Tag Archives: Books

The Woman Who Wasn't There: The True Story of an Incredible Deception by Robin Gaby Fisher
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Two years after the attacks of 9/11, a survivor named Tania Head started posting to survivor's forums online. She was one of only 19 people who had been above the point of impact in the South Tower of the World Trade Center and survived. Her remarkable story of escape -- her arm nearly torn off, her assistant decapitated, the fireman who led her to safety as the tower collapsed, her days of unconsciousness in a New York City burn unit -- was made all the more heartrending by the fact that her husband died in the North Tower.

In a short period of time, her forceful, magnetic personality, combined with her amazing story, made her the face -- and the heart -- of the survivors' network. She helped found and became the beloved president of the World Trade Center Survivors' Network and lobbied successfully to have the 9/11 survivors recognized on par with rescue workers and the victims' families. She gave tours of Ground Zero to visitors and dignitaries such as Rudy Guiliani and Eliot Spitzer. She was instrumental in the saving of the "survivors' staircase," which had been slated for demolition. She got the survivors admitted to the official anniversary ceremonies.

In time, though, discrepancies in her stories started to be noticed. She grew increasingly paranoid and wary of the press and started to have something of a split personality, being unimaginably cruel at times to other survivors -- people who were supposed to be her best friends. Eventually her story was entirely discredited, and in September 2007 the New York Times revealed her to be a true fraud -- she had not even been in the United States on the date of the attacks, and not a single part of her story was true.

I know a couple of people who I believe to be pathological liars, and as bizarre as their fabrications are, this blows them out of the water. Perhaps the strangest part of the story is that Tania Head made no money off of her deception -- her motivation has never become known, but she received no monetary benefit (and, in fact, spent sums of her own money on the survivors' cause) and collected only acclaim, concern, and love.

I couldn't put this book down. The first part of it goes into Tania's (fabricated) story in great detail. The reader knows from the beginning -- from the title and the information on the book flap -- that none of it is true, which makes it even more compelling. The amount of research about the attacks that Tania must have done in order to concoct her story had to have been astounding. By the time I reached the end, I couldn't decide whether I should be angry, sad, disgusted, or some combination of all of the above. What would ever lead someone to do something like this? Did she do it out of cruelty to the true survivors? Was her own life so sad and meaningless that this was the only way she could feel loved and appreciated? Mostly, though, I felt betrayed right along with the real survivors.

Publication date 4/3/2012

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If Walls Could Talk: An Intimate History of the Home by Lucy Worsley
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

From the title of this book, you might expect a historical treatment of the home itself -- perhaps a book about architecture -- but it's far more than that. Lucy Worsley, chief curator for Britain's Historic Royal palaces, uses the four main rooms of the home -- the bedroom, bathroom, living room, and kitchen -- as a framework for revealing the lives of the people who live within those walls.

It sounds dull on paper, but the book is fascinating. And it answers questions I've always wondered about (how on earth did women go to the bathroom in those gigantic dresses? How did families manage to all sleep in a single bed/bedroom?) and things I never realized I wanted to know (how were bodies preserved for public viewings? How did personal hygiene evolve?). The book touches on all sorts of topics -- sexuality, cooking, sleeping, boardinghouses, outhouses, you name it -- and shows how societal norms evolved alongside such things as indoor plumbing, automatic appliances, and duvets.

This isn't a scholarly history, but it's an engaging, lively work of popular history, with Worsley's dry wit evident throughout. I would particularly recommend it to people who enjoy Downton Abbey, The Tudors, or other period television shows, as it provides an interesting backdrop to what's happening onscreen and why.

Electronic review copy received from the publisher via NetGalley. Publication date March 7, 2012.

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The Thorn and the Blossom: A Two-Sided Love Story by Theodora Goss
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What a beautiful little novella. The Thorn and the Blossom is the story of Evelyn and Brendan, who meet in a bookstore in a small town in Cornwall and feel an instant connection. They spend several days together, then part and don't see each other for years. Inevitably, though, their paths cross again, leaving the reader to contemplate the true nature of their mysterious, haunting love story.

The book is accordion-bound, making it two-sided -- Evelyn's story on one side, Brendan's on the other. The reader can choose which to read first; the two sides of the story run parallel, with repeated dialogue and such, but after reading the second perspective we come away with a different understanding of the first as well. I read Evelyn's story first; I wonder how different the book would have seemed if I'd read Brendan's first. It's a really interesting way to present a story; as a librarian, though, I wonder how well the book would hold up, physically, to library use. The paper is good-quality and quite heavy, and there is a sturdy slipcover, so I suppose it all comes down to how careful patrons are with it!

The book itself, in addition to being bound quite uniquely, is really lovely. The artwork on the slipcase reminds me of beautiful old botanical prints, and the story is illustrated with several block prints. The artistic style lends the book a very strong sense of timelessness and permanence.

The writing is gentle and lyrical, and reminded me very much of the epic romances I read so many of during college. I was a medieval literature major (both Brendan and Evelyn are medievalists) and spent a semester in England, as Evelyn did, so that section in particular made me feel nostalgic. Then after finishing the book, I read the Q&A with the author that Quirk sent along as well, and was struck by this sentence: "But in the end, a book is never created entirely by its writer. Readers will imagine these things for themselves, each in a different way. The forest will be the forests they've walked through; the love story will be relationships they've experienced. And that's as it should be. That's what reading's all about -- participating in the story." How very true.

Expected publication date: January 17, 2012

Copy received for review from Quirk Books

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