The Widow Clicquot by Tilar Mazzeo

After finishing (and loving) The Last American Vampire by Seth Grahame-Smith on October 27, I started The Widow Clicquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It by Tilar Mazzeo on October 28 finishing on November 1.  

I love reading on vacation.  The uninterrupted time to just read, nap, and read some more is marvelous.  This vacation was to Maui - 4 nights and 5 days in paradise.  If you need a place to stay, check out the Andaz Maui - it was HEAVENLY - seriously, we didn't want to leave.  It was perfection.

Not surprisingly, this book is about Veuve Clicquot champagne and the woman behind this empire.  I had no idea that this champagne has been around since the French Revolution.  Well - Veuve Clicquot hasn't been around that long, but Barbe-Nicole, the woman who is Veuve Clicquot has been around since then.  Barbe-Nicole was born into a wealthy textile family in the Champagne region of France.  She married the son of a wealthy textile company and aspiring wine-maker.  Her husband met an untimely death, and the new widow, Barbe-Nicole, with her newfound freedom to take control of her life and run a business, gambled, lost, gambled, won, and gambled and lost and won some more to make Veuve Clicquot the champagne brand we all know (and love) today.

It was very uncommon in the 1800s for a woman to be able to work, let alone, run a business at all.  Being a widow, Barbe-Nicole was in the unique position to have the freedom that married and unmarried women didn't have to do this.  This book is about the amazing story of how her champagne empire came to be.

The book started slowly and sort of reads like a history doctoral thesis paper and the timeline jumps around a little, but once I was maybe 100 pages into the book, I really started to get in to it and into Barbe-Nicole's story.

Here's an excerpt from a letter Barbe-Nicole wrote her great-granddaughter in the mid-1860s:

"I am going to tell you a secret... You more than anyone resemble me, you who have such audacity.  It is a precious quality that has been very useful to me in the course of my long life... to dare things before others... I am called today the Grand Lady of Champagne!  Look around you, this château, these unfaltering hills, I can be bolder than you realize.  This world is in perpetual motion, and we must invent the things of tomorrow.  One must go before others, be determined and exacting, and let your intelligence direct your life.  Act with audacity.  Perhaps you too will be famous... !!"

If you like history, if you like champagne, if you like reading about strong, audacious women (and need a little inspiration), read this book!

The Last American Vampire by Seth Grahame-Smith

After finishing The Push on October 12, I had a few days with Chernow's Hamilton again (still not nearly done yet) and started The Last American Vampire by Seth Grahame-Smith on October 18 finishing on October 27.

This is follows Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter from 2011.  While I loved the book, the movie wasn't so hot - total bummer.  The Last American Vampire picks up with Henry Sturges, the vampire who was friends with Lincoln, and tells the tale of his (Henry's) history throughout history - he's over 300 years old, after all.

This book was satisfyingly entertaining and funny and thought-provoking in a purely fictional way.  It was absurd, yet I couldn't put it down.  So many historical figures come into the book:  Teddy Roosevelt, Virginia Dare, Howard Hughes, J.P. Morgan, Mark Twain, Nikola Tesla, Bram Stoker, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and more.

I really liked how these historical people and happenings were re-imagined to include vampires.  There are photos through the book also re-imagined to include vampires in them.

Clearly, Seth Grahame-Smith has an active and vivid imagination and can tell a great story.  If you like history and you like vampire stories - pick this up - it's so good!  The Husband just finished it and loved it too.

Zarafa by Michael Allin

So, after finishing Inheritance by Christopher Paolini, I picked up Zarafa: A Giraffe's True Story, from Deep in Africa to the Heart of Paris by Michael Allin.  So, yes, this is kind of a random book.  I learned about it in an article the Husband sent me in January.  The article had a list of 5 books that shaped "America's Best New Company," Shinola.  This list was created by Shinola's creative director, Daniel Caudill.  The 5th book on Caudill's list is Zarafa.  The Husband thought I would like this book because I love giraffes.  

Zarafa is about the journey, from Africa to Paris, of a giraffe given to King Charles by Muhammed Ali in the 1820s.  Um, what?  Apparently, Muhammed Ali, not the boxer, but an Albanian man who became the Ottoman viceroy of Egypt, gifted this giraffe to King Charles.  But the story is so much more than that.  There are all kinds of non-Egyptian movers and shakers scheming for money, riches, notoriety, influence that have a role and a mention (or more) in this book.

