Category: BookLust I

Ticket for a Seamstitch

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Harris, Mark. A Ticket For a Seamstitch. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1957.

When we next meet up with Henry Wiggen he is still pitching for the New York Mammoth baseball team. He is still selling insurance during the off-season. He also still writing (and getting published so his nickname of Henry “Author” Wiggen is getting around). He is now a veteran ballplayer. The plot of Ticket for a Seamstitch is super simple. A seamstress fan of Wiggen writes to ask for a ticket to a game on the fourth of July. Fellow (and very single) teammate, Piney, reads the letter and becomes involved, thinking the girl is a “looker.” He has hopes she might be a potential girlfriend in the future. Only when she arrives, all the way from California, she is not the girl he thought she was and very married Wiggen is left to entertain her. This third book in the series is lighter on the play by play baseball and took me only an afternoon to read.

Lines liked: “The only thing bothered her sleep was in the middle of the night the boys all come banging on her door, wishing to discuss baseball, they said, she said” (p 71), and “What is philosophy to Piney Woods who is off to the moon on a motorcycle with a dream of a perfect and naked girl in his mind, and he will solve it all by science when he gets there” (p 99).

Reason read: This is the third book in the Henry W. Wiggen series. I started the series in October in honor of the world series. Yay Red Sox!

Book trivia: This is the book that put Harris on the map. Although, I’m not sure why. It isn’t as dramatic as the last one. The full title is A Ticket for a Seamstitch, Henry Wiggen but polished for the Printer by Mark Harris.

Author fact: According to the back flap of Ticket for a Seamstitch Harris spent time in New York, California, South Carolina, Georgia, Illinois, New Mexico, Colorado, and New Hampshire.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” (p 229).

Now Read This

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Pearl, Nancy. Now Read this: a Guide to Mainstream Fiction, 1978 – 1998. Englewood, Colorado: Libraries Unlimited, 1999.

Reason read: November is the anniversary month of the Book Challenge. I’m reading Now Read This to celebrate that endeavor.

If I wasn’t already trying to read over 5,500 books I would attempt to read every book indexed in Now Read This. Here’s the thing about this guide (to Mainstream Fiction, 1978 – 1998), it’s not just a huge list of “you-oughtta-know” this author or this book. Pearl makes each recommended book inviting and, dare I say, intriguing. There is almost too much information to digest with each recommendation. Let’s start with the basics. Now Read This is broken out into four different chapters corresponding to four different appealing aspects of a book: setting, story, characters & language. Setting: if where the story takes place is important to the overall context of the plot, it is mentioned in this section. Story: if the plot is the main draw ,and not character development, for example, it is mentioned here. Characters: if the characters are people who move you in some way, are people you want to meet in real life, or stick in the memory banks long after the book is finished, the title is mentioned in this chapter. Language: if the language of the book is striking or moving, it is mentioned here. All entries have the following information. First the obvious: Author, title, publisher, date published, number of pages, and brief abstract of plot. Additional information includes the second appeal of the book. For example, a book with great characters can also have a key setting crucial to the story. Pearl also includes subject headings (now called tags in this day and age). Subjects can include what award the book has won, if it’s a first novel for the author, etc. You get the picture. Even more information includes whether or not Oprah chose it as a book for her club, (weird), and whether or not it would be a good for a general book club. Finally, the entry closes with a list of other books to try.

Author fact: Pearl went on to write a second guide to mainstream fiction that covers fiction from 1999 to 2001. I’ll be reading this one as well.

Book trivia: “More than 40 students received graduate school credit for reading” (p xi). Where was I when this book was being compiled?

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the acknowledgements (p xiv).

Naked to the Waist

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Dark, Alice Elliott. Naked to the Waist. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991.

Naked to the Waist is a compilation of six short stories with the title story being the last. While each story varies from the next there are a few underlying themes common to them all. All include women who are in relationships not easily defined. The relationships that surround them are slightly domineering.

“Interior Studio” – Two artists struggling to make ends meet; told from the point of view of the painter wife with a dominant writer husband.

