THE DEATH OF SANTINI : THE STORY OF A FATHER AND HIS SON
by Pat Conroy

Having read Pat Conroy's previous book "My Reading Life," which I loved, I couldn't wait to read "The Death of Santini." The way he puts his verbiage together, is marvelous. Alas, that didn't happen to me with this book. It started out well enough and kept me interested, although it was very hard reading about the brutality that Pat's father doled out, unceasingly, to his family. I only reached page 132 when I decided that I could no longer stand reading the thing. By that time, he is writing about his mother's mother (known as Stanny) and it just goes on and on and on and I no longer cared. He also drops a million names all over the place which drives me nuts.
I guess if you're a die-hard fan of Conroy's, you would enjoy this book, but I'm not.
Not recommended. 

NINETY PERCENT OF EVERYTHING : INSIDE SHIPPING, THE INVISIBLE INDUSTRY THAT PUTS CLOTHES ON YOUR BACK, GAS IN YOUR CAR, AND FOOD ON YOUR PLATE
by Rose George

Everything we buy, must be shipped. Freight shipping is what brings the products. Boxes, or containers, are stacked up extremely high (way over the height of Niagara Falls) on humongous ships. Rose George takes a journey on one of these, the 20-story freighter Maersk Kendal. 
This could have been a really interesting book in, perhaps, better hands. It certainly is not captivating nor compelling as some reviewers have stated. I only read sixty pages due to boredom.  The writing is dull and empty. George spends way too much time talking about ships and not much at all about the goods. There is no need to read beyond the cover because what's inside doesn't match. 
Ninety percent of nothing is a much better title.
Not recommended.

THE SIXTEENTH RAIL : THE EVIDENCE, THE SCIENTIST, AND THE LINDBERGH KIDNAPPING
by Adam J. Schrager

Arthur Koehler was a xylotomist with the US Forest Service in Madison, Wisconsin. He was considered the most eminent expert on wood identification. After the Lindbergh's baby was kidnapped, Koehler was tasked to investigate the wood in the ladder by the New Jersey State Police in 1932.
I did not finish this book as I found it to be excruciatingly boring. Unless you're into all the nuances of wood with all of its distinctive markings, you might be interested. The most egregious thing that I thought was disturbing was the amount of times the word "kidnapping" was misspelled. That's pretty pathetic considering that is what the book is about.
It's hard to believe that the author has received numerous journalism awards because I found the writing to be plodding.
Not recommended.

ANNE FRANK : THE BIOGRAPHY
by Melissa Muller

The title of this book is misleading. You have to slough through more than half of the volume before you even have an inkling of what Anne Frank was like. Most of the book deals with her father, Otto Frank, and his businesses.  There is really nothing revelatory nor new about Anne Frank that hasn't been written before. I found the writing to be dry and plodding. The Epilogue was supposed to reveal who betrayed the family but the suspects all denied doing anything wrong and, at best, it's all speculative.
Not recommended.

THE GIRL WHO LOVED CAMELLIAS : THE LIFE AND LEGEND OF MARIE DUPLESSIS
by Julie Kavanagh

Marie Duplessis was a courtesan during the 1840s in Paris. The opera La Traviata and the film Camille were inspired by her. She grew up impoverished with an awful father. Her original name was Alphonsine and when she moved to France at the age of thirteen, she totally reinvented herself.
I didn't finish the book because it became very tedious. There's too many characters that come and go and you feel as if you are reading one giant gossip column from the nineteenth century. Marie has many lovers, they shower her with gifts, she lives like royalty. Soon enough, you are completely bored.
Not recommended.

BOY 30529 : A MEMOIR
by Felix Weinberg

When Felix Weinberg was twelve years old, his idyllic world fell apart. His family was Czech and quite respectable. That meant nothing to the Nazis when they invaded. Felix's father had already left for England hoping that he could arrange to have his wife and two sons emigrate there. Unfortunately, it was too late. Over the next several years, Felix would survive five concentration camps and a Death March. He lost his mother and his younger brother in the camps. When he was finally liberated, Felix would reunite with his father in Britain. 
For a sparse book (165 pages), there's enough information to give you an idea of what happened during the Holocaust. The writing, though, leaves a lot to be desired. It's dry and slow-going. There's also numerous editing problems with missing words and misspellings. 
So many books on the Holocaust have been written during the past thirty plus years and only a select few have been highly readable. This book is not one of them.
Not recommended.

