Category: NonFiction

This Will Be the End

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This is the end of another year of the challenge. Here is everything, including what I didn’t quite finish.

FINISHED (Dec 2013 – Nov 2014):

  1. Absolute Zero by Helen Cresswell*
  2. After the Dance by Edwidge Danticat
  3. Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow*
  4. Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin*
  5. All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren
  6. Andorra by Peter Cameron
  7. Angels Weep by Wilbur Smith
  8. Any Four Women Could Rob the Bank of Italy by Ann Cornelisen
  9. Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler
  10. Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro
  11. Art Student’s War by Brad Leithauser
  12. Baltimore Blues by Laura Lippman*
  13. Beirut Blues by Hanan al-Shaykh
  14. Benjamin Franklin: an American Life by Walter Isaacson
  15. Biodegradable Soap by Amy Ephron
  16. Bring Me a Unicorn by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  17. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks*
  18. Black Lamb and Gray Falcon by Rebecca West (DNF)
  19. Bluebird Canyon by Dan McCall
  20. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
  21. Butcher’s Hill by Laura Lippman
  22. Cabin Fever by Elizabeth Jolley
  23. Captain Sir Richard Burton by Edward Rice (DNF)
  24. Careless Love by Peter Gurlnink
  25. Caroline’s Daughters by Alice Adams
  26. Charlotte Gray by Sebastian Faulks
  27. Children of Cambodia’s Killing Fields: Memoirs of Survivors compiled by Dith Pran
  28. Civil Action by Jonathan Harr
  29. Clean Eating 28-Day Plan by Rockridge Press (ER)
  30. Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire*
  31. Cradle of Gold by Christopher Heaney
  32. Culture of Disbelief by Stephen Carter (DNF)
  33. Dancer and the Thief by Antonio Skarmeta
  34. Dancer with Bruised Knees by Lynne McFall
  35. Dark Sun by Richard Rhodes (DNF)
  36. Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan*
  37. Dervish is Digital by Pat Cadigan
  38. Earthly Possessions by Anne Tyler
  39. Eighth Day by Thornton Wilder
  40. Eye of the World by Robert Jordan
  41. Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
  42. Faith Fox by Jane Gardam
  43. Falcon Flies by Wilbur Smith*
  44. Feast of Love by Charles Baxter
  45. Fifty Year Silence by Miranda Mouillot (ER)
  46. First Man by Albert Camus
  47. Flower and the Nettle by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  48. Fordlandia by Greg Gandin
  49. French Revolutions by Tim Moore*
  50. Georges’ Wife by Elizabeth Jolley
  51. Gesture Life by Chang-rae Lee
  52. Graduates in Wonderland by Jessica Pan & Rachel Kapelke-Dale (ER)
  53. Grass Dancer by Susan Power* (DNF)
  54. Great Hunt by Robert Jordan (DNF)
  55. Half Magic by Edward Eager*
  56. Herzog by Saul Bellow
  57. History Man by Malcolm Bradbury
  58. Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  59. House of Morgan by Ron Chernow – (DNF)
  60. Illumination Night by Alice Hoffman
  61. In the Graveyard of Empires by Scott Jones*
  62. Inside Passage by Michael Modzelewski
  63. Inspector Ghote Breaks an Egg by H.R.F. Keating
  64. It Looked Like Forever by Mark Harris
  65. Last Train to Memphis by Peter Guralink
  66. Last Tycoon by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  67. Leopard Hunts in the Darkness by Wilbur Smith
  68. Life in the Air Ocean by Sylvia Foley
  69. Long Way From Home by Frederick Busch
  70. Lotus Eaters by Tatjani Soli
  71. Lulu in Hollywood by Louise Brooks (JFF)
  72. Men of Men by Wilbur Smith
  73. Neighborhood Heroes by Morgan Rielly (ER)
  74. Now Read This II by Nancy Pearl
  75. Ocean of Words by Ha Jin
  76. Oedipus by Sophocles
  77. Older, Faster, Stronger by Margaret Webb (JFF)
  78. Owl Service by Alan Garner*
  79. Palladian Days by Sally Gable*
  80. Partisan by Benjamin Cheever
  81. Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
  82. Prepared for a Purpose by Antoinette Tuff (ER)
  83. Price of Silence by Liza Long (ER)
  84. Professor and the Housekeeper by Yoko Ogawa
  85. Racing Weight by Matt Fitzgerald
  86. Raw Silk by Janet Burroway
  87. Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro*
  88. Rose Cafe by John Hanson Mitchell
  89. Rose of Martinique by Andrea Stuart
  90. Run or Die by Kilian Jornet (JFF)
  91. Running for Mortals by John Bingham (JFF)
  92. Running for Women by Kara Goucher (JFF)
  93. Seeing in the Dark by Timothy Ferris
  94. Slumdog Millionaire by Vikram Swarup*
  95. Soul of All Living Creatures by Vint Virga (ER)
  96. Strength Training for Fat Loss by Nick Tumminello (ER)
  97. Sword at Sunset by Rosemary Sutcliff
  98. Thousand Ways to Please a Husband by Weaver/LeCron (E-book)
  99. Thrush Green by Miss Read*
  100. Toronto by Charles Way (JFF)
  101. Transcriptionist by Amy Rowland (ER)
  102. War Within and Without by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  103. Wildwater Walking Club by Claire Cook (JFF)
  104. Winners and Losers by Martin Quigley
  105. Zero Days by Barbara Egbert