“The Good Listener” – a writing teacher gets caught in a love triangle that turns into a love square.

“Plans for Plants” – a couple is moving apart. They don’t know each other anymore.

“The Comfortable Apartment” – an abused wife has the opportunity to leave her husband thanks to her sister…but does she?

“Buddy” – for me, this one was the most disturbing. A man takes his girlfriend’s puppy while she is in France for a funeral. He never wanted her to get a dog, and that’s all I’ll say about that one.

“Naked to the Waist” – Lucy is torn between wanting her best friend, a homosexual, to want her and wanting to move on with her life.

Telling lines, “She threw herself into love as though she were diving under water in at attempt to make herself disappear from the surface of the planet” (p 20), “She was coiled coolly around his mind” (p 92), It shocked him to see her alone, and he realized it was the first time he had observed her out of the range of his influence” (p 162″, and “This was my cue to placate him with one of our private games, and I did” (p 131).

As an aside, adultery is a common theme in Dark’s stories. I found it striking that when two different characters in two different stories want to know how their partners are getting away with the affair they ask the same questions, “how are you managing this?”

Reason read: November is National Writing Month and I’m honoring the short story this month.

Author fact: Dark also wrote In the Gloaming and Think of England both of which are on my list.

Book trivia: Naked to the Waist is made up of six short stories and oddly enough was not available in my area. I had to request it from Bangor, Maine.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “A…Is For Alice” (p 1).

What You Owe Me

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Campbell, Bebe Moore. What You Owe Me. Read by Caroline Clay. New York: Recorded Books, 2001.

What You Owe Me begins in Los Angeles in 1945. Hosanna Clark is working as a hotel chambermaid when she meets Holocaust survivor, Gilda Rosenstein. Gilda and Hosanna become fast friends, bonded by their experiences with prejudice: Gilda for being a Jew and Hosanna for being African American. Once Gilda and Hosanna are bonded in friendship they embark on a business venture producing cosmetics for black women. Until suddenly, Gilda has disappeared taking every cent Hosanna put into the venture with her. This portion of the story is compact. The majority of the story focuses on these two women. Fast forward 40+ years. Hosanna is dead and Gilda is a successful business owner with a closet full of skeletons. This portion of the story is vast. Campbell sets out to juggle four or five different stories involving multiple relationships and families. There is a reason this book is over 500 pages long.

Reason read: October is breast cancer awareness month and even though Campbell did not pass away from breast cancer (she had a brain tumor), I decided to honor her all the same. Cancer is cancer is cancer in my book. Also,  Campbell died in November so I am allowing myself to keep this book longer than the month of October to honor her passing as well. Let’s face it, I needed the extra time to get through all 20 cds.

Author fact: Campbell won the NAACP Image Award.

Reader fact: Caroline Clay has appeared on “Law and Order.” As an aside, she can’t do accents like Russian very well!

Book Audio trivia: My copy of What You Owe Me was over 22 hours long because it also included an exclusive interview with Bebe Moore Campbell.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “African American Fiction: She Say” (p 12).

Real Cool Killers

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Himes, Chester. The Real Cool Killers. Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1950s. New York: Library of America, 1999.

Ulysses Galen is shot dead for no apparent reason. Detectives Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones need to figure out how a supposedly important white man wound up dead in Harlem. This story was a jumbled mess of contradictions. While there is over the top violence the cops are bumbling and almost slapstick. Coffin is suspended for killing a boy after being “perfumed.” He thought the boy was throwing acid in his face and overreacted. Digger’s main suspect in the shooting is a man they managed to handcuff before he was rescued by a gang of teenagers dressed as Arabs. You would think the police would watch for someone wearing cuffs when they search the neighborhood but they don’t think of it when they interview a man wearing huge gloves and a heavy overcoat. It gets even funnier when they don’t notice a man tied up in a sack in plain sight. They question it but accept its a bag of coal on a bed. As for the story itself, I enjoyed the twists and turns of the plot. No one is really as they seem.

