October 2020 theme - Deception

Deception - all is not as it seems!

Deception, treachery, trickery - these are common themes throughout history. And it covers so many areas. I will include just a few here but I would love to hear what else you come up with!

Art Forgery
I Was Vermeer by Frank Wynne
Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art by Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo
Breaking Van Gogh by James Ottar Grundvig
The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro, for a fiction choice

Military Deceptions
- the Trojan Horse
- the lead up to the D-Day landings
Smoke and Mirrors by Deborah Lake - Q ships used during WWI (British armed ships diguised as mechant vessels)
Operation Mincemeat by Ben Macintyre

Identity
- the Princess Anastasia
- Sarah Edmonds posed as a man to fight in the American Civil War
- Belle Gunness (nicknamed Lady Bluebeard) faked her death to escape murder charges

Betrayal and treachery
-Marcus Brutus and Julius Caesar
- William Wallace
- Guy Fawkes
- Benedict Arnold
- Tokyo Rose
- pretty much anything to do with the Tudors!

Spies
Operation Garbo by Juan Garcia Pujol - this one sounds fascinating!
Double Cross by Ben Macintyre
any number of fiction books

This list barely touches the surface - I am looking forward to seeing your ideas!

Ian Pears Jonathan Argyll Series begins with "The Raphael Affair." I found the series to be quite enjoyable and it definitely fits this category.

"In The Raphael Affair, the first book in the series, we are introduced to Jonathan Argyll, an enthusiastic young art scholar from England who has followed his suspicions about a long-lost Raphael painting to a small church in Rome. Not only is the painting in question gone from the site, it has been swiftly purchased, restored, auctioned, and installed in Rome's National Museum. But when the recovered Raphael is just as swiftly destroyed in a fire, Argyll begins to suspect its authenticity…and the innocence of every person in its path."

I am planning on reading Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy by Karen Abbott. This is a non-fiction book about four women who went undercover during the American Civil War.

I have a great book on the D-Day deceptions and I've been wanting to read this one from my shelf: The True Story of the D-Day Spies.

At the moment, I'm still looking for nonfiction, but I might switch to fiction. Will have to look again later.

I’ve chosen for this month Midnight in Sicily by Peter Robb. The author tells the story of this beautiful island, “home to an ancient culture that . . . has seduced travelers for centuries.” But at its center is Cosa Nostra, the Mafia, that “reaches into every corner of Sicilian life.”

This came up with a tagmash using betrayal, and it sounds like it might fit (murder), though I'm not sure of the "historical" timeline.

Anyway, I'll aim for this one:
The Dark Heart: A True Story of Greed, Murder.. / Joakim Palmkvist

ETA: If that doesn't really fit + I have time, I might switch to fiction instead. Possibly one of these:
The White Princess / Philippa Gregory
Mary: Mrs. A. Lincoln / Janis Cooke Newman

I am wondering if Cornwell's Warlord Chronicles would qualify? The deception here being that Derfel writes up the story of Arthur for Queen Igraine in his native Saxon which his abbot cannot understand.

Plenty of "deception" in the works of The Master": The Spoils of Poynton, The Wings of the Dove, The Golden Bowl, to name just three.

I just finished a recent by John Le Carre, Agent Running in the Field 3***. Not all that bad, but definitely not to the level of the Karla Trilogy.

I have completed my read of Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War by Karen Abbott. This was a well researched, interesting story of 4 women, 2 from each side of the conflict, who couldn't stand aside and let the men fight the war.

I have started a thread for us to discuss our plans for next year: http://www.librarything.com/topic/324978 Please drop by with your input.

I've fiished two books that fit the deception theme. The Crowded Grave by Martin Walker and After Hannibal by Barry Unsworth.

Would someone look at the Wiki link please, it looks like we may have a error.

>14 clue: I've updated the Wiki - sorry, I hadn't done that for awhile.

>2 cfk: love love this series!! Ian Pears is one of my fav writers. I first read Pears larger books Instance of the Fingerpost and The Dream of Scipio before discovering Jonathan Argyll - what a great character, great fun! Learned a lot about art history as well

Oh just finished vanishing half which I think is about deception, and about many other things as well

Just realized from reading reviews above that a two volume series by Connie Willis fits this month,s theme. "Blackout" and "All Clear" both involve deception, first because the time traveling historians are posing (deceiving) as contemporaries of the events they are studying. In All Clear, there are references to the government's misreporting of sites hit by V1's and V2's as well as all the deception involved in deceiving Hitler into believing that the Allied Invasion would occur at both a different time and place. I really enjoyed both novels.