(* denotes an audio recording; JFF = Just for Fun; DNF = Did Not Finish; ER = Early Review for LibraryThing)

Poetry:

  • “Aftermath” ~ a poem by Siegfried Sassoon
  • “Romance” ~ a poem by W.J. Turner
  • “Kubla Khan” ~ a poem by Samuel T. Coleridge

Short Stories:

  • “The Huckabuck Family” by Carl Sandburg
  • “How to Revitalize the Snake in Your Life” by Hannah Tinti
  • “Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury
  • “Thirty Year Old Women Do Not Always Come Home” by Mark Winegardner
  • “Birdland” by Michael Knight
  • “Killer Inside Me” by Jim Thompson
  • “Down There” by David Goodis
  • “Crossing the Craton” by John McPhee.
  • “Lukudi” by Adrianne Harun
  • “The Eighth Sleeper of Ephesus” also by Adrianne Harun
  • “Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” by Jorge Luis Borges

Running for Women

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Goucher, Kara. Running for Women: from first steps to marathons.New York: Simon and Schuster, 2011.

Reason read: running. Duh.

Kara Goucher is an Olympic distance runner. I decided to read her book partly because I was looking for a new perspective on an old theme, running for women. All in all, I found Goucher’s Running for Women to be informative, if not a little disorganized. I realize Goucher probably wanted the information approachable and therefor used a very deliberate tone, but I felt like it wasn’t serious enough or thought out enough. For example, in the section on running a marathon there is a little box titled “The World’s Simplest Marathon Training Plan (15 weeks)” (p 248), with the admonishment, “Before reading the plan, please review chapter 7 to learn…where you need to be fitness-wise…” (among other things). I went back to chapter 7 because I didn’t really remember that information. In searching the chapter I found Goucher’s personal marathon story, tips for organization before a race, advice on sex and food the night before a race, what to wear the day of a race (including extra deodorant), how to wear your hair and get your head space together…all sorts of interesting things, but nowhere did I easily find the information I was asked to review before reading the plan. Short of rereading the chapter I still don’t know where I need to be fitness-wise before running a marathon.
I mentioned disorganization. Let me elaborate. All of Goucher’s advice, quips, comments, answers to questions and personal stories are great, but they are all over the place. On page 106 she mentioned getting away from running every once in awhile. On page 110 she says the same thing, more or less, when she says, be okay with regular breaks from running.
Did I get anything out of reading Running for Women? Yes. I liked the nutrition section a lot. I appreciated her honesty when talking about her own relationship with food. I even enjoyed her advice for new moms even though I didn’t need the information.

November the End List

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This is the final month for the Challenge year. I don’t have much to say beyond that. Here are the books:

  1. In a Strange City Butcher’s Hill by Laura Lippman (to continue the series started in September) Note: Butcher’s Hill was supposed to be read in October but it took over a month for it to arrive.
  2. ADDED: All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren
  3. Andorra by Peter Cameron
  4. Any Four Women Can Rob the Bank of Italy by Ann Cornelisen
  5. Beaufort by Ron Leshem
  6. Cradle of Gold by Christopher Heaney
  7. Grass Dancer by Susan Power*
  8. ADDED: Great Hunt by Robert Jordan (to continue the series started in October, because I forgot to mention the rest of the series)
  9. You Get What You Pay For by Larry Beinhart- MAYBE

*Planned as audio books

FINISHED (Dec 2013 – Oct 2014):

