Category: BookLust II

House of Morgan

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Chernow, Ron. The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1990.

You can tell straight away that Chernow is going to tell you a great story, especially when he uses words like “brouhaha” to describe an economic catastrophe. There is a sly humor about his writing. How can you not smirk just a little when he writes, “Gooch was being groomed for a career of permanent subordination and forelock tugging” (p 8)? Or says things like “incorrigible Wall Street rascals” (p30)? Yet, his story is vastly inclusive and extremely informative. He takes you back before a time when each state has its own banking system and debts could be settled any which way. We watch the growth of international finance and step into a “wealth” of biographical portraits, if you excuse the pun (since we are talking about banking). I loved the little details; for example, the Morgans were the first private residential household to have electrical lighting in New York and a woman named Belle Greene was Pierpont’s “saucy librarian.” My one complaint – the book is massive. That’s because the tale is massive. Chernow needs every page to tell the story.

As an aside: I love it when my reading converges. In House of Morgan Chernow mentions Dwight Morrow’s daughter, Elizabeth; how she couldn’t resist a comment about Pierpont Morgan’s legendary nose. Because I have been reading Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s diaries I know that Dwight is her brother and he named his daughter after a sister who passed away after a bout with pneumonia. If I hadn’t been reading Lindbergh the names Dwight and Elizabeth Morrow would have meant nothing to me.

Reason read: April is National Banking Month. And speaking of money, it’s also tax month…

Author fact: Chernow holds degrees from Yale and Cambridge.

Book trivia: Chernow won the National Book Award in 1990 for House of Morgan, his first book!

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Founding Fathers” (p 92). Yeah, yeah. I know. House of Morgan is not about a founding father, per se. Pearl mentions House of Morgan as a suggestion if you liked Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton.

“Aftermath”

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Sassoon, Sigfried. “Aftermath.” Modern British “Poetry. Ed. Louis Untermeyer. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1920. pp 220. Print.

This is a heartbreaking poem and the message is super clear. This is a plaintive cry to Sassoon’s fellow veterans, Do not get caught up in the glories of war! Do not let anyone tell you war is an excusable act just because time has softened your memory. I think there is a country song out there with the same message, but I think it was directed towards people not forgetting about September 11, 2001. The message is the same: don’t become complacent and forgiving when you have suffered so much. Sassoon clearly did.

Author fact: There are only two poems I am reading this month. Turner and Sassoon were friends.

Poem trivia: PBS has a great site dedicated to the Great War. Supposedly, you can listen to an audio recording of “Aftermath” but I couldn’t get it to play (which is why I didn’t include the link here). Google it for yourself if you are curious.

BookLust Twist: More Book Lust in the chapter called “Living Through War” (p 237).

Flower and the Nettle

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Lindbergh, Anne Morrow. The Flower and the Nettle: Diaries and Letters 1936 – 1939. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976.

The Flower and the Nettle is Anne’s return to the living. It covers 1936 to 1939. After the death of her first born son she and Charles take their second son, Jon, to England for an “indefinite” stay. They are literally driven out of their own country by the media’s insatiable need to photograph and question the family. First, it was Charles Lindbergh’s fame, then it was the kidnapping and murder of their first child. It is at a rambling rented cottage in England called Long Barn that Anne and Charles can finally relax and be themselves again. Jon is allowed to play freely on the lawn without massive hyper-vigilant supervision. Anne is able to concentrate on her writing. It is here that humor returns to her diaries and letters. She says things like, “It is so delicious” (p 30), and “living passionately in the present” (p 31). Later, after her third son Land is born, Anne and her family move to Illiec off the coast of France. This is the “flower” part of her life. The “nettle” is the approach of World War II and the ensnaring politics. Following Charles to Russia for business Anne vocalizes her discontent with the country. She uses words like dirty, hideous, mediocrity, drab, shoddy, third-rate and glum to describe such things as the poor middle class. She is quick to comment negatively on their fashions and complexions. This took me by surprise. What I needed to keep in mind is the intense scrutiny Anne and her family felt. The longer they stay away from America, the more “pro-Nazi” they are “villainized” as being.

One drawback of skipping a book in a series is the potential to not understand references made to that book in the next one. Because I didn’t read Locked Doors I didn’t grasp Lindbergh’s reference to a previous trip to Russia in 1933.

