They become fast friends, though Anton is far more self-centered than Gustav. Anton is a piano prodigy with great talent, who blossoms over the years. By the time the boys are 10, Anton's parents are encouraging his career and have entered him in a piano contest. Anton is brilliant and makes it all the way to the finals with four others. Once there, though, he suffers terrible stage-fright and can't play on the big stage for the crowd, which he must do for the finals of the competition. He gets through his piece, but it is sub par. He is humiliated when he comes in fifth out of five. Only Gustav can talk him out of his disappointment. Gustav is invited to travel to Davos with Anton and his parents for a two week vacation. While there, the boys explore an old abandoned sanatorium that had been used for people suffering from tuberculosis. They make up their own make believe world of doctors and patients and one day share an innocent kiss. Too young to really understand it they continue on with their friendship. Gustav, though, seems to know that he loves Anton as more than a friend. They continue throughout the years to be the best of friends and to be there for each other. Anton, realizing he'll never be able to perform as a concert pianist due to his stage fright, instead becomes a music teacher at the very same school that he and Gustav attended as children. He is good looking and charming and dates various women, but never gets serious about any of them, insisting that music is his only love. Gustav, after the death of his mother, goes to culinary school and opens a small hotel in Matzlingen. He takes great pride in overseeing every detail of his cozy hotel and catering to the patrons. One day Anton comes to Gustav greatly agitated. A former student of his has gone on to win some major piano competition and is being touted as someone who will go on to be asked to play at all kinds of venues and become a concert pianist! The student even credits his teacher, Anton Zwiebel, with teaching him everything he knows. Rather than be happy for his former student, though, Anton is again thrown into despair...whining about how that could and should have been HIM if only he had been able to conquer his stage fright. Throwing his feelings to the wind, he plays a piece at his students' end of year concert with such passion and abandon, that a record producer in the audience hears him and wants him to move to Geneva to record all of Beethoven's symphonies on records to be sold to the public! A perfect solution! Anton can show off his talent and become famous without having to perform on a stage. Anton tells Gustav he can't wait to get out of their small town and make it big. Gustav is heartbroken, having obviously let Anton become his life, even though he has never acted on his feelings of love. Anton, always thinking about himself, moves to Geneva to follow his dreams. He pretty much dismisses the feelings of both Gustav and his own parents, who have always bent over backwards to support him. Meanwhile, Gustav throws himself into work at the hotel. He meets an interesting old Englishman one night who teaches him to play Gin Rummy and encourages him to find out what happened to his father, a story that Gustav has never explored. He was always told by his mother that his father had been a hero, but has never known how his father died. Gustav seeks out the wife of the old police chief who was his father's superior at the police station. The police chief is long dead, but the wife, Lottie, remembers Gustav's father very well...she had been his lover! When Emilie had left Erich and gone home for that bit of time, Erich and Lottie had begun a steamy affair. Erich had fallen in love with Lottie unlike he ever had with Emelie. Gustav was actually pleased to hear this news...to hear that his father actually had someone in his life that loved him and wasn't cold and unfeeling like his mother always was to him. Lottie tells Gustav about how his father falsified the forms to help so many Jewish people escape from Austria and Gustav is so touched by his father's actions. When she explains about Erich losing his job when he was found out, Gustav wants to know who told on his father? Lottie hems and haws and Gustav lets the subject drop. The most important thing that Lottie tells Gustav is that his mother had lost her first baby, a boy who would have been named Gustav, and was never the same after that. This actually gives Gustav comfort, as he realizes why his mother could never fully give her love to him and was instead, so cold all his life. Gustav and Lottie become good friends and spend alot of time together. Eventually on her death bed, Lottie tells Gustav that it was her own  husband who turned Erich in when the officials threatened to arrest HIM for the illegal actions. With Erich's signature clearly on all the forms, the police chief really had no choice but to admit it was his assistant police chief who has falsified the forms. Anton is not heard from until his father falls ill and dies. He comes back to town and tells Gustav that his records haven't sold as well as they should and that the man who lured Anton to Geneva has become his lover as well as his boss. Gustav is stunned. He thought that Anton loved the women he was always with. He's mostly sad for Anton, as Anton is extremely unhappy and unfulfilled and on the brink of a breakdown. Eventually, when Anton and Gustav are nearing 60, Anton's mother, Adriana, begs Gustav to go with her to help Anton. Anton has had a breakdown and been taken to a mental hospital. He wants only to talk to Gustav. When Gustav gets there, Anton begs him to take him back to the sanatorium in Davos. Gustav tries to explain that the sanatorium was never real...and Anton finally gets through to him and makes him understand that he wants Gustav to take him back to that time when they were innocent and kissed. He wants to start his life from there and take it where it should have naturally gone...to be in a relationship with Gustav. Gustav sells his hotel and he, Anton and Anton's mother move to a cabin in  Davos with some land and a garden and live there happily. Soon, Anton is playing the piano again and it's an original piece. His mother asks him what it is and he says it's something he composed when he realized that his life had gone the wrong way and he needed to get it on the right path. He called it Gustav's Sonata. So, that's the book in a nutshell, but of course written in beautiful prose that truly tugged at the heart. I really felt for Gustav throughout the story....this little boy who tried so hard to gain his mother's love. The rest of the characters were actually pretty selfish. This, however, was a story of love and music and memories, and finally, two people realizing in the end that they could find happiness with each other. A really good book!

