“The revelation that people actually studied ancient Egypt as their job seemed to me both astonishing and wonderful…”
Retold countless times down the centuries, there are as many versions of Egypt’s story as there are those to tell it. And so this is simply my version, featuring the people, places and events that have fascinated me my whole life.
And it is fair to say Egypt has pretty much been my life. Familiar and accessible through my family’s books, photographs and wartime recollections, the ancient Egyptians were, it seems, always around during my childhood, as the inspiration for my earliest drawings, the way I dressed my dolls, the things I read and collected.
The defining moment came in 1972, when the Tutankhamen exhibition arrived in Britain. His beautiful golden face appeared everywhere in the media frenzy for all things pharaonic, and Egyptologists of the day were regularly asked for quotes by the press. The revelation that people actually studied ancient Egypt as their job seemed to me both astonishing and wonderful – so at the age of six, I announced that I was going to do that too.
Introduction to The Story of Egypt: The Civilization that Shaped the World, by Joann Fletcher
Upon reading this, I identified powerfully with the author. I, too, was around six years old when I first became fascinated by ancient Egypt. But whereas Joann Fletcher went on to forge a distinguished career as an Egyptologist, I went on to live a more or less ordinary life, for which I am profoundly grateful. The Egypt enchantment stays more or less underground, a stream flowing in the darkness. But every once in a while…
I recently signed up for a course in Egyptian art at a local lifelong learning institute. We had a our first meeting last Monday, and it was wonderful. I have obtained through interlibrary loan The Discovery of the Tomb of Tutankhamen by Howard Carter. This particular edition, published in 1977, “…is the unabridged republication of Volume I of The Tomb of Tut*ankh*amen Discovered by the Late Earl of Carnarvon and Howard Carter originally published…in 1923….”
The tomb was discovered in November of 1922.
Howard Carter, Lord Carnarvon, Carnarvon’s daughter Lady Elizabeth Herbert, and Carter’s assistant Arthur Callender are gathered before the door to the chamber. Keep in mind that Carter and Carnarvon, his generous patron, had been searching for this burial site for years. This was to be their final effort.
Here is Howard Carter’s description of what happened next:
The decisive moment had arrived. With trembling hands I made a tiny breach in the upper left hand corner. Darkness and blank space, as far as an iron testing-rod could reach, showed that whatever lay beyond was empty, and not filled like the passage we had just cleared. Candle tests were applied as a precaution against possible foul gasses, and then, widening the hole a little, I inserted the candle, and peered in, Lord Carnarvon, Lady Evelyn and Callender standing anxiously beside me to hear the verdict. At first I could see nothing, the hot air escaping from the chamber causing the candle flame to flicker, but presently, as my eyes grew accustomed to the light, details of the room within emerged slowly from the mist, strange animals, statues, and gold–everywhere the glint of gold. For the moment–eternity it must have seemed to the others standing by–I was struck dumb with amazement, and when Lord Carnarvon, unable to stand the suspense and longer, inquired anxiously, “Can you see anything?” it was all I could do to get out the words, “Yes, wonderful things.”
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When I was in London a few years ago, I visited Sir John Soane’s Museum. Sir John Soane was a distinguished architect and also a compulsive collector. His house is filled with strange and wondrous objects. Along the way, he managed to acquire several beautiful scenes off Venice by Canaletto.
Canaletto; View in Venice, on the Grand Canal (Riva degli Schiavoni); Sir John Soane’s Museum
But possibly the most astonishing object in this bewildering welter of astonishing objects is this:
Behold! It is the sarcophagus of Pharoah Seti I (1290-1279 BCE).
Here is what the sarcophagus currently looks like in situ:
This fantastical object was discovered in 1817 by Giovanni Battista Belzoni, a freewheeling adventurer and archaeologist sometimes referred to as the Indiana Jones of his day. Having brought this cumbersome artifact to England, Belzoni offered it to the British Museum. That institution deemed the price – £2,000 – too high. But ut wasn’t too high for Sir John Soane, who snapped it up. Hence, it currently resides serenely on the bottom floor of the museum, being much too heavy to be safely placed elsewhere in the building. You can stand right beside it, walk around it, even touch it. I can attest to this personally.
