Author: gr4c5

I write. I read. I cook. I run. That's me, in a nutshell.

Dr. Zhivago

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Pasternak, Boris. Dr. Zhivago. New York: Pantheon, 1997.

At the heart of Dr Zhivago is a simple love story. The only problem is the love story involves the lives of more than just two people. Loyalty struggles with passion on a regular basis throughout the entire plot. The central thread of the story is these romantic relationships and how far people will go, literally and figuratively, to be together. Yuri Zhivago is married to someone he considers more of a friend but falls in love with the beautiful Larissa (Lara). Lara is married to a World War I soldier and when he goes missing she enters the war as a nurse to look for him. Surrounding these romantic struggles is the political unrest of Russia. Dr. Zhivago is laden with the events of the February and October Revolutions, the Russian Civil War and World War I. Lenin’s Bolsheviks, socialism, and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union dictate the plot and almost bury it beneath the political rhetoric.

Book Trivia: One of the most fascinating things about Dr. Zhivago is how it’s publication, exposure and subsequent recognition came about. Written at a time of political unrest in the Soviet Union it had to be smuggled to Italy where it was published in both Italian and Russian. Even after Pasternak was awarded the Noble Prize for literature he was unable to accept the award for fear of exile from his beloved country.

Author’s son Fact: When Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature he was forced to decline acceptance of the award. Years after his death his son was allowed to travel to Sweden to collect it.

Confession: I saw this as a movie way before I read the book. I remember two things from the movie: everything was very white and looked really cold and Julie Christie was a Barbie doll.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Russian Heavies” (p 210).

Flags of Our Fathers

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Bradley, James. Flags of Our Fathers. New York: Bantam, 2000.

The reading of Flags of Our Fathers was very timely. February 19th marked the anniversary of the famous flag raising on Iwo Jima, Japan. The first word that comes to mind when I think about Flags of our Fathers is respect. This was a book written with the utmost respect, not only for the author’s own father, but for the other five men responsible for raising the flag on Japan’s Iwo Jima. Everyone knows the photograph born of that historical event but not many can name the six men involved. In fact, even fewer would guess there were six men there. Unless you scrutinize the photograph, at first glance, there are only four. James Bradley, with the help of Ron Powers, brings to life all six men. He  brings them out of historical obscurity and into present-day focus.

Favorite lines (if there can be such things in a book about war): “The fatigued boys knew what lay in store when the winter sun rose again” (p 177). I liked this line for it’s sense of foreboding.
“And then the heroes of the day began literally stand up and be counted” (p 183). This sentence sounds so benign, so harmless on its own.
“On this night, the madman in the haunted house unleashed all his ghouls” (p 191). Again, such a simple sentence but the horror behind it is unimaginable.

Book Trivia: Clint Eastwood directed the movie version of Flags of Our Fathers in 2006.

Author Fact: James Bradley traveled to Iwo Jima with his mother and siblings to the very spot where his father helped raise the American flag.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter simply called “World War II Nonfiction” (p 254).

March ’12 is…

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What is March 2012 all about? Hard to say . Or as they say on Monhegan, hard tellin’ not knowin’. Fitting I suppose for a reading project still in limbo. I’m still reading books off my own shelves and borrowing books from my own library. To those not in the know that sounds strange, but there you have it.

Here are the books I *think* I’ll be reading in March:

  • A Grain of Wheat by Ngugi Wa Thiong’o (baptized James Ngugi) ~ in honor of March being African Writers Month
  • Little Town in the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder ~ in honor of the Dakotas (series was started in January)
  • Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101 Airborne from Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest by Stephen Ambrose ~ in honor of March 4th being “Hug a GI Day.” Since I don’t have a GI to hug, I’ll hug a book about World War II.
  • Lord of the Rings: Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien ~ in honor of New Years (series was started in January)
  • Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte ~ in honor of March being National Literature month.

