Category: NonFiction

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.

Price of Silence

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Long, Liza. The Price of Silence: a Mom’s Perspective of Mental Illness. New York: Hudson Street Press, 2014.

Liza Long is a single mother trying to raise a son with a mental illness. She will tell you this fact many times throughout The Price of Silence. Many will recognize her as the author of the blog post, “I am Adam Lanza’s Mother.” Price of Silence is the long version (excuse the pun) of that post. This was a hard book to read on so many different levels. I felt that Long was trying to justify the blog post that thrust her into the spotlight. If not justify, then to at least explain it further; to clarify points. I felt she was defending herself against many different misconceptions, the biggest misconception being what it is like to raise a mentally ill child. Long is desperate to make the world understand that there is an unfair stigma attached to the treatment of mental illness (stigma is something else she mentions a lot). A physical injury is treated with urgency while “anything above the neck” is hemmed and hawed over with head scratching and no clear treatment plan. A physical injury has a logical explanation while the violent outburst of an autistic does not. There is a lot of hand wringing that takes place in The Price of Silence but it is effective. I was drawn into Long’s story and felt her frustrations clearly. Long was able to articulate the facts along side her feelings, something that isn’t easy to do while in the midst of the turmoil.

As an aside, I often wonder if Long would have allowed her blog post to be renamed, “I am Adam Lanza’s Mother” had Mrs. Lanza survived her son’s attack. I feel the post was renamed for shock value and to possibly draw in misinformed reader; the one who read it simply because he or she thought there had been a mistake and the real Mrs. Lanza was still alive. I wanted Long to call the post, “I Could Have Been Adam Lanza’s Mother” (much in the same way Dave Matthews could have been a parking lot attendant. Mr. Matthews is not a parking lot attendant of course, but the point being anything can happen. Lanza’s story could have been Long’s.)

Reason read: As a member of LibraryThing’s Early Review program, this was the June selection. I should note that Price of Silence should go on sale August 28, 2014.

Author fact: Long has a blog here.

Book trivia: This copy of Price of Silence promises an index at publication but I do not know if the final version will include photographs or any other personalization.

In the Graveyard of Empires

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Jones, Seth G. In the Graveyard of Empires: America’s War in Afghanistan. Read by William Hughes. New York: Blackstone Audio, 2010

Jones starts In the Graveyard of Empires going back to Alexander the Great’s march into Afghanistan. This is to put Afghanistan’s tumultuous history into perspective. Readers shouldn’t be worried a historical quagmire because Jones moves through the early bloodshed pretty quickly. Around the time of the Soviet invasion he slows the tempo down and goes into more detail. One of the things I appreciated about Jones’s writing is that he manages to stay pretty objective, hardly inserting himself into the analysis, despite his personal ties to the region. He stays true to the subtitle, “America’s War in Afghanistan” of which he had no military part. He served as advisor to the commanding general of the U.S. Special Ops Forces. His work is heavily supplemented by countless interviews and extensive research. You can read more of his profile on the RAND corporation website.
For me, the hardest section to read was not about the attacks on September 11th, 2001, but rather when international aide workers came under attack in 2003 and 2004. Five Medecins Sans Frontieres workers were kidnapped and executed. These are a group of people who dare to deliver aid where few others are willing to go.

Reason read: travel sites list July as the best time to go to Afghanistan. No offense, but is there really a good time to go to Afghanistan in this day and age?

Author fact: As mentioned earlier, Jones has a profile on the RAND site and is listed as the director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center.

Book Audio trivia: this is the first audio book I have listened to where the narrator doesn’t have some kind of accent.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Afghanistan: Graveyard of Empires (nonfiction)” (p 5). Sound familiar?

Rowed Trip

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Angus, Colin and Julie Angus. Rowed Trip: a Journey by Oar from Scotland to Syria. Birmingham: Menasha Ridge Press, 2009.

There are several different subject categories in which I could put Rowed Trip: adventure, boating, bicycling, travel, culture, or even marriage to name a few, because all of these subjects are covered in Colin and Julie’s account of their journey from Scotland to Syria. Everything about their trip is either informative or funny but always entertaining. To start from the beginning, Colin’s ancestors are from Scotland while Julie’s are from Syria. While studying a map (I forgot why) they realized there are various waterways the entire distance between their homeland countries. As seasoned adventure travelers they asked themselves wouldn’t it be fun to travel the entire distance by boat? Both Colin and Julie have considerable experience in this area and have written books about it. As newlyweds, married less than a year, what better way to break in a marriage?
To be fair, in actuality Rowed Trip is a misnomer. The entire trip wasn’t by oar as the subtitle suggests. There were miles traveled by ingenious bicycles and trailers as well. Due to complicated lock systems most of France was traversed by bike, to name one instance. Because Colin and Julie each take turns writing the chapters their individually personalities reveal themselves. Colin’s style of writing is more descriptive of the surroundings while Julie has more introspective emotion. Both narratives are didactic at times. It was interesting to read how they handled navigating the locks in each country (which seems to be one of their biggest challenges besides getting their trailer stolen and blown bike tires).
All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed Rowed Trip and breaking with the Lust rules, I probably will research Colin and Julie’s other books not on my list.