The mummy of Seti I is exceptionally well preserved. It currently resides in the Cairo Museum.
For more information on the sarcophagus, click on this link to the museum’s website. And don’t miss this ‘digital fly-through’ of the museum.
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I want to return briefly to the subject of the discovery of the tomb of Pharoah Tutankhamen. The moment of triumph in November 1922 was followed by a sudden and unexpected tragedy the following April when Lord Carnarvon died unexpectedly. Here is Howard Carter’s supremely eloquent dedication:
…I dedicate this account of the discovery of the tomb of Tut*ankh* Amen to the memory of my beloved friend and colleague
LORD CARNARVON
who died in the hour of his triumph.But for his untiring generosity and constant encouragement our labours could never have been crowned with success. His judgment in ancient art has rarely been equalled. His efforts, which have done so much to extend our knowledge of Egyptology, will ever been honoured in history, and by me his memory will always be cherished.
George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon 1866-1923
Howard Carter 1874-1939
Giovanni Battista Belzoni 1778-1823
The Great Belzoni, 1824, by Jan Adam Kruseman
Sir John Soane 1753-1837
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Last year, I visited the National Geographic Headquarters in Washington DC to see their exhibit ‘Queens of Egypt.’ This occasioned another eruption of Egypt mania in the heart and brain of Yours Truly. I got rather carried away with the blog post I created to memorialize this splendid experience. Here is a snippet of video by which I, along with other visitors, was transfixed:
Wife of the Gods by Kwei Quartey
Having greatly enjoyed Kwei Quartey’s The Missing American, a standalone novel, I decided to read Quartey’s Darko series. First up is Wife of the Gods. It’s a delight! Darko is an appealing protagonist, a policeman working is way up in the force. He has to work to control a quick temper; moreover, his love of marijuana must be indulged in secret. His family, consisting of wife Christine and much loved six-year-old son Hosiah, helps keep him on the straight and narrow.
Several mysteries unfold in tandem in Wife of the Gods. The plotting is well done and easy to follow, but the real star of the show once again is the country of Ghana. An important element of the story is a rather disturbing custom called Trokosi. Kwei Quartey observes that “Traditionalists, such as the Afrikania organization in Accra, are in favor of the tradition and deny that slavery is involved.” Well, maybe so, but the way it’s depicted in this novel, Trokosi makes it possible for a man to have numerous wives and to treat them like – well, slaves. And so although the title, Wife of the Gods, would seem to refer to an aspirational state, the reality is decidedly more sinister.
So this is a negative aspect of Ghanaian society and the author is honest in depicting it. But at the same time, there is much about the country that is appealing – in particular, the beauty of the countryside and the kindness and generosity of its people.
In the matter of religion, Ghana is approximately seventy per cent Christian (including a variety of denominations); although there are a number of dialects spoken, the official language is English. (verified by the CIA World Fact Book). These facts apparently give rise to the quirky and rather endearing custom of commercial establishments being named ‘Nothing But Prayer Electrical Goods,’ the “God Is Great Hair Clinic,’ and the ‘Jesus Is Lord Chop House.’ (This immediately put me in mind of Alexander McCall Smith’s No.1 Ladies Detective Agency series set in Botswana, in which Mma Makutsi’s husband is the proud proprietor of the ‘Double Comfort Furniture Shop.’)
I look forward to getting the next Darko Dawson book, Children of the Street.
The Missing American by Kwei Quartey
Emma Djian is uninspired – to put it mildly – by her work in the Ghana Police Service’s Commercial Crimes Unit. She longs for the excitement and challenges of the homicide division. She applies for a position in that elite group, but in the course of the interview process, an awful thing happens to her. And it happens deep within the police force itself.
Suddenly Emma is out – sacked. But a kindly soul refers her to a private investigation company, where there may be a position waiting for an enterprising soul such as herself. This, then, is the opening into the world of criminal investigation that Emma has been seeking.