For the Early Review program for LibraryThing – I never got the February book so we’ll see if it comes in March…Incidentally, I just checked the LibraryThing website and I was awarded a March book as well. Now the race is on to see which book makes it here first.

Long Winter

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Wilder, Laura Ingalls. The Long Winter. New York: Harper Collins, 1971.

This is the weirdest thing. Maybe I am losing my mind but I cannot find a single blog that mentions The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I couldn’t find mentioning it on any To Read list (better known as “Is” lists. I don’t mention having read it after the fact (known as “Was” lists) and I certainly didn’t review it anywhere. Not here and not on LibraryThing. And yet. Yet, I read it. Yes, I really read it. I know I did. It was next in the series after By the Shores of Silver Lake. I read By the Shores of Silver Lake in November. If I had been keeping up with reading the series as scheduled I would have read The Long Winter sometime in December. Little Town on the Prairie would come next; slated to be read in January.

So, better late than never. The review-

When we meet up with Laura and her family in The Long Winter Laura is now 14 years old. The year is 1880 and it is the family’s first year in De Smet, South Dakota. Pa has learned that the upcoming winter will be a particularly brutal one and since his homestead isn’t finished he moves the family into town. Laura isn’t thrilled with this move. She likes the wide open prairie land. But, as the snow starts to fly and continues to fly, storm after storm, she and the family have more to worry about. When the trains cannot get through food and supply shortages start to occur. All housebound families have little to eat and find themselves on the brink of starvation. Keeping the house warm is another problem. In the end, Laura’s future husband, Almanzo Wilder, and a friend save the day by finding a supply of wheat that lasts the town through the rest of the long winter.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “The Great Plains (The Dakotas)” (p 107).

February ’12 was…

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Considering the tumultuous way 2012 started February was a bit gentler and definitely easier to get through. I think celebrating a birthday definitely helped. It’s always good to have something to celebrate!
Here are the books read (or listened to) in February:

  • Mornings on Horseback by David McCullough ~ in honor of President’s Day (even though this had very little to do with Roosevelt being president of anything). This was an audio book and a real pleasure to listen to.
  • Bread and Jam for Frances by Russell Hoban ~ in honor of Hoban’s birth month. This was an oversized kids book!
  • Personal History by Katharine Graham ~ in honor of February being Scholastic Journalism month and this was all about Graham being involved with The Washington Post for nearly 60 years. This was a book left over from the Public Access to Library Services program.
  • Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien ~ a continuation of the series that I started in January. I have two more books that I will read through March and April (Two Towers and Return of the King).
  • A Far Cry From Kensington by Muriel Spark ~ Another audio book that was extremely funny.
  • Flags of Our Fathers by James Bradley with Ron Powers ~ in honor of the day in February (the 23rd) that the American flag was raised on the island of Iwo Jima in Japan.
  • Blues Dancing by Diane Kenney-Whetstone ~ in honor of Black History month AND Valentine’s Day. Yes, it was chick lit, but yes, it was also very good.

For the fun of it I read Book Lust To Go: Recommended Reading for Travelers, Vagabonds, and Dreamers by Nancy Pearl ~ a gift from my sister.

I also did a little housekeeping and realized I never reviewed The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I’m not sure how that happened, but it happened. So, while I didn’t read it this month I am including it in the list.

Signed, Sealed, Committed

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I celebrated another birthday recently. Nothing outrageous, nothing wild. It was pretty quiet except for the discovery that I am committed to be crazy. Hook. Line. Sinker. I am caught up in a colossal challenge I can’t (won’t?) escape. to explain:

In 2006 someone gave me Nancy Pearl’s Book Lust (better known as simply ‘BL’ in my world). Nothing more than a compilation of recommended reading for “every mood” as Pearl put it. When I first flipped through it I thought, “how quaint.” After some serious page turning I thought, “what a great idea to catalog all these books in such this way!” Funny how first impressions are so innocent. Hindsight definitely reveals a stranger, more elusive obsession in the making. I really don’t know how it all started. I don’t know what made me decide to read every single book indexed in Book Lust. All I do know is that after I was given More Book Lust (MBL) soon after that sealed the deal. Somehow that second book committed me to the challenge. I found myself promising to read EVERY book indexed in Book Lust AND More Book Lust. I wasn’t looking for a fight; no throw down. I didn’t challenge anyone to join me. This was going to be a battle fought by me, myself and moi. I remember meeting Nancy Pearl at a convention. After she signed my books I told her about my insane challenge. She seemed excited when she asked, “are you the one with the website?” but was definitely deflated when I said no, I wasn’t. To be fair, at the time I knew there was at least one other person with the same such project. She had a website and was soliciting book buyers to help her with her reading. I wasn’t that person. As a librarian I could do no such thing. Circulation is at the core of library success.

Anyway, fast forward to Happy Birthday to me. I’m opening a package from my sister. Sitting in my truck with the engine running because I just couldn’t wait. Despite being in my own driveway. I had to laugh when my own eagerness revealed Book Lust To Go: Recommended Reading for Travelers, Vagabonds, and Dreamers by Nancy Pearl. Here we go again. I knew myself all too well. The only question was how long would it take before I would decide to add all the titles of BLTG to my challenge? Not long. Not long at all. In fact, I hadn’t read a single word of BLTG before I was formulating a new plan. Adjustments would have to be made. Between BL and MBL I had amassed over 4,000 titles to read. At first glance I estimated BLTG would add another 2,000 unique titles…give or take.

And so it begins. I have a feeling LunaSea will be busy.

Far Cry From Kensington

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Spark, Muriel. A Far Cry From Kensington.

Can I just tell you how much I loved, loved, loved listening to this audio book? There were times when I nearly fell off New Guinea laughing so hard. By far, the best character of the lot was Agnes (Nancy) Hawkins. She was hysterical. Yes, she is the main character, but yes, she was that funny.

Mrs. Hawkins is the glorious and very witty narrator of A Far Cry From Kensington. Now decades older and living in Italy, Mrs. Hawkins reminisces with the reader about her life as a young war widow working in publishing and living in a rooming house in South Kensington, England. She recounts, with great hilarity to the reader, a mystery surrounding one of her former housemates, a Polish dressmaker by the name of Wanda. Wanda is being threatened, ultimately blackmailed, by someone sending anonymous letters. Mrs. Hawkins, being one of such confidence and admiration, is immediately called to consult on the issue. The plot thickens when Wanda subsequently commits suicide. I do not want to give more of the plot away but this was the first time I had ever heard of radionics or the phrase, “pisseur de copie.”

 

Because I listened to this as an audio book I don’t have any favorite lines to quote verbatim, but I can reference a couple of funny moments. Both quotes relate to advice Mrs. Hawkins is parsing out to her her friends and coworkers – first, in order to concentrate you need a cat. A cat that will lay all over your important papers. Second, when you don’t have sex you feel “spooky” whatever that means!

Author fact: Muriel Spark married a man much like the soldier she describes in A Far Cry From Kensington. I can’t help thinking maybe a little autobiography seeped into the story?

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust twice. First in the chapter called “My Own Private Dui: Books I Reread When I’m Feeling Blue (p 166) and again in “100 Good Reads: Decade by Decade (1980)” (p 179).

Blues Dancing

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McKinney-Whetstone, Diane. Blues Dancing: a Novel. New York: William Morrow and Co, Inc. 1999.

We had a long weekend to laze around and do nothing so I decided to spend part of that time lazing around with a really easy book to read. Indeed, I read it over the course of three days.

