The King's Curse (Cousins' War, 6)
Philippa Gregory, 2014
Touchstone
624 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781451626117
Summary
The story of lady-in-waiting Margaret Pole and her unique view of King Henry VIII’s stratospheric rise to power in Tudor England.
Regarded as yet another threat to the volatile King Henry VII’s claim to the throne, Margaret Pole, cousin to Elizabeth of York (known as the White Princess) and daughter of George, Duke of Clarence, is married off to a steady and kind Lancaster supporter—Sir Richard Pole.
For his loyalty, Sir Richard is entrusted with the governorship of Wales, but Margaret’s contented daily life is changed forever with the arrival of Arthur, the young Prince of Wales, and his beautiful bride, Katherine of Aragon. Margaret soon becomes a trusted advisor and friend to the honeymooning couple, hiding her own royal connections in service to the Tudors.
After the sudden death of Prince Arthur, Katherine leaves for London a widow, and fulfills her deathbed promise to her husband by marrying his brother, Henry VIII. Margaret’s world is turned upside down by the surprising summons to court, where she becomes the chief lady-in-waiting to Queen Katherine.
But this charmed life of the wealthiest and "holiest" woman in England lasts only until the rise of Anne Boleyn, and the dramatic deterioration of the Tudor court. Margaret has to choose whether her allegiance is to the increasingly tyrannical king, or to her beloved queen; to the religion she loves or the theology which serves the new masters.
Caught between the old world and the new, Margaret Pole has to find her own way as she carries the knowledge of an old curse on all the Tudors. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—January 9, 1954
• Where—Nairobi, Kenya
• Raised—Bristol, England, UK
• Education—B.A., Sussex University; Ph.D., Edinburgh University
• Currently—lives in the North York Moors, Yorkshire, England
Philippa Gregory is a British historical novelist, writing since 1987. The best known of her works is The Other Boleyn Girl (2001), which in 2002 won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award from the Romantic Novelists' Association.
Early life and academic career
Philippa Gregory was in Nairobi, Kenya, the second daughter of Elaine (Wedd) and Arthur Percy Gregory, a radio operator and navigator for East African Airways. When she was two years old, her family moved to Bristol, England.
She was a "rebel" at Colston's Girls' School where she obtained a B grade in English and two E grades in History and Geography at A-level. She then went to journalism college in Cardiff and spent a year as an apprentice with the Portsmouth News before she managed to gain a place on an English literature degree course at the University of Sussex, where she switched to a history course.
She worked in BBC radio for two years before attending the University of Edinburgh, where she earned her doctorate in 18th-century literature. Gregory has taught at the University of Durham, University of Teesside, and the Open University, and was made a Fellow of Kingston University in 1994.
Private life
Gregory wrote her first novel Wideacre while completing a PhD in 18th-century literature and living in a cottage on the Pennine Way with first husband Peter Chislett, editor of the Hartlepool Mail, and their baby daughter, Victoria. They divorced before the book was published.
Following the success of Wideacre and the publication of The Favoured Child, she moved south to near Midhurst, West Sussex, where the Wideacre trilogy was set. Here she married her second husband Paul Carter, with whom she has a son. She divorced for a second time and married Anthony Mason, whom she had first met during her time in Hartlepool.
Gregory now lives on a 100-acre (0.40 km2) farm in the North York Moors national park, with her husband, children and stepchildren (six in all). Her interests include riding, walking, skiing, and gardening.
Writing
She has written novels set in several different historical periods, though primarily the Tudor period and the 16th century. Reading a number of novels set in the 17th century led her to write the bestselling Lacey trilogy — Wideacre, which is a story about the love of land and incest, The Favoured Child and Meridon. This was followed by The Wise Woman. A Respectable Trade, a novel of the slave trade in England, set in 18th-century Bristol, was adapted by Gregory for a four-part drama series for BBC television. Gregory's script was nominated for a BAFTA, won an award from the Committee for Racial Equality, and the film was shown worldwide.
Two novels about a gardening family are set during the English Civil War: Earthly Joys and Virgin Earth. She has also written contemporary fiction—Perfectly Correct; Mrs Hartley And The Growth Centre; The Little House; and Zelda's Cut. She has also written for children.
Some of her novels have won awards and have been adapted into television dramas. The most successful of her novels has been The Other Boleyn Girl, published in 2002 and adapted for BBC television in 2003 with Natascha McElhone, Jodhi May and Jared Harris. In the year of its publication, The Other Boleyn Girl also won the Romantic Novel of the Year and has subsequently spawned sequels—The Queen's Fool, The Virgin's Lover, The Constant Princess, The Boleyn Inheritance, and The Other Queen. Miramax bought the film rights to The Other Boleyn Girl and produced a film of the same name starring Scarlett Johansson as Mary Boleyn and co-starring Natalie Portman as Anne Boleyn, Eric Bana as Henry Tudor, Juno Temple as Jane Parker, and Kristin Scott Thomas as Elizabeth Boleyn. It was filmed in England and generally released in 2008.
