It's Monday! What Are you Reading?
It's Monday! What are you reading? is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. For this meme, bloggers post what they finished last week, what they're currently reading, and what they plan to start this week.
My comments are not meant to be recaps of the story lines as I include a link to Goodreads for their synopsis of the book. I am merely stating how I felt about the book without giving any spoilers.
We spent the last two weeks travelling, one week in Nova Scotia and then some time in NYC.
FINISHED:
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Synopsis here.
Extremely riveting writing, I was totally absorbed in the story.
London in the late 1990s, the internet just taking over the business of newspapers.
Honor Tait a well-known, now elderly pioneer of reporting, who covered World War II, Vietnam and scores of Hollywood and political celebrities.
Tamara Sims, a twenty-something wanna-be reporter who mainly comprises lists for tabloids. Tamara Sim is easy to sneer at, with her lack of historical knowledge (she wants to make sure to include a reference to TS Eliot as the man who wrote "Cats"). And one of my favourite lines - When Tait mentions the 38th parallel, Sim can only wonder “Parallel to what?”.
Extremely riveting writing, I was totally absorbed in the story.
London in the late 1990s, the internet just taking over the business of newspapers.
Honor Tait a well-known, now elderly pioneer of reporting, who covered World War II, Vietnam and scores of Hollywood and political celebrities.
Tamara Sims, a twenty-something wanna-be reporter who mainly comprises lists for tabloids. Tamara Sim is easy to sneer at, with her lack of historical knowledge (she wants to make sure to include a reference to TS Eliot as the man who wrote "Cats"). And one of my favourite lines - When Tait mentions the 38th parallel, Sim can only wonder “Parallel to what?”.
On a Boston street one warm spring day after a long New England winter, Hazel and Remy spot each other for the first time in years. Under ordinary circumstances, this meeting might seem insignificant. But Remy, a gifted violinist, is married to the composer Nicholas Elko-once the love of Hazel's life.
It has been twenty years since Remy, a conservatory student whose ambition may outstrip her talent; Nicholas, a wunderkind suddenly struggling with a masterwork he cannot fully realize; and his wife, beautiful and fragile Hazel, first came together and tipped their collective world on its axis. Over the decades, each has buried disappointments and betrayals that now threaten to undermine their happiness. But as their entwined stories unfold from 1987 to 2007, from Europe to America, from conservatory life to the Boston Symphony Orchestra, each will discover the surprising ways in which the quest to create something real and true--be it a work of art or one's own life--can lead to the most personal of revelations, including the unearthing of secrets we keep, even from ourselves.
It has been twenty years since Remy, a conservatory student whose ambition may outstrip her talent; Nicholas, a wunderkind suddenly struggling with a masterwork he cannot fully realize; and his wife, beautiful and fragile Hazel, first came together and tipped their collective world on its axis. Over the decades, each has buried disappointments and betrayals that now threaten to undermine their happiness. But as their entwined stories unfold from 1987 to 2007, from Europe to America, from conservatory life to the Boston Symphony Orchestra, each will discover the surprising ways in which the quest to create something real and true--be it a work of art or one's own life--can lead to the most personal of revelations, including the unearthing of secrets we keep, even from ourselves.
I didn't like this book when I first started reading it. I thought it was going to be another student falls in love with teacher, teacher leaves wife and child. But it quickly becomes much more than that.
The two female characters are likeable, Nicholas not as much.
STARTED:
Coco Chanel, high priestess of couture, created the look of the chic modern woman: her simple and elegant designs freed women from their corsets and inspired them to crop their hair. By the 1920s, Chanel employed more than two thousand people in her workrooms, and had amassed a personal fortune. But at the start of the Second World War, Chanel closed down her couture house and went to live quietly at the Ritz, moving to Switzerland after the war. For more than half a century, Chanel's life from 1941 to 1954 has been shrouded in rumour. Neither Chanel nor her biographers have told the full story, until now.
In this explosive narrative Hal Vaughan pieces together Chanel's hidden years, from the Nazi occupation of Paris to the aftermath of the Liberation. He uncovers the truth of Chanel's anti-Semitism and long-whispered collaboration with Hitler's officials. In particular, Chanel's long relationship with 'Spatz', Baron von Dincklage, previously described as a tennis-playing playboy and German diplomat, and finally exposed here as a Nazi master spy and agent who ran an intelligence ring in the Mediterranean and reported directly to Joseph Goebbels.
Sleeping with the Enemy tells in detail how Chanel became a German intelligence operative, Abwehr agent F-7124; how she was enlisted in spy missions, and why she evaded arrest in France after the war. It reveals the role played by Winston Churchill in her escape from retribution; and how, after a nine-year exile in Switzerland with Dincklage, and despite French investigations into her espionage activities, Coco was able to return to Paris and triumphantly reinvent herself - and rebuild the House of Chanel.
As Hal Vaughan shows, far from being a heroine of France, Chanel was in fact one of its most surprising traitors.
In this explosive narrative Hal Vaughan pieces together Chanel's hidden years, from the Nazi occupation of Paris to the aftermath of the Liberation. He uncovers the truth of Chanel's anti-Semitism and long-whispered collaboration with Hitler's officials. In particular, Chanel's long relationship with 'Spatz', Baron von Dincklage, previously described as a tennis-playing playboy and German diplomat, and finally exposed here as a Nazi master spy and agent who ran an intelligence ring in the Mediterranean and reported directly to Joseph Goebbels.
Sleeping with the Enemy tells in detail how Chanel became a German intelligence operative, Abwehr agent F-7124; how she was enlisted in spy missions, and why she evaded arrest in France after the war. It reveals the role played by Winston Churchill in her escape from retribution; and how, after a nine-year exile in Switzerland with Dincklage, and despite French investigations into her espionage activities, Coco was able to return to Paris and triumphantly reinvent herself - and rebuild the House of Chanel.
As Hal Vaughan shows, far from being a heroine of France, Chanel was in fact one of its most surprising traitors.
Nice week...ENJOY this week.
ReplyDeleteI am out of town and not getting too much reading done, but I am having fun. Went to a Hachette book event and received 9 books. The event was FABULOUS. I am still here visiting my son.
Elizabeth
Silver's Reviews
My It's Monday, What Are You Reading
Both books sound very informative and entertaining ~ carol, xo
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