  1. Absolute Zero by Helen Cresswell*
  2. After the Dance by Edwidge Danticat
  3. Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow*
  4. Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin*
  5. Angels Weep by Wilbur Smith
  6. Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler.
  7. Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro
  8. Art Student’s War by Brad Leithauser
  9. Baltimore Blues* by Laura Lippman
  10. Beirut Blues by Hanan al-Shaykh
  11. Benjamin Franklin: an American Life by Walter Isaacson
  12. ADDED: Biodegradable Soap by Amy Ephron
  13. Bring Me a Unicorn by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  14. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks*
  15. Black Lamb and Gray Falcon by Rebecca West (DNF)
  16. Bluebird Canyon by Dan McCall
  17. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
  18. Cabin Fever by Elizabeth Jolley
  19. Captain Sir Richard Burton by Edward Rice (DNF)
  20. Careless Love by Peter Gurlnink
  21. Caroline’s Daughters by Alice Adams
  22. Charlotte Gray by Sebastian Faulks
  23. Children of Cambodia’s Killing Fields: Memoirs of Survivors compiled by Dith Pran
  24. Civil Action by Jonathan Harr
  25. Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire*
  26. Culture of Disbelief by Stephen Carter (DNF)
  27. Dancer and the Thief by Antonio Skarmeta
  28. Dancer with Bruised Knees by Lynne McFall
  29. Dark Sun by Richard Rhodes (DNF)
  30. Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan*
  31. Dervish is Digital by Pat Cadigan
  32. Earthly Possessions by Anne Tyler
  33. Eighth Day by Thornton Wilder
  34. Eye of the World by Robert Jordan
  35. ADDED: Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
  36. Faith Fox by Jane Gardam
  37. Falcon Flies by Wilbur Smith*
  38. Feast of Love by Charles Baxter
  39. First Man by Albert Camus
  40. Flower and the Nettle by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  41. Fordlandia by Greg Gandin
  42. French Revolutions* by Tim Moore.
  43. Georges’ Wife by Elizabeth Jolley
  44. Gesture Life by Chang-rae Lee
  45. Half Magic* by Edward Eager
  46. Herzog by Saul Bellow
  47. History Man by Malcolm Bradbury
  48. Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  49. House of Morgan by Ron Chernow – attempted
  50. Illumination Night by Alice Hoffman
  51. In the Graveyard of Empires by Scott Jones*
  52. Inside Passage by Michael Modzelewski
  53. Inspector Ghote Breaks an Egg by H.R.F. Keating
  54. It Looked Like Forever by Mark Harris
  55. Last Train to Memphis by Peter Guralink
  56. Last Tycoon by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  57. Leopard Hunts in the Darkness by Wilbur Smith
  58. Life in the Air Ocean by Sylvia Foley
  59. Long Way From Home by Frederick Busch
  60. Lotus Eaters by Tatjani Soli
  61. Lulu in Hollywood by Louise Brooks
  62. Men of Men by Wilbur Smith
  63. Neighborhood Heroes by Morgan Rielly
  64. Now Read This II by Nancy Pearl
  65. Ocean of Words by Ha Jin
  66. Oedipus by Sophocles
  67. Owl Service by Alan Garner*
  68. Palladian Days by Sally Gable*
  69. Partisan by Benjamin Cheever
  70. ADDED: Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
  71. Price of Silence by Liza Long
  72. Professor and the Housekeeper by Yoko Ogawa
  73. Racing Weight by Matt Fitzgerald
  74. Raw Silk by Janet Burroway
  75. Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro*
  76. Rose Cafe by John Hanson Mitchell
  77. Rose of Martinique by Andrea Stuart
  78. Run or Die by Kilian Jornet
  79. Running for Mortals by John Bingham
  80. Seeing in the Dark by Timothy Ferris
  81. Soul of All Living Creatures by Vint Virga
  82. Sword at Sunset by Rosemary Sutcliff
  83. Thousand Ways to Please a Husband by Weaver/LeCron (E-book)
  84. Thrush Green by Miss Read*
  85. Toronto by Charles Way
  86. Transcriptionist by Amy Rowland
  87. War Within and Without by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  88. Wildwater Walking Club by Claire Cook.
  89. Winners and Losers by Martin Quigley
  90. Zero Days by Barbara Egbert

Poetry:

  • “Aftermath” ~ a poem by Siegfried Sassoon
  • “Romance” ~ a poem by W.J. Turner
  • “Kubla Khan” ~ a poem by Samuel T. Coleridge

Short Stories:

  • “The Huckabuck Family” by Carl Sandburg
  • “How to Revitalize the Snake in Your Life” by Hannah Tinti
  • “Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury
  • “Thirty Year Old Women Do Not Always Come Home” by Mark Winegardner
  • “Birdland” by Michael Knight
  • “Killer Inside Me” by Jim Thompson
  • “Down There” by David Goodis
  • “Crossing the Craton” by John McPhee.
  • “Lukudi” by Adrianne Harun
  • “The Eighth Sleeper of Ephesus” also by Adrianne Harun
  • “Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” by Jorge Luis Borges

For next year:

  • Hall of a Thousand Columns by Tim Mackintosh-Smith.

Creative Habit

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Tharp, Twyla. The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It For Life. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003.