QUEEN BEE OF TUSCANY : THE REDOUBTABLE JANET ROSS
 by Ben Downing

Don't believe any of the reviews for this book.  Exhilarating, a page-turner, entertaining, engrossing, is absurd. I only got to page 40 and could no longer stand the book. Janet Ross was supposed to be this dynamic, Victorian woman who for the last sixty years of her life lived in Tuscany immersed in the agriculture. Sounds a bit dry, doesn't it? I like to read books about obscure subjects and if they're written well, they can be quite fascinating. Unfortunately, this one doesn't cut it. There's so many peripheral characters that abound (who cares about them?) that you can't get your head around right in the beginning and never seems to stop. It was all rather boring.
Not recommended.

ITALIAN WAYS : ON AND OFF THE RAILS FROM MILAN TO PALERMO
by Tim Parks

Tim Parks has lived in Italy for thirty-two years. Coming from England, you wonder why he ever left. He doesn't seem to have one nice thing to say about either Italy or the Italians.
The first section of the book he drones on and on about acquiring train tickets with all their nuances. (You get excruciating details.) Parks talks about the interesting people he meets on the train: gypsies (the women beg), immigrants, prostitutes, etc.
I stopped reading at page 60.
What's a shame is that Parks has written quite a good many books, both fiction and nonfiction. Years ago I read his Italian Neighbors and that was wonderful. I don't know what happened. Maybe his style of writing changed.
If you're planning a trip to Italy, there are many other good books that tell you what trains to take or you can just go to www.YouTube.com for priceless information.
Not recommended.

INTO THE ABYSS : AN EXTRAORDINARY TRUE STORY
by Carol Shaben

On October 19, 1984, a Piper Navajo commuter airplane carrying nine passengers crashed in a remote area of Alberta, Canada. Four people survived: the pilot, Erik Vogel, a well-known politician, Larry Shaben (the author's father), a policeman, Scott Deschamps, and a criminal, Paul Archambault, who Scott was escorting. The weather was really bad but the pilot was under so much pressure, he thought that if he didn't fly the plane he would lose his job. For fifteen hours they huddled around a small campfire to await their rescue. Two of the men were in really bad shape and didn't think that they would make it out alive. It would be Archambault (the criminal) who would take care of them all.
Into the Abyss seemed like it was going to be a very exciting book. Nope. There's way too much information concerning the four men especially in the aftermath. (This is where I stopped reading.) Who cares? If you're an aviation aficionado and enjoy all the leaden details about small planes, you might actually think it's neat. I could have done without it. 
The author's writing is plodding. Of course, she has to use similes and they're ridiculous. I found a word not spelled correctly: she used "disorientated" instead of "disoriented." For a journalist, this is egregious.
So, don't be fooled by the cover.  It's not all it's cracked up to be.
Not recommended.

SHOCKED : MY MOTHER, SCHIAPARELLI, AND ME
by Patricia Volk

Audrey Morgen Volk (Patricia's mother) was a narcissistic, upper-middle-class New Yorker, a control freak where everything had to be just perfect.
Elsa Schiaparelli (known as Schiap) was an international fashion designer whose creations made the world gasp in shock.
When Patricia was ten years old, she read Schiap's autobiography and it transformed her. Both of these brilliant and opinionated women showed Patricia how to be a woman and to follow her own course.
Shocked  is about a mother-daughter relationship that at times can be excruciating to read. I, at first, thought the book was wonderful because the author is quite a wordsmith. After a while, it started to drive me crazy. You can only take in small doses at a time. The information about Schiaparelli is totally unnecessary and adds nothing. You don't really get a sense of how Patricia was transformed by either woman. As for Patricia's mother, Audrey, you keep reading about how beautiful she was. There are pictures at the end of each chapter and many are of Audrey and she is not beautiful nor pretty.
Too much rambling and not much substance.
Not recommended.

A CURIOUS MAN : THE STRANGE & BRILLIANT LIFE OF ROBERT "BELIEVE IT OR NOT" RIPLEY
by Neal Thompson

Believe it or not, I did not finish this book. I only made it to page eighty and called it quits. LeRoy Robert Ripley was a cartoonist who became famous and a millionaire by showcasing oddities. His early life and how he was always sketching were the best parts. As soon as he started to become successful by working at a major rag and then being sent to Europe for several months at a time, I was no longer interested. There's way too many details, too many extraneous characters, and too much redundancy.
Not recommended. 