Favorite quote: I didn’t really have a favorite quote or at least no passages jumped out at me. However, I did enjoy the couple’s efforts to navigate in countries where neither spoke the language. They lived by one of my favorite philosophies, “it is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission>”

Reason read: July is ocean month. Maybe not nationally recognized as such, but it’s one of my favorite times to be on the water.

Author(s) fact: Colin and Julie are married and each have written other books about their adventures as I have mentioned before.

Book trivia: Rowed Trip includes a smattering of photos. I think there could have been more. Or, at least, I would have liked to seen more.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” (p 191).

Black Lamb and Grey Falcon

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West, Rebecca. Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: a Journey Through Yugoslavia. New York: Penguin Books, 1982.

I have to say it otherwise it’s the elephant in the room. Black Lamb and Grey Falcon is a huge book. Over 1,100 pages long. Actually, it’s 1,181 if you include the index and bibliography. Craziness. Okay, now that I’ve gotten that out of the way… Despite the length Black Lamb and Grey Falcon was, for the most part, a pleasure to read. I have to admit I didn’t finish it. I ran out of steam halfway through. However, West has a great conversational tone to her writing which levels out the dryness of the subject. Anyone who can insert the phrase “political cantankerousness” when discussing the battle of the Mohacs in 1526 is okay in my book.

Quote I liked, “He is perpetually drunk on what comes out of his mouth, not what goes into it” (p 41).

Reason read: If you are in the mood to visit the Balkans, July is supposedly the best time to go.

Author fact: Rebecca West was born Cicily Isabel Fairfield which I think is a beautiful name. According to the author bio in Black Lamb she was in a romantic relationship with H.G. Wells for ten years. Interesting.

Book trivia: Even though this is considered a travel book there are no maps, illustrations or photographs. Nothing of the sort.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in two different chapters. First, in “Balkan Specters” (p 34) and again in “Lady Travelers” (p 143).

Neighborhood Heroes

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Rielly, Morgan. Neighborhood Heroes: Life Lessons From Maine’s Greatest Generation. Camden: Down East Books, 2014.

Reason read: As part of the Early Review program for LibraryThing I occasionally review books for them. This was the May selection I won.

As someone who grew up on an island off the coast of Maine and still has a strong connection to the entire state, I really enjoyed Rielly’s book. I could identify with most of the places he mentions. But, location isn’t what I enjoyed the most. In my day kids were taught to respect their elders and you can tell Rielly really respected the 26 men and women he interviewed for his book, Neighborhood Heroes. His attention to detail is exemplary and his choice of words conveys the significance of not only the military work these veterans conducted, but the strength of their personal lives as well. It wasn’t enough to transcribe their professional lives; the training tales and battle stories (no matter their branch in the military); Rielly also was thoughtful enough to convey their personal dedication to marriage, family, education and meaningful employment after serving their country in the war. Sadly, a few of Rielly’s interviewees have since passed away. It is a shame they won’t be able to see the published book. I only hope they understood what a great tribute Neighborhood Heroes is to their generation.

As an aside, the cover of the book (by Scott Mansfield) is stunning once I really saw it. The photograph is a little dark.

Here’s the only part of Neighborhood Heroes I will quote. From the front matter, “A portion of the author’s royalties is donated to the Travis Mills Project and the National Veterans Family Center…” Curious about this I Googled Travis Mills and discovered he is a retired United States Staff Sergeant who survived an IED blast in Afghanistan in 2012. He is one of only five quadruple amputees to survive such massive injuries.

Confessional: I started reading this shortly after June 6th while CNN and other “reality” channels were constantly showing World War II documentaries. The timing of Rielly’s Neighborhood Heroes was a blessing and a curse. While I was caught up in the pomp and circumstance of remembrance it was also redundant – overkill, if you will. I was a little “war weary” by the end of it all. But, that’s my doing entirely.

