"The Wright Brothers" by David McCullough (Simon & Schuster 2015)

When I was in law school I read David McCullough's biography of John Adams.  It was so engrossing and well-written that I have now read almost all of McCullough's books.  In 2011, my husband and I travelled to Washington, D.C. to go to the National Book Festival so I could see McCullough speak in person.  Needless to say, I am a big fan.  So I was waiting excitedly for his newest book to come out, featuring the Wright Brothers.  I was not disappointed.

Of course, I knew who the Wright Brothers were and that they performed the first flight at Kitty Hawk, but that was probably the extent of what I knew.  I really enjoyed learning about how Orville and Wilbur Wright came to make that first flight.  The brothers basically tossed aside any then-current ideas about how to fly, and came up with their own theories that allowed them to succeed where everyone else had failed.  They rejected the notion that it was impossible and spent countless hours researching, watching birds, and building a wind tunnel to test their hypotheses.  And of course, there was significant danger involved.  The brothers decided early on that they would not fly together in case one of them was killed so that the other would be able to continue.

What happened after that first flight is significant as well because it was full of "firsts".  Altitude, time and distance records were set.  There was the first passenger, later the first female passenger, and even, unfortunately, the first fatality.  Everything was new.  The brothers took planes to Europe and showed them off there.  There were periods where one brother was flying in Ohio and the other in Europe, each besting the others' records.  It was one accomplishment after another.

I live on the flight path to an airport and see airplanes all the time and give them almost no thought.  We take for granted being able to easily travel by plane to distant lands.  I can only imagine how exciting it must have been for those who saw the first flights, especially those who thought flight was impossible or that the Wright brothers' success was essentially a hoax.  It is even more amazing when you consider how quickly technology went from that first flight at Kitty Hawk to landing man on the moon. 

This book is one of McCullough's shorter works, and didn't take me much time to read at all.  He has a way of telling a story so that you can't wait to turn the page and find out what happens next.  I really enjoyed reading it and learned a lot about a topic I never considered reading about before.  In fact, had the book not been written by McCullough, I probably never would have given it a second thought. 

The Wright Flyer, the original plane from that first flight, now resides at the Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.  I have seen it there before, but never really paid it much attention.  That will change next time because I will have a much better appreciation for its significance and the time and effort it took to create and fly it.

"Paris: The Novel" by Edward Rutherfurd (Ballantine Books 2013)

I don't read a whole lot of fiction, but when I do, my favorite are the historical fiction novels by Edward Rutherfurd.  I always get really exited when a new one comes out and I think I have read all eight of them now.  I was particularly excited when I saw that his latest one was about Paris, my favorite city.  I think this might have been my favorite of them all!

If you aren't familiar with Rutherfurd's books, they all feature a particular city or region and follow a set of families over hundreds of years.  The families intermingle in varied ways -- some generations hate each other; some are best friends or marry each other.  The characters also interact with actual historical figures and events in a realistic way.  Some books start as early as prehistoric times while "Paris" goes back as far as 1261.  One thing that was different about this book was that instead of being written in a straight chronological order, the story jumps back and forth over time.  So, for example, Chapter One starts in 1875; Chapter Two skips ahead to 1883; and Chapter Three jumps back to 1261.  I thought at first this would be confusing but I ended up really liking this format.  Things would happen in a chapter you were reading and then a later chapter would reveal how it got to that point.  It was kind of an "aha" moment when what you read earlier became clear.  I enjoyed the discovery aspect of that.

Another reason I particularly enjoyed this book was because I know Paris pretty well, having been there five times at the time I read the book a couple of months ago -- I have since been back there one more time.  Consequently, I knew exactly where many the events in the book were taking place and could visualize everything that much better.  I really need to go back and read the books that are set in London and Dublin, having been to each of those cities a couple of times recently.  I imagine I would enjoy those books even better now for the same reason.

One thing that might scare some people from reading this book is the length, at 805 pages.  However, I read it more quickly than you might expect because it easily held my interest.  I had a number of periods where I read for several hours straight because I couldn't put the book down.