Gregory has also published a series of books about the Plantagenets, the ruling houses that preceded the Tudors, and the Wars of the Roses. Her first book The White Queen (2009), centres on the life of Elizabeth Woodville the wife of Edward IV. The Red Queen (2010) is about Margaret Beaufort the mother of Henry VII and grandmother to Henry VIII. The Lady of the Rivers (2011) is the life of Jacquetta of Luxembourg, mother of Elizabeth Woodville, first married to John of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Bedford, younger brother of Henry the Fifth. The Kingmaker's Daughter (2012) is the story of Anne Neville, the daughter of the Earl of Warwick, the wife of Richard III. The next book, The White Princess (2013), centres on the life of Elizabeth of York, wife of Henry VII and the mother of Henry VIII.
Controversy
In her novel The Other Boleyn Girl, her portrayal of Henry VIII's second wife Anne Boleyn drew criticism. The novel depicts Anne as cold and ruthless, as well as heavily implying that the accusations that she committed adultery and incest with her brother were true, despite it being widely accepted that she was innocent of the charges. Novelist Robin Maxwell refused on principle to write a blurb for this book, describing its characterisation of Anne as "vicious, unsupportable." Historian David Starkey, appearing alongside Gregory in a documentary about Anne Boleyn, described her work as "good Mills and Boon" (a publisher of romance novels), adding that: "We really should stop taking historical novelists seriously as historians. The idea that they have authority is ludicrous." Susan Bordo criticized Gregory's claims to historical accuracy as "self-deceptive and self-promoting chutzpah", and notes that it is not so much the many inaccuracies in her work as "Gregory’s insistence on her meticulous adherence to history that most aggravates the scholars."
Media
Gregory is a frequent contributor to magazines and newspapers, with short stories, features and reviews. She is also a frequent broadcaster and a regular contestant on Round Britain Quiz for BBC Radio 4 and the Tudor expert for Channel 4's Time Team. She won the 29 December 2008 edition of Celebrity Mastermind on BBC1, taking Elizabeth Woodville as her specialist subject.
Charity work
Gregory also runs a small charity building wells in school gardens in The Gambia. Gardens for The Gambia was established in 1993 when Gregory was in The Gambia, researching for her book A Respectable Trade.
Since then the charity has dug almost 200 low technology, low budget and therefore easily maintained wells, which are on-stream and providing water to irrigate school and community gardens to provide meals for the poorest children and harvest a cash crop to buy school equipment, seeds and tools.
In addition to wells, the charity has piloted a successful bee-keeping scheme, funded feeding programmes and educational workshops in batik and pottery and is working with larger donors to install mechanical boreholes in some remote areas of the country where the water table is not accessible by digging alone. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/22/2013.)
Book Reviews
“Margaret’s story is shocking, deeply moving and offers an alternative view on a much-told tale. Gregory is on form here; her depiction of Henry VIII’s transformation from indulged golden boy to sinister tyrant is perfectly pitched and seems more horrific still when we are made intimate witnesses to the devastation of Margaret’s family.... I defy anyone to remain dry-eyed as the story reaches its tragic denouement.
Sunday Express (UK)
Loyalties are torn, paranoia festers and you can almost hear the bray of royal trumpets as the period springs to life. It’s a bloody irresistible read.
People Magazine
An illuminating portrait of historical figure Margaret Pole...whose royal Plantagenet lineage was both a blessing and a curse.... Gregory moves confidently through a tangle of intrigue, revenge, and tyranny toward a shocking betrayal that brings Margaret face-to-face with the king’s ire.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Taking place after the Tudor victory at Bosworth in 1485, Gregory's dramatic conclusion to the "Cousins' War" series is narrated by Margaret Pole, a member of the defeated Plantagenet family.... [G]ripping...with plenty of court intrigue and politics to spice up the action. —Kristen Stewart, Pearland Lib., Brazoria Cty. Lib. Syst., TX
Library Journal
Nobody does dynastic history like Gregory.
Booklist
[T]he last Plantagenets wage a losing and mostly subterranean battle against the unscrupulous Tudor upstarts....[who]cause countless executions [and] change a national religion.... It would be a spoiler to recount what happens next although we already know. Under Gregory's spell, we keep hoping history won't repeat itself.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The King’s Curse spans over forty years of Lady Margaret Pole’s presence in and around the Tudor court, as she and her family rise and fall from favor with Henry VII and then Henry VIII. How do Lady Margaret, her characteristics, and her goals change over the course of her life at and away from court?