Favorite lines, “One gets so cramped in ordinary living” (p 76). A good excuse to get out there and do something extraordinary!

As an aside, looking at pictures of Long Barn I can’t help but think what a wonderful place! Don’t tell my husband, but it looks like my dream home! It would have been nice if Lindbergh had included maps of not only her travel destinations, but of the places she and her family lived in Europe.

Reason read: to continue the series started in January, in honor of Journal Month.

Book trivia: Maybe because The Flower and the Nettle is a longer book, there are more photographs. For the first time, Anne includes detailed pictures of the interiors of their residence. Long Barn looks like a place where I would like to live!

Author fact: At this point in Lindbergh’s life she considers herself a serious writer despite already publishing earlier.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Journals and Letters: We Are All Voyeurs at Heart” (p 131).

Illumination Night

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Hoffman, Alice. Illumination Night. New York: Berkley Books, 1987.

“Simon can hear the sound of pine cones hitting the ground, or bones breaking” (p 4). You know you are in for a wild ride when you read that early-in-the-book sentence because, at that moment you haven’t learned that Simon, at age four, has just heard the result of woman trying to fly. There are so many things you don’t know…yet. I should also add that Illumination Night is a really fast read. I read the first 80 pages before coming up for air. My entire lunch break flew by without my eyes lifting from the page once. Alice Hoffman is one of those authors that can suck you into a story within the first few sentences. Once you are hooked you can’t escape the story or the characters. This is a story of relationships. A grandmother, trying to understand her 16 year old granddaughter. They live next door to a married couple trying to live with their insecurities and unmet desires. All of the characters become entangled with one another when the teenager sets her sights on seducing the husband. And then, this part sounds like the punchline to a joke, a giant walks into the picture…Seriously, this is a simply beautiful story about relationships, the ones with healing and faith in them.

Reason read: Hoffman’s birthday is in March. I tried to read this two years ago. Actually, to be more precise I tried to listen to it on cd two years ago. Every disc was so scratched; damaged beyond repair that it was impossible for me to continue. I sent the whole thing back to the owning library and took it off my list for what was supposed to be one year. One thing led to another and I’m only now getting back to it…in print.

Author fact: Alice Hoffman is one of my favorite authors.

Book trivia: Alice Hoffman signed this copy of Illumination Night. Very cool.

BookLust Twist: from all three Lust Books! In Book Lust in the chapter called simply “A…My Name is Alice” (p1); in More Book Lust in the chapter called “Marriage Blues” (p 162); in Book Lust to Go in the chapter simply called “Martha’s Vineyard” (p 142).

Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead

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Lindbergh, Anne Morrow. Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead: Diaries and Letters 1929 – 1932.New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973.

If, in the letters and journals of Bring Me a Unicorn Anne Morrow Lindbergh was a fresh-faced college girl, she is now a daring pilot and adventurer in Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead. The year 1929 begins with Anne and Charles’ engagement. At this stage in her life she is quickly learning about the down side of being a celebrity (thanks to Charles and his airplane adventures). The couple can’t go anywhere without a throng of reporters following their every move. Anne has to be careful of what she writes to friends and family for fear of it getting out to the press and misconstrued. Charles and Anne even wear disguises to the opera. But, Anne still carries her enthusiasm with her. She continues to miss her siblings and mother madly (she never addresses her letters to her father) while she travels about the world. All this enthusiasm comes crashing to the ground at the end of 1931 when she loses her father and then again, in early 1932, when her son, Charles Jr., is kidnapped and found months later murdered. It is heartbreaking the way she refers to her son as, “the stolen child” as if she cannot bear to call him by name or even claim to be his mother. Throughout the rest of the book, Anne’s grief is heartbreaking. She tried to end on a happy note with the birth of her second son, Jon and the wedding of her sister, Elisabeth.

Quotes to take away: “I leaned on another’s strength until I discovered my own” (p 2). Speaking of Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, “It took me by the teeth and shook me as a dog a rabbit, and I could not get over it” (p 56).  A line I can relate to, “I am wild, wild, wild to get home” (p 100). A line I cannot relate to, “After ten weeks of negotiation and contact with the kidnapper and the handing over of the demanded ransom, the dead body of the child was found in the woods a few miles from our home” (p 209).

