GREAT EXPECTATIONS : THE SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF CHARLES DICKENS
by Robert Gottlieb

Charles Dickens was the "father" of ten children. I placed quotes around father because he really wasn't much of one. He loved them when they were young but as they got older, his interest dissipated. Dickens was an even worse husband to his long-suffering wife leaving her for a much younger woman.
Great Expectations is set up in two parts. The first section describes the lives of the children (in chronological order) while Dickens was alive while the second part is after Dickens died.
I never got to the second part because I became very annoyed with one of the chapters talking about Henry Fielding Dickens who was the eighth child and the sixth son. What bothered me was the ricocheting of the names Henry and Harry. The first paragraph said Henry and the next said Harry. When I first read the name Harry, I didn't know who it referred to. I thought perhaps that it was another son or a friend. Nowhere in the entire chapter does the author explain Harry. If he was known as Harry and it was said so early on, no problem, but it wasn't. I found it to be very poor editing which is very surprising since Robert Gottlieb was the editor of The New York Review of Books for many years. There were other problems with the book and I just lost interest.
A much better biography on Charles Dickens and his family written by Claire Tomalin is the one to read.
Not recommended.

MARIE CURIE AND HER DAUGHTERS : THE PRIVATE LIVES OF SCIENCE'S FIRST FAMILY
by Shelley Emling

Marie Curie is probably the most famous female scientist that ever lived. She received two Nobel Prizes: one for physics and the other for chemistry. Her discovery of radium and how it could be used was an enormous breakthrough. Ironically, it started out curing people of cancer and in ten years, it was making people sick. Radium eventually killed Marie along with many others.
She had two daughters: Irene and Eve. Irene would follow in her parents' footsteps and become a physicist herself. Not so with Eve. She loved the arts and was an accomplished pianist and then became a writer.
Unfortunately, I didn't finish the book because I struggled with the prose. It's very dry and plodding. Don't believe any of the reviews. It's certainly not page-turning, exhilarating, nor riveting. 
Not recommended.

CAVEAT EMPTOR : THE SECRET LIFE OF AN AMERICAN FORGER
by Ken Perenyi

In Latin the phrase caveat emptor means "let the buyer beware." I would say the definition for this book is "let the reader beware."
Ken Perenyi was an art forger for over forty years and was never caught. This is his story. Alas, I didn't get any further than page sixteen. The writing is horrible and juvenile. It probably would have been much better if somebody else had written about him and had the writer's touch.
It's pretty dismal.
Not recommended.

THE STRANGER IN OUR HOUSE : GROWING UP WITH HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS : A MEMOIR
by Kathy Hoffstadter-Thal

I waited an awfully long time to get this book from the library and it wasn't all that it was cracked up to be. The author is the daughter of two Holocaust survivors from Hungary. Her father is quite the narcissist and psychotic. He doesn't give a damn about his family including his wife and treats them all miserably. Most of the time, he doesn't talk to any of them except with demands. He lives his life as if he is still in the army with regulations and rules that they all must abide by. It's a very disturbing read made worse by the fat that it's riddled with misspellings and punctuation errors. 
Not recommended.

JASMINE AND FIRE : A BITTERSWEET YEAR IN BEIRUT
by Salma Abdelnour

This is a nothing book. The author (who currently lives and works in New York) moves back to Beirut where her family is from to write about the country and the food. She is a blogger and it's like you're reading it. Every chapter is a different month (like a diary) and it's boring. She gives incessant details about the cuisine and what she does every minute of each day. Who cares?
Not recommended. 

THE RECEPTIONIST : AN EDUCATION AT THE NEW YORKER
by Janet Groth

When she was nineteen, Janet Groth landed at job at The New Yorker as a receptionist. She stayed for two decades. Groth always wanted to become a writer, but that never came to  fruition at the magazine.
I feel as if it took two decades for me to just get through two chapters. The book was very disappointing and needless to say, I didn't finish it because I couldn't stand Groth's writing. It was very boring and dry. She's also extremely full of herself and that was annoying.
Not recommended.

