Category: NonFiction

Master of the Senate

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Caro, Robert. The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate. New York: Knopf Doubleday, 2009.

Reason read: to finish (finally, finally!) the series started in February in honor of Presidents Day.

This was a chore for me. For one, I have never been a huge history buff. Secondly, Caro painted Johnson to be such a lying and bullying politician in the first book that I didn’t think I wanted to know anything more about him, as master of the senate, future president, or not. To say that Master of the Senate is well researched is an understatement. This biography goes well beyond Lyndon’s life. Like Path to Power and Means of Ascent before it, Master of the Senate broad in its scope and extremely thorough.

Book trivia: Master of the Senate won a National Book Award and a Pulitzer.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Presidential Biographies (p 192).

A Fresh Start for June

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May is ending with disappointment. The caboose of the story (instead of the whole train) is that due to work obligations Kisa & I were not able to make it to Maine for a long weekend over the holiday. As a result I had to burn two vacation days at home. June will be a better month. But, to be fair – May wasn’t so shabby for books:

  • Brilliant Orange by David Winner
  • Bold Spirit by Linda Hunt
  • Jordan by E. Borgia
  • One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandre Solzhenitsyn
  • Coroner’s Lunch by Colin Cotterill
  • The Chosen by Chaim Potok
  • Map of Another Town by MFK Fisher
  • All the Rage by Martin Moran (ER)

ADDED:

  • Arab and Jew by David Shipler
  • Perks of Being a Wallflower by  David Chbosky

DNF:

  • Master of the Senate by Robert Caro

For JUNE, here are the books & why:

  1. Yocandra in the Paradise of Nada by Zoe Valdes in honor of Caribbean Heritage Month
  2. Thirty-Three Teeth by Colin Cotterill to continue the series started in May
  3. Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich in honor of her birth month
  4. The Millstone by Margaret Drabble in honor of family month
  5. A Bridge Too Far by Cornelius Ryan in honor of World War II (D-Day)

June is National Short Story Month:

  • from Birds of America by Lorrie Moore:
    • Four Calling Birds, Three French Hens
    • People Like That are the Only People Here: Canonical Babbling in Peed Onk
  • from Lucky Girls by Nell Freudenberger:
    • The Orphan
    • Outside the Eastern Gate
  • from Nine Stories by JD Salinger:
    • A Perfect Day for a Bananafish
    • For Esme: with Love & Squalor

Arab and Jew

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Shipler, David K. Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land. Read by Robert Blumenfeld. New York: Blackstone Audio, 2003.

Reason read: May is the most beautiful time of the year to visit the middle east…or so I have heard.

This is the history of the relationship between Arab and Jew. Shipler painstakingly traces the prejudice back to its origin and examines the cultural, religious, and socioeconomic divide that has existed ever since. Shipler’s reporting is exemplary. He is unbiased but obviously very concerned about the everyday ordinary people just trying to survive in this land of unrest. Shipler’s voice is at once delicate and forthright in his descriptions and details involving terrorism, nationalism, and political conflict. He refers frequently to information he has collected from textbooks of various grade levels to demonstrate the education & “miseducation” of middle eastern children.

Probably the most disturbing section (for me) was about sexual attitudes, especially those surrounding rape.

Quotes that caught my attention, “Battle has its thrills as well as its regrets” and “Too much hope seems doused in blood.” Because I am listening to this on (22!) CDs I have no idea what actual page these quotes are on.

Book trivia: I listened to an unabridged and revised edition of Arab and Jew. This was also made into a movie in 1989.

Author fact: Shipler won a Pulitzer for Arab and Jew in 1987.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the vague chapter called “The Middle East” (p 154).

Brilliant Orange

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Winner, David. Brilliant Orange: the Neurotic Genius of Dutch Soccer. New York: Overlook Press,2002.

Reason read: Holland celebrates its tulips in May with a big festival.

I didn’t know anything about dutch football (soccer) before reading this book. I have to admit I was a little worried I would be bored because, to be honest, I didn’t know anything about soccer period. It’s a sport I never played as a kid or watched as an adult.*

*As an aside, I just watched a documentary on Serbia soccer. Call me crazy but I don’t think the Dutch have anything on the Serbs when it comes to fanaticism.

