Can you handle the truth?

 Sabar, Ariel.  Veritas: A Harvard Professor, a Con Man, and the Gospel of Jesus's Wife.  New 

         York: Doubleday, 2020.  ISBN: 9780385542586 

On September 18, 2012, in Rome near the Vatican, Prof. Karen King of the Harvard University Divinity School proclaimed the finding of a scrap of parchment that she dubbed, just for "reference purposes," the Gospel of Jesus's Wife.  Veritas explores what led up to this presentation and the fallout afterwards.

Ariel Sabar covered the Rome conference for Smithsonian Magazine in 2012.  He later wrote an article on the results of physical examination of the parchment in The Atlantic in 2016.  He has continued to dig into this story resulting in Veritas which walks the reader though the story in five acts.  Act I is Discovery with the presentation and early reception of the parchment.  Act II is Doubt where people outside Karen King's group raise questions on the dating of the manuscript and what she claims it means.  Act III is Proofs, proof of forgery in regard to an accompanying parchment and then proof in regard to the Gospel of Jesus's Wife.  Act IV is The Stranger, an investigation into Walter Fritz who provided Prof. King the parchment.  Sabar investigates Fritz's background, history, and possible motives for the forgery.  Act V is The Downturned Book of Revelations which is an inquiry into why Prof. King was so eager to proclaim the forgery as genuine. 

In Veritas, Ariel Sabar provides a detailed investigation of the whole Gospel of Jesus's Wife controversy from the beginning until now.  If you have an interest in early Biblical texts, forgery, and/or academic dishonesty, Veritas would be a good read for you.

The Limping Spy of Lyon

 Demetrios, Heather.  Code Name Badass: The True Story of Virginia Hall.  New York: Atheneum 

           Books for Young Readers, 2021.  ISBN: 9781534431874

Who was the "Limping Lady of Lyon?" "The most dangerous Allied spy in France?"  That would be Virginia Hall, a member of both the British SOE and the American OSS, not to mention being a volunteer in the French Army, and later the CIA.  So who is Virginia Hall?  Read Code Name Badass to find out.

Heather Demetrios was wandering around the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C. when she came upon a display of Virginia Hall memorabilia and was intrigued when she learned that Virgina Hall had made the Gestapo's most wanted list while operating with an artificial leg!  This was a story worth writing in grand style!

Demetrios opens Code Name Badass with Virginia "Dindy" Hall in context, i.e. providing information on her early life, her love of the outdoors, and her cheese-making skills not to mention her language skills.  She attended Harvard for a year, then transferred to Barnard College, and then studied abroad in Paris and Vienna.  After college, Dindy got a job with the Foreign Service as a clerk in Warsaw, Izmar (in Turkey where she had a hunting accident that cost her a leg), and later in Venice and Estonia.  In 1939, she left the State Department and moved to Paris.  With the beginning of WWII, she joined the French Army as an ambulance driver.  After the fall of France, Dindy made a strategic withdrawal to England, There she ended up in the Special Operations Executive and was back in France as an agent in Lyon.  That lasted until 1942 when Vichy France was occupied by the Germans and she dashed over the Pyrenees on her artificial leg. In 1944, Dindy left the SOE and joined the Office of Strategic Services as an agent in France where her cheese making skills provided her cover while she recruited, organized, and armed Resistance forces.  When the war ended, she was planning on infiltrating into Austria.  After the war, Dindy joined the the Central Intelligence Agency in the covert action arm.  She finally retired in 1966 and returned to the Maryland farm of her childhood with her husband whom she had met during her service in France.  She died in 1982.

 

In Code Name Badass, Heather Demetrios provides an interesting take on Virginia Hall and the role women played in the French Resistance during World War II.  She documents the facts, provides the juicy details and worships how Dindy succeeded in fulfilling her missions despite all odds.  Do not let the publisher fool you, this is a tale for all ages to enjoy!

An Epic Tale about Comics

Wolk, Douglas.  AllThe Marvels: A Journey to the Ends of the Biggest Story Ever Told.  New 

         York: Penguin Press, 2021.  ISBN: 9780735222168 

Do you read comics?  Are you a DC fan, a Marvel Fan, both?  or do you lean more to the independent comics?  Well, if you are a Marvel fan, Douglas Wolk has a treat for you!  He read 27,000+ issues (540,000+ pages) of comics - from Alpha Flight to Omega the Unknown - so that he "can be a guide to help curious travelers...."  So if you are curious, go on the journey with him!