The names in this story are pretty funny: Inky, Choo-Choo, Sheik, Camel Mouth and Bones are all members of the Real Cool Muslim gang.

Disclaimer – this story is loaded with violence. In the very first chapter a knife yielding man gets his arm chopped off and two people are shot dead. At one point two detectives are rolling around, wrestling & arguing. Their scuffle takes place over the body of one of the dead men. It seems almost slapstick.

Line I liked, “I marked this one down as D.O.E. That means dead on arrival – my arrival, not his” (p 763). A medical examiner with a sense of humor.

Reason read: October is National Crime Prevention month.

Author fact: Chester Grimes was familiar with crime. He was arrested twice for armed robbery when he was 19. Convicted of the crimes he was spent eight years in prison (paroled in 1936).

Book trivia: Real Cool Killers is part of a series featuring Detectives Gravedigger and Coffin.

BookLust Twist: The Real Cool Killers is in a True Crime compilation I am reading for the challenge. From Book Lust in the chapter called “Les Crimes Noir” (p 65).

Pick-Up

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Willeford, Charles. Pick-Up. Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1950s. New York: Library of America, 1999.

Harry Jordan, 32, is a down-and-out alcoholic working as a counter man in a diner when he meets 33 year old Helen Meredith. There is an instant attraction. While Harry doesn’t relish the idea of being a drunk, he can spot one a mile away, and Helen is just his type. They soon strike up a pitiful relationship. Both are out of work, both have severed ties with family and friends. The only thing they have together is a love for the bottle. When Harry decides suicide is their only way out things go from bad to worst. Deep down, Harry is a decent man who feebly attempts to do the right thing and never succeeds.

Lines I liked, “Love is in what you do, not in what you say” (p 423), “you watch them overshadow you until you are nothing except a shadow within a shadow and then lost altogether in the unequal merger” (p 445) and “Tears in a bar are not unusual” (p 567).

Reason read: Pick-Up  is one of the stories in Crime Novels which I am reading in honor of National Crime Prevention week.

Author fact: Charles Willeford is a war hero of World War II. He received a Purple Heart.

Book trivia: Pick-Up was originally written in 1955. Willeford’s writing is so clean you can just picture the era perfectly.

BookLust Twist: from Crime Novels: American Noir listed in Book Lust in the chapter called “Les Crime Noir” (p 65).

Star Trap

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Brett, Simon. Star Trap. Boston: G.K Hall & Co., 1999.

Something is going on with the musical production of Lumpkin! They have barely started rehearsals when things start to go wrong. The rehearsal pianist has a shooting accident and can’t play the piano. Then a main actor literally breaks a leg. Both of these incidents happen within the same week. Is it a coincidence? Actor/amateur detective Charles Paris is hired to find out. He conveniently takes the part left vacant by the actor with the broken leg so that he is able to get up close and personal to the drama (pun totally intended). Only, Charles shrugs off the rumors of sabotage as mere coincidences until he is directly affected. As soon as he opens his eyes to the possibility of sabatoge he starts noticing strange things really are happening – deliberately. Will he find out before opening night or will he be cut out of the script before the mystery is solved?

Be forewarned: Brett introduces a lot of names in the first few chapters (21 people and 14 places and 6 plays, television shows and/or songs). There’s a lot to take in and at first it is hard to decide which names, places and productions are really important.

Post script: somehow I ordered the large print version. This is funny because I was just told last month I should purchase “readers” (although my husband calls them “cheaters”). My optometrist assures me I don’t really need them yet. Riiight.

Quotes I like, “…he felt in need of a red-hot poker to burn out the rotten bits of his brain” (p 74) and “Charles felt a great swoop of despair, as if all of his worst opinions of himself were suddenly ratified, as if his thoughts that infected him at his lowest moods had suddenly been classified as gospel” (p 96).

Reason read: Brett’s birthday is in October

Author fact: Simon Brett has his own website. His biography page is really fun.

Book trivia: Charles Paris is a reoccurring character in Brett’s books. As far as I can tell you don’t need to read them in order of publication.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “I Love A Mystery” (p 118).