This and all the books by Edward Rutherfurd are ideal for lovers of history as well as those who tend to be bored by non-fiction books because you get to learn about the history of a location in an interesting yet non-academic way.   This would also be a great book to read before visiting Paris (or the setting of any of the other books).  I definitely recommend it.

"The Great Decision: Jefferson, Adams, Marshall, and the Battle for the Supreme Court" by Cliff Sloan and David McKean (PublicAffairs 2009)

This was the book I brought with me when I went to visit my parents in Arizona during my school's Spring Break.  It is the first time in a long time I have gotten though an entire book in just a week.  It reminded me that I need to read more!

As a lawyer and an legal educator, I am of course familiar with the case of Marbury v. Madison.  However, I really only knew the very basics of the case and its importance in the legal history of the United States.  So I really enjoyed reading more about this obviously important case.



The US Supreme Court

In case you are unaware of this case, it is the landmark case from 1803 that gave the US judiciary the ability to determine whether laws are constitutional or not.  This is something we take for granted today but it was very much an open question early in our country's history.  Very few people at the time anticipated the strong and co-equal judicial branch we have today.  There were a lot of politics involved in the case because the actions being reviewed took place as John Adams was leaving office and Thomas Jefferson was taking Adams' place. Adams made some last minute federal appointments that Jefferson did not want to honor because there was an error in the delivery of the commissions.  The Court had to decide whether the men Adams appointed were entitled to their positions or not. 

I read a lot of historical non-fiction books and sometimes they can have a very academic and thereby dry feeling to them.  Fortunately, this book did not fall into that category.  It was a pretty fast read and it flowed really well in a story-like manner.  I really enjoyed reading it and found it hard to put down when I got into the meat of it.  I learned a lot of new things about the case.  I am going to add this to my list of books that I recommend to my paralegal students if they are interested in legal history.

"A Brief History of Ireland: Land, People, History" by Richard Killeen (Running Press 2012)



In January of 2014, I made my first trip to Dublin, Ireland.  I went there with my friend, Bridget, to scope out the city for the study abroad trip I was planning.  Probably my favorite site there was Kilmainham Gaol, a jail rich with the history of Irish independence from Britain.  I took the guided tour and realized quickly that I had no idea what I was really seeing.  Essentially, it would be like going to a US Revolutionary War site and never having heard of George Washington.  My knowledge of Irish history was pretty much limited to the potato famine and some vague understanding of issues between Catholics and Protestants, which is pretty embarassing considering many of my ancestors were from Ireland.


Kilmainham Gaol
 

In January of 2015 I led the study abroad trip that I was researching the year before.  I didn't get to Kilmainham Gaol this time but I left Dublin knowing I needed to learn more about Irish history.  So when I got home I went to Barnes & Noble, browsed the limited collection of books on Irish history and chose this one. 

"A Brief History of Ireland" starts with the prehistory of the island and finishes in Dublin in 2007.  It is definitely brief, in that is really only touches on the basics of each important phase of Irish history.  I knew already that I was most interested in the events surrounding the Irish Rising of 1916.  Modern history doesn't interest me much, so I sort of lost interest in the book once I got past that part.  But of course, that isn't the fault of the book.  The history of the development of Dublin was interesting as well, having just been there.  It was fun to know I had been to many of the places mentioned in the book.



Kilmainham Gaol

This book gave me exactly what I was looking for: a general understanding of the whole of Irish history.  With that background in mind, I will now look for a more in-depth book regarding the Rising.  I got a few ideas from bookstores I browsed in Dublin.  I have also already purchased a book about the potato famine.

I would definitely recommend this book to someone like me who was looking for something basic.  It wouldn't be approriate for someone who already had this understanding.  I would particularly recommend it to someone who was planning a trip to Ireland.  My first trip to Kilmainham Gaol would have been much more meaningful had I read this book first.  At least I know that when I go back, I will really comprehend the significance of the place in a way I couldn't before.

"A Million Steps" by Kurt Koontz (2014)

In 1995 I spent a semester in León, Spain.  It was there that I first learned of the Camino de Santiago because one of the major stops is on the Camino is in León.  The Camino is a pilgrimage across Spain that thousands of people walk or bike each year.  The most popular route starts just across the Pyrenees from Pamplona, Spain and runs for almost 500 miles to Santiago de Compostela in the Galicia region of Spain, north of Portugal.  I don't have a bucket list, but if I did this pilgrimage would be on it.

