Category: BookLust I

January Was…

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January started off and ended with a head cold (damn you, kisa), a really nice dinner party, a re-commitment to the houses HOUSE (glutton for punishment that I am), a re-commitment to charities with a big one – training for a 20 mile walk for Project Bread, a huge re-commitment to friendships and huge changes at the library. For books it was:

  • Death Comes to the Archbishop by Willa Cather in honor of New Mexico becoming a state in January.
  • Red Death by Walter Mosely in honor of Walter’s birthday being in January
  • Biggest Elvis by P.F. Kluge in honor of both Elvis and P.F. celebrating their birthdays in January.
  • Devices and Desires by P.D. James ~ in honor of mystery month.
  • The Eleven Million Mile High Dancer by Carol Hill
  • Edith Wharton: a Biography by R.W.B. Lewis ~ in honor of Edith’s birthday on January 24th.
  • The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman ~ in honor of Barbara’s birthday.

For fun:

  • The Letters by Luanne Rice and Joseph Monninger ~ a story that partially takes place on Monhegan. How could I resist? This is the blog that was plagarized by some dumb-azz.
  • 30 pages of Nutritional Wisdom ~ a Christmas gift from my sister.

So I didn’t get a LibraryThing Early Review book in January. That’s not a big deal. I have certainly gotten my fair share over the course of the program so I’m not complaining. I do have to admit, I feel a little guilty. For the first time ever, I am really late publishing the review for the last ER book. Maybe that had something to do with it…who knows?

ps~ I did get one for February, or so I am told! 🙂

Devices and Desires

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James, P.D. Devices and Desires. New York: Warner Books, 1989.

When I first saw this book I practically groaned aloud. For starters, it’s paperback. As my husband can I tell you I hardly settle down with anything but hardcover. Next, it’s over 460 pages long. Guns of August, The Eleven Million Mile High Dancer and Edith Wharton are all over 400 pages long, too. Quite a lot of reading for the month of January. But, luckily (for me) Devices and Desires was thrilling to read.

It begins with a serial killer stalking lone women up and down the coast of Norfolk. Commander Adam Dalgliesh (of Scotland Yard) is trying to take a holiday in nearby sleepy Larksoken where his aunt has willed him a quaint windmill/cottage. His vacation is cut short when the killer takes one of Larsoken’s own. Adding to the drama is a highly controversial atomic power station, a lover’s tryst and blackmail. There’s always blackmail, right? Dalgliesh does his best to assist the local authorities but there is controversy even there as he has a not so pleasant history with Rickards, the lead on the case.
As with all small towns the entire community is well embroiled in each other’s lives. They seem to know everything about one another yet no one suspects the real killer.

Best line: “But he had no understanding of the extraordinary compexities and irrationalities of human motives, human behaviour” (p 108). 

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter, “I Love a Mystery” (117).

Biggest Elvis

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Kluge, P.F. Biggest Elvis. New York: Viking, 1996.

I like sarcastic, witty books. I like books with a bit of bite to them. Biggest Elvis has bite, wit, and dare I say, balls. Really fun book to read.

Written in the first person from the points of view of six different characters Biggest Elvis tells the story of the reincarnation of Elvis…in Olongapo, Philippines. Elvis lives again in the form of three Elvis impersonators portraying the early young-stud years, the middle movie years, and lastly, the portly, pudgy, final years. Their nightly performance is a huge hit in Olongapo, but as with all things, it has to end. As the performance gets bigger and more permenant so grows the obsession. In addition there is a sinister commentary about American greed and power that lurks behind the entertaining Elvis trio.

I realize that in the Philippines sex and prostitution are commonplace for a community. Just like homelessness or alcoholism it’s viewed as something the just exists and is shrugged off on with regularity. Because Biggest Elvis essentially takes place in a whorehouse disguised as a bar the references to sex are plentiful. For me, it was a little excessive.

Lines that I liked: ” – well, he would be a lost ball in tall grass” (p 6), “Olongapo had contaminated me. It leaked out of my pores, dripped off my tongue” (p 58), and “The kind of woman who always brings along something to read because she might get bored, the book is like a warning to the world she’s in, that if the people aren’t up to expectations, in a minute she’s out of here…” (p 124).