Babel No More : The Search For The World's Most Extraordinary Language Learners
by Michael Erard

Author, Michael Erard, has a quest to find people who speak multiple languages and coins a new word "hyperpolyglot." He starts off with an Italian cardinal Giuseppe Mezzofanti (from the nineteenth-century) who supposedly was able to speak seventy-two languages. Some linguists, though, think that Mezzofanti was a myth and could only really speak a few languages. Erard sends out a massive e-mail looking for present-day hyperpolyglots and many write back.
I was really looking forward to reading this book but got three-quarters of the way through it and stopped. Some parts of it are really interesting but most of it is boring. His style of writing is plodding and I can't see too many people wanting or having an interest in what he wrote.
I am a language nut myself (I was a triple language major in college: German, French, Spanish) so I thought this book would be right up my alley. No such luck. It was a big disappointment.
Not recommended.

We Heard The Heavens Then: A Memoir Of Iran
by Aria Minu-Sepehr

Aria Minu-Sepehr was the son of a general in the Shah's Imperial Iranian Air Force. He was brought up in a sheltered world. When the Ayatollah came to power in 1979, Aria's life as he knew it came apart.
I honestly can say that this book did absolutely nothing for me. There have been a whole slew of accounts written by Iranians about their cultivated and privileged upbringing that were pretty interesting. We Heard The Heavens Then just left me empty. I believe it was the style of writing. Nothing exceptional, no beauty in the prose. You can pass this one by.
Not recommended.

An Economist Gets Lunch : New Rules For Everyday Foodies
by Tyler Cowen

Tyler Cowen has unconventional ideas about food but they're only his opinions. He comments about good food vs. bad food; that local food is not better for the environment; the best barbequed food is not in the United States; different regions of Chinese cooking; airplane food is bad but airport food is good; where you can get good, cheap food, etc.
Although Cowen is known as one of the most influential economists today, it does nothing for his writing. Parts of the book are very interesting but most of it is plodding. There's way too much filler. Most of the stuff could have easily been a magazine article. I didn't finish the book as it became much of an irritant for me.
Not recommended.

Paris, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down
by Rosecrans Baldwin

From the time he was a little boy, Rosecrans Baldwin has always loved French things. When he gets a chance (as an adult) to go and live in Paris for one year (with his wife) and work at an advertising agency, he is delighted. Here's the catch, though: he has no experience in advertising and can barely speak French. So, lucky for us, we get to read about his mistakes in communication at the office, embarrassing situations, misinterpretations and many more ho-hum escapades.
This book is not funny as other reviewers have said and the writing is slip-shod. Baldwin becomes more and more annoying. The result is, who cares? I never finished the book as everything just became too tedious.
Not recommended. 

The Escape of Sigmund Freud : Freud's Final Years in Vienna And His Flight From The Nazi Rise
by David Cohen

The title of this book is very misleading. You don't read about his escape until you are more than halfway through the book. First, you must plow through copious amounts of detail and information on psychoanalysis plus the people who were active in this field.
Apparently, a Nazi named Anton Sauerwald saved Sigmund Freud but I never got to that point. The writing is very plodding and could be used in a university.
Not recommended. 

Father's Day : A Journey Into The Mind And Heart Of My Extraordinary Son
by Buzz Bissinger

Buzz Bissinger has a set of twins that were born three minutes apart and premature (by thirteen and a half weeks). The older one, Gerry, is going for a graduate degree in education at the University of Pennsylvania. Zach has only attended special schools and has a job bagging groceries at the supermarket. He'll never be able to be independent nor drive a car but he has incredible memory and loves maps.
Buzz decides that the two of them should take a road trip together to visit all of the places they used to live. He is hoping that this will bring them closer together because he feels that he hasn't been such an attentive father.
The subtitle of this book is very misleading. "Son" should be changed to "Self" because that is who Buzz is focused more on. His obnoxious personality bounces off the pages. At times, he has these juvenile rants where he uses profanity. Not necessary. He also airs his political views. Also, not necessary.
I didn't finish the book (I read half). Buzz just became more and more annoying.
Not recommended. 

