Recent Read: Monuments Men

I've finally read and finished, at long last, Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History by Robert M. Edsel with Bret Witter, a book I've been looking forward to reading for a long time. It was everything I'd hoped The Forger's Spell would be. Monuments Men is a lengthy book but well written. Short chapters focus on one or two art historians-turned-soldiers at a time, making it easy to keep track of everyone and their whereabouts.

One of my most favorite things about reading on historical places is that if I've been there the place comes alive for me again. If I haven't been there yet, it makes me want to go. Visiting Bavaria's Neuschwanstein Castle was one of the highlights of our family vacation last summer. It was also one of the big hiding places for European works of art during World War II and was part of this book.

The view from the castle is incredible!

Simon Callow's Charles Dickens

Two people have recently said exactly the same thing to me: that I must be planning to assign a lot of Dickens to my high schoolers this fall, because I'd loaded my Goodreads to-read shelf with a bunch of his novels. The real reason is that I've just finished Simon Callow's new biography, Charles Dickens (or called Charles Dickens and the Great Theatre of the World in the U.S.), which I picked up in London to coincide with Callow's one-man play on Dickens which I saw (it was wonderful, by the way). For nearly two hours Callow gave the audience Dickens' bio, hitting all the highlights of his interesting life. Sound a little boring? It wasn't. Callow was highly entertaining. So was his book. I'd learned a lot of new information about Dickens on my 2010 trip to London when I visited his house museum in Bloomsbury. A lot of what Callow did for me though was give both extra information and a fresh perspective on what I already did know about Dickens. Also while reading the bio, I realized how few novels by Dickens I've actually read (only Bleak House, Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities and A Christmas Carol), so I'm motivated to change that. I've got Oliver Twist downloaded onto my Kindle to start when the right moment comes. Here are a few photos from the Charles Dickens Museum:

 

Baltimore's Poe House in Danger of Closing

Edgar Allan Poe creeps me out. I have one of his books in my library and just looking at the cover is spooky. He's really the perfect writing to be reading for Halloween.

What's scary (because it's real) is that Poe's residence in Baltimore is in grave danger of closing due to lack of funding. He lived in the house from 1835 to 1837 and faces funding cuts from the city, an awkward location and not enough visitors to keep the place running.

The New York Times spelled out the problems in this article from August, as well as mentioned how other historical sites honoring Poe are fairing.

One thing I learned from this article that I'd never put together before: Baltimore's NFL team, the Ravens, are a nod to the author.