Category: NonFiction

On the Road

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Kerouac, Jack. On the Road. New York: Penguin Books, 1991.

Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac holds an air of mystery even to this day. For generations he has been regarded as one of coolest cats of the 1950s. On The Road was an overnight success and an instant cult classic. So it came as a great surprise to everyone when I admitted I hadn’t read it. It wasn’t required in any high school, college or grad school course. Somehow it missed my radar completely. Maybe I didn’t see myself as worthy. Even when Natalie Merchant wrote “Hey Jack Kerouac” I was not moved to know more about the man or the myth. Thank heavens for More Book Lust and this self-imposed challenge. There is a vibe just holding this book. Someone killed a mosquito on page 88; it’s flattened body pressed forever like a keepsake corsage.

On the Road is an anthem for the young, the restless, the daring. It taps into a longing for freedom, a desire to roam, a quest for life and all it has to offer. The language is nonchalant and haphazard giving the story a reckless vibe. Case in point, who says “balled the jack” anymore? Kerouac captures the days when you could take a flatbed truck, load it with a group of reckless youth and roar across the country hellbent for the coast of anywhere, exhilarated just to be alive.

Favorite lines: “I hope you get where you are going and be happy when you do” (p 30), “Central City is two miles high; at first you get drunk on the altitude, then you get tired, and there’s a fever in your soul” (p 53),  “I never saw so many snarls in all my born days” (p 62) and “Everybody goes home in October” (p 103). Favorite phrases, “mixing up our souls” (p 91) and “love is a duel” (p 101)

BookLust Twist: From  Book Lust in the chapter called Road Novels (p 202) and from More Book Lust in the chapter called The Beats and Their Generation (p 17).

Balsamroot

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Blew, Mary Clearman. Balsamroot: a Memoir. New York, Viking: 1994.

Mary Blew wants people to know about her life. She wants people to know the wilds of Montana as her ancestors found it, cultivated it, endured it, survived it. However, Balsamroot is more than about Blew’s life and the personal landscape of her people. Balsamroot is about family ties. The ties that keep generations together and what tears them apart. When Blew first introduces her daughter, Elizabeth, I am sad for them. Mary makes it clear she has lost touch with her eldest daughter – hasn’t seen her in years. She doesn’t hide the fact Elizabeth is a complete stranger to her; asking “Am I really her mother?” (p 19). It dawned on me I could be Elizabeth. I could slip away from my mother and sister just as easily. I could let years and distance come between us as. It’s as easy as all that. The stories within Balsamroot bounce around a lot. Early homesteading stories and mingled with a present day pregnancy and musings about Blew’s own attempts at motherhood. It is a running commentary on growing old from the perspective of the baffled, frustrated caregiver. Dementia robs an entire family of more than just the mind and its memories. The past and present are entwined into one beautiful story.

Favorite lines, “Or I imagined my aunt falling through the hole in her mind” (p 15), “She and I talk, in the private coded language of two women who have known each other, and most of each other’s secrets for twenty years…” (p 144), and “I’m not invisible, it’s just that nobody sees me” (p 156).

Maybe this seems too intrusive, but I would have liked Blew to include photographs, especially of her Auntie.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “Montana: In Big Sky Country (p 156).

Harmless People

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Thomas, Elizabeth Marshall. The Harmless People. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970.

Elizabeth Thomas put a lot of heart and soul into the writing of The Harmless People. Her research was not done from a cold, calculating, scientific perspective. From the very first pages one can feel the intensity of the respect she has for the lives and cultures Kalahari Bushmen. Thomas seems driven to convey a message more important than all the others about the reclusive tribes and that is they are gentle people. Harmless. Their tribal name for themselves is Zhu twa si, meaning the harmless people. There are many occasions for Thomas to illustrate this. In order to study each Kalahari tribe Thomas first had to find them which proved to be difficult because they had a tendency to run and hide at the first sign of stranger intrusion. Even after finding these people she (and her crew of scientists and researchers) had to convince them she wasn’t there to create conflict or enslave them or steal from them. It took a great deal of time to gain their trust just so that Thomas could live among them.

Favorite lines, “…Bushmen would not try to fight because they have no mechanism in their culture for dealing with disagreements other than to remove the causes of the disagreements” (p 22), and “We would have liked to look around, but the best thing we could do was keep our big boots and our bodies away from their delicate, fragile, almost invisible community” (p 41).
Most disturbing moment? Believe it or not, when Thomas describes the killing, cooking and consumption of a turtle. I could barely read the words.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called, “Africa: a Reader’s Itinerary” (p 4).