Talented Mr. Ripley

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Highsmith, Patricia.The Talented Mr. Ripley, Ripley Under Ground, Ripley’s Game. New York: Everyman’s Library, 1999.

I think everyone has seen the 1999 movie, but here is a brief overview: Tom Ripley reminds me of Iago in Shakespeare’s Othello in the way he is able to manipulate any situation to his advantage. Tom comes from poverty and loneliness having grown up without parents. His formative years were shaped by an overbearing aunt who belittled him at every opportunity. Tom learned early on he would need to con his way through life in order to survive it. When the IRS begins to close on him concerning a check cashing scheme, Tom is approached with a business proposition by the wealthy father of an acquaintance he cannot refuse. The opportunity is simple: Mr. Greenleaf has hired Tom to travel to Italy to convince his son, Dickey, to come home. He pays all of Tom’s expenses for the trip including an allowance. Only, Dickey has no intentions of ever coming home. Realizing he has failed, he can longer be of use to Mr. Greenleaf and the money will soon dry up, Tom decides he needs a new angle – to steal Dickey’s identity. Tom is a strangely likeable character. Told from his point of view, you can’t help but root for him. He’s not a psychopath because he has the ability to imagine the suffering of others but he thinks nothing of killing someone if it is the only way to get out of a jam.

Quotes I took with me, “You go out of your way not to hurt people who’re in love with you, you know” (p 229), “If you wanted to be cheerful, or melancholic, or wistful, or thoughtful, or courteous, you simply had to act those things with every gesture” (p 321).
Reason read: October is National Crime Prevention month.

Book trivia: As mentioned before, The Talented Mr. Ripley has been made into a movie twice – once in 1960 & again in 1999.

Author fact: Patricia Highsmith was born an American but writes about Italy as if she lived there all her life. I particularly enjoyed her descriptions of Venice.

BookLust Twist: The Talented Mr. Ripley is in a True Crime compilation I am reading for the challenge. From Book Lust in the chapter called “Les Crimes Noir” (p 65).

White Devil

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Webster, John. The White Devil. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960.

I have to admit, anything written in the early 1600s is a chore to read. Especially if there isn’t a 19th or 20th century translation around. The White Devil was no exception to this belief. I found it tedious and tough. Three words: Bored. To. Tears. I’m sure the plot was racy in it’s day but I couldn’t get beyond the language. There is rumors of adultery, exile, fake deaths, corruption and family drama.

Reason read: with all of its revenge and corruption it should be perfect for Halloween. I wouldn’t know because I couldn’t finish it.

Author fact: John Webster was a contemporary of William Shakespeare. I have to wonder what their conversations would have sounded like. Competitive?

Book Play trivia: when this was first introduced to the English public it bombed. Webster blamed it on the weather because turnout was low. However, in more recent years it has been reintroduced and adapted.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror” (p 216). Pearl lumps The White Devil in the horror category but I wouldn’t know. It’s definitely a tragedy, but not I’m not sure about horror.

Southpaw

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Harris, Mark. The Southpaw. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1953

From the very beginning of The Southpaw you know you are in for a treat. Just read the dedication to know why. Then, for further evidence, move on to the “Special Warning To All Readers!!!”
Henry Wiggen is a left handed pitcher reflecting on his career in baseball. Although Henry is obsessed with the game from the very beginning there is a real defining moment when, at sixteen, he replaces his father on the mound during a game against the Clowns. After that, he tries out and is subsequently signed to play for the New York Mammoths. During spring training in Florida Henry learns what its like to be a ballplayer in the big time – competition, women, egos. The only “criticism” I have of the book is that one must love baseball in order to really love The Southpaw. There is a lot of play by play action that can get a little tedious at times.

I’ve read a few reviews where people were bothered by Henry Wiggen’s uneducated manner of speech. It didn’t bother me at all. In fact, I thought it added realism to the character.