Hell Above Earth : The Incredible True Story Of An American WWII  Bomber Commander And The Copilot Ordered To Kill Him
by Stephen Frater

Both the title and subtitle are enough to make you want to dive right into this book. The first couple of chapters were quite interesting and then it turned sour.
During World War II, two men flew a B-17 together in Nazi territory. The pilot was an American named Werner Goering who had nerves of steel. His co-pilot was Jack Rencher. The two of them became great friends. There was only one catch. Goering was the nephew (supposedly) of the head of the Luftwaffe, Reich Marshal Herman Goering and the FBI wanted Werner killed if he surrendered to the Nazis. Rencher was chosen to shoot him.
Unfortunately, the suspense just hung in the air. The book is not riveting as the publisher notes it is. It's actually quite boring, repetitious and diverts, most of the time, from the subject. There's way too much filler about other events and flyers and this could easily have been a magazine article. But, the most annoying thing about the book was the poor editing (it jumped around all over the place) and the amount of missing words, duplication of words in the same sentence, typos, and inverted question marks was a chore to plow through.
I wrote to the author after having read thirty pages to alert him about the numerous errors. He wrote back saying that he knew about it, that it was very frustrating because it was totally out of his control. The publisher was in such a rush to get this book out and it's quite a sloppy mess.
Not recommended.

Paris In Love : A Memoir
by Eloisa James

In 2009, Eloisa James, a Shakespeare professor at Fordham University, her husband, Alessandro, an Italian who also teaches, and their two children, Anna and Luca, went to Paris for one year. James who is from a family of writers (her father was poet Robert Bly) is actually known more as an author of romance novels. She definitely knows how to tweak words to make the text more appealing but this book is a disappointment. All it is are snippets of events that happened to the family: Anna and Luca's behavior problems in the French schools; having to go on a diet because chocolate keeps rearing its ugly head; Alessandro's weight loss; French culture; etc. James posted her observations on Facebook and then these thoughts and essays were combined to produce a book. After a while, who cares? It is not enough to keep one's interest and mine certainly lagged halfway through. There is no substance; only light fluff.
Not recommended.

Gypsy Boy : My Life In The Secret World Of The Romany Gypsies
by Mikey Walsh

I cannot understand the amount of glowing reviews for this absolutely horrible book. One of the professional journals said that Gypsy Boy is better written than Augusten Burrough's Running With Scissors. That reviewer needs to have his head examined.
Mikey Walsh taught himself to read and write and it shows. Just read the Acknowledgements before the book even begins and there's problems with incorrect usage of punctuation. The amount of physical abuse from his father and sexual abuse from his uncle was just too disturbing and I had to stop reading. Walsh barely gives much information about Gypsies so you don't really glean anything new. It's basically a diatribe of his miserable childhood.
Not recommended.

The First Lady Of Fleet Street : The Life Of Rachel Beer : Crusading Heiress And Newspaper Pioneer
by Eilat Negev and Yehuda Koren

During the Victorian era, there were two prominent Jewish families: the Sassoons and the Beers. Rachel Sassoon married Frederick Beer who was the heir to a huge newspaper enterprise.
As I only reached page 100, I don't know all of the details. The authors spent the first part of the book writing about the history and background of the two families (Rachel was only mentioned as a child). The Sassoons were from Iraq and the Beers from Germany. That was the most interesting part of the story. I found the prose to be boring, plodding, and flat.
Not recommended.

The Man Without A Face : The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin
by Masha Gessen

If you are looking for an in-depth portrait of Vladimir Putin, you won't find it within this book. He's definitely an enigma and paints himself as being a thug. It's supposed to be a biography of him but most of what is written is about political events that happened in Russia while he was around but not doing much of anything.
The writing is quite poor and boring. Gessen is more of a journalist than an author because everything that is presented is factual and there's not much substance. I got halfway through and had enough.
Not recommended.

The Lady In Gold : The Extraordinary Tale Of Gustav Klimt's Masterpiece, Portrait Of Adele Bloch-Bauer
by Anne-Marie O'Connor

Adele Bloch-Bauer was one of the reigning Jewish society figures in Vienna. Her husband was a sugar-beet baron and the two of them were art patrons. Gustav Klimt painted her portrait after making one hundred sketches and it sat in the Bauers' palace until the Nazis confiscated it.
Alas, I didn't get too far with this book (thirty-eight pages). The writing is plodding there's too many names constantly thrown at you. It is not riveting and suspenseful as the front flap says. I found it dull and irritating.
Not recommended.