BookLust Twists: In Book Lust and More Book Lust. In Book Lust in the chapters, “Elvis on My Mind” (p 79), “First Novels” (p 89), and “P.F. Kluge: Too Good To Miss” (p 139). In More Book Lust in the introduction (p xii).

Sometimes I doubt myself to the point of silence. It’s hard for me to point out an error when I don’t think I have all the facts. So, it’s with a great deal of trouble that I have to say I think I found an error in a Book Lust chapter. Here’s the deal: Biggest Elvis is in three different Book Lustchapters: “P.F. Kluge: Too Good to Miss” (p), “Elvis” (p), and “First Novels” (p). It’s this last chapter that has me so bothered. According to Kluge’s website, he wrote a couple of other books before Biggest Elvis. Unless I misunderstood Pearl’s content for “First Books” I think including Biggest Elvis is a mistake. There, I said it. Somebody, anybody, please correct me if I’m wrong!

Death Comes for the Archbishop

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Cather, Willa. Death Comes for the Archbishop. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1929.

Father Vaillant and Father LaTour are two friends on a quest. Death Comes for the Archbishop is their story of the attempt to establish a diocese in New Mexico – a landscape fraught with corruption and a complete breakdown of religious morality. On their travels we meet other notable characters such as Padre Martinez and Dona Isabella. They add violence and greed and drama and intrigue to an otherwise seemingly simple story of a religious quest.
While Death Comes for the Archbishop is Cather’s self proclaimed “best written book” I had never heard of it before the Challenge. In the beginning it seemed like an easy, quick read but after I got into it I realized it had amazing depth and powerful symbolism.

Impressionable quotes:
“When they were tramping home, Father Joseph said that, as for him, he would rather combat the superstitions of a whole Indian Pueblo than the vanity of one white woman” (p 219), and “…it was the Indian manner to vanish into the landscape, not to stand out against it” (p 265).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter”New Mexico” (p 167).

Choice Cuts

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Kurlansky, Mark. Choice Cuts: a Savory Selection of Food Writing from Around the World and Throughout History. New York: Ballantine, 2002.

I like nothing better than a good cookbook. A close second to a good cookbook is reading books written by cooks. Mark Kurlansky does one better and combined the best of food writing from soup to nuts; covering techniques, ingredients and even ethnic origins of food. Then, there’s the introduction. How can you compete when the introduction is titled, “Better than Sex” (p 1)? I mean, come on! Out of the thirty chapters  five six really grabbed my attention. More than the introduction, you ask? Mais oui! How could I not be seduced with chapter titles such as these: “Rants” (p 115), Poultry, Fowl, and Other Ill-Fated Birds (p 210), “Loving Fat” (p 303), “The Dark Side of Chocolate” (p 330), “A Good Drink” (p 361) and, “Bugs” (p 380). See, aren’t you the least bit curious about that last one?

Everything about this book is based on one simple subject – food. Kurlansky takes that subject and explores everything having to do with it. From growing, hunting, buying, and preparing to smelling, eating, and savoring it. The art of cooking, the downfall of rotting, from killing to cultivating. From Cato to Chekhov, Kurlansky finds quotes, essays and passages from a multitude of well known individuals, some with lives centered around food like M.F.K. Fisher and Elizabeth David and some not like Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway and E.M Forster. Whether focused on an ingredient like garlic or chocolate, or a technique like faking venison or baking bread, or a location like favorite restaurants or markets, Kurlansky covers it all. It’s historical and cutting edge. Technical and funny. Poetry and dissertation. Well worth the read.

Favorite passages: “A blonde seems humbly to beseech your heart while a brunette tends to ravish it” (p 39), “So don’t worry about me down here eating nothing and [makeing] an ass of myself. I have had strange eating habits since I was a boy (Ernest Hemingway)” (p 61) and, “cook-books have always intrigued and seduced me (Alice B. Toklas)” (p 182).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter, “Mark Kurlansky: Too Good To Miss” (p 146).

