Category: BookLust I

Seabiscuit

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Hillenbrand, Laura. Seabiscuit: an American Legend.New York: Ballantine Books, 2001.

I love underdog stories (or, is it underhorse in this situation?). Seabiscuit is a head-scratcher of a racehorse. “Red” Pollard, his jockey, is a head-scratcher of a jockey. Their humble beginnings make them perfect partners for anything but success. But, succeed they did, as everyone who has seen the movie knows. Hillenbrand carefully reconstructs the era surrounding Seabiscuit’s unlikely “pony” start. The 1930s come alive as the fascinating characters of Seabiscuit’s entourage are introduced; his owner Charles Howard, trainer Tom Smith, jockey Johnny “Red” Pollard, the hungry-for-more media and of course, the fans who followed Seabiscuit’s every race. Hillenbrand writes with such clarity that every competition is pulse-pounding excitement. One can hear the roar of the crowd, taste the anticipation, see the pop of flash bulbs, and practically smell the winnings.
I admit I learned a few things about horse racing from this book. Who knew that the stakes were so high that before certain races there was the threat of horses being sponged and riders being kidnapped. Horses and riders required bodyguards!

Favorite lines: “The horse’s name was Seabiscuit, and for a bent-backed trainer on the other side of the backstretch, the brief exchange of glances between the horse and Tom Smith was the beginning of the end of a long, pounding headache” (p 34), “then, like a mighty shit Godzilla, it slid out to sea and vanished” (p 88).

Book Trivia: Seabiscuit was one hot read in 2001. Every media source from The New York Times to NPR and People Magazine acknowledged it as the best book of some sort.

Author Fact: Laura Hillenbrand graced the cover of “Natural Solutions” (March 2011, issue 132) to speak out about Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called ” Sports and Games” (p 225). I read Seabiscuit in honor of the Kentucky Derby always being held in May (May 7th this year).

Bintel Brief

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A Bintel Brief: Sixty Years of Letters From the Lower East Side to the Jewish Daily Forward. Isaac Metzker, ed. New York: Doubleday & Company, 1971.

Despite its small size (214 pages), A Bintel Brief contains the very essence of Jewish-American New York. Between its pages the culture, society, ideals, hopes and dreams of immigrants struggling to call America their own come pouring out. As a section in the Jewish Daily Forward newspaper, the Bintel Brief was a section of letters to the editor, edited by Isaac Metzker. Many of the letters were based on ethical conundrums; people seeking advice on issues like relationships, work ethic, and the daily struggle to make ends meet. The writers of these letters placed a high value on the opinion of the editor, seeking his advice, his blessing, his approval. However, some are attempts at communication with a missing loved one; a calling out of sorts. The Bintel Brief was a vehicle for exposing mistreated spouses, publicizing petty family arguments, and searching for loved ones.

Author Fact: When Metzker was 20 years old he came to America as a stowaway.

Favorite photo: “Shopping on Hester Street, 1895” (p 10-11). Looking into those eyes I can almost touch the desperation.

Most striking letter: “This is the voice of thirty-seven miserable men who are buried but not covered by earth, tied down but not in chains, silent but not mute, whose hearts beat like humans, yet are not like other human beings….” (p 110). how can that not draw you in?

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “The Jewish-American Experience” (p 133).

Fifth Chinese Daughter

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Wong, Jade Snow. Fifth Chinese Daughter. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950.

I have to start of with a confession: Chinese culture makes me think Americans are unspeakably rude.

Fifth Chinese Daughter is an autobiography written in simple and straightforward language in the proper Chinese third person. As a result I read it in two day’s time. It covers the first 24 years of a Chinese-American girl, Jade Snow Wong. From the very beginning, growing up in San Francisco, California, Wong struggled with cultural differences between modern America and the Old World Chinese of her parents. Everything from food, physical contact, gender discrimination, mourning the dead & burials, order of names, to education was contradictory and Wong had to wade through it all during her most formative years. While she didn’t mean to disrespect her parents she struggled with independence in a new world, especially when she sought an education normally expected of males in her culture.

I am borrowing this book from a school so it shouldn’t surprise me that someone has drawn in it, and yet it bugs me just the same.

Favorite moments in the book: first, I love the cat in the illustration on page 22. Second, I found the description of the treatment of rice (p 58 – 59) to be very interesting.