Douglas Wolk begins by discussing the formation of Marvel, the intersections of all the Marvel stories, and a FAQ of the weird questions many folks pose to him or online.  Wolk begins with the Fantastic Four posing Fantastic Four #51 (June 1966) as the wellspring of the Marvel universe. Spiderman gets his due with a chapter as does the Avengers, the X-Men, Thor and Loki, Black Panther, and Doctor Doom.  Interestingly, Shang-Chi and The Master of Kung Fu merits a whole chapter dissecting Marvel in regard to race and color in comics.  Some of those themes also show up in the chapter on crime fighters, Captain Marvel/Ms. Marvel and Squirrel Girl.  In a series of interlude chapters, Wolk discusses monsters, how the Vietnam War influenced Marvel comics, pop stars such as Dazzler, appearances of US presidents in Marvel comics, March 1965 which is when Marvel really began creating a complete universe for its characters to inhabit, and an revealing chapter on Linda Carter.  Then in the final chapter, Wolk reveals why he read all these comics, he was trying to create a systematic outline for his son to find the tales he enjoyed in the Marvel universe.  

Douglas Wolk takes the reader on a journey through All of the Marvels in 384+ pages.  In the limited space of the book, he provides a springboard for the reader to find their own path into the world of Marvel. 

Heading West!

 Druy, Bob, & Tom Clavin.  Blood and Treasure: Daniel Boone and the Fight for America's First

         Frontier.  New York: St. Martin's Press, 2021.  ISBN: 9781250247131

Daniel Boone - now there is a name that is legendary!  What do you know about him?  How much of what you know is fact versus how much is fiction?  Born in Pennsylvania, trekked to North Carolina with his father,  he is known for trailblazing a path to Kentucky and settling that state while fighting Native Americans during the American Revolution.  But those facts do not tell the whole story.

 

Bob Drury and Tom Clavin provide an interesting biography of Daniel Boone in relation to the crossing the Appalachian Mountains, settling Kentucky, and the course of the American Revolution on the far western frontier.  They divide his life into four parts - The Frontier, The Explorers, The Settlers, and The Conquest.  The Frontier covers Boone's early life, his move to North  Carolina, his involvement with the Braddock disaster during the French and Indian War, his marriage, and his first ventures across the mountains.  The Explorers includes the Pontiac Indian War, the Royal Proclamation regarding settlers, Boone and party finding the Cumberland Gap, and early experiences trapping and exploring Kentucky.  The Settlers discusses Lord Dunmore's War, Logan's Lament, Boone and company moving across the mountains and the early settling of Kentucky with the kidnapping of his daughter, Jemina Boone, and two Callawy girls amidst rounds of assaults on white settlements.  The Conquest opens with the capture of Daniel Boone by the Shawnee, his escape to warn settlers of the British and Indians' forthcoming attack, his service as legislator in the Virginia House of Burgesses, his role in the Blue Lick disaster, and his later life.

In Blood and Treasure, Bob Drury and Tom Clavin provide the reader a life of Daniel Boone that is sympathetic without being a hero-worshiping hack job.  Boone is shown in context of events rather than being an isolated life.  The reader finishes Blood and Treasure more knowledgeable of the settling of the "West" and the surrounding events then in many other Boone biographies.

 

Chance and the Pirate!

 Johnson, Steven.  Enemy of All Mankind: A True Story of Piracy, Power, and History's First 

          Global Manhunt.  New York: Riverhead Books, 2020.  ISBN: 9780735211605

Pirates!  Who does not like to read about pirates?  Tales of swashbuckling adventures, cutlasses gleaming, and treasure to be plundered!  In Enemy of All Mankind, Steven Johnson provides a look at Henry Every, one of the most successful pirates ever, who manages to loot a great treasure and escape into obscurity, never to be caught!

Enemy of All Mankind opens with the crime.  Three small English ships under the command of Henry Every come upon a Mughal treasure ship in the Indian Ocean.  Against all odds, the English succeed in taking and plundering the Mughal vessel. Little is known for sure about Henry Every, so Steven Johnson uses all the craft of a writer to bring him to life while providing context for his life, his crime, and the impact this crime had on the world.  Johnson breaks the story into five parts - The Expedition, The Mutiny, The Heist, The Chase, and The Trial.  "The Expedition" sets the scene with background on Henry Every, terrorism, piracy, the Mughals, the East India Company, and the Spanish Expedition Shipping enterprise which hired Henry Every.  "The Mutiny" covers the mutiny Henry Every lead that provided him a ship The Fancy along with a look at the pirate haven of Madagascar and their future opponent the Ganj-i-Sawai.  "The Heist" walks the reader through the details of the fight to take the Ganj-i-Sawai, the conflicting narratives of what happened after the English victory and the consequences of this act on the fortunes of the East India Company in India and Great Britain.  "The Chase" details The Fancy's travels from the Indian Ocean around Cape Horn and into the Caribbean where the pirate crew split up with some staying, some going on to the colonies in America while Henry Every and several others travel back to England.  "The Trial" looks at the fate of 8 crew members who where caught in England, put on trial, and then put on trial again because the jury had the nerve to side with the defendants in the first trial.