A side note: Before I knew what Choice Cuts was really about I assumed it had something to do with meat. After all, Kurlansky has written about solitary food items such as cod and salt, too. So, thinking this was a book about edible meats nothing disturbed me more than seeing an illustration for what I thought was a squirrel. I was close – it was a dormouse.

Shoeless Joe

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Kinsella, W.P. Shoeless Joe. New York: Ballantine, 1982.

This week of reading seemed to be all about dreams. First, Lincoln’s Dreams by Connie Willis and now Shoeless Joeby W.P. Kinsella. The movie “Field of Dreams” was based on Kinsella’s book. I don’t know if my memory of the the movie chased my reading, but it seemed easier to get through the 224 pages faster than usual.

Ray is a man possessed by love. Love for his family, love for the sprawling farmland of Iowa, and most importantly, love for the game of baseball. It’s this love that makes Ray take chances with all three. Spurred on by a mystical voice Ray builds a left field out in part of his cornfield. But, the voice doesn’t stop there. Soon it has Ray driving to Vermont to kidnap J.D. Salinger and from there the adventure really begins. Battling debt, childhood devils, and indecision Ray leans on his ever-understanding wife (and later, Salinger) to build a cornfield stadium that only a few can understand. It’s a magical story, perfect for Christmastime when the season is all about dreams and believing in the impossible.

Favorite lines: “Mark’s party is bulging with tweed and intellect” (p 47), and ” This is a carnival. People pay to be disappointed” (p 175).

BookLust Twist: In Book Lust and More Book Lust. From Book Lust in the chapter, “Growing Writers” (p 107), and from More Book Lust in the chapter, “Big Ten Country: The Literary Midwest (Iowa)” (p 26).

Lincoln’s Dreams

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Willis, Connie. Lincoln’s Dreams. Toronto: Bantam Books, 1987.

Connie Willis typically writes science fiction or fantasy and while Lincoln’s Dreams doesn’t take place in the year 2197 or on the planet Baktakazini, it is equally mind bending and thought provoking. Jeff Johnston is a historical researcher working for a Civil War novelist, Thomas Broun. Broun is obsessed with Abraham Lincoln’s dreams of foreshadowing before his death. Broun goes to great length to analyze them with Jeff’s help. Through his research, Jeff meets Annie, a beautiful Sleep Institute patient who has troubling dreams of her own. Annie has been having dreams not about Robert E. Lee, but AS Robert E. Lee. It’s as if her dreams really are those of Lee’s. Jeff takes it upon himself to not only satisfy the growing obsession Broun has with supporting facts about Lincoln’s dreams but, he also tries to cure Annie of her own Civil War nightmares while falling in love in the process.

Since the bulk of Willis’s storyline centers on Annie having dreams there are a lot of sleep scenes and subsequently the analysis of those dreams. It’s the analysis that I enjoyed the most. The details of the dreams gave life to the Civil War and its participants.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter “Connie Willis: Too Good to Miss” (p 246).

Note:  It is painfully obvious this is a half-assed “review” of sorts. This just goes to show me & myself how out of it we really have been these past few weeks. I have been finished with this book for awhile and never finished this properly. *sigh*

Anatomy of a Murder

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img_43561Traver, Robert. Anatomy of a Murder. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1958.

If you want to get technical about it this was my first book of December – considering the first two were read while it was still November. A technicality, I guess.

Anatomy of a Murder was written in the 1950s by Robert Traver. From the moment I started reading it I couldn’t put it down. 439 pages went by in a blur. I read before bed, when I first woke, on the drive into work, on my lunch break, waiting in line at the grocery store…It had me hooked from the very first sentence. It’s no wonder this novel became a movie. For starters, take the author – Robert Traver was the pen name for John D. Voelker who happened to be a lawyer and a judge in addition to being a fantastic writer. Secondly, Voelker used a real life murder than took place in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. True stories are always fascinating.

