Tag: europe

Book Review: Salt of the Earth

BonnieReadsAndWrites8 Comments

Switzerland, 1916. Seraphine spends her days taking care of her two half-brothers, who were born with a condition called cretinism, known today as congenital hypothyroidism. Their father is a hard man who wishes both boys were dead, and says so. Seraphine has never known her own father, who was not married to her mother. She dreams of a different life, where she can study, work, and make a difference, but it seems so out of reach. She also is developing a goiter on her throat, like so many of her fellow townspeople, and tries very hard to hide it. Then Bastian Favre comes to town. He is an assistant to Dr. Eggenberger, who is working on a cure for cretinism and goiters. Can it be as simple as salt?

This compelling novel explores the history of iodized salt and the pursuit of a cure for hypothyroidism in Switzerland by adding iodine to the diet. The author portrays the skepticism and superstitions of the people affected so well. Seraphine’s mother is used to express the doubt and fear, and to show the extreme effects of a lack of iodine on mothers and their babies. The refusal of some of the townspeople to accept such a simple cure is indicative of the time. The slow-burn romance is captivating, as Bastian’s instant attraction to Seraphine meets many challenges along the way. There is epistolary work in the form of letters and news articles. The news articles are an excellent way of following the story of how Switzerland’s Goiter Commission made the decision to recommend iodized salt to the people in 1922. Fans of romance and medical history will enjoy this book. Highly recommended.

My review is 4.5 stars, rounded up to five on sites with no half-star option.

I received a free copy via The Historical Novel Society and reviewed it for their quarterly magazine, The Historical Novels Review.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JJ Marsh is the author of The Beatrice Stubbs series, featured in The Guardian Readers’ Recommend and The Bookseller’s Editor’s Choice. Jill is a founder member of Triskele Books, an award-winning author collective founded in 2011. In addition, she is the Swiss Ambassador for The Alliance of Independent Authors, and Co-editor of The Woolf, Zürich’s literary ezine and writers’ workshop. She lives in Switzerland with her husband and three pugs, and in an attic overlooking a cemetery, she writes.

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Sunday Post: How many hours to Sunset?

BonnieReadsAndWrites31 Comments

This is my first Sunday Post in about a month I think. I’ve been slammed with work in Germany, so no time for posting and I’ve fallen behind on all my reviews. Retirement is coming up in less than three months, so plenty of time to catch up. Yesterday I took a tour to Prague to kick off our long holiday weekend. See below

The Prague Astronomical Clock or Prague Orloj at Prague Old Town Hall

This is one of the most crowd-fascinating historical features in Prague. There was always a crowd surrounding the clock, waiting for it to strike a new hour. Some of the features were not on the clock yesterday, as it was undergoing maintenance, so I didn’t get the full view. This clock will tell you how many hours it is until sunset. On one side you see the shiny sun and on the other side is the silver moon.

The clock was installed in 1410, and it is the third-oldest astronomical clock in the world and the only one still in operation. It was partially destroyed by the Nazis near the end of World War II.

This is from Wikipedia: “In 1552 it was repaired by Jan Táborský (1500–1572), master clockmaker of Klokotská Hora. The clock stopped working many times in the centuries after 1552, and was repaired many times. The legend was used as the main plot in the 2008 animated film Goat story – The Old Prague Legends.

In 1629 or 1659 wooden statues were added, and figures of the Apostles were added after a major repair in 1787–1791. During the next major repair in the years 1865–1866, the golden figure of a crowing rooster was added.

The Orloj suffered heavy damage on 7 and especially 8 May 1945, during the Prague uprising, when the Nazis fired on the south-west side of the Old Town Square from several armoured vehicles in an unsuccessful attempt to destroy one of the centers of the uprising. The hall and nearby buildings burned, along with the wooden sculptures on the clock and the calendar dial face made by Josef Mánes.[6] After significant effort, the machinery was repaired, the wooden Apostles restored by Vojtěch Sucharda, and the Orloj started working again in 1948.[7]

The Orloj was renovated in autumn 2005, when the statues and the lower calendar ring were restored. The wooden statues were covered with a net to keep pigeons away.

The last renovation of the astronomical clock was carried out from January to September 2018, following a reconstruction of the Old Town Tower. During the renovation, an electric clock mechanism that had been in operation since 1948 was replaced by an original mechanism from the 1860s.[8]

See below a Youtube video showing the clock strike a new hour. It is fascinating.

UPCOMING ON BONNIE READS AND WRITES

I will be posting two reviews I did for the May issue of Historical Novels Review, the magazine of The Historical Novel Society. They are THE CAPTIVE and THE GUARDIAN, Books 2 and 3 of THE MENDER SERIES by Jennifer Marchman. My review of Book One and Q&A with the author is here.

I am catching up on my Netgalley Shelf, so I’m reading MIND GAMES by Nora Roberts and then I will provide other reviews as well. I’m returning home on June 7th, and retiring August 16th.

I also want to direct you to a past Memorial Day tribute I’ve done for my Uncle, Wayne Jenkins, who died in Vietnam. We will never forget you, Uncle Wayne.

More Prague pictures:

How about you? How was your week?

Book Review: The Ball At Versailles by Danielle Steel

BonnieReadsAndWrites9 Comments

I enjoyed this one from Danielle Steel. This is historical fiction set in 1958, mostly in France during the first “Le Bal des Debutantés,” a ball for American and French debutantes held in Versailles. We follow four girls from America who are invited to France as part of this ball. Caroline has little interest because she’s already in love, but her movie star parents think it will be fun. Brilliant Felicity is constantly battling her weight and her verbally abusive sister, so a night in the spotlight is not appealing to her at all. Amelia and her mother Jane once had money, but are now in dire financial straits. How can they afford to go? Samantha has problems with her balance due to an accident years ago, and she is a bit worried about falling during the ball. Her very protective father has the same concerns.

This is set in a time when women had fewer rights and some families still thought that their daughter’s best “career” would be finding a rich husband. The financial struggles of Amelia’s mother Jane are very real, as her late husband came back from the war a different person and had left her with little money when he died. Her career struggles are very true to the period, as women were passed over for promotions and paid much less than men. In some of Ms. Steel’s previous books, someone with money might come in and rescue her, but I was pleased to see that did not happen in this one.

I loved the setting in Versailles, the decadence of the ball, and the descriptions of France. Steel has a tendency to “tell” instead of “show,” but she’s sold a billion books that way, so who am I to judge? Sometimes her style works for me and sometimes it doesn’t. This time it worked. The character Felicity was my favorite. Even though she is a brilliant student at MIT, all her mother and sister can see is her weight. That’s very true even today, and I loved that one of the characters did not have a “perfect figure.” So few of us do.

I highly recommend this novel to anyone who enjoys books set in France and in the 1950s.

My rating is 4.5 stars, rounded up to 5 on sites with no half-star option.

I received a free copy of this book from Random House via Netgalley. My review is voluntary and the opinions expressed are my own

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