I pulled The Secret Life of Violet Grant off the shelves for this month. Not sure if it will fit but another book that I'm currently reading probably will The Secret Life of Anna Blanc where a society girl is posing as someone of a lower class so that she can work as for the police in Los Angeles in 1907. So many secret lives!

We are now looking for vounteers for next year's Reading Through Time. Come on over and sign up!

http://www.librarything.com/topic/324978

I think I can count Beat the reaper here, as the main character is a doctor in a Witness Protection program who used to be a hitman for the Mafia.

Ugh! The book I picked out is not really history (2012). Sigh... Obviously, I didn't notice that when I picked it. I'm already reading it, but I'm not sure if I'll pick an alternate or not. If I do, I won't likely get to it this month.

ETA: I see I picked out a couple of fictional ones above, so maybe I'll try to fit one in next month.

I finished Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies by Ben Macintyre was a non-fiction book entailing what great energy and manpower was expended in the effort to get the Germans to believe that the cross channel invasion of WWII was going to be at Calais instead of in Normandy. This was a program that began as early as 1940. There were so many MI5 and MI6 officials, spies, double agents, handlers, etc., that at times it was difficult to keep them all sorted. What was really new to me was the number of both German and Nazi officers who opposed Hitler and were working as spies to hasten his downfall. A very good read. 450 pages 4 stars

>22 Tess_W: Ooooh, that sounds interesting. (Could work for November's RandomCAT, too!)

For this month's challenge, I read:

The Iron King, Maurice Druon
Ivanhoe, Sir Walter Scott
The Last Kingdom, Bernard Cornwell

Plenty of deception, betrayal, treachery and spying to go around.

>24 countrylife: I've been reading Druon's series, I think I'm on book 6; it is so good!

Midnight in Sicily by Peter Robb. History, ancient and recent, architecture, food, people, past and present. It is recommended as a travel book. But the book is really about Cosa Nostra and its infiltration into literally every aspect of Sicilian life, which has resulted in economic and political corruption, huge numbers of emigrants, torture and murders, including children. Even the snow on Mt. Etna isn’t safe from them. According to a Palermo magistrate, “Cosa Nostra’s historical roots are in Sicily, the heart and the brain probably still are. But its activities and interests are now entrenched in the world economy.” An interesting but distressing read, to say the least.

>26 marell: Oh that looks good! It's going on my wish list.

I did finish a book for the deception theme, The Secret Life of Violet Grant which involved deceptive events in two time periods, one in America in the 1960s and the other in England and Germany just before the outbreak of WWI.

Ok, I'm late. What I originally chose didn't really fit, in the end, so I ended up with a historical fiction read, instead. I'd say this fits by her son "betraying" her.

Mary: Mrs. A. Lincoln / Janis Cooke Newman
3.75 stars

Mary Todd was Abraham Lincoln’s wife. She grew up in a well-off family, but Abraham was poor. They had four sons, but only one, Robert the oldest, made it to adulthood. Although Mary loved her son with all her heart, Robert never returned that love, nor the affection she so craved.

Ten years after Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, Robert had Mary confined to an insane asylum, though she insisted she was sane and didn’t belong there. This book goes back and forth in time from when Mary is confined to the asylum (and her attempts to have Robert have her released) back to when Mary met Abraham, their courtship, marriage and all the way up to what led Robert to confine her.

I quite liked this. I went back and forth, on thinking Mary didn’t belong in the asylum to wondering if she did. I can’t say I liked her much, but I certainly felt badly for her, as Robert was awful to her. I took 1/4 star off my rating because there is no historical/author’s note at the end. I know nothing about the real Mary – did these things really happen?

>29 LibraryCin: Its very likely they did. You might try Barbara Hambly Emancipator's Wife Hambly is a well known sci fi writer who also has written some historically accurate HFs. Loved this book, really opened up the complex history of Mary and Lincoln.

>30 cindydavid4: Thank you. I'll check it out!