Picks from My Bookshelf
A favorite past-time on vacation (and especially on cruise ships) is reading. Many ships have libraries and Princess Cruises even has a book club with monthly selections for passengers to enjoy. Today, our owner Chris Grum shares ten of his favorites from the wide variety of books he enjoys.
THE WOMAN IN CABIN 10
Ruth Ware
WHAT THEY SAY: In this tightly wound, enthralling story reminiscent of Agatha Christie’s works, Lo Blacklock, a journalist who writes for a travel magazine, has just been given the assignment of a lifetime: a week on a luxury cruise with only a handful of cabins. The sky is clear, the waters calm, and the veneered, select guests jovial as the exclusive cruise ship, the Aurora, begins her voyage in the picturesque North Sea. At first, Lo’s stay is nothing but pleasant: the cabins are plush, the dinner parties are sparkling, and the guests are elegant. But as the week wears on, frigid winds whip the deck, gray skies fall, and Lo witnesses what she can only describe as a dark and terrifying nightmare: a woman being thrown overboard. The problem? All passengers remain accounted for—and so, the ship sails on as if nothing has happened, despite Lo’s desperate attempts to convey that something (or someone) has gone terribly, terribly wrong…
WHAT I SAY: This is a fun thriller, especially if you’re a regular cruiser. It’s easy to imagine being onboard this voyage and I think we’ve all been in a situation where nobody believes what we say. One tip: If you get paranoid or frightened easily, this might not be the best read while onboard a ship. But if you enjoy mysteries and lots of twists and turns, this is a quick read.
THE FLIGHT ATTENDANT
Chris Bohjalian
WHAT THEY SAY: Cassandra Bowden is no stranger to hungover mornings. She’s a binge drinker, her job with the airline making it easy to find adventure, and the occasional blackouts seem to be inevitable. She lives with them, and the accompanying self-loathing. When she awakes in a Dubai hotel room, she tries to piece the previous night back together, counting the minutes until she has to catch her crew shuttle to the airport. She quietly slides out of bed, careful not to aggravate her already pounding head, and looks at the man she spent the night with. She sees his dark hair. His utter stillness. And blood, a slick, still wet pool on the crisp white sheets. Could she have killed him? If not, who did?
WHAT I SAY: Another travel-related thriller that is soon to be an HBO Max series starring Kaley Cuoco. I flew through this book (no pun intended). You’ll have a love/hate relationship with Cassie and some of her choices, but it’s one of those novels you just can’t put down and a true page-turner. I can’t wait to see what they do with the TV version.
DEAD WAKE
Erik Larson
WHAT THEY SAY: On May 1, 1915, with WWI entering its tenth month, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. The passengers were surprisingly at ease, even though Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone. For months, German U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic. But the Lusitania was one of the era’s great transatlantic “Greyhounds”—the fastest liner then in service—and her captain, William Thomas Turner, placed tremendous faith in the gentlemanly strictures of warfare that for a century had kept civilian ships safe from attack.
Germany, however, was determined to change the rules of the game, and Walther Schwieger, the captain of Unterseeboot-20, was happy to oblige. Meanwhile, an ultra-secret British intelligence unit tracked Schwieger’s U-boat, but told no one. As U-20 and the Lusitania made their way toward Liverpool, an array of forces both grand and achingly small—hubris, a chance fog, a closely guarded secret, and more—all converged to produce one of the great disasters of history.
WHAT I SAY: The first of two travel-related books that are works of non-fiction. It’s a story we think we already know. We’re wrong. Erik Larson does a great job of putting us in the middle of history and sharing a wealth of details most people do not know about the famous disaster. We see history from both sides, learning of the British attempts to keep the ship safe while simultaneously following the daily updates from the German U-boat that is sailing towards a date with destiny. This is a must-read for anyone interested in maritime and/or world history.
THE PATH BETWEEN THE SEAS
David McCullough
WHAT THEY SAY: From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Truman, here is the national bestselling epic chronicle of the creation of the Panama Canal. In The Path Between the Seas, acclaimed historian David McCullough delivers a first-rate drama of the sweeping human undertaking that led to the creation of this grand enterprise.
The Path Between the Seas tells the story of the men and women who fought against all odds to fulfill the 400-year-old dream of constructing an aquatic passageway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It is a story of astonishing engineering feats, tremendous medical accomplishments, political power plays, heroic successes, and tragic failures. Applying his remarkable gift for writing lucid, lively exposition, McCullough weaves the many strands of the momentous event into a comprehensive and captivating tale.
