THIS time I DID read a book in less than a week.

I couldn’t put it down. When I did, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

I never would have checked the book out of the library (I’ve seen it there many times) if it hadn’t been from a strong recommendation from my friend Zmira. I don’t enjoy reading books that sound as if they are going to be gruesome stories of cruelty. I knew the book was about a young woman and her five year old son who were forced to live in one room.

But its not like that all, in fact nothing like I expected.

The writing is first rate. The whole story is told by the point of view of a five-year-old discovering life and it is fascinating. It is also about the power of words to create reality and how we use words to make sense of it. It is about coping and love.

I’ve paused to read some reviews by others ( I don’t read reviews till I have finished a book! They tend to have spoilers) and I’m pleased to see that Roberto Benigni’s “Life is beautiful” mentioned. There were points when reading when I thought of that too but this book is really quite unique.

I don’t want to have any spoilers in this post so I am stopping here. I”ll settle for:

READ!

I had such high hopes for this book! Now I’m entertaining the option of giving up on the remainder of this 531 page book.

I like historical novels. And the explanation of the title seemed so interesting! It seems that at the end of the 19th century people suffering from mental illness were considered alienated from their true selves. Those who treated them were called alienists. I’m interested in psychology.

And who knew that Theodore Roosevelt  was chief police commisioner in New York before he became president (and his nickname at that time was “the president”)?

Generally speaking I don’t have a problem that the focal point of the story is a murder. I have read a lot of murder mysteries and last Saturday’s book non fiction book had a serial killer in it, one Dr. Holmes (who is mentioned in the very first pages of this book).

However, it seems that the author believes that he can’t mention historical facts without making sure that before, after (and in the middle, sometimes) there has to be gruesome and seamy details from the underworld of New York at that period. I find it unpleasant, tiresome and kind of insulting to my intelligence.

I am going to read some more tonight and then decide if a trip to the library is to be added to tomorrow’s plans.

No, not a proper book post though you could say the tour was related to THE book, the Bible.

Jerusalem is FULL of places that you walk by the outer walls a million times but have only a vague idea of what is hiding behind them (or not at all).This is the place to take guided tours, or you won’t know what you are missing. We do it fairly often.

Today’s tour took us to monasteries behind walls, one with a round church, gardens in the courtyard, and a branch of the Papal Biblical Institute (from the Vatican) in Jerusalem, where we encountered a real mummy from the Hellenistic period and an unusual homage to the Holocaust.

Here are some pictures.

Full title: “The Devil in the White City” ; Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair that changed America”

Honestly, real life IS stranger than fiction. I didn’t imagine I would feel such suspense when reading a well researched non-fiction book! The fact that it IS non fiction only adds to the drama and interest because even the minor characters that are mentioned are REAL people and it all ties in with real events.

There’s the ambitious and gifted lead architect with a goal of creating a white city so unusual that I would compare it to the “awe” factor (for me, at least) we find the palm islands of Dubai today. One of the carpenters on site was a Mr. Disney, who told his son Walt endlessly about this magical city he helped build…

There’s the incredibly handsome serial killer. Think of the bad guy in the book “the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – this guy puts him to shame…

There is the city of Chicago itself.. Am I glad I didn’t live there in 1893! The levels of air pollution (the stench and the fumes were unbelievable) and water pollution were horrific. On one hand it may have been a vibrant city with building going up like mad but the crime rate was really bad and poor people could easily starve to death.

The first unions appear (for me  Samuel Gompers was always the name of my first school, here he’s alive and really kicking, battling for decent hours and wages). Teddy Roosevelt puts in  a short appearance (the architect manages to turn him down, no small feat!) as do others.

The start of reciting”the pledge of alleigance” in the school system is also related to the fair!

Added perk of reading non fiction – one of the important character is Olmstead, the landscape architect who designed Central Park in New York (among other things). He was casually mentioned in an article in the New Yorker. I never would have noticed but now I was pleased to know who he was!

I do know the fair got built but at the moment (I’ve read half the book) I feel in suspense – will they get this amazing feat built? How high will the personal costs of it be?

Can’t wait to find out.

I just read an article by Adam Gopnik in the New Yorker Magazine (April 22) reviewing 125 years of the magazine in the yellow border; The National Geographic.

Like so many other people, the magazine is connected to my childhood memories. Though not, as urban legend has it, as a source of first glimpses of female breasts of native women! Gopnik debunks this myth of the children eagerly waiting beside the mailbox for the magazine. There WERE such photos but they were very infrequent.

Even though I was only subscribed to it for three years, I had access to it in different forms for many years. Odd facts have stuck in my mind, from important ones (the Leakey family and the discoveries of the human origins) to trivial ones (“Oh! The name Mercedes existed as a woman’s name before the car”)! The fact that Humpack Whales are the ones that sing is firmly lodged in my brain as I will never forget the excitement of receiving an issue of the magazine with a detachable mini record (!!!) to hear the whales sing.

In the long term, for me,  the magazine had a problem of its never changing format. There was something similair, perhaps a formula, that I got somewhat tired of.  Today I prefer watching the National Geographic on television and subscribing to the New Yorker Magazine. The New Yorker lacks the stunning (absolutely!) photographs but takes me to far corners of the world, tells me of discoveries I have never heard of, then mixes it up with current events and literature in an ever changing format.

However, I believe I would not have been interested in taking those journeys with my current magazine if I haven’t grown up with used to a magazine being a gateway to fascinating things.