To say that the plot of Blues Dancing simple doesn’t do McKinney-Whetstone’s novel justice. The plot is pretty straightforward but the substance of it is, at times, difficult to read. At the center of the story is Verdi. We bounce between her naive life as a young college student and, twenty years later, her adult life as a professional in the field of education. Young Verdi is dating Johnson. Mature Verdi is dating Rowe. Johnson is a college student one year her senior while Rowe is a college professor twenty years older…guess where they met? Throughout the plot Verdi’s over-the-top, willing to do anything passion for Johnson is revealed and her reasons for being with stoic, stodgy, stick-in-the-mud Rowe twenty years later are at best, murky. It isn’t until the past and present collide that it all makes sense. Along the journey we learn that Johnson introduced Verdi to heroin and being so eager to love Johnson allowed Verdi to love the drug even more. Rowe’s presence during this time is shadowy, progressively coming more into focus.

Author Fact: Diane McKinney-Whetstone won the American Library Association’s Black Caucus Award for Fiction twice, once in 2005 and again in 2009.

Book Trivia: There was a lot of music in Blues Dancing (beyond the title of the book). Artists like Johnny Hartman, Louis Armstrong, Roberta Flack, The Temptations, and Sarah Vaughn perform within the pages.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “African American: She say” (p 12).

Fellowship of the Ring

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Tolkien, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings. “The Fellowship of the Ring.” Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1994.

The Fellowship of the Ring is the first book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I kept confusing this information whenever someone would ask me what I was reading. I kept saying “Lord of the Rings” when in fact I meant “Fellowship of the Ring.” I guess I was right to say “Lord of the Rings” because technically I AM reading a part of LOTR, but it’s not entirely accurate. Oh well. The devil is in the details as they say.

Anyway, on with the review:
A deadly ring, first acquired by the hobbit Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, has been passed along to Biblo’s cousin, Frodo. With this ring comes a request to destroy it at the Cracks of Doom, the one and only place it can be destroyed. It’s that evil. Frodo cannot refuse this request and must make the terrible journey across Middle-Earth through rough and dangerous enemy territory. He takes along a band of hobbits and enlists the help of elves, dwarves and, of course, Gandalf, the wizard.

I love the detailed descriptions Tolkien used to describe the landscape. Here’s one of my favorite quotes: “Ragged clouds were hurrying overhead, dark and low” (p 272).

BookLust Twist: Mentioned twice in Book Lust. First, in “100 Good Reads, Decade by Decade (1950s)” (p 177), and again in “Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror” (p 215). Of course.

Personal History

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Graham, Katharine. A Personal History. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997.

Even though I categorized this as an autobiography it is not a traditional “my life” story. Instead, it is Katharine Graham’s personal history with The Washington Post first and foremost. She begins with a brief overview of how her parents met, when and where she was born, and her college years. This sets the stage for her increased involvement with the paper. From the time she was 16 years old, when her father bought the failing Washington Post at auction, until the end of her role as chairman of the board in 1991, 58 years of Graham’s life was immersed in making the paper a success. Raised without a strong mother-figure or adolescent role models Katharine Graham was a trendsetter for women in business. For her era, her rise to power was nothing short of remarkable. But, in addition what makes Personal History such a fascinating read is Graham’s unflinching view of her world. She does not hide the fact she had a strained and difficult relationship with her absentee mother. Her voice drips with contempt when she recounts her mother’s failed attempts at guidance in life. Graham addresses her husband’s mental illness and subsequent suicide in a matter of fact manner. She does not sugar coat the difficulties she faced being a woman of influence in a world traditionally reserved for the man of the house. Despite being born into privilege Graham exemplified the meaning of hard work and perseverance.

Favorite quote (but only because you can just hear the disdain in Graham’s voice as she describes her mother), “…she could often be found reclining with a book in her hand” (p 31).

Book Trivia: Personal History won a Pulitzer Prize in 1998.

Author Fact: Katharine Graham died in 2001 and is buried in one of my favorite cemeteries, Oak Hill, in Washington D.C.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “The Fourth Estate” (p 92).