Book Trivia: Fifth Chinese Daughter is actually the first volume in a two-volume autobiography. The second volume is No Chinese Stranger but, sadly, Pearl only recommends Fifth Chinese Daughter.

Author Fact: Wong was an accomplished potter and some of her pieces made into museum shows.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called ” Asian American Experiences” (p 26).

Catfish and Mandala

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Pham, Andrew X. Catfish and Mandala: a Two-Wheeled Voyage Through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam. New York: Farrar. Straus and Giroux, 1999.

It has been several years since I read a bicycle memoir (the last being Where the Pavement Ends by Erika Warmbrunn). I was very excited to start Catfish and Mandala. So much so that I started it two days before May began. Even though May is Bicycle Month I read this for Memorial Day. I’m glad I went that route because it’s not really about the bike.

Catfish and Mandala is more than an adventure story about biking across Vietnam. It’s a cultural exploration and by turn, an explanation. Comparing American versus Vietnamese differing viewpoints on mundane topics like when a child should move out of his parent’s home after reaching adulthood. And yet. Noticing similarities: we all want our fathers to be proud of us, in any culture.
The story of Pham’s father’s imprisonment in the Labor Camp is brief, but heartbreaking just the same. After reading pages 16-20 I will never look at catfish the same.
Pham’s ability to weave past with present is brilliant. He recaptures his family’s flight from Vietnam to the U.S. when he was a small child seamlessly while recounting his own journey from the U.S. back to Vietnam as an adult. His confusion over what he remembers is intertwined with his inability to articulate what he is really looking for. Pham finds himself asking “what am I doing here?” time and time again. As he faces prejudice and violence and corruption I asked the same question.

Favorite lines: “Somehow they got by on love and rice” (p 17),” Everything could shift, and nothing could change” (p 107), “I have an urge to kick myself in the head” (p 158), and “A stray mutt curls up at my feet and shares his fleas with my ankles” (p 200).

Author Fact: I have to start of by flirting. Pham is a good looking guy! My next fact is actually a question – how can you be a “starving” restaurant critic?
Book Trivia: Catfish and Mandala is Pham’s first book.

Things that need further explanation: what, exactly, are “angry egg-eyes”, and what do they look like? Pham mentions five different types of bananas. Now I want to know their names and characteristics.

Pham mentions Miles From Nowhere by Barbara Savage. I’m so excited it’s actually on my list. Sad to say I won’t be reading it until probably May 2016 though!

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Bicycling” (p 36). Simple enough.

ps~ I enjoyed Catfish and Mandala so much that I added Pham as a favorite author on LibraryThing.

A Child’s Life

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Gloeckner. Phoebe. A Child’s Life and Other Stories. Berkeley: Frog, ltd., 2000.

Nothing could have prepared me for Gloeckner’s A Child’s Life. I don’t know what I was expecting – maybe something along the lines of Robert Louis Stevenson or Kate Greenaway. Something really benign and cute, perhaps. I was prepared to be bored. but sweetly so.

Not so. To put it bluntly, A Child’s Life is a visual assault that needs to happen. When there are news reports of sexual abuse, rape, incest, drugs either on television or the radio we viewers are shielded from what that really means. We allow our imaginations to blunt the sharp edges of reality. We cringe, but we don’t go there with the truth. Gloeckner doesn’t allow for this numbing of truth. With Gloeckner you don’t have permission to soften this horrific reality. As a graphic novel the pictures tell the stories of an abused childhood better than any words in a novel. In a word, it was painful. When I finished I had words of my own; words like harsh, gritty, shocking, tragic yet truthful rang in my ears.

Author Fact: If you pick up the 1583940286 version of A Child’s Life you will find hints that this is semi-autobiographical. Gloeckner denies it.

Book Trivia: In addition to being called semi-autobiographical, A Child’s Life was also once called “a how-to for pedophiles.”

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter “Graphic Novels” (p 103).

Out of Control

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Brockmann, Suzanne. Out of Control. New York: Ivy Books, 2002.

