Category: NonFiction

Lulu in Hollywood

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Brooks, Louise. Lulu in Hollywood. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1982.

Louise Brooks, born in 1907, first wanted to be a dancer. When the bright lights of New York City sirened (my word) her away from Wichita, Kansas, she knew she could be a star. She had the looks, the talent and the brains to make it anywhere. She quickly became a darling of the silent film, jet setting between New York, Hollywood and Europe. Her biggest film, Pandora’s Box, was the rise before the fall. All said, her career was a tumultuous one. As an outspoken, difficult actress, Lulu was sometimes fired from jobs as quickly as she had been hired for them. It was no secret she liked to use her sexuality to get her way. She was progressive in ways women wouldn’t dare to be at that time. In Lulu in Hollywood, she used her ability to write to put together a series of autobiographical essays meant to settle the score. Her writing was brilliant. The photographs included in the book are gorgeous. There is no doubt Louise Brooks had a signature style and opinionated mind to match.

Best quotes, “He dreamed of becoming a United States district judge – an unrealized dream, because his abhorrence of boozing, whoring and profanity made him unacceptable to the rough politicians of his day” (p 4) and “I would watch my mother, pretty and charming, as she laughed and made people feel clever and pleased with themselves, but I could not act that way” (p 6).

Reason read: Natalie Merchant came out with a self-titled album that included a song about Louise Brooks. Out of curiosity I wanted to know more about Ms. Brooks.

Book trivia: As mentioned before, Lulu in Hollywood includes some great photography. Louise was a striking girl.

Author fact: Ms. Brooks was an intelligent writer. I ran across words like “unsyncopated” and “provincialism,” proving once and for all not all Hollywood actresses are just pretty faces.

BookLust Twist: none.

Zero Days

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Egbert, Barbara. Zero Days: the Real-Life Adventure of Captain Bligh, Nelly Bly and 10-Year-Old Scrambler on the Pacific Crest Trail. Berkley, CA: Wilderness Press, 2008.

Lots of people like to hike. Some people like to take it to an extreme, like Barbara Egbert and her family. She, with her husband, Gary, and their ten year old daughter, Mary, spent six months hiking the entire Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada. All 2,650 miles of it. Well, Barbara had to come off the trail at the end to become a trail angel so technically she didn’t hike the entire thing but Mary became the youngest person to do so. Zero Days is a memoir of sorts about that adventure. I expected the story to be in chronological order, starting with Day one in April at the Mexico border and ending six months later at the Canadian border. Instead I found to be quasi-chronological with random sidetrackings, even referring to previous hikes before Mary was born. Here are some examples, chapter three is all about the other hikers they met along the way. Chapter eight is all about the different towns they stopped in. Day 11 of the hike can be nestled with day 108 on the same page. Names aren’t consistent either. Mary could be called Scrambler (her trail name) in the same sentence. Same with Captain Bligh (husband, Gary). Egbert sometimes refers to herself as Nellie Bly. Aside from the meandering, I thoroughly enjoyed Egbert’s tales from the trails. I learned a great deal about what it takes to hike the great trails of the United States. Like, for example, you can take detours miles and miles off the PCT and you have still hiked the PCT. You can leave the hike for weeks at a time and still be called a thru-hiker. Hell, you can even hitchhike through some of it and still be called a hiker!

My one complaint – I was distracted by how many times Barbara would exclude herself (or her family) from the norm. Maybe it was just me, but Egbert seemed to put herself in a different category than the rest of the hikers; than rest of society even. I can’t really explain it except to say I began to notice of pattern. Here are some examples of what I mean, “…many thru-hikers count on doing a lot of hitchhiking. We had decided ahead of time to hitchhike as seldom as possible” (p 136), “We had a good experience at White’s, but during a later year, some thru-hikers reported a much less pleasant time” (p 137), and “After five months of the Pacific Crest Trail, the dental procedure that summons up fear in the hardiest souls had struck me as nothing more than a minor annoyance” (p 159).

I like the way libraries work. My copy of  Zero Days traveled from Sierra Vista, Arizona. 🙂

Reason: June is National Take a Hike month. This would be some hike!

Author fact: Barbara Egbert’s family is reported to have their own website. However, when I went to check it out I was told it was “temporarily unavailable.” I guess after ten years the 15 minutes of fame ran its course. Either that or someone forgot to pay the site bill.

Book trivia: Zero Days includes “the Blighs’ PCT Album.” I especially liked the picture of Crater Lake.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Hiking the (Fill In The Blank) Trail” (p 95).

