Category: BookLust II

Canterbury Tales

gr4c5Leave a comment

Chaucer, Geoffrey. Canterbury Tales. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992.

The premise behind Chaucer’s tale is really quite simple: out of a group of pilgrims traveling to Canterbury Cathedral, who can tell the best tale? Whoever wins gets a free meal back at the Tabard Inn at the end of the journey. Most of the stories center around three themes, religion, fidelity and social class. The entire story is an example of framing a story within a story, or in the case of Canterbury Tales stories within one story.

This quote had me scratching my head, “The precise, unerring delicately emphatic characterization for which the Canterbury Tales is so famous are no more extraordinary than Chaucer’s utter mastery of English rhythms and his effortless versification” (back cover). Whatever. This doesn’t tell me anything, anything at all, about the plot between the pages.

Best quote is right from the beginning, “He may nat wepe, althogh hym soor smerte” (p 7). Awesome.

Book Trivia: there are some scholars out there who think Chaucer wasn’t finished with The Canterbury Tales and that some of the tales are incomplete.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Digging up the Past Through Fiction” (p 79). Interestingly enough, this didn’t need to be on the list. Pearl was mentioning it as the inspiration for another book. I am starting to call these mentions “off topic” or “not the point.”

Their Eyes Were Watching God

gr4c5Leave a comment

Zora Neale Hurston. Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York: Harper & Row, 1990.

Janie Crawford is a woman on a mission to find love. Married off by her grandmother at a very young age, Janie is convinced marriage means love. When that isn’t the case she moves on to be the wife of Joe Starks who views her as nothing more than eye candy, a trophy to hang off his arm. After the death of Joe, Janie meets a younger man who goes by the name Tea Cake. Tea Cake convinces her to leave town with him and run off to the Everglades. Convinced she has found love at last Janie bends her personality to suit the new relationship she has entered. One of the most dramatic aspects of Their Eyes Were Watching God is that it does not have the ending one would expect. However, it is a pleasure to wade through the thick dialect and watch Janie grow.

Book Trivia: Their Eyes Were Watching was not an immediate success. At first it was highly criticized for not painting the “true” picture of southern black culture in the 1930s. Many argued it didn’t “protest” their conditions enough. It was only after other prominent individuals like Alice Walker initially, and later, Oprah Winfrey, embraced it did others sit up and take notice. It has been perpetually in print since 1978.

Author Fact: Hurston was at one time in her life a librarian.

Favorite lines: “An envious heart makes a treacherous ear” (p 5). “There are years that ask questions and years that answer” (p 20). I could have found a hundred other golden nuggets to mention…

Interesting: According to the introduction, in 1971 Alice Walker was teaching Their Eyes Were Watching God at Wellesley when she found out Zora Hurston was buried in an unmarked grave. She took it upon herself to find Hurston’s final resting place to put a marker on it.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Florida Fiction” (p 89). Yup.

Personal History

gr4c5Leave a comment

Graham, Katharine. A Personal History. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997.

Even though I categorized this as an autobiography it is not a traditional “my life” story. Instead, it is Katharine Graham’s personal history with The Washington Post first and foremost. She begins with a brief overview of how her parents met, when and where she was born, and her college years. This sets the stage for her increased involvement with the paper. From the time she was 16 years old, when her father bought the failing Washington Post at auction, until the end of her role as chairman of the board in 1991, 58 years of Graham’s life was immersed in making the paper a success. Raised without a strong mother-figure or adolescent role models Katharine Graham was a trendsetter for women in business. For her era, her rise to power was nothing short of remarkable. But, in addition what makes Personal History such a fascinating read is Graham’s unflinching view of her world. She does not hide the fact she had a strained and difficult relationship with her absentee mother. Her voice drips with contempt when she recounts her mother’s failed attempts at guidance in life. Graham addresses her husband’s mental illness and subsequent suicide in a matter of fact manner. She does not sugar coat the difficulties she faced being a woman of influence in a world traditionally reserved for the man of the house. Despite being born into privilege Graham exemplified the meaning of hard work and perseverance.