Mornings on Horseback

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McCullough, David. Mornings on Horseback: the Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt. Narrated by Edward Hermann. New York: Simon & Schuster Audio, 2003.

I am really, really glad I chose this as an audio book. I don’t think I would have had the patience for an out and out page turning book. Don’t get me wrong. The writing is amazing. David McCullough can hold your attention like no other. The story in itself is extremely detailed and reads like a pool liner breaking – slow and trickling at first but by the end gushing out of control. It follows the lives of not just Theodore Roosevelt (the man we think of as President) but also the lives of his parents, siblings, and other important figures in his life. Indeed, the building up of Theodore Roosevelt’s childhood with his family is meticulous and yet his adult, political years and presidency are hardly touched upon with the same amount of detail. Those years are mentioned almost as an afterthought in the wrap-up.
What Mornings on Horseback is really good at is describing a culture; what it means to born into privilege. It is also really good at painting the complete picture of the Roosevelt clan from a genealogical perspective. The reader is immersed in the lives of everyone and not just the future president of the United States. From a listener standpoint I enjoyed every word.

Shocking moments: Theodore Roosevelt could be a violent man. According to McCullough Roosevelt once shot and killed a dog running beside his horse. Another shocking moment – learning TR lost his dear mother on Valentine’s Day and later that same day his wife (all of 22 years old) died as well. So sad!

I think the title of this book is misleading. Theodore Roosevelt was born Theodore Roosevelt so he didn’t become his namesake. I think it would have been more appropriate to say “…the unique child who became president.” Yes, Theodore had many nicknames (Teedee as a child) but he didn’t become Theodore Roosevelt.

Book Trivia: Mornings on Horseback won a National Book Award in 1982.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Presidential Biographies” (p 192), and again in “What a (Natural) Disaster (p 242). Note: There are no substantial natural disasters in Mornings on Horseback.

February ’12 is…

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I feel like I should be singing that diet song that Jennifer Hudson sings – you know the one about it being a new day, a new dawn or a new whatever? Every February I see a chance to refresh, renew, in other words start the fukc over. Think New Years resolutions only a month late. But. But! But, I have my reasons. I was born in the month of February so to me, this month IS my new year. I shouldn’t be here so every year that I am is like starting over. But, enough about all that. Here are the books:

  • Bread and Jam for Frances by Russell Hoban in honor of Hoban’s birth month. I plan to read this on a smoke break. LOL
  • Personal History by Katharine Graham in honor of February being Journalism month.
  • Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer in honor of February being a big month for history.
  • Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien to continue the Lord of the Rings series that I started with The Hobbit last month.

I did get notification that I got an Early Review book from LibraryThing. That’s cool. What’s even cooler is that it’s a book about the Coast Guard. Having just come from an very, very classy veteran’s (air force) funeral for my uncle I am interested to explore the history of my father’s military branch.

Edited to make a correction: I misspelled Mrs. Graham’s first name as Katherine. My apologies.

Bread and Jam for Frances

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Hoban, Russell. Bread and Jam for Frances. New York: Harper Collins, 1993.

Okay. A confession first and foremost. I am fortunate enough to work in a library. While it’s an academic I often can find books for the Book Lust Challenge in our collection. Since we have an Early Childhood reading program that means we have most of Russell Hoban’s books as well; specifically his ‘Frances’ series. Normally it isn’t big deal to grab a children’s book off the shelf, read it at lunch and return it without fanfare. Not so this time. Our copy of Bread and Jam for Frances is over-sized which means walking around with it isn’t as inconspicuous as I would have liked. You can’t exactly slip out from the stacks with a 2′ x 1′ book in your hand without being noticed. It’s not like I can hold it up and announce I’m reading War and Peace, the large print version.