The New Well-Tempered Sentence

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Gordon, Karen Elizabeth. The New Well-Tempered Sentence: a Punctuation Handbook for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed.NewYork: Ticknor & Fields, 1993.

This is the kind of book the coolest of cool professors would use in a writing class. The language is hip and humorous, the illustrations funny and fabulous. While Gordon lays down the law about when and where to use an exclamation point, a period, a comma, or semi colon, I don’t feel obligated to follow her to the letter (or period). I read The New Well-Tempered Sentence as merely suggestion; here’s what you can do, if you so chose (and obviously I don’t). Think Edward Estlin Cummings. Gordon is careful to use witty examples and whimsical illustrations to prove her points to go along with that hip and cool vibe. This is the essential reference book you have on your shelf and because it is so funky you are not ashamed to have it in plain sight.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “Words to the Wise” (p 249). For this particular inclusion the chapter would have been more appropriate if called, “Words to the Wise About Writing Words” because Gordon’s book is all about punctuation.

Nov ’10 is…

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October was a simply fantastic month for reading. Being on vacation and a few days to myself certainly helped. I’m not sure what November will be like, but here are the books I hope to get through:

  • The Harmless People by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas~ in honor of November being the best time to visit Africa
  • Perma Red by Debra Magpie Earling~ in honor of Native American month
  • The New Well-Tempered Sentence: a Punctuation Handbook by Karen Elizabeth Gordon~ in honor of National Writing Month
  • The Healing by Gayle Jones~ in honor of Gayle Jones’s birth month
  • On the Road by (Hey) Jack Kerouac~ in honor of November being the best time to travel

In other news November is the very last Natalie show until who knows when. I’m looking forward to this one because it promises to be different from any of the others I went to this year. I really don’t know what else to expect from the month and maybe that is a good thing.

Woman: an intimate geography

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Angier, Natalie. Woman: an Intimate Geography. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999.

Angier’s style of writing is a cross between know-it-all scientist and folksy I’m-Going-To-Explain-It-All-To-You girlfriend. I happened to like the science with sass approach. It made reading about my personal landscape a great deal more interesting. It’s informative AND funny – my kind of read. Because let’s face it, who wants to pick up something that reads like a gross anatomy textbook? I want (and got) something with spunk and humor; for example, who knew ‘piglet’ was a vocal range? You wouldn’t think describing the physical attributes of the vagina could be interesting but when Angier describes it as, “a Rorschach with legs” you have to sit up and take notice. Amid education and explanation Angier periodically debunks myth and dispels rumor concerning the female form. The vagina is not dirty! She is on a one woman rampage to bring honor to her sex. While her sassy sexy tone dissuades some readers from thinking of Woman as a reference tool I, for one, am sorry it wasn’t written 30 years ago.

Confession: I skipped the chapter on breast feeding called, “Holy Water.”

Favorite lines, “The world needs more girl drummers” (p 206), and “We know it when we feel it [aggression]…and sometimes it feel nasty and sometimes it feels good” (p 262).

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called, “Dewey Deconstructed: 600s” (p 72).

ps~ I love it when reading comes full circle. I started the month with Bonobo: the Forgotten Ape by Frans de Waal. In Woman: an Intimate Geography Angier cites de Waal and thanks him in her acknowledgments. Guess why – sex.

Bird Brains

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Savage, Candace. Bird Brains: the Intelligence of Crows, Ravens, Magpies, and Jays. San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1997.

This over-sized, beautiful and bold book on birds is entertaining on a multitude of levels. You don’t have to be an avid birder to appreciate Bird Brains for its witty, informative text and drop dead gorgeous photography. The premise for Bird Brains is the intelligence of the crow family. The argument for how smart they are is illustrated in the bird’s ability to adapt to changing conditions, ingenious nesting techniques, strategic enticing of a mate, uncanny voice recognition of their young, social nature such as showing off and much, much more. I was intrigued to learn of corvid “societies.” These birds congregate in avian clans. For example, the Jackdaws live in society regardless of the season and participate in communal activities such as feeding and roosting.

Here are a few other things I learned from reading Bird Brains. The green jay is absolutely gorgeous. Nutcrackers belong to the Crow family, as do Jays such as blue, green and pinyon.

