Category: NonFiction

At the Broken Places

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Collins, Mary and Donald Collins. At the Broken Places: a Mother and Trans Son Pick Up the Pieces. Boston: Beacon Press, 2017.

Reason read: for the Early Review Program through LibraryThing

The concept for At the Broken Places is unique. Mother and son tell a collaborative story of Donald Collins’s transition from daughter to son & all of the emotional upheaval they endured together (and apart) along the way. Because of their opposing viewpoints it must have been a very difficult time for both of them. This definitely make At the Broken Places a more dynamic story.
As an aside, it was interesting to read between the lines and hear what wasn’t being said. Mary indicated names are powerful and matter a great deal when she explained that at sixteen her daughter was “J” and referred to as She. When “J” insisted on being called Donald her daughter was then referred to as He. Her son. The death of a name ushered in the death of a daughter. It is further revealed Mary held some resentment over the name “Donald Oliver” because it single-handedly wiped out memorializing her father (“J’s” shared his initials).

At the Broken Places could serve a wide audience: people facing similar situations; people who want to educate themselves; even people in positions of authority charged with changing the status quo.

If I could quote At the Broken Places I would definitely include what Donald said on page 15 and again later in the book. As an aside, I found his side of the story smart, articulate, sensitive and honest. That is not to say I didn’t find Mary’s voice appealing. She was just more slickly professional and less raw in her writing.

May I Read Another Book?

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Confessional: I don’t have any runs planned for May. I don’t have any travel planned for May (except going home-home). All I want to do is read, plant my gardens & master the grill. While the garden and the grill ambitions cannot be quantified, here are the books!

Fiction:

  •  Nerve by Dick Francis ~ in honor of the Kentucky Derby being in May
  • A Gay and Melancholy Sound by Merle Miller ~ in honor of Miller’s birth month. BTW – This is a behemoth (nearly 600 pages) so I am not confident I’ll finish it in time.
  • H by Elizabeth Shepard ! in honor of mental health month. This is barely 160 pages & will probably finish on a lunch break or two.

Nonfiction:

  • Age of Gold by H.W. Brands ~ in honor of History month being in May (confessional – this looks boring)
  • Lusitania: an epic tragedy by Diana Preston ~ in honor of the month the Lusitania sank
  • Goodbye to all That by Robert Graves ~ in honor of Memorial Day

Series continuations:

  • “Q” is for Quarry by Sue Grafton ~ to continue, and for me, finish the series started in April in honor of Grafton’s birth month (AB). Should be able to finish this in a weekend (AB + print)
  • Henry James: the Conquest of London (1870 – 1881) by Leon Edel ~ to continue the series started in April in honor of James’s birth month.

Early Review for LibraryThing:

  • At the Broken Places: —- by Mary and Donald Collins

Spring Sprung Titles

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What to say about April? I ran my fastest 10k while ill (go figure). I met two new runners and may have convinced someone to at least try. I don’t know where this acceptance to run with others is coming from. To share a conversation I had with someone: I asked where she runs. She replied she doesn’t have my pace, “nowhere near it” were her exact words. I answered I don’t have that pace all the time either. Me & my pace visit from time to time but we don’t make it a thing. She laughed and I saw myself ten years ago talking to someone who face-times with friends while running. I worried about her relationship with pace. But, this blog is turning into a thing different from reading.

So, without further ado, here are the finished books:

Fiction:

  • Diplomatic Lover by Elsie Lee – read in one day
  • Oxford Murders by Guillermo Martinez – read in two days
  • Celibate Season by Carol Shields and Blanche Howard – read in four days (this book annoyed me and I kept having to put it down)

Nonfiction:

  • Lost Upland: stories of the Dordogne Region by W.S. Merwin – confessional: DNF (bored, bored, bored)
  • Coming into the Country by John McPhee
  • Henry James: the Untried Years by Leon Edel
  • Another Part of the Wood by Kenneth Clark – this was cheeky!

Series continuations:

  • “F” is for Fugitive by Sue Grafton (I’m calling this a continuation even though I read “A” a long time ago.)
  • Rise of Endymion by Dan Simmons (AB + print so I could finish on time – today!)
  • Blue Lightning by Ann Cleeves – another quick read (finished in four days)

Early Review for LibraryThing:

  • My Life with Bob by Pamela Paul

Coming into the Country

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McPhee, John. Coming into the Country. New York: The Noonday Press, 1977.