So, here’s the story (now that I’ve set the stage, so to speak): Paul (Polly to his friends) Biegler is an ex-D.A. turned public defender set out to prove his client, Frederic Manion, murdered a bartender in a moment of insanity. Proving the insanity isn’t the only challenge of the case. Biegler must also prove Manion’s wife was raped by the bartender (and thus creating the moment of insanity) when all evidence surrounding Mrs. Manion’s attack is not admissible in her husband’s trial. The entire story is so well written you never want it to end.

Some of the many, many lines and phrases I found great:
“gently drunk” (p 13).
“Juries, in common with women drivers, are apt to do the damndest things” (p 39).
“I consider jealousy the most corrosive and destructive of all emotions and I long time ago made up my mind that I refused to be jealous of anyone or anything. Life is simply too goddam short” (p 73).

One last comment. I always thought that lawyers (of any kind) needed to show judges the utmost respect both in the courtroom and in chambers. Right? Well, someone needs to explain the scene on page 244 where Polly is in Judge Weaver’s chambers. Picture this, the Judge has just lit a pipe and Polly sits, “one leg over the arm of [his] chair.” I don’t even sit that way in my mother-in-law’s house!

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter, “What a Trial That Was!” (p 243).

Dangerous Friend

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Dangerous FriendJust, Ward. A Dangerous Friend. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999.

This is the companion read to The Quiet American by Graham Greene. I have to say it was interesting to read one man’s book in honor of someone else. But, back to Ward Just. Just was born in December, hence the addition of A Dangerous Friend. If it isn’t clear, I read The Quiet American because it was so similar to A Dangerous Friend. It just made sense to read them together.

A Dangerous Friend takes the reader to Vietnam, 1965. Sydney Parade is a man bored with his Connecticut life. In search of something bigger than himself he leaves his wife and daughter for the jungles of Saigon. While his intention is to be part of a foreign-aid operation building bridges, administering agriculture education, and facilitating supply delivery, Sydney soon discovers war is war no matter which side you are on. The depths of conflict strike his moral heart and leave him struggling to survive any way that he can.

A couple lines that I liked:
“…we were imprisoned in our own language, tone deaf to possibility” (p 4)
“The answer to chaos is repetition” (p 73).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in two different chapters: “Companion Reads” (p 64), and “Ward Just: Too Good to Miss” (p 135). Also, mentioned in the introduction (p xi).

Quiet American

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Greene, Graham. The Quiet American. New York: Viking Press, 1956.

This has come up twice for my December readings – once because of Ward Just’s birthday (don’t ask), and once because it is a companion read to Ward Just, again don’t ask. I’ll explain all that when I get to Ward Just’s book later this month week.

Like my friend who started decorating for Christmas, I started reading my December picks on 11/23/08. I couldn’t help myself. I had wanted to fit in Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling but my library’s version was not the complete works. In addition it was missing the two crucial stories Nancy Pearl specifically pointed out. Rather than disrupt the flow of order I moved onto December…a week early!

This was a story of two battles. An English reporter is sent to cover a war-torn Saigon. While there he falls in love with Vietnamese woman. His love is challenged when an American from Boston falls in love with the same woman. There is a real war raging on the periphery, complete with bombings and mass murders, while at the center is a battle over a woman. The interesting twist to this story is how the story makes the reader feel towards the two men and how that changes over time.

Best lines: “I shut my eyes and she was again the same as she used to be: she was the hiss of steam, the clink of a cup; the was a certain hour of the night and the promise of rest” (p 5). That is such an achingly beautiful line!
“You cannot love without intuition” (p 13).
“The possession of a body tonight seemed a very small thing – perhaps that day I had seen too many bodies which belonged to no one, not even to themselves” (p 65-66).
“For a moment I had felt elation as on the instant of waking before one remembers” (p 205).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in two different places: in the chapter “Companion Reads” (p 64), and “Ward Just: Too Good To Miss” (p 135).

Best American Essays

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Oates, Joyce Carol, ed. The Best American Essays of the Century. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000.

