“I felt there’s a wealth in Jewish tradition, a great inheritance. I’d be a jerk not take advantage of it.” Herman Wouk

I should begin this review with a confession. I don’t like novels set in the Old Testament. I’m not completely sure why but I suspect it’s based on having been a Catholic schoolgirl in the days when the Bible was definitely off limits as literature.

When I learned that Herman Wouk had a new book coming out last year, I was intrigued because The Winds of War and War and Remembrance are two of my favorite novels. I was disappointed when I learned The Lawgiver was about Moses. I planned on giving it a pass. Then, I happened to hear Mr. Wouk interviewed on NPR by Scott Simon.

Remember, Herman Wouk will be ninety-eight years old in May.  It crossed my mind on learning he had a new book that it might have been written by someone else. The NPR interview dispelled that theory pretty quickly. Listening to Wouk from the perspective of an aging “new” writer, he was an inspiration. Wouk made me feel that I had all the time in the world to become a successful writer. I decided, subject matter aside, I would read The Lawgiver.

The Lawgiver is an entertaining story about a group of Hollywood types: director, producer, movie stars, and scriptwriter coming together to make a movie about Moses. The heroine, Margolit Solovei, is assigned the task of writing the movie script under the watchful eyes of Herman Wouk. In this role, he goes to some lengths to point out that the Moses movie has already been done.  Wouk casts himself in the role of a non-fictional character  in The Lawgiver in the same way he did so effectively with Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and others in The Winds of War and War and Remembrance.

The Lawgiver unfolds almost entirely using letters, emails, memos and Skype transcripts flying back and forth between the characters. While the format severely limits exposition, the reader comes away with a wonderfully complete picture of both the characters and the plot. This has been done before with success. What makes this effort so stunning is that a nonagenarian is employing this device. Herman Wouk is the author of seventeen prior novels demonstrating he is a master of prose. I couldn’t help feeling he was really enjoying himself proving “the old guy” was still capable of learning some new tricks.

Herman Wouk was married for sixty-six years to Betty Sarah Wouk who served as his agent and first reader. She died suddenly in 2011 during the writing of The Lawgiver. She is also a non-fictional character in the story. If for no other reason, Wouk’s depiction of her makes this book worth reading. The Lawgiver is not my typical book, but the power of the writer’s personality compelled me to read it. I was not disappointed.

“It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards, says the White Queen.” Lewis Carroll

December is the month for fun reads so I’m happy to recommend Mrs Queen Takes the Train by William Kuhn.

This is a book about The Queen. Yes, the one who comes immediately to mind when the word queen is mentioned:  Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith.

The author, William Kuhn, is a biographer and a historian. Mrs Queen Takes the Train is his first novel.

He begins with a deceptively simple idea. What if The Queen decided one day to take the train, like any other passenger? Mrs Queen Takes the Train describes exactly what happens when she does. The story begins with Her Majesty waging war with her computer, ultimately resorting in a fit of temper, as we all have at one time or another, to shutting down and rebooting. She finds herself becoming sad  and decides to ward this feeling off by  thinking of happier times including voyages spent on the now retired royal yacht, Britannia.

How presumptuous of the writer to climb into the head of the sitting monarch, but what fun he has with it. He provides a window into her thoughts on a variety of topics including her late daughter-in-law, wayward children, and demanding spouse with such skill that you almost believe that you really do know what she is thinking.

This is a queen who does yoga and sneaks expensive cheese to her beloved horse whose name is also Elizabeth. When she decides on the spur of the moment to pop up to Edinburgh in the company of the clerk from the cheese shop to visit the Britannia, a quietly desperate chase by five of her loyal attendants ensues. The results are both poignant and hilarious.

The portrait that emerges of this eighty-six year-old lady in a Hermes headscarf is so very appealing that you will find yourself wanting this to be The Queen. Regardless of how you feel about the Royals, you can’t help but like her, as she makes her way through her kingdom meeting some of her less fortunate subjects.

This book would be a wonderful stocking stuffer for anyone on your list who is a Royal Watcher. You might enjoy it, too. I know that I did.

“Happiness will never come to those who fail to appreciate what they already have.” –Source Unknown

Weddings and funerals never fail to bring out the best and the worst in people. Maggie Shipstead’s delightful novel, Seating Arrangements, is no exception. Written from the point of view of the bride’s father, Winn Van Meter, the novel is about a WASP wedding set on an island, Waskeke, off the New England coast. Done before? Certainly, but Seating Arrangements brings its own twists and turns to a story that has been used so often it is a cliché. I promise you that Shipstead’s plot will keep you from being bored.

The bride, Daphne, is gloriously and unrepentantly pregnant – about seven months – which requires last minute alterations to the wedding dress. It is not, however, Daphne’s pregnancy that causes the angst in the novel, but the much-discussed abortion of her younger sister, Liva. See what I mean?

