Category: NonFiction

Italian Neighbors

gr4c5Leave a comment

Parks, Tim. Italian Neighbors: or, A Lapsed Anglo-Saxon in Verona. Grove Weidenfeld, 1992.

Reason read: the Arena di Verona festival is held every June. Here is something cool: while I was in Verona we walked by the amphitheater while they were busy setting up.

Tim Parks takes you on an Italian journey where every mundane experience comes alive in vivid detail. From the moment he and his wife move into the apartment inhabited by the belongings of ghosts thirty years passed to learning that all beverages have their time slots (order your cappuccino before 10:30am), Parks will have you giggling with delight on the outskirts of Verona. At the same time as delivering humor, Parks also brings the beauty of the region with cherry blossoms in spring and the sharp white peaks of the Alps piercing the bright blue sky. Doesn’t it all sounds so magical?
Parks takes you by the hand and leads you through various instances of Italian customs and cultures. Taxes. Death. And speaking of death, take cemeteries for example. Sometimes loved ones are moved from their final resting place. As Parks says, “They come to find their loved ones and discover the grave is gone” (p 144). I would not have believed him until I experienced this for myself. I went with friends to a cemetery in Udine. We were looking for a long-deceased uncle. Row after row of photographs of loved ones smiling out at me from the grave, but we could not find Giuseppe. The family shrugged and nonchalantly declared he must have been moved or removed. They then wandered away from the place he should have been, discussing what to have for lunch.
Another example: driving in Italy. Parks paints an action movie picture of racing through winding and narrow lanes with walls on either side; just room enough to barely clear the sideview mirrors. All the while another motorist is following you too closely to avoid an accident should you stop short. As so often with all of Italy, the picturesque is juxtaposed with the sharp edge of danger. This much is clear.
Italian Neighbors was such a delight to read that I cannot wait for the sequel, An Italian Education.

Confessional: I now want to stay in Montecchio. According to Tim Parks, June is the month to go because of all the poppies in bloom. Sounds wonderful.

Line I liked (and there were a bunch), “A test of the extent of your Italianization is whether you still grind your teeth when you hear that something has closed” (p 262). I picked this sentence as my favorite because after driving nearly two hours when we arrived in Florence we discovered the park closed at two. We arrived at 2:02pm.

Author fact: Parks returns to the subject of Verona in A Season With Verona which is on my Challenge list, along with An Italian Education and Juggling the Stars.

Book trivia: I really wished there had been photographs in Italian Neighbors.

Music (I think): “On the Bridge at Bassano We Hold Hands” and Ave Maria.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the simple chapter called “Verona” (p 243).

Question of When

gr4c5Leave a comment

Fosco, Cory. The Question of When: a Practical Guide to Knowing When It’s Time for Assisted Living, Memory Care or Skilled Nursing. Campion Hall Press, 2026

Reason read: As a member of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing I often chose books that seem interesting to me. Very rarely do I chose a book because it pertains to my personal situation. This is one such book.

Confessional: it took me a very long time to read Question of When. Not because it is poorly written (it isn’t). Not because I did not believe Fosco’s words (I did). But because the subject matter hit home in ways I did not expect.
Nearly everyone has to go through the painful process of watching a parent age. It is either from a remote distance across the country or painfully up close and personal in the same house. Neither scenario is all that comfortable, but Fosco does an excellent job of clearing away some of the confusion surrounding the hard (and harder) decisions to come. Even if you think you have all the answers, Question of When makes you think again. Second guessing your knowledge and preparedness is a good thing. You are forced to ask the painful questions like, “are we merely adjusting to mom’s decline and losing perspective? Are we making excuses for the forgetfulness and erratic behaviors?” The difficult answer could be yes.
Fosco delivers a primer on territory; knowing the difference between the various facilities available to the aging loved one. Long term care versus assisted living or memory care. Each chapter ends with a takeaway piece of advice and a single action step to take. Small bites for a daunting and often overwhelming process.
Almost immediately I started to think about my own situation with my aging mother. If something were to happen unexpectedly, would I know what to do? Do I really know what mom wants for her final years, but more importantly, do I have the financial capacity to fulfill those wishes? There are financial implications with every situation, planned or unplanned. This is a book I will buy for my sister and not before it is too late.