Here is the quick and dirty plot: Couple #1: Savannah von Hopf needs Navy SEAL Ken “WildCard” Karmody to help her save her kidnapped uncle somewhere in Indonesia. Couple #2: In Jakarta, missionary Molly Anderson is inexplicably drawn to silent, brooding “David Jones” who reminds me a little too much of the famed Indiana Jones. Couple #3: Back at FBI headquarters Alyssa Locke is trying to walk away from ex-lover Sam Starrett while avoiding walking into the arms of her boss, Max Bhagat. All three relationships will come together when Savannah’s rescue attempt goes horribly wrong.

The best part of Out of Control was the clever placement of Double Agent, a book written by Savannah’s grandmother, Rose. It’s on the best seller list so even missionary Molly is reading it.

The worst part about Out of Control was the corny sexiness of it all. If the three couples weren’t having sex they were imagining it at the most unrealistic moments. A helicopter just blew up and there are no survivors. That sucks, but boy would I like to lick that hard chiseled body of yours…
My favorite eye rolling line: “And as for getting a strenuous workout, his heart was not the primary organ he wanted to exercise” (p 23).

Also, when I started reading Out of Control I had this weird sense of deja vu. Something sounded really familiar about not only the characters but the plot as well. As if I had read it before. So, I did a little digging and back in 2008 I reviewed an earlier book by Brockmann called The Defiant Hero. Here are the similarities between the two books:

  1. Both plots involve a kidnapping of some sort.
  2. Both plots involve Navy SEALS and by default, both plots involve the FBI
  3. Both plots include a grandmother
  4. Both plots have a terrorist element to them
  5. In both books all lead characters are impossibly good looking
  6. Both books involve three sets of couples in sexual turmoil
  7. The same characters are in each book

There is a philosophy about writing – write what you know. I’d like to think authors take that with a grain of salt. If my third Brockmann book has Navy SEALS, sexy bodies, kidnapping, terrorism and a random grandmother thrown in for good measure I’ve figured out her formula.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Romance Novels: Our Love is Here to Stay” (p 260).

To Sir, With Love

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Braithwaite, E.R. To Sir, With Love. New York: Jove Publishing, 1959.

Confession: whenever I hear the words “to sir with love” I do not think of Sidney Poitier. I do not think of LuLu. I don’t even think of Braithwaite. I think of MTV’s 1993 inauguration ball for President Clinton. Natalie Merchant sang ‘To Sir, With Love” accompanied by R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe. What this says of me, I’m not sure!

E.R. Braithwaite is in the company of a select few: teachers who make a difference. Leaders in education have no trouble touching the lives of one or two of their students. That happens all the time, but to change an entire class is no small feat. I think that’s why they make movies like “Dead Poet’s Society” and “Mr. Holland’s Opus.” Such teachers are an inspiration to the of world education. Braithwaite enters the world of teaching by default. As an out-of-work engineer who cannot get a job due to the color of his skin he is forced to apply for positions outside his area of expertise. A chance meeting with a stranger leads him to apply for a position with the Greenslade Secondary School in London’s ill reputed East End. There, Braithwaite meets children more callous and uncouth than any adult he’s ever encountered. They are defiant and daring, determined to run Braithwaite out of  school, just has they had done before. Only Braithwaite is not so easily cowed. And so begins the odyssey of E.R. Braithwaite and his remarkable story. He is able to turn thieves and would-be prostitutes into respectful, intelligent individuals.

Book Trivia: To Sir, With Love was made into a 1967 movie starring Sidney Poitier.

Author Fact: Braithwaite became a popular teacher by applying two fundamental philosophies to his teaching: treat the children with respect and relate everything they learn back to something they already are familiar with. Both tactics engage the children emotionally and intellectually.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Teachers and Teaching Tales” (p 231).

Note: In the index of Book Lust Braithwaite is listed as Ricardo and not Edward Ricardo. Even though Braithwaite went by “Ricky” or “Ricardo” it would have been a show of respect to list his full name.

“Dear Derrida”

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Kirby, David. “Dear Derrida.” The House of Blue Light. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1998. pp 16-20.

When I first read “Dear Derrida” I thought of the word childish. Read it out loud and you get the sense of someone who is hopelessly involved with gossipers, someone who is in a group always looking for the next thing to poke fun of and is never really able to escape. For example, the narrator and his classmates make fun of a professor with a stutter. They drop water balloons on an unsuspecting victim. Even when the narrator has “had it” with present company he finds himself in the company of new roommates; individuals with more swagger and bravado.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Kitchen Sink Poetry” (p 138).