ESPN had it right when they said on the back cover of Brilliant Orange, “you like soccer, you don’t like soccer, it doesn’t matter.” It’s true. Hate, indifference, like or love. No matter which way, this is an enjoyable read. Winner definitely knows his material and isn’t dry in his delivery. He could write about the science of flies on fly paper and I would probably browse it. Be prepared to learn a lot about soccer/football. Be pleasantly surprised by everything else you learn. Among other things, Winner compares soccer to ballet in its artistry. He makes comparisons to politics. He sees similarities with architecture, society, humanity.
Interesting points to mention – a paranormal expert thought the Dutch football team always lost because there was a problem with the team color of orange. Another “expert” blamed it on a deep seeded mistrust of authority so they couldn’t obey the refs.

Quotes to quote, “To play in a beautiful attacking way has become the Eleventh Commandment for the Dutch” (p 145),

Author fact: Winner likes soccer. He also wrote about the history of English soccer.

Book trivia: It would have been really cool to have pictures of the football teams or at least one of the sport’s hero, Johan Cruyff.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust to Go in the cheesy chapter called “Hollandays” (p 96).

Two Towns in Provence

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Fisher, MFK. Two Towns in Provence: Map of Another Town. New York: Vintage Books, 1983.

Reason read: to finish the collection started in April in honor of Paris.

Two Towns in Provence contains two shorter geographical portraits, Map of Another Town and A Considerable Town. Confessional: I read them backwards: I thought Considerable Town was first until I received Two Towns in Provence.
There is no doubt a love-hate story within the pages of Two Towns. Fisher’s connection to Aix-en-Provence and Marseille couldn’t be clearer. In Map of Another Town Fisher focuses on Aix-en-Provence, France’s capital. Her stories weave around her time bringing up two small daughters, renting an apartment, and observing people and their culture. She spends a fair amount of time having imaginary exchanges with the locals. Most striking were the lessons on society and class: no matter the level of distress a person should not accept help from someone of a lower class and getting a child vaccinated was a process.

Quotes I’d like to quote, “It pressed upon my skin like the cold body of someone unloved” (p 17), “I wrapped myself in my innocence” (p 125), and “He was a man of the same indescribably malnourished twisted non-age of all such physical jetsam being helped by government benevolence…” (p 200).

Author fact: Once I am attuned to a language I seem to latch onto it. Words like evil, dangerous, hell, shabby, grotesque, dirty, desolate…Fisher complains for a lot of Map of another Town. I don’t know what it was about her tone, but she came across as bitchy to me. Fisher seems uncomfortable with the sick or elderly, always hurrying away from the dying. She seems easily annoyed by those around her.

Book trivia: Map of Another Town has wonderful illustrations by Barbara Westman. In the midst of this coloring craze, I could see someone filling in the black and white drawings with a little color.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Provence and the South of France” (p 187).

All the Rage

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Moran, Martin. All the Rage: a Quest. New York: Beacon Press, 2016

Reason read: Early Review for LibraryThing

Wow. Am I glad I requested this book and actually received it. Wow. I’m glad I read it, too. There are layers and layers to All the Rage. You could call them onion-like because some layers will make you cry but there is more than just sadness: humor, beauty, sarcasm, wit, and yes, rage. Moran finds his mad. I read this from the perspective of not knowing Martin’s story. I didn’t read his 2005 memoir, knew nothing of the play and missed the headlines concerning him entirely.

It is one thing to come to terms with being a victim of any kind of abuse but it’s another to sort out the myriad of feelings connected to and as a result of that abuse during and more so, afterwards. If your abuse is a secret, you live in constant fear of being found out. If you are “out” you are constantly bombarded with doubts that you are dealing with it appropriately. That is exactly what Moran addresses in All the Rage. When people learn of the sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of an adult they all want to know why he isn’t more angry. Where is his outrage? Where is his fury? Moving back and forth from memory to present day Moran is able to piece together his coping mechanisms and to see how every emotion is part of the process.

