Books

By Cheree Cleghorn, Editor

This is a pre-Thanksgiving special of a totally different kind.

This may seem like an odd book for a health care website to recommend but it really is relevant.

Health is one part of the world’s ways and means or the lack of them. Understand the latter, and the health status of the people starts to become understandable.

My friend, author Laura Sessions Stepp ( Our Last Best Shot and Hooking Up), dragged me into a series by the late Dorothy Dunnett—-which you can begin by reading about an unlikely fellow,Niccolo, in the 14th century. Too many battles, it sounded like to me. As I trust Laura, and as she was brimming over with enthusiasm, the “You have got to read this,” kind, I did. Am I glad I listened to her.

The author wrote the end of the series first but pay no attention to that.

Follow the centuries. Begin in the 1400s, the first time there was a “global” economy—-ships set out to take goods and trade them, bringing home riches never seen.

I will not spoil it by telling you more about these treasures. Also, there are terrible diseases, just to mention health, as well as sanitation (as in little). Plenty of health care topics for us.

Niccolo, the main of hundreds of characters, starts out playing the fool, shows himself to be a financial and political fox, then he appears as a financial genius, all the while making his way through a world which was changing all around him.

We could say Niccolo was a man born to seize every opportunity an emerging global economy could offer. A man who evaded plagues. Escaped danger.

Starting to sound familiar?

Foreign lands, evil opponents, mysterious financial instruments? It’s all there. And, as they say in many product promotions, there is much, much more.

Our time, in many ways, mirrors that time, some 600 years ago. Some devoted fans compare writer Dunnett to Patrick O’Brian, who wrote the incomparable series about the seas, and whose work is much better known. It is that rich.

There is no way to spot the Niccolo of the 21st century yet. There is one out there, somewhere.

Be warned: this is no easy or fast read. I am a voracious reader and the author drove me mad with too many characters, action here and then there. What was this story about? The world. That’s why it was so jangling. The world is much with us.

Magically, if you stay with her, the story lines start to come together, and you likely will be mesmerized. Or not.

While the world is in upheaval, you can sit down with Niccolo and realize…it has happened before. Everything.

And we’re still here.

The first book in the series, out of print, is Niccolo Rising, by Dorothy Dunnett.

It will be a Thanksgiving feast no matter what’s going on outside.