Inside Passage

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Modzelewski, Michael. Inside Passage: Living with Killer Whales, Bald Eagles, and Kwakiutl Indians. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991.

“For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to live on an island” (prelude to Inside Passage, p xi). This is how Modzelewski starts his book. Kismet. How Michael Modzelewski ends up living on an island is one of those right place-right time kind of deals. While in a relationship he knew wouldn’t work out he met a man who lived on a deserted island in the Inside Passage. For those not in the know, the Island Passage is the waterway from Seattle, Washington to Alaska. The rest is history. Modzelewski lives with his new friend, Will Malloff, for three weeks before being left alone in the northern wilderness. He soaks up every opportunity to learn that he can. From fishing with Kwakiutl Indians and trying to save a wounded eagle to diving with killer whales and cooking a Thanksgiving dinner in a wood burning cook stove. Modzelewski seizes every moment to make an adventure. The one problem with Inside Passage? It’s too short. I can overlook the fact he didn’t include photographs if he had just written a few hundred more pages! Inside Passage is a short 184 pages with acknowledgments.

Great quotes, “I soon learned that some people appear in our lives briefly to connect us to other people or events that carry a lasting impact” (p xv), and”Human beings fail to realize that in destroying other forms of life, we shrink our own range of possibilities” (p 117). Two more about the ocean, “The ultimate design is when there is nothing left to take away” and “In the sea I found my sky” (both on page 164).

As an aside, when you listen to Natalie Merchant give interviews she is always crediting a book, documentary, news article or museum show for her musical inspiration. Modzelewski is no different. He credits the movie Jeremiah Johnson as his turning point.

Reason read: June is the best time to visit British Columbia, according to a few travel sites.

Author fact: Modzelewski has written for Sports Illustrated and Outside magazine, but Inside Passage is his first book.

Book trivia: I am always disappointed when pictures aren’t included. I mean, come on! Check out the title to this book! I want to see killer whales, bald eagles and even a Kwakiutl Indian!

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Living High in Cascadia” (p 150).

Who’s You Daddy June List

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I’m posting this early because June 1st is on a Sunday and guess what I’ll be doing on that Sunday? Finishing up a 60 mile cancer walk. I sincerely doubt I will have time (much less remember) to post this!

June is known as short story month. I have a separate list of all the shorties I want to read and each June, in honor of the genre, I try to blow through as many as I can. This year I am actually revisiting some shorts I should have read last year. Here’s the list:

  • Killer Inside Me
  • Down There
  • The Huckabuck Family
  • How to Revitalize the Snake
  • Crossing the Craton

Then, there are the real books:

  1. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks*
  2. Dancer with Bruised Knees by Lynne McFall
  3. Earthly Possessions by Anne Tyler
  4. First Man by Albert Camus
  5. Inside Passage by Michael Modselewski
  6. Rose of Martinique by Andrea Stuart
  7. ADDED: Zero Days by Barbara Egbert

*Audio book

Here is how the rest of year eight should go. Of course I will be adding more books to this list:

  1. Andorra by Peter Cameron (November)
  2. Any Four Women Can Rob the Bank of Italy by Ann Cornelisen (November)
  3. Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler (July)
  4. Baltimore Blues by Laura Lippman (September)
  5. Beaufort by Ron Leshem* (November)
  6. Beirut Blues by Hanan al-Shaykh (August)
  7. Black Lamb and Gray Falcon by Rebecca West (July)
  8. Bluebird Canyon by Dan McCall (September)
  9. Captain Sir Richard Burton by Edward Rice (October)
  10. Caroline’s Daughters by Alice Adams (August)
  11. Cradle of Gold by Christopher Heaney (November)
  12. Culture of Disbelief by Stephen Carter (October)
  13. Dark Sun by Richard Rhodes (July)
  14. Eye of the World by Robert Jordan* (October)
  15. Faith Fox by Jane Gardam* (July)
  16. Fordlandia by Greg Gandin (August)
  17. Gesture Life by Chang-rae Lee (August)
  18. Grass Dancer by Susan Power (November)
  19. History Man by Malcolm Bradbury (September)
  20. In a Strange City by Laura Lippman (October)
  21. Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges (August)
  22. Long Way From Home by Frederick Busch (August)
  23. Raw Silk by Janet Burroway (September)
  24. Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro* (August)
  25. Thousand Ways to Please a Husband by Weaver/LeCron (September)
  26. 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. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
  10. Cabin Fever by Elizabeth Jolley
  11. Careless Love by Peter Gurlnink
  12. Civil Action by Jonathan Harr
  13. Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan*
  14. Dancer and the Thief by Antonio Skarmeta
  15. Eighth Day by Thornton Wilder
  16. Falcon Flies by Wilbur Smith*
  17. Feast of Love by Charles Baxter
  18. Flower and the Nettle by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  19. French Revolutions* by Tim Moore.
  20. Georges’ Wife by Elizabeth Jolley
  21. Herzog by Saul Bellow
  22. Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  23. House of Morgan by Ron Chernow – attempted
  24. Illumination Night by Alice Hoffman
  25. Inspector Ghote Breaks an Egg by H.R.F. Keating
  26. It Looked Like Forever by Mark Harris
  27. Last Train to Memphis by Peter Guralink
  28. Leopard Hunts in the Darkness by Wilbur Smith
  29. Life in the Air Ocean by Sylvia Foley
  30. Lotus Eaters by Tatjani Soli
  31. Men of Men by Wilbur Smith
  32. Now Read This II by Nancy Pearl
  33. Ocean of Words by Ha Jin
  34. Oedipus by Sophocles
  35. Palladian Days by Sally Gable*
  36. Professor and the Housekeeper by Yoko Ogawa
  37. Racing Weight by Matt Fitzgerald
  38. Rose Cafe by John Hanson Mitchell
  39. Run or Die by Kilian Jornet
  40. Running for Mortals by John Bingham
  41. Seeing in the Dark by Timothy Ferris
  42. Sword at Sunset by Rosemary Sutcliff
  43. Thrush Green by Miss Read*
  44. Transcriptionist by Amy Rowland
  45. War Within and Without by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  46. Winners and Losers by Martin Quigley

Poetry:

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

For another year (because I screwed up):

  • Hall of a Thousand Columns by Tim Mackintosh-Smith. This is a huge embarrassment. For starters, this is a sequel. I have to read Travels with Tangerine first. Secondly, I don’t even know when I’m reading Tangerine.

 

 

 

 

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

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Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: an Indian History of the American West. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1970.

Trail of Tears. Manifest Destiny. Phrases and words we have heard before, definitely learned about in high school but, I’m guessing, the origins of which we haven’t given much thought. Bury My Heart at Wounded  Knee has a subtitle of “an Indian History of the American West”  and what a sad history it is! Before each chapter in the book is a snapshot of what shape the country was in that historical moment. A great deal was going on as it was during the American western expansion and the discovery of gold, starting in 1860 when the Navaho leader, Manuelito, was beaten down until surrendering to the white man. It’s a shameful book to read. So many broken promises. So many different times a white man approached a tribal leader with negotiations and treaties that only ended in bald faced lies. This was a difficult book for me to read.

Reason read: May is History Month and boy, is this some ugly history!

Author fact: Dee Brown’s real name is Dorris Alexander Brown and he died in 2002.

Book trivia: The portraits of each tribal chief is pretty amazing. Many thanks to the Smithsonian for the courtesy of reproduction. Tosawi or Silver Knife of the Comanches is my favorite.

BookLust Trivia: from Book Lust in the chapter called “American History: Nonfiction” (p 21).

French Revolutions

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Moore, Tim. French Revolutions: Cycling the Tour de France. Read by Andrew Wincott.  Prince Frederick, MD: Recorded Books, 2009.

Funny. Funny. Funny. I like that Moore’s writing is unapologetic snarky. If you are sensitive to sarcasm and foul language, stay away! This book is lightly peppered with words only a hearty rant could benefit from. Take a slightly out-of-shape, thirty something year old British guy who gets it into his head he can ride the Tour-de-France. Outfit him with a bike and ridiculous clothes and the fact he has no idea what he’s doing. Suddenly you’ve got a beyond hilarious story. Tim Moore ignores all common sense reason and sets out to bike all 2,256 miles of the race before the actual professionals take the stage. Each chapter is a different leg of the Tour and what’s great about Moore’s account (aside from his incessant bellyaching) is the historical perspective he gives along the way. He isn’t shy about providing graphic descriptions of the trials and tribulations of the male body after eight to ten hours in the saddle, either. I could open French Revolutions any page and find something hysterically funny, and more often than not, off color.