Finished: The Last Mile (Baldacci) The second book in the Amos Decker series, and another pretty good page-turner. In the first book about Amos Decker, Memory Man, we found out that Decker was an ex cop whose family had been brutally murdered. There were times when he himself was the suspect, but with the help of his perfect memory, and new friends, reporter Alex Jamison and FBI agent, Ross Bogart, Decker uncovered the true killer. Decker is a unique person, as he has suffered from both synesthesia (seeing numbers, etc. in colors) and hyperthymesia (he remembers every detail of every thing that he ever sees) ever since being hit with an extremely hard tackle in his one and only professional football game years ago. In the second book, Decker has accepted a job with Ross Bogart's new FBI special task force working on cold cases. Alex Jamison, the feisty female reporter has also been asked to join the task force. The case that captures Decker's attention is that of Melvin Mars, a man who has been on death row in Texas for killing his parents for the past twenty years. It is the day of Melvin's execution when, at the last minute, another death row inmate in another prison confesses to the crime! Melvin is pardoned and released, but until the authorities are convinced that the other inmate is telling the truth, he risks a chance of going back to prison. So, Melvin ends up working closely with Decker and company to figure out why the other inmate confessed, and eventually that he's not telling the truth. Once they figure that out, then Melvin is truly in danger of going back to prison, so a race ensues to find out why the other inmate lied and WHY there is someone out there who wants Melvin out of prison so badly. A story with lots of twists and turns is uncovered, including Melvin's father not really being dead after all (but his mother still is), and his father not even really being his father, but a hit man. At the time of their deaths, his mother and father had escaped some bad people and laid low. However, when Melvin was graduating from college as a star running back slated to go in the first five picks of the draft, then ESPN had done a story about him, and his parents' faces had been shown on television. The story goes so far as to be about Melvin's father and some of his close friends being responsible for a couple of bombings of black churches in the 1960's resulting in several deaths, including children. Melvin's father had been a racist, but after the bombings, had fallen in love with a beautiful black woman, Melvin's mother. He had stolen the evidence that the other friends had arrogantly kept of the bombings and kept it in a safety deposit box. All these years later, Melvin's faux father comes forward to Decker when he realizes that the bad guys will now come after Melvin, thinking he might know where the evidence is. He's still a nasty piece of work, but he does end up giving his life for Decker and Melvin in the end...as well as killing the old friends of his, one now a powerful congressman, and one a billionaire business man, responsible for all the trouble to begin with. In the process of the story, Decker and Melvin, two people with practically no one close to them in their lives, become friends! I hope that Melvin shows up in the next Amos Decker book. :-)

Finished: Sugar Street (Mahfouz) The final book in The Cairo Trilogy about the family of Egyptian patriarch al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad. When the book starts, it's been five years since the happenings in the second book. Time has taken a toll on both al-Sayyid Ahmad, his wife, Amina, and their children, Yasin, Kamal, Khadija and Aisha. Amina and al-Sayyid are both aging, and al-Sayyid's heart is getting weaker and weaker. He still sees his same group of old friends, but when together, they lament how some of their friends have died...some being confined to their beds for months before doing so. The larger than life al-Sayyid does not want this fate for himself. However, he does end up confined to bed, the last of his friends to survive. Towards the end of the book, as the fingers of WWII reach into Egypt, he dies after surviving a frantic air raid. His heartbroken children and wife are with him as he dies and cannot believe the strong, vibrant, albeit severe, husband and father they knew is gone. Sadly, youngest daughter, Aisha's two young sons and husband did succumb to the typhoid fever they contracted at the end of the second book, and she has lived despondently back in her parents' home with her beautiful, teenage daughter, Na'ima since the tragedy, a haggard version of the beauty she used to be.  