Author fact: Fosco has thirty-four years of experience.

Dames, Dishes and Degrees

gr4c5Leave a comment

Mittelman, Amy. Dames, Dishes and Degrees: Faculty Wives in America. Cynren Press, 2026

Reason read: As a member of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing I sometimes win interesting books. This is one such book.

Dames, Dishes and Degrees thoroughly researches a woman’s place in academia and beyond. No one has tackled the historical perspective of faculty wives quite like Amy Mittelman. The aspect of Dames, Dishes and Degrees I appreciated the most was getting to know some of the women who were considered trail blazers in equality for women. For example, Julia Bogholt made a name for herself in politics, thanks to her inability to get a PhD in science. She sought to change the employment laws after that. [As an aside, she reminded me of my niece and her quest to become a research scientist.] Alison Lurie is another influential woman. As a faculty wife at Amherst College she wrote about her experiences and shed light on the prejudices. Dorothy Burnett Porter Wesley was an early member of the Howard University Faculty Wives group. She was the Head Librarian at Moorland-Springam Research Center for 45 years and the first African American woman to earn a masters of library science degree at Columbia! I could go on and on.
It is interesting to note that statistically speaking, a daughter of an academic father typically went on to be a faculty wife. Amy Mittelman studied the effects the Great Depression and World War II had on working women in addition to researching the wives of college professors. [As an aside, I thought of the short-lived television show Homefront when reading about women trying to maintain employment after their husbands came home from World War II.]
Did women know they were getting around the rules about nepotism was by having a lesbian relationship? You could have a career alongside a colleague and even live with that same colleague if you were not married to them. To have a career like a man meant no husband and no children; there was a choice and sacrifice to be made.
One aspect of Dames, Dishes and Degrees that was completely unexpected was the histories of colleges such as Mount Holyoke (their search for a president after Woodley), Smith, University of Chicago, and North Carolina.

As an aside, I wonder what Mittelman thinks of Hampshire College closing. It is one of the colleges she talks about in Dames, Dishes and Degrees.

Music: “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” “Pack up Your Troubles,” “My Dear Old Southern Home,” and Lohengrin’s “Wedding March.”

4 Weeks to Sleep Mastery

gr4c5Leave a comment

O’Sullivan, (Belake) Blake. 4 Weeks to Sleep Mastery: A Proven System to Maximise Your Recovery and Energy in Just 30 Days. 2026.

Reason read: as a member of LibraryThing’s Early Review program I often chose (and win) interesting books. This time I chose a book that could potentially help me with my situational insomnia.

Straight away O’Sullivan does not want you to think he is a licensed medical professional. He was an athlete looking to improve his performance and had an ah-ha moment about sleep. His advice is mostly common sense: stay away from caffeine and your phone before bed; expose yourself to light as soon as you wake up; take cold showers in the mornings and warm showers in the evening; remove all light sources from your bedroom and so on. O’Sullivan uses a lot of analogies to get his point across. He also repeats himself. There was a lot of redundancy surrounding the checklists for each week.
I have always heard the advice about how to get a good night’s sleep, but thanks to $ Weeks to Sleep Mastery, I have a better handle on the science behind the advice. I also appreciated O’Sullivan’s breakdown of information into two categories: simplified and advanced.
4 Weeks to Sleep Mastery is short. O’Sullivan could have added more depth to his book by including advice for the outliers. What about the people who are at work before the sun makes its appearance? What about seasonal changes when the sun doesn’t always rise before you do? I have a friend who gets up at 2am in order to get to work at 4am. How is he supposed to get early morning sunshine to signal his brain to wake up? He also works in the belly of a ship for eight to ten hours a day. He doesn’t even have enough time on a lunchbreak to see the sun, let alone the sunset anchor.
As an aside, why not call the heart the drum? Why violins? Are drums too cliche? As another side, O’Sullivan can be a little didactic (he told me what attenuated meant). As yet another aside, I am not downloading another app that is free but utilizes third party ad services which use cookies to target personalization. No thank you.
I would have liked to see more information regarding diet and special circumstances, like traveling or having a chaotic life event (new baby, job loss, foster puppies) that keep you up at night.