2. Discuss the meaning of the title, The King’s Curse. What is the actual curse? How does Henry VIII’s belief that he is cursed affect his behavior? Do you believe that the curse that Elizabeth of York and her mother spoke against the Tudors comes to fruition?
3. Consider how deeply Margaret is affected by the execution of her brother Edward, “Teddy,” the Earl of Warwick. How does this affect her familial loyalty and influence her actions? What does it mean to Margaret to bear the name Plantagenet? What does the White Rose mean to her?
4. How does Margaret see Henry VIII change over the course of his life? As a child, how was he different from his brother Arthur, Prince of Wales? What are his primary characteristics as a young king, and then as an aging monarch?
5. Describe the ways in which motherhood and maternity are portrayed in The King’s Curse. How does the pressure to produce a male heir define the role of royal mothers? How does Margaret’s presence at the loss of so many royal babies affect her own view of motherhood? Compare the differences between Katherine of Aragon’s and Margaret’s sense of motherhood.
6. Lady Margaret Pole is a unique figure in the Tudor court: when her title is restored to her, she becomes one of the wealthiest individuals in England in her own right. In what ways does Margaret use her position and influence that was unusual for a woman of this time?
7. “‘It’s just that from boyhood, the king has never admired something without wanting it for himself,’” Margaret cautions her cousin Edward, Duke of Buckingham. How does Margaret’s advice to her family to desire obscurity, and therefore safety, contradict her ambitions for her family, her sons in particular, and desire for power? What does the loss of Margaret’s son Arthur mean to her? Consider this moment: “We walk back to the house, and I look at the great house that I have renewed, with my family crest above the door, and I think, as bitterly as any sinner, that all the wealth and all the power that I won back for myself and my children could not save my beloved son Arthur from the Tudor sickness.”
8. Margaret forces Reginald to stay in the king’s service as a scholar and theologian, even if it means being exiled to Padua, Paris, and Rome and separated from his family; Reginald resents his mother for much of his life because of this. Do you think this shaped Reginald’s opinion toward the new religion and his eventual letter to the king on his findings? Why or why not?
9. Compare and contrast Margaret’s attitudes about illness, contagion, and death with those of Henry VIII. How does each handle the Sweat and other diseases among their subjects? How is each affected by the death of Katherine of Aragon?
10. Think back to the promise that Margaret made to Katherine when she first revealed Prince Arthur’s deathbed wish to his young wife: If Margaret had not promised to keep Katherine’s secret then, how might have the following events turned out differently?
11. The wheel of fortune, or rota fortunae, is a popular notion in medieval philosophy that refers to the unpredictability of fate: the goddess Fortuna spins the wheel at random, changing the positions of those on the wheel. Keeping this in mind, discuss the many great fortunes and misfortunes that befall Margaret and her family, and England as a whole, throughout the novel. What is the driving force behind these quick changes of fortune?
12. “The one thing I would have taught him, if I had kept him at my side, is to never weary of life, but to cling to it. Life: at almost any cost. I have never prepared myself for death, not even going into childbed, and I would never put my head down on the block.” Margaret encourages her children to choose life on multiple occasions, even over loyalty or truth. What does this tell us about Margaret’s moral compass? How does this guide the decisions she makes for herself and her children?
13. Lady Margaret Pole was beatified by the Catholic Church as a martyr in 1886 by Pope Leo XIII; her feast day is celebrated on May 28. In The King’s Curse, Margaret is portrayed as devout to the church and the old ways and is outraged when Henry VIII allows Cromwell to shut down England’s abbeys, priories, and monasteries. How does Margaret’s religious devotion influence her family’s involvement with the Pilgrimage of Grace? How do you think Margaret reconciles her disagreement with the king over religious issues, but outward loyalty to the throne?
(Questions provided by the publisher.)
Edge of Etermity (Century Trilogy, 3)
Ken Follett, 2014
Penguin Group (USA)
1120 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780525953098
Summary
Ken Follett’s Century Trilogy follows the fortunes of five intertwined families—American, German, Russian, English, and Welsh—as they make their way through the twentieth century. It has been called “potent, engrossing” (Publishers Weekly) and “truly epic” (Huffington Post). USA Today said, “You actually feel like you’re there.”
Edge of Eternity, the finale, covers one of the most tumultuous eras of all: the 1960s through the 1980s, encompassing civil rights, assassinations, Vietnam, the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis, presidential impeachment, revolution—and rock and roll.