Winner of the National Book Award for history, the Francis Parkman Prize, the Samuel Eliot Morison Award, and the Cornelius Ryan Award (for the best book of the year on international affairs), The Path Between the Seas is a must-read for anyone interested in American history, the history of technology, international intrigue, and human drama.
WHAT I SAY: McCullough may be too good at his job. His books are incredibly rich in detail and meticulously researched, and sometimes this can make them tedious or plodding. You may find yourself challenged to complete this epic, but the rewards will be clear when you are actually sailing through this man-made wonder. Trust me when I say you are doing yourself a disservice by skipping this book prior to a Panama Canal transit. Knowing the incredible story and the abundant, fascinating anecdotes shared in this book will make your voyage even more special.
A LONG WALK TO WATER
Linda Sue Park
WHAT THEY SAY: The New York Times bestseller A Long Walk to Water begins as two stories, told in alternating sections, about two eleven-year-olds in Sudan, a girl in 2008 and a boy in 1985. The girl, Nya, is fetching water from a pond that is two hours’ walk from her home: she makes two trips to the pond every day. The boy, Salva, becomes one of the “lost boys” of Sudan, refugees who cover the African continent on foot as they search for their families and for a safe place to stay. Enduring every hardship from loneliness to attack by armed rebels to contact with killer lions and crocodiles, Salva is a survivor, and his story goes on to intersect with Nya’s in an astonishing and moving way.
WHAT I SAY: We take a lot of things for granted and perhaps this is the best novel to read while enjoying a luxury vacation or cruise ship. It will take you to a world most of us have never seen, much less experienced. Imagine having to walk two hours each way just for water. And that’s the easiest part of Nya’s life. It’s almost impossible to believe some of the things in this story and that life can be so great in one area of the world and so difficult in another. Once you read this book, I encourage you to learn more about the people portrayed in it. But don’t even Google them until you’re finished or it will spoil the ending!
THE ISLAND OF SEA WOMEN
Lisa See
WHAT THEY SAY: Mi-ja and Young-sook, two girls living on the Korean island of Jeju, are best friends who come from very different backgrounds. When they are old enough, they begin working in the sea with their village’s all-female diving collective, led by Young-sook’s mother. As the girls take up their positions as baby divers, they know they are beginning a life of excitement and responsibility—but also danger.
Despite their love for each other, Mi-ja and Young-sook find it impossible to ignore their differences. The Island of Sea Women takes place over many decades, beginning during a period of Japanese colonialism in the 1930s and 1940s, followed by World War II, the Korean War, through the era of cell phones and wet suits for the women divers. Throughout this time, the residents of Jeju find themselves caught between warring empires. Mi-ja is the daughter of a Japanese collaborator. Young-sook was born into a long line of haenyeo and will inherit her mother’s position leading the divers in their village. Little do the two friends know that forces outside their control will push their friendship to the breaking point.
WHAT I SAY: This was the Princess Cruises Book Club selection of the month during my last voyage with them. Not a book I would have typically chosen to read myself, but I did enjoy this fascinating look at a world I might have otherwise never experienced. As the story moves through the decades, it is easy to forget that this is a fictitious story.
COUNTDOWN 1945
Chris Wallace with Mitch Weiss
WHAT THEY SAY: April 12, 1945: After years of bloody conflict in Europe and the Pacific, America is stunned by news of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s death. In an instant, Vice President Harry Truman, who has been kept out of war planning and knows nothing of the top-secret Manhattan Project to develop the world’s first atomic bomb, must assume command of a nation at war on multiple continents—and confront one of the most consequential decisions in history. Countdown 1945 tells the gripping true story of the turbulent days, weeks, and months to follow, leading up to August 6, 1945, when Truman gives the order to drop the bomb on Hiroshima.
In Countdown 1945, Chris Wallace, the veteran journalist and anchor of Fox News Sunday, takes readers inside the minds of the iconic and elusive figures who join the quest for the bomb, each for different reasons: the legendary Albert Einstein, who eventually calls his vocal support for the atomic bomb “the one great mistake in my life”; lead researcher J. Robert “Oppie” Oppenheimer and the Soviet spies who secretly infiltrate his team; the fiercely competitive pilots of the plane selected to drop the bomb; and many more.
Perhaps most of all, Countdown 1945 is the story of an untested new president confronting a decision that he knows will change the world forever. Truman’s journey during these 116 days is a story of high drama: from the shock of learning of the bomb’s existence, to the conflicting advice he receives from generals like Dwight D. Eisenhower and George Marshall, to wrestling with the devastating carnage that will result if he gives the order to use America’s first weapon of mass destruction.