Reason read: in four months I will be visiting Alaska. I thought I would start reading about it now.

There is a little bit of all things Alaskan in Coming into the Country. To name a few: the trials and tribulations of traveling rivers via kayak, the must-know laws of sport fishing (for example, fishermen are prohibited from catching fish by anything but mouth. Who knew?), Juneau is two time zones away from Anchorage. There’s more: McPhee details the nature of Grizzly bears, the techniques of placer mining, the bickering over the new location of the state capital, marriage and survival, and my favorite, the people of Alaska (transplant and not). The people you meet in Coming into the Country are phenomenal.

As an aside, Pearl may have called Coming into the Country a “classic” but in a timely twist, the boom of oil in Alaska is anything but old news.

Quotes I liked, “The best and worst part of catching that fish was deciding to let it go” (p 77) and “On days when the mail plane does not come, the human atmosphere is notably calmer than it is now” (p 199).

Author fact: I already told you McPhee has a huge list of books he has written. And I already told you I have six of them on my Challenge list. I already reviewed “Crossing the Craton” a few years ago.

Book trivia: There are no photographs in Coming into the Country but there are several different helpful maps.

Nancy said: Nancy called Coming into the Country a “classic” (p 15).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “All Set For Alaska” (p 15).

Henry James: the untried years

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Edel, Leon. Henry James: the Untried Years 1843 – 1870 (Volume 1). Philadelphia: J B Lippincott, 1953.

Reason read: to honor the birth month of Henry James, born April 15th, 1843.

Henry James: the Untried Years is, for lack of a more appropriate description, the beginning of Henry James. It chronographs the James family origins (briefly) and covers the first twenty seven years of the writer’s life. Several pieces of trivia I picked up from this volume were of interest. I did not know the writings of young Henry James’s and those of his father’s were often confused, especially when they wrote for the same publication. It irked the younger James so much so that after his father’s passing he made sure everyone knew he was dropping the “junior” part of his name. But, by the same token James Sr had misgivings about artists in general which was  a shame considering one son wanted to be a writer while another thought his true vocation was one of an artist.
Edel also does a great job giving the reader a sense of place. Young James was a well traveled youth, but the Hudson area of New York was not only a place of family roots but it gave young James his first important hero. Newport, Rhode Island and Boston, Massachusetts are two other very influential American geographic locations. When James finally starts “trying” his years Italy and France become major influences as well.

As an aside, James’s description of George Eliot made me think of my father-in-law. Surely, “magnificently ugly”, “deliciously hideous” and “monstrously beautiful” all have a similar ring? Two were from James and one was from Jim.

Author fact: One of the most fascinating things about Leon Edel is that he had already mapped out how the James biography was to be written practically in its entirety before he wrote a single sentence. He stated that “his [James] was a large life and it requires a large canvas” (p 10). Another interesting fact is that had Edel lived just four more days he would have made it to 90 years old.

Book trivia: Volume 1 contains eight illustrations. What is nice about Edel’s edition is that he takes the time to give more information about these illustrations. For example, the photographs on page 193: Edel includes an explanation of when the photo was taken, what James was writing at the time & even James’s opinion of the photograph.

Nancy said: Nancy said if you want to learn the most about James then you can’t do better than Edel. She called his five-volume set “magnificent” (p 144).

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Literary Lives: The Americans” (p 144).

Another Part of the Wood

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Clark, Kenneth. Another Part of the Wood: a Self Portrait. New York: Harper & Row, 1974.

Reason read: I am reading this in error. See BookLust Twist at bottom of review for explanation. By the way, April celebrates libraries and libraries mean books.

Kenneth Clark’s childhood reads like a demented fairy tale. He was brought up in Edwardian times when people ironed the newspapers and drank tea-time whiskies. His parent often left young Clark alone with the help while they spent their time living on yachts. As a child he gallivanted about the French Riviera, attended shooting parties and wandered music halls. But something happened when he reached the age of seven. Suddenly, works of art had the power to move him profoundly. He had the ability to recognize real talent. This exceptional gift developed with time, scholarship and good old fashioned experience until, at the young age of thirty, he was appointed Director of the National Gallery. After that, Clark fills his pages with a who’s who of artists and others he has met. It’s a fascinating story which Clark tells with such animation and enthusiasm.