East German teacher Rebecca Hoffman discovers she’s been spied on by the Stasi for years and commits an impulsive act that will affect her family for generations
George Jakes, himself bi-racial, bypasses corporate law to join Robert F. Kennedy’s Justice Department and finds himself in the middle of not only the seminal events of the civil rights battle, but also a much more personal battle.
Cameron Dewar, the grandson of a senator, jumps at the chance to do some espionage for a cause he believes in, only to discover that the world is much more dangerous than he’d imagined Dimka Dvorkin, a young aide to Khrushchev, becomes an agent for good and for ill as the Soviet Union and the United States race to the brink of nuclear war, while his twin sister, Tania, carves out a role that will take her from Moscow to Cuba to Prague to Warsaw—and into history.
These characters and many others find their lives inextricably entangled as they add their personal stories and insight to the most defining events of the 20th century. From the opulent offices of the most powerful world leaders to the shabby apartments of those trying to begin a new empire, from the elite clubs of the wealthy and highborn to the passionate protests of a country’s most marginalized citizens, this is truly a drama for the ages.
With the Century Trilogy, Follett has guided readers through an entire era of history with a master’s touch. His unique ability to tell fascinating, brilliantly researched stories that captivate readers and keep them turning the pages is unparalleled. In this climactic and concluding saga, Follett brings us into a world we thought we knew, but now will never seem the same again. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—June 5, 1949
• Where—Cardiff, Wales, UK
• Education—B.A., University College, London
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in Hertfordshire, England
Kenneth Martin Follett is a Welsh author of thrillers and historical novels who has sold more than 150 million copies of his works. Many of his books have reached number 1 on the New York Times Best Seller list, including Edge of Eternity, Fall of Giants, A Dangerous Fortune, The Key to Rebecca, Lie Down with Lions, Triple, Winter of the World, and World Without End.
Early years
Follett was born in Cardiff, Wales, the first child of four children, to Martin Follett, a tax inspector, and Lavinia (Veenie) Follett. Barred from watching films and television by his Plymouth Brethren parents, he developed an early interest in reading but remained an indifferent student until he entered his teens. His family moved to London when he was ten years old, and he began applying himself to his studies at Harrow Weald Grammar School and Poole Technical College.
He won admission in 1967 to University College London, where he studied philosophy and became involved in center-left politics. He married his wife Mary in 1968, and their son was born in the same year. After graduating in the autumn of 1970, Follett took a three-month post-graduate course in journalism, working as a trainee reporter in Cardiff on the South Wales Echo. A daughter was born in 1973.
Career
After three years in Cardiff, Follett returned to London as a general-assignment reporter for the Evening News. He eventually left journalism for publishing, having found it unchallenging, and by the late 1970s became deputy managing director of the small London publisher Everest Books.
During that time, Follett began writing fiction as a hobby during evenings and weekends. Later, he said he began writing books when he needed extra money to fix his car, and the publisher's advance a fellow journalist had been paid for a thriller was the sum required for the repairs. Success came gradually at first, but the 1978 publication of Eye of the Needle, became an international bestseller and sold over 10 million copies, earning Follett wealth and international fame.
Each of Follett's subsequent novels, some 30, has become a best-seller, ranking high on the New York Times Best Seller list. The first five best sellers were fictional spy thrillers. Another bestseller, On Wings of Eagles (1983), is a true story based on the rescue of two of Ross Perot's employees from Iran during the 1979 revolution.
Kingsbridge series
For the most part, Follett continued writing spy thrillers, interspersed with historical novels. But he usually returned to espionage. Then in 1989, Follett surprised his readers with his first non-spy thriller, The Pillars of the Earth (1989), a novel about building a cathedral in a small English village during the Anarchy in the 12th century.
Pillars was wildly successful, received positive reviews, and stayed on the New York Times Best Seller list for 18 weeks. All told, (internationally and domestically), it has sold 26 million copies and even inspired a 2017 computer game by Daedalic Entertainment of Germany.
Two sequels followed a number of years later — in 2007 and 2017. World Without End (2007) returns to Kingsbridge 200 years after Pillars and focuses on lives devastated by the Black Death. A Column of Fire (2017), a romance and novel of political intrigue, is set in the mid-16th century — a time when Queen Elizabeth finds herself beset by plots to dethrone her.
Century trilogy
Follett initiated his Century trilogy in 2010. The series traces five interrelated families — American, German, Russian, English and Welsh — as they move through world-shaking events, beginning with World War I and the Russian Revolution, up through the rise of the Third Reich and World War II, and into the Cold War era and civil-rights movements.
