内容摘要：For Collier, writing that story began with Unrivaled,

For Collier, writing that story began with Unrivaled,

Chernow’s biography avoids the trap of idolizing Twain and gives an honest assessment of the author’s life, including his flaws and contradictions.Revered for addressing the evils of slavery in “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” Twain was also someone who avoided lending his voice to condemning the practice of lynching. That silence, Chernow writes, was a major missed opportunity to help foster a national debate.

Chernow also delves into the uncomfortable subject of Twain’s obsession in his later years with teenage girls, developing close friendships with teens that he dubbed his “angelfish.”Chernow’s willingness to give readers the unvarnished truth about Twain makes the biography stand out, as does his ability to simultaneously explore the historical and literary context of Twain’s writing. Even Twain’s lesser-known works are addressed.Twain comes alive in the pages of Chernow’s biography, which shows how much he was influenced by his wife and her “delicate restraining hand.” It also portrays the complex and fraught relationship Twain had with his daughters.

The book drags at some points, which is inevitable in a tome of this size, and is strongest when it tells the relationship Twain had with the written word. Chernow writes that “words were his catharsis, his therapy, his preferred form of revenge.”The recurring theme of Chernow’s biography is Twain’s love affair with the written word, and it ably demonstrates the impact that relationship had on a nation.

Do we get to choose who we love? For Sylvie, the protagonist of Adelaide Faith’s “Happiness Forever,” the answer is surely an emphatic “No.” That’s because Sylvie is in love with her therapist, an older woman with peach-colored hair who lives within walking distance of Sylvie’s home. After 13 sessions, Sylvie spends her weeks counting down the hours until she and her therapist meet again. She can’t decide whether she wants the therapist to adopt her or simply hold her hand.

The question of what to do about this inconvenient obsession carries through Faith’s endearing debut novel. Sylvie knows she must respect the boundaries of the therapy room, but feeds her obsession in other ways — adopting her therapist’s style of dress; studying therapy on her work breaks at the vet clinic; staying alert for a chance encounter in the neighborhood dog park. If the therapist only loved her, Sylvie believes all her problems would be solved. “There might be no need to worry about carrying on when somebody else had already worked out the meaning of life,” Sylvie thinks.In August of that year, when German bombers were relentlessly targeting airfields in southern England and the outcome of the battle was still in doubt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill famously stood before the House of Commons to pay tribute to the young pilots who were defending Britain.

“The gratitude of every home in our island, in our empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the world war by their prowess and by their devotion,” Churchill said. “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”Britain has ever since revered “the few” for saving the country during its moment of peril. The Battle of Britain Memorial on the English Channel coast lists the names 2,941 Allied airmen who took part in the battle.

During dogfights with German aircraft in August of 1940, Hemingway was twice forced to bail out of his Hurricane fighter, once landing in the sea off the east coast of England before returning to his squadron to resume the fight, the RAF said. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for gallantry in 1941.But Hemingway dismissed suggestions of bravery and heroism, saying he was a pilot and had a job to do.