Favorite line, “Prevented by its own prejudices and taboos from asking the most interesting questions, science was left with the most boring of answers” (p 19).

Favorite photograph: the crow “facing off” (the author’s description not mine) with a bald eagle on page 73. The eagle looks as though he is asking, “Seriously? You wanna mess with me? Really?!” and the crow is responding, “bring it on!” (to the cheers of his less brave comrades).

One thing I have always loved about ravens and crows is that they are seen as ominous creatures through literature (think Edgar Allan Poe), art (The Wyeth family’s Wondrous Strange collection), and song (Fairport Convention’s “Crazy Man Michael”). The shiny black birds are the perfect emblem of Halloween.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called, “Nature Writing” (p 174).

Nothing Remains the Same

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Lesser, Wendy. Nothing Remains the Same: Rereading and Remembering. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002.

The title, Nothing Remains the Same comes from a letter Mark Twain wrote to William Dean Howells in 1887. What he is referring to is also the premise of Lesser’s book – rereading a book at a different stage of life shouldn’t be the same experience as the first time. Twain argues that “nothing remains the same.” I am in agreement. When I was in high school I read The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne for an English class. As a 14 year old I was guided through the pages like a blind girl. Six years later I reread The Scarlet Letter for a Women in Literature class. I was forced fed the ideals of a feminist faculty; seeing the story through her sense of self while struggling with my own. Finally, I reread Scarlet for me and myself last year. This time I read it without bias or guidance, without ulterior motive. No grade rested on my comprehension of text. It was like reading it for the very first time and oh so self indulgent. Lesser offers a literary criticism of a handful of books she has reread throughout her life. Each chapter of Nothing Remains the Same takes on a different well known book starting with Henry James’s Portrait of a Lady. Sprinkled throughout each chapter are details of Lesser’s life, some seemingly unrelated to the book in question, others all about the reading (using it in graduate school, for example).

Lessing spends a great deal of time quoting from the books she is remembering which can be nice if you have never read them yourself but slightly irritating if you know them well. (I was somewhere in the middle.)

Favorite lines, “I had constructed a life in which I could be energetic but also lazy; I could rush but I would never be rushed” (p 3), and “In the meantime, as is always the case, the process of winning the batle has slightly cheapened the prize for me” (p 208).

Small gripe – say what you mean, mean what you say. Why write, “I decided to leave Anna Karenina out of my book” when you go on to mention it five times and dedicate an entire section to it? Complete with a quote, the section was at least a full page. This decision to discuss a book you originally wanted to leave out seems self indulgent, contradictory and rambling.

Overall I enjoyed Nothing Remains the Same. I think I would have enjoyed it more had it not been for the initial tone Lesser took. Example – early on (page 9) Lesser makes the comment, “Twelve seems young for a first reading…” (of Don Quixote) but in the next sentence she adds, “…when I first read Don Quixote I was eleven.” I felt like Lesser could have added, “so there!” punctuated with a tongue sticking out. It felt condescending and made me very aware of how many times she mentioned her age. I half expected her to say something about reading War and Peace in kindergarten.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “Books About Books” (p 43).

Bonobo: the Forgotten Ape

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De Waal, Frans. Bonobo: the Forgotten Ape. Berkley: University of California Press, 1997.

Not to be snide or anything but how can you forget the ape when you didn’t know the ape? Everyone lumped Bonobo apes with Chimpanzees because they seemed more similar than different. They weren’t forgotten, just misunderstood. de Waal goes to great lengths to compare and contrast the distinctions between the two primates.

From the very beginning you learn that Bonobo apes are different from any other kind of primate with the description, “female-centered, egalitarian primate species that substitutes sex for aggression” (p 4). The sexuality of this species is very much celebrated and discussed. So much so that the sexuality of Bonobos is argued to be a window to the aspects of human sexuality. But sex is not the only discussion worth having about Bonobos. There is social life, a political life, a family life worth exploring. But, what makes Bonobo: the Forgotten Ape so appealing is its photography. Big, glossy “coffee-table book” pages illustrate the allure of these primates. Their facial expressions, family values and even their sexuality is on display in eight different photo essays.

Favorite quote: isn’t really a quote at all. It’s an illustration of the hands and feet of primates and man (p 27).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “Our Primates, Ourselves” (p 180). Bonobo was forgotten in the index yet de Waal’s name wasn’t. Interesting.

Yes You Can!