Meanwhile, a world away in the U.S., Gordon Tilson, a widower, has been corresponding with a Ghanaiain woman via social media. She identifies herself as Helena Barfour. A romance develops, in the course of which Tilson sends money to Helena, to help her with a family emergency. At length, the lovers affirm their desire to be together. In pursuit of this goal, Gordon Tilson boards a plane that will take him to Ghana, and to his love.
As you have probably guessed, things do not go as planned. Or at least, not as Gordon had planned.
The Missing American provides a rich immersion in the culture of Ghana, a country about which I know very little. And Emma Djian is a wonderful character – bright, personable, and in her own quiet way determined to make career in law enforcement. I’m hoping we’ll see more of her in the future.
A character in The Missing American disguises himself in the same manner as the man in this photo:
Kwei Quartey has written five novels featuring Darko Dawson, a CID detective in Accra, Ghana’s capital city. I was sufficiently taken with The Missing American that I am now reading the first book in this series, Wife of the Gods.
Kwei Quartey’s dedication at the front of this novel reads as follows:
To Ahmed Hussein-Suale, a Ghanaian journalist martyred on Wednesday, January 16, 2019
You can read about this in a BBC article entitled Murder in Accra.
‘Early one morning of an exceptionally beautiful day….’
I am always on the lookout for exceptional writing on art subjects. I’ve known about this particular book for a long time, but as I don’t currently own it, I haven’t actually read any part of it for quite a while.
Thomas Hoving frequently styled Thomas F.P. Hoving – ‘P’ for Pearsall, ‘F’ for Field – was the Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1967 to 1977. (Hoving was succeeded by ‘Le Roi Philippe’ – Philippe de Montebello, that is, who reigned unopposed at the Met from 1977 to 2008.)
In 1997, Thomas Hoving published The Greatest Works of Art of Western Civilization. Illustrating that title on the cover, one beholds the following: the Funerary Mask of King Tut, The Starry Night by Van Gogh, Michelangelo’s David, the Bohemian Madonna…and the proud, even autocratic visage of Thomas Hoving himself!
Credit where it’s due, Hoving knew his art. And he writes about it beautifully and with great authority. (At times, a bit too much authority? Ah, well…) In the introduction, he states his rationale for coming out with this volume:
Early one morning of an exceptionally beautiful day, I got the idea of retracing every step of my life as an art expert – from 1951 – and writing down the works of art that had bowled me over visually and emotionally, the ones that after years I could describe down to the tiniest details, as if standing in front of them.
He concludes by saying
The order in which [the works] appear in this book is a fantasy order, precisely the one I”d prefer to see them again, shock after beautiful shock.
The result of this organizing – or disorganizing – principle can be seen early in the book when, between this:
Resurrection, by Piero della Francesca, late 1450
and this:
Zeus or Poseidon, artist unknown, 5th century BCE
We behold this:
Bed, Robert Rauschenberg, 1955
On first seeing Bed, not long after its creation, Hoving describes his reaction:
I was bowled over by the shock of it, its impudence, its strength, and the sense of bewildered impotence and rage that it communicated.
He goes on:
Part painting, part sculpture, part found object, and part detritus, it seemed very courageous at the time and seems even more so today.
Okay, well, he is eloquent in defense of this work, as he certainly has every right to be. Perhaps you like it, Dear Reader; alas, it doesn’t do much of anything for me.
On the other hand, I love the Piero della Francesca. This is how Hoving transcribes his thoughts on the occasion of his first encounter with this masterpiece, in company with his wife, in the town of Sansepolcro, the artist’s birthplace in Tuscany:
Alone in the room where it is on display, with no other people in the way, and no other works of art to diminish its grandeur, we stood in awe of the frightening image confronting us of a risen Christ triumphant–no. more than triumphant, a Christ both victorious and enraged. It is a vision of Christ the Avenger who will rid the world of sinners, the Christ of Saint Michael, the killer of monsters and satans, the demiurge of the Second Coming who looks you square in the face, who locks his blazing eyes with yours and asks, “Are you a sinner or among the blessed?”
I read this, and then gazed at the painting again, and it took on new meaning for me. And those soldiers – I mean, get with it guys!
The colloquy is strictly between Christ and the onlooker, for the magnificent four soldiers are completely unaware of the momentous event that is taking place.