Author fact: Belake is twenty years old at the time of publication. My burning question is why point that out to readers? Why draw attention to your age and create doubt about your knowledge base? Stand firm with the knowledge and you should not have to make excuses. Because of that one disclosure about age my immediate thought was you are a life coach? Have you been alive and on the planet long enough to be a coach?

Like Friends, Like Foes

gr4c5Leave a comment

Russell, Andrew B. Like Friends, Like Foes: Japanese Americans and Nevada Through World War II. University of Nevada Press, 2026.

Reason read: This was a selection from the Early Review Program for LibraryThing.

If Nancy Pearl were to update her Book Lust chapter called “Companion Reads” I would want her to add Like Friends, Like Foes: Japanese Americans and Nevada Through World War II to be read with the government document WRA: a Story of Human Conservation. While WRA is a no-nonsense report of the internment of West Coast Japanese-Americans during World War II (and riddled with errors), Russell begins his nonfiction with the arrival of the first Nikkei in Nevada in 1900. Writing in a warm and approachable style, Russell moves through history documenting Japanese contributions to mining, farming, and the expansion of the railroad and ends with the onset of paranoia and prejudice during World War II. Unlike WRA, Russell offers extensive personal perspectives by including carefully researched interviews, journals, letters and photographs of four decades of Japanese Americans in Nevada. His obvious respect for his subject matter is readily apparent from the very first chapter. Hopefully, Russell will keep writing about this topic.
The genesis for Like Friends, Like Foes was Russell’s masters thesis “Hearts of Gold and Hostile Times: Wartime Reactions to the “Japanese Question in Churchill County Nevada” and is part of the Wilbur S. Shepperson Series in Nevada History.

Broken Mirrors, Steady Ground

gr4c5Leave a comment

Parkview, Alex. Broken Mirrors, Steady Ground: Self Published, 2026.

Reason read: as a member of LibraryThing’s Early Review program I often read heartbreaking books. This is one such book.

I am writing this the day after Memorial Day; the day to remember, honor, and thank the military men and women who have served or are currently serving our country. In Broken Mirrors Parkview (obviously a pseudonym) bares his soul to release demons and pain. After serving several tours in Iraq Parkview came home a broken man. A soldier is not supposed to show weakness or vulnerability. A soldier is supposed to be made of Kevlar for strength and Teflon for resilience. Nothing fazes a soldier. Parkview is all Kevlar and Teflon. But, he suffered abuse long before Iraq. Drinking Wild Turkey and smoking before the age of fifteen; becoming sexually active at the age of nine. These things can damage a young person beyond repair. He spends considerable time trying to find his place in the world after the military, both physically and mentally.
Broken Mirrors has a few broken records. Parkview mentions sexual situations in a way that makes me sense he used physical intimacy as a drug to mask pain. He was addicted to hiding his true self with women. As an aside, when Parkview wasn’t crudely talking about sex his writing was beautiful and almost lyrical. There were many good lines that I hope make it into the final publication.
The was a very slim volume with wide margins so it made for a very quick read. I was able to finish it in one sitting. I will probably read it again. Maybe I’ll see something different a second time around.
As an aside, I hope Parkview learned that broken relationships are most likely the result of an inability to truly love yourself. Like that oxygen mask you are supposed to put on before helping others, you are no good to anyone else without caring for yourself first.

Playlist: Soul Asylum’s “Runaway Train,” Cat Stevens’s “Father and Son,” Harry Chapin, and Kesha’s “Cathedral.”

Drummer Girl

gr4c5Leave a comment

Noel, Sarah. Drummer Girl: How I Became Metal, a Memoir. Self Published, 2026.

Reason read: as a member of LibraryThing’s Early Review Program I like discovering people. Sarah Noel seems like an interesting one.

