Category: BookLust I

A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains

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Bird, Isabella. A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1960.
Bird, Isabella. A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains. London: John Murray, 1881.

Reason read: Colorado became a state on August 1st, 1876.

In what started as letters to her sister Isabella Bird paints vivid pictures of a very young Colorado as she travels from the Sandwich Islands to Estes Park, Colorado. Because the trip to the Hawaiian islands is so fresh in Bird’s mind, she can’t help but make interesting comparisons between the tropical island and the wild western plains. She even wears the same clothes in both climates. As with Bird’s other adventures, her courage and tenacity shine through her prose. Most memorable for me was the fact Bird would don a long skirt and ride polite side saddle in the company of men but alone she would wear pants and ride western style. Comfort, not propriety, was her ultimate goal.

As an aside, it is encouraging to think there is a wilderness in Colorado that still exists to this day; one that Isabella Bird would say looks exactly the same. How can one not think of Natalie Merchant’s Cowboy Romance?

Lines I liked, “Is common humanity lacking, I wonder, in this region of hard greed?” (p 27), “I longed to speak to someone who loved the mountains” (p 90) and “At this account of the ascent of Long Peak could not be written at the time, I am disinclined to write it, especially as no sort of description within my powers could enable another to realise the glorious sublimity, the majestic solitude and the unspeakable awfulness and fascination of the scenes in which I spent Monday and Tuesday (p 91).

Author fact: Bird was only 72 when she passed away. I like to think about the places she would have explored had she had more time. She was the first woman elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.

Book trivia: A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains was originally published in 1879. Colorado was only three years old at the time. The maps and illustrations are wonderful.

Nancy said: Pearl didn’t say anything specific about A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains but she mentioned that Bird was “one of the more dashing and irresistible travelers” (Book Lust p 143).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the simple chapter called “Lady Travelers” (p 142).

Best of Everything

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Jaffe, Rona. The Best of Everything. New York: Penguin Books, 1958.

Reason read: August is the best time to read Chick Lit.

The year is 1952 and women in the workplace are finding their collective ambitious voice. In The Best of Everything five young women seemingly only have the employment of a New York publishing company in common. Caroline wants to climb the corporate ladder; to go from typist to editor. April is as naive as they come but learns the timeless power of sex appeal. Gregg has the life of a jet setting actress, but secretly wants to settle down and be a housewife. Barbara is a single mother with a young daughter and Mary Agnes is mousy; too shy for words.

One central theme to The Best of Everything is the need women feel to protect themselves from predatory men. They are always defending themselves against the less than admirable advances of the amorous kind. There is a great deal of strategic purse shuffling and genius body blocking at parties and at the office. Yet, they all want to be married to respectable men.

A few quotes (out of hundred) to quote, “It’s like holding hands and jumping off the top of a building; did we think it was going to be any easier because we were holding hands?” (p 95), “It was like trying to categorize something in order to make it exist” (p 118), “The hard mechanical palm he had extended to her in his handshake had not been a unique phenomenon, it had simply been an uncovered part of the entire unyielding whole” (p 164), and probably the most tragic quote ever, “She leaned out the window and all of a sudden the mile long limousine with the two of them in it and the liveried chauffeur and the armful of rises and the soft music and the hip flask if bourbon wasn’t glamorous anymore; it was ridiculous; they were two frantic stupid people speeding through an ugly-smelling countryside to attend the murder of love” (p 194).

Author fact: In 2005 Jaffe wrote a foreword to The Best of Everything. In it she admitted her rise to success happened before she had even published the book. Who she knew helped a great deal.

Book trivia: The Best of Everything is Rona Jaffe’s first novel and it became a New York Times Best Seller and a movie.

Nancy said:  The Best of Everything is a given when thinking about the category of fiction that primarily explores the lives of young, single women.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Chick Lit” (p 53).

Daring to Dream

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Roberts, Nora. Daring to Dream. New York: Berkeley Books, 2012.

Reason read: August is Beach Read month.