“Strip Poker”

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Kirby, David. “Strip Poker.” The House of Blue Light. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1998. pp 3-5.

“Strip Poker” is a story wrapped in a memory. Kirby is donating blood when a picture of Ava Gardiner revives a lost memory. He remembers asking his mother if he would like to play strip poker. He is only eight and yet he knows that the strategy is to begin the game wearing as many articles of clothing possible. He can picture the different layers his mother would don. When she replies, “no, thank you, darling” he is struck by how there was no explanation for this declination. Nothing that would explain what was so wrong with his request. This leads to thoughts of other misrepresentations of the truth, each thought bouncing off another and another until Kirby is brought back to reality by the nurse taking his blood donation. She asks if he is a runner because his pulse is slow.

I liked this poem (the very first one in House of Blue Light because of the train of thoughts Kirby has while donating blood. It reminds me of my meandering ponderings and how when my husband asked what I am thinking about, before I can answer him, I have to ask “Do you want the whole train or just the caboose?”

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Kitchen Sink Poetry” (p 138).

A Drinking Life

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Hamill, Pete. A Drinking Life. Narrated by Jonathan Davis. Prince Frederick: Recorded Books, 2003.

As a first-time audio book listener, here are my perceptions: there are pros and cons to listening to an audio book. For the cons, it is less imaginative when someone fills in the voices and sounds effects of the story. You also can’t take note of a favorite line or phrase. Things that make you laugh out loud are between your ears and not on a page you can quote from later. You miss out on illustrations, photographs, the feel of paper between your fingers as you don’t get to turn the pages…
But here is the benefit to an audio book: you can walk for hours and hours on a treadmill and be thoroughly entertained. Such is my life in the middle of April. But, a review:

A Drinking Life is an odyssey. It is an autobiographical examination of alcoholism where the drinking escalates slowly, sip by sip, drink by drink. For me, it dragged on in places. Hamill spends two thirds of the book setting the stage for his lead performance as an alcoholic. Starting with Hamill’s early childhood in the early 1940s he recounts his formative years living with his Irish parents in Brooklyn, New York. His father’s own battle with the bottle is omnipresent, a constant in Hamill’s life. That lays the groundwork for the excuses Hamill will make and his ultimate drinking downfall. Bars and beer are in the background as Hamill describes other obsessions in his life: comics as a child, newspapers, art and fighting as a teen, sex throughout the ages, and later as an adult, traveling, politics and writing.  Alcohol is the one constant through it all.

I am going to sound like a prim, prissy, panties-in-a-wad puss, but I really believe A Drinking Life should have come with a disclaimer. Rap artists have to slap a sticker announcing “explicit” when they swear, mention drugs or sex, on an album and yet Pete Hamill can do all those things, describe sex scenes with detailed wild abandon, he can use every swear word (included the dreaded “c” word), and remember violent beatings he would receive and give…all without some kind of heads up to the reader.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Lost Weekends” (p 147).

Journey Beyond Selene

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Kluger, Jeffrey. Journey Beyond Selene: Remarkable Expeditions Past Our Moon and to the Ends of the Solar System. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999.

If astronauts and spaceships fuel the imaginations of little boys, Journey Past Selene more than ignites the scientific minds of grown men. Kluger takes us back to the early 1960s – just before man walked on the moon. Back to the beginnings of Jet Propulsion Laboratory and its spaceships. These unmanned rockets were going on extraordinary expeditions, traveling to the unthinkable ends of the solar system. Journey Beyond Selene takes us to the moons of Jupiter and Saturn and Neptune and beyond. We get a first class trip to fantastical moons with names like Despina, Titania and my favorite, Ophelia. We get to meet the ambitious scientists and engineers and hopefuls behind the project. We get ensnared in the red tape of government funding. As readers, thanks to Kluger’s straight-forward, no-nonsense approach, we have the luxury of keeping our feet firmly planted on terra firma while our imaginations soar beyond Selene.

Author Fact: Kluger coauthored Lost Moon: the Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13 which was made into a movie starring Tom Hanks. Time Magazine has a bio on Kluger and their slightly outdated picture of Kluger reminds me of Steve Buscemi for some odd reason. Maybe it’s the stare…

Book Trivia: Journey Beyond Selene has some of the coolest pictures of moons.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter “The Moon’s My Destination” (p 158).