WHAT I SAY: Having just passed the 75th anniversary of the two atomic bombs being dropped on Japan, the timing could not be better for this book’s release. It’s another great example of thinking we know a lot about a key event in history, only to find that there is so much more to the story. Wallace does a great job of making this a thriller. It reminded me of seeing APOLLO 13 in theaters for the first time. Sure, we know the outcome already, but like those filmmakers, he has found a way to keep us on the edge of our seats as history plays out across the pages of this book.
THE TATTOOIST OF AUSCHWITZ
Heather Morris
WHAT THEY SAY: This beautiful, illuminating tale of hope and courage is based on interviews that were conducted with Holocaust survivor and Auschwitz-Birkenau tattooist Ludwig (Lale) Sokolov—an unforgettable love story in the midst of atrocity.
In April 1942, Lale Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew, is forcibly transported to the concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau. When his captors discover that he speaks several languages, he is put to work as a Tätowierer (the German word for tattooist), tasked with permanently marking his fellow prisoners.
One day in July 1942, Lale, prisoner 32407, comforts a trembling young woman waiting in line to have the number 34902 tattooed onto her arm. Her name is Gita, and in that first encounter, Lale vows to somehow survive the camp and marry her.
A vivid, harrowing, and ultimately hopeful re-creation of Lale Sokolov’s experiences as the man who tattooed the arms of thousands of prisoners with what would become one of the most potent symbols of the Holocaust, The Tattooist of Auschwitz is also a testament to the endurance of love and humanity under the darkest possible conditions.
WHAT I SAY: I debated adding this book to the list. Personally I found the story believable and one that deserves to be told, while critics have questioned some of the novel’s “whitewashing” of events or conditions in the camps. But isn’t that what great books should do – make us talk about them? There may be some details or facts that can be questioned here, but the overall theme of the story overshadows any flaws in my mind. Read for yourself and decide.
VJ: THE UNPLUGGED ADVENTURES OF MTV’S FIRST WAVE
Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman, Alan Hunter, and Martha Quinn with Gavin Edwards
WHAT THEY SAY: Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman, Alan Hunter, and Martha Quinn (along with the late J. J. Jackson) had front-row seats to a cultural revolution—and the hijinks of pop music icons like Adam Ant, Cyndi Lauper, Madonna, and Duran Duran—as the first VJs on the fledgling network MTV. From partying with David Lee Roth to flying on Bob Dylan’s private jet, they were on a breakneck journey through a music revolution.
Going beyond the compelling behind the scenes tales of this unforgettable era, VJ is also a coming-of-age story about the 1980s, its excesses, controversies, and everything in between. “At last—the real inside story of the MTV explosion that rocked the world, in all its giddy excess, from the video pioneers who saw all the hair, drugs and guitars up close. VJ is the wild, hilarious, addictive tale of how one crazy moment changed pop culture forever” (Rob Sheffield, New York Times bestselling author).
WHAT I SAY: I know this is a complete “out of left field” selection, but if you love the 80s or grew up with MTV, it is a must-read. It’s mostly short stories of encounters with artists, trying to get MTV on the air in the early days, and so on. In the early days of cable television, five people became groundbreakers and changed how we see (and hear) music. It’s a great peek behind-the-scenes and a book you can easily finish in one sitting.
A SIMPLE FAVOR
Darcey Bell
WHAT THEY SAY: It starts with a simple favor—an ordinary kindness mothers do for one another. When glamorous Emily asks Stephanie to pick up her son after school, Stephanie happily says yes. Emily has a life that would make any woman jealous. She is the perfect mother with a dazzling career working for a famous fashion designer in Manhattan. Stephanie, a widow with a son in kindergarten, lonely in their Connecticut suburb, turns to her daily blog for connection and validation. Stephanie imagines Emily to be her new confidante and is shocked when Emily suddenly disappears without a trace, leaving her son and husband with no warning.
Stephanie knows something is terribly wrong. Unable to keep away from the grieving family, she soon finds herself entangled with Sean, Emily’s handsome, reticent British husband. But she can’t ignore the nagging feeling that he’s not being honest with her about Emily’s disappearance. Is Stephanie imagining things? How well did she really know her “best” friend?
Stephanie begins to see that nothing—not friendship, love, or even an ordinary favor—is as simple as it seems.
A Simple Favor exposes the dark underbelly of female friendship in this taut, unsettling, and completely absorbing story that holds you in its grip until the final page.
WHAT I SAY: What makes this book interesting to me is how the story unfolds. A large portion of the narrative is told through blog posts made by one of the characters, but like GONE GIRL the narrative switches here and there to give us glimpses from different perspectives. I’ve seen the movie and enjoyed it as well, but I think the book is better.