Beautiful lines, “The vague smell of medical sadness hung in the air, the business of staying alive a little longer” (p 125).

Author fact: Broadway doesn’t comes to Western Massachusetts very often (unless you consider Tanglewood an equivalent), so I was unaware of Moran’s talent as an actor. I think I liked it better that way because I wasn’t distracted by celebrity status and could just concentrate on the writing.

Book trivia: Read the praise for All the Rage on the back cover and you still won’t know what the book is about. The only thing you will know is that you want to read it. Now.

 

Bold Spirit

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Hunt, Linda Lawrence. Bold Spirit: Helga Estby’s Forgotten Walk Across Victorian America. Idaho: University of Idaho Press, 2003.

Reason read: I think it’s ironic that I am reading my first book in honor of Just ‘Cause the same year I chose not to participate. But, there you have it. Another irony is that this year Just ‘Cause is not doing their walk in May. It’s in June.

On May 5th 1896 Helga Estby and her daughter, Clara, embark on a cross country journey on foot to raise money for their impoverished family. Everything about this journey is fraught with risk. Consider the facts. First, her home life: Helga has nine children she must leave in the care of her out-of work-husband. As a Norwegian, this is a scandalous decision simply because women do not leave their families for anything. Second, the “scheme”: a wealthy yet unknown sponsor with ties to the fashion industry is offering a reward of $10,000 if Helga can walk from Spokane, Washington to New York City in seven months. Helga knows very little about this benefactor and the trip will be extremely dangerous. In addition, although this unknown sponsor wants to prove the physical endurance of women, she has a few rules.

  1. Helga and her daughter may only start out with $5 a piece. All other income must be earned along the way. [They end of selling photographs of themselves and doing odd chores.]
  2. They must visit each state’s capital.
  3. They must acquire the signature of prominent politicians
  4. Once arriving in Salt Lake City, must don a “reform costume” otherwise known as a bicycle skirt. This was an effort to display the latest fashion – a dress that was several inches shorter to give women “leg freedom” and was considered quite scandalous.
  5. They could not beg for anything – rides, food, or shelter.
  6. They could not pay for rides.
  7. They had to arrive in New York by early December.

This sets the stage for Hunt’s Bold Spirit but what emerges is a story about courage and commitment. Unfortunately, because Helga Estby and her family were so ashamed of her venture when it was all said and done, very little evidence of her walk was properly preserved. Most everything was willfully destroyed. As a result Hunt has to rely on speculation to fill in the gaps. Language like “they were likely”, “perhaps”, “it is possible”, probably”, and “they might have” pepper the entire book.

Book trivia: I like the design of this book a great deal. The photography is wonderful, too.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Walk Right In” (p 250).

Jordan

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Borgia, E. <Jordan: Past & Present: Petra, Jerash, Amman. Italy: Tipolitografica CS, 2001.

Reason read:

“We reconstruct lost memories to guide you into the past.”

Jordan: Past & Present is made up of three chapters, “Petra”, “Jerash” and “Amman – Philadelphia”. Each chapter outlines the plan of the city, historical data and an architectural  structure of interest (for my favorite, Petra, it was the theater and famous tombs). What makes this book so unique are the transparencies that cover current day photographs. The transparencies show what each city must have looked like, overlaying the current day photograph. It’s a unique blend of old and new that works very well.

Book trivia: I already mentioned the uniqueness of the transparencies.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter simply called “Jordan” (p 119).

May I Read

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I never recapped April nor predicted May. For the first time ever, April books are still being read. To be fair, the Lyndon Johnson series started in February so technically these leftovers are not specific either April nor May.