Adaptations
A number of Follett's novels have been made into movies and TV mini series. Eye of the Needle was made into an acclaimed film, starring Donald Sutherland. Seven novels have been adapted as mini-series: The Key to Rebecca, Lie Down with Lions, On Wings of Eagles, The Third Twin (rights were sold for a then-record price of $1,400,000), The Pillars of the Earth, World Without End, and A Dangerous Fortune.
Follett also had a cameo role as the valet in The Third Twin and later as a merchant in The Pillars of the Earth.
Awards
2013 - Grand Master at the Edgar Awards (New York)
2012 - Que Leer Prize-Best Translation (Spain) - Winter of the World
2010 - Libri Golden Book Award-Best Fiction (Hungary) - Fall of Giants
2010 - Grand Master, Thrillerfest (New York)
2008 - Honorary Doctor of Literature - University of Exeter
2007 - Honorary Doctor of Literature - University of Glamorgan
2007 - Honorary Doctor of Literature - Saginaw Valley State University
2003 - Corine Literature Prize (Bavaria) - Jackdaws
1999 - Premio Bancarella Literary Prize (Italy) - Hammer of Eden
1979 - Edgar Award-Best Novel - Eye of the Needle
Personal life
During the late 1970s, Follett became involved in the activities of Britain's Labour Party when he met the former Barbara Broer, a Labour Party official. Broer became his second wife in 1984.
Follett, an amateur musician, plays bass guitar for Damn Right I Got the Blues. He occasionally plays a bass balalaika with the folk group Clog Iron. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 10/4/2017.)
Book Reviews
(Starred review.) [A]mbitious, commanding...Follett expertly chronicles the pivotal events of the closing decades of the 20th century.... Follett’s smooth page-turner...is mesmerizing...exhaustive but rewarding...dense in thematic heft, yet flowing with spicy, expertly paced melodrama, character-rich exploits.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) [W]orth the wait.... Follett covers all the bases in this sprawling, energetic novel. Bad things abound, but, the tone is upbeat. The book ends with the televising of Obama's 2008 election speech. .... Once again, Follett has written pitch-perfect popular fiction that readers will devour. —David Keymer, Modesto, CA
Library Journal
Those eagerly awaiting volume three of Follett’s ambitious Century Trilogy will not be disappointed.... Follett does an outstanding job of interweaving and personalizing complicated narratives set on a multicultural stage. —Margaret Flanagan
Booklist
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)
Advise and Consent
Allen Drury, 1959
Doubleday
616 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385054195
Summary
Winner, 1960 Pulitizer Prize
Advise and Consent is a study of political animals in their natural habitat and is universally recognized as THE Washington novel. It begins with Senate confirmation hearings for a liberal Secretary of State and concludes two weeks later, after debate and controversy have exploded this issue into a major crisis. (From the publisher.)
Over the course of the novel, we follow four of the primary players in the U.S. Senate: Bob Munson, the affable and skilled Senate Majority Leader; Seab Cooley, the hornery Senator from South Carolina who carries a personal grudge against the nominee; Brigham Anderson, the talented and idealistic young Senate from Utah who heads up the subcommittee hearings; and Orrin Knox, Senator from Michigan who burns with an intense rivalry toward the man who sits in the White House.
Each man, and others, must make a decision to follow their party dictate or their own moral compass. Fifty years after it was written Advise and Consent still speaks to us about the difficult trade-offs and compromise at the heart of governing.
Author Bio
• Birth—September 2, 1918
• Raised—Porterville, California
• Death—September 2, 1998
• Where—Tiburon, California
• Education—B.A., Stanford University
• Awards—Pulitzer Prize
Allen Stuart Drury was a U.S. novelist. He wrote the 1959 novel Advise and Consent, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1960.
He was born to Alden Monteith Drury (1895-1975), a real estate broker and insurance agent, and Flora Allen (1894-1973), a legislative representative for the California Parent-Teacher Association. Drury's early American descendants were early immigrants to Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Allen Stuart Drury grew up in Porterville, California, and earned his B.A. at Stanford University in 1939. In the 1990s, he wrote three novels inspired by his experiences at Stanford: Toward What Bright Glory?, Into What Far Harbor?, and Public Men. After graduating from Stanford, Drury went to work for the Tulare Bee in Porterville, where he won a Sigma Delta Chi Award for editorial writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. Drury enlisted in the U.S. Army on July 25, 1942 in Los Angeles and trained as an infantry soldier.
A Senate Journal
In late 1943, he was a 25-year old army veteran looking for work. A position as the United States Senate correspondent for United Press soon provided Drury not only with gainful employment, but also with the opportunity "to be of some slight assistance in making my fellow countrymen better acquainted with their Congress and particularly their Senate."