As bloggers we cannot help but be reminded that November is National Novel Writing Month. It’s as if there a reminding hope that writing these one-three paragraph diatribes could somehow be transformed into something as concrete, or as interesting, as a full blown novel. I squirm with discomfort every time someone says I should write a book. While my stories are interesting…to a point, I don’t see a need to make them more than what they are: tiny bubbles of thought designed to pop (and ultimately, hopefully) go away when released.

Anyway. This isn’t about me and my nonability to write. This is about the complilation of essays from those who can.
Best American Essays of the Century wraps up the creme de la creme of essay writing from 1901 – 1997. Beginning with Mark Twain (“Corn-pone Opinions”) and ending with Saul Bellow (“Graven Images.”) As part of the Book Lust Challenge I read the following essays:

  • “Stickeen” by John Muir ~ “…for many of Nature’s finest lessons are to be found in her storms” (p 32).
  • “Corn-pone Opinions” by Mark Twain ~ “We are creatures of outside influence; as a rule we do not think, we only imitate” (p 1).
  • “A Law of Acceleration” by Henry Adams
  • “The Devil Baby at Hull-House” by Jane Adams
  • “The Crack-up” by F. Scott Fitzgerald ~ Life was something you dominated if you were any good” (p 139).
  • “The Ethics of Living Jim Crow: an Autobiographical Sketch” by Richard Wright
  • “Sex Ex Machina” by James Thurber ~ “Every person carries in his consciousness the old scar, or the fresh wound of some harrowing misadventure with a contraption of some sort” (p 157).
  • “Letters from a Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King, Jr.
  • “The Brown Wasps” by Loren Eisley
  • “A drugstore in Winter” by Cynthia Ozick

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “Essaying Essays” (p 80).

Passionate Nomad

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img_4236Geniesse, Jane Fletcher. Passionate Nomad: The Life of Freya Stark. New York: Modern Library, 2001.

This has been hanging around the house for over a year now. I had no idea it was even on “the list” until now. Someone gave me a copy with the recommendation, “read it. It’s good. You’ll like it.” Okay. So, in honor of National Travel Month I put Freya on the list (as soon as I found out it was even on the list).

Freya Stark was an amazing woman. Not because she explored uncharted territories. Not because she dared to go where even the bravest of men hadn’t. Not because she had no regard for her own well being. Not even because she was an expert Arabist. She was an amazing woman because she dared, period. We hear about the glass ceiling and what women even today are tolerating. Freya faced all that and more.
Geniesse weaves a convincing autobiography of Freya Stark using letters to and from Freya, journals, interviews, but mostly from Freya’s own library of books written about her experiences. Freya was a prolific writer and so Geniesse had plenty of material to draw from. The final product is a fascinating account of one woman’s rise to recognition through exploration and encourage, especially during one of the most volatile times of our history – World War II.

A few favorite passages:
“One suspects that all her life Freya carried some degree of rage…” (p 23).
“A telegram from Freya requesting that a tin bath be shipped into the interior of Yemen was not unusual” (p 156). You go girl!
“Wherever she went to find solitude on this great, empty earth, from nowhere emerged some form of life, human or otherwise, to share the loneliness” (p 217).
“in the middle of the night she was awakened by the tinkling of a music box being played close to her ear” (p 250).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter, “Lady Travelers” (p 143). I am excited to think I will be reading some of Freya’s own works (eventually), – from this same chapter. Maybe next year.

As I Live & Breathe

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img_4234Weisman, Jamie. As I Live and Breathe, notes of a patient-doctor. New York: North Point Press, 2002.

In honor of National Health Month I decided to read As I Live and Breathe. I always find memoirs interesting when the author is more than your average individual. Who doesn’t? Dr. Weisman also has a talent for words which makes her unique story all that more compelling.

Dr. Jamie Weisman is a unique woman. While living within the confines of her illness she chose to do something about it, she joined the medical profession. As she says in her memoir, “”Now that I’ve finished medical school, I know what all those names mean, what diseases they describe, but you cannot know what they are as an illness until you see them in a patient” (p 15). Not only is her condition (congenital autoimmune deficiency disorder) rare and confusing, but her duality of patient and doctor gives her an interesting perspective- from bedside manner of doctor to bedridden patient. Because she is able to really know what the patient is experiencing she can deliver the empathy necessary for individuals really suffering.
My only real disappointment was the organization of the chapters. Dr. Weisman jumps around, remembering patients and her own childhood at random. I would have prefered a more chronological accounting. The last two chapters of the book, “begotten” and “begetting” are warmer and more personal and as a result seem a departure from the more clinical previous chapters.