The author of this book was a successful businessman from Idaho who was able to retire at the age of 36.  In 2012, in his late 40's, he walked the Camino in 28 days.  This book documents that journey.  

I really enjoyed this book.  It is a very quick read and has short chapters that made it easy to pick up and put down whenever I had a few minutes to read.  I was taken by the personal insights he gained on the Camino and the ways he was able to think about how to put those insights into action in his life after the Camino.  I enjoyed reading about the people from all around the world that he encountered while on the journey, and how they popped in and out of his life along the way.  I don't think anyone can read this book and not come away wanting to do the Camino him/herself. 

I have always had the Camino in the back of my mind, but it is now something I think I might need to find a way to do.  I don't know that I would do the entire 500 miles; but I think I will more seriously consider now doing at least part of it.  It seems like a life-changing journey.

"Out of Order: Stories from the History of the Supreme Court" by Sandra Day O'Connor (Random House 2013)

In March of 2014, I went to visit my parents at their winter home in Arizona.  One of my main objectives while I was there was to go to the Tucson Festival of Books at the University of Arizona.  I am a big fan of book festivals and this was my second time at this particular festival.  I am a US Supreme Court junkie and wanted to see a talk by retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.  We were really lucky we got in as the line was already long by the time we got there and I think I and my parrents were literally the last people they let in.  My dad didn't even get a seat. Her talk was primarily about her work as an advocate for civics education in schools.  It was interesting, although I was hoping to hear more about her experiences on the Court.

At the festival, there is a tent where you can buy books by the authors presenting there.  That is where I picked up this book.  It was a quick read and generally enjoyable, but I think it is targeted towards people who are largely unfamiliar with the Supreme Court and its history.  I didn't really come away having learned anything new, aside from the fact that there is a basketball court above the courtroom.  That I didn't know.

I also wasn't thrilled with the style of writing, which again I think is because of its target audience.  The language is a bit too informal for my liking for this kind of topic.  For example, I tend to not like the use of exclamation points in nonfiction work as a way of emphasizing a point.  There were a lot of exclamation points in this book! (irony intended).  Also, there was a lot of repetition of facts from chapter to chapter which was distracting for me but probably a good reenforcement technique for readers new to the topic.  Law can be a bit dry and this book isn't at all dry.

Overall, I enjoyed reading the book.  It certainly wasn't a waste of time because it only took me a few days to get through and I always like to hear about "behind the scenes" aspects of the Court from the point of view of a Justice.  I would definitely recommend this book for those less familiar with the Court and I will add it to my list of recommended reading for my paralegal students who are interested in this topic.

Recipe Review -- Strawberry Preserve Cupcakes

This recipe comes from the cookbook "The Cupcake Bible:  More than 150 recipes for fun and delicious cupcakes" (Publications International, Ltd. 2011).  The recipe is on page 70.  It is basically a doctored up boxed strawberry cake mix and includes a small scoop of strawberry preserves in the middle of the cake.
 

Because it uses boxed mix, the recipe was very easy to make.  The only tricky part was the filling of the cupcake cups.  You put in a small amount of batter, add the preserves, and then cover with more batter.  I had a hard time figuring out how much batter to start
with, and as a result I ended up filling the cups more than I probably should have.  As a result, I only got 18 cupcakes rather than the 24 the recipe said it would yield.  I used a vanilla whipped variety of prepackaged frosting, and I topped the frosting with pink sugar.


Overall, these were not successful. They taste fine, and the strawberry preserves give it a fresher strawberry flavor than you would get from just the box mix.  The biggest problem was the filling.  In the picture in the cookbook, when you cut the cake open the preserves were intact (think of what the filling in a Hostess cupcake would look like if you cut the cake open).  However, as you can kind of see in my picture, the preserves got completely absorbed into the cake, leaving a hole.

In the end, while I will enjoy eating these, I don't think I'd make them again.  Strawberry isn't one of my favorite flavors to begin with and there just isn't the payoff from the preseves that I was hoping to get with this cake.  I'm also not sure what I could do differently to prevent the absorption of the filling.