Quotes: As I said, nearly every page had something worthwhile and funny, but here are just a few of my favorites: “Sadly, Dennis was an awful boy who cheated at Monopoly and avenged yet another Belgian victory in that year’s race by running amok in our flower-beds with the big lawnmower, so I did not at the time ascribe positive attributes to the focus of his obsession” (p 5), “I didn’t know whether to be glad or sad when I looked down while grabbing for a towel and saw that the elemental rigours of the day had apparently inspired my genitals to eat themselves” (p 116), and “The blathering torrent of self-pity was by this stage a staple of our telephonic encounters, and she listened patiently, as, dispensing with respiration or punctuation, I stated that I was in a town with no hotels, that she had the hotel book, and that having cycled 94,000 miles I had forgotten how to speak French” (p 255).

As an aside, I don’t know why all my audio books are read by people with accents.

Reason read: May is Bicycle Month…so go out there and ride!

Author fact: Moore has an incredibly patient and understanding wife named Birna.

Book trivia: Moore makes mention of taking photographs while “on tour” but sadly, none of them make the book. Not even one of himself.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Bicycling” (p 35). Simple and to the point.

May Day List

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I don’t hold onto many books. Once I have read something I either lend it away, maybe to never see it again or I donate it somewhere, hoping to never see it again. In an effort to clean off my personal shelves I swapped out some of the titles I had been planning to borrow from other libraries for books I already have at home. This practically changes the entire list for May, but oh well. Here are the many, many books that are on the list for this May:

  1. Art Student’s War by Brad Leithauser
  2. Hall of a Thousand Columns by Tim Mackintosh-Smith
  3. Careless Love by Peter Gurlnink…yes, I am STILL reading this! I can’t seem to finish it! Grrrrr
  4. Inspector Ghote Breaks an Egg by H.R.F. Keating
  5. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown. I was going to read Jewel in the Crown by Paul Scott, but I have Bury My Heart at home.
  6. Oedipus by Sophocles. Originally I was going to read Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan, but like Bury My Heart, I have Oedipus at home.
  7. Finishing: The Lotus Eaters by Tatjani Soli
  8. ADDED: French Revolutions* by Tim Moore. I needed something on cd.
  9. ADDED: The transcriptionist by Amy Rowland (an Early Review title from LibraryThing)

*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. Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler (July)
  4. Baltimore Blues by Laura Lippman (September)
  5. Beaufort by Ron Leshem* (November)
  6. Beirut Blues by Hanan al-Shaykh (August)
  7. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks* (June)
  8. Black Lamb and Gray Falcon by Rebecca West (July)
  9. Bluebird Canyon by Dan McCall (September)
  10. Captain Sir Richard Burton by Edward Rice (October)
  11. Caroline’s Daughters by Alice Adams (August)
  12. Cradle of Gold by Christopher Heaney (November)
  13. Culture of Disbelief by Stephen Carter (October)
  14. Dancer with Bruised Knees by Lynne McFall (June)
  15. Dark Sun by Richard Rhodes (July)
  16. Earthly Possessions by Anne Tyler (June)
  17. Eye of the World by Robert Jordan* (October)
  18. Faith Fox by Jane Gardam* (July)
  19. First Man by Albert Camus (June)
  20. Fordlandia by Greg Gandin (August)
  21. Gesture Life by Chang-rae Lee (August)
  22. Grass Dancer by Susan Power (November)
  23. History Man by Malcolm Bradbury (September)
  24. In a Strange City by Laura Lippman (October)
  25. Inside Passage by Michael Modselewski (June)
  26. Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges (August)
  27. Long Way From Home by Frederick Busch (August)
  28. Raw Silk by Janet Burroway (September)
  29. Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro* (August)
  30. Rose of Martinique by Andrea Stuart (June)
  31. Thousand Ways to Please a Husband by Weaver/LeCron (September)
  32. 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. Benjamin Franklin: an American Life by Walter Isaacson
  7. Bring Me a Unicorn by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  8. Cabin Fever by Elizabeth Jolley
  9. Civil Action by Jonathan Harr
  10. Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan*
  11. ADDED: Dancer and the Thief by Antonio Skarmeta
  12. Eighth Day by Thornton Wilder
  13. Falcon Flies by Wilbur Smith*
  14. Feast of Love by Charles Baxter
  15. Flower and the Nettle by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  16. Georges’ Wife by Elizabeth Jolley – This finishes the Vera Wright Trilogy
  17. Herzog by Saul Bellow. Originally, I was going to read Call It Sleep by Henry Roth in May, but I read Herzog early in honor of Bellow’s passing in April of 2005.
  18. Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  19. House of Morgan by Ron Chernow – attempted
  20. Illumination Night by Alice Hoffman
  21. It Looked Like Forever by Mark Harris
  22. Last Train to Memphis by Peter Guralink
  23. Leopard Hunts in the Darkness by Wilbur Smith
  24. Life in the Air Ocean by Sylvia Foley
  25. Men of Men by Wilbur Smith
  26. Now Read This II by Nancy Pearl
  27. Ocean of Words by Ha Jin
  28. Palladian Days by Sally Gable*
  29. Professor and the Housekeeper by Yoko Ogawa
  30. Racing Weight by Matt Fitzgerald
  31. Rose Cafe by John Hanson Mitchell
  32. Run or Die by Kilian Jornet
  33. Running for Mortals by John Bingham
  34. ADDED: Seeing in the Dark: How Backyard Stargazers are Probing Deep Space and Guarding Earth from Interplanetary Peril by Timothy Ferris
  35. Sword at Sunset by Rosemary Sutcliff
  36. ADDED: Thrush Green by Miss Read*
  37. War Within and Without by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  38. Winners and Losers by Martin Quigley