Favorite quote (but only because you can just hear the disdain in Graham’s voice as she describes her mother), “…she could often be found reclining with a book in her hand” (p 31).

Book Trivia: Personal History won a Pulitzer Prize in 1998.

Author Fact: Katharine Graham died in 2001 and is buried in one of my favorite cemeteries, Oak Hill, in Washington D.C.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “The Fourth Estate” (p 92).

Bread and Jam for Frances

gr4c5Leave a comment

Hoban, Russell. Bread and Jam for Frances. New York: Harper Collins, 1993.

Okay. A confession first and foremost. I am fortunate enough to work in a library. While it’s an academic I often can find books for the Book Lust Challenge in our collection. Since we have an Early Childhood reading program that means we have most of Russell Hoban’s books as well; specifically his ‘Frances’ series. Normally it isn’t big deal to grab a children’s book off the shelf, read it at lunch and return it without fanfare. Not so this time. Our copy of Bread and Jam for Frances is over-sized which means walking around with it isn’t as inconspicuous as I would have liked. You can’t exactly slip out from the stacks with a 2′ x 1′ book in your hand without being noticed. It’s not like I can hold it up and announce I’m reading War and Peace, the large print version.

Unlike an earlier Hoban review (Bedtime for Frances) I enjoyed rereading this childhood favorite, Bread and Jam for Frances. This time around I identified with wanting too much of a good thing. Frances the Badger only wants to eat bread and jam. Morning, noon, and night it’s the only meal she will stomach. This time when her parents give in to her every whim the lesson is soon learned. You can have too much of a good thing. I feel the same way about Chipotle restaurant being in my back yard. When it was all the way across the country and harder to get to going there was a treat. Like Christmas. Having the big burritos I obsess over just down the road diminishes their specialness, their chocolate-cakeness, if you will. Frances learns this the hard way, too. While her family is enjoying such delicacies as veal Frances is clearly missing out only she doesn’t know it until the repetition of bread and jam finally gets to her. Soon she too is enjoying lobster salad sandwiches like the rest of her family.

Cute moment in the book: Frances questioning her food: “string” bean, for one. I wished she would have asked her parents where veal comes from. I would have loved their answer to that!

Today is my birthday and it seemed more than appropriate to read something from my childhood.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Russell Hoban: Too Good To Miss” (p 113). PS ~ Only two more books to read from this chapter of More Book Lust.

Zimmerman Telegram

gr4c5Leave a comment

Tuchman, W. Barbara. The Zimmerman Telegram. New York: Viking Press, 1958.

I can only imagine how popular this book must have been in its day. The First Great War was not a distant memory at the time of its publication. In fact, the events of World War I were probably still fresh in everyone’s mind having just survived the Second World War. I know The Zimmerman Telegram was required reading for at least one political science course at my college.

Probably the most compelling thing about Tuchman’s writing is her ability to make even well-known history as compelling whodunnit mystery. Written as smoothly as a novel The Zimmerman Telegram recounts the events leading up to the United State’s involvement in World War I starting with a telegraph written by Arthur Zimmerman to Imperial German Minister in Mexico Von Eckhardt. This telegram was  proposing a partnership between Germany, Mexico and Japan to form an allegiance against the U.S. Intercepted by the British, it is important to point out that the U.S. was reluctant to join the war until provoked by this telegram.

The line that summed it all up for me (and was ironically enough on the first page),”Mute and passive on the paper, they gave forth no hint that a key to the war’s deadlock lay concealed in their irregular jumble” (p 3).

Disclaimer: I wasn’t supposed to read this until 2013 but I felt so bad about abandoning A Distant Mirror that I wanted to read something else by Tuchman before the month was over.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Barbara Tuchman: Too Good To Miss” (p 225).

Distant Mirror

gr4c5Leave a comment

Tuchman, Barbara W. A Distant Mirror: the Calamitous 14th Century. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978.