In addition to fulfilling his duties as a reporter, Drury also kept a journal of his views of the Senate and individual senators. Drury freely offered his first impressions of many senators: "Alben Barkley, the Majority Leader, acts like a man who is working awfully hard and awfully earnestly at a job he doesn't particularly like."
He considered Minority Leader Robert Taft "one of the strongest and ablest men here," and felt that "Guy Gillette of Iowa and Hugh Butler of Nebraska vie for the title of Most Senatorial. Both are model solons, white-haired, dignified, every inch the glamorous statesmen."
Harry Truman was featured as his position changed from junior senator from Missouri to vice president to president in the course of Drury's narrative. Given the period it covered, it is natural that Drury's diary devoted considerable attention to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his contentious relations with the Senate. Drury wrote: "If he appears in a critical light, that is because this is how we saw him from the Hill."
In addition to the chamber's personalities, Drury's journal captured the events, large and small, of the 78th and 79th Congresses. He characterized this period as "the days of the War Senate on its way to becoming the Peace Senate."
At times the events Drury described had a national impact, such as FDR's death or the Senate's consideration of the United Nations Charter. In other cases, the effects were felt more clearly within the Senate community, such as the resignation of Majority Leader Barkley, the Senate's rejection of a congressional expense allowance, or the death of Secretary of the Senate Edwin Halsey.
Although written in the mid-1940s, Drury's diary was not published until 1963. A Senate Journal found an audience in part because of the great success of Advise and Consent, Drury's 1959 novel about the Senate's consideration of a controversial nominee for Secretary of State.
Later works
Drury's greatest success was Advise and Consent, which was made into a film in 1962. The book was partly inspired by the suicide of Wyoming Senator Lester C. Hunt. It spent 102 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list.
Drury followed Advise and Consent with several sequels. A Shade of Difference is set a year after Advise and Consent. Drury then turned his attention to the next presidential election after those events with Capable of Honor and Preserve and Protect. He then wrote two alternative sequels based on two different outcomes of an assassination attack in an earlier work: Come Nineveh, Come Tyre and The Promise of Joy.
In 1971, Drury published The Throne of Saturn, a science fiction novel about the first attempt at sending a manned mission to Mars. He dedicated the work "To the US Astronauts and those who help them fly." Political characters in the book are archetypal rather than comfortably human. The book carries a strong anti-leftist/anti-communist flavor. The book has a lot to say about interference in the space program by leftist Americans.
Having wrapped up his political series by 1975, Drury began a new one with the 1977 novel Anna Hastings, more a novel about journalism than politics. He returned to the timeline in 1979, with the political novel Mark Coffin U.S.S. (though the main relationship between the two books was that Hastings was a minor character in Mark Coffin U.S.S.'s sequels). It was succeeded, by the two-part The Hill of Summer and The Roads of Earth, which are true sequels to Mark Coffin U.S.S. He also wrote stand-alone novels, Decision (about the Supreme Court) and Pentagon, as well as several other fiction and non-fiction works.
Drury's political novels have been described as page-turners, set against the Cold War, with an aggressive and determined Soviet Union seeking to undermine the U.S.
Death
Drury lived in Tiburon, California, from 1964 until his 1998 death of cardiac arrest. Drury had completed his 20th novel, Public Men set at Stanford, just two weeks before his death. He died on 2 September 1998 at St. Mary's Medical Center in San Francisco, California on his eightieth birthday. Drury was never married.[ (From .)
Book Reviews
(Older books have few, if any, mainstream press reviews online. See Amazon and Barnes & Noble for helpful customer reviews.)
I can recall no other novel in which there is so well presented a president's dilemma when his awful responsibility for the nation's interest conflicts with a personal code of good morals.
New York Times
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to get a discussion started for Advise and Consent:
1. The book is divided into 4 sections, each devoted to one the main characters. Which character do you find most sympathetic? Do you have a favorite?
2. How does the press come off in Drury's book. He himself was a press corp member. Does he look favorably or not so favorably on his fictional cohorts?
3. For Bob Munson, "it took time, and much study of men's hearts and minds to be a good leader." Munson himself has been at it for decades, first in the House, now as the Senate Majority Leader. Is Munson correct, that good leadership takes years to develop? Or is the call for term limits a good idea, to refresh a sclerotic government with new blood?
4. Why is the president so firm in his desire to have Bob Leffingwell as his secretary of state? What do you think of Leffingwell? Why does he lie in the subcommittee?
5. What were the stakes during the cold war when it came to charting a course for foreign policy—either appeasement or toughness? Does the nation face a similar problem today?