Poetry:

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

 

 

Seeing in the Dark

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Ferris, Timothy. Seeing in the Dark: How Backyard Stargazers are Probing Deep Space and Guarding Earth from Interplanetary Peril. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002.

The night sky has always held a mystical place in my imagination. I had the thrilling good fortune to grow up in a place unpolluted by artificial light. No street lights to cut the night sky, no blinking traffic lights, no neon signs burning from storefront windows. Very few private homes had electricity so at most a soft glow from candles or kerosene lamps would emit from a window or two. That’s it. It was easy to look up into the Milky Way and get lost among its population of stars. To quote Natalie Merchant, “the stars were so many there, they seemed to overlap.” My favorite line her Maniacs song, The Painted Desert. Reading Seeing in the Dark set my memories on fire. I can remember stretching out, flat on my back, searching for satellites. We made a game of it. Who could first spot the unblinking light that moved so silently across the universe? But! I am so far in the weeds with this review.

Back to my last book for April…Ferris writes with such an easy style. This isn’t just about deep space, astronomy and star gazing. It is not dry and didactic. This is a memoir about Ferris’s childhood cardboard telescope dreams becoming reality. He takes us back to when he was just a kid, looking up in the Florida night sky, dreaming about rockets and moon walks; witnessing his first solar eclipse. It’s about sharing conversations with other amateurs, proving once and for all amateur stargazers really know what they are doing, despite not having the big buck telescopes and high-end gadgets. Seeing in the Dark is also about the collaborations between backyard stargazers and the people who have the money to make research happen. Take Brian May, for example. If he hadn’t been a musician be would have been an astronomer. Because of his success with his band, Queen, he has been able to support his hobby of backyard stargazing with better technology than the average hobbyist. Lastly, Seeing in the Dark is broad-based educational. I learned of a new place I want to visit, the Roden Crater in Arizona and I learned the difference between a meteoroid, a meteor, and a meteorite. I think too many people use those words interchangeably. Ferris cleared it up for me, once and for all.

Quotes I liked, “Love affairs can make you reckless and scar you for life, but what is life without love?” (p 82), “To put your eye or any other part of your anatomy at the focal point of a telescope pointed at the sun is like volunteering to be an ant under a magnifying glass” (p 76), and “…Charon, which orbits Pluto, which probably isn’t a planet” (p 104).

Reason read: April is National Astronomy month.

Author fact: Ferris has been nominated for a Pulitzer and four of his books are on my reading list.

Book trivia: It’s such a bummer that Ferris didn’t include any celestial photography. I love the night sky.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Astronomical Ideas” (p 27).

War Within and Without

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Lindbergh, Anne Morrow. War Within and Without: Diaries and Letters of Anne Morrow Lindbergh 1939-1944. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980.

