Category: NonFiction

August and Alaska

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If I was California dreaming in July, then I will be Alaska cruising in August. Since there were a few books on the July list I didn’t finish I am punishing myself by not starting my August list until the July list is completely cleared. This is a first and totally off the Challenge protocol. Here’s how the reading should go:

To Finish:

  • Henry James: the Middle Years by Leon Edel (280 pages to go)
  • Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein (300 pages to go)

When those are finished I can tackle the AUGUST READS:

Fiction:

  • Possession by A.S. Byatt ~ in honor of Byatt’s birth month

Nonfiction:

  • Miami by Joan Didion ~ in honor of Castro’s birth month

Series Continuations:

  • Henry James: the Master the Treacherous Years by Leon Edel (will this series ever end? Apparently, I am eager for it to be over since I skipped a volume!)

Early Review:

  • Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color by Andrea J. Ritchie

July Unraveled

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What can I tell you about July? What a crazy effed up month! For my state of mind it was better than the last simply because the Kisa and I ran all over California for a week. I was terribly distracted from the run and the books. Once you see the numbers you’ll understand. For the run I conquered only two runs in sunny CA and totaled 20.5 miles for the entire month. Here are the books:

Fiction:

  • Anna and Her Daughters by D.E. Stevenson
  • The Eagle Has Landed by Jack Higgins

Nonfiction:

  • Pacific Lady by Sharon S. Adams
  • Hawthorne: a Life by Brenda Wineapple

Series Continuations:

  • Moment of War by Laurie Lee

Early Review for LibraryThing:

  • The World Broke in Two by Bill Goldstein

Did Not Finish (still reading):

  • Henry James: The Middle Years by Leon Edel -STILL! Since June!
  • Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein

Never Started (didn’t arrive in time):

  • In Tragic Life by Vandis Fisher

The World Broke in Two

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Goldstein, Bill. The world Broke in Two. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2017.

Reason read: a May Early Review from LibraryThing to be published in July.

A great deal of important writing occurred in 1922. Joyce’s controversial Ulysses was published in February and everyone wanted to read it. F. Scott Fitzgerald published in March. Proust’s In Search of Lost Time and Sinclair Lewis’s Babbit were published in September. It was a good year for children’s books, too. The Velveteen Rabbit (Margery Williams) and Dr. Doolittle (Hugh Lofting) were both published in 1922. But, for Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot, E.M. Forster, and D.H. Lawrence 1922 started out primarily as an empty page, a blank stare, a “literary apocalypse” as Goldstein called it. All four suffered from a lack of inspiration; the dreaded writer’s block. Shocking, as all had been successful in previous years. 1922 started with Virginia being perpetually ill with fevers well over one hundred degrees. Tom was busy being intimidated by James Joyce. Morgan was hung up on a relationship he started in India. Lawrence was trying to settle on the perfect place to write. The end of 1922 would see the emergence of Mrs. Dalloway and Jacob’s Room, Eliot’s epic poem, “The Waste Land” would be published in October amid scandal, Lawrence would share his autobiographical Kangaroo, and Forster finds inspiration in the start of A Passage to India.

As an aside, I thoroughly enjoyed certain phrasings Goldstein used throughout his book. To name a few, “emotional slither” and “clawful enthusiasm.” I can only hope the imagery I conjured up as a result of these word pairings is what Goldstein intended.

Pacific Lady

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Adams, Sharon Sites and Karen J Coates. Pacific Lady: the First Woman to Sail Solo across the World’s Largest Ocean. University of Nebraska Press, 2008. Outdoor Lives. EBSCOhost.

Reason read: July is one of the best months to be on the water. Also, it is the month Ida B. Wells was born (7/16/1862). Ida embodied the spirit of empowerment for women.