As an aside, as I was reading Another Part of the Wood I was reminded of Kevin Spacey’s character, Francis Underwood, in the Netflix political drama “House of Cards.” Every once in a while Underwood breaks from character and looks into the camera to address his unseen viewing audience. Clark does this with footnotes and side comments with enough frequency to imply a certain concern for his reader’s opinion of him.

As another aside, I had to smile when Clark mentions his home in Grosvenor Square. How many other people thought of Robert Hunter or Adelai Stevenson when they read that? I instantly was reminded of scarlet begonias and a man telling his mistress not to walk so fast.

Quotes to quote, “Leigh spoke no foreign language correctly but, with his musical ear, he could make noises that sounded exactly like the language in question” (p 118), “I went to most of the concerts, and have been a little sniffy about other performances of Beethoven’s symphonies ever since” (p 158),

Author fact: Clark wrote a plethora of books. I am only reading this one.

Book trivia: There are a smattering of great photographs in Another Part of the Wood. My favorite is of Jane and the twins. She is looking at them as if to ask, “who are these creatures and why do I have them?”

Nancy said: Pearl quotes Clark in his love for the 11th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica (p 62).

BookLust Twist: erroneously from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Dewey Deconstructed: 000s” (p 62). In the Dewey decimal system, 000 is where you will find books about books. In this category you will find Pearl’s own Book Lust. You would not, however, find Another Part of the Wood (it would be in the 700s for museums, the arts and such). Pearl includes Another Part of the Wood in the 000s because Clark loved his edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

My Life with Bob

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Paul, Pamela. My Life with Bob: Flawed Heroine Keeps a Book of Books, Plot Ensues.New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2017.

Plot in a nutshell: voracious reader tracks what she has read over the years (starting in high school) and relates the books back to various yet significant times in her life. How many other people have done this? I know I have. I track title, author (full name because, for example, there is more than one Girls: Stories out there), reason read, dates read, whether or not I wrote a review and lastly, even which library I borrowed the copy from. I differ from Paul in that I try not to buy my books and when I do I never keep them. I borrow from every library within my state and thensome. Paul differs from me in that she decided to write a book about her reading exploits and reflect on what was going on in her personal life at that time. I blog with the briefest of hints to my personal life. What we have in common is how we read, sneaking pages in anytime we can. Our similarities and dissimilarities crisscross like highway lines on a map.
But, beyond being an entertaining tale about voracious reading and where it got her in life, I found Paul’s memoir informative. For example, I will read Tolstoy’s War and Peace with a family tree. I will allow myself to feel real emotion for inanimate objects (like Paul did while reading Ungerer’s Otto).

As an aside, for the fun of it I made a list of every book Paul mentions in her book. Then I cross referenced her list to what was on mine…Out of the 189 Paul mentions I have 97 on my list. Admittedly, I could have missed a few.
My one complaint – not everyone can afford an extra day in the hospital just because she was at the end of a really good book & wanted to finish it in the peace and quiet of a maternity ward. I think her insurance would have something to say about that!

Reason read: chosen as an Early Review from LibraryThing.

Author fact: Pamela Paul is the editor of The New York Times Book Review.

Book trivia: My Life with Bob contains one photo of the first page of “Bob.”
If I could quote passages from My Life with Bob there would definitely be one from page 144. And maybe 173. Definitely page 191. My Life with Bob is due to be published in May so you can read the quotes for yourself.

Lost Upland

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Merwin, W.S., The Lost Upland: Stories of Southwest France.New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992.

Reason read: Who doesn’t remember the song, “April in Paris”?

Merwin has combined three stories about the Dordogne/Languedoc region of southern France and combined them in a book called The Lost Upland. I use the term “stories” loosely as there no definitive plot to speak of in any one of them. Instead, readers will find a lyrical portrait of place and people. Merwin is a poet, after all. Community members like Fatty and Blackbird may dominate the pages but it’s the landscape itself that takes center stage. Be prepared to be transported to a place time forgot where magic is in the weather.