Huge confession. Although many people called this a interesting read, I couldn’t get into it. I barely reached page 24 before I was groaning with boredom. It is obvious Tuchman writes really well and this isn’t a dry account of some historical beginning or tumultuous end, but I couldn’t get into it. At all. The premise is simple. Tuchman is comparing the 14th century’s turmoil (the Black Plague) with that of the horrors of World War I. Okay, it’s not only about that; Tuchman makes other comparisons between the 14th and 20th centuries, but that is mainly where the title gets its name. That’s as far as I got. Sad, I know.
I did manage to find one quote that I particularly enjoyed: “Nothing is known of this individual except his name, but once established on the hilltop, he produced in his descendents a strain of extraordinary strength and fury” (p 7).

Author Fact: Tuchman has a dormitory named after her on the Harvard College campus.

Book Trivia: A Distant Mirror has had a couple publishing reissues.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Barbara Tuchman: Too Good To Miss” (p 225). Obviously.

84, Charing Cross Road

gr4c5Leave a comment

Hanff, Helen. 84, Charing Cross Road. Recorded Books, Inc., 1993. Audio cassette.

My first audio book of the training season! I have to start off with a confession. I didn’t expect 84, Charing Cross Road to be so funny. I don’t know if it’s the actual story or the way the actress reads it. Maybe it was the combination of both. I had some real laugh-out-loud moments.

The year is 1949. Helene Hanff is a Jewish writer who prefers to mail order books from Marks And Company, Booksellers, a small book shop in London, England instead of frequenting a bookstore just blocks away from her one room apartment in New York City. She doesn’t explain how she came to find this particular shop nor what first prompted her to write to them specifically, but what follows is a series of letters written between Ms. Hanff and different employees of the shop, the most notable recipient being Mr. Frank Doel. In her letters Ms. Hanff comes across as a sassy, brash, and sometimes demanding American while Mr. Doel’s British replies are decidedly courteous if not stuffy (otherwise known as prim and proper). Over time Hanff wins Doel over with her sarcastic wit and he “loosens up” little by little. So begins a 20 year love affair between book lovers. Hanff also writes others in the shop as well as their families. She generously sends post-war gifts of food and clothing (items rationed at that time) that win over the entire shop. While the book is short (just 84 pages long or two hours of audio) you are drawn into Hanff’s relationship with the employees of the book shop. You end up hoping she takes that trip across the pond to meet them.

Book Trivia: 84 Charing Cross Road was made into a movie and a play.

Author fact: Helene Hanff died of diabetes when she was 80 years old.

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

Madame Bovary

gr4c5Leave a comment

Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993.

I should have had Madame Bovary on my list as a reread. I should have read this in high school or college or somewhere. I’m not really sure why I didn’t.

This book should have been the mister rather than the missus Bovary. In my opinion Charles Bovary is what you would call a nineteenth century sad sack. When we first meet Charles (for he starts and ends the book as you’ll soon see) he is a shy student who grows up to become a second rate doctor (more on that later). He has an overbearing mother who convinces him to marry a much older, supposedly rich, but nevertheless nagging woman who makes him miserable. oh yeah, and add insult to injury, she’s nowhere near wealthy. After the lying lady’s death Charles meets Emma Rouault (our ahem – heroine), the daughter of Charles’s patient. He falls in love and wins her heart only to have her mope about because her life soon after the wedding isn’t exciting or wealthy enough. Poor Charles! But, the sad tale of Charles Bovary doesn’t stop here. There’s more! As mentioned before he is a second rate doctor so his attempts to heal a clubfooted patient fail miserably. That failure only irritates our dear Emma even more. She soon convinces herself she deserves better in the way of the company of other more exciting and accomplished men and by spending Charles’s money. Emma convinces herself adultery isn’t a sin because it’s cloaked in beauty and romance and how can those things be bad? And isn’t she, as Charles’s wife, entitled to Charles’s money? So, Charles is in debt and his father dies. What’s left? Emma attempts suicide and our Doctor Bovary (irony of ironies) can’t save her. After her death he finds her illicit love letters and learns of her infidelity…then he dies. The end.
Nope. Not a stitch of happiness in this classic.