Bang of July List

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July is vacation month for me. Well, just to clarify, I go on vacation starting tomorrow (hence the late list post). Not that I go on vacation for the whole month! Don’t I wish! But, with a week off I should be able to get through a good chunk of reading. Sadly, the only books I am really looking forward to reading are Faulks and Rielly. Sigh. Here’s the list:

  1. Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler.
  2. Black Lamb and Gray Falcon by Rebecca West. This is well over 1,000 pages long!
  3. ADDED: Charlotte Gray by Sebastian Faulks (continues the series)
  4. Dark Sun by Richard Rhodes. This was on the list for last year but I decided it wasn’t “fun.” Remember? I still don’t think it will be fun.
  5. Faith Fox by Jane Gardam*
  6. In the Graveyard of Empires by Scott Jones*
  7. ADDED: Neighborhood Heroes: Life Lessons from the Greatest Generation by Morgan Rielly (LibraryThing Early Review)

*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. Beirut Blues by Hanan al-Shaykh (August)
  6. Bluebird Canyon by Dan McCall (September)
  7. Captain Sir Richard Burton by Edward Rice (October)
  8. Caroline’s Daughters by Alice Adams (August)
  9. Cradle of Gold by Christopher Heaney (November)
  10. Culture of Disbelief by Stephen Carter (October)
  11. Eye of the World by Robert Jordan* (October)
  12. Fordlandia by Greg Gandin (August)
  13. Gesture Life by Chang-rae Lee (August)
  14. Grass Dancer by Susan Power (November)
  15. History Man by Malcolm Bradbury (September)
  16. In a Strange City by Laura Lippman (October)
  17. Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges (August)
  18. Long Way From Home by Frederick Busch (August)
  19. Raw Silk by Janet Burroway (September)
  20. Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro* (August)
  21. Thousand Ways to Please a Husband by Weaver/LeCron (September)
  22. 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. Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro
  6. Art Student’s War by Brad Leithauser
  7. Benjamin Franklin: an American Life by Walter Isaacson
  8. Bring Me a Unicorn by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  9. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks*
  10. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
  11. Cabin Fever by Elizabeth Jolley
  12. Careless Love by Peter Gurlnink
  13. Civil Action by Jonathan Harr
  14. Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan*
  15. Dancer and the Thief by Antonio Skarmeta
  16. Dancer with Bruised Knees by Lynne McFall
  17. Earthly Possessions by Anne Tyler
  18. Eighth Day by Thornton Wilder
  19. Falcon Flies by Wilbur Smith*
  20. Feast of Love by Charles Baxter
  21. First Man by Albert Camus
  22. Flower and the Nettle by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  23. French Revolutions* by Tim Moore.
  24. Georges’ Wife by Elizabeth Jolley
  25. Herzog by Saul Bellow
  26. Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  27. House of Morgan by Ron Chernow – attempted
  28. Illumination Night by Alice Hoffman
  29. Inside Passage by Michael Modzelewski
  30. Inspector Ghote Breaks an Egg by H.R.F. Keating
  31. It Looked Like Forever by Mark Harris
  32. Last Train to Memphis by Peter Guralink
  33. Leopard Hunts in the Darkness by Wilbur Smith
  34. Life in the Air Ocean by Sylvia Foley
  35. Lotus Eaters by Tatjani Soli
  36. ADDED: Lulu in Hollywood by Louise Brooks
  37. Men of Men by Wilbur Smith
  38. Now Read This II by Nancy Pearl
  39. Ocean of Words by Ha Jin
  40. Oedipus by Sophocles
  41. Palladian Days by Sally Gable*
  42. Professor and the Housekeeper by Yoko Ogawa
  43. Racing Weight by Matt Fitzgerald
  44. Rose Cafe by John Hanson Mitchell
  45. Rose of Martinique by Andrea Stuart
  46. Run or Die by Kilian Jornet
  47. Running for Mortals by John Bingham
  48. Seeing in the Dark by Timothy Ferris
  49. Sword at Sunset by Rosemary Sutcliff
  50. Thrush Green by Miss Read*
  51. Transcriptionist by Amy Rowland
  52. War Within and Without by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  53. ADDED: Wildwater Walking Club by Claire Cook. A gift from a fellow Just ‘Cause walker 🙂
  54. Winners and Losers by Martin Quigley
  55. 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 (not really a short story, but I treated it as such)
  • “Down There” by David Goodis (again really, not a short story)
  • “Crossing the Craton” by John McPhee. It’s the fifth and final chapter in Annals of the Former World but since it’s less than 50 pages long, I’m treating it as a short story.
  • Lukudi by Adrianne Harun
  • The Eighth Sleeper of Ephesus also by Adrianne Harun

For another year (because I screwed up):

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

Rose of Martinique

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Stuart, Andrea. The Rose of Martinique: a Life of Napoleon’s Josephine. New York: Grove Press, 2003.