Before I started reading this book on March 21 (finished on April 14), I thought it would be a fascinating, crazy tale of the overland and sea adventures of a giraffe.  It was that, but it was much more.  Before I go more into the book, I feel the need to mention that I have a BA and MA degree in American History, so I've read a book or two by historians.  I know that often "history books" are dry and rambling, and that authors of history books need to drive their point home time and again by stating and restating the point and evidence over and over.  This makes for very dry and very boring books.

Unfortunately, Zarafa was one of these books.  I didn't want this book to be a "history book."  I wanted it to be a wonderful fiction-like non-fiction book.  I wanted it to be exciting, informative, endearing, and fun.  I wanted a grand adventure of a giraffe.  A lovely, sweet, tall giraffe.  But, sadly, no.  This was a "history book."

There was a lot of information about the players.  For example, Bernardino Drovetti, an Italian-born soldier turned French consul general in Egypt.  Drovetti made his fortune trafficking animals, Egyptian antiquities, and mummies to his European clients.  Muhammed Ali, an Albanian-born mercenary in the Ottoman Turkish army turned Egyptian viceroy.  Ali was "modernizing" Egypt with the African slave trade and "confiscatory taxation."  Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilarie, a prominent French scientist, and savant in the l'Institut d'Égypte, started by none other than Napoleon.  Charles X, a Frenchman, a King, and exiled to Britain during France's revolution.

This whole tale of the giraffe started with "Drovetti's eagerness to ingratiate himself with the new king, Charles X, and Muhammed Ali's desire to befriend him..." and would possibly lessen "resentment toward the viceroy's imminent invasion of Greece."  Of course everything prominent political and royal people do is to gain favor or lessen hostilities for one thing or another (in this case invading Greece).

We go through all of this political background and foundation before we even really learn about the giraffe.  In 1824, the giraffe (a female) was captured as an infant in southeast Sudan and by some miracle made it to Alexandria, and then to Marseille, and then to Paris.  What a journey.  Allin researched how the giraffe was transported, and all of the dangers she faced in her journey.  He detailed this journey as best he could using articles and snippets of information he found in his research.

Once in Paris, Allin details how she was cared for and then moved to Paris.  Spoiler alert - the giraffe walked to Paris.  Rich and influential people along the route were eager to see the giraffe at private events.  And, eventually upon arrival in Paris, the giraffe had the audience of the King.

It is a pretty fantastic tale wrapped up in tons of political maneuvering.  I wish there had been less focus on the politics and more information about the giraffe.  I know it isn't always possible to write more about certain things because, sadly, there is no historical evidence to back things up.  The author would have to assume and take creative license, but then it wouldn't be history any more... 

History is fascinating and wonderful to learn about if it is presented in a way that makes it intriguing and exciting.  I know it is possible - I've read several "history books" that didn't seem history-book-ish.  I wish this was more like those.  I still love giraffes, and I'm still fascinated by how a giraffe came from Africa to Paris.  I just wish this book was more about the giraffe and less about the politics.

Me feeding a giraffe at the SF Zoo - it was magical

The Husband feeding a giraffe at the SF Zoo

The Fifth Assassin, by Brad Meltzer

I finished The Fifth Assassin, by Brad Meltzer this past Friday night.  After Lay The Favorite, I wasn't sure what I wanted to read next, so I asked my husband to pick out three books that he thought I should read (and would enjoy), and I would pick my next book from among those three.  The lucky winner was The Fifth Assassin (I started it on 2/17/14).  I have read at least one or two other books by Brad Meltzer, and they are good reads.  (One I read a while ago was The Book of Lies - about the murder weapon Cain used to kill Abel, and the unsolved murder of of Superman creator Jerry Siegel's father.)  Meltzer writes fiction, non-fiction, children's books, and comic books.  He even had a show on television called Decoded on the History channel.

Decoded "explores fascinating, unexplained questions.  Is Fort Knox empty?  Why was Hitler so intent on capturing the Roman "Spear of Destiny"?  What's the government hiding in Area 51?  Where did the Confederacy's $19 million in gold and silver go at the end of the Civil War?  And did Lee Harvey Oswald really act alone?  Meltzer sifts through the evidence; weighs competing theories; separates what we know to be true with what's still - and perhaps forever - unproved or unprovable; and in the end, decodes the mystery, arriving at the most likely solution."