Unlike an earlier Hoban review (Bedtime for Frances) I enjoyed rereading this childhood favorite, Bread and Jam for Frances. This time around I identified with wanting too much of a good thing. Frances the Badger only wants to eat bread and jam. Morning, noon, and night it’s the only meal she will stomach. This time when her parents give in to her every whim the lesson is soon learned. You can have too much of a good thing. I feel the same way about Chipotle restaurant being in my back yard. When it was all the way across the country and harder to get to going there was a treat. Like Christmas. Having the big burritos I obsess over just down the road diminishes their specialness, their chocolate-cakeness, if you will. Frances learns this the hard way, too. While her family is enjoying such delicacies as veal Frances is clearly missing out only she doesn’t know it until the repetition of bread and jam finally gets to her. Soon she too is enjoying lobster salad sandwiches like the rest of her family.

Cute moment in the book: Frances questioning her food: “string” bean, for one. I wished she would have asked her parents where veal comes from. I would have loved their answer to that!

Today is my birthday and it seemed more than appropriate to read something from my childhood.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Russell Hoban: Too Good To Miss” (p 113). PS ~ Only two more books to read from this chapter of More Book Lust.

I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell

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Max, Tucker. I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. New York: Kensington, 2009.

If there really is a Hell down? there, those fated to that destination will have this book to read, over and over again. Seriously. How can I describe this thing? Honestly, in one sentence, it’s the escapades of a guy in his early 20s. Big deal. That’s it. Only this guy happens to be an alcoholic womanizer with money to burn and a posse like-minded friends to have tag along. The book is nothing more than a series of drunk-to-excess adventures hooking up with ditzy, drunk, trashy women. Sex described in minute detail. Reading it is like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, only each story gets progressively worse and worse. Every misadventure is more and more exaggerated until you start to question the author’s grip on reality. Drink to the point of puking. Have outrageous sex with big chested blondes. Repeat. The most stupefying thing about this book is that not only was it born out of conquest-written blogs, but it was so popular that it was made into a movie. People love it (the blog, the book, the movie). Women (supposedly) throw themselves at Max and his crew at every chance they get. The more vile he is the more people adore him. His biggest dilemma used to be ‘which woman do I fukc?’ until he realized it didn’t matter. Both would have him.
I admit, there were parts of the book I giggled about. There were certain lines I had to reread because they were funny. Max does have a sense of humor. But, he can’t write. I spent more time cringing at the grammatical errors and implausible situations than anything else. Then, there is that repetition I mentioned before. I ended up skimming or even completely skipping parts if I thought they sounded too familiar (which ended up being half the book). The best thing about I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell is that I will be selling it back to the bookstore and getting my money back.

Zimmerman Telegram

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Tuchman, W. Barbara. The Zimmerman Telegram. New York: Viking Press, 1958.

I can only imagine how popular this book must have been in its day. The First Great War was not a distant memory at the time of its publication. In fact, the events of World War I were probably still fresh in everyone’s mind having just survived the Second World War. I know The Zimmerman Telegram was required reading for at least one political science course at my college.

Probably the most compelling thing about Tuchman’s writing is her ability to make even well-known history as compelling whodunnit mystery. Written as smoothly as a novel The Zimmerman Telegram recounts the events leading up to the United State’s involvement in World War I starting with a telegraph written by Arthur Zimmerman to Imperial German Minister in Mexico Von Eckhardt. This telegram was  proposing a partnership between Germany, Mexico and Japan to form an allegiance against the U.S. Intercepted by the British, it is important to point out that the U.S. was reluctant to join the war until provoked by this telegram.

The line that summed it all up for me (and was ironically enough on the first page),”Mute and passive on the paper, they gave forth no hint that a key to the war’s deadlock lay concealed in their irregular jumble” (p 3).

Disclaimer: I wasn’t supposed to read this until 2013 but I felt so bad about abandoning A Distant Mirror that I wanted to read something else by Tuchman before the month was over.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Barbara Tuchman: Too Good To Miss” (p 225).