It is harrowing to think that we almost lost this great work to the depredations of war:
Sansepolcro was spared much damage during World War 2 when British artillery officer Tony Clarke defied orders and held back from using his troop’s guns to shell the town. Although Clarke had never seen the fresco, his diary records his shock at the destruction in Monte Cassino and, apparently remembering where he had read of Sansepolcro, ordered his men to hold fire just as methodical shelling had begun. Clarke had read Huxley’s 1925 essay describing the Resurrection, which states: “It stands there before us in entire and actual splendour, the greatest picture in the world.” It was later ascertained that the Germans had already retreated from the area — the bombardment had not been necessary, though Clarke had not known this when he ordered the shelling stopped. The town, along with its famous painting, survived. When the events of the episode eventually became clear, Clarke was lauded as a local hero and to this day a street in Sansepolcro bears his name.
This is from the Wikipedia entry for this painting. For more on this, see the BBC News commentary.
More will be coming on this book in subsequent posts.
November Road – even better the second time around
I want to begin this post by quoting from an article by Lauren Groff that appeared in last Sunday’s New York Times Book Review. Groff’s piece is a review of American Dirt, a new book by Jeanine Cummins. This novel, which I have not read, has provoked a veritable firestorm of commentary in the press for the past week or so. If you have not been following the story, click here and here for articles that pretty well summarize what the dust-up is all about.
(Flatiron Books, publisher of American Dirt, has just issued a mea culpa so abject that, to my mind, it borders on groveling. Not that it’s inappropriate, but – well, read it and judge for yourself.)
What is of particular interest to me in Lauren Groff’s article is her summation of the qualities she looks for in a novel:
….obvious joy in language, some form of humor, characters who feel real because they have the strangenesses and stories and motivations of actual people, shifting layers of moral complexity and, ultimately, the subversion of a reader’s expectations or worldview.
I have just reread November Road by Lou Berney, and I’m happy to report that all of the above qualities richly inform this novel. One thing that Lauren Groff did not mention is the quality of the plotting. Is it original and beautifully executed? Gosh yes!
In a previous post, I summarize what November Road is about. Allow me to quote myself:
It’s late November, 1963. We meet the following in quick succession:
A small town housewife and mother – think June Cleaver undermined by a restless streak (and a well-intentioned alcoholic husband). Throw in a small time hood and glad hander steeped in the ethos of the Big Easy. Then there’s a vicious mob boss and his highly unconventional enforcer.
It’s a combustible combination. And into its midst bursts an assassination that shakes the world. What has that got to do with this oddball cast of characters? More that you’d think….
This was an amazing read. Toward the end I got so tense and agitated, I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to race through the rest of the book or hide it under a stack of magazines – anything to avoid the conclusion I was dreading.
Memorable lines, spoken after a snappy exchange of dialog:
Guidry laughed and glanced at her, taking a fresh look. He liked a woman who could hit the ball back over the net.
An outstanding thriller, on a par with The Bomb Maker.
All I can say is that as much as I enjoyed this book when I first read it, I loved and appreciated it even more the second time around.
Brilliant!
Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland, by Patrick Radden Keefe.
To start with, I had no desire to read this book. My recollection of Northern Ireland’s so-called ‘Troubles,’ at their appalling height in the early 1970s, held nothing good for me, certainly nothing that I cared to revisit. Yet Say Nothing kept appearing on ‘Best’ lists. To be more specific: It was on the ‘Ten Best Books of 2019’ lists posted by the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal. So I changed my mind….
This was a rough reading experience. In the beginning, there was so much murder and mayhem, so much killing and destruction, that I didn’t think I’d make it through. But gradually, the author’s focus narrowed to several individuals: the Price sisters, Dolours and Marian, and a woman named Jean McConville. There are numerous significant supporting players, one of which is Gerry Adams, purportedly a past member of the Provisional IRA – he denied it – who transitioned into a political role. He was president of Sinn Fein from 1983 to 2018.
Marian Price, left, and Dolours Price
If these look like mug shots, they probably are. Dolours and Marian were both front line fighters in the Provisional IRA. Both did time in prison, for various terrorist acts, including the notorious placing of four car bombs in London in 1973. (Two were defused; the other two exploded.)