Confessional: this just wasn’t my cup of tea or coffee or anything. I tried to read it last year (in July) and failed then, too. Oh well.

Author fact: the list of works published by Merwin is extensive but I am only reading The Lost Upland.

Book trivia: As mentioned before, The Lost Upland is separated into three stories: “Foie Gras”, “Shepherds”, and “Blackbird’s Summer”.

Nancy said: she was “quite taken” with Merwin’s story. Which one?

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust to Go in the chapter called “Provence and the South of France” (p 188).

April Snow Job

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As we move into April I am not confident we won’t get another 26″ snow storm. If we ever joked in the past about not being able to predict the weather, now it is impossible. It’s no laughing matter. My rose bushes, right now struggling under the weight of frozen water, could tell you that. But never mind the weather. Let’s talk about the month of April. April is another 10k for cancer. I’m hoping to break the hour time since I was five seconds away in March. April is also Easter. April is my sister’s birth month. April is also books, books and more books…of course:

Fiction:

  • ‘F’ is For Fugitive by Sue Grafton ~ in honor of Grafton’s birth month. Technically, I should have read all the “alphabet” books by Grafton one right after the other, but I didn’t have that system when I read “A” is for Alibi. I think it goes without saying I do now.
  • The Diplomatic Lover by Elsie Lee ~ in honor of Lee’s birth month. I am not looking forward to this one even though it looks like a quick read.
  • A Celibate Season by Carol Shields ~ in honor of April being Letter Writing Month. This is so short I should be able to read it in one sitting.

Nonfiction:

  • Henry James: the Untried Years (1843 – 1870) by Leon Edel ~ in honor of James’s birth month. This first volume chronicles James’s childhood and youth.
  • Coming into the Country by John McPhee ~ in honor of the Alaska trip I’m taking in August.

Series continuations:

  • The Rise of Endymion by Dan Simmons ~ this is to finish the series started in January, in honor of Science Fiction month. I liked Endymion the best so I have high hopes for The Rise of Endymion. I am listening to this on audio and reading the print because I know I will never finish the 575+ pages by April 30th.
  • Blue Lightning by Ann Cleeves ~ this is to finish the series started in January, in honor of Shetland’s fire festival, Up Helly Aa. This is another one I should be able to finish in a day or two.

Early Review for LibraryThing:

  • My Life with Bob by Pamela Paul

Extra (for fun):

  • Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara- ~ my sister sent this in my belated birthday package. Whatever she recommends I usually end up liking whether it be music or books. For those of you who really know me – I know what you’re thinking. Yes, my birthday was in February. I got the birthday package over a month later. It’s what we do.

If there is time (since three books are really, really short):

  • Another Part of the Wood by Kenneth Clark ~ in honor of National Library Week
  • The Oxford Murders by Guillermo Martinez ~ in honor of April’s Mathematics, Science and Technology Week
  • Lost Upland by WS Merwin ~ in honor of well, you know the song…April in Paris. Cheesy, I know.

March of the Books

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Here’s the singular thing I love, love, love about March: the St. Patrick’s Day Road Race in Holyoke, MA. I adore running this race. Runner’s World magazine has mentioned it more than once, calling it the mini Boston Marathon for it’s toughness. I PR’ed this year! But what I am more excited about is that this time I was only five seconds away from breaking an hour. Unlike last year (1:07:and something seconds) I was 1 hour and a measly four seconds. But, enough about running! Here are the books finished for March, 2017:

  • Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote (AB +EB)*
  • Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel (AB + print)
  • Falling Angels by Barbara Gowdy*
  • Treachery in the Yard by Adimchinma Ibe*

Nonfiction:

  • Breaks of the Game by David Halberstam (DNF)
  • Big Empty edited by Ladette Randolph and Nina Shevchuk-Murray (EB)
  • No Ordinary Time by Doris Kearns Goodwin (AB)

Series continuations:

  • Red Bones by Ann Cleeves
  • Hall of a Thousand Columns by Tim Mackintosh-Smith (DNF)
  • Endymion by Dan Simmons

Early Review “won”:

  • Ma Speaks Up by Marianne Leone (received and finished)
  • My Life with Bob by Pamela Paul (This has arrived & I have started it)

*Short enough to read in one day.