Reason read: I read Bring Me A Unicorn in honor of January being Journal month. Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead continues the series.

Author fact: There is one degree of separation between Anne Morrow Lindbergh and myself! I had a small thrill on my second day of reading Hour of Gold when surprise, surprise! Anne mentions Monhegan Island! She is recounting all of the stops on her honeymoon with Charles and says, “Monhegan Island in here somewhere” (p 45). Judging by the dates of letters, she was there sometime between June 1 and June 7th, 1929.

Book trivia: Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead picks up where Bring Me a Unicorn left off. The next book in the sequence is Locked Rooms and Open Doors which I will not be reading. This period, from 1933 – 1935 will be skipped. Sad.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Journals and Letters: We Are All Voyeurs At Heart” (p 131).

PS ~ Even though Locked Rooms and Open Doors is not on my list I have decided to borrow it, just so I can look at the pictures and feel “caught up” for when I read Flower and the Nettle.

Benjamin Franklin

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Isaacson, Walter. Benjamin Franklin: an American Life. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003.

“Benjamin Franklin is the founding father who winked at us” (p 2). What a great way to start a biography about a man whose life is such common knowledge you don’t feel like you could read yet another one and get anything new out of it. It is Isaacson’s writing style that sets him apart from all the other biographies. From the very beginning, Isaacson draws you into Franklin’s world with such ease and humor. His style of writing is charming and winsome in a myriad of ways, but I liked that he used such words as “sassy” and “spunky” to describe people. A lot of Isaacson’s information is drawn from Franklin’s own words, either from his autobiography (even correcting Mr. Franklin from time to time) or from Franklin’s personal letters. I particularly enjoyed Franklin’s tongue in cheek research about the smell of farts correlating to the type of food one eats. But, Isaacson’s playful account doesn’t mean he refrains from personal critical opinion about our founding father’s actions, especially concerning Franklin’s treatment of his immediate family. He defends Franklin as much as he can concerning the relationships Franklin has with women other than his wife, claiming they were mostly nonsexual. However, Isaacson has sympathy for Franklin’s family who spend nearly two decades without him. In addition to Franklin’s personal life, Isaacson also is extremely thorough in detailing Franklin’s civic contributions, political dealings and public life.

As an aside, Benjamin Franklin has always been one of my favorite historical figures. Why? Because in his early years he was a vegetarian in order to save money for books. Sounds like something I would do. He was also thought to be an insomniac.

Reason read: Benjamin Franklin was born in the month of January. Plain and simple.

Book trivia: Benjamin Franklin: an American Life includes a smattering of illustrations, including an unfinished painting by Benjamin West.

Author fact: Isaacson is also the co-author of The Wise Men. Another book on my list I can’t wait to read.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Founding Fathers” (p 91). Duh.

Bring Me a Unicorn

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Lindbergh, Anne Morrow. Bring Me a Unicorn: Diaries and Letters of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, 1922 – 1928. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972.

Bring Me a Unicorn is the first in a series of autobiographies by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. It covers her life from 1922 to 1928. I have to say Anne’s writing is delightful. I admire how brutally honest she is with herself. Her letters home are typical of any college kid, “sorry this is so rushed…I have been frightfully busy!” She is also typical in her growing interest in Colonel Lindbergh. She feels she is not in his league but mentions him more and more in her diary entries. You could see her attraction grow until she finally admits that she loves him. The photographs are great. They represent (visually) what was happening in Anne’s world at that present time.

Quotes from Anne I liked (letters): “You’re popular, clever, pretty, attractive, capable, and will be a big bug!” (p 5) Sent to her sister. I have no idea what “big bug” means. Here’s one from her diary: “A heavenly day: no deck tennis, no unnecessary people, no bores” (p 31).
The quote I could relate to the most: “Why is it that you can sometimes feel the reality of people more keenly through a letter than face to face?” Exactly. I feel that way, too.

Reason read: January is Journal month. Maybe it’s the New Year’s Resolution thing, but people start more journals in January than any other month.

Author fact: Anne was fearless. Although it wasn’t very ladylike she had an interest in aviation even before marrying Lindbergh.

Book trivia: Bring Me a Unicorn is the first part of Lindbergh’s autobiography. Hour of Gold, hour of Lead is the second.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Journals and Letters: We Are All Voyeurs At Heart” (p 131).