In 1965 Sharon Adams became the first woman to sail from California to Hawaii in a 25′ Folkboat called the Sea Sharp. [Moment of honesty: I was unfamiliar with the term folkboat and had to look it up.] Adams had just learned to sail the year before at age thirty-four. Recently widowed she needed something to do; somewhere to channel her grief. Dentistry just didn’t cut it. What better place than the ocean? And then. Then, after that, she decided she needed to do more. Why not be the first woman to sail the entire Pacific ocean? Delivering a boat from Japan to San Diego, California in just under four months, Adams not only learned more about the natural environment around her but about herself as well.
Here’s the thing you need to know about Sharon Adams. She was just an ordinary woman looking for a hobby. she did something extraordinary not because she wanted fame but because she could. what I don’t think she realized is that she can write just as well as she sailed. Even though she had help from Karen Coates, every other sentence was begging to be a quote in my review.

Some of my favorite lines (and there were many). Here are two about loneliness: “Experience does not deaden the sting of loneliness at sea” (p 1) and “Some sailors simply couldn’t endure their own minds” (p 3).

Author fact: Adams was 78 when she published her memoir about her sailing adventures. I love her writing so much I wish she had written more.

Book trivia: the foreword was written by Randall Reeves and the preface was written by Karen Coates.

Nancy said: nothing special about Pacific Lady. It’s just in a list of books about the ocean. too bad Nancy didn’t have a chapter called “Women Doing Amazing Things!”

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the obvious chapter called “See the Sea” (p 202).

A Moment of War

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Lee, Laurie. A Moment of War. New York: The New Press, 1991.

Reason read: I started the Lee series in April in honor of the Madrid Festival. This concludes the series.

As a impressionable young man Lee wanted to fight alongside the Spanish as a volunteer during their civil war in 1937. He made the trek across the Pyrenees expecting Spain to welcome him to the conflict with arms wide open. Much to his surprise he was immediately arrested as a spy. So begins Lee’s memoir of a naive coming of age in wartime Spain. Throughout this short little memoir Lee’s disillusionment becomes stronger and stronger until when he is finally sent home he has this last parting shot: “Here were the names of the dead heroes, piled into little cardboard boxes, never to be inscribed later in official Halls of Remembrance” (p 174). Sad.

Favorite quotes, “We were young and had expected a welcome of girls and kisses, even the prospect of bloodless glory; not till the Commander had pointed it out to us, I believe, had we seriously considered that we might die” (p 59).

Book trivia: A Moment of War is really short, only 176 pages. I read this in a weekend.

Author fact: Laurie Lee had a love affair with poetry.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Spain” (p 220).

July with a Bang

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The one good thing about July is that I am starting to train for a half mara in October. I am praying this gets me out of my funk…

Here are the books:

Fiction:

  • The Eagle Has Landed by Jack Higgins ~ in honor of Higgins’s birth month
  • Anna and Her Daughters by DE Stevenson ~ in honor of July being Ice Cream Month (this is further explained in the book review).

Nonfiction:

  • Hawthorne: a Life by Brenda Wineapple ~ in honor of Hawthorne’s birth month
  • Pacific Lady by Sharon Adams ~ in honor of July being Ocean Month

Series Continuations:

  • Henry James: the Middle Years by Leon Edel (didn’t finish in June) ~ to continue the series started in April in honor of James’s birth month.
  • A Moment of War by Laurie Lee ~ to continue the series started in honor of April’s Madrid festival.

Early Review for LibraryThing:

  • The World Broke in Two: Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, and the Year That Change Literature by Bill Goldstein

Upstream

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Cook, Langdon. Upstream: Searching for Wild Salmon, From River to Table. New York: Ballantine Books, 2017.

Reason read: an Early Review for LibraryThing.

Simply put, Upstream is everything you would want to know about salmon and thensome. Understatement of the year. Like the dress on the internet that no one could decide its color, the salmon is arguably the most controversial fish. Historically speaking, salmon sustained native tribes long before cooking became a rock star occupation. Politically speaking, conservation efforts clash with modern day industry. On a human level, salmon represent sport, tradition, and the environment. Salmon represent where we have been just as much as where we are going.

As an aside, as a food source, as more and more consumers start to care about the who, what, where, when and why of nutrition and foods they put on their tables, the more books like Upstream matter.