Admission: I cannot hear Twyla Tharp’s name without thinking two things and they are one right after the other. First, my aunt’s best friend’s name is Twyla. I personally know no one else with such an interesting name. Two, who remembers the movie The Bird Cage with Robin Williams? Remember? There’s that fantastic scene with Robin dancing across the floor singing “Twyla! Twyla! Twyla!” Classic! Anyway, on to the review.

Twyla Tharp believes creativity is not something you are just born with. It shouldn’t be considered a gift. Instead, it is a craft to be honed. It should be cultivated and tended to just like a garden. There is a deliberate effort to creativity. While I didn’t participate in any of her exercises, her methods were clear.

Reason read: Okay, I will admit. Not even 30 days after swearing off non-Challenge books I pick up this one. But. But! But, full disclosure: I really didn’t read the whole thing.

 

 

 

Fifty-Year Silence

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Mouillot, Miranda Richmond. A Fifty-Year Silence: Love, War and a Ruined House in France. New York: Crown Publishers, 2015.

Reason read: an Early Review book from LibraryThing.

Here’s what I loved about Mouillot’s memoir straight away: she was unapologetic about the inaccuracies in her book. She admits a lot of her documentation is based on conversations and possible faulty memories. From some reason, that admission alone makes it all the more real to me.

How does a relationship go from just that, a relationship, to a subject for a book? When I think about Mouillot’s grandparents and their fifty year silence I find myself asking, what makes this divorce any different from other relationship that crashed and burned? Could we all write a story about a relationship that fell apart? Well, yes and no. Add World War II, being Jewish and escaping the Holocaust and suddenly it’s not just about a couple who haven’t spoken to each other. It’s a mystery of survival on many different levels. While Mouillot’s account is choppy and sometimes hard to follow I found myself rooting for her. I wanted her to discover the mysteries of love and relationships, especially since her own love life was blossoming at the same time.

We aren’t supposed to quote from the book until it has been published but I have to say I hope this sentence stays, “How do you break a silence that is not your own?” (from the preface). I love, love, love this question. It should be on the cover of the book because it grabs you by the heart and throttles your mind into wanting to know more. Maybe that’s just me. Case in point: I was drawn into the show, “The Closer” after hearing Brenda say, “If I wanted to be called bitch to my face I’d still be married” in a promo. One sentence and I was hooked. Sometimes, that is all it takes.

Book trivia: According to the galley I received, A fifty-Year Silence will have maps.

Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton

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Rice, Edward. Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton: the Secret Agent Who Made the Pilgrimage to Mecca, Discovered the Kama Sutra, and Brought the Arabian Nights to the West. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1990.

Doesn’t the subtitle of this book just about rope you in? If the subtitle doesn’t do it for you, how about the man himself? Explorer, scientist, secret agent man? Capable of speaking 29 different languages, supposedly most of them in their proper dialect. Thought to be a Gypsy. If anything, Burton should have the title of Most Interesting Man. He inherited his father’s wanderlust and would often move his family without reason. And, what about that Kama Sutra? Come again? In all fairness, I couldn’t finish the book. Interesting man or not, the writing just wasn’t. This is a classic case of “Did Not Finish.”

Reason read: Burton died in the month of October

Book trivia: There are a few photographs in Sir Richard Burton. Pity there weren’t more – Burton was an interesting looking fellow.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Star Trekkers” (p 222).

Culture of Disbelief

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Carter, Stephen L. The Culture of Disbelief: How American Law and Politics Trivialized Religious Devotion. New York: Doubleday, 1993.

The simplest way to sum of The Culture of Disbelief is this, it is the argument that society forces religious devotion to be kept private and should not to be displayed openly. Society discourages us from voicing a religious choice. Right from the beginning you are hit with a sentence that brings it all to light: “More and more, our culture seems to take the position that believing deeply in the tenets of one’s faith represents a kind of mystical irrationality, something that thoughtful, public spirited American citizens would do better to avoid” (p 7).

Reason read: Carter was born in the month of October.

Author fact: Stephen Carter and Natalie Merchant share the same birthday.

Book trivia: Blood transfusions is a major topic in Culture of Disbelief.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “African American Fiction: He Say” (p 8). Here is yet another example of a title that shouldn’t have been included in this particular chapter. Yes, Stephen Carter is African American, but this particular work is not fiction.

Song For Cambodia

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Lord, Michelle. A Song for Cambodia. New York: Lee and Low Books Inc., 2008.

Reason read: While I was reading Children of Cambodia’s Killing Fields by Dith Pran I kept thinking about a high school mate of mine named Arn Chorn-Pond. From the day that I met him I knew he had a pretty horrific story to tell, but here’s what I remember most about my time with Arn: he was thoughtful and kind and warm. To talk to him you would never know of the atrocities he witnessed and suffered in 1975 as a small boy in Cambodia. We were not close in high school. We were not even what you would call friends, but there was an unspoken respect for his integrity and grace. This book, Song for Cambodia is a powerful message for children: music heals.