Confessional: it took me a little while to get into Drummer Girl. Sarah’s writing style conveys a hurried urgency – as if she is impatient to get out every little detail of her her story as quickly as possible…in a soap opera, teenaged rambling sort of way. She seems to be trying to portray the raw and honest account of a naive musician, struggling to find her place not only in the music industry but within a circle of so-called bandmates/friends. The latter takes dominance in the story. By the third time she was kicked out of the first band I would have said good riddance to the entire lot of them. It is hard to say what made her be the glutton for the verbal abuses they peppered her with every time they wanted to have a discussion. Their main beef was that she was not progressing as a drummer, but they had some choice words about her attitude as well. If you are metal aren’t you supposed to have an attitude?
As mentioned before, I felt the pace of the story moved quickly and without substance mostly because a fair amount was copied verbatim MySpace messages and texts. The vibe was Coming of Age California Style. First band. First car. First grown up job. Lots of gossip and raw deals. While the music didn’t last I was encouraged that Sarah remained open minded and kept trying.
Drummer Girl includes two sections of photographs and as an aside, if you search around YouTube you can find a video or two of Sarah’s bands.

As this is a book about music I would expect nothing less than an extensive list of songs and bands. I was not disappointed: Metallica’s “Seek and Destroy,” Black Sabbath’s “Snowblind,”, Korn, Radiohead’s “Karma Police,” No Doubt, Iggy Pop, Children of Bodon, “Strutter” by Kiss, Kurt Cobain, Beatles, 1812 Overture, Coldplay, Lamb of God, Arch Enemy, System of a Down, Django Reinhadt, and Nena’s “99 Luftballons.”

Dark Star Safari

gr4c5Leave a comment

Theroux, Paul. Dark Star Safari. Houghton Mifflin, 2003.

Reason read: Theroux was born in the month of April. Read in his honor.

Paul Theroux likes putting himself in dangerous situations. Traveling across Africa in overcrowded busses and taxis, under the constant threat of flat tires, engine troubles, heat exhaustion and bandits is only part of the journey. Rubbing elbows with tourists and natives alike; the insistent begging for money follows him everywhere (as an aside, Kira Salak encountered excessive pleas for money along the River Niger in her memoir The Cruelest Journey). Yet, despite it all, Theroux begrudgingly admits he enjoys traversing the African continent. He is patient of delays but intolerant of filth.
Here’s the thing about Theroux’s prejudices. Everyone gossips. Everyone speaks poorly of a stranger for one reason or another. We all do it at one time or another. Theroux just happened to put his colorful and not so politically correct musings in a book. Knowing the context, I think I would like hanging out with Paul Theroux especially on cruise ships and in swanky hotels. His snarky comments about the fellow passengers and wandering tourists are unveiled observations about visitors as a comfortable, indulgent society. He makes no apology for his disdain. What was more difficult to stomach was his harsh opinions of the natives and relief workers, especially when referred to an an old man. Theroux is definitely not a people person and that made reading Dark Star Safari more of a slog.
If I can end on a positive note: I love it when literature brings familiarity to a foreign place even if you have never been there before. It is as if Dark Star Safari provided me with an unintentional guidebook for travel to a place I will never see with my own eyes.

Favorite quote defending the aging process, “Years are not an affliction” (p 198).
Other line I liked, “…nothing is more revealing of a person’s mind than a person’s anger” (p 25). So true.

As an aside, this is the third book that has a section on female circumcision or infant clitoridectomy.
Confessional: I read the section about Malawi with great care because of a Malawi penpal I had in high school. He died in an automobile accident.

Author fact: Theroux was once a Peace Corps volunteer. I am sure it was during this time that he developed a disdain for the privileged and misinformed tourists he met in his journeys.

Book trivia: several times throughout Dark Star Safari Theroux described the landscape as otherworldly, of another planet like a “dark star.”

Music: Bob Marley, Enya, Tracy Chapman, Jim Reeves, Hank Williams, Flatts and Scruggs, Thomas Mapfumo’s “Hondo,” “Fascinatin’ Rhythm,”

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Africa: the Greenest Continent” (p 7) and again in “Brazil” (p 44). Brazil has nothing to do with Dark Star Safari.

Shooting Up

gr4c5Leave a comment

Tepper, Jonathan. Shooting Up: a Memoir of Love, Loss, and Addiction. Infinite Books, 2026.

Reason read: as a member of the Early Review Program I often get to read touching stories. This is high on my list.