Favorite blurbs:
“Our diseases overwhelm us at the strangest times” (p 16).
“I knew no happy lawyers” (p 31).

BookLust Twist: From both Book Lust and More Book Lust. In Book Lust in the chapter called, “Physicians Writing More Than Prescriptions” (p 185), and in More Book Lust in the chapter called, “Other People’s Shoes (p 181).

November Is…

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Giant
November is completely out of whack – already! I posted a review and then realized I hadn’t even listed out everything I plan to read. Woops! Truth be known, I hadn’t really decided what I wanted to read this month (hence the silly delay). But, this is what November is: November is when I wanted to turn on the heat. It actually came on 10/24 (at 56 degrees), but maybe now I’ll turn it up…to 60. This November marks the first time in my life I am not planning anything for the holidays (watch me cave and change my mind in the next two weeks). November is a marriage forever stuck at 22. November is (hopefully) a month of music. November is also the attempt to get a lot of reading done since it is National Novel Writing Month. Here’s the list:

  • Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson (in honor of first novels) -already finished and reviewed!
  • A Continent for the Taking by Howard W. French (in honor of the best time to visit Africa).
  • The Darling by Russell Banks (in honor of Transgender month*, but, conveniently, also about Africa).
  • Passionate Nomad by Jane Geniesse (in honor of National Travel Month – or one of them, at least!).

and if there is time:

  • As I Live and Breathe: Notes of a Patient Doctor by Jamie Weisman (in honor of National Healing Month).
  • Battle Cry of Freedom: the Civil War Era by James M. McPherson (in honor of November being the month the Civil War ended).

And a few “goals” such as they were: getting my car fixed & getting life as I know it back on track. Period.

*None of the books I will be reading in honor of Transgender Month actually are about people of transgender. Nancy Pearl has a chapter called “Men Channeling Women” in More Book Lust (p 166), but since National Men Channeling Women month doesn’t exist (yet), I thought this would be a good tongue-in-cheek substitute.

Behind the Scenes at the Museum

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Atkinson, Kate. Behind the Scenes at the Museum. London: Black Swan, 1996.

November is writing month and to celebrate I decided to read something from Nancy Pearl’s chapter called “First Novels” (Book Lust p 88)…in two days!
Behind the Scenes at the Museum was honored as a Whitbread Book of the Year and received such words of praise as remarkable, impressive, entertaining, quirky, colorful, humorous, ambitious, unusual, lively, provacative, promising, witty, enchanting, sassy, astounding…I could go on (and on). With reviews using words like those how could I not expect to love it, want to love it?

From the very beginning Behind the Scenes draws the reader in. Told from the point of view of young Ruby Lennox…(before she is even born) there is humor and sarcasm. Her voice reminds me of the wise-alec baby on Family Guy (sorry, the name escapes me). Ruby is omnipresent, giving the reader insight on every thought, feeling, dream, nightmare her family has.
The alternate chapters (told in third person) give the backstory of Ruby’s mother’s life during the second Great War. The writing is not as humorous, nor as witty as when Ruby gets to speak. Over all the reading is a rollercoaster of ups and downs, twisting you through life’s crazy moments.
Favorite lines:
“She walks out, saying nothing, but inside, a silent Scarlett rages…” (p 22).
“…but how can time be reversible when it gallops forward, clippity-clop and nobody ever comes back. Do they?” (p 210).

All and all I wasn’t as wowed as I thought I would be. Maybe it’s because Ruby’s story isn’t the main focus after all. While she tells the story it’s more about her mother, Bunty, and the generations of women before her. It’s interesting to note there is always a war going on in some capacity and Ruby seems to always be walking in on her father having sex with someone other than his wife!

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “First Novels” (p 88). But, I said that already.