To understand Margo Sullivan you first have to meet the super wealthy Templeton family. Margo grew up living in the Templeton household because her mother has been the family’s housekeeper forever and the Templetons treat their help like family. I cannot mention family enough! But, even though the super perfect Templetons have always treated Margot like family, she never felt she belonged to them or with them. While every other member of the family stayed close to home, involved with the family’s multi-million dollar hotelier business, Margo always needed more, more, more. Like every character in a Nora Roberts novel, Margo sports a beyond beautiful face and impossibly perfect body. As a teenager she left her mother and the Templeton household in search of fame and fortune as an aspiring model. Jet setting around the world, Margo has been gone for years. She has been seen only in pictures as the face of a well known cosmetics company. At that time nothing could stop her, nothing until a scandal involving drugs, her manager and the bus he threw her under. Suddenly knocked her off her pedestal, Margot has to come crawling back to her mother…and the Templeton clan.
Every good N.R. romance has a beautiful someone fighting off his or her passionate urges towards a seemingly unwilling beautiful someone else. Daring to Dream is no different. When Margo arrives home with her tail between her legs, she alternates between hating and needing heir to the family business, Josh Templeton.

Author fact: Nora Roberts has written over 250 novels.

Book trivia: Daring to Dream is the first book in the “Dream” trilogy.

Nancy said: Daring to Dream is in the category of “contemporary” romance (Book Lust, p 204).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Romance Novels: Our Love is Here to Stay” (p 203).

Den of Thieves

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Stewart, James B. Den of Thieves. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992.

Reason read: July is typically Job Fair month (although this is not the job most would want to have…).

In a nutshell, Den of Thieves recounts the largest insider-trading scandal in the all-about-me 1980s. It is what happens when all-out avarice collides with above-the-law arrogance. Everyone has a hazy remembrance of Milken, Siegel and Freeman (to name a few) but with thorough research Stewart’s book keeps the details in sharp focus.

Confessional: in this criminal climate we currently live in, I had a hard time reading about a group of individuals who had a blatant disregard for the law. Some things never change. I couldn’t finish this book.

Author fact: Stewart likes going after big time dirty deeds. He has written other books on big time falls from grace.

Book trivia: Stewart includes a great selection of photographs.

Nancy said: Nancy called Den of Thieves “frightening” (Book Lust, p 34).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “BBB: Best Business Books” (p 33). How it is considered a “best business book” I’ll never know.

Cop Hater

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McBain, Ed. Cop Hater. New York: Pocket Books, 1999.

Reason read: McBain died in the month of July; read Cop Hater in his memory.

Someone is going around killing cops. One right after another in quick succession, three plain-clothed detectives are gunned down. At first glance Joe Public assumes someone out there is a serious cop hater. That seems to be the only connection between the three victims. They are all law enforcement. So, someone must really hate the fuzz, right? The only other common denominator is the heat. It’s summertime and every day is blazing hot, hot, hot. Tempers are flaring but is it hot enough to drive someone to murder? That’s what protagonist Detective Steve Carella needs to find out.
What I loved about McBain’s style is how he drops clues along the way. Once you know “whodunit” you can go back and see the answers peeking out way before the individual crimes are solved. While the details are a little dated and police procedures are very different than they were in the 50s, Cop Hater is still an entertaining read.

I forgot to mention my favorite line, “The elevator crawled up the intestinal track of the building” (p 92). Great image!

Author fact: Ed McBain is actually Evan Hunter and Cop Hater is his first 87th Precinct book of the series.

Book trivia: Cop Hater was originally published in 1956 and made into a movie in 1958. The funny thing is, as I was reading it I thought it would make the perfect crime series for television. Turns out, McBain modeled Cop Hater after the television show, Dragnet.

Nancy said: Nancy said Cop Hater takes place in New York City. I am guessing she didn’t read McBain’s introduction because he makes a point of explaining the Eighty-seventh Precinct is based on a New York City precinct. Cop Hater actually takes place in the fictional city of Isola.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the huge chapter “I Love a Mystery” (p 120).

Book of Mediterranean Cooking

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David, Elizabeth. The Book of Mediterranean Cooking. London: Penguin Books, 1955.

Reason read: July is picnic month. Picnics = food. Food = Elizabeth David. Need I say anymore? If you know Elizabeth David you know I don’t.

Confessional #1: When I first picked up Mediterranean Cooking I was trying to decide if Elizabeth David truly expected the everyday housewife to cook from this book. The magic of her writing is that her methods as far as cooking is concerned are unconventional and languid. Who else measures their olive oil by the wineglass? Even if you don’t consider yourself a gourmet cook, The Book of Mediterranean Cooking is a sophisticated book to have on your shelf. It just looks impressive. It’s one of those cookbooks you can pull down to read on a snowy New England night and dream of a mile-long Tuscan table laden with meats and cheeses and fruits, jugs of green olive oil, freshly pressed while a handsome someone in a long white apron pours you ruby red wine by the barrel.