In a curious turn of events, Dolours, after serving her prison term, married a movie star. This was actor Stephen Rea, who gained fame in the sensational 1992 thriller, The Crying Game.
Dolours Price and Stephen Rea, married in 1983
Sure, she managed to get herself a dreamboat husband, but she harbored plenty of anger toward Gerry Adams:
There is a concept in psychology called “moral injury,” a notion, distinct from the idea of trauma, that related to the ways in which ex-soldiers make sense of the socially transgressive things they have done during wartime. Price felt a sharp sense of moral injury; she believed that she had been robbed of any ethical justification for her own conduct. This sense of grievance was exacerbated by the fact that the man who steered republicanism on a path to peace was her own erstwhile friend and commanding officer, Gerry Adams. Adams had given her orders, orders that she faithfully obeyed, but now he appeared to be disowning the armed struggle in general, and Dolours in particular. It filled her with a terrible fury.
(Dolours and Stephen Rea had two sons together. They divorced in 2003.)
I mentioned above a woman named Jean McConville. Here she is, with three of her children and her husband Arthur:
By 1972, Jean McConville was a widow. She had given birth fourteen times. Ten of the children survived; they ranged in age from a daughter, aged twenty, to six-year-old twin boys.
One night around 7:00, there was a knock on the door. A gang of people burst into the apartment, members of an IRA squad called the Unknowns. They demanded that Jean go with them. She was hustled out the door, down the stairs and into a waiting car. That was the last any of the children saw of their mother.
There is a lot going on in this book, and there are numerous individuals to keep track of. The story is for the most riveting. But for this reader, anyway, nothing compares to the disappearance of Jean McConville. What was ultimately done to her is, to my mind, one of the cruelest, most heinous, and most unforgivable crimes ever committed.
I finished Say Nothing some weeks ago. I have not stopped thinking about the fate of Jean McConville.
Reading year 2020 gets off to a great start…
…with these three terrific novels:
A shooting in self-defense by a Korean shop owner reverberates years later in a completely unexpected and shocking way. This is a no holds barred look at the tensions between the African-American and Korean communities of Southern California. But it is no sociological treatise; rather, it is about real individuals in tough situations, trying yet somehow failing to make things right.
Vivid characters, a gripping plot, excellent writing – all the ingredients for a top notch work of fiction.
Kamchatka is a peninsula located in the Far East of Russia. It is the site of some three hundred volcanoes, about thirty of which are currently active. Between four and seven can be expected to erupt each year.
And there is more:
In late summer, Kamchatka’s abundant rivers run red with the crush of salmon racing upstream; it is the only place left where all six species of wild Pacific salmon return to spawn. An estimated 20,000 brown bears roam its enchanted forests of Russian rock birch and other trees, growing fat and mostly happy off salmon.
From “Forged by Volcanoes, Kamchatka Offers Majestic, Magnetic Wilds,” New York Times
Having first come to this exotic locale as a Fulbright Scholar in 2011, Julia Phillips knew she wanted to set a novel here.
It was like this enormous setting for a locked-room mystery. Kamchatka’s really contained historically and geographically. There were very few people and no foreigners going in and out of it during the Soviet period. There are no roads connecting it to the mainland. In that isolation, it’s incredibly beautiful and distinctive.
Kamchatka is like a character in the book. The characters themselves are utterly believable; their dilemmas and crises are compelling and urgent.
What a wonderful novel this is!
And this one was a real gift. I don’t remember where I read about it, but I had placed a hold on it at the library, and when the reserve came in, it jumped at once to the top of my to-read list.
This is the story of a family of Moroccan immigrants: a mother, a father, and two very Americanized grown daughters. Nora, one of these, is the main character. I found myself completely caught up in her travails and triumphs.
The Other Americans is very much a story about grief, the kind of grief that can strike any human being and lay that person low for who knows how long. While I was immersed in this novel, I was also reading a piece in The New Yorker entitled “Grief” by V.S, Naipaul. Naipaul, who died in 2018, says this:
We are never finished with grief. It is part of the fabric of living. It is always waiting to happen. Love makes memories and life precious; the grief that comes to us is proportionate to that love and is inescapable.