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Drake, Jane and Ann Love. Yes You Can!: Your Guide to Becoming an Activist. Ontario: Tundra Books, 2010.

Right away I have to say I wouldn’t have classified this as “juvenile” literature. The language might be a little simplistic, definitely geared toward young adults, but the message is something we should all sit up and take notice of no matter what our age: if the world around you makes you sick do something. It’s the age-old promise, “you CAN make a difference!” But first you have to DO something.

Yes You Can is a how-to manual of sorts. Each chapter covers a different step to becoming an activist including an example of someone taking that particular step. The histories of organizations such as Amnesty International and Save the Children illustrate what can happen if the right steps are taken successfully. For every chapter there is a section on the historical time line of that step in action. There is also a section on the accomplishments as well as the challenges called, “Milestones and Setbacks” which put everything into perspective. Almost like a textbook there is a checklist to test what the reader has (or hasn’t learned). My favorite piece of advice was “know your cause inside and out.” The ability to see both sides of any argument can go a long way in the effort to sway opinion or make a change.

My only sticking point? This classification of juvenile literature. Why juvenile? It really should be “for all ages” because the vocabulary used in Yes You Can! is not consistent. There is talk of “family” and “classmates” in one chapter and “colleagues” in another. I don’t know any child who would refer to his or her peer as a colleague.

Ways of Seeing

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Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1972.

My copy of Ways of Seeing arrived battered and falling apart. That coupled with the fact it is clearly a product of the 1970s gave the book a tired, worn out appearance. I thought of it as cheap and flimsy as well, given it is only 154 pages long and mostly illustrations and photographs at that. So, my way of seeing the book was definitely influenced by age, condition and size. Interesting. That, in a nutshell, is the premise of Ways of Seeing. Coming from a Marxist way of thinking John Berger provokes thought with the art he has chosen for his book. For example one can either be offended or intrigued by his chapter on women depicted in art. Because the chapter is lacking text the reader is on his/her own to process what the art is (or isn’t) trying to convey.

Another interesting thing to note is this book is the first example of a book made from a television series. In my mind, when questioning the “which came first?” it is always the book before the screen no matter what the size – television or movie.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “Art appreciation” (p 25).

Report From Ground Zero

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This should have been posted sometime in September – sorry!

Smith, Dennis. Report From Ground Zero. New York: Viking, 2002.

I chose to squeeze this onto my September reading list because it matched my mood, my New York State of Mind, if you will. When you are embraced by sadness additional tragedies are easier to handle. It’s as if someone wants to throw a bucket of water on a man standing in the pouring rain. What’s a little more precipitation to an already drowning man? Bring it on.

The first thing you notice about Report From Ground Zero is how stark it is. My copy didn’t have publisher or copyright information. It was if my version was a rough draft, a real report from bowels of hell. It disturbed me and I can’t tell you why.

Dennis Smith asks the question everyone can answer even nine years later, “where were you on September 11, 2001?” In Report From Ground Zero Smith asks key rescue personnel to recount the moments directly after seeing, hearing, or learning of the attack on the World Trade Center towers in Lower Manhattan. He calls each story a testimony. Smith starts by giving his own account which amounts to a litany of questions surrounding logistics and survival. As a retired New York City firefighter he anticipates the magnitude of destruction and ponders the challenges surrounding survival with great concern. As each rescue worker recounts that fateful, awful day a pattern starts to emerge. Initial disbelief turns into a sense of determination as the magnitude of destruction is fully realized. Every single response was to roll up the shirts sleeves, harden the jaw and with single minded pure grit get to work. After the dust has literally and figuratively settled other shared memories come to mind – how deathly quiet and dark everything became after the towers fell; how surreal the landscape. Like nothing they had even seen before or since.
While the first half of the book contains the powerful testimony of others around him, the second half of Report From Ground Zero is Smith’s diary of the aftermath of 9/11. It isn’t as emotional as the first half of the book, but sheds critical light on one man’s determination to document just how tireless and faithful those rescue personnel searched to rescue fellow officers and even family.

Favorite lines: “I am attached to the television as if every friend I had is about to cross the screen” (p 6). I think we were all that way, for days to come.
Another one: “There is no reason why I’m alive and anyone else is dead” (p 32). Words remembered by Deputy Chief Pete Hayden.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, simply ” 9/11″ (p 171).