6. How would you describe the relations among all members of the Senate and between both sides of the aisle in this novel? Did the Senate (at least as portrayed in this novel) behave differently in the mid- to late-fifties than it does today? Why or why not?
7. When politicians compromise their positions are they weak? How do you feel when it comes to the bargaining and bartering that go on behind the scenes in this novel?
8. What do you think motivates the politicians in this book? Is it a higher concern for the welfare of the country or personal ambition?
9. Referring to constituents, Munson complains to a colleague that Senators are expected to
Decide high policy, legislate for the good of the country, run the government, and play nursemaid...too. How do they expect us to do any of it?
Is Munson right? Do we expect too much of our elected officials? Or should the men and women we send to Washington be responsive to our individual needs? Who gains access to Senators anyway?
10. Talk in particular about Brigham Anderson's decision. Could he have taken another path? What would you have advised him, given the era in which the events of the book take place.
11. Does evil occur in this book? If so, who is responsible for setting it in motion? If not, why not?
12. SPOILER ALERT: What kind of president do you think Harley Hudson will make? Will he live up to the job and be capable of making sound decisions?
13. After reading Advise and Consent, how do you view politicians—at least those portrayed in this book? Do you see them as attempting to walk a fine line between their ideals and their ambitions? Do you feel their personal ambition frequently overtakes their ideals? Do you feel that most try to legislate for the good of the nation? Or does staying in office, "careerism" take precedence over devising fair and workable national policy?
14. Are today's politicians different than the way Drury wrote about them in 1957-58?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Losing My Identity
Rashmita Patel, 2014
New Generation Publishing
140 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781910394427
Summary
From Aloo Gobi to Matar Paneer, two sisters take the plunge to sort their love lives out when they both fall in love with a guy from a different culture. Kiran totally goes off the rails by leaving home to live with her so called boyfriend Ryan, but not all ends well when Kiran’s life turns sour with Ryan leaving her when she is pregnant and Kiran left to face the music.
Ash on the other end thinks she’s one who would never take the wrong path, ends up in a deep hole with a guy she meets up at college. At first Ash thinks he’s all wonderful until her parents find her a suitable rishta and she has to tell Rehaan that she can no longer keep their relationship going.
Her marriage to Aman is finalized and all is going as planned until Ash discovers that Aman her fiancé knows Rehaan. Again the awful nightmares begin for Ash as she starts to get freaked out about Rehaan shadowing her once more.
Ash finally gets the courage to tell Aman the truth about her relationship with Rehaan. The only thing left for Ash to do now is to see that her sister, Kiran who has helped her tremendously, attend her wedding but at the same time convince Mum and Dad that Kiran desperately needs their help and to bring her home once and for all. All ends well with Ash managing to score goals on all sides of the coin.
Author Bio
• Birth—May 10, 1971
• Where—Birmingham, England, UK
• Education—B.A., University of Central England
• Currently—lives in Birmingham, England
Rashmita's writing career began when she noticed that there was a gap in the market for Asian Teenage novels. She decided to write novels aiming at highlighting Asian characters.
Her first novel came out in 2006 called Tina 'n' Nikil—one sided-love which focused on arranged marriage. In 2008 she published her 2nd novel called Web of Lies: Priya Ki Kahani which looked at Asian Teenage Pregnancy, and her latest novel which came out in 2014 is called Losing My Identity which is based on mixed marriage and drugs. Rashmita is also a freelance journalist and school librarian. (From the author.)
Visit the author's website.
Follow Rashmita on Facebook.
Book Reviews
Losing My Identity is a gripping story about a conflicted young girl trying to fit her traditional values into a confusing, modern world. Passions run high in this dramatic yet believable tale. Complex and thought provoking, Losing My Identity will keep you hooked until the end.
Andrew Casey
Rashmita Patel’s Asian novels set to create waves. Rashmita Patel has had a love affair with books since her childhood. She wrote many short novels as a child and mastered the art of sticking and pasting pictures to make her books look real. Her dreams have started getting fulfilled and she has become a published author and appears on course of becoming a prolific novelist. She has already made her mark as a teenage fiction author. Rashmita Patel is doing a fabulous job and it seems a matter of time for her work to spread far and wide in the Asian communities all over the world. Her novels should also have considerable appeal in the massive South Asian market.
Jumbo Infomedia
I enjoyed reading your book aimed at teenagers. I think this book would attract a variety of teenage readers.
Prabha Patel, freelance educator, KS3 & KS4 teacher
Discussion Questions
1. How did Ash react when Kiri tells her that her boyfriend is white?
2. What did Ash mean when she said Kiri was Losing her Identity?
3. What was the family expecting from Kiri when she said she wanted to get married.
4. Why was Ash's mum and dad and brother all furious when Kiri mentioned that she was in love and wanted to get married to Robby?