Confessional #2: When I finally closed the book I had only one thought. There were many recipes I couldn’t even entertain the thought of trying. So, in the end, I answered my own question.

Author fact: David wrote cookbooks covering French, Italian, and Mediterranean food (to name a few). I am reading seven such books by Elizabeth David.

Book trivia: Book of Mediterranean Cooking is full of illustrations and quotations. Both are gorgeous.

Nancy said: Nancy called David’s writing evocative saying, “you can smell and taste the ingredients as she describes them” (Book Lust, p 91).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Food for Thought (p 91).

Animals

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Mattison, Alice. Animals. Cambridge, MA: Alice James Books, 1979.

Reason read: July is Mattison’s birth month.

A collection of thirty poems rich and pulsating with human life make up Animals by Alice Mattison. Women come alive to argue, have sex, give birth, seek memories, laugh out loud, fiercely love family, change identities, experience sickness, learn to rescue, and accept failure. There is courage and wit in Mattison’s vision. Each poem is heartbeats and breath, like a roar of vibrant life.

Lines I liked, “throwing echoes between eardrums” (from Husband, p 11) and “The wildlife grows shameless in spring: it’s like putting out your hand in the dark and feeling a penis” (from Creatures, p 26).

Author fact: Mattison began her writing career as a poet.

Book trivia: Animals is Alice Mattison’s first book.

Nancy said: Nancy didn’t say anything specific about Animals but she did say Alice Mattison is “a multitalented writer” (p 1).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the very first chapter called “A…My Name is Alice” (p 1).

Gardens of Kyoto

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Walbert, Kate. The Gardens of Kyoto. Waterville, ME: Thorndike Press, 2001.

Reason read: in honor of the Japanese Tanabata Festival even though The Gardens of Kyoto have nothing to do with Japan or the Tanabata Festival.

What is a memory when it can be tainted or changed by the emotional upheaval of growing up? By grief? Ellen’s favorite cousin, killed in the final days of World War II, leaves a lasting impression on her young life and ultimately shapes her future world. Randall’s death is profound on multiple levels. He leaves Ellen his diary and a book called The Gardens of Kyoto, his most meaningful possessions. The parallel between the Gardens of Kyoto that fascinated Randall and Ellen’s present-day reality is in the illusion: of what is really there before your eyes. Ellen goes through life constantly questioning Randall’s influences.
There is a subtle resilience to Walbert’s writing; an understated strength and grace to her words.

Lines that lingered in my mind, “You will find that certain words stay with you” (p 38), “Exotic and smoky and entirely out of place across from cornfields” (p 66), and my favorite, “You have been mine since the day you were born” (p 273).

Confessional: I know what it is like to be close to a cousin; to have that special bond, only to lose him to death. Memories become profound and I often find myself sifting through them for all the hidden meanings of life.

Author fact: Walbert also wrote Our Kind (also on my Challenge list).

Book trivia: Gardens of Kyoto is Kate Walbert’s first book.

Nancy said: Nancy includes Gardens of Kyoto as a first novel she is “delighted to have read” (p 88).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the simple chapter called “First Novels” (p 88).

Miss Lizzie

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Satterthwait, Walter. Miss Lizzie. New York: International Polygonics, Ltd. 2000.

Reason read: Lizzie Borden was born in July; read in her honor.

Everyone remembers the rhyme about Lizzie Borden giving her parents a certain number of whacks. Everyone also knows she was found not guilty. But! She wasn’t found innocent either. So what happens when, thirty years later, another parent is found murdered in the exact same way and Lizzie just happens to be the neighbor living right next door? Coincidence? Amanda Burden is a teenager of thirteen and has befriended Miss Borden who has lived alone all this time. This is Amanda’s story.
Satterthwait keeps the tension tight in this clever whodunit. Amanda believes in Miss Lizzie’s innocence and yet Satterthwait is careful to leave a little room for doubt.
There were several things I found unusual about this plot. For starters, Amanda is, as I said, only thirteen years old and yet her father leaves Amanda with Miss Lizzie while he conducts business (and an affair) in Boston. Amanda has been keeping her friendship with Miss Lizzie a secret, so how or why would Mr. Burden trust his only daughter to the care of a woman who may or may not have murdered her parents? I don’t think it ruins the plot to say that I was even further confused when it was revealed Amanda’s father left his daughter to be the one to discover her stepmother’s body hacked to death. Who does that?

Quotes to quote, “Families are held together as much by what they do not say as by what they do” (p 86), and “Decades can pass sometimes, and even entire lives, before we forgive our parents their humanity” (p 316).