This is the painful lesson that Nora learns, and grows, to a degree, to accept.
For me, this novel resonated powerfully partly because of its setting in California’s Mojave Desert. At one point, Nora’s father Driss observes:
It was a cold, clear day in December, and there was snow on the peaks of the Little Bernardino Mountains. The valley was a blanket of high grass and mesquite and yucca,slowly warming up under the morning sun, and after the road dipped and rose and turned, we reached the first grove of Joshua trees. How hard the believers make it to get into heaven, I thought, when they have all this right here.
This is a place that is very special to me. My parents used to winter over in the Coachella Valley nearby. My father loved the place. My mother resented being taken away from her lifelong friends in New Jersey, but even so, she eventually succumbed to the enchantment of the desert. As for me, I loved it instantly.
Ah, Joshua Tree, I miss you.
So – there you have it, three outstanding novels by three exceptionally gifted writers. All, by the way, would make excellent book club selections. Disappearing Earth and The Other Americans in particular have ambiguous conclusions which I would love to discuss with another reader.
Stop the presses! It’s the return of Susan B. Anthony
Now in third grade, Etta was assigned a biography project. Her subject was Susan B. Anthony.
According to her Mom, she really got into it. So much so that she seems to have channeled her subject. This was the result:
Adventures in Abstract Art at the Baltimore Museum of Art – and some other places as well
by Jack Whitten December 5, 1939-January 20, 2018
by Julie Mehretu
These works, and many more, are featured in an exhibit at the Baltimore Museum of Art entitled “Generations: A History of Black Abstract Art.”
What an exuberant display of talent and inventiveness! I enjoyed it so much that I went twice.
One of the explanatory signs at the beginning of the exhibit stated this:
Racism put black artists in a double bind: both under pressure to make positive representations of black people and seen by many as less creative and therefore less capable of making original abstract paintings.
It might be partly because I’m Jewish – and am currently reading an extremely depressing book about antisemitism and the notorious blood libel accusation leveled at Jews, even in this country – dismissive generalizations like the one quoted above really make me angry.
At any rate, Generations is a wildly successful refutation of that sentiment. Here are a few more examples:
by Martin Puryear
by Alma Thomas
I was powerfully drawn to this painting. This man, barely discernible, yet fully alive. He seems to struggle out of the darkness – rather not to struggle, but to emerge without effort – and with such a wonderful smile!
by Norman Lewis July 23, 1909-August 27, 1979
Lewis’s painting is called Autumn Flight. With its stirring depiction of flight, it put me in mind of one of the first works of sculpture I came to know as a child: Constantin Brancusi’s Bird in Space:
This work, entitled Eastern Star, reminded me of I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold by Charles Demuth:
I made these two visits to the BMA with my dear friend Robbie, a ‘Roberta’ like myself. Having been at Goucher College together in 1960s, we’ve know each other forever! A sweeter, more steadfast companion one could never ask for.
Robbie and I wondered why certain works appealed to us more than others. One obvious reason is the presence of a veritable explosion of color. Who doesn’t love and crave bright colors? Just about everyone, I think, from childhood on. (This is especially true of those of us who have to live through ‘the bleak midwinter’ every year.)The first painting on top is a good example of intense coloration, as is Shinique Smith’s delightful fabric creation precisely entitled Black, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, Red, Pink; here’s yet another, somewhat more subtle, Afternoon by Norman Lewis:
I found the following passage on the site artsy.net aided my understanding of the appeal of certain works of abstract art:
The divide between abstraction and figuration is a false, but helpful, dichotomy. Painters who are primarily concerned with the interactions between color, line, and form also make marks and shapes that may suggest body parts, landscapes, and objects traditionally relegated to still lifes. Even monochrome paintings can conjure familiar settings: A gray canvas might evoke a rock face, while a blue one may suggest the sea.