5. Why was Ash unhappy when she picked up her exam results?
6. Why is Ash reluctant to go out with Rehaan when she falls in love with him?
7. What kind of a friend is Kelly from the way she behaves with Ash over her boyfriend?
8. What kind of life had Kiri had with Robby?
9. How do you think Ash must have felt when she finds out about Rehaan's involvement in drugs?
10. Why did Ash not tell anybody about Rehaan after finding out that he was involved in drugs?
11. Why do you think Ash told Aman about Rehaan?
13. Why did Ash want her family to forgive Kiri?
(Questions courtesy of the author.)
Blood Line
John J. Davis, 2014
Simon & Winter
251 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780990314417
Summary
If your family is a target, you have to be a weapon.
A Granger Spy Novel, Blood Line, is a high-voltage debut spy thriller and the first in a series about a family with killer talents. A father who is a former one-man kill squad for the CIA, a mother who is a past assassin for the Mossad, and a daughter coveted by both agencies. The Grangers are a blood-loyal clan—it’s how they stay alive.
When a simple home invasion turns out to be not so simple, Ron Granger must put aside his quiet rural life and return to the Central Intelligence Agency to take on international arms dealers.
Aided by his beautiful wife, Valerie, and resourceful teen daughter, Leecy, Ron must quickly decide who to believe—the calculating opportunists, shrewd criminals, or the power-hungry rival intelligence agencies. Any ally could be fatal—all of them are racing to possess the technological breakthrough that will forever change the face of modern warfare. But when Leecy is kidnapped, Ron and Val must choose between the mission and a rescue.
Facing an impossible decision, with time running out, Ron only knows one thing: When you can't trust anyone else, trust your family.
Author Bio
John J. Davis is the author of the Granger Spy Novel series, including Blood Line (2014)and Bloody Truth, (Spring 2015).
Davis grew up in the Southeastern US and after university traveled extensively in North America during his career as a regional sales rep and independent broker for leaders in the transportation, shipping and pharma industries. His years sitting in lobbies and airports honed his skill for human observation and fed his talent for writing fast-paced, character-driven stories.
His inspiration for the Granger family-of-spies comes from the people he has known and his family roots in the Carolinas—the extraordinarily strong and gentle women and men, whose lives are defined by the love, trust and respect for family. Currently at work on the third Granger Spy Novel and a screenplay, Davis lives near Atlanta with his wife, daughter and two dogs.
Visit the author's website.
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Book Reviews
Blood Line is compelling, with accelerating pace, surprising twists and a spectacular ending—readers will be eager for the sequel, coming soon!
Alan Rinzler, Consulting Editor
A story that gets deeper and more complex as you read…an original thriller.
Goodreads Review
This is a family to be reckoned with. Blood Line is non-stop, it holds you right from the first paragraph…well written and impossible to put down. John J. Davis has an immense imagination and I want to read more of his work.|
Goodreads Review
Brilliant and riveting book…throwing the reader straight into this dark fantasy. This is one good read…action, suspense, infant history and romance all in one boom!
Goodreads Review
Detailed, utterly intriguing and electrifying. The story blasts off and just keeps getting better and better. I couldn't put it down.
Goodreads Review
The first book in a series of novels about the Granger Family, and the way this book ends guarantees that I'll be picking up a copy of the next book in the series as soon as it's released!
Goodreads Review
…absolutely marvelous escapism a true beach read. With action and intrigue, there is a little stuff for the conspiracy theorist in us all. I look forward to the next in the series.
Goodreads Review
Davis sets a solid foundation for more adventures. Sharply written, starring characters readers will be happy to meet again.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. How would you describe the Granger family dynamic? How would you describe each character—Ron, Valerie & Leecy? Do you think Ron and Valerie have a close relationship?
2. Who do you feel is the main character in Blood Line? Which character do you relate to the most?
3. If you were Leecy's parents, would you have waited to tell her the truth about her family and family history? Why or why not? Would you make the same choice Leecy made to follow in her parent's footsteps?
4. Normal marriage partners and families don't reveal every last detail; they have surprise parties and events, for example. How would the Granger's deal with this side of family life?
5. Do you have a favorite quote or scene from the book?
6. This book is the start of a series, so it was necessary to include a lot of background information. Do you feel the background gave you a better understanding of the family?
7. John wanted the women in the book—Valerie, Leecy and Wakefield—to come across as strong, independent women. Did you get a sense of this underlying theme throughout the book? What scenes really cemented in your head their strength?
8. The second novel will launch in the spring of 2015. What do you think the Grangers should do next?
(Questions courtesy of the author.)