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Powerhouse Five

I mentioned this book a few months ago after reading a piece of teen fiction called The Hoopster. It was shortly after reading that book that I ordered this one from Abe Books (it’s out of print). This book has a lot of nostalgic value because it’s the first book of fiction I remember reading.

I said that it’s the first book I remember reading, not necessarily the first book I read. They could be the same, of course, I just don’t trust my memory. But suffice it to say, this book certainly had a big impact on my lifelong interest in reading. I’ve thought about it a lot during the last three decades of reading. And strangely, the name of one of the main characters, Studs Magruder, has been stuck in my skull forever. That’s about the only major detail I recalled from the book.

I didn’t remember any other characters, I didn’t remember much of the plot, and I didn’t remember any of the scenery. I just remembered that it was about an outsider hired to coach an industrial league basketball team. And upon finishing this second reading, NONE of it came flooding back.

I thought I would say, “Yeah, I remember that.” But I didn’t, which I’m taking as a sign of old age, and that’s okay.

The item I did remember, Studs Magruder, has been inaccurately recalled by me for the last three decades. I knew he was a villain, but I thought he was just a troublemaker on the same team. That was someone else, Studs was on an opposing team. He was the best player in the league on the best team – a dirty player who eventually gets his comeuppance on the last few pages.

And what an abrupt ending! It did not feel like a short story after I returned it to the Wilson Vance library (which I do remember, so it had to be 4th, 5th, or 6th grade that I read it). All in all, a great walk down memory name.

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Called Out of Darkness

For some reason, this book grabbed me. I’ve never read any Anne Rice nor seen an Anne Rice movie, and I’m completely unfamiliar with her biography. But the idea of a Catholic leaving the church for an extended period of time then finding her way back to the church late in life seemed interesting. Also, if you recall, one of my goals this year was to do more exploration into my faith (or lack thereof).

So here we are, exploring Catholicism. I can confidently say that my exploration will pale in comparison to Rice’s exploration, which she pursued doggedly beginning in 1998 when she came back to the church after being an atheist for most of her adult life.

Rice was born in 1941 in New Orleans and raised Catholic. Some time in her early college years (around 1960) she quit believing in God. She remained an atheist for the next 38 years until 1998 after moving back to New Orleans and reconnecting with the Catholic church. Today, at nearly 70, she remains a devout Catholic and has devoted her life to Christian literature.

It’s fascinating stuff man. Check out her website and her Facebook page, it’s interesting reading. She’s really active on Facebook and posts daily. She also does a bunch of Amazon reviews. The woman has a lot of stuff going on.

Let me give some highlights. In grade school and high school, Catholicism was the only world she knew. Here is how she put it:

An extremely important aspect of all my schooling was this: we lived and breathed our religion and our religion was interesting, and vast, and immensely satisfying, and we had an unshakable sense of the “goodness” of Catholic education, and we were also aware of something else. There was no better all-around education to be had in other schools. (Kindle loc. 934-936)

However, after only a short time in college, this wonderment with religion just stopped. I mean it just stopped, for 38 years. She walks through the transformation in detail, here are her thoughts after starting college:

I was around students who knew much more of contemporary literature than I did, and who discussed subjects I’d never thought to discuss. They were hungry for learning, and there was no barrier to their learning. And they were good and wholesome people. My faith began to crack apart. All around me I saw not only interesting people, but essentially good people, people with ethics, direction, goals, values—and these people weren’t Catholic. (Kindle loc. 1563-1567)

This prompts her to sort through things. She starts to question her faith and even seeks counseling from a local Catholic priest near her college in Texas. The actual day that she walked away from Catholicism occurs in a conversation with this priest while she is sorting through all of these questions. The priest says to her:

“Oh well, if you were brought up like that, Anne, you’ll never be happy outside the Catholic Church. You’ll find nothing but misery outside the Catholic Church. For a Catholic like you, there is no life outside the Catholic Church.” He meant well when he said this. He was speaking, I think, from his experience with people. The year was probably 1960. I was eighteen going on nineteen, and, well, it was understandable what he said. But when he said it, something in me revolted. I didn’t argue with him. But I was no longer a Catholic when I left the room. (Kindle loc. 1586-91)

So this event kicked off 38 years of atheism. Be sure, Rice did not go into this lightly and she wrestled with things until she was exhausted. The church was different in 1960 and I can certainly understand how an independent, rebellious young woman would question her church. Plus, her high school sweetheart was not even remotely religious.