“Goodbye, Place I Lived Nearly 23 Years…”

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Young, Dean. “Goodbye, Place I Lived Nearly 23 Years / Almost Everyone Left Before Me.” Skid. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2002. pp 50-51.

Just the title of the poem alone had me scratching my head. Where was this place? This place someone lived for nearly 23 years? At first (logical) thought, childhood home. Many people do not venture from the nest immediately after turning 18. Later, after I read the poem more than once I thought commune. Definitely some sort of hazy, free-love commune where drugs and music are involved. Still later I wondered if I was trying too hard to decipher something that didn’t need such analysis. I mean, how can one respond to the line, “When I told Scoot my father died, he told me he was gay. A trade? Yes but no” (p 50 -51). There is no real flirty funny in this and yet I was amused all the same.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Kitchen-Sink Poetry” (p138).

Alice Springs

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Gemmell, Nikki. Alice Springs. New York: Viking, 1999.

If you have ever read The Bean Trees or Pigs in Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver you might be reminded of Taylor Greer when you read Nikki Gemmell’s Alice Springs. There are definite similarities between Taylor Greer and Phillipa “Snip” Freeman, the heroine of Alice Springs. For starters, both characters are fiercely independent; both have a wanderer spirit and a devil-may-care attitude about what anyone thinks of them. Neither of them can commit to a love interest. But, Snip is older, and takes more risks with relationships and sex than Taylor does. Snip rules her world with her body. She is used to loving and leaving the men she meets.

It is after her grandmother’s death that we first meet Snip. She has been given an inheritance check with the three word  instruction “hunt him down.” Snip knows the him is her father and hunting him down will be the easy part, for he isn’t hiding. It’s the why that has Snip puzzled. What is she supposed to do once the hunted has been successfully hunted? To get to her father, Bud, Snip travels to the Aboriginal  outback. Along the way Snip takes a traveling companion who gets under her skin more than she expects.Then, a surprising thing happens. The longer Snip stays rooted in one place the more she is exposed to the powers of belonging somewhere.

Gemmell writes like the ocean. The words flow with rhythmic intensity, pounding with violence, soothing with consistency. The storyline is liquid and slippery; it washes over you again and again.

Favorite lines (and there were a few): “No-one gets under her skin like her mother does, no-one hits on half-truths like her” (p 70) and “Some kids vanish from their parents’ lives , to rattle them into noticing” (p 120).

Author Fact: Gemmell anonymously wrote the erotic book The Bride Stripped Bare but claimed it as her own right before publication.

Book Trivia: On Gemmell’s website Alice Springs is explained as a novel that was born not with character or plot in mind, but with a place. I like that imagery a lot. In Australia Alice Springs was published under the name Cleve.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Australian Fiction” (p 29). Simple enough.

“Blue Garden”

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Young, Dean. “Blue Garden.” Skid. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2002. pp 18-19.

At first reading, “Blue Garden” seemed nothing more than an admonishment to the reader about what a poem should and shouldn’t be. Upon closer evaluation the interpretation falls away and the potential for something completely different is revealed. It all seems up to you. And yet. Yet, it comes back to words and seems to be about the words. What works for a word and what doesn’t. Imagery follows the lines like a movie, linked to the psyche. Powerful stuff. My favorite part was, “Never put an eclair in a suitcase or a poem” (p 19). It made me laugh and feel a certain sense of sadness all at once.What can’t you put an eclair into a poem, I’d like to know!

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Kitchen-Sink Poetry (p 139).

House of Blue Light

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Kirby, David. The House of Blue Light. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000.

It’s really hard to call this book a book of poetry. Each poem reads like a short story full of interesting characters and plots. In one 77 page book the reader is transported across countries and cultures. It has been said that House of Blue Light is autobiographical. For example Kirby’s characters mention a Barbara and Kirby is indeed married to a woman named Barbara Hamby. I do not know if she is the same Barbara of House of Blue Light’s poetry. Maybe she is, maybe she isn’t. Regardless, Kirby’s poetry is funny, situationally (my word) real, and intensely soulful. In a word, substantial; this was poetry I could sink my teeth into and actually taste something.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Kitchen Sink Poetry” (p 138).