As an aside, I was a little bothered that Mark Harris used a C. Marlowe poem (“The Passionate Shepherd to His Love”) but doesn’t give credit where credit is due.

Quotes to mention, “I was a terrible kid for flinging things at people” (p 25), and “But throwing a baseball and throwing a hand grenade is 2 different things, and I am at my best with 1 and scared to my toes of the other” (p 37), “That first night I had the regular blues, lonesome as the moon and not a soul to talk to” (p 137),

Reason read: The world series is in October.

Book trivia: The version I read boasted of “punctuation freely inserted and spelling greatly improved.” Whatever that means.

Author fact: According to the back of The Southpaw Harris wanted to be a ballplayer but his stature of only 5’7″ deterred him.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” (p 229).

One By One in the Darkness

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Madden, Deirdre. One By One in the Darkness. London: Faber and Faber, 2003.

Three sisters have gathered at their childhood home in Northern Ireland for a visit. Cate, a journalist for a home/fashion magazine in London, is early for her annual visit; a detail that is not lost on older sister, Helen. Helen, a solicitor in Belfast, comes home every weekend, and Sally, the youngest and a teacher, already lives at home with their mother. None of the sisters are married. The story bounces between present day and the three sisters’s childhood in alternating chapters. Madden uses clever clues like the spelling of Cate/Kate to indicate past or present. When Kate became an adult she changed her name to Cate. So for chapters in the past it is Kate while for present-day chapters it is Cate. [As an aside, it reminded me of the movie ‘Sliding Doors.’ In one scenario Helen has cut her hair short and dyed in blonde while in another she leaves it long and dark. The difference helps the viewer tell the difference between the two story lines involving the same character.] Cate, Helen and Sally grew up in the 1960s and 70s during the Troubles and it’s this historical background that drives the present day story of the mid 1990s and the IRA ceasefire. There isn’t a plot to speak of, just the coping of four women after the death of the head of the household during the troubles. The only present day drama worth noting is Cate’s pregnancy.

Line I liked, “But she gained a dark knowledge that night which would never leave her” (p 130).

Reason read: I have read it somewhere that October is the best time to visit Ireland.

Book trivia: One By One in the Darkness was nominated for the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 1997.

Author fact: Madden won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature in 1987. The conditions of the prize? Write Irish lit (obviously) and be under 40 years of age. Interesting.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter simply called “Irish Fiction” (p 126).

Last Supper

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McCarry, Charles. The Last Supper. Read by Stefan Rudnicki. Blackstone Audio, 2006.

Paul Christopher is a CIA man who was raised around dark secrets. His parents smuggled Jews out of Germany via boat to Denmark during World War II when he was just a child. As a teenager he remembers he and his American father being removed from Germany while his German mother was held behind. This separation and the need to find her prompted Paul’s father to join the CIA. Following in his father’s footsteps after his murder, Paul also joins the “The Outfit.” The Last Supper spans all of the major conflicts between World War I and the Vietnam War. Stay on your toes because this is fast paced and involves many different characters who may or may not be spies.

Can I just say I love Stefan Rudnicki’s reading voice? He and his accents are great!

Edited to add: I didn’t get the opportunity to quote anything from The Last Supper because I experienced it in audio form. But, there was a few lines about running that I wanted to remember so I borrowed the book specifically so I could find the passage and quote it properly. So, here it is: “Only a bourgeois fool doesn’t know instinctively the deep spiritual meaning of running…It’s tremendously ritualistic. You put om a sweat suit and tennis shoes with funny soles that cost a hundred dollars and are all wound around with dingy adhesive tape, and you run through the public streets, dripping with sweat. It gives you shin splints and snapped Achilles tendons and wobbly knees but in compensation you build up your state of grace and these marvelous muscles” (p 288).

Reason read: the Cold War ended in September.

Author fact: According to the back of The Last Supper McCarry was an intelligence officer working deep undercover during the Cold War.

Book trivia: While McCarry wrote Paul Christopher as a series character the chronology is not based on publication. I read The Last Supper (published in 1983) before Tears of the Giraffe (published in 1974), but I don’t think it matters.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Cold War Spy Fiction” (p 61).