Early in the story there is this sense for foreshadowing: “One moment she would be gay and wide-eyed; the next, she would half shut her eyelids and seem to be drowned in boredom, her thoughts miles away” (p 22). Charles should have seen this odd behavior and run away, very far away.

Author Fact: Gustave Flaubert is expelled from school at the age of 18 for helping organize a protest.

Book Trivia: Madame Bovary is Flaubert’s first book.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust twice. First in the chapter called “Men Channeling Women” (p 166), and again in the chapter called “Wayward Wives” (p 231).

Gideon’s Trumpet

gr4c5Leave a comment

Lewis, Anthony. Gideon’s Trumpet. New York: Random House, 1964.

If you have ever wondered how the statement “you have the right to speak to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will appointed to you” first came about you should read Gideon’s Trumpet by Anthony Lewis. Gideon’s Trumpet follows the case of Clarence Earl Gideon, a petty thief who had been in and out of jail all his life. After landing in a Florida jail for breaking and entering Gideon managed to file a handwritten petition certiorari with the Supreme Court claiming his right to legal counsel was violated during his trial. the Supreme Court agreed. This launched Gideon v. Wainright, a landmark case that started the evolution of the Miranda Warning. While Lewis’s book is brief it is highly readable and informative. It is easy to see Clarence Gideon, and even the legal system, as real humans making history.

Favorite quote: “Every spring the justices struggle to overcome procrastination, to compromise their differences, to finish up opinions on all the argued cases so that they can end the term in June, as scheduled, and go off to lie in the sun or make speeches at lawyers’ meetings, as the spirit moves them” (p 38). Too funny. Sounds like where I work.

Author Fact: Anthony Lewis resides in MA (according to his wiki page).
Book Trivia: According to IMDB Gideon’s Trumpet was made into a made-for-television movie in 1980.

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

Portnoy’s Complaint

gr4c5Leave a comment

Roth, Philip. Novels, 1967-1972. New York: The Library of America, 2005.

I always garnered eyebrow raises and smirking lips whenever I mentioned reading Philip Roth. What I didn’t realize at the time was whenever I mentioned Philip Roth everyone’s minds immediately went to “Portnoy’s Complaint.” Having never read this particular novel I didn’t get the joke. Okay. I get it now.

To put it quite simply, Portnoy’s Complaint is the monologue of Alex Portnoy, a psychoanalyst’s patient, as he recounts his childhood, coming of age years and his insatiable appetite for sex (starting with masturbation) that has dominated all his life. The setting of a therapist’s office is brilliant. Where else are you allowed to be candid to the point of shocking? Where else are you encouraged to reveal your deepest and darkest, most vile desires without judgement or arrest? Roth couldn’t have his character admit these activities in any other setting without the admissions becoming pornographic and the one doing the admitting, ridiculously perverted. Alex doesn’t just admit sexual desires, though. He rants about religion, culture, World War II, education, parenting, relationships – all with comic and sarcastic ability.

There were probably over a dozen different sentences that were evocative and startling, but here are two of my favorites involving eating:
“You could even eat off her bathroom floor, if that should ever become necessary” (p 285), “But I don’t want the food from her mouth. I don’t even want the food from my plate – that is the point” (p 287).

BookLust Twist: First, from Book Lust in the chapter called “The Jewish-American Experience” (p 132), and again in More Book Lust in the chapter called “Jersey Guys and Dolls” (p 130).

Beyond the Bedroom Wall

gr4c5Leave a comment

Woiwode, Larry. Beyond the Bedroom Wall: a Family Album. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1975.