Mrs. Bonaparte was born Marie-Josephe-Rose de Tascher de La Paerie on June 23, 1763 on the Caribbean island of Martinique (hence, the title of the book). Andrea Stuart feels a connection to Mrs. Bonaparte because of “personal identification” (p xi). Having grown up on the island of Martinique, Stuart is able to set the stage for us with wonderfully lush descriptions. She is able to tap into the beauty of the landscape because she experienced for herself. This commonality allows the reader an accurate portrait of Rose’s childhood home. That personal connection slips away when Rose is 15 and marries for the first time. She is sent to Paris where cultures and feminine expectations are completely different. Rose’s new husband sets up to educate Rose in the art of sophistication, a la Pygmalion style. But, when Rose does not rise to the challenge and cannot meet her husband’s unreasonable expectations, she is banished to a convent. Subsequently, Rose, mother of two, is separated by the age of 21 and the marriage has all but ended. Of course, Rose finds marriage again (notice I didn’t say love). Almost like the wolves of Washington, marriage is a partnership of business, while love is reserved for lovers. From here on out, Rose is Josephine.
I could go on and on about Stuart’s attention to detail. It’s obvious the woman did her homework. She refers to other biographies written about Mrs. Bonaparte and seems particularly interested in correcting the misconceptions about Josephine’s sexuality and relationships with other women. All in all, I found the writing fascinating.

Quote that stuck with me, “Brutality was an intrinsic part of plantation life and no child, however privileged or protected, could escape it ugliness or its savagery” (p 13).

Reason read: Mrs. Bonaparte was born in June.

Author fact: Stuart’s first book was Showgirls. Not what you think.

Book trivia: The Rose of Martinique includes beautiful illustrations.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “The Complex Napoleon” (p 55).

First Man

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Camus, Albert. The First Man. Translated by David Hapgood. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1995.

First Man opens with Henri Cormery, the new manager of the Saint-Apotre property seeking help for his wife, in labor with their second child. But, the meat of the transcript is  the son, Jacques Cormery, looking to understand he father he never met. With a deaf-mute mother and a contradictory tyrannical grandmother, Jacques’s quest for knowledge is slow-going. Henri Cormery died in combat when Jacques was just an infant and the women in his family are reluctant to remember anything. Most of the story centers on Jacques in the formative years, his education, his religion, his poverty and of course, his mother and grandmother. While most of the story centers on the bleakness of poverty and the restrictions placed upon Jacques because of that poverty, I liked the sly sense of humor Camus inserted throughout the story. Take this dialogue, for example: “How is it going?” “I don’t know, I especially don’t go in where the women are.” “Good rule…Particularly when when are crying…” (p 15). It just goes to show you that emotional women still drive men nuts. What I didn’t appreciate in First Man was how confusing an unfinished transcript could be. On page 8 Jacques’s mother’s name is Lucie, but by page 90 she is Catherine. Then there were the hundreds and hundreds of reference notes. It made reading slow and plodding at times.

As an aside, I have to laugh. Because I have been thinking of this as Camus’s last book I have been calling it The Last Man. Go figure!

Quotes I like, “She said yes, maybe it was no; she had to reach back in time through a clouded memory, nothing was certain” (p 80).

Reason read: June 19th is the anniversary of Revolution Day in Algeria.

Author fact: Camus’s daughter is instrumental in getting this work published. Even his wife wouldn’t release it to the public.

Book trivia: This is Camus’s last work. The handwritten manuscript was found with him after his fatal car accident in 1960. I think it is fitting that First Man is the last book written by Camus that I will read for the Challenge.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “North African Notes: Algeria” (p 159).

“Crossing the Craton”

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McPhee, John. “Crossing the Craton.” Annals of the Former World. New York: Farrar, Straus and Grioux, 1998.

For starters, do not be intimidated by the subject matter: geology. McPhee writes with a folksy tone. Right away he is calling the reader “friend.” This is not to say the content of “Crossing the Craton” has been dumbed down. It hasn’t. McPhee doesn’t spare the reader from words like brachiopods, samarain, neodymium and nautiloids and his timelines are a confusing mess. It takes some getting used to but I have to say this, reading about the oldest rock (35 billion years old) from the Minnesota River Valley is pretty fascinating. “Crossing the Craton” is the last chapter in his behemoth book, Annals of the Former World and probably the shortest.

Best quote, “There would be more to tell you if you could sense what you can’t see” (p 626).

Reason read: I am treating the final chapter of Annals of the Former World as a short story since it is under 50 pages long. All the other “chapters” are actually separate books that I will be reading at different times.

As an aside, every since Natalie Merchant sang about the San Andreas fault I have always been curious about it. McPhee talks about it several times in “Crossing the Craton.”

Author fact: John McPhee has written over 24 different books. I only have six of them on my list.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “The Beckoning Road” (p 19).