Feast of Love

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Baxter, Charles. Feast of Love. New York: Vintage Books, 2000.

This is a really clever story. Charlie Baxter (the character…or the author?) wakes from a bad dream and, like any real insomniac, chooses to walk it off. His 1am stroll leads him to a bench where he finds his neighbor, also wide awake. The two start a conversation about relationships and Charlie’s neighbor urges him to write about “real” people in “real” relationships, starting with his own twice-divorced life. From there, we are introduced to a myriad of characters. The theme throughout is love, love, love. Love of all shapes, sizes, complexities, and intricacies are on display. It is though a curtain has been drawn back and we are allowed to view the more intimate ups and downs of a relationship, for better or for worse.
As an aside, I was talking to a friend about this book and he didn’t like it because he felt the details of the relationships were too personal to be put on display like that. In some respect I agree with him. But, I think we were both drawn into the mystery of exactly who was telling the story, because I think that makes a difference. If it purely fiction it is not too personal, but. But! But, something changes when it is someone telling their story outright.

Lines I liked: “The moon, it seems, is not singing at all” (p 5), “Every relationship has at least one really good day” (p 17), “I kept reaching for his heart and finding nothing there to hold on to” (p 31),

Reason read: Michigan became a state in January and Feast of Love takes place in Michigan.

Author fact: Charles Baxter has his own website here. The schedule for readings hasn’t been updated since 2012 and I was tempted to ask why on the Q & A page…but I didn’t.

Book trivia: Feast of Love was a National Book Award Finalist. It was also a New York Times Notable Book.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Big Ten Country: The Literary Midwest (Michigan)” (p 26).

Christmas List

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It’s weird to start all over again. This list of finished books is tiny. It looks pathetic compared to the lists I have been working with in the last seven to eight months. But, but. But! It’s only one month’s worth of reading. Oh well. Here is the list of books read so far (December):
FINISHED:

  1. Civil Action by Jonathan Harr
  2. Eighth Day by Thornton Wilder
  3. Falcon Flies by Wilbur Smith (audio book)
  4. Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa
  5. In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin
  6. It Looked Like Forever by Mark Harris
  7. Sword at Sunset by Rosemary Sutcliff

UPCOMING FOR JANUARY:

  1. Benjamin Franklin by Walter Isaacson –  in honor of Franklin’s birthday
  2. Feast of Love by Charles Baxter (audio) – in honor of when Michigan became a state
  3. Last Train to Memphis by Peter Guralink – in honor of Elvis’s birth month
  4. Men of Men by Wilbur Smith – to continue the series started in December

Civil Action

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Harr, Jonathan. A Civil Action. New York: Vintage Books, 1995.

Confessional: this was my third attempt to read this. The first two times I got bogged down by the legalese of it all, but for some reason the third time was a charm. Because this was a Hollywood movie (one I didn’t see, of course) I was expecting a different ending. This is the tragic but true story about a group of Woburn, Massachusetts citizens and the lawsuit they filed against two major companies for dumping what they believed to be cancer-inducing chemicals into their drinking water. Instantly, I think of 10,000 Maniacs and their song, “Poison in the Well.” I don’t think it was written for or about Woburn but it’s eerily similar. Residents in the song and of Woburn know their water “tastes funny” and during certain times of the year they avoid consumption of it all together. Some go so far as to complain loudly, but time and time again they are told the levels of toxins are negligible and there is nothing to worry about. It’s only after Anne Anderson’s child develops leukemia, and Anderson starts to notice multiple cases of the rare disease in her hometown, that she decides to hire an attorney, Jan  Schlichmann. The rest that follows is a series of brutal court battles. There are times you think it’s an open and shut case and other times when it’s no so obvious. The depositions and testimonies leave you wanting to pull your hair out. Every single detail is covered in Harr’s story. My suggestion is, after you have finished reading the book, do some research about the trial. Read about what happens later and it will make you feel better.

Reason read: John Jay was born in December and became the first Chief Justice of the United States in 1789.

Book trivia: Most people will remember this as a 1998 movie starring John Travolta. As a book it was a best seller and won the 1995 National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction.

Author fact: At the time of publication Jonathan Harr lived and worked in Northampton, Massachusetts.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Legal Eagles in Nonfiction” (p 135).