I was in love with Beyond the Bedroom Wall in the very first chapters. The detail with which Woiwode described the midwest landscape was beautiful. The story opens with Charles Neumiller going home to bury his father. In his mind he pictures every detail of the landscape he is returning to. I also appreciated the reverent description of Charles preparing his father’s body for the funeral. It was painstaking and loving and uncomfortable, just how a burial should be. From there, though, the story fell apart. The next section is told from the point of view of Charles’s son, Martin’s girlfriend, Alpha. I lost interest right around the middle Alpha’s diary, right after she marries Martin. The idea of a story about multi-generational family is one I normally take to. Maybe it was the length and the attention to detail that did me in. Moderation is key and too much of a good thing can be bad, even when it comes to descriptive words on a page.

One of the best lines, “My existence is a narrow line I tread between the person I’m expected to be and the person who hides behind his real self to keep the innermost antiquity of me intact” (p 9). Now, who can’t relate to that?

Author Fact: Woiwode is tenured at SUNY – Binghamton.

Book Trivia: Woiwode published a volume of short stories called Neumiller Stories. I can only assume these short stories are about the same Neumiller family as in Beyond the Bedroom Wall.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “The Great Plains (the Dakotas)” (p 106).

By the Shores of Silver Lake

gr4c51 Comment

Wilder, Laura Ingalls. By the Shores of Silver Lake. New York: HarperTrophy, 1971.

If you know the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder you know these two things. Little House on the Prairie is not the first book in the series (Little House in the Big Woods is) and By the Shores of Silver Lake is the fifth book in the nine-book series. You also know “the Laura series” are both autobiographical and historical fiction.

By the Shores of Silver Lake is a continuation of On the Banks of Plum Creek. From Plum Creek the Ingalls family has moved to Silver Lake so that Charles Ingalls, the patriarch of the family, can help with the building of the transcontinental railroad. The Ingalls family is to become the first settlers in the town of De Smet, South Dakota. Told in third person by middle daughter, Laura, the shores of Silver Lake is an exciting place to be. She is happy to be out of the big woods and away from Plum Creek. Despite Laura’s mother’s admonishments to be lady-like and demure, Laura is irrepressible. She loves to run wild across the grasslands and go exploring. One of my favorite scenes is the wild pony ride she takes with Cousin Lena. Her spirit is as big as the unsettled territory her family has arrived to claim. She appears brave and adventurous although, interestingly enough, she would die if anyone knew she is afraid of meeting new people.

Maybe I’m too jaded by how kids are today, but I had to roll my eyes at how happy the Ingalls family always seemed to be. When Mary “happily” offers to do her sister’s chores I had to stifle a gag. What sister these days would be so gracious, so gleeful to take on extra chores not her own?

Author fact: one of the things I learned about Ms. Wilder is that she and I share a birth month. She was born and died in February.

Book Trivia: By the Shores of Silver Lake won a Newbery Honor award in 1940.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “The Great Plains (The Dakotas)” (p 107).

Last to Die

gr4c5Leave a comment

Grippando, James. Last to Die. New york: Harper Collins, 2003.

What do you do when your town is rocked by a freak pre-Halloween snow storm that knocks out power for a seriously long time? In my case, read. A lot. I was able to finish Buddenbrooks, read Last to Die cover to cover and start Immortal. But, enough about the great reading opportunity. About Last to Die:

Last to Die is a suspense murder mystery with an interesting plot. It’s not your typical “Victim found murdered so who dunnit?”
Jack Swyteck has the unenviable task of defending his best friend’s brother, thug-turned-angel, Tatum Knight. Knight is suspected of killing a woman, shooting her dead in broad daylight. He admits that the deceased, Sally Fenning, did approach him to play hit man but swears he turned her down. Little brother Theo believes him. It’s when Knight is named in Sally Fenning’s 46 million dollar will that things get complicated. For this is no ordinary bequeathment. While five other individuals are named in the will they are all people Sally hated and only one of them can inherit the money; the last one standing. Soon, as one would expect, people start to die.
What makes Last To Die truly interesting is the cast of characters. Every person has a unique story to tell and a past to hide.

Author Fact: Grippando (like Grisham) was a lawyer first before turning out legal thrillers.

Book Trivia: Last to Die is actually the third Swyteck book. The series starts with The Pardon (1994).

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Legal Eagles in Fiction” (p 134).