The Tender Hour Of Twilight
By Richard Seaver

Richard Seaver was a magazine/literary editor for Grove Press and he would be responsible for demolishing U.S. censorship laws. He and his partner introduced Lady Chatterly's Lover, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and others to the American public.
Before all of this began, though, Seaver went to Paris in the 1950s and started up a magazine. He introduced Samuel Beckett (then an unknown writer) to thousands of readers, Eugene Ionesco, William Burroughs, and many more.
The book started out promising. I had never heard of Seaver (he's well-known in the publishing field) and it was really interesting reading about Paris in those days and what went on behind the scenes in creating a magazine and promoting authors. Halfway through, I quit reading it. The whole thing just fizzled out for me. Some of the details just were not that fascinating; in fact, they were boring.
Nothing to get excited about here.
Not recommended.

Below Stairs : The Classic Kitchen Maid's Memoir That Inspired Upstairs, Downstairs And Downton Abbey
by Margaret Powell

There are so many requests for this book at different public libraries that I wish I could alert these people not to bother. I got to page 180 and called it quits. By rights, I probably should have finished the bloody thing with 32 pages left, but I could no longer stand it.
For those of you who are hooked on "Downton Abbey," just stick with the show. I'm sure there's more depth than there than you get with this tale.
Margaret Powell came from poverty and at fifteen went into service as a kitchen maid. The work was extremely hard (up at 5:30 A.M. and finished well after dark) and it was totally different from what she was used to. She would scrub vegetables, the front steps, polish shoes, iron bootlaces, on and on. The homes were magnificent but not so the owners. The help worked their butts off for measly pay and certainly were not appreciated.
The most interesting thing that I can say about the book is reading about the difference in the classes. (This all took place during the 1920s.) Unfortunately, the writing is not the best (there are numerous errors) and all of the jobs became tedious and repetitious to read about. It just fell flat for me.
Not recommended.

Good Living Street : Portrait Of A Patron Family, Vienna 1900
by Tim Bonyhady

Hermine and Moriz Gallia were a prominent Viennese family and great patrons of the arts during the early part of the twentieth-century. They amassed a huge collection of paintings, furniture, silver, glass, etc. In order to avoid anti-Semitism, they all converted to Catholicism. When Kristallnacht reared its ugly head, they were able to pack up all of the contents of their apartment and flee to Australia. It was probably the best private collection that was able to be saved: a Steinway piano, diaries, chandeliers, furs, books, you name it.
Amazingly, I read this entire book thinking that it would be placed on the book-a-holics blog. By the time I finished the damn thing, I knew that wasn't going to happen. The author is the great-grandson of Hermine and Moriz Gallia. On the back flap of the book, it says that he is an award-winning art historian, curator, and environmental lawyer. Believe it or not, he has written five other books each of which must be as equally boring as this one is. Between the listings of every painting, types of furniture, names galore, every incessant detail of anything and the plodding, dull, deadening prose, why would anyone want to read this awful mess?
Not recommended.

A Slave In The White House : Paul Jennings And The Madisons
by Elizabeth Dowling Taylor

Paul Jennings was born into slavery on the plantation of James and Dolly Madison. He would become Madison's personal manservant. It's ironic that both James Madison and Thomas Jefferson (great friends) had hundreds of slaves since the two of them were proponents of individual freedom. Much of the information for the book was taken from Jennings' own memoir about living with the Madisons.
Unfortunately, I didn't get very far because I found the writing dry and plodding and there's an excessive dropping of names. The author is no writer. Her background is a scholar and lecturer and had a career in museums and historical research. One of the most annoying things is her constant use of supposition. She's guessing at what Jennings might have done or said or who was with him for many instances. So much for being a researcher.
The book is not really for the general public because of its academic slant.
Not recommended.

Coco Chanel : An Intimate Life
by Lisa Chaney

It seems like in the past year or so, there has been an onslaught of books written about Coco Chanel. I have read two one of which was reviewed on the book-a-holics blog and the other one was on this blog.
What started out to be promising (I actually raved about the writing) ended at page 186. Lisa Chaney has unearthed a multitude of information that has never before been revealed so Coco's character is much more fleshed out than in previous biographies and so are all of the people who were involved with her. Unfortunately, I believe there is too much stuff that most of us really don't want to plow through. And it's because of all this excess that I became annoyed with the author. She kept on saying that she is the one who had more information than any other biographer and they didn't get their facts straight or they were just plain wrong. Well, she ruined it for me. A significantly better book to read is The Secret of Chanel No. 5 by Tilar J. Mazzeo (see the review on 1/11/2011 in my book-a-holics blog: www.book-a-holics.blogspot.com).
The Chaney book strives way too hard and is tedious.
Not recommended.