The Valet's Secret by Josi Kilpack

 At his cousin's unexpected death, Kenneth Winterton has become the heir of a legacy he never expected. He is overwhelmed with his new role so decides to change clothes with his valet so he can escape for a few hours on horseback to clear his head. While riding he nearly runs over Rebecca Parker, a widow who now cares for an alcoholic and sometimes violent father. When Kenneth comes to Rebecca's aid by the roadside sparks fly. Kenneth can tell Rebecca is a tradeswoman, so he pretends to be the valet of the new heir to the earldom so he can get to know her better.  He knows his deception can't last long, but he can't convince himself to tell her and give up their long walks together. Once the truth does comes out, Kenneth and Rebecca try to deny their mutual attraction. They are from different classes, and there is no way the ton would ever allow an Earl to marry a shopgirl.

As I listened to this short novel I felt like I had read it before. I hadn't, but the idea of a nobleman in disguise is not a new one. In fact there was nothing very original or surprising in the plot at all. Still, it was short and clean and the characters where sympathetic enough. I mostly chose this book because I was waiting for another one I had on hold, and it filled that role admirably. (288p, 2022)

Who Was (personalities from the 1800's in America) (various authors)

 This week I was waiting for a book I have on hold, so I didn't want to commit to a longer book.  Instead I listened to three Who Was books for children.  I decided to pick famous American characters from the early to mid 1800's.  I thought it would be interesting to compare their lives. 

Who Was Daniel Boone by S.A. Kramer 

Daniel Boone is famous for creating a passage through the Appalachian Mountains to Kentucky.  He was an adventurer, marksman, trapper and soldier. When I was a little girl, we saw these kinds of characters as heroes of American history. Now we are a little more sensitive to the injustices of western expansion, and how unfair colonists and pioneers were to native peoples.  This book does a pretty good job of addressing the ethical issues while acknowledging that people from the time period had a different moral yardstick than we use today.  Still, I finished the book feeling embarrassed and guilty about the way my ancestors treated others, rather than proud of it. (2006, 112 p)

Who Was Johnny Appleseed by Joan Holub

I found this a rather illuminating depiction of a character who had seemed more like a folk tale to me than a real person.  I had always pictured Johnny Chapman as a kind of 19th century hippy, going around planting apple trees and talking with wild animals.  That is a little bit true, but he was also an entrepreneur that took advantage of the government's rule that homesteaders had to improve their claims in order to keep them. He collected seeds from community apple cider presses, grew seedlings and then sold them to settlers.  I didn't realize that Chapman actually, at various times, owned thousands of acers of orchards. He seemed to not be a very good businessman, though, because he always lost his land because of mismanagement. Because he was kind to native people and non-violent, he is less morally questionable than Boone. (2005, 112 p)

Who was Harriet Beecher Stowe by Diana Meachen Rau

I knew less about Stowe coming in to this biography than I knew about the other two.  I knew that Uncle Tom's Cabin was very influential in promoting abolition, but I didn't understand exactly how successful it was.  I found it interesting that Stowe was just a housewife who liked to write.  She wrote short pieces for newspapers, and one nonfiction book for her sister's school. Uncle Tom's Cabin was her first novel, and it was an instant and huge success. It made her very wealthy and famous, and she used her fame to promote freedom for enslaved peoples. It was my favorite of the three biographies, maybe because I could relate with the protagonist better. (2015, 112 p) 

One historical insight I gained from reading all three books is that the push to settle the American West was not only fueled by population growth. It was also the result of poor farming practices and over hunting that left the land depleted only a short time after the Europeans arrived. Another insight I had was that in the early 1800's almost everyone was on the edge of food insecurity.  It didn't take much--a drought, an attack from hostile natives, depleted soil--to make it so whole communities didn't have enough to eat. That is one way that life in our country has improved. 

What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell

 Gladwell is famous for his books The Tipping Point, Outliers, and Talking with Strangers.  This book is a collection of articles he wrote over a long career for The New Yorker,  He divides the 19 essays into three groups: Obsessives, Pioneers, and Other Varieties of Minor Genius; Theories, Predictions, and Diagnoses; and Personality, Character, and Intelligence.  In the first he recognizes lesser known people who were really good at what they did and impacted the world. The second talks about intelligence failure, and focuses a lot on the fall of Enron. The third deals with how hard it is to use objective measures to predict how successful someone will be. 

Gladwell has a very entertaining and glib style.  You find yourself wanting to believe him just because of his smooth rhetoric.  After listening through 19 of his essays, I recognized a recurrent pattern in his writing. He sets up a case study that seems to clearly suggest something.  Then he carefully analyses it to show that you can't make the assumptions you did when you first heard the story.  His articles are thought provoking and interesting, and I found myself sharing some of his stories with people I interacted with all week. It is an older book, and some of the articles are older still.  Someone under fifty might have to do a little research to understand the Enron scandal and other cultural references to the 70's and 80's.  As someone over 60, some of the articles brought back memories of things I hadn't thought about in a long time, like the old Veg-o-matic commercials and the Loreal and Clairol hair color commercials.  The book is read by the author who does a great job.  I would certainly recommend this book to someone who enjoyed his other books. (2010, 448 p)