Yasin, the oldest son, is still married to Zanuba and they have children Ridwan and Karima. As the years pass in this book, Ridwan gets his law degree and goes to work in a rather influential position in the government. Ridwan realizes that he is gay as a teenager and has a relationship with an older man, never explicitly detailed, but certainly implied. His cousins, Abd al-Muni'm and Ahmad, the sons of Khadija, are about his same age, and are as different from him as they are from each other. Abd al-Muni'm also gets his law degree and is devoutly religious and Ahmad is not a believer, but becomes a Socialist. The three cousins spend many hours debating the different politics of the day, though I must admit that my brain just can't wrap around all the Egyptian politics, kings, and different groups that want to show dissent. Abd al-Muni'm marries his cousin, Na'ima at a very young age, mostly to reconcile his carnal desires with his faith. Tragically, Na'ima dies in childbirth with their first child. Her death, of course, throws Aisha into an even bigger emotional turmoil. A few years later, Abd al-Muni'm remarries...this time to his cousin Karima, Ridwan's sister! Ahmad marries as well, an independent woman who works at the socialist magazine he writes for. Neither marriage is happy for very long as both sons are arrested during the trying times in Egypt for protesting against their government, just both in different ways. Khadija, al-Sayyid's oldest daughter, still rules the roost over her husband and two boys....until, as mentioned, the boys grow older and start developing their very own paths, neither of which represent the old ways that Khadija grew up with. She's despondent when her boys are sent to await a trial which they all feel will never come. Kamal, the youngest son of al-Sayyid and Amina, did follow his philosophical path and become a very respected teacher. He still struggles with questions of faith and morality and mostly whether or not he should surrender his freedom and shackle himself to a wife and children for the rest of his life....or continue his lonely existence, all the while being able to think all he wants, write all he wants and debate all he wants. He still spends far too much time in his own head. He does end up getting one chance at love when he's 36  years old, but talks himself out of it and remains the bachelor that he is. At the end of the book, Amina, their mother, finally passes away. Kamal, Khadija, Aisha, and Yasin, her stepson, are all bereaved and don't know how life or the house on Palace Walk will ever be the same. A pretty good book, but again, it delved far too deep into the politics of the time for me. I might try and read about those times to understand them better at some point, but for now, I would say what I got from the book was more about the personal relationships of the various family members with each other and their loved ones.

Finished: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Stevenson) A much shorter book than I thought it would be! All I really knew about the story was what I've occasionally seen on television, and then the plot line of the stage show, which included a love interest I believe. Anyway, there was no woman in this story! There was just Dr. Jekyll, who apparently battled with his two different selves all his life. His true personality was good and carefree and mirthful. However, he felt like he should hide that personality and be reserved, holding his head up high and severe as his "station" would have him do. So, as he grew older, he wrestled more and more with the demons of men having two personalities within themselves. He wondered if he could create a chemical solution that would take one of the personalities out...and he finally did. Sadly, the person who prevailed was the evil side of him, who became known as Edward Hyde. Edward Hyde had no conscience and partook of very seedy behavior, catering to Jekyll's darker side which wanted to explore the base pleasures of life. When Hyde actually took an even crueler form by injuring a child, and then beating an innocent man to death, Jekyll decided to give up taking his solution. It was too late, however. Now, Jekyll was becoming Hyde without even taking the potion! It was becoming harder and harder for him to go back to being the kind Jekyll. Finally, with no other option, Jekyll kills himself while he's Hyde. All of this comes to light through letters written to Jekyll's lawyer and good friend, Mr. Utterson. He tells the tale, including his own interactions with both Jekyll and Hyde, and then also the information he finally gets from Jekyll himself in the form of a letter. Interesting book, kept my attention, but not my favorite by far.

