Category: Europe

July 23, 2013

Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution by Simon Schama *** (of 4)

OK, I didn’t finish the book. After more than 300 pages of fine print and exquisitely crafted sentences I perished of exhaustion before ever learning...

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July 23, 2013

Paris to the Pyranees by David Downie * (of 4)

So much promise, so little delivery. David Downie sets his mind to walking the old pilgrim trail of Saint James. He’s trying to recover from...

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June 21, 2013

Sugar in the Blood by Andrea Stuart ** (of 4)

While investigating her genealogy, the author, Andrea Stuart, learns she is the descendent of both a slave owner and a slave. She gets all the...

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June 1, 2013

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra **** (of 4)

Half a dozen fully realized characters intertwine as the Russian empire disintegrates in the early 2000s and the Republic of Chechnya is obliterated by two...

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May 24, 2013

A Foreign Country by Charles Cumming *** (of 4)

An Mi-6 spook, Thomas Kell, on involuntary leave for perhaps roughing up an Afghan captive in Kabul is called back into service when the incoming...

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March 17, 2013

HHhH by Laurent Binet **** (of 4)

Reinhard Heydrich, The Blonde Beast, ruled Czechoslovakia for the Nazis until he was assassinated in 1942. One of Hitler’s favorites — how is it I...

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February 3, 2013

Code Name Verity *** (of 4) by Elizabeth Wein

This is the tale of a irrepressible friendship between two women doing very unusual jobs. It is World War II and England is barely holding its own...

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December 18, 2012

Dissolution by C.J. Sansom ** (of 4)

In the 1530s, Thomas Cromwell, working for a surly King Henry, is in battle with the Roman Catholic church. The Pope’s monasteries have dominated rural life for...

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November 30, 2012

Istanbul Passage by Joseph Kanon ** (of 4)

Very rarely is an author’s style so obstructionist that it interferes, but sadly, Kanon’s frequent indecipherability kept me from finishing. Too bad. I was in...

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November 15, 2012

The Sojourn by Andrew Krivak *** (of 5)

Jozef Ondrej is taken by his father as an infant, after his mother dies, to the mountains of central Europe on the eve of the...

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