This is the last book in Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s series of diaries and letters. War Within and Without covers 1939 – 1944. In the beginning, the Lindberghs have just left France for America. The emphasis of War Within is World War II, of course, and the not so obvious private war the Lindberghs waged with public opinion concerning Charles’s views of Germany and the U.S involvement in the war. After spending nearly three years in Europe (England and France, mostly) the family returns to America where controversy over the political views of her husband continue to be criticized. All of this worries Anne very much as her husband is very vocal on these subjects. In view of the war, she has described this last book as coming full circle. World War I was raging when she was just seven years old. Underlying Anne’s very public life is the home life she struggled to keep private. Charles is “away” a great deal and Anne must entertain guests such as Antoine de Saint-Exupery on her own. She alludes to questioning what makes a good marriage. It leads one to believe there are hints of trouble with Charles. Anne does her best to convince the reader (herself, since it was her diary?) everything is fine. All the while she is crumbling under the pressure of being a good mother, writer, housekeeper, member of society, and of course, wife.

Telling quotes: “Both wars cracked open the worlds from which they erupted” (p xiii), “It is the striving after perfection that makes one an artist” (p 29), “Must get back to life after these days living in a world of the mind alone” (p 36), and “Then Monday he went off again and I have had a long week, tired from it, angry at myself, realizing I am doing too much and none of it well” (p 391).

Reason read: This is the last book I will read in honor of January being Journal Month. Finally!

Author fact: Lindbergh received six different honorary degrees from various institutions.

Book trivia: There is one grainy photo of Anne where credit is given to Charles. It makes me wonder who took the others. They seem “professional” compared to the intimacy of the one taken by Charles.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Journals and Letters: We Are All Voyeurs at Heart” (p 131).

Alice I Have Been

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Benjamin, Melanie. Alice I Have Been. Read by Samantha Eggar. New York: Random House Audio, —-.

I fell in love with Alice I Have Been straight away. Alice Liddell is the famed little girl who took a tumble down the rabbit hole. Benjamin has taken her life story and presented it in a fictional yet spellbinding way. Starting with Alice as a precocious seven year old who befriends a subtly sinister gentleman by the name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. Everyone turns their heads to ignore the slightly inappropriate relationship Alice has with stuttering Mr. Dodgson. I found myself asking what was Benjamin’s motive for so much alluding to impropriety? There is a lot of trembling that goes on…It whispers of pedophilia and the strange this is, Alice, even at seven, is perceptive to know something is amiss. However by age ten, almost eleven she is the instigator, asking Mr. Dodgson to “wait” for her, a statement that is accompanied by the proverbial wink and nod. Years later, Alice is rumored to be involved with Prince Leopold and her childhood relationship with Mr. Dodgson is all but a faded memory…until the Prince needs to ask his mum for her approval to marry Alice. It is then all of the allusions to impropriety make sense. Everything begins to make sense.
I have only one complaint and it’s an odd one. I didn’t like Alice as child or an adult. I found her to be rude, snobbish and spoiled throughout her entire life. But. But! But, I loved Benjamin’s writing. Know how I can tell? I borrowed the audio AND print versions of the book because listening to and from work just wasn’t enough.

I don’t know what it is with audio books but lately every one that I listen to has been read by someone with an accent…usually British.

Author fact: Melanie used a pseudonym to write Alice I Have Been. She recently published a book about Anne Morrow Lindbergh. What a coincidence since I have been reading Lindbergh’s books since January.

Book trivia:Alice I Have Been is Benjamin’s first historical fiction.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called simply “Oxford: literary fiction” (p 171).

House of Morgan

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Chernow, Ron. The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1990.

You can tell straight away that Chernow is going to tell you a great story, especially when he uses words like “brouhaha” to describe an economic catastrophe. There is a sly humor about his writing. How can you not smirk just a little when he writes, “Gooch was being groomed for a career of permanent subordination and forelock tugging” (p 8)? Or says things like “incorrigible Wall Street rascals” (p30)? Yet, his story is vastly inclusive and extremely informative. He takes you back before a time when each state has its own banking system and debts could be settled any which way. We watch the growth of international finance and step into a “wealth” of biographical portraits, if you excuse the pun (since we are talking about banking). I loved the little details; for example, the Morgans were the first private residential household to have electrical lighting in New York and a woman named Belle Greene was Pierpont’s “saucy librarian.” My one complaint – the book is massive. That’s because the tale is massive. Chernow needs every page to tell the story.

As an aside: I love it when my reading converges. In House of Morgan Chernow mentions Dwight Morrow’s daughter, Elizabeth; how she couldn’t resist a comment about Pierpont Morgan’s legendary nose. Because I have been reading Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s diaries I know that Dwight is her brother and he named his daughter after a sister who passed away after a bout with pneumonia. If I hadn’t been reading Lindbergh the names Dwight and Elizabeth Morrow would have meant nothing to me.