Light Infantry Ball

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Basso, Hamilton. The Light Infantry Ball. New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1959.

Basso takes an entire South Carolina community and brings it to life during the Civil War era though the story revolves around John Bottomley. He has been educated in the North (New Jersey) and had plans of becoming a writer when family duty obligates him to return to his family’s rice plantation. His life during this time is one of isolation because he is in love with a married woman and no one can understand his “pro-North” views. It doesn’t help that he is confused about his feelings concerning slavery. He grows more and more aware of his surrounding society as time goes on especially when it comes to the married woman. Later, after a stint in government, Bottomley finally joins the military to aid in the war. Guilt had finally gotten to him. Parallel to these life changes is the story of Bottomley’s brother and his mysterious disappearance after a murder.

Lines I liked, “He worked long, read much, and spoke little” (p 22), “…he had the sense of a door being thrown wide open and of looking into a stale, closed-off room strewn with the debris of a hundred bitter quarrels dragged across the years” (p 252-253) and finally my favorite, “War was war, yes, but even in war there were civilized standards to maintain” (p 324).

Reason read: Basso was born in September.

Author trivia: Basso wrote 15 books before his death. I am only reading a handful of them.

Book fact: The Light Infantry Ball is a prequel to The View From Pompey’s Head.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Hamilton Basso: Too Good To Miss” (p 32).

Child That Books Built

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Spufford, Francis. The Child That Books Built: a Life in Reading. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2002.

The Child That Books Built is an explanation for an addiction. Francis Spufford’s addiction. Right up front Spufford admits to his insatiable need to read, starting when he was a young child. He would explain his relationships with books as such, “Reading catatonically wasn’t something I chose to do…the stopping my ears with fiction was non-negotiable” (p 2). Once he gets his explanations out of the way he goes on to explain how all the reading he had done as a child shaped his world as an adult. Drawing on psychology and philosophy to make his points Spufford connects the world of Narnia to that of religious adoration; the Little House on the Prairie to that of family and community.

Quote that caught me off guard for its timing: “No addiction is ever explained by examining the drug. the drug didn’t cause the need. A tour of a brewery won’t explain why somebody became an alcoholic” (p 11). Wow. Wow. Wow.

Reason read: The Library of Congress National Book Festival is in September. This year it is the weekend of the 21st.

Author fact: Spufford also wrote I May Be Some Time for which he won the Sunday times Young Writer award in 1997.

Book trivia: Despite being short (only 210 pages) this book packs a punch. Be prepared.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Books About Books” (p ) and from More Book Lust in the introduction (p ix).

Nobody Knows My Name

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Baldwin, James. Collected Essays: Nobody Knows My Name. New York: Library of America, 1998.

Nobody Knows My Name is a collection of essays continued from Notes From a Native Son. While the essays are less biting than those in Notes they are just as honest and clear about the Negro condition at the time of Baldwin’s writing. He has a sharp eye for the social and economical position of the time. As he was frequenting Paris I find it interesting that for Baldwin the question of color did not exist in Europe whereas in America he was afraid to listen to Bessie Smith or even touch watermelon. It is in Europe that Baldwin discovered what it mean to be an American.

Interesting quotes, “I love to talk to people, all kinds of people, and almost everyone, as I hope we still know, loves a man who loves to listen” (p 140) and “No Negro in this country has ever made that much money and it will be a long time before any Negro does” (p 173). Baldwin wrote those words in the early 60s. I wonder what he would think of Oprah…

Reason read: Baldwin was born in August.

Author fact: Baldwin was born a New Yorker but died in Paris.

Book trivia: This isn’t really a book, but a short (150 pages) essay.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in two different chapters. The first called “African American Fiction: He Say” (p 10). Not entirely accurate since this is nonfiction (another example of Pearl filling space in a chapter). The second time Nobody Knows My Name is mentioned is in the chapter called “Essaying Essays” (p 81) which is the more accurate place for this to be mentioned.