Stan Rice, whom I married in 1961, was one of the most conscientious people I’d ever met. He was positively driven by conscience and thought in terms of harsh absolutes. His life was devoted to poetry and, later, to painting; art for him had replaced any religion that he ever had. He scoffed at the idea of a personal God, and scoffed at all religion in general. He did more than scoff. He felt it was stupid, vain, false, and possibly he thought it was evil. I’m not sure on that. (Kindle loc. 1668-71)

Stan Rice died of cancer in 2002.

Her 38 years of atheism are not the focus of this book. She talks about them some, but mostly to tie them into the exit from and re-entry into Catholicism.

I can’t recall why she moved back to New Orleans in the 1990s. But upon her return she was in an atmosphere with family and friends who were mostly Catholics. She notices this:

To my amazement, these churchgoing people completely embraced Stan and Christopher and me. They didn’t question my disconnection from Catholicism. They said nothing about the transgressive books I’d written. They simply welcomed us into their homes and into their arms.
This was as shocking as it was wonderful. The Catholics of my time had been bound to shun people who left the faith. Indeed one reason I stayed clear of all Catholics for three decades was that I expected to be rejected and shunned. (Kindle loc. 1996-2000)

So her belief in atheism starts to wain:

AS I’VE EXPLAINED EARLIER, my faith in atheism was cracking. I went through the motions of being a conscientious atheist, trying to live without religion, but in my heart of hearts, I was losing faith in the “nothingness,” losing faith in “the absurd.” Understand, we were living contentedly in New Orleans, among secular and Catholic friends and family. There was no pressure from anyone to do anything about this issue, this matter of faith. (Kindle loc. 2240-2244)

Then, one day in 1998, she goes back to church.

I remember vaguely that I was sitting at my desk in a dreadfully cluttered office, hemmed in on all sides by rows and stacks of books, and that I had little sense of anything but the desire to surrender to that overwhelming love. I knew that the German church of my childhood, St. Mary’s Assumption, was perhaps six blocks away from where I was sitting. And perhaps I remembered my mother’s words of decades ago. “He is on that altar. Get up and go.” I know now when I think of those moments in 1998, I hear her voice. I see her dimly, rousing us, telling us to get up and get dressed and “go to Mass.” What confounded me and silenced me in 1998 was that I believed that what she’d said so many years ago was precisely the truth. He was in that church. He was on that altar. And I wanted to go to Him, and the impelling emotion was love. (Kindle loc. 2363-70)

She still had a lot of work to do on the path back and she goes through this for the last third of the book, which I found most interesting. She enthusiastically throws herself back into studying her religion and engages in some serious Bible study.

What struck me most is how improbable it was that this woman would embrace Catholicism again. She just came off almost four decades of atheism living amongst academics and artists. The church is not very accepting of her gay son Christopher (at one point she asks, “How was I to become a card-carrying member of a church that condemned my gay son?” loc.2415). She married a man who never believed in God. And she strongly believes in secular humanist values. But the last third of the book explains it well, it’s very genuine and heartfelt and I understand better now.

So here she is, a Catholic. And she is committed to loving others and finding God in all people. Here is how she puts it:

I am a baby Christian when it comes to loving. I am just learning. So far were my daily thoughts from loving people that I have a lifelong vocation now before me in learning how to find Christ in every single person whom I meet. Again and again, I fail because of temper and pride. I fail because it is so easy to judge someone else rather than love that person. And I fail because I cannot execute the simplest operations—answering an angry e-mail, for instance—in pure love. (Kindle loc. 2912-2915)

Wow. That’s raising the bar. That’s something to shoot for.

There’s more in this book. These are just some excerpts that I found interesting. Anybody exploring their faith or digging into Christianity should grab this book. It has a lot more than just the Catholic perspective.

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A Morning for Flamingos

This is book four in the Dave Robicheaux series. Robicheaux is fifty plus and it’s early in the series, yet he’s already quit two police departments: New Orleans and New Iberia (where his home is). Now, early in this novel, he takes a leave from the New Iberia sheriff’s department after getting shot transporting a prisoner. There are still like 15 books left in this series but I’m not sure if there are enough law enforcement offices left for him to quit.