Steven Johnson provides a very readable account of the crimes committed by the pirate Henry Every, placing events in the context of British imperialism in the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean Sea.  If the reader wants to explore the early history of pirates, Enemy of All Mankind  is a great place to start.

Cracking the Cases!

McOmie, Dave.  Safecracker: A Chronicle of the Coolest Job in the World.  Guilford, CN: Lyons 

            Press, 2021.  ISBN: 9781493058518

What did you want to be when you grew up?  Firefighter?  Cowboy?  Indian chief?  Or maybe a chef or a sports star?  But did you know that you could be a professional safecracker?  Well, that is what Dave McOmie became and this is his story!

Dave McOmie tells the story of his career over the course of a week.  Starting with a flight to Vegas on Monday to open a major bank's private currency center because the bankers has overwound the timelock.  And it needed to be done by midnight!  While taking the reader along on this thrill ride, Dave reveals how he got into this business.  Tuesday involved opening an ATM at a theater in full view of the public plus a discussion of professional ethics and the challenge of opening safes.  Wednesday involves a chartered flight to open two gun safes for a widow and the Department of Defense followed a return home for supper.  During the course of the day, he gets a couple of jobs for Thursday and a job for Sunday while discussing the merits of various gun safes.  Thursday involves opening the Portland Air National Guard armory vault with an interesting side-bit on government procurement in regard to safes and vaults.  Friday comes with a fully automatic bank vault to open in Salt Lake City with the need to return home for a daughter's dance recital.   Unlike Vegas, he has plenty of drill bits this time!  Saturday has Dave spending time at home and reminiscing about old jobs, the journal he writes,and the Penetration Parties he hosts.  Sunday involves a flight to Paisley Park, Minnesota to open a Mosler vault after the owner has died.  This opening has a big crowd of lawyers, bankers, and an archivist as well as DEA agents.  And of course this opening would be filmed.  Dave manages to get the safe open in the end only to have a smaller safe he needed to open inside the vault.  

When a reader cracks open a biography, you can never be sure what you will find in side.  In Safecracker, the reader gets a glimpse into a job most people will never experience in a lively, entertaining read!

When Did Globalization Start?

 Hansen, Valerie.  The Year 1000: When Explorers Connected the World - and Globalization 

           Began.  New York: Scribner, 2020.  ISBN: 9781501194108

When you think of the year 1000 of the common era (whether you think CE or AD is up to you), what pops up in your mind?  Is it Vikings sailing west?  Cathedrals being built in France?  Trade in China?  For Valerie Hansen, she thought is connections, specifically trade, global trade!  In The Year 1000, Valerie Hansen takes the reader on a whirlwind tour of the world beginning around year 1000 of the common era and up until about 1450.  She chose the year 1000 since that is around when the Vikings stopped by North America and trade could theoretically be made around the world - from Asia to America and back again.  

Valarie Hansen opens The Year 1000 with an overview of the world, briefly discussing Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Americas along with her argument for globalization beginning in 1000.  She then proceeds to discuss the Viking voyages to Newfoundland and elsewhere in the Americas and the impact this had on trade.  The third chapter of the book covers the trade routes that existed in the Americas among the local groups.  Hansen then returns to the Vikings, but in Europe this time with their search for slaves and treasure in the east, especial among the Rus while also covering trade on the continent and with outside countries.  The reader then travels south to Africa with its slave trade, its trade in gold, and in other commodities.   From Africa, the reader travels to Central Asia with the Silk Road that connected Europe and Africa with the Far East.  Religion and trade played a major role in Central Asia economies.  Next, Hansen explores the sea routes from the Middle East and Africa to India, then Indonesia,and ending at China.  In the last chapter, Hansen explores Chain and the role it played in global trade during this whole time frame.  

Throughout The Year 1000, Valarie Hansen seeks to persuade the reader that globalization started much earlier than the 1500's - the time when most scholars agree global trade began.  She provides ample evidence that trade, extensive trade was happening 500 years earlier.  Whether the reader agrees whit her argument or not,  The Year 1000 is an interesting and informative read.