Author fact: Satterthwait has a sense of humor. His Amazon page says he was raised by wolverines because the wolves wouldn’t take him.

Nancy said: Miss Lizzie was one of the best biographical novels she’s read (Book Lust, p 37).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Biographical Novels” (p 37). As an aside, this could also be in the More Book Lust chapter called “Men Channeling Women” (p 166).

Midnight in Ruby Bayou

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Lowell, Elizabeth. Midnight in Ruby Bayou. New York: William Morrow, 2000.

Reason read: to finish the series started in April in honor of Lowell’s birth month.

If you are keeping up with the formula, the next Donovan sibling who needs to be (begrudgingly) paired with an unwilling (but incredibly attractive) partner is Faith Donovan. While she is not the last Donovan sibling to have a story line (we have yet to meet the male set of twins, Lawe and Justin), Faith is the last sibling readers have actually met thus far. Faith is the jewelry maker in the family. She takes the contraband gems and turns them into works of art. And yes, the FBI is still trying to catch the Donovans as they smuggle precious gems. This time, it’s rubies. What complicates Faith’s story is that she has an ex-fiance who won’t take goodbye as for good.
Faith’s unwilling, but incredibly attractive, partner is Donovan employee, Owen Walker, a good ole southern boy who knows his way around the Bayou. He’s been tasked with sticking close to Faith while she delivers a priceless ruby necklace to her best friend’s future father-in-law. Of course, thieves are hot on her tail. The rubies are theirs and they want them back, but there is a problem. They are mafia…Of course, the FBI isn’t far behind. Of course, Walker has to save Faith’s life a few times. The Lowell formula is hard at work, “I’m wildly attracted to you but for personal reasons I can’t allow myself to get involved with you…”

Author fact: At last count, Lowell has written over seventy novels.

Book trivia: Midnight in Ruby Bayou is the final book in the Donovan series. I guess readers don’t get to meet Justin and Lawe after all.

Nancy said: Pearl said absolutely nothing about this particular book. What she did say about the entire Donovan series is that it is categorized as “Action-Suspense” (Book Lust, p 204).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Romance Novels: Our Love is Here To Stay” (p 203).

Six Days of War

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Oren, Michael B. Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Reason read: the Six Day War took place in June.

Oren’s challenge was to weave together an accurate account of the Six Day War that covered many different perspectives from a myriad of sources. All sides of the conflict needed to be represented and not just from the perspective of battles and conflict. He needed to produce an account that was not only balanced and unbiased, but thorough in its investigation and analysis. This was accomplished through meticulous and extensive research.

Author fact: Oren is a former ambassador to the United States

Book trivia: Six Days of War includes a fair collection of black and white photographs as well as maps to orientate you.

Nancy said: Six Days of War is “massively thorough and equally readable” (Book Lust, p 154).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “The Middle East” (p 154).

Stories of Alice Adams

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Adams, Alice. The Stories of Alice Adams. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002.

Reason read: June is Short Story Month.

The first time I read a collection of Alice Adams’s short stories (After You’ve Gone) I noticed similarities that soon became redundancies throughout the stories. The same is true of The Stories of Alice Adams. Virginia, San Francisco, Maine,the Carolinas, and Mexico are popular places for her characters to either live or vacation. Lawyers, artists, and writers are popular occupations for her characters. Old wealth is especially favored. Adultery, money issues, and other marital woes always seem to be in the mix from story to story. In other words, a word of caution: these stories are best consumed intermittently. Like After You’ve Gone I could not read more than one story at a time.

Lots of quotes to quote but here are two I liked, “She was simply enraged at the sea for knocking her down” (p 54) and “Adolescent memories are not only the most recent and thus the most available. They are also the least subtle, the simplest” (p 75).

Author fact: Adams was born in Virginia, raised in North Carolina, and lived in San Francisco. Sound familiar? Proof you write about what you know.

Book trivia: There are a total of 53 short stories in The Stories of Alice Adams. Two stories are mentioned more than once in the Book Lust Challenge and there are eight that I can skip because I already read them in After You’ve Gone.

Nancy said: Nancy said there was an “excellent cross section of her short works in Stories. (Book Lust, p 1).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the very first chapter called “A…My Name is Alice” (p 1).

I Dreamed of Africa

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Gallman, Kuki. I Dreamed of Africa. New York: Penguin Books, 1991.

Reason read: Read in honor of Gallman’s birth month.