What is Shooting Up really about? I could say it is an autobiography of Jonathan Tepper’s upbringing and educational rise to Rhodes Scholar. I could say it is a commentary on addiction and the destruction it caused in the early stages of the AIDS epidemic. I could say it is a graceful memoir about grief and all its complicated layers. Shooting Up is all of those things and more.
Jonathan Tepper’s parents exposed their four sons to a variety of situations other parents would consider disturbing. As missionaries in 1980s Spain, Elliot and Mary Tepper focused their work on serving the addicted population. Mature beyond his years, ex-junkies taught their son, Jonathan, the terminology used for buying heroin and how to make crack. As a child Jonathan could recognize the telltale needle tracks and bruises of users. With addiction leading the way, the AIDS epidemic was not far behind, but in addition to overdoses and AIDS, Tepper’s parents saturated their household with literature and music. The entire family was well-read and all four children had big dreams. Literature was a lasting and large part of all of their lives. Being well-read helped Tepper become a Rhodes Scholar, but I am getting ahead of myself. Tepper’s father, Elliot, read St Augustine’s Confessions and Dag Hammarskjold’s Marking to his four boys and wife at dinner time. Homer, T.E. Lawrence, Dante, John Bunyan, Saint Augustine, Virgil, George Muller, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Jules Verne…I could go on and on. Tepper astutely says, “a great book had the power to change us and shake us to our core” (p 79). Amen.
My favorite section of Shooting Up was Tepper’s childhood. He captured his innocence perfectly. It is as if his childhood was frozen in time like an insect in amber. As an aside, Tepper had some pretty profound comments to make about grief that I absolutely loved.

Music: So much good stuff mentioned in Shooting Up : Aaron Copland’s Billy the Kid, Beach Boy’s “Barbara Ann,” Bix Beiderbecke, Bob Dylan, Branford Marsalis, Charlie “Bird” Parker, Chet Baker, Chuck Berry, Counting Crows, Dizzy Gillespie, Freddy Mercury, Goo Goo Dolls, Iron Maiden, Joan Baez’s “Forever Young,” and “One of Us,” John Coltrane, Louis Armstrong’s “When It’s Sleepy Time Down South,” Michael Jackson’s “Beat It,” Mingus’s “Better Get In In Your Soul,” Miles Davis, Mahler, Milli Vanilli, Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails, “Para mi rey,” Queen’s “We Will Rock You,” Rolling Stones, Stan Getz, Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings in C Major, Wayne Shorter, and Wynton Marsalis.

Jack Rittenhouse

gr4c5Leave a comment

Farmer, David R. Jack Rittenhouse: a Western Literary Life. University of New Mexico Press, 2026.

Reason read: As a member of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing I often get to read interesting books. This is one of those books.

I must preface this review by saying this was one of the best biographies I have read in a long time. I felt like I knew Jack Rittenhouse intimately by the time I was finished. An excellent if dense (said under breath), read!
Jack Rittenhouse’s childhood molded his fascination with books at an early age. He worked in a library as a teenager and helped print materials for the Boy Scouts. He wrote poems, plays, and essays in his spare time. As an adult he became a bookseller, started a private press and owned over 9,000 books. He seemed destined to always be surrounded by the written word. When he started to write his own books he concentrated on writing books on topics that fascinated him on a personal level. His first foray into authorship was a guidebook for the old Route 66. As a devotee to the desert, he romanticized the original 5,000 mile journey from Chicago to Los Angeles. His second was a niche subject about American horse-drawn vehicles. Always exemplary with his work ethic, Rittenhouse went on to display indefatigable ambition and a passion for researching a variety of topics. I found his commitment to attending meetings of the Western Historical Association impressive. For twenty-eight years he didn’t miss a one. There is so much more to Mr. Rittenhouse that you will just have to read for yourself.

As an aside, what happened to New York City’s book row? I have never heard of it.

Author fact: Farmer was once the library director for Southern Methodist University.

Book trivia: Jack Rittenhouse is the first ever biography of Rittenhouse.

How to Master the Power of Silence

gr4c5Leave a comment

Saly, M.D. How To Master the Power of Silence. 2026.

