Coastal Breeze News

BOOK REMARKS Maggie Gust [email protected]   Edited by Don George Lonely Planet Publications, 2012 I usually find collections of short stories a bore. If there are ten stories, only four are truly interesting and well-written. I was drawn to this book because I was intrigued by the title, “better than fiction,” which could be my mantra, and because “travel” is in the title (Ready – where are we going? is my other mantra). I had no inkling I would be writing about it in Book Remarks, but it was an unexpected delight and worth sharing. An editor and book reviewer for ... Read More »

BOOK REMARKS Maggie Gust [email protected] Bring Up The Bodies by Hilary Mantel Henry Holt and Company, LLC, 2012 To begin, I would like to note that I was given credit in the last issue of Coastal Breeze for the article on “Killing Kennedy.” In fact, my partner in crime, Diane Bostick, is the author and deserves your accolades for sharing her excellent reflections on the book as well as her reminiscences of the JFK era. No doubt, many of you are familiar with Hilary Mantel and may have read “Wolf Hall,” her novel published three years ago, which won the prestigious ... Read More »

BOOK REMARKS  Maggie Gust  [email protected] Author: Bill O’Rielly, Martin Dugard.  Publisher: Henry Holt and Company, 2012  n October 1962 I was a fairly new bride, with a four month old baby, living in Perrine, Florida, a suburb of Miami, only 228 miles from Cuba. My nervousness in how to care for a new baby was grossly overshadowed by my fear in hearing the constant roar of military trucks loaded with servicemen rumbling down the highway a few blocks from my home headed to Homestead Air Force Base. Overhead could be heard the nerve-racking drone of military planes headed to the same ... Read More »

BOOK REMARKS  Maggie Gust  [email protected] Author: Janet Wallach  Publisher: Doubleday, 2012  “Before deciding on an investment, seek out every kind of information about it.” To Hetty Robinson Green, this was just common sense – work hard to learn everything possible about a venture before committing. Some saw her as cruel and heartless because of her no-nonsense-when-it-comes-to-business philosophy. Ironically, Hetty never paid workers slave wages, paid off government officials, bought off public land or manipulated stockholders as did many of her more celebrated male counterparts. She gave much to help others, but quietly, without fanfare, without having her name chiseled on the ... Read More »

BOOK REMARKS Maggie Gust [email protected] Author: Will Schwalbe Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf 2012 The End Of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe is not morbid or maudlin. It is a celebration of life. Do not be deterred by the title or you will miss one fantastic book as well as the opportunity to meet one of the kindest and most generous people who ever lived. And boy, did she live! The book club consists of the author and his mother, Mary Anne Schwalbe. It is formed when Will accompanies his mother to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center for treatment of her ... Read More »

BOOK REMARKS Maggie Gust [email protected] Author: Andrew Porter Publisher: Alfred Knopf, 2012 The Harding family of Houston, Texas, is one highly dysfunctional group – and their story is absolutely mesmerizing. Andrew Porter had me at page one of “In Between Days.” Elson and Cadence are still adjusting to their divorced status, Richard, 20-something has one foot in the adult world and one foot in mother’s world, and daughter Chloe is a college student back East. Her abrupt return from school, ejected by the administration for reasons she refuses to disclose or discuss, is the catalyst that rallies these people into a ... Read More »

BOOK REMARKS Diane Bostick [email protected] Author: Alex Stone Publisher: Harper, June 2012 Kind of an intimidating title, I will admit, but don’t let it keep you from discovering the delights of this book. It is quite fascinating. I know that I told you that the new kid on the block, Maggie Gust, would be doing the non-fiction stuff in the future but I was not totally truthful. If I find a book I really enjoy I am not going to hold back from telling you about it just because it is not fiction. And in some ways this is fiction ... Read More »

Book Remarks Maggie Gust [email protected] Clarence Frank Birdseye II was born 12-01-1886 and died 10-07-1956. During his 69 years, this diminutive dapper dynamo transformed the eating habits of the entire world – and had the time of his life in doing so. Birdseye: The Adventures of a Curious Man by Mark Kurlansky is the biographical equivalent of a page-turning thriller. Perhaps it is Kurlansky’s style or the fact that he so obviously admires his subject, but this book is hard to put down. It is 230 pages chock full of descriptions of early 20th century America, the era of inventions and ... Read More »