[Madelaine Amee]

Originally Posted by Boomer

Be it an actual book, Audible, or Kindle, a good book sure can help to pass the time.

I like biographical historical fiction. Recently, I have read two by Therese Fowler.

Z is the story of Zelda Fitzgerald. Wow. F. Scott sure was a jackazz.

Another one by Fowler that I liked a lot is A Well Behaved Woman. It is about Alva Vanderbilt and the family she married into. She had the pedigree. Vanderbilt had the money. I guess that was often the case in our country just like Downton Abbey.

Alva Vanderbilt was a woman trapped in time. She was an advocate for women’s rights. But she also knew how to play the social climbing game that was run by Mrs. Astor and the NYC 400 . Alva threw a masquerade ball in 1883 that was excessive beyond belief. It got her in and up the ladder.

When I read about real people, I always have to look up their pictures on the internet. I also looked up the pictures of the costumes worn to that masquerade ball. One woman wore a hat made out of a cat that must have been supplied by a taxidermist. Hideous.

The regular people lined the street to watch the costumed guests go by. The newspapers talked about it for weeks.

Mr. Boomer just finished The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz. That is a brand new book by Erik Larson.

Larson also wrote The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America , published in 2004. I never read about serial killers, but I could not put that one down. Larson weaves the maniac’s story with the story of the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893.

How about anybody else? Book suggestions?

Boomer

No suggestions, but I liked yours and I intend to read the one on Churchill. Great thread Boomer, thanks.