Reason read: I received this book by mistake. As a member of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing I often request ten to twelve books at a time. I cannot always remember which books I requested so when How to Master the Power of Silence showed up I assumed I had requested it. Nope. I didn’t realize my mistake until the real MD Saly book showed up.

Confessional: because this book was received in error I stopped reading it. In truth, I was relieved to not have to finish it. There was a great deal of redundancy in such a short book. In fifty pages, this is what I learned about silence.
Here are the things silence can do: give you perspective, give you room to think, encourages others to reflect, teaches you, makes you notice noise, gives you space, changes the way you communicate, protects emotional energy, acts like a filter, gives you more authority, creates space, starts reshaping who you are, creates respect, strengthens emotional relationships, improves self awareness, opens the door for you to understand yourself, helps you chose words, reshapes the room, serves as a tool to detect dishonesty, freeze chaos, make you smarter, make you calm, make you disciplined, gives your mind space, slows the moment, regulate behavior, prevent emotions form taking over, create space, refine perception, train you to observe, build confidence, brings a sense of self control, prevents misunderstanding, keeps situations from escalating, train your inner compass, interrupt the cycle, transform dynamics, and reshapes the room without aggression.
Here are the things silence is: a subtle authority, an advantage of emotional control, self control, stabilizing, an anchor, a physiological reset, a protective barrier, a filter, a doorway to clarity, space, about endurance, productive, fertile ground, strategic in social settings, a secret weapon, a tool (mentioned twice), a powerful tool, power (mentioned twice), powerful, active, hilarious, effective.
Here are the things silence is not: boring (mentioned twice), passive (mentioned three times), emptiness (mentioned twice), coldness, a sign of confusion, weakness, detachment.
Here are the things silence does not do: announce itself, argue, make you distant.
Everything in this book seemed to be common sense.

WRA

gr4c5Leave a comment

Krug, J.A. and D.S. Myer. WRA: a Story of Human Conservation. United States Department of the Interior.

Reason read: April 15th is universally known as tax day.

J.A. Krug, Secretary of the War Relocation Authority put together a comprehensive report of the WRA program.

What was old is new again. During World War II “enemy aliens” were to be removed from high threat areas of the Pacific Coast region (California, Oregon, and Washington). These “enemy aliens” were determined by Japanese lineage: Issei – immigrant Japanese born in Japan, Nisei – American born, American educated children of the Issei, and Kibei – born in America, but educated in Japan. The burning question was how “American” were the Nisei?
Otherwise known as Order #9066 the War Relocation Authority mandate removed a large contingent, over 110,000 Japanese and Japanese-American men, women, and children from their homes. In total the program lasted four years and two days but left lifetimes of trauma. It was a convoluted plan and the government was in a difficult situation. The bombing of Pearl Harbor accelerated a paranoia over national safety, but they also had to handle evacuees with fairness and human decency. Using a 1798 Congressional authority giving the President broad power to deal with a national alien enemy in wartime, the WRA came into existence. Ten relocation centers were established to “evacuate” the Japanese-American population from the west coast.
Many times throughout the reading of WRA I wanted to play devil’s advocate and ask things like what did Senator Chandler mean when he wanted to separate the “disloyal” evacuees from other residents at the various WRA centers? Was the fact that Japanese evacuees were only allowed employment if they never resided or studied in Japan and passed a background check all that fair? It is no wonder that the President of the United States had to apologize to the Japanese-American community. First, they were removed from their homes with the excuse that their nationality was a perceived threat to national security. At the same time they were told they were being relocated for their own safety. Oh and by the way, the government wants them to sign up to help with the war effort. Obviously not trusted in their homes but trusted to serve in the U.S military. But first they need to renounced their native country and pledge allegiance to the country which does not trust them in their own homes. If they were not enlisting, they were assisting with the agricultural needs of the nation.
Despite their best efforts to create a sense of community and safety, the relocation ended up being the creation of detention centers under military control. Rumors ran rampant about the care and attention the internees were receiving while the rest of the war-time Americans had food insecurities. Many believed the food in the relocation centers was better and more available than what was on the shelves at their local market.
I was relieved to see a chapter on the property of the evacuees because that was one of my burning questions. What did they do with their possessions? Storage? If so, where? Evacuees were encouraged to make their own arrangements for personal property.