June Jumping

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I see June as jumping over spring. We went from low 50 degree temps to mid 90s overnight. Not sure what to make of this abbreviated spring. I’m not sure what to make of myself either. I all but stopped running (eleven miles for the entire month). Even when I was home on Monhegan I didn’t lace up. My only saving grace is I’m to start training for a half in July. Sigh…

Here are the books:

Fiction –

  • American Pastoral by Philip Roth ~ in honor of Father’s Day (AB)
  • Under the Gypsy Moon ~ by Lawrence Thornton
  • The Key to Rebecca by Ken Follett

Nonfiction –

  • Death, Taxes and Leaky Waders by John Gierach
  • Provence by Ford Madox Ford (DNF)

Series Continuations –

  • Cider with Rosie (illustrated) by Laurie Lee
  • Henry James: the Middle Year by Leon Edel (not finished yet)

For the Early Review program for LibraryThing:

  • Upstream: Searching for Wild Salmon, From River to Table by Langdon Cook
  • The World Broke in Two by Brian Goldstein (not finished yet)

Here are the short stories –

  • “Artie Glick in a Family Way” by Joseph Epstein
  • “Executor” by Joseph Epstein
  • “Mendocino” by Ann Packer
  • “Babies” by Ann Packer
  • “General Markman’s Last Stand” by Tom Paine
  • “The Spoon Children” by Tom Paine
  • “Someone to Watch Over Me” by Richard Bausch
  • “Aren’t You Happy for Me?” by Richard Bausch

Provence

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Ford, Madox Ford. Provence: From Minstrels to the Machine. New York: Ecco Press, 1979.

Reason read: Ford died in the month of June in 1939.

Provence should be considered a travel book which follows the Great Trade Route “from China…to the Scilly Isles.” Aside from that, Provence is Ford’s love letter to the region. He and his travel companion will introduce you to the way to find good food in the south of France…even a good haircut.
In truth, I found Provence a bit on the didactic side. Short of being downright boring I thought it was a slow read. In the end, I ended up not finishing it.

Line that got to me the most, “But when the period of depression has been long and anxieties seem to be becoming too much for me, I make a bolt for Provence” (p 40). I get that. I’m like that about Monhegan.

Author fact: Ford had an interesting point of view concerning repeating material in different books. He felt you should have all new content in each book. So, the story he told in a previous book should not be repeated in consideration of “commercial morality” (p 14). A more trivial author fact is that Ford changed his name. That was a disappointment to learn. I liked the symmetry of Ford Madox Ford.

Book trivia: According to Ecco Press Provence in one of the neglected books of the 20th century. Another piece of trivia: illustrations in Provence were credited to someone named “Biala.” “Biala” is Mrs. Janice “Biala” Brustlein who, according to Nancy Pearl, was Ford’s lover…as they were both married to other people.

Nancy said: Nancy called Provence a “lovingly written account” (p 186).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Provence and the South of France” (p 186).

Death, Taxes, and Leaky Waders

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Gierach, John. Death, Taxes, and Leaky Waders: a John Gierach Fly-fishing Treasury. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000.

Reason read: June is Fishing Month or something like that.

You all have heard the fishing story about the one that got away. Well, Death, Taxes, and Leaky Waders could be about the one that got away but is actually moreso about the one that got caught. And the other one that got caught. And the other one. Again and again. Leaky Waders is a ‘Best Of’ compilation from several different books already published. As a side note, I found the details about the types of flies and the technique to tying them to be a bit tedious. To an avid angler this definitely wouldn’t be the case, but I was far more interested in Gierach’s fabulous friendships (especially the one with his friend A.K.) and the adventures they found themselves taking across the country in search of the perfect fishing spot. The story about sitting through a tornado was funny.

Quotes to quote, “A trip is an adventure, and on an adventure things should be allowed to happen as they will” (p 77), “Creeps and idiots cannot conceal themselves for long on a fishing trip” (p 85), and my favorite, “Fishing and running – solitary exercises that are usually practiced in groups” (p 156). So true.

As an aside, I had to smile when Gierach described going through his mantra before a trip, “rodreelvestwaderscamera” so as not to forget anything. I smiled because it is very similar to my husband’s mantra of “phonewalletkeysreadingglassessunglasses” before he leaves for work.

As another aside, I have to disagree with Gierach. Dr. Juice looks nothing like Allen Ginsberg except to say they both have beards and glasses.