Meltzer's books are similar in nature to Decoded - they all have some sort of mystery to solve, with lots of twists and turns, action, and intrigue.  The Fifth Assassin, chronicles the Culper Ring, a super secret society whose goal is to protect the presidency, not necessarily the president him/herself, a serial killer in an insane asylum, two boyhood friends and their history together growing up in Wisconsin, a female assassin with a mysterious and unknown form of cancer, the president & his trusted personal physician, and Abraham Lincoln.

Meltzer writes rich and believable characters.  When he describes Beecher's friendship with Marshall, and the treehouse that Marshall received as a gift when he was a child, you can really envision how the treehouse looked and felt.  And, Meltzer's descriptions of the adolescent boys who would gather in the treehouse to look at stolen porn magazines, you can really see the image of this in your head (and it is a pretty comical one too).

There are many twists and turns in the book with people double and triple crossing each other, lots of motives that are uncovered, alluded to, and remain somewhat hidden.  Meltzer creates a multi-layered, political-thriller, mystery story full of interesting facts from history, peppered with the right amount of fiction, secret societies, and secret codes.

Here is an abbreviated passage from the book discussing playing cards and how they are playing a part in the mysterious killings of pastors and clergy who have all said prayers with the current president of the United States:

"Forget the eagle and what decorates the cards.  I'm talking about what doesn't change.  The modern suit symbols: hearts, diamonds, clubs, spades.  In Italy, they used to be called cups, coins, swords, and batons.  But those modern symbols - hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades - those were created in France back in the fifteenth century, by a knight named Étienne de Vignolles."

     "A knight?" Tot asked.

     "Not just any knight.  One of France's most famous knights.  A man who rode with Joan of Arc herself," the Diamond explained, noticing the change in Tot's posture.  "This was a knight who served both church and king, and as the story goes - and I'm not saying I believe it - to test his loyalty, each side - church and king - entrusted Vignolles with their greatest secret.  Vignolles was the chosen knight.  So when it came to decorating the cards... his lasting legacy... he picked his symbols with great care.  These days, most historians will tell you that the four suits represent the four classes of midieval society: Hearts were the sign of the church; diamonds were arrowheads, representing vassals and archers; clubs were husbandmen or farmers; and spades were the points of lances and therefore represented the knights, and by extension, the king.  Others say Vignolles was just inventing a game, or that the symbols were a key to the knight's true loyalty.  But there are a few who insist that Vignolles, when he was forced to choose between church and king, used the cards as a vehicle to deliver a hidden message."

     "I'm lost.  A message to whom?"

     "To his fellow knights.  To the others who he'd eventually entrust with his secret....  Have you ever really examined the court cards in a deck?  Why does the king of diamonds have an axe, while all the rest have swords?  Why are the jack of hears, the jack of spades, and the king of diamonds the only cards that appear in profile, while all the others are full face?"

     "You're telling me that's a secret message?"...

     "In just about every deck in the world, every face card - the jacks, the queens, all the other kings - they all have two hands.  The king of hearts always has four - two of which are stabbing him with a sword, like he's stabbing himself.  That's where we get the term suicide king from.  But look closely.  His sleeves don't match.  He's not stabbing himself or committing suicide.  He's being stabbed by someone else.  Someone so hidden, the king can't see him coming."  ...  "They match another card in the deck...  Those are the sleeves of the queen of spades."

     "So the spades kill the hearts?"

     "Or as Vignolles designed in his original symbols: the knights - and by extension the king - kill the church." ... "In Vignolles's original deck, and the decks that were passed down generation to generation, it wasn't king, queen, jack.  It was king, knight, knave.  That was the warning Vignolles was sending.  The real killers of the church were the knights of the king.  So if the church's greatest secret was to be protected, a new army had to be formed.  A secret army..." 

If you are looking for a Dan Brow-ish book to read that isn't overly hard to comprehend, that moves quickly, has lots of twists and turns, this book will not disappoint. 

"Stories aren't the beauty of what did happen.  They're the beauty of what could happen."  --Brad Meltzer