Ma Speaks Up

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Leone, Marianne. Ma Speaks Up: and a First Generation Daughter Talks Back. Boston: Beacon Press, 2017.

First and foremost, I had a question about the title. Or, actually, the subtitle. If Marianne Leone’s mother was born in the United States how could Ms. Leone be first generation? Then as I read further, I got it. Ma tells tales. Ma exaggerates. Ma sounds a little crazy. The light bulb went on and I prepared myself for a more than amusing story about a daughter’s off kilter relationship with her mother.

Leone’s writing is fast paced and witty. I loved the sarcasm and pop culture references. The photographs were a nice addition.
I only had one complaint about Ma Speaks Up. Normally, I enjoy biographies and memoirs. I find it fun to look through the window of someone else’s life; a life way more interesting than my own. However, I found Ma Speaks Up to be chronologically all over the place. In one sentence Leone could be talking about her baby brother and in another her own child, jumping from being a child herself to a full adult.

Book trivia: due to be on sale by April 25th, 2017.

Big Empty

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Randolph, Ladette and Nina Shevchuk-Murray. The Big Empty: Contemporary Nebraska Nonfiction Writers. University of Nebraska Press, 2007

Reason read: Nebraska became the 37th state in March of 1867.

Big Empty is comprised of 27 essays and excepts covering a variety of subjects but all centered around the geography of Nebraska. Ted Kooser will often quote the Bohemians and the proverbs while telling you about the land. Bob Ross will tell you how to mend fences to keep the cattle in. William Kloefkorn will have you smiling as he remembers an ill-fated trip down the river with a group of friends. Kenneth Lincoln will have you weepy-eyed as he remembers his coming of age. You get the point, this is Nebraska from every angle. Some of the stories will bring tears to your eyes. Some will make you laugh out loud. But most will educate you to the Nebraskan landscape.

My big takeaway from reading Big Empty: Nebraska means flat water. Just kidding. Nebraska has gone from a place I knew absolutely nothing about to something of intrigue. I am more than a little curious about the state now.

Confessional: I used to say I didn’t know anyone from Nebraska until someone told me my deceased uncle was from Nebraska. Then I discovered he was actually from Arkansas. So I still don’t know anyone from Nebraska.

Line I liked from the preface: “Instead of sleeping away the drive through, they are awake and taking notes” (p xi).
Other lines to mention, “My argument is this: if it floats and gets you there, it is a boat” (“This Death By Drowning” by William Kloefkorn, p 73), and “…and when the auctioneer hammered “Sold!” Vic had bought that mule for a price that even brought a smile to the mule’s face” (“Uncle Vic’s Mule” by Roger Welsch, p 84), and “Grandpa’s plate was where the talk stopped and the patriarchal authority started” (“Excerpts from Prairie Homeboys” by Kenneth Lincoln, p 151). There were many, many other lines I could quote but I’ll just let you read the book. You should.

Author Editor fact: Ladette Randolph is also a writer. She published Leaving the Pink House in 2014 (University of Iowa Press).
Nina Shevchuk-Murray was born in the Ukraine.

Book trivia: I know this is a collection of essays but I would have loved a few photographs as well.

Nancy said: Big Empty “offers a diverse look at people’s lives in the state at various times and under various conditions” (p 149).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go from the chapter called “Nebraska: The Big Empty” (p 149). Gee, I wonder where she got that title from?

No Ordinary Time

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Goodwin, Doris Kearns. No Ordinary Time: Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II. Read by Edward Hermann. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995.

Reason read: Franklin married his fifth cousin in March. I read this to celebrate their unique and extraordinary relationship.

This is a quick read. In  a nutshell, it’s a condensed biography of Franklin, Eleanor, their marriage, and life at home during World War II. The biographies of Franklin and Eleanor are not anything new. If you have read even one other biography of the couple you’ll find all the details worth mentioning are the same. Considering Eleanor destroyed most of her correspondences it would be difficult for a biographer to come up with anything astonishing and unheard of before. The biography of Franklin and Eleanor’s marriage is treated with respect and without judgment. We all know about the other women: Missy, Lorena, and Lucy. But it is the biography of World War II’s home front that makes No Ordinary Time a pleasure to read. I’ve always known women made sacrifices for the war effort; rationing and even going without certain materials. But, I admit I did not know about the girdle protest. Goodwin’s description of Eleanor protesting the inability to wear a girdle for “health” reasons was humorous and fascinating.