Author fact: Gierach wrote a whole bunch of other books about fishing. I have a couple more on my Challenge list. From what I understand there is a bunch of overlap with Death Taxes and Leaky Waders so the others (Sex, Death & Fly-Fishing and Another Lousy Day in Paradise) be quick reads.

Book trivia: Death, Taxes, and Leaky Waders was illustrated by Glenn Wolff.

Nancy said: Death, Taxes, and Leaky Waders is the best Gierach book to start with.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Gone Fishin'” (p 100). Simple enough.

Cider with Rosie

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Lee, Laurie. Cider with Rosie. New York: Crown Publishers, 1984.

Reason read: to “continue” the series started in May in honor of Spain’s Madrid Festival (although Cider should have been read before As I Walked Out).

Cider with Rosie begins when Lee is just three years old. He belongs to a family of eight. Lee’s father had eight children with his first wife (who died in childbirth) and four more with his housekeeper who became his second wife. Of the twelve children total, only eight survived. Lee’s father may have left the family when Laurie was only three but his memories of childhood are simply magical regardless. I think he was raised with the expectation that his father would be back. Here is one memory about sleeping with his mother as a toddler: “They were deep and jealous, those wordless nights, as we curled and muttered together, like a secret I held through the waking day which set me above all others” (p 22).
Cider with Rosie is a study in innocence. Lee sees the world as a place of discovery. Even when he was thought to be on death’s door he analyzed all that was around him. I won’t spoil what the title means except to say it’s the end of innocence.

Quote which confounded me: About bread – “We tore them to pieces with their crusts still warm, and their monotony was brightened by the objects we found in them – string, nails, paper, and once a mouse; for those were days of happy-go-lucky baking” (p 14). What?

Book trivia: My edition of Cider with Rosie was wonderfully illustrated. I would advise anyone wanting to read Cider to find it. 35 different artists had a hand in beautifying its pages. While most artists contributed only one or two illustrations,  C.F. Tunnicliffe is credited with thirteen. In total there were over 200 illustrations of various sizes, over 50 of them being full page and 45 photographs (some from Lee’s private collection). Mu favorite illustration was the dragonfly on page 34.

Nancy said: Nancy called Cider an “affectionate memoir” (p 164).

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Me, Me, Me: Autobiographies and Memoirs” (p 162). As an aside, Pearl makes no mention of the other books in the series.

Henry James: the Conquest of London

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Edel, Leon. Henry James: the Conquest of London (1870 – 1881), Vol II. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1962.

Reason read: to continue the series started in April in honor of Henry James’s birth month.

At the end of Henry James: the Untried Years the year was 1870 and James had just returned to Cambridge, Massachusetts after his first major jaunt through Europe. His beloved cousin, Minnie Temple, had succumbed to a very long illness and James was finding his way as a successful writer. Now, in Henry James: the Conquest of London James is broadening his horizons with another trip to Europe. Volume One outlined James’s personality and temperament and the seedling of his career as a writer whereas Volume Two waters that seedling and produces the blossoming of a true novelist. The parallels between Henry’s characters and that of his own grow. It is life feeding art. The art that begins to blossom is the ever-famous Portrait of a Lady.

As an aside, James’s story Watch and Ward reminded me of the poem “If No One Ever Marries Me” by Laurence Alma-Tadema. Both narrators say if they are unlucky in love they will adopt/buy a little orphan girl to bring up.

Quotes I liked, “He thrived more on people than upon scenery” (p 88),

Author fact: Edel read some 7,000 letters to and from Henry James in order to write the series.

Book trivia: Like Vol. I there are eight photographs in Conquest of London.

Nancy said: Nancy said if you want to learn about the life of Henry James you can’t do better than Leon Edel’s “magnificent”  five volumes (p 144).

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

Age of Gold

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Brands, H.W. Age of Gold: the California Gold Rush and the New American Dream. New York: Doubleday, 2002.

Reason read: May is history month.

January 24th 1848 is considered the date of the birth of the gold rush.

Age of Gold takes a thorough look at a slice of American history. Beginning in 1848 Brands introduces the reader to people from all walks of life, uncovering every story from land and sea across several continents. Part One describes in detail the first adventurers to travel from every corner of the earth to seek gold. It is here John Fremont is introduced for the first time. Part Two is an introduction to the frenzied hunt for gold: panning, picking, cradling, digging, mining, sifting, sluicing. Part Three sees the birth of California’s borders and governing body. San Francisco becomes the first city in the state.