Finished: End of Watch (King) The final book in the trilogy that began with Mr. Mercedes, the eerie book that began with psychopath Brady Hartsfield purposely running a stolen Mercedes into an early morning, financially desperate crowd standing in line for a job fair. Mr. Mercedes introduced us to retired cop Bill Hodges, who along with his quirky sidekicks, Holly and Jerome, figured out who Brady was, and then managed to stop him before he blew up a concert hall full of preteens gathered to see a popular boy band in concert...included in the crowd, Jerome's young sister, Barbara. Though they stopped him, they unfortunately didn't kill him...but left him so brain damaged that he's been in a semi-comatose state for the past six years in a brain institute. In the second book, Finders Keepers, Brady is not the focus of the story, but is living the life of a virtual vegetable in the institute while Hodges, Holly and Jerome cement their bond and investigative skills helping out the family of one of the job fair victims. By the time we get to End of Watch, Jerome is off building houses in Arizona with Habitat for Humanity and Hodges and Holly have opened their own detective agency, aptly called Finders Keepers! Bill has also just found out he's got very advanced pancreatic cancer, and his bad health is definitely showing. Holly is distraught, as Bill and Jerome are her only true friends in life. As for Brady, his brain has actually been in tact for a long, long time. He's just been hiding it so he won't be prosecuted for the job fair murders. Hodges has visited him several times over the years and let him know that he KNOWS Brady is really in there and faking it. Then, things get a little whacky...Brady begins to be able to move things in his room through telekinesis. We meet Dr. Babineau, Brady's unethical doctor who has been injecting Brady with an illegal drug for years, in hopes of reversing his brain damage and bringing him back. Whether because of the drug or because of Brady's stubborn will, he has come back and with these powers of telekinesis and more! When a janitor brings an old hand held Gameboy type game called Zappit into his room one day, Brady sees the janitor go into a trance watching the screen. Somehow Brady is able to put himself into the janitor's body while he's in the trance! When he finds out he's able to do this, he quickly begins using both the janitor and the doctor as bodies for his dangerous plan. Every time he goes into their bodies, he eats away a little bit more of their own memories, etc. So, Brady's big plan is to buy all the now discontinued Zappits left at their company, reprogram them, and get them sent out to teenagers. He wants to cause a suicide epidemic by using the Zappit game to get into the teenager's heads and convince them they're worthless and that they should end their lives! His plan is made all the more evil by the fact that all the teenagers who are getting the devices are the kids who were at the boy band concert six years before...those kids who he was kept from killing then! He almost succeeds when he gets inside Barbara's head as she watches her game. She convinces herself she wants to kill herself with Brady's voice guiding her. She steps in front of a huge truck, but is saved at the last minute by a boy she was talking to on the corner! The Zappit is smashed, and Barbara suffers only a broken leg. She immediately contacts Hodges and Holly and they are quickly on the case! As crazy as it seems, they figure out that somehow Brady is putting himself in other people's bodies and doing diabolical things!! Jerome comes home from Arizona to see his sister, and then to help Bill and Holly once again get the better of Brady! Brady is now fully ensconced in Dr. Babineau's body, even having killed Babineau's wife. As Dr. Babineau, Brady goes into his own room and kills off his own body so no one will suspect him. However, Hodges and company DO figure it out! With Bill nearly passing out from pain, he and Brady have one final confrontation, with Holly and Jerome also jumping in to help save the day! Brady is finally killed as Dr. Babineau and is gone forever. ( I think he's gone forever...since this was the last of the trilogy. I suppose he could have "jumped" into someone else at the last minute, but he didn't have a Zappit in his hands to do so when he died.) Anyway, eight months later, Holly and Jerome meet at Bill's grave. He has, in fact, succumbed to his pancreatic cancer. Thus ends the Bill Hodges (and hopefully the Brady Hartsfield) story! It's not my favorite of the Stephen King books, and my least favorite of this trilogy, because of the far out suspension of belief we are supposed to have that Brady can go into other people's bodies. I guess that's typical King though? And, still...it was a page-turner. :-)