I’m joking a little. I love Burke’s writing, his main character, and this series – and going over the top is part of the deal. He puts the reader on the edge early and keeps them there throughout. His main character gets shot and punched a lot, and the love interests seem to come out of the woodwork (this time it’s Robicheaux’s high school sweetheart, whom we haven’t been introduced too yet). Throw in some really bizarre descriptions of drunk demons and sprinkle in an adopted daughter who the reader has good reason to fear for, and you have an all-out assault on your senses.

Here is a classic example of Robicheaux confronting his demons:

But to be honest, the real purpose in my physical regimen was to induce as much fatigue in my body as possible. Morpheus’ gifts used to come to me in bottles, Beam and black Jack Daniel’s, straight up with a frosted schooner of Jax on the side, while I watched the rain pour down in the neon glow outside the window of an all-night bar not far from the Huey Long Bridge. In a half hour I could kick open a furnace door and fling into the flames all the snakes and squeaking bats that lived inside of me. Except the next morning they would writhe with new life in the ashes and come back home, stinking and hungry. (page 55, paperback)

That should give you good feel of the darkness in these books. It’s clear that Robicheaux will be exorcising a lot of demons over the next 15 or so books. I’m looking forward to it.

** PLOT KILLERS FOLLOW **

Things were wrapped up a little too tidy this time around, which surprised me a little. His old partner Clete makes an appearance and I think they are going to be seeing each other a little more because Clete is now set up as a private detective in New Orleans. And, as I mentioned, his high school sweetheart also makes an appearance and ends up marrying Robicheaux. My guess is that some tragedy will befall her over the next few books because she’s already set up with lupus (although it’s under control).

He also saves a “gangster with a heart” by making it appear that he died so he could run off with his sick kid to Mexico. In the last few pages, Robicheaux receives a letter from the gangster who is safely set up and living the good life. Sure, it’s kind of formulaic, that’s fine. We’ll certainly see this guy again.

This book had a ton of New Orleans in it. Plenty of trips to Cafe Du Monde and even a side trip to a LSU vs Ole Miss football game. He even mentions the Irish Channel neighborhood in New Orleans, which is also mentioned by Anne Rice in a book I was reading at the same time. What a coincidence!

I made a note to buy the next one in the series, A Stained White Radiance. Looking forward to it.

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The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

I bought this because the cover looked cool and it seemed to be receiving some critical acclaim. I’m a fool for the cool cover/rumors of critical acclaim combination. I’m pretty sure I saw a study last year that said cover design does matter even for electronic book purchases (I read the Kindle version). I can attest to that.

And you know what, I nailed it, because this book is absolutely insane. Call it dumb luck or whatever. It destroyed me for about 3 days; messed up my life man. When I read the last words I uttered, “frickin’ insane, man.” It just tugged at me in a million different ways.

This book was originally published posthumously in Swedish and is the first in a trilogy by Stieg Larsson. Needless to say, I’m fired up about reading the others. It’s a crime novel and a mystery novel, definitely not paced as quickly as a thriller.

It takes place in Sweden (mostly Stockholm and a fictional coastal community) around 2003 (seemed to be after Iraq war started, not sure though). It’s a complicated story so I won’t get too deep into the plot lines. There are really two main plot lines but they work well together.

** PLOT KILLERS FOLLOW **

One plot line ends about 3/4 of the way through the book. It feels kind of strange because there is a clear build-up but you know it can’t be the only climax. However, the other plot line is solid so my interest didn’t wain in the slightest. And like the two plot lines, there are two main characters. One is a financial reporter who just botched a huge story but stumbles onto another, potentially larger story. The other is a tattooed hacker who eventually pitches in to help the reporter blow the story wide open. Despite their age difference, there is great chemistry between the two and I’m anticipating how their relationship changes in the next two books

It was pretty original, both the story and the characters. It felt fresh to me. I really liked the way Larsson switched between the two main characters (who don’t actually meet until about half way through the book) and loved the way he orchestrated their first meeting. There were a lot of memorable scenes that I’m still batting around.

Larsson also has a few quirks in his writing style. He clearly has some “brand” names that he loves and incorporates them into the narrative. He mentions, by name, the authors who the reporter reads for pleasure, dropping names like Elizabeth George and Sue Grafton. And he’s also an Apple fanboy, mentioning the iBook and the Powerbook extensively. Also, instead of describing an email simply as encrypted, he’ll say “PGP encrypted email.” Here’s an example, after the “tattooed hacker” loses her computer:

The loss of her computer was depressing but not disastrous. Salander had had an excellent relationship with it during the year she had owned it. She had backed up all her documents, and she had an older desktop Mac G3 at home, as well as a five-year-old Toshiba PC laptop that she could use. But she needed a fast, modern machine. Unsurprisingly she set her sights on the best available alternative: the new Apple PowerBook G4/1.0 GHz in an aluminium case with a PowerPC 7451 processor with an AltiVec Velocity Engine, 960 MB RAM and a 60 GB hard drive. It had BlueTooth and built-in CD and DVD burners.