Oct ’10 is…

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For the first time in a long time I am taking an October vacation. Wait. I don’t think I’ve ever really taken an October V A C A T I O N before. Maybe a long weekend around Columbus Day, yes. A real, honest to goodness, week off in October? No, I don’t think so. Finally, something good to look forward to… Here is the month in books:

  • Bonobo by Frans de Waal ~ in honor of de Waal being born in October and in honor of Animal Month
  • Poison Oracle by Peter Dickinson ~ in honor of special child month
  • Ways of Seeing by John Berger ~ in honor of National Art Appreciation month
  • Messiah by Gore Vidal ~ in honor of Vidal’s birth month
  • Woman: an intimate geography by Natalie Angier ~ in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month
  • The Ear, The Eye, The Arm by Nancy Farmer ~ in honor of National Fantasy Month

In addition I am still reading The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver. The magic of this read is that I am savoring each and every word like it is the most expensive, the richest, most divine piece of chocolate I have ever tasted – simply because I don’t want it to end!

Where Bigfoot Walks

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Pyle, Robert Michael. Where Bigfoot Walks: Crossing the Dark Divide. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1995.

Where Bigfoot Walks is much more than a search for Bigfoot. It’s more than a need to discover the existence of a legend. Robert Michael Pyle was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship to investigate the mesmerizing myths that bring Sasquatch to life in the minds of millions. The grant basically allowed Pyle to take a leave of absence from ordinary bill-paying work (other writing) to pursue Bigfoot’s legacy across the Dark Divide and beyond. In that time Pyle met a variety of individuals most of whom fervently believe. If you are looking for a recount of all the Bigfoot/Sasquatch/Yeti sightings in glorious detail, Where Bigfoot Walks is not the book for you. Pyle traverses the landscapes that hold the myths but his attention is more on what he can see rather than what he cannot. His lovingly vivid descriptions of birds, plants, flowers, rivers, mountains, animals, trees and grasses are tantalizing as is his equally scornful descriptions of bike tracks, logging scars, and other man-made abuses against nature. Only a couple of times were his attention to detail distracting – I didn’t need to know how many times he remarried nor did I care about his bodily functions along the trek(s).

But, there is no doubt Pyle is a skilled and entertaining author. Here are a few quotes that had my attention: “My tent was a hammock suspended between the sun and the moon, guarded by three volcanoes” (p 27), ” But unless I caught an arrow in the ass from some wannabe Robin Hood who mistook it for an elk’s rump, I was at little risk” (p 80), and “Anyone who sneers and never embraces a tree is missing out on one of the finer sensual compensations for life in a mortal body” (p 116).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “Companion Reads” (p 63). I read this with Wild Life by Molly Gloss.

Between Parent and Child

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Ginott, Dr. Haim G. Between Parent and Child: the Bestselling Classic That Revolutionized Parent-Child Communication. New York: Three Rivers Press, 1965.

This book starts off with the best introduction, “No parent wakes up in the morning planning to make a child’s life miserable” (p 1). As soon as I read that I knew I was in for a good read. Between Parent and Child is all about psychological perception and what you say (as a parent), how you say it, and even what you don’t say, can influence a child both at that moment and years down the road. What Dr. Ginott offers up is common sense advice about how to communicate with small children and even teenagers. His advice is no-nonsense and extremely practical. It is so straightforward it seems simple, a no-brainer, if you will. The ah-ha moment is not in what to say, it’s how to say it to avoid conveying a message you do not intend. Choosing tone as well as the right words are crucial to emotionally intelligent communication with a child. My one naysayer comment? Many, many times Dr. Ginott suggests mirroring the child’s emotion to illustrate understanding. The go-to catch phrases are “You wish you could play with Sam,” “You wish you could have ice cream for dinner,” and, “You’re angry about losing the game.” Here’s where I would get annoyed. I dislike anyone telling me how I feel. As a small child I probably would have connected with someone “understanding” me… but as a teenager I wouldn’t appreciate dad calmly regurgitated what I just angrily spit out.

I would recommend Between Parent and Child to anyone – parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, teachers. In short, I would recommend this book to anyone who is around children of all ages. If I were planning to have a child I would also plan on reading Between Parent and Child several times over. Once while pregnant and definitely more often during my child’s formative years. Maybe even during labor just for good measure.

Favorite quote, “Often after getting angry at their parents for not listening to their argument, children will present their case in writing” (p 56). Yes, but what Dr. Ginott doesn’t mention is that after getting said missive parents often ignore it.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “Babies: a Reader’s Guide” (p 30).