SAUL BELLOW'S HEART : A SON'S MEMOIR
by Greg Bellow

Having read many of Saul Bellow's books when I was in high school, I thought it would be interesting to read what his own son had to say about him. I only was able to get through half of it and then gave up. Saul was such a narcissist; he married four times and messed around with other women at the same time. Why so many females were charmed by him is a big question considering that he treated them so miserably.
The title is ironic. Saul had no heart for his families. It was all directed into his fiction.
Between the very poor editing and being bored, this book is one lousy read.
Not recommended. 

THE FORCE OF THINGS : A MARRIAGE IN WAR AND PEACE
by Alexander Stille

In The Force of Things Alexander Stille writes about his father, Mikhail Kamenetzki, a Jewish journalist from Russia who changed his name to Ugo Stille and wrote for the same Italian newspaper for forty-nine years and his mother, Elizabeth Bogert, a WASP from the Midwest. Their courtship was passionate but their marriage was difficult and stormy. The differences between them pull them apart due to their backgrounds.
When I first started reading this book, I truly loved the writing and thought that when I finished, I would read the author's other books. Not anymore. Midway through, it started to wear on me. There is so much detail about the family that it becomes deadening. I did not finish the book because I no longer cared what happened to them nor did I want to know.
Not recommended.

LADY AT THE O.K. CORRAL : THE TRUE STORY OF JOSEPHINE MARCUS EARP
by Ann Kirschner

Josephine Sarah Marcus was a Jewish woman from New York who lived with Wyatt Earp for almost fifty years. They were never married legally; she was a common-law wife which was the standard for all the four Earp brothers. Their lives were spent traveling from one place to another always prospecting for gold, setting up saloons, gambling, making money.
Josephine has always been in the shadows since there's a dearth of books about Wyatt and this book is no different. There's not a lot of information on her. She constantly reinvented herself which included many lies. Josephine was always in the background and still is.
I felt that I was hearing, again, about Wyatt and that is what the book is about. 
The writing is just awful. There is no depth; everything is just stated. I felt as if I was reading a term paper. After reading 140 pages, I quit.
Not recommended.

HER : A MEMOIR
by Christa Parravani

Christa and Cara were identical twin sisters with vibrant personalities. Cara was born first and was larger than her sister. (The doctor thought their mother was carrying a boy right up to birth.) Christa was the photographer and Cara the poetess. They both married young but were more devoted to one another than their respective spouses.
Cara was raped while walking her dog and her life went downhill after that. She became a drug addict and died of a heroin overdose at the age of twenty-eight. For Christa being twinless, it was dire and she too almost went off the deep end. It took her years to climb out of her hole and learn to function again living as herself.
I have read a few books about twins and I have always found them fascinating. Not so with this one. The sisters were hard to like. Cara was self-absorbed and narcissistic. Christa was shallow with no substance. 
The first quarter of the book grabbed you and was hard to put down. By the middle, it was becoming annoying. I couldn't wait to get to the end. The writing was not lyrical as other reviewers have said. It's loaded with similes which I hate because it's unnecessary filler. Her wording is very descriptive, sometimes too much.
Needless to say, I was very disappointed. The two sisters are people that I would not have cared to know about.
Not recommended.

THE GREAT PEARL HEIST : LONDON'S GREATEST THIEF AND SCOTLAND YARD'S HUNT FOR THE WORLD'S MOST VALUABLE NECKLACE
by Molly Caldwell Crosby

In the summer of 1913, a pale pink pearl necklace was bought by a London broker. (It was worth more than the Hope Diamond.) News of the sale spreads around the world enticing both jewelers and thieves. En route from London to Paris, the necklace disappears.
Sounds like an intriguing book, right? The subtitle certainly seems that way. Nope. Many reviewers said that it's fast-paced, a thriller, rich, and evocative. Nothing of the sort. My terminology is: dull-witted, slow, boring, and flat. I felt as if I was reading somebody's history report. 
Since the author has written two previous books, I thought this would be somebody to follow. No way. After sloughing through seventy-three pages, it was time to return the book to the library.
Not recommended. 

FORMER PEOPLE : THE FINAL DAYS OF THE RUSSIAN ARISTOCRACY
by Douglas Smith

There have been many books written about the Romanovs but not so with other families of the Russian aristocracy. Douglas Smith centers primarily on two: the Sheremetevs and the Golitsyns and what happened to them from the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 up to the Stalin era.
I, alas, only reached page 93 and it's quite a hefty book. There's way too many details, too many characters that you can't get your head around, too many footnotes and it all becomes quite dizzying. Even the directives for the black-and-white photographs are misleading and incorrect. I have read plenty of excellent histories on the Russian people and this one doesn't even come close.
Not recommended.