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

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Clarke, Susanna. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. Read By Simon Prebble. Audio Renaissance/Bloomsbury Publishing.

This is such an ambitious read! I actually listened to it on audio (26 cds; 32 hours) and it was well done. Simon Prebble’s reading is great; probably the reason why I was able to finish all 700+ pages. The extensive footnotes were inserted at the right times (but are separate tracks so you can skip them if you like. I did.). Clarke does a great job making the characters and their magic seem otherworldly and mysterious. I particularly enjoyed when characters sensed something was amiss but couldn’t quite figure out why they felt that way. “Like a fifth point on a compass” was how one character described it. There is a subtle eeriness to the landscape when magic is afoot. Clarke’s vivid descriptions are imaginatively delicious. But, back to the plot. Many reviewers felt the story was too long and drawn out. I agree it lagged in places but Clarke’s gift of storytelling made up for the lengthy plot. Each volume is the introduction and delving into of a significant character. Volume I focuses on the entrance of Mr. Gilbert Norrell. Elderly and stodgy Mr. Norrell is discovered to be a practicing magician long after it was thought magic was dead. After The Learned Society of York Magicians convinces him to move to York to revive the practice, Norrell is called upon to revive the dead fiancee of a Cabinet minister and aid in the war against Napoleon (the ships made of water was one of my favorite scenes). In Volume II Jonathan Strange is further introduced as burgeoning magician from Shropshire. When he learns of Mr. Norrell is he prompted to meet this other practitioner. While they dispute the significance of the legendary Raven King, Strange becomes Norrell’s pupil and ultimately overshadows Norrell’s capabilities as a magician. After some time with Norrell, Strange is sent to Portugal and Spain to further aid the British against the French. As Strange’s magic grows stronger the competition grows until the Raven King kidnaps Strange’s wife.

Quote I agree with, “House, like people, are apt to become rather eccentric if left to too much on their own…” (p 488).

Reason read: Clarke was born in the month of November.

Book trivia: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell was considered for many different awards: shortlisted for the Hugo Award and the Guardian First Book Award, long listed for the Booker Award…to name a few.

Author fact: Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is Susanna Clarke’s first book.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Plots for Plotzing” (p 186).

Time, Love, Memory

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Weiner, Jonathan. Time, Love, Memory: a Great Biologist and His Quest for the Origins of Behavior. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000.

time, Love, Memory is Seymour Benzer’s story. While Charles Darwin was obsessed with finding the origins of species, Benzer was obsessed with figuring out the origins of behavior. He dedicated his research to finding out the riddle of both animal and human behavior. He wanted to dig deeper into the concepts of nature and nurture, knowing that life was a balance of both. The the diea of reading a book about genes, fruit flies and DNA sounds boring, don’t worry. Weiner’s style of writing adds a warm and humorous texture to the otherwise scientific plot.

Quotes I liked, “In the universe above and around us, physics opened new views of space and time; in the universe below and inside us, biology opened first glimpses of the foundation stones of experience: time, love, and memory” (p 6) and “While the rest of the congregation chanted and his father looked away, Seymour read Stern and Gerlach’s The Principles of Atomic Physics (p 36).”

Reason read: Seymour Benzer passed away in the month of November. This is read in his honor.

Author fact: Weiner is better known for his book, The Beak of the Finch. In fact, acclaim for Beak is on the back of Time, Love, Memory which makes me think Time, Love, Memory isn’t as good and shouldn’t be bothered with. I think that whenever I see praise for a book different from the one I am reading.

Book trivia: Time, Love, Memory has both illustrations and photographs scattered throughout the text. This is the way I prefer “artwork” to be showcased.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Jonathan Weiner: Too Good To Miss” (p 233).

Guardians

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Kabaservice, Geoffrey. The Guardians: Kingman Brewster, His Circle, and the Rise of the Liberal Establishment. New York: Henry Holt & Company, 2004.

Kingman Brewster was the president of Yale University starting in 1963. He was a leader who wasn’t afraid of the civil unrest in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This quote sums up not only the title of the book, but Brewster’s position, “…Brewster and his friends thought of themselves as society’s guardians: modern leaders of the country’s institutions, who had national responsibilities and tried to take a national perspective” (p 11). Author Geoffrey Kabaservice takes us back to when it all began for Brewster and his circle of like-minded individuals; back when Brewster was a student at Yale. Kabaservice’s account is detailed not only in following the lives (politically and personal) of Brewster and his cronies but of the nation and its times, both politically and spiritually.