Just seems oddly detailed. And here is a passage where Larsson discusses the tools used by the financial reporter to keep notes:

The family was so extensive that he was forced to create a database in his iBook. He used the NotePad programme (www.ibrium.se), one of those full-value products that two men at the Royal Technical College had created and distributed as shareware for a pittance on the Internet. Few programmes were as useful for an investigative journalist. Each family member was given his or her own document in the database.

He even puts the URL and everything in there. I checked it out, it’s for real. Being the dork that I am, I found these details oddly comforting.

I usually try to space trilogies out over two to three years, but I don’t think I’m going to be able to do that with this book. I’m going to grab a few series books (Burke, Grafton) over the next few weeks then probably catch up with Larsson’s number two this summer.

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The 50th Law

I’m not sure how I heard about this book. It may have been an Amazon suggestion. I do recall reading an article on it in the WSJ or Newsweek, it kind of grabbed me for some reason. The idea that Fifty (Curtis Jackson), if I may call him that, has some keen insights into building a business empire sounds pretty enticing to me. He teams up with a guy named Robert Greene on this book. It’s less a business book than it is a motivational book. And who better to do the motivating than Fifty?

Continue reading “The 50th Law”
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The Name of the Rose

So I’m starting early this year with what I’m going to classify as literature. And yeah, it felt like lit. This was a long, slow read for me but it was rewarding when it was over; not so much because it was exciting or dramatic, but because I feel like I learned a few things.

As I’ve already stated, I’m getting in touch with my inner Catholic this year so this book goes along with that effort. It’s a mystery that takes place in an abbey in Italy that is accused by the Pope of heresy (year 1327). Set against the backdrop of a visit from the Pope’s envoy to assess the heresy are some grisly murders in the abbey. William, a visiting monk from England, arrives at the abbey in advance of the envoy as somewhat of an unbiased interlocutor (did I use that correctly?) but he seems to be sympathetic to the abbey. He also voraciously pursues the evildoer who is committing the murders.

The story is told from the first person perspective of William’s sidekick, a young monk named Adso. It takes place during one of the many upheavals in the church. In this time period, Michael of Cesena is in a serious disagreement with the Pope about how strictly to practice the vow of poverty. Michael believed in the strictest teachings of Saint Francis of Assisi and the Pope viewed this as heretical. Michael is at this abbey during the time, so the book combines some history and fiction.

Interesting stuff to me because this is roughly the same time period as World Without End and gives a little deeper insight into how the church was being affected by forward thinking types who combined science and philosophy with theology, like Sir Roger Bacon and William of Occam. Both of these men were coming at things from a philosophical and scientific perspective that often made the church uncomfortable.

William, the fictional main character, uses logic and science to track down the killer and to try and reason with the inquisitors who seem to be biased against Michael of Cesena and his followers. It was, at times, an exciting mystery and interesting character study. William appears to have the ability to remain faithful to his religion while relying heavily on the scientific method for his daily work. I think this is one of the messages, that science and faith can coexist.

Unfortunately, the book was full of side trips into fantastical dreams and theological discussions that were lost on me. It would have been a much better read had I done my research on the people and times before hand.

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Fallen Angels

Myers writes mostly teen lit. This is a war story about a group of guys in Vietnam during a twelve month period in the late 60’s. It’s told from the first person perspective by a young soldier named Richie Perry. It’s a horrors-of-war story for the most part but with some hopefulness.

As far as teen lit goes, Myers doesn’t sugar coat much in this book. I think Myers wants to paint a realistic picture so there is plenty of swearing and a fair amount of graphic violence, including some intense scenes involving civilians. I don’t mention this to suggest that you shouldn’t let your teen read it, and I certainly can’t claim any knowledge of parenting, but I just thought you should know.

The violence is not depicted like action/adventure style violence. There is definitely no glorification of war in this book. I didn’t really expect that. I figured since it was teen lit that Myers would make it more of an adventure to hold the attention of young readers. But it’s more of a slog, which is probably the point.