Even though this is a book for children, as I said before, it speaks volumes about how music can create beauty.

This is one of the last books I will read off the Challenge list.

Children of Cambodia’s Killing Fields

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Children of Cambodia’s Killing Fields: Memoirs By Survivors. Compiled by Dith Pran. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997.

There has never been a more deadly genocide of its own people than in Cambodia. When Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime descended into Cambodia in April of 1975 they brought with them a rein of terror like never seen before. Children of Cambodia’s Killing Fields contains eyewitness accounts of the genocide and lends a voice to the children who barely survived. Each chapter is a mini memoir, compiled by Dith Pran, a survivor himself. Some accounts are so graphically disturbing they left me sleepless for days. Imagine being forced to witness the killing of your family and not be able to show a single emotion? Imagine having to kill your own community? These children were worked to death, starved to death, disease-ridden and deprived. And yet, they survived and by all accounts, thrived once they escaped. A moving memoir.

I want to quote something from some of the survivors because their words have had a lasting impact on me. I want to pass that impression on.

  • Sophiline Cheam Shapiro: “I know of almost no family that survived without losses” (p 4)
  • Chath Piersath: “Like other mothers, you tried to wage a battle against it with the intention of saving what was left of your children” (p 7)
  • Teeda Butt Mam: “I was scared that they would hear my thoughts and prayers, that they could see my dreams and feel my anger and disapproval of their regime” (p 14)
  • You Kimny Chan: “We had hoped and prayed to leave for years, and now that we had the chance, we realized that we had nowhere to go” (p 25)
  • Sopheap K Hang: “Mother and I began laughing, but then the memory hit our hearts” (p 33)
  • Savuth Penn: “This time the unforgiving Khmer Rouge did not let my father survive” (p 46)
  • Charles Ok: “But life goes on, and I have to learn to take care of myself” (p 55)
  • Moly Ly: “Hitler is dead, but Pol Pot and his entourage are still alive and craving a return” (p 64)
  • Sarom Prak: “I am not you and you are not me, but we are all human beings (p 71)
  • Khuon Kiv: “Amazingly, human life still beats the odds” (p 103)
  • Sophea Mouth: “Can the effect of violence be so strong that it destroys human compassion?” (p 179)

Reason read: The Cambodian monarchy was restored in the month of September. Note to self, look up the Digital Archive of Cambodian Holocaust Survivors website.

Author Compiler fact: According to the back flap of Children of Cambodia Dith Pran is a photojournalist and the founder of the Dith Pran Holocaust Awareness Project. I knew the movie “The Killing Fields” was based on his own experiences in Cambodia.

Book trivia: Each story of a survivor is accompanied by a black and white photograph. But, interestingly enough, the cover has been photoshopped to exclude the temple which, during the Khmer Rouge regime, was used as a killing field.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter simply called “Cambodia” (p 48).

Soul of All Living Creatures

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Virga, Vint. The Soul of All Living Creatures: What Animals Can Teach Us About Being Human. New York: Crown, 2013.

Don’t think of The Soul of All Living Creatures as something with a plot. It doesn’t have a start, middle or end. Instead, think of it as a series of essays, each with its own theme. Unfortunately, because there was never that “what happens next?” element, I found it easy to put Soul of All Living Creatures down from time to time and not pick it back up for weeks. The premise of Virga’s book is simple. He chooses a behavior or an attitude and applies it to an experience he has had with an animal in his care as a veterinary behaviorist. He then takes that same trait and applies it to the human element, tying the animal world with human thinking. His theory is, by making the animal-human connection, our lives will be enriched.

Reason read: I am always suspicious when I review a book that has been published more than a year earlier. It’s not an “early” review when someone reviewed it 15 months earlier and the book has even won awards. Nevertheless, here am I reviewing Soul of All Living Creatures for LibraryThing.

Author fact: Virga has his own website here.

Book trivia: There should be photographs. That would be cool.

A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband

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Weaver, Louise Bennett and Helen Cowles LeCron. A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband with Bettina’s Best Recipes: a Romance of Cookery and Housekeeping. New York: A L Burt Company, 1917.

How to describe this book? I want to avoid calling it a how-to for newly married women who want to keep their husbands satisfied because, given the date of publication, this would not fly in the 21st century. Hell, it shouldn’t have flown in any century, but there’s no getting around historical inequality!