Confessional: I gave up on this after 200+ pages. The entire time I was reading it I obsessed about missing out on something more interesting to read. As a result, I wasn’t concentrating on anything on the page.

Reason read: Kingman Brewster died in November (11/8/88).

Author fact: Kabaservice is a Yale graduate. I suspect his interest in Kingman Brewster comes from personal experience.

Book trivia: Guardians has a small collection of photographs. My favorite is of Brewster, at age 21, testifying before Senate.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “A Little Left of Center” (p 148). Interesting tidbit: This so-called chapter, A Little Left of Center, mentions only two books.

Diary of a Mad Housewife

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Kaufman, Sue. Diary of a Mad Housewife. New York: Random House, 1967.

Diary of a Mad Housewife is predictable and yet – not. Bettina Balser is a middle-class housewife and mother in New York City. She has two daughters, ages seven and nine and an up and coming lawyer for a husband. She thinks she is slowly going out of her mind until her husband plays it big in the stock market and moves up in his law firm. By all standards they are now rich. Suddenly, Bettina’s mental stability goes from questionable to outright mad. She thinks she has every phobia in the book. As the Balser family status changes life unravels even more for Bettina. Her husband Jonathan’s demands for only the finest everything has Bettina running around like his personal assistant, even in the bedroom. The only way Bettina can sort through her emotions, resentments and increasing mania is to start a journal. This diary is her release, the outpouring of everything.
In the end, and the end is somewhat predictable, Bettina comes to understand that every stability (mental health included) comes at a price and everyone is paying at some level.

Lines that really stood out, “I hated her until I had my head shrunk, at which time I learned to “understand” her and be tolerant – which simply means I learned how to think of her without getting overwrought or blind with rage” (p 21), “From a distance of about five and a half feet we warily watched each other breathe” (p  167), and “And I realized that there I was again, in for one of the worst phases of my new looniness – middle-of-the-night insomnia” (p 71).

Reason read: October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. This is the time to celebrate strong women. And don’t let Bettina fool you. She is strong.

Author fact: Kaufman died when she was only 50 years old.

Book trivia:  Diary of a Mad Housewife was made into a movie in 1970 and nominated for an Oscar. Alice Cooper had a part in it.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “I Am Woman – Hear Me Roar” (p 120).

Going Wild

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Winkler, Robert. Going Wild: Adventures With Birds in the Suburban Wilderness. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic, 2003.

Winkler is an exceptional writer especially when it comes to the art and science of birdwatching. What makes his book, Going Wild, so interesting is that each chapter is independent of another. As he puts it, “readers can dip into chapters as they please with little sacrifice of coherence” (p x). I preferred to read the whole book straight through as a story, but I could see what Winkler meant. Another pleasure of Winkler’s writing is when you read his words you can actually feel him smiling, warming up to his subject and actually happy to be going on and on about his birding life. There is real humor in his tone.

The other element I enjoyed was the locality of most of his essays. I live near, and have visited nearly all of the locations Winkler mentions.

Quotes I enjoyed, “Cold profound enough to freeze the hair in your nostrils is something to experience” (p 19).
As an aside, I would have thought Winkler’s book would include photographs or illustrations of some sort. I was disappointed when it didn’t.

Reason read: October is a great time to watch birds, especially off the coast of Maine. The migration is underway Sept-Oct.

Author fact: Robert Winkler has been a National Geographic corespondent in additional to being a journalist published in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and USA Today.

Book trivia: Winkler mentions many different places he has observed birds. His self proclaimed favorite is Upper Paugusset State Forest in Newtown, Connecticut. I think I just might have to check that out.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Nature Writing” (p 174).

Edited to add: there are two more comments I need to make about this book. First, Winkler and the movies. I am guilty of pointing out flaws in movies. I love it when I can spot an inconsistency so I have to say my favorite chapter was when Winkler pointed out the “bird” errors in different movies, especially when it comes to their songs. And speaking of bird songs – I will listen closer for the Wood Thrush since Winkler praised it so highly.