Finished: Eye of the Needle (Follet) Another very good page turning book by Follet, and he wrote it when he was only 27!! It's a story based on a set of real life events that took place in World War II...the deception used by the Allies to trick the Germans into thinkng that the coming assault by the Allies (one whose success or failure would alter the outcome of the war) was going to take place in Calais and not in Normandy! I didn't know about this history so even though the book was fiction, it was based on real life events that were fascinating. Apparently the U.S and Great Britain staged a huge fake army, complete with troop barracks and cardboard fighter airplanes, that when reconnaissed from the air by the enemy would look like a huge military presence was building  closer to Calais than Normandy. That trickery, along with carefully faked and "intercepted" messages stating the Allies' intentions did, in fact, end up tricking Hitler, keeping him from sending the necessary  troops to defeat the Allied troops landing at Normandy. In Eye of the Needle there are three main characters: Faber, Lucy and Professor Percy Godliman. Faber is a cold-hearted, dangerous, methodical  spy for the Germans who has been ensconced in England. His mission is to find out whether there really is such a huge military presence headed to Calais, or whether it's a ruse, and report back to Hitler himself. None of the American or British intelligence members have ever seen his face. He is known simply as Die Nadel (the Needle) because of the stiletto knife he uses to kill. Hitler's entire decision about where to place his troops rides on Faber getting the info and then making a rendezvous with a German submarine off the coast of Aberdeen, Scotland. Percy, the professor, is a retired British agent with MI5 and is one of the best. He's called back into service to work with Scotland Yard's young lieutenant Fred Boggs. Together they stay right on the tail of Faber, who HAS now acquired photos of the sham barracks and airplanes. As they close in on The Needle, the normally unflappable spy makes two mistakes. First, he takes a fishing boat out in a stormy, raging North Sea to try and rendezvous with the submarine. Second, when he crashes, near death on Storm Island, ten miles out to sea he develops an uncharacteristic soft spot for one of its four inhabitants, Lucy Rose. Lucy and her husband live on the island with their three year old son, Jo. Married only four years before and unknowingly pregnant before their wedding day, Lucy lives with her cold, distant, sometimes cruel husband, David, who suffered  the loss of both legs on their wedding day in a horrific car accident. He had been all set to leave to be a fighter pilot in the British air force  the next day. His life shattered, his father sends him and his family to recuperate in one of the two cabins on Storm Island. David develops great upper body strength, learns to drive his special made jeep and befriends and works with the only other island inhabitant, old Tom, the sheephearder, whose purpose  on the island is to operate the one radio and be a first lookout for any enemy activity that may threaten Scotland. When Faber stumbles to Lucy and David's cabin door, there is an instant attraction between them since Lucy has neither been loved or made love to by her husband in four years. Lucy nurses Faber back to health, and he cleverly finds out that there are only four people  he'll have to deal with on the island a woman, a cripple, a toddler  and an old man....an old man who has the only radio...one Faber will use to call the submarine  and transmit his info to Hitler. Faber seduces Lucy but ends up developing  that soft spot for her so he doesn't kill her He does end up killing David and old Tom. When Lucy figures out what's  going on, she actually seduces Faber one last time and while he's sleeping afterward, takes Jo and her husbands liaded gunsm and high tails it to old Tom's  cabin. She finds Tom dead, but she also find a the radio! She can only manage to get off an SAS before Faber, who has now figured out that she's  on to him, makes his way there too kill her and send his message. The SOS does manage to alert Percy and Lt. Boggs who rally the coast guard and helicopters. Until they arrive, though Lucy is on her own! She manages to keep Faber at bay with the guns and an ax...even chopping off some of his fingers. When he finally gets the best of her, he dashes upstairs to send his message. Tough as nails Lucy unscrews the kitchen light bulb and puts  her hand in the socket, shorting  the whole house and causing  herself to pass out. She's  also prevented Faber from contacting  his submarine.  He comes downstairs  ready to kill her but he can't....he finds her to be too extraordinary. He decides instead to run for the cliffs, make his way down and swim for the submarine. However,  Lucy follows and throws a huge rock at him causing him to lose his balance and crash to his death on the rocks below! Lucy has killed the infamous Die Nadel!!! Of course, then all the help arrives. The MI5 sends a fake message to Hitler from Die Nadel telling him that reports of a huge presence near Calais are true, and the rest is truly history! :-) A really good book!