April was an oddball month in that my reading was all on the fly. I trained for another half marathon and that took a lot of my time. Not nearly as much as the full mara, but still…

Here are the Challenge books finished in April:

  • King Lear – Shakespeare (not scheduled)
  • Guernica – Van Hensbergen (not scheduled)
  • Grand Tour – Tim Moore
  • Green Thoughts – Eleanor Perenyi
  • Alice in Sunderland – Bryan Talbot
  • Considerable Town – M F K Fisher
  • Don’t Eat This Book – Morgan Spurlock

Here are the just for fun books:

  • Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work – John Gottman
  • Spark Joy – Marie Kondo (not scheduled)

Here’s what on tap for May:

For the Early Review program through LibraryThing:

  • All the Rage by Martin Moran

To celebrate May:

  • Brilliant Orange: the Neurotic Genius of Dutch Soccer by David Winner ~ in honor of the tulip festival in Holland
  • Bold Spirit: Helga Estby’s Forgotten Walk Across Victorian America by Linda Lawrence Hunt ~ in honor of Just ‘Cause and their 60-mile walk (although this year it’s in June).
  • Jordan: Past & Present: Petra, Jerash & Amman by E. Borgia ~ in honor of Jordan gaining independence in the month of May
  • One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandre Solzhenitsyn ~ in honor of Russia’s Victory Day (may 9th, 1945)
  • Coroner’s Lunch by Colin Cotterill ~ to celebrate Laos Rocket Day (already read – this took me less than a day)
  • Chosen, the by Chaim Potok ~ in honor of Jewish American Heritage Month (AB – already read)
  • Map of Another Town by MFK Fisher ~ to finished the Two Towns book started in April
  • Master of the Senate by Robert Caro ~ to finished the series started in February in honor of Presidents’ Day.

Seven Principles of Making Marriage Work

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Gottman, John M. and Nan Silver. The Seven Principles of Making Marriage Work. New York: Harmony Books, 2015.

Reason read: I have no idea.

I was hoping to be struck by lightning with this book. My marriage is pretty solid but I could always use improving in the relationship department (who couldn’t?). So I was a little worried when the first piece of advice sounded something like this, and I’m paraphrasing: if you can accommodate each other’s “crazy” side and handle it with caring, affection and respect, your marriage can thrive. Talk about a duh moment. Of course ANY relationship is going to benefit from caring, affection and respect. The advice gets better and as a result I do see my relationship differently. If I had had more time with the book I would have tried some of the quizzes and exercises. Maybe next time.

Guernica

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Van Hensbergen, Gijs. Guernica: the Biography of a Twentieth-Century Icon. New York: Bloomsbury, 2004.

Reason read: April is the anniversary month of the Guernica bombing during the Spanish Civil War.

[If you are reading Guernica based on Nancy Pearl’s recommendation in Book Lust To Go: the very first thing you need to know about the book Guernica is that it follows the life of Pablo Picasso’s painting and is less about the Basque region or the bombing that inspired the art. Book Lust To Go is supposed to focus on geography so if you were looking to read about Guernica the place, this isn’t the book.]
But, back to Guernica (the book): Picasso was commissioned to make a political statement through art in reaction to the three hours of horrific, indiscriminate, nonstop slaughter of the Basque town of Gernika. Later, the painting was sent to America to raise funds for the Spanish Refugee Relief Campaign to help alleviate the horrible conditions in the internment camps. Later still, Paloma Picasso used the painting as blackmail whenever a particular region wanted to show the painting in their museums. The influence of Picasso’s painting was far=reaching. After the May 16th 1968 Mylai slaughter people remembered Guernica.

Quotes worth mentioning, “We must never underestimate the idealism of many of those who had gone to Spain to fight, or the pain of the dislocated exiles who were never again going to return” (p 167) and, “It had, it must be remembered, only been a few years since the Basque writer Xabier Gereno has been jailed for committing the crime of receiving a postcard commemorating Guernica” (p 264).

As an aside, I felt like Van Hensbergen had an issue with Peggy Guggenheim, constantly calling attention to her personality by describing her as “sexually voracious” and “hotheaded.”

Author fact: Van Hensbergen’s specialty is architecture. He lectures on the subject.

Book trivia: throughout Guernica there are black and white photographs, but the showstoppers are the three color prints of Picasso’s most famous pieces of work: Weeping Woman, Guernica, and Night Fishing at Antibes.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter simply called “Guernica” (p 89).