Reason read: April is National Banking Month. And speaking of money, it’s also tax month…

Author fact: Chernow holds degrees from Yale and Cambridge.

Book trivia: Chernow won the National Book Award in 1990 for House of Morgan, his first book!

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Founding Fathers” (p 92). Yeah, yeah. I know. House of Morgan is not about a founding father, per se. Pearl mentions House of Morgan as a suggestion if you liked Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton.

Rose Cafe

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Mitchell, John Hanson. The Rose Cafe: Love and War in Corsica. Emeryville, CA: Shoemaker & Hoard, 2007.

As a young adult, John Hanson Mitchell found himself on the island of Corsica with absolutely no agenda other than to work in a cafe in order to watch and listen to the people around him. As a dishwasher in the Rose Cafe he had the opportunity to mingle with the guests and learn their life stories. Forty years later he writes about his experiences, describing Corsica as otherworldly and mysterious; hinting at zombies and shadowy characters. While there isn’t a standard plot to Rose Cafe, Mitchell does an amazing job not only describing the people he met, but bringing the island’s history to life. Because he was on the island in the early 60s, World War II was still fresh in a lot of people’s minds. Mitchell himself was “in hiding” to avoid the draft.

Lines I liked, “In the end, I fell into a strange, perhaps unhealthy, lethargy at the Rose Cafe” (p 5). That pretty much sums up how Mitchell ended up working (illegally) at the Rose Cafe as a pot washer/fish cleaner.
Another line I could relate to on several levels, “The wind undid people, it was said” (p 21). Amen to that.

Reason read: April is National Food Month. I thought reading about a cafe on the island of Corsica would involve some food. Not really. Mitchell was a fish cleaner, but that’s about it.

Author fact: John has his own website here. I don’t know what I was expecting when I found it (because I just knew he would have a site) but that wasn’t it. It hasn’t been updated in a few years.

Book trivia: Rose Cafe doesn’t contain any pictures. Mitchell describes the landscape beautifully but I would have loved seeing his views, especially his view from the cottage he stayed in.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Corsica” (p 72). Yup. Simple as that.

“Aftermath”

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Sassoon, Sigfried. “Aftermath.” Modern British “Poetry. Ed. Louis Untermeyer. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1920. pp 220. Print.

This is a heartbreaking poem and the message is super clear. This is a plaintive cry to Sassoon’s fellow veterans, Do not get caught up in the glories of war! Do not let anyone tell you war is an excusable act just because time has softened your memory. I think there is a country song out there with the same message, but I think it was directed towards people not forgetting about September 11, 2001. The message is the same: don’t become complacent and forgiving when you have suffered so much. Sassoon clearly did.

Author fact: There are only two poems I am reading this month. Turner and Sassoon were friends.

Poem trivia: PBS has a great site dedicated to the Great War. Supposedly, you can listen to an audio recording of “Aftermath” but I couldn’t get it to play (which is why I didn’t include the link here). Google it for yourself if you are curious.

BookLust Twist: More Book Lust in the chapter called “Living Through War” (p 237).

April Foolish Games

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March was all about running. I seemed to be obsessed with a certain 10k and added four extra books about running to the list. Now, April is almost here and I have turned my attention to a certain 60 mile walk I have at the end of next month (my 6th year participating in Just ‘Cause!!). The only difference is, this time I won’t be adding any books about walking or breast cancer to my list. After five years of doing this 60 mile walk I think I have it down. Reading is a different story all together (pun totally intended).
Here are the many, many books that are on the list for this April:

  1. Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin*
  2. Careless Love by Peter Gurlnink…yes, I’m STILL reading this!
  3. House of Morgan by Ron Chernow -This, you might remember, was planned for April 2013 and I selfishly decided to put it off a year. Such a coincidence since I read another Chernow last February.
  4. Leopard Hunts in the Darkness by Wilbur Smith ~ the last Ballantyne book of the series
  5. Rose Cafe by John Hanson Mitchell
  6. War Within and Without by Anne Morrow Lindbergh ~ this finishes my reading of Lindbergh’s diaries.
  7. Winners and Losers by Martin Quigley (maybe. This book is not in ly library system so I had to place an interlibrary loan)
  8. “Aftermath” ~ a poem by Siegfried Sassoon
  9. “Romance” ~ a poem by W.J. Turner

Here is the rest of year eight:

  1. Andorra by Peter Cameron (November)
  2. Any Four Women Can Rob the Bank of Italy by Ann Cornelisen (November)
  3. Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler (July)
  4. Art Student’s War by Brad Leithauser (May)
  5. Baltimore Blues by Laura Lippman (September)
  6. Beaufort by Ron Leshem* (November)
  7. Beirut Blues by Hanan al-Shaykh (August)
  8. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks* (June)
  9. Black Lamb and Gray Falcon by Rebecca West (July)
  10. Bluebird Canyon by Dan McCall (September)
  11. Call It Sleep by Henry Roth (May)
  12. Captain Sir Richard Burton by Edward Rice (October)
  13. Caroline’s Daughters by Alice Adams (August)
  14. Cradle of Gold by Christopher Heaney (November)
  15. Culture of Disbelief by Stephen Carter (October)
  16. Dancer with Bruised Knees by Lynne McFall (June)
  17. Dark Sun by Richard Rhodes (July)
  18. Earthly Possessions by Anne Tyler (June)
  19. Eye of the World by Robert Jordan* (October)
  20. Faith Fox by Jane Gardam* (July)
  21. First Man by Albert Camus (June)
  22. Fordlandia by Greg Gandin (August)
  23. Gesture Life by Chang-rae Lee (August)
  24. Grass Dancer by Susan Power (November)
  25. Hall of a Thousand Columns by Tim Mackintosh-Smith (July)
  26. History Man by Malcolm Bradbury (September)
  27. In a Strange City by Laura Lippman (October)
  28. Inside Passage by Michael Modselewski (June)
  29. Inspector Ghote Breaks an Egg by H.R.F. Keating (May)
  30. Jewel in the Crown by Paul Scott* (May)
  31. Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges (August)
  32. Long Way From Home by Frederick Busch (August)
  33. Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan (May)
  34. Raw Silk by Janet Burroway (September)
  35. Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro* (August)
  36. Rose of Martinique by Andrea Stuart (June)
  37. Thousand Ways to Please a Husband by Weaver/LeCron (September)
  38. 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. Angels Weep by Wilbur Smith
  4. Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro
  5. Benjamin Franklin: an American Life by Walter Isaacson
  6. Bring Me a Unicorn by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  7. Cabin Fever by Elizabeth Jolley
  8. Civil Action by Jonathan Harr
  9. Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan*
  10. Eighth Day by Thornton Wilder
  11. Falcon Flies by Wilbur Smith*
  12. Feast of Love by Charles Baxter
  13. Flower and the Nettle by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  14. Georges’ Wife by Elizabeth Jolley – This finishes the Vera Wright Trilogy
  15. Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  16. Illumination Night by Alice Hoffman – This is something I tried to listen to as an audio two years ago. The cds were so scratched I gave up.
  17. It Looked Like Forever by Mark Harris
  18. Last Train to Memphis by Peter Guralink
  19. Life in the Air Ocean by Sylvia Foley
  20. Men of Men by Wilbur Smith
  21. Now Read This II by Nancy Pearl
  22. Ocean of Words by Ha Jin
  23. Palladian Days by Sally Gable*
  24. Professor and the Housekeeper by Yoko Ogawa
  25. Racing Weight by Matt Fitzgerald
  26. Run or Die by Kilian Jornet
  27. Running for Mortals by John Bingham
  28. Sword at Sunset by Rosemary Sutcliff

I found my second “impossible to find” book. Power Without Glory by Frank Hardy. Several libraries across the country own it but are unwilling to share it. It was wildly popular in Australia in the 1950s, but not so anymore…to the point that no one will lend it without changing a fee. Bummer.

Graduates in Wonderland

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Pan, Jessica and Rachel Kapelke-Dale. Graduates in Wonderland: the International Misadventures of Two (Almost) Adults. New York: Gotham Books, 2014.

Reason read: Chosen as an Early Review Book for LibraryThing.

Jessica and Rachel are two graduates of Brown, out on their own, learning to become “adults.” Jessica has moved to China to study Mandarin and get back to her roots. Rachel starts out in New York City’s art scene but then decides to move to Paris, France. Their story is told through a series of no-holds-barred emails back and forth over the course of three years. They discuss everything from career paths and education to fashion and faux pas but most of all they talk about men, relationships and sex.

My only “complaint” is it was difficult to read Graduates for extended periods of time. Their writing styles are similar enough that their voices started to blend and I would lose track of who was where. It got to a point when I completely ran out of steam and put the book down for three weeks.

Book trivia: It would have been cool to have pictures of the different places the girls have been, especially Jessica’s time in China.