Finished: The Moon is Down (Steinbeck) A short, but very discerning book about the rigors of war on both the invaders and the invaded when a coastal town in an unnamed Northern European country is forcefully occupied by troops from another unnamed country. Steinbeck wrote this story, while he was heavily supporting the Allies in World War II, as a piece of propaganda for the Allies. Though the countries aren't named, the invaded town is in the thinly veiled country of Norway which was occupied by the Germans in WWII. The invaders never refer to Hitler, but refer to "the Leader". The coastal town is important for the fishing industry, but more importantly, it is a coal mining town. The Leader has sent down orders that the coal mine must be confiscated, railways built, and the coal shipped to their army for use. I don't really feel like writing a huge recap with all the characters because the book is still resonating very deeply with me. The colonel who is responsible for the attack is a war veteran from  World War I, so he's seen the travesty of his army being slaughtered, driven back in the snow, and defeated by Russia...yet he's still not willing to learn from any mistakes. Or, he just realizes that no matter what he already learned, he has no choice but to follow orders. His mindset, and the mindset of his men (and apparently The Leader) seems to be that if you cut off the head of the snake, the rest of the townspeople will fall into line. As they occupy the mayor's mansion, the colonel tries to use the mayor as a person who must deal out the punishment to his own town so that it's easier coming from someone they know rather than the aggressor. The mayor tries to explain that he's not an all-powerful person...that he was elected by the people and is, in essence, "the people" himself. One towns person is killed when he accidentally kills an officer while defending himself in the coal mine, and he is executed as a lesson. The colonel thinks this will quell the townspeople, but it only serves to make them a stronger unit as they subtly begin doing things to rebel and compromise the coal mining process. The months drag on and the mayor and the colonel have several meaningful talks, but the colonel's hands are tied and he never fully grasps that free people will prevail and win out over the ones trying to force them into servitude. At the end, the colonel listens to the advice of the one towns person who had been the spy and traitor in the beginning, making sure the town's security forces of a mere twelve men were out at a festival in their honor far from town on invasion day. This store owner tells the colonel that the only solution is to threaten the people, who are definitely hampering the invading army's progress, with the death of their highly respected mayor. So, though he is afraid of dying at the end, the mayor does get a message out that the people should prevail and keep showing resistance. He can't make the colonel understand that killing him will not weaken the people, but strengthen them and that more leaders will rise up from the multitude of men. It's just a very interesting and sad look at war...especially at the townspeople on one side and the enlisted men on the other, who are really nothing more than townspeople from their OWN towns thrown into the war like so many others. Not all are the officers with the mindset of the men who follow and revere the Leader. I really have enjoyed all the Steinbeck books I've read, as depressing as many of them are, they just dig deep and make you think about how things realistically were and sometimes still are today.

Finished: Far From The Madding Crowd (Hardy) Another Hardy classic, and this one with a happy ending...eventually. A headstrong, beautiful young woman, Bathsheba Everdene, inherits her uncle's farm in England and decides to run it by herself rather than be dependent on a man to do so. She's not full of herself or manipulative, but she most definitely has three different men in love with her. Early on, before she inherits the farm, she's at work helping a different aunt on a different farm when she meets neighboring farmer, Gabriel Oak. He has invested all his money in the sheep he keeps, and is doing just fine. He is, at that time, higher ranking in society than Bathsheba. Gabriel and Bathsheba share a brief closeness, and she runs from her feelings and leaves her aunt's farm...soon after that she inherit her other uncle's farm. In their brief encounter, Gabriel falls in love with Bathsheba, but can do nothing about it when she leaves. Sadly, Gabriel's entire investment is lost, and thus his farm, when an inexperienced sheep herding dog leads all his sheep over a cliff to their deaths! Gabriel is then forced to travel from town to town looking for work. When he ends up in Bathsheba's town, he ends up saving her farm crops from a fire without even knowing it's her farm. She hires him on immediately to be her shepherd, but it's a very lowly job compared to what he once was. She doesn't acknowledge their prior closeness, but does come to depend on his advice, honesty, dependability, and