Spark Joy

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Kondo, Marie. Spark Joy: an illustrated master class on the art of organizing and tidying up. Berkeley: Ten Speed Press, 2016.

Reason: title caught my eye.

Confessional: the phrase “tidying up” seems fussy to me, maybe even a little inconsequential. Maybe I’m confusing it with the act of shuffling things around, tucking things away, the superficial appearance of making things neat.

Even though it is a cooking term, I apply “mis en place” to my everyday life. In a chef’s world it means having all the ingredients measured out and ready to be cooked/mixed for the meal. But, in my world it means everything in its place; a place for everything.

The key to taking this book seriously is the promise of joy. You are to believe that you will actually spark joy in your life and “change it forever” by being tidy. There are six fundamental rules of Tidying: 1) commit, 2) imagine a new lifestyle, 3) discard first, 4) tidy by location, 5) follow the right order to tidying. Sounds pretty simple, right?
At first I found Kondo’s direction to be a little hokey: I couldn’t see myself holding an item and testing the spiritual connection to that item. Thanking the item before letting it go. Understanding that “tidying is the art of confronting yourself” (p 15). Hmmm. Not sure how that would work. I have the ability to feel things for inanimate objects so this doesn’t sound like a good plan for me. Case in point, my sister and I tried to abandon a box of horribly dry, outlandishly green and red Christmas cookies in a parking lot. It was Christmas day, our first after the death of our father. Backing out of the parking spot we had to pause for an oncoming car. While waiting, we looked at the cookies and my sister mentioned how “lonely” they looked sitting there…alone… on the pavement. I immediately made her pull back into the spot just so I could collect those damn cookies. Here’s the really sick part. No one knew I kept them…for three years. I saved them because I pitied them. Not because they brought me joy.
Another thing I couldn’t see doing was discarding practical items just because I felt nothing for them. Who uses their fingernails to turn a screw just because the screwdriver didn’t inspire joy? Kondo tried. What about the items you WANT to bring joy but don’t? I have a shirt of my mother’s. It was one of her favorites. And yet, when I look at it, it’s just a shirt.
Anyway, back to Kondo. She writes in a voice that is friendly and encouraging; always urging her reader to keep going.
I have to ask, what is the difference between Kondo’s advice and the old adage, “love it or lose it?”

Author fact: Kondo wrote another book called the Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up.

Book trivia: Spark Joy was translated from the Japanese by Cathy Hirano.

Grand Tour

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Moore, Tim. the Grand Tour: The European Adventure of a Continental Drifter. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2001.

Reason read: April Fools Day

Tim Moore is a little obnoxious. The best way I found to deal with him is to think of him as another Bill Bryson. Turns out that’s what everyone is supposed to think, thanks to the dust jacket and other review. What makes Moore different from Bryson is that his obnoxiousness is on another level and his humor is much edgier. He’s a bit more condescending and sarcastic, using words like ridiculous, unspectacular and disgusting to describe his surroundings during his adventures. But, that’s not my main gripe with Moore. I want to know more about why he chose to follow Coryate’s journey and what he hoped to get out of it along the way. After all, he wasn’t following Coryate literally. True, Coryate was mostly on foot while Moore was insistent in having the perfect, attention-drawing touring car, a Rolls Royce. True, Coryate didn’t wear a plush purple suit to further draw attention to himself either. According to the dust jacket I was to expect “snorts of laughter” while reading The Grand Tour. Unfortunately, none came for me. A great deal of the time my mind wandered while trying to read Grand Tour.

Weird quotes, “The whole thing was clearly an extended fart analogy” (p 10),”the patron came out to watch me as, wild of hair and damp of arse, I bundled armfuls of wet polyester into the back of the Rolls while his dog peed on my hubcaps” (p 77), and “For every vineyard there was a dark satanic mill – no wonder Soave tastes like that” (p 213).

Author fact: Moore also wrote French Revolutions which I found hysterical.

Book trivia: Surprisingly, Grand Tour has delightful illustrations.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Explaining Europe: The Grand Tour” (p 82).

Green Thoughts

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Perenyi, Eleanor. Green Thoughts: a Writer in the Garden. New York: Modern Library, 2002.