But, anyway…in this book you will find there is only one way to please a husband – through his stomach. Bettina is a newlywed, eager to feed her husband, Bob. Every chapter focuses on an opportunity for Betty to take care of Bob and it usually includes food and the preparation there of. The recipes and preparation instructions are included in detail. But, to be fair, A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband… isn’t just about feeding hubby Bob. Bettina is teaching the local neighborhood wives how to feed their men and keep house as well. It could be a luncheon where Betty teaches the attending ladies how to prepare the meal and how to serve it properly as well. Betty is very proud of her meal plans (and seems to have an obsession with white sauce). She also likes to display her frugality and creativity. She is forever mentioning how she had to plan a meal with very little funds or advanced notice. Each chapter is a variation of the same theme of showcasing Betty’s ingenuity so, be prepared, it gets a little repetitious. Even though housekeeping is in the title, there is very little said about cleaning, doing laundry, or the like at 1107 Carberry Avenue. Bettina does mention getting out a stain or two.
Please note this book was published in 1917 and everything about it screams turn of the century. Even some of the ingredients are head scratchers (Like, what is a chocolate cream? One recipe calls for a dozen of them). What’s funny is that I read a review somewhere describing this book as “creepy and kitschy.” I would have to agree. Some of the language is a little strange. I was taken aback when Betty tells her husband and his adult male friend to “run and play” while she prepares the picnic. At one point her friends made reference to a man as a well known “woman-hater.” Come again?

I keep thinking about how interesting this book  could have been. Take Bob, for example. At Christmas he struggles over what kind of gift to get for Betty. He decides on giving her a kitten but the actual delivery is skipped over entirely. One minute Bob is discussing picking up the kitten and the next minute “Fluff” is quietly sleeping in an armchair. The reader never gets to see Betty’s reaction to the gift. This is just one example of where the plot could have been developed more.

Quotes to make you think, “Love at first sight? Bob introduced us…and I thought – well – I thought Harry was the most disagreeably serious man I’d ever had the misfortune to meet! And he thought me the most disagreeably frivolous girl he has ever seen. So our feud began, and of course we had to see each other to fight it out” (p 195), “Feeling, it must be admitted, a little out of harmony with a world that allowed weary and hungry husbands to come home to dark and empty houses when the clock said plainly that it was a quarter after six, Bob made his way to the kitchen” (p 238) and “Goodness gracious sakes alive, but thinking is hot work” (p 296).

Reason read: Oddly enough, I thought this would be a great book to read in honor of my tenth wedding anniversary on September 18th. I am happy to say my husband comes home each night and not just because of a home cooked meal! *wink*wink*

Author(s) fact: Weaver and LeCron have also written other “Bettina books” such as Bettina’s Best Salads, Bettina’s Best Desserts, and even When Sue Began to Cook with Bettina’s Best Recipes.

Book trivia: Charming illustrations (or decorations as they were called back then) were done by Elizabeth Colbourne. Another detail – this book is available as an E-book through the Gutenberg Project (Release date: 6/4/13 EBook #42865).

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Dewey Deconstructed: 600s” (p 73).

Toronto

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Charles Rawlings-Way and Natalie Karneef. Toronto: City Guide. Melbourne: Lonely Planet, 2007.

This travel guide of Toronto is mostly black and white; a no nonsense kind of guide. It doesn’t need to show off with lots of glossy photos and trivial details. Only eight pages are dedicated to artistic shots around town and, in fact, is the only section that isn’t all that informative. The contents of the guide are well organized into various activities. If you are in town on business and only have time for finding restaurants, page 91 is where you want to start. I appreciated the little blue boxes with extra tidbits of information. In the History section (p 38) you will find a box that talks about the ghosts that haunt the Elgin Theatre and Old City Hall. Sign me up! The only drawback to this guide is the map section. Instead of a fold-out map showing the entire city, the maps are page by page like an atlas. There is overlap between downtown north and downtown south so that you can make the necessary connections but it would have been easier to have the map all on one page. But, to be fair, with everyone having gps on their smartphones, I doubt a printed map really matters anymore.

Reason read: Natalie Merchant performing in Toronto in May 2015.

Book trivia: I really enjoyed the inclusion of the subway map. Very cool.

 

Nickel and Dimed

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Ehrenreich, Barbara. Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America.New York: Henry Holt & Company, 2001.

What started out as an idea for an article for Harper’s quickly blossomed into a full blown New York Times bestselling book. In 1998 Barbara Ehrenreich set out to research how anyone lived on minimum wage and as she put it, “the only way to find out was to get out there and get my hands dirty” (p 4). So, at a time when welfare reform was sending millions of women back into the workforce, for three months writer-by-trade, PhD educated Ehrenreich joined the unskilled labor force to see what it was all about. The emphasis of the experiment might have been on surviving the economy of 1998 but a byproduct of that experiment was the truth that the further down the class ladder one lived, the more invisible one became. Ehrenreich tried her hand at being a waitress, a maid, a healthcare aide, and a Wal-Mart associate. It’s this last position that was a real eye opener for me.
In the back of my mind I wondered how “honest” Ehrenreich’s experiment really was. No matter how terrible her situation she always knew she could escape it and at times, she fell back on her “real” life. When she had a skin ailment she used her real life connections to get medication without seeing a doctor.