Book trivia: One of nine reports, the WRA provides a chronology of the evacuation and the WRA program from January 29, 1942.

BookLust Trivia: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Your Tax Dollars at Work” (p 239).

Great War and Modern Memory

gr4c5Leave a comment

Fussell, Paul. Great War and Modern Memory. Oxford University Press, 1975.

Reason read: even though I am reading about the Spanish Civil War and you would think one war would be enough, I am also reading Great War and Modern Memory in honor of April 6th 1917 as the day the United States entered World War I. I should also add that I am reading WRA: a story of human conservation about the relocation of Japanese Americans during World War II and Birds Without Wings which also has scenes of war. Even Power Without Glory has an element of war. It seems I am thoroughly saturated with war stories this month. The lice in pant seams has come up more than a few times.

It is amazing how hand in hand war and literature has always been. If veterans were not writing about the experiences of war, soldiers at the front didn’t want to die until they learned what happened next in chapter of their favorite novels. It is as if literary and historical documents bravely hold hands against the barrage of bullets in the midst of chaos and carnage. Life imitated art and art mirrored life in the literature.
One of the most interesting facts of Great War and Modern Memory is the inclusion of the soldier’s Field Service Post Card, a form of communication which dehumanized and automated communication with a code of what could and could not be said to loved ones back home. I appreciated the small facts that otherwise seemed out of place.

Author fact: Fussell was a professor of English Literature at Rutgers University.

Book trivia: Great War and Modern Memory was dedicated to an infantry sergeant who was killed next to Fussell in France in 1945. Some events stay with you for the rest of your life.

Music: “Sprinkle Me with Kisses if You Want My Love to Grow,” “Tipperary,” “Colonel Bogey March,” “When It’s Apple Blossom Time in Normandy,” and “I Want to Go Home.”

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the obvious chapter called “World War I Nonfiction” (p 251).

Journey to the Frontier

gr4c5Leave a comment

Stansky, Peter and William Abrahams. Journey to the Frontier: Two Roads to the Spanish Civil War. Little, Brown and Company, 1966.

Reason read: the Spanish Civil War ended in April.

Julian Bell (1908 – 1937) and John Cornford (1915 – 1936): Both were poets, intellectuals, English, and part of the aristocracy. Both had famous relatives (Bell was the nephew of Virginia Woolf and Cornford was the great-grandson of Charles Darwin). How did they both end up fighting for the Republic and ultimately dying in the Spanish Civil War?
Julian started at Cambridge as a soldier for peace in 1929. At twenty-six he was unsure of his future and the critical dilemma of his day was how to oppose the war and Hitler at the same time. His life was very full before heading to Spain: poetry, academia, literature, philosophy, politics, and even romance all vied for Julian’s attention. He lived all of it to the fullest, including an entanglement with a jealous and clingy yet decidedly married woman in China. What Julian said of the woman was quite amusing, “She’s such a devil when she cares to be, and yet completely charming” (p 292). That’s love for you.
One of the most poignant comments Julian Bell made, “It’s the most dramatic step I’ve taken, I think, after being born” (p 250).
Rupert John Cornford seemed destined for war, named after a poet who was eager to go on a military expedition. Like Julian Bell, Cornford was absorbed in literature. At fourteen he was critiquing his mother’s poetry (and was quite harsh, I might add). He once said of her, “I don’t believe chaos begins till things get lost” (p 197) in response to her lack of tidiness. The Young Communist League in London was the center of his life.
John Cornford was only supposed to be in Spain for a few days. He wanted to see the fighting and then get back before anyone missed him. Cornford’s companion in Spain, Franz Borkenau, supplements Cornford’s movements, filling in details and confirming events.
Confessional: I read about John’s end around the time of the ten year anniversary of Prince’s passing so when John, despite a nasty head injury left the hospital out of boredom I couldn’t help but think of Prince. Even though John’s body hadn’t healed properly he checked himself out for fear of missing out on the action.
Julian Bell set out to be an ambulance driver in the Spanish Civil War. What is interesting is that he didn’t know how to drive a lorry; he didn’t know how to speak Spanish; he didn’t know how to administer first aid; he didn’t know how to tell if someone was deceased. Nevertheless, he wanted to gain a first-hand military experience. Like John Cornford, Julian Bell had a companion, Richard Rees, to bolster his narrative.

