Category: Uncategorized

‘THE CUBAN AFFAIR’

August 20, 2019 /

I picked up The Cuban Affair: A Novel by Nelson DeMille because I was eagerly anticipating a cruise to its settings (Key West & Cuba).

Mac, a 35-year-old veteran has settled in Key West as a fishing boat captain. When he is approached by an anti-Castro group to charter his boat to Cuba for a dangerous mission under the guise of a fishing tournament, Mac accepts the job with the hopes of earning $3 Million for his trouble.

This book is set during the “Cuban Thaw” (2014 or 2015) when America was relaxing its restrictions related to Cuba. But between the time I picked up this book and actually read it, my own travel plans suddenly changed due to President Trump’s policy reversal that Americans can no longer travel to Cuba.

If you miss watching Downton Abbey read this!

February 18, 2017 /

Recently I discovered a book by Julian Fellowes, the creator of Downton Abbey. His book Belgravia is set a century before the Grantham family, so many of the themes of class are even more stringent.

Fellowes begins by noting that regardless of time period, similarities exist:

“Ambition, envy, rage, greed, kindness, selflessness, and above all, love have always been as powerful in motivating choices as they are today.”

For me, this book was completely engrossing. Like Downton Abbey, the plot moves around the themes quoted above plus new money vs. old money and upstairs (aristocracy) and the downstairs (their service help). Like in Downton Abbey, I loved most of the characters and hated a couple.

Intriguing speculation in “The Other Einstein”

November 19, 2016 /

Finally I am making progress with My Fall/Winter Reading List after unexpectedly getting distracted by my favorite book of the year and finishing up my WWII reading list (to be posted soon).

I started The Other Einstein: A Novel not knowing too much about either of the Einsteins. I loved my physics classes but that was nearly 25 years ago!

This book provides (fictional) perspective of Einstein’s first wife, Mileva, also a brilliant physicist. As a woman in this male dominated field, especially during the early 1900s, her path was difficult, as the only woman in her classes then trying to keep up on her scientific research while bearing (Einstein’s) children and later forced to watch him receive credit for her own work.

Her character presents that she was actually the creator of the theory of relativity in 1905 and that she authored several of his most famous papers. Because she did not actually finish her degree (because she got pregnant before they were married) her name could not technically appear on the research and papers. These allegations and suggestions are certainly plausible and intriguing, making for a great read.

Category: Uncategorized

‘THE CUBAN AFFAIR’

If you miss watching Downton Abbey read this!

Intriguing speculation in “The Other Einstein”

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