Reason read: April is traditionally the time when we New Englanders start thinking about gardens. Edited to add: as of this writing, it is snowing quite heavily…we’re supposed to get up to 6″ and classes are cancelled.

I need to prepare you. There is a lot of foreplay leading up to the main event that is Green Thoughts. There are 24 pages of other “stuff” to get through before you even see the first chapter, “Annuals”: first you need to read the title page, the “Introduction to the modern library gardening series by Michael Pollan”, the “Introductions to the text by Allen Lacy”, table of contents,  the forward, and last but not least, a note on references. But! (dramatic pause…) But, once you get into Green Thoughts it is a delight to finally be there. Each chapter (in alphabetical order) is it’s own separate essays so feel free to jump around to the topics that best interest you. To be fair, some of the gardening instruction is a little labor intensive for the plant it and forget it, barely green-thumbed among us.

One of the best things I learned from reading Green Thoughts is that Cato (of Carthage fame) wrote directions for growing asparagus. That is awesome!

Quotes I liked, “I don’t subscribe to Prevention, which is dedicated to health, mostly because I haven’t the backbone to follow its precepts” (p 44), “A killing frost devastates the heart as well as the garden” (p 69) and one more, “When I look back on the long procession of incompetents, dumbbells and eccentrics, young and old, foreign and domestic, who have worked for me, I wonder how I and the garden have survived their ministrations” (p 80). She answers her own question wit “It occurs to me that I attract the mentally unbalanced” (p 81).

Author fact: Perenyi was at one time the managing editor of one of my teenage guilty pleasures, Mademoiselle Magazine.

Book trivia: You would think this book ripe for photographs, or at least illustrations. Be forewarned. There is not a one of either. Sigh.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Get On With Gardening” (p 96).

Why the Grateful Dead Matter

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Benson, Michael. Why the Grateful Dead Matter. New Hampshire: University Press of New England, 2016.

Reason read: Early review for LibraryThing.

I decided to write this review a little differently. Instead of waiting until I had read the entire thing before commenting I decided this time I would write comments as I went. Here’s what happened:

I have to admit, I found some of Benson’s writing a little hokey. When he said, “there’s an app for that” I practically groaned out loud. So, this is how it’s going to be I thought out loud.

The structure of Why the Grateful Dead Matter is a little chaotic. That is to say, there is no real structure to the chapters. Just open the book and read. Doesn’t matter where you start. Doesn’t matter where you end.

This is essentially an argument without hard facts. Don’t expect an authoritarian narrative. No works cited. No in-depth research. It’s as if this book blossomed from a late night debate (possibly fueled by alcohol?); a debate with a friend about why, 50 years later, the Grateful Dead are doing a Farewell Tour. Picture it: the debate turned into Why The Grateful Dead Matter conversation. The reasons why they matter come fast and furious from Benson, political debate style, until someone says, “Man, you should write that s–t down!” And he does.

The chapter on Ripple being so zen is flimsy and without substance. It started off as a strong argument and somehow got off topic at the end. It petered out feebly when one of the last examples of zen is the Grateful Dead playing a benefit for the Zen Center. There is little substance in regards to HOW the music is “zen” and yet, the chapter on the instruments being custom made was well organized and detailed. Benson knows their equipment and knows it well.

This is one for the fans. Read this if you already love the music and just want to share in the common interest. Read this book if you already know why the Grateful Dead matter and you just want to agree, possibly shouting “Exactly! Right on, man!”

As an aside, I just bought my husband the compilation “30 Trips” for his birthday. I’m hoping Trips will contain the versions of songs Benson mentions as outstanding in Why the Grateful Dead Matter. Here is a partial list of the songs I need to find:

  • Wharf Rat 12/31/78 (particularly Jerry Garcia’s guitar solo)
  • China Cat Sunflower 1971 (Bucknell University)

Author fact: Benson is all over with place with his interests. According to the back cover, he writes about music, sports, crime, film, the military, and politics.

Book trivia: the early review copy I received had photographs in it, some I had never seen before. Very cool.