As an aside, the title of No Ordinary Time comes from a speech Eleanor Roosevelt made before the Democratic convention.

Author fact: Goodwin won the Pulitzer in history for No Ordinary Time.

Book trivia: No Ordinary Time is a combination of diaries, interviews and White House records.

Audio trivia: the introduction is read by the author. Very cool.

Narrator trivia: Edward Hermann’s list of accomplishments is long. He has acted in a bunch of movies including The Purple Rose of Cairo as well as television (The Practice and Gilmore Girls). I’ve never seen any of these productions and yet I recognize him. I guess he just has one of those faces voices.

Nancy said: Nancy includes this as an example of an outstanding one-volume biography.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Presidential Biographies” (p 195).

Hall of a Thousand Columns

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Mackintosh-Smith, Tim. Hall of a Thousand Columns: Hindustan to Malabar with Ibn Battutah. London: John Murray, 2005.

Reason read: to continue the story started in February in honor of travel adventure.

Following in the footsteps of Ibn Battutah, the year was 1333 Battutah had now traveled to Delhi, India. Some 600+ years later and Tim Mackintosh-Smith is “hot” on his heels. Smith continues Hall of a Thousand Columns with the same wit and humor found in Travels with a Tangerine. For example here’s a line that made me giggle, “For a ship supposed to be leaving on her maiden voyage, she was being annoyingly coy about her virginity” (p 17).
Mackintosh-Smith titled his continuation of Tangerine Hall of a Thousand Columns because he felt that when IB came face to face with the hall he also came face to face with his destiny (p 31). As much as I liked Tangerine is wasn’t able to finish Hall.

More lines I liked, “Some things are meant to be found, not looked for, and this was one of them” (p 37).

Book trivia: The illustrations are great. Martin Yeoman was Smith’s companion for most of the travel.

Nancy said: Hall of a Thousand Columns was a “pleasure” (p 101).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “In the Footsteps Of…” (p 100).

Breaks of the Game

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Halberstam, David. The Breaks of the Game. New York: Hyperion, 2009.

Reason read: March Madness is well, in March. Everyone has heard of March Madness before. Read in honor of college hoops time.

This is an interesting topic for a book. Halberstam follows the 1979-1980 sad season of Portland, Oregon’s basketball team, the Trailblazers. Not their winning year. Interestingly enough, they had won the championship the year before. They bombed the year after. Maybe that’s what Halberstam found so interesting. After Bill Walton left the team they simply imploded. Halberstam could have called his book The Wreckage Walton Left Behind.
According to Breaks of the Game between 1970 and 1979 the Portland Trailblazers won 322 games and lost 416 and yet their fan attendance went from a paltry 1,095 to a cap of 11,500 by 1979. The One to Watch was Bill Walton, a first round draft choice. After he joined the team season ticket holders jumped from 2,971 to 6,218.
True to Halberstam form, Breaks of the Game looks at every angle of the sport of basketball from the coaches to the players, from the referees to the sponsors, from the owners to the fans and everyone in between. If you like basketball, this is the book for you. If you love the Portland Trailblazers no matter their record, this is a must read.

As an aside, I have seen Dead concerts “with” Bill Walton. He and I are huge fans. He’s often in the front row (or close to it) while I’m in the nosebleed seats.

Author fact: I probably mentioned this before but Halberstam was tragically killed in an auto accident on his way to an interview. I still can’t get over that.

Book trivia: Breaks of the Game contains no photographs whatsoever (not even of Bill Walton) & is not indexed.

Nancy said: Nancy connects Breaks in the Game with another sports book, The Punch, since Kermit Washington was traded to the Portland Trailblazers following the infamous punch (p 226).

BookLust Twist: from both Book Lust and More Book Lust. From Book Lust in the obvious chapter called “Sports and Games” (p 225) and from More Book Lust in the even more obvious chapter called “David Halberstam: Too Good To Miss” (p 112).