Journey to the Frontier dips into the life of Lynton Strachey and examines E.M. Forster’s Howards End in the time of the Edwardian-era heyday.

Author facts: Stansky is a graduate of Yale and Abrahams is a graduate of Harvard.

Book trivia: It has been said that the title Journey to the Frontier is the fusion of two different works: On the Frontier, a play by Auden and Isherwood and Journey to the Border, a novel by Upward.

Music: Beethoven, Sibelius, “Pie in the Sky,” “Solidarity Forever,” “Bandiera Rossa,” “La Cucaracha,” “The Old Grey Mare,” and “She Was Poor but She Was Honest.”

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called simply “Spain” (p 218).

In His Absence

gr4c5Leave a comment

Wiley-Smith, Christopher. In His Absence: A Brother, A Life, and What Endures. 2026.

Reason read: As a member of LibraryThing since 2006 I occasionally get to review amazing books for their Early Review Program. This is definitely one such book.

Christopher starts In His Absence by explaining the why of his story. Not only as a way to express grief, but a way to keep his brother Alex, alive in his memories. By sharing Alex’s biography Christopher’s brother is still with him and by default, all of us…even as strangers.
From an early age, Alex had a deep sense of mistrust. Maybe it started with the neighbor who passed away when the brothers were really young. Or maybe it was the father with anger issues which could flare up at any time and often without warning. It seems probable that their parents contentious and sometimes violent divorce had a hand in Alex’s troubled childhood; the dissolvement of the relationship was threatening enough to involve a restraining order. Maybe the drama was one of the reasons Alex resorted to physical violence that went beyond the typical dust-up between brothers; smashing rotary phones into his brother’s face or spraying him with mace. No matter the origin of Alex’s troubles, they only increased as he got older.
Even as Alex moved into adulthood and was making a name for himself in the tech industry his demons relentlessly stalked him. It just goes to show you how someone could have an outward appearance of success but actually be failing on the inside. Thoughts of suicide whispered until they became a scream of reality. This is a well-written but heartbreaking story.

As an aside, Wiley-Smith tells the story of a neighbor who passed away. Later in the story Wiley-Smith’s mother takes in another elderly neighbor who ends up dying in their home. Are these one and the same women? Another headscratcher was the trial about this selfsame neighbor. Wiley-Smith testified to the woman’s last will and testament but I missed the outcome somehow.

Book trivia: I was pleasantly surprised by the plethora of photographs barely ten pages into In His Absence. An added bonus is that a great deal of the photos are in color. I am not sure why, but I took the number of photographs as a sign that Wiley-Smith had nothing to hide.
There is a little repetition with a paragraph on page 144. The same paragraph is printed twice. Same for pages 220 and 242.

Music: “Happy Birthday,” MC Hammer, “Be Careful Little Eyes,” Paula Abdul, “Jesus Loves Me,” “This Little Light Of Mine,” “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands,” Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, Motley Crue’s “Doctor Feelgood,” Lady Gaga, Usher, Tupac Shakur, Cold, Korn,

Confessional: Wiley-Smith remembers the sting of losing an X-Wing fighter to another kid. When I was of a similar age I picked the wrong hand holding a rope bracelet. To this day, not winning the bracelet stings.

Deeper confessional: I think I could talk grief with Wiley-Smith. I share the same philosophy that remembrance is an act of devotion. I adore someone two years departed. I never do this. they say there is a first time for everything. This is my remembrance of Nash:
This is How I Remember
If I order your favorite food it is because I want to have another meal with you.
I will always remember how you take your coffee.
If I wear your cast-off clothes it is because I want another hug.
I will always remember being in the warmth of your rib-cracking arms.
If I want to spend time with your family it is because I want to see the resemblance.
Will I catch a glimpse of you?
I will always remember your smile.
If I listened to your music it is because I might hear you sing.
I will always remember the laughter in the lyrics.
If I talk about you it is my ways of keeping your memory alive.
If I talk about you I hope the listener will let me go on and on and on.
This is how I remember you.
And remember you, I will. Always.