This has got to be one of the most heart wrenching yet uplifting books I have ever read about one woman’s life experiences in Africa. After divorcing her first husband Kuki marries the widower of a friend (Kuki survives the same car accident that her friend did not). Paolo convinces Kuki and her young son to move to Kenya, a far cry from the life of privilege in Italy. There, Kuki and her son, Emanuele Pirri-Gallman, fall in love with the land, the animals, and the people of Ol Ari Nyiro. Even after Paolo is killed in a tragic accident, Kuki is determined to stay in Africa. Pregnant with his child, Kuki buries Paolo at the ranch and continues to carry out their dreams. Three years later, even after her seventeen year old son dies of a lethal snake bite, Kuki is even more determined to stay on the ranch. She buries Ema next to Paolo and slowly, through grief and time, finds new purpose to her life.

Author fact: So. I was poking around the internet and found out just last year Kuki had been shot twice while trying to defend her land. What the what???

Book trivia: Gallman includes a bevy of beautiful photographs, mostly in color, of her world. Some of the pictures are drop dead gorgeous. Some of the pictures are drop dead tragic, as well.

Nancy said: Nancy included Kuki’s I Dreamed of Africa because it was one example of a writer writing about her life in Africa following World War II (p 76) although the war is never part of Kuki’s story.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Dreaming of Africa” (p 76).

So Long a Letter

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Ba, Mariama. So Long a Letter. Translated by Modupe Bode-Thomas. Essex: Pearson Education Limited, 2008.

Reason read: June is considered a wedding month. Read in honor of marriages of all kinds.

What does it mean to be a Senegalese woman living in a society dominated by male attitudes? Where does self worth and fulfillment fit in? Just because a society condones polygamy doesn’t mean every individual expects it, embraces it, or even wants to practice it. When Ramatoulaye’s husband of thirty plus years takes a new (much younger) wife  her emotions run the gamut. Baffled (Wasn’t she a good wife?). Stunned (They have twelve children together. Wasn’t she a good mother?). Embarrassed (What will the community think of her being replaced?). Insecure (Exactly what is her place in society now?). When Madou leaves her a widow, in a long letter to her friend Aissatou, Ramatoulaye recounts her life with Madou. She is, at times, reminiscent and even wistful for a life gone by. In the end, it is a new tragedy that sets Ramatoulaye on a new path of acceptance.

Lines that stayed with me, “My loins beat to the rhythm of childbirth” (p 2), “To warp a soul is an much a sacrilege as murder” (p 23), and “To overcome distress when it sits upon you demands strong will” (p 43).

Author fact: So Long a Letter was Mariama Ba’s first novel. It goes without saying it is semi-autobiographical.

Book trivia: So Long a Letter was the first African novel to win the Noma Award in 1980.

Nancy said: Not much. Pearl just describes the plot in one sentence.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the early chapter called “African Literature in English” (p 16).

Mindfulness Meditation

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Kabat-Zinn, Jon. Mindfulness Meditation: Cultivating the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind. Read by Jon Kabat-Zinn. Prince Frederick, MD: Recorded Books, 1995

Reason read: Jon Kabat-Zinn was born in the month of June. Read in his honor.

Maybe this doesn’t come out when reading Jon Kabat-Zinn’s work. Maybe one needs to listen to his books on audio because before now I never realized Jon Kabat-Zinn is really funny. Everything he talks about in Mindfulness Meditation makes perfect sense but it’s laced with humor I hadn’t noticed before. The other benefit to listening to Mindfulness Meditation is being able to hear the bells he rings during the practice.

Mindfulness Meditation is all about playing attention to world around you in minute detail. His prime example is to focus on eating just one raisin but don’t just throw it into your mouth. Really look at it. Get all five senses involved in looking at it, feeling it, smelling it, and even putting it in your ear to hear it crackle (I kid you not). Finally, when you put it in your mouth to taste it you savor it slowly, again paying attention to how it feels while you chew. Kabat-Zinn goes beyond the raisin and explains that meditation is not about emptying your mind to alleviate stress. It’s all about focusing the mind to transform the way you think and deal with life.

So, time for some truth. I listened to this in the car on the way up to Maine. It is only two cds long so it took me no time at all.

Author fact: Maybe I have already mentioned this, but JKZ is associated with the University of Massachusetts.

Nancy said: Nancy includes Kabat-Zinn because “he advocates the techniques of Vipnassana meditation to help lower stress, reduce anxiety, and deal less frantically with the everyday world” (Book Lust p 110).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Help Yourself” (p 109).