I don’t read enough teen lit to know what to expect but I’m consuming more of it, so I’ll get there. When my nieces and nephews start hammering through books I want to be able to relate in some form.

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The Shooters

This book is just about all dialogue. I noticed it earlier in the series but it really seemed to stand out in this one. Especially in the first half. Griffin basically tells the bulk of the story with dialogue. It’s amazing, and really cool. It’s non-stop chatter that moves rather rapidly. The violence and action found in most thrillers is hardly even described; it’s glossed over so he can get to more dialogue.

Since 2007, I’ve finished one book annually in the Presidential Agent series. But I may end up finishing two this year because it’s early and I’m pretty fired up to get to the next one. There are five books in this series so I have one left. Hopefully he churns out more, but I have the sneaky feeling that Griffin is running out of steam. I say this because his last few books (although not in this series) were co-written with his son; a sure sign of decline. Griffin is, after all, 80 years old.

He’s not off his game though. I love the macho, sarcastic, and sometimes hilarious dialogue. And he continues to craft interesting characters and really digs deep into their psyche. I’m not worried about running out of material, he is very prolific so I may have trouble finishing them all before I die.

He’s also a member, according to his official website, of the Flat Earth Society. Here are the search results. I’ve never heard of this. I guess there are people out there who still think the earth is flat. I had no idea. Oh well. I guess that’s what keeps the earth goin’ around…er, or not, I guess.

Still great stuff.

** PLOT KILLERS **

Oh yeah, I didn’t see the twist of Castillo’s kid coming. Wacky stuff. Can’t wait to see how he’s going to treat that in the next book. And I can’t recall what happened to Castillo’s love interest, I think her name was Betty Schneider. I know she got shot in Book Two, but I thought she survived, hmmm.

I’ll be back for more shortly, for sure.

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Designing With Web Standards

Yeah, it’s basically a textbook. But I’ve read them before and I’ll probably read them again. Lately I’ve become infatuated with web design and I think that people in the occupations of finance and controllership need to become more familiar with the associated concepts. I certainly see plenty of applications for my clients. I think the future is bountiful for finance people who can quickly build a user interface to access, utilize, and present financial data on the web.

So that about summarizes my motivation for reading this stuff, besides the fact that I’m kind of a dork. I’m guessing though, that you’re begging for more insight into my motivation.

Let’s talk about what financial people are doing today. They analyze a bunch of data that they’ve pulled out of a financial system (SAP, Oracle, Hyperion) and gussy it up using any number tools (Excel, Powerpoint) so that it’s usable by management. Even in this day and age I see people (finance people, CEO’s, and middle management) printing huge documents every month and hauling them around so they can use them to run their business. We are trying, but we can’t completely wean ourselves off paper.

That 8.5 x 11 piece of white paper (at least in the USA) is a great unifier. Any type of data can be presented on it, nothing special is required to consume it, it can be copied and passed on with notes, and it can be easily filed and retrieved when needed. A little more advanced than this simple sheet of paper is the PDF file, which is like a piece of paper, just digital. With a PDF someone can print it or file it electronically (in their email program for example) and access it on the road. It’s still somewhat unified because a PDF can be read with any number of free software programs and it remains very convertible to the classic white sheet of paper just by clicking the print icon.

It would be nice to just send management a darn spreadsheet, but when financial people start sending spreadsheets or presentations, the unification I’ve been talking about starts to degrade. I’ve seen even tech-savvy managers crumble in the face of navigating a multi-tabbed spreadsheet, let alone try to print it. Then there are those who think that giving management an ID to the operating system and telling them to log on and print their own reports is actually an option. Even the most tech-savvy, non-financial managers are revolted by the idea of pulling up the company’s operating system, so this option rarely works.

But the web browser – now there’s a unifier. Just tell the CEO to fire up the internet and click on monthly financial reports, problem solved! Well, not really I guess, because to do that the financial and IT staffs have to build a bunch of infrastructure with tools they may not be familiar with. For example, building a table on the web is much different from building a pivot table in Excel. And formatting some nice bullet points on the web is a little different from typing them into Powerpoint.

But think about the possibilities – what if the tool you extracted and analyzed the data with was tightly integrated with the tool you present and review the data with? That’s unification. That’s the web browser! Management already knows how to use the web browser, so the ball is in finance’s and IT’s court.

So what’s going to happen? All this development in information management is happening in the web browser space, but it hasn’t made much of a dent in the day-to-day operations in the finance departments that I’ve seen. Microsoft Office is still the tool of choice for just about every finance person on the globe.