Confessional: When I first heard Natalie sing “Gold Rush Brides” I wondered what she used for inspiration to write a song about the gold rush from the point of view of the women on the trail. Some time later Natalie read a passage from Women’s Diaries of the Westward Journey collected by Lillian Schlissel before performing the song. I can’t help but think of this book in comparison to Age of Gold.

Author fact: Brands also wrote bestseller The First American (also on my Challenge list).

Book trivia: Age of Gold includes a great group of photographs.

Nancy said: Nancy called Age of Gold “wide-ranging and engaging” (p 20).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the obvious chapter called “American History: nonfiction” (p 20).

As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning

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Lee, Laurie. As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning. New York: Atheneum, 1969.

Reason read: the Madrid Festival in Spain (obviously) happens in May.

Confessional: Once again I am reading books out of order! Dammit, dammit, dammit. When I planned to read As I Walked Out I had no idea Cider with Rosie was the first book in a trilogy memoir. No clue! Pearl does not make mention of the connection even though Moment of War (the third and final book of the memoir) is also included in Book Lust To Go. As an aside, Cider is listed in the index of More Book Lust. Again, I did not make the connection.

Laurie Lee left home in England to find, at the very least, fame and fortune as a musician. With mixed emotions he found he could make a dime on street corners but had to supplement his income with other vocations like construction work before moving on to his next adventure. At the heart of his journey was discovery; as he put it, “I felt it was for this I had come: to wake at dawn on a hillside and look out on a world for which I had no words, to start at the beginning, speechless and without a plan, in a place that still had no memories for me” (p 54). Most of his discovery takes place in Spain. As an aside, I loved his description of Madrid as an old lion with broken teeth and bad breath. As I Walked Out… ends with Lee being escorted out of Spain by a British destroyer and yet by summer he was fixated on getting back to Spain to join the war.

Quotes that gave me pause, “I was affronted by freedom” (p 6), “Such a narrow gap between consent and dispute” (p 45) and “Halfway up, in a recess, a small pale child sat carving a potato into the shape of all doll, and as we approached, she turned, gave us a quick look of panic, and bit off its little head” (p 93). What’s that all about? One last quote, “Fear lay panting in the street like a dog” (p 219).

Author fact: Lee was the youngest of twelve in his family. But probably the most fascinating fact about LL is that he met his wife when she was five years old and neither could understand the other’s language (she French, he English).

Book trivia: As I Walked Out… was illustrated by Leonard Rosoman. One of my favorite illustrations is on page 50.

Nancy said: As I Walked Out… is included in a list of books about Spain Nancy said should be tried (p 220).

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

June Jitterbugs

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May was a month of real struggle. Suicides, known and unknown, sucked the life out of my psyche and I had a hard time staying afloat myself. I became obsessed with the sinking of the Lusitania and devoured every documentary I could find. Yet, I was unsure of my own mind’s footing; enough so I couldn’t trust me or myself to stand at Monhegan’s cliff edge. A first for me. Upon returning home I found myself amazed to be so relieved at being landlocked once again.

Here are the books I have planned for June:

Fiction:

  • Under the Gypsy Moon by Lawrence Thornton
  • Key to Rebecca by Ken Follett
  • American Pastoral by Philip Roth (AB)

Nonfiction:

  • Provence: by Ford Madox Ford
  • Another Lousy Day in Paradise by John Gierach ~ June is Fishing Month

Short Stories (June is Short Story Month):

  • “Artie Glick in a Family Way” by Joseph Epstein
  • “The Executor” by Joseph Epstein
  • “Mendocino” by Ann Packer
  • “Babies” by Ann Packer
  • “The Spoon Children” by Tom Paine
  • “Gentleman Markman’s Last Stand” by Tom Paine

Series Continuations:

  • Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee
  • Henry James: the Middle Years by Leon Edel

Early Review for LibraryThing (maybe – I haven’t received it yet):

  • Upstream by Langdon Cook