Card shark and ex-nun Farika Zingarella won the town of Simpering, North Dakota in the greatest card game ever played at The Huffy Hussy Casino & Billiards Parlor. Gathering five female geniuses to her side, she assembled a sisterhood so powerful that even the United States government had to watch its step. There wasn’t much to laugh about in 1919 – World War I had ended, fascism was already rising in Italy and American women took up the suffrage question. Then along came The Literary Society. You’ve never lived in a town like this!
The author, G.F. Skipworth, has toured much of the world as a concert pianist, symphony/opera conductor, composer, vocalist and opera coach. Along the way, however, he also worked as a speechwriter, in comedy and as an academic author. As he describes it, one day he sat down to write a fourth symphony, but a four-volume fantasy series came out instead, which he affectionately refers to as a “shoot ‘em up clang clang.” Following the “Fables of the Carpailtin Campfire,” he wrote a fantasy based upon the twenty four poems of Franz Schubert’s great song-cycle, “Winterreise (Winter Journey.) Moving on to historical fiction, he released “Stormfield – Tales from the Hereafter,” based on Mark Twain’s final incomplete work. Dr. Skipworth often refers to “The Simpering, North Dakota Literary Society” as his personal favorite, although writing dialogue for a cameo appearance by the razor-sharp Dorothy Parker was maddening, even worse than for Mark Twain (at least he paused to light a cigar now and then.) Currently, he resides in Portland, Oregon with his wife Barbara, where he serves on the faculty of Lewis & Clark College. Upcoming works include “The World-Weary String Quartet of Alliance, Nebraska” and “The Madonna of Dunkirk.” You can visit G.F. Skipworth’s site for more info.
My Opinion
As I have said in the past, I love historical fiction books! Since I live close to North Dakota, I thought this would be an especially interesting book to read. And it was! I liked how it was broken into many subheadings throughout the book to help differentiate between different characters and storylines. It made it a little bit easier to read that way. It was fun to hear about the Mighty Five that changed history in North Dakota forever! I learned things about that time period and North Dakota I never knew before!
It had a lot of history and facts in it so make sure you really like history, this time period and this storyline before you read the book.
I recommend The Simpering, North Dakota Literary Society to all history buffs and North Dakota fans. It will definitely help you liven up your North Dakota knowledge and history!
* Thank you to Pump Up Your Book for this book for review! Disclosure - This book was given for review for my honest opinion. No other compensation was given.*
1 comments:
This sounds like a great book. I am going to recommend it to my grandmother-in-law. They are from North Dakota. Thanks for the review.
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