There are lots of elements of satire here, at times veering close to slapstick. The names alone take you to a place where I have never lived: Biddy, Oatsie, Piper, Greyson and Mopsy. Really. Naturally, everyone went Ivy, predominantly Harvard and Princeton. And of course, there is the drunk but very witty aunt of the bride, Celeste, to keep things from getting too stuffy. Throughout the book, Winn’s main preoccupation is being accepted as a member in the Pequod, the private golf club on the island. A prize that, despite his obviously stellar  (at least to him!) credentials, has so far eluded him.

It would be easy at first glance to dismiss this book as so much fluff, especially if you consider things like the exploding whale, but I urge you not to. The book’s appeal lies in the search for happiness that can be seen in all the main characters. A search that strikes a cord, even if you have never known anyone who actually wears red pants embroidered with white whales. Maggie Shipstead, as every writer should, shows you which of her characters are able to adjust in ways that allow them to seize happiness when they see it and those who can’t. No matter where you come from, this should feel familiar to you.

(I apologize for the lateness of this post. As they would say on Waskeke, I was “indisposed” for a few days.)

“Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.” – William Shakespeare

The strength of historian Juliet Nicolson’s novel, Abdication, lies not in the plot but in the sense of  the very specific time and place it brings to the reader.

The story opens with the death of King George V and the passing of the throne of England to his son Edward VIII known to his friends as David. Like most historical fiction, Abdication, is a story layered within a story, written in a way that the fictional characters merge seamlessly with those who were actual people.

Nicolson introduces us to the fictional Evangeline Nettlefold, Wallis Simpson’s childhood friend from Baltimore. Evangeline, an overweight spinster who has come to England to stay with her godmother, Lady Joan Blunt, serves as a foil for the new King’s married mistress. Wallis Simpson is portrayed true to history as brittle and scheming as she plots to find a way to land the most sought after man in England. This friendship, initially cast in a positive light, sours in a way that does not flatter either of the two women.

Nicolson uses the fictional characters, May Thomas, Sir Philip Blunt’s driver and the idealistic Oxford student, Julian Richardson, to flesh out the portrait of an England ripe for change in the years just prior to the Second World War.

Abdication skillfully weaves British Nazi sympathizer, Sir Oswald Mosley, founder of the British Union of Fascists, and the growing fear of the Nazis into the story providing insight into why the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, as David and Wallis would later be known, would long remain controversial figures on the world’s stage.

Seventy-six year have passed since Edward renounced his throne in order to marry the American divorcee from Baltimore. Having lived through the saga of Charles and Diana, it is difficult for us to imagine what the flap was about.  Abdication provides a window into the morals and temper of the time in which their story unfolds.

As a young teenager, I read A King’s Story, the memoirs of the Duke of Windsor. (I told you that I read anything and for some reason the book was on the shelf in my home when I was growing up.) So of course I had to read this book.

“The world wavered and quivered and threatened to burst into flames.” ― Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

I bought An Unexpected Guest written by Anne Korkeakivi for two reasons: I fell in love with the cover and the story is set in Paris. I have tried to explain the affect that my trip, two years ago, to Paris had on me, but words always seem to fail me. You have to go. If you already have, you know what I mean.

An Unexpected Guest takes place over the course of one woman’s day. Clare Moorhouse, the wife of the British minister in France, second only to the British ambassador, learns at the last minute, due to the illness of the ambassador, she is expected to host a dinner at her home for the permanent under-secretary. If it goes well, it will result in the likely appointment of her husband, Edward, as ambassador to Ireland, a position that he has waited for and richly deserves.

Clare knows her job well and organizes this crucial event like a general mounting an army about to go into battle. Reminiscent of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, we see her efficiently dealing with difficult servants, surly French flower vendors, last minute guests, and the unexpected arrival of her troubled younger son as she goes about her day. There is, however, much more going on with Clare.

Edward describes his wife as “Tall, cool, white, smooth and wonderfully classic.”  Dressed in her beige cashmere cardigan, fountain pen in hand, carefully writing the place cards for her dinner, Clare is all that. The reader also knows from the first paragraph of An Unexpected Guest, that Clare is darker and more complicated. With skillful use of flashbacks, Korkeakivi tells the story of the young Clare who meets and  falls in love with Niall, “some cousin” from Ireland who is staying at her uncle’s home for the summer.

Slowly, Clare’s youthful mistakes, mistakes that carried her to 83 Portobello Road, Dublin are revealed. As the clock ticks relentlessly down toward her dinner party, her past sins race to catch up with her.

I always know that I am reading a great book when I start to read faster. This was the case with An Unexpected Guest. The pace quickens as the story builds toward a surprising and (for me) deeply satisfying climax underscoring, that, while we cannot undo the mistakes of the past, we can, if we choose to do so, learn from them.

I hope you enjoy it.