friendship. Gabriel's a good man and does all he can to help Bathsheba to succeed in the farming and sheep raising field of mostly men. And, despite still being in love with Bathsheba, Gabriel even goes so far as to give her advice to marry Farmer Boldwood when he comes courting, because Boldwood is in love with Bathsheba and with his neighboring farm, would provide Bathsheba security and a good future. Boldwood borders on craziness in his love for Bathsheba, though, and she doesn't really return his feelings. She promises to think about his marriage proposal while he's away for six weeks....but, of course, while Boldwood is away, the dashing Sergeant Troy comes to town and turns Bathsheba's head. Unfortunately, Sergeant Troy is not a nice guy. He's already responsible for wooing Bathsheba's uncle's maid, Fanny, to the point where Fanny left her job and followed Troy's regiment, giving herself in every way to Troy. Troy dumps Fanny, as he truly has no respect for women. He woos Bathsheba and convinces her to marry him, against the solid advice of Gabriel, who is one of only two people who knows that Troy compromised Fanny's reputation and then left her. Bathsheba, with hearts in her eyes, though, falls completely for Troy and marries him. She comes to regret it soon enough when he doesn't care nearly as much about the farm as she does. He resigns his commission in the British military and would rather spend his time drinking with the boys and going off to gamble away Bathsheba's money at the horse races. When Boldwood returns to town and realizes that Troy has swooped in and taken his soon to be fiance, he's devastated. Of course, Bathsheba tries to tell him that she never promised him she'd marry him, but he's still very affected. One day, Bathsheba and Troy meet a very sick and fragile Fanny on the road. Bathsheba has no idea who the woman is, but Troy begs Fanny to meet him the next day in the next town over. Sadly, Fanny is in terrible shape. She makes it to the town, but dies, along with her newly born baby. Bathsheba finds out what Fanny meant to Troy and they have a huge fight. Troy leaves the farm and is presumed dead when his clothes are found by the shore of a treacherous whirlpool spot near the ocean. We couldn't possibly be so lucky for him to be dead though. No, a fishing boat picks him up. Instead of going home to Bathsheba, though, Troy stays gone for several weeks and makes ends meet. He doesn't love Bathsheba any more and he's afraid if he goes back, he'll be legally responsible for her failing farm...or the farm he assumes must now be failing because he's not there. In fact, Bathsheba doesn't truly believe that Troy is dead, but she keeps her farm going with the able help of Gabriel, who is now also doing most of the work on Boldwood's farm, since Boldwood is still a bit despondent. Boldwood gets it into his head, though, that once six years has passed and Troy is truly considered legally dead, that Bathsheba will marry him. He begs, pleads, and guilts Bathsheba into saying she'll give him an answer by Christmas as to whether she'll become his betrothed in six years. It's pretty strange! Boldwood holds a huge Christmas party where he plans to put a ring on Bathsheba's finger. He's practically just forced her to say yes she'll marry him in six years (even though she does not love him at all, but feels she owes him) when who should crash the party but Sergeant Troy!! He's Alive! He has seen that Bathsheba has been successful on the farm and decided to go back and live off her money rather than live hand to mouth. When he grabs Bathsheba and insists that his wife come back with him to the farm, Bathsheba has a momentary female moment and screams. When she screams, Boldwood, thinking her harmed, grabs a gun and kills Troy. Boldwood's men prevent him from then killing himself, but he goes to town and turns himself in at the prison. Gabriel, as usual, is there as a rock for Bathsheba. He is actually given control of Boldwood's farm by Boldwood, who is sentenced to life in prison, so Gabriel comes back up in the world from hard work and honesty. However, Gabriel still loves Bathsheba and thinks that she would never love him, especially after what she's been through. When he tells Bathsheba that he's going to leave and make his way in America, she gets terribly upset and asks why he would desert her. He says he knows she would never have agreed to a life with him, even though she's always known he loves her. She says, but you never asked, did you? So...they have this admission of loving each other and get quietly married with the farm men that work for Bathsheba very thrilled for the both of them. A happy ending! Yay! I was so worried that Bathsheba was going to be pregnant by Troy and die or be raped by Boldwood or something. She ended up being a good, hardworking person who got the good, hardworking guy in the end! I really enjoy Hardy's writing. He's very descriptive in setting up his nature scenes and environment and slowly letting you get to know the supporting characters as well as the main characters. A good book!