The BMA made this very informative and nicely illustrated little booklet available free of charge to museum goers. I’m grateful to them for this generous act: 
Once again, I can’t emphasize enough that there are quite a few more artists represented in this exhibit than I have highlighted here. Generations runs through this Sunday the 19th. It would be very worth your while to see it.
Best reading of 2019: Nonfiction, Literary Fiction, and One Purely Perfect Short Story
Nonfiction
The Europeans: Three Lives and the Making of a Cosmopolitan Culture, by Orlando Figes
Stealing the Show: A History of Art and Crime in Six Thefts, by John Barelli with Zachary Schisgal
Accidental Presidents: Eight Men Who Changed America, by Jared Cohen
Murder by the Book: The Crime That Shocked Dickens’s London, by Claire Harmon
The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper, by Hallie Rubenhold
Author Hallie Rubenhold
Renaissance by Andrew Graham-Dixon
Dreams of El Dorado: A History of the American West, by H.W. Brands
The Trial of Lizzie Borden by Cara Robertson
Schumann: The Faces and the Masks, by Judith Chernaik
Robert and Clara Schumann
The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest To Break an Ancient Code, by Margalit Fox
Savage Appetites: Four True Stories of Women, Crime, and Obsession, by Rachel Monroe
Little Dancer, Age Fourteen: The True Story Behind Degas’s Masterpiece, by Camille Laurens
In Hoffa’s Shadow: A Stepfather, a Disappearance in Detroit, and My Search for the Truth, by Jack Goldsmith
Becoming, by Michele Obama
The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery, by Eric Foner
Lee C. Bollinger, President of Columbia University (left), presents the 2011 Pulitzer History Prize to Eric Foner.
[While pursuing his doctorate in American history at Columbia, my brother Richard had the great good fortune to study with Professor Eric Foner.]
A Month in Siena, by Hisham Matar. Lucky man, Hisham Matar, to be able to make this pilgrimage to a place steeped in such a gorgeous heritage. And such lovely writing:
The play of understated exteriors and magnificent interiors, of calm serenity on the outside and deliberate care and thoughtfulness on the inside, of a modest or moderate face concealing a fervent heart, is a Sienese habit, a magic trick the city likes to perform. It does this not only out of the desire to surprise but also, I felt during those early days, to demonstrate the transformative possibility of crossing a threshold.
Your friend forever, A. Lincoln : the enduring friendship of Abraham Lincoln and Joshua Speed, by Charles B. Strozier. This book was the perfect companion volume to Louis Bayard’s Courting Mr. Lincoln, of which more below.
Fiction
The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
A Philosophy of Ruin by Nicholas Mancusi 
Courting Mr. Lincoln by Louis Bayard
Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan. Oh. Ian McEwan, you cunning artificer! You had me mesmerized, from the very outset, by this strange and disturbing invention. 
(Ian looks great, but that cover creeps me out.)
Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver. Oh dear…a book I wanted so much to like. And there were some memorable moments; of course there were; Kingsolver is such a gifted writer. But I have rarely read a novel in which the dialog was so annoyingly unbelievable. I kept wanting to exclaim, “C’mon, Barbara, real people don’t talk to each other like that – in long, rambling disquisitions on weighty topics – commentary that is more like a series of rants than anything else! (I got through it, but barely.)
Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips. I just finished this novel, and I believe it will haunt me for a long time. Among its many singular attributes, it takes readers to a place most of us know nothing about: the Kamchatka Peninsula,
Short story
“The Little Donkeys with the Crimson Saddles” by Hugh Walpole. As sensitive and moving an exploration of human affection as I’ve come across in a long time.
Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole, CBE
A final word on this year’s reading: I just completed a rereading of Courting Mr. Lincoln, and I think it is brilliant. Not just in its category of historical fiction, but as a novel in any category, or just in its own category. Actually, with its wit, wonderful recreation of Springfield, Illinois in the 1840s, meticulous writing, and above all, bringing to such vivid life those two singular individuals, Abraham Lincoln and Joshua Speed, everything about it is superb. Why has this book not garnered more notice? Lately I’ve started so many novels only to set them aside in frustration and dismay. But Courting Mr. Lincoln is a triumph. Kudos to you, Mr. Bayard!
Books to the Ceiling 