Hi Bookworms. Can you believe August is passing by so quickly? We had friends visiting from Richmond, Virginia, this week, so were busy catching up, showing them around, and going to the mountains for a couple hikes and lunch afterwards at the golf course.
It was a nice visit … though sort of smoky here from the wildfires in British Columbia and around Spokane, Washington. I managed to get this shot before the gray air set in. We are hoping to get rain this week that will help the situation. It’s been dry as dust during July and early August.
We should have a couple quiet weeks now before September kicks in. We are starting to get our salads from the vegetable garden, which is nice, and I’ll be playing two days of both golf and tennis this week, and riding in another bicycle event next Saturday. So I’m staying active while I can before fall and cool weather set in.
Here’s another fuller picture of the vegetable garden, which my husband is doing a good job staying on top of. Notice the high fence to keep out all the deer and critters.
Meanwhile I don’t have really any good book news this week, but I’ll likely be starting Patricia Cornwell’s memoir True Crime in print and the novel Five by Ilona Bannister on audiobook. These two are on my Summer List, which I am still focusing on. And now I’ll leave you with reviews of what I finished lately.
Land by Maggie O’Farrell / Knopf / 400 pages / 2026
5 stars. This is a long epic novel that follows each member of a family in Ireland in the 1860s after the Great Famine. There’s the son Liam (age 10) who accompanies his father Tomas, a talented map-maker, on an excursion to a secluded peninsula working for the hated redcoats (the British army). Tomas finds a mystical spring while out there that changes him … and he moves the family to a ruined cottage on the peninsula.
His wife Phina doesn’t know what’s come over him, nor his son Liam who turns away from him and goes off to join a religious sect. Older daughter Enda, a fiddle player, sneaks away too on a ship bound for Quebec but is naive to what awaits her. Younger daughter Rose helps at home with their loyal wolfhound Brith, while the youngest child Eugene is a quiet child connected to the land and its history. The family parts ways and also comes together … while experiencing tragedies and challenges along the way.
I was caught up in all their stories and the beautiful language and prose that O’Farrell uses to spin the tale. I think I liked the novel, which I listened to on audio, perhaps even better than her novel Hamnet, which is saying a lot. That novel was filled with the tragedy over the loss of Shakespeare’s son and this novel also has its share of tragedy … but has more to it, and I liked following the different characters.
I am just flabbergasted that Land did not get a Booker Prize nomination. What the heck. Apparently O’Farrell, who was born in Northern Ireland, has never received a Booker nomination … which begs the question: what does it take? I’ve only read two of O’Farrell’s historical novels but man she can write! I only wish her tales had less tragic elements to them — various of her characters can get killed off at any turn in the story, bah.
I’ve now finished 4 women authors’ books on my Summer List that have been top-notch; they are: Maggie O’Farrell, Elizabeth Strout, Tayari Jones, and Ann Patchett … with two other females’ promising debuts by Tara Menon and Addie E. Citchens. It’s been a line-up hard to beat … and I still have the latest from Lauren Groff and Lisa See to come. Though the next great whopper on my Summer List could be John of John by Douglas Stuart. So we will see.
Family of Spies: A World War II Story of Nazi Espionage, Betrayal, and the Secret History Behind Pearl Harbor by Christine Kuehn / Celadon / 272 pages / 2025
4 stars. This is the true story by a woman who was living in suburban Maryland with her family in 1994 when she received a letter out of the blue asking about her family’s Nazi past, which she was unaware of. The letter writer was researching the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and wanted to talk with her father about the role of German spies in the attack. Stunned, Christine called her 72-year-old father Eberhard at the time who finally came clean to her about the German family he grew up in and their past. Whoa, this is an unreal wild tale … that’s hard to even believe.
It reveals how back in the 1930s the author’s father grew up in a prominent Berlin family — with parents Otto and Friedel Kuehn — who became involved with the Nazis. His brother Leopold worked for Joseph Goebbels’ Ministry of Propaganda and step sister Ruth was even said to have an affair with Goebbels before he found out she was half-Jewish and sent the family packing (except for Leopold who stayed in Berlin). Eberhard’s parents were offered jobs as spies in Hawaii where they were paid by the Japanese to monitor military movements around Pearl Harbor among other things. It’s all quite eye-opening. You can’t make this stuff up.
The Kuehns spent lavishly on the salary they were given though the FBI seemed to be watching them. They weren’t very careful and were arrested after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. You have to read on to the end to find out more … but the author’s father Eberhard turned his back on them and enlisted in the army at 18 fighting for the American side.
It’s all very curious. And how the author researched and pieced together for 30 years her family’s hidden background is a bit of the story. It’s quite a feat that she was finally able to put this book out in 2025 … about her paternal grandparents being German spies for the Japanese and taking the family with them down that road … and how her own father never told her any of it … until she confronted him in 1994. The book is carefully constructed and follows the family’s path and WWII chronologically, capturing some of the author’s surprise, horror, and shame about her family’s past along the way.
It sort of reminded me of Irmgard Hunt’s 2005 memoir: On Hitler’s Mountain: Overcoming the Legacy of a Nazi Childhood … which is another chilling read but important to know about … involving dictators and indoctrination.
That’s all for now. Do you know any of these books above and what did you think?