Altered Carbon

gr4c5Leave a comment

Morgan, Richard. Altered Carbon. New York: Random House Digital, Inc., 2003.

I think this is the first book I have read that is considered cyberpunk.

In a world where you can pay off a cab driver with the swipe of your thumb, have psychosurgery to get over trauma, and go to places like Mi’s Wharfwhore Warehouse lives former UN Envoy, Takeshi Lev Kovacs. It is a world that centers on a multi-planetary society hundreds of years into the future. Earth is just one location where the plot takes place. In this futuristic environment human souls and personalities can be digitally stored and reloaded into new bodies after bodily death. The only group to not benefit from this cyber-eternity are Catholics. Since they believe in souls going to either Heaven or Hell after death they wouldn’t have anything to pass onto a new body.
To say that the plot is complicated is an understatement. Laurens Bancroft has seemingly committed suicide. All evidence points to this except Bancroft himself doesn’t believe it. He has a new body and limited memory and thinks he has been murdered. He has hired Takeshi Kovacs to solve his mystery.
This passage sums up the entire story: “You’re a lucky man, Kovacs…One hundred and eighty light years from home, wearing another man’s body on a six-week rental agreement. Freighted in to do a job that the local police wouldn’t touch with a riot prod” (p 45).

Something true, even in this world: “The human body is capable of quite remarkable regeneration if stored correctly” (p 243).

My favorite line in the whole book: “I thought I might die, but I hadn’t expected to be bored to death” (p 1,145).
Most profound sentence: “For a moment something ached in my, something so deep-rooted that I knew to tear it out would be to undo the essence of what held me together” (p 1,410).

This time, reading an e-book was a little more frustrating. There were a few spelling and punctuation mistakes and absolutely no copyright information whatsoever.

Author Fact: Morgan is crazy young, born in 1965.

Book Trivia: Altered Carbon won the Philip K. Dick award for best novel in 2003.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called  “Plots for Plotzing” (p 183).

Anil’s Ghost

gr4c5Leave a comment

Ondaatje, Michael. Anil’s Ghost. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000. EPUB file.

Disclaimer: This was my first electronic book. I am trying very hard to trust that everything that was in the published hardcopy was present in the e-book version. I have to believe I didn’t miss out on something by reading this on an iPad.

Anil’s Ghost is the clever weaving of fact and fiction. In the mid-1980s Sri Lanka was in a state of civil unrest. It went beyond a north versus south conflict and involved illegal government activity. Anil’s Ghost is the fictional account set in the middle of a political and historical truth.
Anil Tissera is a forensic anthropologist returning to Sri Lanka after a fifteen year absence.  As part of a human rights organization her obligation to investigate and ultimately uncover the truth about ethnic and religious killings occurring during the country’s civil war. Her entire attention remains focussed on one particular skeleton she nicknames “Sailor.” His remains have been found in an ancient burial ground and yet anthropologically he is considered a contemporary.  Upon arriving in Sri Lanka she becomes paired with man she doesn’t know if she can trust. Sarath is quiet and keeps many secrets. What is amazing about Anil’s Ghost is the lush language and the intricate character development. Each chapter is dedicated to the unfolding of someone’s life, past and present. This technique brings a fullness to the storyline. In the end you feel as if every character has purpose to the plot.

Most interesting – Anil. Hands down. I don’t really understand her obsession with changing her name. She actually “buys” one of her brother’s names because he has more than one. The way she buys this name is not explicitly spelled out, but it seems ominous.

Favorite lines: “She was working with a man who was efficient in his privacy, who would never unknot himself for anyone” (p 60), “She would not step back from her fury” (p 116), and “One can die from private woes as easily as from public ones” (p 237).

Line that gave me pause: “They had both hoped for a seven-bangled night” (p 118).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the simple chapter called “Canadian Fiction” (p 51) and more interestingly from More Book Lust in two different chapters. First, in “It Was a Dark and Stormy Novel” (p 129), and again in the chapter called “Sri Lanka: Exotic and Troubled (p 213).