Personally, I have never been homeless although I know people who were, by choice. There was a time when I was without health insurance, but admittedly, at the healthiest time of my life. I have held several jobs at one time, not because I needed them, but because I wanted to make as much money as I could. I’ve never had a job that required a drug test of any kind. For all these reasons and more I couldn’t put myself in Ehrenreich’s shoes.

Reason read: Ehrenreich was born in August.

Author fact: Ehrenreich has her own website here.

Book trivia: Considering the subject matter, you would not think Nickle and Dimed would be funny in any way, but Ehrenreich writes with such sly humor that you can’t help buy crack a smile or maybe even giggle.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Guilt Inducing Books” (p 110).

Fordlandia

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Grandin, Greg. Fordlandia: the Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2009.

This is the story of what happens when someone with a boatload of money gets a hair-brained idea: they can fund their outlandish dream but have no idea how to actually accomplish it. Henry Ford found success with his motor company and felt that this same success would translate well in a foreign country he knew little to nothing about. (After all, he had lots of advisers for that.) Suffice it to say, Ford started out with good intentions. He needed a new place to grow high quality rubber but that project quickly morphed and ended up growing into the more ambition dream of creating a civilized utopia in the wilds of an Amazonian jungle. Other well known companies set up the essentials of home away from home in places like Cuba and Mexico, but Ford wanted to create a brand new society. He envisioned shopping centers, ice cream parlors, sidewalks for the civilized townspeople to stroll upon, electricity, running water…all the comforts of middle America in a remote riverside section of Brazil. It’s ironic that Ford felt he was rescuing a vision of Americana so far from “home.” Of course, these visions were bound to fail. Ford ran into obstacles practically every step of the way. Clearing the land of massive tangle of jungle and vines wasn’t as easy as any of his advisors thought it would be. Engineers didn’t properly grade the roads causing washouts every time it rained….in a rainforest. The humidity would rust saw blades faster than the men could wear them out on the difficult bark of foreign trees. Keeping skilled labor on the job proved to be just as difficult. Diseases unfamiliar to mid westerners plagued the workforce. Prohibition wasn’t law in Brazil so those men who didn’t quit were often drunk thanks to rum boats moored on the river. Then there were the insects that plagued the crops. The list goes on. As you can imagine, all of this would lead to a breakdown. Of course this story can’t have a happy ending, but it is fascinating all the same.

Quotes I liked, “The Amazon is a temptress: its chroniclers can’t seem to resist invoking the jungle not as a ecological system but as a metaphysical testing ground; a place that seduces man to impose his will only to expose that will as impotent” (p 6),  and “At night vampire bats often worked their way past window screens to feed, and since their razor sharp incisors could painlessly pierce flesh, the Americans would sleep through an attack, awaking to find their toes and ankles bloodied” (p 197).

Reason read: Believe it or not, August is reported as the driest month in the Amazon. If you can imagine that.

Author fact: Grandin is a Guggenheim fellow.

Book trivia: Fordlandia has a bunch of really great photographs. My favorite is titled, “Making a High Cut on a Big Tree” (p 174).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter simply called “Amazonian” (p 17).

 

The August List

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I have no idea what is in store for August. I didn’t have any vacations planned. I didn’t have any stay-at-home plans. This was a month of wide open schedules with little to no expectation. However, and this is a BIG however, I was supposed to see Natalie Merchant twice in July. Due to illness the rest of her summer July tour dates were postponed with the promise of an attempt to reschedule. So. I thought of August. No luck, but the month did become just a little more interesting with a trip to Maine. And speaking of interesting, here’s the book list. It’s huge so I would like to think August is going to be filled with la-hazy days reading pool-side:

  1. Beirut Blues by Hanan al-Shaykh
  2. Caroline’s Daughters by Alice Adams
  3. Fordlandia by Greg Gandin
  4. Gesture Life by Chang-rae Lee
  5. “Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” a short story from Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges
  6. Long Way From Home by Frederick Busch
  7. Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro*
  8. ADDED: Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire
  9. ADDED: Absolute Zero by Helen Cresswell (to finish the series)

*Audio book Here is how the rest of year eight should go:

  1. Andorra by Peter Cameron (November)
  2. Any Four Women Can Rob the Bank of Italy by Ann Cornelisen (November)
  3. Baltimore Blues by Laura Lippman (September)
  4. Beaufort by Ron Leshem* (November)
  5. Bluebird Canyon by Dan McCall (September)
  6. Captain Sir Richard Burton by Edward Rice (October)
  7. Cradle of Gold by Christopher Heaney (November)
  8. Culture of Disbelief by Stephen Carter (October)
  9. Eye of the World by Robert Jordan* (October)
  10. Grass Dancer by Susan Power (November)
  11. History Man by Malcolm Bradbury (September)
  12. In a Strange City by Laura Lippman (October)
  13. Raw Silk by Janet Burroway (September)
  14. Thousand Ways to Please a Husband by Weaver/LeCron (September)
  15. You Get What You Pay For by Larry Beinhart (November)

*Planned as audio books

FINISHED:

  1. After the Dance by Edwidge Danticat
  2. Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow*
  3. Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin*
  4. Angels Weep by Wilbur Smith
  5. Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler.
  6. Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro
  7. Art Student’s War by Brad Leithauser
  8. Benjamin Franklin: an American Life by Walter Isaacson
  9. Bring Me a Unicorn by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  10. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks*
  11. Black Lamb and Gray Falcon by Rebecca West (DNF)
  12. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
  13. Cabin Fever by Elizabeth Jolley
  14. Careless Love by Peter Gurlnink
  15. Charlotte Gray by Sebastian Faulks
  16. Civil Action by Jonathan Harr
  17. Dancer and the Thief by Antonio Skarmeta
  18. Dancer with Bruised Knees by Lynne McFall
  19. Dark Sun by Richard Rhodes (DNF)
  20. Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan*
  21. Earthly Possessions by Anne Tyler
  22. Eighth Day by Thornton Wilder
  23. Faith Fox by Jane Gardam
  24. Falcon Flies by Wilbur Smith*
  25. Feast of Love by Charles Baxter
  26. First Man by Albert Camus
  27. Flower and the Nettle by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  28. French Revolutions* by Tim Moore.
  29. Georges’ Wife by Elizabeth Jolley
  30. Herzog by Saul Bellow
  31. Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  32. House of Morgan by Ron Chernow – attempted
  33. Illumination Night by Alice Hoffman
  34. In the Graveyard of Empires by Scott Jones*
  35. Inside Passage by Michael Modzelewski
  36. Inspector Ghote Breaks an Egg by H.R.F. Keating
  37. It Looked Like Forever by Mark Harris
  38. Last Train to Memphis by Peter Guralink
  39. Leopard Hunts in the Darkness by Wilbur Smith
  40. Life in the Air Ocean by Sylvia Foley
  41. Lotus Eaters by Tatjani Soli
  42. Lulu in Hollywood by Louise Brooks
  43. Men of Men by Wilbur Smith
  44. Neighborhood Heroes: Life Lessons from the Greatest Generation by Morgan Rielly
  45. Now Read This II by Nancy Pearl
  46. Ocean of Words by Ha Jin
  47. Oedipus by Sophocles
  48. Palladian Days by Sally Gable*
  49. ADDED: Price of Silence by Liza Long (an Early Review book for LibraryThing)
  50. Professor and the Housekeeper by Yoko Ogawa
  51. Racing Weight by Matt Fitzgerald
  52. Rose Cafe by John Hanson Mitchell
  53. Rose of Martinique by Andrea Stuart
  54. Run or Die by Kilian Jornet
  55. Running for Mortals by John Bingham
  56. Seeing in the Dark by Timothy Ferris
  57. Sword at Sunset by Rosemary Sutcliff
  58. Thrush Green by Miss Read*
  59. Transcriptionist by Amy Rowland
  60. War Within and Without by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  61. Wildwater Walking Club by Claire Cook.
  62. Winners and Losers by Martin Quigley
  63. Zero Days by Barbara Egbert

Poetry:

  • “Aftermath” ~ a poem by Siegfried Sassoon
  • “Romance” ~ a poem by W.J. Turner
  • “Kubla Khan” ~ a poem by Samuel T. Coleridge

Short Stories:

  • “The Huckabuck Family” by Carl Sandburg
  • “How to Revitalize the Snake in Your Life” by Hannah Tinti
  • “Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury
  • “Thirty Year Old Women Do Not Always Come Home” by Mark Winegardner
  • “Birdland” by Michael Knight
  • “Killer Inside Me” by Jim Thompson
  • “Down There” by David Goodis
  • “Crossing the Craton” by John McPhee.
  • Lukudi by Adrianne Harun
  • The Eighth Sleeper of Ephesus also by Adrianne Harun

For another year (because, as I said before, I screwed up):

  • Hall of a Thousand Columns by Tim Mackintosh-Smith.