But this can’t last. All of this stuff is moving to the web browser and we’re going to have to adjust accordingly. That means learning new tools (MySQL, PHP, HTML, CSS) so that we can do old fashioned things, like distribute financial reports, on the web. Designing web pages, or at least being familiar with designing web pages, is one of these skill sets that financial departments will find within their purview shortly, whether they like it or not. So I’m getting on top of it, it’s a matter of survival.

That’s why I bought this book. It’s a damn fine overview of the web design space, and it even includes a lot of practical applications and detailed directions. Plus, the writer throws in a ton of dork humor, I love it.

Here’s a main point from the book (pg 155):

A logical outline structure, when applied correctly, helps search engines find your content; its absence helps search engines find someone else’s content instead. I’ll make this point over and over in this book, but it can’t be overstated. If you want people to find your content, the first thing you must do is write great content, and the second thing you must do is mark up that content semantically. There is no third thing to do, although fiddling with page titles can help.

If I may, the content is the input. The markup translates that input so it looks nice on the page and can be consumed by the reader. Semantic markup makes the consumption easier for people and processes that don’t necessarily read your words on the screen (search bots, blind people). In my mind, this translates nicely into presenting financial data via a web browser. Stay with me.

The financial data is the input (the content). It needs to be relevant and accurate data (great content) that can be used for decision making. The next question is how to “mark it up” so that it can be used by management? Historically it was Excel and Powerpoint. It is transitioning somewhat to Hyperion and Access. In the future it’s going to be MySQL and PHP or some other database and retrieval methodology that works in the web browser. And those who can semantically mark this stuff up to make retrieval and presentation easy by those other than skilled analysts are going to be the rock star financial people of the future. They are going to combine skills throughout the range of the process; pulling data from the operating systems, analyzing and summarizing it using technical tools, marking it up so that it can be presented to management, and designing the user interface so that management can navigate the information to answer real questions quickly.

Those are the skills I’m going to work on in 2010. In fact, I’ve purchased PHP & MySQL for Dummies to keep my momentum on this topic. I have a lot of stuff to flush out on this issue.

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World Without End

This is the follow-up to Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth, which I read about two years ago. It takes place about 200 years after Pillars so I don’t think it deserves to be termed a sequel. You certainly don’t need to read the first one before this one. But they are similar and the first one adds some context. They are both 1,000 page epic period-pieces that I found virtually impossible to put down.

I’m telling you man, if you love reading just for the pure entertainment value of a good story, you have to grab these books. They’re just great stories that keep you engaged no matter what’s going on around you. Sure, I predicted a few things and I’m not calling it literature. But there are so many twists and turns that even if you get something right, it doesn’t ruin the book because you couldn’t have plotted the route Follett took.

I may start ranting here, but I especially noticed the greatness of Follett’s story because I finished this book on the same weekend that I saw Avatar. Avatar was a great movie and by all accounts it will break plenty of box office records over the next few months. I’ve heard critics say it will do so because it combines “visually stunning” cinema techniques with a great story.

I disagree somewhat, although I did like the movie a lot. I just don’t think the story is that great.

Side-by-side with this book, Avatar looks kind of formulaic. I know, there’s only so much story you can tell in a three hour movie; I get that. But don’t be fooled when Cameron goes on during his interviews about how he’s had this story in his mind for years. It’s mostly a war story where the side you’re rooting for is seriously undermanned, combined with a love story. Kind of like Dances With Wolves meets She’s All That. As I said, I loved the movie, but Cameron is a better movie maker than a story teller. I thought Terminator was better and a more original story.

Now this Follett book, that’s storytelling. Like Pillars, there are five protagonists who’s stories intertwine with each other along with that of the cathedral. And again the Catholic church figures prominently with the historical backdrop being reign of King Edward III and the Black Death. But it’s slightly different than Pillars in that one of the five protagonists, Caris, stands out more prominently than the rest of the characters. She, in my view, could probably be termed the hero of this book.

Caris is inquisitive and in a constant battle with the role of women in 14th Century England. She wants to be a doctor but only priests and and monks can be so. She still gets belittled by the priests even after she becomes well-known across England for devising innovative techniques to deal with the Black Death. It may sound like Follett is going a little Jane Austen with this story line (power to the women!), but that’s an improper conclusion. I’ll let you read it to understand why I say that.

It’s a very enjoyable read. The fastest 1,000 pages in fiction!